Versions of the Bible and Tools to
Read the Bible
1. The Masoretic Text
1. The Masoretic Text
The Hebrew version of the Bible completed by the Masoretes, hence the
name. The Masoretes were a school of Jewish scholars who worked between
500 and 1000CE. Updating the ancient Hebrew texts, these scholars added
vowel signs, accent markings, and marginal notes.
This version of the Bible is the authoritative Jewish version. Additionally, all
translations of Protestant Bibles are derived from the Masoretic Text.
This is why Protestants do not have the Deuterocanonical Books (which
Protestants call ‘apocrypha’), since the Masoretic Text does not contain
these books.
2. The Septuagint (LXX)
2. The Septuagint (LXX)
‘septuagint ‘ is a Greek word meaning “seventy”
LXX is the Roman numeral for 70
Why 70?
This refers to a legendary story: In the 3 rd Century BC (200s BC) the Greek King of
Egypt Ptolemy II picked 72 scribes (6 from each of the 12 tribes of Israel) to
translate the Torah from Hebrew into Greek. Ptolemy did not tell the scribes why
they were called to Alexandria (a city in Egypt). When they arrived he placed them
in 72 separate rooms and then entered each room, one by one, saying to them:
“Write for me the Torah of Moses, your teacher." The Legend ends by stating that
each of the 72 scribes translated the text identically as all the others did.
The LXX was once used by all Christians, but now is mainly only used by Orthodox
Christians. Catholics have the deuterocanonical books of the LXX, but rely on St.
Jerome’s Vulgate, which was translated from the Hebrew text.
3. The Vulgate
3. The Vulgate
Vulgate is a latin term meaning “common”
In 382 AD Pope Damasus I commissioned St. Jerome to revise older Latin
versions of the Bible. Jerome began this task in Rome, but on December 10,
384 Pope Damasus I died. Shortly after this in 385 AD, Jerome was forced
out of Rome and moved to Bethlehem to complete his work.
Jerome used the Hebrew version of the Old Testament in order to create his
Latin translation.
The Vulgate is the official Bible of the Roman Catholic Church (it became the
official version at the Council of Trent in 1546).
The Dead Sea Scrolls
The Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS)
Though not an official version of the Bible, the Dead Sea Scrolls are
important for the study of the Bible.
The Dead Sea Scrolls are the oldest Biblical manuscripts ever discovered,
some dating back to 400 BC. They contain manuscripts written in Hebrew,
Aramaic, and Greek. Some scholars believe that they were written by a
Jewish group called the “Essenes.”
The DSS were discovered in 1946 at a cave at Qumran (near the Dead Sea)
by a Bedouin goat-herder name Muhammed Edh-Dhib.