The Arrangement of the Megilloth

Some time ago, I put up quite a few posts on the order or sequence of the Hagiographa (= Writings = Ketuvim; see here). I have now gotten my hands on a new book, The Compilational History of the Megilloth (Mohr Siebeck, 2013), the published St. Andrews dissertation of Timothy J. Stone. I was excited to read it mostly because I was pretty sure I would not agree with the argumentation and I wanted to see if Stone could convince me. Alas, he has not succeeded.

The basic thesis is that the Megilloth (Ruth, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, Esther, in that sequence) in the order of the earliest Masoretic codices (Aleppo and Leningrad, 10th-11th centuries) were intentionally arranged very early, perhaps before the turn of the era. Others have argued that the Tanakh structure of the Hebrew Bible goes back to pre-rabbinic times, and some have argued that the specific order for the Hagiographa found in Baba Bathra dates to the second century BCE (or earlier). Stone's thesis is innovative in that he favors what he calls the "MT sequence" (with grouped Megilloth) over the sequence found in Baba Bathra (without grouped Megilloth), and he spends half of his book arguing from internal clues within the Megilloth for their intentional grouping.

I appreciate his argument for the priority of the sequence in the Aleppo and Leningrad codices over the order found in Baba Bathra; it's interesting, though I wouldn't say I'm sold on it. At least he has a good point that the grouping of these five books perhaps led to their all being linked to a festival rather than the reverse, that their each being linked to a festival led to their being grouped in manuscripts, which is the usual scholarly assumption. And I'm glad to see that Stone gives some consideration to why Chronicles moved from first position in the Writings to last (or vice versa; pp. 114-16), though he does admit: "There does not appear to be a way to adjudicate the direction of Chronicles' migration in the Writings" (115).

I do have some trouble accepting the basic premises of the thesis, though. This is nothing new; I've written about these things before.

Briefly (well, sort of):

1. There is no positive evidence against the Tripartite arrangement of the canon in pre-rabbinic times (as Stone says), but there is hardly any positive evidence for it, either. 
2. Stone too easily dismisses the evidence of the Greek canon lists as possible sources for Jewish views (pp. 93-102), without considering any recent patristics scholarship (not exactly a fair criticism since Stone is not a patristics scholar). I especially missed any interaction with the work of Gilles Dorival. 
3. He does not pay any attention at all to Jerome, who is the only Church Father to talk about the tripartite structure of the Jewish canon. 
4. Stone uses the Twelve Minor Prophets and the Psalter as analogies for the idea of linking books together via catchwords and other similar devices. He then tries to find similar phenomena for the Megilloth. But the Twelve and the Psalter do not seem to me to be the most effective examples, because they were written on single scrolls in antiquity, and we have explicit ancient comments about how they were considered single books (the Twelve, on the one hand, and the Psalter, on the other). 
5. He seems to admit that there are no catchwords binding together the Major Prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and he admits that the order here does not matter, p. 91) nor for the books of the Writings (p. 91). So the only books that we can say are bound together by catchwords are the Primary History (= Enneatuch = Torah & Former Prophets = Genesis - 2Kings) and the Twelve. But for both of these collections, we already knew that the had to follow a certain sequence: the Twelve Prophets are all written on the same scroll, and therefore in a particular order, and the Primary History necessarily follows the sequence of history. 
6. Stone is arguing that "the order of the books contributed to how they were understood long before the invention of the codex" (p. 93). But what ancient evidence, nay, what evidence before about twenty years ago, can be cited to suggest that anyone paid any attention whatsoever to the order of books when it came to interpretation? I don't remember Stone ever establishing that the ancients thought order was important. There are some ancient comments regarding order (Jerome, Baba Bathra, Melito), but no exegetical practice that I can remember is tied to order. This further leads me to wonder whether one sequence (e.g., Baba Bathra) developed out of another sequence (e.g., the MT), or whether they were just different meaningful ways of arranging things. 
7. Stone has a confusing (to me, anyway) discussion of the possibility that the Psalter at one time headed the Ketuvim (p. 93), whereas Chronicles stands first in the Ketuvim in the MT and Ruth stands first in Baba Bathra. I'm not sure how this would work historically. When would there have been a tripartite canon with Psalter in first position in the third section? I thought Stone wanted to argue that the MT order (with Chronicles first) was already pre-rabbinic, or even before the turn of the era. But he also suggests: "[the Psalter] may have held first position in the collection [of Writings] for a long time." So he must push the tripartite canon way back in history, if the Psalter stood first in the Writings for a long time but was displaced by Chronicles before the turn of the era. Indeed, he continues: "If this were the case, then, in all Jewish orders, it [= the Psalter] would have directly followed the Twelve. As the corpus of the Twelve grew and came to include Malachi, the Psalter's beginning and Malachi's end were shaped or positioned to bind the two sub-collections (Twelve and Psalter) at their seams. This joint may have also served to bind a nascent collection of Writings forming after the Psalter to the Prophets as both collections grew. Over time, either Ruth or Chronicles displaced it from first position." So, I think we are to imagine that the Psalter headed the Writings (he later calls it a "nascent collection of Writings") before Malachi was added to the Twelve, but there was enough of a Twelve-collection for the Psalter to follow it. Then Malachi was added to the Twelve, then Malachi and the Psalter were redacted so that they would be bound together at the seams, then the Psalter was displaced by Chronicles or Ruth as the first book of Writings, all before the turn of the era. So just when did the tripartite structure of the canon originate? Long before we have any evidence for it. 
8. Stone's assertion that only two Jewish orders before the twelfth century are known (pp. 4, 111) is: 
1. based on a complete lack of evidence, as only two Jewish sources on order are known before the twelfth century (MT and Baba Bathra). This is especially stark in contrast to the diverse Greek arrangements (93-102), of which Stone makes a big deal in contrasting it with the supposed unity of the Hebrew arrangement: "In contrast to the Greek, the Hebrew canon's stability in scope, text and arrangement is remarkable" (p. 102). Stone also asserts: "From the end of the ninth century C.E., the Masoretic order alone is well attested for at least the next two hundred years. [Exactly what evidence is available for those two centuries? I count seven mss in Brandt, pp. 159 and 165.] Following the decline of the Masoretes in the eleventh century C.E., the Writings' stability eventually gave way to a variety of orders" (p. 111; cf. 105 n. 126). Why not rather say that the manuscripts are indicative of the multiple orders of the period they were copied, only to be stabilized with the printing press?
2. completely wrong, as Josephus definitely gives us a divergent Jewish order (which Stone "excepts" on p. 102), and most scholars would say the same for both Origen and Jerome. Certainly Jerome is familiar with some of the details of the Jewish arrangement, as he describes the tripartite structure, and it is unclear why he would alter his Jewish source in reporting on the order of the Hagiographa.

