Emanuel Tov


Emanuel Tov is emeritus Professor in the Department of Bible at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Biography

Emanuel Tov was born in Amsterdam, the Netherlands during the German occupation. When he was one year old his parents entrusted him to the care of a Christian family. His parents perished in the Holocaust, and following the war he grew up with his uncle and aunt as one of their children. He studied at a “gymnasium”, where he learned classical and modern European languages, and at the same time learned Hebrew at Talmud Torah. From age 14, he was active in the Zionistic youth movement “Ichud Habonim” and served as one of its leaders. At age 18, the movement sent him to Israel for training as a leader and in 1960 he became the general secretary of that movement in the Netherlands. In 1961, he immigrated to Israel. He studied at the Hebrew University, while serving also as an assistant in the Bible Dept. and at the Hebrew University Bible Project. In 1967–1969, he continued his studies at the Dept. for Near Eastern Studies and Languages at Harvard University. His dissertation, written under the guidance of Professors Shemaryahu Talmon of the Hebrew University and Frank Moore Cross of Harvard University, was submitted to the Hebrew University in 1973 as “The Septuagint Translation of Jeremiah and Baruch.” Upon his return to Israel, he served as an “assistant” at the University of Haifa and at the Hebrew University.
In 1986, he was appointed Professor at the Hebrew University and in 1990 he became the J. L. Magnes Professor of Bible Studies. Served as visiting Professor at the Universities of Oxford, Uppsala, Doshisha, Macquarie and Sydney, Stellenbosch, Vrije Universiteit, University of Pennsylvania, the Pontifical Gregorian University, and Halle. He stayed at Institutes for Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, NIAS, Annenberg, Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies and the Lichtenberg Kolleg.
He was one of the editors of the Hebrew University Bible Project. He is a member of the editorial board of the journals Dead Sea Discoveries and the Journal of Jewish Studies, and served on the Academic committee of the Magnes Press. He is the co-founder and chairman of the Dead Sea Scrolls Foundation, a Member of the Academic Committee of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Senior Associate Fellow of the and an Honorary Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies.
From 1990-2009 he served as the Editor-in-Chief of the international Dead Sea Scrolls Publication Project, which during those years produced 33 volumes of the series Discoveries in the Judean Desert as well as two concordances.
He also published an electronic edition of all the extra-biblical Qumran scrolls and a six-volume printed edition of the scrolls meant for the general public.
He also created electronic
editions of the Hebrew and Greek Bible.
Emanuel Tov is married to Lika. They have three children and four granddaughters.

Prizes and honorary titles

Septuagint

Emanuel Tov's studies on the Septuagint focused first on inner-translational developments and gradually moved to the importance of this translation for the study of the Bible: the early revisions of the Septuagint, translation technique, the reconstruction of the Hebrew parent text of the Greek translation, the value of the Septuagint for the textual study of the Hebrew Bible, the importance of certain Septuagint books for the exegesis of the Hebrew books and the understanding of their literary development, the place of the Hebrew source of the Septuagint in the development of the text of the Bible.
Tov's initial publications on the Septuagint deal with that translation's early revisions that were intended to approximate the Greek text to the Hebrew text current in Israel from the 1st century BCE until the 2nd century CE. For that research, he established sound principles by determining the criteria for defining and characterizing the revisions. His preoccupation with matters of translation technique and the reconstruction of the Hebrew parent text of the Septuagint was influenced by his practical work in the HUBP. In that research, he combined the field work in that project with the formulation of abstract rules for the evaluation of details in the Septuagint, constantly cross-fertilizing both areas. These rules were formulated in his theoretical book on the Septuagint that grew out of his courses at the Hebrew University, each year on a different Bible book
Subsequently, the focus of Tov's interest moved to the importance of the Septuagint for biblical scholarship, both for textual and literary criticism. In several books, the Septuagint reflects a Hebrew basis that needs to be taken into consideration in the exegesis of those books beyond small details, both when, according to Tov, the Hebrew parent text of the Septuagint preceded the Masoretic Text and when it serves as an exegetical layer reacting to the forerunner of the Masoretic Text. According to Tov, in all these books the exegete of the Hebrew books must take the Greek translation into consideration. A precondition for this procedure is that the analysis of the translation technique as described in the previous paragraph will have established that the Septuagint is a good source for analyzing the text that lay in front of him. From among all the early witnesses of the biblical text, the best ones for analyzing the stages of its literary development are the Masoretic Text and the Septuagint, a few Qumran texts and the Samaritan Pentateuch. Tov believes that the analysis of early witnesses such as the Septuagint enriches our exegesis and helps us in understanding the last stages of the development of the biblical literature in specific books.

