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  • From: "Heard, Christopher" <Christopher.Heard AT pepperdine.edu>
  • To: b-hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Why would the scribal authorities find this objectionable?
  • Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2005 17:26:52 -0700

Hello all,

There seems to perhaps be some confusion in the responses to Chris W.'s original post. Here's the deal, just in case anybody has lost track or got turned around backwards:

The MT on this verse reads (in part obviously)
Unicode Hebrew: ואברהם עודנו עמד לפני יהוה
Transliterated: W)BRHM (WDNW (MD LPNY YHWH

This clause is marked in the Masorah as one of the "tiqqune soferim" or "corrections of the scribes," suggesting a different original reading, which would presumably have syntactically reversed )BRHM and YHWH. Here is my footnote about that issue from my book Dynamics of Diselection, p. 39 n. 14:

-- begin quotation --
Masoretic tradition marks 18:22 as containing one of the "corrections of the scribes." Ostensibly, the text originally read "Yahweh remained standing before Abraham," but was changed to its present reading out of a sense of piety or decorum. Gunkel (202) and Speiser (132, 134) accept the tradition and provide the putative original in their translations. However, Tov (66) warns against a naive aceptance of the tradition of the "corrections." This case seems particularly suspect in light of Gen 18:22 (Scullion:156). See Heard, 2000:41 n. 37 for fuller discussion.
-- end quotation --

The cross-reference to the end is to the full footnote in my dissertation (Dynamics of Diselection is a revision thereof) and I'd be happy to reproduce that for the list on Monday if anybody wants to see it. The bibliographical references are of course to Gunkel's commentary on Genesis (the English translation published by Mercer), Speiser's Anchor Bible volume, and Tov's handbook on textual criticism (I think the 2nd ed. but it might be the 1st). I reproduced the footnote exactly as it appears in the book, but there is a typo there: "in light of Gen 18:22" should have read "in light of Gen 19:27," which contains the phrase

Unicode: המקום אשר עמד שם את פני יהוה
Transliterated: HMQWM )$R (MD $M )T PNY YHWH

This verse is *not* marked in the Masorah as containing a "tiqqun soferim," even though it contains the same phrasing (just with the subject of (MD, that is, )BRHM, stated earlier in the sentence). Thus it would appear that the Masoretic mark in Gen 18:22 is probably a case of the Masoretes' imaginations playing tricks on them, so to speak, and both 18:22 and 19:27 originally read PNY YHWH as they now do rather than the imagined PNY )BRHM for 18:22.

I think the issue that might have sparked the Masoretes' interest is the notion, which one can derived (not without a little mental gymnastics) from 18:22, that by "remaining standing before YHWH," Abraham somehow blocked YHWH's path to Sodom. Note that a couple of verses earlier, YHWH has stated an intention to go down to Sodom, and in v. 18:22a the other two men, YHWH's companions (later called "angels" in chap. 19) have gone on ahead, W)BRHM (WDNW (MD LPNY YHWH. Why didn't YHWH go on down to Sodom as planned? One might say, "because W)BRHM (WDNW (MD LPNY YHWH, blocking YHWH's way." Now conceptually it strains credulity to think that Abraham really could block YHWH's way, yet I think the possibility of such a conception might have been what occurred to the Masoretes and led to the marking of this verse as a tiqqun.

Chris H.

On Apr 30, 2005, at 8:13 AM, wattswestmaas wrote:

GENESIS 18:22

"the Lord yet stood before Abraham" and "Abraham yet stood before the Lord"
the first sentence being substituted for the latter in the masoretic notes.

I do not understand why the scribes would object to the first rendering?

Chris Watts.

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--
R. Christopher Heard
Assistant Professor of Religion
Pepperdine University
Malibu, California 90263-4352
http://faculty.pepperdine.edu/cheard
http://www.iTanakh.org
http://www.semioticsandexegesis.info




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