3 Hebrew Text-Witnesses re Deletions of יהוה Made by the Sopherim as Reflected in the Received Text (MT) of Isaiah

 

There are least 134 emendations (surrogation of YHVH with Adonai) that the Sopherim made in copying some exemplar(s) of the Hebrew text; 23 occur in Isaiah. Of those 23, the Great Isaiah Scroll (GIS) reflects 14 of them; moreover, there is a use of YHVH in the main body of the text that the Essenes (?) did not consider to be original to Isaiah’s hand, and so Adonai was written as correction above it. Likewise for Adonai: there is one use of Adonai in the main body of the text that those scribes of GIS did not consider to be original to Isaiah’s hand, and so YHVH was written above it as correction. Why do we not see agreement, on the one hand, as respect the work of the scribes (said to be the lesser disciplined Essenes when compared to other scribes as respect their scribal skills¹) who produced the GIS, and, on the other hand, that work of other scribes whose transmission of the Isaianic text had almost twice the number of emendations (23 substitutions) of the Tetragrammaton with Adonai, as witnessed and reported by the Masoretes? The scribes of GIS made a total of 14 instances of editorial activity relevant the matter of the Tetragrammaton’s appearance in a text set before their eyes, so that that editorial activity is +60% of the 23 deletions of the Tetragrammaton made by the Sopherim when they finished making a copy of Isaiah that eventually became the property of the Masoretes who, in their own scribal work for making another copy of Isaiah, called out each of the 23 instances where that earlier generation of scribes (Sopherim copyists) had tampered with the text in Isaiah--and, of course, called out 111 other instances where those earlier scribes had tampered with other canonical works relevant this issue as well. There may well have been, as I think is probably so, hundreds more instances where the Sopherim made deletions of the Tetragrammaton and surrogated them with coded use of “Adonai,” but were not all known to the Masoretes, more likely the case if the Masoretes had come into possession of an incomplete catalog of the deletions. (See Ren Manetti, The Origins of ‘Adhonai in the Hebrew Scriptures.) We don’t have the luxury of having in hand, as we do respecting the GIS, any text(s) known to have come into the hands of the Masoretes whereby they were able to evaluate the worth of copying them for future posterity. Apparently, the GIS, as laudable as it truly is, was not representative of a similar Isaianic text that, as respect alterations of the Tetragrammaton and as respect other textual variants, had ever become an Isaianic text known to any of the Karaite Masoretes, else in their codices for presenting to view a recording of a standardized dialect of Hebrew (which in fact more closely resembles the Hebrew in the GIS than is so for the Mishnaic Hebrew dialect used in the writings of the rabbis) would not have made a greater number--9 more!--of indications of scribes’ alterations relevant the Tetragrammaton than that smaller number of alterations--whether authored or merely copied--by earlier scribes like those who were responsible for producing the GIS. 

 

3 Hebrew Text-Witnesses re Each of the Deletions of יהוה Made by the Sopherim as Reflected in the Received Text (MT) of Isaiah

 

The numbers highlighted in blue accent introduce a segment in which there are given 3 text witnesses for each reading that includes the GIS for its alteration of an occurrence of the Tetragrammaton in the passage specified for it.

 

1. Aleppo Codex Isaiah 3:17
ושפח אדני קדקד בנות ציון ויהוה פתהן יערה

Westminster Leningrad Codex (WLC) Isaiah 3:17
וְשִׂפַּ֣ח אֲדֹנָ֔י קָדְקֹ֖ד בְּנֹ֣ות צִיֹּ֑ון וַיהוָ֖ה פָּתְהֵ֥ן יְעָרֶֽה

Great Isaiah Scroll2 (GSI) Isaiah 3:17a
And the YHVH (Jehovah) will strike with a scab the scalp of the daughters of Zion. [MT has Adonai. GIS has Adonai in the first hand, but has a correction with YHVH entered above the line by a second hand.]

GIS Isaiah 3:17b and the Lord their secret parts will lay bare. [MT here has YHVH, but here GIS has Adonai.]




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2. Aleppo Codex 3:18
יום ההוא יסיר אדני את תפארת העכסים והשביסים--והשהרנים

WLC Isaiah 3:18a
בַּיֹּ֨ום הַה֜וּא יָסִ֣יר אֲדֹנָ֗י אֵ֣ת תִּפְאֶ֧רֶת הָעֲכָסִ֛ים וְהַשְּׁבִיסִ֖ים

GIS Isaiah 3:18a
In that day YHVH (Jehovah) will turn aside the beauty of their bangles and tiaras and the woven hair pieces and the turbans. [GIS has YHVH (Jehovah) in the text, but the text has Adonay written above the line as correction.]

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3. Aleppo Codex Isaiah 4:4
אם רחץ אדני את צאת בנות ציון ואת דמי ירושלם ידיח מקרבה--ברוח משפט וברוח בער

WLC Isaiah 4:4
אִ֣ם ׀ רָחַ֣ץ אֲדֹנָ֗י אֵ֚ת צֹאַ֣ת בְּנֹות־צִיֹּ֔ון וְאֶת־דְּמֵ֥י יְרוּשָׁלִַ֖ם יָדִ֣יחַ

GIS Isaiah 4:4
When the Lord has washed the excrement of the daughters of Zion and the blood of Jerusalem he has cleansed from her midst by the spirit of judgement and the spirit of burning.
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4. Aleppo Codex Isaiah 6:1
בשנת מות המלך עזיהו ואראה את אדני ישב על כסא רם ונשא ושוליו מלאים את ההיכל

WLC Isaiah 6:1
בִּשְׁנַת־מֹות֙ הַמֶּ֣לֶךְ עֻזִּיָּ֔הוּ וָאֶרְאֶ֧ה אֶת־אֲדֹנָ֛י יֹשֵׁ֥ב עַל־כִּסֵּ֖א רָ֣ם וְנִשָּׂא וְשׁוּלָ֖יו מְלֵאִ֥ים אֶת־הַהֵיכָֽל

GIS Isaiah 6:1
In the year of the death of King Uzziah I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up and His train filled the Temple.
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5. Aleppo Codex Isaiah 6:8
ואשמע את קול אדני אמר את מי אשלח ומי ילך לנו ואמר הנני שלחני

WLC Isaiah 6:8
וָאֶשְׁמַ֞ע אֶת־קֹ֤ול אֲדֹנָי֙ אֹמֵ֔ר אֶת־מִ֥י אֶשְׁלַ֖ח וּמִ֣י יֵֽלֶךְ־לָ֑נוּ וָאֹמַ֖ר הִנְנִ֥י שְׁלָחֵֽנִי

GIS Isaiah 6:8
And I heard he voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send and who will go for Us and I said here am I send me.
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6. Aleppo Codex Isaiah 6:11
אמר עד מתי אדני ויאמר עד אשר אם שאו ערים מאין יושב ובתים מאין אדם והאדמה תשאה שממה

WLC Isaiah 6:11
וָאֹמַ֕ר עַד־מָתַ֖י אֲדֹנָ֑י וַיֹּ֡אמֶר עַ֣ד אֲשֶׁר֩ אִם־שָׁא֨וּ עָרִ֜ים מֵאֵ֣ין יֹושֵׁ֗ב וּבָתִּים֙ מֵאֵ֣ין אָדָ֔ם וְהָאֲדָמָ֖ה תִּשָּׁאֶ֥ה שְׁמָמָֽה

