BHS and BHW

The rundown is this: version 1 of the Westminster database was basically the BHS. Being the first edition, there may have been some transcription errors, but the goal of that edition was to faithfully reproduce the text of the BHS. Starting at version 2, however, the goal shifted to being an accurate transcription of the manuscript that BHS is based on, Codex Leningradensis (L). But with every edition of L, including BHS, editors make choices about whether or not to preserve things that look like mistakes in this single manuscript or to correct them. At times, the Westminster database made different decisions than the BHS editors both on when to correct L and at times, how to read L (in difficult-to-read places). One of the nice features of the Westminster database is textual notes (implemented as popups in Logos) that list both where BHW corrects L and where they read L differently from the BHS and the fascicles of BHQ (the work-in-progress replacement for BHS). The notes list if the difference is in a consonant, vowel, accent or punctuation mark, though they leave it to the reader to compare with those editions or with the L facsimile to know exactly what is different.

There are other differences as well. The print BHS follows L in its presentation of Kethiv/Qere readings, which means that it doesn't attempt to provide vocalized versions of the Kethiv readings, and the vowels from the main line have to be paired with the consonants in the margin (sometimes with some transformations) to arrive at a vocalized Qere. Westminster does provide vocalized Qere and reconstructions of vocalized Kethiv forms. So this is a significant difference between the presentation of L in BHS and Westminster.

Since the first version of the Westminster database Logos implemented was version 2, none of them should ever have been called 'BHS'. (I believe one of our competitors went through the textual notes in the Westminster database and manually changed their copy to match a particular printing of the BHS, so there may be some edition of the 'Westminster' database - in quotes because it isn't exactly the Westminster database at that point - out there that actually matches a particular printing of the BHS, but none of our editions of the Westminster database ever did.) In rolling out the new version 4.18, we decided to correct this problem and give it a more appropriate label. The Westminster releases have had their own 'alphabet soup'. You'll see information about 'WLC' - the Westminster Leningrad Codex. This was originally only used to refer to the surface text (not the morphology) of a version of the text that did NOT have the Kethiv reconstructions, since those aren't part of L. WHM for 'Westminster Hebrew Morphology' is the database that has the surface forms, lemma and morph tagging as well as the full Kethiv-Qere treatment. Historically we'd named our morph-tagged resources as 'Text A with Morphology B' and in keeping with that convention, we used a third abbreviation 'BHW' (Biblia Hebraica Westmonasteriensis) to refer to the Westminster text with the Kethiv reconstructions. This abbreviation/title was used by the database creators, I think for version 4.14 (I'm doing this by memory), but their release notes haven't continued to make use of that title, so it might be a bit anachronistic of us to run with it. I think now they tend to just call it the 'WHM'. But if you type 'WHM' into My Library, you'll get the BHW, so it works either way.

The SESB edition is the only edition with the text critical notes of the print BHS. The text is very like the print BHS as well, but it is important to understand that these texts are moving targets. If the database creators spotted an error in the text, for example, they might correct it and so for a time, the text might be 'out of sync' with the print BHS, until a new printing corrects the mistake. There may be places where the SESB 'BHS' has a reading that will be found in BHQ - the replacement for BHS. So it may be that not every jot and tittle is exactly the same as any particular print edition of the BHS. Indeed, the SESB edition also has Kethiv reconstructions (similar to Westminster), so right there it is different than the print BHS.

The text entitled BHS/WIVU is an old snapshot of the SESB edition that we licensed. It's a bit of a strange beast, since we don't own it outright, we feel limited about what types of corrections and improvements we can make to it, but it isn't being maintained either - the SESB edition has pressed ahead. It may be at some point we can negotiate updating the 'snapshot' with all the corrections made to the BHS/SESB to bring this back up to date, but for now, there are several better Hebrew Bibles to choose from.

The other main Hebrew Bibles in our stable are: AFAT, the Andersen-Forbes Analyzed Text and LHB, the Lexham Hebrew Bible. The text of AFAT is very similar to BHS in terms of consonants and vowels, but lacks accents and has its own treatment of Kethiv/Qere. That text was developed as a base for the Andersen-Forbes syntax graphs. LHB is our own in-house Hebrew Bible that was created so that we could have something that we maintain and can hang whatever data we want on it, and make derivative products from it, without dealing with contract negotiations and royalties. LHB is another edition of L, with some corrections. However, unlike BHW, it doesn't currently mark deviations from L or from any print edition. None of the deviations would surprise anyone - they're generally limited to things like supplying a missing accent or maqqef (the dash that indicates two words are sharing a primary accent) or sof passuq (end-of-verse punctuation) - they're the type of corrections that most editions make, so most people wouldn't even notice them. But I'd still like to make a list of those spots available at some point so people concerned with such matters can feel a bit more confident about this relative new-comer.

The bottom line for citations is: cite the actual edition you are using. If you're concerned that you might get called out for a bad citation, don't cite any digital edition of the BHS as if it were the 1990 (or whatever year) print BHS since that's not what you're using.

Wow, Vincent, that's some run down! [:O]  Let me uncross my eyes if I can...

So, do you...um...have a chart? [8-|]

JK...let me review your run down and see if I can get the picture. [H]