Text, Versions, and Languages of Ot (continued) – Text, Versions, and Languages of Ot (continued)

Text, Versions, and Languages of Ot (continued)

28. Means of detecting early corruption of Hebrew text. — Though the general fact that the present Hebrew text contains corruptions that date from these earlier centuries cannot reasonably be questioned, the detection of the actual cases of early corruption Is necessarily difficult, and only within limits is it possible. We are obviously far worse situated in attempting to determine corruptions of this date than corruptions of later date; the LXX often indicates the presence of the later corruptions, but we have no external clue to the earlier corruptions. We have to rely entirely on indications in the Hebrew text itself. One of these indications will of course be the occurrence of nonsense, for the original autographs were intended to convey an intelligible meaning. Another indication will be the occurrence of bad grammar — unless in the case of a particular writer there is reason for supposing that he was not master of the language which he wrote. An interesting illustration of the way in which the latter Indication may serve is furnished by some of the references to the ark.

The ark is called in Hebrew HNRN the ark, where the first letter is the Hebrew article; or NRN BRYT YHWH theark of the covenant of the Lord; where a word in Hebrew is defined by a following genitive it cannot be preceded by the article, so in this second phrase we have NRN, not HNRN. Now, in certain passages (e.^. Joshua 3:17). our presentHebrew text has the grammatically impossible combination HNRN BRYT YHWH; some corruption then is present here; and it is probable that the original text had only HNRN the ark, and that the two following words are due to the intrusion into the text of an annotator’s explanation.

29. Negative and positive judgments: the justification of conjectural emendaiian and its limitations. — The ultimate task of textual criticism is to recover as far as possible the actual words of the original; an intermediate task of the textual criticism of the OT is to establish all the real variants of the Hebrew text underlying the Greek version, and in each case to determine the relative value of the variants. In this way the text which was the common source of the Greek translators and that of the Jewish scholars of the 2nd cent. A.D. is as far as possible recovered. So far negative and positive judgments must necessarily accompany one another; we say. Here the Hebrew text is right, and the Greek text wrong, or vice versa. But when we have recovered that common source of the Hebrew and Greek texts, it is wise to distinguish sharply between negative and positive critical judgments. The general fact that there are early errors in the Hebrew text must, as we have seen, be admitted; and, further, no sound criticism of the Hebrew text can proceed far without being compelled to say. This or that is corrupt, even though the Greek version agrees with the Hebrew text or cannot be shown to have diSered from it. In some cases where this negative judgment can be passed with confidence, it may be possible with scarcely less confidence to pass to the positive statement. These words are a corruption of these other words; that is to say, the text in such cases can be restored by conjecture; but in many cases where the first judgment — These words are not the original text — must be passed, the second judgment ought only to take the form — It is possible that such and such words or something like them were in the original text. In brief, we can more often detect early corruption than restore the text which has been corrupted. The reason should be obvious. Nonsense (to take the extreme case) must be due to corruption, but the sense which it has obscured may altogether elude us, or, at best, we may be able to discern the general sense without determining the actual words.

There can be no question that it is nonsense to say, as the Hebrew text does, that Saul, who was anointed king to meet a national emergency, was a year old when he began to reign (1 Samuel 13:1) but it is impossible to say whether the original text attributed to him twenty, thirty, forty, or any other particular number of years . Nonsense is unfortunately more serious in the original language than in a version; we may pass easily from nonsense in the LXX to the actual original consonants of the Bebrew text, which merely require, when thus recovered, to be correctly interpreted; but if the Hebrew letters themselves yield nonsense, we are reduced to guessing,, and frequently with little hope of guessing right

30. The preceding paragraphs should have suggested the justification for conjectural emendation in the textual criticism of the OT, and at the same time they should have indicated its limitations. As against a conjectural emendation, it is in no way to the point to urge that the Hebrew text and all the versions are against it; for the agreement of the Hebrew text and the versions merely establishes the text as it was current about, let us say, b.c. 300. The principle of conjecture is justified by the centuries of transmission that the Hebrew text had passed through before that date. It may be worth while to notice also the degree of truth and the measure of misunderstanding involved in another common objection to conjectural emendations. Tacitly or openly it takes this form: Critics offer different emendations of the same passage; not all of these can be right; therefore the Hebrew text is not to be questioned. The real conclusion is rather this. The fact that several scholars have questioned the text renders the presence of corruption probable, that they differ in their emendations shows that the restoration of the original text is uncertain. The idiosyncrasy of a single scholar may lead him to emend the text unnecessarily; the larger the number who feel compelled to pronounce it unsound, the greater the probability that it is unsound, however difficult or uncertain it may be to pass beyond the negative judgment to positive reconstruction of the text.

