Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia: SESB 2.0 Version with Apparatus and WIVU Introduction

Bishop Salamat Khokhar
Bishop Salamat Khokhar Member Posts: 105 ✭✭
edited November 2024 in English Forum

Friends,    

 

Does anyone has any thoughts about it?

There is not preview  at logos.

Thanks

Bishop Salamat

Comments

  • NetworkGeek
    NetworkGeek Member Posts: 3,737 ✭✭✭

    I think it's a great addition to the Logos library. Here is a pretty fair review of the publication, I include it here in case you can't read PDFs at the link:

    Biblia Hebraic Stuttgartensia. Wide Margin Edition. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson
    Publishers, 2007, lxxii + 1574 pp., $69.95.
    Until 1929 available texts of the Hebrew Bible were essentially reprints or
    edited versions of Jacob ben Hayyim’s Second Rabbinic Bible, first published by
    Daniel Bomberg in Venice in 1524/25. Ben Hayyim based his work on late
    medieval manuscripts and other earlier printed editions. This text served as the
    textus receptus behind all early Old Testament translations, such as that of
    Luther and the King James Version.
    Beginning in 1929, Rudolf Kittel decided to jettison the later eclectic ben
    Hayyim text and adopt in its place the earlier text of the Leningrad manuscript B
    19A
    (L; dated AD 1008) as a base for the new edition of his internationally
    acclaimed scholarly work known as the Biblia Hebraica (first published 1906).
    Kittel died in 1929, but ten years later Albrecht Alt and Otto Eissfeldt were able to
    revise and publish the edited fascicles in the third edition of the Biblia Hebraica
    (Stuttgart: Württembergische Biblelanstalt, 1937). Although Kittel edited only
    five of the twenty-one fascicles, the work has commonly become known as Kittel’s
    Biblia Hebraica (BHK). BHK has been criticized for its frequent willingness to
    correct and emend the B 19A
    text based on conjecture. BHK has served as the
    base text behind the Revised Standard Version and other translations of the Old
    Testament of the same period.
    A revision of BHK was undertaken from 1967-77 to reflect more accurately
    the text of the Leningrad manuscript. This new revision was published in 1977 as
    the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS; Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft).
    BHS has gone through five revisions or “editions” since its initial publication. The
    fifth and last edition of BHS was published in 1997. A newer version called Biblia
    Hebraica Quinta has been started and several fascicles have been released. See
    for example, Biblia Hebraica Quinta: General Introduction & Megilloth (BHQ;
    Deutsche Biblegesellschaft, 2004). Since some scholars refer to BHQ as the fifth
    “edition” of Biblia Hebraica (which it technically is), students confuse it with the
    fifth edition of BHS.
    The first BHS edition was initially published in a large easy to read format
    (9.4 x 6.5 in), and this volume has since become commonly known as the Editio
    Maior. A small print version (7.6 x 5.6 in) known as the Editio Minor first
    appeared in 1984. This compact Editio Minor was less expensive and
    consequently made BHS more accessible to a larger audience. However, the
    smaller print made a few accents, vowel signs, and some sigla and text of the
    critical apparatus more difficult to read with the unaided eye.
    The smaller Editio Minor has proved to be very popular and has been reprinted in various formats. In 1994 it was bound together with the 27th revised
    Nestle-Aland New Testament Greek text in the somewhat expensive Biblia Sacra
    Utriusque Testamenti Editio Hebraica et Graeca (Stuttgart: Deutsche
    Bibelgesellschaft). In 2007 an inexpensive paperback edition of the fifth edition
    of BHS was released. In my personal experience the bindings of both of these
    reprints have not stood up very well.
    In 2007 Hendrickson Publishers offered the academic world a reprint of
    the fifth edition of the BHS text as a “wide margin edition” (9.4 x 7.1 in). This is
    sometimes misleadingly referred to as a “large print edition.” But this is incorrect
    because Hendrickson reprinted the smaller Editio Minor text as the basis for its
    edition. The text is exactly the same, except that Hendrickson added 1½ to the
    outside of the page and nearly 2½ to the bottom. The edition contains a number
    of welcome additional blank leaves at the beginning and the end of the volume. If
