Hebrew Scriptures and More . . . .

Beginning with J. H. Michaelis in 1720,¹ but primarily in the works of Benjamin Kennicott² and J. B. De Rossi³ in the late 1700s a major effort was made to collect and collate the known medieval biblical Hebrew manuscripts. This was motivated by the continuing issues of both biblical inspiration and sola scriptura. Since the works of Cappellus, Morinus and others had cast doubt on the these very points, the gauntlet was taken up by these studies. As Goshen-Gottstein explains, “only the extensive study of Hebrew MSS could give an answer to the issue itself.”⁴ Kennicott for example, was convinced that “he could actually recover the original Word of God of the Old Testament,”⁵ probably based on his “belief in the inerrancy of Holy Scripture.”⁶ The end product was collection of variants that “consisted mostly of secondary scribal changes, parallelisms, normalizations, harmonizations or free associations.”⁷ Kennicott articulated his methodology thus:

“As to a Various Reading then, my opinion is - Varia est lectio ubicunque varie legitur. - whenever in two copies of the same writing the one differs from the other in word or letter or in the position of the same words or letters, every such difference is properly a various reading. And since every Variation from the original of an inspired author is a variation for the worse, every such variation is properly a corruption. Consequently, though every various reading proves a corruption to have happened, every various reading is not itself a corruption, because one of the various readings may be the true reading which obtained at first in the original.”⁸

As Reginald Fuller indicates, Richard Simon had already indicated that “copyists’ error must not be confused with genuine variant readings,”⁹ however Kennicott and scholars like Alexander Geddes, who utilized these massive collections tended to put these and other warnings aside.

These Herculean efforts however were methodologically flawed in several ways. First, the majority of the variant readings in these manuscript were actually those created in the medieval period. Second, the weighing of the manuscripts based on quantity was faulty. As Tov indicates, “in this context scholars usually quote the methodological rule formulated as manuscripta ponderantur, non numerantur, manuscripts are to be considered for their worth and not reckoned according to their number.”¹⁰ And third, although agreements were found between earlier versional readings and some of these medieval Hebrew manuscripts, their agreements were most likely coincidental.¹¹

1 Johann H. Michaelis, Biblia Hebraica (1720); Sanders also mentions works by: Theodor Christopher Lilienthan (1770); Georg Johann Ludwig Vogel (1765); Johann David Michaelis (1771); Charles François Houbigant (1753) along with the London and Paris polyglots. Sanders, “Hebrew Bible and Old Testament: Textual Criticism in the Service of Biblical Studies,” 55-6.

2 B. Kennicott, Vetus Testamentum Hebraicum cum Variis Lectionibus Volumes I-II (Oxford: Clarendon, 1776-80).

3 J. B. De Rossi, Viarae Lectiones Veteris Testamenti Volumes I-IV (Parma: ex regio typographeo [Bodoni], 1784-88, repr. Amsterdam 1969); J. B. De Rossi, Scholia Critica (, 1798)

4 Goshen-Gottstein, “Hebrew Biblical Manuscripts: Their History and Their Place in the HUBP Edition,” in Qumran and the History of the Biblical Text, ed. Frank Moore Cross and Shemaryahu Talmon (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975), 50.

5 Seters, The Edited Bible: The Curious History of the “Editor” in Biblical Criticism, 200.

6 McKane, Selected Christian Hebraists, 165.

7 Goshen-Gottstein, “Hebrew Biblical Manuscripts: Their History and Their Place in the HUBP Edition,” 52.

8 Benjamin Kennicott, The State of the Printed Hebrew Text Considered, 1753, volume 1, 272, quoted in Reginald G. Fuller, Alexander Geddes, 1737-1802: Pioneer of Biblical Criticism, Historic Texts and Interpreters in Biblical Scholarship, no. 3 (Sheffield: The Almond Press, 1984), 36.

9 Fuller, Alexander Geddes, 1737-1802: Pioneer of Biblical Criticism, 36.

10 Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 39.

11 Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 38-39. Tov is summarizing Goshen-Gottstein’s criticism. Tov also refers to a modern study by Cohen, in which the manuscripts from the Middle Ages can be divided into Ashkenazi and Sephardic traditions. Tov writes, “In his view the Sephardi manuscripts are close to the accurate Tiberian manuscripts, while Ashkenazi manuscripts . . . reflect other ancient traditions. . . .”

