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A Brief Overview of the Transmission of the Old Testament Text
Any attempt to trace the important features in the transmission of the OT text must deal with a vast time period. According to the traditional view, the OT Scriptures were produced from the time of Moses to the time of Malachi, that is, from about 1400 BCE to around 400 BCE.1 This indicates that even during the OT epoch the text of each OT book had to be repeatedly copied by hand to ensure its preservation for posterity. This hand copying, as the sole means of textual transmission, continued from the end of the OT epoch until the invention of the printing press in the fifteenth century CE. The earliest printed text of the entire OT was produced in 1488 CE. Therefore, the oldest parts of the OT were transmitted by hand copying for nearly three thousand years, and the most recent books were transmitted manually for about two thousand years, before they were first put in printed form. Since the OT text was copied by hand over such a vast amount of time, it is important to know as much as possible about this process.
Among the various ways that the history of the transmission of the OT text in Hebrew could be schematized, the discussion to follow is organized according to five historical eras:
1. prior to 300 BCE (a period for which we have almost no textual evidence)
2. 300 BCE (our first textual evidence) to 135 CE (the Bar Kokhba revolt)
3. 135 to 1000 CE (the peak of masoretic activity)
4. 1000 to 1450 CE (the invention of the printing press)
5. 1450 CE to the present
Textual Transmission Prior to 300 BCE
Very little direct evidence exists concerning textual transmission prior to 300 BCE.2 This is the period when the books of the OT were written and edited, recognized as authoritative in the community of faith, and began to be copied. Therefore, earlier books were being copied and transmitted before later books had yet been written. In addition, there is evidence that sometimes a book was created, recognized as authoritative and copied, was subsequently revised, and then that authoritative revision began to be copied. This meant that there might be two versions of the same book which were being copied and circulated at the same time.3 It is important to keep in mind, then, that this early period of textual transmission is obscure and complex. The relationship between the process of composition and transmission is a challenge that is yet to be solved, and any information that we have must be inferred from later witnesses.4
A variety of evidence indicates that the OT books were first written and copied in the archaic or Paleo-Hebrew script. The Aramaic (or “square”) script replaced this archaic script toward the end of the period. Since different sets of letters could be easily confused in the two scripts, both must be considered as a potential source of copying error in OT texts (see table 2.1).5
Table 2.1
Hebrew Letters That Are Often Confused in Archaic and Square Scripts
| Paleo-Hebrew | bet | dalet |
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|
|
|
| kaph | mem | |
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|
|
|
|
Square Script |
bet | kaph |
|
|
|
|
| dalet | resh | |
|
|
|
Another feature of this early phase involves the transmission of texts as individual scrolls and not as parts of a codex (or book form).6 Scrolls were made of either leather or papyrus.7 A scribe wrote on one side of a scroll, in neat columns, usually with a fixed set of lines per column. Scrolls were 5–44 meters (16–144 feet) in length, which was enough to accommodate a long book.8 This was likely the reason for the division of the Pentateuch into five parts of more or less equal size.9 The OT books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, all single books in the Hebrew canon, were each able to be written in Hebrew on a single scroll. In the Septuagint, each of these books had to be written on two scrolls because Greek writing (with consonants and vowels) takes more space than Hebrew. This feature required the division of these three books into the now well-known sets of two books each.10
Text transmission prior to 300 BCE was also based on a predominantly consonantal spelling. Therefore, most OT books were initially written in an exclusively consonantal text. From about the ninth century on, certain consonants came to be used to indicate vowels. These “helping” consonants are called matres lectionis, literally “mothers of reading.” They were first used to indicate final long vowels (beginning in the ninth century BCE), and later (beginning in the eighth century BCE) they were also used to indicate medial long vowels. Matres lectionis were subsequently added to the OT text, but not in a completely systematic way.11
Some scholars have argued that the transmission of the Hebrew text before 300 BCE included a fourth feature: the supposed practice of continuous writing (i.e., writing without spaces or dividing marks between words). This practice, if indeed it was standard, would obviously have increased the chances for errors in the transmission and subsequent translation of the text.12 Some authors suggest that the Septuagint translators (ca. 250 to 150 BCE) used Hebrew texts written in continuous script. However, the biblical scrolls found at Qumran, both those written in Paleo-Hebrew and those written in the square script, clearly show that words were separated.13 We now know that word division was the rule, and continuous writing was the exception.14 This revised understanding of the ancient writing practices of Hebrew scribes is confirmed by the scribal procedures in Ugaritic texts, where word division was usually indicated by a small vertical wedge-shaped stroke.15 The cases of misdivision of words that have been cited in previous treatments of OT textual criticism are not to be denied. Rather, they are to be seen as perhaps the result of occasional crowding in the scribe’s source text that would have obliterated the marking of word division. Had the entire OT text existed in scriptio continua, there would likely have been many more occurrences of misdivision than is actually the case.16
