Jesus and the Romans

[SaulChanukah]

If you have nothing to say, just say that.

The text is clear, which you cannot deny.

The text is clear but youre not clear, hope thats clear.

[greymouse]

Saul, I was saying it's hypocritical because you said that non-Jewish scholars' opinions aren't very important to you when it comes to Tenach, but then you're claiming that Paul was giving his followers the wink and nudge when it came to idols and paganism. So first I'm thinking you haven't read or remembered much Paul. Which is fine, but why play an expert?

Many Christians admit the difficulty of attributing the authorship of their books, and that doesn't make them believe the Scriptures aren't God inspired. It presents no real theological problem - actually a higher percentage of New Testament books have the authors announce their identity at the outset than the Old Testament. But it isn't really important either.

btw, Brendan I really enjoyed the post about Josiah. That's interesting.

[Fugu]

Saul, here’s my POV
Do you understand that your words are insulting and hurtful to people who hold Jesus dear to their hearts as you do Moses?

Or are you so deranged that you are in dire need of pharmacological assistance

I fear the answer is yes to both

*****

He's neither "deranged" nor in need of drugs. He represents the extremist wing of fundamentalist Jewry-those folks who will follow their rebbes to any level of dedicated ignorance. Look at his photos and paintings and listen to his compositions-this is a very bright man, perhaps in some ways the most creative participant on this board. But he's trapped in a world of dogma with answers for everything and solutions for nothing.

Excellent response Ralph.

[SaulChanukah]

Saul, I was saying it's hypocritical because you said that non-Jewish scholars' opinions aren't very important to you when it comes to Tenach, but then you're claiming that Paul was giving his followers the wink and nudge when it came to idols and paganism. So first I'm thinking you haven't read or remembered much Paul. Which is fine, but why play an expert?

Many Christians admit the difficulty of attributing the authorship of their books, and that doesn't make them believe the Scriptures aren't God inspired. It presents no real theological problem - actually a higher percentage of New Testament books have the authors announce their identity at the outset than the Old Testament. But it isn't really important either.

btw, Brendan I really enjoyed the post about Josiah. That's interesting.

Did Paul believe in trinity and virgins births?

Sure he did.

Were these ideas pagan?

For sure.

You dont need to be an expert when your dealing with basics.

And yes, its a huge problem when you dont know who wrote your 'scriptures".

[Brendan]

Paul never mentions the virgin birth (try Luke and Matthew), which is quite different in charcter from virgin birth stories such as found for Augustus etc. See R.E. Brown's The Birth of the Messiah.

The Trinity is exclusively Christian, and is not a pagan idea at all.

[greymouse]

Saul, you're taking refuge in the fact that nobody is willing to trash talk your Scriptures. Posters here either believe them because they are Jewish or Christian, or they are not believers who are passing over the topic out of respect. So enjoy this immunity, and have fun while you investigate the pagan influences of Paul and the irrelevance of Jesus.

[jack stowaway]

So St John the Evangelist, the Beloved Disciple, is actually Paul, who never knew Jesus.

Most of here can spot the delusional one.

Also, try Richard Eliot Friedman's Who Wrote the Bible?. At the very least 4 authors are needed and have been identified by schiolarship since the 19th C: J (Yahwist), E (Elohist), D (Deuteronomist) and P (Priestly). Moses did not write a word of it, as most scholars are well aware.

One of the most interesting courses I took at University was on the authorship of the Old Testament. The course was taught by a respected Biblical scholar. He led us through the various texts, clearly indicating differences in style, presentation, language and concept.

I still have my King James Bible, marked in the manner you describe; i.e. with certain passages attributed to the Yahwist, others to the Priestly scribe etc.

The Professor also explained why the Old Testament contains different versions of the same story, attributing it to later writers misunderstanding or 'correcting' earlier versions. He also showed the order of composition of the different books, suggesting that 'Genesis' was a historically later addition included in an attempt to give the Old Testament an existence and 'wholism' independent of the earlier creation myths which inform it.

Viewed in scholarly terms, the Bible, whatever claims for divine inspiration are made concerning it, is clearly an 'artifact' inasmuch as it is a product of the human mind operating over generations of historical time.

And this shouldn't be surprising. We accept that the 'Illiad' was a collective product, composed over many generations, even though the popular imagination attributes it to 'divine' Homer.

Muslims, of course, claim that Mohammed took down the Koran directly from God, in spite of similar scholarship pointing out the clear derivation of certain passages from earlier works, including the Bible.

[Ralph]

Do you all know that English law recognized virgin births long before artificial insemination and well into the last century? Ask me about it.

[david johnson]

'The early Christians were composed of Jews. It was a Jewish sect. This sect had two different camps. The first camp was of Jesus' Brother , James. The second camp was of Paul, who by the way had never met Jesus personally.'

Partially correct. Saul met the Lord on the way to Damascus.

'Thus, Paul began focusing on the Pagan world. His job was easy for he had already altered Christianity with Pagan motifs, enabling the Pagan world to embrace this new exotic faith, without compromising their own idolatrous customs, traditions and practices. Holidays, such as Christmas, with the tree, Santa Claus and Rudolf the deer, and Halloween have nothing Jewish about them, they are classic pagan symbols and beliefs, that Paul had added to his new found religion.'

Paul knew Rudoplh? er...try Gene Autry and his song about 2000 yrs. later.
You want to be taken as informed on this?
Paul added Santa and Rudolph?
My God, you have actually said Paul added this to his new found religion??


Oh, help, it hurts!

dj

Paul had never met Jesus. He only claimed that he had a "vision" or a "dream" where he "saw" Jesus. Its like saying that I had never met you in real life but only had a "dream" about you. For some people that is a huge difference.

About the Christmas tree and Rudolf.. and the rest of the Pagan things...

These were not "Original" Christian inventions but they are all pagan. Paul didnt mind that his new converts would continue celebrating their pagan holidays. This proves my point that Paul embraced Pagan ideas and used them to convert the pagans.

There is nothing funny about it, and you have not said anything to counter I said.

prove paul knew of rudolph before gene autry did.
put up or hush.
you said it and want to be regarded as speaking the truth.
here's your chance...book, chapter, verse in any testament that has paul and rudolph together.

dj

[Ted]

I think it might be a good idea to define Saul’s underlying motivation in the posting of this and all similar threads.

In a nutshell he wants to “blame” Christianity on one “Rogue” Jew thereby negating Christ’s Iconic stature.

His very belief system is left in tatters by the Billions of people who are drawn to Christianity as opposed to the few million who call themselves Jews and are still waiting for the Messiah.

Personally I’m happy to accept the Ten Commandments as wonderful offerings of the Jewish people. Saul should be grateful that Christians consider the book of Exodus relevant to their religion.

And please, someone advise Saul that the Christians are not persecuting Jews today. They’re not even interested in converting them.

Live and Let Live, that’s the motto for today

[Donald Isler]

I don't believe I have ever seen a rouge Jew.

[Ted]

Donald Wrote:

I don't believe I have ever seen a rouge Jew.

