Tue Mar 12 16:45:36 1996

From majordom  Tue Mar 12 16:45:36 1996
Return-Path: 
Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (5.0/SMI-SVR4)
	id AA05191; Tue, 12 Mar 1996 16:45:36 +0500
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 1996 16:45:25 -0500 (EST)
From: "James R. Adair" 
X-Sender: jadair@scholar
To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu
Subject: Re: Tiq. Soph.
In-Reply-To: <960312143521_244218878@emout04.mail.aol.com>
Message-Id: 
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Length: 1788
Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu
Precedence: bulk
Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu
Status: O
X-Status: 

On Tue, 12 Mar 1996 HuldrychZ@aol.com wrote:

> Following up on my last question (about Is 7:14)- we know that the copyists
> of the MT altered what they found when they considered it objectionable.
>  They marked them with the so called "tiqqune sopherim".  Does it not stand
> to reason, therefore, that there are other alterations of the Hebrew Bible
> which are not noted?

There are traditionally only 18 tiqqune sopherim, but other scribal
changes are evident.  The most obvious ones I know of are in the first two
chapters of Job, where the original words "curse God" (or their equivalent
pronouns) have been replaced by "bless God" in the MT. Then there are 
also scribal omissions, puncta extraordinaria, inverted and suspended 
nuns, ....  Fishbane discusses numerous passages in which he detects 
unmarked (by the Masora) scribal changes in _Biblical Interpretation in 
Ancient Israel_.

> And does it not stand to reason, further, that the scribes of the Greek
> Testament did the same?

The obvious example here is Origen, who "corrected" the LXX in the 
direction of the proto-MT in the fifth column of his Hexapla.  Actually 
he just marked the differences and inserted Greek material for the LXX 
minuses, but the effect on the LXX tradition was drastic.

As I recall, Koster (?) wrote a book on the Peshitta of Exodus in which 
he argued that later manuscripts of P tended to "correct" the text in the 
direction of Hebrew manuscripts.

So I think that it can be argued that scribal "correction/corruption" was 
common in most, if not all, manuscript traditions.

Jimmy Adair
Manager of Information Technology Services, Scholars Press
    and
Managing Editor of TELA, the Scholars Press World Wide Web Site
---------------> http://scholar.cc.emory.edu <-----------------

Back