Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia

The Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, abbreviated as BHS or rarely BH⁴, is an edition of the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible as preserved in the Leningrad Codex, supplemented by masoretic and text-critical notes. It is the fourth edition in the Biblia Hebraica series started by Rudolf Kittel, and is published by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft (German Bible Society) in Stuttgart.

Quotes

• After forty years Kittel's Biblia Hebraica once again makes its appearance before the learned world in a new form. The critical apparatus in particular has been thoroughly revised, and to guard against its confusion with the apparatus of earlier editions, especially in scholarly references, we decided to modify the name of the work in such a way as to make it quite apparent whether one of the earlier editions or the new one was intended. The name Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia promised to guarantee this, while also preserving a continuity with Kittel's work. We therefore suggest that the new edition be cited as BHS, as distinguished from BHK.
  • Karl Elliger and Wilhelm Rudolph, "Foreword to the First Edition", p. xii. Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft (1977). ISBN 3-438-05218-0.

• There is no need to defend the use of the Leningrad Codex B19^A (L) as the basis for an edition of the Hebrew Bible, whatever one may think of its relationship to the Ben Asher text. P. Kahle's own views on the matter may be consulted in his book The Cairo Geniza (Oxford, 1959, 2nd edition). In any event, L is still "the oldest dated manuscript of the complete Hebrew Bible."
  • Karl Elliger and Wilhelm Rudolph, "Foreword to the First Edition", p. xii. Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft (1977). ISBN 3-438-05218-0.

"Not only the loss of the original molds in the bombing of Leipzig, but especially conversion to machine composition has made it necessary to replace the beautiful Hebrew type face of BHK, prepared to Kittel's own specifications …" (Karl Elliger and Wilhelm Rudolph, "Foreword to the First Edition")

• Not only the loss of the original molds in the bombing of Leipzig, but especially conversion to machine composition has made it necessary to replace the beautiful Hebrew type face of BHK, prepared to Kittel's own specifications, with a new face, adapted to the limitations of machine composition. We hope we have found a workable replacement. Not all the letters are equally satisfactory, partly because machine composition requires the consonantal signs to fit within either squares or half-squares, and partly because of the rows of vowel and accent signs above and below the consonants, each of which is set individually. … Special recognition and gratitude are due the indefatigable compositor, Mr. Karl Häussler, for his devoted labors.
  • Karl Elliger and Wilhelm Rudolph, "Foreword to the First Edition", p. xii. Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft (1977). ISBN 3-438-05218-0.

Quotes about the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia

"The BHS is in worldwide use today and is esteemed among all denominations as a highly reliable edition of the Hebrew Bible." ("Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia", www.die-bibel.de)

• The Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS), which reflects the findings from more than a hundred years of Old Testament textual research, is structured according to this principle. The BHS is in worldwide use today and is esteemed among all denominations as a highly reliable edition of the Hebrew Bible. It provides the basis both for clerical training and for all reputable biblical translations.
  • "Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia" (archived), www.die-bibel.de

• In BHK since the third edition, 𝕸 has represented the text of Ms. B 19^A of the Saltykov-Shchedrin State Public Library of St. Petersburg, written in a.d. 1008 (L, Leningradensis; pl. 24). The fourth edition of Biblia Hebraica, the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS), edited by Karl Elliger and Wilhelm Rudolph, is also based on the same manuscript. … In BHK and BHS, then, we have a text that is centuries older than that of any previously printed edition. But even this manuscript which underlies BHK and BHS is remarkably recent when we consider the age of the Old Testament and compare it with the important fourth- and fifth-century manuscripts of the Greek Old and New Testaments. In fact, we do not have any Hebrew manuscript of the entire Old Testament written earlier than the tenth century.
  • Ernst Würheim: The Text of the Old Testament: An Introduction to the Biblia Hebraica, ch. 2, "The Masoretic Text", pp. 10–11. Second edition, translated by Erroll F. Rhodes. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company (1995). ISBN 0-8028-0788-7.

• The Ezra SIL fonts are the identical typeface to the SIL Ezra font released by SIL in 1997. The font was developed from the beautiful Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia volume which is familiar to many biblical Hebrew scholars.
  • Ezra SIL Hebrew Unicode Fonts Installation Guide, p. 6. SIL International (2007).

• Puncta extraordinaria (extraordinary points) occur fifty-six times in the Old Testament text: fifty-three times above letters and three times below letters. The electronic edition of the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia text notes that the function of these marks "is not entirely clear, but it has variously been proposed that: a) the marks are merely emphasis and draw special attention to the theological implications of the word; b) the marks are early critical marks which indicate an omission or change that the scribes desired to make, but dared not; c) the marks represent drops of ink or even bits of dirt that were slavishly copied from one manuscript to the next; d) the marks indicate a special or unusual pronunciation of the word, or that the word should not be read at all; or e) some mixture of the above, on a case-by-case basis."
  • John Hudson: SBL Hebrew Font User Manual, p. 14. Version 1.51 (February 2008). Society of Biblical Literature.

See also

• Leningrad Codex
• Masoretic Text
• Tanakh

External links

• Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (electronic edition)
• Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (Internet Archive)