by Giuseppe Guarino
TANAKH
THE OLD TESTAMENT
TANAKH is the acronym formed using the initials of the three main divisions of the Holy Scriptures according to the Jewish Canon: Law: Torah, תורה – Prophets: Nebi’îm (or Nevi’îm), נביאים – Writings: Ketubîm (or Ketuvîm), כתובים.
The Tanakh is also called the Old Testament by Christians who add the New to complete the collection called the Bible, the sacred book of Christianity.
These, schematically, are the books that are part of the Hebrew canon.
The TORAH, also called the Law, or the Pentateuch,
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.
The PROPHETS
Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the 12 minor prophets (Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zachariah, Malachi)
The WRITINGS
Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra and Nehemiah, Chronicles
Jesus himself referred to this triple division in a marvelous confirmation of his messiahship: “These are the words I said to you when I was still with you: all things written about me in the Law of Moses, in the Prophets and in the Psalms” (Luke 24:44).
The Bible used by Christians usually presents the Old Testament, following the division and order of the Greek translation called the LXX (the Seventy), very popular among Christians of the first century. It collects the books in the following order: Pentateuch, Writings (historical and poetic), Prophets (Major and Minor).
The Torah
TORAH in Hebrew, “Law” in English, or “Pentateuch”, are the various ways in which the first and oldest books of the Bible are referred to: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.
God specifically commanded Moses to write, “And the Lord said to Moses,” Write this fact in a book, that it may be remembered” (Exodus 17:14).
Jesus himself affirms that Moses is the author of the Pentateuch, as we read in the Gospel of John: “For if you believed Moses, you would believe me too; for he wrote about me. But if you don’t believe his writings, how will you believe my words?” (John 5: 46-47).
Some scholars, especially in the past, have cast doubts on the mosaic authorship of these five books of the Bible. Due to a lack of historical knowledge, it was believed that writing was unknown to Moses and that oral tradition was predominant during the period in which he lived. But time and more (relatively) recent archaeological discoveries have shown that such assumptions were wrong. Entire libraries, even much older than the period we are talking about, have been discovered in the Middle East, at Ugarit, Mari, and Ebla. Perhaps it is difficult for us to believe it, but the use of writing was very widespread in ancient times and concerned scholastic, narrative and administrative texts.
“In the hundred years that Ur III lasted (we are in 2120 – 2000 BC), an enormous amount of written documentation was produced, to the extreme that even the most insignificant transactions, such as the purchase of a single sheep, was recorded.” Città perdute della Mesopotamia, Italian edition, by Gwendolyn Leick, p. 123.
Alongside the Mesopotamian tradition, the Egyptian one must also be considered. Moses lived for many years as a high-ranking member of Pharaoh’s court. He must have received the best education of the time. The Egyptians had two ways of writing. The best known is hieroglyphic writing, because it was used for inscriptions. But it is not the only one. Already from the middle of the third millennium BC, hieratic writing was in use, much simpler and used for administrative, accounting, judicial documents, archives, etc …
Moses had at his disposal the means to write the Pentateuch, the Law of the people that in the future would settle in the land promised by God.
After all, the most ancient Codes had been found in Mesopotamia, the land from which Abraham had come out. The oldest known code, that of King Ur-Nammu, dates back to the Ur III period. A few centuries later the famous code of the Babylonian king Hammurabi will be promulgated.
During his years of exile, Moses must have learned from his father-in-law the roots of his faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Having seen how much the biblical narratives of creation, Noah, and the flood have in common with ancient Mesopotamian myths, it is difficult to think that Moses did not have access to written records or oral traditions that recorded his people’s beliefs about such past events. He may have drawn on these sources, inspired by God, for the composition of the book of Genesis.
God had prepared Moses, through the incredible events of his life, to be the greatest lawgiver in the history of mankind.
Both the testimony of the Holy Scriptures and the historical evidence are in favor of the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. This is not the place to discuss the implications and consequences of the subsequent possible editorial interventions that must have led to the text we know today.
I recommend reading the books of the famous Egyptologist David Rohl. His book The Lost Testament is a masterpiece of historical harmonization between archaeological data and historical information found in the Bible. The book Exodus, Myth or History is also a movie, called Patterns of Evidence, released in American cinemas and, for some time, available on Netflix.
Another great book is A Scientific Investigation of the Old Testament by Robert Dick Wilson. Dr. Wilson mastered 45 languages – yes, forty-five – and could have direct access to ancient documents and inscriptions.
The Text of the Old Testament
The question that arises spontaneously after considering the antiquity of the Old Testament is: how did these writings come down to us?
This is a legitimate curiosity, especially if we consider that the first printed edition of the Old Testament was produced only in 1488 AD in Soncino, Italy, three thousand years after the composition of the Pentateuch, two thousand years after the closure of the canon.
Prior to that time, the Old Testament had been passed down from one generation to the next by copying it into manuscripts.
It is not difficult to imagine that immediately after the sacred books were composed, copies began to be made, so that these could be disseminated. When older copies were damaged by use, they were replaced by new ones.
The text we have today is derived from the examination of the ancient existing manuscripts. The process of collecting, comparing and editing ancient texts is the task of Textual Criticism, which is not applied to the Bible only, but to all the books written before the invention of printing.
Was the copying process reliable? Are we able to claim that the text we have today is virtually the same as the original?
The Jewish historian Josephus, who lived at the beginning of the first century, tells us of the great importance that the sacred writings had for the Jewish nation. The handwritten evidence at our disposal, as well as the care that even today the Jews themselves show for the faithful preservation of the sacred text, prove him right.
