Some years ago the Vatican announced plans to restore Michelangelo’s famous paintings on the walls and ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Some art critics were incensed that the conservators had the audacity to attempt to restore these hallowed biblical scenes, including the Creation and the Last Judgment. They argued that Michelangelo intended the paintings to be dark and shadowed, and that to strip off the dark outer layers was tantamount to blasphemy.
The Italian conservators replied that they were only removing dirt, candle wax and soot that had accumulated over the centuries—and were repairing previous crude attempts at restoration. They insisted exceptional care was taken not to disturb any of the original paintings. Theirs was an act of meticulous and loving restoration, not destruction. A BR article at the time agreed with the conservators. Jane and John Dillenberger concluded:
After seeing the restoration of Michelangelo’s monumental fresco, as close as he himself saw it as he worked, and after speaking to the restorers about their task, we are no longer dubious about the value of cleaning these beloved paintings. We rejoice that Michelangelo has been restored to us, as he was known to his contemporaries.a
A similar controversy is starting to brew around the question of restoring the Hebrew Bible. The recent burst of Dead Sea Scroll publications has made available many previously unknown readings of the Hebrew text. Although some of the newly published biblical scrolls agree exactly with the traditional Hebrew Bible (the Masoretic text, or MT), others have readings that differ from the traditional text.b Some biblical readings that diverge from MT agree with readings in other ancient sources, such as the old Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible (the Septuagint) or the Samaritan version of the Pentateuch.
The important point is that some of these variant readings may be better or “more original” than the corresponding reading in MT. Sometimes ancient scribes made mistakes (as do modern scribes),1 and sometimes (though far less often) scribes made deliberate changes in the text.
It is the job of the textual critic of the Hebrew Bible to judge whether MT or another source preserves the best reading. Meticulous care is necessary to determine which reading is secondary—like isolating the soot or candle wax or clumsy restorations on Michelangelo’s paintings—and which reading is the original (or at least a closer approximation to the original). In many cases it is difficult or impossible to analyze clearly which is the better (or more original) reading. But in other cases, a clear analysis can be made and a decision reached—with a reasonable degree of confidence—concerning the preferable reading. In these cases, the unresolved question is: What should we do with the better readings?
One possibility is to restore the text of the Hebrew Bible, as the conservators did for the Sistine Chapel paintings. We could produce a critical edition of the Hebrew Bible that contains, as much as is possible, a better and more original text. The soot and wax of scribal errors and pious revisions can be gently removed and placed aside, allowing a more original text to emerge. It is probably unreasonable to hope that we can restore every detail of the original text (however the term “original text” is to be understood), but it is certainly fair to hope that a better text would emerge than the currently available editions of the Hebrew Bible.2
In fact, the task of textual restoration has been pursued for every other important text of antiquity—including the New Testament, the Septuagint, and the Greek and Latin classics—as well as for medieval and modern literary texts. The Library of America is currently producing new critical texts of the classics of American literature. Should we not do the same for the Hebrew Bible? With the new wealth of textual evidence at our disposal, I think it is difficult to say that the attempt is illegitimate.
But this is what some scholars are saying. Some claim it is blasphemous to try to produce a critical text of the Hebrew Bible. The traditional Hebrew text was good enough for the rabbis, they say, and it is good enough for us. Others assert that textual critics aren’t talented or intelligent enough to be trusted with delicate textual judgments. What if they make the wrong decision? Humans—even (or especially) scholars—are fallible.
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All of these arguments are worthy of consideration. But, at least in principle, there is nothing wrong with trying to restore the text of the Hebrew Bible.3 If any book deserves such an effort certainly this book does. And the good news is that, unlike the paintings of the Sistine Chapel, if mistakes are made, they can be corrected in the next edition. There have been many critical editions of the New Testament, and it is arguable that each has improved upon its predecessors. Shouldn’t we try to do the same for the Hebrew Bible? And, in the words of the early rabbi Hillel, if not now, when?
Some years ago the Vatican announced plans to restore Michelangelo’s famous paintings on the walls and ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Some art critics were incensed that the conservators had the audacity to attempt to restore these hallowed biblical scenes, including the Creation and the Last Judgment. They argued that Michelangelo intended the paintings to be dark and shadowed, and that to strip off the dark outer layers was tantamount to blasphemy. The Italian conservators replied that they were only removing dirt, candle wax and soot that had accumulated over the centuries—and were repairing previous crude attempts at restoration. […]
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I was surprised to learn that, according to the research of an organization of orthodox Torah scribes, more than 50 percent of the Torah scrolls they checked contained scribal errors; see the comments of Moshe Sokolow in Jewish Book World 15:3 (Winter 1997), p. 16.
2.
The edition used most commonly by biblical scholars, the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, reproduces a single Masoretic manuscript and includes an unsystematic collection of textual variants at the bottom of each page. The massive Hebrew University Bible (of which only Isaiah and Jeremiah are completed) includes a fuller collection of textual variants. Neither edition attempts to note consistently which variant readings are preferable and which are secondary.
3.
A preliminary attempt is in my book, The Text of Genesis 1–11: Textual Studies and Critical Edition York/Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1998).
