Thoughts on Biblical Chronology

Refreshingly fair video

I was recently listening to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGPvW1uk7kE, The Bible’s Most Overlooked Change: A 1,400-Year Discrepancy. Thanks to Stephen Hackett for honesty and his wonderful attempt to be fair!

This video presented some good strong arguments favoring the LXX chronology; also, it presented arguments for the MT chronology. This fairness is wonderful, and refreshing in an online realm of, sometimes, too much un-founded bias.

Rabbis would not change their own text - or, would they?

One thing I have noticed from multiple Christian sources, is reluctance to think that Hebrews would have changed their own scripture; the claim, assumption, is that they meticulously guarded the text.

This can be put into perspective by noting that they not only changed their own text, but cut it into pieces and burned it in a fire! This is recorded in the Bible, Jer. 36 (NIV):

Jer 36:23 Whenever Jehudi had read three or four columns of the scroll, the king cut them off with a scribe’s knife and threw them into the firepot, until the entire scroll was burned in the fire.
24 The king and all his attendants who heard all these words showed no fear, nor did they tear their clothes.
25 Even though Elnathan, Delaiah and Gemariah urged the king not to burn the scroll, he would not listen to them.

We know also that the religious leaders crucified their own Messiah. They also persecuted the Christians; for example, they stoned Stephen; Saul / Paul persecuted Christians before becoming a Christian himself. 

So it is not unbelievable that they would have changed their own scriptures, if it suited their goals.

One argument mentioned for the MT chronology, is that the Hebrews were meticulous regarding the correctness of the Hebrew text. This seems to have been the case in more recent times; however, it is questionable that this was the case for the earlier Akiba. The Hebrews had crucified their own Messiah, and historically they had stoned those God sent to them. They had cut into pieces God's word, and then burned it in a fire, per Jeremiah 36. Also, per Dan Gruber's book, Rabbi Akiba's Messiah, they seemed to have adhered to the position that their authority transcended the the authority of the text of scripture, de facto if not de jure, and would reasonably seem to be willing to change their text.

Geographical distribution of text

Regarding the argument that the Rabbis would have difficulty changing all the copies in various geographical regions, this argument applies also regarding changing the LXX - even more so! The Rabbis had more control over their text than LXX supporters had control over the LXX, rabbis being the religious leaders, plus they had more motivation - stopping the spread of Christianity.

One point the video mentioned, regarding the Rabbis changing their text, was how could they change the text, "... without leaving evidence ..." Perhaps they did leave evidence, which is found in the statements of early figures in the church, stating that they did indeed change their Hebrew scriptures!

For example, Justin Martyr: 1

“But I am far from putting reliance in your teachers, who refuse to admit that the interpretation made by the seventy elders who were with Ptolemy [king] of the Egyptians is a correct one; and they attempt to frame another. And I wish you to observe, that they have altogether taken away many Scriptures from the translations effected by those seventy elders who were with Ptolemy, and by which this very man who was crucified is proved to have been set forth expressly as God, and man, and as being crucified, and as dying; 

and Origen: 2

The answer is, that they hid from the knowledge of the people as many of the passages which contained any scandal against the elders, rulers, and judges, as they could, ...

and more from Origen: 3

Wherefore I think no other supposition is possible, than that they who had the reputation of wisdom, and the rulers and elders, took away from the people every passage which might bring them into discredit among the people.

  • 1Justin Martyr, “Dialogue of Justin with Trypho, a Jew,” in The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, vol. 1, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885), 234.

    as quoted in Church Fathers and LXX .pdf, available from https://mailchi.mp/2f66eae28692/church-fathers

  • 2Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, eds., “A Letter from Origen to Africanus,” in Fathers of the Third Century: Tertullian, Part Fourth; Minucius Felix; Commodian; Origen, Parts First and Second, trans. Frederick Crombie, vol. 4, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885), 388.

    as quoted in Church Fathers and LXX .pdf, available from https://mailchi.mp/2f66eae28692/church-fathers

  • 3Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, eds., “A Letter from Origen to Africanus,” in Fathers of the Third Century: Tertullian, Part Fourth; Minucius Felix; Commodian; Origen, Parts First and Second, trans. Frederick Crombie, vol. 4, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885), 389.

    as quoted in Church Fathers and LXX .pdf, available from https://mailchi.mp/2f66eae28692/church-fathers