Studies in Biblical and Patristic Criticism: Or Studia Biblica et Ecclesiastica 9781463211745

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Studies in Biblical and Patristic Criticism

Studies in Biblical and Patristic Criticism OR STUDIA BIBLICA ET ECCLESIASTICA

VOLUME 3 EDITED B Y

S. R. DRIVER T. K . CHEYNE W. SANDAY

GORGIAS PRESS

2006

First Gorgias Press Edition, 2006 The special contents of this edition are copyright

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H 71

m ne

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* $ H

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MV

öS) «s

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See Corptts Inscriptionum, Semiticamm, part pp. 143-148, and our table. * See below, p. 17. ' See Corpus Inscriptionum Ilebraicarum, etc., von D. Chwolson (St. Petersburg, 1882), p. 87. To this important work Professor Euting of Strasbourg has added facsimiles and an extended table of the various Semitic alphabets, which our readers may consult with great benefit.

Square

Characters

in Biblical

MSS.

3

of the development of the Phoenician alphabet which was then possessed. Dr. Graetz, who wrote in 1876, of course availed himself of the discoveries which had then been made in the field of Semitic inscriptions, and although the Baal Lebanon Phoenician inscription as well as the Teima 1 Aramaic one was not at his disposal, he follows the right path concerning the development of the Hebrew square characters from the Aramaic. W e must not forget to mention Dr. A. Geiger's 2 ' Introduction to the Biblical Books,' which contains a few valuable notes on our subject. Before proceeding with our views on the introduction of the Hebrew square characters, it may perhaps be useful to state how far the Israelites were acquainted with the art of writing before the Babylonian captivity. Whatever date may be assigned to the Biblical documents, it cannot be doubted that the Israelites were acquainted with the art of writing from an early period of their social life. It is not altogether certain whether books were originally meant by the word IDD, and whether the word 2rO expressed always writing with a pen 3, for it seems that there is a difference between the expressions "BD by a n a and 1BD3 a n a . The first means writing upon a Sepher, a tablet most likely, and the second writing in a Sepher, implying a collection of writings, whether of tablets or of other material. No substantive of the root a n a is employed for a book, whether in early or later Hebrew, or to denote a professional writer, as is the case with the root "ED. In a section of the book of Judges 1 1 See Corpus Inseriptionum Semiticarum, part ii. p. n o , and StniJia Biblica, i. p. 211. For the P:maramu Aramaic inscription, recently noticed by Professor A . H. Sayce (Academy, 7th September, 1889, n. 157), see at the end of the essay. 2 Nachgelaesene Sehriften, iv. (Berlin, 1876), p. 42 sqq. 3 See Professor Georg Hoffmann's article, Lexilcalisches, in the ZeiUchrijt fur alttebtamentliche Wisienschajl, edited by Prof. B. Stade, i. p. 335. 4 Judges viii. 14.

B 3

The Introduction of the

4

which is indisputably of eaily origin, we find that ' Gideon caught a young man of the men of Succoth, and enquired of h i m : and wrote clown for him the princes of Succoth and the elders thereof.'

Thus w r i t i n g was current even amongst

other classes than professional men. books were already written.

I n the time of Samuel

W e read t h e r e ' Then Samuel

told the people the manner of the kingdom, and wrote in the book and laid it up before the Lord.'

it

A t the court

of D a v i d the offices of a recorder and a scribe are mentioned as existing 2 .

W e are not willing to enter upon a discussion

about the date of the composition of the Pentateuch and of the book of Joshua, but the mention in these of the written books of ' Jashar 3 ' and 1 the W a r s of the Lord for our purpose.

4

' is sufficient

One has only to open a Hebrew concordance

of the Bible at the word 3na ' to write,' in order to see how frequently this word occurs in Scripture, from which the conclusion may be drawn that the art of w r i t i n g was freely practised by the Israelites, at least amongst the higher class of them. We

may perhaps be allowed

to quote a verse of t h e

prophet Hosea, which seems not to be preserved in its original form.

