Fifth, complete sentences are missing.
Fifth, complete sentences are missing.
§ 332. (V) “Sometimes complete sentences are missing in the Hebrew, though they are not missing from the Septuagint version nor in Jerome’s translation. We have an example in Exodus 2, where this whole statement is missing: ‘She also bore another son, and he called his name Eliezer, saying: “The God of my father has helped me and has delivered me from the hand of Pharaoh.” ‘”
We respond. (1) The Hebrew text has that verse in its own place, namely, Exod. 18:4.
(2) The Latin and Greek versions are not the rule for authentic truth in the Hebrew text, for we must not pass judgment on the spring from the streams but, on the contrary, on the streams from the spring.
(3) Who will make us certain that the Hebrew codices here lack something that must necessarily be supplied? You see, one may claim with equal ease that something must be taken away from the Greek and Latin codices.
(4) Cajetan admits: “That verse is superfluous.” The scholars at Louvain mark it with an asterisk, and Robertus Stephanus rejects it.
(5) If you pay attention to Moses’ argument and the flow of the narrative, this verse is inserted here ineptly. You see, Gershom, the son of Moses, preceded his brother Eliezer by many years, during which the Israelites looked to God and God saw them [Exod. 2:25]. Eliezer was born toward the end of those years and was still uncircumcised when Moses girded himself for his return to Egypt, as Junius notes (Animadvers.).
§ 333. These are the five passages of the Old Testament that Bellarmine suspects have been corrupted in the Hebrew text. But even if one were to concede some variance of reading or the change of some little letter in them, yet the consequence would not follow that the Hebrew text was so corrupt that it could not be considered as authentic and that one could not appeal to it as the source. This is because: (1) There would be more in the conclusion than one could infer from the premises. For what is the logical connection here? Five passages have been corrupted, or rather have variant readings, therefore all of Scripture in the Hebrew codex is corrupt? The following is the only consequence: Therefore in those five places, the Hebrew Scripture is not genuine and whole.
(2) There is a scribal error that exists only in some but not all copies. Its correction is obvious to everyone, and both we and the Papists are in agreement regarding it, so we cannot consider it of such importance that it impugns the canonical authority of the Hebrew source.
(3) If that orthographic variance, brought on accidentally because of an affinity of letters and carried only by some copies, were to cause the Hebrew source no longer to be pure and authentic, the consequence would be that the Greek text in the New Testament would no longer be authentic because variant readings occur in it too. But this would be the same thing as if someone wanted to accuse an entire Epistle of corruption because of an error in a single letter [of a word].
(4) In fact, the Latin Vulgate version has been corrupted in far more passages and teems with far more serious errors. Yet the Papists have their hands full foisting it upon us as authentic.
(5) Bellarmine himself acknowledges that because of this no harm is done to the purity and genuine authority of the sources, for he writes against Lindanus, Canus, Gordonus, and others who attack the purity of the sources: “Errors of this sort that have crept in because of the negligence or ignorance of scribes are not of such weight that the integrity of Holy Scripture is lacking in those matters that pertain to faith and the good behavior. You see, in most cases the entire discrepancy of variant readings lies in some words that change the sense either very little or not at all” (De verbo Dei, bk. 2, c. 2, final §).
57 Read Brugensis instead of Burgensis.