BHK Biblia Hebraica Kittel (1. - 3.) BHSBiblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (4.) BHQ Biblia Hebraica Quinta (5.) | |
Edited by | Karl Elliger, Wilhelm Rudolph et al. |
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Language | Biblical Hebrew, Biblical Aramaic (with prolegomena in German, English, French, Spanish, Latin) |
Publisher | Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart |
Published | 1968–1976; 1997; 26 August 1998 |
Media type | see BHS editions |
OCLC | 148815162 |
Preceded by | Biblia Hebraica Kittel |
Followed by | Biblia Hebraica Quinta |
Website | Official BHS text on www.academic-bible.com "The Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia" on www.academic-bible.com |
The Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, abbreviated as BHS or rarely BH4, is an edition of the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible as preserved in the Leningrad Codex, and supplemented by masoretic and text-critical notes. It is the fourth edition in the Biblia Hebraica series started by Rudolf Kittel and is published by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft (German Bible Society) in Stuttgart.
The work has been published in 15 fascicles from 1968 to 1976 according to this release schedule taken from the Latin prolegomena in the book.
Fascicle | Editor | Publication | |
---|---|---|---|
01 | Librum Geneseos (Book of Genesis) | Otto Eißfeldt | 1969 (Fascicle 1) |
02f | Libros Exodi et Levitici (Books of Exodus and Leviticus) | Gottfried Quell | 1973 (Fascicle 2) |
04 | Librum Numerorum (Book of Numbers) | Wilhelm Rudolph | 1972 (Fascicle 3a) |
05 | Librum Deuteronomii (Book of Deuteronomy) | J. Hempel | 1972 (Fascicle 3b) |
06f | Libros Josuae et Judicum (Books of Joshua and Judges) | Rudolf Meyer | 1972 (Fascicle 4) |
08 | Librum Samuelis (Books of Samuel) | Pieter Arie Hendrik de Boer | 1976 (Fascicle 5) |
09 | Librum Regum (Books of Kings) | Alfred Jepsen | 1974 (Fascicle 6) |
10 | Librum Jesaiae (Book of Isaiah) | David Winton Thomas | 1968 (Fascicle 7) |
11 | Librum Jeremiae (Book of Jeremiah) | Wilhelm Rudolph | 1970 (Fascicle 8) |
12 | Librum Ezechielis (Book of Ezekiel) | Karl Elliger | 1971 (Fascicle 9) |
13 | Librum XII Prophetarum (Book of the Twelve Prophets) | Karl Elliger | 1970 (Fascicle 10) |
14 | Librum Psalmorum (Book of Psalms) | H. Bardtke | 1969 (Fascicle 11) |
15 | Librum Iob (Book of Job) | Gillis Gerlemann | 1974 (Fascicle 12a) |
16 | Librum Proverbiorum (Book of Proverbs) | F. Fichtner | 1974 (Fascicle 12b) |
17 | Librum Ruth (Book of Ruth) | Theodore Henry Robinson | 1975 (Fascicle 13a) |
18f | Libros Cantici Canticorum et Ecclesiastes (Books of the Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes) | F. Horst | 1975 (Fascicle 13b) |
20 | Librum Threnorum (Book of Lamentations) | Theodore Henry Robinson | 1975 (Fascicle 13c) |
21 | Librum Esther (Book of Esther) | F. Maass | 1975 (Fascicle 13d) |
22 | Librum Danielis (Book of Daniel) | Walter Baumgartner | 1976 (Fascicle 14a) |
23 | Libros Esrae et Nehemiae (Books of Ezra and Nehemiah) | Wilhelm Rudolph | 1976 (Fascicle 14b) |
24 | Libros Chronicorum (Books of Chronicles) | Wilhelm Rudolph | 1975 (Fascicle 15) |
The processing and development of the Masoretic annotations and notes within all editions of the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia was the privilege of Gérard E. Weil. He also released the book Massorah Gedolah iuxta codicem Leningradensem B 19a at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in 1971, which is the very first Edition of the Masora Magna, what gives an idea of his unique expertise in relation to the Masora.
The Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia is meant to be an exact copy of the Masoretic Text as recorded in the Leningrad Codex. According to the introductory prolegomena of the book, the editors have "accordingly refrained from removing obvious scribal errors" [1] (these have then been noted in the critical apparatus). Diacritics like the Silluq and Meteg which were missing in the Leningrad Codex also have not been added.
Like its predecessor the Biblia Hebraica Kittel the BHS adds the letters samekh "ס" (for סתומה, setumah: "closed portion") and "פ" (for פתוחה, petuchah: "open portion") into the text to indicate blank spaces in the Leningrad Codex, which divide the text into sections.
