CREATION & BIBLE CORRUPTION
Video Returning Me to Septuagint Vs. Masoretic
Were the Pyramids Built Before the Flood? (Masoretic Text vs. Original Hebrew)
I just watched parts of this recent video The Bible’s Most Overlooked Change: A 1,400-Year Discrepancy, which hesitantly favors the Septuagint Old Testament over the Masoretic Old Testament. Then I read some of the comments under the video. And I was very pleased to see that nearly all of the viewers rather strongly agree that the Septuagint is more correct, because I determined the same a few years ago. The viewers’ comments below contain quite a bit of into I didn’t know about, or at least remember. It impressed me quite a bit that one said Augustine criticized Jerome for translating the Latin Vulgate Old Testament from the original Masoretic. The video above at the top was mentioned in one of the last comments I read (shown below). It sounded good, so I watched the whole thing, though it’s 7 years old now. I’m pleased to see the video author concluded that the original Masoretic Bible was written after Jesus by Jews who wanted to undermine Christianity. I heartily concur with Augustine’s rebuke of Jerome, as well as a rebuke of all who followed Jerome’s translation. And that includes most Christian Bibles, like the King James Version and most others, except for the Greek Orthodox Bible.
I write another Substack, called CATACLYSMIC EARTH HISTORY, and I reference a lot of Creationist Science literature, because it’s much better science than the mainstream’s, though I’m not a Creationist myself. I don’t believe the Earth etc was made in 7 days. I think that’s a mistranslation. (For example, Genesis says God warned Adam that in the day you eat of the fruit of the tree of life, you shall surely die, but he didn’t die that day. He lived over 900 years. So it could be argued that a day meant a thousand years.) But Creation Science has very good evidence for Noah’s Flood and much of Bible history. The timeline above is from the first video at the top from 7 years ago. I’m nearly in agreement with everything in that video, except for the dating of the first Egyptian pyramids. I believe they were made about 200 years later than shown above. Other than that, the video is very good at showing why the Masoretic is wrong and the Septuagint is right. The author criticizes Creationists for following the Masoretic, which dates the Flood to about 2350 BC, whereas the Flood surely occurred several centuries before the pyramids were built. The Septuagint dates the Flood at 3,300 BC or so, while I date it at just under 3,200 BC, because of a probable error in a copy of the Septuagint. I suspect that Creationists are influenced by Zionists, who follow the Masoretic, ironically. Creationists pretend to follow the Christian Bible, but the video shows that Jesus, Paul, Stephen and so on agreed with the Septuagint, not the Masoretic. I think a lot of Jews and Arabs are converting to Christianity, so maybe Creationists will finally wake up before long.
COMMENTS
@ornettecoleman5849 1 month ago
Top notch video, as always As an Eastern Orthodox, I favor the LXX over the Masoretic tradition. Your videos are great sources of information. I gotta say that I really admire your intellectual honesty. Even with your knowledge, you always seem ready to share your doubts and your questions (I am also thinking about your "young earth creationism" video : it's hard to imagine a Bible scholar in his 40's changing his mind on this topic) Keep up the good work and may God bless you
@taufgesinntechristen3975 1 month ago
BTW Augustine was in favor of the LXX. When he heard that Jerome was translating from the Proto-Masoretic text, he rebuked him and we still have the letters between Augustine and Jerome on this.
