he helps and bibliographical referrals in this chapter are arranged according to the outline for the full guide in chapter 1. With a few necessary exceptions, the books recommended are limited to those available in English. The best books, in terms of relevancy as well as technical expertise, are listed, regardless of theological slant. However, in the case of OT and Christian theologies (4.10), some attention is paid to differing theological viewpoints.
4.1.1. The need for textual criticism
Many pastors and students find textual criticism boring and cannot imagine that it could be more than marginally significant to biblical studies. Boring it may sometimes be, but so are many important and necessary scholarly tasks. However, the proper selection of textual readings may be quite significant to the interpretation of a passage and therefore cannot be avoided. Even the OT books that are relatively free from textual prob-lems—the Pentateuch, Judges, Esther, Jonah, Amos, and so forth—still present the reader with textual choices in virtually every chapter. And the books well known for their frequent textual corruptions—Samuel-Kings, Psalms, Job, Hosea, Ezekiel, Micah, Zechariah, and so forth—can often require the exegete to make textual decisions affecting the interpretation of a majority of the verses in a given passage! The task of textual criticism may seem unappealing, even annoying; but it is unavoidable.
There is no single authoritative version of the OT text in existence. The Hebrew text printed in the older BH3, the current standard, BHS (see
4.1.5), and the forthcoming/underway BHQ is merely an edited arrangement of the Leningrad Codex, a manuscript from the early eleventh century AD, one manuscript among many from ancient and medieval times.
Because the formats of BH3/BHS/BHQ provide for the printing of this manuscript in full with a selection of alternative readings (wordings) given in the footnotes, the impression is given that the readings in the footnotes are somehow irregularities, minor deviations from the norm or standard given in the full, printed text. This is simply not so. The alternative readings (called variants) are themselves only a selection of the possible different readings from a great variety of ancient manuscripts of the OT in various languages, each of which was considered both authoritative and “standard” by some community of faith at some time in the past. The choice to print one particular eleventh-century manuscript by reason of its good state of preservation and relatively early date is not wrong—but it can be misleading. If a slightly earlier medieval manuscript had been in the same good state of preservation, it would have been chosen for printing, even though its readings might be different at many hundreds of places throughout the OT. In other words, the variants given in the footnotes of the BH editions, along with the many other variants not mentioned by the rather selective editors of those editions, should be accorded fair consideration along with the Leningrad Codex. Many times, perhaps even a majority of times, they are more likely to preserve the original Hebrew wordings than the Leningrad Codex is. The variants represent many other ancient copies of the OT that may also reflect the original text. In any given instance (at any given point in the OT text), any one of them could be right and all the others that differ could be wrong. Each case must therefore be decided on its own merits even if, as is well known, certain copies and versions are considered generally less reliable than others.
There are many differences between the various versions and many obvious corruptions (ungrammatical, illogical, or unintelligible wordings) within given manuscript traditions or “recensions.” Moreover, outnumbering the obvious corruptions are the “hidden” corruptions: those that later copyists reworked into wordings that seem on their surface faultless but are shown to be unoriginal when the full information from a variety of versions is compared and analyzed.
Textual criticism can be fairly complicated, and because decisions about original wordings are often subjective, you may be tempted to say, “I will not make any decisions at all about the text. I will work exclusively from the text in my BHS Hebrew Bible.” In so doing, however, you will have made thousands of decisions automatically. Everywhere in the OT, you will have chosen the masoretic readings of the Leningrad Codex, some of which are best, but some of which are the worst. You will commit yourself to trying to interpret garbled and incoherent sentences and verses—easily clarifiable by reference to the other versions. And you will, at least tacitly, insult the intelligence of the original human author, as well as the Holy Spirit’s inspiration of the text, by accepting uncritically the sometimes nonsensical, sometimes too short, sometimes too long MT when fruitful, helpful alternative readings are available if you are willing to expend the necessary labor to look them up and evaluate them. By the way, doing textual criticism not only sharpens your knowledge of Hebrew, Greek, and any other relevant languages you may read; it also helps involve you in the basic exegetical decisions about the text. A “likely” reading is decided partly by appeal to the general nature, structure, vocabulary, and theological message of the text: the other steps of the exegesis process. So doing your textual criticism thoroughly will actually help you do the rest of your exegesis well. To decide against doing any textual criticism is to decide already that certain exegetical issues are beyond you—to give up the fight, as it were, before you start.
