Has the Bible's Text Changed Over Time? Exploring the Evidence
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- Опубліковано 5 чер 2024
- On today's video, special guest Dr. Michael Grisanti joins host Peter Goeman and they talk about inspired textual updating. Are there biblical texts that have been updated since their initial writing? Grisanti points to at least two examples in the Pentateuch which have likely been updated since the time of Moses. Deuteronomy 34 and Genesis 14 are key examples in this discussion, and Grisanti walks us through how these texts are pertinent to the discussion of inspired textual updating.
Files Referenced in the episode:
JETS Article by Grisanti: bit.ly/3RFTy23
Response Paper by Barrick: bit.ly/45gCiWz
Maps and Figures from Podcast Discussion:
bit.ly/3Vveefo (Images from JETS Article)
bit.ly/3Vwbkqu (Judges 18 and Gen 14 Text)
bit.ly/3X7vnwS (Map of Genesis 14 Travels)
bit.ly/3wXVOun (Dan's Migration up North in Judges 18)
More on Dr. Michael Grisanti: tms.edu/faculty/michael-grisa...
More About The Bible Sojourner Host, Dr. Peter Goeman: petergoeman.com
Shepherds Theological Seminary: shepherds.edu/
Access The Bible Sojourner by audio: anchor.fm/the-bible-sojourner
Thanks for the tone. Though I lean toward Dr Barrick, I appreciate the discussion.
Hard to disagree with Dr Barrick! Appreciate the feedback brother.
@@thebiblesojourner Can you provide a link or direct us to Dr. Barrick's position?
@@alexyepiz4477 Sorry the link in the video description wasn't working. Here you go: bit.ly/45gCiWz
I really enjoy these discussions by faithful brothers about difficult subjects. Another one was in the book To Seek, To Do, & To Teach, entitled Does Biblical Prophecy Fail?. And yet another subject few will broach is the imprecations found in the Psalms and even in the New Testament. We like our theology to be nice, tight, and compact, but God won't allow it, lol. We are constantly being challenged by the intricacies of His Word.
I am glad you enjoyed it! It is a sad that many Christians dont have the opportunity to think through issues like this.
Thank you once again for bringing another great podcast. I love thinking about God raising one (unknown) up to “cement” the seam between Deuteronomy to Joshua, going forward. It would be strange not to give an account of Moses’ death and the writing of it by an un-named contributor works very well. Thank you also for the discussion within the cast around the ability and willingness to be firm with interpretation while keeping a brother’s respect intact.
Glad you found it encouraging and helpful!
An excellent discussion!
While “inspired editing” might seem suspect at first-because of erroneous ideas like Goldengay’s view of history that pretends to be prophesy after the fact, and the supposed editing of Daniel down though the 2nd century BC-it actually has a lot of explanatory power while upholding the authority of the prophets as God’s means to create scripture for us.
The editing and growth of certain books is evident in certain cases. For example, Proverbs 1:1 says that they were written by Solomon, but then 25:1 says that more of his proverbs were complied by “men of King Hesekiah.” And Proverbs also came to include the saying of Agur, see 30:1.
It seems that Isaiah may have had a hand in this editing process.
The idea of inspired editing also fits well with the conservative views on the textual records that we have in the Dead Sea scrolls. See the great work of the Text and Canon Institute in Arizona (John Mead and Peter Gentry). Namely, that the changes from old text type and some grammatical edits were necessary to keep the text understandable to later generations.
One might also argue that these changes, for example from the proto-Hebrew script to the Aramaic script, was likely performed by Nehemiah after the return from Babylon. By then we would have had a basically stable and prophetically authorized text which was then preserved without substantial change (as Josephus claims in Against Apion).
Of course, even after Nehemiah there would have likely been continued linguistic edits but nothing very substantial, but similar to the changing of words that require clarification as meanings changed through the centuries. And even here, most of the changes would likely have been made while preserving a mainline of the original text, or the oldest and best available.
But by the time of the destruction of the temple and after, the Hebrew text would have ceased to be edited like that, because it was no longer a living cultural language. All the linguistic updates would have occurred in the Aramaic, Greek, and Latin translations of the Hebrew. And this is what we see in the linguistic record.
This analysis would account for both the high agreement of the Dead Sea scrolls (about 22%) with the Masoretic texts, but also the diversity of “edited” texts for use as study texts and other apparatus like we produce alongside the Bible today. Such “edited” versions don’t mean we don’t have a stable standard text, which we preserve at all costs.
Anyway, just some thoughts for those inclined to be nerds out there. But as you say, Peter, it really would be good if more people processed this stuff and saw that there are really good reasons to hold to the scripture as a stable and reliable authority from the prophets and Apostles down to our own time.
Would be curious on any feed back, if this sounds off the mark!
Excellent thoughts my friend. I especially appreciate your mention of Proverbs, which according to its own attestation has hundreds of years of composition history. We have to deal with that somehow! I can’t believe I didn’t ask Grisanti what he thought about Proverbs. 🤦♂️
Good point about various spelling and grammar updates too. It is likely those did occur (a least spelling updates we know for sure occurred), and it is certainly possible there were grammatical updates. I’d be cautious in looking for examples but would like to see some possible examples. Thanks for your thoughtful comments!