The Massorah: What Is It? Pages 1-2

        For centuries, or at least since 1611, the English speaking Christian community has had in its hands the King James Translation of the Hebrew Texts of the Old Testament, and from the Greek Text, the New Testament. Now there are many other Bible translations available today, possibly too many depending how one looks at it. The important thing is; does whatever translation a person studies put the true Word of God in the student’s mind?
        Let’s use an analogy for finding out which translation is best suited for us. First, why is finding a certain Bible important, one might ask. The analogy starts like this: suppose you’re an antique auto enthusiast. You’ve found an old car that you wish to restore to mint condition depending on parts availability. To make that car ‘true to its time’, which I mean you want that car as close to the original condition as possible, you’ll look just about anywhere for any original parts, regardless sometimes of their condition, because you can rebuild some of them, but the ideal is ‘mint’ or pristine shape. The whole project might span a few months, years, or even a lifetime. The key is knowing that you’ve done your best to get the most original ‘first parts’ for your antique. You may have to settle for some remanufactured or ‘new’ parts, but those will be a minimum, because you know it destroys the originality of the car.
       Now this analogy can apply to many different types of antique enthusiasts, but let’s apply it to God’s Word. For someone who wants that ‘pristine’ form of God’s Word, in mint shape, unaltered, the same as when it was written down ‘first hand’, it might take months, years, or a lifetime of study. To find the original parts one might have to begin an in depth study of Hebrew and Greek and Chaldee. Then one must proceed on a field trip to find all available sources of the Hebrew, Greek, and Chaldee Texts, and then make comparisons, and lastly putting everything together in one final translation. Many people who are bi-lingual and speak a second or more languages can probably understand this more easily, because they are aware of some of the problems when translating between languages. Now, this is not to say that our Holy Bible is wrong , or miss-translated, but going back to the antique car analogy, ‘the car is whatever make or model it was originally built to’, but some of the parts may be ‘newer additions’ and some parts may still need to be found. The car may be driven from point A to point B, without maybe, a missing runner board, a spare wheel that mounts on the rear, side mirrors, etc., but it still goes down the road and gets us where we want to go. However, we bide our time and are patient until we can find all the parts, or in The Word’s case, patiently studying in hope, and faith in the ‘ideal’ of our salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. Our English translations are similar to the antique car analogy. The Hebrew and Greek Texts are ‘pure’ and ‘pristine’. The only problem is we must understand how to read Biblical Hebrew and Greek and in some cases, Chaldee and Aramaic. Then we must understand the peoples of that time, their laws, expression, and idioms; all while ‘thinking’ in these other languages.
        Unfortunately, not everyone can do this kind of in depth study, for it requires patience of the sort that archeologists must learn. Luckily much of the work has been accomplished for us already. All we have to do is go get it. This can mean finding a Church in your community that relies heavily on teaching the congregation the Hebrew expressions and idioms that help explain God’s Word along with a verse by verse, chapter by chapter instruction, or a group of Christians that meet and have a study period together, or by searching out the Texts for yourself. The important matter is that as Christians we have a responsibility to Our Lord to know what ‘His Letter to us’ says. Also, the fact that even today new translations are coming out means that scholars are not agreed upon how to translate the ‘original parts’ that go into building their translation of God’s Word. This may seem confusing , and to many Christians it is. Many feel they don’t have time to learn Hebrew and that God wouldn’t allow the truth to be lost between translations. I somewhat understand this attitude. Finally, this brings us to the Massorah.
        All of the most reliable manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible have on every page next to the Text that is arranged in two or more columns, smaller lines of writing called the Massorah Magna or Great Massorah, and the writing in the side margins is called the