Great post, I have appreciated your work for some time! I wish we could find a way to reconcile those extra 500 years in the beginning, just to have the question answered. Your video that explains the 650 years is still one of my all time favorites, though! 😊
1 week ago | 1
The age of a piece of text merely scratches the surface. It's a good starting point, but there are many other things to consider. For example, when the scrolls were discovered by the Dead Sea, radiocarbon dating showed that they were approximately 2,000 years old, older than any other manuscript we have access to today. At first, it would therefore seem like their account of the history is more reliable than any other account. But consider this: the priests of the day had many manuscripts and copies of manuscripts that they read off of. Some of them were more reliable than others, and they would have done their best to figure out, based on the historical evidence they had back then, which one of them was the most reliable, and then read from that one. Thus, the more reliable manuscript is handled with more, and thus deteriorates faster. The manuscript that they determined to be less reliable, on the other hand, is handled with less, because less people would find it worth their time to read it. Thus, it deteriorates slower. And therefore, at a certain point, the more reliable manuscript completely withers away, while the less reliable manuscript survives for a little while longer. And so the discovery of a collection of manuscripts that are approximately 2,000 years old does not necessarily mean it is more reliable, for perhaps the mere fact that it survived long enough for you to discover it in the first place is potentially evidence that it is less reliable. Textual criticism is so much more complicated than how old a manuscript is. More separate accounts agreeing with each other is much stronger evidence than simple age, but even that is a simplification of the realities of textual criticism, and it's unfortunate that we have essentially looked into as much as we can, for we haven't been given any new material.
1 week ago | 0
Excellent. The **exact** 100 year difference in six of the ages cannot be scribal errors. This was done deliberately one way or the other. The simpler explanation is by far the most likely: the younger text that has the younger ages is the one that was doctored -- not the three older sources with the same older ages
1 week ago | 0
Vessel of division and destruction at it again? I’ve come to realize after all these years that’s the goal here. Destroy faith in God‘s word. Plain and simple. The assertions presented could be 100% accurate. That much is true !! I will also add that I can greatly appreciate the intelligence, time spent in this research, and the skills in presenting these thoughts. Very well done and very compelling. But we really won’t know for sure until that day. None of this can be proven one way or another because going that far back in history really is all about faith in what’s discovered. Some of these dates that are accepted as fact are really more about faith instead. Just my two cents, and it’s worth what you paid for it. I just really have the utmost respect for God’s word and my life has been affected in a massive way after I got serious about it. Thank you for the opportunity to share my thoughts here. All glory to my precious Lord and Savior who suffered and died for me.
1 week ago | 0
For those who want to see the significant differences between the chronologies of the Septuagint (LXX) and the Masoertic-based NIV checkout my detailed proportional graphic available on USB for purchase on Ebay: https://ebay.us/m/OoPRd2 This comparison integrates other aspects that you can read about in the full description on Ebay. Additionally, there is other information related to Ur-Kasdim as the original birthplace of Abraham, the High Sabbath and weekly sabbath of the Passion Week, and the location of the twin peaks of Mt. Sinai - Mt. Horeb in Saudia Arabia on the USB.
1 week ago | 0
Why is the date of printing important? It’s based upon God’s inerrant preserved apographs from God’s infallible inspired autographs!
1 week ago | 1
Perhaps I haven't found the oldest writings of Flavius Josephus there are, nor the Greek Septuagint (I noticed the 179 years for Nahor that you mentioned in a comments section was added in a later edition), because when I compared Genesis 5 of all four biblical manuscripts, not a single one agreed. Even after I calculated based on majority, I still came up with an accuracy range of 500 years for the date of the flood, ranging anywhere from 1657 to 2157 AM. These were the ones I found: https://gutenberg.org/files/2848/2848-h/2848-h.htm#linknoteref-16 (The Antiquities of the Jews) https://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/physis/septuagint-genesis/11.asp?pg=3 (Greek Septuagint)
1 week ago | 0
NathanH83
One of Gail Riplinger’s complaints is that I said that the King James Version was translated from the Leningrad Codex from the 11th century AD. She says, No that’s wrong. The King James was translated from the Ben Chayyim Hebrew, not the Leningrad Codex.
Ok? So I’m thinking, how does that help your point? The Ben Chayyim is an even NEWER Hebrew text, not older. The Ben Chayyim dates to the 1500’s, even later than the Leningrad Codex.
So my point still stands, that the oldest complete Hebrew text that modern versions (ESV, NIV, NASB) ARE based on is the Leningrad Codex. The Ben Chayyim that the King James Version is based on is even newer than that.
But the early churches were using the Greek Septuagint which WAS translated a few hundred years before Christ, and therefore must have been translated from an older copy of the Hebrew, older than the Leningrad Codex, older than the Aleppo Codex, older than the Ben Chayyim, older than EVERY HEBREW TEXT that translators use today.
And this older Hebrew text MUST have included these extra 650 years in the Genealogies of Genesis 11. That’s the only way that they could have ended up in the Greek Septuagint, and the Samaritan Pentateuch, and the writings of Flavius Josephus.
If this “error” (if it was an error) originated with the Greek Septuagint, there’s no way that it would have made its way into the Samaritan Pentateuch, since the Samaritan text is a Hebrew text that pre-dates the Greek Septuagint itself. And Josephus wasn’t using the Greek Septuagint either. Josephus was given the Hebrew scrolls from the temple. When Titus Flavius destroyed the temple in 70 AD, he gave the Hebrew scrolls to Josephus. So why does Josephus side with the Greek numbers in Genesis 11?
By the way, the Samaritan Pentateuch and the original genuine numbers of Josephus agree with the Hebrew in Genesis 5. So I’m not so confident that the Greek Septuagint is right about the extra 500 or so years before the Flood. But after the Flood? We definitely have 3 textual witnesses for the 650 years.
1 week ago | [YT] | 26