What is the Keri?

[bnelso48]

Davidson's analytical Hebrew and Chaldee lexicon mentions the "Keri".

 

What is it?

It's also mentioned in the abbrevations in the preface.

 

Thank you

[Kristin]

Hi @bnelso48, someone who knows more than me can probably explain better, but my understanding is that when you are talking about the Masoretic text, that the ketiv refers to the text without vowels, while keri refers to the text with vowels.

I hope my understanding is correct and this helps,

Kristin

[Robert Holmstedt]

The Ketiv ("what is written") is the form in the consonantal text the medieval Masoretic scribe received and was copying. The Qere ("read!") is a textual variant the scribe/tradition was aware of and wanted to keep track of. This simple way of maintaining textual variants in the margins was later transformed into a tradition that took the written form as somehow inferior and commanded ("read!") the use of the marginal variant.