Talk:Qere and Ketiv

Form and Meaning of כְּתִיב‎

Previously, this stub was published stating that כְּתִיב‎ meant "to be written," as a passive infinitive. The Aramaic form XĕXîX is analogous to the Hebrew form XāXûX. Thus, כְּתִיב‎ means the same as כָּתוּב‎ in Hebrew, which is "written" as a passive participle. "To be written" would be expressed with an infinitive, as in the Hebrew לְהִתְכַּתֵּב‎ (correction: לְהִכַּתֵּב‎; see below). - Yonah mishael 05:46, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually, passive participles sometimes develop an additional meaning of "obligation" or "necessity" in certain contexts, as was the case for certain Latin forms (Cato's famous "Carthago delenda est!", for example). I don't know the Aramaic language well enough to verify this personally, but the English-language gloss "to be written" is based on a claimed Aramaic connotation of necessity or obligation. In this particular context, the English-language expression "to be written" does not have a simple infinitive meaning, and would not be generally translated into other languages using an infinitive form. In any case, "Lehitkatev" means "to correspond" (Hitpael infinitive), so I really fail to see how that's relevant (in Biblical Hebrew, infinitives quite often appear without the Lamedh anyway). AnonMoos 15:55, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Re: להתכתב‎. Correct. "To be written" is לְהִכַּתֵּב‎ in the binyan נִפְעַל‎. My hasty mistake. It wasn't the main point of what I was saying. The point is: there exists a passive infinitive, and כתיב‎ and כתוב‎ are not it.

כתיב‎ simply means "(what is) read" as per the tradition. It is not a command or an obligation, but simply an instruction on the proper way to read the text.

BTW, why didn't you transliterate להתכתב‎ as lehithkateb as per your argued transliteration? Could it be because ב‎ does NOT represent the sound [b] when unpointed but [v]? Kethib is a bad transliteration. - Yonah

In the meantime, we need to find a way to resolve the content fork. Kethib really is not the best way to transliterate כתיב‎/ܟܬܝܒ. We should be able to resolve these issues in such a way as to honor older labelling traditions (perhaps by including them as possible transliterations) while listing the entries in more accurately-transliterated forms. - Yonah mishael 15:20, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

You will notice that I redirected the article Ketiv and updated this article to reflect that. You may feel the need to make changes to the current article. This is at least a temporary solution. - Yonah mishael 23:59, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Transcription

Kethib is a problematic transliteration. The th (in appearance [θ] or [ð], but really [t]) represents the soft form of tav ת‎, which is written with aspiration on account of the lack of dagesh (תּ‎). It is inconsistent because the bet ב‎ is also aspirated and would -- if this transliteration were consistent -- come across as bh, with the resultant form of Kethibh.

The better transliteration would be one that is recognizable to an English reader who has not been versed in transliteration schemes. This would be ketiv, which represents the apirated form of bet. Since the title of this article is based on a very imprecise transliteration, the article should be merged with Ketiv -- in other words, this article should be deleted. - Yonah mishael 07:07, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

First off, Kethib is actually the way the word would have been quite often transcribed into the English language in the 19th-century, when English-speaking Biblical scholars were concerned with how Biblical Hebrew / Aramaic sounds mapped to Greek or English, rather than with the modern Israeli Hebrew pronounciation (which didn't really exist at that time). Second, Biblical/Masoretic terminology is not generally transcribed into English as if they were modern Israeli Hebrew words (as I explained on your talk page). Third, this article will not be "deleted" -- it will be redirected to another name, if another name is found to be better. Fourth, you didn't advance the process when you created a redundant duplicative article at Ketiv. AnonMoos 15:55, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

The pronunciation now used in Israel did exist in the 19th Century. It was (and still is) known as the Sephardic pronunciation. The Sephardic Jews, who derive their designation from ספרד‎ sefarad "Spain," used Ladino as a regular means of communication and spoke Hebrew in the manner currently used in Israel.

Perhaps, "deleted" is not the solution, then... but surely redirected to Ketiv is a good idea.

The oddity that I see, I guess, is that כתיב‎ and קרי‎ are Aramaic terms (which could indicate something different about their pronunciation), but Jewish Aramaic is always pronounced by whatever Hebrew system your synagogue uses. Thus, in my synagogue we read the קדיש‎ as if it were Hebrew -- yitgadal veyitkadash shemeih rabah. In Ashkenazi synagogues, they use a more Yiddish-style pronunciation for the Aramaic, too. Thus, to someone of this background, כתיב‎ would be pronounced kesiv.

Masoretic Text (without my interfering) uses the transliteration ketiv for כתיב‎, while Qere uses kethib. Should we not work for some kind of uniformity between these articles? The best way to do that would be to use the most accepted manner of transliteration used by Hebrew scholars. Don't you agree? - Yonah mishael

Comparison with Hebrew article: Combining כתיב and קרי

I was just looking at the Hebrew article on this subject, and it is noteworthy that both the "Kethib" (= Ketiv, Kethiv) and the "Qere" (= Q're, Kerei) are included in a single, more expansive, article. Can we not combine the two and redirect it all on to one page so that the subject could be treated more completely without any content forks at all? What do you think? - Yonah mishael

Merging

Per the comment above, I am merging the two to a single article, Qere and Ketiv. It makes much more sense to take them together comprehensively on the one page. I'll use a move, so the new article will retain the history of this page. The individual words (and their variant spellings) will forward to there, as redirects.

