The Jewish Bible of the First Century

“And the nations for kindness to glorify God, according as it hath been written, `Because of this I will confess to Thee among nations, and to Thy name I will sing praise.” (Romans 15:9).

Background: Jesus died to provide salvation to mankind. But how could He communicate this good news? How could mankind hear and believe? The post-diluvian survivors intended to build a tower contrary to God's instructions. So God confounded their common language so that they could not understand one another. Genesis 11:8 "So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city." So did God ever provide a common language to save mankind?

Paul wrote the Romans Epistle in Greek. When the Holy Spirit directed Paul to write Romans 15:9 which quotes from the OT Psalm 18:49, did He do this from the Hebrew OT Bible? A writer for a religious paper that's being circulated wrote, "What the Holy Spirit did was, in New Testament Koine Greek He quoted from ... neither the language of the Hittites nor the Egyptians ... but from the language, the speech, the tongue of the Hebrew language." Did the writer not know that the OT Bible in use was already in the Greek language for about three hundred years?

Apparently a misunderstanding exists among some about when and where the OT (Hebrew) was "changed into Greek."

THE "LXX" AND THE GREEK NT. It seems that people in general have the mistaken belief that the Jews everywhere were using a Hebrew Bible in the First Century. After all, the Jews were Hebrew. Right? However, this was not what happened. After the dispersion during the sixth century (before Jesus came), the Jews were scattered throughout the world and they subsequently had lost their language. A Hebrew Bible would not do them any good. During the Hellenistic Period (300 years later) a fruitful attempt was made to remedy this ignorance of the remnant nation.

It is true that the current English KJV uses an English version of the Hebrew text for its OT. This is the Protestant influence of distancing themselves from the Latin, Jerome's Vulgate, authorized during the Middle Ages by the Roman (Latin) Catholic Church.ⁱ For centuries, rather than restricting themselves to a Latin Bible, scholars have been examining two prospective "ancient" texts to elucidate the original language of the "Old Testament": (1) the "Masoretic Hebrew Text" and what is called the "Septuagint Greek Version."

The Masoretic Text is not the original OT but actually a recent compilation of "meticulously preserved oral tradition and the best available manuscripts of the original Hebrew textⁱⁱ finalized by Jewish scholars around 1000 C.E. (just a millenium ago)".ⁱⁱⁱ The Septuagint on the other hand is a Greek translation of the Torah created by 70 Jewish scholars in Alexandria, Egypt, in the third [and 2nd] century before Jesus came to Earth.^iv This was the Bible in use when Jesus was born in Bethlehem, Judea.

'Greek scriptures were in wide use by the time of Jesus and Paul of Tarsus (early Christianity) because most Christian proselytes, God-fearers, and other gentile sympathizers of Hellenistic Judaism could not read Hebrew. The text of the Greek Old Testament is quoted more often than the original Hebrew Bible text in the Greek New Testament (particularly the Pauline epistles) by the "Apostolic Fathers", and later by the "Greek Church Fathers."'^v "It was the adoption of the Septuagint by the early Church that was the biggest factor in its eventual abandonment by the Jews."^vi

The oldest Septuagint (original copy) manuscript is the Vaticanus dating back to 350 AD and contains Genesis 46:28 to Hebrews 9:14 and resides in the Vatican City. Other extant early manuscripts are listed online at www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septuagint_manuscripts.

Please notice these facts: The NT was written in the Koine (common) Hellenistic Greek. Also, (1) the common Bible for Jew and Gentile during the first century was the LXX, “Septuagint” Greek version having been translated for the scattered Jews and (2) the ultimate NT was written in the same language. When the NT quotes from the Bible, usually it is from the Greek version LXX that was accessible throughout the Empire. The New Testament did not translate the Hebrew Scriptures as some teach. The Holy Spirit quotes from the Greek Bible.

Proof: Whereas the Hebrew Masoretic text from the Middle Ages may “conflict” as different in some NT quote, the Greek LXX seems to have usually translated the original Hebrew correctly. For example, “Some of the recently discovered Dead Sea scrolls at times provide the Hebrew text which underlay the LXX where it differs from the Masoretic text. This is the case, for instance, in Isaiah 53:11, where the scroll Isaiah A reads “He shall see light,” thus supporting the LXX rendering.” ^vii This should not be surprising for when copying is made so are mistakes. That's why the age of manuscripts is important. And translations into other languages help. The Bible text is one of the most studied of text criticism and scrutiny which assures us of its integrity.

