Accents, Pausal Forms and Qere/Ketiv in the Bible Translations and Commentaries of Saadya Gaon and the Karaites of Jerusalem

Towards the end of the Geonic period (ca. 598–1038 C.E.) the Rabbanite figure Saadya Gaon (882–942) and scholars affiliated with the Karaite movement in Judaism developed and brought into prominence Biblical translation and exegesis. This period also roughly coincided with the end of what is known as the Masoretic period (ca. 500–900). The school of Masoretes whose reading tradition eventually became the most authoritative was the Tiberian school. Parts of the Tiberian reading tradition can reflect exegesis. The accents and pausal forms affect exegesis by demarcating syntactic/semantic boundaries through pauses in reading. Some scholars have noticed, however, that, at times, the pausal forms and accents reflect different pauses within the same verse. The oral reading (qere) sometimes offers a different interpretation from that of the written text (ketiv). The purpose of this thesis is to determine whether and to what extent these three components are discernable in the Bible translations and commentaries of Saadya Gaon and the Jerusalem Karaites. This question is primarily investigated through comparing these scholars' exegesis of verses where: (1) the accents mark a boundary which likely would have been ignored had the accents not been there (Chapter 2), (2) a pausal form marks a boundary different from that of the accents (Chapter 3), (3) the qere reads a lexeme with a different interpretation from that of the ketiv (Chapter 4). Chapters 2 and 3 begin with considerations of evidence relating to accents and pausal forms, respectively, which mostly falls outside of Saadya and the Karaites' works. On the basis of the primary and secondary evidence, I conclude that Saadya more often reflects the division of the accents, whereas the exegesis of the Karaites does not. The Karaites prefer divisions reflected by pausal forms in most cases. This thesis clearly demonstrates therefore that the Jerusalem Karaites did not regard the accents as an integral part of the Biblical text that was the object of exegesis, whereas Saadya considered the accents to be an integral part of the language of the text and should therefore be taken into account in exegesis. All scholars generally prefer the Biblical qere.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Cambridge

Year dc:date.issued

2021

Author dc:creator

• Habib, Joseph

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Khan, Geoffrey
• Zewi, Tamar

• Saadya
• Karaites
• Salmon ben Yeroham
• Yefet ben Eli
• David ben Abraham al-Fasi
• Yusuf ibn Nuh
• Abu al-Faraj Harun
• Yeshua ben Yehudah
• Ali ben Sulayman
• Tiberian Masoretes
• Masorah
• Accents
• Pausal Forms
• Qere
• Ketiv
• Geonic Period
• Medieval Hebrew Exegesis

Licence

• https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/ef0df07c-b0e4-4cc9-b99b-b9b3d18c6fe8/download
• https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/

Language dc:language

eng

DOI dc:identifier.doi

https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.76850

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/329402