Endnote 16 – Keep Each Tradition Separate

See Barthélemy, “Les Tiqquné Sopherim et la critique textuelle de l’Ancien Testament,” Vetus Testamentum Supplements 9 (1963), pp. 285–304, and Etudes d’histoire du texte de l’Ancien Testament (Fribourg: Presses Universitaires, 1978), pp. 91–110. Barthélemy shows that the figure 70 in MT Genesis 46 and Exodus 1 is secondary to the LXX witnesses that have 75 instead. His argument is that the number 70 in the MT in those passages constitutes hidden tiqquné sopherim (scribal changes) in the Masoretic tradition introduced to counter the view that there were 70 deities. This impinges directly on the readings in Deuteronomy 32:8, which Hendel treats as a separate problem.