Rewriting Textual Criticism

by koot van wyk Seoul South Korea 8th February 2009

1. The need as I see it, in Textual Criticism is not Textual Criticism itself, but a rewriting of Textual Criticism.

2. Below is a citation of Tov 1992.

3. I have met Tov about 3 times (two times in his office at the Hebrew University) and one time at Notre Dame University.

4. My book for Textual Criticism I use is endorsed by him.

5. Tov is an agnostic. He believes that the Pentateuch may be pure but for the rest of the books of the Old Testament, he is full of doubt.

6. Do not play the person play the facts. That is true but anyone who knows even just an elementary knowledge of philosophy will know that ontology, epistemology, methodology and deontology are intertwined.

7. That ontology and deontology was strongly connected was emphasized by Charles Peirce 1877 who was disgraced by Harvard University for living with a woman while not yet divorced for 20 years from his first wife.

8. Tov has many problems in his book and the big decision for me is whether I should scan his whole book and rewrite it the way it should be written with the additional facts that he left out, or whether I should completely write my own book, or whether I should just focus on hot issues and point to the opposite? (there are many so that volumes can be written about them).

9. The theory of the multiplicity of text in the Second Temple Period did not exist really before that shortsighted article of F. M Cross in 1953 on 4QSama, a piece of 1 Samuel 1:22-2:6 in Column I and 1 Samuel 2:16-25 in Column II.

a. This article of Cross was written with the intention of using the LXX to reconstruct it. It was a mistake, in my view.

b. Qumran materials were just discovered in 1947 and thus, hidden from many scholars, the articles started pouring in by those who were permitted access to them.

c. Cross was still called mr. Cross, which is scientifically not important but it gives us an idea where he was.

d. This article became one of the most cited articles in post war textual criticism of that period before 1970, snowballing into a theory that since the text compare so close to the LXX (Cross) therefore a text other than the Masoretic Hebrew Text existed in the Second Temple period.

e. Because later texts from Qumran displayed SP or Samaritan Pentateuch characteristics, LXX characteristics, MT characteristics, Other characteristics, the theory snowballed in scholars thinking that a mulitplicity of text co-existed side by side without a standard text for the Second Temple Period.

f. For agnostics, it doesn't matter, it just helps them since if there are so many kinds and forms of Bibles existing in that time, then do not try to pinpoint me today from this verse or that verse, things were fluid way then, do not dogmatically scrutinize me today on "late Middle-age" standard data. That is how the argument goes.

g. In my dissertation, I re-evaluated Cross. He had problems.

i) Pretoria University Professor Izak Eybers took the same text (1960) and analysed it again and came to the opposite conclusion of Cross on many points.

ii) Eybers discussed many of Crosses problems of analysis but I was able to add more.

iii) Cross had a typographical error in his transcription in Column 2 line 4.

iv) My main difficulty with Cross transcription was the open spaces that he left. My lines 15-17 read different than Cross. Line 16 is open in my reconstruction. So is the first half of line 17.

v). Cross used the LXX to reconstruct the text whereas I used the consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition.

vi. Variants between Crosses reconstruction and mine are clearly notated.

vii. Certain phrases were out of order (Column 2 lines 3-4), or written twice or there was a scribal error (Column 2 line 7).

viii. The error is very important. We do not have a perfect text here and that is important textcritically to keep in mind during the analysis and final conclusion. (the error is admitted by both Cross and Eybers).

ix. The scribe is inconsistent in his own procedures: Column 2 line 17.

x. There are a number of additions in this text not shared by the consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition and Eybers called it "Targumistic expansion" (Eybers 1960: 5). Eybers indicated that these expansion were added for greater clarity.

xi. Where does Tov fit in? He accepted Cross uncritically and Crosses results or final conclusions as a given. Period.

xii. Whereas Eybers sees Column 2 lines 3-4 as a targumic gloss my position was that the data for these lines are coming from 2 Samuel 2:13 and it was considered by the scribe to belong to 2 Samuel 2:16.

xiii. Cross argued that because the fragment is earlier than any other Hebrew text in existence, therefore it is an earlier and older type of Hebrew text and should any other text, Aleppo and Ben Aser included, differ from this text, they are wrong and additions. What does Tov do? Accept Cross uncritically in Tov 1992: 273.

xiv. There is a triple occurrence in the text and Cross and Eybers became suspicious of this. Cross called it a "dittography subsequently harmonized" (Cross 1953: 23). Eybers argued differently. He said that the scribe had two different readings in front of him and that he included them intentionally both (Eybers 1960: 9).

xiv. Some points of Eybers are in excellent in contrast to those of Cross. One cannot speak of a harmonization with three similar entries. There was a phenomenon of a double entry Column 2 line 16 (actually between 15-17). There is a connection between double readings in Column 1 line 6 and between double readings in Column 1 line 19. What happened in Column 1 line 6 is that the scribe was confused by the last word in verse 23 of the consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition and since there were no word divisions, he stumbled by reading the last word of 1 Samuel 1:23 and misreading the ayin of 1 Samuel 1:24 for a shin resulting in a double reading in this section. In the second example there was a slip of the eye in which the reader misread the consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition resh as a kaph and waw as a daleth resulting in a slip of the ear in acoustic perception for the scribe writing down what was dictated to him.

