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Abstract
A curious phenomenon that is attested in the Ugaritic texts, elsewhere in the ancient Near East, the Hebrew Bible, the Dead Sea Scrolls, medieval texts, and beyond is a scribal practice I call sans érasure, a case in which a scribe leaves an error uncorrected and proceeds to write or copy the correct letter, word, line, or verse following the error. In this article, a number of rather clear examples are adduced from the Ugaritic texts, and a number of examples from the Hebrew Bible are proposed. Several of these cases would seem to be recognized in the Masoretic tradition in instances of
Abstract
The presence of
Abstract
In the previous installment of Textus, Yehonatan Wormser acutely argued that the so-called dagesh lene in the standard Tiberian tradition was pronounced as a geminate consonant, effectively neutralising the distinction between lene and forte. This he did by invoking the “principle of economy” and comparing the dagesh to the shewa, as well as by drawing evidence from Karaite transcriptions and non-standard Tiberian manuscripts. I argue that his claim is not supported by his evidence: the transcriptions and non-standard manuscripts do not reflect the mainstream Tiberian tradition, but rather a late development; and the principle of economy does not apply in the cases of complementary distribution. Wormser’s analogy between dagesh and shewa is also addressed.
The Prayer in the Ancient World will also be available online.
Preview of the 'Prayer in the Ancient World’, 2022