Combine the Best from Each Tradition

028

I believe that we are ready for a new critical edition of the Hebrew Bible.

We now have sufficient ancient texts and critical tools to improve the Hebrew text that has come down to us as the textus receptus, the Masoretic Text, or MT for short.¹

All we are lacking is the initiative. Hebrew Bible scholars who are specialists in the discipline of textual criticism are all too often averse to trying to improve the text of the Hebrew Bible. When I say improve, I mean simply substituting better, truer, more original texts than have been preserved in the Masoretic Text, the textus receptus. In any other field, textual critics share a common goal: Whether working with the writings of Shakespeare, Homer or the New Testament, they strive to produce the best, most original text using all the available textual evidence and sound critical methods. But despite this century’s discovery at Qumran of the oldest known biblical manuscripts, Bible scholars are reluctant to incorporate variations found in the Dead Sea Scrolls into the text of the Bible. The authority of the textus receptus (which was compiled by Jacob ben Chayim from medieval manuscripts and published in 1525) is simply too great.^a

For many centuries, scholars have known that texts of the Hebrew Bible other than the MT contain readings that differ from it significantly. In 1616 an Italian traveler named Pietro della Valle acquired a copy of the Samaritan Pentateuch (see the sidebar to this article). The Samaritan Pentateuch (which contains the first five books of the Bible) is the sacred book of the Samaritans, who separated from other Jewish groups between the fourth and the second century B.C.E. and built a sanctuary to rival the Jerusalem Temple, on Mt. Gerizim, near Shechem (modern Nablus). Della Valle’s discovery caused a sensation among scholars, who were now challenged with a Hebrew biblical text that differed in many instances from the MT. Some differences reflected theological disagreements. For example, where the Hebrew Bible describes Jerusalem as “the place that God 030will choose,” the Samaritan Pentateuch describes Mt. Gerizim as “the place that God has chosen.” But many of the variants found in the Samaritan Pentateuch agreed with the Septuagint (LXX), the third- to second-century B.C.E. Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible.^b Up to this time the Septuagint had been generally regarded as an unreliable translation of the Masoretic Text, but the evidence from the Samaritan Pentateuch indicated that the LXX may have been based, at least in part, on earlier Hebrew texts that differed from the MT. To biblical scholars, the intricate network of agreements and disagreements among the MT, the Samaritan Pentateuch and the LXX challenged the notion that the MT was the hebraica veritas, the unchanging “Hebrew truth.” Scholars began to consider the possibility that some of the variant readings in the Samaritan Pentateuch or the LXX may preserve a better, or more original, biblical text than the corresponding reading in the MT. Thus was born the modern scholarly discipline of textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible.

Around 50 years ago another great discovery of biblical texts stunned the scholarly world. From 11 caves near Qumran, on the shore of the Dead Sea, there emerged more than 200 biblical manuscripts, almost all in very fragmentary condition, dating between the third century B.C.E. and the first century C.E. Not only have the Qumran scrolls produced new readings, but, perhaps more importantly, they also share numerous readings with variants in the Samaritan Pentateuch and the LXX, demonstrating that in many places the Samaritan Pentateuch and the LXX accurately represent ancient Hebrew biblical texts. The agreements and disagreements among the MT, the Samaritan Pentateuch and the LXX have taken on a new dimension in light of the Qumran scrolls, because now we must reckon with the demonstrable antiquity of many of these deviations from the MT. The discovery of the Qumran scrolls has triggered a rebirth of interest and activity in the textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible.

In the last few years, most of the biblical manuscripts from the richest source, Qumran Cave 4, have been published in scholarly editions in the series Discoveries in the Judaean Desert.² With publication of the Dead Sea biblical scrolls nearly complete, it is worthwhile to assess the importance of the new textual data.

The new readings and the new understandings of old readings have transformed the field. But a question not adequately addressed is what textual critics ought to do with all these new texts. In the cases where we can ascertain better readings of the Hebrew text, should they be lumped with the inferior or secondary readings on the bottom of the page—as is currently the practice in scholarly editions of the Hebrew Bible—or is it possible to produce a new critical edition that will incorporate these better readings into the text itself? I believe that it is possible and that now is the time to produce it.

