I've decided that instead of reading strictly the Christian Bible and posting my interests in it, that I would read the Hebrew Tanakh and the Bible at the same time and post both my interests in both and the differences between them. Most people believe that the Torah is the same as the Old Testament found in the Christian Bible. We'll soon find out if this is true.
The very first thing that caught my notice was the explanation of translation found in the preface of each holy book. The Tanakh starts with this:
"A court of the law relies on witnesses to establish the facts of a case. But for those who seek the "facts"of the original Biblical texts, no firsthand witnesses exist. We have only the testimony of various manuscripts, produced hundreds of years after the Bible's books were completed. And even if we had an autograph copy of, say, the Book of Ezra, it would not answer all our questions, for it was created at a time (2400 years ago) when writing was imprecise - even before the invention of punctuation.
Through the intervening centuries, scribes have figures out how to record the oral tradition more precisely. At the same time, during each transmission of the books from person to person, uncertainty has grown. For schools have sometimes disagreed on pronunciation. Handwriting has not always been legible. And eery scribe has occasionally made mistakes in copying.
Witnesses testifying in court often disagree. Little surprise, then, that the Bible's textual "witnesses" - father removed from the original "event" - differ from each other in a wide range of small ways: spelling, punctuation, layout of poetry, and so on. Sometimes entire verses appear in only a few manuscripts.
So which version is true? This was the first question we faces in preparing our Hebrew text."
They openly admit that throughout the transmitting of text throughout the ages things have been lost and things have been added. The next seventeen pages are dedicated to tracing the book's translation history, beginning in 930 AD. It also lists the changes they made in numbering, etc. It is a thorough history of the translation that they are presenting.
The Christian Bible lets me down a little in it's preface. I am reading a New King James Version Bible. It has half a page devoted to it's translation, which begins with this:
"The purpose of this most recent revision of the King James Version is in harmony with the purpose of the original King James Scholars. 'Not to make a new translation, but to make a good one better.' The New King James Version is a continuation of the labors of the King James translators, unlocking for today's readers the spiritual treasures found especially in the Authorized Version of the Holy Bible."
There is no reference after that paragraph about where the "Authorized Version of the Holy Bible" came from, so I did some wikipedia searching and found out that the Church of England brought Catholic scholars together to create a King James Version to beat out the popular Protestant version called the Geneva Bible (but often referred to as the Great Bible). I think its very interesting that my church, which is a protestant church, and all my protestant friends read a Bible that was created by the Church of England in a Catholic tradition instead of the Protestant translation.
As far as an objective view of both prologues is concerned, I think the point belongs squarely in the Hebrew Tanakh's court. I, by the way, am a devoted Christian, but I like the way the Hebrew Bible tracks the changes made in its Bible from farther back and includes pages of how the translation was changed. The New King James Version Bible has half a page that basically says that it's based on the 'Authorized Version of the Bible' (capitalization is taken directly from the book, btw). I had to research what that meant. The Christian Bible also doesn't make any room for problems based on how the books and possibly the meanings were changed during the time of oral tradition as well as how scribes changed it when they each created their own translations. This may be blasphemous of me to say, but I often think that Christians don't spend enough time thinking about the Bible and it's actual history. We are taught to believe that the Bible is the Word of God completely and totally as it's written in whatever translation we are reading, making no room for trouble in translating, differing views on women and slaves and other subjects in the time in which it was written, etc. I've always had some trouble believing that women shouldn't be educated and should never preach - which is something that the Christian Bible (and maybe the Hebrew Tanakh - I haven't read it yet) says. So I've always had the opinion that some of the things written in the Bible were no longer relevant because of the difference in times. I guess that's blasphemous to some people. But I have read the Bible more times than most of the Christians I know and I like to think about my beliefs instead of just believing them.
But I'm getting off topic. Another change in the two documents are the way they order the books. They are as follows in the Tanakh:
The Torah ( The Five Books of Moses)
Genesis
Exodus
Leviticus
Numbers
Deuteronomy
Nevi'im (The Prophets)
Joshua
Judges
1 Samuel
2 Samuel
1 Kings
2 Kings
Isaiah
Jeremiah
Ezekiel
Hosea
Joel
Amos
Obadiah
Jonah
Micah
Nahum
Habakkuk
Zephaniah
Haggai
Zechariah
Malachi
Kethuvim (The Writings)
Psalms
Proverbs
Job
The Song of Songs
Ruth
Lamentations
Ecclesiastes
Esther
Daniel
Ezra
Nehemiah
1 Chronicles
2 Chronicles
The Old Testament is ordered as follows:
Genesis
Exodus
Leviticus
Numbers
Deuteronomy
Joshua
Judges
Rush
1 Samuel
2 Samuel
1 Kings
2 Kings
1 Chronicles
2 Chronicles
Ezra
Nehemiah
Esther
job
Spalms
Proverbs
Ecclesiastes
Song of Solomon (Song of Songs in the Tanakh)
Isaiah
jeremiah
Lamentations
Ezekiel
Daniel
Hosea
Joel
Amos
Obadiah
Jonah
Micah
Nahum
Habakkuk
Zephaniah
Haggai
Zechariah
Malachi
For the purpose of comparing the different translations and any other differences there are, I'll be reading each book at the same time in each book.
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