What manuscript(s) does BHS get Joshua 21:36-37 from?

Question

Note- This is not a duplicate of Is Joshua 21:36-37 authentic or an addition? because I am asking what the source of the hebrew of those two verses is, and for the BHS specifically. So for example, the answer to that question says "These words do appear appear in the LXX and the Vulgate, but not in the Masoretic text of the Second Rabbinic Bible" But that wouldn't answer my question, of what the source for the Hebrew is.

Looking at a hebrew bible called "BHS reader", (BHS being Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia), I see it has two verses in Joshua Chapter 21, that are not in my Feldheim Tanach Simanim

The BHS bible has 45 verses in Joshua 21, (two of those verses are in small print). The Feldheim Tanach Simanim has 43 verses in Joshua 21. The difference being from those two verses.

The BHS has those verses, which it puts in small writing (actually i'm showing a pic from the BHS Reader, which is based on the BHS)

The Leningrad Codex doesn't contain those verses

annotated screenshot below, from 700MB leningrad codex pdf linked to here http://www.seforimonline.org/seforimdb/pdf/264.pdf

here is a screenshot of the Leningrad Codex, showing Joshua chapter 21, making clear the two missing verses. (Note- missing may be the wrong word to use). Contrast with the BHS.

I understand that the BHS is based on the LC(Leningrad Codex).

So, what manuscript(s) has the BHS used to get those verses?

I've heard that the Targum Yerushalmi / Jerusalem Targum, has it, but that's not Hebrew. I've heard that the Septuagint has it, but that's not Hebrew.

Answer 1

^{I don't usually do tl;dr summaries, but it seems it might help in this case...}

tl;dr summary

OP Q: what the source of the Hebrew of those two verses [i.e., Josh 21:36-67]?

A: the majority of Masoretic Hebrew manuscripts other than Leningradensis; see end of post for more details.

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In fact, the BHS itself provides the answer to the question, although in quite an opaque form. The information is in the apparatus at the foot of the page, linked by the superscript "a" by the verse number (36):

Here's a "key" to that footnote:

• 36 ^a = note identifier;
• v 36.37 = unusually identifying extent of text covered by the note (usually the superscript letter does this job unambiguously);
• > LC Mss† * (Syh c ob); = these two verses are omitted by the Leningrad Codex, Codex Cairensis, and other manuscripts of the MT, as well as Bomberg's Second Rabbinic Bible and the Targum, and noting in parenthesis that in the Syrohexapla it appears under the obelus [÷] sign which indicated text that ought to be removed.
• [Thus far the note has described evidence for the absence of these verses; now it records the evidence for its presence.]
• extstat in mlt Mss† Edd = [however] it exists in many manuscripts and [printed] editions;
• ^Mss = and also present in the Septuagint, some Targum manuscripts, and the Vulgate;
• cf. 1 Ch 6,63 sq; = compare 1 Chron 6:63-64 where this information (in a slightly different form) is also found;
• S tr post 34a = the Syriac (again, "Fraktur S" doesn't look much like BHS's symbol here) has this material after v. 34, not after v. 35.

_{* The letter shape of the "Fraktur-T" symbol differs from that of "Blackletter-T" as found in BHS, also true of the Vulgate symbol which appears towards the end of the note; I don't think there are unicode entities for these precise letter-shapes, but if someone knows them, please do edit!}

_{†The Sigla of BHS use the abbreviation "Ms(s)" to indicate collections of medieval manuscripts, and refers readers to the standard treatments in this way (see further on de Rossi below, and see barlop's answer for the contribution of Ginsburg):}

_{codex manuscriptus Hebraicus (codices manuscripti Hebraici) secundum B. Kennicott, Vetus Testamentum Hebraicum, voll. I. II (Oxonii 1776.1780), et J. B. de Rossi, Variae Lectiones V.T. librorum, voll. I — IV (Parmae 1784 sqq) et eiusdem Scholia Critica in V.T. libros (1798), generatim inclusis codicibus, qui prima, exclusis illis, qui secunda manu lectionem tuentur et C. D. Ginsburg, The Old Testament, voll. I —IV (London 1908 — 1926)}

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Unusually at this point, then, BHS does not simply represent Codex Leningrad, but introduced text commonly found in the wider tradition of Masoretic manuscripts (and other ancient sources), signalling this "plus" by means of the reduced font size. It doesn't often happen like this in BHS!

But what is the explanation for this situation?

(1) It's sometimes the case in manuscript transmission in antiquity that parallel passages get fused to some extent in the copying process, probably inevitable in a situation where the scribes would know the parallel passage well. It might in some cases even have been intentional -- with the best of intentions -- to bring about some harmonization between the parallels. That would be one explanation for what has happened in the case of these two lists of Levitical cities from Joshua and Chronicles.

(2) The unusual step of BHS to include this text here signals a different explanation, pointing to a conviction that these verses are originally part of MT Joshua, but have dropped out of part the Hebrew manuscript tradition (which included the Leningrad Codex), while being maintained otherwise and also (consistently) among the ancient versions, although the Targumim give a mixed picture for Aramaic.

So, for example, among older commentators, C.F. Keil (1880, p. 214 n.2) points out that not only does the evidence of the manuscripts point towards inclusion, even the MT text of Joshua depends upon it, for otherwise its own totals here for the Reubenite cities does not tally (a point echoed by George Cooke, 1918). The rationale for the omission is that the scribe's eye jumped from the וממטה which begins v. 36, to the same form which begins v. 38, missing out the intervening text (i.e. "parablepsis owing to homoioarcton" if you like the technical terms).

