Masoretic or Septuagint?

[TheReturnofLive]

I'm curious what y'all think about which of the Old Testaments is the superior version to use - Septuagint or Masoretic - the Septuagint being the Greek Old Testament, and the Masoretic being the Hebrew version which the Jews even today use.

On the one hand,
The Septuagint was the one that was clearly used by the Earliest Christians - all the Old Testament quotes in the New Testament do not reference the Masoretic Old Testament, but rather, the Septuagint equivalents.
For instance, if you look up the quote that's used in Saint Stephen's speech before he's martyred, you'll see that it doesn't at all match the Masoretic text.

Saint Stephen says:
"Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Remphan, figures which ye made to worship them" (KJV)

But when you look it up, you find this:
"You also carried Sikkuth your king and Chiun, your idols, the star of your gods, which you made for yourselves." (NKJV)

In the Septuagint:
"Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Raephan, the images of them which ye made for yourselves" (Sir Lancelot Brenton translation of the Septuagint)

It seems that, in fact, the Septuagint has preserved older variants of the Old Testament text to a greater degree than the Masoretic text.
Finally, the Septuagint text uses the numbering of the Psalms that the Vulgate uses.

On the other hand,
From what I know, the Vulgate is largely based on the Masoretic text, and there's a more consistent tradition and handing down of texts from the Israelites to the Jews today - unlike the Septuagint, which started with Hellenistic-Jews and died with them insofar as the Jewish maintaining of the Tradition of the Books are concerned.
It's also the far more influential text, with most English translations based on it. Even the Russian (Synodal version, not the NIV version) translation of the Bible is based on the Masoretic against the Septuagint.

What are your thoughts?

[Heinrich]

This post confuses me in a couple of ways: 1) you mentioned "Jews of today" at least twice as some type authenticity barometer, and 2) you cite examples from a protestant translation of Sacred texts. How are we here, Catholics in the tradition of the Faith of our Fathers, supposed to relate to you, a schismatic, citing heretics?

[TheReturnofLive]

What are you on about?

This is the Non-Catholic discussion board. If you cannot discuss things with "schismatics" or feel it's a waste of time, then don't bother posting.

And I chose the KJV / NKJV because, while it's translation stems from multiple sources, it's Old Testament is based on the Masoretic, and the New Testament - the Greek, and I know it is. It's also marginally better than other translations like the NIV. The Douay Rheims and other "Catholic" Bibles tend to be strictly based on the Vulgate, which would defeat the purpose of citing it.


And while the Jews are no longer part of Israel (that's the Church), the Old Testament came from the Israelites and the Jews, who are the direct descendants of the Israelites. My point is that there's a continuous tradition insofar as it has an ethnic / cultural origin point and is still maintained by that ethnicity / culture. Maybe there's benefit in that - for example, as there is cultural / linguistic nuance that would otherwise be lost in a foreign culture.

Specifically the Mizrahi Jews use the Masoretic, if you want to argue that Ashkenazi Jews aren't Jewish.

[aquinas138]

The Septuagint should be used by those ritual churches based upon it. Ditto the Vulgate and the Peshitta. That's pretty much the long and the short of my opinion on the matter!

[St.Justin]

The Septuagint translated into Greek in 250 BC. The Masoretic dates from 500 AD. St. Jerome did not use the Masoretic text because it didn't exist. He used the Hexpela of Origen for his Vulgate. He was fluent in 7 languages and did most of his work while living in Holy Land. The St. knew what he was doing. I'll stick with the Septuagint, Vulgate and the Church.

[Heinrich]

What are you on about?

This is the Non-Catholic discussion board. If you cannot discuss things with "schismatics" or feel it's a waste of time, then don't bother posting.

And I chose the KJV / NKJV because, while it's translation stems from multiple sources, it's Old Testament is based on the Masoretic, and the New Testament - the Greek, and I know it is. It's also marginally better than other translations like the NIV. The Douay Rheims and other "Catholic" Bibles tend to be strictly based on the Vulgate, which would defeat the purpose of citing it.


And while the Jews are no longer part of Israel (that's the Church), the Old Testament came from the Israelites and the Jews, who are the direct descendants of the Israelites. My point is that there's a continuous tradition insofar as it has an ethnic / cultural origin point and is still maintained by that ethnicity / culture. Maybe there's benefit in that - for example, as there is cultural / linguistic nuance that would otherwise be lost in a foreign culture.

Specifically the Mizrahi Jews use the Masoretic, if you want to argue that Ashkenazi Jews aren't Jewish.

My apologies for rashness. I was not aware there was a nom Catholic forum.

Modern "jews" use the Talmud as a primary.

[TheReturnofLive]

What are you on about?

This is the Non-Catholic discussion board. If you cannot discuss things with "schismatics" or feel it's a waste of time, then don't bother posting.

