A New Critical Edition of the Book of Genesis

A NEW CRITICAL EDITION OF THE BOOK OF GENESIS Melvin K. H. Peters Duke University, Nonh Carolina A review of The Text of Genesis 1-11: Textual Studies and Critical Edition. By Ronald S. Hendel. pp. xv + 168. New York: Oxford University Press. 1998. Cloth. $29.95. The central contention of Ronald Hendel's work is aptly captured in its preface: "...the field of textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible is sufficiently mature-in terms of both the adequacy of method and the amount of reliable data-to warrant the production of fully critical texts and editions." By "fully critical" Hendel means "eclectic"-texts produced by analysis of manuscripts. adjudicating among variant readings. and when necessary. the reconstruction or conjecture of better or original readings. He intends therefore to depart from the current practice of producing diplomatic editions of the Hebrew Bible. a practice he characterizes as "textual inventory" and to produce for the Hebrew Bible something analogous to what already exists for classical authors and the New Testament. The opening chapter. "Theory. Method. Tools" emphasizes the ongoing need for textual criticism in light of the fact that texts and situations surrounding them are constantly changing. Hendel then sets out. with illustrative examples. four types of text-critical decisions in order of frequencydiagnostic conjectures being the least frequent; selection of a plausible archetype from among many variants being the most common. The rest of the chapter is given over to elaboration of categories described in an earlier list of Abbreviations and Symbols. For Hendel, the four major versions of the Hebrew Genesis (and by versions he means what Tov would call textual witnesses) are: G = Septuagint (Wevers in the main), M = Masoretic text (an eclectic version derived from a collation of major Masoretic manuscripts-Aleppo, Cairo, St. Petersburg, Damascus, Venice), Q = Qumran (excerpted from various volumes of DJD, 1,3, 12, and 22 with supplements), and S =Samaritan Text. The four minor versions are: Syr = Syriac Peshitta, TgO = Targum Onkelos, TgP = Palestinian Targums (Neofiti and Pseudo-Jonathan), and the Vg =Latin Vulgate. Three ancillary sources are also included in his witness list: Ant = Josephus' Antiquities, Jub =Jubilees, and LAB =Pseudo-Philo's Biblical Antiquities. On this collection of eleven witnesses, some fragmentary, others peraphrastic and/or exegetical, Hendel attempts to construct and argue for a critical text of the Hebrew Genesis. Hebrew Studies 40 (1999) 252 Review Essay Chapter two identifies and discusses sixteen instances of significant variance between the readings of M and G in what is conventionally considered the "P" creation account-Gen 1:1-2:4. Hendel judges G superior to M in four of these instances. Two of these are in 1:9: substitution of M).P,Q for c\p~ "gathering" for "place" and a longer Greek reading Gudged in this instance not to be due to harmonization) later in that verse; the occurrence of rv. "tree" is judged to be superfluous in M in 1:29, and the substitution of G's ~ViVitl "sixth" for M's ~l?~~l7JtI "seventh" in 2:2. In the other instances of variance, the Greek readings. especially those reflecting a fuller Vorlage, are deemed secondary, explained usually by harmonization. This second chapter also contains an excursus on divine names in G. The third chapter discusses a range of textual problems in the Masoretic text of Genesis chapters 1-11. Most of the significant variants in the critical text are discussed in detail here and Hendel's reasons for accepting or rejecting a reading are cryptically stated. That means that some variants already discussed in chapter two are again treated in this chapter; conversely some variants are not treated fully here because they are dealt with in subsequent chapters. While most of the points of discussion are relatively insignificant textually, some of the readings for which Hendel argues are rather interesting because in some cases (for example, the superfluous n"Q~~~1 in 1:26) he rejects the entire extant tradition, in others he offers diagnostic conjectures (4:22; 10:5) or reconstructs readings (4:7; 5:3; 9:7) and also reconstructs several numbers in the genealogies of chapter 5. The infamous problems of the different chronologies in...