masora

Genesis 18:22 (phenomenon)

Not everything found in Codices of Hebrew Bible nor in the printed editions of the Hebrew Bible is translated in Christian editions of the OT.

There are numerous notes, lists, and pages left by the Masoretes that are rarely if ever translated into English or any other modern language.

Common examples of this include the Masorah Ketanah, Masorah Gedolah, keri uchetiv (Qere) readings, data list at the end of each book, mikra Soferim, ittur Soferim, and the Tiqqune Soferim.

In the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (page 25 print) Genesis 18:22 is notated with two lowercase ‘a’ one before (and Avraham) ‬וְאַ֨בְרָהָ֔ם and one attached to יְהוָֽה (YHWH /usually translated as LORD)

a‬וְאַ֨בְרָהָ֔ם עֹודֶ֥נּוּ עֹמֵ֖ד לִפְנֵ֥י יְהוָֽהa‬

(a) but, Avraham still stood before YHWH (a) (Genesis 18:22)

the (a)s direct us to the apparatus or footnotes:

22 a–a Tiq soph, lect orig אברהם … ויהוה

‘Tiq soph’ tells us that we are encountering what is known as a Tiqqūn sōferīm

‘lect’ is short for ‘lectio’ (reading)

‘Orig’ is short for originalis (original)

What, the abbreviated notes from the BHS’ textual apparatus are telling us is that originally the text may have ‘theoretically’ read:”but, YHWH still stood before Avraham“. This text is one of the 18 tiqqūnēy sōferīm texts that were alleged (according to tradition) changed by the ancient scribes for theological reasons.

This begs the question: “what was the theological reason that the text was supposedly changed for”?

Some claim that this text put YHWH is less role by having YHWH stand before Avraham rather than the other around, but it, in my opinion, is more likely that the alleged Scribes were worried if read that way it would paint an anthropomorphic picture of YHWH by directly stating that YHWH was actually standing in front of Avraham. The Masoretes themselves did not make the Tiqquney Soferim changes but only noted changes they believed had happened.

However, If the Masoretes were Karaite Jews (as some claim) rather than Rabbinic Jews and they would have outright rejected the early Midrashic/oral interpretations that claimed that YHWH would either manifest himself personally as the Memra and or Metatron or that these were mediators or conduits with which to speak to mankind. I have no doubt that would not have not also have found the later text found in Christian canon John 8:56-58 problematic too none the less they wanted to make sure that any changes or textual phenomenon were noted.

Sources Cited:
(1) Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia: SESB Version. electronic ed. Stuttgart: German Bible Society, 2003. Print.
(2) Weil, Gérard E., K. Elliger, and W. Rudolph, Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft. Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia. 5. Aufl., rev. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1997. Print.

Psalm chapter 23 verse 1: looking at the Masorah

Opening your Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS) to page 1105 you notice Psalm 23:1 at the bottom of the page.

Scanning the first verse you notice the two raised circles in the verse. One above the phrase מִזְמ֥וֹר לְדָוִֽד (a Mizmor of David) and one above רֹעִ֗י (my Shepherd). The first circle alerts you to the Masorah Parva (the ancient abbreviated Masoretic reference notes on the side of the page in a codex now reproduced in the BHS). The note reads as follows ח̇ ר״פ . Recalling that Hebrew Letters can sometimes act as numbers you recognize that letter chet ח̇ is functioning as the number 8 and ר״פ abbreviation on side of it is shorthand for ראש פסוק (rosh Pasuk / head of verse). You quickly conclude that the ancient masoretes are trying to tell you that:

Psalm 23:1 contains one of 8 instances where מִזְמ֥וֹר לְדָוִֽד occurs as the first two words of a verse.

Naturally, this arouses your interest, unfortunately, the Masoretic notes that lead you to the other 8 verses are not to be found in the BHS. Fortunately, however Bible software and or concordances can speedily provide you with the answer. You find that the string מִזְמ֥וֹר לְדָוִֽד occurs 28 times in the Hebrew Bible then scanning through the 28 verse you discover that Masoretes were correct in indicating that מִזְמ֥וֹר לְדָוִֽד appears as the first two words of a verse 8 times in the Binle or as a heading.

are a Mizmor of David. (by the way during the Masoretes times there were not verse number systems so the Masoretes simply wrote either the most notable words of a verse or the first few words.)

