Customer Reviews

Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible

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The reviews of the first edition were glowing, and rightly so because this is a superb book. Tov is a world authority in his subject, and has the ability to explain his complex technical subject with great lucidity. This second edition is, however, almost a page for page reprint of the first edition and has only a few small revisions. This is disappointing, and we look forward to a more thoroughly revised third edition in the next few years. Anyone with a first edition need not bother with this one. However, everyone else with more than a beginner's interest in the subject should buy this book now.

This is the best source for factual information about the Tanakh (Old Testament) on the market. It is an absolute "must" book for every serious student of the Bible. Professor Tov covers the history of the Bible, its copying and transmission, and many of the textual problems. He pays a great deal of attention to the evolution of the Masoretic texts and their differences. Dr.Tov's experience as a professor at Hebrew University and Editor-in-Chief of the Dead Sea Scrolls publication project makes him uniquely qualified to write about the Hebrew Bible. If you want the facts, this is the book for you. This is a featured book at our site - INTERNETBIBLE.COM.

This book outlines the principles of textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible. Especially helpful are discussions of how this field is different than that of Greek New Testament textual criticism.

Note that this book is more of a manual for how to do textual criticism than it is a summary of the current state of knowledge in the field (although it does have a fair amount of that too).

It is a long time since a decent book on Old Testament textual studies appeared. Classics like those by Ginsburg and B J Roberts are largely obsolete and anyway almost impossible to obtain. There are some brief introductions around, but they do not begin to match the depth and erudition of this book. Tov is a brilliant scholar, and one of the World's leading authorities on the Septuagint and the Dead Sea scrolls, so he is well qualified to write this book.

As I started diving in translation and text criticism, I needed a pratical introduction to the matter. In such cases you need the BEST. You have to go to the great names. Prof Tov's book brought me where I needed to come! As I learned the jargon, I got acquainted with the state of the art. If not exactly the last word (new discoveries and studies are published every day), I now walk on solid ground on the matter, gained a critical view and can surf on this before unknown sea. I am no longer an absolute outsider. I know the words of the trade! Well used money.

A very thorough and scholarly work which is written in a lucid way for the layman and the boffin alike. It certainly has no theological axe to grind. However, I was dissappointed that the major differences between LXX and Masoretic were not pointed out eg. psalm 40:7, may be if a christian was to see its use in Heb 10:v? it might be a bit controversial? May be this would explain why Hebrews nearly did not make it into the canon of the NT? But this is not the purpose of the book! The plates are an excellent idea as you get to see the 'evidence' so to speak. A glossary of terms would be a good idea so that one can easily decipher what 'orthography' and 'morphology' are for example, without having to search for clues. On the whole a most pleasant book which certainly delivers the goods.

This is likely a 5-star book, but I struggled to understand much of the material because I'm unfamiliar with Hebrew. However, Tov presents much of his discussion in translation, and every reader will easily grasp the different aspects of textual criticism that Tov describes, even if they can't catch he Hebrew examples. I was also surprised to find a pleasant collection of plates showing the various old 'witnesses' to biblical history, placed at the rear of the book.

Although this work was certainly not written for beginners in the area of textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible, it is, nontheless the very best reference work on the subject available in English, and should be an essential reference book on the student's bookshelf.
Michael Jacobs

The book is authoritative and well editted. There is an established tradition in Judaism of how the text was written and how to read what on the surface appears as a deviation from grammar or inconsistency in the meaning of the text. Criticism devoid of any tradition is unfortunately based exclusively on one's chosen ideology. The book perfectly explains this point, which is definitely honest and praiseworthy of the author E. Tov who tries hard to be neutral. The book also shows that all the present day critics are familiar with the Jewish interpretation of the text. Hence, the main lesson one can learn from the book is that although there are many improper ways one can convince oneself why the Jewish interpretation is wrong, the final criticism is always reserved for G-d, the Author of the Hebrew Bible. The claims of the professional textual critics, whether driven by desire to prove that the masoretic text is not authentic or by a desire to fit in among the left-wing academia, or to win yet another research grant by cooking up a new radically deviant interpretation, happen to be mostly a negative contribution to the overall understanding of the text.