Whither Biblia Hebraica Quinta - Ancient Hebrew Poetry

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10editions. The Handausgabe of MT I would wish to have is different from theone that is contemplated. I provide details in the next section.Treatment of PoetryAccording to James Sanders in his review of BHQ 18, “Another highlycommendable trait of BHQ is that of presenting the text honoring thete’amim or masoretic accent marks.” 9 Would that this were true.Instead, the editors still go about deciding when a text unit is poetry andwhen it is not, and then give their interpretation of its stichometry, not that ofMT. For example, Schäfer trisects Lam 1:1 where MT bisects it. Schäfer isright to do so, but that is beside the point. Either an edition of MT honors theprosodic implications of the neumes MT preserves, or it does not. BHQ doesnot. That is, it does not always do so.The problem reappears in BHQ Jeremiah, of which Weis offers a samplepage. Jer 23:5-6 and 9 are treated as poetry, Jer 23:1-4, 7-8 are not. Onceagain, an editor’s opinion intrudes into what is otherwise a faithful edition ofCodex Leningradensis. The codex does not register a distinction betweenprose and poetry in Jeremiah. Neither should a diplomatic edition of it.My dream Handausgabe of Codex L would include the followingcomponents: an introduction to and contextualization of L at the crossroadsbetween Karaite and Rabbanite Judaisms; a diplomatic edition of L, witheditorial decisions about poetry and stichometry eliminated; a glossary ofterms for the masorah parva; a table of accents and an introduction to themas a representation of recitative prosody; a multi-tiered apparatus (variantreadings attested in other carefully executed Masoretic codices; in the massof medieval manuscripts; in rabbinic literature; the Vulgate, Targum, andPeshitta (where proto-masoretic); and in proto-masoretic texts from theJudean desert); introductions to the books limited to a discussion of theaforementioned witnesses; and notes on the masorah parva and masorahmagna. All MT and proto-MT, all the time.A dream companion volume would include the following: the earliesttext(s) attainable based on the available evidence, if necessary on facingpages, with editorial decisions about poetry, stichometry, and other unitdelimitations included; an apparatus containing a full account of significantvariants attested in the ancient versions, the texts from the Judean desert,rabbinic literature, and medieval biblical manuscripts; commentary thereto,and introductions to the books covering all the text traditions.9 James A. Sanders, review of BHQ 18, RBL 5 (2005).
11Still another desideratum: a volume that presents the texts without thefamiliar orthography, vocalization, syntactic and prosodic representations,unit delimitations, and mise en page of MT. Only in the presence of theabsence of these features is the student of the text alerted to alternativeconstruals of the text that were avoided in the interpretative traditions thathave come down to us (almost always rightly avoided, but the otheroperative word here is almost).No, my name is not Joseph, but perhaps this dream will come true, orsomething like it, some day.UpdateabilityThe issue of updateability is a pressing one given the pace of progress inthe field of text criticism of the Hebrew Bible. It is understandable that a textcritic might do his or her work with great care and yet fall short of fullyengaging with the relevant secondary literature.The volume dedicated to Ezra-Nehemiah edited by David Marcus mayserve to illustrate. It is undoubtedly a piece of exemplary scholarship, but itis cause for astonishment that interaction in its pages with thegroundbreaking work of Dieter Böhler is limited to signaling disagreementwith Böhler’s main thesis, to wit: “Gα reflects a Hebrew Vorlage earlier thanthe MT” (10*). 10 Marcus, as is his prerogative, concludes otherwise, but adiscussion of the pros and cons of the Mowinckel-Pohlmann-Böhler schoolof thought (the relevant contributions of Mowinckel and Pohlmann are noteven registered by Marcus), in general and on a case-by-case basis, wouldhave made the textual commentary immensely more valuable than is now thecase.This is part of a larger pattern of avoidance which bedevils the volume.Loci which cry out for text-critical comment and are discussed at length inthe major commentaries (Rudolph, Williamson, Blenkinsopp, and Clines)are liquidated in short order or passed over in silence. The result is that BHQ20 is of marginal interest to the text-critical study of Ezra-Nehemiah.10 Böhler, it might be noted, goes on to posit a second century BCE date for the recensionof Ezra-Nehemiah reflected in MT (idem, “On the Relationship between Textual andLiterary Criticism. The Two Recensions of the Book of Ezra: Ezra-Neh (MT) and 1 Esdras(LXX),” in The Earliest Text of the Hebrew Bible. The Relationship between the MasoreticText and the Hebrew Base of the Septuagint Reconsidered [ed. Adrian Schenker; SBLSCS52; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003] 35-50; 48). This tallies with research fromvarious quarters which posits the creation of revised editions of other biblical books in thiscentury.
Page 1: Taking Stock of Biblia Hebraica Qui
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Page 13 and 14: 13BHQ Qoheleth and Canticles are le
Page 15 and 16: ֥15A lemma by lemma comparison of
Page 17 and 18: 171:11; Num 32:15. The sense of the
Page 19: 19It is also true that BHQ - and, p

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