I have no illusions that what I am doing is arriving at an "original" text. Textual issues and recensions abound and make any judgement that would call a text "earlier" almost impossible to make with any academic integrity. What I am looking for in these verses is a version of the text that might be called "early," but what I am content with calling "whole." That is, I am looking for a text that is prior to the MT and has little complex
history behind it that we, with our extent MS evidence, can prove. With this in mind, I go to the text.
Exodus 1:1-7
The MS found in BHS is as follows. (each line is a verse)
ואלה שמות בני ישראל הבאים מצרימה את יעקב איש וביתו באו
ראובן שמעון לוי ויהודה
יששכר זבולן ובנימן
דן ונפתלי גד ואשר
ויהי כל נפש יצאי ירך יעקב שבעים נפש ויוסף היה במצרים
וימת יוסף וכל אחיו וכל הדור ההוא
ובני ישראל פרו וישרצו וירבו ויעצמו במאד מאד ותמלא הארץ אתם
1 Now these are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob; they came each one with his household:
2 Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah;
3 Issachar, Zebulun and Benjamin;
4 Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher.
5 All the persons who came from the loins of Jacob were seventy in number, but Joseph was already in Egypt.
6 Joseph died, and all his brothers and all that generation.
7 But the sons of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly, and multiplied, and became exceedingly mighty, so that the land was filled with them.
Extent manuscript evidence from the LXX, Targumim, DSS, and Peshitta reveal several differences but I will focus on one in particular that I believe has the most significance. In one instance in the DSS (4QExodus), the discernable text reads the name Joseph between what appears to be Benjamin and Zebulun.
[...] יששכר זבולון יוסף ובני [...]
The text is broken after this including the part in 1:5 where the MT mentions that Joseph was already in Egypt, thereby explaining his absence in such an important list. 4QExodus does, however, contain the first word from verses 6, ימת, which, in the MT, is connected with a statement concerning the deaths of Joseph, his brothers, and all "that" (הדור ההוא) generation.
The question now is which reading is preferred. Since, as I have stated, I am looking for a reading of the text that seems "whole" or without known recension, there are several options available to me.
1) The MT is earlier and the DSS reading is based on a variant edition that is not extant - presumably disposed of because of its errors.
2) The MT is later and based on a version that has already moved Joseph from his place beside Benjamin and Zebulun to a mention in verse 5.
3) Neither is earlier but each is based on separate traditions that develop in different places.
After a great deal of thought I decided to go with #2 and my explanation is as follows. While #3 might be preferred it is nearly impossible to prove with the extant mss. Therefore I cannot posit this as a viable option at this time. Option #2 is a good option and the LXX agrees with it in regards to Joseph. Yet there is also a difference between the two in verse 5 where the MT states that the number of people going down to Egypt was 70 (שׁבעים נפשׁ), and the LXX states there were 75 (πεντε και εβδομηκοντα). The LXX here shows an interesting Hebraism in how is forms the number 75, evincing that this text was copied from a Hebrew source (this is to be expected). However it seems unlikely that the LXX and the MT should have the same parent tet for one verse (1:3) and an entirely different one for a different verse (1:5). Thus we can posit yet another source which is not extant that serves as the parent for the LXX in Exodus 1:1-7. In other words, that the LXX and the MT agree on verse 5 is only secondary evidence since their agreement cannot be linked to a common text.
The main question is why a text WOULD include Joseph in a list with his brothers and NOT include Joseph in verse 5. The answer, I believe, is that the text that 4QExodus is copied from does not know the Joseph stories where he is already in Egypt. That version of the text might have been written before the Joseph stories coalesced and were placed into mainstream Judaic tradition. 4QExodus seems based on a source that only knows Joseph as a son of Jacob and, thus, one who entered Egypt with his brothers to escape a famine. Using common text critical rules we can assume that the text went from less complicated (with Joseph merely appearing in a list of Jacob's sons) to more complicated (with the scribe/source seeking to emend the text to show Joseph in Egypt).
Take up the issue. What does common sense tell you? What is a good read on this text?
