ah... brings me back to Dr. Leiman's Intro to Bible class in Revel.
IIRC, he also connected it to the bracha in the haftara about "neeman"
my own chiddush on this - if indeed the nun is encompassed in the subsequent pasuk (for somech is the next pasuk), then what we have is the fairly regular assimilation of nun.
;)
I once read a short article by Freehof where ,in his retroversion of the LXX's version, he used the word "hasid" (if I remember correctly). Not terribly important; I don't think he was an expert in ancient Greek (or in Talmudic Aramaic; but that's another story).
Nice post. I personally think the LXX and 11QPs-a are secondary additions in order to "fix" the acrostic "mistake." Though it certainly could have dropped out due to parablepsis. A difficult decision either way.
This doesn't exactly answer your question, but for what it's worth, I remember learning somewhere (Anchor Bible on Psalms?) that it was very common for "ba'alei-acrostic" to leave out letters here and there in the sequence, for "poetic effect" (as you mention), as well as simply for variety and to show off their chops.
On abecedarian passages in the Bible, see http://www.dailyhebrew.com/index...ex.php/2005/11/
He mentions other passages that skip letters. (Also make sure to follow his link to the Forward for a great article.)
All respect to R. Carmy, but I'm afraid that I don't understand what he's talking about: there is nothing lacking in stanza 6 of Auden's poem - you can check it out for yourself. The stanzas ALL (incl. 6) have 3 beats of seven syllables in total to the line and follow the pattern ABCBAC DD EFEF. There is no exception.
Yeah well, none of you here would happen to know anything about the נ that was hacked out of my name on my website tonight would you? (which BTW, I fixed)
:(
BS"D
Hey, this was an excellent post - thanks! I only knew about the whole n-f-l issue, but not any of the rest. I love nerding out on your blog, Mississippi Fred!
:)
>All respect to R. Carmy, but I'm afraid that I don't understand what he's talking about: there is nothing lacking in stanza 6 of Auden's poem - you can check it out for yourself. The stanzas ALL (incl. 6) have 3 beats of seven syllables in total to the line and follow the pattern ABCBAC DD EFEF. There is no exception.
Rabbi Carmy...reports the following: The line "Even to have been allowed" (found on the online version of this poem) does not appear in the print version of Auden’s Atlantis. Thus, it is as Rabbi Carmy wrote, "line 7 of stanza 6 does not exist."
>my own chiddush on this - if indeed the nun is encompassed in the subsequent pasuk (for somech is the next pasuk), then what we have is the fairly regular assimilation of nun.
Nice :)
>I once read a short article by Freehof where ,in his retroversion of the LXX's version, he used the word "hasid" (if I remember correctly). Not terribly important; I don't think he was an expert in ancient Greek (or in Talmudic Aramaic; but that's another story).
I think qodesh is always translated as hosios in the Septuagint.
However, after poking around a bit I saw the following:
>We see another Greek word translated "holy" in Revelation 15:4. It is Strong’s #3741, hosios. Strong’s Greek Dictionary defines it as "properly right (by intrinsic or divine character), i.e. hallowed (pious, sacred, sure)." The New American Standard Concordance defines hosios as "righteous, pious, or holy." Vine’s Expository Dictionary defines hosios as "signifying religiously right, or holy, as opposed to what is unrighteous or polluted. It is commonly associated with righteousness."
I also checked and saw that the LXX translates 'hasid' as hosios as well. Which means that translating the LXX into English has pitfalls, dontcha think?
So in this case, the LXX does not attest to a Hebrew that said holy rather than gracious for hasid.
what is the qumranic text? Is it clearly one of the sectarian documents or is it a more "mainstream" text that was just deposited there?
I'm not sure what you mean by that. I guess you mean what we would regard as a masoretic text?
Since is Tehillim, one could say that its "mainstream," in that all Jews had Tehillim in their canon.
On the other hand, it has a nun verse, and our text doesn't.
In addition, the tetragrammaton is written in paleo-Hebrew script, which is something found fairly often at Qumran, but not a scribal practice mentioned in rabbinic literature. On the other hand, there are oddball scribal practices mentioned in rabbinic literature without anyone getting bent out of shape about them, even if they are rejected (e.g., writing the shem havayah with gold letters). So our concept of mainstream, meaning what we've got now, may be inappropriate to project back into the past.
Also, this seems to be a liturgical text, rather than a real scroll of Tehillim, because in between each verse is the sentence "Barukh YHWH u-barukh shemo le'olam va-ed," which would seem to indicate that this was maybe meant for call and response in prayer.
