Van geen van de bijbelboeken zijn de oorspronkelijke manuscripten, de autographa, door de tijd heen bewaard gebleven. Voor de tekst van het Oude Testament zijn we dan ook afhankelijk van de tekst zoals we die in de verschillende latere tekstgetuigen aantreffen. Tot die tekstgetuigen behoren:
(1) Hebrew manuscripts belonging to the following text groups:
[expand title="Masoretic text“]The oldest manuscripts known to us containing the Hebrew text of the entire Old Testament date from around 1000 A.D. These manuscripts were handed down and from vocalization (vowel marks) and comments provided by the Masoretics, hence we speak of the Masoretic Text (MT).
One of the most important manuscripts belonging to the Masoretic text is the Codex Leningradensis from 1008 or 1009 AD, which gets its name from the fact that it is kept in a museum in St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad). The mainstream scholarly edition of the Old Testament text, the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS), takes the text of this manuscript as its starting point. Through BHS, modern translations are based on this Hebrew text. The successor to BHS, the Biblia Hebraica Quinta (BHQ), expected in a few years, also incorporates the text of this manuscript.
Another important manuscript, also belonging to the Masoretic text, is the Aleppo codex. This manuscript is slightly older than the Leningradensis codex (early tenth century) and, like it, gives the official text as established by the Masoretes.The oldest manuscripts known to us which contain the Hebrew text of the entire Old Testament date from the time around 1000 A.D. These manuscripts were handed down and from vocalization (vowel marks) and comments provided by the Masoretics, hence we speak of the Masoretic Text (MT).
One of the most important manuscripts belonging to the Masoretic text is the Codex Leningradensis from 1008 or 1009 AD, which gets its name from the fact that it is kept in a museum in St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad). The mainstream scholarly edition of the Old Testament text, the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS), takes the text of this manuscript as its starting point. Through BHS, modern translations are based on this Hebrew text. The successor to BHS, the Biblia Hebraica Quinta (BHQ), expected in a few years, also incorporates the text of this manuscript.
Another important manuscript, also belonging to the Masoretic text, is the Aleppo codex. This manuscript is slightly older than the Leningradensis codex (early tenth century) and, like it, provides the official text as established by the Masoretics[/expand].
[expand title="Dead Sea Scrolls (Qumran)"]In 1947, in the desert of Judea close to the Dead Sea, near the archaeological site of Qumran, seven ancient scrolls were found, including a scroll containing the biblical book of Isaiah. The announcement of this find set off a year-long search that led to the discovery of ten more caves in the immediate vicinity of Qumran containing ancient manuscripts or other archaeological material. In total, some 800 manuscripts were found in these eleven caves, almost all of them unfortunately very fragmentary in nature. All of these texts date from the period from the third century BCE to 68 AD.
Among the texts found at Qumran are some 200 - mostly very fragmentary - manuscripts with text from the Old Testament. Fragments of almost all the books of the Bible have been found; only the books of Nehemiah and Ester are missing. However, since our Bible books Ezra and Nehemiah form one book in the Jewish tradition and fragments of Ezra have been found, it is plausible that Nehemiah must also have been originally present. Of the book of Esther this is not certain; in any case, the Purim feast mentioned in Esther was not celebrated in Qumran. Especially of the books of Deuteronomy, Psalms and Isaiah, many copies were found at Qumran. The most important Bible manuscript found at Qumran is the Isaiah scroll already mentioned, which is virtually undamaged and contains the text of the entire book of Isaiah (1QIsa). Another Isaiah scroll, found in the same cave, is also of great importance, although of this only about a third of the text of the book of Isaiah has been preserved (1QIsb).
In the decades following the manuscript finds at Qumran, ancient Bible manuscripts have also been found at other sites around the Dead Sea. Although the term "Dead Sea Scrolls" is usually used in reference to the texts found at Qumran, it is also used in a broader sense, including these manuscripts.
The manuscripts found in 1951 at the wadi Muraba'at contain mainly correspondence from Bar Kochba, the leader of the Jewish revolt against the Romans (132-135 AD). The other manuscripts found here also date from that period and from before. Among these manuscripts is a manuscript of the minor prophets (Hosea through Malachi). A short time later, a scroll containing the books of the minor prophets was also discovered from a southern part of Judea, at Nachal Chever.
