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

necessarily difficult, and only within limits is it possible. We are obviously far worse situated in attempting to determine corruptions of this date than corruptions of later date; the LXX often indicates the presence of the later corruptions, but we have no external clue to the earlier corruptions. We have to rely entirely on indications in the Hebrew text itself. One of these indications will of course be the occurrence of nonsense, for the original autographs were intended to convey an intelligible meaning. Another indication will be the occurrence of bad grammar — unless in the case of a particular writer there is reason for supposing that he was not master of the language which he wrote. An interesting illustration of the way in which the latter Indication may serve is furnished by some of the refer-ences to the ark.

The ark is called in Hebrew HNRN the ark, where the first letter is the Hebrew article; or NRN BRYT YHWH theark of the covenant of the Lord; where a word in Hebrew is defined by a following genitive it cannot bepreceded by the article, so in this second phrase we have NRN, not HNRN. Now, in certain passages (e.^. Jos 3'^), our presentHebrew text has the grammatically impossible combination HNRN BRYT YHWH; some corruption then is present here; and it is probable that the original text had only HNRN the ark, and that the two following words are due to the intrusion into the text of an annotator's explanation.

29. Negative and positive judgments: the justification of conjectural emendaiian and its limitations. — The ulti-mate task of textual criticism is to recover as far as possible the actual words of the original; an inter-mediate task of the textual criticism of the OT is to establish all the real variants of the Hebrew text under-lying the Greek version, and in each case to determine the relative value of the variants. In this way the text which was the common source of the Greek transla-tors and that of the Jewish scholars of the 2nd cent. A.D. is as far as possible recovered. So far negative and positive judgments must necessarily accompany one another; we say. Here the Hebrew text is right, and the Greek text wrong, or vice versa. But when we have recovered that common source of the Hebrew and Greek texts, it is wise to distinguish sharply between negative and positive critical judgments. The general fact that there are early errors in the Hebrew text must, as we have seen, be admitted; and, further, no sound criticism of the Hebrew text can proceed far without being compelled to say. This or that is corrupt, even though the Greek version agrees with the Hebrew text or cannot be shown to have diSered from it. In some cases where this negative judgment can be passed with confidence, it may be possible with scarcely less confidence to pass to the positive statement. These words are a corruption of these other words; that is to say, the text in such cases can be restored by con-jecture; but in many cases where the first judgment — These words are not the original text — must be passed, the second judgment ought only to take the form — It is possible that such and such words or something like them were in the original text. In brief, we can more often detect early corruption than restore the text which has been corrupted. The reason should be obvious. Nonsense (to take the extreme case) must be due to corruption, but the sense which it has obscured may altogether elude us, or, at best, we may be able to discern the general sense without determining the actual words.

There can be no question that it is nonsense to say, as the Hebrew text does, that Saul, who was anointed king to meet a national emergency, was a year old when he began to reign (1 S 13'); but it is impossible to say whether the original text attributed to him twenty, thirty, forty, or any other particular number of years . Nonsense is unfortunately more serious in the original language than in a version; we may pass easily from nonsense in the LXX to the actual original consonants of the Bebrew text, which merely require, when thus recovered, to be correctly interpreted; but if the Hebrew letters themselves yield nonsense, we are reduced to guessing,, and frequently with little hope of guessing right

30. The preceding paragraphs should have suggested the justification for conjectural emendation in the textual criticism of the OT, and at the same time they should have indicated its limitations. As against a conjectural emendation, it is in no way to the point to urge that the Hebrew text and all the versions are against it; for the agreement of the Hebrew text and the versions merely establishes the text as it was current about, let us say, b.c. 300. The principle of conjecture is justified by the centuries of transmission that the Hebrew text had passed through before that date. It may be worth while to notice also the degree of truth and the measure of misunderstanding involved in another common objection to conjectural emendations. Tacitly or openly it takes this form: Critics offer different emendations of the same passage; not all of these can be right; therefore the Hebrew text is not to be ques-tioned. The real conclusion is rather this. The fact that several scholars have questioned the text renders the presence of corruption probable, that they differ in their emendations shows that the restoration of the original text is uncertain. The idiosyncrasy of a single scholar may lead him to emend the text unnecessarily; the larger the number who feel compelled to pronounce it unsound, the greater the probability that it is unsound, however difficult or uncertain it may be to pass beyond the negative judgment to positive reconstruction of the text.

31. Evidence of parallel texts within theOT. — We have now to consider in what ways beyond those indicated in § 28 the Hebrew text, taken by itself, gives indication of the presence of corruptions, or, on the other hand, of having been accurately preserved, and how it is to be used in order to approximate most closely to the original text, and through it to the original Intention of the authors of the several books.

Of most importance, so far as it is available, is the evidence of double texts within the OT. There are certain passages that occur twice over in the OT: e.g. Ps 18 is found also in 2 S 22; Ps 14 recurs as Ps 53; 2 K 18's-20" is (for the most part) repeated in Is 36-39; 2 K 24i»-25» and 25"-»« in Jer 62, and large parts of Samuel and Kings are incorporated in Chronicles. The variations between these parallel texts are of two kinds: some are due to the editor who incorporates in his own the matter common to his work and the earlier work from which he derives it; for example, in drawing on the Books of Samuel and Kings, the Chronicler often abbreviates, expands, or modifies the passages he borrows, with a view to adapting them to his special purpose; or, again, the editor who included the 14th Psalm in the collection in which Ps 53 stands, substituted 'God' for 'Jahweh' (Psalms, §2 (2)). With these changes, which it is the province of higher criticism to consider and explain, we are not here concerned. But the second type of variations is due to accidents of transmission, and not infrequently what is evidently the earlier reading is preserved in the later work; 'and the explanation is very simple: the earlier books were more read and copied: and the more a book is used, the worse is its text ' (Benzinger). In certain cases there is room for doubt as to the type to which particular varia-tions belong, so, for example, in several variations as between 2 K 18-21 and Is 36-39. As an illustration of the nature and extent of variations between two parallel texts of the OT, we may rather more fully analyze the variations in Ps 18 and 2 S 22. In a few cases the Greek version of both passages agrees with the Hebrew of one, and here the presumption is that the Hebrew text of the other passage has suffered corruption after the date of the Greek version; but in the majority of cases in which the Hebrew variations can be represented in Greek, the Greek version of Ps 18 agrees with the Hebrew text of the Psalm, and the Greek version of 2 S 22 with the Hebrew text of that passage. In these Instances the presumption is that the variation had arisen

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