>The Masoretes produced the first Hebrew text to include punctuation and
>vowel points. In terms of chronology, however, the Septuagint was in use
>roughly 900 years earlier. To be sure, the Septuagint is considered the
>more "corrupt" of the two, but it endured nearly a century more of scribal
>tinkering.
This was a reason given for preferring the Septuagint, and its longer
preflood and postflood chronologies (each about 1000 years longer, because
the pregenerative years of each patriarch had 100 additional years). But
now we know that the Dead Sea Scrolls included copies Hebrew manuscripts
like those the Masoretes used, dating from 100 BC. The scribal differences
were miniscule. So we don't have to use the "corrupt" translation (LXX);
we can trust the Hebrew text, which we still usually call the Masoretic.
Karen