On the following pages, I list several biblical passages that could stand to be improved, that is, that can arguably be brought closer to the original. In each case, the original text has been altered, whether by scribal errors, by editorial emendations intended to smooth out the narrative or by theologically inspired revisions. In each case, the textual data from the Qumran scrolls can help us to achieve a better reading of the Hebrew text.

Genesis 1:9

This passage occurs during the account of the third day of creation. The first two days follow a pattern: 032God says that something should happen, and in the following line we are told explicitly what happened. So—“God said, ‘Let there be light.’ And there was light” (Genesis 1:3); and “God said, ‘Let there be an expanse in the midst of the water, that it may separate water from water.’ And God made the expanse, and it separated the water which was below the expanse from the water which was above the expanse. And it was so” (Genesis 1:6–7).

Then we come to the third day of creation as written in the MT: “God said, ‘Let the water below the sky be gathered into one area, that the dry land may appear.’ And it was so” (Genesis 1:9). The pattern is broken. Missing is the explicit statement of fulfillment beginning “And God made the…”

But if we look at the verse as it is found at Qumran and in the Septuagint, the expected announcement of what happened is there. The fragmentary Dead Sea Scroll known as 4QGen^k contains the words “and dr[y land] appeared” ([h]byh artw).^c The Septuagint reads “and the waters below heaven gathered into their gathering place and dry land appeared.” (The additions found in the LXX and 4QGen^k are missing from the Samaritan Pentateuch as well as from the MT.)

The new reading from 4QGen^k demonstrates what the best textual critics have long surmised, that the textual addition found in the LXX at the end of Genesis 1:9 stems from an ancient Hebrew text that differed from the MT.³ The chief remaining question is whether the longer reading of the LXX, which is preserved fragmentarily in the Qumran text, is to be preferred to the shorter reading in the MT. The editor of the Qumran fragment, James Davila, argues that a simple scribal error can account for the shorter reading in the MT. Davila proposes that the “phrase was lost in the manuscript tradition represented by the MT” when a scribe’s eye jumped from the Hebrew word “gathered,” which begins with the letters vav-yod-koph, to the word “called” at the beginning of verse 10, which begins with the 034same three letters. In so doing, the intervening phrase, now found in brief in the Qumran fragment and in longer form in the LXX, was unintentionally omitted.⁴

It is also possible that the longer reading in 4QGen^k is a harmonizing expansion of a shorter original text, but this seems unlikely, since it does not conform to the ordinary procedures of such scribal harmonizations. It doesn’t repeat exactly the wording of the command, as it would in the standard form of scribal harmonizations. Furthermore, the style of the longer reading is fully consistent with the pattern established in the previous verses: God’s intent is followed by a statement of explicit fulfillment.

In this addition found in the LXX, now partially preserved in 4QGen^k, we probably have the original text of Genesis 1:9, which was accidentally lost by scribal error in the textual tradition ancestral to the MT.

Exodus 1:3

Scribal error accounts for most variant readings—but not all. Sometimes a scribe deliberately clarified the text, as is apparent in the first lines of the Book of Exodus. Exodus opens with a list of the Israelites who entered Egypt with Jacob. In the MT, we read: “These are the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob, each coming with his household: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah; Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin; Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher. The total number of persons that were of Jacob’s issue came to seventy, Joseph already being in Egypt.” The Exodus passage is an abbreviation of Genesis 46:8–27, which names all 70 members of Jacob’s household who came to Egypt before concluding: “The total number of persons that were of Jacob’s issue came to 70” (Genesis 46:27). But in Genesis, Joseph is included among the 70: “The sons of Jacob’s wife Rachel were Joseph and Benjamin” (Genesis 46:19). The same discrepancy is found in the Samaritan Pentateuch and the LXX: In Genesis, Joseph is included alongside his brother Benjamin; but in Exodus, Joseph is missing from the list. He is “already in Egypt,” the text informs us. (The MT and the Samaritan Pentateuch have this comment at the end of Exodus 1:5, while the Septuagint places it at the end of Exodus 1:4.)

The Qumran scroll known as 4QExod^b, however, includes Joseph in both lists. In Exodus, he is listed right before his brother Benjamin: “Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph and Benjamin.”

