Whither Biblia Hebraica Quinta - Ancient Hebrew Poetry

3refer to as the masoretic text, is not thereby diminished. The first translatorsof the books of the Hebrew Bible into Greek; the scribes and readers of4QJosh a , 4QSam a , 4QJer b , and 4QJer d ; Jewish authors of the caliber of Philoand Josephus; and Christian authors of the caliber of the authors of Matthewand Hebrews, heard God speak to them through non-proto-masoretic texts intheir possession. It is not impossible, should we choose, to do likewise.BHQ aims to describe “the earliest attainable form(s) of the text” of theHebrew Bible “based on the available evidence” (General Introduction,XV). That ought to include, in a host of cases, non-proto-masoretic forms ofthe text. In this essay, I examine the degree to which the fascicles publishedso far acquit themselves in this respect. Along the way, I offer reflections onthe whither and wherefore of text criticism of the Hebrew Bible.PreliminariesFor an introduction to BHQ which complements the one provided in BHQ18, I refer the reader to an essay by one of BHQ’s editors, Richard D. Weis.It appeared in TC 7 (2002) [= TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism].Typos and stylistic infelicities in the published fascicles are few and farbetween. The editorial committee invites readers to submit lists of observederrors to a designated electronic address: bhq@dgb.de.BHQ is the successor project of Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS). Itremains a diplomatic edition of a single medieval manuscript, CodexLeningradensis, to the point that obvious errors in the codex are nowreproduced in the body of the edition and only corrected in footnotes. It isalso a new product with a number of innovative features. An obvious BHQimprovement vis-à-vis BHS is that run-on lines, with overflow text placed onthe line above or below and preceded by a bracket, have been eliminated.In the following, five aspects of BHQ serve as springboards for widerrangingreflections: (1) production schedule; (2) format; (3) treatment ofpoetry; (4) updateability; and (5) advantages and disadvantages vis-à-vis aparallel project, OHB. The critical remarks I offer are not meant to diminishthe massive achievement BHQ to date represents.Production ScheduleBHQ was originally scheduled for completion between 2005 and 2007.Three fascicles have so far appeared, with others sure to appear before long.It is now stated that the project will reach completion by 2010. It seems morelikely that it will not be completed until 2012 at the earliest.