Jerome on Tobit and Judith among the Hagiographa: A Wrong Avenue

More than a year ago I mentioned that I was working on a paper dealing with Jerome's translations of Tobit and Judith (see also here). I'm glad to be able to say that that paper will be published by Harvard Theological Review probably sometime in 2014.

But I still haven't quite come to terms with a particularly odd feature of Jerome's prefaces to Tobit and Judith (mentioned before here). Why does Jerome say in his prefaces to Tobit and Judith that the Jews read these books as part of the Hagiographa? Elsewhere he uses this same term (Hagiographa) for the third section of the Jewish canon, the Ketuvim, and he knows that the Ketuvim does not include Tobit and Judith. The term Hagiographa appears in all his works only seven times, and five of these are in reference to the Ketuvim. Why then does he use this same rare term in his prefaces to Tobit and Judith in a way that contradicts his other uses of the term?

It occurred to me sometime ago that maybe Jerome, in his prefaces to Tobit and Judith, was thinking about the Hagiographa in terms of what is now called Hagiography, or lives of the saints. Since this is a known use of the term, and quite common nowadays, it could provide a plausible definition for Jerome's term 'Hagiographa' in reference to Tobit and Judith and their position in Jewish reading culture. Perhaps Jerome is saying that the Jews still do read Tobit and Judith as edifying literature, as accounts of the heroes of the faith from long ago.

Unfortunately, the history of the term precludes this explanation. According to the OED, the first attestation in English for the term Hagiography is in 1821. The OED does not trace the prior history of the word before its occurrence in English (except for giving the etymology), not a good sign for my hypothesis. And after sorting through all the uses of the Latin term in patristic and medieval sources (there are not very many), I can't find anything that would lend credence to this definition of the term as early as Jerome. Indeed, Jerome is the first one to use the term in Latin, and the later authors rely on Jerome for their own definitions.

It seemed like a promising idea, but it lacks supporting evidence. I'll continue to ponder why Jerome chose this particular word for his prefaces to Tobit and Judith.

The Sequence of the Hagiographa (Part 3)

The first post in this series (part 1 and part 2) presented the three dominant arrangements for the Hagiographa attested in Jewish/Hebrew sources: (1) the "Traditionally Printed Sequence," (2) the "Aleppo-Leningrad Sequence," and (3) the "Talmudic Sequence." The main differences among these orders are:

The Traditionally Printed Sequence arranges the Five Megilloth according to the calendrical order of the festivals to which they are attached, and it ends with Chronicles.

The Aleppo-Leningrad Sequence arranges the Five Megilloth in chronological order and begins with Chronicles.

The Talmudic Sequence does not group the Five Megilloth together at all, but rather begins with Ruth and ends with Chronicles.

I have discussed previously the views of some scholars that the Talmudic Sequence is the "original" and "true" order of the Hagiographa (see esp. here, here, and here). In this post I simply want to point out what I regard as some of the faulty reasoning behind this view, especially in regard to its presentation by Roger Beckwith.

