13. What valuable fragments of the Septuagint have survived to this day, and of what value are they?

¹³ There are still available for study today a considerable number of fragments of the Septuagint written on papyrus. They are valuable because they belong to early Christian times, and though often just a few verses or chapters, they help in assessing the text of the Septuagint. The Fouad Papyri collection (Inventory No. 266) was discovered in Egypt in 1939 and has been found to be of the first century B.C.E. It contains portions of the books of Genesis and Deuteronomy. In the fragments of Genesis, the divine name does not occur because of the incomplete preservation. However, in the book of Deuteronomy, it occurs in various places, written in square Hebrew characters within the Greek text.d Other papyri date down to about the fourth century C.E., when the more durable vellum, a fine grade of parchment generally made from calf, lamb, or goat skins, began to be used for writing manuscripts.

14. (a) What does Origen testify as to the Septuagint? (b) When and how was the Septuagint tampered with? (c) What witness must the early Christians have given in using the Septuagint?

¹⁴ It is of interest that the divine name, in the form of the Tetragrammaton, also appears in the Septuagint of Origen’s six-column Hexapla, completed about 245 C.E. Commenting on Psalm 2:2, Origen wrote of the Septuagint: “In the most accurate manuscripts THE NAME occurs in Hebrew characters, yet not in today’s Hebrew [characters], but in the most ancient ones.”e The evidence appears conclusive that the Septuagint was tampered with at an early date, Kyʹri·os (Lord) and The·osʹ (God) being substituted for the Tetragrammaton. Since the early Christians used manuscripts containing the divine name, it cannot be supposed that they followed Jewish tradition in failing to pronounce “THE NAME” during their ministry. They must have been able to witness to Jehovah’s name directly from the Greek Septuagint.

15. (a) Using the chart on page 314, describe the vellum and leather manuscripts of the Septuagint. (b) What references does the New World Translation make to these?

¹⁵ There are hundreds of vellum and leather manuscripts of the Greek Septuagint still in existence. A number of these, produced between the fourth century C.E. and the ninth century C.E., are important because of the large sections of the Hebrew Scriptures that they cover. They are known as uncials because they are written entirely in large, separated capital letters. The remainder are called minuscules because they are written in a smaller, cursive style of handwriting. Minuscule, or cursive, manuscripts remained in vogue from the ninth century until the inception of printing. The outstanding uncial manuscripts of the fourth and fifth centuries, namely, the Vatican No. 1209, the Sinaitic, and the Alexandrine, all contain the Greek Septuagint with some slight variations. Frequent references are made to the Septuagint in the footnotes and comments in the New World Translation.f

THE HEBREW-LANGUAGE TEXTS

17. Who were the scribes, or Sopherim, and for what did Jesus condemn them?

¹⁷ The Sopherim. The men who copied the Hebrew Scriptures starting in the days of Ezra and continuing to the time of Jesus were called scribes, or Sopherim. In the course of time, they began to take liberties in making textual changes. In fact, Jesus himself roundly condemned these would-be custodians of the Law for assuming powers that did not belong to them.​—Matt. 23:2, 13.

18. (a) Who were the Masoretes, and what valuable comments have they made on the Hebrew text? (b) What are some examples of their corrections, as noted in the New World Translation?

¹⁸ The Masora Reveals Alterations. The scribal successors of the Sopherim in the centuries after Christ came to be known as the Masoretes. These took note of the alterations made by the earlier Sopherim, recording them in the margin or at the end of the Hebrew text. These marginal notes came to be known as the Masora. The Masora listed the 15 extraordinary points of the Sopherim, namely, 15 words or phrases in the Hebrew text that had been marked by dots or strokes. Some of these extraordinary points do not affect the English translation or the interpretation, but others do and are of importance.h The Sopherim allowed their superstitious fear of pronouncing the name Jehovah to ensnare them into altering it to read ʼAdho·naiʹ (Lord) at 134 places and to read ʼElo·himʹ (God) in some instances. The Masora lists these changes.i The Sopherim or early scribes are also charged with making at least 18 emendations (corrections), according to a note in the Masora, though there evidently were even more.j These emendations were very likely made with good intentions because the original passage appeared to show either irreverence for God or disrespect for his earthly representatives.

