Text and Tradition

It came about when the priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord had come up from the middle of the Jordan, and the soles of the priests’ feet were lifted up to the dry ground, that the waters of the Jordan returned to their place, and went over all its banks as before.  Joshua 4:18  NASB

When – It might seem like a trivial problem.  “What?” you say.  “Oh, yes, the fact that in the Hebrew Bible some words are written one way but read another way.”  “That’s odd,” you say, “but does it really matter?  We still get the meaning, right?”

Well, maybe.  What this really means is that the reading of the text has influence on the writing of the text, not the other way around, as we would have guessed.

This problem, inherent to script and the written transmission of documents in general as mentioned before, seems to have been even more grave with regard to the Hebrew Bible. The reason is that the Hebrew script is not able to record vowels, with the exception of the so-called vowel letters (matres lectionis), although the distinctiveness of a certain vocalization may carry important semantic information.  As a result, the Hebrew Bible contains in fact a large number of words with different meaning, which had been homographs before the invention of the masoretic pointing.

In light of the high importance of the reading, it is of course a very problematic fact that the reading was not always part of the written transmission of the biblical text. It was only after the invention of masoretic punctuation, apparently in the sixth–seventh centuries CE, that the reading became codified within the written tradition.[1]

This verse in Joshua is an example.  Notice that the highlighted word (in red) is not pointed.  That’s because this is the way the scroll is written, but the next word is the way the scroll is read, and to read the text I need the vowel pointing. This implies that before the Masoretes added the vowel pointing (standardizing the text), the worshipping community could have read the word differently.  In fact, in this case you will notice that it isn’t just the vowel pointing that changes the word.  The written word is spelled differently than the spoken word.  The written word begins with a bet while the spoken word begins with a kaf.

וַיְהִי בעלות (כַּעֲלוֹת) הַכֹּהֲנִים נֹשְׂאֵי

Now look at the same verse in the common Hebrew Bible used for English translations:

Did you notice that this text ignores the fact that the written word is different than the spoken word?  In this version, the only word in the text is the written one with the addition of vowel pointing.  But that’s not the way the scroll is written.  This version of the Hebrew Bible acts as if there is no difference between the tradition and the text while every Jew who reads from a scroll knows that there is a difference.  The producers of this Hebrew text simply disregard the spoken tradition.  As Schorch points out, this tendency to ignore the spoken word leaves us with a text based on Masoretic interpretation.  We write and read what the Masoretes gave us, without the flexibility of the original scrolls or the interpretation of the vocal communities.

And here’s the best part.  You would never know.  No one told you there was any problem here.

Furthermore, even Jewish commentators who are well aware of these differences are often at a loss to explain why they exist.  What is the reason we say ka-alot when the text is ba-alot?  What is the difference between the two prefixed prepositions?  And if there really isn’t any difference in the meaning, then why is there a tradition that does not vocalize what is written?

So, what’s the difference?  Well, with a kaf the verse is “as they came up” but with the bet it’s “when they came up.”  Not a big deal, right?  But if it’s not a big deal, why is there a difference between the written and the spoken?  Ah, it’s all so mysterious, isn’t it?  But, then, did you really want a sacred, holy document from God that read as easily as a comic book?

Topical Index:  qere ketiv,  read, written, when, ba-alot, ka-alot, when, Joshua 4:18

[1] Stefan Schorch, “Dissimilatory reading and the making of Biblical texts: the Jewish Pentateuch and the Samaritan Pentateuch”, in Raymond F. Person, Jr. and Robert Rezetko (eds.), Empirical Models Challenging Biblical Criticism (SBL Press, 2016), p. 113.