And I chose the KJV / NKJV because, while it's translation stems from multiple sources, it's Old Testament is based on the Masoretic, and the New Testament - the Greek, and I know it is. It's also marginally better than other translations like the NIV. The Douay Rheims and other "Catholic" Bibles tend to be strictly based on the Vulgate, which would defeat the purpose of citing it.


And while the Jews are no longer part of Israel (that's the Church), the Old Testament came from the Israelites and the Jews, who are the direct descendants of the Israelites. My point is that there's a continuous tradition insofar as it has an ethnic / cultural origin point and is still maintained by that ethnicity / culture. Maybe there's benefit in that - for example, as there is cultural / linguistic nuance that would otherwise be lost in a foreign culture.

Specifically the Mizrahi Jews use the Masoretic, if you want to argue that Ashkenazi Jews aren't Jewish.

My apologies for rashness. I was not aware there was a nom Catholic forum.

Modern "jews" use the Talmud as a primary.

No problem.

[Kreuzritter]

And while the Jews are no longer part of Israel (that's the Church), the Old Testament came from the Israelites and the Jews, who are the direct descendants of the Israelites. My point is that there's a continuous tradition insofar as it has an ethnic / cultural origin point and is still maintained by that ethnicity / culture. Maybe there's benefit in that - for example, as there is cultural / linguistic nuance that would otherwise be lost in a foreign culture.

Specifically the Mizrahi Jews use the Masoretic, if you want to argue that Ashkenazi Jews aren't Jewish.

There's no "continuous tradition" because there was no "Jewish" monolith at the time of Christ and the Apostles. The most "orthodox" Rabbinical Judaism of today has its continuity with the religion of the Pharisees and the "mainstream" worship of the Secodn Temple, but on what is your implicit claim based that this religion represents the tradition of the Patriarchs, of Moses, or of the First Temple other than the claim of the Rabbinical Jews themselves? 

Counter-proposition: early Christianity was the continuation of that tradition.

[Kreuzritter]

I'm curious what y'all think about which of the Old Testaments is the superior version to use - Septuagint or Masoretic - the Septuagint being the Greek Old Testament, and the Masoretic being the Hebrew version which the Jews even today use.

Where the Masoretic and Septuagitn disagree, the Septuagint. Because the Masoretic was for certain culled and corrupted over centuries. Pity the Septuaginst is corrupted. Thank God we aren't a "people of the Book".

Saint Stephen says:
"Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Remphan, figures which ye made to worship them" (KJV)

Yes, a good one, because Stephen is essentially accusing the "orthodox" Jews represented by the members of the Sanhedrin of being worshippers of Moloch. Note how he stops with Solomon's Temple and never even mentions the Second Temple as being a house of God.

On the other hand,
From what I know, the Vulgate is largely based on the Masoretic text, and there's a more consistent tradition and handing down of texts from the Israelites to the Jews today - unlike the Septuagint, which started with Hellenistic-Jews and died with them insofar as the Jewish maintaining of the Tradition of the Books are concerned.

And a consistent tradition of "correcting" the texts which the Septuagint wasn't subject to after it was written.

[MilesChristi]

It really would depend on who you believe on which text is more faithfully passed down. The Septuagint is a translation (which creates opportunity for error) but it is a translation of Hebrew manuscripts much older than the Masoeretic text.

[Kreuzritter]

Eastern Orthodox source:

https://preachersinstitute.com/2015/08/31/masoretic-text-vs-original-hebrew/

[TheReturnofLive]

Eastern Orthodox source:

https://preachersinstitute.com/2015/08/31/masoretic-text-vs-original-hebrew/

I'm interested in what Catholics think - because Eastern Orthodoxy as practiced today very clearly has a culturally Greek / Byzantine starting point (this even applies to Churches founded before Constantinople exerted it's cultural influence and overwrote different cultural - even liturgical - traditions - like the Georgian Orthodox Church - mainly due to how influential and even forced in some cases Byzantine chauvinism was).

Considering that Catholics tend to more often than not use the Vulgate as their source, and thus they are more out of the sphere of the debate of choosing between the two - I'm curious to hear a perspective that wouldn't be as biased to their own culture, considering the views toward the Bible on this regard should be more or less the same.

[TheReturnofLive]

I've decided to fancy up this edited post with an asterisk. *

[Michael Wilson]

From what I have read, the Masorets' work was one of "uniformization" of the Hebrew text; they had saved three copies of the Old Testament from the destruction of the Temple, and when they went about making a new copy, any variations in the text were decided by which two out of the three versions were in accord. Not really a critical method.
Some have charged the Jews with corrupting the ancient manuscripts, especially as regards to the Messianic prophecies; but an article I read from the Traditional Dominicans, affirmed that while its true that some of the Messianic prophecies in the Septuagint are clearer than in the related texts in the Massoretic; there are also some Messianic prophecies in the Massoretic that are clearer that their counterpart in the Septuagint. 
Its also true that St. Jerome did not base his translation of the O.T. On the Massoretic text, but on older Hebrew versions, plus the Hexapla and the Septuagint.