Make that "Rogue"

[Donald Isler]

Ted wrote:

"His very belief system is left in tatters by the Billions of people who are drawn to Christianity as opposed to the few million who call themselves Jews and are still waiting for the Messiah."

While I dislike and disagree with much of what Saul has written, the above statement is not correct. Jews, generally, continue to believe as they always have. As do people of other non-Christian faiths (Muslims, Buddhists, etc.) who continue to believe what they have long believed. The important thing is MUTUAL RESPECT. We shouldn't be fighting over these differences!

[Ted]

Donald Writes:

While I dislike and disagree with much of what Saul has written, the above statement is not correct. Jews, generally, continue to believe as they always have.

Please read carefully Donald. Jews are not Saul. This very thread is Saul's attempt to minimize Christ's influence on Christianity. That is not a Jewish premise.
It is a Saul fixation To wit:

Saul Writes:

It was Paul who Hijacked the teachings of Jesus that were of Jewish origins and added pagan ideas and then sold it to the pagan masses.

So you could claim that Paul was the one that had an impact on the world by selling a religion of strong pagan motifs.

[Donald Isler]

I said:

"Jews, generally, continue to believe as they always have."

I stand by that statement. I am not talking about Christians in that statement, just Jews.

[Brendan]

Modern rabbinic judaism is very different from the ancient faith of the Temple, and continues to develop as all religions and people do. Hebrew was a lost language and they had to relearn to read the ancient source documents, so the Masoretic Text used today is actually of a later date than the Greek OT translation.

No one believes "as they always have."

[pizza]

Saul, here’s my POV
Do you understand that your words are insulting and hurtful to people who hold Jesus dear to their hearts as you do Moses?

Or are you so deranged that you are in dire need of pharmacological assistance

I fear the answer is yes to both

*****

He's neither "deranged" nor in need of drugs. He represents the extremist wing of fundamentalist Jewry-those folks who will follow their rebbes to any level of dedicated ignorance. Look at his photos and paintings and listen to his compositions-this is a very bright man, perhaps in some ways the most creative participant on this board. But he's trapped in a world of dogma with answers for everything and solutions for nothing.

Claiming that Saul "represents the extremist wing of fundamentalist Jewry- those folks who will follow their rebbes to any level of dedicated ignorance" is absurd at best, as you obviously have no idea concerning the level of controversy, disagreement and debate based upon serious scholarship that occurs within the so-called "fundamentalist" Jewish community -- a contrived misnomer if ever there was one -- and at worst, the pinnacle of hypocracy, coming from a devout and dedicated atheist who admittedly "worship[s] the First Amendment" and supports an organization that placed its facilities and skills at the disposal of Nazis whose sole purpose was to torture and traumatize Holocaust survivors.

Sorry to be so blunt, but as to who is "trapped" in dogma, the answer should be obvious.

[pizza]

Modern rabbinic judaism is very different from the ancient faith of the Temple, and continues to develop as all religions and people do. Hebrew was a lost language and they had to relearn to read the ancient source documents, so the Masoretic Text used today is actually of a later date than the Greek OT translation.

No one believes "as they always have."

Scholarship addressing the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were discovered in the late '40s and early '50s and written during the Second Temple period in Hebrew and Aramaic about a thousand years before the Masoretic Text, confirms the unbroken continuity of the Old Testament Biblical Texts.

[Donald Isler]

I don't believe Hebrew was ever a "lost" language. True, it was not used as vernacular till the Zionists "resurrected" it as a spoken language starting around the 1880's. But it's my understanding that since ancient days Jews studied the holy texts in Hebrew. It never disappeared.

[Ralph]

Saul, here’s my POV
Do you understand that your words are insulting and hurtful to people who hold Jesus dear to their hearts as you do Moses?

Or are you so deranged that you are in dire need of pharmacological assistance

I fear the answer is yes to both

*****

He's neither "deranged" nor in need of drugs. He represents the extremist wing of fundamentalist Jewry-those folks who will follow their rebbes to any level of dedicated ignorance. Look at his photos and paintings and listen to his compositions-this is a very bright man, perhaps in some ways the most creative participant on this board. But he's trapped in a world of dogma with answers for everything and solutions for nothing.

Claiming that Saul "represents the extremist wing of fundamentalist Jewry- those folks who will follow their rebbes to any level of dedicated ignorance" is absurd at best, as you obviously have no idea concerning the level of controversy, disagreement and debate based upon serious scholarship that occurs within the so-called "fundamentalist" Jewish community -- a contrived misnomer if ever there was one -- and at worst, the pinnacle of hypocracy, coming from a devout and dedicated atheist who admittedly "worship[s] the First Amendment" and supports an organization that placed its facilities and skills at the disposal of Nazis whose sole purpose was to torture and traumatize Holocaust survivors.

Sorry to be so blunt, but as to who is "trapped" in dogma, the answer should be obvious.

*****

Nicely put, Pizza.

[BWV 1080]

Saul, here’s my POV
Do you understand that your words are insulting and hurtful to people who hold Jesus dear to their hearts as you do Moses?

Or are you so deranged that you are in dire need of pharmacological assistance

I fear the answer is yes to both

*****

He's neither "deranged" nor in need of drugs. He represents the extremist wing of fundamentalist Jewry-those folks who will follow their rebbes to any level of dedicated ignorance. Look at his photos and paintings and listen to his compositions-this is a very bright man, perhaps in some ways the most creative participant on this board. But he's trapped in a world of dogma with answers for everything and solutions for nothing.

Claiming that Saul "represents the extremist wing of fundamentalist Jewry- those folks who will follow their rebbes to any level of dedicated ignorance" is absurd at best, as you obviously have no idea concerning the level of controversy, disagreement and debate based upon serious scholarship that occurs within the so-called "fundamentalist" Jewish community -- a contrived misnomer if ever there was one -- and at worst, the pinnacle of hypocracy, coming from a devout and dedicated atheist who admittedly "worship[s] the First Amendment" and supports an organization that placed its facilities and skills at the disposal of Nazis whose sole purpose was to torture and traumatize Holocaust survivors.

Sorry to be so blunt, but as to who is "trapped" in dogma, the answer should be obvious.

Must be like fundamentalist Christianity. The fundie Christians are so busy anathemizing eachother over obscure theological issues they could never agree enough amongst themselves to institute something like a theocracy

[pizza]

Saul, here’s my POV
Do you understand that your words are insulting and hurtful to people who hold Jesus dear to their hearts as you do Moses?

Or are you so deranged that you are in dire need of pharmacological assistance

I fear the answer is yes to both

*****

He's neither "deranged" nor in need of drugs. He represents the extremist wing of fundamentalist Jewry-those folks who will follow their rebbes to any level of dedicated ignorance. Look at his photos and paintings and listen to his compositions-this is a very bright man, perhaps in some ways the most creative participant on this board. But he's trapped in a world of dogma with answers for everything and solutions for nothing.

