The Enigma of The Masoretic Text

The Enigma of the Masoretic Text
Emanuel Tov
The Masoretic Text (M) is the only complete representative of the Hebrew Bible,
and its consonantal framework circulated 1,000 years before the medieval compo-
nents were added to it. This early text, usually named the proto-Masoretic text,1 is
evidenced in the Judean Desert sites other than Qumran,2 and actually these sites
did not yield any text that differs from the medieval M. The amount of agreement
between the consonants of proto-M, for example in the Minor Prophets scroll
from Murabba’at or all the Masada texts, and the medieval text as represented by
Codex L is remarkable.3 On the other hand, Qumran yielded only texts that are
close to M (M-like texts), as well as several additional groups of texts.
1 For the history of the use of this term, see my study “Proto-Masoretic, Pre-Masoretic, Semi-
Masoretic, and Masoretic: The History of the Concepts and a Discussion of Their Nature,” in
Found in Translation: Essays on Jewish Biblical Translation in Honor of Leonard J. Greenspoon,
eds. James W. Barker et al. (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, forthcoming).
2 See my studies “The Nature of the Masoretic Text in Light of the Finds in the Judaean Desert
and Rabbinic Literature,” Shnaton 14 (2004): 119–139 (Heb. with Eng. summary) = “La nature
du Texte Massorétique à la lumière des découvertes du Désert de Juda et de la littérature rab-
binique,” in L’enfance de la Bible hébraïque: Histoire du texte de l’Ancien Testament, eds. Adrian
Schenker and Philippe Hugo, MdB 52 (Genève: Labor et Fides, 2005), 105–131; “The Dead Sea
Scrolls and the Textual History of the Masoretic Bible,” in The Hebrew Bible in Light of the Dead
Sea Scrolls, eds. Nóra Dávid et al., FRLANT 239 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012),
54–59. For earlier studies, see Menahem Mansoor, “The Massoretic Text in the Light of Qum-
ran,” in Congress Volume: Bonn 1963, VTSup 9 (1963), 305–321 and Dominique Barthélemy,
Critique textuelle de l’Ancien Testament, 3. Ézéchiel, Daniel et les 12 Prophètes, OBO 50/3 (Fri-
bourg: University Press; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1992), xcviii–cxvi. The English
translation of this work was published posthumously in 2012: Dominique Barthélemy, Studies in
the Text of the Old Testament: An Introduction to the Hebrew Old Testament Text Project (Winona
Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2012), 383–409.
3 All of the twenty-five texts that were found in the Judean Desert at sites other than Qumran
display almost complete identity with codex L. The agreement between MasLevb and codex L
pertains to the intricacies of orthography, including details of special, though not unusual or-
thography such as the defective ‫ תמי[מם‬in Lev 9:2, 3 (I, 11, 13) and the defective hiph’il form
‫ ויקרבו‬in Lev 9:9 (I, 21). Likewise, only MasLevb contains the anomalous M form ‫( הוא‬Lev 10:17;
11:6) for the third pers. fem. pronoun, while all other Qumran manuscripts represent this word
as ‫היא‬. See further the analysis of Ian Young, “The Stabilization of the Biblical Text in the Light
of Qumran and Masada: A Challenge for Conventional Qumran Chronology?” DSD 9 (2002):
364–390. Young records the number of variants from M (L) included in each text, and then
calculates the ratio of variation for each text by dividing the number of preserved words by the
variants. The lower that number, the greater is the divergence from L. In this way, he demon-
Nur für den Autor bestimmt / For author’s use only.

46 Emanuel Tov
When examining the nature of M, we could start with the Judean Desert texts,
but they are fragmentary. I therefore focus on the consonants of the medieval
M including the para-textual elements that were transmitted together with the
letters, that is, the extra-ordinary dots on the letters, the pisqah be-emsa pasuq,
and the section divisions (parashiyyot). All these reflect scribal habits from the
Qumran period.
How does one characterize the textual nature of M? In my view this is an im-
portant question for all those using M. To some, this may sound like a strange
question. However, there is no reason not to try to characterize M since we de-
scribe the other texts as well. We describe the secondary features of the Samari-
tan Pentateuch (Smr), its linguistic corrections, harmonizations, and editorial
rewriting. We dwell on the features of the large Isaiah scroll, 1 QIsaa, and many
additional Qumran scrolls. It is more difficult to describe the Hebrew Vorlage of
the Septuagint (G), but we definitely do so in several biblical books. So why not
try to say something about M as well? At the same time, this is a complicated task,
and indeed the consonantal text of M has hardly been described in the past.4 The
many handbooks, commentaries and introductions referred only to its medieval
dimensions, viz., vocalization and accentuation.5 An exception should be made
strates the clear difference between the status of the Qumran scrolls as somewhat remote from
M, and those from the other Judean Desert sites as identical to M. In my own calculation, the
640 fragmentary lines of the Minor Prophets Scroll contain 22 variants with relation to M and
18 orthographical differences; the 74 fragmentary lines of MasPsa contain six variants and three
orthographical differences; the 111 fragmentary lines of MasEzek contain six variants and no
orthographical differences; the 96 fragmentary lines of MasLevb contain three variants and no
orthographical differences; the 131 fragmentary lines of 5/6 HevPs contain six variants and no
orthographical differences.
4 The absence of such a description comes to the fore in analyses of the various witnesses
of single books (in chronological sequence): Charles F. Burney, Notes on the Hebrew Text of
the Book of Kings (Oxford: Clarendon, 1903; repr. New York, NY: Ktav, 1970), xx–xli; Samuel
R. Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text and the Topography of the Books of Samuel, with an Intro-
duction on Hebrew Palaeography and the Ancient Versions, 2nd ed.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1913);
Pieter A. H. de Boer, Research into the Text of 1 Samuel I–XVI: A Contribution to the Study of the
Books of Samuel (Amsterdam: H. J. Paris, 1938); Taeke Jansma, Inquiry into the Hebrew Text and
the Ancient Versions of Zechariah IX–XIV (Leiden: Brill, 1949), 52–59; Walter Zimmerli, Ezekiel,
2 vols., Hermeneia; (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress, 1979–1983), 1:74–77. Julius Wellhausen, Der
Text der Bücher Samuelis (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1871) does not characterize M
either, but at least he describes the orthography of that version on pp. IV–VIII.
5 For example, Ginsburg’s long introduction deals with all the layers of M, but does not char-
acterize the consonantal text: Christian D. Ginsburg, Introduction to the Massoretico-Critical

Edition of the Hebrew Bible (London: Trinitarian Bible Society, 1897; repr. New York, NY: Ktav,
1966). Likewise, in the 688 pages of his monumental book, Barthélemy, Studies, does not deal
with the essence of M. Aage Bentzen, Introduction to the Old Testament, 2 vols., 7th ed. (Copen-
hagen: Gad, 1967), 1:42–101 gives attention only to the medieval segments of M. See further the
following monographs: Bledddyn J. Roberts, The Old Testament Text and Versions: The Hebrew
Text in Transmission and the History of the Ancient Versions (Cardiff: University of Wales Press,
1951), 270–272; Ferdinand E. Deist, Towards the Text of the Old Testament, 2nd ed. (Pretoria:
D. R. Church Booksellers, 1981), 10–94; Alexander A. Fischer, Der Text des Alten Testaments.

