The text of the Old Testament
10.4. The text of the Old Testament
10.4.1. Hebrew manuscripts
There are various documents in which the text of the Old Testament was preserved. These include Hebrew manuscripts and old translations.
When an Old Testament manuscript was copied, the new document became the authoritative text. The old manuscript was buried or stored somewhere. Because of this practice there were no old manuscripts of the text in use. A number of manuscripts were found at Qumran, the so-called Dead Sea Scrolls. Among the manuscripts discovered, there were biblical manuscripts. These manuscripts contained fragments of various Old Testament books and are dated around AD 70. The manuscripts were written, of course, during the second century BC. Probably one of the most important documents is the so-called Isaiah Scroll. This scroll was found in cave 1 and it is known as 1QIsaa. It contained Isaiah 1-33 and 34-66. Other manuscripts include a commentary on the book of Habakkuk (1QpHab) and a Psalms scroll (11QPsa).
As indicated earlier, the most important manuscripts of the Old Testament, before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, were the so-called Ben Asher manuscripts. There are three important manuscripts.
(1) Codex Leningradensis (L). The Codex Leningradensis is a complete manuscript of the Old Testament. This codex was compiled by Rabbi Aaron Moshe Ben Asjer around AD 980. This text is the basis for the scholarly Hebrew bible known as Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS).
(2) Codex Cairensis (C). The Codex Cairensis contained the early and the later prophets. It was vocalised around AD 895 by Moses ben Asjer.
(3) Codex Aleppo. The Codex Aleppo contained the whole of the Old Testament and is dated around the first half of the 10th century AD.
10.4.2. Old translations
There are a number of older translations that were based on the Hebrew text of the Old Testament. These include the Greek and Aramaic translations. The Targumim were Aramaic paraphrases of the Old Testament. Two well-known Targumim are Onkelos (on the Pentateuch) and Jonathan (on the early and later prophets). They are of limited value for establishing the original reading of Old Testament texts. More important than the Aramaic are the Greek translations. The Septuagint and its many revisions are often a word for word translation of the Old Testament text. These translations are called witnesses to the Hebrew text. ES and TS have available English translations of these two witnesses.