xiv. As to the origin of some variants, it was possible that the Vorlage of the Qumran fragment was written in paleo-hebrew and variants in Column 2 line 11 and Column 2 line 12 can better be understood this way. Also the example of the variant in Column 2 line 14. The later lamed and the earlier Phoenician nun comes very close and explains the variant. Column 2 line 4 is another example. The paleo-Hebrew for the samek resembles the kapf especially in the Leviticus fragment from Qumran (see Tov 1992: 409 for the table). There is also the scribal error in Column 2:7 that could be paleo-hebrew related.

xv. My best efforts (even if I used the consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition, or Cross using the LXX) could not explain all the variant in 4QSama.

xvi. My final conclusion is that the endresult of the form of 4QSama is not the consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition, although it was used, neither the LXX as Cross is postulating and consensus standardized as the given, but a parabiblical text fulfilling a function that we cannot yet ascertain.

xvii. To find one or two detail points that looks similar to the LXX does not make it a LXX Vorlage Hebrew text. There are too many details that do not correspond. Consensus were too naive here.

xviii. Because of an obvious error (acknowledge by both scholars) because of double entries, and triple entries, targumistic additions, change in order of the verses.

xix. Contrary to Cross and consensus and Tov representing or symbolizing it in his work, the final result of my analysis was that the scribe composed a para-biblical text due to his inability to read properly the Paleo-hebrew letters of the text, a text very similar to the consontal text of the Masoretic tradition, except for additions he intentionally wanted to make. The case of order problems and triple readings may be due to slips of the memory especially in the last part of Column 2.

What did scholar do?

They cited Cross as proof that there existed a Septuagintal like text of Samuel in cave 4 that proves that the book of Samuel was either longer or shorter than the consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition. Thus: a fluid form of text in the Second Temple period, the time of Qumran copies.

What is the problem?

Alternatives were not given enough chance.

Deeper analysis were not considered.

Only a Vorlage was looked for and Cross did not consider the possibility of a para-biblical text composition.

Cross and consensus of scholars did not consider the possibility of a degenerative quality of scribal practices at Qumran [which was the prime object of my study for my dissertation].

Tov 1992: 9 said:

"A: Need for Textual Criticism 9"

"Corruptions as well as various forms of scribal intervention (changes, corrections, etc.) are thus evidenced in all textual witnesses of the Hebrew Bible, including the group of texts now called the (medieval) Masoretic Text as well as in its predecessors, the proto-Masoretic texts. Those who are unaware of the details of textual criticism may think that one should not expect any corruptions in [Masoretic Text] or any other sacred text, since these texts were meticulously written and transmitted. Indeed, the scrupulous approach of the soferim and Masoretes is manifest in their counting of all the letters and words of [Masoretic Text] (see pp. 22-23, 73-74). Therefore, it is seemingly unlikely that they would have corrupted the text or even corrected it. Yet, in spite of their precision, even the manuscripts which were written and vocalized by the Masoretes contain corruptions, changes, and erasures. More importantly, the Masoretes, and before them the soferim, acted in a relatively late stage of the development of the biblical text, and before they had put their meticulous principles into practice, the text already contained corruptions and had been tampered with during that earlier period when scribes did not as yet treat the text with such reverence. Therefore, paradoxically, the soferim and Masoretes carefully preserved a text that was already corrupted. The discussion in the following chapters will expand on the subject of these corruptions which occurred in the manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible, including the manuscripts of [Hebrew Bible]. .

The preceding analysis has surmised that [Masoretic Text], too, contains occasional errors. In our analysis of the witnesses of the biblical text no exception is made in this regard for [Masoretic text], because that text, like all other texts, may have been corrupted in the course of the scribal transmission. It is not easy to provide convincing proof of such errors in [Masoretic text] at this early stage of the discussion in this monograph, but it nevertheless is necessary to provide some examples. We believe that the examples in section 4 below ("Differences between Inner-Biblical Parallel Texts") provide partial proof of such errors."

 

van wyk notes:

1. It is possible with reason and data, numerous data, to proof the opposite of what Tov is suggesting here as a solution.

2. Tov's corrupt text theory can be cancelled immediately by a control test that was carried out for my dissertation, Alleppo and Ben Aser and 4QDan compared.

3. If a text over a millennium compares 99% between them, one can assume that a standard text existed for a millennium or two earlier than the earliest example employed. That is for the Hebrew of Daniel. My committee felt that this was the strongest argument against Tov's fluid text theory for the Second Temple Period or his multiplicity of texts theory for the same.

4. It can no longer be assumed [as Tov 1992] assume, that there was no standard text in the Second Temple Period.

 

More discussion is necessary on this topic and two pages cannot do justice to over 500 and more pages of research.

What is the alternative to Tov? The Standard Text Theory, namely, that the consonantal text of the Masoretic Tradition existed for Daniel definitely 99% exact at Qumran, thus the other less % texts are so because of degenerative practices at Qumran.

 

First lecture.