historiography holy scripture – hubert_luns

8/6/2019 Historiography Holy Scripture Hubert_Luns

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Historiography of the

HolyScripture

Aleppo Codex approx. 935AD (Joshua 1:1)

We pray to God the Father. What is a father? It is someone who puts himself out for hischildren and, if necessary, intervenes in an active way. And as God has done in the past, so

will He also in the future. But not unannounced! And that is known as prophecy. The Bible

is the history book par excellence. It is the Magister Historiae (teacher of history). The

stories in the Bible were not written down inconsequentially. In addition to a solid historical

core (1)it has especially a religious significance, and the various books and they are not

few in number! form an organic whole. And thus The Book has become a composition,

a melody. It makes the invisible God visible through His interventions. The opposite is also

true: to take away the historical basis is to remove God. This article discusses a number of

important aspects relative to the way the Bible came into being in the light of the reliability

of the handing down of the text. It should be realised that any uncertain transmission of the

text brings the prophetic content of the Bible into disrepute. The core question is: does God

speak through the Bible or not?

1 How the Biblical script came into being

Script a manner of writing is required if something is to be written down. The script of

Moses, preserved by the Samaritan sect (2), somewhat closely resembles what is known

as proto-Sinaitic, found in inscriptions in rock on the Sinai peninsula, a region known to

the Bible as Paran. (3)The form of its glyphs is derived from the Egyptian hieroglyphics.

The first description of these remarkable inscriptions is that given by Cosmas, nicknamed

Indicopleustes (Indian seafarer), who lived in the 6th

century AD. His conclusion, con-

firmed by 19th

century linguistic research by such people as Professor Lottin de Laval,

was that the inscriptions were the work of Israelites who, during their sojourn in the wil-

derness set about perfecting their newly acquired writing skills, and thus worked with the

same industry as that shown by a new pupil in a quiet school. I should mention that it is


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characteristic of the Hebrew script that originally there were no vowels, and thus a sort of

secret script came into being.

It is assumed that the Phoenicians were the first to invent phonetic writing, from which in

succession Aramaic and Greek script came into being. (4) The Phoenician alphabet, as

observed around 1400 BC, consisted of 22 letters, the same number as the Ancient He-

brew script (cf. Ps. 119). And, as is universally agreed, all those symbols were developed

on the basis of the hieroglyphs. But it has in no way been proved that the Phoenicians

may claim the honour to have been the first. In fact, the Exodus occurred at an even ear-

lier date when the Phhoenicians had not yet entered the scene: in the 15thcentury BC.

And, as already remarked, script is required in order to be able to write something down.

(5) The Egyptians themselves show, thanks to the name they gave Joseph when he was

co-regent in Egypt, that he was the inventor of the phonetic script. The Dutch Staten

translation of the Bible reads Zafnath Panah (Gen. 41:45), with the first letter being a

tsadei. On the basis of Partheys Coptic dictionary (6)the name can easily be read and

translated: Caphenath Pahenecha, or He who reduced script to its basic elements and

succeeded in bringing to light the basis of the sounds. It is therefore Joseph himself who

turns out to be the Phoenician the P(a)henech(ir)! And thus the invention of alphabe-tical script can be dated to the late 18

thcentury BC.

2 The Champollion method is insufficient!

In order to enable the reader to understand the how and the why of Biblical script, I would

like to turn your attention to the Crombette method. Fernand Crombette was born in Lille

in 1880 and after retirement worked intensively on the Bible and the hieroglyphs until his

death in 1970. (7)Many readers will

have heard of Champollion. On 22nd

September 1822 he wrote his famous

letter on the alphabet of the

phonetic hieroglyphs. Because ofthe enormous number of hieroglyphs

more than 6,000 have been

discovered until now there is

serious reason to doubt this system

as the unique key to understanding

the Egyptian script, whereby only

the first letter of the object depicted

is retained. Crombette realised that

the Rosetta Stone, on which Cham-

pollions conclusions were based,

dated from a very late period of the

Egyptian empire and was destined

for foreigners who only needed to be

acquainted with the primitive ver-

sion. The famous text, dating from

196 BC, is a sweet-sounding paean

of praise of Ptolemy V, a prince of

Greek origin who ruled over Egypt

as an occupier. This version, repro-

duced on stone also in Late Coptic

and Greek, is thus not necessarily

representative, a conclusion already

drawn by others. At the end of the 1940s Crombette discovered that the hieroglyphs couldbe read as a rebus, whereby a large number of meanings are revealed thanks to the

monosyllabic character of the Late Coptic. Using his method Crombette wrote 8,000


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pages of translation and analysis. One cannot simply translate what one wishes, since if

different groups are allowed to work on a text independent of one another they come to

more or less the same conclusions. And thus the Rosetta Stone turns out to contain a call

to resistance. According to a translation by Madame Geneville it reads as follows: We

must break the chain that ties us to those who exploit us, oppress and humiliate us, so that

we may be reborn and become as we used to be and alsoThe sistrum (rattle) moves as a

sign of cursing, with the aim of releasing itself from him who humiliates us.

3 - God gave His own language

Crombette discovered that the hieroglyphs were a secret language, which could contain

magic spells, terrible curses and wizardry. For Joseph, co-regent of Egypt, but first and

foremost a servant of the living God, it was unacceptable that his people should make use

of such a language. For that reason God gave him another secret language consisting of

consonants linked together. This was not an obvious solution, since normally a consonant

is not pronounced without a vowel: the r is pronounced ar, the b becomes bee and

so on. Because of this the consonant system contained a multitude of meanings. The first

step in mastering the many meanings, it is assumed, consisted in turning the monosyllabictwo-letter words into three-letter words. The Jewish roots would not always have been

triple-lettered! The Jewish scriptural scholars reckon that it is very unlikely that the He-

brew language started off with the three-letter roots that now occur exceedingly regularly.

