Good morning and good apostolate.

Sacred Scripture underwent changes, in the Old Testament and in the 1500 years before Christ, isn’t it?

Thank you for your reply.

The Priest’s answer

Dear,

1. The original texts of the sacred writers have not reached us. We possess none of them.

However, the sacred text was transcribed several times, and some variants can be found among the copies.

2. We can deduce it from the Hebrew text we possess today, also called the Masoretic text, along with the version of this same text written in Greek, the so-called LXX, produced in the last centuries before Christ.

We deduce it from the so-called Samaritan Pentateuch as well. As history tells, the Samaritans accepted only the first five books of the law, the Pentateuch.

Origen and St. Jerome knew about The Samaritan Pentateuch, but later any memory of it went lost.

Only in 1616, Pietro della Valle, the famous voyager, purchased some copies in Damascus, one of which was published shortly thereafter. The characters of that Samaritan Pentateuch are the ancient Phoenician characters.

3. The causes of the variations, which are never substantial but only and always marginal, are mainly two.

The first: the carelessness given to those writings when not everyone had recognized their divine inspiration, since the canon had not yet been established.

The second: the end suffered by the sacred books during times of religious tribulation such as the exile in Babylon and the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanius.

During the Babylonian exile, which occurred in the sixth century BC, many sacred books went lost, so much so that Ezra, upon returning from exile, took pains to collect everything he could find.

Later, Antiochus Epiphanes (175-164) took his fury to the point of burning the sacred books, as we read in the first book of Maccabees: “On the fifteenth day of the month Chislev, in the year one hundred and forty-five, the king erected the horrible abomination upon the altar of holocausts, and in the surrounding cities of Judah they built pagan altars. They also burnt incense at the doors of houses and in the streets. Any scrolls of the law which they found they tore up and burnt.” (1 Mac 1:54-56).

Judas Maccabeus collected the remaining copies. The sacred text reports that “Besides these things, it is also told in the records and in Nehemiah’s Memoirs how he collected the books about the kings, the writings of the prophets and of David, and the royal letters about sacred offerings. In like manner Judas also collected for us the books that had been scattered because of the war, and we now have them in our possession.” (2 Macc 2:13-14).

4. We should also note that only from the first century AD onward, the scribes – the teachers of the law – fixed the consonants of the sacred text.

It stayed as the official Jewish text, also called the Masoretic text.

Masoretes were those learned rabbis who had written down the Masora (literally meaning tradition, teaching), that is, the set of critical annotations related to the sacred text.

5. When the codex of Isaiah was found in the Qumran caves after the Second World War of the last century, an extraordinary fact was discovered: the text, which likely dates back to the first or second century B.C. It was perfectly aligned with the current Masoretic text.

Therefore, Jewish writers professed such respect for the sacred text that no one would ever have dared to modify it in the slightest. Philo and Josephus, Jews of the first century AD, also held this point of view.

The words by Jesus indirectly expressed that sentiment too when He said “not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place.” (Mt 5:18).

6. The Church has not issued any pronouncement about the variants of the Hebrew text. It is sufficient what history presents to us.

However, in the fourth session of the Council of Trent (April 8, 1546), the Church “if, out of all the Latin editions, now in circulation of the sacred books, it be known which is to be held as authentic, ordains and declares, that the said old and vulgate edition, which, by the long usage of so many ages, has been approved in the Church, be, in public lectures, disputations, preachings, and expositions, held as authentic“.

7. In the General Introduction to The Message of Salvation, edited by Pietro Bonatti and Carlo Maria Martini, we read: [tr.] “It is amazing how meticulously the Masoretes preserved the biblical text, even in the smallest details, according to tradition, to the point that they left the traditional text unchanged even when an obvious transcription mistake occurred: in such cases, they noted the correct reading in the margin. The Masoretes made other remarks and observations at the top of the pages, at the side margins, or at the end of individual books. (…).

In short, the Masoretes did everything humanly possible to ensure that the sacred text remained unchanged; and the saying ‘The Masorah is the fence of the law’ is very true” (p. 160).

Now, the sacred text has been handed down to us in this way.

We can say that, above all human events, the One who inspired it, He preserved it too.

I bless you,

Father Angelo

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