Authenticity of the text
Masoretic Text
What is the Masoretic Text?
The word "Masoretic Text" literally means "Text of the Tradition". it is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic test of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) in Rabbinic Judaism.
This text waas primarily copied, edited and distributed by a group of Jews known as the Masoretes between the 7th and 10th century CE. The
The oldest known complete copy to exist from this text, is referred to as the Leningrad Codex.
The Masoretic text is the basis for most protestant translations of the old testament, such as the King James Version. Some Christian denominations however use the Septuagint.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masoretic_Text
What is the "Mas'sora"?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_diacritics
The Masoretic Text includes what is called the "mas'sora", which is the vocalization and accentuation, known as diacritic ("diacritic" being similar to accent marks on letters in English) markings. These markings are called "Niqqud" (which means dotting or pointing). These diacritical signs are used to represent vowels or distinguish between alternative pronunciations of letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Essentially thus, there this text includes three basic "types" of Niqqud's:
- Niqqud to indicate vowels
- geresh and gershayim, two diacritics that are not considered a part of niqqud, each of which has several functions (e.g. to denote Hebrew numerals)
- cantillation, which are also "accents" but which are used exclusively to indicate how Biblical passages should be chanted and may possess a punctuating function.
Summary of the Masoretic Text
The fact that the original text does not include any of the "mas'sora", creates a big problem, because using the mas'sora one literally adds not only to the text itself, but also to the understanding. Many sources say that the mas'sora assisted in alleviating confusion, since it narrows down the possibilities of various interpretation to only a specific way of interpretation. We need to ask ourselves why the scriptures are written in the way they are though. Remember they are sealed books even though everyone can read the letters. Daniel was specifically instructed to seal the book (Dan12:4 But you, Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book until the time of the end; many shall run to and fro and knowledge shall increase). Does it thus make sense that the Rabbie's had a difficult time to interpret and understand the scripture? It certainly does. Does it also make sense that the Rabbie's were not the ones to whom the knowledge kept in the scriptures were to be availed? Yes it does, since the Rabbies and the Jews are not the sons of Jacob, but of Esau. They are not the ones for whom this information is kept. Their system of interpretation, should thus really be approached with a very high dose of critical analyses.