Old Testament Textual Criticism: A Practical Introduction

© 1994, 2016 by Ellis R. Brotzman and Eric J. Tully

Published by Baker Academic

a division of Baker Publishing Group

P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516–6287

www.bakeracademic.com

Ebook edition created 2016

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

ISBN 978-1-4934-0475-9

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are the authors’ translations.

Without a doubt, this is the best textbook for introducing students to the textual history of the Hebrew Bible. It is both comprehensive and clear as it leads students into the essential discipline of textual criticism for biblical interpretation. We are indebted to Brotzman and Tully for providing a resource that does not avoid the complexities of the text but at the same time maintains the integrity of that text in terms of inspiration and authority.

—Miles V. Van Pelt, Reformed Theological Seminary

"At last, we have a true intermediate exploration of Old Testament textual criticism. Brotzman and Tully have struck a refreshing balance between foundational content and practical illustration. The textual analysis of Ruth alone is sufficient to commend this book to Hebrew students, and the authors’ discussion of the emerging Biblia Hebraica Quinta critical edition is a helpful aid for the next generation. Because of its accessible approach and sustained interest in the exegetical process, Old Testament Textual Criticism will be a standard tool in my language classes."

—Andrew J. Schmutzer, Moody Bible Institute

For Ruth

Like her biblical namesake, she too is אֵשֶׁת חַיִל (a capable woman)

—ERB

For my parents, Don and Connie,

who modeled a love for the Bible and taught me to take seriously every word

—EJT

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Page

Endorsements

Dedication

List of Illustrations

List of Abbreviations

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Writing in the Ancient Near East

2. A Brief Overview of the Transmission of the Old Testament Text

3. Hebrew Texts of the Old Testament

4. Ancient Translations of the Old Testament

5. Critical Editions of the Old Testament Text

6. Scribal Changes in the Old Testament Text

7. Principles and Practice of Textual Criticism

8. Textual Commentary on the Book of Ruth

Conclusion

Appendix A: An English Key to BHS

Appendix B: What Text(s) Are We Attempting to Reconstruct?

Glossary

Bibliography

Subject Index

Author Index

Scripture Index

Notes

Back Cover

ILLUSTRATIONS

Tables

1.1. Ancient Writing Systems

1.2. Cuneiform and Alphabetic Signs

1.3. History of Writing

2.1. Hebrew Letters That Are Often Confused

2.2. Transmission of the Old Testament Text

3.1. Biblical Texts from Qumran

3.2. Important Masoretic Manuscripts

4.1. Significant Aramaic Targums

5.1. Selected Sigla Found in BHS and BHQ

6.1. Possible Confusion of Archaic Letters

B.1. Comparison of Masoretic Text and G-Jeremiah

Figures

1.1. West Semitic Scripts

2.1. Hebrew and Greek Textual Development

3.1. Map of Qumran Caves 1–11

3.2. The Development of the Samaritan Pentateuch

3.3. Critical Editions of the Hebrew Old Testament

4.1. Character of the Greek Versions

4.2. Textual History of the Greek Versions

4.3. The Witnesses to the Old Testament Text

4.4. Translations and Their Hebrew Source Texts

4.5. The Circular Nature of Translation Analysis

4.6. A Recursion Model for Translation Analysis

5.1. Sample Left Page from BHS

5.2. Sample Right Page from BHS

5.3. Sample Page from BHQ

7.1. The Final Form of the Text

7.2. Original Text and Versions

B.1. An Ideal Text History

B.2. Composition and Copying Overlap

B.3. Multiple Editions?

ABBREVIATIONS

General and Bibliographic

Textual Sigla

Hebrew Bible/Old Testament

Old Testament Apocrypha

New Testament

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We are both grateful for the opportunity to update and expand this book in a second edition. Our thanks to our editor, Jim Kinney, and the other members of the Baker team for their assistance and guidance in initial discussions and throughout our work together.

We are grateful to Dennis Magary, who provided excellent advice from his many years of teaching Hebrew and Old Testament textual criticism at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Dennis is a perceptive and creative teacher, and we are grateful for his willingness to dialogue about not only certain concepts in textual criticism but also how they might be clearly presented. Also, our appreciation goes to Jim Hoffmeier, Richard Averbeck, and Lawson Younger, also at Trinity, for their advice on a few technical matters. We offer our thanks as well to Anthony Lipscomb, who solved many different kinds of problems from fonts to bibliography.

Finally, we give thanks to God for our wives. Their loving support and advice make everything that we do better than it would have been otherwise. Thank you.