The Enigma of the Masoretic Text 47
for the introductions of Eissfeldt and Würthwein, both dealing separately with
the consonants of the proto-M and the vowels of the medieval text.6 Other as-
pects of M that have been described are the hundreds of differences between the
medieval manuscripts7 and the relation between the Judean Desert scrolls and
the medieval tradition.8
What should we actually expect from a characterization according to textual
criteria? Such a description would involve the type of deviation of M from other
sources, such as an abundance or lack of pluses, minuses, or harmonizations,
the amount of textual corruption, precision in the transmission or lack of it, etc.
Consistency of M is also a textual feature as is its unified character or lack of it.
However, usually these parameters are not addressed with regard to M.
The consonantal text of M was rarely included in its descriptions because a
convention has developed to compare all the texts with M, while M itself is not
characterized. Thus, the differences between M on the one hand and Smr, G, and
several Qumran texts on the other have been characterized, but this comparison
did not yield a characterization of M.9
In the past a brief, one-word characterization of M, conservative or precise, has
been used with reference to the tradition that M was produced by the Soferim,
Neubearbeitung der Einführung in die Biblia Hebraica von Ernst Würthwein (Stuttgart: Deutsche
Bibelgesellschaft, 2009), 22–67. My own description is a little more detailed as it takes pre-
Masoretic texts in consideration, but it is not detailed enough: “The name Masoretic Text refers
to a group of manuscripts (the MT group) that are closely related to one another. Many of the
elements of these manuscripts, including their final form, were determined in the early Middle
Ages, but they continue a much earlier tradition.” See Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the
Hebrew Bible, 3rd, revised and expanded ed. (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2012), 24.
Henceforth, Tov, TCHB.
6 Otto Eissfeldt, The Old Testament, An Introduction, Including the Apocrypha and Pseudepi-
grapha, and also the Works of Similar Type from Qumran: The History of the Formation of the
Old Testament, trans. P. R. Ackroyd (Oxford: Blackwell, 1965), 679–693; Ernst Würthwein, The
Text of the Old Testament: An Introduction to the Biblia Hebraica, trans. E. F. Rhodes, 3rd ed.
revised and expanded by A. A. Fischer (Grand Rapids, MI / Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2014), 15–19.
7 See, for example, Jansma, Inquiry, 57; Barthélemy, Studies, 238–409. Therefore, it has often
been claimed that the name “Masoretic Text” in the singular is a misnomer. Thus, in his oft-
quoted “Prolegomenon” to Ginsburg’s Introduction (1966), xviii, Orlinsky stressed: “There never
was, and there never can be, a single fixed masoretic text of the Bible! It is utter futility and
pursuit of a mirage to go seeking to recover what never was.”
8 See Tov, TCHB, 110–110 (with bibliography).
9 This pertains also to the penetrating study of Paul Kahle, “Untersuchungen zur Geschichte
des Pentateuchtextes,” TSK 88 (1915): 399–439; repr. in Paul Kahle, Opera Minora (Leiden: Brill,
1956), 3–37. In this study, Kahle described “the three main types of the text of the Pentateuch”
(“drei Haupttypen des Pentateuchtextes”) as differing from each other recensionally; that is, the
M, Smr, and the Vorlage of the G had undergone different recensional activity (Kahle, “Untersu-
chungen,” 436). In Kahle’s perception, M did not always exist in its present form, but was created
as the result of a process of revision of earlier texts in approximately 100 CE. Characteristically,
Kahle provided long descriptions of Smr and the G, but did not characterize M.

48 Emanuel Tov
known as very precise scholars who “counted all the letters of Scripture.”10 Pre-
cision is an acceptable textual characterization, but it has hardly been based on
comparative research with the other texts.11 “Precision” is a problematic designa-
tion in the case of Scripture, because M is not the only careful text since in many
Scripture books, the Vorlage of the G and several Hebrew Judean Desert scrolls
may also be named “careful.” Further, not all books in M deserve to be described
as “precise,” definitely not the M texts of Samuel and Hosea.
The “local texts theory” of F. M. Cross provides slightly more detailed one-
word characterizations, although they are impressionistic and often incorrect.12
This theory assumes that the three text families (recensions) embodied in M,
Smr, and G developed in three different localities. It is rather symptomatic that
Cross spent more energy in describing the Palestinian and Egyptian families of
the G and Smr than the Babylonian family of M.13 In his 1975 study he described
the “Rabbinic recension” of M as expansionistic in the Latter Prophets and
Writings, but not in the Torah,14 with the M of Jeremiah serving as a major ex-
ample for this characterization. The Babylonian family in the Torah and Former
Prophets is described as a short text as opposed to the longer 4 QSama, c.15 The
10
 b. Qidd. 30a: “The ancients were called soferim because they counted every letter in the
Torah.”
11 In my recent research I found that in the Torah, M is the only text that is relatively free
of harmonization: Emanuel Tov, “Textual Developments in the Torah,” in Discourse, Dialogue,

and Debate in the Bible: Essays in Honour of Frank H. Polak, ed. A. Brenner-Idan, Hebrew Bible
Monographs 63, Amsterdam Studies in Bible and Religion 7, (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press,
2014), 236–246. This argument has not been used in earlier descriptions.
12 The views of Cross were based on a short programmatic study of William F. Albright, “New
Light on Early Recensions of the Hebrew Bible,” BASOR 140 (1955): 27–33. Albright suggested
a local recensions theory without characterizing them. According to him, the Babylonian “re-
cension” was brought back to Palestine by the returning exiles in the late sixth and early fifth
centuries BCE (p. 29).
13 The first characterizations are found in his earlier study, Frank Moore Cross, “The His-
tory of the Biblical Text in the Light of Discoveries in the Judaean Desert,” HTR 57 (1964):
281–299: “[T]he Rabbinic text is normally short, not conflate or expansionist in the Pentateuch
and Samuel. To be sure, there are secondary expansions in the Pentateuch, but by and large it
is a superb, disciplined text. On the contrary, the text of Samuel is remarkably defective, and its
shortness is the result of a long history of losses by haplography, the commonest error by far in
a text which has not undergone systematic recensional activity, or which has not become mixed
by infection from a different textual tradition. Some indisputable evidence can be marshalled of
revision and suppression of dramatically corrupt readings in the case of Samuel. At all events,
the Rabbinic recension stands in clear contrast to the full texts of the Palestinian and Old Greek
traditions. The Proto-Massoretic text of the Pentateuch never passed through the centuries of re-
working, revision, and expansion which characterized the development of the Proto-Samaritan
tradition” (pp. 289–291).” “… we must look again to Babylon as the locale for its preservation
and emergence as a distinct, if conservative, textual type” (297).
14 Cf. Frank Moore Cross, “The Evolution of a Theory of Local Texts,” in Qumran and the
History of the Biblical Text, ed. Frank Moore Cross and Shemaryahu Talmon (Cambridge, MA /
London: Harvard University Press, 1975), 306–320 (307–309).
15 Referring to the shorter text of 1 Samuel 11 in M as compared with 4 QSama, Cross, “Evolu-

books in M are thus described in different ways as basically conservative, short,16

superb, and disciplined, but expansionistic in the Latter Prophets and Writings,
and corrupt in Samuel.17
These are the only characterizations of M known to me and they are problem-
atic. I hasten to add that critical commentaries often claim that M is closer to
the original form than the other witnesses.18 However, this assumption cannot
be proven with empirical research, possibly with the exception of the Torah, but
this is not a textual feature. By the same token, I do not accept the remarks in
several critical introductions to the Hebrew Bible19 and in commentaries that the
tion of a Theory,” 312 describes the M of Samuel as both intrinsically short and short because
of haplography.
16
 Brevard Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress,
1979), 103 describes M in the same way: “The MT is frequently a shorter, more pristine tradition
showing few signs of later harmonistic expansion.”
17
 The attempt of Cross to characterize the books of M in different ways is laudable, but the
description of the three families / recensions is not natural and makes the impression as if this
scholar tried to locate differences. Further, I frequently do not know on which textual data the
descriptions are based. Thus the M of the Torah is indeed often shorter than Smr and G when
the latter two present harmonizing pluses, but insufficient data have been presented in order to
justify that general characterization. Thus, in the single most extensive difference between M and
G (often also Smr), in Genesis 5 and 11, M is not shorter than G; the two simply differ much.
Cross’s depiction of the M of Samuel as shorter than the other texts is simply incorrect. Thus, in
the most extensive difference between M and G, in 1 Samuel 16–18, M is ostensibly longer than
G. M is not shorter than 4 QSama either. True, in 1 Samuel 11 the M group lacks a long section
found in the scroll, but in all other instances the two simply differ without any clear pattern. It is
also not correct to describe Samuel as haplographic although several haplographies are found in
the first chapters in M. Finally, the Latter Prophets and Writings in M are not expansionistic, as
claimed by Cross. The only justification for this claim could be the M of Jeremiah and Ezekiel as
compared with the G, but in my view these are literary, and not textual features, and they pertain
to these two books only and not to Isaiah or the Minor Prophets. In short, applying one-word
descriptions to textual witnesses is misleading.
18 Thus Moshe Greenberg in Ezekiel 1–20, AB (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983), 19–20 and
in his programmatic study Moshe Greenberg, “The Use of the Ancient Versions for Interpreting
the Hebrew Text,” in Congress Volume: Göttingen 1977, ed. John Emerton. VTSup 29 (Leiden,
Brill: 1978), 131–148. Likewise, many scholars make statements such as “all other things being
equal, the reading of MT should be preferred.” Thus, for example, the first editions of Ernst
Würthwein, Text of the Old Testament: An Introduction to the Biblia Hebraica (trans. E. F. Rhodes;
Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1979), 113 (the third edition [see n. 6], 190 is more careful). For
a similar argument, see Otto Thenius, Die Bücher Samuels erklärt, ed. M. Löhr, 3rd ed. (Leipzig:
S. Hirzel, 1898), xci; Jules Méritan, La version grecque des livres de Samuel, précédée d’une intro-
duction sur la critique textuelle (Paris: 1898), 58; Martin Noth, The Old Testament World, trans.
V. I. Gruhn (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress, 1966), 359; J. A. Thompson, “Textual Criticism, Old
Testament,” IDBSup, 888–891 (888); M. Z. Segal, Mbw’ hmqr’ (Jerusalem: Kiryat Sefer, 1960),
IV.883; H. Barth & O. H. Steck, Exegese des Alten Testaments: Leitfaden der Methodik: Ein Arbe-
itsbuch für Proseminare, 2nd ed. (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1976), 20–26 (23).
19 Thus Bentzen, Introduction, 1:101 considers M “the best form of the text.” All versions
are introduced at length, including M (pp. 50–65), but attention is given only to the medieval
segments, and there is no word about the proto-M text. Likewise, Roland Kenneth Harrison,
Introduction to the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1969), 249.

