Difference in Flood Dates – Part I

We received this comment recently and felt it deserved a complete answer:
    Comment: “I don’t recall you ever addressing the date disagreements between the SP, LXX, and Josephus with the Masoretic text—as they relate to the flood. Using the ~2340 BC date for the flood is on pretty weak footing. I’m surprised you haven’t explored the Masoretic text shortcomings more openly and thoroughly” W.B.
    Response: While we have discussed these areas in the past, it has been in a limited manner. Some of the problems in doing so is this difference between the various Rabbinical schools of thought on the issues involved. These usually cover seven disputed areas:
1. Biblical experts of the rabbinate. Rabbis who are involved in the interpretation of ancient scripture and ancient Jewish Law, have been at odds with one another from the beginning. They simply do not always follow the pattern of the Lord set down in the scriptural record in their path to knowledge of the past. Today, since no one knows the ancient language and its interpretation, several rabbis have written and preached different dogmas regarding it.

Rabbinic schools of tannaitic times are more accurately characterized as “disciple circles” than academies. There were no school buildings, hierarchies of positions, administrative bureaucracies, curricula, or requirements. Because study was oral, there was no need for books or libraries either. A few disciples gathered around a rabbinic master and learned traditions from him in his home or in some other private dwelling that could serve as a school

It should be noted that there were seven periods over which Jewish scholars who taught the people in Babylonia and the Land of Israel, from the Zugots (200-0. BC); the Tannaim (0-210 AD); the Amoraim, 220-500 AD), the Savoraim (500-640 AD), the Geonim (640-1050 AD), the Rihonim (1050-1500 AD) and the Acharonim (1500-Present). Those teachings through the Tannaim were direct transmitters of uncodified oral tradition; the Amoraim who followed, expounded upon and clarified the original law after its initial codification.
    Everything depends upon which rabbinical person, group or school you choose to follow. There are controversies over words, phrases, even doctrine of the ancient texts. Besides, if one was to study Hebrew, present and ancient, there is so much confusion over what is what that it is hard to reconcile differences unless you tie yourself to one particular rabbi and his course of thought, to which there is no guarantee his approach, and therefore line of reasoning, is better or more accurate than another;

The Aleppo Codex is a medieval bound manuscript of the Hebrew Bible, written in the city of Tiberias (northern Israel) in the 10th century AD, and was endorsed for its accuracy by Maimonides (Rambam)

2. The ancient Hebrew language is barely known, and certainly not fully understood even by the most acceptable rabbinical authority today. Of course, each claims it is understood, but then states in private that it is not. We have written about this in the past, stating in part: “There is one major translating difficulty found in the biblical language of Israel, especially since Hebrew ceased to be a commonly spoken language no later than 200 A.D., though many believe much earlier. And regarding the Old Testament, the Hebrew language, as anciently written, was the most difficult of all languages to translate, since it was written from right to left; the words contained no written vowels; there were no intervening spaces between words, and no punctuation marks. The Hebrew language was thus largely composed of words with several meanings. With no spaces between words, it was sometimes hard to tell where a word began or where it ended; and as there were no punctuation marks, and no spaces between sentences, paragraphs, or even sections, it was often difficult to determine the meaning of a writer even after the words had been deciphered.”
3. Modern Hebrew speakers do not, or do not fully, understand the Old Testament original Hebrew. According to some current rabbinical authorities, basic reading is becoming more and more challenging, as the students are not actually taught to read the vowels carefully. When reading aloud, they pronounce many words incorrectly (even if corrected for modern Israeli pronunciation; nobody even thinks about bothering with approximating the ancient sounds), and consequently they misunderstand them from the outset.
    Though the morphology is mostly the same, and so are a lot of words, if one actually reads the vowels correctly, they can understand a lot. The syntax is very different, but its most basic features, like the "reversed" tenses, can be familiarized; however, the advanced parts of the syntax are usually lost on Israelis who didn't receive particular training or didn't at least read a modern commentary. Even Amir E. Aharoni, who lives in Israel and is quite experienced in Hebrew translation and teaching states: “I don't pretend to understand all the intricacies of Biblical syntax, and I have a university degree in Hebrew language! My degree makes me better than an average Israeli in understanding the grammar, but deep-diving into Biblical grammar was not a requirement for graduation and I skipped it.

4. The Old Testament books are very diverse in their styles and narratives, so while one can understand a particular book, it does not hold true that they will understand a second book, for it may be far more difficult than imagined or even understood.
5. The profundity of the Torah (Chameesha Choomshey Torah), as it is called in Hebrew, is inaccessible without the accompanying Torah shel baal pe; (Torah Shebaal Peh) the oral tradition, which include laws, statutes, and legal interpretations that were not recorded in the Torah (five books of Moses). Such additions or changes are significant in understanding what has been written;
6. Differences between the Mishnah (Mishnayot) and the Gemara, which together make up the Talmud. The former, which was the first major written collection of the Jewish oral traditions known as the "Oral Torah,” and the first major work of rabbinic literature, and is an authoritative collection of exegetical material embodying the oral tradition of Jewish law and forming the first part of the Talmud.
    The latter, which is the component of the Talmud, comprising rabbinical analysis of and commentary on the Mishnah, after it was first published in 200 AD by Judah, the Prince. It was studied exhaustively by generation after generation of rabbis in Babylonia and the Land of Israel, with their discussions were written down in a series of books that became the Gemara, which when combined with the Mishnah constituted the Talmud.
    However, there are two version of the Gemara, i.e., the Jerusalem Talmud (Talmud Yerushalmi), which was compiled by scholars of the Land of Israel, primarily of the academies of Tiberias and Caesares, published between 350-400 AD, and the Talmud Bavli which was published about 500 AD by scholars of Babylonia, primarily of the academies of Sura, Pumbedita and Nehardea. Thus, the Talmud comprises two components: the Mishnah, which is the core text and the Gemara, an analysis and commentary which completes the Talmud.
    Thus, it should be understood that the Mishnah is the product of an ongoing process of elaborating and explaining the foundations, the details and the significance of the Torah's commandments. In fact, it is no wonder that Saint Jerome, who published the Latin Vulgate version of the Bible around 400 AD, admitted: “When we translate the Hebrew into Latin, we are sometimes guided by conjecture.”

Furthermore, Jean Le Clerc, a Swiss Protestant theologian and scholar of the 17th century, even went so far as to maintain that “the learned merely guess at the sense of the Old Testament in an infinity of places.” This is in large part because of the ancient Hebrews’ failure to write down their vowels and of the language subsequently falling into disuse—and also of the adding of the relatively modern vowel points, by a few belated Dark-Age rabbis, in order to make up for this deficit, naturally casts very great suspicion and doubts on how the Hebrew vowels were originally sounded and used.
(See the next post, “Difference in Flood Dates – Part II,” for a clearer understanding of how the ancient Hebrew text known as the Old Testament came about and the ages-old controversy over the two prevalent, competing texts covering the subject)