Gn 45:25-28: 25 And they went up from Egypt and came to the land of Canaan, to Jacob their father. 26 And they reported to him, saying, “Joseph still lives! And indeed, he is ruler over all the land of Egypt!” And his heart was numb, for he did not believe them. 27 But they spoke to him all the words of Joseph that he spoke to them. And he saw the wagons that Joseph had sent to carry him back. And the spirit of their father, Jacob, revived. 28 Then Israel said, “Enough! My son Joseph still lives! I will go and see him before I die.”
Ruth 1:15-17: (Observe YHVH for God’s name; Dead Sea Scroll notes are indicated by “Q”)
15 And she said, “Behold, your sister-in-law has returned toᵠ her people and toᵠ her god. Turn back after your sister-in-law.” 16 But Ruth said,
“Urge me not to abandon you or return from behind you.
For wherever you go, I will go. And where you lodge, I will lodge.
Your people will be my people, and your God, my God.
17 Where you die, I will die. And there will I be buried.
Thus may YHVH do to me, and thus may He add,
For only death will part me from you.”
Jonah 4:1-3: (Note bold and italics indicate a quote of another Old Testament passage.)
4:1 And it was displeasing to Jonah with great displeasure. And he was angry with himself. 2 And he prayed to YHVH and said, “Please, YHVH, was this not my word, when I was still in my land? Therefore, I moved ahead to flee to Tarshish, for I knew that You are a gracious God and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from calamity. 3 So now, YHVH, please take my life from me, for better is my death than my life.”
Habakkuk 1:5: (Scholars recognize this verse is improved by incorporating a reading from a Dead Sea Scroll commentary that quotes scripture and comments on it. In addition, the bolded section is quoted in the New Testament.)
5 “Behold, you traitors,ᵠ and consider,
And be astonished, be astonished!
For I work a work in your days,
which you all would not believe,
if it were told.
We are presenting to the reader a new English translation of the Bible, of the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament, also known as the twenty-two books of the Jewish scriptures, or TANAKH, and the twenty-seven books of the Christian New Testament. For each, we use the oldest available manuscripts. While the original autographs are lost to us, we use those textual witnesses that experts agree best represent the original.
We have created a new English translation of the Hebrew Bible (TANAKH) or the Christian Old Testament. We include only those books regarded by Jews and Protestant Christians as canonical. That is, we exclude the apocryphal books included in Roman Catholic or Greek Orthodox translations. One may reasonably ask what benefit there is to a new translation of these books. So many English translations already exist. We will explain those characteristics about this work that make it unique and unlike any other translation currently available.
In the last few decades, several new English Bible translations have appeared. Whether they are known for accuracy, for readability, or for reflecting the latest findings of biblical research, they all share certain characteristics. The Old Testament is based on the best ancient Hebrew manuscripts (of which roughly eight chapters are in Aramaic), while the New Testament is based on the best ancient Greek manuscripts. In fact, this can be said for nearly every English translation of the entire Bible, as well as for most translations made around the world, regardless of the language they are translated into.
The goal of this translation is to read as literal, as close as possible to the original texts. The original texts are lost to us. Therefore, we need to elevate as our textual basis the oldest, most ancient readings possible. For the Tanakh, or Old Testament, the standard nearly every English translation follows is the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible. The Masoretic Text is, in fact, the overall basis for this translation. It was developed by the Jewish Masoretic scholars in 600-800 CE. As the oldest complete Hebrew Scripture in existence, it is the best foundation text for any translation of the Tanakh or Old Testament. Passages exist, however, where the Masoretic Text may not be the best representative of what the original Hebrew text reading was. Again, the original reading is lost to us. But in some passages, textual witnesses exist that preserve a reading that is older than that of the Masoretic Text. In these texts, we make use of these older readings when evidence indicates this will get the oldest, most reliable reading possible.
The main sources of textual variants from the standard Hebrew come from (1) the Samaritan Pentateuch for the first five books of the Tanakh, (2) Aramaic, (3) Greek, (4) Dead Sea Scrolls, and to a lesser extent, (5) Syriac, and (6) Latin. The Dead Sea Scrolls are primarily written in Hebrew, though there are some Greek texts. They date roughly from 200 BCE to 150 CE. We will shortly provide some history to explain these six types of texts.