I stumbled across the booksprouts site this morning. This site sponsors online book clubs that could be used for eLearning and especially continuing education. It is free and the Demo Videos make it a user-friendly tool.

Ten Excellent Language Translators and Resources by Allen Stern lists a collection of language learning tools that may be helpful for learners.

I would add the Foreign Service Institute Language Courses site. This site provides some of the best mp3s and accompanying pdfs for modern language learning. Some of the languages that are offered in full are: Amharic, Arabic, Bulgarian, Cambodian, Cantonese, Chinese, Chinyanja, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hausa, Hindi, Hebrew, Hungarian, Igbo, Italian, Kituba, Korean, Lao, Luganda, Moré, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Sinhala, Swahili, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Twi, Vietnamese, Yoruba. There are other language tools such as podcasts, etc.

Johnstone, William. “The Use of the Reminiscences in Deuteronomy in Recovering the Two Main Literary Phases in the Production of the Pentateuch.” In Das Deuteronomium zwischen Pentateuch und Deuteronmistischen Geschichtswerk. ed. E. Otto and R. Achenbach, 247-73. Göttingen: Vanderhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004.

Johnstone’s understanding of the development of the Pentateuch is that “there was indeed a continuous pre-P presentation, and that that presentation should be associated with Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic literature. That “D-version”. . . , dating from the time of high excitement at the prospect of a universal in-gathering of Israel to the Land in approximately the third quarter of the sixth century BCE, has been subsequently edited by P. The date of that “P-edition” is indicated by the chronology of 4,000 years, which . . . is integral to it and points to a definitive composition in the early second century BCE. The D-version and P-edition are two literary works; the latter presupposes the former and supplies a vastly expanded edition of it, rather as, to use an inner-biblical analogy, Chronicles uses the Deuteronomistic History.”¹

As many recent scholars, Johnstone has done away with J, E, and even JE. He argues that “the earliest continuous literary version embedded in Genesis-Numbers is that which is reflected in the reminiscences of Deuteronomy.”² Johnstone came to this working hypothesis when he was dealing with the book of Exodus and noted many passages that were Deuteronomy-like, which scholarship tended to view as later interpolations.

In the present article, Johnstone compares the following group of texts: Exod 24.12, 18; 31.18 with Deut 9.9-10a; Exod 34.1-29 with Deut 10.1-11; Exod 32.7-20 with Deut 9-10 and finds many parallel reminiscences.

I am most interested in his approach to Numbers 10.29-22.1, since this is my present fixation. Johnstone suggests that Exod 17.1-7 in its D-version had been located between Num 11.3 and 11.4 and this was transposed by the P-editor.³ The following is an extended quote on this issue:

“Despite its undoubted D-features (Horeb in v. 6; I should also assign vv. 2, 4, 5 and 7 to D), Ex 17.1-7 is now set within a new P-framework: the places mentioned or implied in v. 1, “from the wilderness of Sin by stages . . . . (to) Rephidim” match stations 8 to 11 in the summary itinerary of Israel through the wilderness in Num 33,12-14, none of which occurs in Deuteronomy. The theory that the original D-form of Ex 17,1-7 belongs between the narratives of Num 11,1-3 and Num 11,4-34, in a D-version which matches the reminiscence in Deut 9,22, is confirmed by a common element in the structure of theses three narratives. Each ends with an aetiology of the name of the place where it occurred: as Num 11,3 and 34, so Ex 17,7. Further, as punishment is meted out on the rebellious people at Taberah and Kibroth-hattaavah in Num 11,1-3.33, thus explaining the name of the place in question, so it is to be expected that punishment will be meted out on the people at Massah and Meribah for “testing” and “striving” with the LORD. This is the punishment that is presently to be found in Ex 32,25-29; in the light of Deut 33,8, it is to be expected that this punishment is to be restored after the rebellioin at Massah and Meribah in Ex 17,1-7. It is likely, too, that the narrative in Ex 15,22-26, which like Ex 17,1-7 shows D-characteristics within a new P-framework, is also to be related to Ex 17,1-7 (cf. The verb נסה in Ex 15,25, which accords ill with the name of the place מָרָה with which it is presently associated).