31. Evidence of parallel texts within the OT. — We have now to consider in what ways beyond those indicated in § 28 the Hebrew text, taken by itself, gives indication of the presence of corruptions, or, on the other hand, of having been accurately preserved, and how it is to be used in order to approximate most closely to the original text, and through it to the original Intention of the authors of the several books.

Of most importance, so far as it is available, is the evidence of double texts within the OT. There are certain passages that occur twice over in the OT: e.g. Psalms 18 is found also in 2 Samuel 22; Psalms 14 recurs as Psalms 53; 2 Kings 18:13 is (for the most part) repeated in Is 36-39; 2 Kings 24:18 and 25:27–30 in Jeremiah 62, and large parts of Samuel and Kings are incorporated in Chronicles. The variations between these parallel texts are of two kinds: some are due to the editor who incorporates in his own the matter common to his work and the earlier work from which he derives it; for example, in drawing on the Books of Samuel and Kings, the Chronicler often abbreviates, expands, or modifies the passages he borrows, with a view to adapting them to his special purpose; or, again, the editor who included the 14th Psalm in the collection in which Psalms 53 stands, substituted ‘God’ for ‘Jahweh’ (Psalms, §2 (2)). With these changes, which it is the province of higher criticism to consider and explain, we are not here concerned. But the second type of variations is due to accidents of transmission, and not infrequently what is evidently the earlier reading is preserved in the later work; ‘and the explanation is very simple: the earlier books were more read and copied: and the more a book is used, the worse is its text’ (Benzinger). In certain cases there is room for doubt as to the type to which particular variations belong, so, for example, in several variations as between 2 K 18-21 and Is 36-39. As an illustration of the nature and extent of variations between two parallel texts of the OT, we may rather more fully analyze the variations in Psalms 18 and 2 Samuel 22. In a few cases the Greek version of both passages agrees with the Hebrew of one, and here the presumption is that the Hebrew text of the other passage has suffered corruption after the date of the Greek version; but in the majority of cases in which the Hebrew variations can be represented in Greek, the Greek version of Psalms 18 agrees with the Hebrew text of the Psalm, and the Greek version of 2 Samuel 22 with the Hebrew text of that passage. In these Instances the presumption is that the variation had arisen before the date of the Greek version. There are in all more than 80 variations. Of these just over 20 are cases of vowel letters (§ 6) present in the one text, and absent from the other; in the great majority of instances it is the Psalm that has the vowel letters, and 2 Samuel 22 that lacks them.

Among the remaining variations are cases of the following kinds: — (1) Omissions or additions: Psalms 18:1 is absent from 2 S., so also is v.; on the other hand, 2 Samuel 22:3 is absent from thePsalm. In about a dozen other instances single words present in one text are absent from the other; (2) in two or three cases a word has been lost through the substitution for it of a word-repeated in a parallel or neighbouring line: so ‘billows’ in Psalms 18:4 has accidentally given place to ‘cords’ from V.’ (cf. 2 S.); (3) the variations from Psalms 18 in 2 Samuel 22:12, 43 are due to the confusion of similar letters; (4) Psalms 18:28, 31 differs from 2 S. in respect of the Divine name used (in V.’‘the Ps. has Eloah, 2 S. El); (5) inversion of words (not shewn in EV), Psalms 18:49; there are also cases of inversion of lettera; (6) use of different synonyms, Psalms 18:48. The variation of Psalms 18 from 2 Samuel 22 is more complicated, and the significance of several of the variations is clear only in the Hebrew.

32. Evidence of mutilated literary forms. — (1) Acrostics. — Thus the comparison of parallel texts furnishes one line of evidence of the way in which the Hebrew text had suffered in transmission before the date of the Greek version. Another proof may be found in the mutilated form in which certain fixed literary forms survive in the present Hebrew text. Most conclusive is the ease of the acrostic poems (see Acrostic). At times two considerations converge to prove a particular passage corrupt. For example, the early part of Nahum 1 consists of a mutilated acrostic: in the middle of v. 4 a word beginning with D should occur; instead, the word XMLL beginning with K is found; but this word^MLL occurs again in the parallel line; in the light of Psalms 18:4 (see previous §, instance 2) it is probable that iJMLL in the first has been accidentally substituted for a parallel word which began with D.

