Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Harold Holmyard <hholmyard3 AT earthlink.net>]

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