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1000 results for “OT_TC_Amateur”
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I was delighted to come across the suggestion that Sheshbazzar in #Ezra and 5 is Jeconiah's son Shenazzar in 1 #Chronicles 3:18. Collins' Introduction mentions it in passing, but says they are two different names. But are they? Or is one just a scribal error?
The difference is two letters: ששבצר vs. שנאצר.
LXX 1 Esdras has a mixed form Σαναβάσσαρος (=שנבצר) in 2:11, 14; 6:17, 19.
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Random observation:
The name of the Persian king Artahshasta (Artaxerxes) is spelled
ארתחששתא
in Ezra 4 and 6 (five times) but spelled
ארתחשסתא
in Ezra 7-8 (five times). If sin and samekh were pronounced the same at that point, I would expect interchanging, not perfect division.
#HebrewBible #Ezra -
I'm entertained by a scholar arguing for the #DocumentaryHypothesis objecting to the Supplementary Hypothesis because it implies that the redactors are incompetent. If the redactors were competent, there would be no evidence to support the Documentary Hypothesis...
#HebrewBible #BiblicalStudies -
Reading chapters 1-4 of #Genesis in #Hebrew, one is struck by the abrupt shift from calling God Elohim (1:1-2:3) to YHWH Elohim (2:4-3:32, except the serpent) to just YHWH (chap. 4). Such shifts persuaded scholars there were different documents.
But how stable are these differences across the different witnesses?
It first must be acknowledged that the #Latin #Vulgate often omits "God", to avoid too much repetition.
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3. There's no evidence for deposing a Persian queen.
4. The style has hyperbole & stock characters.
5. No king would allow Jews to massacre enemies.Arg. #1 is based on misreading Est. 2:5-6, which gives Mordechai's genealogy and then says, "who was exiled from Jerusalem... with Jeconiah... whom Nebuchadnezzar... exiled." But grammatically, this could just as easily refer to Mordechai's great-grandfather Kish as to Mordechai himself.
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John Collins's Introduction (p.598) asserts that #Esther is entirely fictional, ahistorical, & that scholars who "try to salvage a historical core from this fantastic story are only slightly less gullible than their precritical ancestors"! He makes 5 arguments against its historicity:
1. Mordechai was exiled by Nebuchadnezzar (597) but was active in reign of Xerxes (r. 486-465)
2. Esther says 127 satrapies, but only 20-23 existed.1/?
#HebrewBible -
Vulg in English: And Tobiyah & Sanballat had hired him. For he received a price, that I might be terrified
#Syriac Pesh has a longer reading, with the redundancy:
ܛܘܒܝܐ ܘܣܡܒܠܝܛ ܘܚܒܪ̈ܘܗܝ܂ ܐܓܪܘ ܘܫܕܪܘܗܝ ܥܠܝ ܠܡܩܛܠܢܝ ܡܛܠ ܕܐܓܝܪܐ ܗܘ܂ ܡܛܠ ܕܐܕܚܠ
Tobiya, Sanballat, *and his companions* hired *and sent* him *against me to kill me*, so that he was hired so that I would fear
2/?
#HebrewBible -
Also important, no source for this section refers to God as anything other than "God" (#Hebrew אלהים, #Greek Θεός, #Syriac ܐܠܗܐ, #Latin Deus).
All of this changes once we move into Genesis 2:4ff. Of the 34 references to God in Genesis 2:4-4:26, only 17 achieve unanimity (barring Vulg omissions), only 50%, and sometimes which name is used for God is different. In 2:4-22, where MT has "LORD God," OG only has "God" (except 2:4, 15-18).
