The Isaiah Scroll DSIa and the Greek
Transliterations of Hebrew ^
By Einab Bbonno, Visrslev (Denmark)
In what foUows I shaU try to draw some conclusions from a linguistic
comparison — at certain points — between the Isaiah Scroll DSIa and
the second column of Oeigen's Hexapla, the Secunda^, at the same time
occasionally referring to the Septuagint*.
Oeigen's second column, fragments of which are preserved in those
Psalm texts, which were found by Cardinal Meecati in a Milan Palimpsest
and which show us the text of the Hebrew Bible written in the Greek
alphabet, was — as is well-known — written in the years between 232
and 254 C. E. , and the Hebrew-Greek text used by Oeigen in his Hexapla,
probably came into existence before the year 200 C. E. Consequently,
when the most usual view of the age of the great Isaiah Scroll holds good,
there should be no long distance in time between the two texts, and thus
a comparison should not be without interest.
In the comparison between the Isaiah Scroll and the Secunda the
greatest interest attaches to the vocalism. Sometimes it has been main¬
tained that the vowel quantity in the Secunda is questionable*. The facts,
however, look different: As a parallel to sere the Secunda in 139 cases
has an eia. In all these cases the Tiberian sere is generally viewed as long.
The morphological parallel to a short sere is an epsilon, and as a parallel
• Paper read at the 23rd International Congress of Orientalists, Cambridge,
August 26th, 1954. Some notes are added. For friendly correction of the
English language of the original manuscript I am greatly indebted to the
Rev. Dr. J. A. Emekton, Lecturer in Hebrew in the University of Dmham.
- Cf. my Stvdien über hebräische Morphologie und Vokalismus auf Grund¬
lage der Mercatischen Fraginente der zweiten Kolmnne der Hexapla des Origenes
(Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, edited by the Deutsche
Morgenländiscbe Gesellschaft, vol. XXVIII, Leipzig 1943) and my paper
Zu den Theorien Paul Kahles von der Entstehung der tiberischen Grammatik
(ZDMG 100, 2, 1951, pp. 521—65).
" Cf . my papers Some nominal types in the Septuagint (Classica ot Mediaevalia
III, 2, 1940, pp. 180—213) and Einige Namentypen der Septuaginta (Acta
Orientalia XIX, 1941, pp. 33—64), cf. also the paper from the ZDMG cited
above.
* Cf., for instance, Alexander Sperber, Hebrew based upon Greek and
Latin transliterations, Cincinnati 1937—38 (Hebrew Union College Annual,
vol. XII—XIII), p. 135.
The Isaiah Scroll DSIa and the Greek Transliterations of Hebrew 253
to the seghol both epsilon and alpha occur, but in such a way that in each
morphological group either alpha or epsilon appear — corresponding to
the different origin of the Tiberian as-sound, the seghol. With the o-vowels the matter is quite the same.
Even if the Isaiah Scroll shows us a consonantal text without vocali¬
zation, the use of matres lectionis gives us important information with
regard to the vocalism.
As is well-known, it is characteristic of the Isaiah Scroll that it uses
matres lectionis to a much larger extent than does the MT, even if the
view, sometimes maintained, that the MT offers a text essentially de¬
fectively written, docs not hold good"^. In contrast to the waiv the use of the
yodh as mater lectionis is not much more frequent in the Isaiah ScroU
than in the MT.
It is true that in the Isaiah Scroll there is — as shown by Professor
Kahxe — a clear difference between the first half (Chapters I —33) and
the second half (Chapters 34—66), but also in the first half the use of
waw as a mater lectioriis is much more frequent than in the MT. In what
follows the two halves for practical reasons will be called Isaiah I and
Isaiah II.
In Isaiah II we find as a parallel to the holem almost everywhere a imw.
