Quote:
Originally Posted by maverickstruth
What about the instances where they contradict each other? And what about the Septuagint, which is the oldest collation of the Hebrew Bible that we have (even if it is in Greek)? Or, for that matter, the more recent archaeological finds which include snippets of the text which are older than anything available at the time when Stephanus (for example) was working?
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1. More often then not the contradiction is caused because one text omits a verse or a part of a verse. This could be caused by human error or perhaps in a few cases the scribe didn't like the doctrine the verse taught. When confronted with conflicting texts one can look at the reading from other texts associated with different geographical locations. There is also early translations available in Latin and Syriac and a couple other languages. One could also look at the writings of the church Fathers. You could almost reconstruct the entire New Testament from quotes made by the church Fathers.
Text that have been shown to be tampered with needs to be rejected out right regardless of age. Much of the problem with modern textual critism is refuse to reject any text out right. This is because they believe all texts are corrupt. If you removed any text from the equation that are known to contain multiple deliberate errors you wouldn't have much problem constructing a true copy of the original autographs.
2. I doubt that the Septuagint is the oldest copy of the Hebrew bible we have today. The Dead Sea scrolls contain a complete and an incomplete text of Isaiah, a couple chapters of Habakkuk, parts of Samuel and Leviticus. They also contain a translation into Aramaic of part of Genesis and all of Job.
There are about 30 papyrus fragment written in greek which are called the "Septuagint Papyri" which were written between 150 to 750 A.D. The exception is the Ryland Papyrus #458 which contains portions of 5 chapters of Deuteronomy from 150 B.C.
The responsibility for preserving the text of the Hebrew bible belonged to the Jews. From what I've read they took great pains to get it right. The Dead Sea scrolls affirms their work as well. The extant manuscripts of the Septuagint were copied between 350 and 500 A.D. They are attached to or associated with some corrupt New Testament texts originating in Alexandria Egypt. They are though to have been the sixth column of Origen's Hexapla. I think they should be rejected for those reasons.
3. I don't believe much has been uncovered since Stephanus worked that would contribute to or change his edition. It wouldn't make sense for God to hide his scriptures away for 15 hundred years leaving countless generations with an incomplete witness. If God has preserved his word at all it should be found in living streams and within faithful religious communities.