He says, in the name of G o d 5 , according to the A . V . :

' I have written to him the great t h i n g s of my law, but t h e y were counted as a strange thing.' 1

The

R. V.

translates,

T h o u g h I write for him my law in ten thousand precepts}

and on the margin,' I wrote for him the ten thousand t h i n g s of my

law,' following the Q'ri 13"! instead

L X X translates as follows: vofjufxa avrov.

.

The

icaTaypa\jru> avr nArjOos, xat ra

The Targum and the Syriac

both ' a multitude.'

of

version have

W e believe that if an emendation has

to be made, it ought to be that proposed by eminent scholars, such as Newcome, Graf, Kuenen, and M. J. Halevy instead of

1

viz. ' i n

words of my law,' words h a v i n g the m e a n i n g

2 2 Sam. xx. 24, 25. 3 Joshua x. 13. I Sam. x. 25. 5 Hosea viii. 12. ' Numbers xxi. 14. 8 See the various reading? in the Variorum Bible (2nd ed.), a. I. 1

Square Characters in Biblical MSS.

5

here of 'commandments,' which are called elsewhere D , - m ' words V

But for our purpose it will prove in any case that

something of the law was written down for the nation in the time of Hosea. W e know that the neighbouring nations were at the time of David far advanced in the art of writing.

The Phoe-

nicians had already disseminated their alphabet throughout the greater part of the world, the Assyrian libraries were already filled with brick tablets and cylinders on which all kinds of records were written down in the cuneiform characters, in which a large correspondence was discovered lately at Tel el-Amarna, written about 1400 B.C., and in which reference is made to Palestinian cities 2 .

Moreover, the kings of

Aram sent letters to the kings of Israel 3 .

K i n g Mesha's

inscription 4 of thirty-four lines shows clearly that in the ninth century B.C. the Moabites were acquainted with the art of writing.

This inscription is written in characters

slightly differing from those employed by the Phoenicians in the Baal Lebanon fragment 5 ; they must have been in use amongst the Moabites

some

time before

the ninth

century, for a people scarcely begins writing with a text of thirty-four lines. That the Israelites, so familiar with the art of writing, also used a kind of Phoenician script, at least as early as the time of David, was generally admitted 6 , chiefly because of the resemblance of the Phoenician alphabet to that found on the Maccabean coins.

This has now been confirmed by

the discovery of the Siloam inscription 7 , the first deciphering of which we owe to Professor Sayee.

The letters of the

Siloam text are much nearer those of the Phoenician alphabet Exodus xx. I ; Deuteronomy v. 19. See Professor Sayce's article in the Transactions of the Victoria Institute, Annual Address, 1889. 3 2 Kings y. 5, 6. 1 See note 3 on p. 2. 5 See our table. 6 See Gesenius (note 2 on p. 1), p. 139 sqq. 7 See above, p. 2 ; also Guthe in the Zeitschrift der deutsch. morg. Uesellschaft, 1882, p. 725. 1

2

6

The Introduction

of the

than those of the Jewish coins of the second Temple.

It

is a curious fact, however, that among the monuments of the

Phoenicians (the supposed inventors of

the

earliest

alphabet), which we possess, there is none older than i o o o 900 B.C., while of Jewish monuments the Siloam inscription remains unique.

The Siloam characters are already more

cursive than those of the Moabite stele 1 , and in characters similar to them, but perhaps still more cursive, we have to suppose that the book found in the Temple, and those carried away by the exiles (if they did so) wou'd have been w ritten. The Phoenician characters, with more or less modifications, were evidently current, for commercial purposes at

least,

about the year 700 b. c., and were used from E g y p t to the Mediterranean lands, and extending as far as Assyria.

The

latter country, where the cuneiform system of writing continued to be employed up to the date of the fall of Nineveh, while in Babylonia it was used even so late as the reign of Domitian, was obliged to carry on its official correspondence in Aramaic characters, a modification of the Phoenician script, when it became master of Aram (Mesopotamia), Damascus, Arabia,

Palestine,

and

Egypt.