Where does Joseph belong in Exodus—in the list with his younger brother, Benjamin (as in 4QExod^b), or after the list because he is already in Egypt (as in the MT, the LXX and the Samaritan Pentateuch)? The editor of 4QExod^b, Frank Moore Cross, makes a cogent argument for preferring the Qumran reading:

Perhaps the easiest explanation of the textual 035history of these readings is to suppose that the reading [“Joseph”] in Exodus 1:3 [found in 4QExod^b]…together with the omission of the phrase [“Joseph was in Egypt”] belongs to one textual tradition, the omission of [“Joseph”] in Exodus 1:3 together with the insertion of [“Joseph was in Egypt”] to another, surviving in the tradition preserved by MT [as well as the Samaritan Pentateuch and the LXX]. It is probable that “Joseph” once appeared in the list in Exodus 1:3. Later the discrepancy was noticed, [“Joseph”] suppressed and the phrase [“Joseph was in Egypt”] inserted. If the phrase is taken to be secondary, then the uncertain position of the phrase, inserted at one point in [the Septuagint], at another in the MT—omitted in 4QExod^b—is readily explained. In this case 4QExod^b preserves the earliest set of readings.”⁵

If Joseph was originally in the list with his brother Benjamin, we can understand why a scribe would have some difficulty here: The scribe would have known that Joseph did not “come to Egypt with Jacob” but was already there. Therefore, the scribe would have adjusted the list accordingly. But the scribe failed to revise the total number of 70 persons. This number presumes the inclusion of Joseph and his two sons (as detailed in Genesis 46:19–20). There are sufficient clues in the textual evidence and in the comparison with Genesis 46 to indicate that Joseph belongs with his brother Benjamin in the original list—as preserved in 4QExod^b. The later revision of the Exodus text to exclude Joseph from the list and to add the phrase regarding Joseph’s presence in Egypt, which was preserved (with some variation) in the MT, the Samaritan Pentateuch and the LXX, seems to have been a scribal adjustment.

Deuteronomy 32:8

Deuteronomy, too, bears traces of a deliberate scribal change: In this case, however, the alteration was probably made for theological reasons.⁶ The famous poem in Deuteronomy 32 is Moses’ adjuration to his people before he ascends Mt. Nebo to die. It includes an account of humanity’s earliest history. Deuteronomy 32:8 in the traditional Masoretic Text and the Samaritan Pentateuch reads: “When the Most High apportioned the nations, when he divided the sons of man, he established the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the sons of Israel.” The sense of this passage is fairly clear until one comes to the last phrase: How can the borders of the peoples be established according to the number of the sons of Israel before Israel has even been established? And why should there 036be as many nations as the sons of Israel? It doesn’t make sense.

In the Qumran fragment 4QDeut^j, however, the last phrase in the verse in this fragment clearly reads “the Sons of God,” rather than “the sons of Israel.” The context of this passage seems linked with the old notion that each nation had its own tutelary god (in later tradition, guardian angel). The phrase “the Sons of God”—also found in the LXX—appears to be the original reading. Apparently the passage was altered at a time when the notion of the existence of other gods was no longer considered acceptable. A simple change from “God” to “Israel” solved this problem for a pious scribe.^d

Judges 6:6–11

The Book of Judges relates what happens to the Israelites in the land of Canaan after the death of Joshua. Repeatedly, Judges tells us, the Israelites did “what was offensive to the Lord.” Incensed, the Lord speaks against Israel: “Since that nation has transgressed the covenant that I enjoined upon their fathers and has not obeyed me, I for my part will no longer drive out before them any of the nations that Joshua left when he died” (Judges 2:20–21). Then, as punishment, the Lord delivers the transgressing Israelites into the hands of one or another of their enemies. But when the Israelites cry out to the Lord, “he raises up a champion for them” to defeat their oppressors. Then the cycle of transgression, retribution and forgiveness begins again.

In Judges 6, the behavior of the Israelites has once again offended the Lord and he has “delivered them into the hands of the Midianites for seven years…Israel was reduced to utter misery by the Midianites and the Israelites cried out to the Lord” (Judges 6:1–6).

What follows depends on which version you read. According to the Qumran fragment 4QJudg^a, when the Israelites cried out, “[an angel of Yahweh came and sat beneath the oak in Oprah] which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite.” The angel approaches Joash’s son Gideon and tells him, “Go in this strength of yours and deliver Israel from the Midianites.”

The pattern in 4QJudg^a is familiar: transgression, followed by retribution and, finally, forgiveness and deliverance.

