How We Got the Bible

1. How We Got the Bible The Story of the Old Testament

2. Agnes Lewis & Margaret Gibson

3. St. Catherine's Monastery

4. Codex Climaci Rescriptus

5. Codex Climaci Rescriptus – close up

6. The Story of the Old Testament

7. Key Manuscripts • Codex Cairensis – 895 C.E. • Aleppo Codex – 930 C.E • Leningrad Codex – 1008 C.E.

8. Problem • Book of Isaiah ----------------Leningrad Codex 1,700 YEARS Apart

9. Our First Band of Heroes: The Masoretes

10. Scribes at Work

11. “"Greeks and Romans were acquainted with sacred texts … but the physical object was not treated with the same veneration nor the text so scrupulously protected as was the case for the Jewish Law."

12. “[The Masoretes] spent hours transcribing a text, without any opportunity to be creative. Virtually every aspect of writing a [Bible] text is strictly required by Jewish law…. Furthermore, whereas the biblical text was revered, the scribe remained anonymous.”

13. “I delight in your decrees; I will not neglect your word…. I run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free” (Psalm 119:16, 32).

16. “O reader, take note, while the hand that copied the text rots in the grave the Word [of the Bible] lives forever.”

17. “As the traveler rejoices to see the home country, so the scribe rejoices to see the end of a manuscript.”

18. Here let the scribes sit who copy out the words of the Divine Law…. Let them beware of interspersing their own frivolities in the words they copy, nor let a trifler’s hand make mistakes through haste…. It is a noble work to write out holy books…. Writing books is better than planting vines, for he who plants a vine serves his belly, but he who writes a book serves his soul.The Scriptorium at St. Martin Tours

19. For those who paint the underside of boats, Makers of ornamental drains on roofs too high to be seen; For cobblers who labor over inner soles; For seamstresses who stitch the wrong side of linings; For scholars whose research leads to no obvious discovery; For dentists who polish each gold surface of the fillings of upper molars; For sewer engineers and those who repair water mains; For electricians; For artists who suppress what does injustice to their visions; For surgeons whose sutures are things of beauty.For all those whose work is for Your eyes only,         who labor for Your entertainment, or their own,     who sleep in peace or do not sleep in peace,     knowing that their effects are unknown. Protect them from downheartedness and from diseases of the eye.Grant them perseverance, for the sake of Your love,     which is humble, invisible and heedless of reward.

20. Our Second Band of Heroes: The Dead Sea Scrolls

21. Muhammad the Wolf

22. The Importance of the Dead Sea Scrolls • 250 documents of the Hebrew Bible • Great Isaiah Scroll • Every book of the Hebrew Bible (except one) • Dated between 250 B.C.E. – 70 or 135 C.E. • Fingerprints for earlier versions • The famous archeologist W.F. Albright called the Dead Sea Scrolls “the greatest manuscript discovery of modern times.”

23. Great Isaiah Scroll

24. The Septuagint LXX – 250 B.C.E.

25. The Cairo Genizah

26. Solomon Schecter

27. Schecter in the Cairo Genizah • “[The] mass of rugged, jumbled, dirty stuff” reminded him of an entire “battlefield of books.”

28. How accurate and reliable were those ancient scribes? • Consider Isaiah 53 from “The Great Isaiah Scroll” • 166 words • 17 letters • 10 are spelling variations • 4 are minor stylistic differences