This is the Hebrew text that many Bibles use, including the King James Version 1611 and nearly every other Bible.
To provide an explanation of how most of us obtained these Hebrew Old Testament Scriptures (Genesis through Malachi), we have this reference.
THE MASORETES
"[The Masoretes were scribes] and were active from around A.D. 750 until A.D. 920. In addition to copying the text and noting the number of words in verses, and so on, they developed a system of vowel pointing to clarify the all-consonant text (Hebrew was all consonants with no vowels in the original). Hebrew was changing (as all languages do), and the correct pronounciation was being forgotten [or the pronounciation that was present in the 8th Century A.D.] -- especially in certain regions where peculiar dialects had emerged or where Hebrew was becoming a dead language. They added some other notations to aid the reader as well. As a result of their work, the "Masoretic Text" (MT) emerged. For many years that was the best Hebrew Text available, and all [further] Hebrew translations were based on it.
"Unfortunately, the oldest Manuscripts of the Masoretic Text date back only to around the year 900 [A.D.]. Most are from 1100 A.D. or later, and NO complete Text is earlier than that [1100 A.D.]." (Emphasis ours)
ASTOUNDING DOSCOVEROES AT QUMRAN MANY TIMES DISAGREE WITH THE MASORETIC TEXT
In addition, among the Qumran discoveries, "One Scroll, containing the Text of the Book of Samuel, is more like the Septuagint [LXX] than the Masoretic Text.."
Jonathan Underwood, A History of the English Bible, Standard Publishing, 1983, pps. 61,62.
WHAT IS "THE LAW"?
Reference to the Hebrew Scriptures as "the TaNaK" dates to the time on the Masoretes. "TaNaK" is a Jewish abbreviation for T = Torah, N = N'viim, and K = K'tuviim: Law, Prophets and Writings. Before the Masoretes, there was no such division. The Masoretes also added the vowel points to the Hebrew. Before that time, there were no vowel points, so the Hebrew vowel-point system reflected a Middle Ages' pronunciation of Hebrew that is spoken today.
For another way to determine which Manuscript your Bible contains for the Older Testament, go to SOURCE TEXTS!
Sometimes persons may say that when ancient authorities such as Philo, Josephus or Aristobulus the High Priest referred to "the Law" that they only meant the first Five Books of the Bible, the Pentateuch, or the Five Books of Moses, as the Masoretes later divided it. The New Testament, on the other hand, in John 10:34, Yeshua refers to the Psalms as "the Law" (what the Masoretes called the K'tuviim), and the Apostle Paul also calls Isaiah "The Law" in I Corinthians 14:21 (what the Masoretes called "the N'viim).
THE "MASORETIC TEXT" IS ACTUALLY NOT JUST ONE TEXT
It is also important to understand that the "Masoretic Text" came from what could be called a "family" of texts. It is not just one text. No two manuscripts agree 100%. Later, it was "canonized" by taking all the available texts and making "one text" out of them and calling it the "Masoretic Text". In the process of doing this th Masoretes certainly added the vowel points, and most likely many subtle Gemetriac modifications were made over those hundreds of years it took to prepare it as well.
There are passages found in the MT taken from the Greek LXX (Septuagint) of Aquila the proselyte as well. Aquila the proselyte (no relation to the Aquila of the New Testament) was a second century A.D. convert to Judaism and was not a believer in Yeshua. The New Testament uses quotes from the LXX (Greek Septuagint) that the early Church used to evangelize with. Aquila then produced another LXX to counter the evangelism of the Church. It is in wide variance in several key passages with regard to Messiah compared with the much earlier LXX that the Church used.
Aquila the proselyte may have set a standard for the anti-missionaries and those who later found it expedient to deliberately altering G-ds' Holy Word. Aquila found no provblem whatsoever in falsifying Scripture, because "the end justified the means".
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