Paidion wrote:
The Septuagint having been translated into Greek from the ancient Hebrew without doubt gives the sense of that Hebrew better than the Masoretic text, of which we have no existing partial manuscripts until the ninth century. Even in the tenth century, the Masoretic text of the entire Old Testament was not complete.
The Scriptural texts from the Dead Sea Scrolls are closer to the Septuagint than they are to the current Masoretic text from which virtually all Old Testament translations are rendered.
(1) "Without doubt"? How do you judge the character of a translation "without doubt," without having its source manuscript to compare it to?
(2) Would you really assert that the Septuagint version of Job is more reliable than the Masoretic? And the Septuagint version of Daniel, which was even dropped by the early church in favor of Theodotion's translation (which more closely parallels the Masoretic)?
(3) Concerning the DSS:
"In addition to extra-biblical texts, the Dead Sea Scrolls, collected and copied from 200 B.C. to 68 A.D., include fragments from 202 biblical scrolls. These texts have been categorized by Emmanuel Tov, Editor-in-Chief of the Dead Sea Scrolls Publication Project, as follows: [from Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, pp.114-116)
1. Texts written in the special Qumran practice (that is, ones with the types of spelling, grammatical formation, and writing characteristics of the Qumran texts and no other group). These texts may in some cases have been copied from texts that resemble the MT. The manuscripts in this category constitute 20% of the Qumran biblical copies.
2. Proto-Masoretic texts, which resemble very closely the consonants of the later MT (Today’s MT includes numerous aides such as pronunciation guides, footnotes, endnotes, etc.). The manuscripts in this category constitute 35% of theQumran biblical copies.
3. Pre-Samaritan texts, which are similar to the later Samaritan Pentateuch. The manuscripts in this category constitute 5% of the Qumran biblical copies.
4. Texts close to the presumed Hebrew source for the Septuagint - about 5% of the biblical copies.
5. Nonaligned texts, which exhibit no consistent pattern of agreement or disagreement with other witnesses – the remaining 35%."
http://www.datingtheoldtestament.com/Texts.htm
(4) It is important to note that there is more to the evaluation of textual variants than simple dating of manuscripts. A twelfth-century manuscript may preserve a more authentic reading than a second-century manuscript, if its chain of transmission has been superior. So though dating of manuscripts is a factor in weighing their significance, different variants between manuscripts should be analyzed rationally in terms of content and character.
If one can provide a rational explanation for how or why one variant might have developed, then that should be taken into account. Does there appear to have been a spelling error in play, or an aural mistake? Is there a literary or historical reason why a scribe might have wanted to adjust the passage, out of better or worse motives? Does a scribe appear to be neat and meticulous, or are there recurring signs of shoddiness in their work? Such considerations can outweigh the relative antiquity of a manuscript.
