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From: Russell Hendel <rhendel@saber.towson.edu>
Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 23:00:32 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: RE: The Style of the Mesorah

I would like to answer 2 arguments made by Ben Katz in mj-v32n33
about the Mesorah.

First Ben states that "The idea (I had cited 5 rishonim for this) that
the Biblical text wasn't changed but rather that the Sages enumerated
texts that LOOK as if they should read otherwise, this idea, is the
standard apolegetic response--the truth is that these text were too
anthromorphic and hence they were changed..."

Actually ANTHROPOMORPHISM could not be the reason for the change since
the Bible abounds with literally 100s of anthropomorphic statements
about God which have not been changed (eg "God was upset", "I have
changed my mind about the creation of man", "If people will be shocked I
(God) too will be shocked"). Indeed compare the Talmudic statement "And
now leave me alone (Said by God to Moses) and I will destroy them (Said
after the sin of the Golden calf)". The Talmud says that Moses grabbed
God by the collar and refused to let him go till God forgave them. Thus
I don't see how ANTHROMORPHISM could be a reason for this alleged
change.

More importantly Ben cites numerous texts that seem to explicitly say
that the Sages changed the text of the Bible in these 18 cases. What Ben
doesn't realize is that IT IS NORMAL STYLE FOR THE MESORAH TO INDICATE
POSSIBLE SOURCES OF CONFUSION BY USING LANGUAGE THAT ON FIRST READING
SUGGESTS VARIANT READINGS. Once one realizes this it becomes apparent
that the strong language arguments that Ben uses are not relevant.Let me
give a simple example.

For example on Ex16-34 it says "As God commanded TO Moses". But The
normal phrase for commands in the Bible is "As God commanded ETH Moses"
To avoid the possible error that a scribe would change the word "TO", a
typical Mesorah would say on this verse "NO(Les)" or "SOME THINK ETH
(svirin eth)" These mean as follows: "NO"="NO OTHER EXCEPTION (But this
one is an exception)"; similarly "SOME THINK ETH" means "YOU MIGHT THINK
IT SHOULD SAY ETH BUT THIS IS WRONG". The fact that these are the
correct interpretations can be inferred from the numerous verses on
which such mesorahs occur.

I could go on and give lists but the main point is that the mesorah has
adopted a very terse shorthand for indicating verses WHICH YOU MIGHT
THINK HAD AN ERROR CREPT IN. Since this style is normal for the mesorah
it would follow that no inference can be drawn from the language the
mesorah used (eg "the fixings of the scribes"). In fact that is why the
Minchat Shai brought down the half dozen authorities who state that no
one ever changed the Biblical text.

Hope this clarifies this
Russell Jay Hendel;Phd ASA
RHendel@Towson.Edu; Math Towson
Moderator Rashi is SImple
http://www.shamash.org/rashi/