Recovering God's Word
Review of P. Kyle McCarter, Jr., Textual Criticism: Recovering the Text of the Hebrew Bible, Fortress Press, 1986, 94 pages
Reviewed by Kerry A. Shirts
Director of Research (FAIR)
This is a very nice little introduction book to the world of Textual Criticism. McCarter does a terrific job of showing us the technicalities and situations involved in translating the ancient manuscripts, and showing us the differences. Some actually are doctrinal in nature.
We have long believed that the ancient Jews with their stringent rules of copying exactly has helped preserve the Bible through the ages. This is true enough. However, McCarter demonstrates how the very act of copying also corrupts the text! We need to realize that "no copy of an ancient composition is pristine." (p. 12). Copies of copies of copies of ancient manuscripts in order to preserve them, actually tempt fate, and corruptions set in. (p. 12)
The Massoretic text of the Hebrew Old Testament is actually regarded as one witness among others. (p. 13). In other words, there may not have been AN original Bible anywhere, but several different copies of it anciently.
It is also interesting the McCarter shows that a corrupt text often reads smoothly, as the scribe, who wanders from what the text actually says, certainly does copy something he is already familiar with, hence producing a smooth reading. (p. 14). It is more than of passing interest to note that ancient textual features were lost because translators who couldn’t understand what the copy they were copying was actually saying, tried correcting them to fit their own understanding of what ought to have been said, thus corrupting the text by correcting it as the ancient scribes viewed it! (p. 14).
Textual Criticism has proven beyond any doubt that "the text of the Hebrew scriptures has been deliberately altered in a few places." (p. 23). A gloss in the manuscript margins is described as a kind of explanatory information from the scribe trying to explain the scripture so it could be better understood. This is an attempt to remove ambiguity and contradictions in the manuscripts, and lessen our confusion. McCarter shows several examples of this in his nifty book. One example is noteworthy I think. The reading of Exodus 22:19 originally read "zbh l’;hym yhrm," "He who sacrifices to gods will be placed under the ban." The implicit meaning of "gods" was other gods, that is other than Yahweh. At some point in the development of the Massoretic text a scribe felt it necessary to make this meaning explicit and added the gloss "blty lyhwh lbdw," "except to Yahweh alone." The Samaritan Pentateuch reads "He who sacrifices to other gods will be placed under the ban." (p. 35). This is a really good example of glosses which end up actually in the Bible sometimes! They were not originally even in the manuscript which was being copied.
Parablepsis, meaning an oversight or faulty seeing can result in serious losses to the Bible in its own right says McCarter, and he shows a few examples of this phenomenon also. (pp. 39-42). This can be understood as a human error, but there are other instances where "the scribes seem to have made changes with the intent to alter the meaning of the passage." (p. 58). In some cases, the change is made to "remove the dishonor to God expressed by the original text as preserved in the LXX." In other cases, "a scribe changed l’yyn to ‘lywn to protect the dignity of the temple." (p. 58).
McCarter concludes his little gem of a book with the various procedures of Textual Criticism. All in all this is a very good introduction to the methods and pitfalls as well as the excitement of doing Textual Criticism.