Tag Archives: masoretic text

1 Chronicles 1:29 — Accents and Sentence Structure

One of the more fascinating things about the Masoretic Text is its system of accents. Basically, an elaborate system of accent marks allows every verse in the Hebrew Bible to be diagrammed, rather like schoolchildren today diagram sentences. (At least, I hope schoolchildren today diagram sentences.) Of course, the accents were added about 1000 years [...]
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Petuḥah and Setumah — Let’s Bring Them Back

Chapters and verses — it is by means of these that the books of the Bible are divided and subdivided for reference. But the Bible did not come ready-made with chapter divisions — chapters were added around eight hundred years ago. Though useful, the modern system of numbered chapters and verses would be utterly foreign [...]
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and a span

In fairly literal Bibles which translate from the Masoretic Text, Goliath was a six cubits and a span in height. According to the grad student who is teaching my Hebrew 370 ‘Biblical Literature in Translation’ class here at OSU, this comes to about nine feet [1]. However, the Septuagint has Goliath at four cubits and [...]
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the new testament quotes the old, romans 1:17

The New Testament, I have heard it said, quotes the Septuagint.  Let’s examine whether, and to what extent, this is true.  Specifically, let’s look at Romans 1:17.  Unless it’s relevant, I’ll just translate into English fairly literally.  Let’s start with Romans 1:17, Romans 1:17 — As it is written, And the righteous will live by [...]
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looking at meshech/mosoch in the masoretic and septuagint texts

Recently I turned my proofreadish tendencies toward looking at the NKJV and produced this post.  Ever since, I’ve been wondering whether I was prematurely harsh in my comments on Genesis 10:23. Related Posts:inaccuracies of nkjv footnotesparataxisbeyond the canon listhebrew thursday: pronouns and prepositionsreverse folk etymology
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names of isaac’s mother in the septuagint

It seems like comparing the Septuagint to the Masoretic OT tends to create more questions than it answers.  For example, in Genesis 17:15, with which those of you who were thoroughly Sunday-schooled will probably be familiar, Abraham is told that his wife shall no longer be called Sarai, but rather Sarah.  In the Hebrew consonantal [...]
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was job a real person?

That’s the title of Jeff Oien’s recent post.  In it he decides that on the basis of Ezekiel 14:14 that Job was “of course” a real person.  Critics would respond with the argument that Job is simply a parabolic figure and he’s being used here as a symbol of righteousness in a hypothetical and impossible [...]
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seeing vs. meeting with god

Read the delightful article by Daniel McClellan here, where he explains for us what grammatical and text-critical analysis of Hebrew and Greek phrases in Exodus can tell us about the way the revisers and translators viewed the relationship between lowly man and Almighty God. Related Posts:Negotiating Genesis 1:1 – A Proposed TranslationThe Ascension of MosesGod [...]
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beginning a chronology of the bible — adam to the flood, masoretic year-counts.

Several posts ago, I decided to start working out a chronology of the Bible.  So, for starters, let’s work out the amount of time from Adam’s creation to the Flood.  We’ll use a system of dating called Anno Mundi, “Year of the World,” which, for our purposes, starts with the year Adam was created–we’ll call [...]
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corruption in lamentations 3:51?

I read this earlier today, by John Hobbins, about Lamentations 3:51. Before I go on to share my doubts about what the author is proposing, let me say first that I fully realize that he is an expert in biblical Hebrew, and I am not by any stretch of the imagination. But my objection to [...]
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