It is assumed that Hebrew was originally monosyllabic, although there is no hard evi-

dence to support the claim. (8)

In the steadily further circumscription of Gods Word over the course of the centuries, a

process that uncovered many choices of meaning, lies the progressive knowledge of

Gods plan for the world. Thus the Word has been more and more crystallised out. God

must have known this beforehand not just known but willed. I do not regard this in

general as an impoverishment, though the risk is present here and there. In those cases

where our insight has become too small-minded Gods Spirit will lead the community togreater understanding from an unfolding of the text. And the Jewish knowledge of Holy

Scripture too can help us in this. I believe time is ripe to delve further into the mysteries

of the original Hebrew.

Indeed, it so happened, after having published this article, in both 2007 and 2009, that I

came across the interesting work in the US, accomplished by the Chris Tyreman team.

www.thechronicleproject.org They discovered what they call the Self Defined Hebrew

(SDH) system. They started with the premise that the ancient Hebrew is in principle

unrelated to all other languages. In scientific circles Hebrew is believed to have evolved

from other languages. The SDH system denies that possibility, which I agree with. In my

view it is just the opposite: all other (Adamitic) languages, including modern Hebrew,

evolved from the primordial Hebrew. In my article The Jewish vernacular in Jesus

timeI explain that God gave Adam a language from above, which happened a second

time during the Babylonian confusion of languages and again during the Exodus. The

primordial Hebrew and its first linguistic descendents were like Coptic monosyllabic. The

system conceived by the Tyreman team is also monosyllabic. In such a language each

separate syllabe typically expresses several notions, for which we now have different

words. When syllabes combine in a polysyllabic word, they add on without deformation,

contrary to what happens in a flexional language, where related words have conjunctions,

prepositions or otherwise. Because syllabes are roots, they represent a substantif as well

as an adjective or a verb in the infinitif, the past or present, without changing form. There-

fore, in ancient Hebrew there is no words of wisdom but words wisdom, there is no

who is wise? but who wise, there is no I beg you to tell them youre my sister buttell my sister you. A monosyllabic language is essentially analytic. To really understand


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ancient Hebrew, we have to decompose the words into its parts. We have to turn back in

time, because the natural evolution of a monosyllabic language is towards a polysyllabic

and flexional language. However to turn back is easier said than done. I believe the

Tyreman team managed to do that in a convincing manner.

It must be said that they do not pretend to have found a better translation of those that

already exist, in particular the King James version, nor do they pretend to have found a

key to all books of the Tenach (the Old Testament). They limit their work to the Torah

(the books written by Moses), which of course is where it all started. The SDH will per-

haps not apply to later books, like Isaiah that was written some 700 years later, since a

language continuously evolves, whether given by God or not. Nonetheless, the SDH can

elucidate questions related to the translation work. In many cases it will provide deeper

insight in what God wants to tell us. We can consider the SDH as a kind of etymological

avenue. The question remains as to the applicable framework of SDH, which at this stage

has not been resolved. The main insight, as I see it, is that the by God given primordial

Hebrew starts from the abstract (or spiritual) and then goes on to the concrete. In this way

too, CREATION was made. As stated in Job 26:7: God hangs the universe on the Intan-

gible (blee mah). In all other languages a word starts with a concrete object and fromthere arrives at an abstact idea, which is just the other way round.

In chapter 2 from the book on the SDH system, written by Chris Tyreman and his team,

and yet to be published at the time of this writing (January 2014), appears the following

section (ch. 2) :

There is a word in ancient Hebrew pronounced Nathan. You have probably heard

it as a persons name. It means to give. Nothing more, nothing less, and I (Chris

Tyreman) can tell you with certainty from what we found that this is exactly what it

means. Nathan (to give) is rendered by such words as (in the Kal conjugation): to

add, apply, appoint, ascribe, assign, bestow, bring, bring forth, cast, cause, charge,

come, commit, consider, count, deliver, deliver up, direct, distribute, fasten, frame,

give, give forth, give over, give up, grant, hang, hang up, lay, lay to charge, lay up,

leave, lend, let, let out, lift up, make, O that, occupy, offer, ordain, pay, perform,

place, pour, print, put, put forth, recompense, render, requite, restore, send, send out,

set, set forth, shew, shoot forth, shoot up, strike, suffer, thrust, trade, turn, utter,

would God, yield. Besides 17 varieties in idiomatic renderings, this adds up to 84! I

hope you see my point. This is the latitude that the translators have taken with words

appearing in the Bible. The rules are set up to make sure that you will translate a

word a certain way at a certain time. Yet the rules themselves conflict with

themselves. Rather than go into the glorious details, let us rather end this section by

saying that we quitely closed the books one day and came up with this idea: How is

it that by the age of five a Hebrew shepherd boy would be fluent in ancient Hebrew,

but those with twenty years study in the Hebrew language in our age, still cannotcome to consensus on the meaning of certain words? Did the Hebrew boy memorize

the rules? Yet he had no problem.

After many futile attempts and some good luck the team deviced a list of the affects

(directional meanings) on the root words of each of the 22 Hebrew letters or glyphs. It

was considered that the two letter root words (two glyphs) were not words at all, for each

glyph carries its own concept. Each glyph of the Hebrew language was not a phonetic

letter after all, but rather a specific symbol, just as the Egyptians hieroglyphs, but with an

essential difference: the complete language consists of only 22 glyphs, which by simple

combinations create any idea that one wishes to convey. This is why there is no punctua-

tion in Hebrew, because the spaces create the breaks. Using these glyphs alone, there are

well over 6,000 glyph sets for meanings, and more can be introduced if required.


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Two glyphs together form the central idea, with any other preceding and following glyphs

adding detail to the initial central idea. If we take the Hebrew n-th-c, that meanse to tear

up, the direction changes by exchanging the last glyph. The first two glyphs carry the

idea, and the third carries the movement of the idea, as follows: tear up, tear out, tear

down, tear off, tear asunder and tear away. This reflects a very common pattern in ancient

Hebrew script. The glyphs following a word-concept, or the suffixes, channel the initial

concept to the final concept. One rarely finds a single glyph without another. This is not

because it takes two glyphs to make a word, but it does to make a concept, which gives

enough description in the narrative to convey an understanding. Chris Tyreman explains

that, although at first it will be difficult to know where the two main glyphs are in any set

of glyphs, it becomes like in any language easier with exercise. Soon it will be second

nature to see the main concept, and its equivalent in our language. Interestingly enough,

he explains, it is almost impossible to find the wrong meaning within the particular con-

text of a sentence. Remember that each glyph set that was once thought to be a word, is

actually a set of concepts which are grouped to convey a complete thought. Also remem-

ber that Hebrew is a language of movements

or actions (adjectives) not of nouns, or

names with no meaning attached other thanwhat the word represents, which by reading

a Hebrew dictionary immediately catches the

eye. If you were given the word fish in En-

glish, you would understand its application

because you have been taught so. Hebrew,

on the other hand, consists of a description

of the movement of the fish, conveying its

typical motion.

With a language constructed of descriptions

instead of nouns, the written language can-

not evolve that easily, and be modified oradapted for other meanings. In English, the

word cool, should mean an item which has

lost heat, but has also become slang for one

who is stylish. So a stylish person can be

described as, cool, hot, sweet, etc. And so

the word loses it original meaning, and over

time, the original concept of the word itself

is lost as the language evolves. Someone

attempting to read English from thousand years ago, would barely understand any of the

words, and five hundred years from now, the words as we speak today will also have

become archaic. Original SDH-Hebrew does not suffer from this problem. If we use the

Hebrew method, instead of having the noun cool, we would have the description to loseheat. So if someone wished to attach this term to a stylish person, it would not function,

because it does not fit the description. With this in mind, one might create a new

description using the Hebrew, but the basic concepts remain unchanged and remain

clearly recognizable in the description of the object. For example: in English the word

light describes the visible spectrum, but the same word can also mean the opposite of

heavy. In ancient Hebrew script, however, this is impossible because the three glyph set is

comprised of the two main glyphs (aleph, waw), aleph meaning to activate and waw

meaning to be in that state, or: more activity, to add, in the state of activation. This

forms the two glyph set to give off power. The third glyph is represented by the letter

resh, which means to spread out. This three glyph set gives a precise description of what

illumination is. Because it is not just a name, like in English, this writing method

prevents the application of the set to some totally unrelated item.

The caves of Qumran


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Unlike other languages, ancient Hebrew suffered less from the caving in of its base

through the invastion of foreign words. A word from another culture would have no intel-

ligable meaning to one using the Hebrew language. Although sounds can be easily trans-

ferred, the meanings of those sounds would form a gibberish concept. Take for instance

the word bottles. In ancient Hebrew, the consonants b - t - l - s mean inside, to make

ordered, to, enclosed, which leads to the meaning: to be secured to, enclosed, or: stop

enclosed. At best this might be a cork. So, in order to have a word for an unknown item, it

is easier to apply the 22 known glyphs than to introduce a completely new term. The

Israeli listener looks for a description, not a name! With this in mind, it becomes obvious

that ancient Hebrew, did not evolve upwards from the surrounding cultures. It shows a lo-

gic construct, unlike any spoken language we have. It is adaptable, yet resistant to change

(at least in its written form). It gives evidence that supports the Jewish claim that the

original Hebrew is not a language created by humans. If anything, it supports the concept

that it is, and was, our mother language, that was subsequently altered in the passage of

time, which pushed the first version out of sight. Yet, because of its inherent logic it could

be revived at any time. The concept discovered by Chris Tyreman and his team is ground-

breaking and stands to reshape the very foundation of our thinking regarding the history

of Man. See also: The Complete SDH System glyph sets of the prime and two lettersets(updated Nov. 14, 2010).

4 The new square script

It was not until the Babylonian Exile (6th

century BC) that the current square script (a set

of glyphs) was adopted for the rolls of Biblical script instead of the ancient script, which

the Samaritans have maintained to this day. At the time the square script was adopted

from the Aramaic alphabet (aleph-beth). With its introduction, extra vowel symbols were

invented. Before that time the reader really needed to know what was written in order to

be able to read the text. And thus around the year 100 AD Rabbi Akiba set the definitive

version of the alephbeth-text following the Rabbinic convention at Jamnia, and it was

only very late on in the 9thand 10thcenturies AD that the vowel system was appliedthroughout the entire Old Testament and became definitive (via the Masoretic Nikkud or

points system). The Thorah rolls used for religious services remained without punctua-

tion. The term masora (bond) is taken from Ezekiel 20:37: I will bring you into the

bond of the covenant, meaning chain, buoy and binding. The Jewish encyclopaedia says:

The fixation of the text was correctly considered to be in the nature of a fetter upon its

exposition.Even this script is characterised by its capacity for being subject to different

translations. Thus the Dutch Staten translation in Isaiah 59:19 has the enemy coming like

a flood, while in the Catholic Willibrord translation it is not the enemy but God and yet

both are correct. This may not be regarded as representative but it does indicate the possi-

bilities. The Bible contains sacred meanings. In contrast to the Egyptian curses blessings

are pronounced. The Staten translation does justice to this. The newer translations seeking

to make the text more comprehensible are more open to question.

