Romans 3: 10-18:
10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
11 There is none that
understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
12 They are all gone
out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth
good, no, not one.
13 Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their
tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips:
14 Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:
15 Their feet are swift to shed blood:
16 Destruction and
misery are in their ways:
17 And the way of
peace have they not known:
This passage is
perhaps among the very best evidence that the use of the LXX in the NT demonstrates
deliberate tampering of a most serious kind. The problem here though is
difficult to spot for those of us who do not speak Greek and Hebrew.
I will
endeavour to highlight and summarise the issue. For a much more in-depth review
I recommend ‘The Enigma of Romans 3:10-18’[1] by Frank
Selch, which addresses this passage’s problems in detail.
This passage is
unusual to begin with in that it is a construct from several verses in the
Tanakh. The problem is that these verses have been taken totally out of
context.
The passage
then becomes even more problematic, in that some of these verses appear to have
then been joined together in Psalm 14 of the Septuagint. That is, it appears an
editor or editors have altered the Septuagint (or at least some of the versions
of it that we now have), so that it is now an exact copy of the NT
passage.
Consider v10:
10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
This passage
from the NT is supposed to be a quote from the Hebrew Scriptures, from the Tanakh.
However, it is not a quote from the
Tanakh. Nowhere does the Tanakh say that there is no one who is righteous.
The Tanakh does
state that there is no one who does good:
Psalms 14: 1, 3-4
1 The fool has said in his heart, "There is no God." They are
corrupt, they have committed abominable deeds; There is no one who does good.
3 They have all turned aside, together they have become corrupt; There is no one who does good, not even
one.
4 Do all the workers of wickedness not know, who eat up my people as
they eat bread, and do not call upon the Lord?
5 There they are in great dread; For God is with the righteous
generation
Verse 1 doesn’t
just say though that there is no one who does good, that’s only the last part
of the verse. How does the verse start out? It is the fool who says there is no
God – it is the fool who is wicked, and there is not one person who says this,
who is good.
Look carefully
at verse 4. This further emphasizes that those who do not do good are the
wicked. In other words, the statement is not universal; there are righteous
(non-wicked) who do good. We then see in Ps 14:5 that they are in fact many who
are righteous.
The following are
just some scriptures that attest to this:
Genesis 6:9
These are the records of the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous
man, blameless in his time; Noah walked with God.
Genesis 7:1
Then the Lord said to Noah, "Enter the ark, you and all your
household, for you alone I have seen to be righteous before Me in this time.
Exodus 23:7
Keep far from a false charge, and do not kill the innocent or the
righteous, for I will not acquit the guilty.
Numbers 32:11-12
11 'None of the men who came up from Egypt, from twenty years old and
upward, shall see the land which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob; for
they did not follow Me fully,
12 except Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite and Joshua the son of
Nun, for they have followed the Lord fully.'
1 Kings 14:8
and tore the kingdom away from the house of David and gave it to
you--yet you have not been like My servant David, who kept My commandments and
who followed Me with all his heart, to do only that which was right in My
sight;
1 Kings 15:5
because David did what was right in the sight of the Lord, and had not
turned aside from anything that He commanded him all the days of his life,
except in the case of Uriah the Hittite.
2 Kings 23:25
Before him there was no king like him who turned to the Lord with all
his heart and with all his soul and with all his might, according to all the
law of Moses; nor did any like him arise after him.
Psalms 97:10-12
10 Hate evil, you who love the Lord, Who preserves the souls of His
godly ones; He delivers them from the hand of the wicked.
11 Light is sown like seed for the righteous and gladness for the
upright in heart.
12 Be glad in the Lord, you righteous ones, and give thanks to His holy
name.
Psalms 106:3
How blessed are those who keep justice, who practice righteousness at
all times!
Proverbs 13:5-6
5 A righteous man hates falsehood, but a wicked man acts disgustingly
and shamefully.
6 Righteousness guards the one whose way is blameless, But wickedness
subverts the sinner.
Job 1:1
There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job; and that man was
blameless, upright, fearing God and turning away from evil.
Jeremiah 20:12
Yet, O Lord of hosts, You who test the righteous, Who see the mind and
the heart; let me see Your vengeance on them; For to You I have set forth my
cause.
Psalms 32:11
Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, you righteous ones; and shout for joy,
all you who are upright in heart.