In the few cases without waw some of the forms are variants. There are
certain words, where the waw is always lacking. The deviations, however,
from the normal use of waw in Isaiah II cannot everj^where be explained
as variants. There are, for instance, certain participles, where it is evident
that the form in the Scroll agrees with the MT. It is to be assumed that
the waw in some cases has simply been forgotten. This also appears from
the fact that a waw has sometimes beeit added above the line as a cor¬
rection. It is no wonder that the scribe — even in revising his text —
has sometimes failed to detect the absence of the waiv. Undoubtedly it
was intended to render every o-sound (long or short) in Isaiah II by a ivaw,
and at all events the forms without a waw are so few that Isaiah II
cannot give us much information about the vowel quantity.
With Isaiah I it is quite another matter. Here too the parallel of holem
plenum is almost always a waw. Also as a parallel to holem dejectivum
Isaiah I has mostly a waw, but not nearly as frequently as Isaiah II, and
not nearly as frequently as in those cases where Isaiah I has a parallel to
holem plenum, in which cases the use of waw is almost uniformly carried
through. In Isaiah I about 75 percent of the parallels to holem dejectivum
show a waw, and only 25 percent are without a waw. Thus, Ln Isaiah I
* So with the holem we find in the MT in Isaiah Chapters 1—11 the scriptio plena 462 times, but the scriptio defectiva only 368 times.
254 Binar Br0nno
there is a certain contrast between the parallels to holem plenum, which
practically always have a waw, and the parallels to holem dejectivum,
where only 75 percent show the waw. It looks as if a text which with
regard to scriptio plena and defectiva highly resembled the MT has been
the base of the Isaiah text, and further it looks as if the scribe has tried — with much greater success in Isaiah II than in Isaiah I — to carry through the use of waw as a mater lectionis.
In view of the overwhelming use of the waiv in Isaiah I, even in the
parallels to holem defectivum (75 percent with waw and only 25 percent
without waw), it is a striking fact that the parallels to nomina of the
type kutb (kotash) deviate greatly from the normal use : among these forms
— apart from variants — there are only 23 with waw, but 43 without waiv.
This must have a reason. The reason cannot be that the Isaiah Scroll
to a great extent has had katb- and kitb-forms, where the masoretic text
has kufb-foTms. The fact is that Isaiah II almost everywhere has a umw,
where the masoretic text has a kutb-form, and there is no reason to think
that the vocalism underlying Isaiah II has been different from that pro¬
nunciation which is the base of Isaiah I. The fact that the parallels to
the Ä;M<6-forms deviate in such a decided way from the other o-forms
must simply be due to the fact that the o-vowel in these forms has been
understood as short both in the context and in the pause. Just this
quantity we find in the Secunda as well as in the Septuagint. In these
transliterations the type kutb has always an omicron, never an omega,
according as the type kitb in the Greek transliterations always appears
with an epsilon, never with an eta. Thus in the same way as the Secunda
and the Septuagint Isaiah I confirms the view that the pausal lengthening
in the segholates of MT is secondary. That the scribe of Isaiah I has
partly — also with kutb-forms — rendered the short o-sound by a waw
is no wonder. It has obviously been his intention to make the text more
intelligible by means of the frequent waw, no matter whether the o-vowel
was long or short. Also as a parallel to qames hatuph and to qibbus in a
closed, unstressed syllable he has frequently used a waw, but in the
rendering of the vowel by waw he has to a much smaller degree succeeded,
where the Tiberian vowel is short, than where it is long. As far as the
short vowels are concerned, the consistent use oiwaw, which was intended,
has to a greater extent succeeded, where a Tiberian form with qibbus
or qames hatuph has a morphological relation to a form with a long vowel
than in those cases where there is no relation to forms with long vowel,
e. g. in pw'aZ and hoph'al. Here the fewness of tvaw forms in Isaiah I is
striking, and the fact that pu'al and hoph'al in the Isaiah Scroll seem to be
more weakly represented than in MT, so that not few paraUels to pu'al
and hoph'al forms are likely to be variants, does not sufficiently explain
The Isaiah Scroll DSIa and the Greek TransUterations of Hebrew 255
the frequent absence of the waw. The circumstance that the short vowel
has also in the kuth-kotxh type made the scribe deviate from the normal
use of waw is obviously founded upon the fact that with this type there
was no possibility of analogy from forms with a long vowel.