4.1.2. Explanations
If the whole concept of textual criticism is new to you, a good place to get a brief overview of the issues is either
Emanuel Tov, “Textual Criticism (OT),” in the Anchor Bible Dictionary, 4:393-412 (New York: Doubleday, 1992);
or
Bruce K. Waltke, “The Textual Criticism of the Old Testament,” in the Expositor’s Bible Commentary, 1:211-28 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1979).
A slightly less readable, but equally comprehensive introduction is found in
S. K. Soderlund, “Text and MSS of the OT,” in the International Standard Bible Encylclopedia, 4:798-814 (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1988).
To begin actually to learn the method, however, a clear step-by-step introduction to OT textual criticism is found in the following textbook:
Ellis R. Brotzman, Old Testament Textual Criticism: A Practical Introduction (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1994).
A more erudite, technically excellent volume on the subject that is comprehensible to the beginner and yet valuable to someone who already knows the subject to some degree is
Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Press, 2001).
Also helpful is
P. Kyle McCarter Jr., Textual Criticism: Recovering the Text of the Hebrew Bible, Guides to Biblical Scholarship (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986).
A classic introduction to the subject is found in
Ernst Wurthwein, The Text of the Old Testament, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1995).
This book emphasizes texts and versions but is not so useful for actually learning how to do textual criticism.
The following Web site contains links to books and articles that provide introductions to textual criticism:
Emanuel Tov, Electronic Resources Relevant to the Textual Criticism of Hebrew Scripture, http://rosetta.reltech.org/TC/vol08/Tov2003.html.
The Masorah is the medieval Jewish repository of text notes on the Hebrew Bible. Most of these Masorah notes are statistical (a typical note, for example, might say how many times a given word occurs in the masculine plural in Ezekiel) and therefore not terribly useful in modern times, when computer concordances can generate the same data—and more— even more quickly. Nevertheless, from time to time a student may wish to understand what a particular Masorah note—as printed, say, in the BHS (which has extensive masoretic notations)—is all about. The best introduction to how the Masorah works is
Page H. Kelley, Daniel S. Mynatt, and Timothy G. Crawford, The Masorah of Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1998).
The complete, classic reference work on the Masorah is
Christian D. Ginsburg, The Massorah, 4 vols. (repr., New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1975).
Very helpful for its definitions and explanations on texts and versions and their relevance to OT textual criticism (but not so much on the method of textual criticism itself) is
Frederick W Danker, Multipurpose Tools for Bible Study, rev. ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003). A CD-ROM is included for ease of searching the book.
If you can find it, a convenient and remarkably thorough source of information on texts and versions, with attention to the individual books, is found in part 5 of Eissfeldt’s The Old Testament: An Introduction. Its special value lies in the copious references to books and articles on the various topics up to 1965:
Otto Eissfeldt, The Old Testament: An Introduction (1965; repr., Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1978).
Also convenient, though considerably more general, is
Roland Kenneth Harrison, Introduction to the Old Testament (repr., Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2000).
It is fortunate that this work has been reprinted because in part 4 (“Old Testament Text and Canon”) it contains not only a valuable survey of the history of Hebrew writing but also some judicious evaluations of the limits and fruits of textual criticism. Along with each book’s introduction, Harrison provides a brief description of its textual characteristics and notable problems.
For easy access to clear and practical definitions of terms, alphabetically listed, see one of the following:
Richard N. Soulen and R. Kendall Soulen, Handbook of Biblical Criticism, 3rd ed., rev.
(Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003).
Harry J. Harm, “Glossary of Some Terms Used in Old Testament Studies,” Notes on Translation 11, no. 4 (1997): 46-51.
