What is the difference between Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia and Biblia Hebraica Leningradensia?
Which should a student of Judaism and the Hebrew Bible buy?
WRS
Oh, come on. Someone here has to know, or be interested enough to know AND post the answer.
Strangely, in doing a search on both, it seems that many Christian places carry it, but haven’t seen many Jewish bookstores yet. Then again, I didn’t go very far.
All I know is that these two refer to two manuscripts, each in a different city, although what relation that have to the present Torah’s text I do not know.
Hopefully someone will respond. Please. Pretty please? I’ll promise not to hurt Frodo!
WRS
I don’t know any Jews who use the BHS for regular day-to-day Torah study. Where these editions are useful is in studying the nitty-gritty of vowelization and ‘punctuation’ (for lack of a better term) between different editions. The consonantal text should be the same.
Are you looking for just the Torah or do you want the whole Tanach? (i.e. just the Five Books of Moses or the whole “Old Testament”?)
Jews usually study the Torah with commentaries, of which there have been many over the years. An edition of the Five Books of Moses with commentary is colloquially referred to as a chumash (means something like “five-fold”). The typical chumash you’d find in a synagogue in English-speaking countries for use during services would consist of the Hebrew text of the Torah and an English translation on facing columns or pages with a line-by-line commentary underneath. The commentaries are usually put together from Rabbinic sources (Talmud and Midrash), commentators of the Middle Ages, and modern scholars. The books usually include the Haftarot (additional readings from the Prophets) as well.
Common chumashim you’d find in synagogues in North America: the edition by the Soncino Press (commonly called the Hertz Chumash after the name of its editor), the Stone Chumash from Artscroll, the Eitz Chaim chumash put out by the Jewish Publication Society, or the chumash edited by Gunther Plaut. Each of these editions has its own outlook.
Traditionally, a study chumash would be all-Hebrew, with the text of the Torah, the complete line-by-line commentary of Rashi (Rabbi Solomon son of Isaac, an 11th-century French rabbi, the most famous and prolific of the commentators), and the text of the Targum Ounkelos (an ancient translation of the Torah into Aramaic). It would also include the Haftarot and the “Scroll” books.
Tell us more about your needs and we can guide you further.