Thinking about auditing!

What is this one on?

I read this literally holding my health forms for ARC application at my doctor’s office in Canada. It was a real sense of deja vu.

Nice catch. Helpful thoughts! Thanks for the dialogue!

Ah very helpful. I’ve never ventured into Sam Hebrew myself, but now I see I should.

Your thought does assume that SamP preserves an older tradition. Is that something you’re generally comfortable with? (Genuine question btw: I’m still learning much about SamP and textual traditions)

I should clarify: it’s not so much the ordering overall (I’m not troubled by Judah vs Reuben start in ch 2 and 1), but the grouping of where Gad occurs. Both lists at least keep the camps together, except for Gad in ch 1 compared to ch 2.
Enough order and enough disorder to make me think hmm?

I know this can only be answered by a larger study on the ordering of the 12 tribes in various lists, taking into account Genesis narratives.

If anyone has leads on comparing these, please send them my way! It seems like there is *something* going on here. I just don’t know what, if anything.

7/7

I was hoping that the spelling variants would shed light in the order variant nascent to all versions in 1:14.

It does but not in the way that I expected: the placing of Gad in 1:14 seems original, thus validating further study into the narrative effect of this misplaced order.

/6

What’s happening? We have two related problems: the ordering of the tribes and the spelling of the tribe that appears out of order in 1:14.

Internal MT evidence suggests 2:14 with ר instead of ד is scribal error. LXX always reflecting ר might indicate this is a later amendment, but not sure.

/5

There’s also a text critical element at play:

1:14 isn’t clear between MT and LXX on who is Gad’s father. LXX says Ραγουηλ (רעואל) but MT has דעואל. This confusion make sense, but it is interesting that MT has ד in this name everywhere except 2:14 whereas LXX consistently has Ρ capitalized.

/4

It’s almost feels like Gad was missed in the appointing order in ch 1, and when Naphtali is the expected end the author realizes there’s one left over and then inserts Gad (somewhat) out of place.

/3

Gad is placed in Reuben’s camp (south side of Tabernacle), along with Simeon. Though, Gad’s leader (Eliasaph) isn’t listed with Reuben/Simeon in ch 1, but comes in the group of what will become Dan’s camp: second to last (1:14) just before Naphtali’s leader (Ahira 1:15).

/2

Good thoughts. I don’t necessarily see this as bad, do you?

Sole reliance on MT is misinformed, but it has emerged as the central textual authority for religion and academic communities alike (generally!)

Do you suggest this should be changed? Paucity of DSS evidence makes this hard to change.

Precisely! Btw, I’m excited to find your posts. This is the kind of thing I joined the platform for, but ran out of steam myself. Looking forward to engaging further!

Off the cuff I think this is a pretty common confusion/discrepancy in HB/OT texts…. Something that drove me nuts in my earlier years of Hebrew learning as I couldn’t remember which verb was which!

I've heard of this fellow, and he just retired as a conservative rabbi at a large synagogue in LA.