The NIV: The Making of a Contemporary Translation 
CHAPTER 3:
How the Hebrew and Aramaic Old Testament
Text Was Established
Earl S. Kalland
The subject of this article may be
taken in two ways: (1) to refer to the establishment
of the Hebrew and Aramaic text itself as historically
determined over the years; (2) to refer to the way
any group of translators, such as that for the New
International Version, established the text that
underlies their translation. The latter is the main
concern here, though, of course, all biblical textual
judgment must have its source in the first activity,
viz., the establishment as historically determined.
Every translator with his Old Testament in
its original languages before him, and with the responsibility
to translate a portion of that Old Testament into contemporary
English, should have in mind the question “What text am
I to translate?”
The Committee on Bible Translation for the
New International Version produced a translator’s manual
as a guide for those who were to engage in the endeavor.
This manual, in very simple terms relating to the text
of Scripture, declares:
Translators shall employ the best published
texts of the Hebrew and Greek with significant variants
noted in the draft notes even though they may not necessarily
be in the final printed product. Important text variations
which are not adopted in the body of the work should be
noted in the margin for consideration of higher committees.
In general the approach to textual matters
should be restrained. The Masoretic O. T. text is not to
be followed absolutely if a Septuagint or other reading
is quite likely correct. All departures from the M.T. are
to be noted by the translators in the margin.
The Preface to the NIV also speaks of the
translators as “working directly from the best available
Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek texts.” Mention is made of the
several editorial committees’ revising the translation
“with constant reference to the Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek.”
More specifically the Preface says:
For the Old Testament the standard Hebrew
text, the Masoretic Text as published in the latest editions
of Biblia Hebraica, was
used throughout. The Dead Sea Scrolls contain material
bearing on an earlier stage of the Hebrew text. They were
consulted, as were the Samaritan Pentateuch and the ancient
scribal traditions relating to textual changes. Sometimes
a variant Hebrew reading in the margin of the Masoretic
Text was followed instead of the text itself. Such instances,
being variants within the Masoretic tradition, are not
specified by footnotes. In rare cases, words in the consonantal
text were divided differently from the way they appear
in the Masoretic Text. Footnotes indicate this. The translators
also consulted the more important early versions—the Septuagint;
Symmachus and Theodotion; the Vulgate; the Syriac Peshitta;
the Targums; and for the Psalms the Juxta Hebraica of Jerome. Readings from
these versions were occasionally followed where the Masoretic
Text seemed doubtful and where accepted principles of textual
criticism showed that one or more of these textual witnesses
appeared to provide the correct reading. Such instances
are footnoted. Sometimes vowel letters and vowel signs
did not, in the judgment of the translators, represent
the correct vowels for the original consonantal text. Accordingly
some words were read with a different set of vowels. These
instances are usually not indicated by footnotes.
Further specification in the Preface speaks
of how the poetry of the Old Testament was handled. It says:
Poetic passages are printed as poetry, that
is, with indentation of lines and with separate stanzas.
These are generally designed to reflect the structure of
Hebrew poetry. This poetry is normally characterized by
parallelism in balanced lines. Most of the poetry in the
Bible is in the Old Testament, and scholars differ regarding
the scansion of the Hebrew lines. The translators determined
the stanza divisions for the most part by analysis of the
subject matter. The stanzas therefore serve as poetic paragraphs.
While the NIV translators generally used
the Kittel Biblia Hebraica, published by the Privilegierte
Wurtembergische Bibelanstalt of Stuttgart and available
in the United States through the American Bible Society,
until the later edition called Biblia
Hebraica Stuttgartensia was available, other sources
within the framework of the various translators’ expertise
were considered. These resources are almost limitless,
covering, as they do, textual references from citations
of various sorts from Hebrew manuscripts and quotations
from such manuscripts and observations on such sources.
The same can be said of ancient versions in other languages.
A vast amount of textual evidence is found
in journals whose articles cover textual discussions. These
were sometimes considered.
In regard to footnotes in the Old Testament
text, the Preface says: “In the Old Testament, evidence
for the reading chosen is given first and evidence for
the alternative is added after a semicolon (for example:
Septuagint; Hebrew father).
In such notes the term ‘Hebrew’ refers to the Masoretic
Text.” This observation covers footnotes that relate to
places where uncertainty regarding the original text occurs.
The text of Biblia
Hebraica itself, as well as other critical texts,
has its own history resulting more or less in an eclectic
text. The evaluation of the critical materials in Biblia Hebraica was constantly in review.
Other sources that the translators considered worthy
of discussion were also weighed.
Some translation committees for other modern
versions of the Bible published the text in the original
language from which their translators made their English
translation. The New English Bible, for instance, produced
the text for their New Testament translators (The Greek New Testament, being the Text Translated in the New English
Bible, London: Oxford University Press, 1961). A series
of readings on problem passages was also published for
the translators of the Old Testament (L. H. Brockington, The
Hebrew Text of the Old Testament: The Readings Adopted
by the Translators of the New English Bible [Oxford
University Press, 1973]).
The Hebrew University Bible Project established
an annual called Textus for the publication of materials
relative to the determination of what the text underlying
their translation would be. Material of greatly varied
character was produced in Textus for the consideration of the translators
of the new Jewish Publication Society Old Testament.
In the preface to The
Torah (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society
of America, 1962), it is said that their production was
“not a revision but essentially a new translation,” and
that “the committee undertook faithfully to follow the
traditional (Masoretic) text.” However, they found it
necessary to footnote certain variants, such as “where
the committee had to admit that it did not understand
a word or a passage,” or “where an alternative rendering
was possible,” or “where textual variants are to be found
in some of the ancient manuscripts or versions of the
Bible.”
The establishment of the Hebrew and Aramaic
texts underlying the New International Version Old Testament
moved along with the translation process and was constantly
subject to review. The structure of our procedure (and,
consequently, the text) depended on the choice of personnel
and the process through which the manuscripts moved. The
Committee on Bible Translation, led by Edwin Palmer, selected
the personnel of the initial translation committees on
the basis of the expertise of such persons in the books
of the Bible allocated to them for translation. These initial
translation teams were to include two members who lived
conveniently near to each other so that translation periods
could be expedited. Two other members who served as consultants
and reviewers would make their contributions through the
mails. A fifth member would be an English stylist. This
arrangement was not implemented in rigid fashion but, nevertheless,
remained the objective.
The manuscripts of the translations of these
initial translation teams were reviewed by an intermediate
editorial committee, which at first was composed of the
chairmen of the translation teams. It was thought that
this would facilitate the collegiate nature of the endeavor.
However, the time available to the members of the translation
teams necessitated the selection of additional personnel
to take the place of those who could not follow the whole
process.
The manuscripts reviewed by the intermediate
committee were sent on to a general editorial committee
composed of scholars from among specialists in theology,
archaeology, homiletics, church history, church and missionary
leadership, English style, etc., in order to have a broad
outlook on the task. They also sought reaction from a variety
of groups as they proceeded with their work. They continued
to make full and constant use of expert English stylists
as consultants.
The Committee on Bible Translation itself
completed the editorial procedure by considering all the
details of the manuscripts produced by the foregoing committees.
This final review sometimes returned to a textual judgment
and translation made by an initial committee but changed
by an intermediate or general committee. Then again CBT
would sometimes concur with the intermediate or general
committees against the initial team. At yet other times
CBT would choose a translation other than that of the initial
or intermediate or general editorial committees. In this
way the evidence for the text was subject to the consideration
of at least four committees of scholars.
Reference has been made to the Masoretic
Text and to Biblia Hebraica as the basic text in the
original languages. Is the Hebrew and Aramaic text now
available in Biblia Hebraica the Masoretic Text? Where
did this text come from?
The Masoretic Text has a fluid history. It
had its beginnings among scholars (called sopherim in
Hebrew) in pre-Christian days, but textual materials were
sparse in those days in comparison with those of early
Christian and later periods. Because of the loss of their
nationhood and their land in the sixth centuryb.c., the Hebrews fell back on their
literary sources for continuing their identity and their
character as God’s people. From the time of Ezra they established
certain of their “books” as authentic Scriptures and began
the process of interpretation, transcription, and publication.
This is not to say that there was no copying of the “books”
that they held sacred before this time, but it is to say
that attention to the Scriptures and to their study and
publication (or copying) increased greatly. Before the
advent of Christ, the translation of these “books” into
Greek appeared, and Aramaic interpretations called Targums
illuminated the Hebrew texts. The rise of Christianity
gave impetus to the Jewish scribes (sopherim) to standardize their texts.
Many variations in these texts had already appeared, as
is evident from the differences between Greek, Samaritan,
and Hebrew manuscripts—and even more evident in the Dead
Sea Scrolls.
In order to disprove the assertions of Christians,
Jewish scholars such as Rabbi Akiba (ca.a.d. 50–135)
made notations (Masorah) in the margins of the manuscripts
so that by the middle of the first millenniuma.d. these
Masoretes had established themselves as a dominant force
in textual criticism.
After another half millennium, attempts to
standardize the text then current resulted in the dominance
of the textual work of two families: that of ben Asher
and that of ben Naphtali. The ben Asher text finally prevailed,
though there are those who find ben Asher readings in ben
Napthali texts and ben Napthali readings in ben Asher texts.
Simply stated, there exists no single text that can be
called the Masoretic
Text (except as a generalization). That is one of the reasons
why critical texts like Biblia
Hebraica exist. The editors of such texts decided what
to them was the most likely reading of the original. This
becomes their text. Then they place in margins the variants
and the support for their text and for the variants.
Throughout textual history various classifications
of variants have arisen, and reference to some of these
appears in the footnotes of the NIV under the phrase “ancient
scribal traditions.” One such category is the tiqqune sopherim, the “corrections of
the scribes.” These usually contain anthropomorphisms objectionable
to the scribes and were therefore changed to a more satisfactory
reading. While there is no agreement regarding the number
of these “corrections,” the Masorah generally lists eighteen
passages. Nine of these are mentioned in the NIV footnotes.
