BHQ: 2 New Fascicles: 3. Leviticus and 16. Job!

December 24, 2024

This announcement concerns the BHQ-LEV text module and its four attendant tool modules: BHQ-LEV Apparatus; BHQ-LEV Commentary; BHQ-LEV MP and BHQ-LEV MM; as well as BHQ-JOB and its four attendant modules: BHQ-JOB Apparatus; BHQ-JOB Commentary; BHQ-JOB MP and BHQ-JOB MM. The modules have the library names, respectively: “BHQ 3: Leviticus”; “BHQ 3: Lev. Apparatus”; “BHQ 3: Lev. Commentary”; “BHQ 3: Lev. Masorah Parva”; “BHQ 3: Lev. Masorah Magna”; “BHQ 16: Job”; “BHQ 16: Job Apparatus”; “BHQ 16: Job Commentary”; “BHQ 16: Job Masorah Parva”; “BHQ 16: Job Masorah Magna”.

The content of these modules is also found, of course, in the combined module whose product ID begins “BHQ-9” and whose library names end with “ (9 fascicles)” (such as “BHQ Apparatus (9 Fascicles)”).

I have made a number of changes to the BHQ series in the Leviticus and Job fascicles, changes which I hope will be received as improvements. I hope to be able to apply all of these changes uniformly to the other BHQ fascicles in the future, both as separate modules/products and in the combined “BHQ-9” modules. I will be leaning on the help of a colleague at the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft for this process which will take many months. When I do release updates to the other BHQ fascicles, they will show up in “Check for Content Updates...”, but I will also post concerning them in the “Module Corrections” forum.

Firstly, every effort has been taken to avoid vowel (a.k.a. Niqqudot) and cantillation mark (a.k.a. Ṭeʿamim) clashes. Up until now, our Hebrew Bibles contain countless instances of vowel and cantillation mark clashes, where they touch or cover another. I will give more information about these changes in a separate post soon, since this is a wider issue than with our BHQ modules. I have also attempted to render large and small letters where they occur (such as in Leviticus 11:42). I was not able to reproduce the poetic indentation and spacing in our text module, which is not something we have done in the past either.

Do note the following: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft has informed me (whether this is explicitly stated anywhere in the BHQ fascicles, I do not know) that the editors of BHQ did not take any effort to match the position of each circellus with its exact letter placement in the Leningrad Codex, where the circellus is often between two letters and its exact placement is not significant. What does match is whether a circellus is present over a word—or between words—or not and that is what BHQ does indicate.

I also want to note that one major error in the printing of BHQ-Leviticus has been fixed in this Accordance module at Leviticus 13:3 on the word הַנֶּ֙גֶע֙.

Arrangement of Module Content

Back in the hoary past of time, Accordance’s first release of BHQ fascicles included the Masorah Parva and Masorah Magna as separate modules from the apparatus. Since then, the release of BHQ-7 saw those three modules combined into one, which resulted in a confusing read. I have separated these once more for better readability and searchability. Future releases of new BHQ fascicles will follow this original pattern as well.

I have now made the order of the content of the attendant modules correspond more strictly to the actual order of the physical BHQ fascicles:

The “Works Cited” section of each fascicle was included only at the end of the “Commentary” module (e.g. “BHQ 3: LEV. Commentary”) which is the only attendant module where the “Works Cited“ are actually cited. In previous releases of BHQ (except for 1: Genesis), we erroneously placed the “Works Cited” inside the “Apparatus” module (e.g. “BHQ 5: Deut. Apparatus”) and omitted it from the “Commentary” module!

The two tables of contents were kept separate rather than combined, as in the physical fascicles, one at each end of the fascicle. More on the two reading directions of the fascicles below.

The “Introduction” is included in the “Commentary” module, since that is the English (left-to-right) side of the fascicle. In the past we included the “Introduction” in the “Apparatus” module, but this did not correspond to the BHQ fascicle. Furthermore, some works are cited in the “Introduction”, so it should be in the same module as the “Works Cited”.

In all the tool modules (Apparatus, Commentary, MP and MM), page numbers were provided. If you haven’t leafed through a physical BHQ fascicle, you have to imagine it as two separate books:
- A. the Bible text with running critical apparatus and the two marginal Masorot; and
- B. the introduction and three commentaries.
A goes from right to left, following the order of the Hebrew, such that the leftmost page contains the final chapter of the Bible book for the fascicle. B is in English and goes from left to right such that its back end, the rightmost page, contains the end of the “Works Cited” section.

The complete BHQ fascicle results from putting A and B together, with their respective ends meeting in the middle. A begins on the right cover of the fascicle and B begins on the left cover.

BHQ distinguishes the page numbers of B from those of A by adding an asterisk next to the page number in B. I have followed that practice. Although the asterisk is unsearchable in Accordance since it is a wild card character, it doesn’t matter since the two page numberings are found in separate modules.