GIS Isaiah 6:11
Ask for yourself a sign from YHVH (Jehovah) your God it or from the height above.
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7. Aleppo Codex Isaiah 7:14
לכן יתן אדני הוא לכם--אות הנה העלמה הרה וילדת בן וקראת שמו עמנו אל

WLC Isaiah 7:14
לָ֠כֵן יִתֵּ֨ן אֲדֹנָ֥י ה֛וּא לָכֶ֖ם אֹ֑ות הִנֵּ֣ה הָעַלְמָ֗ה הָרָה֙ וְיֹלֶ֣דֶת בֵּ֔ן וְקָרָ֥את שְׁמֹ֖ו עִמָּ֥נוּ אֵֽל

GIS Isaiah 7:14
therefore YHVH (Jehovah) himself will give to you a sign. Behold the virgin shall conceive and bring forth a son and he shall call his name Immanuel. [YHVH is not here in MT; however, here Adonay is in MT.]
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8. Aleppo Codex Isaiah 7:20
ביום ההוא יגלח אדני בתער השכירה בעברי נהר במלך אשור
את הראש ושער הרגלים וגם את הזקן תספה

WLC Isaiah 7:20
בַּיֹּ֣ום הַה֡וּא יְגַלַּ֣ח אֲדֹנָי֩ בְּתַ֨עַר הַשְּׂכִירָ֜ה בְּעֶבְרֵ֤י נָהָר֙ בְּמֶ֣לֶךְ אַשּׁ֔וּר אֶת־הָרֹ֖אשׁ וְשַׂ֣עַר הָרַגְלָ֑יִם וְגַ֥ם אֶת־הַזָּקָ֖ן תִּסְפֶּֽה׃

GIS Isaiah 7:20
the prophetess and she conceived and bore a son. And YHVH (Jehovah) said to me
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9. Aleppo Codex Isaiah 8:7
כן הנה אדני מעלה עליהם את מי הנהר העצומים והרבים--את מלך אשור ואת כל כבודו
ועלה על כל אפיקיו והלך על כל גדותיו

WLC Isaiah 8:7
וְלָכֵ֡ן הִנֵּ֣ה אֲדֹנָי֩ מַעֲלֶ֨ה עֲלֵיהֶ֜ם אֶת־מֵ֣י הַנָּהָ֗ר הָעֲצוּמִים֙ וְהָ֣רַבִּ֔ים אֶת־מֶ֥לֶךְ אַשּׁ֖וּר וְאֶת־כָּל־כְּבֹודֹ֑ו וְעָלָה֙ עַל־כָּל־אֲפִיקָ֔יו וְהָלַ֖ךְ עַל־כָּל־גְּדֹותָֽיו׃

GIS Isaiah 8:7
Therefore behold YHVH (Jehovah) is bringing up on you the waters of the River Euphrates [{strong and with multitudes, even the k}]ing of Assyria.and all his glory and he shall go up over all his channels and over all his river banks. [Adonay is written above the line.]
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10. Aleppo Codex Isaiah 9:7 (BHK Isaiah 9:8)
דבר שלח אדני ביעקב ונפל בישראל

WLC Isaiah 9:7 (BHK Isaiah 9:8)
דָּבָ֛ר שָׁלַ֥ח אֲדֹנָ֖י בְּיַעֲקֹ֑ב וְנָפַ֖ל בְּיִשְׂרָאֵֽל

GIS Isaiah 9:7 (BHK Isaiah 9:8)
The Lord sent a word upon Jacob and it fell in Israel.

Isaiah 9:17 is one of the 134 places where the Masoretes say that the Sopherim removed YHVH (Jehovah), and its removal is kept by BHK with Masoretes indication of the Sopherim’s emendation. BHK Isaiah 9:17 is Aleppo Codex Isaiah 9:18, and like the Aleppo codex, the versification is the same here in WLC Isaiah 9:18; however, WLC Isaiah 9:18 has YHVH (Jehovah), but Aleppo Codex does not.
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11. Aleppo Codex Isaiah 9:18
ביום ההוא יסיר אדני את תפארת העכסים והשביסים--והשהרנים

WLC Isaiah 9:18
בְּעֶבְרַ֛ת יְהוָ֥ה צְבָאֹ֖ות נֶעְתַּ֣ם אָ֑רֶץ וַיְהִ֤י הָעָם֙ כְּמַאֲכֹ֣לֶת אֵ֔שׁ אִ֥ישׁ אֶל־אָחִ֖יו לֹ֥א יַחְמֹֽלוּ

This is also the text in BHK; however, it has different verse numeration in BHK, for there it is BHK Isaiah 9:19, which is a recension of the received text (MT). As noted immediately above, Aleppo Codex Isaiah 9:18 also has YHVH (Jehovah) deleted and Adonai in its place. But the GIS Isaiah 9:19 (see below) uses a pronominal reference to Jehovah.

GIS Isaiah 9:18
From the fury of YHVH (Jehovah) of Hosts is the land scorched and they shall be even the people shall be fuel for the fire, no man shall pity his brother.

GIS Isaiah 9:19
And he will cut off on the right hand and be hungry and he shall eat on the left and not be satisfied, each man shall eat the flesh of his own arm.
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12. Aleppo Codex 10:12
והיה כי יבצע אדני את כל מעשהו בהר ציון ובירושלם--אפקד על פרי גדל לבב מלך אשור ועל
תפארת רום עיניו

WLC Isaiah 10:12
כִּֽי־יְבַצַּ֤ע אֲדֹנָי֙ אֶת־כָּל־מַֽעֲשֵׂ֔הוּ בְּהַ֥ר צִיֹּ֖ון וּבִירוּשָׁלִָ֑ם אֶפְקֹ֗ד עַל־פְּרִי־גֹ֙דֶל֙ לְבַ֣ב מֶֽלֶךְ־אַשּׁ֔וּר וְעַל־תִּפְאֶ֖רֶת ר֥וּם עֵינָֽיו׃

GIS Isaiah 10:12
Because the Lord will finish all His work on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem. I will visit the fruit of the great heart
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13. Aleppo Codex Isaiah 11:11
ביום ההוא יוסיף אדני שנית ידו לקנות את שאר עמו--אשר ישאר מאשור וממצרים ומפתרוס ומכוש ומעילם משנער ומחמתומאיי הים

WLC Isaiah 11:11
בַּיֹּ֣ום הַה֗וּא יֹוסִ֨יף אֲדֹנָ֤י

GIS Isaiah 11:11

And it will come to pass in that day that the Lord will move his hand the second time to redeem the remnant of His people who remained from Assyria and from Egypt and from Pathros and from Cush and from Elam and from Shinar and from Hamath and from the islands of the sea
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14. Aleppo Codex Isaiah 21:6
כי כה אמר אלי אדני לך העמ

WLC Isaiah 21:6
כִּ֣י כֹ֥ה אָמַ֛ר אֵלַ֖י אֲדֹנָ֑י לֵ֚ךְ הַעֲמֵ֣ד הַֽמְצַפֶּ֔ה אֲשֶׁ֥ר יִרְאֶ֖ה יַגִּֽיד

GIS Isaiah 21:6
Because thus said the Lord to me. go and cause a watchman to stand watch that which he sees let him tell.
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15. Aleppo Codex Isaiah 21:8
קרא אריה--על מצפה אדני אנכי עמד תמיד יומם ועל משמרתי אנכי נצב כל הלילות

