Today we begin 1st Samuel Chapter 17.
For the Complete Jewish Bible, click HERE.
For the King James version, click HERE.
Today we begin a chapter that contains one of the most well-known and beloved stories in the entire Bible:
The story of David and Goliath.
But before we dive into the juicy content, there’s a controversy surrounding this famous chapter I need to inform you of.
Depending on which Bible you’re reading, you’ll find several verses missing!
I’m gonna get a bit academic on you here, so just bear with me.
So are you familiar with the Septuagint and the Masoretic Text?
They’re two ancient versions of the Hebrew Bible (aka the “Old” Testament).
The Septuagint is an old translation in Greek, done around 300-200 BCE in Egypt.
It was translated by about seventy or so Jewish scholars and it contains extra books not in the Masoretic Text.
The Masoretic Text is the original Hebrew version of the “Old” Testament, written between the 7th and 10th centuries CE.
The “Masoretes” were Jewish scholars who carefully preserved and transmitted the Hebrew Scriptures, adding vowel markings (vocalization) and other annotations.
It does NOT have the extra books found in the Septuagint.
So, in a nutshell, the Septuagint is an old Greek translation with more books, while the Masoretic Text is the original Hebrew version without those extra books.
Got it?
Okay, with that little lesson out of the way, here’s what you need to know.
The Greek Septuagint is missing half of the verses found in the Hebrew Masoretic Text.
I kid you not.
Specifically, the Septuagint does NOT have these three sets of verses (in 1 Samuel Chapter 17):
12-31
41, 48, 50
55-58
So the big question in academic circles is WHY?
There’s no end to the debate surrounding this matter.
One theory is that the Septuagint is correct and that a copyist later added the above verses to the Masoretic Text.
Other folks will say the opposite – that the Masoretic Text is correct and for reasons not specified, the above verses were deleted.
The debate doesn’t end there.
The reason why there’s a difference in the first place is also argued about.
Some folks think the story of David and Goliath might be a mix of two different versions.
Others say it’s not a mix…
They’ll assert the older version is in the Septuagint, which is the oldest version of the Bible in existence…
And the newer one is in the Masoretic Text, which is from the 9th or 10th centuries.
Well, here are my thoughts.
Who gives two hoots?!
Theologically speaking, nothing changes anyway.
We’re mostly dealing with extra details in the story of the Israelites and the Philistines and who was involved.
The extra verses make the story a bit more interesting.
That’s about it.
But having said that, the following verses 55-58 have posed some challenges because they appear to pop up out of nowhere and don’t seem to fit the overall narrative:
“When Sha’ul saw David go out to fight the P’lishti, he said to Avner, the army’s commander, ‘Avner, whose son is this boy?’ ‘By your life, O king,’ Avner replied, ‘I don’t know.’ The king said, ‘Find out whose son this boy is.’ As David returned from killing the P’lishti, Avner took him and brought him to Sha’ul with the head of the P’lishti in his hand. Sha’ul asked him, ‘Young man, whose son are you?’ David answered, ‘I am the son of your servant Yishai the Beit-Lachmi.'”
Anyway, we’ll deal with these verses later on.
So see ya all next time.
P.S. If you wanna dive a little deeper into the differences between the Septuagint and the Masoretic Text and what they’re all about, check out this article, and this one too! They’re easy and fun to read, so check ’em out!
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