There is a basic issue here as to the significance of this Massorah, and whether it
should be considered important in discussing and translating the Masoretic Text..
What thinketh our scholars, experts, and thinking lay-folk ?
==============================================================
http://www.therain.org/appendixes/app32.html
The 134 Passages Where The Sopherim Altered "Jehovah" to "Adonai".
Appendix 32 From The Companion Bible, by Bullinger
Bullinger cites Gunzburg as his source. Number of years ago this was mentioned to me, and since I had seen no sources that there ever existed such manuscript variants, and no source in Rabbinic literature for it, I was very curious. I did not have the Gunzburg book (it is quite expensive) so I wrote to Prof Schiffman, who is very familiar with these issues. Here is what he wrote back to me about that:
-------------------------------------------------
To: mshulman AT ix.netcom.com(Moshe Shulman )
Subject: Re: On the Plains of Mamre
From: "Lawrence H. Schiffman" <>
<snip> this is not a list of textual variants but rather a list of the times ad-onai is used when it is clearly an equivalent (in meaning) to the shem ha-meforash.
We know in any case, that ad-onai was secondarily introduced in the Second Temple period often to indicate that the tetragrammaton should be pronounced in this manner (not as written). This is not textual variation at all, and has no relevance to what he is claiming.
So essentially the facts are that these are not changes, or variants, but places where using the tetragrammaton appears to Gunzburg as being a valid substitution for one of the other names being used. I am sure that most of the time it is correct, and a substitution could be made, and likewise we could find others where we would disagree.
Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.