BTW, there is no evidence which text type was "mainstream" during the period in question. On the contrary, evidence indicates that the concept of a solitary text as a necessity may not have been prevalent for all Jews, although one finds increasing concern for it in rabbinic literature as it moves chronologically.
What I mean by sectarian vs. "mainstream" is texts that were widely available as opposed to unique to the Qumran sect. There are documents clearly identified as sectarian, such as the various Peshers and the wars of the sons of light vs. the sons of darkness and that stuff, (Scroll of Discipline, also, IIRC).
If it's liturgical, it could be several things that weaken its relevance. First, it could be sectarian, and thus a later interpolation (although the LXX cuts against that somewhat). Second, since it's liturgical, it could be like the various piyyutim that mimic Scriptural texts but deviate from them somewhat.
Or, it's an early textual witness to a legitimate variation. Who knows? I'm just a dabbler, not an expert. And my greek is limited to the alphabet which I learned for my fraternity.
>What I mean by sectarian vs. "mainstream" is texts that were widely available as opposed to unique to the Qumran sect. There are documents clearly identified as sectarian, such as the various Peshers and the wars of the sons of light vs. the sons of darkness and that stuff, (Scroll of Discipline, also, IIRC).
Right, but those are their own internal documents, as opposed to things from the Biblical canon shared by all. By definition biblical texts are different from their own midrashim or whatever.
>If it's liturgical, it could be several things that weaken its relevance. First, it could be sectarian, and thus a later interpolation (although the LXX cuts against that somewhat). Second, since it's liturgical, it could be like the various piyyutim that mimic Scriptural texts but deviate from them somewhat.
In and of itself, its relevence is weakened if its liturgical. I agree with you.
>Or, it's an early textual witness to a legitimate variation. Who knows?
Right. The idea is to deal with what we've got and try our best with it.
>I'm just a dabbler, not an expert.
Mr. Dabbler, meet Mr. Dabbler!
> And my greek is limited to the alphabet which I learned for my fraternity.
LOL
On the topic of BIN nun, the Chatam Sofer writes that when moshe changed his name from Hoshea to Yehoshua, there was no nekudot for the yod in yehoshua. so he borrowed two dots from the BEN, to make Ye for Yehoshua, which left only BIN with the one dot left over for a chirik. Of course, his is called Hoshea bin Nun even without the added yod, so I don't know what in the world the Chatam Sofer ever meant to say over here even on his own terms. But that's what he says.
Thanks. I heard that explanation, but I didn't realize the Chasam Sofer said it. In my post I plan to present some options in terms of derash (ala this one) as well as some grammatical/ linguistic possibilites.
>Mr. Dabbler, meet Mr. Dabbler!
"I'd love to be a Civil War buff. What do you have to do to be a buff?"
"So Biff wants to be a buff?"
"Well, sleeping less than eighteen hours a day would be a start"
George and Jerry:"The Boyfriend"
S.,
Seriously, though, please tell me that you are not just doing all this in spare time. Are you
a) graduate student
b) professor
c) wealthy industrialist
d) Indiana Jones
I'm guessing c & d.
And he's an alum of Slobodka. With a master's from Harvard Div.
Freehof's article is in "Threescore and ten" in honor of Seymour cohen. He uses the Vulgate as well.
don't do it again
Thanks, Anonymous: I'll take your word for it.
For the record, my printed version is the same as the online version, but I'm prepared to believe that R. Carmy had seen a printed version that differed from my own.
some other blog dealt with Carmy's peshat already. The copy in the YU library was missing the line, and Carmy
interpreted the lacuna as needed for poetic effect.
If i'm not jumping the gun (sickle-sword?) on this one, i'm going to put out a theory on Yehoshua‘ bin Nun — it's working like a geminated nun (binnun), as opposed to two separate words.
Three variants of "heart":
lęv = regular
lev = semikhut
libb- = with suffix
Parallel for "son":
bęn = regular
ben = semikhut
*binn- = in "Binnun".
Steg, that's a pretty neat suggestion: we see the word for son behaving in precisely that manner when it takes a suffix (binkha). The reason for that would be that the etymology of the word is akin to the Arabic ibn (with a sheva under the bet). As a sheva is technically an i-class vowel, it lengthens to a hireq when it can no longer sustain itself (as in binkha) but remains a sheva when it can (as in bni or bnei - sorry about my lack of fonts).
What are you suggesting, however, about the nunation at the end of the word? Certainly not a regular suffix in Hebrew, although it can sometimes serve to nominalise a verb (cf, for example, modern Israeli qenyon or khenyon for shopping centre and car-park respectively). If that were the case, then bin-nun wouldn't actually be a patronymic at all, but a designation of profession or something. A builder?