In summary, the OT text was updated in several ways during the period from the writing of individual books until 300 BCE. Books initially written and copied in an archaic script were later copied and transmitted in the square script. Old Testament books were copied individually on scrolls throughout this era. The spelling of the OT text was also upgraded throughout this stage by the introduction of vowel letters (matres lectionis). Occasional crowding of a portion of text, whichever script was used, would have sometimes led to incorrect word division as the text was copied during this period. Also, at least in the case of the earliest books, the grammar was revised to reflect conventions that were current subsequent to 1350 BCE. Most scholars agree, however, that this grammatical revision did not change the content of the OT. This conclusion is based on the self-understanding of the Israelite people regarding Scripture (see Deut. 4:2 and 13:1 [12:32 Eng.]) and the analogy with ancient Near Eastern scribal practices.17
Textual Transmission from 300 BCE to 135 CE
This section considers the textual history of the OT from 300 BCE to 135 CE, the date of the Bar Kokhba revolt.18 This endpoint is significant because after this time, the text was essentially fixed and did not change substantially. The history of the OT text during this period is pivotal to the entire history of the Hebrew Scriptures.19 One of the primary reasons for this importance is that there is now clear manuscript evidence for this time period. What was only inferential for the preceding phase of the history of the transmission of the text is now direct. It was during this period that the Hebrew OT was translated into Greek in Egypt and Palestine. Although its status as a translation introduces some complexity into its use as a textual witness, the Septuagint is an important representative of a Hebrew text different from what would later become the fixed Masoretic Text (MT).20 The Samaritan Pentateuch also witnesses to the state of the text in this period. Having adopted a distinct Hebrew text of the Pentateuch, scribes of the Samaritan religious sect revised it according to their own theological positions.21
Pride of place for the manuscript evidence of this phase belongs to the Qumran biblical manuscripts, often called the Dead Sea Scrolls. It is true that many of the manuscripts are fragmentary, but even so, their importance is noteworthy because these are Hebrew manuscripts (not translations) that have been dated to the period between the third and the first centuries BCE, with the majority belonging to the second and first centuries.22 Prior to the discovery of these manuscripts, which began in 1947, the only access to the practices of this period was through inferences drawn from the study of the early versions. The Qumran scrolls give direct access to scribal activity in these crucial centuries. All of the OT books are represented among the Qumran documents with the exception of Esther.23
Evidence from Qumran shows that scribes at this time were practicing a kind of textual criticism in which they corrected their own mistakes as well as mistakes by previous scribes. They placed “cancellation” dots above or below individual characters or words, crossed out elements with lines, and used signs to indicate that two words should be transposed. Scribes also erased letters on parchment by scraping with a sharp instrument. A number of texts contain examples in which one can still recognize the corrected element.24
Perhaps the most significant aspect of the Qumran biblical manuscripts is their witness to variant readings that were previously found only in early translations, such as the Greek Septuagint. Before the discovery of the scrolls, scholars could not be certain that the readings reflected true variants, since it was always possible that they had been introduced by the translator in the translation process. But the Qumran scrolls demonstrate that many of these differences in the versions point to variants in the Hebrew tradition. For example, the Greek version of the book of Jeremiah is about one-eighth (or 2700 words) shorter than the Hebrew MT, and it is structured differently. Among the Qumran scrolls, 2QJer, 4QJera, and 4QJerc agree with the reading of the MT, while 4QJerb reflects the Hebrew source text behind the shorter, slightly different Greek version. This and other examples prove that there was real textual variety in this period and that the text form that would later form the basis of the standardized MT was only one of many. Some of the scrolls at Qumran closely parallel this “proto”-MT. Other Qumran manuscripts are similar to the textual tradition of the Septuagint or the Samaritan Pentateuch.
The relationship between these texts (MT, versions, and the Qumran scrolls) in this period is a complex one because of the alignments (or nonalignments) of the texts. There are currently two dominant explanations of these relationships: Frank Cross’s theory of “local texts” and Emanuel Tov’s argument that there is a “multiplicity” of texts.
Cross argues that the new, overwhelming evidence from the wilderness of Judah (e.g., Qumran) demonstrates that the textual variation in this period is not an “indiscriminate mixing of manuscript readings.”25 Rather, there are recognizable families of textual tradition which are the product of natural growth and development. Each of these textual families shares “bad genes” such as mistakes or secondary additions, and they share traits such as orthographic style, script, and modernized grammar.26 According to Cross, these text families must have developed in isolation, otherwise they would have cross-contaminated each other. It was the repeated copying and correction, without contact with other texts, that produced particular characteristics.27 Cross sketches the probable development of these manuscript families in the following way. Sometime in the fifth century BCE, two local texts began to develop independently in Palestine and Babylon. In the early fourth century BCE, the Egyptian family broke off from the Old Palestinian text and began its own independent development. The Egyptian text served as the source text for the translation of the Septuagint in the third to second centuries BCE. The Palestinian family was reflected in the Samaritan Pentateuch.28 See figure 2.1.