There is
however a passage in the Tanakh that states that there is no one who does good.
It is Ecclesiastes 7:20 “Indeed, there is
not a righteous man on earth who continually does good and who never sins.”
Here we can see
that people can be righteous even though there is no one who is always good. Righteousness
is not about perfection, it’s about a connection with God that brings a swift response
of repentance upon the understanding that transgression has taken place.
Now, you may
start to see some of the anomalies or contradictions evident in the NT, and
even in the same epistle. For example we read in Romans 1:17, the Apostle Paul
endorsing Habbakuk, and quoting Hab 2:4 ‘…but the just [righteous] shall live by his faith[fullness]… ‘. If we
were to take Romans 3:10 as correctly quoting scripture, we would appear to
have a serious contradiction here.
It could be
possible that Ps 143:2 was the scripture being referred to in Romans 3:10: ‘Do not enter into judgment with Your servant, for
in Your sight no one living is righteous.‘ Frank Selch points out though that the Hebrew does not say ‘in your sight’ but ‘before your face’. We can perhaps now recognize that in this
context, that is, when compared with the righteous of the Almighty, no man’s
righteous comes close; it is cast into such a shadow as to make this a valid
comparative statement. To repeat there
are a great many scriptures that indicate that there are righteous amongst the
living.
The next verse
(v11 There is none
that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.) is just as problematic.
Consider the
cry of King David (Ps 27:8) ‘When You said, “Seek My face”, my heart said to You, “Your face, LORD,
I will seek.”, and (Ps 40:16)
‘Let all those who seek You rejoice and be glad in You;
let such as love Your salvation say continually, “The Lord be magnified!”.
Also Isaiah writes, ‘With my soul I have desired You in the night, yes, by
my spirit within me I will seek You early…’ Isa 26:9 and ‘Listen to Me, you who follow after righteousness, you who seek the Lord…’ Isa. 51:1.
Note also that
v 12 states that there is not a single person who does good as well as yet in 2
Kings 22:2 we read: ‘And he (Josiah) did what was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked
in all the ways of his father David; he did not turn
aside to the right hand or to the left.’
Consider also
all those of faith mentioned on Hebrews 11; the parents of John the Baptists, Zechariah
and Elizabeth, Anna the prophetess, Simon, the disciples and all their
converts.
Clearly, this
reference if truly from the Tanakh (possibly from Ps 14), and actually written
by the Apostle Paul, must only refer to Gentiles, to unbelievers, not to the
righteous men and women of faith. Yet, when we read this reference in its
context in Romans 3, especially the context of the verses immediately
following, we get a very different picture.
We get an
argument that appears to argue against these men and women of faith and against
the power of Torah to bring repentance, righteousness and salvation. The signs
of corruption and deliberate distortion become increasingly evident.
Now we came to
the most glaring deception, so blindingly powerful that many see it as in fact
very strong evidence that the NT did quote from the LXX!
Research a few
well known scholars who have written commentaries on Romans and you will likely
find many stating that in Romans 3: 10-18 the Apostle Paul has quoted excerpts
from a number of different places in the Tanakh (including Ps. 14:1-3; Ps 5:9; Ps.
10:7; Isa. 59:7,8; Ps. 36:1).
You might also
find though some like the famous Adam Clarke
(1762–1832)[2]
indicating that Romans 3:13-18 is in fact a direct quote of Ps 14 in the
Septuagint: “This
and all the following verses to the end of the 18th Romans 3:13-18 are found in the
Septuagint, but not in the Hebrew text; and
it is most evident that it was from this version that the apostle quoted,
as the verses cannot be found in any other place with so near an approximation
to the apostle's meaning and words.”
Note that Adam
Clarke states ‘with so near an
approximation’, yet the Greek versions are not just close they are
identical!
Quoting Frank Selch (The Enigma of Romans 3:10-18):
“The LXX came into being approx. 200 plus years before the Christian
era. Is it at all feasible that Psalm 13
[Masoretic Psalm14] contained that inclusion which is there today? In all likelihood no, since the verses are a
collection from other Psalms and wisdom writings and need not be there.
The following segment from Romans 3:13-18 is from the NKJV:
‘Their throat is
an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps
is under their lips: whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness; their feet
are swift to shed blood: destruction and misery are in their ways; and the way
of peace they have not known: there is no fear of God before their eyes.’