Thus, (2) has widespread support, and explains the unusual course of action taken by the editors of BHS here. The essential point is that these verses persisted in Hebrew in other MS traditions, and their antiquity is attested in the versional evidence.

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Non-Leningradensis Masoretic witnesses for longer text

These may still most conveniently be found in Jean Bernard de Rossi's Variae lectiones Veteris Testamenti ex immensa mss. editorumque codicum congerie haustae..., Vol. 2 (Regio, 1785), pp. 96-106. It is very unusual to have nine pages of discussion (it begins at the very end of p. 96). The Hebrew witnesses are initially listed on p. 97:

OP should be able to satisfy the impulse to look for "Hebrew sources" there.

Answer 2

David's excellent answer has reminded me, there is a very comprehensive work by C.D. Ginsberg.

Ginsberg's work, written in 1896, predates the BH/BHK/BHS and covers the first and second rabbinic bibles by bomberg, which are from the 1500s. It describes some hebrew masoretic manuscripts that have and some that don't have, those two verses. Though which ones the BHS used is another matter.. But perhaps the closest we can get is this.

David provided a comment with a screenshot included here, showing that the BHS in its explanation of Ms(s), mentions Kennicott, and De Rossi and Ginsberg, and perhaps others.

Furthermore, here is a screenshot from BHS 5th edition, we see that Ms(s) includes more than those three(eg the Cairo Geniza is mentioned), and that Ed(d) also mentions those three.

and

BHS introductory pages also mention that mlt=multi, exstat=it exists.

So therefore since BHS mentions those works, it makes sense to look at those works. kennicott, de rossi, and ginsberg.

As you see from the screenshot, BHS also mentions fragments from the cairo geniza, (there has been a project to digitize the cairod geniza https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/genizah/1 )

David's answer looks at De Rossi's work. I'll look here at Ginsberg.

According to https://stepweb.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/SUG/pages/24215583/More+about+OT+Editions Ginsberg's work only looks at "manuscripts from the thirteenth century onwards that were in the British Library".

C.D. Ginsberg's work is available here https://archive.org/details/MassorahMassorethMassoretic in what look like many PDFs but a comment gives a link here to what looks like it in two PDFs

The PDFs aren't that big either. vol1 is 28MB, vol2 is 43MB

Volume 1 is at http://www.archive.org/details/IntroductionToTheMasoretico-criticalEditionOfTheHebrewBible01

Volume 2 is at

http://www.archive.org/details/IntroductionToTheMasoretico-criticalEditionOfTheHebrewBible02

A helpful table of contents in the pdf mentions

and the title of Chapter 12, (which is where vol 2 begins)

and that there is an index of manuscripts

On Page 1003-1005 He has a table of manuscripts all (perhaps most, but probably all), are hebrew manuscripts.

Vol 2 begins with chapter 12 which has a title which is exactly what i'm looking for

On Page 494-495

I'll look through some more, there may be other manuscripts, but for any of them, though it's worth bearing in mind that Ginsberg work is regarding masoretic manuscripts used by the 1525 Bomberg "rabbinic" bible, rather than by the BHS. (The BHS is based largely on the leningrad codex, though clearly a deviation from that is those two verses Joshua 21:36-37, even there the BHS has them in small print probably because they're not from the leningrad codex). So this would state hebrew manuscripts that has them, rather than the particular ones used by BHK/BHS). Also Ginsberg's work on the 1525 bomberg "rabbinic" bible, was published in 1896, that happens to also be before the BH/BHK was published - the BHS/BHK and of course BHS, was published post 1900-

He mentions on p178-180 and p434 some reasons why the 1525 bomberg rabbinic bible excluded them, though e.g. the 1521 bomberg bible included them. And he is of a sure view that they should have remained included. He indicates that they're in many if not most of the earliest manuscripts. (while he doesn't mention the following, they're clearly not in the st petersberg(i.e. leningrad), or the aleppo. He mentions the verses briefly on p434

Looking further, It seems to me that he doesn't discuss in detail, all the manuscripts that he mentions in that index, but he discusses 24 of them in some detail, as seen in the vol 2 pdf. I don't think he had access to the Aleppo Codex (I doubt Bomberg did either)..

He discusses the St Petersberg Codex (that became known as the Leningrad Codex when the city Petersberg got renamed Leningrad in 1924.. But at the time Ginsberg was writing it was known as the St Petersberg Codex). Though he doesn't mention those verses in connection with that codex(though we know, as shown from the question, that those verses aren't in that codex). But he does describe other codexes too and with those, he sometimes makes mention of whether they do or do not have those two verses.

In the red box I drew in, is a list of all references to those two verses. It seems to me that the earlier page numbers he's describing why they weren't in the 1525 bomberg but should've been.. And anything between p469-778 is discussion of 24 manuscripts, some of which he says whether or not they have reference to those two verses, and after p778 are just further mentions of those two verses.

Answer 3

Here is the page of the Ben Hayim 2nd Rabbinic Bible, the Rashi script margin note is on bottom left. https://app.box.com/s/oey13m8jon

The note says a lot but I do not have the translation handy.

Here is a picture of the full page using Abbyy, to keep it below 2 mg.