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Course 5 · Lesson 4.1

The Masoretic Text and the codices that preserve it

12 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 5 outline

Module 1: What the Languages Are and What This Course Can Do

  1. The languages of the Bible: Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek
  2. What an introduction can and cannot do: no fluency, and why
  3. Biblical Hebrew in brief: history, script and sound
  4. Koine Greek in brief: history, script and sound

Module 2: Hebrew Fundamentals

  1. The Hebrew alphabet, reading right to left, and the vowel points
  2. Roots, nouns, gender, number and the construct chain
  3. Hebrew verbs: perfect, imperfect and the seven stems in outline
  4. A core Hebrew vocabulary and how to learn it

Module 3: Greek Fundamentals

  1. The Greek alphabet, accents and breathing marks
  2. Nouns, cases and the definite article
  3. Greek verbs: tense, aspect, voice and mood in outline
  4. A core Greek vocabulary and how to learn it

Module 4: The Texts: Masoretic, Septuagint and New Testament Manuscripts

  1. The Masoretic Text and the codices that preserve it
  2. The Septuagint and where translators consult it
  3. Greek New Testament manuscripts and printed editions
  4. How variants are recorded in footnotes and critical editions

Module 5: How Translations Are Made

  1. Formal and dynamic equivalence, and the middle positions
  2. Who translates: committees, churches and traditions of translation
  3. Hard cases: idioms, word play, gender and untranslatable words
  4. Reading a translation’s preface to learn its principles

Module 6: Tools for the Reader

  1. Interlinear Bibles: what they show and what they hide
  2. Lexicons and concordances: how to read an entry
  3. How to do a word study, step by step
  4. Common word study errors and how to avoid them

Module 7: Evaluating Translation Differences

  1. Locating the Hebrew or Greek words behind a verse
  2. Types of translation differences: text, grammar, word meaning and style
  3. A worked example from the Old Testament
  4. A worked example from the New Testament
  5. Knowing your limits, and when to ask a specialist

All courses

Program / Course 5: Biblical Languages / Lesson 4.1

What you will learn

  • Define the Masoretic Text and name the main medieval manuscripts and printed editions that preserve it.
  • Describe what the Masoretes added and what their marginal notes do.
  • Explain what the Dead Sea Scrolls show about the Hebrew text before the Masoretes.
  • Say how Jewish, Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant traditions relate to the Masoretic Text.

The big idea

The Masoretic Text is the traditional Hebrew text of the Old Testament, copied with great care and furnished with vowels, accents and notes by Jewish scribes of the early Middle Ages. The best known complete manuscript is the Leningrad Codex of about the year 1008. The Dead Sea Scrolls show that before the Masoretes more than one form of some books existed, though many scrolls are close to the later text. Most Protestant and many Catholic translations of the Old Testament follow the Masoretic Text, with occasional corrections.

Key terms

Masoretic Text (MT)
The Hebrew text of the Old Testament as fixed and annotated by the Masoretes. It is the basis of most modern translations of the Hebrew Bible.
Codex
An early form of book, with pages bound along one edge, as opposed to a scroll.
Masorah
The notes of the Masoretes in the margins and at the ends of books, recording counts of words and letters, unusual forms and variant readings.
Ketiv and qere
Aramaic words for written and read. A ketiv is what the consonants of the text say, and a qere is what the tradition says should be read instead. The qere is given in the margin.
Critical edition
An edition that prints a base text and shows variant readings from other manuscripts and versions in notes called an apparatus.
Proto Masoretic
A name scholars give to Hebrew texts before the Masoretes that are close to the later Masoretic Text.

Background

Most of the Hebrew Bible as printed today is based on a text that Jewish scholars carefully standardized in the centuries after the Roman destruction of Jerusalem. The consonantal text was fixed earlier, probably by about the end of the first century or in the second century after Christ, as shown by manuscripts from that period. The vowels, accents and notes were added later, in the period from roughly the seventh to the tenth century.

