The Nature of the Biblical Text
Study 3A The Hebrew Language
Hebrew, the language of the Old Testament, is written back‑wards (from our point of view), from right to left. The Hebrew alphabet has 22 consonants. Five of the consonants have a different written form when they are the last letter of a word. Two consonants have no sound. One is called Alef the first letter of the alphabet, and other is called Ayin.
Some of the letters are very similar in appearance and when copied could be mistaken for another. There are a number of groups of letters which are most likely to be mistaken for others in the same group.
Hebrew also has fourteen vowels, called vowel‑signs. They include five short sounds and seven long sounds. The short sounds are the ‘a’ as in ‘had’, the ‘e’ as in ‘bed’, the ‘i’ as in ‘lid’, the ‘o’ as in ‘top’ and the ‘u’ as in ‘bull’. The long sounds are ‘a’ as in ‘yard’, the ‘e’ as in ‘they’, the ‘i’ as in ‘machine’, the ‘o’ as in ‘hole’ and the ‘u’ as in ‘flute’. The long ‘e’ and ‘u’ can be written in two different ways. All the vowels are written as a little tiny ‘T’, a dot or several dots and sometimes dashes above, below, alongside or sometimes even inside the consonants.
Here are some of the vowel signs with the sound of each identified. There are other vowel sounds that are commonly used in Hebrew. The consonant Lamedh is used in the chart adjacent. It is pronounced ‘l’.
Ancient Hebrew was originally written without any vowels (vowel signs). When the vowels are written in the text, it is called pointing. Compare the two examples of Hebrew shown above to see the difference between pointed and unpointed text.
The insertion of different vowels into the same small group of consonants can lead to different words being created and thus to slightly different meanings.
Hebrew was, in ancient times, normally written without word separation and without any punctuation. It was usually written as a long line of consonants from one end of the line to the other. Sometimes there would be gaps between some of the consonants but this was probably because the scribe stopped to put more ink on his writing implement.
As a way of trying to appreciate what this means, if we read from left to right, imagine being confronted with
Swyftryngtpprctwhtth smnsmg nbngnfrntdwth snttdffclttnrvl
This long line of consonants when separated into separate words and then when vowels are added as well, reads: ‘As a way of trying to appreciate what this means, imagine being confronted with - Isn’t it difficult to unravel?’
Try this one yourself. ‘cntrd’ . It can become ‘I can’t read.’ or ‘I can tread.’ or ‘I can’t ride.’ or ‘centred’ or ?? Can you work out any different combinations? No help with this one, ‘thhbrwlnggsdffclttwrt’. Maybe there are alternatives for it.
It could be said that Hebrew is more regular than English. Dividing a long line of consonants in English is probably far more difficult than for Hebrew. There are some Hebrew consonants that have a special written form when they are the last letter in a word, as previously stated, so that can be helpful in separating individual words from each other. Often the context is helpful in separating the words from each other.
These ways of writing and the similarity of some of the consonants in written Hebrew led to it being imprecise and sometimes unclear, even ambiguous. It has led to numerous differences in copies made by the scribes. Most of these variations are unimportant, however some are significant.
Remember, all the writing had to be done by hand as there were no printing or copying machines in those early days. There are thousands of different old documents, comprising various parts of the Old Testament still in existence, the most famous of which are some of the Dead Sea Scrolls. A cave was where the scrolls, some thousands of fragments of Biblical and early Jewish documents, were found between 1947 and 1956. They vary in importance, partly because of their content, partly because of their suspected age and partly because of how authentic they are considered to be.
1. Word separation
Some of the early manuscripts show that it is not easy to make an obvious separation of consonants into words or even recognise some of the individual letters. I suppose we should not complain about this because it is often said, ‘Sorry you can’t read my writing. I can’t read it myself sometimes!’
With the lack of word separation into individual words, problems can arise. A classic example of this, about which debate still persists, is Isaiah 53:9. With a long line of consonants it is sometimes possible to divide them into different sets of words. In the New English Bible, with one particular word separation, Isaiah 53:9 is translated as -
He was assigned a grave with the wicked;
A burial‑place among the refuse of mankind.
Poor people would certainly not have been buried in such a tomb. Many corpses would be left to decay on a rubbish dump. However, according to the tradition of the gospels, a grave was where Jesus was buried. We are told that it had not been used by anyone else. It would be for the rich! This does not fit the translation above. In other translations however, with a different separation of the Hebrew consonants give rise to different words, and thus a different translation. This is -
He was assigned a grave with the wicked;
A burial‑place among the rich.
This second translation is the usual one. This may not sound too serious, but this verse has been used to ‘prove’ that Isaiah was making a prophesy about Jesus. Jesus was crucified between two thieves, ‑ a grave with the wicked, and according to Luke, he was buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathaea, a rich member of the Jewish ruling class, ‑ a burial-place among the rich.