On

Assyrian

weights of 700 B. C. we find Phoenician characters1', and Rabshakeh was asked by Eliakim, Shebna and Joash to speak Aramaic, which they understood, and not in YehudU/t or Hebrew, the language of the common people 3 .

Some

letters on these Assyrian weights have already undergone important modifications from the Baal Lebanon characters in the direction of a cursive form.

For instance, the claleth

is already open at the top, like that of the later Aramaic monuments in E g y p t ; the lieth is more simple, having only one horizontal stroke, and thus approaches the Hebrew square character ; the yod is the smallest letter ; the lamed is simply cursive ; and the aiu is also open.

Unfortunately there is

a gap in the Aramaic monuments, between the Assyrian 1

See the table.

2

Ibidem, col. 6.

3

Isaiah xxxvi. 11.

Square

Characters in Biblical

MSS.

7

weights and the stele of Saqqarah in Egypt, the date of which is only 482 B. C., fifty-four years after the return of the exiles from Babylonia.

Here the leth and the resh are

already open ; the he inclined already to the Hebrew square form ; the shin is but the square form in an undeveloped state ; the aleph, although nearer to the okl Phoenician form, inclines towards that of the Siloam inscription.

W e can see

i'rom this short description of the gradual modification of the Phoenician

letters, according

to time

and locality, how

possible it was that in the countries where the Jewish exiles were settled, the Phoenician characters might have already reached a cursive stage, approaching character.

the so-called square

The letters of the Palmyrene inscriptions, which

date from 9 B. C., as far as they have been at present discovered, though they differ in details, are in all essential respects similar to the Hebrew square characters l .

Of course

there must be earlier inscriptions in Palmyra, which we hope may soon come to light. Let us now turn to the Jews after their return from exile in Babylonia, where they had remained for more than two generations.

I f this space of time was not sufficient to ex-

tinguish entirely their language, two generations are more than enough for the adoption of the writing of a country, in which, business was to be carried on.

I f the Aramaic lan-

guage had partly modified the Hebrew of the exiles, it is certain that

the Aramaic writing, which was so similar to

the Old Hebrew of the Siloam inscription, must have done so.

W h e n the Jews returned to Jerusalem there was a cor-

respondence with the court of Artaxerxes, king of Persia, and the writing of the letters was in Aramaic characters and interpreted in the Aramaic tongue 2 , (A.V. has in the Syrian tongue, which comes to the same thing.)

This is, however,

no proof that the Jews had forgotten altogether their old writing, but from this passage it is evident that the official 1 a

See the table ; also De Vogué, Syrie Centrale, p. 3. Ezra iv. 7.

8

The Introduction of the

correspondence with the Persian court was carried on in the Aramaic tongue and in Aramaic characters ; and many of those who returned from exile may have known both.

The

book of the Law, out of which Ezra read before the congregation 1 , and from which copies were made, might consequently have been written : 1st, either in the old Hebrew letters, similar to those found on the Maccabean coins; 2nd, or in Aramaic characters, which the exiles brought back with them from Babylonia ; 3rd, or in both forms of writing, for the benefit alike of the Babylonian Jews, a great number of whom settled in the country, as well as of the Jews who had remained in Palestine and could only read the old Hebrew script.

We incline to

the last hypothesis, for it is certain that the Jews who remained in Babylonia must have needed a copy of the Law in their own mode of writing, if they had to read it in their synagogues, and interpret it in their schools.

And Ezra or

his immediate successors must surely have taken care that the Law should not be neglected out of the Holy Land. The Talmudic tradition, to which, however, we cannot always allow a historical value, declares that the change of characters in writing the text of scripture was made by Ezra. On this point we find the following statement in various parts of the Talmud 2 : ansa taiK^ rnin rurv: r6mna aapiy id notpki tern id idn "din ¡lt^i n n w s ansa tory n rbv nroi -»in nw ntyea nva ionp to k^d^n ^job"!» cjx mm ixa moxn n«i>y no b a o r6y tory tan - o n xin Nitya -mbb NMii nya » mx mito now xin n^ca rnin t W mcsn n«by 1

Nehemiah viii. 3.