WLC Isaiah 21:8
וַיִּקְרָ֖א אַרְיֵ֑ה עַל־מִצְפֶּ֣ה ׀ אֲדֹנָ֗י אָנֹכִ֞י עֹמֵ֤ד תָּמִיד֙ יֹומָ֔ם וְעַל־מִ֨שְׁמַרְתִּ֔י אָנֹכִ֥י נִצָּ֖ב כָּל־הַלֵּילֹֽות

GIS Isaiah 21:8
And he called out, [a lion], upon the watchtower my Lord, I am continuously standing daily, and upon my watch I am standing every night.
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16. Aleppo Codex 21:16
כי כה אמר אדני אלי בעוד שנה כשני שכיר וכלה כל כבוד קדר

WLC Isaiah 21:16
כִּי־כֹ֛ה אָמַ֥ר אֲדֹנָ֖י אֵלָ֑י בְּעֹ֤וד שָׁנָה֙ כִּשְׁנֵ֣י שָׂכִ֔יר וְכָלָ֖ה כָּל־כְּבֹ֥וד קֵדָֽר

GIS Isaiah 21:16
Because thus said YHWH (Jehovah) to me in yet in years as the years of a hired man all the glory of Kedar will be ended.
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17. Aleppo Codex 28:2
הנה חזק ואמץ לאדני כזרם ברד שער קטב כזרם מים כבירים שטפים הניח לארץ--ביד

WLC Isaiah 28:2
הִנֵּ֨ה חָזָ֤ק וְאַמִּץ֙ לַֽאדֹנָ֔י כְּזֶ֥רֶם בָּרָ֖ד שַׂ֣עַר קָ֑טֶב כְּ֠זֶרֶם מַ֣יִם כַּבִּירִ֥ים שֹׁטְפִ֛ים הִנִּ֥יחַ לָאָ֖רֶץ בְּיָֽד

GIS Isaiah 28:2
Behold strength He shows power even YHVH (Jehovah) as a downpour of hail and a destroying storm as a downpour of powerful waters overflowing [and] it shall be laid to rest nearby. [“le adonay” was written above the line.]
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18. Aleppo Codex 29:13
אמר אדני יען כי נגש העם הזה בפיו ובשפתיו כבדוני ולבו רחק ממני--ותהי יראתם אתי מצות אנשים מלמדה

WLC Isaiah 29:13
וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֲדֹנָ֗י יַ֚עַן כִּ֤י נִגַּשׁ֙ הָעָ֣ם הַזֶּ֔ה בְּפִ֤יו וּבִשְׂפָתָיו֙ כִּבְּד֔וּנִי וְלִבֹּ֖ו רִחַ֣ק מִמֶּ֑נִּי וַתְּהִ֤י יִרְאָתָם֙ אֹתִ֔י מִצְוַ֥ת אֲנָשִׁ֖ים מְלֻמָּדָֽה

GIS Isaiah 29:13
And the Lord said on account of this people drawing near to my presence with their mouth and glorifying me with their lips while their heart is far from me and their awe of me by commandments of men is taught.
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19. Aleppo Codex Isaiah 30:20
נתן לכם אדני לחם צר ומים לחץ ולא יכנף עוד מוריך והיו עיניך ראות את מוריך

WLC Isaiah 30:20
וְנָתַ֨ן לָכֶ֧ם אֲדֹנָ֛י לֶ֥חֶם צָ֖ר וּמַ֣יִם לָ֑חַץ וְלֹֽא־יִכָּנֵ֥ף עֹוד֙ מֹורֶ֔יךָ וְהָי֥וּ עֵינֶ֖יךָ רֹאֹ֥ות אֶת־מֹורֶֽיךָ

GIS Isaiah 30:20
When the Lord gives to you bread of sorrows and water of affliction yet your teachers shall not be put in a corner any more but your eyes will be seeing your teachers.
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20. Aleppo Codex Isaiah 37:24
ביד עבדיך חרפת אדני ותאמר ברב רכבי אני עליתי מרום הרים ירכתי לבנון ואכרת קומת ארזיו מבחר ברשיו ואבוא מרום קצויער כרמלו

WLC Isaiah 37:24
בְּיַ֣ד עֲבָדֶיךָ֮ חֵרַ֣פְתָּ ׀ אֲדֹנָי֒ וַתֹּ֗אמֶר בְּרֹ֥ב רִכְבִּ֛י אֲנִ֥י עָלִ֛יתִי מְרֹ֥ום הָרִ֖ים יַרְכְּתֵ֣י לְבָנֹ֑ון וְאֶכְרֹ֞ת קֹומַ֤ת אֲרָזָיו֙ מִבְחַ֣ר בְּרֹשָׁ֔יו וְאָבֹוא֙ מְרֹ֣וםקִצֹּ֔ו יַ֖עַר כַּרְמִלֹּֽו

GIS Isaiah 37:24
By the hand of your servants you have reproached my Lord and you said by the multitude of my chariots I will go up to the highest mountains to the sides of Lebanon and I will cut down the high cedars from the choicest fir trees and I will go to the highest end of his Carmel.
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21. Aleppo Codex 38:14
כסוס עגור כן אצפצף אהגה כיונה דלו עיני למרום אדני עשקה לי ערבני

WLC Isaiah 38:14
כְּס֤וּס עָגוּר֙ כֵּ֣ן אֲצַפְצֵ֔ף אֶהְגֶּ֖ה כַּיֹּונָ֑ה דַּלּ֤וּ עֵינַי֙ לַמָּרֹ֔ום אֲדֹנָ֖י עָֽשְׁקָה־לִּ֥י עָרְבֵֽנִי

GIS Isaiah 38:14
Like a horse or a swallow, thus I chirped: I mourned like a dove: my eyes hang down from on high. O Lord (Jehovah) I have oppression; carry me over.
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22. Aleppo Codex Isaiah 38:16
אדני עליהם יחיו ולכל בהן חיי רוחי ותחלימני והחיני

WLC Isaiah 38:16
אדני עֲלֵיהֶ֣ם יִֽחְי֑וּ וּלְכָל־בָּהֶן֙ חַיֵּ֣י רוּחִ֔י וְתַחֲלִימֵ֖נִי וְהַחֲיֵֽנִי

GIS Isaiah 38:16
O Lord, upon these they live, and in all of them is the life of my spirit: and will you take the sickness from me and cause me to live.
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23. Aleppo Codex 49:14
ותאמר ציון עזבני יהוה ואדני שכחני

WLC Isaiah 49:14
וַתֹּ֥אמֶר צִיֹּ֖ון עֲזָבַ֣נִי יְהוָ֑ה וַאדֹנָ֖י שְׁכֵחָֽנִי׃

GIS Isaiah 49:14
But Zion said, YHVH (Jehovah) has forsaken me, and my Lord has forgotten me. ["my Lord" is written above the line.]
______________________________________________________________________________

Endnotes.

1. “The Essenes in Qumran who copied this scroll approximately 100 BCE are not to be considered the protectors of an accurate text identical with the Tanach which would have been revered by the Rabbis. They were actually far from the main stream and it is clear that the Q text of Isaiah is a "dialect" of Hebrew. It is not a translation, but is characterized by modifications in spelling and personal pronouns to match the then current Aramaic dialect that the Essenes would have spoken. It was much like changing "ye," "thee" and "thou" to "you" and "thine" to "yours" would be to us. Thus the preservation of an identical letter for letter received text was not at all a part of their motivation in their use of the scriptures. The Qumran texts that I have translated (1QaIsa) and (1QpHab) are dialects of Hebrew and not the Hebrew of the Tanach. Preservation of the original Hebrew letter for letter text was the role played by the Rabbis of the "main stream" in Jerusalem and Babylon (Sura, Nahardea and Pumbidita) and they had a special class, an office called Scribes, who carefully copied manuscripts then kept the new and destroyed the old. The Essenes were not and did not claim to be copyists of the same genre.

