Wieland Willker informs us of the appearance of the latest fascicle of the Biblia Hebraica Quinta, which aims to replace the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia as the main scholarly edition of the Hebrew Bible. Ezra and Nehemiah have just appeared. Details here. For more about the project see Weis's article.
BHQ is an improvement on BHS in its presentation of the Masorah and also in its sensitive treatment of the versions. The information available in BHS that will no longer be in BHQ relates to the Hebrew variants collected by Benjamin Kennicott and G.B. De Rossi about two centuries ago. This information has probably been dropped because it is not judged to be reliable, it is not always possible to identify the manuscripts mentioned, and also because many of the variants are thought to be secondary. My own suspicion is that there is more important material to be uncovered within the mediaeval Hebrew mss and that some significant collation needs to go on. But the labourers are even fewer than in NT TC.
Peter, I agree with you that BHQ is wrong to ignore the earlier Masoretic editions, not least that of Ginsburg. For example, at Zechariah 12:10, Ginsburg, adequately in his shortened apparatus of the 1894 Trinitarian Bible Society edition, but more so in his subsequent edition for the British and Foreign Bible Society, notes a variant within the Masoretic transmission : אליו for אליץ. it also concerns me that too many readers will not know that אלי can be regarded (as acknowledged in, eg, BDB and HALOT) as an alternative for אל, in the sense of “to/unto/toward(s)”. BHQ’s commentary on the verse is not clear and really does not deal adequately with matters. We do not need Codex Leningrad to be republished for every enterprise, thereby increasing bulk and cost; but we do need, preferably on looseleaved or interleaved A4 sheets, a proper critical commentary. And, now that manuscripts are verified and protected by electronic copying, what is the use of reproducing the masorah, parva or magna? (Didn’t David Baker say something about this in a Tyndale House article?) In short, we need radically to rethink a critical product for the serious student.
ReplyDeleteSorry, typo : אליו for אל׳. And I should have added the important footnote 1 at Gesenius-Kautzsch, section 138 E : “ In Zechariah 12:10…instead of the unintelligible אלי אה אשר, we should probably read אל-אשר..”. I don’t necessarily agree with this footnote, but its source(s) renders it worthy of consideration.
DeleteI cannot really follow or fully understand the BHQ critical commentary on Zechariah 12:10!
I comment on this verse because recently I had reason to discuss it with folk, some of whom have had theological training, and some of whom are in ecclesiastical/academic positions. frankly, I was quite shocked that they mostly would simply use only BHQ to decide matters. Some would stick with BHS, which has the note : “אל [or] אל׳, but no note of a possible אליו.
All in all, we need fuller evidence and better presentation in our publications forFor serious students!
On reading/rereading lately a number of the learnèd on the textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible, I am not entirely convinced by their not only dislike for, but actual rejection of, the Masoretic text that we see in the medieval manuscripts after 1100 AD/CE - a transmission adopted enthusiastically by Jews and Christians alike, not least in Bomberg’s Bible, and reproduced in Bibles, eg. Letteris 1866 and following, favoured by both Jews and Christians, at all levels of learning. If the pre-1100 manuscripts - Aleppo, Leningrad, etc. - are “so obviously superior”, why did not the many disparate Jewish centres - academies, synagogues, scalars, serious students - not adopt those manuscripts? After all, Maimonides is said to have adopted the Leningrad Codex. Was it because ben-Asher was, or was suspected to have been, Karaite? Was Maimonides unique in embracing the work of a man from a school of thought to bed suspect at best or heretic at worst? I do not find adequate discussion of the issue; and I’m inclined to think that there has perhaps been a rush to judgment. kit seems to me that we ought to print parallel Masoretic and Critical - say, Ginsburg and BHQ.
DeleteI have found David L Baker's pertinent review, at Tyndale Bulletin, 61, 2010; and I would endorse his following comments:-
ReplyDelete1.5 ………. Each volume of BHQ includes an introduction to the textual resources and issues for the book under study, notes on the Masorah (including translation of the masora magna), a commentary on the critical apparatus, and a bibliography of works cited. These extras are an extremely valuable contribution to scholarship. The introductions and commentaries will greatly facilitate textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible, while the notes will be helpful for those wishing to study the Masorah.
1.3………. The full Masorah is printed in BHQ, alongside (masora parva) and underneath (masora magna) the biblical text, and at the end of each book (masora finalis). This is an improvement compared with BHS, with its endless cross-references that mean nothing unless one has the companion volume. Another change is that the Masorah is presented ‘diplomatically’, consistent with the principle used for the text, whereas in BHS scribal errors and inconsistencies were corrected. However, it is debatable whether it is necessary to include the Masorah at all in a ‘manual edition’. On the one hand, it is good to be aware that the Masoretic Bibles include this material, and to be reminded of the extraordinary labours of these Jewish scholars who preserved the Hebrew Bible for us with such accuracy. On the other hand, I suspect the vast majority of ‘scholars, clergy, translators, and students’ will never consult this material. It would be more helpful to omit the Masorah altogether, putting the ketiv/qeré readings and other significant matters from the Masorah in the critical apparatus, with appropriate explanations in English, as is already done in most cases. In this way the volume would be smaller, thus more affordable and portable. Readers would be able to find the material they need more easily, without the complexity of materials they are unlikely to use. In a day when a decreasing number of theological students are studying Hebrew, and the number of lecture hours allocated for exegesis is very limited, it would be more realistic to focus on providing the essentials for reading the biblical text.
5.…….. O]f the major editions, BHQ will be most readily available since the text and apparatus are to be published in one volume. It is a significant improvement on BHS, but suffers from the handicap of reproducing the text of L precisely, including obvious errors, and so can only be recommended to those who are willing to learn at least the basics of textual criticism and to consult the apparatus regularly.
……... On the other hand, I am frustrated to find that—in spite of all this effort at higher levels—there is still no practical edition that I can wholeheartedly recommend to my students. Hopefully someone, somewhere, sometime, will produce such an edition, focusing on the needs of students rather than scholars. Many students, translators, ministers, and lay people learn Hebrew in order to read the Bible in its original language, and thereby understand it better, but have no inclination or competence to engage in textual criticism. They need a practical and reliable edition for this purpose. Clearly it is too soon to produce an eclectic edition at present, though hopefully that may be possible after the completion of OHB and the debates that follow the publication of each volume. For the time being, it would be enormously helpful to have an edition of MT based on L, with obvious errors corrected on the basis of other manuscripts (as in BFBS and JPS), with ketiv and qeré adjacent in the main text (as in JPS and RHB), and without the Masorah. Two extra features to make it even more useful would be a practical apparatus referring to major variants (perhaps based on the) notes of NRSV) and English glosses as in RHB. I hope my next review of a Hebrew Bible may be of an edition like this.