"but their letters differ in form, and the use of points"
Even under the assumption that points means nekudot, the statement could simply mean that Jews use them and Samaritans don't, or that they each invented their own system at a much later date, or that Samaritans adopted the Tiberian one at a much later date.
Here is the Latin:
Primus apud eos liber vocatur Bresith, quem nos Genesim dicimus; secundus Hellesmoth, qui Exodus appellatur; tertius Vaiecra, id est Leviticus; quartus Vaiedabber, quem Numeros vocamus; quintus Addabarim, qui Deuteronomium praenotatur. Hii sunt quinque libri Mosi, quos proprie Thorath, id est Legem appellant.
Secundum Prophetarum ordinem faciunt, et incipiunt ab Iesu filio Nave, qui apud eos Iosue Bennum dicitur. Deinde subtexunt Sopthim, id est Iudicum librum; et in eundem conpingunt Ruth, quia in diebus Iudicum facta narratur historia. Tertius sequitur Samuhel, quem nos Regnorum primum et secundum dicimus. Quartus Malachim, id est Regum, qui tertio et quarto Regnorum volumine continetur; meliusque multo est Malachim, id est Regum, quam Malachoth, id est Regnorum dicere, non enim multarum gentium regna describit, sed unius israhelitici populi qui tribubus duodecim continetur. Quintus est Esaias, sextus Hieremias, septimus Hiezecihel, octavus liber duodecim Prophetarum, qui apud illos vocatur Thareasra.
Tertius ordo αγιογραφα possidet, et primus liber incipit ab Iob, secundus a David, quem quinque incisionibus et uno Psalmorum volumine conprehendunt. Tertius est Salomon, tres libros habens: Proverbia, quae illi Parabolas, id est Masaloth appellant, et Ecclesiasten, id est Accoeleth, et Canticum canticorum, quem titulo Sirassirim praenotant. Sextus est Danihel, septimus Dabreiamin, id est Verba dierum, quod significantius χρονικον totius divinae historiae possumus appellare, qui liber apud nos Paralipomenon primus et secundus scribitur; octavus Ezras, qui et ipse similiter apud Graecos et Latinos in duos libros divisus est, nonus Hester.
Thanks R Berel.
Also, check this out:
http://www.sacredbible.org/vulga...2-
Praefatio.jpg
>Even under the assumption that points means nekudot, the statement could simply mean that Jews use them and Samaritans don't
Yes, that is the peshat. The trouble is that the nekkudot probably didn't exist at the time of Jerome. This became an involved debate between Protestants and Catholics, and someone like Jerome was used as evidence.
See
http://englishhebraica.blogspot....out-
points.html
and
http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%202%
2...0Rabinowitz.pdf
S.,
I'd like to clarify that there are many versions of the Vulgate out there and I just copied from one that is available online which I had bookmarked. I do not know which edition it is, and I don't know how reliable it is. That said, it's probably one step closer than the translation that you used.
Thanks, I got that.
An interesting one:
Hellesmoth
rather than
veHellesmoth
The first would make make a good nickname, though.
Josh,
In Breishis Rabbah (Parsha 3, Parsha 64 and possibly other places) the sefer is refered to as Eleh Shmos and not VeEleh Shmos.
(See the Theodor - Albeck edition. The Vilna edition reads VeEleh Shmos.)
S
you forgot"Esaias" in ur list
-mivami
Thx!
Do you own a copy of Pantographia?
A reprint from 1983.
I liked the Dan Rabinowitz piece. I wasn't aware that questioning the Sinaitic origin of nekudot was such a radical position among Orthodox Jews.
It isn't necessarily today (except in certain predictable circles; in part this is because all the traditional sources accord with this view, at least theoretically, and in part it's because Kabbalah darshens the nekkudot, and Kabbalah purports to be mi-Sinai).
But it must be clear: until 500 years ago all Jews (and many Christians) thought that they were either Sinaitic or from Ezra. And until 200 years ago essentially all Jews stayed with this position, the sole exception being R Eliyah Bahur (Elias Levita). Even Mendelssohn, being well aware of modern scholarship (of his time) affirmed--emphatically--that they were of Sinaitic origin.
apicibus is dative/ablative plural of apex, which means "point" as in "the tip of a branch", not as in "isolated dots". He's talking about the square heads of the letters (which is probably what Rovo means when he speaks of זיונין).
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