Bible Review

It is only in this century that any such effort has been made for the Qur’an, and the resistance to it is phenomenal. See James A. Sanders, “Hermeneutics of Text Criticism,” Textus 18 (1995), p. 3.

New Testament text critics have established eclectic texts out of necessity, beginning in the 18th century, since there is nothing comparable to the MT for the New Testament. Up to that time, Erasmus’s Greek text of the New Testament was used by most students, including Luther when he translated the New into German in 1519. Text critics in many other fields also have to establish eclectic texts.

I am grateful to Professors Adrian Schenker and Shemaryahu Talmon, chief editors of Biblia Hebraica Quinta and the Hebrew University Bible, respectively, for reading the following and making helpful suggestions; any errors are mine alone. See Emanuel Tov, “The Place of the Masoretic Text in Modern Text Editions of the Hebrew Bible: The Relevance of Canon,” in The Canon Debate, ed. by Lee McDonald and Peter Flint (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, forthcoming).

One important area that such an edition would stimulate is the study of expansions and parallel editions of biblical books. In cases where such scribal activity is discernible—such as Judges 6:6–11, discussed previously—a critical text ought to include the different editorial layers in parallel columns or some similar arrangement. In this manner the multiform nature of the biblical text would be better understood and more accessible for study.

Tov, Textual Criticism, pp. 373–374.

Moshe Goshen-Gottstein, The Book of Isaiah: Sample Edition with Introduction, Hebrew University Bible Project (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1965), p. 7.

Adrian Schenker, “Eine Neuausgabe der Biblia Hebraica,” Zeitschrift für Althefraistik 9 (1996), p. 59.

Rudolf Kittel, Über die Notwendigkeit und Möglichkeit einer neuen Ausgabe der hebräischen Bibel (Leipzig: Deichert, 1902), pp. 77–78.

Ulrich et al., DJD 14, p. 162. I would add a linguistic note to Trebolle Barrera’s analysis: The linguistic forms hntaw and hrmaw in vv. 9–10 are characteristic of late biblical Hebrew, lending further plausibility to the late dating of this passage. Such forms are common in Ezra, Nehemiah and later texts; see Shlomo Morag, “Qumran Hebrew: Some Typological Observations,” Vetus Testamentum 38 (1988), pp. 154–155 and references.

Alberto Soggin, Judges: A Commentary, Old Testament Library (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1981), p. 112.