Claiming that Saul "represents the extremist wing of fundamentalist Jewry- those folks who will follow their rebbes to any level of dedicated ignorance" is absurd at best, as you obviously have no idea concerning the level of controversy, disagreement and debate based upon serious scholarship that occurs within the so-called "fundamentalist" Jewish community -- a contrived misnomer if ever there was one -- and at worst, the pinnacle of hypocracy, coming from a devout and dedicated atheist who admittedly "worship[s] the First Amendment" and supports an organization that placed its facilities and skills at the disposal of Nazis whose sole purpose was to torture and traumatize Holocaust survivors.

Sorry to be so blunt, but as to who is "trapped" in dogma, the answer should be obvious.

Must be like fundamentalist Christianity. The fundie Christians are so busy anathemizing eachother over obscure theological issues they could never agree enough amongst themselves to institute something like a theocracy

It is nothing of the sort and the assumption that it resembles fundamental Christianity or that its purpose is to establish a theocracy is completely unwarranted. The theological issues discussed and debated include all aspects of modern life ranging from current politics and social issues to the impact of the latest technology on traditional Jewish thought. Many observant Jews are well educated in secular disciplines, are extremely successful in their areas of expertise and operate at the highest levels of professional skill.

[Brendan]

I don't believe Hebrew was ever a "lost" language. True, it was not used as vernacular till the Zionists "resurrected" it as a spoken language starting around the 1880's. But it's my understanding that since ancient days Jews studied the holy texts in Hebrew. It never disappeared.

From The Ancient Hebrew Language and Alphabet by Jeff A. Benner

The Aramaic and Hebrew alphabets, as Greek, were derived from the Phoenician alphabet, itself developed in the middle of the second millennium BC. The alphabet and language remained pure until the Babylonian exile in 587 BC, when spoken Hebrew came under the influence of other languages, particularly Aramaic. Aramaic became the prevailing language, or "lingua franca" of the entire Middle East from about 800 BC to 400 AD. Because of the Dispersion of the people of Israel to Babylon and Egypt, knowledge of pre-exilic texts was dependent on oral tradition which lacked uniformity in pronunciation and meaning. This occasionally gave rise to an ambiguity of interpretation for a text written purely in consonants. As the Aramaic alphabet became the Hebrew alphabet, Hebrew papyri and parchments of the second and first centuries BC were written in the Aramaic alphabet. The original Hebrew alphabet persisted solely with the Samaritans. It was not until nearly 100 AD in Jamnia that a final authoritative form of the written consonantal text was achieved in Hebrew. Unfortunately, there is not a man alive today who can read or comprehend the Sumerian language or the original consonantal form of ancient Hebrew. We rely solely upon the amended form of consonantal Hebrew today and not the original.

But the basic fact that the religion focused on the sacrifice of animals at the Temple simply no longer exists cannot be disputed: the Wailing Wall is all that is left of the (second) Temple. There is a Mosque sitting right on the site of the Temple, so something has changed in the religious rituals and such at the very least. The Talmud wasn't around during the Temple period, and Josiah only found the Book of The Law (and cast Baal and Asherah out of the Temple) immediately prior to defeat at Meggido (see above quote).

No religion stays the same century after century, however loudly they declare it to be the original and the pure bereft of life and the change it brings. The eternal is part of sacred affirmation, but is often confused with the merely perpetual and obstinate.

[SaulChanukah]

Modern rabbinic judaism is very different from the ancient faith of the Temple, and continues to develop as all religions and people do. Hebrew was a lost language and they had to relearn to read the ancient source documents, so the Masoretic Text used today is actually of a later date than the Greek OT translation.

No one believes "as they always have."

Youre wrong on everything.

Hebrew was never lost. Guess what? I speak both Ancient and Modern Hebrew Fluently. Your comments are utterly wrong.


Also you said another wrong comment "Modern rabbinic Judaism is very different from the ancient faith of the Temple".

The faith is the same , we Jews worship the same God and follow the same commandments all throughout history. One of the 613 commandments is that we Jews should listen and follow our Sages. The God of Israel bestowed Power on the Sages of Israel, and they can make laws or command the Jewish people not to perform certain rituals until the third Temple will be built when the Messiah will come. There is a technical situation with the sacrifices , the Temple was destroyed and we do not have the right to build it until the arrival of the Messiah(Jewish Law), so these Temple services were temporarily halted and will resume upon the coming of the Messiah. So in fact , certain commandments were temporarily halted and for technical reasons. They were halted by the Sages of Israel as they use the power of the Commandment that God had bestowed on them. This is a far cry to call it a "change", nothings changed, it is only temporarily halted and will resume , hopefully soon when the Messiah will come.

And here is some useful information about the Hebrew Language and how it was never lost and was always spoken by Jews all throughout the Ages:

Wikipedia

Hebrew (עִבְרִית, ‘Ivrit) is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family spoken by more than seven million people in Israel and by an unknown number of people in Jewish communities around the world. In Israel, it is the de facto language of the state and the people, as well as being one of the two official languages (together with Arabic), and it is spoken by the majority of the population. Hebrew is also spoken as a mother tongue by the Samaritans, though today fewer than a thousand Samaritans remain. As a foreign language it is studied mostly by Jews and students of Judaism and Israel, archeologists and linguists specializing in the Middle East and its civilisations and by theologians.

The core of the Torah (the Hebrew Bible תנ"ך) is written in Classical Hebrew, and much of its present form is specifically the dialect of Biblical Hebrew that scholars believe flourished around the 6th century BC, near the Babylonian exile. For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as Leshon Ha-Kodesh (לשון הקודש), "The Holy Language", since ancient times.


History

As a language, Hebrew belongs to the Canaanite group of languages. Hebrew (Israel) and Moabite (Jordan) are Southern Canaanite while Phoenician (Lebanon) is Northern Canaanite. Canaanite is closely related to Aramaic and to a lesser extent South-Central Arabic. Whereas other Canaanite languages and dialects have become extinct, Hebrew has survived. Hebrew flourished as a spoken language in Israel from the 10th century BC until just before the Byzantine Period in the 3rd or 4th century AD. (See below, Aramaic displacing Hebrew as a spoken language.) Afterward Hebrew continued as a literary language until the Modern Era when it was revived as a spoken language in the 19th century.[1]

Most linguists agree that after the 6th century BC, when the Neo-Babylonian Empire conquered the ancient Kingdom of Judah, destroying Jerusalem and exiling its population to Babylon and after Cyrus The Great, the King of Kings or Great King of Persia, gave them permission to return, Biblical Hebrew came to be replaced in daily use by new dialects of Hebrew and a local version of Aramaic. After the 2nd century AD when the Roman Empire exiled most of the Jewish population of Jerusalem following the Bar Kokhba revolt, Hebrew gradually ceased to be a spoken language, but remained a major literary language. Letters, contracts, commerce, science, philosophy, medicine, poetry, and laws were written in Hebrew, which adapted by borrowing and inventing terms.

Hebrew persevered along the ages as the main language for written purposes by all Jewish communities around the world for a large range of uses (poetry, philosophy, science and medicine, commerce, daily correspondence and contracts, in addition to liturgy). This meant not only that well-educated Jews in all parts of the world could correspond in a mutually intelligible language, and that books and legal documents published or written in any part of the world could be read by Jews in all other parts, but that an educated Jew could travel and converse with Jews in distant places, just as priests and other educated Christians could once converse in Latin. It has been 'revived' several times as a literary language, and most significantly by the Haskalah (Enlightenment) movement of early and mid-19th century. Near the end of that century the Jewish activist Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, who was no scholar or linguist, owing to the ideology of the national revival (Hibbat Tziyon, later Zionism) began reviving Hebrew as a modern spoken language. Eventually, as a result of the local movement he created, but more significantly as a result of the new groups of immigrants known under the name of the Second Aliyah, it replaced a score of languages spoken by Jews at that time. Those languages were Jewish dialects such as Ladino (also called Judezmo), Yiddish and Judeo-Arabic, or local languages spoken in the Jewish diaspora such as Russian, Persian, and Arabic.

The major result of the literary work of the Hebrew intellectuals along the 19th century was a lexical modernization of Hebrew. New words and expressions were adapted as neologisms from the large corpus of Hebrew writings since the Hebrew Bible, or borrowed from Arabic (mainly by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda) and Aramaic. Many new words were either borrowed from or coined after European languages, especially Russian, German, and French. Modern Hebrew became an official language in British-ruled Palestine in 1921 (along with English and Arabic), and then in 1948 became an official language of the newly declared State of Israel.


Origins

Hebrew is a Semitic language, and as such a member of the larger Afro-Asiatic phylum.

Within Semitic, the Northwest Semitic languages formed around the 3rd millennium BC, grouped with the Arabic languages as Central Semitic. The Canaanite languages are a group within Northwest Semitic, emerging in the 2nd millennium BC in the Levant, gradually separating from Aramaic and Ugaritic.

Within the Canaanite group, Hebrew belongs to the sub-group also containing Edomite, Ammonite and Moabite: see Hebrew languages. Another Canaanite sub-group contains Phoenician and its descendant Punic.


Gezer calendar and other archaic inscriptions

The first written evidence of distinctive Hebrew, the Gezer calendar, dates back to the 10th century BC at the beginning of the Monarchic Period, the traditional time of the reign of David and Solomon. Classified as Archaic Biblical Hebrew, the calendar presents a list of seasons and related agricultural activities. The Gezer calendar (named after the city in whose proximity it was found) is written in an old Semitic script, akin to the Phoenician one that through the Greeks and Etruscans later became the Roman script. The Gezer calendar is written without any vowels, and it does not use consonants to imply vowels even in the places where later Hebrew spelling requires it.


The Shebna lintel, from the tomb of a royal steward found in Siloam, dates to the 7th century BC.Numerous older tablets have been found in the region with similar scripts written in other Semitic languages, for example Protosinaitic. It is believed that the original shapes of the script go back to Egyptian hieroglyphs, though the phonetic values are instead inspired by the acrophonic principle. The common ancestor of Hebrew and Phoenician is called Canaanite, and was the first to use a Semitic alphabet distinct from Egyptian. One ancient document is the famous Moabite Stone written in the Moabite dialect; the Siloam Inscription, found near Jerusalem, is an early example of Hebrew. Less ancient samples of Archaic Hebrew include the ostraka found near Lachish which describe events preceding the final capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian captivity of 586 BC.


Classical Hebrew

In its widest sense, Classical Hebrew means the spoken language of ancient Israel flourishing between the 10th century BC and the turn of the 4th century AD.[2] It comprises several evolving and overlapping dialects. The phases of Classical Hebrew are often named after important literary works associated with them.

Archaic Biblical Hebrew from the 10th to the 6th century BC, corresponding to the Monarchic Period until the Babylonian Exile and represented by certain texts in the Hebrew Bible (Tanach), notably the Song of Moses (Exodus 15) and the Song of Deborah (Judges 5). Also called Old Hebrew or Paleo-Hebrew. It was written in a form of the Canaanite script. (A script descended from this is still used by the Samaritans, see Samaritan Hebrew language.)
Biblical Hebrew around the 6th century BC, corresponding to the Babylonian Exile and represented by the bulk of the Hebrew Bible that attains much of its present form around this time. Also called Classical Biblical Hebrew (or Classical Hebrew in the narrowest sense).
Late Biblical Hebrew, from the 6th to the 4th century BC, that corresponds to the Persian Period and is represented by certain texts in the Hebrew Bible, notably the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. Basically similar to Classical Biblical Hebrew, apart from a few foreign words adopted for mainly governmental terms, and some syntactical innovations such as the use of the particle shel (of, belonging to). It adopted the Imperial Aramaic script.

Dead Sea Scroll Hebrew from the 3rd century BC to the 1st century AD, corresponding to the Hellenistic and Roman Periods before the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and represented by the Qumran Scrolls that form most (but not all) of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Commonly abbreviated as DSS Hebrew, also called Qumran Hebrew. The Imperial Aramaic script of the earlier scrolls in the 3rd century BC evolved into the Hebrew square script of the later scrolls in the 1st century AD, also known as ketav Ashuri (Assyrian script), still in use today.
Mishnaic Hebrew from the 1st to the 3rd or 4th century AD, corresponding to the Roman Period after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and represented by the bulk of the Mishnah and Tosefta within the Talmud and by the Dead Sea Scrolls, notably the Bar Kokhba Letters and the Copper Scroll. Also called Tannaitic Hebrew or Early Rabbinic Hebrew.
Sometimes the above phases of spoken Classical Hebrew are simplified into "Biblical Hebrew" (including several dialects from the tenth century BC to 2nd century BC and extant in certain Dead Sea Scrolls) and "Mishnaic Hebrew" (including several dialects from the 3rd century BC to the 3rd century AD and extant in certain other Dead Sea Scrolls).[3] However today, most Hebrew linguists classify Dead Sea Scroll Hebrew as a set of dialects evolving out of Late Biblical Hebrew and into Mishnaic Hebrew, thus including elements from both but remaining distinct from either.[4] By the start of the Byzantine Period in the 4th century AD, Classical Hebrew ceases as a spoken language, roughly a century after the publication of the Mishnah, apparently declining since the aftermath of the catastrophic Bar Kokhba War around 135 AD.


Mishnah and Talmud

The term generally refers to the Hebrew dialects found in the Talmud תלמוד, excepting quotations from the Hebrew Bible. The dialects organize into Mishnaic Hebrew (also called Tannaitic Hebrew, Early Rabbinic Hebrew, or Mishnaic Hebrew I), which was a spoken language, and Amoraic Hebrew (also called Late Rabbinic Hebrew or Mishnaic Hebrew II), which was a literary language.

The earlier section of the Talmud is the Mishnah משנה that was published around 200 AD and was written in the earlier Mishnaic dialect. The dialect is also found in certain Dead Sea Scrolls. Mishnaic Hebrew is considered to be one of the dialects of Classical Hebrew that functioned as a living language in the land of Israel.

A transitional form of the language occurs in the other works of Tannaitic literature dating from the century beginning with the completion of the Mishnah. These include the halachic Midrashim (Sifra, Sifre, Mechilta etc.) and the expanded collection of Mishnah-related material known as the Tosefta תוספתא. The Talmud contains excerpts from these works, as well as further Tannaitic material not attested elsewhere; the generic term for these passages is Baraitot. The dialect of all these works is very similar to Mishnaic Hebrew.

About a century after the publication of the Mishnah, Mishnaic Hebrew fell into disuse as a spoken language. The later section of the Talmud, the Gemara גמרא, generally comments on the Mishnah and Baraitot in Aramaic. Nevertheless, Hebrew survived as a liturgical and literary language in the form of later Amoraic Hebrew, which sometimes occurs in the text of the Gemara.

[Brendan]

Modern rabbinic judaism is very different from the ancient faith of the Temple, and continues to develop as all religions and people do. Hebrew was a lost language and they had to relearn to read the ancient source documents, so the Masoretic Text used today is actually of a later date than the Greek OT translation.

No one believes "as they always have."

Youre wrong on everything.

Hebrew was never lost. Guess what? I speak both Ancient and Modern Hebrew Fluently. Your comments are utterly wrong.


Also you said another wrong comment "Modern rabbinic Judaism is very different from the ancient faith of the Temple".

The faith is the same , we Jews worship the same God and follow the same commandments all throughout history. One of the 613 commandments is that we Jews should listen and follow our Sages.

So you sacrifice animals at the Temple? What a bald-faced lie! (If you do sacrifice animals as sin offerings, you should be arrested immediately)

Same for everything else you wrote. You do not speak the original Hewbrew - no one does, your delusions notwithstanding. Argue with Prof Brenner, a well-published academic expert on the subject.

You have nothing but entrenched delusions.

[SaulChanukah]

Modern rabbinic judaism is very different from the ancient faith of the Temple, and continues to develop as all religions and people do. Hebrew was a lost language and they had to relearn to read the ancient source documents, so the Masoretic Text used today is actually of a later date than the Greek OT translation.

No one believes "as they always have."

Youre wrong on everything.

Hebrew was never lost. Guess what? I speak both Ancient and Modern Hebrew Fluently. Your comments are utterly wrong.


Also you said another wrong comment "Modern rabbinic Judaism is very different from the ancient faith of the Temple".

The faith is the same , we Jews worship the same God and follow the same commandments all throughout history. One of the 613 commandments is that we Jews should listen and follow our Sages.

So you sacrifice animals at the Temple? What a bald-faced lie! (If you do sacrifice animals as sin offerings, you should be arrested immediately)

Same for everything else you wrote. You do not speak the original Hewbrew - no one does, your delusions notwithstanding. Argue with Prof Brenner, a well-published academic expert on the subject.

You have nothing but entrenched delusions.

I see that you also cant read.

I said it was halted for a while.

Hebrew was always with the Jewish people, you live in LALA land.

[Brendan]

Scholarship shows otherwise, and the Bible itself says the Book of the Law was only "found" during the reign of Josiah (when Baal and Asherah were still worshipped in the Temple. See the previous quote above), meaning the religion changed.

End of story - deal with it.

[slofstra]

You'll be pleased to know I've located the Rouge Jews. They are in New Zealand:

http://www.rouge.co.nz/artists/the-jews-brothers-band

Fave Saul insult this thread so far:

Just listen to yourself how you are shooting yourself in the foot.

Best to wear ear protection when you do that, Saul.

[Fugu]

Scholarship shows otherwise, and the Bible itself says the Book of the Law was only "found" during the reign of Josiah (when Baal and Asherah were still worshipped in the Temple. See the previous quote above), meaning the religion changed.

End of story - deal with it.

Brendan, Saul is beyond scholarship. He sticks his fingers in his ears and sings, "you're in lalalalalalalallalalla land, you're in lalalalalalalalala land."

[Brendan]

Indeed - yet I can see no reason to let that infantile bigot have the last word on this thread when his delusions and ignorance are so easily exposed.

[BWV 1080]

The theological issues discussed and debated include all aspects of modern life ranging from current politics and social issues to the impact of the latest technology on traditional Jewish thought. Many observant Jews are well educated in secular disciplines, are extremely successful in their areas of expertise and operate at the highest levels of professional skill.

The same is true of fundamentalist Christianity (to use the term broadly to include traditionalist Catholics, Orthodox, Reformed etc - not just evangelicals).

The dynamic seems to be that the liberals all get along and the conservatives fight constantly among themselves.

[pizza]

The theological issues discussed and debated include all aspects of modern life ranging from current politics and social issues to the impact of the latest technology on traditional Jewish thought. Many observant Jews are well educated in secular disciplines, are extremely successful in their areas of expertise and operate at the highest levels of professional skill.

The same is true of fundamentalist Christianity (to use the term broadly to include traditionalist Catholics, Orthodox, Reformed etc - not just evangelicals).

The dynamic seems to be that the liberals all get along and the conservatives fight constantly among themselves.

What you overlook is that the purpose of debate among Orthodox Jews (or "fights" as you prefer) is to determine what God wants of them, not to put one another down.

[pizza]

Scholarship shows otherwise, and the Bible itself says the Book of the Law was only "found" during the reign of Josiah (when Baal and Asherah were still worshipped in the Temple. See the previous quote above), meaning the religion changed.

End of story - deal with it.

End of story in your mind, but not in the minds of serious scholars.

From a Christian scholar if it makes you happier:

"The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Masoretic Text

The Dead Sea Scrolls play a crucial role in assessing the accurate preservation of the Old Testament. With its hundreds of manuscripts from every book except Esther, detailed comparisons can be made with more recent texts.

The Old Testament that we use today is translated from what is called the Masoretic Text. The Masoretes were Jewish scholars who between A.D. 500 and 950 gave the Old Testament the form that we use today. Until the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in 1947, the oldest Hebrew text of the Old Testament was the Masoretic Aleppo Codex which dates to A.D. 935.{5}

With the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, we now had manuscripts that predated the Masoretic Text by about one thousand years. Scholars were anxious to see how the Dead Sea documents would match up with the Masoretic Text. If a significant amount of differences were found, we could conclude that our Old Testament Text had not been well preserved. Critics, along with religious groups such as Muslims and Mormons, often make the claim that the present day Old Testament has been corrupted and is not well preserved. According to these religious groups, this would explain the contradictions between the Old Testament and their religious teachings.

After years of careful study, it has been concluded that the Dead Sea Scrolls give substantial confirmation that our Old Testament has been accurately preserved. The scrolls were found to be almost identical with the Masoretic text. Hebrew Scholar Millar Burrows writes, “It is a matter of wonder that through something like one thousand years the text underwent so little alteration. As I said in my first article on the scroll, ‘Herein lies its chief importance, supporting the fidelity of the Masoretic tradition.’”{6}

A significant comparison study was conducted with the Isaiah Scroll written around 100 B.C. that was found among the Dead Sea documents and the book of Isaiah found in the Masoretic text. After much research, scholars found that the two texts were practically identical. Most variants were minor spelling differences, and none affected the meaning of the text.

One of the most respected Old Testament scholars, the late Gleason Archer, examined the two Isaiah scrolls found in Cave 1 and wrote, “Even though the two copies of Isaiah discovered in Qumran Cave 1 near the Dead Sea in 1947 were a thousand years earlier than the oldest dated manuscript previously known (A.D. 980), they proved to be word for word identical with our standard Hebrew Bible in more than 95 percent of the text. The five percent of variation consisted chiefly of obvious slips of the pen and variations in spelling.”{7}

Despite the thousand year gap, scholars found the Masoretic Text and Dead Sea Scrolls to be nearly identical. The Dead Sea Scrolls provide valuable evidence that the Old Testament had been accurately and carefully preserved."


http://www.probe.org/reasons-to-believe ... rolls.html

[BWV 1080]

The theological issues discussed and debated include all aspects of modern life ranging from current politics and social issues to the impact of the latest technology on traditional Jewish thought. Many observant Jews are well educated in secular disciplines, are extremely successful in their areas of expertise and operate at the highest levels of professional skill.

The same is true of fundamentalist Christianity (to use the term broadly to include traditionalist Catholics, Orthodox, Reformed etc - not just evangelicals).

The dynamic seems to be that the liberals all get along and the conservatives fight constantly among themselves.

What you overlook is that the purpose of debate among Orthodox Jews (or "fights" as you prefer) is to determine what God wants of them, not to put one another down.

I am not overlooking anything. You could argue within either group that the reason the liberals do not fight amongst themselves is they do not care enough to do so. One only fights for something they value and hold passionately.

[pizza]

The theological issues discussed and debated include all aspects of modern life ranging from current politics and social issues to the impact of the latest technology on traditional Jewish thought. Many observant Jews are well educated in secular disciplines, are extremely successful in their areas of expertise and operate at the highest levels of professional skill.

The same is true of fundamentalist Christianity (to use the term broadly to include traditionalist Catholics, Orthodox, Reformed etc - not just evangelicals).

The dynamic seems to be that the liberals all get along and the conservatives fight constantly among themselves.

What you overlook is that the purpose of debate among Orthodox Jews (or "fights" as you prefer) is to determine what God wants of them, not to put one another down.

I am not overlooking anything. You could argue within either group that the reason the liberals do not fight amongst themselves is they do not care enough to do so. One only fights for something they value and hold passionately.

You miss the point once again. It is completely irrelevant to them what "they value and hold passionately". What only matters is determining what God wants of them and that is the sole purpose of debate. Nobody cares who "wins" the debate. What matters is determining the truth.

To put it in the simplest of terms, I'd love to slop down a couple of platefuls of scallops -- the experience of which I value and hold passionately -- along with a few beers at Fisherman's Wharf in SF, but God says no, and so I have no choice.

[BWV 1080]

The theological issues discussed and debated include all aspects of modern life ranging from current politics and social issues to the impact of the latest technology on traditional Jewish thought. Many observant Jews are well educated in secular disciplines, are extremely successful in their areas of expertise and operate at the highest levels of professional skill.

The same is true of fundamentalist Christianity (to use the term broadly to include traditionalist Catholics, Orthodox, Reformed etc - not just evangelicals).

The dynamic seems to be that the liberals all get along and the conservatives fight constantly among themselves.

What you overlook is that the purpose of debate among Orthodox Jews (or "fights" as you prefer) is to determine what God wants of them, not to put one another down.

I am not overlooking anything. You could argue within either group that the reason the liberals do not fight amongst themselves is they do not care enough to do so. One only fights for something they value and hold passionately.

You miss the point once again. It is completely irrelevant to them what "they value and hold passionately". What only matters is determining what God wants of them and that is the sole purpose of debate.

To put it in the simplest of terms, I'd love to slop down a couple of platefuls of scallops -- the experience of which I value and hold passionately -- along with a few beers at Fisherman's Wharf in SF, but God says no, and so I have no choice.

Now you are deliberately being dense. What they value and hold passionately is what they believe is God's law. However knowing from experience there are sharp disagreements in conservative christian circles what this entails and was extrapolating that the same is true within Orthodox Judaism.

[pizza]

The theological issues discussed and debated include all aspects of modern life ranging from current politics and social issues to the impact of the latest technology on traditional Jewish thought. Many observant Jews are well educated in secular disciplines, are extremely successful in their areas of expertise and operate at the highest levels of professional skill.

The same is true of fundamentalist Christianity (to use the term broadly to include traditionalist Catholics, Orthodox, Reformed etc - not just evangelicals).

The dynamic seems to be that the liberals all get along and the conservatives fight constantly among themselves.

What you overlook is that the purpose of debate among Orthodox Jews (or "fights" as you prefer) is to determine what God wants of them, not to put one another down.

I am not overlooking anything. You could argue within either group that the reason the liberals do not fight amongst themselves is they do not care enough to do so. One only fights for something they value and hold passionately.

You miss the point once again. It is completely irrelevant to them what "they value and hold passionately". What only matters is determining what God wants of them and that is the sole purpose of debate.

To put it in the simplest of terms, I'd love to slop down a couple of platefuls of scallops -- the experience of which I value and hold passionately -- along with a few beers at Fisherman's Wharf in SF, but God says no, and so I have no choice.

Now you are deliberately being dense. What they value and hold passionately is what they believe is God's law. However knowing from experience there are sharp disagreements in conservative christian circles what this entails and was extrapolating that the same is true within Orthodox Judaism.

Not dense at all. You keep moving the target.

Your original point (which you conveniently omit) said"

"Must be like fundamentalist Christianity. The fundie Christians are so busy anathemizing eachother over obscure theological issues they could never agree enough amongst themselves to institute something like a theocracy"

I replied by pointing out that:

"It is nothing of the sort and the assumption that it resembles fundamental Christianity or that its purpose is to establish a theocracy is completely unwarranted."

I then explained that the issues discussed were not merely obscure and theological and include modern and contemporary concerns -- all of which were aimed at determining what God wants, rather than "winning" the debate at the expense of one another, or "anathemizing eachother" as you put it.

I'm happy to see that you now include "God's law" as the purpose of debate. If that's the ultimate objective of Christian debate, then it isn't to anathemize one another as you had originally said, and of course that has never been the purpose of Orthodox Jewish debate.

[Brendan]

Scholarship shows otherwise, and the Bible itself says the Book of the Law was only "found" during the reign of Josiah (when Baal and Asherah were still worshipped in the Temple. See the previous quote above), meaning the religion changed.

End of story - deal with it.

End of story in your mind, but not in the minds of serious scholars.

