Subject: tc-list OT variants in Mekhilta

From: Jean Valentin <[email-masked]>
Date: Lun, 1 Fv 99 01:03:57 +0100

Dear TC-ers,

For once I'll write about OT variants. One of my hobbies when I want to 
relax after collating Arabic Nt manuscripts is Rabbinical literature. I'm 
not planning to do scholarly work on this, but my curiosity pushes me to 
explore it once in a while. Here at home I have a pentateuch in a 
rabbinical edition, with targums and the tannaitic midrashim accompanied 
by the commentaries of the Malbim. I just noticed a few singular features 
in the biblical quotations in the text of the Mekhilta d-Rabbi Yishmael, 
which I didn't expect in such an edition: they have variants!

Here are a few:

Ex. 3.6 (TM) wy'mr 'nky 'lhy 'byk 'lhy 'brhm...
Mek 1.3 has wy'mr 'nky (h'l) 'lhy 'byk 'lhy 'brhm...
The brackets probably mean that the editor of the text noticed that this 
word - ha'el - was not in his MT but was in his ms of the Mekhilta?

Lev. 26.42: Mek 1.3 puts the 2nd and 3rd 't (eth) between square 
brackets. This could mean that they were not in his ms of the Mekhilta 
but that the editor inserts them according to his MT.?

2 Chr 13.5 ntn mmlkh
Mek 1.4 ntn ('t h)mmlkh
In Mek., there's thus the insertion of eth + article. Once again, the 
brackets, like in Ex. 3.6, would mean that the editor didn't find that in 
his MT.

Jer 36.32 w`wd nwsp
Mek 1.4 w`wd (ywsyp) [nwsp]
Here, the text of the Mekhilta ms would have nwsp, while the MT has ywsyp.

Though variant readings are to be expected anywhere, I didn't expect to 
find them, and at such a high frequency (these are only two paragraphs of 
the first parasha of the Mekhilta) in Rabbinic literature. Have there 
been studies about this phenomenon?

Thanks for any remark, bibliographical reference, etc...

Jean V.

Jean Valentin - 34 rue du Berceau - 1000 Bruxelles - Belgique
e-mail : [email-masked]