#textualcriticism — Public Fediverse posts

Recovering Hidden Witnesses in the Kurzgefasste Liste: The Possibilities of MSI [multispectral imaging]
https://criticaltexts.com/recovering-hidden-witnesses-in-the-liste-the-possibilities-of-msi/
#textualcriticism

Recovering Hidden Witnesses in the Kurzgefasste Liste: The Possibilities of MSI [multispectral imaging]
https://criticaltexts.com/recovering-hidden-witnesses-in-the-liste-the-possibilities-of-msi/
#textualcriticism

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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#HebrewBible #TextualCriticism

#2Samuel 20:25 names David's scribe, but every witness spells the name differently:
MT-K שיא
MT-Q שְׁוָ֖א
OG Σουσὰ
Pesh ܫܪܝܐ
Vulg Siva

#1Kings 4:3 names Solomon's scribes' father slightly more consistently:
MT שִׁישָׁ֖א
OG Σαβὰ
Pesh ܫܝܫܐ
Vulg Sisa

Could this be the same name?

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#HebrewBible #TextualCriticism

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.

1/?
#HebrewBible #TextualCriticism

#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."

#HebrewBible #TextualCriticism
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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 videbit

In 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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#HebrewBible #TextualCriticism

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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#HebrewBible #TextualCriticism

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 Sion

The 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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#Psalms #HebrewBible #TextualCriticism

As a mark of my amateur status, TIL about TC: a journal of biblical textual criticism!
https://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/sblpress/tc/issue/volume/30

And even cooler, they are entirely open access, so you can read the articles even if you are not at a theological research library!

#HebrewBible #TextualCriticism

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.

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.

#HebrewBible

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

I think it is very odd that in Psalm 51:14b (MT) = OG Psalm 50:14b = English Psalm 51:12b, the spirit is described as:
MT נְדִיבָ֣ה ("willing")
OG ἡγεμονικῷ ("masterly")
Pesh ܡܫܒܚܬܐ ("glorified")
Vulg potenti ("powerful")

No idea why...

#Psalms #HebrewBible #TextualCriticism

And in the Samaritan Pentateuch, it isn't an anachronism for God to have already chosen Mt. Gerizim, because in SamP's Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:17b), the tenth commandment is worship on Mt. Gerizim, in an addition not preserved in any other witness.

So I think we can explain the perfect tense verbs in "the place which God chose" to reflect Samaritan ideological revision to emphasize Mt. Gerizim, rather than SamP's textual priority here.

#HebrewBible #TextualCriticism
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What does this mean?

We might be tempted to regard SamP as original (reflecting a composition date after "the choice" of Jerusalem) and MT as a correction to remedy the anachronism of Moses saying that God choosing Jerusalem was already a done deal.

But anachronism seems to have weighed much less heavily on ancient readers than modern ones.

And in the Samaritan understanding of the text, Jerusalem was not the place which God chose, but Mt. Gerizim!

#HebrewBible #TextualCriticism
2/?

#Deuteronomy 12 famously refers to a place YHWH will choose for his cult, which scholars often take as referring to Josiah's reforms (2 Kings 23). But in Deuteronomy the verbs are future tense (יבחר).

Or are they? SamP thinks otherwise.

All 21 times where the text refers to the place which God will choose (Deut 12:5, 11, 14, 18, 21, 26; 14:23-25; 15:20; 16:2, 6-7, 11, 15-16; 17:8, 10; 18:6; 26:2; 31:11), MT imperfect יבחר corresponds to SamP perfect בחר.

#HebrewBible #TextualCriticism
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Okay, a rabbit trail may have revealed a funny point about the NRSV's textual history.

#Genesis 10:14 = #1Chronicles 1:12 lists the peoples of Pathros, Kasluh, & Kaphtor, mentioning in passing that the Philistines came from Kasluhites.

Oddly, #Jeremiah 47:4 and #Amos 9:7 identify the Philistines as coming from Kaphtor, not Kasluh.

What's going on here? Dunno. Perhaps a marginal addition was incorporated into the main text in the wrong spot in Genesis.

1/?

#HebrewBible #TextualCriticism

I know that the presence or absence of matres lectionis (vocalic waw or yod) isn't meaningful, semantically or textually.

Yet often a verse differs in SamP and MT in that SamP has a mater lectionis in one word where MT lacks it, and MT has one where SamP lacks it.

E.g. #Numbers 22:1:
SamP: ויסעו בני ישראל ויחנו בערבת מואב מעבר לירדן יריחו

MT: וַיִּסְע֖וּ בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל וַֽיַּחֲנוּ֙ בְּעַֽרְב֣וֹת מוֹאָ֔ב מֵעֵ֖בֶר לְיַרְדֵּ֥ן יְרֵחֽוֹ׃

1/?

#HebrewBible #TextualCriticism

We must use critical editions critically. I noticed that Von Gall's edition of #Exodus 27:9 reads באתה where MT reads בָֽאַמָּה֙, despite the fact that Kennicott's edition (which favors readings where SamP≠MT) does not note it. Is this a real variant, or just a typo?

In this case Von Gall's textual apparatus keys a variant to באמה, which occurs nowhere else in this verse, so the main text reading is presumably erroneous, merely a typographical error.

#HebrewBible #TextualCriticism

In #1Samuel 20:2, there's an interesting ketiv/qere:

K: לו־עשה
Q: לֹֽא־יַעֲשֶׂ֨ה

Hyphens & vowels were added later & word spacing is unreliable in ancient Hebrew manuscripts, so I wonder if there has been a w/y interchange here, and earlier it read ליעשה with negative L-.