Seeing how an expert does textual criticism is one of the best ways to try to understand the methods involved. One of the classic examples of careful textual criticism applied to a large section of the OT is worth learning from if you can find it (available, e.g., in one of the Logos Bible Software bundles):
S. R. Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text and the Topography of the Books of Samuel, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913).
4.1.3. The versions
In addition to the Masoretic Text (MT)—one manuscript of which is printed in edited form as the basis of the BH3, BHS, BHQ—there are five other main ancient versions of the OT in four languages. I list them in descending order of importance:
The Greek OT. Usually called the Septuagint (LXX), but represented in BH3/BHS/BHQ by an old-style (Fraktur) letter G, this version represents a translation from the Hebrew in the third-second centuries BC. Its importance cannot be minimized. On the average, it is just as reliable and accurate a witness to the original wording of the OT (the “autograph”) as the MT is. In many sections of the OT, it is more reliable than the MT; in others, less. Largely because the Greek language uses vowels and Hebrew does not, the LXX wordings were less ambiguous and the LXX was inherently less likely to be marred by textual corruptions than the Hebrew, which went on accumulating corruptions (as well as editorial expansions, etc.) for many centuries after the LXX was produced. When you undertake textual criticism (except in certain sections of the OT that books like those listed in 4.1.2 will help you identify), you can usually place the LXX side by side with the MT and treat them as equals. Where they differ, either may better reflect the original; no automatic decision about which to choose may be made, but rather you must analyze the data to see which preserves the original more faithfully.
The Qumran scrolls. These are also commonly called the Dead Sea Scrolls, though they are represented by a Q in the BH apparatus. In some cases, such as Isaiah and Habakkuk, large portions are preserved in a Hebrew text that is pre-Christian and thus many centuries earlier (and in some ways more reliable) than anything previously known. However, for most books only small fragments have been found. Chances are, therefore, that your passage will not have a corresponding Qumran text. If it does, however, you may generally treat the Qumran wording as potentially equal in reliability to the MT wording. During the Qumran era (roughly 100 BC-AD 70) many Hebrew words were spelled differently from how they were spelled in the earlier Persian period (whose spelling [orthographic] conventions were adopted by the rabbis for the Hebrew Bible as we know it). However, these spelling variations give only minor challenges when comparing Qumran to the MT.
The Syriac OT. Called the Peshitta, the Syriac OT is sometimes (but far less often than the LXX) a useful witness to the Hebrew text from which it was translated (and revised) several centuries after Christ. Frequently when it differs from the Hebrew MT, it does so in agreement with the
LXX. It is symbolized by a P in the BH apparatus. Its witness to the text is being increasingly more appreciated.
The Aramaic OT. Called the Targum and represented in the BH editions by a T, the Aramaic OT is occasionally important as an indication of the original Hebrew but is often marred by expansionism and a tendency to paraphrase excessively. Like the Syriac Peshitta, it is a relatively late (fourth-fifth century) witness.
The Latin OT. Jerome’s translation of the Hebrew OT into Latin (AD 389 to 405), called the Vulgate (V in BH editions), is the only ancient Latin translation that has survived in full. Only rarely is it an independent witness to anything other than the MT, since it was produced from a version that we would call essentially an early or proto-MT. There are Old Latin versions partially available, too. These are discussed further in 4.1.4, below.
Fortunately, you are not entirely limited to the use of versions that are in a language you know. All the ancient versions have been translated into English (see 4.2.2); if carefully used, those English translations can give a fairly accurate sense of whether the given ancient non-English version supports or differs from the MT. Moreover, much insight on textual issues is to be found in the major “critical” (detailed, scholarly) commentaries that pay special attention to textual criticism (such as the Anchor Bible, Hermeneia, the Word Biblical Commentary, and the International Critical Commentary, currently under revision; see 4.12.4). Most of these are available via CD-ROM and/or are found within modules available with the major computerized Bible study aids (Accordance, BibleWorks, Logos Bible Software, etc.). Also, because the majority of crucial data for making intelligent textual decisions are located in the Hebrew and Greek, the languages most likely to be studied during one’s seminary training are also the most valuable for textual criticism.
