כַּבֵּד אֶת־אָבִיךָ 12 לא 13 يهان לאי לוי 4. כן בהללי, ירושלמי לעלות מלא, וכן יא, יב, יד, לב. כ. 3. כן עברים בדייט: כסיא ברים בלא אתנח. כן יג, כד, דית, 19 . ס"א וכיף. כן יא, יב, ים, לב, לח, מ דיו, ת"א, ה"י. י . ס"א ואת". כן יב, כד, לא 12. ס"א יאריכון מלא. כן יא, יב, טז, יט, כד, לא, לב, לו, לח, ר"ג, ריז, ריח, 13 . ארבעתן פסוק אחר, כן 109 PAGES FROM GINSBURG'S MASSORETIC BIBLE (EXODUS, XIX, 24-XX, 23) CONTAINING SEVERAL TRADITIONAL BULLETIN OF The New York Public Library Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations VOLUME 32 SEPTEMBER, 1928 NUMBER 9 T GINSBURG'S MASSORETIC BIBLE BY JOSHUA BLOCH, PH.D. O the collection of Bibles in The New York Public Library, there has recently been added the Old Testament diligently revised according to the Massorah and the early editions with the various readings from manuscripts and the ancient versions by Christian David Ginsburg, LL.D. London: British and Foreign Bible Society, 1926. f°. 4 volumes. This work came as a generous gift from the publisher. The text contained in this edition is substantially that of the first printed edition of Jacob ben Chayyim's Massoretic Recension of the Hebrew Bible, which was issued from the Bomberg Press in Venice, 1524-5. It is known that existing Hebrew Bibles, which profess to follow Jacob ben Chayyim's text have in the course of years admitted many unwarranted variations from it and even introduced a large number of errors. No such variations, no matter how strongly supported by Hebrew manuscripts and ancient versions have been introduced in the present edition of the text itself, which has been compiled strictly in accordance with the Massorah collected from the manuscripts. All variations are relegated to the footnotes. It is well known that in the available editions of the printed text of the Hebrew Bible generally the variations called Kethib and Qeri, i. e. the differences between the spelling and the reading of certain words, are indicated by retaining the former within the text and by recording the latter on the margin. The results of this method, however, are hybrid forms, which present grammatical enigmas to the Hebrew student. But in Ginsburg's Hebrew Bible, in the text itself the words thus affected are left unvocalized, [ 579 ] but in the footnotes the two readings are given with their respective vowelpoints. The footnotes record also various readings offered in the standard codices which are quoted in the Massorah itself, but which have long since perished. They give the various readings found in the manuscripts and ancient versions as well as the readings of the schools of the Massorah. While the modern division of chapters and verses is noted for the sake of convenience, the text is arranged according to the ancient chapters and sectional divisions of the Massorah and the ancient manuscripts which are thus restored. The ancient Massoretic chapters called Sedarim ("orders”), which exhibit the more ancient division of the text, have been totally ignored in most manuscripts; and even modern editions of the so-called Massoretic Hebrew Bibles, which state at the end of each book that it contains such and such a number of such sections, give no indication whatever as to where in the text, any Seder occurs. In the present edition, however, they are indicated throughout in the margin opposite their respective places. The unremitting zeal and care with which the Jews watched over the integrity and accuracy of their sacred Scripture is remarkable, even though in modern times they have been somewhat negligent in the study of the various critical problems the Bible presents. Precisely at what period they began to devote their attention to the preservation of the traditional readings is rather uncertain. But there is every reason to assume that from an early date the Hebrew text of the Old Testament has come down virtually untampered with and unchanged. In the preamble to the Analysis of the Political Constitution of the Jews, Philo-Judaeus, the Alexandrian Jewish philosopher, who lived in the first century before the Christian era, asserts that "though many years have passed - I cannot tell the exact number, but more than two thousand- the Jews have never altered one word of what was written by Moses." In a similar strain writes Josephus, the Jewish historian who lived in the first century of the present era "although such long ages have now passed, no one has ventured either to add, or to remove,2 or to alter a syllable; and it is an instinct with every Jew, from the day of his birth, to regard them as the decrees of God, to abide by them, and, if need be, cheerfully to die for them." Again in the Babylonian Talmud it is told of Rabbi Ishmael, who 1 2 3 Quoted from his lost works in Eusebius' Preparation for the Gospel, Book VII, ch. 6, fin. Cf. the Biblical injunction "Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish from it," Deuteronomy iv, 2. References to the careful preservation of copies of parts at least of the Hebrew text of the Old Testament are found in the Bible itself. Cf. Deut. xvii, 18, xxxi, 9, 26; Joshua i, 8; II Kings xi, 12; xxii, 8; Psalms i, ii; II Chron. xvii, 9. 'Against Apion, Book 1, 8 (Thackeray's translation in the Loeb Classical Library, p. 179–181). flourished in the first century of the present era, that he exhorted Rabbi Meir, a contemporary scribe, in the following words: "My son, take care how thou doest thy work, for thy work is a divine one; lest thou drop or add a letter, and thereby becomest a destroyer of the entire world." 