Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Jim West <jwest AT highland.net>]

> > I teach an Introduction to Biblical Studies course, and I've been trying to
> > find out what's the evidence for whether the earliest Hebrew Bible
> > manuscripts were written with or without spaces in between the words.  Can
> > you help?...
> > Susan Jeffers


There are spaces in most preserved manuscripts- and even in inscriptions 
(like Tel Dan) there are spaces or "word dividers" which make it clear 
when words stop and start.

Greek, on the other hand, has tons of examples of scripta continua.

Ernst Wurthwein's introduction to OT Textual Criticism gives ample 
evidence and you will want to look there as well.

So far as using Wikipedia and other online sources, please beware that 
not everything is accurate there.  It's called the world wide WEB 
because you can easily be ensnared by many of the spiders out there just 
looking for a juicy unsuspecting fly to eat.

Best

Jim


--
Jim West, ThD

Biblical Studies Resources -  http://web.infoave.net/~jwest
Biblical Theology Weblog -  http://biblical-studies.blogspot.com