Perhaps the first place to turn for information on text-critical resources should be Emanuel Tov’s Web site, which will link you both to information on print books and CD-ROM/online resources:
Emanuel Tov, Electronic Resources Relevant to the Textual Criticism of Hebrew Scripture, http://rosetta.reltech.org/TC/vol08/Tbv2003.html.
4.1.4. Critical text editions
The LXX
After being produced, the LXX was copied and recopied hundreds of times, just as the Hebrew OT was. Over many centuries all this copying provided ample opportunity for different readings to develop, both as a result of accidental miscopyings (corruptions) and as expansions and other “editorial” work on the part of scribes. As a result, critical Greek texts have been required. These contain a single fully printed text, copious footnotes indicating the “inner-Greek” variants (variants that resulted during the process of hand-copying Greek texts without any regard for the original Hebrew), footnotes indicating the revision-produced variants (variants that were introduced by the conscious harmonizing of a given LXX copy to some Hebrew copy available to and trusted by the reviser), and footnotes giving information from versions in other languages.
Two major multivolume critical editions of the LXX now exist. Each series is incomplete, but the two together largely complement each other so that almost the entire OT is covered:
Alan E. Brooke, Norman McLean, and Henry St. J. Thackeray, eds., The Old Testament in Greek 3 vols. in 9 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1906-1940).
The following books are available in this series: Genesis through 2 Chronicles (following the English order), 1 Esdras, Ezra-Nehemiah, Esther, Judith, Tobit. In other words, what this series does not contain is the LXX ofJob through Malachi (again following the English order).
The other series is
Septuaginta: Vetus Testamentum Graecum Auctoritate Societatis Litterarum Gottingensis Editum (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1931—).
The following books are included in this series:
Esther; 1—3 Maccabees; Psalms (Psalmi cum Odis); Wisdom of Solomon (Sapientia Salomonis); Sirach (Sapientia Iesu Filii Sirach); the Minor Prophets (Duodecim Prophetae); Isaiah (Isaias); Jeremiah Jeremias); Baruch; Lamentations (Threni); The Letter of Jeremiah (Epistula Jeremiae); Ezekiel; Susanna; Daniel; Bel and the Dragon (Bel et Draco).
In other words, this series does not contain the books from Joshua through 2 Chronicles (in the English order) as well as Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs.
For the three OT books (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs) that are not covered by either the Cambridge Septuagint or the Gottingen Septuagint, you must use
Alfred Rahlfs, ed., Septuginta, 2 vols. (Stuttgart: Wurttembergische Bibelanstalt, 1935), new, corrected ed. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2006).
Rahlfs derives the LXX text from only three major codices, but its apparatus sometimes has variants from other manuscripts as well. It contains introductions in three languages, including English.
All three of the above use Latin as the basic means of communication, as do BH3 and BHS. BHQ uses Latin and English, though not always both. Unlike the NT texts, none of the OT critical editions in either Hebrew or Greek produces an eclectic text (a text that is newly composed from the best possible choices from among all the variants). A partial exception is the Gdttingen Septuaginta, which is marginally eclectic. The production of an eclectic text is thus up to you. Using the aids at your disposal, you are at least not likely to do worse than the existing MT (called sometimes the “received text”), and you may well improve upon it.
A very readable, remarkably comprehensive introduction to the Septu-agint exists:
Karen H. Jobes and Moises Silva, Invitation to the Septuagint (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2000).
Jobes and Silva touch upon all the key issues, giving many examples and explaining the relationship of the Septuagint to the other ancient versions. Also helpful are:
Emanuel Tov, The Text-Critical Use of the Septuagint in Biblical Research (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1981).
Jennifer Dines, The Septuagint (New York: T&T Clark International, 2004).
Natalio Fernandez Marcos, The Septuagint in Context: Introduction to the Greek Version of the Bible, trans. W G. E. Watson (Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, 2000).