5 Preference for the Septuagint

Because the definitive alephbeth-text originates in the first century, the first Christians

showed a preference for the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew-Alexandrian

version of the Old Testament. This translation came into being in the 3rd

century BC and

for that reason was seen as more reliable than the later Hebrew-Judean version. It is assu-

med that the differences between both versions are mostly not essential. It is assumed

because the original Hebrew versions were lost; until recently the oldest Hebrew texts

dated from 895 AD. Thanks to the discoveries at Qumran by the Dead Sea, made after the

Second World War, there is more to be said on the subject. And what becomes apparent?The Hebrew texts and the Biblical quotations found at Qumran agree more with the Ale-


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xandrian (i.e. the Septuagint) than with the Judean version. What is remarkable is that the

texts from the Old Testament quoted in the New Testament are always based on the

Septuagint, of which the oldest complete versions date from the 4th

century AD. Older

parts are also known from, among other sources, Qumran. This shows that the Septua-

gint too has been subject to changes. The preference shown by the early Christians outside

Israel for the Septuagint was prompted by the fact that they mostly knew Greek but

scarcely any Hebrew and, indeed, it is in Greek that the New testament has come down

to us, not necessarily the original language in which all the texts were written down. At

the convention in Jamnia already referred to, held in the year 80, the rabbis rejected the

Septuagint as less reliable (9), but because the quotes in the New Testament are taken

from the Septuagint, I feel free to hold a different opinion. Moreover the discoveries made

at Qumran seem to prove me right. It could well be that the Alexandrian text is closer to

the original text than the Judean thus the opposite of what the Jamnia convention deci-

ded. It is not difficult to guess why the rabbis rejected the Septuagint. It must have had to

do with the definitive break between Judaism and Christianity. In fact, the Christians had

not taken part in the war against Rome (from 66 to 73) also known as the Great Uprising

(ha-Mered Ha-Gadol), and that was deeply resented. The Jewish tendency at the time was

to gloss over as much as possible every Biblical reference to Christ, and in that they werehindered by the Septuagint. Why would they not have fiddled with the Septuagint at some

later stage?

Painting of St. Jerome by Jan van Eyck, 1442

A legend tells how Jerome had once removed a

thorn from a lions paw and the animal remained

faithful to him for ever after. He is thus usually

pictured in the company of a lion.


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6 Struggle between the Vulgate and the Hebrew source text

The Latin translation of the Bible, the Vulgate, that was achieved in the early 5thcentury

AD, has been preferred ever since by the Christian community. It satisfied a need because

at the time Latin was within everyones reach, at least in the Western part of Christendom.

In 1564 during the Council of Trent the Vulgate was even raised to the status of official

version of the Bible in an attempt to combat the Reformation. But no indication was givenas to the version that was preferred. In doubtful cases the Hebrew source text could be

consulted but never as a means of changing the meaning of the Vulgate. This caused the

Hebrew-Judean version to sink into the background within the Roman Catholic establish-

ment including as far as exegesis was concerned. (10) This was not so in Protestant

circles, who worked closely for their translations with Jewish scriptural scholars and sho-

wed their contempt for the Vulgate. Both parties appear to have gone too far in their reli-

gious fervour

The Vulgate is a fine piece of work on the part of Jerome, who is praised as the most lear-

ned of the Latin fathers of the Church.(11) In addition to different Hebrew versions, in-

cluding the Samaritan, he relied heavily on the Septuagint and other Greek translations

such as that done by a convert to Judaism known as Aquila, a pupil of Akiba. (12)Tho-

mas Aquinas (1225-1274), a man with extensive Biblical knowledge, remarkably enough

knew neither Hebrew nor Greek, though he did speak fluent Latin. This gives an impres-

sion of the approach to the Scriptures at the time of the Reformation. But Jeromes Vul-

gate was not the last word in this matter, for it underwent many changes in later centuries

which, with the exception of the version of Pope Clement in 1592 came nowhere near

equalling the literary-technical quality of the original Vulgate, which also existed in vari-

ous versions because Jerome made several variant translations, such as a literal as well as

a literary version of the Psalms. Commissioned by Rome in 1977, the Neo Vulgate saw

the light of day, with adjustments made in the light of the Greek and Hebrew texts. It is

satisfactory as reading material, but not as a source text. For that the Clementine version

still stands, having served among other things for the CPDV (Catholic Public DomainVersion of the Sacred Bible). (13) A slightly edited version of the Clementine Vulgate

was introduced in 2009.

In the present discussion it is not a question of the one good translation such a thing

does not exist and should not be sought after! It is more a question of different translation

traditions all of which have their right to exist, since no single translation no single

translator is capable of giving Gods prophetic message. The Clementine Vulgate is

mainly based on that of Jerome, but also on an amazing amount of material that some-

times goes far back in the history of the Church and thus deserves our respect, for the

church fathers had at their disposal documents such as the Hexapla of Origen which

were lost long ago.


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7 - The fixation of the text is a good thing

The above may give the impression that the Biblical text has been corrupted over the

course of thousands of years. But that is not the case. We may assume that many changes

have been made to details and that an error may have crept in here and there, but this in no

way affects the inspired character of Scripture. A well-known error is that occurring in

1 Samuel 13:1 where it is stated that Saul was but one year old when his reign began.Jewish translation: Saul was [~] year(s) old when he started to reign with as com-

mentary: the number is missing in the Hebrew. In its turn the Septuagint has the figure

30. (14)

The fixation of the text (into separate words), and the use of the Masoretic nikkud sys-

tem to indicate vowels and suchlike has caused a great deal of potential meaning to be

lost. There have also been omissions in the text, often just one letter that changes the mea-

ning of the sentence. And thus we may assume that the Jews have, whenever possible,

somewhat hidden from view our Lord and Saviour. An indication of it exists in the follo-

wing verses (Lk 24:44-47):

Jesus Christ said unto them: These are the words which I spake unto you, while Iwas yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of

Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning Me.Then opened He

their understanding that they might understand the Scriptures. And said unto them:

Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the

third day, that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name

among all nations.

