Dr. Couch, is the Hebrew Massoretic text reliable?
ANSWER: Yes indeed, it certainly is. The ancient Rabbis were very careful to copy and transmit the Old Testament text with great accuracy. If they made copying mistakes they started all over again in order to make sure that no mistakes were allowed to sneak into the new copied work.
The Hebrew scribes of the earliest times take care to be accurate. The work was transferred over to the Talmudic Rabbis from 200-500 AD with continual guarantees that what they copied was not compromised. Jewish scholarship emigrated eastward to Babylon in the second century through the tenth century to make sure that scholarly traditions were maintained in keeping the Old Testament copies accurate. With certainty the Babylonian variants were listed in the R. Kittel edition known as the "Biblia Hebraica" (1929-1937).
In graduate school I cut my teeth on the Kittel edition. There has been almost no question on the Kittel version. Unger writes: "The Massoretes manifested the same spirit of deep loyalty and devotion to the Sacred Scriptures as the inspired and authoritative Word of God, which had been handed down to them, that had been characteristic throughout the centuries of the history of the nation chosen to be the recipients and the custodians of the Bible."
Thanks for asking.
—Dr. Mal Couch (8/11)
