Textual Transmission, Masorah, and Canon
Textual Transmission, Masorah, and Canon tests how the Hebrew text reached us, what the Masorah records, and how the canon was defined.
The Masoretic Text
- The MT is the Tiberian tradition of vocalization and accentuation, associated with the Ben Asher family (10th century).
- Key manuscripts: the Aleppo Codex (c. 920, now missing most of the Torah) and the Leningrad Codex (1008/1009), the base of Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia.
- Masorah parva: marginal notes on spelling and word counts. Masorah magna: longer lists. Masorah finalis: closing statistics.
- Ketiv and qere: 'written' versus 'read' - the text preserves one form and reads another; the margin records the correction.
- Other terms: tiqqun soferim (scribal corrections), ittur soferim (omitted words).
Other witnesses
Dead Sea Scrolls (e.g., 1QIsa-a), Septuagint, Samaritan Pentateuch, Peshitta, Vulgate, Targumim. They show textual variety in the Second Temple period.
Canon
The Tanakh has 24 books: Torah (5), Nevi'im (8), Ketuvim (11). Canonization was gradual; the so-called Council of Yavneh (ca. 90 CE) is often cited, but it did not create the canon in one act. Sirach is in the Septuagint but outside the Hebrew canon.
Worked example
Question: 'Does 1QIsa-a match the MT?' Reasoning: the Great Isaiah Scroll is very close to the MT over most of the book, but it contains many small variants, spelling differences, and some pluses or minuses. It shows that the proto-Masoretic text was one stable stream among others, not the only text in circulation.
Traps
- Claiming the MT is identical to the original autographs.
- Reversing ketiv (written) and qere (read).
- Confusing the Leningrad and Aleppo Codices.
- Saying the canon was fixed in a single council.