Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Ortega Monasterio on M1
The latest edition of the Review of Biblical Literature contains a review of Maria Teresa Ortega Monasterio's edition of the Masorahs of M1, a thirteenth century manuscript used for the Complutensian Polyglot. As many will be aware the Masoretic notes are arranged in exquisite tiny letters to form patterns and pictures. Unusually, the review contains two actual images of the manuscript. These are well worth seeing.
I had the opportunity to listen to this Spanish scholar at the SBL International Meeting in Edinburgh, when she made a marvellous Powerpoint presentation of her work on this MS. Only sad that there were just a bunch of New Testament scholars in front of her (at least my face betrayed my ignorance). In any case, Ginsburg, the icon of the Masorah study, came out in a bad light. He had apparently not mentioned a lot of details in this MS (M1), which Ortega Monasterio presented one after the other. Had Ginsburg not discovered all the tiny Hebrew letters forming patterns (see image).
ReplyDeleteIn the subsequent time for questions, I asked if Ginsburg had made the claim to be exhaustive in his presentation of Masorah material, on which she replied, "No." So the "gloria of Ginsburg" was partly restored ...
Unfortunately, not very good images, included in this review, probably scanned from the publication.
Thank you very much for your good evaluation of the powerpoint presentation, but it was me, Dr. E. Martin Contreras, who made it. I am in the same Masorah's team that Prof. Ortega Monasterio, directed by Prof. Fenandez Tejero, and formed also by Dr. Seijas de los Rios in Madrid, Spain. The research project aims to edited and study the masorot of M1's manuscript.
ReplyDeleteAn article with the material presented in the SBL International Meeting has been recently published in Journal of Northwest Semitic Language.
My intention was not that "Ginsburg came out in a bad light". He is the father of the modern masoretic studies and his works are imprescindible.