The New English Bible has been ceremoniously burnt because of its suggested wrong translation, given in the New English Bible stated above, supposedly questioning or discrediting the verse as a prophesy about Jesus’ death and burial.
The reason why the New English Bible translators give a different wording is that they assert that their translation fits better the general traditions of Hebrew poetry and all Isaiah 53 is poetry.
To understand the reasons for the New English Bible’s translation we need to look briefly at Hebrew poetry. One of the general principles of Hebrew poetry is that it is often written in couplets - two consecutive lines stating a similar idea but in slightly different words. This is a form of parallelism. The Psalms have numerous examples of this. I have chosen a few at random.
Psalm 1:3
’ But Israel does not know,
My people do not understand.
Psalm 34:1
I will bless the Lord continually;
His praise shall be always on my lips.
Psalm 38:1
O Lord, do not rebuke me in thy anger.
Nor punish me in thy wrath.
Psalm 89:1
I will sing the story of thy love, O Lord, for ever.
I will proclaim thy faithfulness to all generations.
Psalm 140:1
Rescue me, O Lord, from evil men;
Keep me safe from violent men.
And so on and on and on.
In Isaiah 53:9, the New English Bible with its particular consonant separation has translated the words so that they follow this poetic principle of parallelism.
Because of the problem sometimes exposed by the ‘word separation’ issue, the translation remains a matter of debate.
2. Punctuation
Sometimes the use of punctuation produces particular meanings. It can even give opposite meanings. Consider the sentence - ‘A woman without her man, is nothing.’ With different punctuation it has the opposite meaning; ‘A woman: without her, man is nothing.’
Differences can also be made by the question mark. Remember there was no such thing as question marks when the Hebrew text was originally written. There was no punctuation. Psalm 121:1 is a case in point. The translation of this verse in the Authorised King James Version, a conservative translation, is -
I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills,
From whence doth come my help.
The implication can be that ‘my help’ comes from the hills; i.e. when observing the grandeur of the hills, I receive help. Verse 2 of that translation reads that ‘my help’ also comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth. If however a question mark is added at the end of verse 1, the meaning is altered somewhat. The New English Bible has the translation as -
If I lift up my eyes to the hills,
where shall I find help?
This verse 1 is no longer a statement. It is now a question. There is no longer any inference that help comes from contemplating nature. The answer to this question is in verse 2 -
Help comes only from the Lord,
Maker of heaven and earth.
It is the creator and not the created from whom help comes.
Fairly easily we can get carried away with these differences and difficulties created by this lack of punctuation, thinking that the text of the Bible is unreliable, but we should not think of them as something that can be completely disregarded or ignored.
Sometimes the use of appropriate punctuation can add an important emphasis to the text and in so doing, modify its meaning. It is interesting however to realise that Martin Luther ‘recognised mistakes and inconsistencies’ in Scripture but treated them with lofty indifference because ‘they did not touch the heart of the Gospel’. Maybe that is a sensible approach to take.
3. Variant Readings
The Hebrew language as it was written and the practices that scribes employed, led to the possibility of differences in copies of the same text. For numerous passages of the Bible, there is more than one ancient manuscript still in existence and, when comparing these manuscripts, some differences can be significant. These variations of the same verses or larger sections of the text are called ‘variant readings’.
Some of these early manuscripts have variations in the words. Some have different words added or deleted. Some of them have whole passages added, deleted or changed. There are literally thousands of variations of the text, for both the Old and the New Testaments.
We must remember that there were no printing or copying machines before the mid‑fifteenth century CE. Copies of any documents were made be hand, written by scribes. Copies were made of copies and then copies were made of these and so on.
Some variations occurred because the scribes made inadvertent errors, some because of confusion over letters or letter combinations, some because they misread abbreviations, some because they could not decipher the manuscript they were copying. However, some variations occurred because the scribes made quite conscious and deliberate, what they thought were, improvements to the text.
It should be emphasised however, that a high percentage of that which was copied, was done so correctly, without variation, deliberate or accidental.
For the following note and exercise suggested, I am using the Good News Bible. It is entitled ‘Good News Bible - Today’s English Version’ and it was first published in 1976. It has a number of ‘helps’ for Bible study. It also has seven maps and an Outline Chart of Bible History in the back. It is the version from which I quote and the version that I refer to in this and other studies.
In this Good News Bible there are footnotes at the bottom of each printed page of the Old Testament. Many of these footnotes, when referring to the text in the page above, state ‘Hebrew unclear’, or ‘Hebrew has an additional word......’, or ‘the meaning of which is unclear’, or ‘one ancient translation has ...’, or ‘some ancient translations have ...’, or ‘probable text is ...’ or and so on.
Here is an exercise to do with the help of this Good News Bible. To follow the footnotes, it is necessary to identify the verse in the text to which the footnote refers.
