Reflections on the Many Forms of Hebrew Scripture in Light of the LXX and 4QReworked Pentateuch

Abstract

In modern society, the Bible has many faces both in Hebrew and in translation, but they all present more or less the same content. Thus bereshit bara elohim et hashamayim we-et ha-aretz is represented exactly by “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (RSV) as well as by “Im Anfang schuf Gott Himmel und Erde.” More complicated verses likewise indicate that the Hebrew and European versions represent exactly the same text. The background of this identity lies in the fact that almost all modern translations were made from the very same Hebrew text, namely the Masoretic Text (MT), the traditional text of the Bible as transmitted in Judaism. This text form is well documented, but, strange as it may sound, we still know nothing of its background nor the date of its creation, and it is difficult to define its essence. Probably the most conspicuous feature of MT is its meticulous transmission over the course of a little more than two millennia. The precision with which the Masoretic manuscripts were copied is proverbial, since the copying included the smallest details in the manuscripts such as small dots above letters and the distinction between small and large letters. The rabbis did not allow a manuscript to be used for public reading if there were more than three corrections in one of its columns.1 It is quite natural that our own evaluation of MT and of the transmission of the Bible as a whole is influenced by this precision.