Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] The Biblical politics of masculine and feminine

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org>
  • To: Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] The Biblical politics of masculine and feminine
  • Date: Sat, 18 Nov 2006 21:41:53 +0000

On 18/11/2006 20:49, Yitzhak Sapir wrote:
On 11/18/06, Peter Kirk wrote:

Thank you, Yitzhak. Maybe Kraft and Tov were embarrassed by the contents
of verse 26; otherwise I can't explain their editorial choice. I assume
that the main fragment was available to them before 1994 which is the
date of the text I was working from.

I am not sure where Kraft and Tov entered the discussion ...

They are, I understand, the editors of this parallel text you refer to. But I did intend to edit the above before sending, because after writing it I discovered the reason for their "editorial choice" which was that verses 25 and 26 are omitted in the Hebrew text.

... but it appears
to me you are confused. The parallel hebrew-septuagint text at ccat is
based probably on the original collection of published Genizah fragments
that have to do with Ben Sira and which were published decades ago before
the identification of the triangular fragment as belonging to this
collection. ...

But the triangular fragment is irrelevant, because it "Contains portions of ben Sira 25.8" and "the text of ben Sira 25.20-21", but not verses 25-26 or their immediate context. I quoted 25:24 and 26:1 from the main part of the image, i.e. T-S 12.727, which seems to have been the text which Kraft and Tov used.

... While this fragment was identified before the internet and hence before
the ccat site, the way Genizah fragments are identified and published it
would have been easy to miss. This page is apparently the only one
from the Genizah that contains Ben Sira 25. I am not familiar with the
scholarship on the various representatives of Ben Sira in the Genizah.
One has to study that in order to suggest why these particular verses
are missing. However, the Ben Sira 26 page begins approximately
where the Ben Sira 25 page leaves off, even continuing the exact point at
the middle of the verse, so it appears to me that they are parts of the
same manuscript. ...

No, look more carefully. 26:1 follows on directly from 25:24 in the middle of a line on the same page, the third line from the bottom of the bottom right hand page shown at http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/Taylor-Schechter/GOLD/Or1102/AS213_4.html. The chapters are separated only by a raised dot. The text continues to the middle of 26:2 which is the end of the page (the other half of this double page spread is from another place) and then seems to continue in the damaged left hand side of the lower image at http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/Taylor-Schechter/GOLD/Or1102/TS12_867.html, which has the text to the end of 26:3, and then seems to jump immediately to 26:13, 15-17, and then (if the caption is correct) to 36:27. I note that 25:23a is also missing in the Hebrew text; Kraft and Tov recognise this as an addition in the Greek (symbol "--+"), but not the other omitted verses. They list much of 25:20,21 as not attested (presumably the meaning of "[..]"), so confirming that they did not have access to the triangular fragment.

... The same is true also for the other side which stops
and continues right in the middle of Ben Sira 4:22/23. Unlike the earlier
page which skips a few verses, the Ben Sira 26 page skips whole
chapters. In light of this, and this is what I meant by "editorial choice",
the author of these pages that were found in the Genizah, or the author
of the manuscript that was passed down and he eventually copied,
perhaps left 25:25-26 due to an editorial choice in the Medieval or earlier
times.

This is indeed possible. But do we have more complete copies of Sirach in Hebrew, or anything to prove whether the "missing" verses were in fact ever in Hebrew, or whether they are Greek additions? We do know from other MSS that the gap between 26:17 and 36:27 was at least partly extant in Hebrew, but that does not imply that 25:23a,25-26, 26:4-12,14 ever were. On the other hand these verses could have been omitted by a compiler of selections because of their negative attitude towards women.

As for "editorial choice", we are talking at cross purposes: I am talking about the choice of the modern editors, Kraft and Tov, and you are talking about the choice of alleged mediaeval editors.


--
Peter Kirk
E-mail: peter AT qaya.org
Blog: http://speakertruth.blogspot.com/
Website: http://www.qaya.org/





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page