 

“With this fact in mind, (that the Qumran scribes used their own discretion to alter the text to fit their own dialect), then the correspondence between the text of the Great Isaiah Scroll and the Masoretic text of Isaiah is all the more 

remarkable.”

[see https://daip.getmyip.com/pdf/Documents/Great%20Isaiah%20Scroll.pdf]

“Great Isaiah Scroll D I R E C T O R Y All English text by Fred P Miller: Copyright © 1998”

 

Also, there are other places in GIS that exemplify relatively poor scribal work (of the Essenes?). We see that the scribe misspelled Isaiah’s name in the very first line of his copy he was making. And although the scribe kept in orderly fashion the lines of his copy we now identify as GIS, yet, when he was copying it into existence, from time to time he realized that he had erred in reproducing exactly what was in the exemplar-scroll set before his eyes. He had then to squeeze corrections into a space between lines, into a place above the line having the error, or he would indicate in the margin his fix for some error.

 

If you the reader of what I have presented in this brief paper about GIS’s treatment of the Tetragrammaton want to know more about GIS, then you may access certain web sites that variously present Fred P. Miller’s work on GIS. On one site you will see  photographs of the 17 parchments that comprise GIS, and presents his transcription of the Hebrew texts as they appear for all

but one of the parchment pages.

(see https://daip.getmyip.com/pdf/Documents/Great%20Isaiah%20Scroll.pdf). 

Also, you may access a site that presents his translation of the Hebrew into English (see https://www.ao.net/~fmoeller/qa-tran.htm#c30). You will notice that his translation incorporates symbols into the text. Mr. Miller gives the meaning of each symbol. On that site, all text and translation have been copyrighted by Fred P. Miller, 2001. 

Did There Ever Exist a Septuagint That Was a God-Inspired Copy of the Hebrew Bible?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                       by Al Kidd

There are those who claim that the Greek Septuagint (LXX)--but which critical (eclectic) edition is supposed to most reliably embody it?--is generally more reliable than the Masoretic Text (MT). They hold that the LXX gradually came into existence beginning first with translation of the Pentateuch, which supposedly is translation from the hands of 70 (or 72) Jews commissioned by the Jewish high priest, and who worked 72 days in translating the Hebrew Pentateuch while together in Alexandria, Egypt in the third century B.C.E. More translational product followed in the second century BCE and beyond. That part of Christendom that is the Eastern Orthodox tradition holds with the Letter of Aristeas that the Septuagint was miraculously translated from Hebrew into Greek by 70 or 72 Jewish scholars (six from each one of the 12 tribes) working separately--each translator-editor alone in his opwn cell--in Alexandria. They hold that where it can be shown that the original Greek translations differed in substance from the Hebrew Vorlagen of their day, then God inspired those translators at work in Alexandria for poduction of the LXX that would show corrections for a reading that was also tantamount to a retroversion in Hebrew, a recovery--a re-creating--of all that part of God's Word as it should have continued to perfectly exist in a Hebrew text up to the day when commenced the formation of the LXX.

Actually, however, the LXX, compiled in the pre-Christian era from Greek translations of Hebrew texts, was not an inspired translation of Hebrew texts. No part of the LXX--not even that part of the Tanakh admitted by all to be the first part of it translated, namely the Pentateuch, which of course is accepted by the Eastern Orthodox Church along with all the rest of the LXX--is translation from a single, fixed, priest-approved corpus of Hebrew sacred texts (the Tanakh) archived in antiquity in some synagogue and/or in the Temple. The LXX was translation of a pluriform body of pre-Masoretic Hebrew texts (Vorlagen), reflecting textual diversity in late Second Temple Judaism, with different books often translated separately, leading to textual variations later seen in the Great Isaiah Scroll and proto-Masoretic texts. The LXX shows no internal evidence that it is a Greek translational corpus (Torah, Prophets, and the Writings) all of it produced within a certain (relatively short) time frame under the auspices of an editor/editorial committee charged with keeping all the translators working in harmony with the same appreciation for the tenets of a Judaism free of sectarian influences, and who then and there gave the “miraculously perfect” product of that translation enterprise its name, “Septuagint." And yet there soon enough became identifiable a translational corpus of the Tanakh accessible to Jews and proselytes in Judea, Egypt,  and in all the diaspora, all of them able or potentially able, of course, for communication with each other via the lingua franca Koine Greek. But no part of the enterprise of translating the Tanakh was either perfect or even known to have been overseen by religious authority in accordance with a nonsectarian body of editor-translators working in close proximity. But there are other facts that contravene the tale that the LXX is inspired by God. For a fact the LXX embraced scientific, historical, and spiritual error, as may be seen in its adoption from pagan Greek writers of, among other things, the concept that re’em was a singly-horned creature, and thus translatable as monokeros (Greek), or unicornis (Latin). More of the LXX's translational failed efforts will follow so that this post will accordingly expand its content in days ahead.

There is no empirical evidence which might dispose us to believe that there was in existence a perfect copying of the Scriptures. Indeed, all the Scriptural texts extant in manuscripts known to us are none of them an autograph, an original and perfect text from the hand of a God-inspired writer. Therefore, neither (a) the originally penned Greek-translations of the Hebrew Scriptures based on any Hebrew texts that had come into the hands of the translators--even if any or all of those Hebrew or Aramaic texts were, in the most unlikely of events, themselves the very autographs written by God-inspired Jews--, nor (b) any of those original translations into Greek (which may well have been for a period of time a collection of scrolls placed together in some Alexandrian library and/or in the Temple in Jerusalem, and serving as templates for subsequent copies of those Greek translations, and which Augustine of Hippo called “libris septuaginta” = “the books of the seventy”) gives us any reasonable basis for holding that those translational texts maintained the perfection of the autographs, likely a perfection lost centuries before the commencement of the LXX's production. So, we may hold that Josephus, Philo, Justin Martyr, and Augustine were unreasonably optimistic and certainly in error when asserting that the original Greek translational works of the Tanakh were divinely inspired. Neither as respects the original Jew-copied productions of the “Septuagint” (so made from the third-century BCE onward into the second century CE), the Latin Vulgate, nor the KJV English translation can any of them reasonably be viewed as embodiments of a perfect translational reflection of any of the Hebrew texts that had come into existence as copies of works that were originally penned at the hands of God-inspired writers, whether those writers be (a) the more than 39 writers of the perfect Hebrew autographs of the Tanakh or (b) the 8 writers of the 27 perfect autographs that closed out the Biblical canon in the first century as typically confessed—atypical confessions exist, too—by all traditions that lay claim to being true Christianity.

Scholars tell us that there were revisions of the “LXX” that contained extra-canonical but nonetheless highly esteemed Jewish writings. An example of such a revision is kaige-Theodotion (a revision style for improving the received Greek translation texts of the Hebrew Vorlagen) that, if not begun by Theodotion, was continued or standardized by Theodotion and included at least Baruch and the expanded version of Daniel, while Origen’s and Lucian’s revisions included most of the Apocrypha. For most LXX revisions, however, we do not know vis-à-vis manuscript evidence how many of even the biblical (canonical) books were included in those revisions for the earliest copies of the LXX. Some of the revisions, such as the kaige-Theodotion and Aquila’s, were widely circulated among Jews, but even so, the pre-70 C.E. Pharisees held to a canon of the Scriptures that did not admit acceptance of the deuterocanonical books. Such books were accepted by Hellenistic Jews for a broader collection of manuscripts comprising some versions of the LXX.