@ClothedByGrace 2 weeks ago (edited)
Have you noticed this? I want you to do a little experiment on the numbers in Genesis 5. I CHALLENGE YOU: Take Josephus’ chronology for Genesis 5 (which is identical to the Septuagint with the exception of Lamech, whose begetting age is 182 in Josephus) and reduce every age by exactly 100 years. When you do this, you’ll see that three patriarchs live past the flood! Jared, Methuselah, and Lamech would live past the flood if you were to make their begetting ages 62, 87 and 82 respectively. (I repeat: This is the result of starting with the longer chronology as given in the LXX and Josephus and reducing the ages of the first nine patriarchs by exactly 100 years each. You will notice that there is then a contradiction with Jared, Methuselah, and Lamech living past the flood.) This explains the begetting ages in Genesis 5 in the Masoretic Text. Had the Rabbis reduced all nine ages in the same way, three patriarchs would have lived past the flood, creating a massive contradiction. Therefore, the Rabbis changed the six patriarchs and left those three as they originally were. When you change Jared, Methuselah, and Lamech back to the longer ages, you end up with… our current reading of the Masoretic Text. I am personally convinced that the Rabbis did this in Genesis 5. They first reduced the ages of all nine patriarchs by 100 years each. Then they realised there would be a contradiction with Jared, Methuselah and Lamech living past the date of the flood. Therefore, they changed those three back to the original, longer ages. This explains the non-uniformity of the ages in the Masoretic Text: 70, 65, 162, 65, 187, 182. Did Jared decide to wait an additional hundred years before having a baby? It doesn’t make sense. The Septuagint, on the other hand, has a very natural pattern to the ages. I believe that the Rabbis were responsible for changing the Hebrew text. Then, in total hypocrisy, they promoted their propaganda: “Scribal tradition is a fence around the Torah” - hypocrisy at its finest!! In Genesis 5, the Rabbis, had a barrier to the changes they could introduce into the text - the date of the flood - which prevented them from changing Jared, Methuselah, and Lamech. In Genesis 11, however, they had no such barrier and freely reduced all the ages. As Henry B. Smith Jr. says, “Their goal was not only to deflate the chronology, but to limit the changes to prevent them from being discovered.” (The Case for the Septuagint’s Chronology in Genesis 5 and 11, p. 123)
My two cents is to go with the LXX here.
@ronester1 1 month ago (edited)
My understanding was that Rabbi Akiva and the remnant of Pharisees that rejected Jesus as Christ/Messiah after the destruction of the temple adjusted the readings of scripture ,that Christians were using to prove Jesus was the Messiah and converting Jews, to make it more general and not as specific as the original Hebrew readings that are preserved in the Septuagint and were used by the New Testament writers, This was attested to by Justin Martyr among other Church Fathers, also as far as the geneologies in Genesis Chapter 11 these were adjusted to allow Shem to have been Mechizedek that Abraham gave a tithe of all, however using the Septuagint reading Shem would've been dead years ago, this change would have been done in an attempt to disprove the chapter in the book of Hebrews on Jesus Christ Priesthood being superior to all other priesthoods
Wow, this was incredibly eye-opening. The depth of research and the way you explained the 1,400-year discrepancy was both fascinating and easy to follow. Definitely one of the most overlooked topics in biblical history — thanks for shedding light on it!
@AmmoForDays1 1 month ago (edited)
I spoke with a professor (who was on a biblical translation team) who has a very high view of Scripture, and if the NT quotes the LXX - and the MT disagrees - then he considers the LXX quotation the authentic Tanach rendering.
I absolutely love this topic, so thanks for addressing it! My method of prioritizing OT sources is to trust the MT unless the LXX reading is affirmed by the NT writers and/or the DSS. "By the mouth of two or three witnesses let every word be established."
Eastern Orthodoxy uses the LXX for their OT and the Byzantine for their NT. They are a huge part of the Church, so their view needs to be taken into consideration.
Since Abraham lived with Noah, the masoretic timeline is not possible.
It seems the inspired writers of the New Testament leaned heavily on the Septuagint.
@NaturalBeauty-i1t 1 month ago
"Wow, this was a truly eye-opening presentation! It’s fascinating how such a major detail could go unnoticed for so long. Thank you for shedding light on this 1,400-year discrepancy—your research and delivery were both outstanding. Subscribed for more deep dives like this
I wonder if it's possible that a standardized text made by people who denied and hated Yeshua would want to hide things.
@mburton120 1 month ago (edited)
Here is a theory I've been speculating on for a few years. The compression in the MT makes humanly sense in that it makes more sense for a 35-year-old to have a child rather than a 135-year-old. So, during Jesus' time there may have been some manuscripts who had the compressed age due to careless scribes. So, the Jewish Priests may have thought in their heart who's to say the shorter ages were not correct making the King of Salom Shem. This is a case of them being willfully ignorant and would eliminate any real conspiracy to change the text while explaining how the compression came about. In their hearts they could justify that they changed nothing. This could be why Paul warned about not arguing about endless genealogies as this would have been ongoing in the first century. What are your thoughts?
The Hebrew text also removed part of Jesus's quote of restoring sight to the blind from Isaiah, but it's still there in the LXX. The only reason for it to have dropped is the Masoretic scribes were trying to deny Christ.
Also, the uncorrupted dates in the LXX put the flood between 3100 and 3300 BC, which is corroborated by secular ancient histories, especially Sumerian history. We can't have one history for Christians and a different history told by the artifacts unearthed by archaeologists. There are not two realities. On this point, the Septuagint fits the facts.