Development of the Bible text

Emanuel Tov does not describe the development of the biblical text based on abstract theories, but tries to take the evidence of the ancient manuscripts and versions as his point of departure. It is clear that in antiquity many versions of the Bible were circulating, as is evident from the textual plurality at Qumran. All the manuscripts differed from one another, but within that plurality one may recognize some groups. Tov qualified this plurality by providing the internal statistics of the different types of the Qumran scrolls. He also described the socio-religious background of some groups of the Judean Desert scrolls.
An important link in this argumentation is the group of the so-called 4QReworked Pentateuch texts. Ten years after Tov published this group of documents
, he realized that these texts do not reflect a single non-biblical rewritten Pentateuch composition, but a cluster of biblical texts that included many exegetical elements. These texts reflect a link in the series of developing biblical texts.
Tov's studies on the Septuagint and 4QReworked Pentateuch led him to new thoughts regarding the development of the last stages of the biblical books and the original text of these books. In his view, the early stages of the biblical books such as reflected in the Septuagint of 1 Samuel, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, show that the formulations of these books developed stage by stage. This reconstructed development makes it difficult to posit an original text of the biblical books. In Tov's view, there was not one original text, but a series of "original texts." This view developed after the appearance of the second edition of his Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible and was emphasized more in
the third edition.

The development of the text of the Torah

In studies primarily carried out in the 2010s, Tov focused on the
special textual status of the Torah.
In his view, the textual development of the Torah differed from that
of all other Scripture books, probably because of its popularity.
The Masoretic Text reflects the presumed original text better than
all other preserved texts, all of which reflect more secondary
elements than MT, especially the one-time joined tradition of the
Samaritan Pentateuch and the LXX. Further, the number of the
non-Masoretic textual branches in the Torah is much larger than in
all other Scripture books.

Dead Sea Scrolls and the Qumran scribes

Emanuel Tov dealt with various aspects of the Qumran scrolls, but his most central publications pertain to the Qumran scribes. In 2004, he published a detailed monograph on the scribal practices reflected in the Qumran scrolls, suggesting that the information about these scribal practices allows us to obtain a better understanding of the Qumran scrolls.
This monograph describes the technical aspects of all the Judean Desert texts, such as the measurements of the columns and sheets, the beginnings and ends of scrolls, systems of correcting mistakes, orthography systems, and a classification of the scrolls according to these parameters.
An important part of this description is Tov's theory on the Qumran scribes. Since 1986, Tov has suggested the division of the Qumran scrolls into two groups distinguished by external features. Group 1 is written in a special spelling, specials linguistic forms, and special scribal habits. The great majority of the Qumran sectarian scrolls belong to this group; hence Tov's suggestion that these scrolls were written by sectarian scribes, possibly at Qumran. These scribes copied biblical as well as extra-biblical scrolls, altogether one-third of the Qumran scrolls, while the other scrolls were brought to Qumran from outside, from one or more localities.

Computer-assisted research of the Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls

Emanuel Tov believes that the examination of the Bible and Dead Sea Scrolls needs to be aided by computer-assisted research and that therefore databases and computer programs need to be developed. He supervised the electronic encoding of the Leningrad Codex in the 1980s.
At that time, he also embarked upon a research project together with Prof. Robert A. Kraft of the University of Pennsylvania. That project, based in Philadelphia and Jerusalem, created a comparative database of all the words in the Masoretic Text and the Septuagint. It was published as a module within the Accordance program. With the aid of that program, which allows for advanced searches and statistical research, several such investigations have been carried out by Tov and others.
Another database edited by Tov contains all the texts and images of the para-biblical Dead Sea Scrolls, in the original languages and in translation, with morphological analysis and search programs. All these programs serve the international community.