And this one is a copy of Psalm 14:3 [Ps.13 in the Greek text] from
the ‘English Translation of the Greek Septuagint Bible, The Translation of the
Greek Old Testament Scriptures, Including the Apocrypha’; as compiled from the
Translation by Sir Lancelot C. L. Brenton 1851
‘Their throat is
an open tomb; with their tongues they have practiced deceit the poison of asps
is under their lips whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their
feet are swift to shed blood; Destruction and misery are in their ways; and
the way of peace they have not known there is no fear of God before their
eyes.’
Here is the Greek text of Romans 3:13-18
τάφος νε γμένος ὁ λάρυγξ α τῶν, ταῖς γλώσσαις α τῶν ἐδολιοῦσαν, ἰὸς σπίδων ὑπὸ τὰ χείλη α τῶν·ὧν τὸ στόμα
ρᾶς καὶ πικρίας γέμει, ὀξεῖς οἱ πόδες α τῶν ἐκχέαι αἷμα, σύντριμμα καὶ αλαιπωρία ἐν ταῖς ὁδοῖς α τῶν, καὶ ὁδὸν εἰρήνης ο κ ἔγνωσαν ο κ ἔστιν φόβος θεοῦ πέναντι τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν α τῶν.
And here is the text of Psalm 14:3b [13] form the LXX
‘…τάφος νε γμένος ὁ λάρυγξ α τῶν ταῖς γλώςαις α τῶν ἐδολιοῦσαν ἰὸς σπίδων ὑπὸ τὰ χείλη α τῶν ὧν τὸ στόμα
ρᾶς καὶ πικρίας γέμει ὀξεῖς οἱ πόδες α τῶν ἐκχέαι αἷμα σύντριμμα καὶ ταλαιπωρία ἐν ταῖς ὁδοῖς α τῶν καὶ ὁδὸν εἰρήνης ο κ ἔγνωσαν ο κ ἔστιν φόβος θεοῦ πέναντι τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν α τῶν.
The two portions are identical!”
So, is this a
slam dunk proof that the LXX was indeed used after all (as most Christian
scholars have indeed argued for a great many years)?
NO!
Because even
Adam Clarke went on to state: “The verses in
question, however, are not found in the Alexandrian MS. But they exist in
the Vulgate, the AEthiopic, and the Arabic. As the most ancient copies of the Septuagint do not contain these
verses, some contend that the apostle has quoted them from different
parts of Scripture; and later transcribers of the Septuagint, finding that the
10th, 11th, and 12th, verses were quoted from the xivth Psalm, Ps 14:10-12
imagined that the rest were found originally there too, and so incorporated
them in their copies, from the apostle's text.”[3],[4]
Pause and consider
carefully!
Adam Clarke
acknowledges (and this was over 150 years ago!) that the earliest versions of
the LXX (first compiled in Alexandria), do not contain this portion that is so
perfectly quoted in Romans 3! That is, the Romans 3 quote we have today has
been added by the translators at some stage. It is not a translation of the original;
it is not inspired by any stretch of the imagination, but instead a great
forgery (however well intentioned the editors may have been in their
redaction)!
Have others
noted this before?
Yes, Douglas Moo's opinion (from his NICNT commentary, ‘The Epistle To the Romans’, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996) writes: “The inclusion of Romans 3:13-18 in several MSS of the LXX of Psalm 14 is a striking example of the influence of Christian scribes on the transmission of the LXX. (See S-H for a thorough discussion). (p. 203, fn. 28) [S-H refers to A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, by William Sanday and Arthur C. Headlam (ICC. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1902)]”
Yes, Douglas Moo's opinion (from his NICNT commentary, ‘The Epistle To the Romans’, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996) writes: “The inclusion of Romans 3:13-18 in several MSS of the LXX of Psalm 14 is a striking example of the influence of Christian scribes on the transmission of the LXX. (See S-H for a thorough discussion). (p. 203, fn. 28) [S-H refers to A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, by William Sanday and Arthur C. Headlam (ICC. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1902)]”
Douglas Moo is stating
that the Septuagint's rendering in Psalm 14:3 is a direct insertion copied back
from Romans 3:13-18 by Christian editors and translators.
