How Archaeology Helps You Understand the Bibleනියැදිය

The Holy Scriptures

The Hebrew Bible has been preserved in two distinct versions: a Hebrew version, the Masoretic Text (MT), and a Greek translation, the Septuagint (LXX). You may have noticed those abbreviations in Bible footnotes, but do you know the fascinating history and enduring legend behind them? The MT is named after the Masoretes, Jewish scribes who lived in close-knit communities between the sixth and tenth centuries CE. The oldest complete copy is the Leningrad Codex, created in 1008 CE and carefully preserved in St. Petersburg’s National Library of Russia.

The LXX, from the Latin for “seventy,” arose because pharaoh Ptolemy II worked to have all writings in the known world translated into Greek for the Library at Alexandria (or so the legend goes!). Its translation brought the Scriptures to Jews and non-Jews across the Roman Empire in a language they spoke. It was also vital to the early Christian church: Jesus and the apostles quoted it roughly three hundred times throughout the New Testament. While not a perfect word-for-word rendering of the MT (which came centuries later), its creation by Jews in a pagan nation for all people mirrors God’s redemptive work and strongly suggests divine timing and inspiration.

Where these Greek and Hebrew texts differ, scholars debate whether words were lost in translation to Greek or in centuries of copying the Hebrew. A third witness appeared in 1947, when Bedouin shepherds famously discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls near Qumran. Thousands of fragments and some complete scrolls survived in caves, preserved by the desert climate, including nearly all of the Hebrew Bible, the Deuterocanon, and other writings.

Why are these parchment, papyrus, and copper texts so important? Some are more than a thousand years older than the Masoretic Text and remain almost identical to it. Where differences exist, the Dead Sea Scrolls usually agree with the Septuagint, strengthening both traditions as witnesses to God’s Word.

Beneath all this talk of ancient stones and traditional stories, remember: “no one can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 3:11). We strive to better understand Scripture because we want deeper, stronger relationships with Jesus, and sometimes that means upending what we think we know in order to clearly recognize the true Foundation of our faith.

Pause in silence before the Lord. Listen to His instruction from our Psalm reading...My words are more precious than gold, sweeter than honey. By them, your servant is warned, forgiven, and kept from sin. May the truth of His Word keep you seeking His face.