It must further be pointed out that Ex 17,1-7 (and 15,23-26) is not the only narrative reused and transposed by P in Ex 15,22-192a. The reminiscence in Deut 1,6-18 of the appointment of the judges at the moment of departure from Horeb is matched precisely in the Kirbroth-hattaavah narrative in Num 11,11-17.23-30. The chronology of the narrative of the appointment of the judges which is presently found in Ex 18,13-27, dated as it is to the eve of Israel’s arrival at Sinai, is at variance with both the Deut 1,6-18 reminiscence and the matching narrative in Num 11,11-17.23-30. I suggest that the P-editor has created in Ex 18,13-27 a narrative parallel to that in Num 11,11-30 which he has transposed from D’s position after Horeb to before Sinai.

There are still further examples of such transpositions of duplicated narratives with the seeming purpose of creating a symmetrical narrative on either side of Sinai: the stories of manna and quails, and encounters with local populations (Ex 16/Num 11,4-10.18-22.31-35; Ex 17,8-13/Num 14,40-45; 20,1-3); the narrative of water from the rock in Ex 17,1-7 is itself duplicated on the other side of Sinai in Num 20,1-11, and relocated in its original position after Num 11,3. There is no narrative of complaining and rebelling in the wilderness before the arrival at the mountain anywhere in the reminiscences of Deuteronomy whether in ch. 1 or ch. 9. It is the construction of P. In the original D-version of Exodus there was no material in this position between Ex 15,22bα and 19,2b. The D-version closes seamlessly between these two verses.

The reason for P’s construction of this narrative of rebellion before the arrival at the Mountain is, I think, clear. It is to elevate Sinai as the location not of the covenant with the redeemed and initially responsive people as in D, but of the revelation of the Law: Torah is now the focal point of the Pentateuch.”⁴

Johnstone continues on, dealing with with Numbers 12-36 as well. His D-version and P-edition, then explains the general structure of the Tetrateuch with Sinai in the middle and the interesting fact that duplicated accounts are found on both sides of Sinai beginning after Exod 15.22 and restarting in Num 11.

1 Johnstone, “The Use of the Reminiscences in Deuteronomy,” 247-8.

2 Johnstone, “The Use of the Reminiscences in Deuteronomy,” 249.

3 Johnstone, “The Use of the Reminiscences in Deuteronomy,” 260.

4 Johnstone, “The Use of the Reminiscences in Deuteronomy,” 260-1.

Kent Hendricks from Logos Bible Software has informed me about their new project dealing with the Samaritan Pentateuch. This Samaritan Pentateuch Bundle will include:

• The entire text of the Pentateuch in Samaritan Hebrew
• The first-ever English translation of the Samaritan Pentateuch, prepared by Benyamin Tsedaka. This translation also highlights every place where the Samaritan Pentateuch differs from the Masoretic text.
• A complete English translation of the Masoretic text based on the 1917 JPS Tanakh with differences from the Samaritan Pentateuch highlighted.
• Supplemental material to the Samaritan Pentateuch, such as a glossary of proper names with their Masoretic equivalents, and appendices that compare the differences between the Masoretic text and the Samaritan Pentateuch with the Dead Sea Scrolls and Septuagint.
• Ze’ev Ben-Hayyim’s groundbreaking A Grammar of Samaritan Hebrew.

I believe this will be a great help in Pentateuchal research. It can be ordered as a Pre-Publication here.

Several years ago I presented the following about the proto-Samaritan and Samaritan Pentateuch:

In a 1970 article written by Bruce K. Waltke, the contributions of the Samaritan Pentateuch were summarized as follows:

“The Samaritan Pentateuch (SP) has two primary values for the literary critic of the Old Testament: (1) it points up the relative purity of the Massoretic Text (MT); and (2) when used in conjunction with the Septuagint (LXX) it can be a useful, though limited, tool in the hand of the critic as he seeks to restore the original text. In the field of higher criticism, the SP helps to establish the antiquity of the Pentateuch.”¹

Although Waltke’s relatively negative conclusions were based on his own investigation, his views align with the academic consensus before him in which it was said that the SP differed with the MT in 6000 details and in those differences the SP agreed with the LXX on 1600 occasions. Kyung-Rae Kim, in his 1994 doctoral dissertation, collated this material once again and concludes that:

