Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Harold Holmyard <hholmyard3 AT earthlink.net>]

Lloyd,
> I believe it was the Masoretes who would not write to "curse" God, so 
> they put "bless" instead.

HH: The type of change is compared with the tiqqune sopherim, and the 
Sopherim are understood to have operated nearly a millennium before the 
Massoretes:

http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Sopherim

scribe (skri-b), Jewish scholar and teacher (called in Hebrew, 
/Soferim/) of law as based upon the Old Testament and accumulated 
traditions. The work of the scribes laid the basis for the Oral Law, as 
distinct from the Written Law of the Torah. The period of their activity 
is in doubt. They may have been active from the time of Ezra (c.444 
B.C.) to that of Simeon the Just. In Talmudic literature, the term may 
be applied to any interpreter of the Law from Moses to the period just 
before the compilation of the Mishna. <Mishna>

HH: Simon the Just is normally dated very early. Two dates are suggested 
as possible, but the most popular is the early date of about 300 B.C.:

http://www.jewishagency.org/JewishAgency/English/Jewish+Education/Compelling+Content/Jewish+History/3760+BCE+79+CE/Simon+the+Just+to+Hellenistic.htm

Simon the Just. (300-270 B.C.)

HH: Here is a Wikinfo comment, again showing that the age of the 
Sopherim is prior to Christ by up to hundreds of years, putting the 
changes back in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, and even earlier (Baruch 
lived at the time of Jeremiah):
http://www.wikinfo.org/index.php/The_Levite_Scribes_the_Sopherim


     Tikkune Soferim

Early rabbinic sources, from around 200 CE, mention several passages of 
Scripture in which the conclusion is inevitable that the ancient reading 
must have differed from that of the present text. The explanation of 
this phenomenon is given in the expression ("Scripture has used 
euphemistic language," i.e. to avoid anthropomorphism 
</index.php/Anthropomorphism> and anthropopathy 
</index.php?title=Anthropopathy&action=edit&redlink=1>).

Rabbi Simon ben Pazzi (third century) calls these readings "emendations 
of the Scribes" (/tikkune Soferim/; Midrash Genesis Rabbah xlix. 7), 
assuming that the Scribes actually made the changes. This view was 
adopted by the later Midrash and by the majority of Masoretes. In 
Masoretic works these changes are ascribed to Ezra 
</index.php?title=Ezra&action=edit&redlink=1>; to Ezra and Nehemiah 
</index.php?title=Nehemiah&action=edit&redlink=1>; to Ezra and the 
Soferim </index.php?title=Soferim_%28Talmud%29&action=edit&redlink=1>; 
or to Ezra, Nehemiah, Zechariah 
</index.php?title=Zechariah_%28Hebrew_prophet%29&action=edit&redlink=1>, 
Haggai </index.php?title=Haggai&action=edit&redlink=1>, and Baruch 
</index.php?title=Book_of_Baruch&action=edit&redlink=1>. All these 
ascriptions mean one and the same thing: that the changes were assumed 
to have been made by the Men of the Great Synagogue.

The term /tikkun Soferim/ has been understood by different scholars in 
various ways. Some regard it as a correction of Biblical language 
authorized by the Soferim for homiletical purposes. Others take it to 
mean a mental change made by the original writers or redactors of 
Scripture; i.e. the latter shrank from putting in writing a thought 
which some of the readers might expect them to express.

The assumed emendations are of four general types:

   * Removal of unseemly expressions used in reference to God; e.g.,
     the substitution of ("to bless") for ("to curse") in certain
     passages.

   * Safeguarding of the Tetragrammaton </index.php/Tetragrammaton>;
     e.g. substitution of "Elohim" for "YHVH" in some passages.

   * Removal of application of the names of false gods to YHVH; e.g.
     the change of the name "Ishbaal" to "Ishbosheth."

   * Safeguarding the unity of divine worship at Jerusalem
     </index.php/Jerusalem>.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard
Mish