Seeking the truth of the matter
I can’t claim to be as knowledgeable about Scripture as others, and I certainly have a deep respect for a great many Rabbis and their often wise and beautiful interpretations of the Bible. What I can say is that I tend to be able to dissect different ideas and try to get at the truth of the matter when presented with certain arguments. An example of this is looking at the arguments of men such as Rabbi Tovia Singer who seems to have a great deal to say against the Septuagint (LXX).
After considerable research about certain disputed texts, I find that I tend to side with the Septuagint over the MT (Masoretic Text) readings and from my perspective, Rabbi Singer seems to with his own arguments, contradict himself in his assessment of the Septuagint. Here’s an example: the Rabbi begins by making it very clear that only the Pentateuch (the first five books of Moses) was translated originally in Alexandria, which is widely agreed upon. So how can he then justify using a single word in a single verse of Isaiah to discredit the entirety of the Septuagint? Isaiah is of course not part of the Pentateuch. This is perplexing, and it seems to come from one of two issues; either there is a misunderstanding that the Septuagint was produced in codex form, or there is a somewhat fraudulent reliance on the audience having that same misunderstanding. Either way, the fact that all Scripture was available in the form of many, many different scrolls would suggest that whenever there is a dispute, the passages should really be looked at individually, and that it is actually dishonest to point to a passage in Isaiah to discredit the entire Septuagint; and certainly the Torah portion of it, produced by a great many Jewish Scribes and Scholars beginning around 300 years before Christ.
So what is the word found in Isaiah that is disputed? The word is pronounced “Almah”. The argument that Rabbi Singer makes is actually not his own, Rashi (a well respected Jewish Rabbi and Scholar from antiquity) is the one who formulated this argument against the Messianic claims of virgin birth made by the Apostles of Yeshua. Rashi suggests that this word doesn’t mean “virgin” but rather “young woman”. But we also find that Rashi contradicts his own argument, that he in fact translates “almah” as “virgin” when he finds it in the Song of Songs (the Song of Solomon). This suggests once again either an ignorance of Rashi’s own contradiction, or an assumption by Rabbi Singer of the ignorance of his own audience.
Rashi didn’t always interpret the word ‘alma’ as a ‘young woman’. This word also appears in the Song of Songs and in these verses he interpreted ‘alma’ as a ‘virgin’. Moreover, Rashi himself indicated that other Jewish scholars producing Biblical commentary in his time also interpreted the word ‘alma’ in Isaiah 7:14 as a ‘virgin’. And it is important to note that the ancient Jewish Sages also held the belief that the Messiah wouldn’t have a biological father. Here is what they taught – “The redeemer whom I shall raise up from among you, will have no father ” (Genesis Rabbah of Rabbi Moshe haDarshan) 1
It should be understood that in it’s entirety, the LXX and MT broadly agree for the majority of the Tanakh. When arguments are presented, they tend to imply there is a vast disagreement between the texts, this is incorrect. Each of the instances of divergence between the texts should be treated individually, as again the LXX was written in portions, over centuries, piece by piece, book by book and never by a single scribe or scholar as Rabbi Singer himself admits. I cannot assume that the good Rabbi is dishonest, so rather I would suggest that Rabbi Singer is either not well informed, or his arguments are just poorly made. The truth of the matter, is that often a deep examination of the text itself tends to sort out these disputes pretty clearly; such as the argument for the word “pierced” in Psalm 22 I made in another article. Most of the ideas and concepts in Scripture are presented many times and in many ways, so that no one instance of disagreement can upset the entire doctrine. Another example:
In the story of the great patriarch Abraham, we read over and over descriptions of him as old, even at the age of 99 when God tells Abraham that he will have a son. Abraham laughs, surprised that he will father children at his age2. Genesis 25:7-8 also tells us that at the age of 175 when Abraham died, he was “A good old age and full of years”. So what’s the problem? Well in the MT, the Genesis genealogies suggest that many of Abraham’s contemporaries were in fact reaching ages of over 300 years, which creates a bit of a contradiction of God’s own words telling Abraham he will live to a “good old age”3. The LXX however, provides chronologies that alleviate this contradiction, and are further validated by the early Jewish Scholars, Sages and Historians that tell us the Earth was understood to be over 5,000 years old around the first century; the MT’s chronologies suggest that the earth would have been less than 4,000 years in the first century. This is one of many reasons that the Genesis chronologies found in the LXX, are seemingly more credible than those of the MT.4
Again, these things should be looked at individually, and this shouldn’t be viewed as a reason to discard the MT or the LXX in their entirety. But I do think we would find, when giving careful consideration to both texts side by side, that we’ll see often the differences are ones which specifically relate to the revelation of the Messiah according to the Apostles claims, or when the text of Scripture seems to undermine Rabbinic tradition. Something to think about when there is a dispute between interpretations of the Divine Word.
So will My word be which goes out of My mouth; It will not return to Me empty, Without accomplishing what I desire, And without succeeding in the purpose for which I sent it. Isaiah 55:11 NASB
1 Bar, Eitan. Refuting Rabbinic Objections to Christianity & Messianic Prophecies (p. 64). ONE FOR ISRAEL Ministry.
2 Genesis 17:17
3 Genesis 15:15
4 https://www.bible.ca/manuscripts/Bible-chronology-charts-age-of-earth-date-Genesis-5-11-Septuagint-text-LXX-original-autograph-corrupted-Masoretic-MT-primeval-5554BC.htm
https://biblearchaeology.org/research/topics/biblical-chronologies/4767-from-adam-to-abraham-the-latest-on-the-genesis-5-and-11-project
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