Any chance that Auden got his clever idea from Psalm 145?
Has anyone had bright idea of going to a good university library (YU?) and checking the various versions of Auden's poems and the scholarship on the subject. I am away right now, but intend to do just that when I reurn to Montreal. If I remember correctly, Auden revised his poems extensively, but before I would say anything at all substantive, I would check the scholarship on the suject. Why would we never dream about making textual pronouncements about Tankah and Talmud off the cuff, but figure it's OK to do so for English literature?
I forgot to mention that Freehof points out that this verse is missing a number in the LXX, perhaps lending credence to the theory that it was added later.
So too in the Vulgate, Andy. Actually, there are two major versions of the Vulgate: a translation from the Septuagint (an older Latin translation) and a newer one (under Jerome, presumably) from the Hebrew. The one from the Hebrew has a nun verse, the one from the Septuagint doesn't. The one from the Septuagint also doesn't have a verse number.
Remember, however, that verse numbers were added considerably later than the writing of the text, so there may be other reasons for this (like an attempt to bring the verses in line with the new Latin translation, for example).
Simon- I believe that F. makes the latter point as well (though I don't recall him distinguishing between the two versions of the Vulgate).
I think "bin" is used elsewhere- check a concordance.
Bear in mind that most acrostics in Tanach are lacking something. The only "straight" ones are the first perek in Eicha and the last in Mishlei. Those in Tehillim are lacking, or halves, or doubles, or eight-fold.
I remember R' Mendel Blachman (of KBY) once gave a whole drasha on the missing "yud" at an NCSY National Convention. Those of us advisors (three of us) who had just taken Dead Sea Scrolls with Dr. Bernstein asked him about the Qumran text. His reply, basically, was "Perhaps David *did* write it. But the text of Tanach was set by Chazal [or the Masoretes??- NL], not the original authors." Quite an admission.
Note that the Qumran text adds a refrain, and is, as you point out, not a book of Psalms but prayers.
Can you give me an example, Nachum, of other Biblical acrostics which are also missing a letter? And as for other, so-called, 'abecedarian' acrostics, you're missing chapters 2, 3 and 4 of Lamentations. Just because the ayin and the peh are switched doesn't stop them from representing the whole alphabet.
Incidentally, the ayin and peh are also switched in the Qumran versions of Lamentations, and some have speculated that this represents an original order to the Hebrew alphabet, prior to the adoption of the Phoenician/Ugaritic order.
I know about Eicha (and Qumran, and others)- I meant perfect for our purposes.
In any event, "vav" is missing in a few acrostics, although you can claim that it's the second half of "heh." I'm not sure exactly where, but there are other missing or doubled letters (Podeh Hashem Nefesh Avadav, for example). There are only about ten in Tanach.
S.: Nice post! I visited the kever of Yehoshua bin Nun this past Thursday night in Timnat Chares, as well as that of Nun! Pictures and post forthcoming...
Steg-Clever suggestion, but as far as I remember there is non daghesh in the suffix form (binkha). Also-isn't this closer to semikhut? Still, I like it-if there is other evidence, that would be exciting.
Another problem though-why libbo but beno?
Male Repellent:
I'm not saying that this is normal, i'm saying that it's irregular. bin Nun being 'reanalyzed' (at least as far as phonetic production goes) according to the parallel of libbo, so binnun.
Male Repellent, divide the word up into its composite syllables and you will see. Libbo has a closed syllable (lamed bet) followed by an open syllable (bet with a long vowel). For that reason, the first syllable cannot take a shewa. In the case of beno, both syllables are open and the first *can* take a shewa. Seeing as the shewa is the etymologically correct vowel (as the word derives from something akin to the Arabic ibn), it remains. In a word like binkha (your son), the first syllable is closed and so the shewa simply turns into another i-class vowel. It was my understanding of what Steg said that this is the same phenomenon occurring with bin-nun.
For the record, yes this is very much like semikhut. In fact it is exactly the same thing: when you add a suffix to a word, the word goes into semikhut with that suffix. If you were parsing the word beno you would note that 'ben' was in the construct state.
What was your objection regarding the dagesh?
