Software

The Cairo Bible, of the year 1010

Throughout the world, there are many manuscripts (ancient copies) of individual books and sections from the Hebrew Bible. The most famous manuscripts are probably those found in Khirbet Qumran near Ein Feshka in other words the manuscripts that are popularly known as the Dead Sea Scrolls. These scrolls represent some of the earliest manuscripts of portions of the Hebrew Bible.

Two more important but not as early texts are the Aleppo Codex and the Cairo Bible, of the year 1010 (the Leningrad Codex). The Aleppo Codex is slightly older than the Leningrad Codex, but the Leningrad Codex is complete, while the Aleppo Codex has a number of missing sections. So, while the Leningrad Codex is far from having the oldest representation of any individual book of the Hebrew Bible, the Leningrad Codex is non-the-less the oldest complete Codex of the Hebrew.

Today the Leningrad Codex is housed in the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg in part of a collection of manuscripts known as the First Firkovich Collection. The Leningrad Codex is thought to have been produced in Cairo, Egypt around the year 1008–1009 CE by a scribe named Samuel ben Jacob.

Sometime between 1862 and 1876 Abraham Firkovich acquired the Leningrad Codex and brought Odessa in 1838. later the codex transferred to the Imperial Library in Leningrad now St Petersburg. Where did Abraham Firkovich find the Cairo Bible of 1010? No one knows and this remains a mystery to this day. What is not a mystery is that Paul E. Kahle recommended the use of the Leningrad Codex as the base text for the 3rd edition of Kittel’s Biblia Hebraica. From 1935 to 1937 Paul Kahle was granted permission to borrow the codex so that he could have it transcribed and typsetted to become part of the Biblia Hebraica Series. Since 1937 the vast majority of New Bible translations of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament have used the Biblia Hebraica and thus also the Leningrad Codex.

While the Leningrad Codex is not as old as the Dea Sea Scrolls, because it is the basis for the majority of modern translations of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament it is of great importance! However, not everyone can afford a flight to St Petersburg, and even those who can may find it difficult to get permission to study the Leningrad Codex in person. But fear not! Why? Because, the West Semitic Research Project’s photo fascicle of every page of the Leningrad Codex can now be accessed digitally on computers, smartphones, and tablets through Accordance Bible Software. With Accordance’s Leningrad Codex module, one can double-check the BHS / BHQ, read the Masoretic notes, and examine the manuscript at home or on the go.

Leningrad Codex Images

Question about blank Parenthesis in electronic texts of the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS)

If you have ever used a digital version of the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (link) in Bible Software you may have run across words in parenthesis. In general the words you find in Parenthesis are what are known as the קרי(Qere / read). The Qere are suggested scribal corrections of typos or errors found in Hebrew manuscripts and in the case of the BHS those found in the Leningrad Codex (link) now housed at the National Library of Russia in Saint Petersburg . The Qere is the corrected text that is to be read while the כתיב (K’tiv /writen) is what is actually written in the text before you. The Masoretes were afraid of editing the ancient manuscript so instead they added footnotes and margin notes with corrections. In general when using a digital Hebrew text you will find these ancient correction in Parenthesis. Now, Sometimes you may come across black Parenthesis and in the case of Accordance Bible Software(link) these may be labeled/tagged as קק qq [qere blank]. You will find on these in Ruth chapter 3 verse 12.

Well, what does this mean…

This means that there is no קרי(Qere / read) for the word אִם there is only the כתיב (K’tiv /writen) for אִם and furthermore other Hebrew manuscripts of Ruth from the Middle Ages also do not have a קרי(Qere) at verse 12. If you have the BHS in print turn to page 1323 look at verse 12 of Ruth chapter 3 and notice the מסורה קטנה (Masorah Katana or Parva) written on the right hand margin here by the בַּעֲלֵי הַמָּסוֹרָה (Masoretes) you will notice that they tells us that this one of 8 times were a word is to be written and not read.

Here is a picture of the Masorah Parva / Masorah Katana of the BHS on page 1323

And it reads thus….

אִם חד מן ח̇ כת̇ ולא קר̇ “The word אִם is one of 8 words which are to be written but not to be read”. Naturally, you might want to know where the other occurrences are, right. Well, you are in luck! The beautiful Accordance Masorah Thesaurus module(link) lists all 8 times of the occurrence of the ‘write not read’ phenomenon:

The electronic version of Weil, Gérard. E’s Massorah Gedolah: Manuscrit B. 19a de Léningrad. Rome: Pontificium Institutum Biblicum, 2001 from Logos also list all 8 occurrences. Although in a different order see:

At first sight Logos’ Massorah Gedolah might look more helpful since there are some English verse references on the side, However, Accordance’s Masorah Thesaurus module has much more … so much more. For example If you enter Ruth 3:12 you will get three different list on the verse. But, that’s not all! The Masorah Thesaurus is not based only on one manuscript, rather the creators of it looked at multiple manuscripts and Masorah, on the other hand the Massorah Gedolah is based only on the Leningrad Codex and it is also a high edited version of the Leningrad codex’s Masorah. BUT, Okay, it is good, helpful and fun to have both!

Today’s post is a slightly edited version of an answer I wrote earlier this year on a thread in the Accordance Forums see: https://forums.accordancebible.com/topic/35879-qere-blank-in-hebrew/

Thanks for reading!

How to use a Biblical Hebrew Dictionary: Verbs

Rabbi Dr. David Moster is the director of the Institute of Biblical Culture and an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Hebrew Bible at the Jewish Theological Seminary. He is the author of two Biblical Hebrew cards (links above) and “Etrog: How a Chinese Fruit Became a Jewish Symbol.” David received his PhD in תנ״ך (Hebrew Bible) from Bar-Ilan University in Israel, and holds degrees in Bible, Education, and Rabbinics from Yeshiva University and New York University.

Accordance Bible Software and The Concise Dictionary of Classical Hebrew module available for purchase from the Accordance store are used throughout this video.

Disclaimer: The posting of this video represents neither an endorsement nor a negation of the lexicography and theories employed by the concise dictionary of classical Hebrew. The purpose of posting this video is to show how a dictionary or lexicon of your choice (provided it is available on the Accordance store) could be use in Accordance Bible Software.

Reading Plan 2023

Over at Accordance Forums (link) I have created a new reading plan for reading ‘Greek in a year’ (link) or rather for the remaining months of the 2023. The book of choice is 3rd John, because it is so short I think it possible for anyone to leisurely read through it by the end of 2023.

The reading plan for The Third Epistle of John is as follows:

Week 1 (October 23rd to October 21st) 3rd John verse 1 (Link)
Week 2 (October 29th to November 4th) 3rd John verse 2 (link)
Week 3 (November 5th to November 11th) 3rd John verse 3 (Link)
Week 4 (November 12th to November 18th) 3rd John verse 4 (link)
Week 5 (November 19th to November 25th) 3rd John verse 5 (link)
Week 6 (November 26th to December 2nd) 3rd John verse 6 (link)
Week 7 (December 3rd to December 9th) 3rd John verses 7 & 8 (link)
Week 8 (December 10th to December 16th). 3rd John verses 9 & 10 (link)
Week 9 (December 17th to December 23rd). 3rd John verses 11 & 12
Week 10 (December 24th to December 31st) 3rd John verses 13 to 15

If, you are just beginning Greek, have completed few semesters of Greek, or are rusty at Greek please join….

Regards,

Brian

The Ethnachta Clause

While reading along in The Art of Torah Cantillation (link) one stumbles upon the claim ( page 13) that one is encountering a list of the five of the most common variations of the etnachta clause (or clauses ending with the ‘enachta’ cantillation mark) in the Torah/Pentateuch.

The first pattern of the clause given on page 13 is:
‘Mercha, Tipcha, Munach, Etnachta’

You might wonder just how common the above pattern is and should you spend your time committing this pattern to memory or not? Great question but how does one go about answering such a question. In time past you would need to simply trust the authors’ judgment, scan through the Bible counting count all the patterns, or consult a concordance of the accents. Today, however, there are two currently available commercial software programs Accordance and now Logos as of 2019) that are capable of running searches on the cantillation marks and their patterns and there used to be a third program (BibleWorks) but it is no longer available for purchase.

While the three programs mentioned above are capable of running such queries Accordance Bible Software is my program of choice for the following reasons:

(1) Searches in Accordance are visually intuitive and quick to set up. You simply open the ‘character keyboard’ and click on the accent or accent marks you want to search on. No need for codes or esoteric program like language to run searches. The first program I used to run such searches BibleWorks required me to type in codes for each accent on the command line making searches time and energy-consuming to set up. At the time I was very thankful to be able to run such searches. Then when I tried Accordance and it was like a breath of fresh air there was no turning back.

(2) budget-friendly. If you already have a Hebrew text in Accordance you can run accent searches. No need to buy extra modules, database or dataset to run searches.

(3) bugless, glitchless, and almost error-free. Because Accordance was the first program to implement accents searches (back in 2003 with verse 6) they have had the time to work out almost all the issues over the years.
The Interface. Okay, I know this is very subjective! But I find the interface to be so intuitive that not only does it not get in my way, I almost completely forget about the interface while using the program.

Now, back to the question:

How common is the accent pattern: Mercha, Tipcha, Munach, Etnachta’ ?

in Accordance, the names are slightly different Merka, Tiphah, Munah, Atnah but it doesn’t matter as one does not need to type in the names all one needs to do is right-click on the visual representation of the accent(s) one desires to search on.

In Accordance Bible Software version 13 one would first need to open the program and a Hebrew Text of course. Then they would need to click on ‘Window‘ on the ‘menu bar‘ and on the drop-down menu select the option Characters.

After which the ‘Character Keyboard‘ (formerly known as the Character palette ) should appear.

Then in the search entry area simply type in a period before each clicking on each accent you would like to run a search on. (The period acts as a wildcard or place holder for a character in this search). If one is searching for an accent clause or pattern one needs to click the space bar between each period accent combination.

Then hit the enter button to run the search.

This search returned with 395 verses.