Old Testament Textual Criticism: A Practical Introduction

Brotzman does a good job of introducing one to the field of textual criticism (TC) and covering the essential issues and topics. It isn't an all-exhaustive work, but it is not intended to be one. It's a good introduction and preparation for Tov's book, which should be the next logical step for someone seriously interested in the field of TC of the Hebrew Bible. However, a beginner would probably be overwhelmed by the host of technical terms and jargon used in Tov's book, unless he/she has some foundation to understand the basics, etc. I wouldn't recommend anyone to dive into Tov's book without the understanding of what TC is all about. Brotzman does a good job of that. He not only covers the basics of TC, but he also shows how to apply the principles in practice by providing a TC of the book of Ruth with a helpful commentary. After reading his book, one can decide whether TC is something they are really interested in after all. If so, Tov is the next logical step. For the people new to the field, Brotzman's book is an inexpensive way to find out what it's all about.

How did the Old Testament get to us in such good shape and what are the apologetics for such a claim? Can someone who is not a student of Hebrew get some basic information on this subject? The answer is `Yes', with some effort, since the book is geared to an intermediate student of Hebrew, as stated near the end of the book. Author Ellis Brotzman says that it is a "miracle" that Old Testament even exists, and a "double miracle" that it is highly accurate after its transmission from ancient times! I am very impressed with the care of the Old Testament by the Jewish custodians of the scriptures for such a long period of time. We have them to thank (through God's Providence) for what we have today. To explain how, Brotzman stayed fairly high-level, taking us from the creation of the original manuscripts to the present day, through different text styles, different language translations, and through the different gyrations of textual criticisms. Textual criticism, I found out, is a very organized, scholarly methodology of condensing the various texts into one that is as accurate as possible for our use today. To this end, Brotzman patiently goes through enough of the Hebrew language characteristics to allow us to understand what textual criticism is about. For example, I found that for hundreds of years early on, the Hebrew text was originally entirely consonantal, with the vowels being transmitted only through oral tradition. Later, the oral tradition was changed to written, and the vowels were indicated by adding the appropriate number of dots below the appropriate consonants. He lets us know in a general way how that works and the affect it has on the transmission accuracy of the text. He also gives examples of standard BHS texts with the margin notes on the sides and bottoms and what they mean, and the references they point to (other manuscripts, frequency of different types of errors, etc.). He also talks about the Dead Sea Scrolls and the great roll they play in validating the accuracy of the textual transmission. He then gives us some actual case studies from the book of Ruth and how the scholars settled the variant readings through textual criticism, applying the methodologies he describes earlier in the book. The book took some work for me to understand, but it was worth it.

is concise enough to be understood and does lend something to the neat field of OT Text Criticism. it isnt exactly written for the expert in the field of hebrew knowledge (this is only my 4th semester of it), but the title says it all, "a practical introduction".