Blotting out the name, part 1: scribal methods of erasing the Tetragrammaton in medieval Hebrew Bible manuscripts
Early rabbinic interpretation of Deut 12:4 prohibited erasure of the Tetragrammaton, which required Jewish scribes to employ creative methods to resolve extraneous instances of the divine name. This may be foreshadowed in the writing of divine appellations in Paleo-Hebrew in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Me...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
2020
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| In: |
Textus
Year: 2020, Volume: 29, Issue: 1, Pages: 8-43 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Scribe
/ Tetragrammaton
/ Handwriting
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| RelBib Classification: | BH Judaism HB Old Testament NCD Political ethics |
| Further subjects: | B
Aleppo Codex
B Hebrew Bible manuscripts B scribal errors B Adonai B Tetragrammaton B Scribal Practices B textual variants |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Early rabbinic interpretation of Deut 12:4 prohibited erasure of the Tetragrammaton, which required Jewish scribes to employ creative methods to resolve extraneous instances of the divine name. This may be foreshadowed in the writing of divine appellations in Paleo-Hebrew in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Medieval Jewish scribes employed diverse methods to deal with errors involving the Tetragrammaton. In codices this involved marking God’s name with dots, rectangles (also used in liturgical scrolls), lines, and supralinear circelli. Some scribes indicated the Tetragrammaton’s erasure by leaving it unpointed and recording a correction (usually Adonai) in the margin, without any additional notation. A special procedure involved a nonstandard usage of the Qere notation. All of these methods were performed in accordance with rabbinic strictures. Part 2 of this study will consider exceptions to the rule and the special case of liturgical Torah scrolls. |
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| ISSN: | 2589-255X |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Textus
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1163/2589255X-02901008 |