Making the Biblical Text: Textual Studies in the Hebrew and the Greek Bible (original) (raw)
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In several Scripture books, the Masoretic Text (MT) displays a substantial number of major differences when compared with the LXX and, to a lesser degree, with several Qumran scrolls and the Samaritan Pentateuch (SP). The other ancient versions were translated from Hebrew texts close to MT. The present analysis is limited to variations bearing on literary analysis, usually found in groups of variants. A difference involving one or two words, and sometimes an isolated case of a single verse, is considered a small difference, while a discrepancy involving a whole section or chapter indicates a substantial difference, often relevant to literary criticism. However, a group of seemingly unrelated small differences might also display a common pattern, pointing to a more extensive phenomenon. This pertains to many small theological changes in the MT of Samuel, short renderings in the LXX translation of Ezekiel, etc. Who created these various types of differences between ancient texts? In very broad terms, authors and editors who were involved in the composition of the texts, inserted changes that we characterize today as large differences often bearing on literary criticism. At a later stage, scribes who copied the completed compositions inserted many smaller changes and also made mistakes while copying. However, the distinction between these two levels is unclear at both ends, since early copyists considered themselves petty collaborators in the creation process of Scripture, while authors and editors were also copyists. While readings found in ancient Hebrew manuscripts provide stable evidence, there are many problems on the slippery road of evaluating the ancient versions, especially the LXX. One of these is that what appears to one scholar to be a safely reconstructed Hebrew variant text is for another one a specimen of a translator's tendentious rendering. Literary analysis of the Hebrew Bible is only interested in evidence of the first type, since it sheds light on the background of the different Hebrew texts that were once circulating. The translator's tendentious changes are also interesting, but at a different level, that of Scripture exegesis. Since a specific rendering either represents a greatly deviating Hebrew text or it displays the translator's exegesis, one wonders how are we to differentiate between the two. For almost every variation in the LXX, one finds opposite views expressed, and there are only very few objective criteria for evaluating these variations. Probably the best criteria relate to external Hebrew evidence supporting the
the textual history of the bible (thb) -introduction of the translation technique of the Vulgate. It is furthermore, the very first tool that devotes significant attention to the secondary translations. While the study of the Hebrew sources and the primary translations are usually based on editions, the secondary translations are usually studied from manuscripts. THB is a good starting point for text-critical analysis of all biblical versions and books because it offers the reader information about all the textual evidence for a specific biblical book and all the evidence for a specific textual source in one reference work.
Early Texts of the Torah: Revisiting the Greek Scholarly Context
The paper seeks a new way to understand the early activity within versions of the Torah. It builds on two recent developments. First, a refined understanding of the so-called “harmonizations” in the pre-Samaritan Pentateuch and the circulation of this version in early Hellenistic Palestine. Second, new insights with regard to the extent of Homeric scholarship in contemporary Alexandria, and of the type of contact between this activity and Jewish literati. The result is a new view of the pre-Samaritan text as an academic – rather than popular – text, which corresponds with academic textual practices elsewhere. It seeks to smooth out narratological problems in the text, basing itself on the image of Moses as a faultless author. This view explains the continuum between the various attestations of the pre-SP in Qumran and elsewhere. We show that previous explanations of the pre-Samaritan text duplications as a sequel to phenomenon in cuneiform literature are unwarranted. Finally, it is suggested to project from the explicit discussions about the legitimacy of academic Torah texts in Jewish-Hellenistic writings on their less explicit contemporaries in Judea. This reasoning paves the way for a renewed evaluation of the early stages of the conservative version, known as proto-MT, being part of the same dynamics.