First, we will describe the types of Bible versions to clarify the need for this translation. Broadly speaking, there are three main types of translations: (1) literal translations that adhere as closely as possible to the original text, (2) eclectic translations that attempt to balance literal textual adherence with readability, and (3) paraphrastic or loose translations.
Literal translations adhere very closely to the Masoretic Text for the TANAKH or Old Testament, and the accepted standard Greek translation for the New Testament. They make little or no use of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Greek Septuagint, Aramaic targums, Syriac translations or the Latin Vulgate.
Middle of the road translations seek to strike a balance between accuracy to the original text and readability. They actually do make some use of the Dead Sea Scrolls. They also freely use the Greek Septuagint and, on occasion, the Syriac and Aramaic texts. However, they also adopt a more progressive stance that some object to: gender inclusiveness is one example.
Paraphrastic translations go farther down the “free” translation spectrum. At times, certain verses are translated so loosely, the reader has difficulty making a connection to the original text. While these translations utilize the other variant texts (Dead Sea, Aramaic, Greek, Syriac, Latin), the impact is lessened by the fact that sometimes one cannot tell where the standard Masoretic Hebrew Text ends and the variant text begins.
To understand the importance and relationship of the various textual witnesses to the Hebrew Bible, we need a basic understanding of the origin of each. As we explain the origin of each text, we need to realize that each text develops a history and a text independent of the other witnesses. Once created, they develop differently from and independently of the other text traditions.
1. Hebrew Original. Moses began the Hebrew Bible by writing the first five books in the thirteenth century BCE. Rabbinical Jews believe Moses lived from 1391 to 1271 BCE. There is speculation that the book of Job may be even older or that Moses wrote that as well. Various authors composed the other books up through the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, after the return from the Babylonian Captivity. The book of Nehemiah was likely written around 430 BCE. The Jews accepted these books as being divinely inspired in three stages known as the Five Books of Moses, or Torah, the Prophets, or Nevi’im, and the Writings, or Ketuvim. This provides the acronym TANAKH.
2. Samaritan Pentateuch. We need a little Jewish history here. When King Solomon died, his son Rehoboam became king. The Jewish kingdom split into two parts in 932/931 BCE when Rehoboam did not agree to reduce the tax burden on the people. The ten northern tribes became the kingdom of Israel, while the tribes of Judah and Benjamin became the southern kingdom of Judah. Jerusalem was regarded as the true seat of worshiping God, so many members of the ten northern tribes moved south to Judah. The religion in Israel sometimes followed YHVH, the Hebrew God, but sometimes combined this with worship of other gods. In 720 BCE, the Assyrians conquered Israel and renamed it Samaria. They brought in people from other countries and expelled many Jews to other countries. Over time, this mixed race came to be known as Samaritans. Then in 586, the Babylonians began conquering and removing the southern kingdom of Judah to Babylon. In the 400s they were allowed to return to Judah and rebuild Jerusalem. The Samaritans attempted to work with the Jews in rebuilding Jerusalem, but the Jews rejected their assistance. Hatred grew between the two races or kingdoms.
When the Samaritans and Jews split, the five books of Moses were considered canonical by both groups. The Samaritans accepted these five books as Scripture. Over the centuries, as the Jews added the other books to their canon as Scripture, they believed these additional books taught that the Samaritans were a lesser race, not blessed by God in the same way the Jews were. This is not an accurate presentation of the message of these books, but naturally, the Samaritans then rejected the newer books as not being Scripture. They preserved the Samaritan Pentateuch in their language, closely related to the Jewish language. An important concept that impacts other textual witnesses as well as this is that as the centuries passed, changes or variants that occurred in the Jewish text of the five books of Moses would not be found in the Samaritan Pentateuch. The two texts of these five books then developed their own textual history independently from each other.
