Second, by far the most significant development for OT textual criticism in terms of finding ancient sources came in 1946/1947 with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran. This collection included ~10,000 biblical manuscripts. The Cairo Genizah contained hundreds of thousands of manuscripts in multiple languages-especially Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic-making it the largest collection of mostly medieval manuscripts in the world. First, near the turn of the 20th century scholars finally recognized the significance of the manuscript collection available in the genizah (storeroom) of the Ben Ezra synagogue of Old Cairo. I refer the reader to Tov for more extensive history on this field, but two other major events should be noted before we move to discussing sources. #Old testament textual criticism seriesOne Hebrew codex made during this era, what was later known as the Leningrad Codex, would become the primary basis for the Biblia Hebraica series in the 20th century and beyond. OT textual criticism would also predominate the landscape of biblical studies in the medieval era in Europe, as scholars frequently charted variants and made corrections to the Vulgate out of their interactions with Hebrew manuscripts, with which they had access thanks to European Jews. Jerome also consulted both Hebrew and Greek texts for his Latin Vulgate translation of the OT, as well as his commentaries, where he sometimes diverged from his work in the Vulgate. Most extensively, Origen engaged in it in the construction of his Hexapla, a six-column edition that featured parallel texts of the consonantal Hebrew text, its Greek transliteration, and four Greek translations: Aquila, Symmachus, a recension of the Septuagint/LXX with marks indicating additions or omissions compared to the Hebrew, and Theodotion. I will also include here a text-critical analysis I have done before of Zech 14:3–5 as a demonstration of that practice.Īs noted in my previous post, OT textual criticism was already practiced among the early Christians. For this introduction, I will only be addressing what I consider the highlights he draws attention to, particularly where the practice of OT textual criticism differs from NT textual criticism. The standard resource for OT textual criticism remains Emanuel Tov’s Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, which I recommend for those who wish to study this subject in much greater detail. Due to this factor and the scarcity of early and fuller manuscripts relative to the NT, the importance of the versions for OT textual criticism is generally given more weight than the versions for NT textual criticism. Additionally, there are manuscripts of versions in other languages that are older than this. There are of course much older manuscripts and fragments in Hebrew, including from among the Dead Sea Scrolls, which often (but not entirely) comport with the MT. Our most complete Greek NT codex dates from the fourth century, while our most complete Hebrew OT codex, the Leningrad Codex-containing what we call the Masoretic Text (MT)-dates from the eleventh century. Compared to the NT, there is a larger gap between when the OT texts are thought to be written and the oldest manuscripts we find of them. But there are enough differences in practice between textual criticism in the NT and OT that the latter requires its own exposition. Some of what I said there will also apply to OT textual criticism, particularly in terms of the applicability of the canons (including harmonization of parallel texts). Last time I provided an introduction for textual criticism of the NT.
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