33. (2) Rhythm and strophe. — It is possible that further study of the laws of Hebrew rhythm or metre may give us a valuable instrument for the detection of corruption; much has already been attempted in this way, and in some cases already with results of considerable probability. Similarly, in some cases the strophic division of poems admits of conclusions that are again, if not certain, yet probable. Thus in Isaiah 9:8 and 5:26–29 we have a poem in five strophes marked off from one another by a retrain (Isaiah [Book of], p. 390) in the present text the first strophe consists of 13, the second of 14, the third of 14, the fourth of 14, and the fifth of 15 lines; the probability is that originally each strophe was exactly equal, and that the first strophe has lost a line, and that the fifth has been enlarged by the interpolation of a line.

34. Limited extent of corruption of text of OT. — The considerations adduced in the two preceding paragraphs have a double edge. They show, it is true, that the Hebrew text has in places suffered considerably; but they also indicate certain limits within which corruption has taken place, or, to state it otherwise, the degree of integrity which the transmitted text has preserved. If in the ways just indicated we can detect the loss or Intrusion of lines or words, or the substitution of one word for another, we can elsewhere claim a strong presumption in favour of a poem having preserved its original length and structure. For example, the majority of the acrostics have come down to us with little or no mutilation that affects their length or the recurrence at the right place of the acrostic letters. Similarly the very possibility of determining rhythm must rest on a considerable amount of the text having reached us free from far-reaching corruption. A further consideration of a different kind may be found in the fact that a large number of proper names (which are peculiarly exposed to transmissional corruption) as handed down in the Hebrew text have been paralleled in ancient material brought to light by modern discovery. In many cases it is beyond question that names have suffered in the course of transmission; but the correct transmission of rare, and in some cases strange, names is significant.

35. Secondary nature of vowel letters: bearing on textual criticism. — So long as we deal with parallel texts, we are not brought face to face with the question of how to deal with a Hebrew text resting on a single authority. Yet the great bulk of the OT is of this class. How, then, is it to be dealt with, especially when there is no control over it to be obtained from fixed literary forms? The first duty of sound criticism is to disregard, or at least to suspect, all vowel letters (see § 6). We cannot, indeed, assert positively that the original writers made no use of these letters, for we find them employed in certain cases in early inscriptions (Moabite stone, Siloam inscription) ; but in view of the evidence of the parallel texts of the Hebrew Bible, of the LXX, and of Rabbinic references, it is certain that in a large number of cases these vowel letters have been added in the course of transmission. The consequence is that we cannot claim any particular vowel letter for the original author; he may have used it, he may not: particularly in the case of earlier writers, the latter alternative is as a rule the more probable. In other important respects the form of the present Hebrew consonantal text differs from what there is reason to believe was its earlier form.

36. Similarity of certain letters a source of confusion. — We have seen above (§ 17) that the alphabet in which existing Hebrew MSS are written differs widely from that in use at the time when the OT was written; the letter yod, proverbially the smallest (Matthew 5:15) in the alphabet in use since the Christian era, was one of the larger letters of the earlier script. It is necessary in doubtful passages to picture the text as written in this earlier script, and to consider the probability of a text differing from the received text merely by letters closely resembling one another in this earlier script.

Thus the letters D and R are similar in most Semitic alphabets, in some they are indistinguishable; for example, in the Assouan papyri, Jewish documents of theSth cent. B.C. recently discovered and published (1907), D and R cannot be clearly distinguished, and it is disputed, and is likely to be (^sputed, whether a particular word which occurs several times is DGL or RGL. It becomes important, therefore, in dealing with the Hebrew text of the OT to consider the variants which arise by substituting D’s for R’s. The Heb. words for SyriaandEdom are N RM and !< DM respectively; the context alone is really the only safe clue to the original reading in any particular passage, and the mere fact that the present Hebrew text reads the one or the other ia relatively unimportant; thus, for example, the Heb. text is obviously wrong in 2 Samuel 8:13, and probably in 2 Chronicles 20:2.

37. Division of text into words secondary. — Finally, it must be remembered that there is good reason for believing that the division of the consonants of one word from those of another has not been a constant feature of the text. Consequently we cannot safely assume that the present division corresponds to that of the original writers.