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Pesh: ܘܛܠܝܐ ܛܠܐ ܗܘܐ܂
But in 1 Samuel 1:24(-25) the OG preserves a much larger reading: καὶ τὸ παιδάριον μετ᾿ αὐτῶν. καὶ προσήγαγον ἐνώπιον Κυρίου, καὶ ἔσφαξεν ὁ πατὴρ αὐτοῦ τὴν θυσίαν, ἣν ἐποίει ἐξ ἡμερῶν εἰς ἡμέρας τῷ Κυρίῳ, καὶ προσήγαγε τὸ παιδάριον ("and the child was with them. And they approached before the Lord, and his father slaughtered the sacrifice which he was making from tine to time to the Lord, and he brought forward the child.")
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Also, any recommendations for research at the intersection of source criticism & textual criticism?
#HebrewBible #Pentateuch
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Also, any recommendations for research at the intersection of source criticism & textual criticism?
#HebrewBible #Pentateuch
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Also, any recommendations for research at the intersection of source criticism & textual criticism?
#HebrewBible #Pentateuch
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Also, any recommendations for research at the intersection of source criticism & textual criticism?
#HebrewBible #Pentateuch
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I'm trying to figure out why scholars rejecting Mosaic authorship adopted the (Graf-Wellhausen) Documentary Hypothesis. Part of the answer is Astruc's earlier work on Moses's sources. But I've found only a terse reference to a "Supplementary hypothesis" & "Fragmentary hypothesis" as alternatives.
Can anyone recommend discussions of the (19th-C) Supplementary &/or Fragmentary hypotheses of Pentateuchal composition & why they were ultimately spurned by critical scholars?
#HebrewBible #Pentateuch -
I'm trying to figure out why scholars rejecting Mosaic authorship adopted the (Graf-Wellhausen) Documentary Hypothesis. Part of the answer is Astruc's earlier work on Moses's sources. But I've found only a terse reference to a "Supplementary hypothesis" & "Fragmentary hypothesis" as alternatives.
Can anyone recommend discussions of the (19th-C) Supplementary &/or Fragmentary hypotheses of Pentateuchal composition & why they were ultimately spurned by critical scholars?
#HebrewBible #Pentateuch -
I'm trying to figure out why scholars rejecting Mosaic authorship adopted the (Graf-Wellhausen) Documentary Hypothesis. Part of the answer is Astruc's earlier work on Moses's sources. But I've found only a terse reference to a "Supplementary hypothesis" & "Fragmentary hypothesis" as alternatives.
Can anyone recommend discussions of the (19th-C) Supplementary &/or Fragmentary hypotheses of Pentateuchal composition & why they were ultimately spurned by critical scholars?
#HebrewBible #Pentateuch -
I'm trying to figure out why scholars rejecting Mosaic authorship adopted the (Graf-Wellhausen) Documentary Hypothesis. Part of the answer is Astruc's earlier work on Moses's sources. But I've found only a terse reference to a "Supplementary hypothesis" & "Fragmentary hypothesis" as alternatives.
Can anyone recommend discussions of the (19th-C) Supplementary &/or Fragmentary hypotheses of Pentateuchal composition & why they were ultimately spurned by critical scholars?
#HebrewBible #Pentateuch -
Another article on the subject of writing in ancient #Israel / #Judah :
Matthieu Richelle, "Elusive Scrolls: Could Any Hebrew Literature Have Been Written Prior to the Eighth Century BCE?" Vetus Testamentum 66 (2016): 556-94. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44647541I appreciate when scholars say we know less than we think, but then his conclusion seems more positive than his argumentation to that point.
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In 2 Samuel 20:25, OG testifies to a form with a second ש, as in 1 Kings 4:3 for every witness *except* the OG. MT 2 Samuel suggests some w/y confusion, as well as the loss of the second ש in every non-Greek version. Pesh's ܪܝ might be an intra-Syriac confusion from ܘ (w). OG's Σαβὰ in 1 Kings 4:3 is weird.