If you read the Church Fathers in order you will find that some of the early Church Fathers make that claim that the Masoretic text was altered and the AnteNicene Fathers do favor the Septuagent over the Hebrew text of their time for that reason
I always enjoy the measured analysis you bring to various Bible topics.
Great video! Another line of evidence favoring the LXX timeline is that while most of the begetting age discrepancies are 100 years apart, Nahor’s is only 50: 29 in MT and 79 in LXX. This favors the LXX because you could have added 100 to 29, but you can’t subtract 100 from 79. So the 50-year difference is a clue that these numbers are deflated in the MT.
19:49 The Jews themselves explain that the Masoretes standardized the Hebrew text, literally destroying manuscript that did not conform.
@EarlyChristianBeliefs 1 month ago
Good point.
@BiblicalStudiesandReviews 1 month ago
@TheRootedWord do you have a citation on that? I would be interested in digging into that more. Thanks for watching
The genealogical changes in the Masoretic Text (MT) were deliberately altered to align Shem, the son of Noah, with the figure of Melchizedek.
LXX all the way.
Great stuff Stephen!
@undergroundpublishing 1 month ago (edited)
Regarding Luke's use of Caianan, both the Masoretic and the Samaritan Penteteuch omit Cainan. Cainan has interesting source material in the Book of Jubiliees, citing a Kainam as ths source of the reintroduction of the antedeluvian mysteries. We know the Masoretic authors alter the name Moses to Manessah in Judges 18 to obscure the fact that it was Moses' grandson who started the Danite call, in a desire to keep his name from shame, so there is that, but here is my theory on why Luke is both right in his record, and that the geneology is wrong. Luke's record is a record of verifiably testimony relating to Paul's trial, focusing more on things said publicly in Jesus ministry rather than things said privately to his disciples. Everything seems set up to justify Paul if these things were investigated independently. Where the Matthew geneology contains omissions of several Davidic kings, (who were all murdered from the time of Jezebel to Uzziah by either Jehu or the Priesthood), we know there is likley a priestly reason to omit them, and thus the temple geneology is incomplete for poltiical reasons. Luke's geneology actually matches the Book of Jubiless in its early record, and was likely a Davidic family record (not the Solomonic line) and thus not tampered with. What is likely is that there are two geneologies held by competing sects of Judaism, one ommiting the Davidic kings in Matthew, and one adding the name Cainan from Jubiliees. So, if Luke is seeking a legally verifiable record, he is going to use the one that seems more complete, This is what would be verified in an investigation. Cainain is missing from the LXX, Masoretic, and Samartian Penteteuch in 1 Chronicles 1 however, showing that there is somehting sketch about this name. What I suspect is that the name was made up by some sect during the Babylonian captivity or during the Persian era. If you study the history of Zoroastrianism, they have a Pishdadian dynasty, roughly corresponding to the geneology of Adam to Noah, with a guy named Feryadun dividing the earth between his three sons at the end of the dynasty. (The same story as in Jubiliees). The Avestan prehistory then begins a Kayanian dynasty, that supposedly goes from this time to the Achemenid empire. The Kayanian dynayst is the name given to the dynasty started by a king who was influenced by Zarathustra. I susepct that the Hebrews transliterated Kainam (Jubiliees ch VIII) from Kayanian dynasty, and thus the name was added to become Cainan. We find the Jews doing similar things with the Chaldeans (inventing Chelod in Judith, desptie there being a different progenitor for the Chaldeans in Jubilees.) The point is, Luke is accurate, but the Jewish record keeping he cited is not. The Jews were clearly drawing from Zoroastrian ideas to come up with the many names and places in the Book of Jubiliees (most which cannot be verified elsewise). These records probably made it into offical records in the time of the Maccabees, as it is accounted in II Maccabees that a library was gathered by Nehemiah, and then burned by order of Antiochus, then restored (somewhat) via donated works under Judas Maccabeus. It was likely these restored works, drawn from private citizens, that became the official or library recrod that Luke drew from, and the ultimate source for both the Septuagint and Lukes geneologies. But these may have all been based on a myth captured in Jubilees, which is why this Cainan is missing from Gen 11 in the Masoretic and Samaritan Penteteuch, and from all three sources in 1 Chron 1.
