The Genesis Chronology: Textual Differences Between the Masoretic Text and Septuagint

 

Greetings readers!

A great question was recently raised in the comments regarding which base text for the Old Testament is superior: the Hebrew Masoretic Text (MT) or Greek Septuagint (LXX). At Unsealed we routinely quote from both texts. Strong opinions persist online, but in my view the debate often belies the very real and often nuanced textual issues scholars wrestle with regarding this topic. Here I simply want to raise some key points that are important to understand in terms of  MT vs. LXX (#s 1–9), and how these ultimately lead into the debate surrounding which Genesis chronology is superior (#10).

Abbreviations used: MT = Masoretic Text; LXX = Septuagint; SP = Samaritan Pentateuch; Syrp = Peshitta; V = Vulgate; OT = Old Testament; NT = New Testament; TR = Textus Receptus; DSS = Dead Sea Scrolls

1. Lots of things are stated online as fact and spread around widely enough that they become unchecked (often faulty) assumptions. Some examples of things that are factually false, yet are still routinely shared around: Constantine invented the Trinity; the NT canon was decided at Nicaea; the whole OT was translated to Greek in the third century BC; the MT was purely the result of a conspiracy by Rabbi Akiva; etc. Especially when it comes to the OT textual history and transmission (MT, LXX, Samaritan Pentateuch, OT Peshitta, Vetus Latina, Vulgate), things are quite a bit more nuanced.

2. Only the first five books of the OT were translated into Greek in the 3rd century BC. The others came later—some think much later.

3. The Septuagint we have today (“extant”) comes from circa 3rd–4th centuries AD, not much different than the MT—which is extant as fragments, references, and witnessed by the Vulgate. However, the Septuagint in use at the time of Christ is regarded to have been substantially revised around the time of Origen (2nd–3rd centuries AD), such that we don’t actually know what the 1st century LXX looked like. It’s plausible that the 1st century LXX adhered much more closely to the MT. One of the biggest issues with accepting the extant LXX as a whole is that it contains a number of internal inconsistencies (the links toward the bottom have a few examples).

4. Early Christians debated MT vs. LXX as well (e.g., Jerome vs. Augustine). Jerome’s argument was that since the OT was originally written in Hebrew, a translation should be based on the Hebrew. Augustine argued both the Hebrew and Greek were inspired. This is why Jerome’s Vulgate from the 4th–5th centuries AD closely mirrors the MT (including the Genesis chronologies).

Along the lines of Jerome’s thinking, the MT has a substantial transmission advantage. That is to say, the MT is not a translation, but is a text transmitted/copied from earlier Hebrew texts. That is not to suggest that the MT is a perfect representation of the original Hebrew OT, but that, by and large, there would naturally be substantially less opportunity for “error in transmission” because the scribes were copying rather than translating anew. The LXX, on the other hand, was translated from Hebrew and Aramaic over centuries. The Syrp was even further removed from the originals—translated from Greek which was in turn translated from Hebrew. The SP has a similar transmission advantage to the MT, and interestingly enough, largely agrees with the MT in Genesis 5 (but not Genesis 11).

5. It is widely stated that the NT quotes from the Septuagint over the MT. This is partially false. While the NT does quote from the LXX more often, it also often quotes from a Hebrew text like the MT, sometimes instead of the Septuagint. So rather than the NT upholding the exclusive authority of the LXX, it actually pays homage to both texts.*

*Important note: probably the majority of OT quotes found in the NT are actually allusions or paraphrastic; in other words, the NT authors were not trying to match either the LXX or MT verbatim, but were crafting the OT thoughts in a new (and still very much inspired) way, that often matched neither the MT or LXX. So the argument that the LXX is quoted more thus is the “right” translation, is a bit of a faulty conclusion. The NT was written in Greek, so quotes are more often from the Greek text that the NT audience was reading—the Septuagint—but quotes are often loose, retaining the meaning, but not necessarily the exact wording.

6. When it comes to Bible translation differences (e.g., LXX vs. MT; or Critical/Eclectic text vs. Majority/TR), a hugely important fact is often forgotten in the debate: some 80–95% of textual differences and variants are classified as untranslatable. In other words, minor Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek spelling differences, word order, etc, that don’t translate to the target language (e.g., English, Spanish, etc).

7. In reality, the OT textual traditions form a Venn diagram where the LXX agrees with the MT in places, but disagrees with the DSS or SP in places. Conversely, the MT agrees with the SP and Syrp in places where the LXX disagrees, and sometimes the LXX matches the others, but not the MT. The closest agreement would probably be between the MT and V, the most widely used OT bases throughout Church history.