#HebrewBible #TextualCriticism

In #Psalms 11:1 (10:1 in OG numbering), the verse ends:

MT: הַרְכֶ֥ם צִפּֽוֹר
your mountain, bird

OG: ἐπὶ τὰ ὄρη ὡς στρουθίον
to the mountains like a bird
= Pesh: ܥܠ ܛܘܪ̈ܐ ܐܝܟ ܨܦܪܐ
~ Vulg: in montem ut avis

Tg: לטורא/לטוריכון/ היך צפורא
to (the/your) mountains like a bird

Three strange features of MT strike me:
1. no "to"
2. no "like" a bird
3. "your" mountain

All 3 are unique to MT except that *part* of Tg tradition agrees with 3.

#HebrewBible #TextualCriticism

1/?

Has the New Testament been corrupted over time? 🧐 Let's look at the overwhelming manuscript evidence and the work of textual criticism. #BibleStudy #NewTestament #TextualCriticism"

https://bdking71.wordpress.com/2024/10/05/have-the-new-testament-documents-been-corrupted-debunking-the-myths-and-finding-the-truth/

Comparing the SamP with MT systematically, I think I am seeing a nearly consistently different use of waw in lists, and in Exodus, several places where SamP's דבר corresponds to MT's אמר, oddly.

Anyone know of scholarship on these?

#HebrewBible #TextualCriticism #SamaritanPentateuch

I'm amused by a textual variation in #Genesis 45:24, when Joseph sent his brothers back to Jacob to invite him to Egypt:

MT: וַיְשַׁלַּ֥ח אֶת־אֶחָ֖יו וַיֵּלֵ֑כוּ וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֲלֵהֶ֔ם אַֽל־תִּרְגְּז֖וּ בַּדָּֽרֶךְ
SamP: וישלח את אחיו וילכו ויאמר אלהים אל תתרגזו בדרך

The addition of a yod changes things!

MT: "He sent his brothers away and they went, and *he* said *to them,* 'Do not get angry on the journey.'"

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#HebrewBible #TextualCriticism

העדרים vs. הרעים

This is a transposition of ע and either r->dr (near dittography) or dr->r (near haplography). Hebrew r and d are so similar that they are often confused, but this is a particularly clear case of that confusion extending to haplography or dittography.

#HebrewBible #TextualCriticism
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Here's a fun one: near synonyms due to near #haplography or #dittography in #Genesis 28:8

When Jacob goes to Harran, to his uncle Laban, there's a well with a big stone, so the shepherds gather the flocks to water there during the day.

The shepherds explain:

They cannot leave
MT: עַ֣ד אֲשֶׁ֤ר יֵאָֽסְפוּ֙ כָּל־הָ֣עֲדָרִ֔ים
(until all the flocks are gathered)
SamP: עד אשר יאספו כל הרעים
(until all the shepherds are gathered)

Only the last word is different
1/?

#HebrewBible #TextualCriticism

In #Nehemiah 10:30 (=10:29 English), where MT reads ʾaddîrēyhem, LXX reads καὶ κατηράσαντο αὐτοὺς. Might this represent Hebrew ʾaddîrûhem, interpreted as an (Aramaic) Aphʿel of ndr? Apparently the verb ndr does not have a hiphʿil form in use in Biblical Hebrew.

#HebrewBible #TextualCriticism

Obviously the precise numbers will shift around a bit depending on what divisions one picks for the columns, but it is hoped that this shows that there is more variation in which name refers to God in chapters 2-8 of Genesis than in the Abraham and Isaac stories, at least.

I wonder if these sorts of differences in agreement may be a faint echo of compositional processes.

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#HebrewBible #TextualCriticism

In order to visualize the drop and then upward shift, it is necessary to have units of comparison. Chapters won't work, because different chapters have different numbers of references to God.

Since I've collected just over 280 references to God in Genesis 1:1-28:13, I divided this sample into 8 divisions of 35 references (corresponding to uneven lengths of text), and calculated what percentage of each division is unanimous across witnesses.

See chart:

2/?
#HebrewBible #TextualCriticism

When I searched Bar Bahlul's dictionary for the *gloss*, I saw the word ܐܢܕܘܟܝܣܘܣ, which (apart from the erroneous yod) is clearly representing the good Greek adjective ἔνδοξος. A scribe transposed the d and the w before the word was accidentally split into two. The erroneous word division was helped that (after the transposition) a Syriac w does not connect to the left, so it could just look like two words written withno space.

I don't know whether the transposition and word division were due to a scribe copying Shbadnaya, Shbadnaya himself, or Shbadnaya's copy of Bar Bahlul.

But just to trying understand the #IntellectualHistory of a manuscript age requires doing #TextualCriticism.

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Textual Scholars:

I am writing something on parallel text editions (like the Norton edition of Wordsworth's The Prelude, 1799, 1805, 1850) and could use your suggestions.

I am looking for the earliest instance of a parallel text edition in English.

I'd also be interested to know which parallel text edition you consider the best (and why) and which is the most used.

#textualscholarship #scholarlyediting #textualcriticism #hivemind #academicresearch #humanities

#MastoPrompt #critical

It usually isn’t hard to see
Why you and I cannot agree
When from two angles we must look.
But as for the contents of this Book,
I must point out that versions vary,
And some are even contrary.
This time, I’ll give it to you gratis…
Next time, check the critical apparatus.

#poetry #smallpoems #religion #bible #textualcriticism #history #poetrycommunity #biblicalstudies