And the Topography
Of the
Books of Samuel
with an Introduction on
Hebrew Palaeography and the Ancient Versions
and Facsimiles of Inscriptions and Maps
by the
Rev. S. R. Driver D.D.
Regius Professor of Hebrew, and Canon of Christ Church, Oxford
Hon. D.litt. Cambridge and Dublin; Hon. D.D. Glasgow and Aberdeen
Fellow of the British Academy
Corresponding member of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences
Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged
Oxford
at the Clarendon Press
1913
From the Preface to the First Edition
The present volume is designed as a contribution to the philology and textual criticism of the Old Testament. It may, I hope, be found useful as a sequel to Mr. Spurrell’s Notes on Genesis1. The Books of Samuel are not so suitable as a reading book for a beginner in Hebrew as some of the other historical books: for though they contain classical examples of a chaste and beautiful Hebrew prose style, they have suffered unusually from transcriptional corruption, and hence raise frequently questions of text, with which a beginner is evidently not in a position to deal. But for one who has made further progress in the language, they afford an admirable field for study: they familiarize him with many of the most characteristic idioms of the language, and at the same time introduce him to the grounds and principles of the textual criticism of the Old Testament. The idiomatic knowledge of Hebrew is best acquired by an attentive and repeated study of the Hebrew prose writers; and I have made it my aim throughout not merely to explain (so far as this was possible2) the text of the Books of Samuel, but also to point out and illustrate, as fully as seemed needful, the principal idiomatic usages which they exemplify. In the Introduction I have sought to bring within reach of the student materials—especially relating to Inscriptions—often with difficulty accessible, including matter which, at least to some readers, will probably be new. More space could easily have been devoted to the subject of the Ancient Versions; but enough, I hope, will have been said to illustrate their character, and their value to the student of the Old Testament. Historical questions, and questions touching the structure of the Books of Samuel, lying outside the plan of the work, have been noticed only incidentally: I have, however, articulated the two Books in a manner, the utility of which will, I hope, appear to those readers who proceed to the study of the sources of which they are composed.
A portion of the volume was already in type, when the loan of some MS. notes of the late Prof. Duncan H. Weir, extending as far as 2 Sam. 4:131, was offered to me. Knowing, from the extracts in Prof. Cheyne’s Isaiah (1884), the value of Dr. Weir’s suggestions, I thankfully availed myself of the offer. The notes, I found, were less complete than I had expected; and though I gladly quoted from them what I could, I did not obtain from them as much assistance as I ...
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About Notes on the Hebrew Text and the Topography of the Books of SamuelThis book, authored by Samuel Driver of Brown-Driver-Briggs fame, tackles what is one of the thorniest books of the Old Testament from a text-critical point of view. It is considered by many to be one of the best commentaries on Samuel ever written. Initially published in 1890, it is still regarded as a model of text-critical method—which is noteworthy in light of the rugged condition of the text of 1 Samuel. Driver wrote using the text of the Septuagint, without the benefit of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Yet his conclusions about the validity of LXX readings of Samuel (as opposed to the MT text, which suffers from some lengthy gaps) were well argued and demonstrated to be accurate when the Qumran discovery came along. R. W. Klein, writing in the Word Biblical Commentary volume on 1 Samuel, observes that, “The Masoretic Text of 1 Samuel is not in good shape. In particular many letters and words have been accidentally omitted, often because of the phenomenon of homoioteleuton. For more than a century commentators have attempted to emend the text on the basis of the LXX.… Thenius was the first modern scholar to make extensive use of the LXX, but a new level of excellence in the use of the LXX for the textual criticism of Samuel was achieved by Julius Wellhausen and S. R. Driver. Many of their emendations and textual notations were cited in BHK by Rudolf Kittel.… Wellhausen and Driver recognized that the LXX reflected an alternate and often superior form of the Hebrew text. Their insights were confirmed and refined with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.” In addition, Driver was an expert grammarian and his exegesis is well-respected. Moisés Silva once suggested in his bibliography for students at Westminster, “If you find this one, sell your car to buy it.” In his book Old Testament Exegesis, Dr. Douglas Stuart writes, “Seeing how an expert does textual criticism is one of the best ways to try to understand the methods involved. One of the best examples of careful textual criticism applied to a large section of the OT is worth learning from if you can find it: S. R. Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text and the Topography of the Books of Samuel …” |
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