IMO the spelling "Ketiv" is to be preferred. It's the spelling used by Encyclopedia Judaica, and by Kelley et al in The Masorah of Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia. The three are all about even in a google fight: "qere ketiv -wikipedia" gets 1380, "qere kethib -wikipedia" 1220, "qere ketib -wikipedia" 1690. -- Jheald 19:03, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

---

The article Q're perpetuum has also been merged into this article, in the section Qere and Ketiv#Qere perpetuum. HYC (talk) 01:34, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

result of merger

We now have two paragraphs on Q're perpetuum right before the article section on Q're perpetuum... AnonMoos (talk) 10:28, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

"consensus of mainstream scholarship"

There's a lot more on this in the relevant sections of article Tetragrammaton , but I don't feel like coercing the format of those citations (some to sources that I haven't personally seen) to fit this article... AnonMoos (talk) 10:28, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

About a "pseudo-Hebrew form which was mistakenly created when Medieval and/or Renaissance Christian scholars"? Which sources state that it is well accepted that:

• This was a mistake;
• These are Christian scholars who made it;
• The mistake occurred no earlier than in the Middle Ages?

Incnis Mrsi (talk) 09:55, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Gesenius (whom I already added) says that it was "unknown until 1520" when invented by Galatinus, but others have suggested that it may possibly go back in some form as early as the 13th century (though certainly not at all commonly used until the 16th century, and then usually by Christians only, not ordinarily by Jews). I looked for my copy of Yeivin on the Masorah, which may have more detail, but I can't find it right now. AnonMoos (talk) 13:54, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Found a highly-relevant quote which I added to the article. AnonMoos (talk) 03:41, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

In this article wrote under "Vowel qere": "This type of qere is different from qere perpetuum, because here, the consonants do not change. In a qere perpetuum, the consonants actually do change." In Tetragrammaton the consonants do not change. So it is rather a "vowel qere" than qere perpetuum. Biblestudyhome (talk) 14:47, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't see your comment before, but pronouncing YHWH as Adonai is definitely a change which affects consonants... AnonMoos (talk) 19:12, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Difference between Masoretic tradition and Jewish tradition?

Can someone please explain this? Ty. --Adamgold33 (talk) 23:26, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean -- that phrase doesn't occur in the article. Some think that the Tiberian Masoretes (not necessarily other Masoretes) were actually Karaites (not "Rabbanites"), but that has had no real relevance to textual interpretation, as far as I'm aware... AnonMoos (talk) 14:26, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Elokim

I restored some material that was deleted along with a brief description of the meaning of Elokim. Regarding the meaning, I wouldn't say that it is "contested" or unknown. In Jewish traditional literature, especially in Kabbalah, all the meanings are unified quite nicely:

• G-d
• judges
• angels
• other gods
• G-d as He expresses Himself through nature
• G-d as master over nature
• the all-powerful G-d
• G-d acting with the attribute of strict justice
• G-d acting in a concealed fashion

This is done by associating Elokim with the attribute of Gevurah, or power and constriction (in contrast, the Tetragrammaton itself is the attribute of unlimited kindness and revelation):

• Kabbalah links the name Elokim to nature, and shows that the gematria of Elokim equals that of nature, hatevah. Hence, Elokim is a name related to how G-d acts through and controls nature.
• As nature is finite and G-d is infinite, there must first be a concealment of G-d's light, lest nature be obliterated. Since this is a concealment of an infinite Luminary, the power to hold back the light must be great. Hence, the concealment is only possible because G-d is the all-powerful G-d, possessing powers of both infinitude and finitude.
• Since justice and logic must follow constrained rules which limit G-d's Infinite light, they are also indicated by Elokim. In addition, there is a Talmudic statement that a judge ruling justly by G-d's Torah becomes a partner in Creation, which occurred through the name Elokim (Genesis 1).
• Similarly, when G-d dispatches emissaries (angels), this is a level of concealment and constriction of His light. (Although despite this concealment, G-d's presence is still overwhelming enough that the angel may "forget" his own existence and thus speak in first person, as if he were G-d Himself; as in when Abraham was commanded not to kill Isaac.)
• "Other gods" according to Maimonides, Hilchot Avoda Zarah, originated in the worship of G-d's emissaries, the forces of nature. These angels are again constricted expressions of G-d's light.

However, lacking a list of exact sources, I have refrained from restoring my explanation that Elokim refers to G-d as an all-powerful G-d for now, leaving only the citation from the Kestenbaum Tikkun and that Elokim is another Divine name. (In fact, if written in ink or engraved, halachah forbids erasing it, it being one of the seven sheimos she'eino nimchakim). And, a lengthy explanation is beyond the scope of this article's proper. I would like to edit the Elokim article, but that appears to be a difficult project for which I may not have time for a while. Musashiaharon (talk) 10:42, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

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