Masoretic Text

And one of the things that perhaps might be a stumbling block is this distinction between Miriam and Mariam.

And the Miriam is based on the Masoretic text of the Hebrew, of the Old Testament.

And many scholars would kind of revolve around that, including this one I'm citing from a a series called Mariology, edited by Father Carroll, and this is a Father Kugelman, and he's talking about this Miriam, and he comes up with, which is a common opinion of our times, is there's no convincing argument that has been adduced against the claim of the Masoretic Miriam to be the oldest and very likely the original form of the name of Mary.

The Septuagint, on the other hand, renders it Mariam.

The reason why we're kind of going through this is because it's very significant as far as what does the Holy Name of Mary actually mean.

But that didn't happen until after the New Testament times, and therefore the conclusion for this one scholar is that the Hebrew, which remember the consonants are in the Hebrew, M-R-Y-M, was pronounced Mariam in the time.

And that's significant if that's the case, because it will discount a lot of the interpretations, or at least more firmly establish others.

Father Lapidus rejects the Masoretic vocalization of Miriam.

And there's the script, the text itself.

And that text... we call the Masoretic text or the MT.

The Masoretic text is essentially, say, the traditional text.

And the notes that we find about the copying are what we call Masoretic marginalia, right? They are the, that's what's actually, what's named for it.

That's the Masora.

It's the like received tradition of how to copy the thing.

So we know that we've got this text with its annotations for how to copy it that suggests a long history of copying and recopying this version.

So the Masoretic text, again, we have in the Dead Sea Scrolls, texts that look very much like it that we sort of call proto-Masoretic or Masoretic type texts, right? That is, there are families is a way to think about families of texts, right? So, um, we were talking earlier about additions.

I, I got a verse here, Josh, and it's funny because I just finished Ecclesiastes, and somebody else quoted this, and I'm sorry I can't give you credit for it, 'cause some- again, somebody in the comments mentioned this verse.

As we've been kind of going over that topic of age or aionis versus, like, whatever the word is in your Masoretic Text, whatever your KJV, if it's world, if it's age, what does the word actually mean? Is it forever? Is it eternity? And so here's a verse, and I'm just curious what your first read is on this.

So this is Ecclesiastes chapter 1, and this is verse 4, and it says, "A generation goes, and a generation comes, and the earth stands into eternity." And I want to say, just like if you read, like a straight reading of it, like in the Masoretic Text, it just says, "And the earth stands forever."

Mm.

So it's kind of like the, you know, from what we believe, or at least what we've kind of, our expectation is, is that there goes, there's gonna be a new heaven and a new Earth.

I'm sorry we're stalling here, um, or taking a longer time.

Um, but the, there is a Frum gut instinct to reject, um, non-Masoretic versions of Tanakh, and I think probably the Frum instinct comes from the fact that the Masoretic one's the one that we rely on for everything, and the fact that these are talked about by non-Jewish, um, uh, you know, uh, or, or non, or secular academics, right? But you have to remember that the reason why they call these things textual witnesses is because, for example, the, the, the Septuagint was written at a time and based on versions of the Tanakh that existed prior to the finalization of the Masoretic text by the Tiberian Soferim in the 8th, 8th century, 9th century, whatever.

Um, and so it, so the Targum HaShivim, even if we disagree with like, you know, who translated it or whatever, it saw earlier versions of Tanakh and therefore, uh...

And again, same thing with these other, these other texts.

Unfortunately, if you read, I think, Psalm 82, verse 8, it basically says, since you didn't do a very good job and you led everybody astray, you're going to die like men.

And if it, you know, some of the Masoretic texts, a lot of places, they were divided, the nations were divided by the sons of Israel.

Well, this pre, you know, is pre-Abraham in the historical scheme.

So the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation that predates the 200 BC, says angelos, which is angels.

It is one single unit from beginning to end.

The chapter division here corresponds to the Masoretic division and also to a logical division.

It is one single literary unit.

And it is also in and of itself a Haftarah for Parashat Ki Tavo.