TEXT, VERSIONS, LANGUAGES OF OT TEXT, VERSIONS, LANGUAGES OF OT

of the Hebrew text can be determined only within broad limits. It was after the beginning of the 5th cent, a.d., for the way in which Jerome speaks leaves no room for doubt that the Hebrew Scriptures in his day were un-vocalized; it must have been before the 10th cent., for the fully developed system is employed in the earliest Hebrew Biblical MSS, which date from the beginning of the 10th cent, (or, according to some, from the 9th cent.).

6. Earlier attempts to represent vowel sounds. — Long before the invention of vowel points certain consonants had been used, though neither systematically nor con-sistently, to indicate the vowel sounds: thus H was used to indicate a, and sometimes e; W to indicate o or u, Y to indicate i. This practice in some measure goes back to the times, and doubtless also to the actual usage, of some of the writers of the OT; but in many cases these consonants used to indicate vowels were added by scribes or editors. This we learn from the fact that passages which happen to occur twice in the OT differ in the extent to which, and the particular instances in which, these letters are employed. Ps 18 occurs not only in the Psalter, but also in 2 S 22; the Psalm expresses these consonants used vocalically 17 times where 2 Sam. does not, e.g. 2 Sam. writes KDMNY (v.«) and HH§YM (v.»'), where the Ps. writes KDM WNY and HHWSYM. In some cases Rabbinic discussions prove that words now written with these vowel letters were once without them; so, e.g., it appears from a dis-cussion attributed to two Rabbis of the 2nd cent. a.d. that in Is 51' the word LSWMY (' my nation' RV) was at that time written without the W, thus LJJMY. The importance of this fact for the textual criticism will appear later.

7. Character of emdence for the text of OT. — The text of the OT has been transmitted to us through circum-stances singularly different from those which mark the transmission of the NT text; and the results are a difference in the relative value attaching to different classes of evidence, and a much less close and sure approach to the original text when the best use has been made of the material at our disposal. Quotations play a much less immediate and conspicuous part in the criticism of the OT than in the criticism of the NT; and here we may confine our attention to the nature of the evidence for the text of the OT furnished by (1) Hebrew MSS, (2) ancient Versions.

8. (1) Hebrew MSS. — One well-established result of the examination of Hebrew MSS is that all existing MSS are derived from a single edition prepared byJewish scholars in accordance with a textual tradition which goes back substantially to the 2nd cent. a.d., but became increasingly minute. This is proved by the existence in all MSS of the same peculiarities, such as the occurrence at certain places of letters smaller or larger than the normal, of dots over certain letters, or broken or inverted letters. For example, the H in the word BhBRKM (Gn 2«) is written small in all Hebrew MSS; it was doubtless written originally so by accident or owing to pressure of room; but under the influence of a school of Jewish scholars, of whom R. Aqiba in the 2nd cent. B.C. was a leading spirit, all such minutiae of the Scripture acquired a mystic significance. Thus the word just cited really means 'when they were created,' but the small H was taken to mean that the words were to be translated 'in the letter H he {i.e. God) created them' (the heavens and the earth), and this in turn led to much curious speculation. As another illustration of this method of interpretation, which was so important in securing from the 1st or 2nd cent. a.d. onwards a remarkably accurate transmission of the text, the case of the word WYYZR in Gn 2' may be cited. The word means 'And he formed'; an alternative orthography for the word is WY?R (with one Y). Why, it was asked, was it here written with two Y's? Because, it was answered, God created man with two Y?RS (i.e. two natures), the good nature and the bad. In order to

secure the perpetuation of the text exactly as it existed, a mass of elaborate rules and calculations was gradually established; for example, the number of occurrences of cases of peculiar orthography, the number of words in the several books, the middle word in each book, and so forth, were calculated and ultimately embodied in notes on the margins of the MSS containing the Scriptures. This textual tradition is known as theMassorah,and those who perpetuated it as Massoretes. The Massorah also Includes a certain number of variant or conjectural readings; in this case the one reading (Kethibh 'written') stands in the text, but provided with vowels that do not belong to the consonants in the text, but to the consonants of the alternative reading (Qere 'read') given in the margin. E.g., in Job 93» the word BMW, which means ' with,' should, if vocalized, have the vowel o over the W; but in the Hebrew text the vowel actually supplied to the word is e under the M, which is the vowel that really belongs to the marginal reading BMY, and this means ' in the water of.' These Massoretic variants are for the most part relatively uninteresting. The value of the Massorah in perpetuating a form of the Hebrew text for many centuries has doubtless been great; but it has also long served to obscure the fact that the text which it has perpetuated with such slight variation or mutilation was already removed by many centuries from the original text and had suffered considerably.

In spite of the Massorah, certain minute variations have crept into the Hebrew MSS and even into the consonantal text. The vowels, it must be repeated, are merely an interpretation of the original text of Scripture, and not part of it, and different Hebrew MSS show as a matter of fact two distinct systems of vocaliza-tion, with different symbols.

9. The earliest MSS. — Among the earliest Hebrew Biblical MSS are the Prophetarum posteriorum codex Babylonicus Petropolitanus, dated a.d. 916; a codex of the Former and Latter Prophets now in the Karaite synagogue at Cairo, and written, if correctly dated, in a.d. 895; a codex of the entire Bible, written by Samuel ben Jacob, now at St. Petersburg, and written, if the dating be genuine, in a.d. 1009.

10. Critical editions of the Massoretic text. — The most accurate reproductions of the Massoretic text are the edition of the Hebrew Bible by S. Baer and Fr. Delitzsch and that by C. D. Ginsburg. These are critical editions of the Massoretic text, but make no attempt to be critical editions of the OT text, i.e. they make no use whatever of the Versions or of any other evidence than the Massoretic tradition.

11 . The Samaritan Pentateuch. — Before passing from the evidence of Hebrew MSS we have to note that for the Pentateuch, though unfortunately for the Pentateuch only, we have the invaluable assistance of a Hebrew text representing an entirely different recension. This is the Samaritan Pentateuch. The Samaritan Penta-teuch is a form of the Hebrew text which has been perpetuated by the Samaritans. It is written in the Samaritan character, which far more closely resembles the ancient Hebrew characters than the square Hebrew characters in which the Massoretic MSS are written, and is vrithout vowels. The available MSS of the Samaritan Pentateuch are considerably later than the earliest Massoretic MSS; nor is it probable that the copy at Nablus, though perhaps the earliest Samaritan MS in existence, is earlier than the 12th or 13th cent. a.d. But the value of the recension lies in the fact that it has descended since the 4th cent. B.C. in a different circle, and under different circumstances, from those which have influenced the Massoretic MSS. Though in some respects, as for example through expansion by insertion of matter from parallel passages, the Samaritan is more remote than the Jewish from the original text, it has also preserved better readings, often in agreement with the LXX. An instance is Gn i'; here in the ordinary Hebrew MSS some words spoken by Cain have certainly

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