Masoretic Text (MT)

The biblical narrator tells us that YHWH appears to Abraham at the oaks of Mamre, yet Abraham sees three men. Does Abraham recognize YHWH? If so, why do neither Abraham nor Sarah explicitly acknowledge having seen God? The story’s “open narrative” invites readers to piece together the clues and interpret an encounter that unfolds not in a sanctuary, amid priests and liturgical rituals, but in an ordinary family setting, through hospitality, meal preparation, and conversation.

At the climax of the binding of Isaac, Abraham sees אַיִל אַחַר “a ram behind” (MT)... or does he see אַיִל אֶחָד “one ram” (SP, LXX, etc.)? Both readings are developed in midrash: aḥar into Israel’s future redemption through the shofar, eḥad into the primordial ram created for the Akedah—two paths that converge in the shofar of Rosh Hashanah.

Rabbi Maimon, Moses Maimonides’ father, believed that the Torah’s exact wording and layout had been divinely dictated to Moses down to the smallest detail—including paragraph divisions (open vs. closed), spelling (defective vs. plene), and even the decorative taggin atop certain letters. Maimonides, despite his rationalist philosophy, largely maintained this stringent view, though he would not invalidate a Torah scroll due to missing taggin. His son, R. Abraham, further relaxed the requirements as the realities of medieval manuscripts made the older standards untenable.

Did Hannah stand before YHWH in the Temple? Were Israelite males to see YHWH’s face three times a year? Did Moses and the elders see God on Mount Sinai? Were there temples to YHWH at Hebron and Samaria? The evidence shows that ancient scribes edited biblical texts to omit what they viewed as theological errors.

After Miriam is stricken with a skin affliction for speaking badly of Moses, Aaron begs Moses to forgive her, and Moses prays to God for her healing with five words: אֵל נָא רְפָא נָא לָהּ “O God, pray, heal her.” But the original prayer was likely different.

Well, we can theoretically arrive at a 3^rd century B.C.E. archetype by using the conservative Masoretic Text (MT) as the default and comparing it with non-harmonistic variants in the Septuagint (LXX), Samaritan Pentateuch (SP), and Qumran fragments. But textual criticism offers little help in understanding what the text of the Torah looked like at an earlier stage, or how and when it was composed.

Why does Rabbi Ḥiyya bar Abba question whether the word “good” appears in the first version of the Decalogue—when the Masoretic Text (MT) clearly omits it? Why do some midrashim speak of God dividing the nations among seventy angels—though Deuteronomy 32:8 says nothing of angels? These phrasings align with the Septuagint (LXX), as do the Haggadah’s emphasis on God’s sole role in the exodus, the wise son’s inclusive phrasing, and the image of God’s outstretched arm.

Rabbinic quotations of the Bible differ in some instances from the Masoretic Text. In some cases, the rabbis were aware it was a variant; other times they were not.

When the priest looks at a skin infection in a person’s hair or beard, “and there is no black hair in it” (MT), or “there is no yellow hair in it” (LXX), the priest puts the person in quarantine for seven days. Which biblical version is right?

The version of the story of David’s triumph over Goliath (1 Samuel 17–18) in the Septuagint (LXX) is missing many details present in the Masoretic Text (MT). The explanations provided by the Addition and Omission Hypotheses do not fully account for the differences. Taking into account how ancient scrolls were written and repaired offers a new approach.

YHWH instructs Moses to sound a teruah blast to get the eastern camp to travel, and a second for the southern camp. What about the western and northern camps? The answer can be found by comparing the Masoretic Text, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and the Septuagint: It was a parablepsis.

The description of Solomon building and dedicating the Temple in the Masoretic Text (MT) of 1 Kings 6 and 8 differ from their parallels in the Septuagint (LXX). These expansions are written in Pentateuchal language, uncharacteristic of Kings, and reflect the attempt of a later scribe(s) to make these scenes cohere with Priestly theology and style, especially of Leviticus 26.

“The secret things belong unto YHWH our God; but the things that are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever”—the verse has eleven dotted letters indicating erasure marks, but why? The answer lies in a controversial interpretation found in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Three traditions of pronouncing the Hebrew Bible existed in the first millennium C.E.: Babylonian, Palestinian, and Tiberian, each with its own written vocalization system. From the later Middle Ages on, however, biblical manuscripts have been written almost exclusively with the vowels and cantillation marks of the Tiberian system while paradoxically, the Tiberian pronunciation itself fell into oblivion.

Two places in the Bible describe God striking people with hemorrhoids (ophalim): the curses in Deuteronomy 28 and the story of the Philistines’ capture of the ark in 1 Samuel 5-6. In the latter, the Philistines make golden statues of their afflicted buttocks to propitiate the Israelite deity. Traditional readings replace these crass references with the less offensive term techorim (abscesses).

The textual remnants of a Second Temple religious polemic between Judeans and Samaritans about where God’s chosen mountain lies.

Mount Gerizim appears in the Pentateuch as the mountain of blessing and plays a prominent role in Samaritan tradition, but the Jewish tradition sidelines this mountain and the Samaritans themselves in a polemic that began more than two and half thousand years ago.

Illustrations From Parashat Ekev

A careful examination of the three oldest copies of the Decalogue—4QDeutⁿ, 4QPaleoExodus^m, and the Nash Papyrus—surprisingly shows that none of them reflects the Masoretic Text.

The Book of Exodus begins with an accounting of the members of Jacob's family who went with him to Egypt. Our Torah, the Masoretic Text, lists 70 people. Dead Sea Scroll manuscript 4QEx^b, however, records 75 people. How do we account for this and other differences between the texts?