A question on Hebrew Accent

[Yaku Lee]

The fourth word of 1Ch 10:1 of WTT in BW10, וַיָּ×*ָס , has an Athnach, which is very odd because the immediately preceding word has also an Athnach which is perfectly normal. Checking with BHS and Leningrad Codex, it is discovered that the word in question has a Mahpak and not an Athnach, which looks also perfectly normal.

Shouldn't the Athnach in WTT in question be corrected to a Mahpak?

Thank you for your answer.

P.S. Sorry the Hebrew word did not appear as I intended, and I do not know how to correct it. But it is the fourth word of 1Ch 10:1. Thanks for your patience.

[bkMitchell]

The fourth word of 1Ch 10:1 of WTT in BW10, וַיָּ×*ָס , has an Athnach, which is very odd because the immediately preceding word has also an Athnach

The issue you noted above also appears outside of BibleWorks in competing platforms' editions of this same text for example:
(a) the Groves-Wheeler Westminster Hebrew Morphology, v. 4.20. (Accordance HMT-W4)
(b) Biblia Hebraica Westmonasteriensis with Westminster Hebrew Morphology 4.18. (faithlife/Logos edition)

I think it would be better to inform the J. Alan Groves Center for Advanced Biblical Studies of this issues since this issue apparently originates with that organization. Here is a link were you can contact them directly regarding your concerns: http://www.grovescenter.org/GC/contact-info

P.S. Sorry the Hebrew word did not appear as I intended, and I do not know how to correct it. But it is the fourth word of 1Ch 10:1. Thanks for your patience.

check to see that you BibleWorks 10 export/copy paste settings are set to Unicode and then you should be able paste text into the post like this:
וּפְלִשְׁתִּ֖ים נִלְחֲמ֣וּ בְיִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל וַיָּ֑נָס אִֽישׁ־יִשְׂרָאֵל֙ מִפְּנֵ֣י פְלִשְׁתִּ֔ים וַיִּפְּל֥וּ חֲלָלִ֖ים בְּהַ֥ר גִּלְבֹּֽעַ׃

If, however, that still fails you can also take a screen shot by pressing the 'Prt Sc' button on your keyboard then you can insert images of text into the forums like in the following example:

[DavidR]

Well, before anything further is reported anywhere, the accenting seems to be correct in the digital texts. At any rate, I just checked with my printed BHS, and it has the repeated Athnach, exactly as it appears in BibleWorks. It does seem very odd; but I haven't studied this for many years. It might be worthwhile for someone to look into it.

[Yaku Lee]

You have made the issue at hand very clear.
Thank you very much.

[Jim Wert]

For the record, JDP (The J.D. Price Accent Database) has Mahpak.
It is my impression that J.D. Price is not based solely on the Leningrad codex. (Yes, I realize that the BW Leningrad images shows Mahpak. Just saying that JDP is an alternative source of accent information.)

Unfortunately, mousing over a word does not display the JDP accent translation, either in WTT or JDP, so one must look up the meanings of the JDP accent codes in BW Help.

Hey, I just found a reason to clone BW! It's the only way I could think of to get two BW help windows, so that I can look at WTM's accent coding scheme and JDP's at the same time. BW's colouring facility does not extend to the help screens, so I can't tell which help screen belongs to which copy of BW.

--Jim

[DavidR]

So, now that I've also looked at the BW Leningrad image, it does seem that the accent should be Mahpak, and that the error is in fact in BHS, and has bceen carried over into digital versions. I wonder how far back into the history of the Biblia Hebraica it goes?

[Michael Hanel]

So, now that I've also looked at the BW Leningrad image, it does seem that the accent should be Mahpak, and that the error is in fact in BHS, and has bceen carried over into digital versions. I wonder how far back into the history of the Biblia Hebraica it goes?

For the sake of clarification. Is this a BibleWorks problem or a problem with the Westminster text which BibleWorks (and others) uses?

This text began as an electronic transcription by Richard Whitaker (Princeton Seminary, New Jersey) and H. van Parunak (then at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor) of the 1983 printed edition of Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS). It was continued with the cooperation of Robert Kraft (University of Pennsylvania) and Emmanuel Tov (Hebrew University, Jerusalem), and completed by Prof. Alan Groves. The transcription was called the Michigan-Claremont-Westminster Electronic Hebrew Bibleand was archived at the Oxford Text Archive (OTA) in 1987. It has been variously known as the “CCAT” or “eBHS” text. Since that time, the text has been modified in many hundreds of places to conform to the photo-facsimile of the Leningrad Codex, Firkovich B19A, residing at the Russian National Library, St. Petersburg; hence the change of name.

The Groves Center continues to scrutinize and correct this electronic text as a part of its continuing work of building morphology and syntax databases of the Hebrew Bible, since correct linguistic analysis requires an accurate text.

[DavidR]

I don't believe it is a BibleWorks problem. The first image below is the page from my copy of BHS (1984 printing). As can be seen in the very top line (marked by a red arrow), וַיָּ֑נָס has the Athnach. Thus the error seems to have originated in the published editions of Biblia Hebraica at some point, and must have come over from there into the Westminster/CCAT/etc. digitized texts, and thus into BW and other digital resources. For the sake of comparison, I also include a snippet from the BW Leningrad MS, showing, as Jim said, the Mahpak (red arrow).

Yaku Lee, you have made an interesting discovery!

[bkMitchell]

Thus the error seems to have originated in the published editions of Biblia Hebraica at some point

Great call DavidR!,


I now believe your opinion to be correct and I think we have a little evidence to back it up as well. Notice, 1 Chronicles 10:1 as it appeared in the BHK (Biblia Hebraica Kittel) published in 1906. It has an Atnaḥ אַתְנָ֑ח followed by a mehuppach מְהֻפָּ֤ךְ rather than the two consecutive Atnaḥ (s)the BHS now for some reason has.

[DavidR]

Well done, Brian! At this point it seems that someone should raise this with the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, or whoever has continuing responsibility for BH, before BH Quinta comes out with the error still in place. According to https://www.academic-bible.com/en/ho...ca-quinta-bhq/, BHQ Chronicles is in preparation by Zipora Talshir of the University of Beer Sheva. If no one else is interested, I'd be willing to make that contact.