“According to my own data, in 964 cases the Samaritan Pentateuch agrees with the Septuagint against the Massoretic Text. Of these, in 471 instances the readings are possibly irrelevant (independent), leaving only 493 cases in which the Septuagint almost certainly reflects a reading which is also found in the Samaritan Pentateuch. Of the 493 agreements, according to my calculations 328 cases reflect common harmonizations. Many such harmonizations could have occurred independently, since these textual alterations were made under the influence of the context or a parallel text. . . . the Septuagint contains many more harmonizations than the Samaritan Pentatuech. Therefore, the 493 (or possibly 964) agreements do not prove any close relationship between the two texts.”²

This means that the Samaritan Pentateuch could be recognized as a separate witness, while the agreement with the Greek texts can be understood as being “common exegesis.”³

At the same time in the wake of a pluriform understanding of the Bible in the second period of textual transmission, the Samaritan Pentateuch has been further re-evaluated. The discovery of texts at Qumran that show similar characteristics to the Samaritan Pentateuch but without the sectarian additions,⁴ the so-called proto-Samaritan, has renewed scholarly interest in this area. The works of Judith Sanderson on the 4QpaleoExod^m scroll⁵ and Nathan Jastram on the 4QNum^b scroll⁶ have further refined our understanding of this “pre-Samaritan group” in relations to the texts of Exodus and Numbers.

Esther and Hanan Eshel, labeling this group as harmonistic text, classified the Qumran material that tends to show this harmonization into two groups.

“. . . we can conclude that that harmonistic editing reflected in 4QPaleoExod^m, 8QPhyl, XQPhyl 3, 4QNum^b, 4QTest, 4Q364, and 4QPhyl J - has the same scope as that of the SP and most of the harmonistic changes documented in these scrolls also exist in the SP. However 4QDeutⁿ, 4QDeut^j, 4QDeut^kl, 4Q158, the Nash Papyrus, 8QPhyl, 4QMez A, 4QPhyl G, and 8QMez have a more comprehensive editing than what is documented in the SP.”⁷

This leads them to conclude:

“In our opinion, this distinction had a crucial impact upon the issue of the SP’s chronological development. The scrolls pertaining to the second group reflect a more comprehensive harmonistic editing than the SP, and were written in either late Hasmonean or Herodian script. On the other hand, scrolls featuring harmonistic editing, with the same additions and scope as the SP, were dated to the end of the second century B.C.E. or the beginning of the first century B.C.E.”⁸

This proto-Samaritan group and along with the extant Samaritan Pentateuch can be characterized as having harmonistic expansions, general linguistic corrections, content variants of several types, phonological changes, the use of a fuller orthography.

1 Bruce K. Waltke, “The Samaritan Pentateuch and the Text of the Old Testament,” in New Perspectives on the Old Testament, ed. J. B. Payne, (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1970), 212. Waltke adds a canonical critical and religious studies value in his Anchor Bible Dictionary article. See Bruce K Waltke, “Samaritan Pentateuch,” The Anchor Bible Dictionary, D. N. Freedman, ed., (New York: Doubleday, c1992, CD-Rom Edition, 1996).

2 Kyung-Rae Kim, Studies in the Relationship Between the Samaritan Pentateuch and the Septuagint, (Hebrew University Ph.D. Dissertation: Israel, 1994), 1-2.

3 Kim, Studies in the Relationship Between the Samaritan Pentateuch and the Septuagint, 7-8.

4 Kim has conveniently listed these sectarian additions in his, Studies in the Relationship Between the Samaritan Pentateuch and the Septuagint, 12-14. I have included them as Addendum 1.

5 Judith E. Sanderson, An Exodus Scroll From Qumran: 4QpaleoExod^m and the Samaritan Tradition, (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986) and Eugene Ulrich, Frank Moore Cross, James R. Davila, Nathan Jastram, Judith E. Sanderson and Emanuel Tov, Discoveries in the Judaean Desert XII: Qumran Cave 4 VII Genesis to Numbers, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994).