If you need to pursue something about the Septuagint in even more detail, one or more of the following may point you to relevant works:
Sebastian P Brock, Charles T. Fritsch, and SidneyJellicoe, eds., A Classified Bibliography of the Septuagint (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1973).
Emanuel Tov, A Classified Bibliography of Lexical and Grammatical Studies on the Language of the Septuagint (Jerusalem: Academon, 1980).
Cecile Dogniez, ed., A Bibliography of the Septuagint: 1970-1993, Vetus Testamentum Supplement 69 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995).
The United Bible Societies LXX bibliography is updated periodically and as of this writing contains over 450 entries just from the 1990s: http://www.ubs-translations.org/cgi-bin/dbman/db.cgi?db=lxxbib&uid=default.
Computer Assisted Tools for Septuagint/Scriptural Study, codirected by Robert Kraft and Emanuel Tov, can be found on the Web:
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rs/rak/catss.html.
Theological and Academic Resources for the Septuagint can also be accessed:
This site has links to many online resources related to the Septuagint online, including a downloadable text. Related to it is
The Septuagint Online, http://www.kalvesmaki.com/LXX/Secondlit.htm.
Both pages are part of a site maintained and updated periodically by Joel Kalvesmaki.
As an example of the sorts of focused materials becoming available, consider the following, which parallels the LXX of the Psalms with the Hebrew Psalms and provides two different English translations for convenience:
John Kohlenberger, ed., Comparative Psalter: Hebrew (Masoretic Text), Revised Standard Version Bible, The New English Translation of the Septuagint, Greek (Septuagint) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).
Note: The URLs for these sites and others may change from time to time, but simply googling commonsense search phrases like “Septuagint bibliography” will likely keep you informed of where to find them.
The Dead Sea Scrolls
The various texts are published in a variety of sources. Most are so fragmentary as to be exegetically useless. For a good list of the publications up to 1990, see Fitzmyer, The Dead Sea Scrolls (4.12.6). A fine photographic reproduction of the two most nearly complete OT texts from Qumran (Isaiah and Habakkuk, the latter being included in an ancient commentary) is found in
John C. Trever, Scrolls from Qumran Cave I from Photographs (Jerusalem: The Albright Institute of Archaeological Research and The Shrine of the Book, 1972).
Publications of the Qumran materials are found in an ongoing series, published by Oxford University’s Clarendon Press, titled Discoveries in the Judaean Desert. Dozens of volumes have appeared in this series. Virtually any library or Internet search engine will find these for you if you simply use the series title, Discoveries in the Judaean Desert.
An example of a recent overview publication is
Emanuel Tov, ed., The Texts from the Judaean Desert: Indices and an Introduction to the Discoveries in the Judaean Desert Series, DJD 39 (Oxford: Clarendon, 2002).
The best way to keep abreast of what is happening in scrolls research is to check out the Web site of
The Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, http://orion.mscc.huji.ac.il/.
It contains various bibliographies, links, and news, all of which are kept currrent. Two of these are The Dead Sea Scrolls Electronic Reference Library and The Dead Sea Scrolls Reader series.
To see if a word in the passage you are working on is also used at Qum-ran, you can use the following:
Martin G. Abegg Jr., James E. Bowley, and Edward M. Cook, The Dead Sea Scrolls Concordance, vol. 3, The Biblical Texts from Qumran and Other Sites (Leiden and Boston: E. J. Brill, 2008).
On general issues related to the texts and many translated portions as well, see the following:
Lawrence H. Schiffman and James C. VanderKam, eds., Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 2 vols. (New Yfork: Oxford University Press, 2000).
The Samaritan Pentateuch
When working on text issues related to a passage from the Pentateuch, if you can get hold of both of the following editions of the Samaritan Pentateuch, you will have good coverage of that important ancient text tradition. Each has limitations in what it includes, and ideally they should be used together. It is not terribly common that a Samartian reading involves or solves a problem, but when it does, these books may be needed:
August Von Gall, ed., Der hebrdische Pentateuch der Samaritaner: Genesis-Deuteronomy, 5 vols, in 1 (Giessen, 1918; repr., Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1966).