One more difference to the Leningrad Codex is the book order: the Books of Chronicles have been moved to the end as it appears in common Hebrew bibles, even though it precedes Psalms in the codex.
The BHS is composed of the three traditional divisions of the Hebrew Scriptures: the Torah (תורה "instruction"), Neviim (נבאים "prophets"), and the Ketuvim (כתבים "writings").
In the margins are Masoretic notes. These are based on the codex, but have been heavily edited to make them more consistent and easier to understand. Even so, whole books have been written to explain these notes themselves. Some of the notes are marked sub loco ("in this place"), meaning that there appears to be some problem, often that they contradict the text. The editors never published any explanation of what the problems were, or how they might be resolved.
The sub loco notes do not necessarily explain interesting text variants; they are, in the vast majority, only notes on inaccurate word countings/frequencies. See Daniel S. Mynatt, The Sub Loco Notes in the Torah of Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (Bibal, 1994); Christopher Dost, The Sub-Loco Notes in the Torah of Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (Gorgias, 2016).
Footnotes record possible corrections to the Hebrew text. Many are based on the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Dead Sea Scrolls and on early Bible translations ("versions") such as the Septuagint, Vulgate and Peshitta. Others are conjectural emendations.
The order of the biblical books generally follows the codex, even for the Ketuvim, where that order differs from most common printed Hebrew bibles. Thus the Book of Job comes after Psalms and before Proverbs, and the Megillot are in the order Ruth, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations and Esther. The only difference is with Chronicles.
The Torah:
The Nevi'im :
The Ketuvim
In September 2014 an edition of the BHS called Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia: A Reader's Edition (abbreviated as the BHS Reader) was published by the German Bible Society and Hendrickson Publishers. This edition features the same Hebrew text as the regular BHS, but without the Masora on the side margins and with a "Lexical and Grammatical Apparatus" on the bottom of the page replacing the critical apparatus of the BHS.
The edition defines an English translation to every word in the text: words that occur 70 times or more are listed in a glossary in the back of the book, and words that occur fewer than 70 times are listed in the apparatus. The translations were mostly taken out of the Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, but also from DCH [lower-alpha 1] and the Brown–Driver–Briggs.
Alongside the translations it features a grammatical parsing of the words encoded in a system of abbreviations (e.g. an introductory example in the book states that the word "והקריבו" from Lev 1:15 has the note "Hr10s0 קרב" in the apparatus which means that the word is a "Hiphil suffix conjugation third masculine singular verb with a wāv retentive and a third masculine singular pronominal suffix of the root קרב"). [2] It also has a 50-page appendix listing paradigm-tables for strong and weak verbal roots and noun suffixes.
The bible scholar Emanuel Tov has criticised BHS somewhat for having errors, and for correcting errors in later editions without informing the reader. [3]
The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, also known in Hebrew as Miqra, is the canonical collection of Hebrew scriptures, comprising the Torah, the Nevi'im, and the Ketuvim. Different branches of Judaism and Samaritanism have maintained different versions of the canon, including the 3rd-century BCE Septuagint text used in Second Temple Judaism, the Syriac Peshitta, the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and most recently the 10th-century medieval Masoretic Text compiled by the Masoretes, currently used in Rabbinic Judaism. The terms "Hebrew Bible" or "Hebrew Canon" are frequently confused with the Masoretic Text; however, this is a medieval version and one of several texts considered authoritative by different types of Judaism throughout history. The current edition of the Masoretic Text is mostly in Biblical Hebrew, with a few passages in Biblical Aramaic.
A targum was an originally spoken translation of the Hebrew Bible that a professional translator would give in the common language of the listeners when that was not Biblical Hebrew. This had become necessary near the end of the first century BCE, as the common language was Aramaic and Hebrew was used for little more than schooling and worship. The translator frequently expanded his translation with paraphrases, explanations and examples, so it became a kind of sermon.
The Masoretic Text is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) in Rabbinic Judaism. The Masoretic Text defines the Jewish canon and its precise letter-text, with its vocalization and accentuation known as the mas'sora. Referring to the Masoretic Text, masorah specifically means the diacritic markings of the text of the Jewish scriptures and the concise marginal notes in manuscripts of the Tanakh which note textual details, usually about the precise spelling of words. It was primarily copied, edited, and distributed by a group of Jews known as the Masoretes between the 7th and 10th centuries of the Common Era (CE). The oldest known complete copy, the Leningrad Codex, dates from the early 11th century CE.
The Ketuvim is the third and final section of the Hebrew Bible, after the Torah ("instruction") and the Nevi'im "Prophets". In English translations of the Hebrew Bible, this section is usually titled "Writings" or "Hagiographa".