6 Nathan Jastram, The Book of Numbers from Qumran, Cave IV (4QNum^b), (Harvard University Ph.D. Dissertation: Cambridge, MA, 1990); Eugene Ulrich, Frank Moore Cross, James R. Davila, Nathan Jastram, Judith E. Sanderson and Emanuel Tov, Discoveries in the Judaean Desert XII: Qumran Cave 4 VII Genesis to Numbers, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994) and Nathan Jastram, “A Comparison of two “Proto-Samaritan” Texts From Qumran: 4QPaleoExod^m and 4QNum^b,” Dead Sea Discoveries 5 (1998), 264-89.

7 Eshel & Eshel, “Dating the Samaritan Pentateuch’s Compilation in Light of the Qumran Biblical Scrolls,” 237.

8 Eshel & Eshel, “Dating the Samaritan Pentateuch’s Compilation in Light of the Qumran Biblical Scrolls,” 237-238.

Tyndale Tech has once again posted an excellent blog on New Essential Research Tools. The tools that are introduced are: Zotero, Google Docs, Evernote, and FLV Converter. Although I have experimented with many alternative open-source software or free versions, Tyndale Tech has listed some of the very best and most essential tools. I recommend this post to all.

Although the use of philology in biblical interpretation has had a long history, reaching back to Rabbinic literature and following through Jewish medieval works,¹ it was in the 16^th and 17^th centuries that brought it into the service of text criticism.² Increase in the knowledge of comparative Semitics through polyglot lexical studies like E. Castellus’ Lexicon Hepaglotton (1669), which included: Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, Samaritan, Ethiopic, Arabic along with Persian furthered this area of study.³ Even with this growing knowledge of semitic languages the advent of comparative semitics was still in the future.⁴ John Kaltner summarizes the attitude of the day when he writes, “the status of Hebrew as a sacred language led earlier scholars in the West to base their work on the mistaken principle that Hebrew was the “original” member of the Semitic language family.”⁵ It was in fact Albert Schulten and his Dissertatio theologica-philogica de utilitate linguage arabicae in interpretanda sacra lingua, that brought the Arabic language into the forefront of text critical and interpretative research. Goshen-Gottstein characterizes his work as the epitome of “pseudo-historicistic construction of the pan-Arabic theory.”⁶ However, positively, the Hebrew language was dethroned from its “central position” in comparative semitics, which would eventually allow for comparative materials from such languages as Akkadian and Ugaritic to be utilized in biblical research.⁷

1 James Barr, Comparative Philology and the Text of the Old Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1987), 44-65.

2 Moshe H. Goshen-Gottstein, “Foundations of Biblical Philology in the Seventeenth Century: Christian and Jewish Dimensions,” in Jewish Thought in the Seventeenth Century, ed. Isadore Twersky and Bernard Septimus (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989), 77-94.

3 Barr, Comparative Philology and the Text of the Old Testament, 67.

4 E. Renan, Histoire Génerale et Système Comparé des Langues Sémitiques I (Paris: Michel Lévy Frères, 1855), is considered the first, but it was quickly eclipsed by T. Nöldeke, Die semitischen Sprachen. Eine Skizze (Leipzig: T. O. Weigel, 1887). See John Kaltner, The Use of Arabic in Biblical Hebrew Lexicography, The Catholic Biblical Quarterly Monograph Series, No. 28 (Washington D.C.: The Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1996), 2-3.

5 Kaltner, The Use of Arabic in Biblical Hebrew Lexicography, 4.

6 Goshen-Gottstein, “The Textual Criticism of the Old Testament: Rise, Decline, Rebirth,”378.

7 Kaltner, The Use of Arabic in Biblical Hebrew Lexicography, 5. For a development of the use of philology in textual criticism see William D. Barrick’s convenient typology in his article, “Current Trends and Tensions in Old Testament Textual Criticism,” BT 35, No. 3 (1984), especially pages 305-8.

Otto, Eckart. “The Pentateuch in Synchronical and Diachronical Perspectives: Protorabbinic Scribal Erudition Mediating Between Deuteronomy and the Priestly Code.” In Das Deuteronomium zwischen Pentateuch und Deuteronmistischen Geschichtswerk. ed. E. Otto and R. Achenbach, 14-35. Göttingen: Vanderhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004.