From a Christian scholar if it makes you happier:

"The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Masoretic Text

The Dead Sea Scrolls play a crucial role in assessing the accurate preservation of the Old Testament. With its hundreds of manuscripts from every book except Esther, detailed comparisons can be made with more recent texts.

The Old Testament that we use today is translated from what is called the Masoretic Text. The Masoretes were Jewish scholars who between A.D. 500 and 950 gave the Old Testament the form that we use today. Until the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in 1947, the oldest Hebrew text of the Old Testament was the Masoretic Aleppo Codex which dates to A.D. 935.{5}

With the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, we now had manuscripts that predated the Masoretic Text by about one thousand years. Scholars were anxious to see how the Dead Sea documents would match up with the Masoretic Text. If a significant amount of differences were found, we could conclude that our Old Testament Text had not been well preserved. Critics, along with religious groups such as Muslims and Mormons, often make the claim that the present day Old Testament has been corrupted and is not well preserved. According to these religious groups, this would explain the contradictions between the Old Testament and their religious teachings.

After years of careful study, it has been concluded that the Dead Sea Scrolls give substantial confirmation that our Old Testament has been accurately preserved. The scrolls were found to be almost identical with the Masoretic text. Hebrew Scholar Millar Burrows writes, “It is a matter of wonder that through something like one thousand years the text underwent so little alteration. As I said in my first article on the scroll, ‘Herein lies its chief importance, supporting the fidelity of the Masoretic tradition.’”{6}

A significant comparison study was conducted with the Isaiah Scroll written around 100 B.C. that was found among the Dead Sea documents and the book of Isaiah found in the Masoretic text. After much research, scholars found that the two texts were practically identical. Most variants were minor spelling differences, and none affected the meaning of the text.

One of the most respected Old Testament scholars, the late Gleason Archer, examined the two Isaiah scrolls found in Cave 1 and wrote, “Even though the two copies of Isaiah discovered in Qumran Cave 1 near the Dead Sea in 1947 were a thousand years earlier than the oldest dated manuscript previously known (A.D. 980), they proved to be word for word identical with our standard Hebrew Bible in more than 95 percent of the text. The five percent of variation consisted chiefly of obvious slips of the pen and variations in spelling.”{7}

Despite the thousand year gap, scholars found the Masoretic Text and Dead Sea Scrolls to be nearly identical. The Dead Sea Scrolls provide valuable evidence that the Old Testament had been accurately and carefully preserved."


http://www.probe.org/reasons-to-believe ... rolls.html

And the Greek OT predates the Dead Sea Scrolls by centuries and disagrees substantially with the Masoretic Text. I have several copies of the DSS texts and they are not a complete OT by anyones stretch of the imagination. Schloarhsip still shows that the Isaiah text has at least two authors, for instance - something which the DSS texts have nothing to say about at all one way or another.

Change is still there however much you would wish to deny it. Josiah found the Book of the Law whilst Baal and Asherah were still worshipped in the Temple (now the Mosque).

[SaulChanukah]

Scholarship shows otherwise, and the Bible itself says the Book of the Law was only "found" during the reign of Josiah (when Baal and Asherah were still worshipped in the Temple. See the previous quote above), meaning the religion changed.

End of story - deal with it.

End of story in your mind, but not in the minds of serious scholars.

From a Christian scholar if it makes you happier:

"The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Masoretic Text

The Dead Sea Scrolls play a crucial role in assessing the accurate preservation of the Old Testament. With its hundreds of manuscripts from every book except Esther, detailed comparisons can be made with more recent texts.

The Old Testament that we use today is translated from what is called the Masoretic Text. The Masoretes were Jewish scholars who between A.D. 500 and 950 gave the Old Testament the form that we use today. Until the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in 1947, the oldest Hebrew text of the Old Testament was the Masoretic Aleppo Codex which dates to A.D. 935.{5}

With the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, we now had manuscripts that predated the Masoretic Text by about one thousand years. Scholars were anxious to see how the Dead Sea documents would match up with the Masoretic Text. If a significant amount of differences were found, we could conclude that our Old Testament Text had not been well preserved. Critics, along with religious groups such as Muslims and Mormons, often make the claim that the present day Old Testament has been corrupted and is not well preserved. According to these religious groups, this would explain the contradictions between the Old Testament and their religious teachings.

After years of careful study, it has been concluded that the Dead Sea Scrolls give substantial confirmation that our Old Testament has been accurately preserved. The scrolls were found to be almost identical with the Masoretic text. Hebrew Scholar Millar Burrows writes, “It is a matter of wonder that through something like one thousand years the text underwent so little alteration. As I said in my first article on the scroll, ‘Herein lies its chief importance, supporting the fidelity of the Masoretic tradition.’”{6}

A significant comparison study was conducted with the Isaiah Scroll written around 100 B.C. that was found among the Dead Sea documents and the book of Isaiah found in the Masoretic text. After much research, scholars found that the two texts were practically identical. Most variants were minor spelling differences, and none affected the meaning of the text.

One of the most respected Old Testament scholars, the late Gleason Archer, examined the two Isaiah scrolls found in Cave 1 and wrote, “Even though the two copies of Isaiah discovered in Qumran Cave 1 near the Dead Sea in 1947 were a thousand years earlier than the oldest dated manuscript previously known (A.D. 980), they proved to be word for word identical with our standard Hebrew Bible in more than 95 percent of the text. The five percent of variation consisted chiefly of obvious slips of the pen and variations in spelling.”{7}

Despite the thousand year gap, scholars found the Masoretic Text and Dead Sea Scrolls to be nearly identical. The Dead Sea Scrolls provide valuable evidence that the Old Testament had been accurately and carefully preserved."


http://www.probe.org/reasons-to-believe ... rolls.html

And the Greek OT predates the Dead Sea Scrolls by centuries and disagrees substantially with the Masoretic Text. I have several copies of the DSS texts and they are not a complete OT by anyones stretch of the imagination. Schloarhsip still shows that the Isaiah text has at least two authors, for instance - something which the DSS texts have nothing to say about at all one way or another.

Change is still there however much you would wish to deny it. Josiah found the Book of the Law whilst Baal and Asherah were still worshipped in the Temple (now the Mosque).

I consider your "Scholars" as almost stupid as you, but you still got the head of them in stupidity. Your ignorance and theirs is a combination of stupidity, idiotic, lunacy, dumbness, and last but not least illusionary.

[Brendan]

Ridiculous and childish ad hom does nothing to counter the arguments, evidence and scholarship put forward.

You aren't even very good at insulting people. Try a substantial argument someday.

[BWV 1080]

I consider your "Scholars" as almost stupid as you, but you still got the head of them in stupidity. Your ignorance and theirs is a combination of stupidity, idiotic, lunacy, dumbness, and last but not least illusionary

Saul can you give us a more exact breakdown of the mix there? What are the relative percentages of idiotic and dumbness?

[pizza]

Scholarship shows otherwise, and the Bible itself says the Book of the Law was only "found" during the reign of Josiah (when Baal and Asherah were still worshipped in the Temple. See the previous quote above), meaning the religion changed.