4 While these statements may appear to present some exaggeration, they likewise offer much that is true. They reflect, not unfaithfully, the religious reverence which the Jewish people invariably paid to their Scriptures, and the zealous care with which they generally managed to guard its text from corruption. This care manifested itself in several ways, but particularly in the multiplication and faithful transcription of copies of their Scriptures, and in the development of a complete apparatus of critical notes on the external form of the Biblical text. It is more particularly to the last of these functions that the term Massorah is generally applied, though it is not always possible to separate them since they were sometimes performed by one and the same person, and were always closely related to each other. What, then, is the Massorah? The Hebrew word Massorah, or as it ought to be written more correctly Massoreth, means literally "handing down," which, in the Hebrew language, later became the technical term for "tradition" in its wider sense." Later its significance was restricted to a particular kind of tradition. It came to connote that vast system of literary effort carried on between the second and tenth centuries of the present era, by the professional Hebrew scribes (Soferim), and their successors, the Massorites proper, in connection with the transcription and critical annotation of the books constituting the Hebrew Bible. These efforts were of a varied character, and their object was to establish a standard, yes, even an infallible text of the sacred Scriptures in conformity with "traditions" which had been "handed down" by experts on the text of the Bible from the earliest times. The Scribes and the Massorites collated manuscripts by the aid of which they transmitted suggestions for the correction of faulty readings and they endeavored to purify the text of unseemly expressions. They established a system of marginal notes and variants, and introduced a graphic system of vocalization, accentuation and punctuation. Moreover, they fixed the Biblical books, and their division into sections, paragraphs, and verses, in the order and external form in which they have come down to the present day. Likewise, they took careful note of every peculiarity of construction and of all anomalies Tractates Erubin, 13a and Sota 20a. Cf. also Menachot 29b S See Mishna Shekalim, vi, 1 relating to the spelling, vocalization and accentuation of words. Furthermore, they calculated the number of sections, verses, words and letters contained in the different books of the Hebrew Bible. They even compiled statistics relating to almost every feature of orthographical and grammatical interest presented by the text, and devised a system of mnemonical and technical signs, which, despite the difficulty of deciphering their meaning, possessed the important advantage of brevity. The Massorites who so zealously guarded the integrity of the traditional text of the Hebrew Bible were not a single body of men nor representatives of a single school. Their work does not represent a single collection of marginal glosses establishing forever one uniform text. On the contrary, they were learned annotators, belonging to many schools, their marginal notes to the Hebrew Bible vary considerably in different copies. The Eastern recension differs from the Western, and the different families of manuscripts, particularly those belonging to the latter - French, German, Italian, and Spanish present more or less considerable variations. Their critical value cannot be overestimated, for they deal with the careful enumeration of all the words and phrases contained in the Hebrew Bible. The marginal notes tell exactly how often each particular grammatical form and each phrase occurs in the whole Hebrew Bible and in the several books, and also in what sense it is employed. It is obvious then, that no new reading could creep into a passage without being subject to detection. The copyist may make a blunder but the Massorah checks it; for the latter is not the compilation of the scribe who copies it, but is taken from model codices of a much earlier date. It is due to the minute and laborious activities of the Massorites that the Hebrew text of the Old Testament has been preserved unchanged during the centuries that elapsed between their days and the time of the invention of printing, which once and for all set free the text from the dangers to which oral and manuscript traditions are exposed. There can be no doubt A parallel instance of minute and laborious care bestowed on the preservation of a sacred text is found in the works of the early Sanskrit commentators and grammarians on the Rig-Veda. Says Prof. Max Müller: "As early as about 600 B. C. we find that in the theological schools of India, every verse, every word, every syllable of the Veda, had been carefully counted." (Selected Essays, v. 11, p. 119.) The Samaritans likewise counted the verses, etc., of the Law, reckoning Lev. vii, 15, as the middle verse, and .they calculated the number of Kazzin, or paragraphs into which each book was divided. At a considerably later period, the Arabs (probably in imitation of the Jews) compiled a numerical Massorah of the Koran. (Sales Koran, Preliminary Discourse, III; Ewald, Abhandlungen x. oriental. u. bibl. Literatur I, p. 57.) It was by order of Khalif Othman (Uthman), that in the middle of the seventh century a fixed and authoritative Arabic text of the Koran was established once for all, for the entire Muhammadan world. (See Nöldeke's Geschichte d. Qorans, ed. Schwally, v. 2, 1919, p. 47ff.) Similarly the Persians, Chinese, and Greeks. (See Strack Prolegomena, p. 12, note 29.) On the Syrian Massora, see Wiseman, Herae Syriacat, p. 119ff. and G. Hoffmann, Zeitschrift f. d. Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, 1881, p. 159f. |