We have extant first-century fragments of deuterocanonical books, yes, but not a first-century canonical collection that proves that the deuterocanonical books were ever universally recognized as part of a fixed Greek Bible whether before, in, or after the first century. No, we have no basis for conclusion that apostolic-era Christians used a version of the LXX that had deuterocanonical scrolls mixed in among the canonical scrolls. The 22-book count, as given by Josephus, was an early Jewish marker for the authoritative canon, corresponding to the number of Hebrew letters, and was influential in early Christian discussions about the Old Testament, even as variations in counting (like the 24-book count) also existed. Josephus's testimony is a significant piece of evidence that many, perhaps most, first-century Jews excluded the Apocrypha from their strictest, most sacred category of Scripture, supporting the premise that the Hebrew canon was largely established by that time.

2 Maccabees with its account of some Jew(s)’ ‘prayer for the dead,’ probably found acceptance among Hellenized Jews, but the prayer apparently needed some apologetic expressed for it in 2 Maccabees for making the idea for such prayers as widely palatable as possible, metaphorically speaking, because even among the Pharisees (who accepted the pagan, unscriptural doctrine of a person's continuous existence beyond biological death), the deuterocanonical collection of books was not a thing agreed upon by Pharisees as comprising a corpus of inspired Scriptures, with possible exception to Sirach. However, beyond that single, high-profile scroll’s having been found at Masada and quotation of it (Sirach) being cited sometimes in the Talmud, we do well to remind ourselves that certain other sites (namely, Qumran, Masada, Nahal Hever caves, Nahal Darga/aka Wadi Murabba’at, Wadi Daliyeh, Ketef Jericho) were not repositories for biblical writings only. That is to say, one did not find in those places only the writings such as one might have expected to find in sites should they have been administered by those like the Pharisees, for their repositories would have contained only canonical books that you would expect to find in a synagogue's library in first-century Galilee or Judea. The Pharisees generally held to a narrower canon, while other groups, including Hellenistic Jews, used a broader collection. It is a matter of debate as to how much of the Tanakh was accepted by the Sadducees as canonical, inspired Scripture; good argument can be made that they accepted more than the Torah as divinely inspired Scripture, but elevated only the written Law of Moses and not the alleged existence of an oral Law supposedly in existence ever since Sinai as respects what can authoritatively ground legal interpretation, ancient Israel's "constitution." And the Sadducees rejected resurrection doctrine found in Daniel and in other canonical books of the Tanakh, and found also in later "intertestamental" books of the Maccabees, inter alia. That does not mean that apostolic Christians did not find historical worth in 1 Maccabees, nor did they condemn Hanukkah, which is a feast detailed in 1 and 2 Maccabees. 

I will begin with the next sentence an excursus that will continue through three paragraphs, this one and the two following it. True, we have no Scriptural account showing us that God commanded Hanukkah celebrations; however, inasmuch as it was some centuries after the first century that it came to have paganish trappings that emulated Saturnalia’s displays of lights and gift-giving, then we accordingly have no misgiving about Jesus’ presence in Jerusalem during a Hanukkah celebration, which was long before paganish elements were allowed in.

Hanukkah begins on Khislev 25, and for the year that John 10:22 references, it was on Tuesday, December 15, 32 C.E. Gregorian calendar. (It was four months prior to Jesus' death in Jerusalem during the daylight hours of Nisan 14, 33 C.E.) It was an 8-day wintertime festival but absent, as we have said above, those pagan customs that were later adopted, particular reference being made here to those customs typical of the pagan Romans’ celebration of Saturnalia. (As to why John mentions that the altercation recorded in John 10 was in winter when it was known among Jews, of course, that Hanukkah was a wintertime festival, John may have found it advisable to include specific mention of the winter season. This would serve as an explanation for why Jesus was walking in a sheltered place, the Colonnade of Solomon, because there is where he would have found some protection against the strong East winds of winter. Incidentally, that detail rules against any likelihood that shepherds were in open fields keeping watch over their flocks during wintertime.)

The events of John 10: 22-39 occurred at some point in time during the 8-day Hanukkah festival. Following that altercation, Jesus withdrew to a certain Bethany outside Judea, namely the Bethany that was across the Jordan River on the far side of it in respect its location relative to Jerusalem’s location, and was a town likely located south of the Sea of Galilee.

On “Firstborn,” "Beginning," and “Other” in Respect to Christ

                 

 About “firstborn” where the referent is David: Psalm 89:27 (verse 28 LXX)—“I myself shall place him as firstborn, the most high of the kings of the earth.” True, we are not told that David was literally Jehovah’s firstborn. Of course not! We are told that Jehovah was placing him, making him, appointing him as though he were “firstborn.” The Scriptures do not speak of Christ Jesus’ preeminence as firstborn to be one he received upon being placed or appointed to such a status of preeminence. His is a naturally acquired preeminence. There is no use of firstborn for Christ in the context that indicates he was placed, adopted, or elected to preeminence. Contrary to what some trinitarians have declared, the use of pas (“all”) in Col. 1:15 rules out preeminence merely considered from the perspective that his “firstborn” status is only in relation to other “kings of the earth” (i.e., in relation to other rulers, princes, or kings). The class or grouping over which Christ has the status of preeminence is all creation. And that is because his preeminence is temporally conditioned since Christ is the one through whom all creation--per force, then creation that is younger than the Word (Logos)--received its existence; it received its existence through the pre-humanly existing Son of God. This logic justifies the use of “other” for God’s only-begotten Son, “an only-begotten god” (John 1:18), which begottenness must be taken for what it logically indicates for the Son, namely, that he, too, is younger than his Father, the King of eternity, whose age makes him to be infinitely older than his Son.

 

In Col. 1:16, creation is not declared to be out of the Son (the firstborn one), but is declared to be through the Son. The Son’s agency for making him to be the one through whom all things received their existence is not directly (intrinsically, immediately) his own agency as is the case, though, for the Father’s agency. No, but the Son’s agency is agency given/appointed (ἔθηκεν, Hebrews 1:2) the Son so that all things might come through him and be sustained through him. That agency in the Son is another way of saying, respecting him, that he became the Father’s instrument, the one by means of whom the Father had made him (the Son) sufficient for there to be creation of all things visible and invisible “in him,” i.e., makes all creation to be “by means of him”—yet never as though anything created may be considered as creation that is not from the One (Jehovah God, “the Father of the celestial lights,” q.v. James 1:17), for this One is he who is, ultimately, the Source/Author of all created things, and that through an agency/ability/property in Himself that he had never to acquire. (See Romans 11:36—interlinearily as “Because out-of him and through him and into him the all (things); to-him the glory into the ages; amen.”).  

