© 2003 by University of Manchester
DETERMINATION AND THE USE OF THE DEFINITE ARTICLE IN THE SAMARITAN AND IN THE MASORETIC TEXT OF THE TORAH
The use of the Hebrew article underwent changes throughout the history of Biblical Hebrew. Some of these changes are documented by the differences between the consonantal framework and the Masoretic vocalization. A comparative view of these materials and the respective variants in the Samaritan Pentateuch including its reading tradition provides further insights. With regard to the use of the article, the consonantal framework of the Masoretic text preserves the oldest stratum, while the Masoretic vocalization represents the youngest. The Samaritan tradition, on the other hand, is uniform in both its parts — consonantal framework and reading tradition — and holds a middle position between the two Masoretic strata from a historical point of view. However, both parts of the Masoretic tradition share at least one common feature, which set it as a whole apart from the Samaritan tradition: the generic use of the article.
+ The work on this study has been made possible by a valuable grant from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft Bonn, Germany. It forms part of a more comprehensive project carried out by the present author, which is devoted to the significance of the Samaritan reading tradition for the textual criticism of the Torah.