Clearly
something very deliberate and most questionable is evident here. Further, very
few, if any Hebrew manuscripts have this version of Ps 14. The Dead Sea Scrolls
portion 11QPs(c) contains Ps. 14:1-6 in Hebrew. Below is a translation in
English of this Psalm:
I will address this in the last section of this book, but to put it bluntly,
it all comes back to Doctrine, to the deliberate attempt to write into the NT,
the doctrines of men, rather than accept the doctrines and teachings (Torah) of
the Almighty and His Messiah!
Psalm 14:
1 The fool
says in his heart, “There is no God”. They are corrupt, they commit vile
wickedness; there is no one who does good.
2 YHWH looks
down from heaven upon humankind to see if there are any who are wise, any who
seek after God.
3 They have
all gone astray; they are all alike corrupt; there is no one who does good –
no, not even one.
4 Do they
never learn, all those evildoers who devour my people as humans eat bread, and
who do not call upon the YHWH?
5 Toward this
place they will be in mighty dread, for God is with the company of the
righteous.
6 You
evildoers frustrate the plans of the poor, but YHWH is their refuge.
- See p 515 ‘The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible’ Martin Abegg Jr, Peter Flint
& Eugene Ulrich 1999
Given the
existence of this Hebrew version of Ps 14 at the time that the Apostle Paul first
wrote Romans, and given the evidence I have referred to that indicates that
Hebrew was both the main spoken language in Israel during the Second Temple
period[5], and the
language in which the Jewish scribes and the Jewish authors of the NT wrote;
then this is much more likely the version that Paul would have quoted.
So, we might
ask again at this point, why was this deliberate change made to the Septuagint
and the NT, and what are the implications and ramifications of this deliberate
tampering with versions of the LXX and it would appear by inference, the NT?
This is an excerpt from my book 'The New Testament: The Hebrew Behind the Greek' - on amazon at http://www.amazon.com/The-New-Testament-Hebrew-Behind-ebook/dp/B009XO0NQU/
[5]
“The spoken languages among the
Jews of that period [at the time of Jesus] were Hebrew, Aramaic, and to an
extent Greek. Until recently, it was believed by numerous scholars that the
language spoken by Jesus' disciples was Aramaic. It is possible that Jesus did,
from time to time, make use of the Aramaic language. But during that period
Hebrew was both the daily language and the language of study. The Gospel of
Mark contains a few Aramaic words, and this was what misled scholars.
Today, after the discovery of the Hebrew Ben Sira (Ecclesiasticus), of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and of the Bar Kochba Letters, and in light of more profound studies of the language of the Jewish Sages, it is accepted that most people were fluent in Hebrew. The Pentateuch was translated into Aramaic for the benefit of the lower strata of the population. The parables in the Rabbinic literature, on the other hand, were delivered in Hebrew in all periods. There is thus no ground for assuming that Jesus did not speak Hebrew; and when we are told (Acts 21:40) that Paul spoke Hebrew, we should take this piece of information at face value.
Today, after the discovery of the Hebrew Ben Sira (Ecclesiasticus), of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and of the Bar Kochba Letters, and in light of more profound studies of the language of the Jewish Sages, it is accepted that most people were fluent in Hebrew. The Pentateuch was translated into Aramaic for the benefit of the lower strata of the population. The parables in the Rabbinic literature, on the other hand, were delivered in Hebrew in all periods. There is thus no ground for assuming that Jesus did not speak Hebrew; and when we are told (Acts 21:40) that Paul spoke Hebrew, we should take this piece of information at face value.
This
question of the spoken language is especially important for understanding the
doctrines of Jesus. There are sayings of Jesus which can be rendered both in
Hebrew and Aramaic; but there are some which can only be rendered into Hebrew,
and none of them can be rendered only in Aramaic. One can thus demonstrate the
Hebrew origins of the Gospels by retranslating them into Hebrew.
It appears
that the earliest documents concerning Jesus were written works, taken down by
his disciples after his death. Their language was early Rabbinic Hebrew with
strong undercurrents of Biblical Hebrew.” - ‘Jewish
Sources in Early Christianity’, by David Flusser, Adama Books, pages 11-12
[1] Most of my comments here
come from Frank Selch’s research and commentary. His article is available from www.theolivetreeconnection.com (Update: This site is no longer active).
[2]
Adam Clarke’s
commentary on the entire Bible took him 40 years to write!
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