8. The OT was originally written in Hebrew and Aramaic, not Greek. Now this doesn’t immediately disqualify the LXX (some argue the LXX is a translation of older Hebrew texts than what the MT was copied from), but it’s important to note that in terms of original, autographic, inerrant inspiration, the LXX is not the original God-breathed version, nor is the LXX necessarily older than the MT.

It is important to note that suggestions the LXX is older than the MT are not generally well-supported. It is often stated that the MT came roughly 700–1,000 years after Christ. This is along the same lines as the argument that the pre-trib rapture was invented in the 19th century (conflating theological systemization with invention). It’s true that the Masoretes standardized the text and introduced niqqud in the 8th–9th centuries AD, but the MT text as a whole long predates them. For starters, we know the MT existed when the V was translated (4th–5th centuries AD), because the V is largely based on it.

Even more significantly, an estimated 60% of the DSS primarily agree with the MT and perhaps only 5% with the LXX (source). The DSS have largely put to rest the arguments that the MT was invented after Christianity came on the scene in an effort to corrupt the text. Furthermore, no direct evidence has been found that Rabbi Akiva and crew systematically corrupted the text; it was only much later that these accusations arose (more or less conspiracies). Now I do believe some select anti-Messianic corruptions were introduced over time, but taking the MT as a whole and the LXX as a whole, I suspect the MT has better overall support. And to top it off, the MT still retains the vast majority of what we would call Messianic passages, or prophecies pointing to Christ. If Akiva had wanted to systematically corrupt the text, he did a very scanty job of it.

Based on the DSS evidence, modern secular scholarship places the development of the Hebrew text on which the MT is based in the 3rd–2nd centuries BC, right around the same time as the LXX. In other words, the LXX has no real claim to greater antiquity. It is likely that the proto-MT was the predominant Tanakh in use by the Jews of Jesus’ day, whereas the proto-LXX would have been the more widely used Bible among Greek speakers in the Holy Land, as well as the Jewish proselytes and early Greek-speaking Christian converts in Greece and Anatolia.

The 1970 discovery of the En-Gedi Scroll is of monumental importance in this debate as well. This scroll, which was dated to the 2nd–4th centuries AD, was so badly charred from a fire circa 600 AD that researchers couldn’t open it to read its contents. Finally, in 2015 advanced imaging technology (X-ray microtomography) was able to image what remained of the text of the scroll without actually opening it. It contains large portions of the first two chapters of Leviticus, and the text precisely matches the current MT without any variation whatsoever, proving that the MT has been transmitted almost verbatim (again, because it’s a copy of a copy of a copy, rather than an actual translation—much less opportunity for variance).

9. The LXX we have extant is translated along a broad spectrum from word-to-word to paraphrastic. This differs considerably from the consistent translation styles of the MT, SP, V, etc. In other words, some books and passages in the LXX are translated very precisely; others are much closer to what we would call today “dynamic equivalence” or paraphrastic; a consistent translation principle was not used in translating the LXX, because the LXX was translated by many different people over centuries.

10. Probably the most critical differences between the MT and LXX are found in Genesis 5 and 11 (the chronologies: Adam to Shem and Shem to Abraham, respectively). The MT and V match exactly. The LXX differs widely such that the year of creation would be roughly 5,500–5,400 BC, whereas ~4,000 BC in the MT and V. Interestingly, the SP closely mirrors the MT in Genesis 5, but mirrors the LXX in Genesis 11. Clearly they can’t all be right.

Regarding the MT vs. LXX vs. SP chronologies, I highly recommend these articles:

Textual traditions and biblical chronology

Biblical chronogenealogies

Some Remarks Preliminary to a Biblical Chronology

The Masoretic text of Genesis 5 and 11 is still the most reliable

We know from the DSS and other historical evidence that in the first few centuries BC and the first century AD there were actually several different Hebrew OT texts in competition, but according to Josephus, Philo, and the Letter to Aristeas, a standard copy was kept in the Temple. My personal perspective is that the MT most closely resembles the original [standard] Hebrew text that was passed down through the centuries and was likely selected because it was 1. the most widely used, 2. sourced from among the Jews within Israel, rather than externally (e.g., LXX from Egypt; SP from Samaria; Syrp from Syria), and 3. regarded as most authentic to the original by the Jewish scribal consensus.

All that said, I do think some anti-Messianic readings in the MT were added in later and are not original, thus the LXX wins out there and in a number of other places of consequence.

I would state my belief regarding Scripture as follows: 1. All Scripture is God-breathed; 2. Only the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek autographs were directly inspired by God and are thus “inerrant”; 3. Like the translators of the KJV stated in the introduction to their work, I believe all of us, regardless of which translation we possess, have before us the true and inspired word of God insofar as our translation agrees with the original autographs.

Blessings!

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