The Text Of The Old Testament -- By: Peter J. Gentry

Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 52:1 (Mar 2009)
Article: The Text Of The Old Testament
Author: Peter J. Gentry


The Text Of The Old Testament

Peter J. Gentry*

* Peter Gentry, professor of OT Interpretation at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2825 Lexington Road, Louisville, KY 40280, delivered this plenary address at the 60th annual meeting of the ETS in Providence, RI on November 19, 2008.

Canon and text are closely related.1 For those who believe in divine revelation mediated by authorized agents, the central questions are (1) What writings constitute the words communicated by God? and (2) Have such writings been reliably transmitted to us? Although my presentation is focused on the latter question, the former is logically prior. How one answers the first question will determine evaluation of evidence relating to the second.

I am assuming in this treatment of the text of the OT that what is authoritative as inspired Scripture is the canonical text.2 Factors defining a canonical text according to Nahum Sarna, are “a fixed arrangement of content” and “the tendency to produce a standardized text.”3 M. Civil notes concerning the transmission of ancient Mesopotamian literature that “text stability and fixed sequence of tablets within a series are also the criteria by which to define a cuneiform text as standard or canonical.”4 Although I defer to the paper by Professor Dempster,5 my own study of canonization has led me to conclude that the text of the OT in arrangement, content, and stability was fixed by the time of Ben Sira or more probably, at the end of the fifth century BC by Ezra and Nehemiah. According to 2 Macc 2:13-14, Judas collected the books as a library after the war, following the example of Nehemiah before him. It is the history of this text that I attempt to treat in what follows.

Discussion of the text of the OT entails the discipline of textual criticism, both an art and a science at the same time. Study in this discipline advances by knowing: (1) bookmaking and practices of scribes in the ancient Near East; (2) the surviving witnesses to the text of the OT; (3) the relative worth of the various witnesses; (4) the history of the transmission of the text; and (5) appropriate methodology in the praxis of deciding between different readings in the witnesses.

Engaging in this task is overwhelming; in my judgment no one person can begin to master all the materials, much less survey them in a brief ...

You must have a subscription and be logged in to read the entire article.
Click here to subscribe
visitor : : uid: ()