Emanuel Tov has responded to Cross’s influential theory by stating that “textual history can no longer be presented in terms of three textual traditions, for we are now confronted with a textual variety that contradicts the tripartite division.”29 The emphasis in Tov’s view is on variety. In his view, the three “text-types” described by Cross are merely three types among many, as there are an almost endless number of individual texts.30 For example, 11QpaleoLev (a scroll of Leviticus from Qumran) sometimes agrees with MT, sometimes with the Samaritan Pentateuch, and sometimes with the Greek Septuagint. It also contains unique readings not found in any of the three major types.31 Tov argues that the characterization of “families” is too general and cannot be substantiated. In his view, the Greek Septuagint does not exhibit any proven Egyptian characteristics. Perhaps his strongest attack on Cross’s position is that multiple text types were found together at Qumran, not isolated from one another. And yet they all contain their distinctive qualities.32
Hebrew and Greek Textual Development according to the Local Text Theory
Source: The NIV Triglot Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1981), xvii. Reproduced with permission.
These are only two dominant views, among others, on the relationship between the texts in this period.33 What is certain, however, is that the state of the biblical text at this time was in some flux. Eugene Ulrich writes that the Qumran texts “bountifully demonstrate not only that textual pluriformity was the common state of the biblical text but also that there was no expectation of conformity to a standard text. The SP [Samaritan Pentateuch], the Septuagint, the quotations in the NT, and the biblical text used by Josephus all resoundingly confirm this widely accepted state of pluriformity.”34
Other Hebrew manuscripts from this same time were found near the Wadi Murabbaʿat, south of Qumran. These finds date from the time of the rebellion of Bar Kokhba (about 135 CE). Their main distinguishing feature is general agreement with the text form later known as masoretic, which became the authorized text in Judaism and the basis for all Hebrew texts and exegesis.35 Thus the multiplicity of text types evident at Qumran between the third and first centuries BCE was replaced by a single and authoritative text type by 135 CE at the latest. When, and how, was this single, authoritative text form of the OT first established?
Not surprisingly, there are a variety of explanations for this as well. One view is that the proto-MT was intentionally selected by Pharisaic scholars and scribes. According to Cross, they did not make a major revision to the text or conflate and combine several texts. Rather, they simply selected a single textual tradition.36 The Babylonian manuscript type may have come back into Palestine as early as Maccabean times. By the first century BCE or the early first century CE, it became accepted as the official form of the Pentateuch and the Former Prophets within Jewish scribal circles. It was apparently not available in the case of the Latter Prophets, so the Palestinian text type was adopted for these books.37
A second view, advanced by Bertil Albrektson, is that the acceptance of the standard text was not intentional but was instead coincidence. He points to the peculiarities and flaws in the MT as well as the surprising choice of some texts (such as the MT form of Jeremiah) as evidence that there was no text-critical process at work. Rather, the proto-MT had been the text of the Pharisees. They alone survived as a group after the destruction of the temple, so it was their text that was “victorious.”38 Tov supports this view as well, stating that it was mere coincidence that the proto-MT was the only remaining text after the destruction of the temple. The Septuagint no longer exerted any influence in Jewish circles since it was in use by Christians, the Samaritan Pentateuch was with the Samaritan community, and the Qumran scrolls were hidden in caves. The MT group did not thrust aside other texts; after 70 CE there simply were no competing texts.39
Textual Transmission from 135 to 1000 CE
In the period ending in 135 CE there was a move from a plurality of text types to the adoption of a standard text within Jewish scribal circles. This standardized text was the basis for the Aramaic targums created just before and after this time (first cent. CE to fifth cent. CE) for use by Jews in Palestine and Babylonia. It was probably Jewish-Christians who produced the Syriac Peshitta in Edessa (modern-day Turkey) in the first and second centuries CE. In this next phase the primary focus is on the transmission of that standard text. The period can be conveniently divided into two parts: the transmission of the standard text by Jewish rabbis from 135 to 500 CE and the textual activities of the Masoretes from 500 to 1000 CE.
135 to 500 CE
The time period 135–500 CE corresponds roughly to what may be called the age of the Talmud.40 It is probable that the division of the text into verses, a feature taken for granted by the modern reader, occurred during this time.41 There were variations between Palestinian and Babylonian schools in regard to the total number of verses in individual books and groups of books (e.g., the Pentateuch).42 By contrast, the division of the OT into chapters, another feature so necessary for modern readers, was not of Jewish origin. Chapter divisions and numbering were of Christian origin and were introduced into Hebrew manuscripts in ca. 1330 CE.43
The main changes during this period were “external” textual features that aided reading and understanding and helped in liturgical use. In some cases, indelicate expressions were avoided through a use of more acceptable synonyms or the substitution of a different word for the name of a pagan deity.