    they were able, I would have preferred a reprint of the larger Edition Maior, even
    if it meant a loss in the space available for notes.
    The quality of the binding is good and strong and reassuring as well.
    However, the weight of the paper is light and consequently thin. The average pen
    or highlighter bleeds right through the paper. This is disappointing in light of the
    fact that the intent was to give the user adequate space to add notes and
    comments on the side and bottom of the text. Gel pens bleed through quickly and
    ballpoints leave a tell tale heavy impression on the reverse side. Several writing
    implement manufacturers (like G. T. Luscombe, TUL, and Zebra Pen Corp.)
    make pens and highlighters specifically designed for the thin papers used in
    Bibles published today. These work better on the Hendrickson reprint.
    Hendrickson’s wide margin edition remains a serious option for the
    student or pastor who desires to annotate the Hebrew text as they study. The
    price is reasonable and comparable to the hardcover Editio Minor. Despite the
    thin paper, I would prefer Hendrickson’s wide margin edition to the Editio Minor.
    Nevertheless, there are a few other issues that students may want to consider
    before purchasing a Hebrew Bible.
    It took Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft ten years from the beginning of
    publishing fascicles to complete the publication of BHS. Six fascicles of BHQ have
    now been published. If the same time schedule is maintained the final
    publication of BHQ could be accomplished by 2014 or thereafter. A less expensive
    version of BHS might do until BHQ arrives on the scene.
    The wide margin edition might not appeal to all students. Bible software
    has made it easier to add notations and comments to the electronic text of the
    Hebrew Bible. This is true for a number of Bible texts as a whole. My students are more electronically connected, and some prefer reading and translating the
    Hebrew text right from the computer screen. In this case, hyperlinks are very
    productive on the computer, but not available in printed formats.
    While Hendrickson had no control over the matter, the nature of the BHS
    text must be considered before making a purchase. It is true that BHS is the only
    “critical” option that we now possess in the translation and study of the Hebrew
    text. Depending on the needs and interests of the student, other texts may prove
    more fruitful.
    BHS is not a perfect text; nor is it any better in bringing us closer to the
    autographs than the textus receptus of Ben Hayyim’s Second Rabbinical Bible.
    There are small oddities in BHS. For example, the editors chose to place
    Chronicles as the end of the Writings just like Ben Hayyim’s version. But in the
    Leningrad Codex B 19A Chronicles starts the Hagiographia. The editors also
    introduced sigla for petuhot and setumot where they were lacking in L.
    Even more serious is the eclectic nature of G. E. Weil’s edition of the
    Masorah included in BHS. The Masorah Parva in the margin of BHS is an edited
    version of the Masorah of L, and must be used with caution. The first apparatus
    under the text contains references to the Masorah Magna (MM) as collated by
    Weil in a separate volume. Unfortunately, this very helpful resource is hard to
    find and not available to most pastors.
    Finally, the text critical apparatus of BHS follows text critical methods
    essentially practiced before the last century. The editors of each fascicle gave only
    what they deemed important of the ancient texts and versions with their own
    preferred suggestions and conjectural readings. Little consideration is given to
    inter-textual errors and problems within a given version. In addition, BHS was
    published too early to take advantage of the full impact of the discovery of the
    Dead Sea Scrolls on the discipline of textual criticism of the Bible.
    Despite these problems, BHS is still the best academic text available.
    Consequently, Hendrickson’s wide margin edition will appeal to students and
    scholars alike. Being aware of the peculiarities of BHS should alleviate for a
    period any mistaken conclusions concerning the Masorah and the textual
    criticism of the Hebrew Bible. At least, this would be true while we wait for the
    publication of BHQ. But even then, there will be no guarantee that all our
    problems will be solved.
    Stephen J. Andrews, PhD
    Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary