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The Masora Thesaurus (part two)

I originally posted the following as a series of replies on the Accordance forums in December of 2015.

The printed BHS only contains the Masora Parva, Masora finalis (and a highly edited form of that). Also. The editors of the BHS put theMasora Magna in a separate volume that is now out of print (although a digital edition of that does exist).

The  Masorah Thesaurus has so much more. It has the unedited Masorah Parva, the Masorah Magna of the Leningrad Codex(and other sources, too), as well cross references to other Masoretic list, notations, and texts (as well as more). The Masorah Thesaurus is of course searchable in ways that neither the print edition of the BHS nor the digital edition of Gerard E. Weil’s Massorah Gedolah: Manuscrit B. 19a de Léningrad are.

MP notes

In a printed edition of the BHS we turn to page one or to Genesis 1:1. Now, we notice the raised circle above  בְּרֵאשִׁית . That circle in our printed BHS alerts us to the marginal notes called Masora Parva. To better illustrate what has just been said take a look at the following: 

In the photo (or in the BHS) we notice that the fist letter of the note is the fifth letter of the Hebrew Alphabet  ה̇.  We, also notice that the ה̇is has a small dot over it. When we see a dot over a letter that often tells us that the letter is meant to be read as a number. In this case, we read is as telling us that there are five occurrences of the word  בְּרֵאשִׁית in the text of the Tanach/Hebrew Bible.

We, also notice that there are two other Hebrew letters in the note with dots; both ג̇ and ב̇ followed by abbreviations or shorthand notes.   ג̇ being the third letter of the alphabet represent 3, and ב̇ being the second letter represents two (2 plus 3 is, of course, five). So, the Masora tells us that בְּרֵאשִׁיתstarts a stanza(ר״פ)   three times (ג̇) , and is embedded in a stanza ( מ״פ)   two times(ב̇).

This may help us understand the above abbreviations:

(Within, inside) מ = מצעא

(Head, start)      רֹ =ראש

(verse/Stanza)  פ  = פסוקֹ, פסֹ, פסוֹ

Sometimes (or at least I have seen some use) קֹ in place of פסוקֹ

However, since the Masora Parva is brief it does not list those occurrences mentioned above. Before the advent of the Masorah Thesaurus that we would need to run a quick Accordance search, check out  a paper concordance, or wade through Masoretic lists to find all of the occurrences mention in the BHS’ Masora Parva.

The Masora Magna Register at the bottom of the printed BHS, however, does indicate where we can (or could in past time) quickly locate the list in Weil’s Massorah Gedolah.

Unfortunately, the Massorah Gedolah is out of print, but as mention, before there is a digital version of it in another software platform. Before I got access to the Masorah Thesaurus module I, will admit, I used to use the digital version of Weil’s Massorah Gedolah a fair bit and it still has its place. However, the  Masorah Thesaurus module  offers much more than what Weil’s Massorah Gedolah does.

Now, turn to Genesis 43:8 in a printed edition of the BHS (page 71). Let’s look at a rather famous example:

וַיֹּ֨אמֶר יְהוּדָ֜ה אֶל־יִשְׂרָאֵ֣ל אָבִ֗יו שִׁלְחָ֥ה הַנַּ֛עַר אִתִּ֖י וְנָק֣וּמָה וְנֵלֵ֑כָה וְנִֽחְיֶה֙ וְלֹ֣א נָמ֔וּת גַּם־אֲנַ֥חְנוּ גַם־אַתָּ֖הגַּם־טַפֵּֽנוּ׃

Take a look at the Masora Parva note for Genesis 43:8 : י̇ב̇ פסוק̇ גם גם גם

י̇ב̇ = 12

Verses =פסוק̇

גם גם גם = a construction/string גם

The meaning = There are 12 verses in the Tanach where גם occurs three times.

The Mm register for Genesis 43:8 only has Mm index numbers for the following words:

שִׁלְחָה= Mm index number 2915

וְנָקוּמָה = Mm Index number 3078

In other words neither the BHS nor it’s companion volume Weil’s Masorah Gedolah can help you in finding the list or references for the 12 occurrences of the גם גם גם construction.

Also, in this case, a paper concordance will be of little help since

גם appears something like 769 times in the Tanach/Hebrew Bible.

Click Searching on גם will similarly not help you much.

(However, Accordance’s construction search can find examples of the structure and depending on how many intervening word you selected between each of the גם your results will vary).

However, Since we have the Masorah Thesaurus we can easily find everything the Masora Parva note of the BHS was alluding to:

(1) Open the Masorah Thesaurus

(2) Open the Table contents

(3) Type in גם and search

(4) Now, we will find the information we wanted to know at:

Paragraph 43839 of 188291

Paragraph 43844 of 188291

Paragraph 43850 of 188291

As we can see there simply isn’t enough space in the printed/paper BHS to provide that type of detailed information for every MasorParvava note. This one reason (there are many more) why the Masorah Thesaurus is indispensable for Masoretic studies.

The Masorah Thesaurus

Yet, another reason to get excited about Accordance for Windows and the original Mac OS version as well! Accordance has just released the first part of the Masora Thesaurus. When completed this encyclopedic like volume will contain the complete text of the Masorah Gedolah, Masorah Ketanah, and the Masorah Finalis of the oldest complete codex of the Hebrew Bible/Tanakh known as the Leningrad Codex B19a. This work will also include 30 years worth of Aron Dotan’s notes on the Masora. Aron Dotan is chair of the International Organization for Masoretic Studies and editor of the Biblia Hebraica Leningradensia. Now, this begs the question of what is the Masora?

The term Masorah is ordinarily used in modern biblical studies to refer to the body of marginal notes (i.e., Masoretic notes) which are transmitted with the text, either in a manuscript or in a printed edition. However, this is the narrow sense of the word. In its broadest sense, Masorah refers to traditions and rules, passed down in Judaism for generations, which regulate all aspects of the copying and use of Bible manuscripts…

The Masorah can be divided into several subdivisions. The Masorah Parva (Mp) consists of the Masoretic notes in the side margins of manuscripts (cf. BHS). The Masorah Magna (Mm) includes the notes in the upper and lower margins of the manuscripts…

The Masorah Finalis (Mf) refers to the material collected at the end of a particular book, section (e.g., Torah) or manuscript. In manuscripts, the Mf consists of summary lists, such as the number of verses, sedarim, etc., and information of this type is included in BHS at the end of books.

Kelley, Page H., Daniel S. Mynatt, and Timothy G. Crawford. The Masorah of Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia: Introduction and Annotated Glossary. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1998.

The Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS) the longtime popular edition of the Hebrew Bible. only contains the Masora Parva, Masora finalis (and a highly edited form of that). The Masora not unlike the anotations one finds in a reference Bible. However the Masora goes futher noteing issues like grammar, syntax, spelling, unsual/rare words, word counts, and even typo graphy. The editors of the BHS put the Masora Magna in a separate volume that is now out of print (although a digital edition of that does exist) and hard to find. Now, for the first time since the Leningrad Codex was discovered it’s entire Masora is being made available to the public thanks to Oak Tree, Accordance Bible Software!

Enter Accordance Bible Software‘s Marorah Thesaurus database.

The Masorah Thesaurus has so much more than the printed Masora Magna of the BHS. Accordance database has the unedited Masorah Parva, the Masorah Magna of the Leningrad Codex(AND other Manuscritpt, too), as well cross-references to other Masoretic lists, notations, and texts (as well as much more). Accordance digital Masorah Thesaurus database is, of course, searchable in ways that neither the print edition of the BHS nor the standard digital edition of Gerard E. Weil’s Massorah Gedolah: Manuscrit B. 19a de Léningrad are. 

So, that we can better appreciate the Masorah Thesaurus let’s first take a quick look at what the printed BHS offers. 

In a printed edition of the BHS we turn to page one or to Genesis 1:1. Now, we notice the raised circle above  בְּרֵאשִׁית . That circle in our printed BHS alerts us to the marginal notes called Masora Parva. To better illiterate what has just been said take a look at the following screenshot: 

In the photo above (or in the BHS) we notice that the frist letter of the note is the fifth letter of the Hebrew Alphabet  ה̇.  We, also notice that the ה̇ is has a small dot over it. When we see a dot over a letter that often tells us that the letter is meant to be read as a number. In this case, we read is as telling us that there are five occurrences of the word  בְּרֵאשִׁית in the text of the Tanach/Hebrew Bible.

We, also notice that there are two other Hebrew letters in the note with dots; both ג̇ and ב̇ followed by abbreviations or short hand notes.   ג̇ being the third letter of the alphabet represent 3, and ב̇ being the second letter represents two (2 plus 3 is of course five). So, the Masora tells us that בְּרֵאשִׁית starts a stanza(ר״פ)   three times (ג̇) , and is embedded in a stanza ( מ״פ)   two times(ב̇).

This may help us understand the above abbreviations:

  (Within, inside) מ = מצעא

  (Head, start)      רֹ =ראש

  (verse/Stanza)  פ  = פסוקֹ, פסֹ, פסוֹ 

Sometimes (or at least I have seen some use) קֹ in place of פסוקֹ

However, since the Masora parva is brief it does not list those occurrences mentioned above. Before the advent of the Masorah Thesaurus that we would need to run a quick Accordance search, checkout  a paper concordance, or wade through Masoretic lists to find all of the occurrences mention in the BHS’ Masora Parva. The Masora Magna Register at the bottom of the printed BHS, however, does indicate where we can (or could in past time) quickly locate the list in Weil’s Massorah Gedolah. See:

Unfortunately, Weil’s Massorah Gedolah is out of print, but as mention before there is a digital version of it in another software platform for 99.99USD. However as Accordance Bible Software Masora Thesaurus just about the same at 99.09 it is arguable the better deal because it contain so much more value for the buck.

ACCORDANCE FOR WINDOWS HAS BEEN RELEASED!

Accordance may be new to Windows, but it has over two decades of experience in the industry. For, at least one of those decades it has had an emulator capable of running it on Windows OS, but finally, a truly windows native version has been developed and released make the superseding the emulator and making it redundant.

So, what does it look like?
It looks like Accordance 10 has always looked like, Eloquent.

What does it cost?

Only 49.99 USD to get started!

From there one can either upgrade to one of the larger packages

or cherry-pick from one of OakTree Accordance’s various bundles and individual modules.

Where can I find out more?

https://www.accordancebible.com/

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