אמר רבי יוחנן מפני מה לא נאמר נו"ן באשרי מפני שיש בה מפלתן של שונאי ישראל דכתיב (עמוס ה) נפלה לא תוסיף קום בתולת ישראל במערבא מתרצי לה הכי נפלה ולא תוסיף לנפול עוד קום בתולת ישראל אמר רב נחמן בר יצחק אפילו הכי חזר דוד וסמכן ברוח הקדש שנא' סומך ה' לכל הנופלים:
מסכת ברכות דף ד ע"ב
IMHO, the line is too close to the tzadi one, and doesn't fit the pattern. In other pesuqim, there is an overlap of topic from the end of one verse to the beginning of the next. E.g. "ukhvod hadar malkhuso. Malkhusekha..." "ve'ata nosein lahem es okhlam be'ito. Posi'ach es yadekha..." etc...
Chazal's idea that the nun verse would speak of nefilah (downfalling) as a lead-in to "Someikh Hashem lekhol hanofelim" (G-d is a Support for all the fallen) seems compelling structurally.
Simon-I don't understand your second paragraph-ben (with a seghol) is the construct state (and I never heard of a seghol changing to a shewa). As far as the first paragraph, yes-but it relates to my issue about the daghesh-libb has a daghesh hazaq but bin does not-Why? This might suggest a different pattern. Steg-You may be right-I don't know-I was just pointing out where it does not add up so I would like to see if there is more evidence so you can prove it. You are right that those may be irregularities, but I need to see more instances to show that.
But Steg-yesterday an exciting thought occurred to me at the end of sh'moneh esreh (I am ashamed to admit)-it works with bi(n)t-so maybe-we do say bitto-exactly like libbo!!!
Moish-You copied the gemara S brought (and translated) in the post. I often say something in a comment only to find someone else said it in the first comment.
Steg-So if you are right, ben is just degeminated.
Male Repellant, you are right when you say that the regular form of 'ben' in construct is 'ben', but it is not the only form as the suffix examples would testify. And what is so strange about a seghol being reduced to a shewa? It happens all the time! What happens to the seghol on shofet when it takes a plural? Or the seghol in lebab when it becomes lebabot? As the seghol is an i-class vowel, there is also nothing particularly untoward about it becoming a khireq instead.
Yehoshua bin-Nun, incidentally, is not the only person to have this form in his name. Pr 30:1 is attributed to 'Agur bin-Yaqeh - and what about the ubiquitous Binyamin? There are enough examples of this form to indicate that it is not so bizarre an irregularity and comes down to reasonably simple phonetic rules.
Aren't those examples zeres? Also-can you prove from suffix examples what other construct forms are-where else can we do that (for instance, is shim a construct of shem?) I don't know what an i-class vowel is or what Pr is. Thanks.
Sorry. "Pr" is Proverbs. As for vowels, they are divided into three classes: a-class, i-class and o-class. Within each you have long and short vowels. Long i-class vowels are the tzere, as well as diphthongs (add a heh or a yodh to either the tzere or the to one of the short vowels). The short i-class vowels are the seghol and the khireq.
Suffix-forms are a type of construct, although certainly not the only one. I think the point here is that bin-nun happens to be this type. And ben has a tzere too, incidentally.
Yes-ben in absolute form. I see the point-but first, I am not so convinced simply because they are both i-class. In general, the seghol does not change into a shewa. Also-I would guess Steg is trying to say the nun is geminated in a way when we have bin-Nun (but I found another example before a lamedh.) I think there is something to it but I still feel something is missing (maybe a daghesh!).
In the Qumran says ne'eman elohim be-khol derakhav. not adonay.
The last comment led me to think... as far as I can see, it seems that's the only pasuk here in the qumran version of Tehillim 145 that uses "elohainu" alone w/out YHWH. In other words, it doesn't follow the "blank-YHWH-blank" format of the pesukim that mention God by name. That and the fact that its words are so similar to the Tzade pasuk make it suspicious to me. Maybe it was lost in stages. Perhaps the original wording was confused, then eventually dropped altogether.
One also should note other anomalies in the 11QPs-a text, such as the second acrostic verse beginning "ברוך יום אברככה" which certainly makes less sense than "בכל יום". And the error in writing the tetragrammaton in the first verse, which has been duly marked for deletion. I don't know whether these can provide remark on the scroll's (lack of) integrity.
You say "As it turns out, at Qumran a Hebrew version of tehillim, Psalms, was found (11QPs-a) which contains a nun verse--in Hebrew--a version pretty close, but not identical, with the Septuagint verse. In fact, it read ne'eman adonay be-khol derakhav ve-hasid be-khol ma'asav"
In fact if you have a look at the photograph of the scroll it actually says 'neeman eloheinu bedevarav"
I may have an idea why the nun is missing. its becuase the collators of the psalms knew the true meaning of that verse and they wanted it hidden. in the end of days a great portion of israel will fall spiritually and physically. the true horror is so beyond comprehension that it was left out.
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