Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 13/04/2005 21:25, Jim West wrote:

> Peter Kirk wrote:
>
> > On 13/04/2005 14:14, Ingrid Hjelm wrote:
> >
> > > ... you cannot speak of the Misnahusing the MT, which did not exist 
> > > in the 2nd century CE. At that time you have pre-masoretic texts ...
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Agreed. But there is not just one pre-Masoretic text, there is a 
> > succession of them covering more than a millennium.
>
>
>
> Are you counting the examples from the DSS?  How early do you date 
> them- because the earliest hebrew texts seem to date from about 200 
> BCE.  So are you counting 200 BCE to 1200 CE?  Are you calling texts 
> till 1200 CE proto masoretic?  I'm not sure what your 1000 year 
> chronology is dating from or to.
My "more than a millennium" was intended to last from 200 BCE or earlier 
until the 9th century CE, i.e. just before the Masoretic text was 
finalised. I don't know where 1200 CE comes in. I don't claim that these 
pre-Masoretic texts are extant, just that any text which existed at any 
time of a part of the Hebrew Bible written before the Masoretic text is 
"pre-Masoretic" - or perhaps I would restrict it to texts which are more 
or less the lineal ancestors of the Masoretic text, i.e. excluding 
Samaritan and more LXX-like text types from the DSS. The texts which 
were used by the authors of the Mishnah are most likely not in 
themselves still extant, so when Ingrid wrote of "pre-masoretic texts" 
she was not restricting herself to extant texts.

--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/