 

The verb in Colossians 1:16 is the passive verb ektísthē (“it-was-created”), but the semantic as to identification of the Creator is preserved if we were to have seen in the text a flexion equivalent as to tense, person, number, and gender so as to match the verb used in Colossians 1:16, with exception to voice, which, in the alternate construction that might have been used should be active voice. And then in the event we would translate for the verb this way: “(he)-created,” which makes the subject to be understood as “he, God.” In that event, the word formerly used as the subject now becomes the object. How do we then read? We would read “He [(God, the Father)] created all things by means of him [(the Son)].” This, too, makes it clear if not more so that by this alternate construction of a semantically equivalent expression, that it is the Son—not God, the Creator—who is presented for identification as God’s instrument he was pleased to use; the Son is referred to in the expression en autou (“by means of him”) in the text so that we read ‘by means of him,’ (“by means of the Son”). The semantic in both constructions still has God as the Creator. The “all things” has the obvious exception of the One who did the creating, such that the exception need not be expressly stated. The same goes for the Son’s role in the creation of all things. All things besides the Son—yes, with obvious exception to the Son--are things that came into existence through the Son’s agency. The summary expression we can use, namely, ‘through-him things,’ means that it is through agency given the Son that there is in existence all the other things that God created. “Other” would not be needed in English for the alternate construction “God created all things through him (the Son).” That there are things created by God through agency given the Son immediately—“immediately” per force the logic in the expression—excludes the Son, makes him to be other than the ‘through-the-Son things.’ That cannot be a difficult thing to grasp. Yes, it leaves open, unanswered just here in verse 16, the question, “Was the Son created?” That is answer given one verse earlier in the construction of Colossians 1:15 for the declaration that Christ is firstborn of all creation, a declaration given with nothing to warn us against our taking the phrase for its being on its face a temporally freighted declaration. The phrase doesn’t have the connotation that the Son’s firstborn status is as though it were an ‘as-if’ thing, a status that is positional/functional, but not ontological. If trinitarianism were truthful doctrine, then how insensitive to that doctrine is a phrase that naturally on its face rules out of court the doctrine. We know what is true about a father and his firstborn so that we quite naturally with epistemic readiness will make transference of as much knowledge for what a familial relationship like that ought at least—because it will not be fully; cf. Matthew 11:27-- to mean for the Father (Jehovah) and his Son (Jesus) as respect their unique relationship. And as to Revelation 3:14, we agree with Burney’s analysis of it. After examining the philology and grammar that informs the construction, his conclusion is that exegetes “have not a shadow of authority for limiting [“ἀρχὴ"] in meaning to ‘the source of God’s creation.’”

 

Now, as to Jesus’ being the firstborn from the dead (Colossians 1:18). Yes, that is literally true from the perspective that he is the first one to be raised by God to a life “never again to return to corruption” (Acts 13:34). Anyone who was resurrected in the first century or earlier—even be he one of those resurrected by Jesus in the 1^st century—did not, thereby that resurrection, escape corruption because they had to die again. After that death,  there occurs a period of time before the time comes when he “will come [back] to life” (John 11:25). But what about Jesus’ resurrection? Both as to preeminence in respect to (1) the kind of resurrection that Jesus received from the Father—about whom Jesus said, “I live because of [him,] the Father” (John 6:57); and said also, “For just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted also to the Son to have life in himself” (John 5:26), this because Jesus did not own such life in his own right, as per some eternal necessity in his being—for him to return to life, and especially as respect to (2) the temporal ordering for Jesus’ kind of resurrection because his resurrection had to mean for him that he become the forerunner of a number of others who will also go to heaven, too; then for these reasons Jesus’ resurrection had to mean for him the status of his literally being the firstborn from the dead. He was not merely placed in an honorary status called “firstborn from the dead,” as though he were such a firstborn, as though it were only so by virtue of an honorary preeminence bestowed upon him. No, he must be considered to have literally become the firstborn from the dead to immortal life in the heavens in order for him thereby to be with the Father. Jesus was quite literally the firstborn from the dead, and others, then, would later become ‘born from the dead,’ too, yes, they becoming “united with Christ in the likeness of his resurrection” (Romans 6:5).

 

Now, what do we say about another matter, namely about constructions in NWT for certain Greek texts where we read “other” when the Greek does not show us its own word for “other” in the text? Should the English “other” be used in such translational effort? Yes, in English we need it if we know there is a need to make explicit the logical exclusion as to all things brought into existence through the agency of one who has a unique Sonship with the Creator for him to become that intermediate agent for existence of ‘all things/persons (they not being a Son like Jesus is).’ That need for “other” may in part be amplified owing to the false doctrine of the trinity being held by many readers of the Scriptures. A pragmatic reading of a literal Greek translation will not necessarily need addition of “other” for sake of readers not steeped in paganish doctrine such as trinitarianism because they will know the history of theological teachings protected by responsible teachers present “in the body of Christ.” A similar thing occurs as respect any organization’s by-laws and practices. For example, is there likely to be any confusion on the part of any seasoned soldier when Sergeant First Class passes along the order, “All soldiers be prepared Saturday morning for marching in review past officers standing at attention on the parade grounds’ stage.” Will soldiers not realize that they have a dense fellow soldier in their midst if he be one who protests the logic of the order by displaying a critical attitude when he asks, “How can all the soldiers march in review before other soldiers (officers) when that creates an exclusion whereby “all soldiers” does not really mean all soldiers?” Maybe his fellow soldiers will tell him to use some common sense. However, if others begin to display similar confusion, then for sake of the several so confused, they may be helped by use of an instruction like this one: “Some commissioned officers will review all other soldiers as they march past the soldier-officers standing at attention on the parade ground stage. Be ready for that review Saturday.” If addition of “other” is (somehow here?) needed for sake of protecting good sense in an instruction or communication made in English with use of words/constructions that are idiomatically owned by some body of persons so that they are not in need of an expanded wording, then expansion of the wording for an instruction/communication could be deemed as unnecessarily pedantic by that body of persons, here seasoned soldiers to the manner born, as it were, whereas it might not seem so pedantic and ‘woodenly’ worded to others who are ‘outsiders.’ 

 

So, for example, “Other” in English makes evident the logical exclusion found in the context of a unique Father-Son relationship such as is exclusively owned by the Father (Jehovah) and the Son (Jesus Christ) so that by absolutely no other persons, no other “things” (entities/persons) will there be experienced that relationship. And the corollary is that the Son is logically, then, excluded from all the things (ta panta) being considered from an explicitly given Scriptural perspective by which we should view all those things as the ‘through-the-Son things’ that they are.

 

The Son is, however, not excluded from pas ktiseos (“all creation”), a phrase that is grammatically a partitive genitive construction by which expression is made that shows the Son as a part of the group of all things created, but even so that membership, he is one of those things in the group singled out for declaration that accords him the dignity that is naturally owned by him, since he is literally the first one in the group who came into existence. 

 

In one of the Apocryphal books written in Greek, we find uses of a collective in which a certain member of it is singled out by a grammatical construction in which we users of English may be left wondering, “Why did the writer using Greek here not include expressly the word in Greek for “other” in the construction?” For example, we read in Sirach 49:16 this: “Adam was above every living thing in the creation,” huper pan zōon en tē ktísei Adám. (Likely that was said about Adam because he had been given a sinless start.) Context, however, is writ large enough for us who know the profile of Adam as given in canonical Scripture (particularly so in the book of Genesis) for us to surmise that Adam was not being excluded in the book of Sirach from the group of all living things, and unless we know that in certain quarters there was prevalent some mystical and mythic profile being advanced against what the Bible says about Adam, then in that case  we may have been inclined to take pain to protect Sirach from any seeming endorsement of such a profile as though the myth were prominent in intertestamental Judaism, we doing so by addition  of “other” in Sirach 49:16. Maybe for sake of our showing some scholarly interest as respect what all the book does teach, whether good or bad, true or erroneous, then just maybe we would prudently make addition of “other” so that the readers do not see excluded an Adam as presented in the book of Sirach's profile for Adam—that is to say, would not see him as being one excluded from being a member of every living, earthly thing.

