hmmm....interesting..........from the same
website
"errors" in the bible? I think this dispute will only increase the
argument that the bible is flawed....haizzz...
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2Sam 8:4 (700 horsemen) and 1Chron 18:4 (7,000 horsemen) in
KJV
In your A Plea for a Perfect Bible (The Burning Bush January
2003), you put this down as an apparent discrepancy, that perhaps
one counted them one-by-one and the other by groups. The obvious
difficulty is that there are no groups! All the other numerals are
in concurrence one thousand chariots, twenty thousand footmen and
horses David reserved for one hundred chariots and his slaying of
twenty two thousand men (Syrians). If 2Sam 8:4 counted horsemen in
groups, why did it not also do the same for the chariots, footmen
and slain men? Do you lord it over the intelligence and faith of
your hearers? But your approach creates large difficulties in
reading and understanding Gods Word one would never know when a
number is a number or a group of numbers, opening the way for
spiritualising non-literal, liberal interpretation of Gods
Word.
But Gods Word states, In the mouth of two or three witnesses
shall every word be established. (2Cor 13:1, Deut 19:15) If the
above verses therefore are at odds, they cannot be established;
therefore one of them has to be correct and the other
probably a scribal error!
Since it is normal that an army would have more footmen
than horsemen, and more horsemen than chariots, seven thousand
horsemen in 1Chron 18:4 would seem the more correct. When we
research evidential sources older than the 10th Century AD
Masoretic texts, Praise the Lord, we find this true! The
Septuagint, with older extant textual copies dating back to the 2nd
and 3rd Century AD, has 2Sam 8:4 exactly as 1Chron 18:4, one
thousand chariots, seven thousand horsemen, twenty thousand foot
soldiers! And the Hebrew Dead Sea scrolls also, recently discovered
and dating back to the time of Christ, confirm this
reading!
But this is not all. The KJV translators recognised the
2Sam 8:4 error of the Masoretic, which actually reads one thousand
seven hundred horsemen! The word chariots is not in the
Masoretic (thus italicised in the KJV to indicate not in the
original)! The CUV and the NASV are thus more faithful to the
Masoretic than the KJV on this point. Confronted with the
scribal error revealed by the parallel account of 1Chron 18, the
KJV translators, without any warrant or basis, chose to deviate
from the Masoretic and broke up the one thousand seven hundred into
one thousand, to which they added the word chariots and left the
balance seven hundred as horsemen, to reduce the discrepancy. I
reiterate: they have absolutely no warrant; no underlying Hebrew
text support whatsoever! Clearly in this instance, the KJV
translators recognized the scribal error and chose to discard the
original reading of 2Sam 8:4 of the Masoretic text!!
