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  • From: Harold Holmyard <hholmyard3 AT earthlink.net>
  • To: "b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] barak (bless? curse?) in the Book of Job
  • Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2009 11:13:14 -0600

Karl,
Harold:
Right now we are dealing with what did the text originally say, I am letting
the what it means slide until later.

I found my dead tree version of Tanakh, which has a list of variants, to see
what the critical apparatus would say. Yes, the apparatus lists all the tiqune
sopherim and what they were changed from. The exact words are given. There
is no question what the original words were.

But when I come to the first two chapters of Job, there is only a speculated
correction, with a range of possible "originals". There are no variant
readings from other MSS.

HH: The Biblica Hebraica Stuttgartensia says that it is a correction or euphemism for WQLLW or something similar. The Sopherim functioned very early. As I gave you yesterday:
http://www.geocities.com/hebrew_roots/html/hr-2-3-02.html

"The Text itself had been fixed before the Massorites were put in charge of it. This had been the work of the Sopherim (from saphar, to count, or number). Their work, under Ezra and Nehemiah, was to set the Text in order after the return from Babylon; and we read of it in Neh. 8.8 (cp. Ezra 7.6,11). The men of ‘the Great Synagogue’ completed the work. This work lasted about 110 years, from Nehemiah to Simon the first, 410-300 B.C.

HH: And one theory is that the euphemism was inserted by the original writer, redactor, or editor. So there need not be any textual variants.
So what textual evidence do you have that these verses were changed?

HH: There is no textual evidence. And again, there would not necessarily be any.
What is the evidence from the DSS concerning the tiqune sopherim? Were any
of them found among the DSS?

HH: The changes, if they occurred after the original composition of the text, could have been a hundred or more years before the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard





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