Is this an error in BHL?

[99asteroids]

As I'm collating differences among SBL's BHS (a WLC mutant), BHL, BHQ, and the color photos of Aleppo and Leningradensis in order to prepare a list of errata in HBCE's Proverbs, I found a unique accent variant in BHL Prov 3:5:

It's not an accent that makes sense, and all the other editions have a gaya. The manuscripts have no hint of a forward slant suggesting BHL's mereka. Since Dotan is using a WLC mutant as his copy text, it's hard to understand how this mereka could sneak in there. I can't imagine why he would deliberately add it, if he did.

 

By the way, after learning so much this week, especially how we're just dealing with endless BHS permutations based on bad or worse photographs, along with endless prior editions going back to the 16th century leaking through, I'm no longer collating BHS 97 or tanach.us. It's just an added layer of time-consuming work that no longer interests me. I'm still interested in BHQ as the latest edition of BH, especially since they say they're using the color transparencies of L for the first time (but doing a sloppy, inconsistent job of it). BHQ's notes also point out "errors" in L, and so far these correspond to Dotan's Appendix A variants. And I think referencing these notes makes my list of errata more compelling, especially since HBCE, according to Hendel, is incorporating Dotan's Appendix A fixes (although the editor of Proverbs didn't seem to get that memo).

 

This might be of interest to @Ben Denckla

[99asteroids]

I don't know why copy-and-paste doesn't work on this forum. Here's what Dotan has in Prov 3:5: 

 

ָבִּ֥֝ינָתְך֗

[Ben Denckla]

21 minutes ago, 99asteroids said:

[This merkha is] not an accent that makes sense

 

I don't know enough about the poetic cantillation system to assess that claim, but I'm curious to know your basis for your claim (that this merkha doesn't make sense).

 

23 minutes ago, 99asteroids said:

all the other editions have a gaya.

 

"All the other editions" means (SBL's) BHS and BHQ? Or do you mean to include some others? These two disagreeing with BHL may not mean there is a real disagreement; it may just come from a difference in editorial policy.

 

Remember that Dotan's body text does not try to be strictly diplomatic to L. Usually, Dotan notes divergences from strict diplomacy in his (epic) Appendix A.

 

But there are divergences too widespread to all be noted in Appendix A. He describes some (all?) of these in his Forward. This passage may be relevant to our case at hand:

 

Quote

One should notice the merkha in a word with reviaʿ mugrash, the merkha appearing in an open syllable third place from the stress, when the two syllables next to the stress are both open or one is open and the other has a mobile shewa, in this order (e.g., אֱ֝מ֥וּנָתְךָ֗ —Ps 36:6). This rule we owe to Israel Yeivin who was the first to remark on it (The Aleppo Codex of the Bible, 312).

 

I'm not clear how one should interpret is phrase "one should notice," but it comes in the context of a discussion about how to resolve ambiguities in L between merkha and gaʿya, so it is possible he means not just that one should notice this pattern but actually use it to decide merkha/gaʿya ambiguities in favor of merkha in these cases. As a reminder, our case is:

 

וְאֶל־בִּ֥֝ינָתְךָ֗

which I think conforms to the pattern Dotan describes not only abstractly but concretely, with both Dotan's example and our case having the ending

נָתְךָ֗

 

(I am assuming the shewa in our case is mobile, as Dotan asserts it is in his example.)

 

Here's Breuer's Da`at Miqra note on this word in four sources:

 

 

[Ben Denckla]

Also, I should add that it is unclear whether deciding merkha/gaʿya ambiguities is even a divergence from strict diplomacy.

 

One could argue that to transcribe every mark L that is angled like a gaʿya as a gaʿya is what I've elsewhere called "overzealous, non-charitable-to-a-fault literalism."

 

Not only could one argue this, I myself have made that argument, and this is one area in which I disagree with UXLC's editorial policy.

 

I argue that L is simply a manuscript that doesn't always bother to make this distinction, but when transcribing to a "flavor" of pointed Hebrew that does make this distinction, one must "fill in the gaps."

 

Otherwise, if you want to be that literal, I argue, why not just use the images directly, i.e. why transcribe at all?

Edited May 19 by Ben Denckla

[Brian K. Mitchell]

2 hours ago, 99asteroids said:

Here's what Dotan has in Prov 3:5: 

 

ָבִּ֥֝ינָתְך֗

Hello @99asteroids 

 

Yes, this also how the 2001 edition of Aron Dotan Tanakh reads

 

 

 

Also here is the Jerusalem crown (it seems to agree with Dotan):

 

 

Also Rabbi Mordechai Breuer's Tanakh also reads much that same as Aron Dotan and the Jersusalem Crown:

 

Then there is also Mesorah Publications, Ltd Art Scroll Tanakh

 

 

 

Now, here is Eliyahu Koren's Tanakh which differs from the editions above

Edited May 19 by Brian K. Mitchell

[99asteroids]

Thanks Ben and Brian! You guys are an amazing resource. I am satisfied now that it is not an error in BHL.

