Professional Documents
Culture Documents
on the Peshitta
HEIDI M. SZPEK
5522 East Burns Street
Tucson, AZ 85711
251
I
A CRITICAL EDITION may be diplomatic or eclectic. Both the BHS and the
Leiden Syriac are diplomatic, while the Gttingen Septuagint is eclectic. The
goal of these current critical editions was to correct the major flaw of earlier
editions, namely, that they were so often based on late medieval manuscripts.
The Leningrad Codex B19 A , of 1008 CE., serves as the basis for the
BHS. The reason for the use of the Leningrad Codex was that it "is still the
oldest dated manuscript of the complete Hebrew Bible."2 The critical apparatus "represents a complete revision [of the BHK] abandoning slight variants and less important items of information" while noting "real textual
changes and other more significant matter."3 In the critical edition of the
Peshitta prepared by the Peshitta Institute at Leiden, MS. B.21 Inferiore of
the Ambrosian Library in Milan (= 7al) was used as a base text. This is a
manuscript of the sixth century CE., and it was selected because, like L for
the BHSt it is the oldest complete manuscript of the OT.4
2
See Szpek, Translation Technique in the Peshitta to Job, 109$11, where this issue was
first discussed.
21
In two cases (2 Sam 4:9; 2 Kgs 7:2) the lack of adjustment is readily apparent; in two
(1 Sam 21:5; 22:14) the lack of rearrangement is peculiar.
fVoo^JO
Examples of such internal reasons are confusion of roots (10:20; 12:6; 12:23; 16:7),
explicit exegesis (33:8), and interverse influence (12:16b).
And you tried my soul more than (or "from," or "by") destruction,
and my bones more than (or "from," or "by") death.
' ,
.
You will separate my life from my spirit;
and my bones from death.
The syntax of the MT has long been a crux interpretum, in particular the
function and position of the preposition }D in both stichs. The Peshitta's
syntax clearly parallels that of the LXX, but the result in the Peshitta is
nonsensical. The Peshitta literally adopted the MT's West Semitic ina, but
in Syriac ina means "to test, try," not "to choose" as in Biblical Hebrew.31
Thus, if we assume that the Peshitta's translator consulted the LXX for the
syntax of this verse, why did the translator not consult it for the meaning of
the verb man?
3. Job 12:14.
: ^ xVi tfn< Vv i ^ ma? xV onn*
If he tears down, then it will not be rebuilt.
(If) he shuts [the door] in the face of a man,
then it will not be opened.
. HJU 1271 Auffr ^x ncVn
,jj<k
cu^zj
june*
,J&n3
.lurt*
.jG
4. Job 32:3.
.(BOIIHIO
ocvrA
^ s
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