What the origins and meaning of the word manuscript are.

• The word manuscript derives from a Latin word meaning “that which is written by hand,” and until the invention of the printing press in the fifthteenth century all books were copied by hand.

• When scrolls became worn, they were placed in a storage room called a genizah (“hidden”) until there were enough to perform a ritual burial ceremony.

• The Babylonian Talmud says, “The early [scholars] were called soferim because they used to count all the letters in the Torah.”

The views of Albright and Cross about the origin of the OT manuscripts and how their view differs from that of de Lagarde and Kahle.

• Albright and Cross argued for the possibility of local recensions/text types/ families. This theory reduces the textual witnesses to three types from different areas: Palestine, Babylon, and Egypt.  Paul de Largarde argued that all the Hebrew text revert to one original manuscript. He reasoned that since all Macoretic manuscripts have some specific characteristics in common, they must be dependent on one another, therefore it is possible to retrieve the original text.

• Only parchments made from clean animals were allowed; these were to be joined together with thread from clean animals.
• Each written column of the scroll was to have no fewer than forty-eight and no more that sixty lines whose breadth must consist of thirty letters.
• The page was first to be lined, from which letters were to be suspended.

• Aroudn the end of the 5^th century, a fourth group of scibes called the Masoretes inherited the scibal traditions and carried on the work of preserving the text Their diligent labors from about A.D. 500 to 1000 helped to preserve the Hebrew test that we have, the Masoretic Text.

Stephen Langton. Salomon ben Ishmael transferred them to the Hebrew text.

• The science and art that seeks to determine the most reliable wording of the biblical text.

90%

familiar with the various sources for textual comparison.

• Hebrew Manuscripts
  • Silver Amulets
  • The Samaritian Pentateuch
  • The Dead Sea Scrolls
  • The Nash Papyrus
  • Muraba’at Manuscripts
  • Manuscripts at Masada
  • Manuscripts at Nehal Hever
  • Genizah Fragments
  • Several Early Ben Asher Manuscripts of the Old Testament

1Manuscripts must be weighed, not counted 2Determine which reading would most likely give rise to the others  3 the more distinctive reading is usually preferable 4 the shorter reading is generally favored   5 determine which reading is most appropriate to the context

Be familiar with the external evidence used to determine the original reading.

• The Dead Sea Scrolls confirm that the Hebrew text we possess is very accurate; differences are minimal between a good number of the Dead Sea Scroll manuscripts and manuscripts from about A.D. 800-1000.

1 mistaken letters. 2 homophony, 3 haplography, 4 dittography 5 metathesis, 6 fusion, 7 fission, 8 homoioteleuton, 9, homoioarchton, 10 other omissions.

Be familiar with the sources (primary and secondary) for OT textual criticism.

• Hebrew Manuscripts and Languages other than Hebrew

What are the Aramaic Targums?

• Biblical text that were explained in Aramaic in stead of Hebrew were known as Targums (possibly related to an Akkadian word, targumannu, meaning “translator”).