 

Consider this example, too: Sirach 1:4 states: “Wisdom was created before all things” (protéra pántōn ‘éktistai sophia). The author of Sirach knew Proverbs chapter 8. Wisdom is expressly declared a created thing, but whose age distinguishes him for an existence he has owned before all created things’ existences, that is to say, created before all other created things existing or ever having existed in history. We won’t fault these additions of “other” for unambiguous English translation of the Greek that idiomatically did not make use here of the word its lexicography has for “other.”

 

So, responsible translation that will guard against theological error become rife in Christendom since the 4^th century allows translators to add "other" in places the Greek text did not make use of its word for “other.” We can make argument for it when Greek syntax, for example, in a place where the Greek text gives us a comparison of adjectives. Consider for example where we read in Jesus' narration of an event for a comparison of “those Galileans” versus “all Galileans”; it was no problem for users of Greek to the manner born for them to understand, by habitual, conventional construction of adjectival comparisons, that a logical distinction was being implied. However, unless we can reasonably expect readers of an interlinear translation of Greek into English to know how to make disappear strange translational effect, then readers’ confusion may be our fault in large measure because we had wrongfully expected them to know how to detect that there is a Greek literary convention or idiom informing a certain construction, although it be one not readily discerned if interlinear translation alone is a reader’s tool—and if we are to the manner born, then we wouldn’t be reading a translation. So, translators who read only the words in the Greek text at Luke 13:2,4 for creating a strictly interlinear translation of those words, are doing a disservice to their readership who might readily conclude that the tower of Siloam that collapsed was not located in Jerusalem, and that the number of those killed by the collapse of the tower was a fraction of a populace living some place outside Jerusalem, and that immediately after the tower had collapsed, the total number of those living in Jerusalem at the time had not changed, had not suffered any attrition. Therefore, do we not make a valid argument that translators ought not to cavalierly ignore occasions when translation of the source text may logically require the addition of word(s) not represented in the source text, and that not to make the addition(s) creates a disservice against the readership of their translation? They ought to have built a hedge against readers making an ignorant misread of the text, a misread made more likely on the part of readers who had no knowledge that one of ancient Palestine’s 1^st-century architectural features was the tower of Siloam that was in the city of Jerusalem. If we can be confident that the readership of the translation had such knowledge, then we should expect readers so educated to be able to make a pragmatic, commonsense reading of the text through mental addition  of “other” in Luke 13:2, 4 for the constructions “Do you think those [murdered] Galileans were worse sinners than all  [(pantas)] other Galileans” and “Or those 18 on whom the tower in Siloam fell—do you think that they had greater guilt than all  [(pantas)] other men?” But NWT and many other translations expressly write “other” or semantically similar terminology following “all” as a viewable/readable addition when rendering Luke 13:2, 4. (See NAB, CEB, CEV, English Standard Version Anglicised, Good News Translation, Mounce Reverse Interlinear, NET, NRSV, 21^st Century King James Version, inter al.)  

 

And then again there can be places in certain Greek texts where there is no ambiguity likely to occur even if “other” is not written for an addition , e.g., 1 Corinthians 15:24 NWT where we read that Christ has a Kingdom, and we should know that it certainly will not be destroyed by that event “when [Christ] has brought to nothing all government and all authority and power.” No, English translation will obviously not suffer for lack of a written addition  of “other” in that passage for modification of “all government and all power and authority” as in a modification for the result that the destruction is for “all other government and all otherauthority and all other power” than Christ’s own Kingdom, power, and authority. And why not? Because panta (“all”) in the context of sermons/discussions, about which Christians habitually attend/participate them, will eventually give Christians such an acquaintance with all things belonging to Christ that they will have no awareness of a need to carve out a mental addition  of “other” following “all” when ambiguity is not a logically probable thing for them, even if use of the same constructions following “all” is likely to puzzle non-Christians for need of a solution. And to be sure, Christendom’s masses are not truly Christian, and accordingly have no valid concept for what “the Kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ” really is (see Revelation 12:10). So, we may have confidence that a logically erroneous reading of 1 Corinthians 15:24 is not likely for keen students of the Bible who early on in their study of the Scriptures learned how to distinguish between the subject “our God” on the one hand, and “his Christ” on the other hand. That understanding may well be peculiarly understood—'idiomatically,' we may say—because even though it is expressed in a Biblically derived vocabulary able to be read alike by believers and unbelievers, yet correct understanding of a text is only guaranteed by holy spirit to true believers, to those who yield to guidance by holy spirit; they will know the meaning God intends his servants (those desirous of doing his will) to apprehend, as assured us in Jesus’ words in John 7:17. Before passing along from 1 Corinthians 15:24, we should note that several translations do, in fact, add "other" or an expression for semantically similar effect. They are An American Translation, The Common Bible, The Amplified Bible,The Twentieth Century New Testament, and translations by C. B. Williams, Moffatt, Beck, and Weymouth all add “other” after “all” at 1 Corinthians 15:24 (e.g. “when he will put an end to all other government, authority, and power” - C. B. Williams, The New Testament in the Language of the People, Moody Press, 1963). As already noted, the NWT does not add “other” in 1 Corinthians 15:24, yet we cannot imagine that NWT Committee would fault addition of that “other” because it certainly reflects the intended meaning of what the apostle Paul has written. Now, John 2:10 is another place where NWT has made addition of “other” whereas most other translations did not do so; however context requires an understanding of the text such that it may be expressed as follows: "Every other man puts out the fine wine first . . . ." At 1 Corinthians 6:18 the following translations have added "other" to the text: NIV, NASB, NEB, REB. AT, GNB, TEV, and Beck (Lutheran scholar) have added "other"; NEB has added "the rest." Again, there is nothing wrong with the addition.

In none of the instances of NWT’s addition  of “other” has there occurred a semantic at odds with what the Greek expressed, and in those instances there is improved translation for disambiguation of what merely an interlinear translation may have actually caused in the first place as respect ambiguity. 

How Do We Get an Answer to the Question "How Did the Universe Come into Existence?"

The real arbiter for what we can know about the Reality (here as "First Cause") that brought forth the physical Universe is not science because science cannot elucidate that Reality’s identity, the identity of what is the cause of that which has historically unfolded for a complex, interdependent sum, namely, an environment with life that is able to affect that environment for its  continued support of life. What is the ultimate arbiter here? History and the logico-mathematical nature of human consciousness are together the Arbiter when it is seen that they sufficiently cooperate for demonstration of the utter unreasonableness in theories that hold that there is absence of intelligent design in some structures (e.g., a living cell), although the complexity of the structures immediately makes appeal to reason that the structures were not engineered by stochastic processes (aka “Serendipity” writ large despite the astronomically low probability for that Serendipity’s existence). And yet, that unreasonableness is what scientists of Scott Todd’s ilk want us to embrace. 

Scott Todd has written: “Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic. Of course the scientist, as an individual, is free to embrace a reality that transcends naturalism.”

Scott C. Todd

Department of Biology, Kansas State University, 18 Ackert Hall, Manhattan, Kansas 66506, USA

By this definition of science, Todd would make science to be the handmaiden of Unreasonableness. Scott C. Todd apparently assumes this: ‘Our Universe as we know it has no physical realities that must, in principle, be seen to be the result of some supernaturalistic cause or causes for a rejection of materialistic causes.’ His doctrine is simply opinion, and in no way can be logically demanded for an accordance with his understanding of science, because his science is one that he has defined in such a way that, in principle, is no more than what flows from his premise that no Universe can be created and put into the service of its Creator and thereafter He use it for sake of beings that cannot naturally share that Creator's supernatural realm of existence.  Again, Todd’s view of what can or cannot exist in accord with true science is his pure, unadulterated opinion.

