QR592.PDF - Trinitarian Bible Society (Australia)

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Trinitarian Bible Society – Quarterly Recordof consonant letters, having no vowelsigns,no spacing and no punctuation.Word-separation came later, a veryimportant help, and then verse divisions(but not numbering) were made by slightlylater scribes. This was not only an aid toreading, but also a guard against newverses being smuggled into the text.Jewish scholars thenmade divisions of thetext into ‘open’ and‘closed’ sections,indicating both senseand change of subject.In printed HebrewBibles, as in somelater manuscripts(including theLeningrad Codex of1008), an opensection is indicated bythe Hebrew letterp (pe) and a closedsection by s (samech).Leningrad Codex of 1008Vowel signs orpointing (which represent the pronunciationof the inspired text), 2 association and senseindications (accents) were also editorialadditions to the Hebrew text, and designedto secure accuracy of pronunciation andconsistency of word association.Division of the Biblical text, both Oldand New Testament, into chapters such aswe recognise, was accomplished for theLatin Bible by Stephen Langton about thebeginning of the thirteenth century. Thesegained an entrance into the Hebrew text inthe next century; 3 Rabbi Solomon benIsmael first placed the numerals of these‘Christian’ chapters in the margin of16the Hebrew text about AD 1330, a systemwhich made its first printed appearance ineditions of Bomberg 1518. Three decadeslater Bomberg’s Great Bible had Hebrewnumerals affixed to every fifth verse. AriasMontanus, in the Antwerp Bible of 1571,broke the Hebrew text into chapters, withthe Hebrew numerals in the body of thetext and Arabic numerals for all the versesplaced against them in the margin.All this may seem a bit remote from ustoday, but my point is this—that the needfor helpful ‘indicators’ in the written orprinted text of Scripture has been acceptedand implemented for a very, very longtime. The arranging, distinguishing andassociating of the text of Scripture, forreference, for public and shared reading,for study or debate, has long beenaccomplished without prejudice to theintegrity of the text, or to the doctrine ofinspiration. The benefits are obvious to anyreader, including the practice of clear andeasy citation, and the opening of an avenueto comprehensive concordances. Thedownside is the development of the sadlymistaken impression that the Bible is acollection of numbered sayings rather thanthe whole interconnected record of theWord of God to us.Books of the BibleThe most familiar subdivisions of the Bibleare the books; less familiar may be thevarious Bible traditions in which thenumber and order of books aresignificantly different from each other. OurAV Bible, in the established Protestant
Issue Number: 592 – July to September 2010The Ten Commandmentsin a 1566 edition of theHebrew Bomberg Bibleshowing the sectionsmarked by the Hebrewletters p (pe) ands (samech)AN EXAMPLE OF HOW THE PSALMS HAVE BEENNUMBERED DIFFERENTLY IN DIFFERENT EDITIONStradition, is settled at thirty-ninebooks in the Old Testament; theRoman Catholic Bible, acceptingsome books from the LatinVulgate scheme—the Apocrypha—has forty-six; the Eastern OrthodoxBible, inevitably influenced by theGreek Septuagint, has fifty-three.The Hebrew Bible—the oldest OldTestament—has only twenty-fourbooks, and after Judges thesequence is quite differentfrom ours. 4There are some differentchapter divisions also:1 Chronicles 5.27–41 inHebrew Bibles is numbered as1 Chronicles 6.1–15 in Christiantranslations. We should also notethat in the Hebrew tradition, theheadings and ascriptionsoccurring in many Psalms areregarded as independent verses,giving one hundred and sixteenmore verses in the Hebrew text ofthe Psalms. 5 Christian practice isHebrew(Bomberg)Greek Septuagint(Vaticanus Old Testament)Latin Vulgate(Clementine 1715)Numbering of the first nine Psalms is the same for all three…1 to 9 1 to 9 1 to 9The next Psalm in the Hebrew is numbered as Psalm 10 but in theGreek Septuagint and Latin Vulgate the same Psalm is not numbered…10 No Number No NumberThe numbers of the next 103 Psalms are therefore out of sync by one…11 to 113 10 to 112 10 to 112In the Latin Vulgate the next two Psalms are incorporated into onewhile in the Greek Septuagint the second of the two is not numbered…114 (8 verses) 113 (8 verses)113 (26 verses)115 (18 verses) No Number (18 verses)However in the Hebrew the following Psalm incorporates all the versesof what is another Psalm in the Septuagint and Vulgate…114 (9 verses) 114 (9 verses)116 (19 verses)115 (9 verses, =115 (10 verses)Hebrew Ps.116.10-19)The numbers of the next 30 Psalms are therefore out of sync by one…117 to 146 116 to 145 116 to 145However in the Hebrew the following Psalm incorporates all the versesof what is another Psalm in the Septuagint and Vulgate…146 (11 verses) 146 (11 verses)147 (20 verses)147 (9 verses) 147 (9 verses)Numbering of the next three Psalms is therefore the same for each…148 to 150 148 to 150 148 to 150The Septuagint contains an extra unnumbered Psalmthat is not found in the Hebrew…No Number (6 verses)Protestant translations are based on the Hebrew numbering;Eastern Orthodox translations are based on the Greek numbering,as are Roman Catholic texts; but modern Roman Catholictranslations often use the Hebrew numbering.17
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