The remarkable thing about this passage is that what was writtencannot be found back

in the Old Testament. That means that the manuscripts of the Old Testament from Jesus

time must have differed from the later copies that have served for our Bible translations.

As already said, the Qumran scrolls are revealing in that respect. The famous Isaiah scroll

from Qumran is clear enough. (15)But there is still another although theoretical option. Ifwe take 1 Chronicles 1:1, the verse starts with a number of names: Adam, Seth, Enosh,

Kenan, Mahalalel, Jared, Enoch, Mehuselah, Lamech, Noah.If we translate it as a nor-

mal text from Hebrew, as if there were no names, we get: Man (is) appointed mortal

sorrow; (but) the blessed God shall come down to teach (that) His death shall bring rest

to (the) desperate.Here is a summary of Gods plan of redemption, deeply hidden in the

genealogical list of the book Chronicles. And no doubt similar examples exist elsewhere.

In general the divisions applied to the text are a good thing since it prevents a wildly

conjectural intrepretation, something that from time immemorial was excluded in Judaism

because too free an interpretation of the Scriptures was prevented by the authorities and

still is. Jewish scriptural scholars supported the 16th-century reformers in their efforts to

translate the Bible from Hebrew. A delegation of rabbis, in Geneva strongly advised them

to respect the divisions that had been made by the Jews in the text as also the punctuation

that was applied to the Bible version of the middle of the 10th

century, otherwise the con-

sequences would be disastrous, so the argument went. Wisely they kept to the advice.

8 Hidden in God: how the New Testament came into being

The history of the way the New Testament came into being is described in a masterly

fashion in History of the New Testament Canon by Brooke Foss Westcott (16), an

Anglican bishop, his book being first published in 1855:

The Canon of the New Testament was fixed gradually. It was among the firstinstinctive acts of the Christian society and flowed from the natural expression of the

time. The condition of society and the internal relations of the Church presented


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obstacles to the immediate and absolute determination of the question. As long as the

traditional rule of Apostolic doctrine was generally held in the Church there was no

need to confirm it by the written Rule. The recognition of the Apostolic writings as

authoritative and complete was partial and progressive, like the formalizing of

doctrine, and the settling of ecclesiastical order.

The record of divine Revelation when committed to human care is not - at leastapparently - exempted from the accidents and caprices which affect the transmission

of ordinary books. It is not easy to overrate the difficulties which beset any inquiry

into the early Versions of the New Testament. In addition to those which impede all

critical investigations into the original Greek text, there are others in this case

scarcely less serious, which arise from comparatively scanty materials and vague or

conflicting traditions. There is little illustrative literature; or, if there be more, it is

imperfectly known. There is no long line of Fathers to witness to the completion and

the use of the translations. And though it be true that these hindrances are chiefly felt

when the attempt is made to settle or interpret their text, they are no less real and

perplexing when we seek only to investigate their origin and earliest form. The

teaching of God through man appears to be subject to the vagaries of human life and

thought. Years must elapse before we can feel that the words of one who talks withmen are indeed the words of God. The successors of the Apostles did not recognise

that the written histories of the Lord and the scattered epistles of His first disciples

would form a sure and sufficient source and test of doctrine for later times when the

tradition would have grown indistinct or corrupt. Conscious of a life in the Christian

body, and realising the power of its Head, they did not feel that the Apostles were

providentially charged to express once for all in their writings the essential forms of

Christianity, in like manner as the Prophets that had foreshadowed them.

9 Our basic text is identical to the original

Despite the slow process by which the New Testament canon gradually took on a more

solid shape, we can state that the writings belonging to the canon enjoyed great authority

from the very beginning. The Muratorian Canon, dated around 200 AD, presents a pretty

complete canon and thus bears witness to the respect the books enjoyed from the first, so

that nobody would have dared to make amendments to the text. And although the reading

of the New Testament is subject to a number of variants, such variants in no way affect

the credibility, historical fact or Christian practice. Thanks to the fact that so many early

writings are known to be compared to one another, we can say in all confidence that the

basic Greek text as we now have it is very close to the original text.

A warning note is called for here. The modern practice with new Bible translations of

bringing forward variants that have long been rejected and presenting them as scientific is

a very suspicious practice and throws up a smoke curtain for those who have not been

able to go into this material in depth. In order not to fall prey to such things I prefer theolder translations like the King James or New King James Version (NKJV), and the


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excellent version by Abb Crampon (first editions early 20 thcentury). With regard to the

reliability of the texts that have come down to us F. F. Bruce writes in The New Testa-

ment Documents (1972):

Perhaps we can appreciate how wealthy the New Testament is in manuscript

attestation if we compare the textual material for other ancient historical works. For

Csars Gallic War (composed between 58 and 50 BC) there are several extantmanuscripts, but only nine or ten are good, and the oldest is some 900 years later than

Csars day. Of the 142 books of the Roman History of Livy (59 BC 17 AD) only

thirty-five survive; these are known to us from not more than twenty manuscripts of

any consequence, only one of which, and that containing fragments of Books iii-vi, is

as old as the 4thcentury. Of the fourteen books of the Histories of Tacitus (about 100

AD) only four and a half survive; of the sixteen books of his Annals, ten survive in

full and two in part. The text of these extant portions of his two great historical works

depends entirely on two manuscripts, one of the 9th

century and one of the 11th. The

extant manuscripts of his minor works (Dialogus de Oratoribus, Agricola, Germania)

all descend from a codex of the 10thcentury. The History of Thucydides (about 460

400 BC) is known to us from eight manuscripts, the earliest belonging to around

900 AD, and a few papyrus scraps, belonging to about the beginning of the Christianera. The same is true of the History of Herodotus (about 488 428 BC). Yet no

classical scholar would listen to an argument that the authenticity of Herodotus or

Thucydides is in doubt because the earliest manuscripts of their works, which are of

any use to us, are over 1,300 years later than the originals.