Yes, it is true that all theories that seek to elucidate the nature of Reality as it existed before the “Big Bang” (aka the pre-Planck era) amount to Opinion writ large wherein we see the same commonality informing all of them: they are and must ever remain void of any probative value whereby they might end speculation as to the nature of pre-Planck era Reality, this because, as much as we want otherwise to know, there is no naturalistically—scientifically—knowable cause that brought into existence the Planck era in cosmogony. Yet most men of science with notable exceptions (e.g., Einstein and Hawking) are agreed that scientific analysis of the observable Universe tells us that the Universe did have a beginning. Then reasonable argument can be made that the Universe, as we know it to be, is able to have at least one piece of its real estate supporting life on it because it was so purposed/designed for that end. All that need be postulated here—and we do so in a commonsensical way because the thing postulated is preeminently reasonable whereas the alternative goes lacking in any commonsense postulation of it--is that planet Earth had for realization of life on it the same science-transcending (supernatural) Reality that brought into existence the Planck era and all else that obtained post-Planck era for the structure of the Universe as we know it. Our Universe is a post-Planck era structure in which, per string theory, anyone of 10^500 different Universes might have resulted, but that in all of them except for one—ours—the result would have been for a Universe unable to support life as we know it. But the astronomical odds against Serendipity having brought into existence a Universe according to any one of the other cosmological theories that are not any of them string theory still result in a Universe too finely tuned in its physical constants but that infinitesimally small variations in the values of those constants must result in a Universe unable to support life. To reiterate, any one of those putative Universes might have been structured in accordance with values of physical constants given in mathematical equations that show us that none of those Universes could have supported life even though the values of the fundamental physical constants need not have varied but by so infinitesimally small a value from the ones that science knows exist for ours, and yet life could not have been supported in any of them but ours. 

Put even more simply as respects all the above, true science does not and cannot truthfully contradict/contravene belief in divine revelation that gives us to know that there is the supernatural realm (Heaven) where the Creator lives apart from Nature, our Universe. 

Science cannot show us the how and the why for the Universe’s coming into existence at the time it came into existence. It can show us that an unfathomable amount of energy was manifested in the beginning of the Planck era (the “singularity”) of the Universe and after its origin. Science, however, cannot show us what was real before there began a chain of causes and their effects within the Universe which established the values of the fundamental physical constants. It, however, is a matter of his unfounded opinion when a scientist asserts that nothing can be offered for some description of Reality that pre-existed the Universe. History since the birth of the Universe works hand-in-hand with another reality, logico-mathematical reasoning; those realities transcend the reality of real science because they establish establish beyond any reasonable doubt justification for belief in another reality, namely, the reality of a reasoning Creator, God, and science alone cannot do that.

What scientists have proved is that the value of the physical constants responsible for the Universe to be configured as it is—call the configuration X—, and not for there to be or ever to have been a Universe with some configuration not X, has odds against X set at being just a certain 1 out of 10^500 possibilities for X to be what it is, for there were 10^500 - 1 other possible configurations that might have been the configuration of the Universe. In the stream of time since the birth of the Universe there has occurred a HISTORY of appearances of an astronomically large number of highly complex organizations of physical realities within X that capture our attention precisely because we realize that each one of the organizations is a sine qua non for the appearance and support of life on earth as we know it to be. And therein lies justification for the faith/confidence of those believers/theists who accept that the Bible reveals that it pleased God to purpose the creation of the Universe. 

No, science cannot make comment to us believers as to why God purposed to create life here on earth. That is an explanation revealed in the Bible. It is, however, unfounded opinion of atheists who say that if science cannot make comment on God’s mind, then that failure is because there is no intelligent Creator for scientists to get to know in the first place—that there never has been a real God. Our rejoinder to them may include asking them, “What scientific/naturalistic methodology do you say you need to employ before you can say either “We have verified God’s existence” or “We have disproved God’s existence”? 

Quite simply, there isn’t any such methodology because the heart of the scientific method is its manmade framework for testing if there is predictability for repetition of an effect that should identify its cause. That methodology, whenever it is possible to use it, does not logically allow us to hold that one man’s opinion about the result of the methodology is as reasonable as another man’s contrary opinion. But science does not have a methodology for establishing the reasonableness of our beliefs as respects every reality that is purported to  exist. That reasonableness, or lack of same, as respects some belief in some purported realities will be shown when it accords with the reality of logic-mathematical reasoning and actual history, or does not so accord.

Logico-mathematical reasoning is a “tool” in science; it is itself a stand-alone reality not provable by science, but yet is a reality that sufficiently stands against atheistic scientists because it exposes the utter unreasonableness of their opinions. Logico-mathematical reasoning is a reality that exposes the worst of opinions when certain biologists and astrophysicists (materialists) will ignore the astronomically low probability for a Universe so finely tuned for existence of life and for the programming of a cell’s DNA for manufacture, regulation, and repair of intracellular entities—including the DNA molecule itself—, but that all of it is supposedly the result apart from the intelligent design of a Creator. 

What the New Caledonian Crows' Ability to Do Compound Tool Manufacture Teaches Us About the Theory of Primate Evolution

A few captive great apes can be trained to do some compound tool manufacture*; however, it is not spontaneously characteristic of the species. On the other hand, in the world of non-human species, such spontaneity is uniquely characteristic of New Caledonian crows. See https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-33458-z

So, if hominid evolution were true, then what evidence do we have that some so-called hominid primates naturalistically -- that is to say, per a so-called co-evolutionary pathway -- obtained what natural selection theory says may possibly occur in a primate species in order for it to become more advantaged for survival than was true for its ancestors? Or, as respects all the putative primate "cousin" species (said to have evolved but then, as goes the just-so story, became dead-end, non-extant branches in primate evolution), were there not any besides Homo sapiens that would have been significantly advantaged had any of them also come to own enough mental prowess for ability to do compound tool manufacture? Apparently, anybody is justified in saying that the brain case size of New Caledonian crows gives convincing argument that a species' brain does not need to be the size of a human brain in order for it to ground ability to do compound tool manufacture. Seeing the thriving existence of so very many avian species having different brain sizes, then we can say that it is self-evident that the existence of all other avian species is convincing evidence that they are not significantly impaired/disadvantaged/threatened as though such a condition were caused by absence in their brains for grounding ability to do compound tool manufacture. Also apparent is the fact that ability to do compound tool manufacture does not necessarily correlate with ability to communicate by use of language. Only humans characteristically use language to communicate.

* "In Koehler’s emblematic study, the male chimpanzee, Sultan, made a useful compound pole, but only after being coached by a human demonstrator who poked his finger into the hollow bamboo element. According to Koehler, Sultan manipulated the tool elements for over an hour and then, after a short break (not long after the aforementioned demonstration), suddenly discovered the solution, as if overcome by an acute insight. In contrast, half of our 8 crows succeeded, similarly abruptly, but within only 4-6 min of engaging with the tool elements, and without any cueing by the experimenter. Also, Sultan did not immediately reproduce the constructive behavior the following day, while 3 of our 4 successful crows readily continued to produce compound tools in the trials that followed their first occasion. They also transferred to modified situations rapidly and demonstrated sensitivity to the need for tool construction."--See cited article.