Abraham Tal, ed., The Samaritan Pentateuch: Edited According to MS 6 of the Shekem Synagogue (Tel-Aviv: Chaim Rosenberg School, 1994).
The Peshitta
A critical edition of the text is gradually underway and now covers quite a few portions of the OT:
The Old Testament in Syriac, ed. the Peshitta Institute of Leiden (Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 1972—).
The most widely available full copy is an uncritical edition, usually obtainable from Bible societies:
Vetus Testamentum Syriace et Neosyriace (Urmia, Iran, 1852; repr., London: Trinitarian Bible Society, 1954).
For a relatively comprehensive, current bibliography on the Peshitta (as well as the Targums), see
http://www.targnm.info/biblio/reviews.htm.
The Peshitta is also found as a searchable text in modules of the leading Bible software programs (Accordance, BibleWorks, Logos Bible Software, et al.), and at several Web sites as well (google “Peshitta online”).
The Targum(s)
There are many Targums. Various ancient translators rendered various parts of the OT from Hebrew into Aramaic, and each of these is called a Targum (translation). The only OT books that do not have Targums are Daniel and Ezra-Nehemiah, because those books already are partly in Aramaic. A standard edition continues to be
Alexander Sperber, ed., The Bible in Aramaic, 4 vols. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1959-1973).
The newer multivolume Aramaic Bible project already covers the OT Targums with translations and notes. Any library or Internet search engine can locate
The Aramaic Bible, 19 vols. (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1987-2007).
There are also public-domain Targum texts online (google “Targum online”) and within modules of the major computer Bible software programs.
The Vulgate and Vetus Latina
There are various Latin versions of the Bible from ancient times—some complete, some partial. If your passage involves significant variants from the Latin, the following three articles will help explain the resources available to you as you try to understand the ancient Latin translations and their relative value:
P.-M. Bogaert, “Bulletin de la Bible latine. VII. Premiere serie,” Revue Benedictine 105 (1995): 200-238; “Bulletin de la Bible latine. VII. Deuxieme serie,” Revue Benedictine 106 (1996): 386-412; “Bulletin de la Bible latine. VII. Troisieme serie,” Revue Benedictine 108 (1998): 359-386.
A critical edition of the Old Latin (OL, also called Vetus Latina or VL) text of the Bible is underway in what is known as the Beuron edition, produced by the Vetus Latina Institut of St. Martin’s Abbey in Beuron, Germany, but it has appeared so far only in Genesis, Ruth, and Isaiah among the agreed-upon OT canonical books, and Wisdom of Solomon and Sir-ach (Ecclesiasticus) among the so-called Apocrypha:
Vetus latina: Die Reste der altlateinischen Bibelnach Petrus Sabatier neu gesammelt und in Verbindung mit der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften herausgegeben von der Erzabtei Beuron, various editors (Freiburg: Herder, 1949-).
For a good overall introduction to the Old Latin, Vulgate, and other Latin versions, see
L. F. Hartman, B. M. Peebles, and M. Stevenson, “Vulgate,” New Catholic Encyclopedia, 14:591-600, 2nd ed. (Detroit: Thomson Gale; Washington, DC: Catholic University of America, 2003).
A critical edition of the Vulgate, with attempts made to provide the original text as far as is possible, is
R. Weber et al., eds., Biblia sacra: Iuxta Vulgatam versionem, 4th ed. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1994).
For both the Vulgate and its predecessor, the Vetus Latina (Old Latin), there are editions, based in the latter case on the few portions that still survive, such as
Roger Gryson, Manuscrits vieux latins (Freiburg: Herder, 1999).
There are also inexpensive editions of the Vulgate available. Two common ones are
Alberto Colunga and Laurentio Turrado, eds., Biblia Vulgata (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1953; repr., 1965).
Biblia sacra: Iuxta Vulgatam versionem, 4th ed. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1994).