Honorary volumes

1. The Book of Baruch also Called I Baruch .
2. The Septuagint Translation of Jeremiah and Baruch: A Discussion of an Early
Revision of Jeremiah 29–52 and Baruch 1:1–3:8.
3. The Text-Critical Use of the Septuagint in Biblical Research.
3*. The Text-Critical Use of the Septuagint in Biblical Research.
3**. The Text-Critical Use of the Septuagint in Biblical Research
.
4. With J. R. Abercrombie, W. Adler, and R. A. Kraft: Computer Assisted Tools for Septuagint Studies, Volume 1, Ruth.
5. A Computerized Data Base for Septuagint Studies: The Parallel Aligned Text of the Greek and Hebrew Bible.
6. With D. Barthélemy, D. W. Gooding, and J. Lust: The Story of David and Goliath, Textual and Literary Criticism, Papers of a Joint Venture.
7. Textual Criticism of the Bible: An Introduction.
7*. Second corrected printing of: Textual Criticism of the Bible: An Introduction.
7**. Textual Criticism of the Bible: An Introduction.
7a. Expanded and updated version of 7: Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible.
7a*. Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible.
7a**. Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible.
7b. German version of 7a : Der Text der Hebräischen Bibel: Handbuch der Textkritik.
7c. Russian version of 7b : Tekstologiya Vetchoga Zaveta.
8. With the collaboration of R. A. Kraft: The Greek Minor Prophets Scroll from Nahal Hever .
8*. Revised edition of 8: The Greek Minor Prophets Scroll from Nahal Hever .
9. With the collaboration of S. J. Pfann: The Dead Sea Scrolls on Microfiche: A Comprehensive Facsimile Edition of the Texts from the Judean Desert, with a Companion Volume.
9*. Revised edition of 9: Companion Volume to The Dead Sea Scrolls Microfiche Edition.
10. With C. Rabin and S. Talmon: The Hebrew University Bible, The Book of Jeremiah.
11. The Greek and Hebrew Bible – Collected Essays on the Septuagint.
11.* Unchanged paperback edition of The Greek and Hebrew Bible – Collected Essays on the Septuagint.
12a. With D. W. Parry: The Dead Sea Scrolls Reader, Part 1, Texts Concerned with Religious Law)
12b. With D. W. Parry: The Dead Sea Scrolls Reader, Part 2, Exegetical Texts.
12c. With D. W. Parry: The Dead Sea Scrolls Reader, Part 3, Parabiblical Texts.
12d. With D. W. Parry: The Dead Sea Scrolls Reader, Part 4, Calendrical and Sapiential Texts.
12e. With D. W. Parry: The Dead Sea Scrolls Reader, Part 5, Poetic and Liturgical Texts.
12f. With D. W. Parry: The Dead Sea Scrolls Reader, Part 6, Additional Genres and Unclassified Texts.
12*. With D.W. Parry, and in association with G.I. Clements: The
Dead Sea Scrolls Reader, Volumes 1–2.
13. Scribal Practices and Approaches Reflected in the Texts Found in the Judean Desert.
14. Hebrew Bible, Greek Bible, and Qumran – Collected Essays.
15. Revised Lists of the Texts from the Judaean Desert.
16. Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, Qumran, Septuagint:
Collected Writings, Volume 3.

Electronic publications

1. The Dead Sea Scrolls Database .
2. In collaboration with A. Groves: The Hebrew text in ˚nt, JPS Hebrew–English Tanakh: The Traditional Hebrew Text and the New JPS Translation.
3. The Parallel Aligned Text of the Greek and Hebrew Bible, module in the Accordance computer program, 2002.
3a. The Parallel Aligned Text of the Greek and Hebrew Bible, module in the Logos computer program, 2004.
3b. With F. H. Polak: The Parallel Aligned Text of the Greek and Hebrew Bible, module in the Bible Works computer program, version 7, 2005.
4. TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism 8
5. The Dead Sea Scrolls Electronic Library, Brigham Young University, Revised Edition 2006, part of the Dead Sea Scrolls Electronic Reference Library of E.J. Brill Publishers.
6. ”
7.