50 Emanuel Tov
evidence of the non-Masoretic witnesses does not add significantly to Scripture

study.20
After this introduction it will come as a surprise that I, too, cannot characterize
M as a whole, for the simple reason that M does not form a unity. But we are able
to identify idiosyncratic features in some individual books and parts of books.
Hebrew Scripture is not a unity because the books were composed in differ-
ent times by many authors. I do not talk about that lack of unity, but about the
non-homogenous nature of the collection of books at the textual level. Thus
I do not speak about the different vocabulary and linguistic profile of, e. g.,
Samuel–Kings and that of Chronicles or of Psalm 18 as compared with 2 Samuel
22. Authors have different ideas, use different vocabularies, and use different
linguistic forms,21 while scribes-copyists use different orthographic systems, they
occasionally change the text and make mistakes, but they also use different lin-
guistic forms.
Realizing these difficulties, we focus on the books of M as products of a scribal
culture. Each book of M presents a ‘photograph’ of specific textual and scribal
traditions, which after they left the hands of the scribes were perpetuated for eter-
20
 Hermann Gunkel, Genesis, HAT (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1902) seldom
referred to the evidence of the versions, since “we can really improve the transmitted text of
Genesis only in relatively few places” (p. vii). Mitchell J. Dahood, Psalms I, 1–50, AB (Garden
City, NY: Doubleday, 1965) disregards the ancient versions, “because they have relatively little
to offer toward a better understanding of the difficult texts” (p. xxiv). The introductions to none
of Noth’s commentaries contains a section devoted to textual criticism, with the exception of
a brief statement in Joshua: “The Hebrew text of Joshua is generally good, although it has pre-
served, as Baldi has observed, a number of traditional errors. . . ”; see Martin Noth, Exodus, OTL
(London: SCM 1966), 18; Leviticus, OTL (London: SCM, 1965); Deuteronomy, OTL (London:
SCM, 1966); Joshua, OTL (London: SCM, 1972). Francis I. Andersen and David Noel Freedman,
Amos: a New Translation with Notes and Commentary, AB (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1989),
140–141 note: “The study of MT as it stands is a straightforward and intrinsically legitimate
activity. If more justification is needed, then MT is self-vindicating to the extent that it can be
shown to make sense. Sometimes it is not possible to do so … We keep the MT in the first place
of interest and with first claim to be Amos’ text.” My study “The Place of the Masoretic Text
in Modern Text Editions of the Hebrew Bible: The Relevance of Canon,” in The Canon Debate,
ed. L. McDonald and J. A. Sanders (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2002), 234–251 quotes similar
remarks in the commentaries of C. Westerman, J. Milgrom, and B. A. Levine.
21 The present analysis does not use linguistic criteria, because of the difficulty of distinguish-
ing between authors and scribes. We would have to base ourselves on the linguistic profiles of
complete books, and not on single features. To the best of my knowledge, beyond the opposition
between LBH and EBH, only few such profiles have been suggested. An example of a single
phenomenon is that Samuel contains many more examples of the assimilated ‫ ‑מה‬meha com-
pared with the unassimilated min ha‑ than the other Scripture books. See Ian Young, “Patterns
of Linguistic Forms in the Masoretic Text: The Preposition ‫‘ מן‬from’,” in Interested Readers: Es-
says on the Hebrew Bible in Honor of David J. A. Clines, ed. J. K. Aitken et al. (Atlanta, GA: Soci-
ety of Biblical Literature, 2013), 385–400. Likewise, many individual differences between the
books in linguistic usage are included in Robert Rezetko and Ian Young, Historical Linguistics
and Biblical Hebrew: Steps toward an Integrated Approach, ANEM 9 (Atlanta, GA: SBL Press,
2014).

nity. These pictures were taken at different times and were usually not changed.
The only clue for the dates of the last stage of the copying is that they must have
preceded the earliest pure M forms evidenced in the Judean Desert texts written
between 50 BCE and 115 CE.
In the present study I wish to point to the idiosyncratic and hence diverse na-
ture of some M books and segments. I view the collection of books in M as the
creation of a diverse group of scribes, not the well-known Sopherim, but ancient
scribes who acted in different periods and followed different customs. This di-
versity should not surprise us, since also the other collections of the Hebrew and
translated Bible, such as LXX, the Peshitta, and the Targumim,22 did not form a
unity. This lack of unity of the Scripture corpora was created by the combination
of a large number of diverse scrolls in the archetype of each corpus. M was no
exception.
When trying to unravel the scribal unity of M, I start with its most basic
level: that of scribal activity reflected in the para-textual elements, such as the
extra-ordinary dots on the letters, the pisqah be-emsa pasuq, and the section
divisions (parashiyyot). These three notations, and actually all para-textual ele-
ments, display an exact photographic picture of the M scrolls of 2000 years ago,
subsequently frozen for eternity. Afterwards we will move to additional aspects
of the scribal culture.
1. Scribal features
a. Section divisions, named in M “open section” (parashah petuhah) at the end

of a line and “closed section” (parashah setumah) in the middle of the line occur
frequently in the Judean Desert fragments.
There is no rule regarding the length of a section demarcated by preceding
and following section breaks that depended much on the scribe’s understanding.
The two extremes of frequent and infrequent section divisions can be seen in the
Qumran scrolls as well as in M.23 While most books in M average one section
22 The heterogeneous corpus of the LXX includes both original (Old Greek) and revised ver-
sions; early and late versions; literal, free, and paraphrastic units. For details, see Emanuel Tov,
“Septuagint” in Textual History of the Bible (= THB), vol. 1, ed. A. Lange (Leiden: Brill, 2015),
§§ 1.3.1.1.3–5. Likewise, the corpora of the Peshitta and Targum Jonathan are composed of units
of a different nature. For details on the Targumim, see B. Ego, “Targumim” in THB, § 1.3.3.4.4.
In Targum Jonathan we find alongside relatively literal translations of the Prophets the very
paraphrastic translations of Canticles, Lamentations, and Esther as well as the translation of
Proverbs that leans heavily on the Peshitta. For the Peshitta, see M. P. Weitzman, The Syriac Ver-
sion of the Old Testament: An Introduction (University of Cambridge Oriental Publications 56;
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 164–191.
23 To a great extent, the division into section units was based on a scribe’s impressionistic
reading of the text. In order to ascertain the exact relationship between the various section units,
a scribe would have to carry out a close reading of the context and be involved in literary analysis

52 Emanuel Tov
unit per 7–10 verses,24 some books stand out having a substantially lower or
higher percentage, when compared with other units in the same literary genre:25
– The book of Ruth has only one section break, after 4:17, separating the main
story from the genealogy of David in 4:18–22. Such section breaks are called
for at several points in the story, especially after 1:22 and 3:18.26
– Genesis has far fewer sections than the other narrative books. This is illustrated
by a comparison of Genesis 14 with the parallel version in 1 QapGen ar. There
are no divisions at all in this chapter in M, while the parallel pericope in 1 Qa-
pGen ar has several such sections. XXI, 23–XXII, 26 has two closed sections
(after 14:21 = 1 QapGen XXII, 20; 14:23a = 1 QapGen XXII, 22), one indented
section (after 14:20 = 1 QapGen XXII, 18), and one open section (after 14:8 =
1 QapGen XXI, 30). The paucity of sense divisions is visible especially in the
Joseph story (Genesis 37–48) in M.27 There are no divisions at all between 41:1
and 44:18.28 The difference between the scarce use of sense divisions in Genesis
and the next books is clear. This relation can also be expressed statistically: In
Genesis we find one section per 17.04 verses,29 while in the other narrative
books it is between six and eight verses.30
– Among the books of the Minor Prophets, Nahum and Jonah stand out having
very few section units: (one division after an average of 15.66 and 16.0 verses
respectively), in both cases only three instances, matched by MurXII.
of several adjacent section units. Since we do not believe that scribes were actively involved in
content analysis, it appears that scribal decisions on the type of relation between section units
were often made upon completion of one unit and before embarking on the next. To some ex-
tent, this explains the differences between manuscripts of the same composition, as scribes often
took a different approach to the relation between these text units.
24 The average of 11.61 for the whole Bible is higher due to such books as Ruth and Qohelet
in which sense divisions are extremely low (see below).

