The Masora on Scripture and Its Methods by Yosef Ofer (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Masora on Scripture and Its Methods by Yosef Ofer David Marcus Yosef Ofer. The Masora on Scripture and Its Methods. Translated by Michael Glatzer. Fontes et Subsidia ad Bibliam pertinentes (FoSub) 7. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2019. ix + 286 pp. doi:10.1017/S036400942000015X Yosef Ofer is one of the preeminent scholars today in masorah studies. He stands in the footsteps of his renowned late teachers Mordechai Breuer and Israel Yeivin, and in line with other modern masoretic masters such as the emeriti Aron Dotan and Menachem Cohen. He has been engaged in masoretic topics for years. His Babylonian Masora of the Pentateuch, Its Principles and Methods (Magnes, 2001) was a pioneering and voluminous work (over 600 pages!), and he is the author of scores of articles on all aspects of masorah and the Aleppo Codex. In this volume Ofer presents us with fifteen essays on the masorah and Hebrew manuscripts and printed editions under three main headings: "The Biblical Masora and Its Methods"; "The Masoretic Text in Time and Space"; and "The Masora in Interaction with Other Disciplines." Most of the essays are based on articles previously written in Hebrew, and they are presented here for the first time to an English-reading public. All the essays are copiously illustrated and each is accompanied by suggestions for further reading. With such a rich volume one can only make a few brief observations on some of the chapters. In his essay on the masorah as an "error correcting code," Ofer discusses why the masorah has double notations, namely the abbreviated masorah parva notes written on the vertical sides of manuscripts, and the masorah magna notes, which are written on the horizontal sides of manuscripts. Ofer rejects the prevailing theory that the masorah parva notes are original and that the masorah magna notes are a later development. Rather, he suggests that the masorah parva may be regarded as a mechanism for detecting errors, whereas the [End Page 416] masorah magna as the apparatus for correcting errors, since it indicates exactly where the words or phrases are written. On the question of the presence of ketiv and qere in the text, Ofer follows the lead of Mordechai Breuer and suggests that they result from two different ways of transmitting the text: a written tradition and an oral one. The written tradition was maintained by scribes, and the oral tradition was that transmitted from father to son or from teacher to disciple. Both were necessary for the correct transmission of the text, and neither could function independently of the other. However, in the course of time, this double transmission inevitably caused some differences to emerge between the two channels, and these differences are called the ketiv and qere. Ofer's chapter on the Aleppo Codex, which was damaged during the riots in Aleppo in 1947, and his recounting of attempts to restore its missing sections, is made all the more vivid by the fact that he was personally involved in this enterprise. He tells the astonishing story of how he was responsible for rescuing the important Tanakh of Rabbi Shalom Shachna Yellin that contained notations in its margins on various missing sections of the codex. This Tanakh had been given to a bookseller, who was about to send it to be buried with other worn-out sacred books when, at the last minute, Ofer discovered and saved it. Subsequently, Yellin's Tanakh was donated to Ben-Zvi Institute by the Yellin family and is displayed in the Shrine of the Book together with the Aleppo Codex. In his discussion of the differences between different Hebrew printed editions, Ofer relates how Mordechai Breuer was able to establish the text of his various Bible editions both on the basis of early manuscripts and of the masorah. Breuer had established his text before the Aleppo Codex became available for study in 1976, and when the codex did become available, and was compared to his reconstructed text, he found that both were practically the same: the eclectic text that he had produced was virtually identical to that of the codex. As far as the masorah and exegesis is concerned, Ofer acknowledges that there may...