i8 7 7] OLD TESTAMENT STUDY IN 1876 369 



wishes to get a clear and brief conspectus of the genesis 

 of the Hebrew forms will probably do better to procure 

 Mr. Curtiss s translation of Bickell s excellent Outlines 

 of Hebrew Grammar (Leipzig, 1877). Both books rest 

 mainly on the great grammar of Olshausen. The later 

 has a very admirable table of Semitic characters by 

 Euting, which is superior to anything of the kind pre 

 viously accessible. I have not seen a translation published 

 at New York of Luzzatto s valuable Chaldee grammar. 



Let us turn in the next place to works that bear on the 

 text of the Old Testament. Among these the first place 

 undoubtedly belongs to Strack s magnificent facsimile 

 edition of the precious Petersburg MS. of the latter 

 prophets, dating from A.D. 916. The value of this codex 

 lies not merely in its antiquity, though it is the oldest 

 MS. of certain date, but still more in the fact that it is 

 the most perfect specimen of the Babylonian system of 

 vowel points, and exhibits more Oriental readings and 

 more points of agreement with the Targum than any 

 extant copy. Almost all other MSS., as is well known, 

 have the Western vowel points, and present occidental 

 readings in passages where the Eastern and Western 

 schools diverge. The Petersburg codex has the Massora 

 as well as the text. For the convenience of those who 

 wish to familiarise themselves with the very interesting 

 system of the Babylonian punctuation, Hosea and Joel 

 have been published separately at a low price. A second 

 important work on the Hebrew text is Frensdorff s 

 Massoretisches Woerterbuch (Hannover and Leipzig : 

 Cohen & Risch), which forms the first volume of a pro 

 jected edition of the Massora Magna, on which the author 

 has spent many years of labour. In ordinary Rabbinical 

 Bibles the Massora appears in a very confused shape. 

 The Massorets, or scholars, who made it their business 

 to take care of the exact transmission of the Hebrew text, 

 with every peculiarity of orthography and the like, wrote 

 their notes on the margin of the Bible, but provided no 



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