25 See the figures for Codex L summarized in Emanuel Tov, Scribal Practices and Approaches
Reflected in the Texts Found in the Judean Desert. STDJ 54 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2004),
153–154. These statistics should be consulted for the data described in the next paragraphs.
26 The verses in Ruth 3 where such divisions could have been indicated are shown by Margo
C. A. Korpel, “Unit Division in the Book of Ruth: With Examples from Ruth 3,” in Margo
C. A. Korpel and Josef M. Oesch, Delimitation Criticism: A New Tool in Biblical Scholarship,
Pericope I (Assen: Van Gordum, 2000), 301–348 referring to divisions indicated in manuscripts
of the ancient versions and modern commentaries.
27 Exceptions appear in 38:1, 39:1, 40:1, 41:1, 44:18, 46:28, 48:1.
28 On the other hand, some sense divisions are included in Qumran scrolls: 41:3 seems to
end with a setumah in 4 QGenc frg. 1ii line 10); 40:23 ends with a petuchah in 4 QGenc frgs 4 i–5
line 23 and 43:10 ends with a petuchah in 4 QGene frg.8 line 3. Both scrolls reflect the text of M
and Smr to the same extent.
29 In these narrative chapters, BHS inserted many section breaks.
30 Not all statistical data are meaningful. All wisdom books display very few sense divisions
as a feature characterizing that literary genre. Ezra–Nehemia and Chronicles have many sense
divisions because of the genealogical lists in those books.

Some Scripture books thus stand out in having many more or far fewer divisions
than other books in the same literary genre. Since the different paragraphing
systems go back to the personalities of the scribes, the scribes of the M books
must have differed among themselves.31
b. Dotted letters. The dotted letters of M (puncta extraordinaria) reflect the
writing practices at the time of the writing of the Qumran scrolls, in which they
originally served as cancellation dots for letters that were meant to be erased.32
These dots were not at all meant to be transferred to the next round of copying,
but the scribes of M nevertheless perpetuated them for posterity together with
the letters on which they were placed. However, the Qumran evidence leaves no
doubt with regard to the original meaning of these dots as cancellation dots.33
In the present context it is relevant to note that the Torah contains more dotted
letters than the other books, although the numbers are small. In fifteen places all
the medieval manuscripts of M denote dots above certain letters and words and
in one place (Ps 27:13) also below them.34 Ten of these instances are found in the
Torah, four in the Prophets, and one in the Hagiographa.35 The background of
this unusual distribution is unclear. Possibly the custom of canceling letters was
discontinued in the later Scripture books.
c. Pisqa beemsa pasuq. The great majority of the section divisions in M coincide
with the ends of verses but, in addition, the MP to Gen 4:8 notes 28 instances of
a pisqa beemsa‘ pasuq (= pbp), “a section division in the middle of a verse.”36 The
indication of a pbp signifies a break in content similar to that indicated at the end
31 In all these cases, the scrolls provide no comparative data.

32 Erasure in leather scrolls was technically difficult and therefore such letters were indicated
with dots. In the rabbinic tradition, these letters were explained as doubtful letters. See Tov,
Scribal Practices, 214–216. No evidence is available from any of the Dead Sea Scrolls with regard
to the specific dotted letters of M, as these instances have not been preserved in the known
scrolls.
33 See Tov, Scribal Practices, 187–198. The assumption that the Masoretic dots were intended
to cancel elements is strongly supported by the fact that in seven or eight of the fifteen instanc-
es, the shorter text (the text without the canceled elements) is paralleled by omissions in the
ancient sources, e. g., Num 3:39 ‫( ואהרן‬the dotted word is lacking in Smr and the Peshitta). See
Tov, Scribal Practices, 215–216.
34 The tradition of these dots is rather stable, although a Masoretic list of another use of
dots merely uses this graphic symbol to indicate differences between Tiberian and Babylonian
manuscripts. See Yosef Ofer, “A Masoretic List of Babylonian Origin of Dotted Words in the
Pentateuch,” in Proceedings of the Twelfth International Congress of the International Organiza-
tion for Masoretic Studies, ed. E. J. Revell, MasS 8 (Atlanta, GA: SBL, 1996), 71–85.
35 The earliest list of these instances is found in Sifre Numbers § 69 to Num 9:10 (the ten
instances in the Torah); the full list is in the Masorah magna on Num 3:39.
36 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 Seventeeth Birthday (Jerusalem: Kiryat Sefer, 1955), 31–42 (Heb.).

54 Emanuel Tov
of a section (note the term). These instances show that in some cases the written
tradition of the pisqaot clashed with the oral verse division.
In the present context it should be pointed out that the occurrences of pbp
are unevenly distributed in the Bible, since 65 percent of them (according to
the Aleppo codex) occur in one book, viz., Samuel.37 The high frequency of this
phenomenon in Samuel probably implies that the textual tradition of this book
was less stable than that of the other books.
2. Orthography
One of the areas in which the personal taste of scribes is felt most is orthog-
raphy.38 Inconsistency rather than consistency typifies the spelling systems of
individual books, but nevertheless some features of individual books may be
recognized.
a. Full versus defective orthography. The fact that the M corpus contains or-
thography systems from different periods shows clearly that the spelling of the
older books was not modernized when fuller spelling systems had been adopted.
The distribution of full and defective orthography shows some peculiarities.
The statistics of Andersen and Forbes39 show that the Torah and the book of
Kings in M reflect the most conservative (defective) orthography and that they
also contain the greatest degree of internal consistency – in the Torah, this de-
scription applies especially to Exodus and Leviticus, in particular the book of the
covenant (Exodus 21–23).40 Murtonen notes that among the Minor Prophets,
Amos is the most defective, and Jonah is the fullest.41 The books with the fullest
orthography in M are Qohelet, Canticles, and Esther, followed by Ezra-Nehemi-
ah and Chronicles.
b. Three archaic spellings characterize the Torah as a whole.
37 See Shemaryahu Talmon, “Pisqah Be’emsa’ Pasuq and the Psalms Scroll from Qumran
Cave 11 (11 QPsa),” in Text and Canon of the Hebrew Bible: Collected Studies (Jerusalem: The
Mandel Institute of Jewish Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Winona Lake, IN:
Eisenbrauns, 2010), 369–382 with earlier literature. Also in the more extensive list of Ohr (see
n. 36) the high percentage for Samuel (40 instances) remains the same.
38 See Francis I. Andersen and A. Dean Forbes, Spelling in the Hebrew Bible, BibOr 41 (Rome:
Biblical Institute Press, 1986); James Barr, The Variable Spellings of the Hebrew Bible, The Sch-
weich Lectures of the British Academy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989). The most recent
analysis by Chanan Ariel, “Orthography: Biblical Hebrew,” Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language
and Linguistics 2:940–948 with much earlier literature, stresses the unity of the orthography
systems (see his concluding remarks).
39 Andersen and Forbes, Spelling in the Hebrew Bible, 312–318.
40 Thus A. 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.
41 For precise data, see Andersen and Forbes, Spelling in the Hebrew Bible and A. Murtonen,
“On the Interpretation of the Matres Lectionis in Biblical Hebrew,” AbrN 16 (1973–1974):
66–121.