INTRODUCTION

As long as authors have produced texts, there has been a need for textual criticism. One of the most famous errors occurred in a 1631 version of the King James Bible when the printer omitted the critical word not from Exod. 20:14 (the seventh commandment). The text read, Thou shalt commit adultery, and the edition became known as the Wicked Bible. The Bible is a text that has a great deal of significance in people’s lives. It is studied and argued over and analyzed. Therefore, every word matters . . . even (and sometimes especially) a little word like not. The discipline of textual criticism exists because every word is important and we want to ensure that we are reading what its authors intended to write.

However, the importance of OT textual criticism is matched by its complexity. The vast array of editions, variants, scribal errors, and proposed solutions can seem overwhelming, especially to a beginner. This book aims to introduce the discipline of OT textual criticism in a practical, accessible way without oversimplifying matters. This is a fascinating and exciting area of study with significant implications for our interpretation of the OT text.

Need for Old Testament Textual Criticism

Textual criticism has traditionally been called lower criticism not because it is a less significant study of the Bible than other disciplines, but because it is foundational to all other study.1 Before we can exegete a passage in the OT, we must have a text to exegete! In textual criticism, we examine the text of our passage to determine what it says before we can determine what it means. There is no sense in exegetical wrangling over a difficult word or phrase if that word or phrase is a corruption. On the other hand, if a difficult phrase is original, we are committed to understanding what the biblical author might have meant.

We can compare two hypothetical extreme views regarding the need for textual criticism of the OT. The first holds that the Hebrew text has been so carefully transmitted that textual criticism is, for all practical purposes, unnecessary. The second maintains that the text of the OT is so uncertain that it is impossible for text critics to recover the original wording of the Hebrew Scriptures.

In response to the first view, textual criticism is necessary because no one source contains the biblical text. We have multiple witnesses to the biblical text, including manuscripts in Hebrew, Greek, and a number of other languages as well. These manuscripts vary to different degrees, reflecting differences from each other in everything from spelling to the structure of an entire book of the Bible. Even within one manuscript there might be various traditions with competing variant readings. Douglas Stuart states: The problems are real. There is no chapter of the Bible for which all ancient manuscripts have exactly the same wording. Many chapters, in fact, display textual problems in virtually every verse.2

We can see evidence in our English Bibles of this variation. For example, in Deut. 33:2 the NRSV has, The LORD came from Sinai, and dawned from Seir upon us. A footnote indicates that the last word us comes from the Greek, Syriac, Vulgate, and targum, but the Hebrew has upon them. By contrast, the NIV follows the Hebrew with The LORD came from Sinai and dawned over them from Seir. Because the NIV has followed the Hebrew (which is the base text), they do not need to signal the existence of the variant reading. Here we have two major English versions in disagreement over the text of the Bible!

Our major English versions of the OT are based, for the most part, on the Hebrew text rather than on the versions.3 This is because the majority of the OT was originally written in Hebrew and because the masoretic4 Hebrew text was standardized and carefully copied. But the Hebrew text does not always contain the best reading. For example, in Judg. 14:15 the Hebrew has, on the seventh day they said to Samson’s wife. In this verse, however, the NRSV and NIV both follow the Greek and Syriac versions and translate, "On the fourth day they said to Samson’s wife." Interestingly, the KJV follows the Hebrew. Once again, we are forced to choose between two mutually exclusive readings.

We cannot avoid practicing textual criticism if we are going to be serious exegetes of the biblical text. If we try to ignore variant textual readings and simply choose to follow one text, then we have just practiced textual criticism! The choice of one text means the selection of all of the distinctive readings in that text and the rejection of variants in all other texts, regardless of whether they are the best readings or not. The question is whether we are going to practice textual criticism by this kind of default selection, or whether we will practice it with as much perspective, background, and training as possible.

While one hypothetical view downplays the need for OT textual criticism, another emphasizes it to such an extent that the basic trustworthiness of the text is placed in doubt. For example, the following quote from Shemaryahu Talmon may sound quite disheartening:

The scholar who takes a synoptic view of all the sources at his disposal is confronted with a bewildering plethora of variae lectiones in the extant versions of the Old Testament books. . . . It should be borne in mind that the printed editions represent the end of a long chain of textual development and of editorial activities which were aimed at unifying the sacred texts. These late editions can in no way be taken to exhibit faithfully the autographs of the biblical authors. In fact not one single verse of this ancient literature has come to us in an original manuscript, written by a biblical author or by a contemporary of his, or even by a scribe who lived immediately after the time of the author. . . . Even a cursory perusal of the sources available immediately reveals that not one tradition and not one manuscript is without fault.5

Talmon reminds us that we do not have access to the original autographs of the Bible, only copies, and these copies have faults. In other words, the original wording of Scripture is distributed across several manuscripts and translations, each of which might contain the best reading in a given instance.

