Biblical Hebrew Forum

["John Richards" <jhr AT universalist.worldonline.co.uk>]

From: "Cees van Veelen" <ceesv AT veelen.hobby.nl>

> Now I have the OTA text from www.stackpole.freeserve.co.uk/hebrew/bhs.zip
I did the conversion to a accented text. It is amazing, it's all there.
> I have some questions that I hope can be answered:
> 1. At certain places I find the characters '3 [' in the text. For example
Psalm 11:2 between the second and third word of verse 2. Where does '3 ['
stand for?
> 2 While at Psalm 11:2: In my printed BH (edition 1975, last edition of
Kittel prior to BHS) I see a mahpak below the first and the second word, KI
and HINNE. In the OTA text I see a mahpak below KI but a galgal below HINNE.
I just wonder: is this one of the things that is different between my Kittel
and BHS?
>

This should clarify the issue.

I don't know about the Psalm 11:2 issue. Perhaps someone else does.

Best wishes

John

SUPPLEMENT
TO THE
CODE MANUAL FOR THE MICHIGAN OLD TESTAMENT
by
Alan Groves
Westminster Theological Seminary
Philadelphia, PA 19118
Last Revised 6/7/89

{Nb these signs are inverted by the transfer of Right to Left.
They also have a space between. Thus "]3" will be found
as "3 ]", etc.}

EXPLANATION OF THE RIGHT-HAND BRACKET ']*'

(All bracketing has been done on the basis of the 1983 edition,
not the 1977 edition. Moreover, the Makor edition of the
codex was checked at all relevant points in determining the
need for a flag.)


]1 BHS has been faithful to the Leningrad Codex where there might
be a question of the validity of the form and we keep the same
form as BHS.

e.g. Deuteronomy 23:18 YI&RF)"L00]1 (missing silluq)


]2 We have added a sop pasuq where L and BHS omit it.

**********
(Special note: Formerly this category had a much broader range
and read as follows: "BHS has been faithful to the Codex where
there might be a question of the validity of the form and we
have abandoned BHS in order to code it differently." All
situations other than missing sop pasuqs have now been made to
conform to L and then labeled as ]1.
**********

]3 We read or understand L differently than BHS (1983 Edition).
Often this notation indicates a typographical error in BHS.

e.g. Genesis 6:22 ):ELOHI73YM]3

]4 Puncta Extraordaria -- a 52 is used to mark such marks in the
text when they are above the line and 53 when they are below
the line.

e.g. Genesis 18:9 )"52LF8052Y52W52]4

]5 Large letter(s)

]6 Small letter(s)

]7 Suspended letter(s)

]8 Inverted Nun (N]8 in the text)

]9 BHS has abandoned L and we concur. All of these occurrences
are ketib/qere problems.

]q We have abandoned or added a ketib/qere relative to BHS. In
doing this we agree with L against BHS.

e.g. Exodus 32:17 B.:/R:(O92H]q

]a Adaptations to a Qere which L and BHS, by their design, do not
indicate.

e.g. Exodus 4:2 **-Z.E74H]a

]y Yathir readings in L which we have designated as Qeres when
both Dothan and BHS list a Qere.

]m Miscellaneous notes to the text and occasions where more than
one bracket category applies.