I read a chapter about #HebrewBible #TextualCriticism in the 19th C, and now I better understand the background between the separation of textual criticism starting where literary criticism ends, which I see in the work e.g. of Tov, but I still think the division is artificial and misleading.

Actually it turns out that he vs. heth is the most common letter confusion in #Samaritan #Genesis. That surprises me, but I've found twenty such confusions among proper names. I suspect the lack of pronunciation difference helps.
4/3
#HebrewBible #TextualCriticism #SamaritanPentateuch

The final letter being he or heth is also a very easy confusion in Hebrew square script, but much harder in Samaritan or Paleo-Hebrew. I don't have an idea what that difference might indicate.
3/3
#HebrewBible #TextualCriticism

The Vulgate and the Masoretic Text agree, but the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Septuagint, and the Peshitta all disagree on the totals. Pesh nearly agrees, only rounding up Lamech's age at procreation to a round 200 (why?). But SamP and LXX are more interesting.
2/
#HebrewBible #TextualCriticism

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Calling all #Vulgate, #textualcriticism, #patristics, #biblicalscholarship, #manuscript peeps: late last night I started musing on colometry in Vulgate MSS, as one does on a Saturday night, and I buried it deep in a thread. Any recs on literature on this, new or old?

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#Deuteronomy 12 famously refers to a place YHWH will choose for his cult, which scholars often take as referring to Josiah's reforms (2 Kings 23). But in Deuteronomy the verbs are future tense (יבחר).

Or are they? SamP thinks otherwise.

#HebrewBible #TextualCriticism
1/?

Okay, a rabbit trail may have revealed a funny point about the NRSV's textual history.

#Genesis 10:14 = #1Chronicles 1:12 lists the peoples of Pathros, Kasluh, & Kaphtor, mentioning in passing that the Philistines came from Kasluhites.

#Jeremiah & #Amos disagree.
1/?
#HebrewBible #TextualCriticism

I know that the presence or absence of matres lectionis (vocalic waw or yod) isn't meaningful, semantically or textually.

Yet often a verse differs in SamP and MT in that SamP has a mater lectionis in one word where MT lacks it, and MT has one where SamP lacks it.
1/?
#HebrewBible #TextualCriticism

A screenshot of Von Gall's edition of Exodus 27:9-10, which reads: 9ועשית את חצר המשכן לפאת נגבה תימנה קלעים לחצר שש משזר מאה באתה ארך לפאה האחת 10ועמדיו עשרים ואדניהם עשרים נחשת וויהם וחשקיהם כסף

We must use critical editions critically. I noticed that Von Gall's edition of #Exodus 27:9 reads באתה where MT reads בָֽאַמָּה֙, despite the fact that Kennicott's edition (which favors readings where SamP≠MT) does not note it. Is this a real variant, or just a typo?
1/2
#HebrewBible #TextualCriticism

In #1Samuel 20:2, there's an interesting ketiv/qere:
K: לו־עשה
Q: לֹֽא־יַעֲשֶׂ֨ה

Hyphens & vowels were added later & word spacing is unreliable in ancient Hebrew manuscripts, so I wonder if there has been a w/y interchange here, and earlier it read ליעשה with negative L-.

#HebrewBible #TextualCriticism

In #Psalms 11:1 (10:1 in OG numbering), the verse ends:
MT: הַרְכֶ֥ם צִפּֽוֹר
your mountain, bird
OG: ἐπὶ τὰ ὄρη ὡς στρουθίον
to the mountains like a bird
= Pesh: ܥܠ ܛܘܪ̈ܐ ܐܝܟ ܨܦܪܐ
~ Vulg: in montem ut avis
Tg: לטורא/לטוריכון/ היך צפורא
to (the/your) mountains like a bird

#HebrewBible #TextualCriticism
1/?

Comparing the SamP with MT systematically, I think I am seeing a nearly consistently different use of waw in lists, and in Exodus, several places where SamP's דבר corresponds to MT's אמר, oddly.

Anyone know of scholarship on these?
#HebrewBible #TextualCriticism #SamaritanPentateuch

I'm amused by a textual variation in #Genesis 45:24, when Joseph sent his brothers back to Jacob to invite him to Egypt:

MT: וַיְשַׁלַּ֥ח אֶת־אֶחָ֖יו וַיֵּלֵ֑כוּ וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֲלֵהֶ֔ם אַֽל־תִּרְגְּז֖וּ בַּדָּֽרֶךְ
SamP: וישלח את אחיו וילכו ויאמר אלהים אל תתרגזו בדרך

The addition of a yod changes things!
1/
#HebrewBible #TextualCriticism

They cannot leave

MT: עַ֣ד אֲשֶׁ֤ר יֵאָֽסְפוּ֙ כָּל־הָ֣עֲדָרִ֔ים
(until all the flocks are gathered)
SamP: עד אשר יאספו כל הרעים
(until all the shepherds are gathered)
[Genesis 28:8]

Only the last word is different:
העדרים vs. הרעים

#HebrewBible #TextualCriticism
2/?

Here's a fun one: near synonyms due to near #haplography or #dittography in #Genesis 28:

When Jacob goes to Harran, to his uncle Laban, there's a well with a big stone, so the shepherds gather the flocks to water there during the day.

The shepherds explain:

1/?
#HebrewBible #TextualCriticism

In #Nehemiah 10:30 (=10:29 English), where MT reads ʾaddîrēyhem, LXX reads καὶ κατηράσαντο αὐτοὺς. Might this represent Hebrew ʾaddîrûhem, interpreted as an (Aramaic) Aphʿel of ndr? Apparently the verb ndr does not have a hiphʿil form in use in Biblical Hebrew.
#HebrewBible #TextualCriticism

It is hoped that this shows that there is more variation in which name refers to God in chapters 2-8 of Genesis than in the Abraham and Isaac stories, at least.

I wonder if these sorts of differences in agreement may be a faint echo of compositional processes.

5/5
#HebrewBible #TextualCriticism

Reviving my analysis of names of God in #Genesis, after chap. 1 (all witnesses agree >90%), there is a sharp drop in agreement in the first ten chapters, and then, as we move into the patriarchal narratives, a greater degree of unanimity.
#HebrewBible #TextualCriticism

1/?
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