Now you turn you attention to the second the raised circle found over the רֹעִ֗י (my Shepherd) and turning back to the margin and notice ה̇this time there is a ‘hey’ rather than a ‘chet’. The ‘hey’ being the 5th letter of the Hebrew alphabet is clearly acting as the number 5. This means that רֹעִ֗י rather something about רֹעִ֗י occurs five times. It is pretty clear that word shepherd must be found more than five times in scripture so what then are the Masoretes trying to communicate. In a real codex, both the Masorah Parva (short notes) and the Masorah magna (longer note) are present but in the BHS there is only room for the short notes so the longer notes were put in another volume. At the bottom of the page, you notice the register alerting you the MM (Masorah Magna) being found in the sperate volume under the index number 3232.

So, you head over to Gérard Emmanuel Weil‘s transcription of the
Masorah Magna found in the companion volume for the BHS (either in print or in faith life Logos Bible Software’s: digital edition as pictured below) :

Directly above the verse list, you see the note רֹעִ֗י ה̇ סימנהון telling you that these are the five times.

Now, you understand that although the lemma for Shepherd appears l67 times in 138 verses “My shepherd” in this morphological form is found only five times and thus these terms and verses are special in the scriptures. Of course a word looking the same as my shepherd but meaning my friend also occurs throughout scripture. In the pre-Masoretic text without the vowel points and accents, both ‘My friend’ and ‘My Shepherd’ would have been identical. This leads you to consider the possibility that the writer of Psalms my have had both meanings in mind.

There are a lot more layers of Masoretic notes but we only briefly look at two examples of one type of the notes. Keep in mind this excessive was only at the word level. Later one might also like to look at the semantic level, sentence level, passage level, and discourse level.

1 Kings 17:6 an Orthographic Issue

It would seem that most (if not all) translators follow the ‘Ktiv Menuqad’ of the ‘Masoretic’ text when attempting to render 1 kings 17:6 into English. In doing so translators have either knowingly or unwittingly accepted the Masoretes’ interpretation of scripture. The text that lay before the Masoretes was probably the ambiguous והערבים . Without, the Neqqudot the word could be read either as ‘ravens’ or ‘Arabs’ depending on its literary context or on the interpreter’s decision. However, the Masoretes who added the Neqqudot had to decide whether to point the word with the ‘patach’ vowel under the letter ‘Ayin’ or a ‘Holam’ above the letter ‘Ayin’. A simple change of even a single vowel point can sometimes radically alter the meaning of a word in classical Hebrew and that actually is the only difference between the reading ‘ravens’ or ‘Arabs’.

Examine the image below carefully. The vowel points are in red to make it easier to spot the difference between these two readings/vocalizations/interpretations:

What’s your opinion or take on the above?

Untitled.png.c96b160364e06327073b11b4bb588493.png

Jeremiah 42:6

The following widely used editions of the Hebrew Bible agree with the followig reading: אֲֽנַ֜וְּ
1)The Jerusalem Crown: Keter Yerushalayim (pg. 467)
(2)BHS (pg 867)
(3)Rabbi M. Breuer’s Tanakh( שנט or pg. 359 )
(3)Letteris Tanakh (pg. 812)
(4)Norman Henry Snaith’s Tanakh (Pg. 776)
(5)DavkaWriter Hebrew Bible

These three popular versions leave אנו unpointed (without vowel points)
(1) C.D. Ginsburg Tanakh (pg. 912)
(2) Koren Tanach (pg. 430)
(3) Adi (A. Dotan) Tanakh (pg. 712)
(4) The Stone Edition of the Tanach (pg. 1172)
(5)The JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh (pg. 1115)

TanakhML Project and the online Westminster Leningrad Codex 4.14 have אֲנַ֜חְנוּ in the text with אנו as a subscript. however, both also display other choices. If you click on אֲנַ֜חְנוּ in the TanakhML it will open another page with variants.

Jeremiah 42:6 in some editions of the Hebrew Bible might prove hard to find because they may utilizes Hebrew letters as numbers. In Hebrew Jeremiah 42:6 might look something like this ספר ירמיה (the book of Jeremiah) then פרק מב (section 42) and ו (the number 6).

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.