Subject: Isaiah 7:11

From: "MR. DAVE FOUTS" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 12:38:39 EST

Dear Colleagues,

I trust you'll forgive a TC discussion from the Old Testament.  
Recently, on another listserv (either B-Hebrew or ANE), another 
individual was requesting input on Isa. 7:11, wherein the great 
Isaiah scroll reads m'm or m'b rather than the MT's m<m (from with).
I know of no other manuscript with this reading, and think that 
though the Isaiah scroll's reading of from the mother of or from the 
father of (YHWH) is far more difficult, the context nowhere in the 
passage nor in Scripture refers to a mother or father of YHWH.
Any input?

Thanks.

Dr. Dave Fouts
BBryan College

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From: Jim Deardorff <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 16:56:02 -0800 (PST)

> passage nor in Scripture refers to a mother or father of YHWH.

Were you referring to Is 7:14 here, Dave, rather than 7:11?  (Since I 
don't read Hebrew I need to ask, also since my RSV Bible gives no hint 
that any "mother of YHVH" or "father of JHVH" enters in anywhere.)

But perhaps you or another on the list can fill in some background for me 
on the entire passage.  Who is it that is speaking in Is 7:13-17 on?  The 
RSV English makes it seem as if it is Ahaz still speaking at this point, 
because 7:13 starts out "And he said," and if it had been Isaiah himself 
speaking, it should have read, "And I said..."  Yet I feel it must have 
been Isaiah, the prophet, speaking there!  

Jim Deardorff
Oregon State University

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From: Andrew Gross <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 00:39:29 -0500 (EST)

> > I trust you'll forgive a TC discussion from the Old Testament.  

I hope OT textual critcism is not off-limits here?  ;)

> that any "mother of YHVH" or "father of JHVH" enters in anywhere.)

The reading "mother of" is the variant in the Qumran scroll, and that is 
why you don't see it in the RSV.

As for the original question, perhaps the laryngeals had weakened so much 
at this stage of Hebrew that the scribe sometimes substituted alef for 
ayin.  Because the Qumran reading is so difficult and unattested 
elsewhere, it could easily just be dismissed.  My suggestion -- and I 
know he'll have something to say about the weaening of laryngeals -- is 
to check out E. Y. Kutscher's massive monograph on the Isaiah Scroll and 
see what he has to say about this variant.

I believe it is called _The Language of the Isaiah Scroll_ and was 
published by Brill.

> been Isaiah, the prophet, speaking there!  

D. Winton Thomas actually suggested the emendation to "And I said...".  
The NJPS translation keeps the 3rd person singular subject -- with Isaiah 
as the speaker -- and assumes that Isaiah's name was simply elided.  I 
think this is a reasonable way to understand this passage.

andrew gross

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From: Jim Deardorff <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 22:25:27 -0800 (PST)

On Tue, 30 Jan 1996, Andrew Gross wrote:
> .....

   (I wrote:)  
> > Who is it that is speaking in Is 7:13-17 on?  The 

> think this is a reasonable way to understand this passage.

To me this sort of editorial confusion suggests a substantial amount of 
editorial work went on here before this area of Isaiah got patched together.
Thus I'm not at all sure the Immanuel prophecy even belonged originally in 
with the Ahaz story.

Thanks for the recommendation on the Kutscher monograph.

Jim Deardorff
Oregon State University

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From: David Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 11:49:03 -0500 (EST)

> why you don't see it in the RSV.

	Oddly, BHS, which often cites Qumran documents in its apparatus, 
includes no mention of this variant.

David L. Moore                             Southeastern Spanish District
Miami, Florida                               of the  Assemblies of God
[email-masked]           Department of Education
http://members.aol.com/dvdmoore

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From: Andrew Gross <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 23:41:27 -0500 (EST)

> includes no mention of this variant.

This is not so surprising.  The editors of BHS did not mechanically cite
every single variant that exists.  They culled through all of them and
simply noted those which they thought would be of some interest.  Those
which they deemed to be complete abberations, they simply left out.  D. 
Winston Thomas, who edited Isaiah for BHS, must have decided that this 
variant was not worth noting.

cheers,

andrew gross