Verbum Search through Tip of the Day #40b
Tip 40b: Library Results: Resource toolbar: Interlinears: Bibles part 2
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Continuing with the variants of the Hebrew Bible interlinears
The Lexham Dead Sea Scrolls Hebrew-English Interlinear Bible
If you are unfamiliar with the Dead Sea Scrolls, see The Lexham Bible Dictionary article Dead Sea Scrolls, Biblical which provides this overview:
[quote]The relatively large number of biblical manuscripts found in the caves around Qumran underscores the important role of the Hebrew Scriptures in ancient Judaism. Of the nearly 900 manuscripts found, around 210 scrolls, or approximately 25 percent of the library, were copies of biblical books (Ulrich, Biblical Qumran Scrolls). Copies of every book in the traditional Hebrew Bible were discovered, with the exception of the book of Esther and possibly Nehemiah (following today’s division of Nehemiah as a separate book from Ezra).
These individual copies of the Bible date to roughly 250 bc–ad 50, with most having been copied in the century around the turn of the millennium. They are thus the earliest substantial copies of the Hebrew Scriptures in existence today. Before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the earliest complete copy of the Hebrew Bible (the Leningrad Codex) was from ad 1008. The biblical material from the Judaean Desert is over 1,000 years earlier than these medieval copies of the Hebrew Bible, offering a source of highly significant comparative evidence for the history of the biblical text. Additionally, the biblical scrolls from Qumran are several hundreds of years older than the surviving ancient Greek translations of the Hebrew Bible (fourth century ad and beyond). These early copies of the Hebrew Bible from Qumran address many questions scholars had asked about the quality of the biblical text that had been copied and recopied by many different hands over such a long period of time.[1]
This interlinear is unique only in its last line which shows the manuscript from which the manuscript text was taken. The portions available in the Dead Sea Scroll fragments are shown in standard form while those taken from the standard Hebrew text are shown in gray.
CAL Targums
If the Targums are unfamiliar to you, see The Lexham Bible Dictionary article Targum which begins:
[quote]Targum (תרגום, trgwm; pl. targumim). Aramaic word meaning “translation.” Technically, this designation can refer to translation into any language. However, in rabbinic literature, the word is used to speak of the practice of translating the biblical Hebrew text into the vernacular Aramaic within Jewish synagogues. As such, the Targums were initially an oracular (but not extemporaneous) phenomenon, performed by the targumist along with the reading of the biblical text. Later traditions forbade the use of a written targum within the synagogue’s liturgical practices (Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Megillah 4:1, 74d).[2
For the targums, the interlinear shows the variants – up to 5 lines. The precise meaning varies by resource:
Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon. 2005. Targum Onqelos to the Pentateuch. Hebrew Union College.
[quote]The main text is that prepared by M. Cohen for his new multi-volume publication Mikraot Gedolot HaKeter (Bar Ilan University Press, 1992–), based on the best available mss. for each text. Variants marked 2 have been chosen for their lexicographical value from the text published by A. Sperber in his The Aramaic Bible (Brill, 1959–73), while those marked 3 are selections from the texts cited in Sperber’s critical apparatus.[3]
Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon. 2005. Targum Psalms. Hebrew Union College.
[quote]The CAL text derives from P. Lagarde, Hagiographia Chaldaice, with variants from Luis Díez Merino, Targum de Salmos. Tradición sefardí de Alfonso Zamora. Edición Príncipe del Ms. Villa-Amil no. 5, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Instituto ‘Francisco Suárez’, 1982.[4]
Mouse-over is useful in clarifying what the variant reading represents. I find keeping two panels open useful – one without the interlinear and one with. It makes it easier to identifying the variants if you are not fluent in Hebrew/Aramaic.
LXX Interlinear (Tov)
If you are unfamiliar with the Septuagint, see The Lexham Bible Dictionary article Septuagint which provides this brief introduction:
[quote]Septuagint (Latin, septuaginta; “70”). The translation of the Old Testament into Greek; read in the early church and often quoted by the New Testament writers.[5]
Tov, Emanuel. 2003. The Parallel Aligned Hebrew-Aramaic and Greek Texts of Jewish Scripture. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press has an interlinear with minimal options. Note the presence of a reconstructed text line as the LXX does not follow any existent Hebrew text.