Bab. Talmud, Sanhedrin, if. 2 i b and 22*, of which we give the text, being the completes! Compare, Tosiftha, Sanhedrin, iv. 7 (ed. Zuckermandel), pp. 421 and 422 ; Palestinian, (or Jerusalem) Talmud, Megillah, i. 9 (fol. 7 b and c ), and partly Sotah, vii. 2 (fol. 2i c ). I t is useless to give variations, since they do not bear upon our thesis. 1

Square

Characters

in Biblical

MSS.

9

m emi> iaai> pan tory "o "«sin Kin torya tvDawi cpn Dans* mm run^a s"ytnp ^ ^in noan t i d no» -ot

Hira

o n w D m na»N

ttb

nina nnnw

tox

pnvn

no by i o n » is^dih n!>i ti"6 ¡ n w pen l ^ u m

l D ' v y m B r 6 nDD'as»

DHD"I D n a o

njniNi

n u n CITED bzv pn vib

\t

•VN , E' 131X11 IJS/D

itbb

niE^y^i n o ^ i

jon

^nib» b b i

anew icn^

' a v a p i n » "pna

H T I m^y

nta a b

f w

imma

nsan

B'aaai

niB* r u s e nai»B> ypb

ansa

w n

n^an p i m ^

w a a i i D » o m 3 vt>jj a w paa abv

onstv

nsjjoa DnJioxa

D^B* m e n nmtpa

paa n a n a i - p s d i m p x

n^i D i n i x h

B»nr n^b» paa

ia'D'3 m n n a

wcbiy

JON

urnon

n^ipn

' c t a j t a oi>iyi>

iwe»

C o l . 2.

tsv ^aaxa

i>a ' c a i

}» naB'en i>ai

nrn p n e o n j o i n nrn

niN DN

«IT 13DO

1 3 T 13 E"B> m np^a

in

woo pmo

nbtt

nan

jnip

if

pa11

p

i n a n s a l a w:b>b>

in nona in n i D o a n^no

N^

Dyaa nrn'

vr tai

i>N

nn^o

in

inu n^i

Eben Sappir, l. (Lyck, 1866; Saphir on the title-page of ii, Monalsschriß, etc. v note 3 on p. 19), 1871, p. 4.

1 See iS;4), p. I4 b , and

Mainz.

Earliest

MSS.

of the Old

Testament.

îisvn nmn nxi 1 « n u ntwo ¡vrn w r i » nrub -UDI» snixeai iry |1N3 max niae^i ncn pa iNi* si'c yrncvy jit3E" tnipn pa* 5joiB>ni ^ae* nxi-im Dlta The late Rabbi Jacob Sappir 1 and Dr. S. Baer 2 are of opinion that the characters with which the MS. is written are Sefaradic or Spanish ; to us it seems to have been written in the East, and most likely in Syria. The characters are indeed different from those found in the facsimile of the Cambridge MS. 3 , which is executed in Spanish characters. Thus the codex Babylonicus of the later Prophets, dated 1227 Sel., which is 916 A. D., remains the oldest MS. known now. The old codices, viz. the Hilleli (according to Zakkuth's description), the codex Babylonicus, the Cairo and Aleppo M S S . are written in large characters, and so are, if we are not mistaken by a hurried glance at those at St. Petersburg in 1877, the codices of the earliest dates, viz. from 92a to 1051 A. D. "We have said that the codex Babylonicus of 916 is the oldest Hebrew Biblical M S . known at present. In order to justify this date, it must in the first place be pointed out that the colophon of the famous Pentateuch scroll at St. Petersburg, which gives the date of 489 A. D., is simply a forgery 4 . But there is the M S . No. 12 at the University Library, Cambridge, written by Jacob Levi and finished the seventh of the month Eben Sappir, i. p. 14''. Private communication, dated July 1890. 3 See facsimiles, Nos. 3 and 4. 4 See the Catalogue of the Hebrew MSS. in the Imperial Library of St. Petersburg (in German), i. ii, by A . Harkavy and H. L. Strack, 1875, p. 12 sqq. 1