3. Aramaic Targums. The next textual witness to the Hebrew text developed from Aramaic translations of the TANAKH. Their character is expansionistic or paraphrastic. They are therefore not regarded as reliable witnesses to the entire Hebrew Bible, though certain sections are considered more reliably literal. When the Jews returned to Judah from Babylon, they now spoke Aramaic, the language of Babylon. Aramaic was the international language of commerce during the period of the Babylonian and Medo-Persian empires. We read in Nehemiah 8:8 how Ezra read from the law to those who returned from Babylon to Jerusalem. They had to explain the meaning to the people so they could understand. While the text does not explicitly state this, they had to translate the Hebrew original into Aramaic so the Jews would understand. In Jesus’ time, Aramaic remained the “mother tongue” of most Palestinian Jews. Only with the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE did Jews abandon Aramaic and switch back to Hebrew in an effort to remain a separate and distinct people.
4. Greek Septuagint. The history of the Jewish people was bound up with the history of the world at large. The history of their sacred texts is also bound up with world history. With the conquests of Alexander the Great, the Greek empire replaced that of Medo-Persia. While the Jews continued speaking Aramaic as their mother tongue, Greek conquests spread Greek culture and language from Europe as far as India. In these areas, the Greek language replaced that of Aramaic as the universal language of commerce and government.
The library established in Alexandria, Egypt, was the largest in the ancient world. Since Alexandria was a major center of Greek influence, many of the books in that library were written in, or translated into, Greek. The Jews have a tradition celebrating the translation of their Scriptures into Greek. There is likely some basis to the story. The Alexandrian Library is said to have invited Jewish leaders to translate their Scriptures into Greek so they could be stored in the library for reading by the public who understood Greek. According to the tradition, thirty-six teams of Jewish scribes were brought together to make thirty-six copies of a translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek. There were two members on each team, or seventy-two scholars involved in the effort. When they were done, they compared the thirty-six copies and determined they were all nearly identical. This proved that God’s blessing rested on the project and the translation was to be trusted. This translation was called the Septuagint, which means “seventy” in honor of the seventy-two scholars involved in the work.
However the Greek Septuagint came to exist, it was developed between 250 and 100 BCE. It is also known as the Old Greek, to distinguish it from newer Greek translations made later in the Christian era. For two thousand years, the Septuagint has been regarded as a weak, inaccurate translation, not to be trusted. This is because it differs in so many places from the Hebrew text that has come down to us today. Discoveries of Dead Sea Scrolls, however, have revealed that the Greek Septuagint is much more accurate and to be trusted than has been previously realized.
5. Dead Sea Scrolls. That statement takes us to the next major textual category. From 1947 to 1956, and again in 2017 and 2021, documents and fragments have been discovered in 12 caves in the Dead Sea or Qumran area of the desert of Jordan and Israel. Of roughly 8,000 documents discovered, 2,000 are biblical. Wikipedia now says there are a total of 15,000 documents and fragments. The count is fluid as computers assist in cataloguing the fragments. These scrolls were written from about 250 BCE to 140 CE. They are accurately dated by carbon 14 testing of the ink and scroll materials, by studying the shape of the characters, and by studying the DNA of the materials used. Most of them are in ancient Hebrew, but some are in Greek and Aramaic. Most are written on parchment, some on papyrus, and one on copper. While scholars differ on some particulars, most agree there are five families or groupings of the Hebrew text.
Many of the readings from the Greek Septuagint, long considered suspect, are now supported by Hebrew Dead Sea Scrolls (identified with a Q for Qumran in our text). This increases the importance of that textual witness as well as others. Five books from Hebrew Scripture have more copies found in the Dead Sea Scroll caves than any other: Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy, Psalms, and Isaiah.
Most of the variants are very minor and of little or no interest. There are spelling differences and gender differences. Hebrew and Greek, German, and many other languages categorize nouns and verbs as masculine, feminine, or neuter. English does not. So the English reader does not care if a variant recategorizes a noun or verb from masculine to feminine. It makes no difference in English.
However, there are several significant restorations to an older Hebrew text provided by the Dead Sea Scrolls. We will provide a few examples. We have an entire paragraph restored to the end of 1 Samuel 10. Psalm 145 is an acrostic psalm that originally had 22 verses, one for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The nun verse (think “n”) has been missing for hundreds of years. The Dead Sea Scrolls have restored it to the end of v. 13. Isaiah 53 is a messianic or servant song. Three Dead Sea Scrolls restore the word “light” to the text of verse 11, which means that whoever suffered and died and was buried with the wealthy and wicked now sees the “light of day” or is alive. Christians will see Jesus as the fulfillment of this passage. Others may too. There are dozens of important variants such as these that restore the Hebrew text closer to the original text.
