What language was the Old Testament written in?

[Bartato]

I recently came across the argument that the Old Testament may not have originally been written in what we know as " Hebrew script".

I had not heard that view before and wondered if any of you were familiar with it? I know we here are more open to "outside the box" ideas than most. I feel more comfortable throwing out potentially "wacky" ideas to you than my pastors.

The idea seems to be based on several observations.

1. We seem to have older copies of the Septuagint (Greek language translation of Old Testament dated around 250BC) than we do "Hebrew originals". Our modern language translations used Hebrew manuscripts dating only to around 1000AD! These manuscripts come from Rabbis who explicitly deny that Jesus/Yeshua of Nazareth is the Christ.

2. A lot of scholars seem to believe that the written "Hebrew" language only dates back to around 500BC-ish, around the exhilic period. We don't seem to have older "Hebrew" texts.

Some books were certainly written around that time: Ezra, Malachi, Esther, Daniel,etc. Others were likely written around that time: Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Jeremiah, Lamentations, etc.

Other books were obviously written many hundreds of years earlier: David's Psalms round 1000BC, and the Pentatouch by Moses around 1400ish BC.

Please understand that I am not questioning the Biblical authorship. I know Moses wrote the Torah, I know David wrote those Psalms, Solomon wrote most of Proverbs, etc.

I'm also not questioning the traditional dating.

I'm wondering about the script, the written language. If they were written in Hebrew, why don't we have older transcripts. If they were written in something else (like Egyptian hieroglyphics) why don't we find copies of that on pottery or whatever?

Here is one potential implication.

The site where I read about this theory is questioning (or even opposed to) the use of the Tetragrammaton (YHWH), and propose that it is a later innovation (perhaps added by Edomites during 2nd temple Judaism) and might not have been in the original text. They propose that it might even be the name of a foreign god, not the Name of the God of Abraham Isaac, and Jacob, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Please don't kill me. I am just throwing this out there.

It does seem bizarre that there are probably older Old Testament manuscripts saying "Theos" than "YHWH".

 

[FollowingHim]

The original script was Paleo-Hebrew, otherwise known as Phoenician script (both cultures used the same language and writing). It's quite similar to the ancient Greek & Latin alphabets so actually much easier to get your head around than modern Hebrew script, which has no relation to English. The current Hebrew square script was only adopted by the Jews in Babylon during the exile. The Samaritans never adopted it and still use a script essentially identical to Paleo-Hebrew - so their Torah scrolls still look like the original (or as close to it as we have available). Some of the Dead Sea Scrolls are written in paleo-Hebrew, though most are in square script. So you're right that there are no complete Torah scrolls older than 1000 years, but there are fragments that are older and I understand some of these are in the original script.

Basically, I think the things you're wondering about are already well documented.

The Paleo-Hebrew Alphabet | AHRC

The relationship between the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet and the Samaritan alphabet.

www.ancient-hebrew.org

 

[Bartato]

The original script was Paleo-Hebrew, otherwise known as Phoenician script (both cultures used the same language and writing). It's quite similar to the ancient Greek & Latin alphabets so actually much easier to get your head around than modern Hebrew script, which has no relation to English. The current Hebrew square script was only adopted by the Jews in Babylon during the exile. The Samaritans never adopted it and still use a script essentially identical to Paleo-Hebrew - so their Torah scrolls still look like the original (or as close to it as we have available). Some of the Dead Sea Scrolls are written in paleo-Hebrew, though most are in square script. So you're right that there are no complete Torah scrolls older than 1000 years, but there are fragments that are older and I understand some of these are in the original script.

Basically, I think the things you're wondering about are already well documented.

The Paleo-Hebrew Alphabet | AHRC

The relationship between the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet and the Samaritan alphabet.

www.ancient-hebrew.org

Thanks @FollowingHim. Like I mentioned, this is new to me. I need to do some more reading on the topic. Thank you for the linked article. I'm often impressed at the depth of Biblical knowledge found among those active on this site

 

[FollowingHim]

Here is the full alphabet and its development from pictographs (first column), to paleo-Hebrew / Phonecian (second column), to the earliest form of the Babylonian script (third column), and some explanations of the origin and meaning of each letter. Also how the same letters / sounds became Greek and Latin letters. This is all highly fascinating.

Take Aleph / A, the first letter of the alphabet. It begins as a pictogram of an ox head, the ox symbolising power and leadership. First, strongest, leader. This is stylised to become an "A" lying on its side - an ox head drawn with three lines. That was later rotated to become the A in Greek and Latin script.