4.1.5. The footnotes and other helps in BH3, BHS (for BHQ, see below)
In the older BH3 (the Kittel edition) are two separate paragraphs of footnotes. The upper paragraph contains information on variants thought by the editors to be of relatively minor importance. They are indicated in the text by small Greek letters. The lower paragraph, indicated by small Latin letters, contains what the editors thought was most significant, including suggestions for actual correction of the MT toward a more likely original. Sometimes the editor does nothing more than record the evidence from the various versions and manuscripts, leaving any decision about changing the text up to the reader. At other times the editor will actually suggest how the MT should be corrected or at least report what a commentator has suggested by way of a change (emendation). The explanations are given in Latin abbreviations. A convenient English key to the abbreviations and to the signs and major versions is found in a valuable little pamphlet:
Prescott H. Williams Jr., An English Key to the Symbols and Latin Words and Abbreviations of Bib-lia Hebraica (Stuttgart: Wurttembergische Bibelanstalt, 1969).
In the newer BHS (the Stuttgart edition), which most people now use, there are also two separate paragraphs, but they have different purposes. The upper paragraph, set in very small type, contains notations related to the masoretic apparatus printed in the margins (see 4.1.6). The lower paragraph combines and updates the kinds of notations grouped into two separate paragraphs by the BH3 editors. In general, the BHS textual notes are superior to those of BH3 but are still neither exhaustive nor always definitive. They tend to be partial, selective, and occasionally even misleading and so must be used with proper caution. In other words, they are a good starting point but may not provide all the information you need to analyze the state of the text fully.
For BHS the standard key to the Latin used in the notes has been
Hans Peter Ruger, An English Key to the Latin Words and Abbreviations and the Symbols of Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (New York: American Bible Society, 1990).
This same key, with minor modifications, is printed in its entirety as an appendix to Brotzman’s Old Testament Textual Criticism (4.1.2, above). Ruger’s key is also found within the following:
William R. Scott, Harold Scanlin, and Hans Peter Ruger, A Simplified Guide to BHS: Critical Apparatus, Masora, Accents, Unusual Letters & Other Markings, 4th ed. (N. Richland Hills, TX: D&F Scott Publishing, 2007).
This is the newest edition of a popular and widely used manual for understanding both masoretic tradition and the critical apparatus of BHS. Its index is useful, too.
Also very useful and even more detailed in some aspects of using the BHS is
Reinhard Wonneberger, Understanding BHS: A Manual for the Users of Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 2nd ed. (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute Press, 1990).
Wonneberger’s book explains the apparatus in BHS and provides some helpful critiques of it and of the theory that it is based on.
The critical apparatus in both BH3 and BHS will help you see at a glance some of the evidence for certain obvious textual issues, but they are no substitute for your own comprehensive word-by-word check of the versions in a full exegetical analysis of a passage.
4.1.6. The Hebrew University Bible Project, Biblia Hebraica Quinta, HaKeter, and the Oxford Hebrew Bible Project
The Hebrew University Bible Project
Begun in Jerusalem in 1965, this project intended to produce a massive, multivolume critical edition of the Hebrew OT based on the Aleppo Codex, which dates to about AD 900-925 (i.e., perhaps as much as a century earlier than the Leningrad Codex). Unfortunately, the Aleppo Codex is incomplete, lacking almost the entire Pentateuch as well as some or all of Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, Esther, Daniel, and Ezra. Envisioned as an alternative to the BHS, the Hebrew Bible Project made only partial progress. In the three fascicles published (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel), four critical apparatuses are used. One of them cites the major ancient versions, one the Qumran and rabbinic evidence for the text, one the corresponding medieval masoretic evidence, and one comments on spelling, vowel pointing, accents, and so on. Ezekiel, the most recent volume, appeared in 2004, and it is not known whether the project will continue.
Moshe H. Goshen-Gottstein et al., eds., The Hebrew University Bible (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1975-).
