> >* From the time the Hebrew Bible was written down until the first > translations and Hebrew manuscripts they have today, I assume > there were 500 to 1000 years or more, so how do they know > during those lost years the people didn't accidentally or > intentionally make changes to the Hebrew Bible? Do scholars > just assume that things stayed the same or what? People > always say scholars follow the evidence, but what if the > evidence was tampered with? * Kenneth Greifer >
Ken, First, this forum is about the language, not the Bible per se. But it is a fair question. However, that doesn't mean that the answers will be accessible to all. At some level the 'how and why' is a discussion among experts. On the language, experts can examine the internal consistency of the language, it's possible and probable development, various epigraphic support throughout the period, and the relationship with cognate languages along with probable explanations that can explain the diverging trajectories. However, this only gets us to the language, not to the integrity of the documents themselves. On the text, we can only "see" back into the Second Temple period. However, the spelling of the "First Temple Documents" shows (statistically, not in any one word/sentence) that those documents were in their approximate shape by the mid-6th century BCE. Beyond that we are without data. blessings Randall Buth -- Randall Buth, PhD www.biblicallanguagecenter.com Biblical Language Center Learn Easily - Progress Further - Remember for Life _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