19. What is the Hebrew consonantal text, and when did it become fixed in form?

¹⁹ The Consonantal Text. The Hebrew alphabet is made up of 22 consonants, with no vowels. Originally, the reader had to supply the vowel sounds from his knowledge of the language. Hebrew writing was like an abbreviated script. Even in modern English there are many standard abbreviations that people use in which only consonants appear. For example, there is ltd. as an abbreviation for limited. Similarly, the Hebrew language comprised a series of words made up only of consonants. Thus, by “consonantal text” is meant the Hebrew text without any vowel markings. The consonantal text of the Hebrew manuscripts became fixed in form between the first and second centuries C.E., although manuscripts with variant texts continued to circulate for some time. Alterations were no longer made, unlike the previous period of the Sopherim.

20. What did the Masoretes do regarding the Hebrew text?

²⁰ The Masoretic Text. In the second half of the first millennium C.E., the Masoretes (Hebrew, ba·ʽalehʹ ham·ma·soh·rahʹ, meaning “the Masters of Tradition”) established a system of vowel points and accent marks. These served as a written aid in the reading and pronouncing of vowel sounds, whereas previously the pronunciation had been handed down by oral tradition. The Masoretes made no changes whatsoever in the texts that they transmitted but recorded marginal notes in the Masora as they saw fit. They exercised great care to take no textual liberties. Additionally, in their Masora, they drew attention to textual peculiarities and gave corrected readings they considered necessary.

21. What is the Masoretic text?

²¹ Three schools of Masoretes were engaged in the development of the vocalizing and accent marking of the consonantal text, namely, the Babylonian, Palestinian, and Tiberian. The Hebrew text now presented in printed editions of the Hebrew Bible is known as the Masoretic text and uses the system devised by the Tiberian school. This system was developed by the Masoretes of Tiberias, a city on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. Footnotes in the New World Translation refer many times to the Masoretic text (under the symbol M) and to its marginal notes, the Masora (under the symbol M^margin).k

22. What manuscript of the Babylonian line of texts has become available, and how does it compare with the Tiberian text?

²² The Palestinian school placed the vowel signs above the consonants. Only a small number of such manuscripts came down to us, showing that this system of vocalization was imperfect. The Babylonian system of vowel pointing was likewise supralinear. A manuscript exhibiting the Babylonian pointing is the Petersburg Codex of the Prophets, of 916 C.E., preserved in the Leningrad Public Library, U.S.S.R. This codex contains Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the “minor” prophets, with marginal notes (Masora). Scholars have eagerly examined this manuscript and compared it with the Tiberian text. Although it uses the supralinear system of vocalization, it in fact follows the Tiberian text as regards the consonantal text and its vowels and Masora. The British Museum has a copy of the Babylonian text of the Pentateuch, which has been found to be substantially in agreement with the Tiberian text.

23. What series of Hebrew manuscript finds has been made near the Dead Sea?

²³ Dead Sea Scrolls. In 1947 an exciting new chapter in Hebrew manuscript history began. In a cave at Wadi Qumran (Nahal Qumeran), in the area of the Dead Sea, the first Isaiah scroll, together with other Biblical and non-Biblical scrolls, was discovered. Shortly thereafter, a complete photostatic copy of this well-preserved Isaiah scroll (1QIs^a) was published for scholars to study. It is believed to date toward the end of the second century B.C.E. Here, indeed, was an incredible find​—a Hebrew manuscript about a thousand years older than the oldest existing manuscript of the recognized Masoretic text of Isaiah!l Other caves in Qumran surrendered fragments of over 170 scrolls representing parts of all books of the Hebrew Scriptures except Esther. Studies of such scrolls are still in progress.

24. How do these manuscripts compare with the Masoretic text, and what use does the New World Translation make of them?

²⁴ One scholar reports that his investigation of the lengthy Psalm 119 in one important Dead Sea Scroll of the Psalms (11QPs^a) shows it to be in almost complete verbal agreement with the Masoretic text of Psalm 119. Regarding the Psalms Scroll, Professor J. A. Sanders noted: “Most of [the variants] are orthographic and important only to those scholars who are interested in clues to the pronunciation of Hebrew in antiquity, and such matters.”a Other examples of these remarkable ancient manuscripts indicate no great variations in most cases. The Isaiah scroll itself, though it shows some differences in spelling and in grammatical construction, does not vary as to doctrinal points. This published Isaiah scroll was examined as to its variations in the preparation of the New World Translation, and references are made to it.b