Romans 15:9 is a verbatim quote from the LXX. (NOT THE HEBREW), only omitting the word “Lord.”' (Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, on Romans 15:9). “Paul quotes Psalm 18:49 (LXX the Greek version of the Old Testament that was widely used in Paul’s time, especially by Jews who lived outside Israel. This would include the Roman Christians. The word Septuagint is derived from the Latin word for seventy in honor of the seventy translators who created it.].”^viii

Rom. 15:9b “διὰ τοῦτο ἐξομολογήσομαί σοι ἐν ἔθνεσι, καὶ τῷ ὀνοματί σου ψαλῶ.”

Psa. 18:49 “διὰτοῦτοἐξομολογήσομαίσοιἐνἔθνεσιν, κύριε,

“Because of this I will confess to Thee among nations, and to Thy name I will sing praise.”

(My comments: “nations” [ἔθνεσι] does not have the definite article in the original. Also, Young's Literal Translation translates psallo [ψαλῶ] as “will sing praise.”)

King James Translation has “For this cause I will confess to thee among the Gentiles, and sing unto thy name.” Another way of saying what it says. "The" is often added by KJV because that's the way English speaks.

“διὰ τοῦτο ἐξομολογήσομαί σοι ἐν ἔθνεσι, καὶ τῷ ὀνοματί σου ψαλῶ.”

“διὰ^√τοῦτο^√ἐξομολογήσομαί^√σοι^√ἐν^√ἔθνεσιν, ^√κύριε, καὶ^√τῷ^√ὀνόματί^√σου^√ ψαλῶ^√,”

“Because of this I will confess to thee among the Gentiles, Lord, and sing unto thy name.”

Therefore I confess Thee among nations, O Jehovah, And to Thy name I sing praise,

Notice that except for the word κύριε (Lord) they are identical.

The Hebrew is harder for us to compare since it is in a different language. But I will use Google and see if it comes out like Paul's Roman quote. Here's the Psalm verse in the Hebrew.

על־כן אודך בגוים יהוה ולשׁמך אזמרה׃ חמס (from HOT, Hebrew Old Testament (Tanach))

My Google Translation: "Therefore I will praise thee in the nations, O LORD, and in thy name shall I sing aloud." A little different. Not much.

Psalm 18, Masoretic Hebrew (11^th century) has also been translated for us into English as “"For this I sing Your praise among the nations, LORD, and hymn Your name:" (Psalm 18:50). Different from the Greek if this is word for word.

We do this, not to confuse you, in the maize of translations but show why the conclusion is that Paul's Greek quoted the LXX and not the Hebrew text. In other words the Holy Spirit did not translate. He quoted. The Holy Spirit through Paul quoted from the Greek OT translated by the Jewish scholars in Egypt.

Therefore the Masoretic Hebrew text IS NOT THE original ancient text of the OT. It was compiled years later. It certainly was not the Bible of the Jews during the first century. The LXX was used in the synagogues around the world. The Greek Catholic Church claims that the LXX is closer to the original than the West's Masoretic Hebrew Version. Since the Koine LXX was translated just about three hundred years before the NT was written, it can be concluded that it used the same language as the KOINE Greek text of the NT. It is wise that the KJV scholars used the Septuagint in conjunction with the Masoretic text to properly translate the OT. Thank you, Lord, for providing for the common language Greek for the synagogues to share the gospel. Is it a miracle? Yes. It's called "divine providence."

1. WHAT BIBLE WAS USED BY THE JEWS IN THE FIRST CENTURY? The Greek translation called the Septuagint LXX.

2. WHAT BIBLE DID THE HOLY SPIRIT QUOTE FROM IN ROMANS 15:9 [for the Roman "Gentile & Jewish" church]? The Greek translation called the Septuagint LXX.

i The Vulgate is a late-4th century Latin translation of the Bible. It became the Catholic Church's officially promulgated Latin version of the Bible during the 16th century and is still used in the Latin Church https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulgate

https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/bible-versions-and- translations/the- original-bible-and- the-dead-sea-scrolls/

iii “The accuracy of today’s Old Testament was confirmed in 1947 when archaeologists found “The Dead Sea Scrolls” along today's West Bank in Israel. "The Dead Sea Scrolls" contained Old Testament scripture dating 1,000 years older than any manuscripts we had. When comparing the manuscripts at hand with these, from 1,000 years earlier, we find agreement 99.5% of the time. And the .5% differences are minor spelling variances and sentence structure that doesn't change the meaning of the sentence” https://www.everystudent.com/features/bible.html .

iv “Which is the “original” Bible? How do we decide which of these two ancient texts is more authoritative? In “Searching for the ‘Original’ Bible” in the July/August 2014 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, Hebrew University of Jerusalem scholar and long-time editor- in-chief of the Dead Sea Scrolls publication team Emanuel Tov suggests we turn to the Dead Sea Scrolls to help us compare the Masoretic Text and the Greek Septuagint.”

vi https://biblearchaeology.org/research/new-testament-era/4022-a-brief-history-of-the-septuagint