It will be seen that — as a principle — there is no difference between
context forms and pausal forms in the kutb-type.. It may be asked : Has
any attempt been made to distinguish between pausal forms and context
forms Ln Isaiah I with other types ?
The distinction between context forms and pausal forms is no masoretic
invention and no special Hebrew phenomenon. It has been considered as
questionable that this distinction belonged to the really spoken language.
As recently as in the Bibliotheca Orientalis XI, 1, January 1954, p. 21^,
doubt on this point has been uttered. On the contrary, it is to be said
that this distinction arose precisely in the spoken language. It depends
on the difference in word-stress, according as the word is isolated and
therefore strongly stressed, or has a weaker stress according to its place
in the clause. "I wUl" is a pausal form, the context form is the unstressed
"I'U", e. g., "I'll go". Generally modern literary languages do not pay
much attention to context forms. Almost always the pausal form is used,
with no attention to the real pronunciation in the clause. In the Hebrew
of MT the matter is quite different. The generally accepted view that the
pausal forms depend on a lengthening of the vowel holds good only in
some cases, for instance with the secondary pausal forms of the segholates.
But in other cases the context form simply arose by shortening the
pausal form in the weak-stressed position, whe reasthe pausal form is the
normal form, as, e. g., with kätäbä / kät'hä, yiktobü / yikVhü, kHÖhi / kitbi.
Probably most people thought that they always said: kätäbä, yiktobü,
kHobi, whereas under certain phonetical conditions, namely in the so-
called context, they actually said kät'bä, yiktobü, kitbi. In the same way
a Dane without ILnguistic knowledge generally thinks he says: "Professor
Hansen", but in common spoken language he often says: "Profsor
Hansen" — with weakening of the second syllable quite as in the Hebrew
forms kätäbä etc. instead of kätäbä etc.
This view is not new. It was advanced by Praetorius in 1897*. But,
as Avill be seen, it seems to be confirmed by the orthography of the Isaiah
Scroll, in which there is no difference between context forms and pausal
forms, which means that the scribe has not felt the difference. To use the
form of expression current in phonological linguistics : kätäbä belongs to
1 In J. J. KooPMANs' review of Oskar Grether, Hebräische Grammatik
für den akademischen Unterricht (München 1951).
^ Franz Praetorius, Über den rückweichenden Accent im Hebräischen^
Halle a. S. 1897.
256 Einab Br0nno
the langue, kätäbä to the parole. Peaetoeius has not drawn the con¬
sequence of this view. The consequence is that those forms which are
identical in the pause and in the context, e. g., malkt, fdäqä, are mor¬
phologically to be compared with the special pausal forms — apart from
cases in which the pausal form is secondary. That means that the dif¬
ference between kätäbä and fdäqä, both forms derived from a common
type {katabat and sadaqat respectivelj'-), depends among other things on
the fact that kätäbä is a context form, fdäqä a pausal form, in the same
way as the nomen kätäb, identical in context and pausa, shows the same
form as the pausal form of the verb. The pausal forms are not to be put
into a corner. They are the normal forms. In certain cases only, particu¬
larly with verbs, special context forms occur.
Apart from the segholate parallels, where the pausal form of the MT
is secondary, the Secunda — owing to the use of the Greek vowel signs —
shows a still clearer distinction between pausal forms and context forms
than the MT:
Special pausal forms in the Secunda are, e. g. : 9-Y]Xy)x, iSaßßTjpou and
isffjxtopou (MT: telik, ifddbMrü, yiämöru). All these forms have an eta or
an omega as a parallel to the stressed Tiberian vowel. Special context
forms are, on the contrary, forms such as afipou, «Cßou and ica[i.pou (cor¬
responding to Tiberian 'äm^rü, 'äz^bü and yöm'rü). In these forms the
Secunda has no vowel in the position of the Tiberian shewa. Context
forms are further, e. g. : tSaßßep, i[xaXXsT, lapocp (MT: y^dahbir, y^rnalUt,
yisrop). These forms have as a parallel to the short sere and holem of the
MT a short vowel — epsilon and omicron respectively. Furthermore, we
find a short vowel in the type isipcpoXou, ispoyou and the like (MT:
yippHü, yahr^gü etc.). These Secunda forms have an omicron as a parallel
to the Tiberian shewa and are to be compared with the use of hateph-
qames instead of shewa simplex in certain forms of the type normally
sounding yikfhu.