But how different is the situation of the New Testament in this respect ! In

addition to the two excellent manuscripts of the 4thcentury () which are the earliest

of some thousands known to us, considerable fragments remain of papyrus copies of

books of the New Testament dated from 100 or 200 years earlier still. The Chester

Beatty Biblical Papyri, the existence of which was made public in 1931, consist of

portions of eleven papyrus codices, three of which contained most of the New

Testament writings. One of these containing the four Gospels with Acts, belongs tothe first half of the 3rd

century; another, containing Pauls letters to churches and the

Epistle to the Hebrews, was copied at the beginning of the 3rd

century; the third,

containing Revelation, belongs to the second half of the same century.

When we fix our attention on the fragments we possess, the oldest of them turn out to be

dated within the first decades after the Crucifixion, like that of Mark 6:52-53, found at

Qumran and therefore no older than 68 AD. (17)This is probably the oldest extant frag-

ment of the New Testament. And it definitively puts paid to the fable that the Gospels

came into being in the late first or early second century as a literary explosion of folkloric

popular imagination.

Together with Fenton Hort, Bishop Westcott used the different traditions and a multipli-city of texts as basis for a magisterial piece of work in revising the basic text of the New

Testament, a task they carried out in fear and trembling. Their text serves at present as one

of the standard works for translators of the New Testament, offering an alternative rea-

ding in a few dubious cases. (18)A good translation of the Bible, such as the NKJV, al-

ways provides the alternative in a footnote. Anyone wishing to deviate from the Westcott

& Hort basic text must have good reasons for doing so, but generally any such deviation

leads to a botched job served up with a sauce of scientific scholarship. Thanks to Westcott

& Hort we now have a text that scarcely deviates from the original. God watches over His

Word. That is obvious. And He owes it to Himself to do so.

Finally it can be said that the Bible is, from cover to cover, true, justified, authentic and

infallible.

Hubert Luns


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Notes

(1) The fact that the Bible has a solid historical core does not justify wild speculations.Thus Genesis, for instance, gives a thematic review of how Creation came into being. Thisdoes not justify seeing the six days of creation as six times twenty-four hours.

(2) The Samaritan sect still exists and has its own synagogue in Nablus, formerly knownas Sichem. The sect has about 750 followers at present (in the year 2009) and they havegood contacts with the Orthodox Jews. It was not always so!

(3) The Biblical Sinai lies elsewhere (cf. Ex. 3:1, 17:6 and Gal. 4:25) and is not the regionnow known as Sinai. The Sinai now was formely called Paran (cf. Num. 13:3, 26).

(4) According to Herodotus it was Cadmos the Phoenician who introduced the alphabetto Greece, but that does not mean to say that he was its inventor.

The duration of the exile in Egypt

(5) It is generally assumed that Christ was born in 4 BC and thus in the year 4,000 AM(Anno Mundi or 4,000 years after Adam). In actual fact He was born in 8 BC of 3,977 AM.Based on the Bible itself we arrive at the 15 thcentury BC as the period of the Exodus or,to be more exact, from 1467 to 1428 BC. A complicating factor in this calculation is Exodus12:40-41, where the 430 years stated should be read as ADT (Anno Domus Testamenti), orthe number of years after the large dome covenant that God made with Abraham. (Ps.105:8-10) These 430 years are mentioned in Galatians 3:17 as follows: The law, whichcame to be 430 years later, cannot annul the arrangement that was confirmed before byGod that it should make the promise (of the large dome covenant) of no effect. Thecorrect reading of Exodus 12:40-41 is thus as follows, freely translated: They sojourned inEgypt until the year 430. On precisely New Years Eve the people went out from Egypt.As it is likely that the day of the large dome covenant came to serve as the head of the yearwe may assume because of this verse that the large dome covenant was made at Easter!Now it happens that on several occasions God made promises to Abram. The first timewhen he was 75 years old, but only the last and third time did it become the everlastingcovenant. (Gen. 12 and 17) Abram was then 99 years old and only then was his namechanged meaningfully to Abraham (father of many peoples); only then was the Covenantsealed with blood by means of circumcision, providing it with the force of law (without theshedding of blood no sealing).

The 400 years sojourning of Genesis 15:13 are not contradictory to the foregoing asthey refer to the time of the covenant with Abimelech (Gen. 21:22-34): the flow of the nar-rative leaves little choice as to the event in question. This would bring the covenant withAbimelech to the year 30 ADT. After this covenant was made, it states that Abrahamsojourned in the land of the Philistines (21:34). In Hebrew sojourn is derived from theword for alien or stranger and, indeed, the family of Abraham was oppressed as stran-gers even when they had lived already for a long time in Canaan as Isaac did all his life.Isaac himself was commanded to sojourn in the land (26:3); Jacob sojourned in exile inthe land of Cham another name for Egypt (Ps. 105:23), while his sons said that they hadcome to Egypt to sojourn there (47:4). The first 30 years ADT do not count because inthis lapse of time the nature of Abrahams stay still differed. Though an expatriate, he washeld in the highest esteem, even as a prince of God (23:6). The incident with Abimelechshows that the esteem had started to fade away. Remember, Abraham lived much longerthan the natives. The old clan of Philistines, who had revered him, had died by then, Abra-ham having reached 130 years of age with 45 years still in store.

The at that timeof Genesis 21:22 is unspecified in Hebrew and can be seen separa-tely from the preceding, which deals among other things with Isaacs weaning, ninemonths later after the large dome covenant (ADT zero). Therefore the translation at thesame time is misleading. I prefer to read in it: At that time (we are discussing the timeof the conflict that led to the covenant with the Abimelech of Gerar) it happened thatthe Abimelech and his Pichol said to Abraham: etc. Remarkably, the first verse of thenext chapter, that deals with the Akeda Isaac (Isaacs Sacrifice or his binding), denotes

through the word acher a close connection with the preceding though not immediately intime, for then it would have been acheroj. Actually, a six years interval lies in between. Icount six because Sarah died a few days after the Akeda. The Bible informs us of when she


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died, cf. Book of Jasher and Genesis 23:1, when Abraham was thus 136 years old and Isaac36. Genesis 21:22 and 23:1 belong to those instances where the division into chapters isbound to lead to erroneous views. Genesis 22:19 should have been the beginning of a newchapter and Genesis 21:22 should have been the beginning of chapter 22.

In the end it would seem that the Exile in Egypt did not last 430 or 400 years but only240, for which the years of arrival and departure are reckoned as two years.

Saint Augustine of Hippo

The transcription of Caphenath Pahenecha

(6) According to Partheys Old Coptic dictionary: Vocabularium coptico-latinum, Ber-lin # 1844, Old Coptic being the language of the Pharaohs [copt is derived from E(cypt)],Josephs name reads as: Sah-phenk-noc-pa-en-he-kah, or: scribere, reducere, princeps,qui pertinet ad, extrahere, ratio, sonus. In ordered language: He who reduced script to itsbasic elements and succeeded in bringing to light the basis of the sounds.

Who was Fernand Crombette (1880-1970)?

(7) Crombette was a scholar redolent of a different age. A self-educated and solitary re-searcher, who confined himself to his study and his libraries, he dedicated himself to pos-terity and sought neither to attract attention nor recognition. He therefore signed hispublications with un catholique franais (a French Catholic). He left many books, entire-

ly written between 1933 and 1967 after having pursued an administrative career. His zealstemmed from the only motive to prove the scientific and historical inerrancy of the Bible,in the pursuit of which he followed extremely unorthodox ideas. Our main interest here isin his effort to translate the Bible as if it were Coptic, given in his last book publishedshortly before his death, that was called La Rvlation de la Rvlation (The revelationof the Revelation). It shows a translation of the first eleven chapters of Genesis and othercharacteristic passages after they were first transcribed into Coptic.

The Bible, a holy book in a holy language

(8) In this context it is interesting that Crombette managed to make a translation up toand including Genesis 11 on the basis of monosyllabic Coptic, which still does not provethat the original Hebrew was the same as Coptic. God can have left both possibilities open:that the first chapters of Holy Scripture can be read both in Coptic and in the original He-

brew, only to meet the requirements of the ordinary people who had lost the Hebrew lan-guage during the long sojourn in Egypt. The Bible and tradition indicate that during theconfusion of tongues at the Tower of Babel God made an exception by giving Heber (or


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Eber) the original language from Paradise again from the other side (as his name signi-fies) thus from heaven that was not derived from the other languages such as Coptic.From this it follows that before God started on his Bible, He had already created thelanguage in which it had to be written. The Bible is therefore a holy book in a holy lan-guage. (See also: The vernacular in Jesus time)

(9) At the moment there is a great deal of interest shown by the Jewish side in restoringthe Septuagint to its original form, which apparently is not an impossibility.

The Vulgate led to the Old Testament being undervalued

(10a) The fact that the Vulgate should serve as source language for translations is not ne-cessarily a bad thing. Unfortunately the conciliar decision of 1546 also led to the opinionthat the Latin version would suffice for the purposes of exegesis. But Latin can never re-veal the accompanying range of meanings proper to Hebrew. Hebrew appears to be anindispensable tool in the exegetic arsenal! In the case of the New Testament, a referencingback to the Hebrew background of the terms used Greek was a second language for thededicated writers can lead to important insights. This tendency to use the Vulgate as theunique source language, which started already in the Middle Ages, led to a devaluation ofthe Old Testament and to insufficient knowledge in that area even by Roman Catholic

specialists who, though with a knowledge of Hebrew, were unable to distil out its quintes-sence. In Protestant circles, certainly in the Netherlands, it is a different story.

The Vulgate in perspective

(10b) With his 1943 encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu (With the Help of the Divine Spi-rit) Pope Pius XII wished to correct misapprehensions regarding the decree of the Councilof Trent, which states that the entire Books with all their parts, as they have been wontto be read in the Catholic Church and are contained in the old Vulgate Latin edition, areto be held sacred and canonical.Among other things the encyclical discusses the way inwhich the decree came into being and the consequences this brought with it:

The Fathers of the Church in their time, especially Augustine, warmlyrecommended to the Catholic scholar, who undertook the investigation andexplanation of the Sacred Scriptures, the study of the ancient languages and recourseto the original texts. However, such was the state of letters in those times, that notmany - and these few but imperfectly - knew the Hebrew language. In the middleages, when Scholastic Theology was at the height of its vigour, the knowledge of eventhe Greek language had long since become so rare in the West, that even the greatestDoctors of that time, in their exposition of the Sacred Text, had recourse only to theLatin version, known as the Vulgate. On the contrary in this our time, not only theGreek language, which since the humanistic renaissance has been, as it were, restoredto new life, is familiar to almost all students of antiquity and letters, but theknowledge of Hebrew also and of their oriental languages has spread far and wideamong literary men. Moreover there are now such abundant aids to the study of theselanguages that the Biblical scholar, who by neglecting them would deprive himself ofaccess to the original texts, could in no wise escape the stigma of levity and sloth. Forit is the duty of the exegete to lay hold, so to speak, with the greatest care andreverence of the very least expressions which, under the inspiration of the DivineSpirit, have flowed from the pen of the sacred writer, so as to arrive at a deeper andfuller knowledge of its meaning. () Nor should anyone think that this use of theoriginal (Hebrew) texts, in accordance with the methods of criticism, in any wayderogates from those decrees so wisely enacted by the Council of Trent concerningthe Latin Vulgate. From the historical archives it appears that the Presidents of theCouncil received a commission - which they duly carried out - to beg the SovereignPontiff in the name of the Council, that he should correct as far as possible first aLatin, and subsequently also a Greek and a Hebrew edition, which eventually wouldbe published for the benefit of the Holy Church of God. If this desire could not thenbe fully realized owing to the difficulties of the times and other obstacles, at present itcan, we earnestly hope, be more perfectly and entirely fulfilled by the united efforts ofCatholic scholars. And if the Tridentine Synod wished that all should use asauthenticthe Vulgate Latin version, this, as all know, applies only to the LatinChurch and to the public use of the same Scriptures; nor does it, doubtless, in any


