Textual Criticism of Old Testament Manuscripts and Resources

The Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Church

In recent weeks we have been looking at a variety of important texts for the Old Testament canon. We have seen there is a great wealth of texts available for our Old Testament. In fact, other than the New Testament, no other ancient documents have such a variety of resources from such an ancient date. This is a great gift God has given to us! But how do scholars approach these texts to determine the original writing God gave to His people?

Before describing how this is done within the Protestant world, let me give a brief note about Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism. 

Within Eastern Orthodoxy, the Septuagint (LXX) is accepted as the authoritative text. The Eastern Orthodox Church knows that the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, but since the New Testament authors and early church fathers often seem to quote from the Septuagint, and because the Masoretes copying the Hebrew text did not believe in Christ, the Eastern Orthodox Church has decided to claim the LXX is the official Old Testament text. They use the LXX in their liturgy and as the basis for their translation work. While having great respect for the LXX, Protestants believe that the Old Testament was originally inspired in Hebrew and that in general the Masoretes faithfully preserved that text, so we use the Hebrew text as the basis for our Old Testament.

The picture in Roman Catholicism is a bit more complicated. Technically, the Roman Catholic Church has stated that the Vulgate, the Latin translation made by Jerome around 400 AD, is the official translation of the whole Scripture, both Old and New Testaments. This was stated clearly at the Council of Trent at the time of the Reformation, and this has been reaffirmed several times since then. However, in practice, most Roman Catholic scholars give far more weight to the Hebrew test and even the Septuagint than the Vulgate. Nonetheless, the Vulgate continues to carry great weight within the Roman Catholic Church. 

Protestants have taken a distinct view, which will be discussed next week. For now, it should be understood that Protestants, while having great respect for the Septuagint and the Vulgate, believe that the inspired text is given in the original language, not a translation – even if that translation is very old and revered. next week we will take a look at how Protestants handle this in practice.

In Christ,

Bret