Michael Miles Posted October 19, 2015 Share Posted October 19, 2015 (edited) If you have been a student of the Massorah for any length of time (my experience seems to be more off than on), then you know that it is not confined to any one specific codex, but is rather spread among a plethora of them. I have had on my back-burner for a number of years to somehow get Ginsburg's 4 volume (the 5th volume was never published, which would have completed the work) collation of the Massorah available to the public. It would be genuinely nice to have it in Accordance, but I am afraid that the narrow target audience coupled with the massive volume of information contained therein makes that possibility rather bleak. Since we may be soon able to have graphics files in our notes I am of the mind that perhaps this work would be of value in that format; somewhat akin to the new images of Codex Leningradensis that Accordance offers. Or, it could be such that links could be made in a User Tools module that would link to the images stored on a web site or a cloud drive. In my garage, I have a UMAX PowerLook 2100XL large format SCSI scanner that is connected to an antiquated Windows XP box that has been there aging for a while now. Windows XP is the last OS that the SCSI drivers for that scanner will work with, and barring reverse engineering those drivers, that's pretty much where it is going to stay. I have not fired up this collection of hardware in a spell, but I was wondering if I were to perhaps scan in pages of the 4 volumes of this collation of the Massorah, would anyone be interested enough to make it worth the effort? This would be assuming that everything still fires up - although I could probably bang out another XP box in short order if need be. I have two full 4 volume sets of Ginsburg's collation of the Massorah in my print library, as well as a third copy of one of the volumes. On another note, I also have a Plustek OpticBook 3600 USB scanner here that I should be able to get going with an old Windows box. With it I can scan the 4 volume set of Ginsburg's Massoretico-Critical Edition of the Hebrew Bible, as well as his Introduction to the Massoretico-Critical Edition of the Hebrew Bible. Anyone interested in those? I also would like to scan in my ancient copy of Ginsburg's work on the Moabite Stone. At any rate, my participation on this would probably be limited to short bursts of scanning and posting them someplace on the internet so that others could download them. I also "own" the massorah.net domain name and have toyed with the idea of posting images there and/or running a forum tied to these works. I do not want this to get in the way of my personal studies, but I'm willing to give something a twirl if anyone else is interested. **EDIT - I should mention that the pages in Ginsburg's collation of the Massorah are in what is known as Elephantine Folio, which means that they are rather large. Edited October 19, 2015 by Michael Miles 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Helen Brown Posted October 20, 2015 Share Posted October 20, 2015 I just have to put in a plug for Prof. Aron Dotan's Masora Thesaurus, available only in Accordance. Admittedly it's based on the Leningrad Codex, but for ease of use and searchability there is nothing like it. This paper explains the value of the Masora to a variety of studies of the Hebrew Bible text: What is Masora and How Can it Serve the Biblical Scholar? by Prof. Aron Dotan: Notes from a Workshop at the 17th International Congress of IOMS in 2003 in Cambridge, UK. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Miles Posted October 20, 2015 Author Share Posted October 20, 2015 (edited) I just have to put in a plug for Prof. Aron Dotan's Masora Thesaurus, available only in Accordance. Admittedly it's based on the Leningrad Codex, but for ease of use and searchability there is nothing like it. This paper explains the value of the Masora to a variety of studies of the Hebrew Bible text: What is Masora and How Can it Serve the Biblical Scholar? by Prof. Aron Dotan: Notes from a Workshop at the 17th International Congress of IOMS in 2003 in Cambridge, UK. There is very great value to the Massorah and I wish that I had the time and skill set to draw more from it. I'm hopeful that after I retire this will become more of a reality. It is too bad that this great resource is generally passed over by even the very few that can readily gain and share the most from it. I have Hendrickson Publishers's Biblia Hebraica Leningradensia edited by Aron Dotan in my library, right next to Ginsburg's Massoretico-Critical Edition of the Hebrew Bible, along with Das Buch Ochlah W'ochlah and Massorah Magna by Frensdorff, All very interesting stuff. I'd like to get my hands on some of Dr. James Price's work on Hebrew accenting, and of course, the Accordance Masora Thesaurus module. Gerard Weil's original unfinished work on the Masora of the Leningrad Codex is also on my wish list. A bit of the corner of my library is filled with works on the Massorah. I'd like to take Ginsburg's notes from the Massoretico-Critical Edition of the Hebrew Bible and pair them with Rotherham's Emphasized Bible Old Testament and have those available in Accordance. Rotherham made extensive use of the Massorah in his Old Testament work, and it clearly shows. That Bible is one of the better English translations; at least the Old Testament portion of it (I cannot speak regarding the New Testament portion). Another often overlooked Bible Scholar that took the Massorah into very heavy use and consideration in his written works is E.W. Bullinger, who was a personal friend to Christian David