The word Masoretic comes from a Hebrew word for tradition. The Masoretes were not authors or editors in the modern sense. They were copyists and guardians who sought to hand on the text exactly as they had received it, along with a reading tradition. The copying was done with such care that the medieval manuscripts show little variation among themselves, a fact that once led some to think the text had always been uniform.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: The great medieval manuscripts

Three manuscripts are especially important. The Cairo Codex of the Prophets is dated to the year 895 and is one of the oldest dated Hebrew biblical codices. The Aleppo Codex, written in the early tenth century, once contained the whole Hebrew Bible and was long regarded as the most authoritative text. It was damaged in a fire in 1947, and a good part of the Pentateuch is lost. The Leningrad Codex, dated to about 1008 or 1009, is the oldest complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible that survives. It is held in the Russian National Library in Saint Petersburg, formerly Leningrad.

These codices belong to the Tiberian tradition, associated with the Ben Asher family of scholars. Their vowel system is the one printed in nearly all Bibles today.

Step 2: Printed editions

The first printed Hebrew Bibles appeared in the late fifteenth century. In 1524 and 1525, the printer Daniel Bomberg published the second Rabbinic Bible, edited by Jacob ben Hayyim, which became the standard text for centuries and was used by the translators of the King James Version. In the twentieth century, scholars turned to older manuscripts. The Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, which reprints the Leningrad Codex with an apparatus, long served as a standard critical edition, and a newer series, the Biblia Hebraica Quinta, is being issued in volumes. Another project, based at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, uses the Aleppo Codex.

A reader looking at a note in a translation such as the Hebrew text reads, but a manuscript has, is often drawing on these editions.

Step 3: What the Masorah records

The Masoretes added notes in the margins. The small notes, the Masorah parva, record unusual forms and how often they occur. The large notes, the Masorah magna, give lists of verses that share a feature. The scribes also counted verses, words and letters, and marked the middle of a book. These counts served as a check against error.

The Masoretes also recorded readings that differ from the written consonants. When the consonants of a word stand in the text but the tradition says to read another word, the consonants are the ketiv, and the reading is the qere, written in the margin. The vowels printed with the ketiv are those of the qere. Many cases are minor, and others touch on reverence for the divine name or on a delicate word. English translations usually follow the qere and give the ketiv in a note.

Step 4: The Dead Sea Scrolls and earlier texts

Beginning in 1947, manuscripts were found in caves near Qumran by the Dead Sea. They include copies of nearly every book of the Hebrew Bible, from about the third century before Christ to the first century after. The Great Isaiah Scroll, a nearly complete copy of the book, differs from the Masoretic Text in many small points of spelling and in a number of readings, but the two are clearly the same book.

The scrolls show a variety of text forms. Some are close to the later Masoretic Text. Others resemble the Hebrew text behind the Septuagint, and others are of neither kind. Scholars debate how to describe this situation, since the answer affects how far the Masoretic Text can be regarded as the original. The scrolls have also confirmed the care with which the text was handed on, since the differences are generally modest.

Step 5: How translators use the Masoretic Text

Most translators take the Masoretic Text as the base. They depart from it in places where it seems to contain an error, or where other witnesses, the Septuagint, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Samaritan Pentateuch and other ancient versions, seem to preserve a better reading. Such departures are normally noted in the footnotes. How readily a translator departs from the Masoretic Text depends on the translation’s principles, and committees differ.

  1. Which Hebrew text is my translation based on, according to its preface?
  2. Does a footnote say that a reading comes from the Septuagint or a Dead Sea scroll?
  3. Is there a ketiv and qere in the passage I am reading?
  4. How early is the manuscript evidence for this verse?
  5. Do I understand the difference between the consonantal text and the vowel tradition?
  6. What does it mean for my confidence in the text that the Dead Sea Scrolls are so close to it in most books?

Examples

A ketiv and qere

In many places the text has a consonantal form for the divine name but the reader says Adonai. A different type of ketiv and qere occurs where a word thought to be indelicate is replaced by a milder term when read aloud. English translations follow the qere and note the written form.

The Great Isaiah Scroll

The scroll, found in the first cave, is about a thousand years older than the Leningrad Codex. A student comparing it with the Masoretic Text finds that most of the differences are matters of spelling and small details, while a few are readings that affect translation. This pattern is typical.

