Journal: Southeastern Theological Review
Volume: STR 11:1 (Spring 2020)
Article: Book Reviews
Author: Anonymous

STR 11:1 (Spring 2020) p. 119

Book Reviews

David Marcus. The Masorah of the Former Prophets in the Leningrad Codex. Vol. 3, 1 Samuel. Texts and Studies 14. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2018. vi + 506 pp. Hardback. ISBN 978–1463205973. $182.00

Few Bible readers are overly concerned with the Masorah—the scribal notes surrounding the medieval manuscripts. The diminutive typeface appears to confirm its inconsequential status, and several new editions exclude it altogether.1 The astute student may take note of the odd circellus (small ring) above uncommon words, spellings, or combinations of words in Biblia Hebraica.2 She knows to find the appropriate accompanying Masorah parva (Mp) comment on the outside margins. A few of the more common abbreviations (חסׄ “defective,” קׄ “to be read”) and the numbers (בׄ “twice”) may be familiar, but many of the notes and Masorah magna (Mm) references are far from transparent.3 While this Hebrew-Aramaic amalgam was crafted to ensure a particular, fastidious textualization, most modern readers are mystified by the minor textual comments, tallies, and cross-references. David Marcus addresses such issues in The Masorah of the Former Prophets in the Leningrad Codex [MFPLC].

Marcus’s research represents a recent revival of Masoretic studies. This trend is observable in the growing incorporation of these ancient textual notes into the Biblia Hebraica editions. With the Second Rabbinic

STR 11:1 (Spring 2020) p. 120

Bible of 1525 (Miqraʾot Gedolot), which served as the basis of the KJV and nearly all printed Hebrew Bibles into the last century, an attempt was made to represent the Masoretic Text (MT) tradition, including the Mp and Mm, using various (unidentified) manuscripts. In the middle of the nineteenth century though, with the rediscovery of an early, complete manuscript, the Leningrad Codex (M^L) or Firkovich B 19^A, a shift from eclecticism to documentary representation began.

BHK includes a facsimile of the text of M^L with eclectic Mp notes but no systematic treatment of the Mm. BHS adds an innovative catalogue of Mm notes as an apparatus below the text: Using a reference number from Mm 1 to Mm 4271, Gérard Weil indexed and standardized the M^L lists in a supplemental volume. BHQ finally realizes “an essentially diplomatic representation” of the M^L Masorah instead of favoring an aggregated “totality of data”...