End of story - deal with it.

End of story in your mind, but not in the minds of serious scholars.

From a Christian scholar if it makes you happier:

"The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Masoretic Text

The Dead Sea Scrolls play a crucial role in assessing the accurate preservation of the Old Testament. With its hundreds of manuscripts from every book except Esther, detailed comparisons can be made with more recent texts.

The Old Testament that we use today is translated from what is called the Masoretic Text. The Masoretes were Jewish scholars who between A.D. 500 and 950 gave the Old Testament the form that we use today. Until the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in 1947, the oldest Hebrew text of the Old Testament was the Masoretic Aleppo Codex which dates to A.D. 935.{5}

With the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, we now had manuscripts that predated the Masoretic Text by about one thousand years. Scholars were anxious to see how the Dead Sea documents would match up with the Masoretic Text. If a significant amount of differences were found, we could conclude that our Old Testament Text had not been well preserved. Critics, along with religious groups such as Muslims and Mormons, often make the claim that the present day Old Testament has been corrupted and is not well preserved. According to these religious groups, this would explain the contradictions between the Old Testament and their religious teachings.

After years of careful study, it has been concluded that the Dead Sea Scrolls give substantial confirmation that our Old Testament has been accurately preserved. The scrolls were found to be almost identical with the Masoretic text. Hebrew Scholar Millar Burrows writes, “It is a matter of wonder that through something like one thousand years the text underwent so little alteration. As I said in my first article on the scroll, ‘Herein lies its chief importance, supporting the fidelity of the Masoretic tradition.’”{6}

A significant comparison study was conducted with the Isaiah Scroll written around 100 B.C. that was found among the Dead Sea documents and the book of Isaiah found in the Masoretic text. After much research, scholars found that the two texts were practically identical. Most variants were minor spelling differences, and none affected the meaning of the text.

One of the most respected Old Testament scholars, the late Gleason Archer, examined the two Isaiah scrolls found in Cave 1 and wrote, “Even though the two copies of Isaiah discovered in Qumran Cave 1 near the Dead Sea in 1947 were a thousand years earlier than the oldest dated manuscript previously known (A.D. 980), they proved to be word for word identical with our standard Hebrew Bible in more than 95 percent of the text. The five percent of variation consisted chiefly of obvious slips of the pen and variations in spelling.”{7}

Despite the thousand year gap, scholars found the Masoretic Text and Dead Sea Scrolls to be nearly identical. The Dead Sea Scrolls provide valuable evidence that the Old Testament had been accurately and carefully preserved."


http://www.probe.org/reasons-to-believe ... rolls.html

And the Greek OT predates the Dead Sea Scrolls by centuries and disagrees substantially with the Masoretic Text. I have several copies of the DSS texts and they are not a complete OT by anyones stretch of the imagination. Schloarhsip still shows that the Isaiah text has at least two authors, for instance - something which the DSS texts have nothing to say about at all one way or another.

From the same source re: Isaiah:

Two Major Prophets and the Dead Sea Scrolls

The Dead Sea Scrolls have been an asset in the debate regarding two major and well disputed books of the Old Testament, Daniel and Isaiah. Conservative scholars maintained that Daniel was written in the sixth century B.C. as the author declares in the first chapter. The New Testament writers treated Daniel as a prophetic book with predictive prophecies. Liberal scholars began teaching in the eighteenth century that it was written in the Maccabean Period or the second century B.C. If they are correct, Daniel would not be a prophetic book that predicted the rise of Persia, Greece, and Rome.

Before the discovery of the scrolls, critical scholars argued that the Aramaic language used in Daniel was from a time no earlier than 167 B.C. during the Maccabean period. Other scholars, such as well-respected archaeologist Kenneth Kitchen, studied Daniel and found that ninety percent of Daniel’s Aramaic vocabulary was used in documents from the fifth century B.C. or earlier.{13} The Dead Sea Scrolls revealed that Kitchen’s conclusion was well founded. The Aramaic language used in the Dead Sea Scrolls proved to be very different from that found in the book of Daniel. Old Testament scholars have concluded that the Aramaic in Daniel is closer to the form used in the fourth and fifth century B.C. than to the second century B.C.

Critical scholars challenged the view that Isaiah was written by a single author. Many contended that the first thirty-nine chapters were written by one author in the eighth century B.C., and the final twenty-six chapters were written in the post-Exilic period. The reason for this is that there are some significant differences in the style and content between the two sections. If this were true, Isaiah’s prophecies of Babylon in the later chapters would not have been predictive prophecies but written after the events occurred.

With the discovery of the Isaiah Scroll at Qumran, scholars on both sides were eager to see if the evidence would favor their position. The Isaiah Scroll revealed no break or demarcation between the two major sections of Isaiah. The scribe was not aware of any change in authorship or division of the book.{14} Ben Sira (second century B.C.), Josephus, and the New Testament writers regarded Isaiah as written by a single author and containing predictive prophecy.{15} The Dead Sea Scrolls added to the case for the unity and prophetic character of Isaiah.

http://www.probe.org/reasons-to-believe ... rolls.html

[Brendan]

That Deutero-Isaiah and even a third and fourth author have been a staple of scholarship for years is not jeopordized by any of the above. That the authors of the DSS texts regarded it as one, and the Books of Moses were were thought to be by Moses, is in no way a refutation of modern scholarship - of which the DSS authors, Ben Sira and the NT authors were completely unaware (as they were of J, E, D & P texts and so forth).

By the by, if the DSS Isaiah scroll revealed no demarcation, that the analysis of the later texts indicated was there, then the DSS text must be substantially different.

Can't have it both ways - is the DSDS scroll the same as later texts or have changes been noted that would lead scholars to think that Isaiah had more than one author?

[pizza]

By the by, if the DSS Isaiah scroll revealed no demarcation, that the analysis of the later texts indicated was there, then the DSS text must be substantially different.

Can't have it both ways - is the DSDS scroll the same as later texts or have changes been noted that would lead scholars to think that Isaiah had more than one author?

Why don't you post an analysis of the "later texts" that indicate a demarcation in the Isaiah scroll so that we can be more precise in our own discussion. It's been well established that the DSS weren't written at the same time or by a single scribe, but that doesn't mean that each scroll had multiple authors.

BTW, your claim that "the Greek OT predates the Dead Sea Scrolls by centuries and disagrees substantially with the Masoretic Text" is untrue. According to the Greek OC itself, the earliest translations of the OT into Greek were made about 282 BCE and were made by Hebrew scholars.

See:
http://www.kalvesmaki.com/LXX/

In any event, it's clear that before the discovery of the DSS, scholars thought that in the beginning of the Christian era Hebrew was a dead language. It was assumed that the Hebrew used in the literature of the years 200 and later was never a language of daily use. The discovery of the scrolls refuted these opinions. It then became obvious that the Jews of the Second Temple period, after the 70 year Baybylonian exile used both Hebrew and Aramaic and the scrolls are written, for the most part, in Hebrew.