1. The Literary History of the Pentateuch Between Synchrony and Diachrony:

Eckart Otto, first, contrasts the synchronic to the study of the Pentateuch with that of a more historical-critical approach which tends to be diachronic. The diachronic approach is characterized as falling into the trap of viewing the hypothetical sources as more coherent than the final text, while the synchronic approach falters since it ultimately does not take the Pentateuch itself seriously about its own authorship. As Otto states:

“The idea of a mosaic authorship of all the Pentateuch was a postcanonical idea, which came up in the first century CE. The biblical references to mosaic writing within the Pentateuch were confined to the torah, especially the Covenant Code at Mount Sinai (Ex 24,4.7; 34,27) and the mosaic interpretation of the Sinai-torah in the land of Moab in Deuteronomy (Dtn 31,9).”¹

Otto may have overly simplified the synchronic and diachronic approaches as they have been articulated by many scholars with multiple shades of differing interpretation. However, this bipolar description sets the stage for his argument that one must first attempt to understand the Pentateuch based on what it says about its own literary development and then, secondly, analyze it diachronically. Thereby correcting the two errant approaches.

2. The Pentateuch’s Theory of its Literary Development

Otto argues that the authors of the Pentateuch utilized the idea of God as writing the Decalogue (divine scribe) and Moses as the royal scribe following an ANE - Hammurapi prototype - that was intentionally anti-babylonian. However, this allowed for narrators, other than God or Moses. By doing this, “the Pentateuch differentiated between Moses and the anonymous authors of the narratives, i.e. between a time of narration and a narrated time.”² It was the advent of “the early modern literary critical approach [that] liberated the Pentateuch’s own theory of its anonymous authors.”³

For Otto the “story of the emissaries to the promised land in Num 13-14 and Dtn 1,19-46 had a key-function in the plot of the Pentateuch.”⁴ Here the first generation lost their lives because of their lack of trust in God, while “the second generation of the exiled people” would be able to return home. An exilic deuteronomistic Deuteronomy, “paved the way to making the text transparent in such a way as to allow it to be readily understandable as applying to the time of narration. . . .”⁵ This applicability aligns with the modern historical critical approach which presupposes a post-exilic redaction of the Pentateuch. Otto does however, note that the pentateuchal authors were interested in also maintaining the “fiction of the narrated time,” while the “modern exegets have located the authors in their time in order to understand their theological and political intentions. . . .”⁶

3. The Formation of the Pentateuch in a Diachronical Perspective of Its Literary History

Otto proposes that the central issues that need to be addressed when dealing with the development of the Pentateuch are to: “1. overcome the isolation of Deuteronomy from the rest of the Pentateuch, 2. explain the firm links between Deuteronomy and Joshua and 3. answer the question, why the Pentateuch was cut off from Joshua in spite of these firm links.”⁷ He then postulates that P can be identified as Gen 1 through Exod 29.42-46, supplemented by Exod 30 through Lev 9 by P^S. D is represented by Dtn 1-30 and Jos 1-23.

These two units were redacted to form the Hexateuch (HexRed) in the fifth century BCE which basically encompassed Gen 1-Jos 24.⁸ The HexRed finds the theme of the possession of the land as the supreme gift of God and the “purpose of Israel’s salvation history,”⁹ however, for the disaporean community it was the torah and not the land that was God’s main gift. Therefore a Pentateuch Redaction (PentRed) was necessary in which the Sinai-pericope was extended by “forming the Holiness Code in Lev 17-26 and inserting the Decalogue and Covenant Code in Ex 20-23. On the other side they cut off the book of Joshua from Deuteronomy and reduced the Hexateuch to a Pentateuch, because the theme of the land should no longer function as culmination and purpose of Israel’s salvation history in the Pentateuch’s plot.”¹⁰ This then formed the Pentateuch as Gen 1- Dtn 34 and a separate Former Prophets out of Jos 1 - 2 Kings 25. Otto concludes by stating that: “A canonical reading of the Pentateuch this way could overcome a too simplistic synchronic reading of its plot.”¹¹