6. Syriac. Until now, we have discussed textual readings and manuscripts that were composed before Christianity came on the scene, before the birth of Jesus. They are therefore primarily relevant to the TANAKH, or Old Testament. That is, the textual transmission of these texts was largely conducted by Jews. Enter the Syriac, also known as the Syriac Aramaic language. It is an Aramaic dialect that emerged during the first century CE from a local Aramaic language that was spoken in the ancient region of Osroene, centered in the city of Edessa, Turkey. During the Early Christian period, it became the main language of various Aramaic-speaking Christian communities in ancient Syria and beyond. What is today known as the Syriac or Antioch Bible contains both the Old and New Testaments. For the purposes of the Jewish Bible, or TANAKH, or Christian Old Testament, this is a textual transmission that is again independent of those of the Jews, Samaritans, and Greeks. Aramaic is a Semitic religion, closely related to Hebrew. So is Syriac. While its relevance to a study of the text of the Hebrew Bible is contested today, its Semitic nature ensures it is therefore more likely to preserve certain qualities of the original text than Greek, for example. Greek is, of course, a Western language. Syriac Bibles were preferred in Eastern Christian communities from the fourth to eighth centuries CE, as far east as India. This tradition continues today in a reduced capacity.
7. Latin. Historically, of course, the Greek Empire was replaced by the Roman Empire from approximately 150 BCE to 450 CE. They used the Latin language. Latin, Greek, and Aramaic were the three primary languages that early Christians from Jesus’ day on were conversant in. When Jesus was crucified, for example, a title was placed above his head in these three languages stating, “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews” (Matt. 27:37, Mark 15:26, Luke 23:38) or “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews” (John 19:19). John 19:20 says it was written in Hebrew, Latin and Greek.
Jerome, who lived between 342 and 420 CE, created the most authoritative translation of the Bible into Latin. It has been used the Catholic Church from then to the present time. As many classical scholars did, he knew Greek. He also learned Hebrew, so he could translate the Jewish Bible into Latin, as well as the Greek New Testament. There are instances where the Latin text likely preserves an older reading of the Hebrew text than other witnesses. It is not to be ignored.
8. Hebrew Masoretic Text. The reader may understandably question why we need to further discuss the Hebrew text. Our Jewish and Christian Bibles are based on what is now known as the Masoretic Text. We will now describe how this text came to be. The biblical Hebrew text consists of consonants, without vowels. This can cause confusion on its own at times. If English only used consonants, the reader might have trouble determining if “ct” in a given passage was “cat” or “cot” or “coat” or “cute.” In addition, the Jews dispersed over the entire world, from Europe, to Africa, to the Far East. Two major areas of Jewish scholarship were in Palestine and Babylon. Some will add Egyptian to that. They developed different texts and different methods of punctuation. In addition, as we mentioned, there were at least five distinct textual families in the Dead Sea Scrolls from 250 BCE to 140 CE.
Sometime between 250 and 450 CE, the Jews in Palestine decided to standardize their varying Hebrew texts into one text. One of the five textual families that was part of this process is known as “proto-Masoretic” because it was a precursor to the Masoretic Text that became the standard. Texts varying from this text were systematically removed from circulation, and burned or buried. The Masoretes were Jewish scholars of Palestine operating from 600 to about 1100 CE. They developed a vowel pointing system to assist in standardizing the text. They took the proto-Masoretic text and added vowels very systematically. One key reason our Bibles utilize the Masoretic Text is because before the age of printing, the Masoretes were very careful to ensure a new copy of an old disintegrating scroll was copied as accurately as possible. The number of words and letters were counted in the new scroll and compared to those of the old scroll. The Masoretes knew and carefully delineated the middle word and the middle letter of each scroll in the Bible. If there were differences, they would search for and correct them. If they were unable to do so, they destroyed the new scroll and created another. Such meticulous care inspires confidence that these scrolls were transmitted down through the centuries until printing came along, with as few errors as possible. Their systems were so complex and intricate that it took years, even nearly a lifetime to become proficient in them. It would take several books to fully describe them. The oldest complete Masoretic text was the Aleppo Codex which was partially destroyed in 1947 when the Syrians rampaged through the Aleppo, Syria synagogue where it was housed. Therefore, now the oldest complete Masoretic manuscript is the Leningrad Codex created in 1008 CE. It is the basis used for translating all or nearly all modern English translations of Hebrew Scripture, at least Christian ones. It is also highly regarded by Jews.
