Textual Criticism

As for Zillah, she bore Tubal-Cain, who forged every tool of copper and iron.  And the sister of Tubal-Cain was Naamah.  Genesis 4:22  Robert Alter

Who forged – Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan offers the following translation of the phrase in this text: “a maker of all copper and iron implements,” but he notes that the Targum renders “who sharpened everything that cuts copper and iron.”  Robert Alter translates “who forged every tool of copper and iron,” close to the translation of the JPS, “who forged all implements of copper and iron.”  But the problem is that all of these are guesses.  Consider the technical note of Ronald Hendel:

The least degree of certainty obtains where a textual problem is detectable but a clear solution not ascertainable. Genesis 4:22 is a good example, where the sequence תובל קין לטש כל חרש yields no sense. The translations, ancient and modern, attempt to make some sense of the verse, generally drawing on the preceding expressions of occupation for Tubal-Cain’s brothers (vv 20-21), each introduced by הוא היה אבי or הוא היה אבי כל (see §3.2). There lacks, however, a cogent text-critical argument for reconstructing the archetype. In this class of textual situations, the textual critic may propose or adopt a “diagnostic conjecture” (Maas 1958: 53 54; West 1973: 58). A diagnostic conjecture is an educated guess, sometimes no more than a filler or place-marker for a corrupt text.[1]

In other words, none the extant Hebrew texts offers a solution for determining what the original might have been.  Every translation is the translator’s best guess.

You might say to yourself, “Well, what’s the big deal?  This is just a small phrase, really of no special significance.  Does it make any difference that we don’t know exactly what the Genesis text says about Tubal-Cain?”  And you’d be right—if all you’re interested in are the major doctrines and themes.  But this example points to a deeper problem.  You see, it’s not the only one.  There are other passages throughout the Hebrew Bible where the actual Hebrew doesn’t make sense, where translators have to “fill in the gaps” as best they can.  Most of the time these occurrences aren’t particularly theologically significant, but the fact that they exist at all raises a much bigger problem.  Does your English Bible tell you that the translation is a “best guess”?  Probably not.  You grew up thinking that the Bible was the one book you could count on to be correct.  Why?  Because God guided the authors.  But now you realize that even if God did guide them, some texts are lost, some are so mangled that we don’t know what they say, and some are just linguistically and grammatically so confusing that we’re lost.

In other words, the idea that God superintended the Bible so that we got just what He wanted isn’t supported by the text itself.  God seems to have forgotten to take charge in every case.  Or maybe the idea of divine supervision is a doctrine, not subject to textual evidence.  And if that’s the case, then we’ll have to abandon the concept that the Bible is “guaranteed accurate.”  We’ll have to deal with a collection of material that has both human and divine signatures, and that has undergone the same transmission problems of all ancient literature.  We have to do the best we can with what we’ve got—and stop pining for a perfect world.

Topical Index:  textual criticism, corrupt texts, translation, Ronald Hendel, Genesis 4:22

[1] Ronald S. Hendel, The Text of Genesis 1-11: Textual Studies and Critical Edition (Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 9.