From: Harold Holmyard <hholmyard3 AT earthlink.net>
To: "b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] barak (bless? curse?) in the Book of Job
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2009 11:47:08 -0600
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:
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.:
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>.