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#Jeremiah 38:6a seems to me ungrammatical in the MT:
וַיִּקְח֣וּ אֶֽת־יִרְמְיָ֗הוּ וַיַּשְׁלִ֨כוּ אֹת֜וֹ אֶל־הַבּ֣וֹר׀ מַלְכִּיָּ֣הוּ בֶן־הַמֶּ֗לֶךְ
"They took Jeremiah and they threw him into the pit - Malkiyahu the king's son."It cannot be "the pit of Malkiyahu" because הבור has a definite article.
Indeed, the Masoretes seemed to want to help readers exclude reading it as "the pit of" by adding a vertical line after "the pit."
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Perhaps compare #Genesis 22:14:
MT: בְּהַ֥ר יְהוָ֖ה יֵרָאֶֽה
LXX: ἐν τῷ ὄρει Κύριος ὤφθη
Pesh: ܒܛܘܪܐ ܗܢܐ ܡܪܝܐ ܢܚܙܐ
Vulg: In monte Dominus videbitIn LXX, God was seen, whereas in MT/Pesh/Vulg, God will see.
(It's unclear to me whether LXX Gen 22:14 presumes reading perfect נראה or yiqtol יֵרָאֶ֖ה)
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I don't see other places where אל אלהים means "God of gods" except possibly Joshua 22:22 (interpreted thus by Pesh, not MT, LXX, or Vulg).
On the other hand, if MT's vowels are right, who is the subject? How do we get from a plural verb in the first half of the verse to a singular here?
LXX commonly interprets words as referring to God, while the Masoretes may have been uncomfortable about God "appearing" if they could avoid it.
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A fun little variant was pointed out to me by a friend:
MT Ps 84:8: יֵרָאֶ֖ה אֶל־אֱלֹהִ֣ים בְּצִיּֽוֹן
LXX: ὀφθήσεται ὁ Θεὸς τῶν θεῶν ἐν Σιών
Pesh: ܢܬܚܙܐ ܐܠܗ ܐ̈ܠܗܝܢ ܒܨܗܝܘܢ (= LXX)
Vulg: parebunt apud Deum in SionThe only difference is the vowel in אל. The vowel in אל determines whether it is a noun (construct "God of") or a preposition ("to"), and thus whether the next word אלהים is "gods" or "God."
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As a mark of my amateur status, TIL about TC: a journal of biblical textual criticism!
https://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/sblpress/tc/issue/volume/30And even cooler, they are entirely open access, so you can read the articles even if you are not at a theological research library!
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I read a chapter about #HebrewBible #TextualCriticism in the 19th C, and now I better understand the background between the separation of textual criticism starting where literary criticism ends, which I see in the work e.g. of Tov, but I still think the division is artificial and misleading.
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Actually it turns out that he vs. heth is the most common letter confusion in #Samaritan #Genesis. That surprises me, but I've found twenty such confusions among proper names. I suspect the lack of pronunciation difference helps.
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#HebrewBible #TextualCriticism #SamaritanPentateuch -
I wonder if especially the yods are in the right place, or have moved, & if they represent vowels different from the #MasoreticText.
The final letter being he or heth is also a very easy confusion in Hebrew square script, but much harder in Samaritan or Paleo-Hebrew. I don't have an idea what that difference might indicate.
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#HebrewBiible #TextualCriticism -
Is it a bad sign when Baden's very first example of a contradiction that requires a document source difference (the name of Moses's father-in-law) I think is more probably resolved by challenging a few Masoretic dots? I'm not opposed to a documentary hypothesis! But the text is ancient, so first establish the text with #TextualCriticism.
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Pesh nearly agrees, only rounding up Lamech's age at procreation to a round 200 (why?). But SamP and LXX are more interesting. Until Lamech they are always 100 years apart, with the LXX having more years. MT(=Pesh=Vulg) agrees with SamP except for Jared, when it agrees with LXX, and Methuselah, where it disagrees with both. Because LXX and SamP are exacty 100 years apart on Methuselah, that suggests MT is secondary.
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#HebrewBible #TextualCriticism