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  • From: Uri Hurwitz <uhurwitz AT yahoo.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] proto-MT
  • Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2010 14:51:40 -0800 (PST)

    Yigal,

    An elaboration of your second point, as I understand
it:

    Since the Mishnaic, Talmudic and Midrashic literature,
including the Passover Seder, is filled with biblical
quotations, one would expect at least some that differed
from the MT, if indeed other biblical versions had been used.

    The absence of such would add confidence to the
assumption that such an unvowelled text provided the
biblical source to this literature. Such a 'Consonatal MT',
as some name it, must therefore have been the biblical
variation adopted by the Jewish community at least
since the redaction of the Mishna around the end of the
second century CE.

   Perhaps the term 'Consonantal MT' would be a better
definiton of these biblical quotations. The term 'Proto MT'
could then be reserved for the few earlier sources which
remain, such as on the silver amulet from Ketef Hinnom.


 
    Randal,

    Could you elaborate a bit about the two methodological
approaches you cite? Incidentaly, your decorous translation is appreciated.


   Uri Hurwitz                           Great Neck, NY


   [Yigal Levin wrote:]

" I was asked off-list why the biblical quotes in the Talmud (and, I will
add,
pre-10th century Jewish liturgy and other literature as well) are not used
by scholars as evidence of the "proto-MT". With the permission of the person
who asked, I'll post may answer on-list.



Basically, there are two reasons that I can think of. One is the general
disdain that Christian scholars traditionally have had for all things
Jewish. This is an old and ingrained tradition in Christianity, that
precluded many Christian scholars in the past from even being familiar with
the Talmud, not to mention using it as evidence for anything. By the way,
the animosity was mutual, and it is very rare to find a "traditional" Jewish
source quoting a Christian scholar. Hopefully lists such as this one are
doing their bit to clear the air.



The second reason is a more "serious" one. We don't have any significant
very old mms. of the Talmud either. This means that there will always be the
suspicion, that in cases where the Talmud was quoting what seems to be the
MT (or "proto-MT"), it did originally have a different text, which was
"updated" to fit the GRU, as time went on. How would anyone know?



Dr. Yigal Levin "

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

      [Randall Buth wrote:]
"Of course, the traditions of sarsehu vedarshehu (politely translated "twist
it and
expound it")  inadvertantly supports the proto-MT,
as well as the examples of "don't read A, read B". The "proto-MT"
was the assumed background against which these midrashic types of comments
are made and later textual transmission is not a factor, (unless one wanted
to claim that the whole argumentations were 100% inventions and inserted
into
the rabbinic texts after the fact and with no apparent motive [I don't 'go
there',
into such conspiracies, since I like my water to flow downhill.]).

--
Randall Buth, PhD"


















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