Ginsburg. Bullinger's notes in The Companion Bible reflect knowledge gleaned from the Massorah and is another good work to have available for close reference in your print library. Folks with an interest in the Massorah may also wish to look at Introduction to the Tiberian Massorah by Israel Yelvin, The Masorah of Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia by Kelley, Mynatt, & Crawford, and The Sub-Loco Notes In The Torah of Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia by Mynatt. While you're at it, look for The Massoreth Hamassoreth of Elias Levita, by Ginsburg and Wickes' Two Treatises On The Accentuation Of the Old Testament. Professor Aron Dotan has been at this all for quite some time, having penned the Analytical Table of Contents and the List of Identified Sources and Parallels in the printed editions of Ginsburg's collation of the Massorah that KTAV Publishing House produced in the mid 1970s. I also have Professor Dotan's The Diqduqe Hatteamim of Ahron Ben Mose Ben Aser With the Critical Edition of the Original Text from New Manuscripts that he produced through The Academy of the Hebrew Language - Jerusalem 1967. Another interesting Hebrew scholar that did a neat translation into English is James Moffatt. His Old Testament is very eye opening. I like his work. It would be something nice to have in Accordance, along with maybe The Apocrypha translated by Edgar Goodspeed. My study material tastes run eclectic as do my findings when searching for Truth. When everyone else is going one way, I'm usually going the other way, and I'm very blessed for it. You know - the narrow gate and all that. Edited October 20, 2015 by Michael Miles 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Miles Posted October 24, 2015 Author Share Posted October 24, 2015 wow. No takers on this. Oh well, I can deal with that. It's good stuff and quite interesting material. I'll just go back to my cave then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Brylov Christensen Posted October 24, 2015 Share Posted October 24, 2015 I'd be very interested in reading more, but time is always an issue for me. That's the beauty of it, though - the sheer depth of Biblical studies. There's so much great stuff to choose from to the point of it being completely overwhelming. Even if we had several lives to spend, there's no way we'd be able to cover everything. As for me, I've spent a good deal of years learning a bunch of (mostly) Semitic languages in order to properly access the content in Ancient Near Eastern texts related to The Hebrew Bible. Eventually, I would just read the texts for the sake of comparative philology, which I've been doing ever since. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Miles Posted October 24, 2015 Author Share Posted October 24, 2015 I'd be very interested in reading more, but time is always an issue for me. That's the beauty of it, though - the sheer depth of Biblical studies. There's so much great stuff to choose from to the point of it being completely overwhelming. Even if we had several lives to spend, there's no way we'd be able to cover everything. As for me, I've spent a good deal of years learning a bunch of (mostly) Semitic languages in order to properly access the content in Ancient Near Eastern texts related to The Hebrew Bible. Eventually, I would just read the texts for the sake of comparative philology, which I've been doing ever since. I wish that I had the depth of background in the Hebrew language that you have, but I work on it on my own (sort of) from time to time as I have an overwhelming unction that there are points brought out that few people ever see. I have been able to have a few doors of understanding opened to me via this course that I would have completely missed had I not at least scraped up a bit of background. I work in a very physical environment that requires a pretty large skill set and has, over the decades, cost me a lot of time spent at this type of physical work, thus keeping me away largely from this Hebrew study. My retirement looms and I hope to be able to follow through on learning more about this; this being both Hebrew and the Massorah, which serves to lock in the meaning of the Hebrew text. I was just minding my own business one day and had not a care at all about this and related subjects, but that was changed rather suddenly and radically. Since you have the back ground to appreciate the contents, I went ahead and took a google trip and lo, I found the actual volume 1 of Ginsburg's 4 volume collation on the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/stream/MassorahMassorethMassoretic/01.p1.MassoraCompMSS.ALA..Alef.Yod.Ginsburg.1880.#page/n0/mode/2up Here are others that I just stumbled across: https://archive.org/details/MassorahMassorethMassoretic Here is a link to another work by Ginsburg that covers work by another older scholar on the subject: https://archive.org/details/themassorethhama00ashuuoft And here is a short essay that was published by the Trinitarian Bible Society on the subject that is much easier to digest for English readers: https://archive.org/details/massorahmassoret00trin And Ginsburg's Introduction to the Massoretico-Critical Edition of the Hebrew Bible: https://archive.org/details/IntroductionToMassoretico-criticalHebrewBibleByChristianD.Ginsburg.1897 I have these volumes all in print here. If this subject turns out to be of interest to you and some of these resources are not legible, please feel free to PM me and I'll see what I can do about photographing or scanning pages that you'd like to look at more clearly. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Brylov Christensen Posted October 24, 2015 Share Posted October 24, 2015 Thanks for finding all these resources, Miles! I'll make sure to check them out. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Hegg Posted October 25, 2015 Share Posted October 25, 2015 Michael, I have the 4 volume Ginsburg already scanned if you're interested. I also have a bunch of other Masorah things in pdf format. My email is: thegg@torahresource.com 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Miles Posted October 25, 2015 Author Share Posted October 25, 2015 Michael, I have the 4 volume Ginsburg already scanned if you're interested. I also have a bunch of other Masorah things in pdf format. My email is: thegg@torahresource.com Oh yes, I am interested. I'll be sending you an email straight away. Thank you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian K. Mitchell Posted November 15, 2015 Share Posted November 15, 2015 I just have to put in a plug for Prof. Aron Dotan's Masora Thesaurus, available only in Accordance. Admittedly it's based on the Leningrad Codex, but for ease of use and searchability there is nothing like it... I 2nd what Helen Brown said above! I will add that since most (not all) English translation of the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible are based on the Leningrad Codex the value of the Masora Thesaurus must not be underestimated. In addition to that, this is the first time that an electronic database of the unedited Masora of the Leningrad Codex has been made available to the public. Accordance also has the images of the Leningrad Codex which also include images of the Masora, too. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Miles Posted November 15, 2015 Author Share Posted November 15, 2015 I 2nd what Helen Brown said above! I will add that since most (not all) English translation of the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible are based on the Leningrad Codex the value of the Masora Thesaurus must not be underestimated. In addition to that, this is the first time that an electronic database of the unedited Masora of the Leningrad Codex has been made available to the public. Accordance also has the images of the Leningrad Codex which also include images of the Masora, too. I'm waiting for the next sale. I have to turn wrenches for a living and all that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theblackbluejay Posted November 18, 2015 Share Posted November 18, 2015 Hi Michael, Thanks for the post. I have wanted to get into Masorah Studies for a fe years now, and would welcome any resources to approach it. It is an area that very few biblical scholars have any real familiarity in or expertise with. And the Masorah Thesaurus is on my Accordance wishlist. +1! David 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michel Gilbert Posted November 18, 2015 Share Posted November 18, 2015 Hi, If any of you are interested in Introduction to the Tiberian Masorah, please register your vote/approval at http://www.accordancebible.com/forums/topic/17263-introduction-to-the-tiberian-masorah/?do=findComment&comment=83502 . I'd love to have an electronic edition of it. Regards, Michel 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Miles Posted November 19, 2015 Author Share Posted November 19, 2015 Hi Michael, Thanks for the post. I have wanted to get into Masorah Studies for a fe years now, and would welcome any resources to approach it. It is an area that very few biblical scholars have any real familiarity in or expertise with. And the Masorah Thesaurus is on my Accordance wishlist. +1! David I probably ought to set up a server with that massorah.net domain and just park a pile of downloadable resources and make them available for anyone that is interested. I was of the mind to put a forum up there for discussion of the Massorah, but my plate is full with studies that I'm spiritually pushed to work on. I have a long weekend coming up at Thanksgiving, so I should be able to do that then and I'll let you know here when it's up. It will probably be very plain, so don't expect much in the way of elaborate visuals. Maybe links on a plain white html page. The Masorah Thesaurus is on my wish list as well. It would be interesting to look at what Codex Leningradensis has in the way of notation using an electronic resource. I think that the Massorah holds a lot of truth that has largely been bypassed as not too many people know that its use boils down to keeping the meaning of certain things in the Old Testament locked down more so than the Hebrew/Aramaic text indicates on it's own. I delve into it from time to time. If I recollect correctly, the Massorah indicates that Esdras as was canonized is without parts that should be included. Don't quote me on that, as I'd have to go back a ways to check myself. I'm probably going to be going through things in my studies of the "gap theory" that indicates a gap of time between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2, where a previous age existed. There are lots of interesting things to look at in the Massorah. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theblackbluejay Posted November 19, 2015 Share Posted November 19, 2015 Thanks, Michael. I'd be interested in looking at whatever materials you are able to post. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Miles Posted November 20, 2015 Author Share Posted November 20, 2015 Thanks, Michael. I'd be interested in looking at whatever materials you are able to post. It's coming. I started setting up some of the server internals last night. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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