But the original name of this letter was "El" - meaning "God" (in the generic sense of "most powerful deity" of any religion). This also shows why Baal was represented with a bull, and why both Aaron and Jeroboam at completely different times made golden calves to represent YHWH - the bull / ox was the symbol of God, the strong, powerful leader. So if you were going to represent God with something physical, a bull is the most obvious choice in the cultural / linguistic context.



Also, look at the tetragrammaton - YHWH - in pictograms. Here it is, remember it's read from right to left:

Yud is a symbol for a hand, Hey is a man with his arms raised meaning "Look", Vav is a tent peg or nail. So you can say that YHWH means "Hand, look! Peg/nail, look!". Which would be a prophecy about the crucifixion of Jesus written into the very name of God himself.

 

[Bartato]

Here is the full alphabet and its development from pictographs (first column), to paleo-Hebrew / Phonecian (second column), to the earliest form of the Babylonian script (third column), and some explanations of the origin and meaning of each letter. Also how the same letters / sounds became Greek and Latin letters. This is all highly fascinating.

Take Aleph / A, the first letter of the alphabet. It begins as a pictogram of an ox head, the ox symbolising power and leadership. First, strongest, leader. This is stylised to become an "A" lying on its side - an ox head drawn with three lines. That was later rotated to become the A in Greek and Latin script.

But the original name of this letter was "El" - meaning "God" (in the generic sense of "most powerful deity" of any religion). This also shows why Baal was represented with a bull, and why both Aaron and Jeroboam at completely different times made golden calves to represent YHWH - the bull / ox was the symbol of God, the strong, powerful leader. So if you were going to represent God with something physical, a bull is the most obvious choice in the cultural / linguistic context.

View attachment 6764

Also, look at the tetragrammaton - YHWH - in pictograms. Here it is, remember it's read from right to left:
View attachment 6765
Yud is a symbol for a hand, Hey is a man with his arms raised meaning "Look", Vav is a tent peg or nail. So you can say that YHWH means "Hand, look! Peg/nail, look!". Which would be a prophecy about the crucifixion of Jesus written into the very name of God himself.

Thank you for the additional information. That is very interesting. The part about YHWH pictorially being rendered something like "Hand, look! Peg/nail, look!" is particularly interesting.

When we see YHWH In the Old Testament, the Second Person of the Trinity/The Son, usually seems to be in view. At the burning bush, I believe Moses was speaking with the Second Person/The Son. At Sinai, I believe the Law came from the Son. I think the Pillar of Fire, the Cloud of Smoke, and the Presence of God in the Tabernacle all refer to the Second Person. In some way, He had always been "God with us".

 

[Bartato]

Considering Bible translation, should we regard Hebrew manuscripts to also be translations in a sense?

Perhaps the Septuagint is just as, or perhaps even more trustworthy than the Hebrew manuscripts. I have always been taught to trust the Hebrew manuscripts more than the Septuagint.

I take note that the New Testament writers (and the Holy Spirit who inspired them) generally seem to quote from the Septuagint when quoting the Old Testament. Of course the New Testament and Septuagint are both in Greek, so that makes sense.

On the other hand, there are a few things rendered slightly differently in the Greek quotes in the New Testament than in the Hebrew based Old Testament. I should probably trust the New Testament quote more than the Old Testament passage, because the Old Testament Hebrew passage may have been a translation error, while the Holy Spirit confirms the Old Testament quote that He placed in the New Testament. I wonder.

 

[Mark C]

Yes, from what I have come to understand (and scholars who work on the Dead Sea Scrolls) - the Hebrew text that Yahushua would've read was in 'Paleo-Hebrew' (of which there were variants, over time, of course.)

And it's easy to find "Yod-Hey-Vav-Hey" in Paleo Hebrew characters, even a number of published Bibles (Besora, etc) that maintain the Name in those characters.

 

[Mark C]

Considering Bible translation, should we regard Hebrew manuscripts to also be translations in a sense?

NO!, And, again, very definitely, no.

EVEN in the presence of varying character sets, one of the outstanding, and outright "Divinely-inspired" characteristics of the "Torah scrolls" -- which have a feature that there are no 'spaces' or word-parsings in the original - is that they can be "cross-checked," and verified for outstanding accuracy in the copies.

Think of it as an ancient equivalent of "partity checks" or checksums, albeit more sophisticated.

(Thus, the mathematics - see Rips, etc. - of the "ELS" computer examinations of the so-called "Torah-codes. Words like "Torah," in the Hebrew - regardless of character set - and "YHVH" are literally encoded at specific, even Divine, intervals in the text itself.)