38. The starting-point of criticism in attempting to detect the earliest errors in the text. — From all this it follows that sound criticism requires us to start from this position: the original writers wrote in a different script from the present, used no vowel signs, no marks of punctuation, and even vowel letters but sparingly; either they themselves or copyists wrote the texts continuously without dividing one word from another, or at least without systematically marking the divisions. Consequently the canon that the history of the text justifies is that that division of consonants and that punctuation of clauses and sentences must in all cases be adopted which, everything considered, yields the most suitable sense; obvious as this canon may appear, it by no means always obtains recognition in practice; the weight of Jewish tradition is allowed to override it. And yet there are most obvious cases where the Hebrew text gives a division of consonants or clauses which are not the original, but have arisen from accident or particular theories of exegesis. Further, where no division of the existing consonants yields any sense, or but an improbable sense, it must be considered whether the substitution of similar consonants will. Whether the text thus obtained has any or much probability of being the original will depend on many considerations.

39. Illustralions of such errors. — We shall conclude with some illustrations of the variations m text or sense that arise when the foregoing considerations are allowed due weight. It is not to be understood that in all cases the variations from the traditional interpretation (1-3) or text (4) are certainly the true interpretation or text, but they all have a claim to be seriously regarded.

(1) In some cases simply a fresh punctuation of the sentences without any alteration of the consonants whatever gives an important variation In sense. A good instance is Isaiah 1:12–14; even in the present text the denunciation of ritual worship is severe; probably it was once more severe. Thus, without any change in the text, we may render — " When ye come to see my face. Who hath required this at your hand? No more shall ye trample my courts. The bringing of oblations is a vain thing; Incense is an abomination to me; New moon and sabbath, the calling of assembly, I cannot away with. Iniquity and the solemn meeting, your new moons and

your appointed feasts my soul nateth.’

For NWN iniquity^ the Greek version has ZWM fastis) .

We probably have in the history of this passage a series

of attempts to soften down the severity and absoluteness

of the prophetic denunciation of the externalities of religion.

(2) In the Hebrew Bible the word for man NYS is distinguished from the word for fire *<B by the insertion of the vowel letter Y; but in the Moabite stone, the Siloam inscription (written in Jerusalem in the age, as is commonly supposed, of Isaiah), and in Phcenician inscriptions, it is regularly written without the Y, and is thus indistinguishable from the word for ‘fire.’ Where either of these words occurs, therefore, we must decide b^ the context only which was intended. In Isaiah 9:19 did Isaiah mean, ‘and the people are as the food (so literally, not ‘fuel,’ RV) of fire,’ or as the food of man’? By the change of a single letter in the word rendered ‘food,’ we obtain for the whole phrase ‘hke those that devour men,’ i.e. like cannibals — a reading suggested by Duhm, and, for reasons which cannot here be discussed, worthy of consideration. An^ven clearer instance of confusion of the two words N(Y)S and NS is Ezekiel 8:2: for ‘fire’ (first occurrence in RV) read ‘a man.’

(3) Mutilation of the sense of the original is sometimes occasioned by incorrect division of words in the present Hebrew text. In some cases the Revisers, who generally preferred to retain the obviously incorrect sense in the text, give the correct sense In the margin: see, e.g., Genesis 49:20. Psalms 25:17 42. Hosea 6:5. Jeremiah 23:33 (RV second marginal note on the ver.) ; at other times they give only a rendering of the present Hebrew, and, to ease off a certain roughness or actual maccuracy in the mutilated original, they sometimes translate with more or less disregard of Hebrew grammar or idiom. In Psalms 73:4 a mere re-division of words gives a reading more original than the present text: ‘For they have no torments: sound and plump is their body.’ , A stnking variant appears as soon as the second and third words of Is 10« are re-divided (KRJT HT instead of KR» THT): the first clause of the ver. then reads, ‘Beltis oroucheth, Osiris is dismayed,’ and this is adopted by inany as the sense intended by Isaiah. This is not certain, though the Hebrew as at present divided scarcely admits of translation, and the renderings of RV are illegitimate. Another variant of soine importance appears when we divide the words in Isaiah 8:8 differently «H.Z K VMNW XL instead of t<R7,K yMNW «L): the verse closes not with a proper name in the vocative, but with a statement— ‘The outstretching of his wings shall fill the breadth of the land, for God is with us’ (cf v^")

(4) Parallelism or the context of ten gives gieat probability to conjectural readings that differ from the Hebrew text by a letter or two, even though the change is not (clearly) supported by the Greek version. For example, in Dt SS^, the word MRBBT is probably an error for MMRBT (M having accidentally been written once instead of twice, and B twice instead of once); then the hne reads from Menbah Kadesh,’ which is a good parallel to Paran.

40. The English versions and the Hebrew text. — The earliest of English versions proper (Wyclif’s) was made from the Vulgate. Between the time of Wyclif and of the numerous English versions of the 16th cent, (see English Versions) the study of Hebrew, which, since the age of Jerome, had practically vanished from the Christian Church, was re-introduced. The AV, in which the series of Reformation translations culminated, is a primary version of the Hebrew text with occasional unacknowledged substitution of the sense of the LXX for that of the Hebrew (see for an example § 21 and below). It was only natural that at first translation from the original language should seem the last word in Biblical translation; but several scholars of the 17th cent, already appreciated the value of the versions and the faultiness otthe Hebrew text, and perceived that any translation that attempted to approximate to the sense of the original writers was doomed to fall unnecessarily far short of its aim if It slavishly followed the existing Hebrew text. Unfortunately the appreciation of these facts had not become general even towards the end of the 19th cent., with the result that the Revisers of the OT felt themselves justified In practically renouncing the use of the versions (not to speak of critical conjecture), so far as the text of their translation is concerned. Some of the evidence of the versions is given by them, yet very unsystematlcally. In the margins. The Revisers have explained their standpoint in their preface: ‘As the state of knowledge on the subject Is not at present such as to justify any attempt at an entire reconstruction of the text on the authority of the versions, the Revisers have thought it most prudent, to adopt the Massoretic Text as the basis of their work, and to depart from it, as the authorized Translators had done, only in exceptional cases. ... In some few instances of extreme difficulty a reading has been adopted on the authority of the Ancient Versions, and the departure from the Massoretic Text recorded in the margin.’ In spite of this determination to be prudent, the Revisers have in one Instance admitted an exceedingly questionable conjecture: in 1 Samuel 13:1 they insert — in italics and between square brackets, it is true — the word ‘thirty’; yet this word, though found In a few Greek MSS (not, however, in the earlier text of the LXX, rather unfortunately described by the Revisers as ‘the unre vised LXX’), is really due to a pure guess; as a reading the word ‘thirty’ possesses exactly the same value as would any other number not obviously unsuitable. In addition to this peculiarly unhappy excursion into what is, if not technically yet in reality, conjectural emendation of the most hazardous character the Revisers make few acknowledged departures from the Hebrew text even when it is most obviously corrupt. Instances will, however, be found in Ruth 4:4. 1 Samuel 6:18 27:10. 2 Samuel 18:3. Psalms 8:1 59:9. Mlc 4; in some of these cases the AV had prevously (without acknowledgment) abandoned, the Hebrew text; in all, the Revisers were well advised in doing so. But the more general effect of the attitude adopted by the Revisers to the question of the Hebrew text may be Illustrated by their treatment of the passages cited in their preface as cases in which the AV abandoned the Hebrew text.

In 2 Samuel 16:12. AV has ‘It may be the Lord will look on mine affliction,’ which may represent the original text, the last word of the originalHebrew in that case having beenB JJN Y Y ; but the present Hebrew text has ByWNY, which means ‘on my iniquity,’ and the Hebrew (as also the RV) margin has BVYNY on my eye (interpreted as meaning ‘on my tears’; so AVm). Here the RV relegates the rendering ‘on my affliction’ to the margin, and gives in the text the scarcely defensible rendering of the Hebrew text ‘on the wrong done unto me.’ In 2 Chronicles 3:1 the Hebrew text, at some time after the date of the Greek version , has been reduced to nonsense by the accidental imsplacement of a word. AV follows the LXX. and is intelligible; RV in rendering the crucial words half folIowstheHebrewtext,and,shrinkingfrom the full effect of this, half mistranslates, yet with the total result of being nearly as unintelligible as the Hebrew (‘in the place that David had appointed’ is not a legitimate rendering of the words correctly rendered in RV marg.). Both AV and RV insert (in italics) ‘the Loud’ : this probably stood in the original text, still stands in the Greek version, but is not even suggested in the Hebrew text. In 2 Chronicles 22:6 RV (rightly) adopts in its text the reading of the parallel passage in Kings for the first part of the ver.; but retains in the second part of the ver. the obviously wrong reading of the Hebrew text— Az;ariah(Greek version and 2 K.-Ahaziah). In Job 37:7 AV gives what probably approximates to the original sense, though it is not a translation of the Hebrew text. RV correctly renders the Hebrew text as now divided; otherwise divided (cf. above, § 37), it would mean ‘that all men may know he hath done it.’ In Ezekiel 40:10 AV tacitly adopts a slight emendation (YZN for YZNW); RV retains the Hebrew text so far as the verb is concerned, but in order to make some sense illegitimately inserts (in italics) ‘together’ — illegitimately because ‘together’ is as little suggested by the Hebrew as it would be by the English. In Amos 5, AV has been led astray by the LXX; RV (text) is nearer the original sense. In Haggai 1:2. as in Ezekiel 46:10. the Revisers, to avoid placing in their text the exceedingly probable reading which stands on their margin,have inserted words (in italics) which are not even remotely suggested in the Hebrew, and have in another respect translated questionably.