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way diminish the authority and value of the source texts. For there was no questionthen of these texts, but of the Latin versions, which were in circulation at that time,and of these the same Council rightly declared to be preferable that which had beenapproved by its long-continued use for so many centuries in the Church.Hence thisspecial authority or as they say, authenticity of the Vulgate was not affirmed by theCouncil particularly for critical reasons, but rather because of its legitimate use in the

Churches throughout so many centuries; by which use indeed the same is shown, inthe sense in which the Church has understood and understands it, to be free from anyerror whatsoever in matters of faith and morals; so that, as the Church herselftestifies and affirms, it may be quoted safely and without fear of error in disputations,in lectures and in preaching; and so its authenticity is not specified primarily ascritical, but rather as juridical. ( 14-15, 20-21)

Jerome, the most learned of the Latin fathers of the Church

(11) Jerome learned Hebrew with great labor in his mature years. He first followed les-sons from a converted but anonymous Jew during his five years ascetic seclusion in theSyrian desert of Chalcis (374379). Afterwards he studied in Bethlehem [in about the year385] being taught by Rabbi Bar-Anina, who through fear of the Jews visited him by night:My teacher feared for his life like another Nicodemus.This exposed him to the foolish

rumor among bigoted opponents, that he preferred Judaism to Christianity and betrayedChrist in preference to the new Barabbas. He afterwards, in translating the Old Testa-ment, brought other Jewish scholars to his aid, who cost him dear. () Though his know-ledge of Hebrew was defective, it was much greater than that of Origen, Epiphanius andEphraem Syrus, the only other Fathers besides himself who understood Hebrew at all. Itis the more noticeable, when we consider the want of grammatical and lexicographicalhelps and of the Masoretic punctuation (that was not applied until much later).

Taken from Volume III, 161-80 of the History of the Christian Church by Philip Schaff -Charles Scribners Sons # 1910 (176 with its note 2098); carefully compared, corrected and emen-ded by The Electronic Bible Society - Dallas, USA # 1998.

(12) Aquilas translation dates from the first half of the second century AD and is some-times so literal that the Greek is incomprehensible for those not versed in Hebrew. It was,

in fact, destined for the Jewish Diaspora. His translation has come down to us in bits andpieces.

(13) Seewww.sacredbible.orgfor the Catholic Public Domain Version of the Sacred Bible.

The problem of the duration of Sauls reign

(14) Concerning the passage of 1 Samuel, which reads that Saul was one year old when hestarted to reign, Chris Tyreman looked at it from the SDH perspective. He found: Tobranch off a year Saul amid being king and two years king over Israel.And he won-dered: Any idea what that means? Was he supposed to be king over Israel for twoyears, but only recognized for one?To find an answer I consulted the Bible Chronologyby Ivan Panin, from 1950. He refers to Pauls sermon wherein he explains that God gaveKing Saul for 40 years. (Acts 13:21) In view of the difficulties this presents to fit in with the

narratives from 1 Samuel, 1 Kings and 1 Chronicles, the solution goes like this: Gods giftbeing for final possession is dependent on obedience. He gave the kingship to Saul for thenumber of years which in Scripture is usual for testing, that is to say 40 years. Paul goeson to say: And when He had removed him, He raised up David as king () for he wouldbe obedient.This phrase is incompatible with the idea that David merely succeeded Saulafter his death. Very early in his career was the failure of Saul through rebellion complete,and accordingly David was anointed king long before Sauls death. The difficulties sur-rounding this case are discussed extensively by Panin. He places the kingship of Saul inAnno Mundi 2972 (after Adam), and the end of his appointed reign not the end of hisnominally being king in the next year. Goes without saying that Panin did not know ofthe SDH system. The sentence then reads in orderly language: Saul was branched off(from) amid (his people) at a (particular) year and was branched off as (the divinelyappointed) king over Israel in the year following.


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(15) Isaiahs Exalted Servant in the Great Isaiah Scroll by Steven P. Lancaster and JamesM. Monson Messiah Journal, a teaching journal by First Fruits of Zion, Rockford Illinois# spring 2011/5771 (Special Supplement, issue 107).

(16) The quotation is taken from the seventh and last revised reprint from 1896 of AGeneral Survey of the History of the Canon of the New Testament (pp. 4-5, 12, 56, 238,

508, 511), first edition 1855.

(17) See Carsten Peter Thiede: 7Q5 Facts or Fiction? - The Westminster TheologicalJournal 57 # 1995 (pp. 471-74).

(18) This is a reference to the 1881 version of Revision of the Original Greek of the NewTestament, as also: Introduction to the New Testament in the Original Greek: with noteson selected readings.

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[Published in abridged from in Profetisch Perspectief, Winter 2007 No. 57]

[published in abrdidged form in Positief, Nov. & Dec. 2009 Nrs. 396-97]