Professor Paul Kahle in his book. Die hebräischen Handschriften aus
der Höhle (Stuttgart 1951), on p. 42 calls attention to the fact that Isaiah
Scroll forms of imperfect and imperative qal in the context are often
written in the same way as certain Tiberian pausal forms. Professor
Kahle points out some forms with a waw in the medial syllable, e. g., the
parallels to Tiberian forms like Siftü, Hmri and 'setmok, which in the
Isaiah Scroll appear in such a form that it seems that they should have
been read as pausal forms: S'^olU, '^mori, 'astmökä. In this connexion
Kahle says that it is interesting to see that the Secunda has analogous
forms, e. g., in the parallels to yippHu and yafir'gü. The question must,
however, be: Are the mentioned waw-iovraB of the Isaiah Scroll morpho¬
logical parallels to the Secunda forms with an omicron as in (.£990X00,
m
The Isaiah Scroll DSIa and the Greek Transliterations of Hebrew 257
tepoyou, or do the waw-forms belong to the same type as the pausal
Secunda forms ieCT[i,copou, tSaßß?)pou (with a long vowel) ? In other words
the question can be formulated thus: Does the waw m the context
imperfects and imperatives mentioned render a highly weakened vowel
in the same way as the omicron of the Secunda in the forms cited, or
does the waw represent a long vowel in the same way as the omega of the
Secunda and the Tiberian pausal holem ?
As there is in the Isaiah Scroll the same interchange between waw and
not-waw in the parallels to Tiberian pausal forms of the tjrpe yiktobü —
kftobü as in the parallels to the context types yikfbü — kitbü, it is not
possible to decide on statistic grounds, whether the context forms with
tvaw in the Isaiah Scroll are representatives of yikt'bü — kitbü or of
yiktobü — kHobü. It must be remembered that the normal pausal ortho¬
graphy may have been employed in the context too, even if the context
pronunciation differed strongly from that of the pause (cf. the common
orthography in modern languages).
Also the parallels to the type yikt'bini frequently have a waw after the
second radical. Certainly a long vowel in the type yiktubeni would a priori
be possible in the same way as in yikbädeni, but it must be taken into
consideration that the Secunda in this field shows in principle the same
vocalization as the MT.
I think that the waw of the Isaiah Scroll here too originates from the
pausal form of the verb and that the vowel in the pronunciation imder-
lying the Scroll has been greatly weakened — as well as in the MT and
the Secunda. In the parallels to the types yiktobü on one hand, yikt^bn
and yikt^bSni on the other hand, the Secunda shows that the phonetic
difference is old. The scribe of the Scroll has not felt the difference but
written the pausal form, even if it differed greatly from the actual
phonetic picture.
May I sum up :
The difference in orthography between the kutb-iorms, of Isaiah I and
the other parallels to MT-forms with a holem defectivum suggests that
the vowel in the kutb-iorm is short, both in the context and in the pause.
The difference also suggests that Isaiah I in the pausal form of the type
kutb differs from the MT (where the vowel is mostly long), but agrees
■with the Secunda and the Septuagint.
This being the case, the assumption that the pronunciation of the Scroll
forms forming parallels to the type yiktobü etc. should have had a long
vowel would be precarious, because both the MT and the Secunda show
a greatly weakened vowel, whereas it is not strange that the scribe of
Isaiah I has not been aware of the difference between pausal forms and
18 ZDMG 106/2
258 Einar Br0nno, The Isaiah Scroll DSIa
context forms but used the same form in the pause and in the context —
in the same way as in modern literary languages — paying no attention
to the difference in pronunciation.
