Friday 17 April 2009

Masorah vs Logos

According to the Masorah of Psalm 24: 3, the phrase בְהַר־יְהוָה occurs three times in the Bible: in our verse here and in Genesis 22:14 and Isaiah 30: 29. No matter how I type this phrase into my Logos word search, however (i.e. with or without vowels and accents), I only get two results: Ps 24: 3 and Isaiah 30: 29.

How is that possible? The only difference between Ge 22:14 and the other verses (apart from the accents) is that it doesn't have a maqqef. If I speed search the highlighted text in Gen 22: 14, I only get one hit.

Am I doing something wrong or were the Masoretes really inspired?

Update:

As I've written on the side bar of this blog, I'm a technological numpty. I've figured out the problem. Gen 22:14 does turn up in the morphological search, as long as all the settings are right! Nevertheless, I thought it would be interesting to post the differences between Logos and the Masorah in the rest of Psalm 24. All the references, in fact, are completely accurate appart from two:
  • 1) v. 2: According to the Masorah: יְכוֹנְנֶהָ occurs 4 times, though Mm doesn't say where (I think this means that this reference wasn't in the Leningrad codex ...). My Logos search only produces 3 results (Psalm 24:2; Psalm 48:9; Psalm 87:5). Someone has suggested offline that the missing fourth could be Ps 7:13, which has a waw: ויכוננה. I think this would be odd though, as waws were significant for the Masoretes and were either counted as a separate form or at least remarked upon.
  • v. 5:Masorah says that יִשָּׂא occurs 37 times. Logos has produes 39 hits. The note is "Mp sub loco," so I don't know which verses the Masoretes had in mind.

4 comments:

Stephen Lawson said...

A haiku

maqqef where are you
you make all the difference here
I need you Logos

Phil Sumpter said...

I'm moved Stephen. Thank you. By the way, I updated the post.

John Anderson said...

Hey Phil . . .

Glad the Masoretes have again proven themselves to be correct. I was a bit concerned there for a bit.

Phil Sumpter said...

Hi John,

I'm not sure if you read the updated post; I wasn't using my Logos properly!

The MT was almost totally correct and there are two spaces where it would seem that Logos was better ...

I'd be interested to know if the Masorah are useful for you in your literary approach.