No other book shows accuracy in the way in which the names of ancient kings are recorded like the Old Testament.
“There are twenty-nine ancient kings whose names are mentioned not only in the Bible but also in monuments of their time; many of them produced under their supervision. There are 195 consonants in these 19 proper names. Again, we find that in the documents of the Hebrew Old Testament there are only two or three among the 195 of which there can be doubt about their being the faithful reproduction of what was inscribed on the monuments. Some of these go back to 2,000 years ago, others 400; and they are written in such a way that each letter is clear and correct. This is certainly surprising” Which Bible, edited by David Otis Fuller, page 45
This is evidence that:
- The authors of the books were contemporaries of the facts they write about, and report everything with extreme accuracy.
- The careful copying of such minor details, such as the proper names of ancient kings, allows us to assume the most meticulous care even during the copying process in general, becoming a clear indication from which we can derive confidence in the reliability of the manuscript tradition .
“That names have been transmitted to us through so many copying and so many centuries in a state of so complete preservation is a phenomenon without equal in the history of literature”, ibid, page 55.
God made sure that the text of the Bible would reach us in the most reliable form, virtually identical to the original and He did so through His people, Israel, to whom he entrusted the preservation of His Word.
Paul wrote: “What then is the advantage of the Jew? Or what is the use of circumcision? Great for every fashion; first of all, because they were entrusted with the oracles of God ”(Romans 3:1-2).
As for the direct testimonies to the Old Testament text that came to us from the past, we must point out that for many years, even centuries, very few and relatively recent manuscripts have been available.
Here are the most important.
Aleppo codex, 925 AD, contains the Pentateuch
Leningrad Codex L , 1008 AD, contains the whole Old Testament
British Museum 4445 B , 925 AD, Pentateuch
Cairo Code C, 986 AD, The Prophets
These manuscripts represent the so-called Masoretic text, the one already used by the translators of the seventeenth-century Bibles, for the English King James Version of 1611 or the Italian by Giovanni Diodati in 1607, reviewed in 1649.
Due to the relatively recent dating of the witnesses of the Masoretic text, its critical value was underestimated by several scholars. The discovery in 1947 of the so-called Dead Sea Scrolls, however, opened new doors for a better understanding of the history of Old Testament text transmission. Starting from that year and in those that followed, in the vicinity of the site of Qumran, manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible dated between the second century BC and the first century AD were found in eleven caves.
Ellis R. Brotzman speaks of the significance of such an incredible discovery: “The conspicuous differences in orthography and grammatical forms between the manuscript of St. Mark and the Masoretic text makes their substantial agreement in the words of the text even more remarkable … It is surprising that after something like 1,000 years the text has undergone so little alteration” Ellis R. Brotzman, Old Testament Textual Criticism, p. 95.
The small differences in spelling show that the documents come from different and independent sources, which makes their agreement more meaningful and their testimony more reliable.
The Old Testament text has been confirmed, at least as far as historical research is concerned.
With the eyes of faith, there was never any doubt that God’s hand had taken care of His Word, because it had been useless to inspire a text that would have been lost on its journey through history. God himself preserved what He inspired. We believe it by faith and today we can boldly say that the historical and archaeological evidence confirms it.
As Jesus said: “For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.” (Matthew 5:18)
Ancient translations of the Old Testament
The ancient translations of the Hebrew Scriptures demonstrate the existence and condition of the sacred text in the area and period in which the translation was performed.
Various versions of the Old Testament were prepared during its long journey through history. There were not as many, however, as in the New Testament, due to the national character of the Jewish religion, and many were motivated by Christian usage.
The best known translation of the Old Testament is the Greek one called the Septuagint (abbreviated LXX), which dates back to the third century BC.
It was Ptolemy Philadelphus (285-246 BC) who invited 72 Jewish scholars to Egypt to translate the Pentateuch from Hebrew into Greek. The name of this version derives from their number, rounded to seventy.
Josephus, in his twelfth book of Jewish Antiquities, gives a detailed account of the circumstances in which this version was born.
Later the remainder of the books were also translated and made available for Greek-speaking Jews, and later also for Christians.
The LXX is important became it was the Old Testament used by early Christian believers, when the majority of them were not Jews and could not read Hebrew. The Septuagint was also quoted directly in some passages of the New Testament.
The first Christian translations of the Old Testament, in Latin or other languages, were made from the Septuagint and not from the original Hebrew text.
Other Greek translations of the Old Testament are those of Aquila (c. 150), a Jewish proselyte, of Theodection, which became very popular among Christians, and that of Symmachus, who influenced the work of Jerome, author of the most famous translation of the Bible in Latin, the so-called Vulgate, the first Christian translation into Latin made from the original Hebrew text.
Another important translation of the Old Testament is the so-called Targum. It is an Aramaic version that not only translates but broads and paraphrases the text for Jews who had lost the use of the Hebrew language and were now more familiar with Aramaic. The Targum also offers us an insight into the Hebrew interpretation of the Old Testament that is difficult to underestimate when trying to understand the Jewish religious thought.
God’s Word
Apart from all we have said or can say, one thing must be borne in mind when approaching the reading of the extraordinary pages that follow. We are not approaching a mere book, the Bible, Old and New Testaments, is more: it is the Word of God, inspired by God.
The apostle Paul writes, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for [a]instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16 -17).
The Bible was written by men, of course, but those men weren’t writing their own thoughts or ideas, but what the Holy Spirit prompted them to write.
“for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” (2 Peter 1:21).
May God, the author of the Holy Scriptures, open our minds, give us faith and spiritual understanding of the revelation of Jesus Christ contained in the Scriptures and of His wonderful plan of salvation in Him.