WSCAL Seminary Notes

Topic – The Masoretic text:

The Masoretic textis the standard Hebrew text. It is the most dominant and the most studied.

1) Beginning with the proto-Masoretic text – a consonantal text going back to the 2nd temple period. The stuff we see in our Masoretic text that was added in the margins and headers and footers – called the Masorah, came around in 8-11 century AD.

2) The name comes from mah-sahr a verb meaning "to deliver up". But this is debated, naturally.

3) Vowel points are the obvious feature here. They were added a) as an interpretation aid. b) to fix pronunciation. c) fix an interpretation – see Is 9:8 and compare it w/ the LXX. Without vowel points you have no way to distinguish between deh-vehr or dah-vahr. Since all you have is dvr.Dalet-Vav-Resh.  In English, death vs. word. d) became a source of church conflict. Were the vowel points inspired or not. Were they of divine origin? The Helvetic Consensus formulation affirms that the vowel points are inspired by God. Well, even if they are not actually inspired we must not get rid of them because they are important, valuable and helpful and nearly universally reliable.

4) Three strains – families – of the Masoretic text a) Tiberian – North of Palestine, b) Palestinian – South Palestine -c) Babylonian – in which the vp are above the text not below The Tiberian strain wins out owing to the work of one Aaron Ben Asher in the 10th Century AD.

5) More than just vowel points were added.  a) Paragraph markers. (Which are already seen now in the Dead Sea Scrolls – hereafter DSS. Two kinds – open marked with a Pei. and a new line and closed  – same line but with a short gap. b) verses – not numbered but marked by a sof pasuq which is the double diamond – one on top of the other. Also indicated by accent marks which indicate the last accented sylabble of a verse. c) accents were added. which serve three purposes i.) direct Bible reading in the synagogue ii.) denote the stess in a word. iii.) denote syntactical relation between words – i.e conjuntive (connected) or disjunctive ( a break)

6) There is an overall musical and exegetical function going on with these accents. kah-mah even with the underlying qamets vowel can be either pf 3fs or a ptc. The accent becomes the determining factor. See Ruth 1:3 The two basic accents are a) ^ called the atnah which is used to divide the verse in to sentence phrases and b) the | silluq – which denotes the last accented syllable of a verse. These two often lengthen the vowel that they are associated with – and it often yields a sign to pause in the reading.

7) the Masorah proper is a narrower term which refers to the notes on the side top and bottom of the BHS a) the Masorah parvah -(MP) smaller notes on the right side of the text seen in the BHS written in Aramaic and abbreviated and explained in the  b) the Masorah magna (MM)- mostly on the bottom. The Masorah magna got big and bulky so the BHS Masorah magna is actually a pointer to another book. c) Masorah finalis – found at the end of each book.

for our purposes, the MP will contain the ketiv-qere which means "what is written, what is read" and is used to indicate a case where the vowels under a word are actually more accurate than the consonants. So the ketiv-qere supplies the consonants that might better go with the vowels. The pronuciation (what is read) is still maintained however.  See Ruth 1:8

9) The various Codex a) Codex Cairensis from @896 AD – oldest but only contains the prophets b) Codex Aleppo from @925 AD is missing the Torah only. (May have been stolen during a fire that happened there much later. c) Codex Leningrad @1009 AD and is the most complete. It is the source of the BHS. d) 2nd Rabbinic Bible – 1525 AD. It is the first study bible and contains the Mas, the Targumim, and medieval commentaries.

10) What is our BHS – it is the Masoretic text plus it is a "critical" edition which contains appartus – variant info. There are two kinds of Hebrew texts. a) Eclectic which is like the Nestle Aland and is a blend of the best variants. b) Diplomatic Text  – which follows one received text – not a blend. The BHS is a diplomatic text and is based on the Codex Leningrad.

11) In the BHS the poetic sections are conveyed in modern poetry fashion . However, in the Codex Len, they leave all the poetic material as if it were narrative. This then is an editorial interpretation.

12) The BHS folk are prone to make change proposals. Which are not usually based on variant info, but are driven by the rationalism of the editors, and not really worth adopting.

13) In the BHS appartus info, they have a grading system where | means "read" – i.e this is good. Prb means probably, Frt means perhaps, and Prp means proposed

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OT Text criticism: Six points

1) This is not "criticism" in the sense of criticizing the Bible. We are not setting ourselves over it.

2) This is about determining the original text – by looking at variants

3) We tend, however, to get uneasy because the texts show differences between variants

4) But this doesn’t undermine the doctrine of inerrancy because it (the doctrine) applies to the original autographa. Also God uses ordinary means to preserve his words. Even printing errors

5) What use is the doctrine of inerrancy since we don’t actually have the autographa? Is this an empty doctrine? Answer: No, because of the vast number of manuscripts. What varies between the mss is minor stuff like spelling, wording etc. Not affected at all are the meanings. No major Christian doctrine is affected

6) The church has done text criticism throughout its ages – prime example is Origen. In sum text criticism is about finding the best texts

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Moses or David would not have been able to read the BHS (Ezra maybe but not Moses or David)  Value in translations – i.e. LXX – what types of mistakes are occuring there?

Here is the history of writing:

1) Sumerians in Mesopotamia @ 3000 BC

2) Why writing? For business purposes. Keeping records of deals, accounting etc.

3) How? Reed in clay – fortunately because this is a long lasting media – cuneiform – wedge shaped impressions in the soft clay.

4) Akkadian – a semitic group of people. Their writing cranked up the complexity involved. It became almost a magical thing since so few people could do it.

5) Egyptian – heirogliphics- This was pictogram – ish form of writing unlike cuneiform which was not picture like. There were no vowels being depicted in either form

6) Next big leap in this was the codification of an alphabet. @1900 BC. This development took so long primarily due to resistance. Earliest examples that reflect an alphabet were inscriptions found in Egypt

7) The Phoenicians – Israel’s neighbor to the North. They made treaties in writing. Here is the second primary reason for writing (the first being business). The Phoenicians spoke a Semitic language. Their alphabet did not include vowels. They wrote right-to-left. They were traders as well. And they brought their alphabet wherever they went. – e.g. the Greeks did the same for their language.

Ugarit – North of Phoenicia. 14th cent BC. They had an alphabetic text which combined cuneiform with their alphabet. Whole libraries were discovered – due to the long lasting media of clay.

9) First real Hebrew inscriptions – something called the Gezer calendar. – 10th century BC – this is called Paleo-Hebrew script

10) Aramaic. ANE lingua-franca. but Paleo Hebrew hung on.

11) Spelling issues – these types of inconsistencies were a natural result of one period of the art of writing evolving into/overlapping with the next.

12) OT canon is a concept that became solidified in the 2nd temple period under Ezra. With the dispersion of returning exiles, 3 families or types surfaced. a) proto masoretic which was a consonant only text, b) LXX which originated in Egypt – obviously an attempt to capture the OT in the now widespread Greek. c) Samaritan or proto Samaritan text. Basically the Samaritan text reflects the distinctive Samaritan theology. (Which mountain to worship on etc)

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