A footnote about a manuscript

A translation note might say that the Masoretic Text has one reading, while the Septuagint and a Dead Sea scroll have another, and that the translators chose the second. The note gives the reader the information to see that a choice has been made.

Different perspectives

Jewish

Jewish tradition regards the Masoretic Text as the authoritative text of Scripture. The care of the scribes is a point of pride, and the tradition holds that the text must be copied exactly. The existence of other forms in antiquity is a matter of historical study and does not change the standing of the text in the synagogue.

Catholic

Catholic translations of the books of the Hebrew Bible are normally made from the Masoretic Text, using other witnesses where there is good reason. The Catholic canon also includes books preserved in Greek, for which the Masoretic Text does not exist.

Orthodox

The Orthodox Church receives the Septuagint as its Old Testament. Orthodox scholars respect the Masoretic Text as a witness and often compare it with the Greek, and some modern Orthodox translations use it alongside the Septuagint.

Protestant

Protestants since the Reformation have translated the Old Testament from the Hebrew text, and the Masoretic Text is the standard base. Some conservative Protestants hold strongly to its priority, and others are more open to emendations from the scrolls and the Septuagint.

Scholarly

Scholars agree that the Masoretic Text is a reliable witness to a tradition that goes back to antiquity. They debate whether it should be called the original text, and how best to use other witnesses.

Why it matters

Almost every English Old Testament is built on the Masoretic Text. Knowing its history lets a student make sense of footnotes, understand why Bibles from different traditions differ, and keep a balanced view: the text is carefully transmitted, but it is not the only witness.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: The Masoretic Text is the original Hebrew text exactly as the prophets wrote it.

Correction: It is a carefully preserved medieval form of a text with a long history. The Dead Sea Scrolls show that some books existed in more than one form before it.

Misunderstanding: The Dead Sea Scrolls show that the Old Testament text is unreliable.

Correction: In most books the scrolls agree closely with the Masoretic Text, with differences that are mostly minor. They also show that some passages had variant forms, which translators note.

Misunderstanding: The Masoretes changed the text to suit their beliefs.

Correction: They sought to preserve the consonants unchanged and recorded readings in notes. A few scribal adjustments from earlier times are recorded in the Masorah, and scholars discuss them.

Misunderstanding: Every English Old Testament uses the same Hebrew text.

Correction: Most do, but some follow the Septuagint for particular books or readings, and the Orthodox Church uses the Septuagint as its Old Testament.

Knowledge check

What is the Masoretic Text, and who produced it?

It is the traditional Hebrew text of the Old Testament, with vowels, accents and notes added by Jewish scribes called Masoretes, notably those at Tiberias, in the early Middle Ages. The consonantal text was fixed much earlier. It is the base of most modern translations.

Name two important manuscripts of the Masoretic tradition.

The Leningrad Codex, from about 1008, is the oldest complete Hebrew Bible and the base of the standard modern critical editions. The Aleppo Codex, from the early tenth century, was long regarded as most authoritative but was partly lost in 1947. The Cairo Codex of the Prophets, dated 895, is another.

What are ketiv and qere?

The ketiv is what is written in the consonantal text, and the qere is what the tradition says should be read, noted in the margin. The vowels printed on the written word belong to the qere. English translations usually follow the qere and note the written form.

What do the Dead Sea Scrolls show about the Hebrew text?

They include copies of nearly every book from about the third century before Christ to the first century after. Many are close to the Masoretic Text, which shows careful transmission. Others agree with the Septuagint or neither, showing that some books had more than one form in antiquity.

Think it through

  1. What kind of trust does careful copying deserve, and what are its limits?
  2. How might a community hold to one authoritative text and still study others?
  3. How would you explain a ketiv and qere to a friend?
  4. What do you make of the fact that different traditions treat the Masoretic Text and the Septuagint differently?

Independent assignment

Tracing a footnote

In your own notebook, write 300 to 450 words. Find three footnotes in an English Old Testament that refer to the Masoretic Text, the Septuagint or the Dead Sea Scrolls. For each, copy the verse and the note, and say in your own words what it tells you about the text. Read the translation’s preface to learn how the translators used the Masoretic Text. State what the notes show about confidence in the text and what they do not decide. Do not send this to anyone.

Further study