This is the first of a series of posts I would like to write about the content of my Biblical Civilizations class. The course is essentially an academic overview of Israelite history, based on the latest scholarly thinking, and bringing into mind not just the biblical texts (some of which are deemed reliable and some are not) – but also extrabiblical texts, archaeological evidence, and what might be called socio-scientific analysis.By extrabiblical texts, it means such things as Egyptian engravings, and Assyrian and Persian annals and scrolls; and by socio-scientific analysis we mean those generalities that can be inferred by patterns in human settlement and organization that are seen across all cultures. An example might be: If you have housing settlements done in small groupings, this generally means extended families lived there, and that is true worldwide, regardless of language, religion or culture.
Our teacher is a PhD in the field of biblical literature. I credit her namelessly for all of the information I’m offering, with the caveat that any mistakes I inadvertently make in relaying this information are entirely my own. This information is also extremely abbreviated, for readability sake. I hope you find this stuff as fascinating as I do!
About the Field of Biblical Scholarship
The study of Israelite history has changed radically in recent years. It used to be that the Bible was considered the starting point of what we knew about biblical civilization, until it was disproved otherwise – but that is no longer the case. There have been enough challenges to the biblical text (archaeologically, extrabiblically and otherwise), that the Bible can no longer be considered the starting point.
**The Bible tells us more about the thinking of 10th century Judeans than it does about the topics they were writing on.**
What is the Bible Exactly?
The Bible is a collection of texts circulated as scrolls that were eventually considered sacred by Jews and Christians. Different communities had different compilations and different versions. The version of the Bible known to most people is the Masoretic Text dating to the 10th century CE, though there is clear indication that parts of it are based on writings that are much older. The famous King James and JPS translation are based on this version.
An even older version has been found since those translations were made, however. The Leningrad Codex dates to 1008 CE, and it is this text that is today published under the name Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia.
The differences between the Masoretic and Leningrad Codex are not huge, but they can be significant. It is for this reason the BHS is the text we use in our Biblical Text class, and why BHS is used by biblical scholars in general. The Etz Chaim Torah also uses the Leningrad Codex.
A still older version of Tanakh, called the Aleppo Codex, was found in Tiberias and made its way to Egypt, Syria and then Israel. It is dated to 800 CE, but parts have been missing since 1947. Therefore the Leningrad Codex is the oldest complete manuscript in existence.
2 comments:
What are some of those "significant" differences? I always find this sort of thing fascinating.
Good question. Our teacher mentioned a few, but I don't recall offhand. I'll try to find out at some point and post an update.
In general I can say that they are differences of a few words here and there which can radically change the understanding of a particular sentence. But they are not differences that would change the entire gist of a story or concept.
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