Page 29 - Yahwehs Book

Asher in 895. Subsequently, it came into the possession of a Jewish sect in Jerusalem known as
Karaites. After being carried off by the Crusaders and later returned, it made its way to the Karaite
community in Cairo, where it remains today.

4. The Leningrad Codex of the Prophets. Written in 916, this manuscript includes Isaiah, Jeremiah,
Ezekiel, and the Minor Prophets.

5. British Library Codex of the Pentateuch. Containing most of the Pentateuch, this codex is an
important witness to the text. An undated manuscript, which formerly was thought to be from the
ninth century, is now dated a century later.
[Ibid]

Since we have no ancient manuscripts of the Bible in the Hebrew language, how do we know
whether it has been copied accurately during the preceding two and a half millennia? There are
actually a number of ways. Although the Dead Sea Scrolls do not contain the entirety of the Hebrew
Bible, they do include large portions, including the entire book of Isaiah on a single scroll. The Dead
Sea Scrolls were made by a sect of Jews called the Essenes who dwelt in the wilderness of Judea
from the first century B.C. until the second century A.D.. This means their writings are nearly a
thousand years older than the existing Hebrew Scriptures copied by the Masorete scribes. Among
the Dead Sea scrolls is a copy of the book of Isaiah. When comparing the Isaiah scroll to the
Masoretic text copied nearly a thousand years later, they have been found to be nearly identical. In
a thousand years there was no significant change to the text. Comparison of the Masoretic text to
other scrolls and fragments discovered with the Isaiah scroll reveal that there has been no substantial
change to the text. This takes us much closer to the original writings, but we can go further back still
if we look at the Old Testament in other languages.

In the second century B.C. the Greek ruler of Egypt, Ptolemy II, wanted to build a great library.
There were many Jews dwelling in Alexandria, Egypt at the time. These Jews spoke Koine Greek,
and were not fluent in Hebrew. Ptolemy sponsored a translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek,
and 72 Jewish scholars were appointed to make the translation. The word “Septuagint” means “the
seventy.” The Septuagint became a very important translation for the Jews, for many Jews no longer
spoke Hebrew fluently.

There are diverse views among scholars regarding the differences/similarity between the Greek
Septuagint and the Hebrew Masoretic Text. Some scholars focus on the similarities, for the same
thoughts are conveyed in both Hebrew and Greek in the great majority of instances. This has led
some scholars to suggest that the translators of the Septuagint must have worked from a Hebrew
manuscript very similar to that of the Masoretes. Other scholars focus on the differences between
the Greek and Hebrew Old Testaments, for the fact that there are differences cannot be denied. There
are verses found in the Hebrew that are absent in the Greek Septuagint, and vice versa. The
Septuagint also contained numerous apocryphal books, and some sections from apocryphal writings
were added directly into the text of books such as Daniel. However, in the great many places where
we find agreement between the old Greek texts and the Masoretic texts of the Scriptures, we are once
more assured that the basic message of the Bible has remained consistent throughout its thousands
of years of existence.