Biblical Hebrew Forum

["K Randolph" <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Another possibility is that the copyist was dealing with a damaged or
smudged manuscript: if the manuscript was in Hebrew script, he may
have mistaken a smudged dot between words as a smudged yod with the
dot after the mem missing, That would account for adding a yod.

But this is all speculation. The strongest argument is verse 25 which
you mention below as referring to one animal.

Karl W. Randolph.

On 3/30/07, Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/30/07, Yohanan bin-Dawidh wrote:
>
> > Dear Yitzhak,
> >
> > You wrote, "Then, the Massoretic version at some point reinterpreted
> > "bprm$l$" as "bprm $l$", while it should have read "bpr m$l$". So,
> > here is an example where two versions (DSS, LXX) against the MT
> > suggest rereading the words differently."
> >
> > I might be a bit biased, since I do personally feel the Masoretic Text
> > as we have it today to be more accurate than the LXX or DSS, but even
> > if I was not biased, I must ask - what makes one think that it should
> > not have read "bpr m$I$" over "bprm $I$"? Is it merely because we have
> > two sources which suggest the idea of "bprm $I$"?
>
> Dear Yohanan,
>
> I think it is much more than just two sources vs one.  A lot of factors
> come together here.  First, the issue comes up as soon as there is
> a question of reading.  For example, even if the MT agreed with either
> the LXX or the DSS against another source, the question would come
> up: is there a common source to both versions, and if so, what did that
> source read?  However, when we come to answer the question -- in this
> case -- we find a lot of reasons to accept that "bpr m$l$" was the
> original.  Note that this is not what the DSS fragment reads.  That
> one reads "bqr m$l$", although perhaps there is a missing "[bpr bn]
> bqr m$l$".  So we are reconstructing a version that is not really attested
> exactly in any extant source.  But there are good reasons to accept it.
> In 1 Sam 1:25, it writes that they slaughtered the bull.  Which is "the"
> bull, if there were three?  Why do we all of a sudden have one bull, or
> one special bull?  Furthermore, in 1 Sam 1:24, the other offerings are
> all singular: one eph@ of flour, one container of wine.  The "m$l$"
> reminds of Gen 15:9.  Finally, how likely is it for the author to have
> written "bulls three", rather than "three bulls."  Normally, we would
> expect the number (except for "one") to come before the noun it
> describes.  You are right, thousands of years after the fact we cannot
> say "this is correct" or "this is wrong."  Not the MT, not the LXX, not
> the DSS.  We can try to ask "which came first? what was the common
> source?"  To that, we can at best give an educated guess.  Sometimes,
> that guess will be more certain than others.  In this example, I think the
> factors in favor of the emendation are extremely strong.  You can't
> really put percentages to such a feeling of how good the factors in favor
> of the emendation are, but I'd describe that feeling as one of "99
> percent or more."  That is, as close to certainty as we can ever get.
>
> Yitzhak Sapir