Deuteronomy 32:8: the two readings

Deuteronomy 32:8. The un-custodied text reads sons of God. The institutionally transmitted text reads children of Israel.

In plain words

In Deuteronomy 32:8 the oldest copies, at Qumran and behind the Greek translation, say God divided the nations by the number of the “sons of God”; the text handed down through the institutions says “children of Israel.” It is the one place the record shows an edit, caught because a copy survived outside official hands.

The mechanism

AUDITABLE DAMAGE — the record-editing this paper tracks, caught in one verse, with the original preserved by exactly the outside-custody mechanism the argument relies on

Scripture

Deuteronomy 32:8

How it was checked

• EvidenceT6 PHYSICAL / MANUSCRIPT; Status: COMMITTED
• Letter eraTHE DECLARATION AND THE DEEP RECORD the awakening to Babel: dated by ruling and by the record, placed by story where the text gives no date
• SourcesMANUSCRIPT — Qumran fragment and the Septuagint against the Masoretic