Eckart Otto has attempted to combine the best of the synchronic and diachronic methods in this essay. The synchronic approach enables him to identify the pentateuchal text itself as having anonymous redactors that are focused on both a narrated time and the time of narration. The diachronic approach identifies the twofold messages of the HexRed and the PentRed. They encouraged the return to the land and the centrality of the torah, respectively. Otto’s diachronic analysis has been strongly influenced by R. Achenbach. (See: Pentateuchal Compositional History: Achenbach)

1 Otto, “The Pentateuch in Synchronical and Diachronical Perspectives,” 15.

2 Otto, “The Pentateuch in Synchronical and Diachronical Perspectives,” 17.

3 Otto, “The Pentateuch in Synchronical and Diachronical Perspectives,” 18.

4 Otto, “The Pentateuch in Synchronical and Diachronical Perspectives,” 19.

5 Otto, “The Pentateuch in Synchronical and Diachronical Perspectives,” 20.

6 Otto, “The Pentateuch in Synchronical and Diachronical Perspectives,” 22-3.

7 Otto, “The Pentateuch in Synchronical and Diachronical Perspectives,” 25.

8 Otto, “The Pentateuch in Synchronical and Diachronical Perspectives,” 29.

9 Otto, “The Pentateuch in Synchronical and Diachronical Perspectives,” 31.

10 Otto, “The Pentateuch in Synchronical and Diachronical Perspectives,” 31-2.

11 Otto, “The Pentateuch in Synchronical and Diachronical Perspectives,” 35.

Richard Simon, although recognizing that the Hebrew Bible of his day was in no wise the original autograph, nevertheless viewed these exemplars not as Jewish corruptions of the scriptures intended to counteract Christianity, but an attempt by the Masoretic tradition to maintain a credible textual transmission by representing variant readings by the Ketib-Qere system. However Simon, agreeing with Cappellus, understood the vowel points as a later development. McKane summarizes Simon’s view on the Masoretic textual tradition when he writes, “the vowel points are then to be understood as imposing a particular interpretation on the consonantal text which does not exclude other interpretations. The Tiberian system of vocalization is not to be thought of as a creatio ex nihilo, but rather as a fixation of time-honoured usage.”¹ For Simon the Hebrew Bible was ultimately obscure so that the Protestant fixation with sola scriptura was not a real option, yet he was far from Spinoza’s pessimism. It is in the vowel points and their interpretative value that Simon differentiates among textual traditions. The Septuagint for example represents an interpretative tradition that has taken an early consonantal vorlage and provided pointing that both differs from the Masoretic and at the same time produces a technically viable alternative reading of the consonants. It is this same principle of vowel pointing as interpretation that shapes Richard Simon’s view that the Aramaic Targums are an extension of the Masoretic tradition since they have translated the Masoretic vowel pointing along with the consonants. The Samaritan Pentateuch, since it represents a consonantal text, it provides a possible pool of genuine variant readings differing from the Masoretic tradition. However the more consistent plene readings are problematic and compared with the Masoretic Ketib-Qere system, have a stronger proclivity to amend the consonantal text and hence are less reliable.

Overall Simon takes a balanced approach to the textual traditions. McKane concludes that:

Simon will have nothing to do with extreme views which aim to discredit either the Massoretic text or the Septuagint. We are not to say ‘only the Hebrew’ with the Jews, or ‘only the Septuagint’ with some Christians; or ‘only the Vulgate’. Both the Hebrew text and the versions are to be used and judgements are to be made ‘according to the rules of criticism’. The Hebrew text takes precedence, but it should not be severed from the versions and allowed a sole supremacy.²

The interpretative flexibility of the consonantal text has allowed Richard Simon to shift the traditional view on the authority of the Scriptures. Simon has moved it from an idea of “literal truth” to a concept of “the divine inspiration of the public scribes.”³ James Sanders highlights this aspect of Simon’s perspective and relates it to his own work on canon and the communities that valued the specific traditions. He states, “the variants functioned in some believing communities though not in others, and it is important to know as many as there were, if possible, and to understand them in their textual contexts . . . .”⁴

