I said I wouldn't respond, but you've successfully irritated me into doing so...
Prove that it changed the meaning and provide sources that show it from a Hebrew mass before 1000AD.
Here's a link to the actual Isaiah scroll:
http://dss.collections.imj.org.il/. Visit that page and look at the scroll. Know what you won't find there? Diacritical marks.
As for proving that it changed the meaning, you will need to be able to read Hebrew for me to do that. I don't think you can do that, because if you could, you would already understand how the addition of diacritical marks limits the potential range of meanings.
Let's try a thought experiment, though, to see if we can get through to you.
Imagine you had a book that was written without any vowels or punctuation. Reading that book would require a lot of interpretation on the part of the reader. Is that word "foot" or "feet?" Is that word "rat" or "rate?" "Trip" or "Trap" or "Tripe?" There is ambiguity. Much of it can be figured out by context, but of course the other words have the same issue, so you can have whole phrases that can be interpreted in multiple different ways.
This turns out to be exactly the case for writings in ancient Semitic languages. There is little to no punctuation. The vowels are all left up to the reader's interpretation.
We can view this two ways. On the one hand, we could say that this is a limitation of the language, which makes it imprecise. On the other hand, we could say that this is a feature of the language, which allows clever authors/readers to play at words and convey more than one meaning in a single phrase, creating multiple layers of meaning using a single text.
If we take the former view, then it seems practical that we would go back through and add in all the punctuation and vowels for the modern reader, so as to make it easier to understand. This is precisely what was done when diacritical marks were added to the Biblical text.
But consider the latter view. If we believe that the Author/authors of the Bible were clever, and often intended multiple meanings for a word or phrase, how would we view the action of adding all the vowels and punctuation to the text? We would say that they have stripped away all the layers of the text but one, removed all the subtleties and, in short, reduced the text from a written masterpiece to a pedantic bit of history.
That is precisely my view of the Masoretic diacritical marks. They are
additions to the text, which in truth,
take away from it.
And, lest you say that I have provided no examples, I will here link you to an entire book of examples. Happy reading:
https://archive.org/details/paronomasiainold00casarich
There was no completed OT Greek text in the first century. Josephus said it did not exist.
Please provide a citation for this claim.
There is zero proof that one existed. The first five books were translated by the 72 Jewish scribes, the rest was up for grabs and oh boy did people have a field day with the rest of it for the next several hundred years.
No proof... other than the New Testament quoting from it constantly... mmmmmhmmmmm...
What does a first century Rabbi have to do with Hebrew manuscripts? Apparently, Jesus had no problem reading the OT Hebrew Scroll, and never pointed out the so called inaccuracies the text that He quoted so often. In fact, neither did any writer of the NT. It's all just made up mishmash to make the Scriptures a laughing stock. I will resist that for as long as I live.
The Bible never says the scroll Jesus read from was written in Hebrew. The story is in Luke 4, if you can show me where it says it was in Hebrew, by all means please do.
However, it apperas to me that Jesus was reading in
Greek. The passage He quotes in Luke 4 is Isaiah 61, and it turns out that there is a difference between the LXX and Masoretic text in verse 1. Jesus follows the reading in the LXX.
No, Christianity was not a sect of Judaism, ever. Judaism is a middle ages term referring to Talmudic Judaism.
I guess Acts is wrong when it calls it a sect, then? Chapters 24 and 28. Oops.