(i) The Ketiv ‫הוא‬, representing the majority spelling of the 3d pers. fem. sg.
pron. in the Torah,42 is replaced by its Qere perpetuum ‫( ִהיא‬e. g., Gen 2:12).43 The
Ketiv (probably pronounced hu’) possibly represents an early dialectal form in
which the masculine and feminine forms (both: hu’) were not distinguished (thus
Fassberg44). However, for the present analysis it makes no difference how this
Ketiv is explained, and what counts is that this frequently occurring ancient form
is more or less limited to the Torah.45 This form is also known from the baraita
about the “three scrolls found in the Temple Court,” one of which was the so-
called ‫ספר היא‬.46 This scroll thus contained the archaic form ‫היא‬, and did not
include an apparatus of Qere readings.47
(ii) na’arah. The unusual Ketiv ‫ נער‬accompanied by a Qere ‫ נערה‬occurs 22
times in the Torah, as opposed to a single occurrence of ‫ נערה‬in Deut 22:19, as
well as in all the remainder of Scripture in M. The archaic spelling of the Ketiv is
paralleled by the qatalta forms written without he (see Gesenius-Kautzsch,
Grammar, § 17c), but it remains unexplained why this archaic spelling was lim-
ited to ‫נערה‬.48 The ancient spelling is evidenced in Deut 22:15 in 4 QDeutf frgs.
20–23 in the phrase ‫אבי הנערה‬. The he was added above the line and makes the
impression of having been written in a different hand.
(iii) The archaic pronominal suffix ‫ ‑ה‬of the type of ‫ אהלה‬is much more fre-
quent in the Torah than the later books (e. g., Gen 9:21). There are 14 instances
42 This Qere occurs 120 times in the Torah as well as three times in the Prophets and Writ-
ings. There are 11 exceptions to this majority spelling of the Torah, e. g., in Gen 14:3; 20:5; 38:25.
43 Among the ancient witnesses only MasLevb contains the anomalous M form ‫( הוא‬Lev
10:17; 11:6) for the third pers. fem. pron., while all other Qumran manuscripts represent this
word as ‫היא‬.
44 Steven E. Fassberg, “The Ketiv / Qere ‫הוא‬, Diagony and Dialectology,” in Diachrony in
Biblical Hebrew, ed. C. Miller-Naudé and Z. Zevit (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2012), 171–
180, with earlier literature.
45 According to Fassberg (n. 44), this situation shows that the text of the Torah had been fixed
(in his words: canonized) at an earlier stage than the other books. By the same token, Andersen
and Forbes, Spelling in the Hebrew Bible, 317 suggested that “the more archaic the spelling, the
earlier the completion and publication (canonization, if you like) of the work, and the greater
the veneration that shielded it from drastic changes from that time onward.”
46 Y. Ta’an. 4.68a. According to this tradition, one of the three scrolls was characterized by
this special spelling: “… In one of them they found written ‫ הוא‬nine times, and in two, they
found it written ‫ היא‬eleven times. They adopted the reading found in the two and discarded the
other (y. Ta’an. 4.68a; Sof. 6.4 probably has a better version: “In one ‫ הוא‬was written eleven times,
and in two ‫ היא‬was written eleven times.”). See Tov, TCHB, 30–31.
47 Thus Shemaryahu Talmon, “The Three Scrolls of the Law That Were Found in the Temple
Court,” Text 2 (1962): 14–27 (22).

48 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.).

56 Emanuel Tov
in the Torah as opposed to 37 in the remainder of the books.49 The high percent-
age of these spellings in the Torah is thus remarkable. In addition, the unique
spelling ‫ כלה‬also occurs 18 times outside the Torah.50
c. The orthography of Job, while usually displaying standard Masoretic spell-
ing, very often has defective forms in such categories as the hiph’il of the pe-yod /
waw forms such as ‫ יעילו‬in Job 30:13 and the noun ‫ מצא‬in 38:27 as well as sundry
defective spellings such as ‫ ואמתו‬in 9:34 and ‫ אתן‬in 12:19; 33:19. This idea was
first launched by Freedman,51 supported by Barr,52 and strengthened with addi-
tional data by Seow.53 In the area of orthography, Job thus takes a special place.54
d. Within M the long forms of the second and third person feminine plural of
the type of ‫ אתנה‬and ‫ זמכתכנה‬that are typical of many Qumran scrolls occur 19
times, especially throughout the book of Ezekiel (8×). The evidence shows a late
characteristic of the morphology of that book.55
The orthography and morphology of several M books thus gives evidence of
several separate units which should be reviewed together with several features of
unity shared by the M books. For example, quite unusually, several words are
always spelled defective, even in the later books, like ‫אלהים‬, ‫משה‬, ‫נאם‬, and ‫כהן‬,
while on the other hand ‫ פינחס‬is always plene. It seems to me that this minimal
unity was influenced by the orthography of the Torah.56
49 For the data, see Ian Young, “Observations on the Third Person Masculine Singular Pro-
nominal Suffix ‑H in Hebrew Biblical Texts,” HS 42 (2001): 225–242 (228) with earlier biblio-
graphy.
50 See Frank H. Polak, “The Interpretation of Kulloh / Kalah in the LXX: Ambiguity and Intui-
tive Comprehension,” Text 17 (1994): 57–77.

51 David Noel Freedman, “Orthographic Peculiarities in the Book of Job,” ErIsr 9 (1969):
35–44 (43).
52 James Barr, “Hebrew Orthography and the Book of Job,” JSS 30 (1985): 1–34 (32). Barr sug-
gested that the occurrence of these defective spellings “… may even be the highest of any book,”
even though he urged to take the negative evidence into consideration as well.
53 Choon-Leong Seow, “Orthography, Textual Criticism, and the Poetry of Job,” JBL 30
(2011): 63–85 pointed out additional unusual defective forms in the Job scrolls from Qumran.
54 According to Freedman, “Orthographic Peculiarities,” 43 this evidence suggest a northern
tradition from the seventh-sixth century, but neither Barr nor Seow accepted this view.
55 ‫( אתנה‬Gen 31:6; Ezek 13:11, 20; 34:17); second person pl. suffixes: Ezek 13:20, 23:48, 49;
third person pl. suffixes: Gen 21:29, 41:21 (2×), 42:36; 1 Kgs 7:37; Isa 34:16; Jer 8:7; Ezek 1:11,
16:53; Prov 31:29; Job 39:2; verbal form: Amos 4:3.
56 ‫ משה‬is the only spelling in the Bible, ‫ נאם‬occurs 8× in the Torah, and 349× elsewhere, and
‫ נאום‬once in Jer 7:30; ‫ כהן‬is always defective; ‫ אלהים‬is always defective, and the construct form
‫ אלוהי‬is once plene (Ps 18:47); ‫ פינחס‬occurs 4× in the Torah, and elsewhere 19× plene (once
defective in 1 Sam 1:3).

3. Frequent scribal mistakes
Scribes err all the time, but when a book contains a high number of mistakes,
this feature is part of the scribal character of the book, as in the following two
instances.
a. A long list of scholars from O. Thenius57 and J. Wellhausen58 in the nine-
teenth century to McCarter59 and Cross–Parry–Saley60 in modern times paid
attention to scribal errors in 1 Samuel, as compared with G and 4 QSama.61
b. Hosea may be corrupt in many details, although opinions are divided.62
While some of its peculiarities may be ascribed to the little-known northern
language of Hosea, a long list of commentators consider the book corrupt be-
yond repair.63 For this reason, Nyberg devoted a detailed text-critical study to
this book.64
So far we identified several books that stand out within M as the products of
distinct scribes, making M into a non-homogeneous collection of books. This
impression is strengthened by the analysis of the textual profile of a few books
or segments of books.
57
 Otto Thenius, Die Bücher Samuels, KEH 4 (Leipzig: Weidmann’sche Buchhandlung, 1842),
xxviii–xxix.
58 Wellhausen, Bücher Samuelis (see n. 4), 16. For a summary of Wellhausen’s views, see Arie
van der Kooij, “De tekst van Samuel en het tekstkritisch onderzoek,” NTT 36 (1982): 177–204.
59 Peter Kyle McCarter, Jr., I Samuel, AB (Garden City, New York, NY: Doubleday, 1980), 5.
60 Cross, Parry, and Saley in Qumran Cave 4.XII: 1–2 Samuel, ed. Frank Moore Cross et al.,
DJD XVII (Oxford: Clarendon, 2005), 25–27.

61 In some details M is thus further removed from the original text than 4 QSama, but in other
aspects M is closer since the Qumran scroll is replete with exegetical readings. See J. Driesbach’s
detailed analysis, in J. Driesbach, 4 QSamuela and the History of the Text of Samuel (PhD diss.,
Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 2015).
62 Some commentators do not show in their prefaces any awareness of text-critical prob-
lems, e. g., Carl Friedrich Keil in Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Commentary on the
Old Testament, trans. J. Martin (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1986), 1–11; Karl Marti, Das
Dodekapropheton (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1904), 1–11; Hans Walter Wolff, Hosea, A Commen-
tary on the Book of the Prophet Hosea, trans. G. Stansell, Hermeneia (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress,
1974), xxix–xxxii (“the transmission of Hosea’s prophecy”).
63 Theodore H. Robinson, Die Zwölf Kleinen Propheten, HAT 14 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck,
1938); Francis I. Andersen and David Noel Freedman, Hosea: A New Translation with Introduc-
tion and Commentary, AB (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1980), 66: “… it is difficult to avoid the
conclusion that the surviving Hebrew is corrupt and defective” (see also the survey of the earlier
views on pp. 66–68); Andrew A. Macintosh, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Hosea,
ICC (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1997), lxxiv–lxxxiii.
64 Henrik S. Nyberg, “Das textkritische Problem des Alten Testaments am Hoseabuche
demonstriert,” ZAW 52 (1934): 241–254; Henrik S. Nyberg, Studien zum Hoseabuche: zugleich
ein Beitrag zur Klärung des Problems der alttestamentlichen Textkritik, UUÅ 6 (Uppsala: A. B.
Lundequistska Bokhandeln, 1935). Nyberg exaggerated much in his distrust of M: “MT, rep-
resented by manuscripts that at best go back to the early Middle Ages, is the latest and worst
Scripture text” (p. 242).