 

I am definitely not an expert in accents. I was getting the poetic accents from BHQ's table of accents, which does not show the combination of revia mugrash with merekha, and maybe it should. I guess I shouldn't assume that tables of accents are exhaustive!

 

I'll save any further questions for when I'm done with Proverbs.

 

And yes, Ben, by editions I meant just the ones I'm using to build my list of errata in Proverbs: BHL, BHQ, and (the undated) BHS-WLC (mutant freak on SBL's website that branched off of WLC who knows when with who knows what additional edits with absolutely no documentation except a vague notice saying based on BHS 1967/1977). And as a reminder, I'm using SBL only because it's what HBCE uses. 

[Brian K. Mitchell]

10 hours ago, 99asteroids said:

I'll save any further questions for when I'm done with Proverbs.

 

If, you have any others questions or observations please feel free to post them! 

Your comments have made for interesting conversations.

[Ben Denckla]

13 hours ago, Brian K. Mitchell said:

Now, here is Eliyahu Koren's Tanakh which differs from the editions above

 

Thanks for all these pics, @Brian K. Mitchell. As you mention, this one from Koren is the most interesting because of its (rather significant) differences.

 

From Breuer's comment, I learn that the "merkha-free" version of this word appears in ד (2nd Venice MG aka 2nd Rabbinic Bible). So, I'd speculate that this is one of those places (not uncommon I think) where Koren's text reflects the Venice MG tradition rather than the more modern tradition based on the great Tiberian Masoretic manuscripts like L, A, and the Sassoon manuscripts.

 

As to Koren's gaʿya on nun ... no mark varies more, from edition to edition and manuscript to manuscript, as gaʿya. Gaʿya is not just the winner of this dubious distinction, it is the winner by far: no mark varies to an extent even close to that of the variation in gaʿya. It is vexing.

 

Here I speculate that it is not modulating stress but rather vowel value. In particular, I suspect it is modulating something about the vowel value of that qamats (probably making it gadol) and/or the quality of that sheva (probably making it mobile). Regardless, I'm pretty sure this gaʿya is non-Masoretic, the second such non-Masoretic feature (bug?) in this word (the other being the lack of either gaʿya or merkha on bet).

 

Edited May 19 by Ben Denckla

[Brian K. Mitchell]

@Ben Denckla Thanks for the comments and for adding to the great discussion!

Just for fun here are a few more images:

 

Letteris' Tanakh

 

 

 

From Christian David Ginsburg's Tanakh

 

And from the wonderful photos of the Leningrad Codex images available in Accordance Bible Software:

[Ben Denckla]

Thanks for those additional images, @Brian K. Mitchell. I can't help but get distracted by some of the typographic (and, in the case of L, calligraphic) features.

• I like that Letteris has some modulation to the stroke-width of its geresh, merkha, tarḥa, etc. I suppose you could say it is kind of a shofar shape. (Though some shofar horns are really curly!) Simanim does this too.
• Ginsburg goes hard on the rafeh marks! It thought this could only be seen in manuscripts!
• That's one of the longest maqaf marks I think I ever saw in L. I guess if the letter-scribe leaves you that much space, you have little choice but to fill that space. Not sure why it had to touch its surrounding letters though. I guess it usually has to, for lack of space, so why diverge from that practice.
• That rafeh on the tav is so "late"! I've seen this elsewhere and it puzzles me. In this case maybe it is doing "dual duty," marking both the tav and the kaf sofit? If so, it kind of reminds me of the way in English (and presumably other Latin-alphabet languages) one usually crosses a doubled lowercase 't' with a single stroke, when writing by hand at least. I'm not sure how frequent that is in type.

[Brian K. Mitchell]

20 hours ago, Ben Denckla said:

I can't help but get distracted by some of the typographic (and, in the case of L, calligraphic) features.

@Ben Denckla L is fascinating isn't it? I wonder whereאברהם בן שמואל‎ ‎ found the כתב יד לנינגרד (Leningrad Codex) and why he never gave even a brief recounting of how he came across it.

 

 Now here is the part of Proverbs chapter 3 in the other famous codex the  כתר ארם צובא (Aleppo Codex):