The Lexham Latin-English Interlinear Vulgate
If you are unfamiliar with the Vulgate, see The Lexham Bible Dictionary article Vulgate which provides this brief introduction:
[quote]Vulgate The Latin translation of the Bible that Jerome produced in ad 383–405 or that was at least initiated by him, with the Old Testament and Gospels certainly being translated by him.
Description and Significance
The word “Vulgate” means “common” or “plain,” indicating the translation was meant to be accessible to the general population. Because the Vulgate was the church’s recognized Bible for nearly 1,000 years, its language and contents heavily affected the Latin-speaking West.
Approximately 10,000 complete and incomplete Vulgate manuscripts exist today, dating from the fifth to the 15th century. The Codex Amiatinus, which dates to the early eighth century, is the earliest complete copy and is considered a highly accurate transmission of the text. The Vulgate was used as the base text to supply many other languages with their first Bible translation, including Wycliffe’s 14th-century English translation.
Johannes Gutenberg printed Jerome’s Vulgate around 1450; it is known today as the Gutenberg Bible (Metzger and Ehrman, Text of the New Testament, 137). According to Metzger, the first printed Bibles in German, Italian, Czech, and French relied on Jerome’s Latin translation for their production (Metzger, Bible in Translation, 35).
Curtis, Andrew, and Isaiah Hoogendyk. 2016. The Lexham Latin-English Interlinear Vulgate. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press has limited options in its interlinear:
Peshitta
If you are unfamiliar with the Peshitta, see The Lexham Bible Dictionary article Peshitta which provides this brief introduction:
[quote]Peshitta (Syriac ܦܫܝܛܬܐ). A Syriac translation of the Old and New Testaments. Used by the Eastern Church since the fourth century ad.
Name
The name Peshitta (a feminine singular, passive participle from the word p-sh-t) most likely means either (1) the “simple” translation or version of the Bible, or (2) that this was a “common” translation (Dirksen, “Old Testament Peshitta,” 256; Weitzman, The Syriac Version, 2–3).
History
Knowledge of the Peshitta’s history before the sixth century ad is limited. Because of this lack of information, there is significant debate concerning whether a Jewish community or a Christian community produced the translation. Proponents of a Jewish origin point out that the Peshitta is a translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, or Masoretic Text (as opposed to the Septuagint, which is the Syro-Hexapla), and at times resembles the Targums (the Aramaic translations or paraphrases of the Old Testament). On the other hand, proponents of a Christian origin note that the Eastern Church has been the only community to preserve the Peshitta through the centuries—or at least until critical editions of the Peshitta were produced (Weitzman, The Syriac Version, 206).
In light of historical and linguistic evidence, Weitzman argues that the Peshitta was most likely composed by a nonrabbinic Jewish community that had separated from the other Jewish communities (Weitzman, The Syriac Version, 246). This community probably wrote in Edessa (modern-day Şanlıurfa, Turkey) beginning around ad 150 and ending shortly after ad 200 (Weitzman, The Syriac Version, 258). However, the earliest extant manuscripts come from the fifth century ad (Weitzman, The Syriac Version, 263).[7]
Unfortunately, this final major stream of early Bible manuscripts has no interlinear in Verbum.
[1] Alison Schofield, “Dead Sea Scrolls, Biblical,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).
[2] Seth M. Ehorn, “Targum,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).
[3] Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon, Targum Onqelos to the Pentateuch (Hebrew Union College, 2005).
CAL The Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon Project at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati, USA.
[4] Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon, Targum Psalms (Hebrew Union College, 2005).
[5] J. William Johnston, “Septuagint,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).
Jeffrey E. Miller, “Vulgate,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).
[7] Dustin M. Ray, “Peshitta,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).
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