The ten "lost tribes" were taken away from the Northern Kingdoms of Israel to Assyria.. The reason stated or implied in the bible was their rejection of worship at Jerusalem on the appointed feast days along with the anointed/appointed Priests. while away, they were subjected to the foreign religious beliefs and formed their own Rabbinic traditions/interpretations. Jesus while in Jerusalem accused the religious leaders of substituting their own traditions in place of God's laws (mistranslating the scriptures). Upon their return from that captivity after there was no longer a God appointed priesthood, the rabbinic traditions became dominant. I read that even today, a requirement (perhaps only in the ultra orthodox) to be a Rabbi was to have an uninterrupted lineage dating all the way back to that captivity with everyone in that lineage being a Rabbi. Most of today's Rabbinic tradition seems to be heavily predicated upon "oral tradition" rather than the ORIGINAL written word. Nehemia Gordon is one who is part of a Rabbinic lineage but is fervently searching for the truth in the oldest manuscripts rather than just accepting tradition. Basically, the problem seems to be in finding/recovering the oldest manuscripts dating back to the original source rather than just accepting the "copies" and commentaries trying to interpret what the original documents stated.
@libertynindependence 1 month ago
I don’t quite understand why people think that it’s so impossible that the texts could’ve been changed. It changed hands so many times it’s really unfathomable to think that it didn’t in some way shape or form. I think the real reason why you have trouble believing that it could’ve been changed is because you’ve been taught that the text was God breathed and that God wouldn’t let things get corrupted.
Thanks for covering this topic. When I looked at it some twenty years ago I leaned toward the Septugint based on a bell shaped curve of the ages in the Septuagint.
I was born a Protestant but converted to Eastern Orthodoxy. Their new English translation of the OT in their Study Bible released in 2008 is taken totally from the LXX. They are convinced it is the true OT text.
@todddavidmoore 1 month ago (edited)
Yes, someone purposely doctored the text - and they almost get away with it - at least in their own circles. However, the LXX text has never (from day one) been the fringe view in the Eastern Orthodox Christian church. You rightly ask how could such a Scriptural emendation happen? But you also recognize - it did happen! In any case, now that you are seemingly focusing on the LXX chronology of the Pentateuch, don't stop there. Consider the possibility that the Old Greek (OG) chronology of the Hebrew kings might also be worth seriously considering. No text is perfect, but many scholars think the Antiochian/Lucianic text type best represents the OG. I think I mentioned in the comments of another video, you can get a generally good overview of the case for the Lucianic text and its particular chronology of the kings in the late Christine Tetley's, "The Reconstructed Chronology of the Divided Kingdom." Tetley wrote another book, "The Reconstructed Chronology of the Egyptian Kings," right before she passed away (pdf can be found free online) where she proposed an interpretation of the Eber's calendar which is key to unlocking our understanding of Sothic dating. This is because several anchor dates were established, one of which was for Amenhotep I in 1651 BC. The main take-away is that, for those interested in the Exodus pharaoh, her work might seem counter intuitive to Biblical interests, in that she pushes the 18th dynasty regnal chronology back ~100 years earlier than current scholarly opinion. Yet, (at least in my view) the "very high" LXX-L chronology also pushes the Exodus back ~100 years (mid 1500's BC). Thus, in the LXX-L chronology, even though the Exodus is 100 years earlier than every conservative has been looking for, you can still at least maintain your favorite 18th dynasty Exodus pharaoh candidates (e.g., Amenhotep II).
@michelemoneywell8765 1 month ago
Found it! This is a very interesting and well done video that approaches the LXX vs Masoretic text with the question, "Were the pyramids built before the flood?" Since no extensive water damage, no, but then how to explain the Egyptian scholars timeline with the biblical (Masoretic)? It doesn't line up. It's only when you bring in the extra 100 years for each of the first 6 descendants of Shem and 50 to the 7th, that you wind up with an extra 650 years, and that it all fits together. The video also shows the 3 witnesses to the older copy of the Hebrew text. It shows how the Tower of Babel was likely built during Eber's life, and his name is the origin of Hebrew. It shows that his son's name, Peleg, means divided, so when the people dispersed, they were no longer united. It shows how the population increased needed to build the tower was impossible with the Masoretic text. It's a wonderful video, one of my very favorite YouTube videos. youtube.com/watch?v=VI1yRTC6kGE
You didn't mention the most crucial point that indicates the motive for changing the MT: the fraudulent claim that Melchizedek was Shem. If that were true it would make false the claim that Christ is a priest after the order of Melchizedek (Hebrews 5:10 and 6:20) and that Melchizedek "is without father or mother or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, ..." (Hebrews 7:3).
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