The Dead Sea Scrolls discoveries suddenly put us face to face with texts that were 1,000 to 1,250 years older than the Leningrad Codex. When they were discovered, studied, and made available, it became clear that (1) confidence in the Masoretic Text was justified; it survived mostly intact through the centuries under the care of the Masoretes; (2) some readings here and there appeared to not best represent what now was clearly seen as an older, more accurate, usually clearer reading. This study continues because there are so many Dead Sea Scroll biblical documents and more have recently been added.
9. Other Textual Witnesses. The Hebrew Bible has been translated into hundreds of different languages over the centuries. The seven we have just explored are the ones most relevant to restoring as ancient a Hebrew text as we can. This discussion should help the reader better understand the necessity and uniqueness of this translation.
The first goal for this translation is to bring the reader as close to the original text as possible. It therefore follows the Masoretic Text as closely as possible when that text best reflects the most ancient text. Usually, the Masoretic Text is the best example of this ancient text. When, however, an ancient witness provides a better reading, we will use it. Particularly where two or more other ancient witnesses, especially the Dead Sea Scrolls, Greek Septuagint, and Samaritan Pentateuch, agree with each other against the MT, we may adopt that reading as the best representative of the oldest, most reliable text. In some cases, we may also make use of the Aramaic, Syriac and/or the Latin Vulgate.
This is the essential trait that separates this translation from any other. Conservative translations are very faithful to the Masoretic Text, with little or no consideration for other ancient witnesses. Eclectic translations make some use of other ancient witnesses, but not to the extent this one does. They also tend to be less literal than this translation, diverging from the text to be gender inclusive or more politically correct in other ways. This leaves the reader uncertain as to what the base or source text literally says. Paraphrases are even freer in their rendering of the source text. They may or may not make significant use of other ancient witnesses, such as the Greek Septuagint, Dead Sea Scrolls or Samaritan Pentateuch. The freer the translation, the less certain one is about how an older reading may improve the text.
The second goal of this translation is to tie the Old Testament or TANAKH closer to the New Testament. To facilitate this, we present in bold text any phrase or group of words in the Old Testament that is quoted in the New Testament. We provide a footnote telling the reader which passage or passages in the New Testament quote the Old Testament passage in question. For an in-depth comparison of these texts, we direct the reader to the parallel translations Mr. Gren has created of certain Old Testament books (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Ruth, Jonah, Habakkuk, Daniel) where these quotations are examined in great detail.
Characteristics.
In summary, then, the reader will find this translation follows the original Hebrew text as closely as possible, first by reconstructing that original text with comparisons primarily to the ancient Greek translation and Dead Sea Scrolls, as well as Samaritan, Aramaic, Latin, and Syriac translations from that text at different stages of its development, as well as by quotations in the New Testament and other sources as available.
Second, this translation utilizes phrases and linguistics peculiar to the Hebrew text, as discussed immediately above, that may seem unusual to the reader.
Third, this translation avoids gender inclusiveness and political correctness, where using them would conceal the author’s original intent. I as the translator, avoid paraphrasing constructions and my biases, to the extent I am aware of them. We all have biases. If I allow my understanding to influence the text, I alert the reader in a note, so he or she is freer to arrive at a different conclusion as desired. As a Protestant Christian, I am aware that people of other faiths or lack of faith may disagree with my worldview. I therefore attempt to remove my views from the process, and to be open to the understandings of those of other faiths and belief systems.
These texts are seminal to the understanding and world views of every class of people on earth, whether recognized or not. Hopefully, by exploring this text, the reader will have a closer encounter with the understanding and intent of the original human author than he or she has previously experienced. In addition, if the reader believes in or is open to the existence of a Divine Being, hopefully encountering this text will also bring him or her closer to God as well.
Ancient Bible
Email Us: congren@aol.com
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