The New American Standard Bible is a translation of the Bible in contemporary English. Published by the Lockman Foundation, the complete NASB was released in 1971. New revisions were published in 1995 and 2020. The NASB relies on recently published critical editions of the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts. It is known for preferring a literal translation style that generally preserves the structure of the original language when possible, rather than an idiomatic style that attempts to match natural English usage.
The Aleppo Codex is a medieval bound manuscript of the Hebrew Bible. The codex was written in the city of Tiberias in the tenth century CE under the rule of the Abbasid Caliphate, and was endorsed for its accuracy by Maimonides. Together with the Leningrad Codex, it contains the Aaron ben Moses ben Asher Masoretic Text tradition.
The Leningrad Codex is the oldest known complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible in Hebrew, using the Masoretic Text and Tiberian vocalization. According to its colophon, it was made in Cairo in AD 1008.
A Mikraot Gedolot, often called a "Rabbinic Bible" in English, is an edition of the Hebrew Bible that generally includes three distinct elements:
The New Jewish Publication Society of America Tanakh (NJPS), first published in complete form in 1985, is a modern Jewish 'written from scratch' translation of the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible into English. It is based on revised editions of earlier publications of subdivisions of the Tanakh such as the Torah and Five Megillot which were originally published from 1969 to 1982. It is unrelated to the original JPS Tanakh translation, which was based on the Revised Version and American Standard Version but emended to more strictly follow the Masoretic Text, beyond both translations being published by the Jewish Publication Society of America.
The Biblia Hebraica Quinta Editione, abbreviated as BHQ or rarely BH5, is the fifth edition of the Biblia Hebraica. When completed, it will supersede the fourth edition, the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS/ BH4).
The Codex Cairensis is a Hebrew manuscript containing the complete text of the Hebrew Bible's Nevi'im (Prophets). It has traditionally been described as "the oldest dated Hebrew Codex of the Bible which has come down to us", but modern research seems to indicate an 11th-century date rather than the 895 CE date written into its colophon. It contains the books of the Former Prophets and Latter Prophets. It comprises 575 pages including 13 carpet pages.
Ashrei is a prayer that is recited at least three times daily in Jewish prayers, twice during Shacharit and once during Mincha. The prayer is composed primarily of Psalm 145 in its entirety, with Psalms 84:5 and Psalms 144:15 added to the beginning, and Psalms 115:18 added to the end. The first two verses that are added both start with the Hebrew word ashrei, hence the prayer's name.
The Hebrew University Bible Project (HUBP) is a project at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem to create the first edition of the Hebrew Bible that reproduces the text of the Aleppo Codex and includes a thorough critical apparatus.
The Jerusalem Crown is a printed edition of the Tanakh printed in Jerusalem in 2001, and based on a manuscript commonly known as the Aleppo Crown). The printed text consists of 874 pages of the Hebrew Bible, two pages setting forth both appearances of the Ten Commandments each showing the two different cantillations—for private and for public recitation, 23 pages briefly describing the research background and listing alternative readings, a page of the blessings—the Ashkenazic, Sephardic and Yemenite versions—used before and after reading the Haftarah, a 9-page list of the annual schedule of the Haftarot readings according to the three traditions.
Biblia Hebraica may refer to:
A seder is part of a biblical book in the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible.
The Literal English Version of Scripture (LEV) is a translation of the Bible based on the World English Bible. Formerly known as the "Shem Qadosh Version", the title was officially changed in November 2016. It is considered a Sacred Name Bible rendering the name of God using the Hebrew characters יהוה, and that of Jesus in Hebrew as ישוע. It was created by a team of volunteers across the United States with additional proofing and editing assistance by individuals in Poland and Taiwan. Footnotes and appendices were written by the General Editor, J. A. Brown.
Gérard Emmanuel Weil was a French Hebraist and biblical scholar.
The Damascus Pentateuch or Codex Sassoon 507 is a 10th-century Hebrew Bible codex, consisting of the almost complete Pentateuch, the Five Books of Moses. The codex was copied by an unknown scribe, replete with Masoretic annotations. The beginning of the manuscript is damaged: it starts with Genesis 9:26, and Exodus 18:1–23 is also missing. In 1975 it was acquired by the Jewish National and University Library, Jerusalem. The codex was published in a large, two-volume facsimile edition in 1978.
Puncta extraordinaria, or extraordinary points, refer to certain small dots in the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible, where they appear alongside other, more common, traditional markings (nequddot) found in the Masoretic Text. There are fifteen places in the Masoretic Text where the puncta extraordinaria appear. Ten of the fifteen instances are in the Pentateuch. The dots may appear above or below individual letters or even an entire word or group of words.