Hot answers tagged tanakh
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“If their approach was the same I assume they would come to the same theological conclusions”
Texts that aren't dense legalese, e.g. books like the Bible which contain stories, parables, philosophies and statues, are necessarily rich with ambiguity and mystery. There is no way that a book like the Bible could unambiguously inform any ...
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Before 1947, a good case could be made that the Septuagint represented a more ancient tradition than the Masoretic versions of the Tanakh. Since the Septuagint was produced before 132 BCE (and probably in the 3rd century BCE) and the earliest known Masoretic manuscripts date to the 10th century CE, the Greek translation might have fossilized an early ...
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Excellent question!
The Septuagint (LXX) was the version of the Bible used by the authors of the New Testament. Therefore, the authors sometimes quote the Septuagint rather than the Masoretic (Hebrew) text.
One example:
Matthew 1:23 NRSV "Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel," which means, "God is with ...
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Occam's answer:
The toleration of polygamy in the OT is not to say that it was an ideal, and we see that the laws dealing with it are mostly proscriptive. The ideal is more likely represented by the monogamous story of Adam and Eve. But for various reasons, the position of women in the ancient world was such that polygamy was an unavoidable fact of life ...
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In general the Tanakh is the same as the Christian Old Testament. The differences are:
Some Christians use a few extra books, which are called deuterocanonical (or apocrypha, by those who reject them). These books are found in the earliest Greek translation of the Tanakh, but were later rejected by the rabbis.
The books of the Tanakh are usually printed ...
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The NET Bible includes this translator's note:
Heb “the one coming out, who comes out from.” The text uses a masculine singular participle with prefixed article, followed by a relative pronoun and third masculine singular verb. The substantival masculine singular participle הַיּוֹצֵא (hayyotse’, “the one coming out”) is used elsewhere of inanimate ...
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There are some very close similarities but also some drastic differences. For similarities, there are a hero who builds a boat to preserve those chosen by a god. They build the boat with levels inside and seal it with bitumen. Both gather his family and animals in the Ark. The floods come. After the flood, they dismebark and sacrifice to the gods. Those ...
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One of the most important aspects of the Septuagint is that it helps us understand how Greek was used by Jews in the 3rd century BC to talk about God and the Scriptures. This turns it into a valuable tool to look at the Greek of the NT and understand how to translate and examine it.
Here is an excerpt from a Christianity.SE answer that I provided to ...
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IMO it is a mistake to consider the LXX too noteworthy. The NT authors quote from it under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, however that should not be taken to imply that the LXX translation as a whole is inspired.
Wouldn't it be better to reference the Hebrew original?
Yes, except when dealing with the NT quotations in question. And translators are ...
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The reason I most often use the LXX is to find the concept the NT authors were using. Yes, they wrote in Greek, but they were thinking Jewish thoughts. Many times, you can take the Greek words in the NT, find them in the LXX, and see what Hebrew words they translated.
For example, the word ecclesia is used in the NT in Matthew 16:18 and 18:17. Some argue ...
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The basic difference is Jesus Christ. That may sound trite or rude, but it needn't be. A Christian hermeneutic that is faithful to itself will base its reading of the Old Testament on the way Jesus and the Apostles used the Old Testament. This hermeneutic was rather shocking even to Jesus' disciples (i.e. Christians) even at that time (and I assume Jewish ...
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According to evidence presented by P.J. Wiseman concerning the toledoth, the Genesis account was written by eyewitnesses to the events and therefor is the primary and older source.
The word translated 'generations' in the repeated formula "these are the generations of" should be considered the signature line on a clay tablet, and Genesis read as a string of ...
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Hermeneutic Circle
Part of the problem that this question has suffered is known as the hermeneutic circle.
The idea is that we use the text of the Bible to determine our doctrine. However, in order to interpret the text of the Bible, we have to come from a doctrinal predisposition.
When we approach hermeneutics seeking to understand a particular ...
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Background
The NET Bible has a useful translator's note on the introduction of the name in Exodus 3:14:
The verb form used here is אֶהְיֶה (’ehyeh), the Qal imperfect, first person common singular, of the verb הָיָה (haya, “to be”). It forms an excellent paronomasia with the name. So when God used the verb to express his name, he used this form saying, ...
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Here is a chart which gives a comparison of the books and order:
(source website)
The other important thing to remember is that the Jewish Tanach exists primarily in Hebrew and is augmented by commentary from within the Jewish tradition. Any translation, especially one whose translation was influenced by other theologies will deviate in terms of content.
...