500 to 1000 CE
It is in the textual phase following 500 CE that masoretic activity began. The Masoretes were careful transmitters of the text who created a system to preserve the oral reading tradition that had been passed down to them and to ensure that the text was copied with absolute accuracy (see chap. 3). This activity was carried out in various places during the time period because of certain historical factors that affected the Jewish people. The triumph of Christianity in Palestine was one of several interrelated factors that caused a large-scale emigration of Jewish textual scholars to Babylon in the second century CE. The study of the biblical text thrived in several academies in Babylon from the third to the tenth centuries. Meanwhile, the Islamic conquest of Palestine in 638 CE made possible a revival of Jewish textual work in Tiberias, a city on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee.44 It was the work of the Tiberian Masoretes that would be reflected in the subsequent study and transmission of the OT text.
Textual Transmission from 1000 to 1450 CE
In the preceding time period, the transmission of the OT text was connected with the story of the talmudic rabbis and the Masoretes, whose work was concluded in 1000 CE. Following the period of the Masoretes, the text was transmitted as it had been fixed by the Masoretes in terms of its vocalization, accentuation, and the Masoretic notes. The Leningrad Codex (L), which is the basis for Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, is a masoretic codex from the beginning of this period (see chap. 3). Manuscripts from the later part of this period were collated by Benjamin Kennicott and Giovanni de Rossi (see chap. 3). That these manuscripts do not contain significant variants is evidence of the almost complete standardization of the Hebrew text during this period. The close of this phase of the history of the OT text is marked by the invention of the printing press.
Textual Transmission from 1450 CE to the Present
The last phase of the history of the Jewish transmission of the text begins with the appearance of printed Hebrew Bibles (or printed portions of the OT) in the late fifteenth century CE. The earliest printed edition of the Writings appeared in Naples, Italy in 1487, and the first complete biblical text was printed in Soncino, Italy (near Milan) in 1488.45 By the sixteenth century printed editions replaced manuscripts in most of Europe. Only in areas without printing facilities did manuscript copying continue to be practiced. In Yemen, hand copying of the OT text continued down to recent times.46
Table 2.2
Transmission of the Old Testament Text
A major development came somewhat later with the publication of the so-called Rabbinic Bibles. The first Rabbinic Bible was edited by Felix Pratensis and published by Daniel Bomberg in 1516–17. Of even greater importance was the second Rabbinic Bible that was edited by Jacob ben Hayyim ben Adoniyahu and printed by Daniel Bomberg (1524–25 in Venice). This second Rabbinic Bible, like its predecessor, contained the Hebrew text with vowels, accents, and the Masorah (small, large, and final). The name Rabbinic Bible comes from the inclusion of Aramaic targums47 as well as medieval Jewish commentaries by outstanding exegetes such as Rashi, Ibn Ezra, and David Kimchi.48 This Bomberg edition came to be known as the “Received Edition,” and it was copied in many succeeding editions of Rabbinic Bibles.49
The Bomberg (or Ben Hayyim) edition was used as the basis for the first edition of Biblia Hebraica, which is the ancestor of BHS, the standard Hebrew text used in scholarship today (see chap. 5).
The history of the transmission of the OT text is long and involved (see table 2.2). The important features of that history have now been traced from the time of the first writing of individual books up to the critical editions available or becoming available at the present time. When the vast amount of time that separates our modern editions from the autographs is considered, especially in view of the need for hand copying for much of that time, it is amazing that we have any OT. It is even more amazing that we have access to a generally faithful copy of the OT that is substantially the same as the autographs written so many years ago. There are places in the OT where the text may be in doubt, and in places the testimony of the ancient versions will be necessary to restore the text. But by and large, the Hebrew text that we have has been faithfully (though not perfectly) transmitted down through the years.50 In the next chapter, we will look in more detail at the Hebrew witnesses to the OT text, before considering the translated versions in chapter 4.
For Further Reading
Mulder, Martin Jan, ed. Mikra: Text, Translation, Reading & Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient Judaism & Early Christianity. 1988. Reprint, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2004.
Ulrich, Eugene. “The Old Testament Text and Its Transmission.” In The New Cambridge History of the Bible: From the Beginnings to 600, edited by James Carleton Paget and Joachim Schaper, 83–104. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
Waltke, Bruce. “Textual Criticism of the Old Testament and Its Relation to Exegesis and Theology.” In NIDOTTE 1:51–67.