But the familiar rhythm is disrupted in the MT and the Septuagint.^e In these versions, a lengthy passage about a prophetic visit is inserted between the Israelites calling out and the appearance of the angel:

When the Israelites cried out to Yahweh on account of Midian, Yahweh sent a prophet to the Israelites who said to them, “Thus says Yahweh, God of Israel: It was I who brought you up out of Egypt and freed you from the house of bondage. I rescued you from the Egyptians and from all your oppressors. I drove them out before you and gave you their land. And I said to you, ‘I am Yahweh, your God. Do not worship the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell.’ But you did not heed my voice.”

Judges 6:7–10

Then the story resumes:

An angel of Yahweh came and sat beneath the oak in Oprah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite.

Judges 6:11

Julio Trebolle Barrera, the editor of the Qumran fragment 4QJudg^a, notes that these verses about a prophetic appearance have long been identified as a literary insertion in this chapter and are generally attributed to a later editor.⁷ Most commentators accept the independence of verses 7–10. Alberto Soggin, for example, observes that the passage “does not have any connection with the context.”⁸ The absence of these verses in 4QJudg^a leads Trebolle Barrera to conclude that “4QJudg^a can confidently be seen as an earlier literary form of the book than our traditional texts.”⁹

In this instance, we can clearly see how the text was expanded over time. This fragment is helpful not only for recovering the textual history of Judges 6, but also for providing empirical data for our models of the nature and history of biblical literature. In this passage we can see how a later editor expanded the biblical narrative with more story, just as we think happened in the literary history of many biblical books.

A New Edition

Fifty years ago, William Foxwell Albright proclaimed the Dead Sea Scrolls “the greatest manuscript discovery of modern times.” The examples surveyed here of new Qumran readings and new understandings of old readings (primarily from the Samaritan Pentateuch and the LXX) demonstrate their significance for our understanding of the biblical text. But what should we do with these new readings and new understandings? The discipline of textual criticism is founded on the desire for better editions of texts. Only in the study of the Hebrew Bible is this goal not commonly held. In light of the advances in the practice of textual criticism in the post-Qumran era, it is worth reconsidering whether this position is justified.

The most extensive rationale for a critical edition of the Hebrew Bible was given by Rudolf Kittel, 038founder of the Biblia Hebraica project, now in its fifth incarnation. In his 1902 monograph On the Necessity and Possibility of a New Edition of the Hebrew Bible, Kittel conceded: “In principle one must therefore absolutely agree that this arrangement [namely, a critical, eclectic text, with an apparatus showing the secondary or inferior readings] is the only proper one; the question can only be whether it is practical as well as easily accomplished.”¹⁰

Ultimately, Kittel determined that it was not practical to create a fully critical edition. He opted instead for what he admitted was a “basically inferior” edition: the text of the MT along with a compilation of selected variants. Kittel decided that such a diplomatic edition (a reproduction of a single manuscript with a list of variants) was preferable to the difficult judgments and uncertainties involved in establishing a truly critical edition.

Kittel’s scholarly heirs in the Biblia Hebraica Quinta project—the new edition of Kittel’s diplomatic edition—continue to be reluctant to create a critical edition: “Indeed, it seems to us premature to produce a critical text of the Hebrew Bible. The complexity of the textual situation does not yet allow such a reconstruction at the present time.”¹¹

This view is also reflected in the position of the Hebrew University Bible Project, which is reproducing the Aleppo Codex manuscript of the MT along with a comprehensive anthology of possible textual variants. The chief editor, the late Moshe Goshen-Gottstein, announced that the goal of this project is “to present nothing but the facts,” eschewing as far as possible all subjective judgments.¹²

There are, however, “stealth” textual critics. As Emanuel Tov of Hebrew University has pointed out, most modern translations and commentaries incorporate their own critical texts of the Hebrew Bible,¹³ though their text-critical decisions are rarely defended in detail. These “stealth” critical texts are probably the dominant form in which the Bible is known in modern culture. But is it justifiable for textual critics to abdicate the task of producing critical texts with the result that the most difficult and delicate work of textual criticism is ceded to translation committees?

A critical edition will not be a “new revelation from Sinai”—it will be the work of human hands and as such 039imperfect. But with care and effort it can be a better text, incorporating the best readings available, and it, too, can be criticized and improved.¹⁴ In this way the riches of the biblical texts from Qumran can be passed on to a new generation of scholars and students.

I believe that we are ready for a new critical edition of the Hebrew Bible.