This is not cause for discouragement. First, we must remember that the vast majority of the differences between manuscripts are quite minor. Many reflect insignificant pronunciations such as the difference between "tomāto and tomahto or spelling differences such as baptise (UK) versus baptize (US). Relatively few of the differences, in terms of percentages, fundamentally change the meaning of the text. Talmon himself quickly balances the statement quoted above by saying that these errors and textual divergences between the versions materially affect the intrinsic message only in relatively few instances."6 Bruce Waltke suggests that, on average, there is about one textual note in BHS for each ten words. Textual criticism, by its very nature, focuses on the variant readings, but the 90 percent or more of the text that exists without variation must also be kept in view.7

Second, we need not be discouraged because the discipline of textual criticism gives us the tools to correct manuscripts and establish the original text. Textual criticism is not a symptom of a multitude of manuscripts with conflicting readings . . . it is the cure. With a disciplined approach and the proper background knowledge, we can sift through the variants and establish the text with a high degree of confidence and accuracy.

Elements of Old Testament Textual Criticism

What are the activities involved in actually performing textual criticism of the OT? What must the beginning text critic be able to do? First, one must be aware of at least the basics of the history of the transmission of the OT. This includes both the Hebrew text and the ancient versions of the OT. An awareness of how scribes copied—and of how translators rendered—the text will help the student deal with variant readings. Second, one must be able to collect the specific variant readings. This requires an ability to work with critical editions and apparatuses and to understand the terminology of the discipline and the ways that variants are presented and compared. Third, the text critic must understand how to compare the evidence. This requires a knowledge of how the various manuscripts and translations relate to each other historically and genetically. This book will introduce all of these topics and suggest ways to study them further.

Along with these very practical issues, the text critic also needs to understand some theory. Are some manuscripts or versions inherently better than others? What constitutes the best reading? What is our goal in textual criticism? This book will introduce these concepts as well, providing perspective and an entry into a rich and fascinating field of study.

Plan of Attack

Following this introduction, chapter 1 deals with writing in the ancient Near East. A general understanding of ancient writing practices allows a better understanding of the transmission of the text of the Hebrew Bible and of how its best wording may be determined.

The next three chapters cover the transmission of the OT text. Chapter 2 summarizes the history of the transmission of the OT text from the time of the writing of the individual biblical books until our modern era. Chapter 3 discusses the most important Hebrew manuscripts that are known at the present time. We discuss the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and the Masoretic Text, in chronological order. Chapter 4 discusses the most important ancient versions and the contribution they can make to the study of the OT text. Working again in chronological order, we introduce the Greek Septuagint, the Aramaic targums, the Syriac Peshitta, and the Latin Vulgate. This chapter concludes with a discussion of the particular challenges involved in working with ancient translations.

Given the information about the transmission of the text, how do we discover what is the best reading in a particular verse of the OT? Chapters 5–8 describe the practical steps involved in determining the most original reading. Chapter 5 introduces the critical apparatus and layout of Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS) and Biblia Hebraica Quinta (BHQ).8 We are well aware of the dangers inherent in seeking to perform textual criticism solely on the basis of BHS.9 Yet it is obvious that the beginner needs to start at just this point. For that reason this book will focus on this preliminary, but also necessary, stage of textual criticism—that is, making use of the information included in BHS and the in-process BHQ.

Chapter 6 surveys the typical kinds of scribal changes—both inadvertent and intentional—that have been introduced into the OT text through the years. Chapter 7 focuses on the principles for establishing the best text. These principles include how to evaluate both external and internal evidence. In a distinctive contribution among books on textual criticism, chapter 8 presents a textual commentary on the book of Ruth. It seems clear that an extended treatment of the textual issues in a short OT book will offer a decided advantage over the more usual discussion of various independent textual problems scattered throughout the OT.

The conclusion summarizes the results of this study of textual criticism. It prepares the student to continue critical study of the OT text. In addition, the final chapter indicates what steps are needed for the reader to pursue advanced textual analysis of the Hebrew Bible. Finally, two appendixes provide additional resources. Appendix A is a key to the Latin abbreviations in BHS. Appendix B presents a survey of the current, complex discussion of the goals of textual criticism.

Textual Criticism and Inspiration

Before beginning, a word about inspiration is in order. Inspiration refers to the process by which God, through the Holy Spirit, ensured that the text of Scripture reflects exactly what he wanted it to say. For example, in the case of a biblical narrative, the inspired writer told the story with accurate details and just the right emphases to advance a particular theological agenda. And in the case of the book of Psalms, the inspired compiler selected some psalms out of the many that were available, and these were the ones necessary for the people of God. Most evangelical statements on the inspiration of Scripture refer in some way to the autographs. The doctrine of inspiration teaches that the authoritative, original, completed texts of Scripture (i.e., the autographs) were superintended by the Holy Spirit to contain the precise language that God wanted to convey.

