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Thursday, June 10, 2010

Textual Variations in Tenach

I vividly remember the time when a friend of mine, at that time studying Semitic languages, told me about textual variations in the Torah.

The example he gave me was Parshas Korach (this week’s Parsha for those ammeratzim that didn’t know ;):

וַיִּקַּח קֹרַח, בֶּן-יִצְהָר בֶּן-קְהָת בֶּן-לֵוִי; וְדָתָן וַאֲבִירָם בְּנֵי אֱלִיאָב, וְאוֹן בֶּן-פֶּלֶת--בְּנֵי רְאוּבֵן

The translation somehow doesn’t seem to flow since vayikach (and he took) does not seem to refer to anyone else than Korach since it doesn’t say “Korach, the son of Izhar took Datan and Aviram the sons of Eliav and On ben Pelet the sons of Reuven took” but it says “Korach, the son of Izhar took and Datan and Aviram the sons of Eliav and On ben Pelet the sons of Reuven”.

So what did they take? Where does the verb (‘took’) act upon?

Rashi says:

He took himself to a different side, to be disassociated from the community and to cast aspersion on the kehunah. This is why Onkelos translates, he separated himself from the rest of the community in order to maintain the dispute. Similarly, "why does your heart take you?"--- (i.e.,) it takes you to separate you from other people. Another interpretation [of] "Korach took": He won over the heads of the Sanhedrin among them, with flattering words, as it is said, "take Aharon,"  "take words with you."

So it either would mean “he took himself” or he convinced the Sanhedrin (‘caused to be taken?), which either way is problematic.

He showed me a different version of Chumash where it said ‘vayakom’ (and he got up), which seemed to fit in better:

And Korach, the son of Izhar stood up, and Datan and Aviram the sons of Eliav, and On ben Pelet the sons of Reuven”.

Now, we were taught that there are hardly any chilufei girsaot (different readings) of the Torah except for 9 differences between our scrolls and the Yemenite scrolls.

However, there are many more manuscripts that can shed light on different verses in the Torah. And I didn’t know about it! I remember how uncomfortable I was in this situation and how I tried to talk myself out of it.

Of course, things are a bit different at the moment.

In light of the above, I can warmly recommend an interesting article on the website of the Biblical Archeological Review by Harvey Minkoff (professor of linguistics at Hunter College in New York City) called “Searching for the Better Text - How errors crept into the Bible and what can be done to correct them”.

Happy reading!

7 comments:

  1. This is nothing. The Torah's final form was not even settled until the 2nd century CE

    Only recently are we learning about the various Torah versions people of the Jesus era had. For example the early Church had a version of Genesis 22 where in fact Isaac was killed and then resurrected. This was important for christological reasons. Similarly the samaritans have a far "neater" Torah, with far lesser grammatical mistakes and inconsistencies

    I have in the past challenged both JP and Garnel on these inconsistencies and they have ignored the challenges altogether

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  2. Shalmo: I would be surprised if they did. They both only seem to want to the parts where they think they have a 'taayneh'.

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  3. Good example of what a dishonest hack Rashi was, as well.

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  4. Nice post.
    >He showed me a different version of Chumash where it said ‘vayakom’ (and he got up), which seemed to fit in better

    Which chumash was that? Do you mean a Dead Sea Scroll version of something?

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  5. BHB: I don't remember. All I know is that he had a scientific version of the Chumash with him that had notes with variant readings. Too long ago ;)

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  6. Related to this topic, you might like the discussion and the sources I have pointed out here:

    http://shiltonhasechel.blogspot.com/2010/06/yhwh-ashera-consort-or-cult-object.html#comments

    Read all the comments I have left there

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  7. Saw that Shalmo. How come you are so well-versed?

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