Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Don A. Elbourne Jr." <delbourne AT home.com>]

Thank you for that explanation. It is helpful to understand what we are
dealing with when working from these electronic editions. Personally, I use
BibleWorks for most of my work with the text and then of-course have to keep
the printed BHS handy to check the apparatus. It will be nice when this info
is all in electronic format. I've never spent much time comparing the text
itself.

While the news from Logos is interesting, I failed to see the advantage of
having a second electronic edition of the same underlying text. If the new
version and the eBHS and the print BHS differ, it will be difficult to tell
which is a more accurate representation of L without access to a facsimile.
What would be ideal is a software package with a full searchable Hebrew text
and then be able to toggle between the searchable text and a digital
facsimile of L, but perhaps that is asking too much.


I asked Logos for more information and received this in response:

<snip>
The initial drop of L will be straight text, for comparison purposes. Much
like there are alternate versions that are available for the Greek, L will
provide an alternate to the BHS which could be handy in lieu of the lack of
apparati for the Hebrew text in electronic format.

This will a lengthy project, overall. Our long-term goal is to create an
alternate text to the BHS, complete with lexemes, morph data, and <shudder>
even glosses. As I'm sure you can understand, this is no quick-draw
operation. We think doing it in pieces is the best approach. The first
component is the main text. We'll follow this up (if we have sufficient
interest in the first component) with a project to do the "morphitizing" of
the text.

Of course, L and BHS are not replicas of each other. Kittel had access to L
when he was piecing together the BHS text, but he also used other
manuscripts, as I understand it. Stating that L and BHS are taken from the
same source is misleading and improper. L is L. The BHS uses readings
(perhaps a majority) based on L. But they are not functionally equal.

L is important simply because it is the oldest copy (dating from around 1000
AD) of the compiled 39 book Old Testament in Hebrew that we've got.

</snip>

He did not answer my question regarding who was doing the work. I'm going to
press him again and see if I can get some more info. If anyone is interested
I will report back here. As you said, there are interpretive issues involved
with typing the text and it would be good to know who is behind it. The
current WTT caries with it a certain level of respect because of the
scholars who have overseen the project, but if the new edition is simply
hammered out by some software companies text-geek department, I would
hesitate abandoning the one for the other. Are my concerns justified?

Don A. Elbourne Jr.
http://elbourne.simplenet.com



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kirk Lowery [mailto:kelowery AT cs.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, October 31, 2000 8:11 PM
> To: Biblical Hebrew
> Subject: Re: BHS, WTT, & L
>
>
> On 31 Oct 2000, at 10:44, Don A. Elbourne Jr. wrote:
>
> > I was wondering if someone could clarify a few things for me regarding
> > the Hebrew text.
>
> I probably have most of the pieces to this puzzle.
>
> > I know the BHS is "based" on Codex Leningradensis but is the text
> > consistently L throughout, without exception? Or is there any place
> > where the editors placed a variant in the text and attest to the L
> > reading in the apparatus?
>
> The difference between the "Kittel" edition (which was a true critical
> edition) and the BHS (1987) is substantial. The BHS biblical text is much
> closer to the Leningrad Codex, although the marginal massora were highly
> edited by Weil. And BHS does not include the massorah gedolah, but only
> references to them, and does not have the non-biblical texts which are
> included in L. I'd rather not try to characterize the differences
> any more
> precisely without reference to the technical literature, and is probably
> more than you're looking for.
>
> The electronic version -- in its final form -- reflects as closely as
> possible the 1987 BHS biblical text (consonants, vowels, cantillation)
> only. This version of the text is sometimes known as the CCAT eBHS. This
> is what can be obtained generally on the Internet, such as at the OTA
> archives.
>
> This text was then used as the basis for the Groves-Wheeler Hebrew
> Morphology (MORPH). In the process of this semi-automated parsing, over
> 600 deviations from the original CCAT eBHS were made. MORPH includes the
> biblical text as one of the fields of each data record and many of those
> deviations are marked in the raw (ASCII) form of MORPH with a square
> bracket and a number. This "Westminster note" explains various decisions
> which had to be made, one of those being where MORPH's
> interpretation of L
> at a certain place is different from BHS' and so forth. In
> addition, there
> are a large number of changes where we have changed the "morphological
> slash" due to a difference in parsing from the original typist.
>
> Since the first version of MORPH was released, the database has been
> distributed to various individual scholars, cross-checked against other
> databases, and used in nearly every "Bible" software that offers
> access to
> the original texts. All this usage over a ten year period has
> generated an
> ever decreasing number of corrections to the consonants and
> vowels, almost
> always in the direction of L, away from BHS. Since MORPH's biblical text
> did not include the accents, the accents probably have a significant
> number of errors in them. However, even so, MORPH's Hebrew text is not a
> precise representation of L. For example, MORPH follows BHS in the
> vocalization of the parallel passage in Numbers where only the consonants
> stand. So MORPH is somewhere between BHS (1987) and a "diplomatic"
> representation of L.
>
> I assume -- but do not know -- that the Hebrew text which is displayed in
> programs like GramCORD, Accordance, Logos, BibleWorks,
> BibleWindows, etc.,
> use the Hebrew text found in MORPH.
>
> > The reason I'm asking is because Logos Research Systems has announced
> > their plans to place the Leningrad Codex into electronic format. See
> > http://www.logos.com/prepub/products/default.asp?pid=11 Apparently they
> > will be working with the facsimile edition that came out a couple of
> > years ago.
> > http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0802837867/zacksbookorama
>
> We have seen this announcement, too, and have no knowledge of how this
> text was produced. A very interesting question is, did they begin with a
> currently existing electronic copy of the Hebrew Bible and conform it to
> L? And what does "conform" mean? With all the warts and
> blemishes? With no
> spaces between words?
>
> > I've been working under the assumption that I have the full text of L
> > at my disposal with the printed BHS, and the digital WTT. Am I showing
> > my ignorance here?

>
> The only time one knows one has L is when using the facsimile edition of
> L. I would not call BHS L, nor MORPH's Hebrew text L, although they both
> lie along that direction of the spectrum. And then, of course, there are
> the interpretive questions of whether a glyph is simply faded or
> erased.... :-)
>
> > If I'm correct, then what would be the advantage of the new Logos
> > edition, if the text would be the same as we already have with BHS/WTT?
>
> This question cannot be answered until we know how the text
> originated and
> was conformed to L. Further, we need to know how the user will
> have access
> to the text, is it searchable? if so, how? etc. There will also be an
> electronic version of BHQ, eventually. As the successor of BHS, I know
> that the intent is to follow L even more closely. But how the
> editors have
> chosen to do this is, of course, yet to be revealed. And there is the
> printed edition of Dotan's Leningradensis (Hendricksen's is doing it, I
> believe). I assume there is an electronic version standing behind the
> printed edition.
>
> What is needed is an automated byte-by-byte comparision of all
> these texts.
>
> Blessings,
>
> Kirk
> ________________________________________________________
> Kirk E. Lowery, Ph.D.             Email: KELowery AT cs.com
> Associate Director                Phone: 215-572-3854
> The Westminster Hebrew Institute    Fax: 215-887-5404
> Westminster Theological Seminary
> P.O. Box 27,009
> Philadelphia, PA 19118
>
>
>
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