Een andere belangrijke handschriftenvondst is die op Masada (1963-1965). De hier gevonden manuscripten zijn alle ouder dan 73 n.Chr., toen Masada in de Joodse Oorlog door de Romeinen veroverd werd. Onder de op Masada gevonden handschriften bevinden zich ook enkele fragmentarisch bewaard gebleven manuscripten van de bijbeltekst, onder meer van de boeken Leviticus, Deuteronomium, Psalmen en Ezechiël.
The Bible manuscripts found in the desert of Judea are invaluable for the study of the OT, since not before have so many manuscripts of such age been found (some 1,000 years older than the Masoretic text). It is true that in a few places there are differences between the text of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Masoretic text, but on the whole it is notable that the differences are not too great and that the Old Testament text has been handed down very accurately over the centuries. In a number of places, the Dead Sea Scrolls offer an anomalous text previously known only from the Septuagint or the Samaritan Pentateuch. Clearly, great weight must be given to such textual variants."[/expand].
[expand title="Samaritan pentateuch"]The Samaritans have their ethnic and religious roots in the Tribal Kingdom from the time of the kings. Therefore, like the Judeans, they worshiped the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Moses enjoyed great reverence among them and they strictly kept the Torah. In fact, the five books of Moses were the only books recognized as authoritative by the Samaritans. The Torah as handed down by the Samaritans is called "Samaritan Pentateuch" (abbreviated as SamP in the explanation).
Although the available manuscripts of the Samaritan Pentateuch all date from the late Middle Ages and are thus relatively young, their value lies primarily in the fact that the textual tradition of the Samaritan Pentateuch has remained separate from the textual tradition among the Jews.
Apart from spelling issues, the text of the Samaritan Pentateuch largely corresponds to that of the later Masoretic text, but shows discrepancies in a number of places. In a number of places, the quality of the text lore of the Samaritan Pentateuch is clearly inferior to the Masoretic text, for example, in places where the wording of parallel verses is aligned or where explanatory additions are present in the text. In other places, however, the Samaritan Pentateuch offers a text that may be more original than the one found in the Masoretic tradition. Of particular note for this are a number of places where the discrepancies in the Samaritan Pentateuch correspond to the Dead Sea Scrolls and/or the Septuagint.[/expand].
[expand title="Other Hebrew text finds (including papyrus Nash, Cairo geniza, Ketef Hinnom)"]In addition to the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Samaritan pentateuch, several other ancient Hebrew manuscripts have been found that are older than the Masoretic text. The so-called papyrus Nash from the second or first century B.C. contains the Ten Commandments in a text that appears to merge Ex.20 and Deut.5, followed by Deut.6:4v..Furthermore, in a geniza (= repository for disused manuscripts) at an ancient synagogue in Cairo, a large number of texts have been found, including some Bible manuscripts from the time from the fifth century A.D. onward. However, these have been preserved in a very fragmentary manner.
Sometimes other types of text are also found, for example two silver amulets from around 700 BCE, found at Ketef Hinnom, bearing the priestly blessing from Numbers 6:22-27. This is discussed in more detail in the on-site explanation[/expand].
(2) Early translations of the Old Testament, viz.
[expand title="Septuagint(LXX)“]Septuagint (LXX) is the designation for the Greek translation of the Old Testament, compiled from 200 BCE.
Reason
Na de veroveringen van Alexander de Grote in de vierde eeuw v.Chr. ontstonden in allerlei steden in het Middellandse-Zeegebied Joodse gemeenschappen. In de Joodse gemeenschap van het Egyptische Alexandrië werkte men vanaf de derde eeuw v.Chr. aan een Griekse vertaling van de boeken van het Oude Testament en enkele andere Joodse geschriften. Het resultaat van deze arbeid is bekend geworden onder de Latijnse naam Septuagint of Septuaginta (doorgaans, en ook in dit bijbelcommentaar, afgekort tot LXX). De vertaling van de bijbelboeken was reeds geruime tijd voor het begin van onze jaartelling voltooid.
Naming
The name Septuagint - an abbreviation of the Latin septuaginta et duo "seventy-two" - is derived from the legend that soon circulated among Jews after the translation was created. The legend states that the translation would have been made by order of the then Ptolemaic (Egyptian) king who would then add the translation to the impressive library of Alexandria. At his request, the high priest in Jerusalem is said to have sent seventy-two elders to Alexandria, who translated the Torah there in separate, locked rooms each in exactly seventy-two days. Their translations turned out to correspond verbatim. It is now clear that the historical value of this legend is very low, although there may be a historical core.
