Biblical Hebrew Forum

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Jerry asks:
> With regard to the second column,
> could you provide some estimate
> as to how much of it is indisputably extant.

Most of the dispute regarding the Secunda is whether Origen transcribed 
it himself, or whether Origen copied (or based it) on an older existing 
text (this, too, could be said of other columns). How much different 
Secunda pronunciation is from Tiberian seems to vary from one scholar to 
another, although various generalizations have been concluded by most of 
them (such as the lack of the effect of Philippi's Law present in 
MT/Tiberian Hebrew, and some general rules of what letters do and do-not 
geminate).

I have wanted to make comparisons, myself, but other than very short 
transcripts, I have yet to find a full copy of the Secunda that I can 
examine for myself (at least, not in my price-range). Like most non-MT 
and non-G-NT texts, this is an area highly under-published (relatively 
speaking). Most of what I find are short extracts (which I would 
conclude as poorly representative unless I could compare it to the whole 
to say otherwise).
(I am also searching for other mss from other textual families. I have a 
copy of the Samaritan Pent. based on a few witnesses, but how accurate 
it is to the textual family, I'm not sure. I'm still searching for 
vocalized texts based on the Babylonian and Palestinian traditions, as 
well. I know how to read the niqqud for each of these latter-stated 
traditions, I just don't have complete texts to examine for myself. I 
really do not want to rely on various third-party scholastic 
examinations, alone, and would prefer to witness what they conclude 
first-hand. Call me a little-anal.)
I may have to splurge on my budget to getting better texts to work from.

In lack of reporting first-hand examinations, I can only really report 
what is available in the various journals on the subject.

--
Ratson Naharädama
Denver, CO