Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Schmuel <schmuel AT escape.com>]

Hi b-hebrew,

subject was: Re: [b-hebrew] Why would the scribal authorities find this 
objectionable?

  Thaks to Christopher for his contributions on the tiqqune sopherim 
questions, including 
the relationship between Genesis 18:22 and 19:27 .. also the quote from your 
dissertation, including

"..Emmanuel Tov.. warns that ...even though many scholars accept the 
traditions about the corrections made by the soferim as basically correct, in 
 all probability these corrections were not carried out in reality."  Tov 
considers 18:22 a case in which "it is improbable that the  original text 
would indeed have read as the Masorah claims," though  he does not explain 
why this is the case. "

  Nehemiah Gordon, who I referenced with a similar view, has published with 
Emanuel Tov.  Interestingly it seems they agree on this basic concern, while 
Nehemiah accepts the Masoretic Text as authoritative, preserved scripture, 
and Emanuel Tov afaik does not.  

  Christopher, does your dissertation and research go into these issues in 
depth?  Do you consider in your book also how the tiqqune sopherim question 
affects the basic underlying question as to whether the Masoretic Text 
represents the "original" text.

In accessible writings, even just the basics are often not laid out, 
questions like.
   
   a) precisely what does the Masorah say 
   b) how much pre-Masorah corroborative support is there for the 
"emendation" view.
       Does DSS, Targum, Talmud, Midrash give any support to an "emendation" 
view.
       Or the Vulgate or Greek or Aramaic OT (Peshitta)
   c) the history of the rabbinics on this, especially from 900 A.D. to 1500 
A.D.
   d) bibliography
   e) overview of scholarship, including the modern views.
   f)  relationship between the Adonai/Tetragrammaton verses and the other 
tiqqune sopherim

    And of course the verses are usually just listed with verse numbers, it 
would be nice to have them actually given in a more accessible words, in good 
old HTML :-) Note that most web references say very little, simply quoting 
McCarthy or Bullinger, and many simply accept the verses as changes from the 
original text.  I have never found a substantial web article.

  In a slightly disjointed earlier post, I gave a few references, I figure I 
would like to know first really what is "out there", and understand the 
basics better.  

Here is my list of references, almost none of which I have read :-)

http://www.geocities.com/ancientwriting/masorabiblio.html
Bibliography of Masora Studies - James Duvall, M. A Hebrew Union College 
Cincinnati 

   Carmel McCarthy - The tiqqune sopherim and other theological corrections 
in the Masoretic text of the Old Testament (1981)

   Moshe Zipor - The Masoretic Eighteen Tiqqune Sofrim : The Birth and 
Transformations of a Tradition. In Proceedings of the Tenth World Congress of 
Jewish Studies, ed. Assaf D. 51-58. Division A. (Jerusalem: World Union of 
Jewish Studies, 1990). 
    Some Notes on the Origin of the Tradition of the Eighteen Tiqqune 
Sopherim. 
    VT, vol. 44, 1994, p. 77-102. 

       The Masorah of Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia: Introduction and 
Annotated Glossary 
      Kelley, Page H., Mynatt, Daniel S. Crawford, Timothy G. 

     Daniel S. Mynatt on the web
http://rosetta.reltech.org/TC/vol01/Mynatt1996.html
A Misunderstood Masorah Parva Note In L for l)'w%(r: in Numbers 2:14
   
     Ginsburg, Christian D., Introduction to the Massoretico-Critical Edition 
of the Hebrew Bible, (New York: KTAV, 1966, 1897). 

    Bullinger - The Massorah. Appendix 30, 31,32, 33 From The Companion 
Bible. 
http://www.giveshare.org/library/companionbible/appendices/app30.html and 
following.

    Barnes, W. Emery, Ancient Corrections in the Text of the Old Testament
       (Tikkun Sopherim), JTS 1 (1900): 387-414. 

   Greg Stafford in JDW2 p.189 ftn. 137 listed a number of scholarly studies 
done in disagreement with the "Tiqqune Sopherim's" list of scribal 
emendations.

    Christopher Heard - Dynamics of Diselection (and dissertation)

   Emanuel Tov - Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible 
  Gunkel's  commentary on Genesis (the English translation published by 
Mercer),  
  Speiser's Anchor Bible volume, 
 
And the references to Scullion and Dillmann, perhaps these
  Westermann, Claus. Genesis 1-11: A Commentary (translated by John J. 
Scullion) 
  Dillmann (1850?)

   Less formally, Lawrence Schiffman has written some in email, and Moshe 
Shulman was working on expounding the view in favor of the Masoretic Text 
more thoroughly.

    In French we have D. Barthélemy, ""Les Tiqqune soperim et la critique 
textuelle de l'Ancien Testament," 

    I mention all this because I believe there is a gaping hole in the 
publicly available scholarship on this question, and maybe I can do my own 
little assistance to help fill the gap.  Someday we may see an accessible, 
clear, penetrating discussion on the web too ! :-)

Peter Kirk,
>After writing most of the above, I read Schmuel's contribution which seems 
>to confirm that the tradition of a correction here is unreliable. Schmuel 
>suggests that the corrections may have dated back to the time of Ezra and 
>Nehemiah. Well, I accept that the entire Hebrew Bible may have been subject 
>to extensive redaction in that time (except perhaps for those parts which 
>were only written at about that time) (snip)

   Another reader privately asked me what were my views.  I just want to be 
clear that I was not suggesting earlier corrections.  My faith view is very 
simple, the Masoretic Text is a Received Text, and represents the scriptures, 
the Dvar Elohim..  The Tiqqune Sopherim represents an important challenge to 
that view, making it a very significant question to anyone concerned with 
questions of inspiration and preservation of the scripture text.  

  If the arguments are weak that the Masorah represents an earlier change of 
the text, that leaves upon other possibilities, like the one of Peter's or a 
"partial" mixed point of view.  However I am really counterposing the view 
that the Masorah notes represents midrash (e.g. Schiffman), not an earlier 
emended text. 

   Overall,  accessible scholarship is very spotty, and even confusing at 
times, with the alternative paradigms not clearly laid out..  The Bullinger 
view gets the public limelight, and then gets picked up by a lot of 
non-scholars and plastered over the web :-)

Shalom,
Steven Avery
Queens, NY
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic/