06.03. Tracing the Records

Chapter 2 Tracing the Records

There is no difficulty in tracing the history of the Bible during the last five centuries because of the art of printing and modern book-making; but when we leave the anchorage of the types and launch forth on the sea of manuscripts we need to know something of navigation.

Let it be understood at the outset, that by a manuscript of the Bible is meant not a written copy in any language, but one in the original tongues only. For example, a manuscript of the Old Testament is always in Hebrew, and one of the New Testament is always in Greek. Now there are many written copies of the Bible in other languages known as versions, by which we can trace its history easily down the stream of time to the period of Christ and his apostles, and in the case of the Old Testament much earlier, but as a matter of fact, the earliest manuscript of the Old Testament of which scholars know, is one dating from the tenth century of the Christian era. At once the question arises as to the cause of this. Why is it that we possess no manuscripts of the Old Testament of an earlier date than the tenth century of the Christian era? It is impossible to answer this question with historical precision, but there are one or two facts which aid us to approximate an answer. One is the sublime reverence of the Jews for their sacred writings, and another is the existence for centuries of a class of Hebrew scholars whose office was to study, interpret, and transcribe those writings. A kind of self-perpetuating body of these men, known as the Massoretes, began as early as about the first century of the Christian era to collect and examine manuscripts with a view to the preparation of what would be called in these days an accepted text of the Old Testament. Their work was laboriously and patiently pursued for centuries, closing about the ninth, and it is supposed that with the setting forth of the results of their great work, all preexisting manuscripts were destroyed because of the feeling of reverence previously referred to. Thus, to quote the language of another, “By the work of the Massoretes and their predecessors from the close of the first century onwards, the stream of the transmitted Hebrew text was made to run in a clear-cut channel and guarded from the possibility of defilement.” But as already indicated, it must not be supposed that because we have no Hebrew manuscript of a date earlier than the tenth century of the Christian era, we are therefore unable to trace the history of the Old Testament any further back. As a matter of fact, we have more ways than one of doing this. For example, after the manuscripts, come what are known as the “Targums.” The word “Targum” means literally an “Interpretation.” When the Jews were carried into Babylon, B.C. 688, they gradually ceased to employ the Hebrew as a spoken language, although in their synagogues the sacred oracles were still read in that tongue. Necessity, therefore, compelled its interpretation in their synagogue service, which was done in a kind of running commentary or paraphrase, which at first spoken, came subsequently to be written and to take the name of “Targum.”

These “Targums” were in the Chaldea or Eastern Aramaic dialect, and were, no doubt, numerous, although those which have descended to us are all dated after the Christian era, the oldest of which, covering only a part of the Old Testament, dates from about the seventh century. It can readily be seen how important these are in identifying the existence of the Old Testament at that early period.

Back of these “Targums” again, we have certain versions of the Old Testament, or copies in the Greek language, of as early a date as the fourth century, and others indeed of the second, of which more will be said in detail when we reach the story of the New Testament, because they are bound up with manuscripts of that part of the Bible as well. It should be added now, however, that all these versions with one possible exception, are copies of a still earlier one known as the Septuagint, dating back as early as the third century before Christ. This version gets its name, which means “seventy,” from a company of Hebrew scholars of that number, engaged it is said by Ptolemy Philadelphus, King of Egypt, to prepare the work for the Alexandrian library. It was begun somewhere about 285 B.C. but the date of its conclusion is not so well ascertained. In the early church this version was deemed of great value, and it is that used very frequently by the inspired writers in their quotations in the New Testament.

We thus see that by a chain of very few links the Old Testament of our day is joined to that of Christ’s day, and indeed to that antedating Christ’s day by nearly three centuries. These links are the printed Bible down to the fifteenth century, the manuscripts to the tenth, the “Targums” to the seventh, the versions to the fourth and back as early as the second, with the Septuagint carrying us to the third century B.C.

One may indeed ask whether it be not a long period to account for between the third century B.C. and the fifth, when lived and flourished Ezra, the latest of the inspired writers? But the answer is in the negative. If the books we call the Old Testament were in canonical form in the third century, it is clear that they must have been in existence as separate books prior to that time. Now two hundred, or even two hundred and fifty years, are not a long time for the formation of a canon, as we shall be able to judge better by and by when we come to consider the history of that of the New Testament.

President Patton in his lecture on “The Seat of Authority in Religion,” employs an illustration which fits admirably in this case. “If we are journeying on a railroad train, we do not insist that it shall deposit us in our porte-cochere, but are satisfied to be left at the railroad station because we can easily walk the rest of the way.” If, in other words, the records of the canon of the Old Testament bring us to within two or three centuries of the date of the last of the inspired writers, there is no strain on the imagination in supplying the final connecting link. But any who may not be satisfied with that remark will be able to rest in this. Remember that the Septuagint was in existence and in use in Palestine in the days of Christ and His apostles. He set His seal to its genuineness as the sum and substance of the sacred Scriptures. The Old Testament as we now have it was that which, as a man, “fed the springs of His life, fashioned His thought, molded His message.” and led Him to the cross as the suffering Messiah of which it testified. Can we desire stronger evidence than this? Who would not trust that which Jesus trusted?