Characterization
The Septuagint was compiled by many different translators, who also used different translation principles. Some books, including the five books of Moses, were transcribed more or less word for word into Greek, sometimes - as in the case of the book of Ecclesiastes - so literally that the rules of Greek grammar seemed to be trampled upon. In other books of the Bible, such as Daniel, for example, translators allowed themselves greater liberties in translating the text. Sometimes when translating, the text was even updated. For example, Isa. 9:11, where the Hebrew speaks of "Aram in the east and the Philistines in the west" has become "Syria in the east and the Greeks in the west" in the Septuagint. Moreover, of some books, such as Judges and Daniel, several Greek versions were in circulation, and for some books the chapter order (e.g., Proverbs) or the scope of the book differs (e.g., Jeremiah).
Met name de boeken die vrijer vertaald waren, hebben in het verleden nogal eens tot de gedachte geleid dat de vertalers van de Septuaginta het met de Hebreeuwse tekst niet zo nauw namen. Modern tekstonderzoek, vooral in vergelijking met de bijbelse fragmenten onder de Dode-Zeerollen, heeft echter aangetoond dat deze gedachte onjuist was en dat de vertalers van de Septuaginta over het algemeen wel degelijk probeerden de Hebreeuwse tekst zo getrouw mogelijk weer te geven, zij het dat zij soms van andere vertaalprincipes uitgingen dan moderne vertalers (zoals in het geval van actualisering). Bovendien is duidelijk geworden dat de Hebreeuwse tekst die ten grondslag ligt aan de Septuaginta op enkele punten afwijkt van de Masoretische tekst. Voor het onderzoek naar de tekst van het Oude Testament zijn vooral die gevallen van belang waarbij varianten in de Septuaginta een Hebreeuwse tekst weerspiegelen die we ook aantreffen in de Dode-Zeerollen en/of de Samaritaanse Pentateuch.[/expand]
[expand title="Other early translations, including Peshitta (Syr.), Vulgata (Vulg.) and Vetus Latina“]In de eerste eeuwen van onze jaartelling werd de Hebreeuwse Bijbel, vaak samen met het Nieuwe Testament, ook in andere talen vertaald. De Syrische vertaling, de Pesjitta genaamd, stamt uit de tweede eeuw n.Chr. We kennen de tekst ervan echter grotendeels uit handschriften uit de vijfde tot zevende eeuw n.Chr. Omdat met betrekking tot de tekstgeschiedenis van de Pesjitta veel vragen nog onbeantwoord zijn en duidelijk is dat de ons bekende tekst bewerkingen heeft ondergaan vanuit de Septuaginta en de Hebreeuwse tekst later als Masoretische tekst zou worden aangeduid, is de waarde ervan voor het onderzoek naar de tekst van het Oude Testament vrij beperkt.De kerkvader Hiëronymus vervaardigde tussen 390 en 405 n.Chr. in opdracht van de toenmalige paus Damasus I de Latijnse vertaling van Oude en Nieuwe Testament die in de Middeleeuwen zou uitgroeien tot de kerkelijke tekst (de zogeheten Vulgata). Hoewel Hiëronymus het Oude Testament vertaalde vanuit het Hebreeuws, is zijn vertaling op veel plaatsen zodanig sterk beïnvloed door de Septuaginta en andere Griekse vertalingen, dat van een onafhankelijke tekstgetuige nauwelijks sprake is. Nog minder is dat het geval bij de oudere Latijnse vertalingen, de zogeheten Vetus Latina uit de tweede en derde eeuw n.Chr. Deze zijn namelijk niet vertaald vanuit het Hebreeuws, maar vanuit de Septuaginta.[/expand]
In the Hebrew text and word-for-word translation window, the text is followed in each case as it appears in the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia.
Bij in de uitleg vermelde tekstvarianten zijn voor zover van toepassing Qumranhandschriften, de Samaritaanse Pentateuch (SamP) en de Septuaginta (LXX) als tekstgetuigen genoemd. Andere tekstgetuigen zijn in de meeste gevallen buiten beschouwing gelaten, vanwege hun relatief kleine waarde voor het tekstonderzoek van het Oude Testament. Overigens zijn niet alle afwijkende lezingen uit de genoemde tekstgetuigen vermeld. In de keuze een tekstvariant al dan niet op te nemen, is vooral gekeken naar de vraag of het tekstverschil in kwestie relevant is voor de vertaling en/of uitleg van de bijbeltekst.