To reiterate: page numbers were not included in the fascicles other than 3: Leviticus and 16: Job. Page numbers will be added to those fascicles when I am able to work on them.

Here is a short overview of the content of each of the four accompanying modules:

“Apparatus” module:
This is the critical apparatus at the bottom of a page that displays the text of the Hebrew Bible. So it is in the “A” book from above. It is the work of the fascicle author and attempts to record and characterize ancient variant readings of the Biblical text as concisely as possible using abbreviations alongside citations of the ancient witnesses. This module is the only one that contains the page numbers for the Hebrew “A” book, so if you need to check on a reference to BHQ that uses a page number without asterisk, look here. The apparatus module will appear under the “Apparatus” Library category.

“Commentary” module:
This is the commentary on the critical apparatus, where more difficult or complicated variant cases are explained in full sentences by the fascicle author with citations from relevant scholarship and primary sources. It is found in the “B” book. It includes the introduction, which goes over the different textual traditions and their primary manuscripts and editions. The commentary module will appear under the “Commentaries” Library category.

The “Masorah Parva” module:
This contains two separate parts that are taken from both sides of the fascicle: 1) from “A”, the ancient Masoretic notes found on the right and left margins of the text of L, which BHQ reproduces on the right and left sides of the Biblical text as well; and 2) the commentary on the Masorah Parva found in “B“. This module includes the page numbers of “B”. For each verse reference that has a Masorah, all the ancient notes (A) are given first, then the commentary (B) follows. The MP module will appear under the “Semitic Studies” Library category.

The “Masorah Magna“ module:
This is hybrid like the “Masorah Parva” module. It contains two separate parts that are taken from both sides of the fascicle: 1) from “A” the running ancient masoretic notes found at top and bottom margins of L, which BHQ reproduces on the bottom of the Biblical text, above the critical apparatus; and 2) the commentary on the Masorah Magna found in “B“. This module includes the page numbers of “B”. The MM module will appear under the “Semitic Studies” Library category.

The commentaries on the two Masorot mostly translate the Masorah into English, but they also clarify its meaning, identify errors and provide the cross-references for the verse Simanim. The Simanim are sort of short catchwords used to identify other verses in the Hebrew Bible, before numbered verse and chapter references were in use.

Added Fields for More accurate searching
In the four accompanying modules, a few fields were added for more precise searching. The Hebrew Content field has been made more specific by the addition of a “Hebrew Scripture” field, which covers Hebrew words that are cited exactly from L. In each module except the Masorah Magna modules, the Hebrew words cited directly from the text of L always begin a new record (whether it is a new critical apparatus variant, a new comment paragraph on the apparatus, or a new Masorah Parva comment).

For the text of the Masorah Parva itself and the Masorah Magna itself, they were each assigned their own field called “Aramaic Masorah Parva” and “Aramaic Masorah Magna”, respectively, to allow the user to search the Masorah separately from other Hebrew content. For example, you could search for all the Qeres and only display those by searching the “Aramaic Masorah Parva“ for "ק" and setting “Show Text As” to “Paragraphs” in the Masorah Parva tool. Or you could search for all instances where a spelling is recorded as “lacking” or “full” by searching that same field for "*חס" or "*מל" .

Where Qere notes occured in the Masora Parva, they are presented twice: once as in L without vowels, then a second time centered and with the vowels added. Since it is centered, I felt this would not be misleading as to the actual content of L, which of course contains the Ketiv with the vowels of the Qere and the vowelless Qere in the margin. The vowelized Qere came directly from the files provided by DBG, although the physical BHQ fascicles do not reproduce the Qere twice.

For the critical apparatus modules, I have moved the Greek witnesses to their own field, called “Greek Witnesses”. This was the only way to ensure full and clear searchability of these sigla, since some of them are not in our Mss font (such as ζ and ς). This also avoids confusion between some of these sigla and common Greek words in citations of Greek text, such as the definite article or neuter relative pronoun ο, which would have been the case if I had simply chosen to move these sigla for Greek witnesses to the “Greek content” field.

The apparatus makes extensive use of abbreviations to characterize variants. If an abbreviation is further defined in a paragraph under the “Alphabetical List of the Characterizations and Their Definitions” header, its hyperlink points to that definition, instead of pointing to the simple expansion of the abbreviation listed under the “Abbreviations” header.

I want to thank my colleague over at Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft for all his help getting files to me. (Not sure if he wants to be named or not.)
BHQ comes with many improvements against BHS. It grants more importance to the Masoretic text and usually recognizes its primacy. It proposes far fewer conjectural emendations and generally accounts for more variants. It proposes detailed and systematic explanations for the emergence of variants. Its Masorot and their commentaries are a helpful guide to the MP and MM and almost serve as introductions to their study. It provides an introduction for each book of the Bible. In Accordance, it currently is the only Hebrew Bible which reproduces the circelli which refer to the MP. I hope these improvements will help our users make the most out of this excellent tool.