Have Christians and Jews Been Falsely Accusing the Other of Altering the Hebrew Scriptures for the last 1900 years?

Excerpt from theTorah.com:

The ancient Jewish translation of the Torah into Greek is named the Septuagint [LXX] after the apocryphal story of seventy (two) translators producing the same translation (see the Letter of Aristeas). As the LXX differs from MT  [Masoretic text] in many details, it is clear that the translation was based on a different Hebrew text. Parts of this text are sometimes preserved among the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The enterprise of rendering the Torah into Greek in the beginning of the third century BCE in Alexandria was a Jewish enterprise, created by Jews for Gentiles and Jews alike. The Letter of Aristeas mentions King Ptolemy II Philadelphus (287–247 B.C.E.) as the person who commissioned the translation.  Although the letter itself is later than the events it describes, it likely contains a kernel of truth.

This translation was probably used in Alexandria by Jews in their weekly ceremonial reading from the first century B.C.E. onwards.^[2] The Jewish background of the Greek translation of the Torah is well established, while that of the post-Pentateuchal books is not, although these too undoubtedly reflect a Jewish translation.^[3]

Abandoning the LXX in Two Steps
Jews already began to see the LXX as problematic in the pre-Christian period, since it did not reflect the proto-MT text current in Palestine. This began a process of revision of the LXX towards the proto-Masoretic Text, reflected, for example, in such Jewish revisions as Theodotion (named kaige-Theodotion in modern research), Aquila (from Asia Minor, 125 C.E.), and Symmachus, in this sequence. As these new translations became more popular, the LXX translation gradually fell into disuse.

The emergence of early Christianity made the split between Jews and the LXX a foregone conclusion. In the first century C.E., when the NT writers quoted the earlier Scripture, they used the LXX or an early revision of the LXX that was close to MT, such as the (kaige)-Theodotion revision mentioned above. That was a natural development since the New Testament was written in Greek, and it was normal for its authors to quote from earlier Scripture written in the same language.

As a result of its adoption by Christianity, the Jewish-Greek translation of the LXX was held in contempt by the Jews, and was left entirely to the church. The Christians accepted the LXX translation as it was, generally without changing its wording.^[4]

Traditional Judaism’s Relationship
to Other Text Traditions

Despite the desire to believe in MT as the sole text form of Scripture, the rabbis were long aware of other text forms, at least those of SP and LXX. Nevertheless, from the rabbinic period and on, these texts have posed no threat to the supremacy of the Masoretic Text among Jews.

LXX – The Greek Septuagint was mentioned in very few places in rabbinic literature, but those quotations were accompanied by descriptions that the translators intentionally changed the contents of Hebrew Scripture in their translation concluding that therefore the LXX should be disregarded.^[5] (The rabbis never considered the possibility that the LXX was based on a different Vorlage.)

The text of the LXX was not quoted in rabbinic literature as support for their halachic or aggadic deliberations, since no sources other than the Hebrew text was considered “scripture.” When in rare occasions the rabbis quoted from a Greek translator, they quoted from the Jewish translator Aquila,^[6] not from Symmachus or Theodotion.

–Emanuel Tov, professor emeritus of the Bible, Hebrew University, Jerusalem

(footnote, #4)

[4] See my study “The Septuagint between Judaism and Christianity,” in Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, Qumran, Septuagint: Collected Essays, 449–70. It should also be mentioned that at a later stage Jerome rejected the LXX as a base for the Scripture reading in the church, replacing it between 390 and 405 CE with a Latin translation (the “Vulgate”) that was more faithful to the Hebrew text (of MT) than the LXX, and that in due course came to replace the LXX within the Catholic church.

(emphasis:  Gary’s)

 

Gary:  So there you have it!  The Septuagint was the preferred text of Greek-speaking Hellenized Jews.  This was particularly the case, in Egypt where this Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible originated.  The Septuagint was never the preferred text of Jews in Palestine.  The Masoretic text was the preferred text of Jews in Palestine, going back centuries before Jesus.

Hellenized Jews in the diaspora, noticing problems in the LXX prior to the time of Jesus, decided to harmonize their Scriptures with the text used by Jews in Palestine [the proto-Masoretic text], making revisions to the Septuagint called the Theodotian, Aquila, and Symmachus translations which were closer to the Masoretic text.  When Christians made the Septuagint their official text, Hellenized Jews completely abandoned this text.

Bottom line:  There were multiple different texts of the Bible in use in first century Judaism during Jesus’ lifetime.  We do not know which text Jesus used.  The authors of the Gospels quoted the Septuagint, this is probably what led the early Church to select the Septuagint as it’s official version of the Old Testament (although Jerome would later change this, adopting the Latin Vulgate as the official version of the Church, a text derived from the MT).

So in the first century, Christians selected one text, the Septuagint, for their Old Testament while Jews unified around the Masoretic text, the text of the Pharisees and later rabbis.  Neither side deceptively altered the texts.

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