From the foregoing examples it will appear that in some cases the AV in effect approximates more closely to the original text and sense than the RV text, though the RV generally, perhaps always, in its margin gives the rendering of AV (or an equivalent rendering). It is Interesting to add that in some cases Wyclif ‘s, though (and indeed because) a secondary version, follows a more satisfactory text than either AV or RV (so, e.g., in 1 Samuel 14:41. where it has the words that have accidentally fallen out of the present Hebrew text: see § 24). The instances in which the RV gives a translation that is either entirely indefensible or questionable or improbable, to save the appearance of abandoning the Hebrew text, might be greatly multiplied. Such mistranslation, or questionable translation, was indeed necessarily involved in the carrying out of the principles adopted. For, owing to the state in which the Hebrew text has come down to us, a translator is not infrequently shut up to one of these four options: (1) he may leave the doubtful words of the Hebrew text untranslated; (2) he may translate from the Hebrew text as emended by the help of the versions or conjecture; (3) he may render unintelligible words in Hebrew by equally unintelligible words in English; or (4) he may mistranslate the Hebrew. If he adopts the third option he obviously will not reproduce the original writer’s meaning; if the fourth, he will probably not do so, and if he does, it will be by accident; if he adopts the second, he no doubt runs a risk, and sometimes a considerable risk, of still failing to recover the original sense; the first option alone is safe, and in certain cases would best promote the fullest possible understanding of an entire passage. The Revisers have occasionally adopted the third, but generally the fourth, of these options.

Between the age of the AVand that of the RV, Biblical scholarship advanced particularly in two directions: (1) in the critical study of the Hebrew text; (2) in the understanding of the principles and vocabulary of the Hebrew language. For example, in the light of the comparative study of language, meanings of many words which Hebrew tradition had lost became clear. The RV made full use (in its margins, if not in its text) of the results due to the second line of advance, and is in consequence greatly superior to the AV. At the same time, in order to utilize this first knowledge, it was compelled to abandon Hebrew tradition, and in some cases even that tradition as embodied in the Hebrew vowels. In consequence the RV is a version of rather mixed character; it is a less faithful rendering Into English of the Hebrew traditional understanding of the OT than the AV; on the other hand, for reasons already explained, it represents the original meaning of the OT writers only very partially and much less completely than is possible. In sum, then, the English reader, if he wishes to read in the OT the meaning attached to it by Jewish tradition, should use the AV and not the RV; if he wishes to understand the meaning of the original writers of the OT, the RV will bring him much nearer his desire than the AV, especially if he makes wise use of the margins (cf. Driver, Book of Job, Introduction, p. xxiv. ff.); but it is only by making use of such translations as have been referred to at end of certain articles of this work (see Psalms; Isaiah [Bk. of]; Rosea [Bk. op]; Micah [Bk. of]) that he will be able to avail himself of such means as exist for the English reader of passing, so far as is possible, beyond tradition to the word of Scripture itself.

Any full treatment of the subject of this article naturally involves a knowledge of Hebrew. Of works on the text, in addition to the relevant articles in the larger dictionaries, it may suffice to refer here to Buhl, Canon and Textofthe OT (T. & T. Clark) ; Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text of the Books of Samuel, Introduction. Critical editions of the Massoretic text have been mentioned above, § 10. A critical edition of the Hebrew text of the entire OT remains a desideratum. So far as published it is met by Haupt’s Sacred Books of ike OT. Meantime, the best Hebrew Bible for use is Kittel’s, which prints the Massoretic text, but within small compass presente in the footnotes a large mass of well-selected variants suggested by the versions or con jecture. Some of the poin ta briefly dealt with in the foregoing article are more fully discussed in other articles in the present work; see in particular Gbeek Veksionb, VnLQATE, Enolish Versions, Wkitino. G. B. Gray.