[Avodah] Scholarship, Mesorah, and the Misisng nun of Ashrei

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 03:18:34PM -0700, Daniel M. Israel wrote to Areivim:
: [C]onsider for example, the Ashrei. It is an acrostic, but "missing" the
: line starting with "nun." The "most likely" explanation, favored AFAIK
: by secular scholars, is that the line existed and was dropped at some
: point due to a scribal error. IIRC, this explanation got further support
: when a variant text was found (in the Dead Sea Scrolls, perhaps?) that
: did have a line for "nun." 

: Of course, the major meforshim say that
: David HaMelech left that line out deliberately. And even the variant
: text could be explained by reveresing the reasoning: perhaps a scribe
: noticing the "missing" line took it upon himself to compose one. The
: point is, even if you conclude that the first explanation, the one of
: the historians, makes more sense, that doesn't mean that it is right....

The Septuagint has a nun line, but it looks like a translation of a
sentence starting "ne'eman". And there is the scroll RDMI refers to, 11PQs-a
<http://www.ibiblio.org/expo/deadsea.scrolls.exhibit/full-images/psalm-b.gif>
where we have something that could well be what the LXX translated,
but it is almost exactly like the tzadi line: Ne'eman Hashem bekhol
ma'asav... It's not overly convincing; we don't need to assume a creative
scribe filling in a hole. It's more likely a copiest who expected the
line to be there accidentally mistranscribed, producing a whole new
tradition for sectarians to use.

RGS posts a quote from R' Prof Sholom Carmy
<http://hirhurim.blogspot.com/2004/11/missing-nun-in-psalm-145.html>:
    How seriously can one take this interpretation at the peshat (simple
    meaning) level? Is it likely that the author of a twenty-two-line
    poem would deliberately breach the poetic form of the composition in
    order to make a subtle point that is likely to be lost on the casual
    reader? Is R. Yohanan not reading an idea into the text that has no
    purchase on the text?

    This issue was far from my mind the day I read W.H. Auden's
    "Atlantis." The poem, comprising seven twelve-line stanzas, which
    exhibit a complicated pattern of rhyme and meter, describes the
    effort and resourcefulness required to reach the mythical islan
    of Atlantis. The voyage culminates in a scene where the traveler,
    having overcome many ordeals, collapses: "With all Atlantis shining/
    Below you yet you cannot/ Descend." At this precise point in the
    poem, the rigid pattern is violated: line 7 of stanza 6 does not
    exist. The explanation seems obvious: the poet's "failure" to fully
    satisfy the complicated technical feat he has undertaken parallels
    the failure of the poem's protagonist to consummate his journey. The
    intertwining of form and content in the work of a twentieth-century
    master craftsman renders more persuasive the notion of a similar
    phenomenon in the psalm.

: I will leave aside the question of
: whether one could side with the historians in this particular case and
: still fall withing the realm of the mesorah. There are many more similar
: examples to be found, I just picked one that is particularly
: straightforward. Fundementally the job of the secualar historian and the
: Torah Jew differ here, the former is obliged to put forward the most
: reasonable explanation of the evidence, while we have a different
: obligation. 

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

PS: Extra credit to anyone who recognizes this signature quote!

-- 
Micha Berger                     .S.
micha at aishdas.org             .S. A .S.
http://www.aishdas.org         X  M  Y
Fax: (270) 514-1507