Key Characteristics of (Proto-) MT

With the exception of Dan 11:6; Exod 32:11, Lev 26:20 (all: כוח).

The only exception is Dan 11:30 קודש.

With the exception of Jer 26:18; Esth 2:6; 1 Chron 3:5; 2 Chron 25:1.

With the exception of Ezek 18:19.

In MT,כבוד  is almost always plene (177x). With suffixes or in the construct state, it is mainly defective (12x).

שלום  is almost always plene (197x), but in twelve instances, it is defective, mainly with suffixes.

פנחס in 1 Sam 1:3 is an exception.

SP, although often as inconsistent as MT, displays a similar unity to that of MT. The pre-Samaritan scrolls are fuller than SP, which implies that SP was based on a single copy that was typologically earlier than the known pre-Samaritan scrolls.

See the figures for codex L summarized in my Scribal Practices and Approaches Reflected in the Texts Found in the Judean Desert; STDJ 54 (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2004), 153–54. These statistics should be consulted for the data described in the next paragraphs.

Especially after 1:22, when Boaz is first introduced, and 3:18, when the scene moves from Ruth and Naomi speaking to Boaz heading for the city gates. 

XXI 23–XXII 26 has two closed sections (after 14:21 = 1QapGen XXII 20; 14:23a = 1QapGen XXII 22), one indented section (after 14:20 = 1QapGen XXII 18), and one open section (after 14:8 = 1QapGen XXI 30).

Exceptions appear in 38:1, 39:1, 40:1, 41:1, 44:18, 46:28, 48:1.

Editor’s note: Or possibly the Torah was considered more sacred earlier on and thus the scribes kept the letters but didn’t erase the words, whereas in the later books they either erased the words or the dots. ZIF

E.g., Gen 35:22. The MP to Gen 35:22 lists 35 such instances, indicated in some or all of the manuscripts and editions by a space the size of either an open or a closed section. The various sources give different numbers for the pbp, and combining these cases Ohr arrives at 72: A. Ohr, “Pisqa be-emsa pasuq mahu?,” in Essays in Biblical Research Presented to Eliyahu Auerbach in Honor of His Seventieth Birthday (Jerusalem: Kiryat Sefer, 1955), 31–42 (Heb.).

See Shemaryahu Talmon, “Pisqah Be’emsa’ Pasuq and the Psalms Scroll from Qumran Cave 11 (11QPsa),”Text and Canon of the Hebrew Bible: Collected Studies (Jerusalem/Winona Lake, IN: The Mandel Institute of Jewish Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem/Eisenbrauns, 2010), 369–82 with earlier literature. Also in the more extensive list of Ohr (see n. 39) the high percentage for Samuel (40 instances) remains the same.

Francis I. Andersen & A. Dean Forbes, Spelling in the Hebrew Bible; BibOr 41 (Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1986), 312–318.

Thus Aimo Murtonen, “The Fixation in Writing of Various Parts of the Pentateuch,” VT 3 (1953): 46–53. This scholar also found differences between the various Pentateuchal sources.

For precise data, see Andersen–Forbes, Spelling in the Hebrew Bible and Aimo Murtonen, “On the Interpretation of the Matres Lectionis in Biblical Hebrew,” AbrN 16 (1973–1974): 66–121.

This qere occurs 120 times in the Torah as well as three times in the Prophets and Writings. There are eleven exceptions to this majority spelling in the Torah, e.g., in Gen 14:3; 20:5; 38:25.

Among the ancient witnesses, only the proto-Masoretic scroll MasLevb contains the anomalous MT formהוא  (Lev 10:17; 11:6) for the third person feminine pronoun, while all other Judean Desert manuscripts represent this word as היא.

This was suggested in, Steven E. Fassberg, “The Ketiv/Qere הוא, Diagony and Dialectology,” in Diachrony in Biblical Hebrew, ed. C.L. Miller-Naudé & Z. Zevit (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2012), 171–80, with earlier literature.

See Kautzsch, Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar, § 17c.

Alternatively, this form does not designate an archaic Ketiv, but at one time there was no distinction between the masculine and feminine na‘ar. For a discussion, see Maimon Cohen, The Kethib and Qeri System in the Biblical Text: A Linguistic Analysis of the Various Traditions Based on the Manuscript ‘Keter Aram Tsova’ (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2007), 27–28 (Heb.).

For the data, see Ian Young, “Observations on the Third Person Masculine Singular Pronominal Suffix –H in Hebrew Biblical Texts,” HS 42 (2001) 225–42 [228] with earlier bibliography.

See Frank H. Polak, “The Interpretation of Kulloh/Kalahin the LXX: Ambiguity and Intuitive Comprehension,” Textus17 (1994): 57–77.

Gen 19:8, 25; 26:3, 4; Lev 18:27; Deut 4:42; 7:22; 19:11. This word also occurs once with a different meaning in 1 Chron 20:8.

Fassberg, “The Ketiv/Qere הוא.”

 Spelling in the Hebrew Bible, 317.

For examples, see Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 278 (1 Sam 1:24), 277 (1 Sam 20:30). See also the long omission of MT in 1 Sam 1:24 compared with LXX and 4QSam^a and many of the scribal errors in the parallel texts in 2 Sam 22 // Psalm 18 and 2 Sam 23:8-39 // 1 Chr 11:11-41 (List of David’s warriors)

A long list of scholars from Otto Thenius and Julius Wellhausen in the nineteenth century to McCarter and Cross–Parry–Saley in modern times have discussed this phenomenon. Otto Thenius, Die Bücher Samuels; KEH 4 (Leipzig: Weidmann’sche Buchhandlung, 1842), xxviii–xxix; Julius Wellhausen, Der Text der Bücher Samuelis (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1871), 16; P. Kyle McCarter, Jr., I Samuel, II Samuel (AB; Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1980, 1984), I.5; Cross-Parry-Saley in Frank M. Cross, Donald W. Parry, Richard Saley, Eugene Ulrich, Qumran Cave 4.XII: 1–2 Samuel; DJD XVII (Oxford: Clarendon, 2005), 25–27.