58 Emanuel Tov
4. Textual profile of individual books and segments of books
a. Torah. The M of the Torah lacks the frequent harmonizing pluses of most
other texts, especially the G, Smr, and the exegetical and liturgical texts.65 It also
lacks the editorial pluses of Smr and the frequent changes of exegetical texts like
4 QRP.66 As a result, the preferential position of M in the Torah is remarkable.
It may well be that also elsewhere in Scripture M reflects such a preferable text,
but because of the lack of opposition with other texts, such a relation cannot be
proven. In this important feature of the harmonizations in the Torah M is thus
conservative, since the other witnesses freely altered the earlier text.
b. Jeremiah. In Jeremiah, the text of M+67 and 4 QJera, c is often longer than
G and 4 QJerb, d and this applies also to MT+ of Ezekiel as compared with G. In
modern research this feature is often considered a literary and not a textual
phenomenon,68 but all the same, the M of these books does display distinct rec-
ognizable characteristics.
In Jeremiah the textual data are strengthened by linguistic analysis as the ad-
ditional layer of M shows signs of lateness. For example, in Jer 33:20 ‫ יומם‬is used
as a noun and not an adverb;69 the Ketiv ‫ הזאתה‬in Jer 26:6 (Qere ‫;)הזאת‬70 the late
form Nebuchadnezzar in chapters 27–29 as opposed to the original form, Nebu-
chadrezzar in the remainder of the book (see below).71
c. 1–2 Samuel. Several scholars recognize theological tendencies in the M of
1–2 Samuel compared with the presumably earlier text of the G and 4 QSama.
These tendencies are visible in the first two chapters of 1 Samuel in which Han-
65 I believe that the frequent harmonization of the non-M sources in the Torah was created
by its popularity causing an increased interest in its embellishment and improvement. This
feature was developed in the Torah only, although there is enough occasion for harmonization
elsewhere.
66 See my analysis in Emanuel Tov, “Textual Developments in the Torah,” 236–246. Revised
version in Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, Qumran, Septuagint: Collected
Writings, Volume 3, VTSup 167 (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 239–249.
67 This symbol denotes the M group (M, Targumim, and Vulgate, usually joined by the
Peshitta). See my TCHB, 29.

68 See TCHB, 283–326.
69 See Jan Joosten, “L’excédent massorétique du livre de Jérémie et l’hébreu postclassique,”
in Conservatism and Innovation in the Hebrew Language of the Hellenistic Period: Proceedings
of a Fourth International Symposium on the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Ben Sira, ed.
J. Joosten and J.-S. Rey, STDJ 73 (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 93–108 (95–97); Aaron D. Hornkohl,
Ancient Hebrew Periodization and the Language of the Book of Jeremiah: The Case for a Sixth
Century Composition, SSLL 74, (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 314–318. At the same time, this usage is
also evidenced once in the Jeremiah layer that is shared by the M and G (15:9).
70 See Moshe Bar-Asher, “On Several Linguistic Features of Qumran Hebrew,” in Hamlet on
a Hill. Semitic and Greek Studies Presented to Professor T. Muraoka on the Occasion of His Sixty-
Fifth Birthday, ed. M. F. J. Baasten and W.Th. van Peursen, OLA 118; Leuven: Peeters, 2003),
73–93 (80); Joosten, “L’excédent,” 98–99; Hornkohl, Ancient Hebrew Periodization, 145–147.
71 See further the data collected by Hermann-Josef Stipp, “Linguistic Peculiarities of the
Masoretic Edition of the Book of Jeremiah: An Updated Index,” JNSL 23 (1997): 181–202.

nah’s place in the cult was suppressed in MT+ when compared with the G and
4 QSama.72 Similar theological tendencies are visible elsewhere in the book in
the replacement of theophoric Baal names with boshet, “shame” or with El.73 It
seems that the M of this book contains more theological changes than the other
books in M. However, lack of evidence possibly does not allow us to penetrate to
similar information in other books.74
We note in parenthesis that in most books we cannot identify special content
features in M because of lack of opposition between M and the other textual
witnesses. In my view, this is the case in Judges,75 Psalms,76 Job,77 Ruth, Qohelet,
Lamentations,78 and probably also Isaiah.79 In these books we are faced with a
unified textual tradition.
72
 See my study in Emanuel Tov, “Theological Tendencies in the Masoretic Text of Samuel,”
in After Qumran: Old and Modern Editions of the Biblical Texts: The Historical Books, ed. H. Aus-
loos et al., BETL 246 (Leuven: Peeters, 2012), 3–20. The main difference between M on the one
hand and the G and 4 QSama on the other is that in certain episodes in the latter two texts, Han-
nah acts as the main character, while in M there are two main characters, Hannah and Elkanah.
The impression is created that M did not wish to assign certain actions to Hannah since she was
a woman, as it would not have been appropriate for a woman to have played such a central role,
especially in the cult (see 1:23, 24, 25, 28; 2:11). M ascribed actions to Elkanah that in an earlier
version had been ascribed to Hannah. Three times Hannah’s presence in the temple expressed
by the words ‫ לפני יהוה‬has been removed from the text of M (1:9, 14, 25). Especially difficult is
2:11 in M: since, at this juncture, Hannah should be considered the main character, it is strange
that nothing is said in this verse about her movements.
73 For an analysis, see my TCHB, 247–248. For different views, see Matitiahu Tsevat, “Ishbosh-
et and Congeners. The Names and Their Study,” HUCA 46 (1975): 71–87; Stefan Schorch, “Baal
oder Boschet? Ein umstrittenes theophores Element zwischen Religions‑ und Textgeschichte,”
ZAW 112 (2000): 598–611. These names may be compared with parallels in Chronicles. Even
though Chronicles was composed after Samuel, its text often preserves earlier textual traditions.
Therefore, this phenomenon pertains to the scribe(s) rather than the author of the biblical books.
74 Theological changes are found everywhere in M, as shown by Abraham Geiger, Urschrift
und Uebersetzungen der Bibel in ihrer Abhängigkeit von der inner Entwickelung des Judenthums,
2nd ed. (Frankfurt a. Main: Madda, 1928), 259–433.
75 See Natalio Fernández Marcos, ‫ שפטים‬Judges, vol. 7 in BHQ (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelge-
sellschaft, 2011), 5, 12. Fernández Marcos notes that the range of differences between the
sources is minimal and, except for 77 instances, he always prefers the witness of M. See my re-
view in Sef 72 (2012): 483–489.
76 It is remarkable that all textual witnesses, including the LXX, reflect the change of the
Tetragrammaton to elohim in the Elohistic Psalter.

77 This assumption is based on the assumption that the Greek version of Job greatly deviating
from M reflects the translator’s exegesis and not a deviating Hebrew text. See Claude Cox, “Does
a Shorter Hebrew Parent Text Underlie Old Greek Job?,” in In the Footsteps of Sherlock Holmes:
Studies in the Biblical Text in Honour of Anneli Aejmelaeus, ed. K. De Troyer et al., BETL 72,
(Leuven: Peeters, 2014), 451–462.
78 See R. Schäfer, “‫ איכה‬Lamentations,” in General Introduction and Megilloth, vol. 18 of BHQ
(Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2004), 17*–20*.

79 M (similar to 1 QIsab and many cave 4 scrolls) is very similar to G, which does not seem
to reflect a divergent textual tradition, since the great majority of its deviations from M are
translational-exegetical. 1 QIsaa and 4 QIsac reflect free orthographic-morphological variants
of this tradition.