The identity of pausal and context forms in the orthography of Isaiah I
may support the theory that the masoretic types yiktobü and yikt'bü are
not different linguistic forms, but only different phonetic realizations of
one form, the so-called pausal form. This view means further that the
pausal forms (that is to say : the strongly stressed forms) kätäbä, yiktobü,
kätäb (verb and noun), malkt, fdäqä etc. are to be considered as the
normal forms, whereas the so-called context forms (mostly occurring
with verbs) are secondary, shortened forms, which are in the MT and in
the Secunda — but not in the Isaiah Scroll — orthographically dis¬
tinguished from the pausal forms.
In the transmission of the Hebrew consonantal text the Isaiah Scroll,
I think, represents only a side track. With its failure to distinguish
between pausal forms and context forms the Isaiah Scroll in its ortho¬
graphy is on the line of modern languages, and thus, in a certain sense,
it is far more modern than the MT. This means on the other hand that
MT in its orthography lies much nearer to the spoken Hebrew language
than does the Isaiah Scroll. The text of the Scroll m itself does not solve
the question whether it has come into existence before or after the
fixation of the official consonantal text. It is true that the official con¬
sonantal text was, of course, considered as an authority, but from this
very fact it cannot be concluded that is was regarded as such in all
Jewish circles.
^
Arabische Homerverse
1
Von Jörg Kraemer, Tübingen
Enno Littmann
zum achtzigsten Geburtstag I
Wir haben seit langem gelernt, die Beziehungen zwischen verschie¬
denen Kulturen nicht mehr im Sinne bloß mechanischer Einwirkungen
und Übernahmen zu verstehen, sondern echte Begegnungen in ihnen
zu erkennen, die sich nach ähnlichen Gesetzen wie zwischen Lebewesen
vollziehen — toioüto Se o av öpyavixov. Dadurch aber sind wir auch
hellhöriger geworden für all das, was bei solchen Kulturbegegnungen un¬
beachtet geblieben, sozusagen unter den Tisch gefallen ist. „Jeder her¬
anwachsende Mensch und jede lebendige Kultur hat beständig ungezählte
Tausende von möglichen Einflüssen um sich, von denen ganz wenige als
solche zugelassen werden, die große Mehrzahl aber nicht. Sind es die
Werke oder die Menschen, welche die Auswahl treffen ?" Für diese be¬
rühmte Frage Oswald Spenglers'^ hat, wie bekannt, die ,, arabische Kul¬
tur" das Schulbeispiel geliefert. Bei dem überstarken Einströmen spät¬
antik-griechischen Bildungsgutes in die islamisch-arabische Welt sind ja
medizinische, philosophische, mathematisch-astronomische und sonstige
naturwissenschaftliche Werke in reicher Fülle übersetzt und von der neu
sich büdenden islamischen ZivQisation auch innerlich übernommen wor¬
den. Die Dichtung dagegen ebenso wie die Kunst überhaupt oder etwa
noch die Geschichtsschreibung ist dabei ganz in den Hintergrund ge¬
treten. Auf das Ausleseprinzip, das hier offenbar wirksam war und zu
dessen Erklärung man schon viel Scharfsinn aufgewandt hat^, haben
ältere wie neuere Beurteiler oft genug hingewiesen: ,,So viel wir ... mit
Zuverlässigkeit wissen können, haben weder das arabische Spanien und
Sizilien noch der Orient selbst die Muse eines Homer, Virgil oder (Hora-
^ Der Untergang des Abendlandes II 64.
Vgl. etwa J. 6. Wenrich, De Auctorum Graecorum Versionibus et Com¬
mentariis. . . Commentatio, Lipsiae 1842, p. 36, 73£f.; H. H. Schaeder, Der
Orient und das griechische Erbe, in Die Antike IV 1928, S. 226ff., bes. 237;
R. Walzer, Arabic Transmission of Qreek Thought to medieval Europe, Bull.
John Rylands Libr. 29 (1945/46), S. 162; R. Paret, Der Islam und das
griechische Bildungsgut, Tübingen 1950, S. 14 und andere.
18*
