THE BOOK OF EZEKIEL Moshe H. Goshen-Gottstein Shemaryahu ...

Introduction
150 Berlin 1 (Or. Fol. 1–4)
Entire Bible with Targum; Ashkenazi script of the late 14th or early 15th century, with sporadic
corrections in the text and margins by a 15–16th century hand. 100
73. The second type of sources consists of manuscript fragments from the Genizah. A
mere listing of Genizah variants, lumping together a wide range of linguistic traditions and
transmissions of the text from different periods and locations, is difficult to justify philologically.
Variants from Genizah fragments have been recorded only when they reflect traditions
older than that of the Tiberian: 101
a) Fragments with Palestinian vocalization, indicated in the apparatus as follows: 102
G-P Genizah fragment with Palestinian vocalization
200, 204, etc. Manuscript number as catalogued by Revell
b) Fragments with Babylonian vocalization: 103
G-B
Genizah fragment with Babylonian vocalization
Eb (or: Kb) Prophets fragments whose vocalization is simple (or compound)
10, 22, etc. Manuscript number as catalogued by Yeivin
Msr 1, 2, etc. Masoretic lists published by Ofer 104
74. The edition makes a first attempt to call readers’ attention to secondary but contemporary
witnesses, viz. variant readings reflected in medieval Jewish commentaries. These
contain two types of variants: those appearing in quotations in lemmas or in the body of the
commentary, and variants, either explicit or implied, in the commentary itself. Variants of
the first type are quite frequent, but real value can be attributed only to readings of the
second type. The apparatus thus records only variants that were almost certainly present in
the biblical manuscript used by the commentator, and furthermore, only when the same
variant is evidenced in one of the primary manuscript sources. References to readings in
commentaries are given in the notes. 105 The commentators examined for this purpose are
Rashi, Kimhi, . Kara, Eliezar of Beaugency, Isaiah di Trani, and Menahem . ben Shimon of
Posquieres. ` 106 A small number of variant readings have been listed from Ibn Janah, . Sefer
HaRiqmah. 107
100 Cf. M. Steinschneider, Die Handschriften-Verzeichnisse der Koniglichen ¨ Bibliothek zu Berlin (vol.
2; Berlin: Buchdruckerei der Koniglichen ¨ Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1878) 1, §1.
101 To facilitate reading their parallel Tiberian signs have replaced Babylonian vocalization signs. The
substitution relates only to morphological variants and does not reflect the phonological distinctions
between the Tiberian and Babylonian systems of pronunciation.
102 E. J. Revell, Biblical Texts with Palestinian Pointing and Their Accents (Missoula: Scholars Press,
1977).
103 Yeivin, Babylonian.
104 Ofer, Babylonian.
105 Other notes pertaining to apparatus III mostly concern linguistic or textual matters, in particular in
regard to Genizah fragments with Babylonian vocalization, for which the reader is referred to the
exhaustive grammatical discussion of I. Yeivin.
106 According to the edition of M. Cohen, Ezekiel: Mikra6ot Gedolot ‘Haketer’ (Ramat-Gan: Bar Ilan
University, 2000).
107 M. Wilensky, Sefer HaRiqmah (Jerusalem: Academy of the Hebrew Language, 1964) (Hebrew).
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