Consult a copy of the Good News Bible. Locate for Psalm 68. At the bottom of page, No. 577, under the actual text of the Psalm, there are 4 footnotes. The little ‘o’ in the footnote, which is also printed at the end of verse 30 of the Psalm, (Sometimes it is quite difficult finding the tiny letter of the footnote in the text.) says the ‘Verse 30 in Hebrew is unclear’. It would appear that this refers to the whole verse. The little ‘p’ in the footnotes, is also printed at the end of the first word in verse 31 - the word ‘ambassadors’. The Good News Bible , in the footnote, states, ‘Some ancient translations Ambassadors; Hebrew unclear’. The little ‘q’ referring to the title of Psalm 69, suggests that the title could include ‘By David’. The Good News Bible chooses not to include this in the title. Then little ‘r’, in the footnotes, refers to verse 10 of Psalm 69. An alternative to ‘humble myself’ is ‘cry’ in the Hebrew. It would appear from the text of the Good News Bible that ‘humble yourself’ was chosen for some reason, maybe because it fitted better in the context of the verse.
When doing Bible study in groups it is sometimes a helpful exercise to refer to the footnotes. There are thousands of them for the Old Testament and also a large number for the New Testament. They can often give added insights into the text being studied. Get a copy of the Good News Bible and have a look yourself. Try another page.
In the second paragraph of the preface at the front of The Good News Bible on page vii, the basis of the final English text printed in the Good News Bible is discussed. It is stated that the major source is a particular Hebrew text called Biblia Hebraica. It is also stated that other sources which give rise to ‘variant readings’ are sometimes used. It also mentions word separation and consonant separation and the fact that a choice of particular vowels was necessary before arriving at the final text.
Below is the quote from the Good News Bible, from the 2nd paragraph of the Preface. Some of what is bold and in brackets, links this quote to content of this study.
The basic text of the Old Testament (in the Good News Bible) is the Masoretic Text (Hebrew text) printed in Biblia Hebraica (3rd edition, 1937), edited by Rudolf Kittel. In some instances the words of the printed consonantal text (that is, without vowels) have been divided differently (as referred to above in the section ‘Word separation’) or have been read with a different set of vowels (referred to above in the first section ‘The written Hebrew language’ as ‘unpointed’); at times a variant reading (as referred to above in the section ‘Variant readings’) in the margin of the Hebrew text has been followed instead of the reading in the text (of Biblia Hebraica); and in other instances a variant reading (again referred to above in the section ‘Variant Readings’) supported by one or more Hebrew manuscripts has been adopted. Where no Hebrew source yields a satisfactory meaning in the context, (probably referring to the verses for which it is stated in the footnotes that the ‘Hebrew is unclear’) the translation has either followed one or more of the ancient versions e.g. Greek, Syriac, Latin, or has adopted a reconstituted text based on scholarly agreement; such departures from the Hebrew are indicated in the footnotes.
All this means is that we are dealing with an extremely complex situation regarding the actual text of the Old Testament. It is absolutely impossible to know, in many cases, what the original text actually was. Variations very often occur in ancient manuscripts. Some of these are obviously older than others. Some are obviously more authentic than others. However, it is a matter of scholarly research to determine what might be the oldest or the closest to the original text. In this exercise, the translators can use only the source documents that are available to them.
I quote again from the Preface of the Good News Bible. In the 5th paragraph it states -
The Primary concern of the translators has been to provide a faithful translation of the meaning of the Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek texts. Their first task was to understand correctly the meaning of the original. At times the original meaning cannot be precisely known not only because the meaning of some words and phrases cannot be determined with a great degree of assurance but also because the underlying cultural and historical context is sometimes beyond recovery.
Maybe the important point to make is that, because of these difficulties and differences, we should not always rely too much on the details of the text. We should be careful about being too dogmatic regarding subtle aspects of the detail. Because of the impreciseness of the ancient written language, and because of the human error that creeps into things written and subsequently copied, we cannot be absolutely sure, in many cases, what is closest to the original or what is the most correct translation. We should not be surprised by differences of scholarly opinion.
As stated above, the job of translation is extremely complex and difficult. Differences in translation by different translators are inevitable. No matter what our opinion is, we need to remain open to others having a different understanding. Maybe we should be looking for guidance and wisdom rather than correctness.
Questions and quotations for discussion
With all these different documents available, how can we be sure that we have a faithful translation of the Old Testament today?
Because the written Hebrew language seems to be able to be misunderstood or misinterpreted or mistranslated in so many different ways, can we take any of the Old Testament to be reliable?
Even with the different ‘variant readings’, the fundamentals of the message are not really changed. The Bible has stood the test of time. That should be sufficient for us.
It is helpful to appreciate that, with all these opportunities for errors etc., there is much agreement among scholars regarding a great majority of the text.
Do you think there are mistakes or misguided teachings in the Bible, and if so what should we do about them?
Do people think the accuracy of the text is so important?
Print Booklet (Download and print double-side, flip on short edge) The text above has the text of the bookblets edited somewhat and because there are many pictures in the booklets, all reference to them has been omitted.