This is one of the VERY specific things that convinced yours truly, a hardened skeptic with a background in ECC (Error-Correction Codes, used for disk and tape data storage, data transmission integrity, etc) to recognize that those 'five Books' were, without question, the MOST accurate and reliable texts on the planet.


PS> I have more detailed articles on the topic in my library, but found this in a quick on-line search:

Torah Codes Explained - Aish.com

aish.com

I also looked in here (BF) - and, with the exception of a few mentions by myself and folks like @PeteR - I don't see a thread on the ELS subject. Time permitting, I may open one...it should be of interest here.

 

[Mark C]

Perhaps the Septuagint is just as, or perhaps even more trustworthy than the Hebrew manuscripts. [edit for clarity: No, here.]

I have always been taught to trust the Hebrew manuscripts more than the Septuagint.

Absolutely. For reasons that are worthy of entire books on the subject (and they have been written.)


NOTE: The only (rare) exception I am aware of might be a few numbers, which are represented differently.

But the error-correction and detection ELS and column checks, etc, disappear in any translation. As do any and ALL 'alternative parsings'. (I have talked about this, for example, in just the first 30 or so characters in Genesis 1:1. It has at least seven meaningful parsings - but ONLY in Hebrew.)

 

[FollowingHim]

The equidistant letter sequences (ELS) issue has always been intriguing, and it may well be a mark of divine authorship. @Mark C, one thing I've often wondered but have never clarified: what books do the Torah codes appear in - the Pentateuch or the entire Tanach?

However it is NOT an error detection code, it does not show us the text has been untampered with.

Think about it for a minute. If you look at every fourth letter, or every twelfth letter, or so forth in any text, you will find interesting words occurring once or twice, just by pure chance. The claim is that the Torah is different because these words don't just occur occasionally, but occur over and over again, repeated far more than would be expected by pure chance. The evidence of divine authorship is not that the word "YHWH" for instance appears once, but appears thousands of times, far more often than chance would result in.

But therein lies the redundancy in the code that makes it fail as an error detection system. Let's hypothetically say that a scribe made a change (either accidental or intentional) to a word somewhere in Torah. At most, that change might remove one letter from the word YHWH in one of its hundreds of appearances, so it no longer appears in that instance. I don't know how many times it actually appears in ELS so am making up these numbers, but the result may be that YHWH used to appear 1000 times, and now it appears 999 times.

How would you ever know? You wouldn't. You'd study the Bible codes and say "Wow, isn't it incredible that YHWH occurs 999 times? That's far more than we would statistically expect by chance, the Bible must be authored by God." You'd have to change a very large amount of the Torah before the number of appearances would reduce to what would be expected by chance, it is that heavily redundant.

So it's nothing like a checksum. I agree with @Mark C that it is likely a strong mark of divine authorship - but if so it is a mark that is made in a way that is itself redundant against errors, so will be largely preserved despite transcription errors - and the errors will leave no trace of themselves. So it does not protect against errors or alert that they have occurred, just persists and continues to amaze scholars even if such errors have been made.


We know that the Tanach HAS been changed over time, at least slightly, because there are differences between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Masoretic text, with the Dead Sea Scrolls often being closer to the Septuagint than the Masoretic text. The Septuagint was therefore translated from an older version than the present Hebrew text.


Which is more accurate overall is a question we have no answer to, and I don't think it's something to get dogmatic about. Augustine took the best approach in my opinion, arguing that both versions were inspired by God, and even the differences simply serve to further flesh out the meaning, God has something to teach us from both variants. Now, where the difference is an actual number which is different in one or the other, only one number can be correct, so I don't think this explanation that both are useful can hold firm everywhere - in some cases one must clearly be wrong (Goliath surely cannot simultaneously have been 4 cubits tall and 6 cubits tall)*. But as a general rule in descriptive rather than mathematical passages, I think it holds.

What the Masoretic Hebrew has going for it is that it's still in the original language.
What the Septuagint has going for it is that it appears to be in closer agreement with the oldest manuscripts we have available, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and that it has been preserved by Christians rather than Jews (which affects the potential motives for hypothetical edits).
Both are useful, just cross-check things in both versions when trying to understand them in detail - and ideally with the dead sea scrolls where a fragment is available including that passage.


* Edit: Well, he might actually have been four Goliath cubits tall and six normal man's cubits tall, so I suppose even two different numbers could in some cases be true!

 

[Mark C]

The equidistant letter sequences (ELS) issue has always been intriguing, and it may well be a mark of divine authorship. @Mark C, one thing I've often wondered but have never clarified: what books do the Torah codes appear in - the Pentateuch or the entire Tanach?