The tiqqune sopherim are
known only through references in Rabbinic commentaries
and Masoretic studies. The nine “ancient scribal traditions”
in the NIV footnotes are in Genesis 18:22; Judges 18:30;
1 Samuel 3:13; 2 Samuel 12:14; Job 7:20; 32:3; Jeremiah
2:11; Hosea 4:7 (two citations). This is but one of many
types of variants.
It has been estimated that there are more
than fifteen hundred variants known as Kethiv (“written”)
or Qere (“read”). These grew out of variations that arose
because the early texts had consonants only. The Sopherim
and the Masoretes after them used various signs to indicate
what vowels should be added to complete the words. Several
systems grew up, and differences of opinion finally produced
the Kethiv (K) and Qere (Q) notations in Biblia Hebraica and other critical texts.
Relative to this the NIV Preface says:
Sometimes vowel letters and vowel signs did
not, in the judgment of the translators, represent the
correct vowels for the original consonantal text. Accordingly
some words were read with a different set of vowels. These
instances are usually not indicated by footnotes.
Zeal for the spread of the Hebrew Scriptures
led to their translation and exposition. These endeavors
produced Aramaic Targums and various translations—the most
important being the Greek Septuagint, which was so widely
used that it was a major source of quotations in the writing
of the New Testament. The history of the textual transmission
of the Septuagint also had its production of variants,
and these had to be evaluated by the scholars who were
seeking to determine what was the text of the autographs.
Early in the third centurya.d., Origen
produced a text of the Septuagint that was an attempt to
standardize that version because of the many variants known
in his day. Other Greek versions must also be considered.
In the footnotes to the NIV, one will find
indications of support for certain readings from the Samaritan
Pentateuch, the Septuagint (lxx) the Syriac, the Vulgate, Theodotion,
Aquila, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and, of course, the Masoretic
Text (mt). These sources are sometimes given
more specifically as “some,” “other,” “a few,” “most,”
“many,” “very many,” or even “one” or “two”—all suggesting
variation within the source itself—that is, some Septuagint
manuscripts, or a few Septuagint manuscripts, etc. Other
terms like “does not have” or “a variant of” are self-evident
in meaning. They occur as aids to textual support or nonsupport.
These footnotes introduce such variants as alternatives
to the MT, which was chosen as the basic text, and they
include additions to the MT and different spelling of names
because of sources in different languages, or because of
transliterating instead of translating, or for some other
such reason.
Textual footnotes may relate also to variations
in numbers, to unclear meanings though without a variant,
to a variant due to a grammatical slip, to the substitution
of a noun for a pronoun (or vice versa), to different word
divisions, or to the fact that the Septuagint especially
may suggest different underlying Hebrew. There are geographical
variants and those suggested by ancient scribal traditions,
and plurals versus singulars. Among footnotes to the NIV
Old Testament, more than four hundred relate in some way
to the establishment of what CBT concluded the original
text to be.
These variations are due not only to the
mistakes or errors of copyists. Many variants arise out
of the historical process that results from the methods
of written communication, such as the lack of vowels in
early Hebrew manuscripts, or from the difficulties engendered
by differing figures of speech between languages.
One might think, then, that with all these
variants, the texts from which we worked are unreliable—but
not so! The attempt to establish the original text and
to standardize it was the motive behind the work on the
texts throughout the history of transcription. The vast
majority of variants are of no doctrinal concern. The basic
teaching of the Old Testament is clear.
Alan R. Millard’s recent article, “In Praise
of Ancient Scribes” (Biblical
Archaeologist 45 [1982]: 143–53), presents an excellent
case for careful transcription in early Old Testament times.
The zeal and extreme care of ancient as well as modern
scholars assure us of an authentic Old Testament in its
original languages as a basis for our English translation
and for translations into other languages of the nations
and tribes of the world.
Barr, James. Comparative
Philology and the Text of the Old Testament. Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1968.
Cross, Frank Moore, Jr. The
Ancient Library of Qumran and Modern Biblical Studies. Reprint.
Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980.
Cross, Frank Moore, Jr., and Shemaryahu Talmon,
editors. Qumran and the History of the Biblical Text. Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1975.
Ewert, David. From
Ancient Tablets to Modern Translations. Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 1983.
Ginsburg, Christian D. Introduction
to the Masoretico-Critical Edition of the Hebrew Bible. With
Prolegomenon by Harry M. Orlinsky. New York: KTAV, 1966.
Gordis, Robert. The
Biblical Text in the Making. New York: KTAV, 1971.
Jellicoe, S. The
Septuagint and Modern Study. Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1968.
Klein, Ralph W. Textual
Criticism of the Old Testament. Philadelphia: Fortress,
1974.
Roberts, B. J. The
Old Testament Text and Versions. Cardiff: University
of Wales Press, 1951.
Waltke, Bruce K. “The Textual Criticism of
the Old Testament.” In Biblical
Criticism, edited by R. K. Harrison et al., 45–82.
Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1978.
Wurthwein, Ernst. The
Text of the Old Testament. Translated by E. F. Rhodes.
Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979.
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