However, this divine inspiration does not apply to subsequent transmission. When these texts began to be copied and promulgated, errors crept into the manuscripts. Scribes misread letters, documents were damaged, translators misunderstood the Hebrew text or tried to improve its clarity. Once an error was introduced, it often began to be copied repeatedly until it became a permanent part of a text tradition. This transmission phase is the domain of textual criticism. When students are first exposed to issues in textual criticism, they sometimes find the discussion of errors, multiple readings, and the search for the best text to be disconcerting. Naturally they ask, Do these issues undermine the inspiration of Scripture?

They do not. The inspired text is located in the original texts, not later copies.10 But this underscores why anyone who affirms the inspiration and authority of Scripture should be most interested in discovering which one of the several variants in extant texts represents the best, most original wording of Scripture.11 It is hoped that this book will help many students and pastors chart their way through this difficult but important area of biblical studies.

1

Writing in the Ancient Near East

Study of the transmission of the OT text begins with the origin of Hebrew writing and its development through time. But the field of Hebrew writing is just one small part of a fascinating area of study, the history of writing within human civilization. Clearly, within the scope of this book, no in-depth account of the history of writing can be offered. Yet it will be important to trace at least some of the main features of this story in order to understand more fully the details of the transmission of the OT text. This chapter is given, therefore, to a brief survey of writing in the ancient Near East and to a summary of the place of writing within the confines of the OT itself.

Sumerian Writing

The history of writing in the ancient Near East begins with the Sumerians toward the end of the fourth millennium BCE.1 This non-Semitic people either invented writing or adopted a writing system from another people, probably to assist in running their increasingly complex bureaucracies.2 The Sumerian system of writing, in its earliest stages, was pictographic; that is, signs were used to picture specific objects and thus call them to mind. An ancient text might consist of a succession of pictures which, when strung together, told a story.3

Pictographic writing, though a start, is limited in what it can represent. At an early stage, therefore, the Sumerians improved their writing by using one sign to refer to several different things. A basic sign that indicated foot was also used to indicate the verbs to go, to stand, and to carry.4 The gain that resulted from this development was somewhat offset by ambiguity in what was expressed. Early Sumerian writing did not indicate pronunciation or most morphological information such as pronouns or adverbial markers. In its interest in economy, the writing system was far removed from the spoken language and was incomplete.5 It functioned somewhat like a memory aid, in which the reader was required to supply information from his or her knowledge of the spoken language. Later, Sumerian writing became more explicit in representing morphological features (such as the plural).6

The major shortcoming of the Sumerian system is the large number of signs that were necessary to express thought.7 A second complication of the system is the existence of polyphones and homophones.8 Two additional features of the Sumerian language were developed to combat this ambiguity. Specialized signs, called determinatives, were placed before or after words to indicate the general class of object or person, and so forth. For example, there was a determinative for deity, another for certain human occupations, and the like.9 A second special sign, called a phonetic complement, was also used to enhance clarity in communication. For example, the Sumerian writing for the noun wall comprises two signs: (1) a pictogram that visually represents a city wall and (2) the bad-sign, which phonetically represents the pictogram’s pronunciation as [bad].10 Perhaps an illustration in English would be helpful. The ampersand symbol & is an ideogram that represents the conjunction and. To aid the reader in correct pronunciation, the symbol could be rendered as & [and] (see also the discussion of ideograms, also called logograms, below in Akkadian Writing).11 The system may strike the modern reader as cumbersome, but it provided a workable solution in its time.

Akkadian Writing

The Akkadians, a Semitic people, took over the Sumerian system of writing sometime in the middle of the third millennium BCE.12 It must be remembered that the Sumerians were not Semitic. Therefore, the Akkadians adopted a script of another, unrelated language and used it to express their own language. The system is called cuneiform because it consists of wedge-shaped signs created by pressing a triangular-shaped stylus into clay tablets. The major change introduced by the Akkadians was a much greater use of syllabic signs. Their writing system was not exclusively syllabic, however. Their six hundred to seven hundred signs included the following: six signs to represent vowels, ninety-seven signs that represented open syllables (consonant + vowel or vowel + consonant), more than two hundred signs that indicated closed syllables (consonant + vowel + consonant), and about three hundred signs that were used as ideograms.13 The ideograms were essentially the signs that the Sumerians had used before them, but they were probably pronounced as Akkadian words when the texts were read. Something analogous occurs when an English speaker reads $2.00 as two dollars. A Spanish speaker would read the same symbols as dos dólares. Our modern numeral symbols are simply current examples of ideograms.14

The Akkadian language is important for biblical studies on several levels. In the first place, Akkadian is the earliest attested Semitic language, and its decipherment and study since the nineteenth century have proved helpful for the elucidation of features of the Hebrew language.15 The existence of the Akkadian writing system from the middle of the third millennium BCE onward sets the writing activity of various OT personages in a proper historical and linguistic