What is our earliest complete Hebrew copy of the Book of Genesis? We possess some Hebrew fragments from the Dead Sea Scrolls that date to the third century BC, but the first complete Hebrew copy of Genesis comes from around 920 AD (the Aleppo Codex). That means the earliest fully preserved Hebrew version is only about 1,105 years old. For perspective, Abraham—whose life is described in Genesis—lived roughly 4,000 years ago. That is a significant chronological gap.
The situation is softened slightly by the fact that we have a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible in the fourth century AD, but even this still leaves a substantial distance between the events described and our earliest complete textual witnesses. Some argue that the material was preserved through oral memory, but this claim is complicated by the Old Testament itself, particularly the account in 2 Kings 22, where the written law is rediscovered after being lost. It also raises a broader issue: many Jewish traditions claim an oral Torah was transmitted alongside the written Torah. Yet this idea faces the same difficulties as the written transmission, again illustrated by 2 Kings 22.
I will be covering this topic in an upcoming show in greater detail where I will interact with some of the claims of Rabbi Tovia Singer, including some concerns I have with the notion that an oral Torah has been preserved continuously from the time of Moses to the present. Stay tuned for more.
Reason & Theology
What is our earliest complete Hebrew copy of the Book of Genesis? We possess some Hebrew fragments from the Dead Sea Scrolls that date to the third century BC, but the first complete Hebrew copy of Genesis comes from around 920 AD (the Aleppo Codex). That means the earliest fully preserved Hebrew version is only about 1,105 years old. For perspective, Abraham—whose life is described in Genesis—lived roughly 4,000 years ago. That is a significant chronological gap.
The situation is softened slightly by the fact that we have a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible in the fourth century AD, but even this still leaves a substantial distance between the events described and our earliest complete textual witnesses. Some argue that the material was preserved through oral memory, but this claim is complicated by the Old Testament itself, particularly the account in 2 Kings 22, where the written law is rediscovered after being lost. It also raises a broader issue: many Jewish traditions claim an oral Torah was transmitted alongside the written Torah. Yet this idea faces the same difficulties as the written transmission, again illustrated by 2 Kings 22.
I will be covering this topic in an upcoming show in greater detail where I will interact with some of the claims of Rabbi Tovia Singer, including some concerns I have with the notion that an oral Torah has been preserved continuously from the time of Moses to the present. Stay tuned for more.
4 days ago (edited) | [YT] | 51