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In Judaism the final decision of which writings (Ketuvim, the third part of the Tanakh) were canonical did not happen until at least the end of the 1st century CE. This was after Christianity and Judaism had largely split, and so the two groups made different decisions about which writings were accepted as canonical.
In particular, nascent Rabbinic Judaism ...
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A basic hermenuetical rule for any text is that the surface meaning is the correct reading of a text unless other evidence shows otherwise. If I say I'll finish something by the end of the day, you expect me to be done within the current 24-hour period. I would be either a nut or a liar if I explained that my "day" is actually 1,000 years metaphorically.
...
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Jews and Christians both consider the tanakh to be important scripture (usually seen as of divine origin, though individual denominations/movements may vary). They differ in how they derive meaning from that text, however. In this answer I'm going to describe some approaches used by each group, but it's important to note that there isn't much that's ...
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First I note that there is a parallel between the first half of the verse:
To Seth also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh.
And the second:
At that time people began to call upon the name of the LORD.
(Genesis 4:26 ESV)
The words qara' <07121> "call" and shem <08034> "name" are repeated, which indicated there is a tie between ...
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In Judaism circumcision is a sign of entry into the brit (covenant) and applies only to Jews. While birth is of course a prerequisite, circumcision accomplishes a different goal. Note that (male) converts must also be circumcised, and if parents do not circumcise their son he must do it himself when he reaches the age of bar mitzvah, obligation to the ...
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The Greek translation of Jewish scripture (the Septuagint) occurred between the 3rd and 1st centuries BCE. The canon of the Tanakh was finalized hundreds of years later. The Christian canon was debated from the 4th to the 16th centuries. We have a tendency of thinking of the Bible as written in stone, so to speak, but the canon has been the object of ...
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Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo ben Yitzchak, prominent 12th-century scholar) explains that this verse means men began to name people and idols with the divine name. ("Invoke" is not the best translation in Rashi's view.) That is, people made idols and called them deities using God's name. Rashi cites Bereishit Rabbah 23:7, Tanchuma Noach 18, and Targum Yonatan.
An ...
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Genesis does not directly address the question of where evil came from. (A certain tree in the garden led to knowledge of good and bad, which is different.) Here are several rabbinic interpretations:
Eitz Chayim, a modern commentary, cites Bereishit Rabbah 9:7 in saying that without the yetzer ha-ra, the bad inclination (which is balanced by the yetzer ...
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Malbim (ad loc.) explains that "tree of life" here means "source of eternal life of the soul", and interprets the verse as follows. (I'll boldface the parts that are translating the verse.) The yield of a righteous person, one who acts righteously, is that he's a source of life for those who follow his lead: their souls get eternal life[1] by their doing as ...
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And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos: then began men (ḥālal) to call upon the name of the LORD.—Genesis 4:26 (KJV)
In the above the phrase "then began men" is translated from one word ḥālal. The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon:
ḥālal:
pollute, defile, profane
Theological Wordbook of ...
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[Note: per Jon Ericson's advice and an edit to the question on which this was an original answer, this answer has been moved, with minor edits, from here, due to edits made to that question to keep it from being a duplicate of this one.]
Thesis
Calling on the name of Yahweh means that the Sethites began to engage in the public, communal worship of God.
...
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If he was a metaphor, to whom did Abram give the tithe?
It is possible—even likely, under certain frameworks—that an individual could be both a literal person and a metaphor or "type" of some higher concept or person.
I'm also not sure that a silence in the remainder of the Torah is necessarily an indicator of whether he was a literal person, or whether ...
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What does aman mean when it doesn't mean “faith/belief”?
But Moses' hands were heavy; and they took a stone and put it under
him, and he sat thereon. And Aaron and Hur held up his hands, the one
on the one side and the other on the other side; and his hands were
steady (emunah, אמונה) until the going down of the sun.
-Exodus 17:12, KJV
The ...
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There is a definitely a cycle of feminine trickery stories that most commentators note:
Lot's daughters
Rebekah's advice to Jacob regarding Isaac's blessing
Rachel's theft of her father's terafim
Tamar's manipulation of Judah
The midwives Shifra and Puah
Yocheved's hiding Moses in the reed ark on the river
Miriam tricking Pharoah's daughter regarding a ...
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No connection with rebirth in OT, strong connection with renewal of covenant, Joshua 5:2 for example, or continuity of covenant in the person of the newborn male. Renewal of covenant ceremonies including circumcision, for members of Ethiopian and Russian immigrant communities, have been held in Israel in recent years.
In addition to being a condition of ...
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