60 Emanuel Tov
Rarely a special textual profile can also be detected in parts of books.

d. The Elohistic Psalter. The background of the special status of the second
(Psalms 42–72) and the third (Psalms 73–89)80 books of Psalms has not been
clarified. In these two collections, elohim is the dominant divine name, while in
the other three Psalter books YHWH is the main appellation for God. The differ-
ences are most clearly visible in the parallel Psalms 14 and 53 since the Elohistic
Psalm 53 replaced the earlier YHWH of Psalm 14 with elohim. The usual explana-
tion given for the wording of the Elohistic Psalter is the shunning of the use of
the Tetragrammaton, a feature that is also noticeable in various scribal practices
in the Qumran scrolls.81
We do not know at which stage the second and third books of the Psalter were
submitted to a revision of the divine name, nor if this reviser limited himself to
these two books. In an earlier study I suggested the following scenario.82 The
book of Psalms was written in five different scrolls and the mentioned changes
were inserted in one of the early copies of the complete Psalter, while another
one remained unchanged. When the archetype of the Psalter was composed,
coincidentally two revised Elohistic scrolls of the Psalter were combined with
three unrevised scrolls.83 This action took place at an early date, since the change
of the divine names is presupposed by all ancient sources.84
e. Jeremiah 27–29. Chapters 27–29 of Jeremiah in M differ rather consistently
from the remainder of Jeremiah in three groups of linguistic details:85
1. The name of the king of Babylon is spelled in the M of chapters 27–29 in
its later form, Nebuchadnezzar (except for 29:21, Nebuchadrezzar), while in the
remainder of the book it occurs in its original form, Nebuchadrezzar. Since the
name of the king is lacking in all its occurrences in these chapters in G (as well
as often elsewhere in the Greek version), these added names in the M of chapters
27–29 may be recognized as representing a linguistically later layer.
80 Probably Psalms 84–89, all or in part, have not been submitted to this revision. However,
according to Gese, Psalm 84 belongs to the Elohistic Psalter: Hartmut Gese, “Die Entstehung der
Büchereinteilung des Psalters,” in Vom Sinai zum Zion: Alttestamentliche Beiträge zur biblischen
Theologie, ed. Hartmut Gese, BEvT 64 (Munich: Kaiser, 1974), 159–167 (162). According to
BDB, 44, Psalms 84–85 are Elohistic, and according to Laura Joffe, “The Elohistic Psalter: What,
How, and Why?,” SJOT 15 (2001): 142–169 (169) all these Psalms (84–89) contained the Elo-
histic Psalter. According to Hans-Joachim Kraus, Psalmen I, BKAT 15,1 (Neukirchen–Vluyn;
Neukirchener Verlag, 1966), xvi, these six Psalms were added to the Elohistic Psalter after that
had been completed.
81 For details, see Emanuel Tov, “The Coincidental Textual Nature of the Collections of An-
cient Scriptures,” in Congress Volume Ljubljana 2007, ed. André Lemaire, VTSup 133 (Leiden:
Brill, 2010), 153–169.
82 See n. 81.
83 The two Elohistic books could have been included in a single scroll, but more likely circu-
lated as two separate scrolls, because in early times scrolls did not contain long texts.
84 The G rather consistently distinguished between the equivalents ‫אלהים‬ – θεός and ‫יהוה‬ –
κύριος. In MasPsa, the Psalms of the Elohistic Psalter appear in the M sequence.
85 For details see my study “The Coincidental Textual Nature.”

2. Most theophoric names in Jeremiah are of the long type, for example,
Yirmeyahu (241× altogether). The short theophoric names ending with ‑yah
form a minority in the book (73×). On the other hand, in chapters 27–29 the
short forms prevail with 35 instances as opposed to eight long forms. These
short forms are a sign of Late Biblical Hebrew as shown by their frequency in
Chronicles and the Qumran scrolls. The M formulation of these chapters thus is
later than that of the other chapters.
3. In Jeremiah the brief appellations like “Jeremiah” are more frequent than the
longer ones like “Jeremiah the prophet,” but in chapters 27–29 the long formula
like “Jeremiah the prophet” prevails (in this case, eight times in M as opposed to
three occurrences of the short formula).86
Chapters 27–29 in M thus differ from the remainder of the book in small de-
tails. These chapters deal with interconnected themes: Jeremiah’s polemic against
the false prophets and the idea that Babylon cannot be overthrown. The assump-
tion that these three chapters were once contained in a small scroll is therefore
inescapable.87 By implication, the complete book of Jeremiah was originally
contained in several small scrolls.88 Only at a later stage were the contents of these
small scrolls transferred to one or two large scrolls, and at that stage the little
scroll containing chapters 27–29 coincidentally reflected a formulation slightly
different from that of the surrounding chapters.
5. Analysis and Summary
This study focuses on the textual nature of M. In an attempt to locate characteris-
tic features of M I analyzed units that stood out in para-textual features, orthog-
raphy, the amount of corruption, and their textual profile. Some of the M units are
characterized by more than one criterion. Thus the text of the Torah was described
as more conservative than the other books because of its lack of harmonization
and its defective and archaic orthography; further, note the occurrence of dotted
86 With its short formulas in chapters 27–29, G is less close to M in these chapters than in the
rest of the book. Elsewhere, G often lacks the long formula or has the short formula. Similarly,
in these chapters, the long phrase “Hananiah the prophet” prevails in M as opposed to the short
phrase in G.
87 The separate circulation of these three chapters has also been suggested by other scholars.
See Nahum M. Sarna, “The Abortive Insurrection in Zedekiah’s Day (Jer. 27–29),” ErIsr 14
(1978), 89*–96* (92*–93*) with earlier literature; Benjamin D. Sommer, “New Light on the
Composition of Jeremiah,” CBQ 61 (1999): 646–666. The suggestion that these three chapters
formed a separate unit is accepted by Hornkohl, Ancient Hebrew Periodization, 67–68, but
Hornkohl focuses more on the possibility that these chapters reflect a linguistic reality differ-
ent from the remainder of the book than on the background of the independent status of these
chapters.
88 This is not an unusual assumption in view of the writing of part of the book in a single
scroll according to chapter 36.

62 Emanuel Tov
letters mainly in this book and a low number of Ketiv / Qere readings compared
with the post-Pentateuchal books.89 Samuel is characterized by its theological
tendencies, frequent occurrence of the pisqah beemsa pasuq and its textual cor-
ruption. In addition, N. Mizrahi detected a profile of Second Temple spellings and
linguistic forms in this book more than in other books of the classical period.90
Jeremiah and Ezekiel are characterized by a longer text than the other witnesses,
and in addition the added layer of M in Jeremiah shows signs of linguistic lateness;
several late forms are found in Ezekiel. Kings has the most defective spelling in
Scripture together with the Torah. Special spellings were detected in Job. In Ruth,
Nahum, and Jonah section divisions are extremely infrequent. Amos is the most
defective among the Minor Prophets, while Jonah is the fullest. The distinction
between defective and full orthography creates a dividing line between books,
since Qohelet, Canticles, and Esther are full, while the other two megillot Ruth
and Lamentations are not. We also found distinctions between segments of books,
namely between books two and three and the other three segments of Psalms, as
well as between Jeremiah 27–29 and the remainder of the book.
We lifted up the veil a little from the enigmatic text named M, but at the same
time new mysteries were created since we do not know how the textual profiles
that we discovered were created. Let’s ponder a little on this issue. The lack of
scribal and textual unity of M was exposed,91 but nevertheless all these different
texts have been combined into one framework, the archetype of the medieval
manuscripts of M. The evidence of M can only be explained by the assumption
that all sources of M go back to a single archetype, as suggested by de Lagarde.92
Early precursors of this source were found among the scrolls found in the Judean
Desert sites other than Qumran.93 These scrolls do not differ more from Codex L
than the medieval texts differ from one another, especially the accurate Tiberian
manuscripts in relation to the Sephardi, Ashkenazi, and Italian manuscripts.94
89 The analysis of the frequencies of the Ketiv / Qere readings was initiated by James Barr, “A
New Look at Kethibh-Qere,” OTS 21 (1981): 19–37. It is unclear whether there is a special rela-
tion between the low-frequency books (the Torah and the Minor Prophets) and their textual
character. Possibly a low frequency of Qere readings reflects a stable textual condition. High fre-
quency books, that is Samuel, Kings, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, may be textually less stable.
90 Noam Mizrahi, “Kings or Messengers? The Text of 2 Samuel 11:1 in the Light of He-
brew Historical Phonology,” ZAH 25–28 (2012–2015): 57–83; previous version: Noam Mizrahi,
“‘Kings’ or ‘Messengers’ in 1 Sam 11:1? The Linguistic Background of the Masoretic Text,” Text
25 (2010): 13–36.
91 The lack of unity was also recognized by Michael Segal, “The Text of the Hebrew Bible in
Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls,” Materia giudaica 12 (2007): 5–20 (9).
92 Paul de Lagarde, Anmerkungen zur griechischen Übersetzung der Proverbien (Leipzig:
Brockhaus, 1863), 2–4.