MOST of the studies (and software tools, etc, available on-line) have to do with the five Books of Moses, specifically (THE Torah) - but it would not be surprising to find other 'interesting anomalies.' Particularly with some of the prophets, perhaps.

However it is NOT an error detection code, it does not show us the text has been untampered with.

In that sense (and mathematically in general) NEITHER is a 'parity check.' A single bit parity in a byte can show a 'single-flip' error, but not multiple. The question is whether some errors can be detected, and in what form. (More sophisticated encoding can enable multiple-error correction as well, or a combination. ELS patterns can work similarly; if we know a certain skip should yield "YHVH" - we can correct a single character where is does NOT...although history suggests the scribes were just made to start the page/skin over.)

I would suggest that, in the absence of computers, what the scribes did had certain 'analogous' properties, but not scheme devised by man can guarantee NO errors, just none of some arbitrary maximum length, depending on the complexity (and redundancy) in the code.

What the 'codes' do is give SOME degree of error DETECTION capability and 'point to' a level of 'intelligent design,' arguably exceeding human capacity.

What the Israeli mathematicians (and others since) have tried to do is show that, for an arbitrary length ELS sequence, the chances of that pattern appearing in 'random text' is less than some threshold. Perhaps even 'vanishingly small.' (I can do something analogous for patterns in what is called an 'n,k code' to store data on a disk drive, or a "Reed-Solomon code" to store it on a CD. They correct some errors, can detect more, but there is ultimately a design limit.)

Yes, this is the general idea:

The claim is that the Torah is different because these words don't just occur occasionally, but occur over and over again, repeated far more than would be expected by pure chance. The evidence of divine authorship is not that the word "YHWH" for instance appears once, but appears thousands of times, far more often than chance would result in.

And in sequences, some quite interesting, along with the word 'Torah' (in Hebrew) as well; sometimes forwards, other times backwards, even pointing in a direction.

Again, terms like 'parity' and 'checksum' are modern computer-oriented concepts; it's the analogy that I found interesting. And the math can be handled similarly. (If you understand that in a computer or communication data stream, there are 'defined pockets' of information, like bytes and packets, whereas in a Torah scroll, there are rows and columns, but hand-written.)

 

[Mark C]

You'd have to change a very large amount of the Torah before the number of appearances would reduce to what would be expected by chance, it is that heavily redundant.

That is an interesting observation, that I have often commented on. Read Numbers chapter 7, starting at verse 12. As an engineer with an ECC background, that practically leapt off the page at me. It's the DIFFERENCES that matter in so many cases...

 

[Mark C]

RE: The 'Torah Codes'

Note - there are multiple aspects, having to do with verification, but most of the focus is on things 'prophecy-related,' events and such.

IF we get this forked off into a specific alternative thread, some might find these links interesting.

This article, by Prof. Daniel Michelson, Dept. of Mathematics, UCLA I found interesting:

"Reading the Torah with Equal Intervals,"

I have an older hard copy - but this link is on-line still: (it seems to have some other verbiage I haven't examined)

Torah Codes

And this looks like a good source for a number of papers, again - not examined:

UNDERSTANDING THE BIBLE CODE CONTROVERSY

UNDERSTANDING THE BIBLE CODE CONTROVERSY

www.academia.edu

 

[The Revolting Man]

Perhaps the Septuagint is just as, or perhaps even more trustworthy than the Hebrew manuscripts. I have always been taught to trust the Hebrew manuscripts more than the Septuagint.

How many Hebrew manuscripts pre-date the Septuagint? And do they differ from it? I am convinced that God distanced His Word from whatever the original language was on purpose. He does not want us to have the problem that Muslims have. They are all completely divorced from the Quran because it can only truly be read in Classical Arabic.

If the scriptures can only be truly appreciated in a language NO ONE actually speaks anymore then they can’t be appreciated. Besides, if God isn’t multilingual then why are we wasting our time here? That would clearly be a limited God.

The entire assumption at the base of this argument is that the scriptures are cemented into the time of their writing, that to understand the scriptures we have to understand the men who wrote them. I reject that as damn near heresy.

Man didn’t write the scriptures and they’re not tied to a time or a people. They are timeless and universal and they have been protected by their true Author for millenia. We don’t need arcane or secret knowledge to know them.

 

[Mark C]

What we need to know to know them is available, arguably now more than ever, and accessible to more people than ever.

But it doesn't mean that 'study, to show yourself approved,' and to "rightly divide" the Word of Truth isn't important.