Books edited

1. The Hebrew and Greek Texts of Samuel, 1980 Proceedings IOSCS, Vienna.
2. A Classified Bibliography of Lexical and Grammatical Studies on the Language of the Septuagint and Its Revisions.
3. With C. Rabin: Textus, Studies of the Hebrew University Bible Project, vol. 11.
4. Textus, Studies of the Hebrew University Bible Project, vol. 12.
5. Textus, Studies of the Hebrew University Bible Project, vol. 13.
6. With M. Klopfenstein, U. Luz, and S. Talmon: Mitte der Schrift? Ein jüdisch–christliches Gespräch. Texte der Berner Symposions 1985.
7. Textus, Studies of the Hebrew University Bible Project, vol. 14. 183 pp.
8. Textus, Studies of the Hebrew University Bible Project, vol. 15.
9. With M. Fishbane and with the assistance of W. Fields: “Sha’arei Talmon”: Studies in the Bible, Qumran, and the Ancient Near East Presented to Shemaryahu Talmon.
10. With A. Hurvitz and S. Japhet: I. L. Seeligmann, Studies in Biblical Literature.
10*. With A. Hurvitz and S. Japhet: I. L. Seeligmann, Studies in Biblical Literature.
11. Max L. Margolis, The Book of Joshua in Greek, Part V: Joshua 19:39–24:33.
12. J. Jarick with the collaboration of G. Marquis, A Comprehensive Bilingual Concordance of the Hebrew and Greek Texts of the Book of Ecclesiastes.
13. Area editor in The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion.
14. Area editor in Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls, vols. 1–2.
15. With L. H. Schiffman and J. VanderKam: The Dead Sea Scrolls: Fifty Years After Their Discovery – Proceedings of the Jerusalem Congress, July 20–25, 1997.
16. F. H. Polak and G. Marquis, A Classified Index of the Minuses of the Septuagint, Part I: Introduction; Part II: The Pentateuch.
17. With E. D. Herbert: The Bible as Book – The Hebrew Bible and the Judaean Desert Discoveries.
18. With P. W. Flint and J. VanderKam: Studies in the Hebrew Bible, Qumran and the Septuagint Presented to Eugene Ulrich.
19. With M. Bar-Asher: Meghillot, Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls V–VI, A Festschrift for Devorah Dimant.
20. With M. Bar-Asher, D. Rom-Shiloni, and N. Wazana: Shai le-Sara Japhet.
21. With C. A. Evans: Exploring the Origins of the Bible – Canon Formation in Historical, Literary, and Theological Perspective.
22. With A. Lange, M. Weigold, and B.H. Reynolds III: The Dead Sea
Scrolls in Context: Integrating the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Study of
Ancient Texts, Languages, and Cultures, Vols. I–II
23. With Armin Lange, Textual History of the Bible, The Hebrew Bible, Vol. 1A, Overview Articles.
24. With Armin Lange, Textual History of the Bible, The Hebrew Bible, Vol. 1B, Pentateuch, Former and Latter Prophets.
25. With Armin Lange, Textual History of the Bible, The Hebrew Bible, Vol. 1C, Pentateuch, Former and Latter Prophets.
26. With Kipp Davis and Robert Duke, Dead Sea Scrolls in the Museum Collection, Publications of Museum of the Bible 1, ed. Michael W. Holmes; Semitic Texts Series, ed. Emanuel Tov; managing ed. Jerry A. Pattengale.
27. Textus, A Journal on Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, Vol. 27.