1 McKane, Selected Christian Hebraists, 121.

2 McKane, Selected Christian Hebraists, 125.

3 Sandys-Wunsch, What have They Done to the Bible? A History of Modern Biblical Interpretation, 159.

4 Sanders, “Hebrew Bible and Old Testament: Textual Criticism in the Service of Biblical Studies,” 53-4.

Turrentin’s fears that attacks on the Masoretic textual tradition would undermine biblical authority, may have materialized in Baruch Spinoza along with Isaac de La Peyrère. Spinoza’s impact on Western intellectual history is monumental. Yovel begins his study of Spinoza with the declaration that “his philosophical revolution anticipated major tends in European modernization, including secularization, biblical criticism, the rise of natural science, the Enlightenment, and the liberal-democratic state. Above all, he put forward a radically new philosophical principle that I call the philosophy of immanence. It views this-worldly existence as all there is, as the only actual being and the sole source of ethical value. God himself is identical with the totality of nature, and God’s decrees are written not in the Bible but in the laws of nature and reason.”¹

Spinoza’s “secular liberalism”² has its foundations in a threefold interpretative methodology of the Scriptures, which must be studied as one would study nature, via the “natural light of reason.”³ The first principle was that, “the nature and properties of the language in which the books of the Bible were written, and in which their authors were accustomed to speak,”⁴ must be the foundation for any study. For Spinoza this is the Hebrew language for both the Old and New Testament studies. It is interesting to note that he knew Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, French, Latin, Hebrew, Italian and German. In fact he wrote a Hebrew Grammar in Latin, but he did not read Greek and so his New Testament reading was in Latin.⁵ Second, there should be “an analysis of each book and arrangement of this content under heads; so that we may have at hand the various texts which treat a given subject.”⁶ Spinoza is here prioritizing theological content of Scripture along with isolating passages that are “ambiguous or obscure, or which seem mutually contradictory.”⁷ The third principle is the most important for the history of text criticism. Here Spinoza argues for the investigation of a history of “the environment of all the prophetic books extant; that is, the life, the conduct, and the studies of the author of each book, who he was, what was the occasion, and the epoch of his writing, whom did he write for, and in what language. Further, it should inquire into the fate of each book: how it was first received, into whose hands it fell, how many different versions there were of it, by whose advice was it received into the Bible, and, lastly, how all the books now universally accepted as sacred, were united into a single whole.”⁸ It is the latter parts of this third principle, where Spinoza is calling for a “history of the formation of the text”⁹ that is crucial for text critical investigations.

Although, Spinoza, did not realize this call for himself, his familiarity with the Masoretic corrections and notations in chapter 9 indicates his proclivities in the text critical arena. Sanders believes that Richard Simon was the one who responded to this challenge in his Histoire Critque du Vieux Testament in 1678.¹⁰

1 Yirmiyahu Yovel, Spinoza and Other Heretics: The Marrano of Reason (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989), ix.

2 Jon D. Levenson, “Theological Consensus or Historicist Evasion? Jews and Christians in Biblical Studies,” in Hebrew Bible or Old Testament? Studying the Bible in Judaism and Christianity, ed. Roger Brooks and John J. Collins (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990), 122-35, argues that Spinoza’s biblical interpretation is based on his Renaissance humanist background. He sounds like a Protestant with statements that echo the interpres sui ipsius, but ultimately he was denying Luther and Calvin’s “supernatural” focus.

3 Benedict de Spinoza, A Theologico-Political Treatise and A Political Treatise, trans. R. H. M. Elwes (New York: Dover Publications, 1951), 99-100.

4 Spinoza, A Theologico-Political Treatise and A Political Treatise, 101.

5 Esther Seidel, “Spinoza,” European Judaism 34, no. 1 (2001), 58-9.

6 Spinoza, A Theologico-Political Treatise and A Political Treatise, 101.

7 Spinoza, A Theologico-Political Treatise and A Political Treatise, 101.

8 Spinoza, A Theologico-Political Treatise and A Political Treatise, 103.

9 Sanders, “Hebrew Bible and Old Testament: Textual Criticism in the Service of Biblical Studies,”50.

10 See Sandys-Wunsch, What have They Done to the Bible? A History of Modern Biblical Interpretation, 156-57, where he argues that although Simon probably knew Spinoza’s work, he only included it in the preface of Histoire Critque du Vieux Testament because its function was to catch the attention of the reader rather than a full response. Sanders on the other hand, argues that “the first ten chapters or so” of Simon’s work was specifically answering issues that Spinoza had raised.