Your "mistranslations" confirm Greek primacy

[judge]

Shlama All:
There are slight textual differences between The great Isaiah Scroll found at Qumran vis-a-vis the Massoretic text of Isaiah. Nevertheless, the Great Isaiah Scroll is a great testimony to the cohesiveness of the book of Isaiah. It is an imperfect scribal copy with variations of the text. If it was used in the synagogue it would have been buried in a geniza at the end of its usefulness but since it was among the scrolls at Qumran it may have been slightly paraphrased, and this may account for the differences when compared with the Massoretic text.

To me, this sounds like a reasonable explanation. I don't know that we can be certain it is correct, but it makes sense.

(snip) As for Amos 5:26-27, where the Massoretic text reads "Sukkot" and "Kiun" vis-a-vis Acts 7:42-43, where the Aramaic Peshitta reads "Malkum" and "Raphan" respectively, it is not uncommon that the same false deity can have more than one name. This in and of itself, is not proof that the Peshitta New Testament followed the Greek New Testament.

Agreed but it may be evidence that the NT authors were not familiar with the massoretic text, or at least were more famiar with another tradition or targums.


(snip)

I strongly believe that the scribal tradition which produced the entire T"NK in Hebrew prevented the redaction of the text. Letters were counted. Marginal notes were added. Nothing was purposefully added or removed from the text. Such was the level of holiness of the Scriptures.

This is all possibly true, but we are still left with the fact that all (or most) of the NT authors don't quote the massoretic text. So the massoretic text may have existed, but it doesn't seem to have been popular.
The peshitta NT quotes seem to tell us that a version existed, that was popular, that was closer to the LXX(s) we have today.
It is hard to be certain about how this came about. Maybe the LXX was edited to resemble the GNT which was translated from the Peshitta NT. <!-- s:biggrin: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/biggrin.gif" alt=":biggrin:" title="Big Grin" /><!-- s:biggrin: --> There are many possibilties.

I'll go with the Massoretic text of the Jewish Bible and the Aramaic Peshitta without reservation.

Except in Acts 7:14 maybe (or the many other instances where they disagree). Where you have to choose between them.

It may be that the massoretic text has been preserved and that the peshitta NT authors did not care too much whether they got it word for word (Mattis use of it is suprising enough, quite apart from the fact he doesn't quote it the way we would in the 21st century <!-- s:biggrin: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/biggrin.gif" alt=":biggrin:" title="Big Grin" /><!-- s:biggrin: --> ). If this is the case it may be that the church changed the LXX to agree with the GNT.
Acts 7:14 is problematic for this idea though as the DSS version, in Hebrew, reads 75 souls.

Maybe the massoretic text was perfectly preserved, and at the same time other imperfect versions were around and that the DSS (as you suggest) was one of these versions.

The NT authors it seems were happy enough to use these versions, even though they were imperfect.
Which of course, if it is true, makes me wonder why we in the 21st century should, at times, be so rigid. <!-- s:biggrin: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/biggrin.gif" alt=":biggrin:" title="Big Grin" /><!-- s:biggrin: -->

All the best Stephen.