Editor-in-Chief, Discoveries in the Judaean Desert

1. P. W. Skehan, E. Ulrich, and J. E. Sanderson, Qumran Cave 4.IV: Palaeo-Hebrew and Greek Biblical Manuscripts.
2. E. Qimron and J. Strugnell, Qumran Cave 4.V: Miqsat Ma’ase ha-Torah.
3. E. Eshel et al., in consultation with J. VanderKam and M. Brady, Qumran Cave 4.VI: Poetical and Liturgical Texts, Part 1.
4. E. Ulrich and F. M. Cross, eds., Qumran Cave 4.VII: Genesis to Numbers.
5. H. Attridge et al., in consultation with J. VanderKam, Qumran Cave 4.VIII: Parabiblical Texts, Part 1.
6. E. Ulrich and F. M. Cross, eds., Qumran Cave 4.IX: Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Kings.
7. E. Ulrich et al., Qumran Cave 4.X: The Prophets.
8. E. Ulrich et al., Qumran Cave 4.XI: Psalms to Chronicles.
9. F. M. Cross, D. W. Parry, R. Saley, E. Ulrich, Qumran Cave 4.XII: 1–2 Samuel.
10. J. M. Baumgarten, Qumran Cave 4.XIII: The Damascus Document .
11. M. Broshi et al., in consultation with J. VanderKam, Qumran Cave 4.XIV: Parabiblical Texts, Part 2.
12. T. Elgvin et al., in consultation with J. A. Fitzmyer, S.J., Qumran Cave 4.XV: Sapiential Texts, Part 1.
13. S. Talmon, J. Ben-Dov, and U. Glessmer, Qumran Cave 4.XVI: Calendrical Texts.
14. G. Brooke et al., in consultation with J. VanderKam, Qumran Cave 4.XVII: Parabiblical Texts, Part 3.
15. F. García Martínez, E. J. C. Tigchelaar, and A. S. van der Woude, Qumran Cave 11.II: 11Q2–18, 11Q20–31.
16. M. J. W. Leith, Wadi Daliyeh I: The Wadi Daliyeh Seal Impressions.
17. É. Puech, Qumran Cave 4.XVIII: Textes hébreux .
18. P. Alexander and G. Vermes, Qumran Cave 4.XIX: 4QSerekh Ha-Yah≥ad and Two Related Texts.
19. H. M. Cotton and A. Yardeni, Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek Documentary Texts from Nah≥al H≥ever and Other Sites, with an Appendix Containing Alleged Qumran Texts .
20. D. M. Gropp, Wadi Daliyeh II: The Samaria Papyri from Wadi Daliyeh; E. Schuller et al., in consultation with J. VanderKam and M. Brady, Qumran Cave 4.XXVIII: Miscellanea, Part 2.
21. E. Chazon et al., in consultation with J. VanderKam and M. Brady, Qumran Cave 4.XX: Poetical and Liturgical Texts, Part 2.
22. D. Dimant, Qumran Cave 4.XXI: Parabiblical Texts, Part 4: Pseudo-Prophetic Texts.
23. É. Puech, Qumran Cave 4.XXII: Textes araméens, première partie: 4Q529–549.
24. D. Pike and A. Skinner, in consultation with J. VanderKam and M. Brady, Qumran Cave 4.XXIII: Unidentified Fragments.
25. J. Strugnell, D. J. Harrington, S.J., and T. Elgvin, in consultation with J. A. Fitzmyer, S.J., Qumran Cave 4.XXIV: 4QInstruction : 4Q415 ff..
26. J. Baumgarten et al., Qumran Cave 4.XXV: Halakhic Texts.
27. S. J. Pfann, Cryptic Texts; P. Alexander et al., in consultation with J. VanderKam and M. Brady, Qumran Cave 4.XXVI: Miscellanea, Part 1.
28. H. Cotton et al., in consultation with J. VanderKam and M. Brady, Miscellaneous Texts from the Judaean Desert.
29. E. Tov, The Texts from the Judaean Desert: Indices and an Introduction to the Discoveries in the Judaean Desert Series.
30. M. G. Abegg, Jr., with J. E. Bowley and E. M. Cook, in consultation with E. Tov, The Dead Sea Scrolls Concordance I. The Non-Biblical Texts from Qumran.
31. H. Stegemann with E. Schuller, and C. Newsom, Qumran Cave 1.III: 1QHodayota with Incorporation of 1QHodayotb and 4QHodayota–f.
32. É. Puech, Qumran Cave 4.XXVII: Textes araméens, deuxième partie: 4Q550–575a, 580–587 et Appendices.
33. E. Ulrich and P. W. Flint, Qumran Cave 1.II: The Isaiah Scrolls.