Editing Deuterocanonical books (section)

===Masoretic Text===
The existence of the [[Septuagint manuscripts|Septuagint]], [[Samaritan Pentateuch]], and the [[Peshitta]] versions of the Hebrew scriptures demonstrate that different versions of Judaism used different texts, and it is debated which is closest to the [[Urtext (biblical studies)|Urtext]] (a theoretical "original" text from which all of these emerged). The [[Dead Sea Scrolls]] contain some of the deuterocanonical books, while the [[Masoretic Text]] excludes them. Since the Enlightenment, it was wrongly believed that the Masoretic Text was the "original" Hebrew Bible when this was in fact a medieval version created by the [[Masoretes]]. The oldest nearly-complete manuscripts of the Old Testament include the [[Codex Vaticanus Graecus 1209|Codex Vaticanus]] (4th century) and the [[Codex Alexandrinus]] (5th century), while the oldest complete manuscript of the Masoretic text is the [[Leningrad Codex|Codex Leningradensis]] from 1008.<ref name=Austin2006>{{Cite journal|last1=Austin|first1=Kenneth|last2=Coudert|first2=Allison P.|last3=Shoulson|first3=Jeffrey S.|title=Hebraica Veritas? Christian Hebraists and the Study of Judaism in Early Modern Europe|journal=The Sixteenth Century Journal|volume=37 |issue=2|page=630|year=2006|doi=10.2307/20477972|jstor=20477972}}</ref><ref name=Tov2014>{{Cite book|last=Tov|first=Emanuel|chapter=The Myth of the Stabilization of the Text of Hebrew Scripture|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.13109/9783666550645.37|title=The Text of the Hebrew Bible|pages=37–46|location=Göttingen|publisher=Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht|year=2014|doi=10.13109/9783666550645.37|isbn=978-3-525-55064-9}}</ref>

The Septuagint was the version of the Hebrew Bible from which the early Christians emerged. The Christian Bible contained these deuterocanonical books until Martin Luther, assuming the Masoretic text to be the original, removed them to match this new Jewish canon. Rabbinic Judaism is a newer form of Judaism that created the Masoretic text in part to deter a Christian reading of the Old Testament.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Austin |first1=Kenneth |last2=Coudert |first2=Allison P. |last3=Shoulson |first3=Jeffrey S. |date=2006-07-01 |title=Hebraica Veritas? Christian Hebraists and the Study of Judaism in Early Modern Europe |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/20477972 |journal=The Sixteenth Century Journal |volume=37 |issue=2 |pages=630 |doi=10.2307/20477972 |jstor=20477972 |issn=0361-0160}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |last=Tov |first=Emanuel |title=The Myth of the Stabilization of the Text of Hebrew Scripture |date=2014-01-19 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.13109/9783666550645.37 |work=The Text of the Hebrew Bible |pages=37–46 |place=Göttingen |publisher=Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht |doi=10.13109/9783666550645.37 |isbn=978-3-525-55064-9 |access-date=2022-09-02}}</ref>