I've always wondered about common text critical rules which assume texts evolve from less to more simple. I just finished my dissertation which has gone from 327 pages to 284 pages. Why? Because there was a lot of stuff in the final ms which I repeated, and so part of editing the text meant moving from more complicated to less complicated.
ReplyDeleteWhat if scribes were good editors and just cut out an unnecessary bit of info.?
You know I have wondered about this for a long time and I still don't have a whole lot of concrete answers. However, I will give a shot out at what I have gathered from the conversation at large.
ReplyDelete1) Unlike our modern writing, most of the text and pieces of literature that were written down in the ancient world were not composed at the time of their penning. They were, of course, songs or poems or myths/epics that had a great deal of internal rhyme and other mnemonic devices in order to hep the people remember them. It follows, then, that such remembered "texts" were written down in the "easy" or "less complicated" forms. Only later when scribes copied them again and had to replace obsolete words or outdated phrases did expansion and complexity arise.
2) The phenomenon of folk-song has been well documented in several places in northern European countries. JP Fokkelmann has done a great deal on this. But it also has been done in other fields like Homeric studies, Scandinavian studies, and other anthropological studies of various cultures around the world.
However, I do agree with you that common sense dictates that this "rule" is not hard and fast. Most textual critics that I have read all believe that the critic must use their own opinions to decides whether a text should be governed by these rules or not. But by and large, modern research has proven it to be mostly true.
Jake here...
ReplyDeleteI am also inclined to go with option 2 on your list. The question is, which text represents the harder reading? A scribe that is copying is less likely to make the reading more difficult (cf. most of the varients between MT and LXX!). This is an interesting question on a broad level. I am inclined to equate the MT with the Majority Text in NT criticism. The Majority is much more numerous but also much late than most other witnesses. My guess is that it (the MT) is often attempting to iron out the diffculties.
@Jake
ReplyDeleteGood stuff. In this case, I think the harder reading is a text that does NOT have Joseph. The critics questions of the text should be as follows:
1) What is the provenance of a text that only includes Joseph as a normal part of the genealogy?
2) Why would a text MOVE Joseph from the list to an endnote?
3) Why would a scribe continue to copy a text that was incorrect especially if that text was "later" that the MT version?
And so on. I am a fan of using common sense in Hebrew Bible text criticism. That way the rules don't govern, the critic does.
Nate,
ReplyDeleteI talked to Scott about this. He says that Scribes were, in general, not editors in the way we think of the word in contemporary discourse. They felt they were dealing with a divine text and so would have been remiss to take bits of the text away that might have seen redundant.
Interestingly, I thought of this point again when I was reading John 3:22 and compared it with John 4:1-2. In the first, Jesus is baptizing; in the second, the author writes, "it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized" as sort of an addition to the text (the NRSV uses hyphens; you could almost put that statement in parentheses). What's the source of this discrepancy? It seems that a later scribed added the aside in John 4:2. Why not just delete the passage from John 3:22 that Jesus was baptizing? Because we're dealing with sacred text and you don't take away from sacred text.
For what it's worth, I'm not convinced and generally see the whole foundational premise of text criticism a tenuous, though useful one.
With all due respect to Scott, his understanding is right on par with New Testament studies but a little off in Near Eastern/Old Testament studies. It is difficult to say with any confidence WHAT the earliest scribes felt about a text. Sure, there are later traditions that hold the text in high regard but that is only after the Bible as we know it was almost entirely codified and put together. There is quite a bit of evidence in the DSS of scribes changing things or writing things in the margins that update antiquated vocabulary or may even be theological or ideological changes.
ReplyDeleteI will admit that textual criticism is shaky, at best, especially when referring to OT criticism because we have so few good sources. Most of my graduate work has been done in literary and rhetorical studies which analyzes the text from a more "canonical" standpoint. However, when I put this to my teacher (in a similar way you have done here) he replied quite succinctly "What text are you analyzing?"
This brought it to a head for me. I realized what he was saying. It is very difficult to makes claims on a text's "meaning" when the text itself is suspect. New Lit Crit. notwithstanding, to comment on a text, one must have a text. I think, in part, text criticism is simply trying to make analysts take more responsibility over their translations and interpretations.
I, for one, am all for that.