Quinta
Just as BHS has now almost completely replaced the use of the older BH3, a new edition of the Hebrew Bible is under way. This new edition is called
Biblia Hebraica Quinta (BHQ; BHS was actually BH4), and it is based on the same excellent manuscript as that of its predecessors, the Leningrad Codex of AD 1008. One big change with the Quinta is its apparatus (notes and commentary), which distinguishes text issues based on external evidence (other versions) from issues based on internal evidence (in the MT tradition itself) and addresses questions of the MT’s literary development over time. In most cases the textual commentary explains how textual choices were made. The first fascicle (The Megilloth: Ruth, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, Esther) includes a general introduction to the whole project. The BHQ includes much more data from and emphasis on the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Syriac Peshitta, with corresponding diminution of emphasis on the LXX and Latin Vulgate variants. The wisdom of this tilt is debatable, but BHQ may well eventually replace the BHS as the standard critical edition of the ancient Hebrew text of the OT.
A. Schenker, Y. A. P. Goldman, A. van der Kooij, G. J. Norton, S. Pisano, J. de Waard, and R. D. Weis, eds., Biblia Hebraica Quinta, fascicle 18, General Introduction and Megilloth (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2004).
HaKeter
Miqraot Gedolot HaKeter aims to provide a new critical edition of the OT in Hebrew. It is based mainly on the Aleppo Codex, with supplementation from other manuscripts as necessary, and also includes both Maso-rahs with case-by-case explanations. It pays special attention to Aramaic, and when it refers to Targums, it relies on Targum Onkelos or the Tar-gum to the Prophets via a new, superior critical text. It also includes text information from such rabbis as Rashi, Kimchi, Ibn Ezra, and others.
HaKeter began with a General Introduction and Joshua-Judges in 1992, and now includes Genesis, 1-2 Samuel, 1-2 Kings, Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Psalms. The completion of HaKeter may come even before that of the BHQ.
The Oxford Hebrew Bible Project
The OHB Project has only recently begun. In a manner somewhat similar to that of BHQ, it hopes to reach an international user audience. The OHB Project claims to take the most innovative approach of all the newer text-critical projects by incorporating as much as possible of the latest and best research now in progress. It is expected to print in parallel format the texts of some recensions of portions of the Hebrew Bible, and hopes to be more eclectic and less dependent on any one text tradition than the other projects are.
4.1.7. The Masorah
Printed in the margins of both BH3 and BHS are groups of notations— written in Aramaic and mostly abbreviated—made by the Masoretes. Some notations may suggest possible improvements upon the text, but most indicate observations useful for the accurate preservation and copying of the text. In the ancient masoretic manuscripts, many of these notes were placed in the margins. These were called the “Masorah parva,” the “little Masorah.” Longer notations were placed at the beginning or the end of the manuscripts. These were called the “Masorah magna,” the “large Masorah.” For most purposes of exegesis, scholars pay little attention to the Masorah itself because its truly significant observations are already incorporated into BH3/BHS/BHQ or can be duplicated by quick reference to a concordance. Moreover, such observations have been rendered unnecessary by the development of the printing press. In other words, it is quite common to ignore the Masorah in doing exegesis.
A fine guide to the masoretic scribal notes in the BHS is
Page H. Kelley, Daniel S. Mynatt, and Timothy G. Crawford, The Masorah of Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia: Introduction and Annotated Glossary (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1998).
4.1.8. Other masoretic indicators
The Masoretes produced a dots-and-dashes vowel pointing system so that their students, for whom Hebrew was by then a dead language, could pronounce the words properly (according to the postbiblical pronunciation that had evolved by the sixth to ninth centuries AD), mainly for the purpose of chanting the text in synagogue worship. In addition, they developed special symbols to indicate word accents, verse divisions, and sections of verses, again mainly for the purpose of group chanting in worship. They also included notations for such things as Scripture portions used in the yearly cycle of synagogue readings. None of these markings or notations, including the vowel-pointing system, represents anything more than the opinion of the Masoretes according to their own early medieval, and often conflicting, traditions. In other words, you must be ready to disregard pointings, verse divisions, and other markings whenever your exegetical judgment suggests that they are unreliable. See also 4.1.2.