2

An Account of the

28

of Adar 616 A.M., or 208 of the construction of the Temple, which makes 18th of February, 856 A. D. ; this date, which has not been accepted by any scholar who has discussed the subject, was firmly believed by the author of the first part of the catalogue of the Hebrew M S S . in the University Library at Cambridge, which appeared in 1876, to be genuine 1 .

We

propose to mention first what has been said by others about the date of this M S . before g i v i n g our own opinion. cott in

1753 2 ,

Kenni-

after having given a short description of the

MS., writes as follows: ' T h i s M S . was writ by Jacob

Levi,

and is dated m T ^ n'Vï'n'n,' without explaining or translating this date.

H e omitted the second date, which refers to the

year of the construction of the Temple.

I n the variae lectiones,

Kennicott gives many variations of this M S . , which seem to amount to 12,000.

He was taken to task for this incomplete

description by an anonymous A b b é 3 in 1771> who reproaches him rightly for not having g i v e n the second date as well, and for not explaining both, for, says the Abbé, The date from the construction of the Temple could refer to the first, second, or third (Herodian) Temple.

W e omit the dates proposed b y the

Abbé, which would not add much to our subject.

A s to the

variations given from this M S . , the Abbé divided them into various classes. 1. Variations which

represent no language at all ;

for

instance: Gen. xxx. 22, the M S . reads OTPi'N instead of iT^N D ^ N ; Lev. xxvii. 11 mr6 instead of mrvb ; Deut. i. 25 l"pn instead of TO ; Joshua [ i m o instead of inn"»] xvi. 10 '•jyjn instead of '3j?33n, and xxiv. 11 ncNm instead of n e x n ; Judges ix. 1

instead of "iot6.

1 Catalogue of the Hebrew Manuscripts preserved in the University Library, Cambridge, by the late Dr. S. M. Schillcr-Szinessy, vol. i. (all that has appeared), containing Sections 1. The Holy Scriptures ; II. Commentaries 011 the Bible, Cambridge, 1876, No. I3 (p. 12 Bqq.). 2 The State of the Printed Hebrew Text of the Old Testament considered. A dissertation in two parts, Oxford, 1753, p. 34a. 3 Lettres de M. l'Abbé de .. . ex-professeur en hébreu en VuniveriiU de au Sr. Kennicott anglois, Rome, 1771, p. 24 sqq.

Earliest MSS.

of the Old Testament.

29

2. Variations which, although representing1 good Hebrew, give no sense in the respective passages where they occur. instance : Exodus xxxii. 26

For

for vi>N ; Lev. iv. 35 n m in-

stead of DDK ; Numbers xxi. 7

instead of notoï ; Deut.

xxi. a "Vj?n instead of Dnyn ; Joshua v. 14

instead of tib ;

Judges ix. 51 bjn instead of ibjTl ; 1 Sam. xvi. 13 DTibx rm instead of mm n n . 3. Confusion of 3 and 3, 3 and 3, T and "1, n and n, and D and D.

For instance : 1 Sam. xxv. 16 nan instead of TOW ;

2 Sam. xxi. 18 nin instead of 353 ; 1 Kings iii. 6 ntn DV3 instead of nrn DV3 ; x Kings xvii. 20 muriD instead of "nun» ; Prov. vi. 3 Damn instead of Dsnnn.

The Abbé adds rightly

that similar mistakes are to be found in other MSS., written by either inexperienced or ignorant copyists, but which no one would expect from an early M S . [and still less of such an early date as 856].

The Abbé adds that of these three

kinds of mistakes he could produce at least 1400 variations. 4. Original mistakes, which are corrected by a later hand. For instance : Gen. xxxviii. 28 nnina corrected into nni^3 ; Ex. ii. 16 m