93 That is, the earlier site of Masada (texts written between 50 BCE and 30 CE) and the later
sites of Wadi Murabba’at, Wadi Sdeir, Nahal Hever, Nahal Arugot, and Nahal Se’elim, dating
to the period of the Bar Kochba revolt in 132–135 CE (texts copied between 20 and 115 CE).
See further n. 3.
94 For examples of differences between the medieval manuscripts, see the data collected in

However, the issue of the origin of M is more complex, especially its derivation
from the Judean Desert texts. The consonantal content of the proto-M scrolls
is indeed virtually identical to L, and they use the same para-textual systems
regarding paragraph divisions, parenthesis signs (= inverted nunim), cancella-
tion dots, and suspended letters. However, the Judean Desert texts cannot be the
direct precursor of the medieval M. First, one major component of M is totally
absent from the ancient scrolls, viz., that of the Ketiv / Qere.95 Likely that system
was instituted after the first century CE, and in any event before the composition
of the rabbinic literature, in which some Qere readings are mentioned.96 Second,
there are major discrepancies between M and the known proto-M scrolls regard-
ing the details of the parashiyot.97 Thus, MurXII and MasEzek differ much from
L and the other manuscripts in parashiyot they have and do not have.98 These
differences are much greater than the medieval texts differing from one another
regarding the parashiyyot.99 The evidence with regard to the Ketiv / Qere and the
the apparatuses of the volumes of the HUB. Note especially the differences between the accu-
rate Tiberian manuscripts and such manuscripts as Kennicott 30 and 150. See Jordan S. Pen-
kower, “The Development of the Masoretic Bible,” in The Jewish Study Bible, ed. A. Berlin and
M. Z. Brettler, 2nd edition (Oxford / New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2014), 2159–2165
(2162).
95
 The Dead Sea Scrolls do not record any marginal variants or corrections; the only extra-
textual details are a relatively small body of corrections of scribal mistakes written between the
lines, and rarely in the margin. However, these corrections are not of the type of the Qere read-
ings, most of which are simply ancient variations between manuscripts.
96 Harry M. Orlinsky, “The Origin of the Kethib-Qere System: A New Approach,” in Con-
gress Volume: Oxford 1959, ed. G. W. Anderson et al., VTSup 7 (Leiden: Brill, 1960): 184–192
suggested that the Qere was not written in manuscripts before the second half of the first mil-
lennium of our era.
97 There is insufficient information in the scrolls on the words indicated with dots and on
the pbp.
98 MurXII contains many empty lines (a system that is not used in L under these circum-
stances), usually corresponding with a P(etuchah), e. g., before Amos 2:1; 8:1; 9:13, but also with
a S(etumah), e. g., before Amos 7:12; Jonah 3:4; Mic 6:1. Other empty lines have no parallels in
M, e. g., before Amos 7:4. The scroll sometimes indents, corresponding with P in M (e. g., before
Amos 1:9; 7:10; Hab 3:1). It also has a P where M has no sense division (e. g., before Amos 9:7),
or where M has an S (e. g., before Mic 5:6; 7:9). The details have been listed and analyzed by Josef
M. Oesch, Petucha und Setuma, Untersuchungen zu einer überlieferten Gliederung im hebräischen
Text des Alten Testament, OBO 27 (Freiburg: Universitätsverlag; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht, 1979), 285–289 and Table VII. However, Oesch does not make a distinction between
the empty lines and P, and he compares the scroll with the totality of the Masoretic texts. He
therefore concludes (p. 288) that the scroll and the Masoretic manuscripts do not differ more
from each other than these manuscripts differ from one another. For MasEzek, see Shermayahu
Talmon in Shermayahu Talmon and Yigael Yadin, Masada VI, The Yigael Yadin Excavations
1963–1965, Final Reports, Hebrew Fragments from Masada (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Soci-
ety / The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1999), 1–149 (73–75).
99 On the other hand, the shorter scroll MasLevb appears to reflect codex L exactly with one
exception. Before Lev 11:9 the scroll has a closed section not matched by L, but found in Gins-
berg’s edition. The scroll is, however, much smaller than MurXII (Lev 8:31–11:40) and therefore
cannot be evaluated well.

64 Emanuel Tov
parashiyyot thus leaves no doubt that the proto-M texts known to us underwent
some developments after the period on the Qumran texts and the other Judean
Desert texts. Initially the tradition of Ketiv / Qere was oral, so that we do not ex-
pect to find early copies including that tradition, but the parashiyyot were written,
and we can therefore safely state that the exact copy that served as the forerunner
of M has not been found. However, there is no doubt that the medieval text did
derive from the likes of one of the texts found in the Judean Desert.
Can we make any statements about the character of M other than its unequal
character? We detect in the Torah conservative traits in orthography and it is
non-harmonizing. This probably also pertains to the other texts in which harmo-
nization is a constant danger, as in the parallel texts within Psalms, 1–2 Kings //
Jeremiah and Isaiah, and Chronicles compared with its sources. In all these books
there are surprisingly few harmonizing changes in M, and somewhat more in the
other sources. In other Scripture books there is no clear opposition between the
textual sources, and therefore few statements can be made about the precision
of M in these books. In at least one unit, Samuel, and possibly also in Hosea,
M cannot be named precise. But even if we name M precise in some books we
should remember the warning of I. L. Seeligmann, that before M became a text
in which scribes did not intervene, earlier scribes often changed the content.100
The Torah text of M is closer to the 3rd or 4th century form of that book than
the other texts. I use this cautious formulation in order to avoid the phrase “the
original text.” In those books in which M reflects literary formulations that are
later than those in G, it is further removed from the earlier text. This pertains to
segments in Joshua, Samuel, Kings, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel.
The upshot of this analysis is that M is a mixed bag containing units that reflect
a conservative tradition and those that do not, units that seem to be later than
G (the books just mentioned), and units that are earlier than the Vorlage of G
(1 Kings, Esther, and Daniel). Each Scripture book was produced at a different
time by a different scribe, displaying his personal character. We do not know
how the archetype of M was compiled, but in any event I do not think that there
100 Isac Leo Seeligmann, “Indications of Editorial Alteration and Adaptation in the Masso-
retic Text and the Septuagint,” VT 11 (1961): 201–221 (201–202) = Isac Leo Seeligmann, “Indi-
cations of Editorial Alteration and Adaptation in the Massoretic Text and the Septuagint,”
Gesammelte Studien, ed. Erhard Blum, FAT 41 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004), 449–467.
Original Hebrew version: ‫סימנים לשינויים ולעיבודים עריכתיים בנוסחת המסורה ובתרגום השבעים״‬
)‫– מיקראה בחקר המקרא (ירושלים תשל״ט‬ ‫ ליקוטי ״תרביץ״ א‬:‫בתוך‬, 279–295. This is also the place
to mention the penetrating studies of Geiger who identified many a tendentious correction in
M made at an earlier stage: A. Geiger, Urschrift und Uebersetzungen. Geiger was the first scholar
to systematically deal with theological interventions in all books of M, under several headings:
divine names (pp. 261–308), inappropriate expressions including the “corrections of the Scribes“
(pp. 308–345), foreign nations and fractions within Israel (345–385), and feelings of shame
(385–423). However, many of the examples of theological changes given by Geiger are emenda-
tions. Geiger also provides some examples for Smr and G (e. g., p. 389).

was a selection process of manuscripts to be included in the archetype.101 There

probably was only one candidate for inclusion in the archetype of M. Otherwise
the specific text of Samuel would not have been included.
It should be remembered that the inclusion of scrolls in the archetype of M
depended on some coincidence. Likely the persons who created the archetype
were not aware of the differences between the scrolls and did not pay attention
to the small details under scrutiny in this study.102 This process determined the
character of the corpus that subsequently became known as M. In this corpus we
find books of different sizes. Large books consisting of several scrolls could coin-
cidentally be combined from slightly different scrolls. Thus only two of the five
books of Psalms are evidenced in an Elohistic revision. In this way also Jeremiah
27–29 differed from the remainder of the book. The same processes happened in
the creation of the archetype of G, whose books differ much from one another.
We note that in a corpus that developed over the course of such a long period in-
ternal differences such as those in G and M should be expected. These differences
cause us to question the nature of the corpus, aspects that we named enigmatic.
These enigmas are greater in the case of G than in the M corpus.
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The Enigma of The Masoretic Text

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The Enigma of the Masoretic Text

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acterize the consonantal text: Christian D. Ginsburg, Introduction to the Massoretico-Critical

Nur für den Autor bestimmt / For author’s use only.

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of harmonization: Emanuel Tov, “Textual Developments in the Torah,” in Discourse, Dialogue,

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books in M are thus described in different ways as basically conservative, short,16

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evidence of the non-Masoretic witnesses does not add significantly to Scripture

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1. Scribal features

a. Section divisions, named in M “open section” (parashah petuhah) at the end

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in which sense divisions are extremely low (see below).

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31 In all these cases, the scrolls provide no comparative data.

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Court,” Text 2 (1962): 14–27 (22).

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tive Comprehension,” Text 17 (1994): 57–77.

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3. Frequent scribal mistakes

DJD XVII (Oxford: Clarendon, 2005), 25–27.

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4. Textual profile of individual books and segments of books

Peshitta). See my TCHB, 29.

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Tetragrammaton to elohim in the Elohistic Psalter.

(Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2004), 17*–20*.

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Rarely a special textual profile can also be detected in parts of books.

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5. Analysis and Summary

scroll according to chapter 36.

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Brockhaus, 1863), 2–4.

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was a selection process of manuscripts to be included in the archetype.101 There

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acterize the consonantal text: Christian D. Ginsburg, Introduction to the Massoretico-Critical

31 In all these cases, the scrolls provide no comparative data.

(Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2004), 17–20.