(1) Beckwith rules out the Aleppo-Leningrad Sequence as being early mainly because it groups the Five Megilloth together (see his book, pp. 202-3, 210). He says this would not have happened before the tenth century, when these five books were each attached to particular festivals (see here). Now, we have evidence for the attachment of four of the Megilloth to festivals by the eighth century in tractate Sopherim (Beckwith, p. 202), but our earliest evidence for the attachment of Qoheleth to Sukkot, according to Beckwith, are the Tiberian manuscripts that group the Megilloth together. But, can we actually consider the grouping of these books together to be evidence for the liturgical use of them at Festivals?

Well, not everyone thinks so. A few years ago I met Timothy J. Stone (PhD 2011, St. Andrews) at a conference and heard him present part of his dissertation (which, apparently, will be published by Mohr Siebeck; see here for a summary), in which he argued, in part, that the grouping of the Megilloth in manuscripts precedes their attachment to five festivals. This is from the summary of Stone's dissertation:

The grouping of the Megilloth in the Masoretic tradition is probably not the result of liturgical practices within Judaism, as is commonly thought, which leaves room to re-examine the antiquity of this order.

Indeed, I recall his saying that the grouping in manuscripts of these five books may have led to their joint liturgical use at festivals, rather than the reverse. I have noted before that the link between Qoheleth and Sukkot, especially, is tenuous without any definite explanation. It may be the case that Qoheleth needed to find a festival to accompany since it was already grouped with four other books that themselves had found festivals for their liturgical use.

This would mean that Beckwith too easily dismisses the Aleppo-Leningrad Sequence based on its being 'liturgical' and thus late, evidenced by the grouping of the Five Megilloth. Beckwith says:

The earliest known manuscripts to reflect this development are the influential manuscripts produced at Tiberias in the tenth century [...]. (p. 210)

Ah, well, that is late--tenth century. Wow. Please, Prof. Beckwith, tell us about all the many manuscripts before this time that do not group the Five Megilloth.

If one discounts the Dead Sea Scrolls (which largely antedate the combination of different biblical books in a single manuscript [...]), extant Hebrew manuscripts of the Bible begin in the tenth century AD [...]. (p. 198)

Wait a second! So, what Beckwith should have said on p. 210 is that "the earliest known manuscripts reflect this development [i.e., the grouping of the Five Megilloth]." We have no relevant manuscript evidence before the tenth century. So of course that is the earliest manuscript evidence for the grouping of the Megilloth. 

(2) I mentioned in an earlier post in this series that Beckwith catalogs 70 different orders for the Hagiographa in his second appendix (pp. 452-64). By thus eliminating all "liturgical" orders (those that group the Five Megilloth) from being considered "early" or "original", he eliminates 39 of these orders. He also wisely eliminates what he calls "anomalous" orders, numbering seven, and ten "literary" orders that "seem only to occur in a single manuscript of relatively late date (fourteenth or fifteenth century)" (p. 210). We are thus left with 15 orders that are possibly "early", which Beckwith defines as prior to our earliest complete biblical manuscripts (tenth century; p. 211).

These possibly early orders for the Hagiographa include:

(a) The Talmudic Sequence, attested in b. B. Bathra 14b, and a few other sources, detailed in the first post in this series. The earliest is, of course, the Talmud, and one of the other sources is perhaps as early as the eleventh century, according to Beckwith.

(b) Five other orders listed on p. 452, and orders XIII, XIV, and XVII on p. 454, all of which, similarly to the Talmudic Sequence, begin with Ruth and end with Chronicles. The earliest source here is twelfth century. Most are thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.


(c) Order XIX on p. 455, which runs: Daniel, Ezra-Neh., Chron., Ruth, Esther, Psalms, Job, Prov., Qoh., Song, Lam. The source is a thirteenth-century Italian manuscript.

(d) Order XXI on p. 455, beginning with Ruth and ending with Chronicles. The source is thirteenth century.

(e) Order XXII on p. 455, beginning with Chronicles and ending with Ezra-Neh. The sources are twelfth and thirteenth century manuscripts.

(f) The orders of Jerome and Josephus on p. 457.

The point is all of the manuscript evidence for these orders deemed early by Beckwith is at least a century later than our manuscript evidence for the supposedly late "liturgical" orders contained in the Aleppo and Leningrad codices.

(3) The statement by Jesus (Matt. 23:35 // Lk. 11:51) that all righteous blood from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah--perhaps the Zechariah of 2 Chron. 24:20-22--would be required of his own generation of Jews is interpreted by Beckwith and many others as indicating that in Jesus' day the canon ended with Chronicles. Thus, Jesus would be saying that all the righteous blood in the whole Bible, from Genesis (Abel) to Chronicles (Zechariah), would be required of his generation. The most significant argument against this view is this article by H.G.L. Peels in ZAW 2001.

(4) I don't see that Beckwith ever addresses the reason that Chronicles is put at the head of the Hagiographa in some sequences that group the Megilloth. Is there supposedly some relationship to the grouped Megilloth and the opening position of Chronicles? At any rate, it seems to me that Chronicles makes a fine introduction to the third section of the Hebrew Bible, just as it also makes a fine conclusion. I don't see that either one of these options can claim originality or correctness. 

Finally, at the end of the day, I just don't see that the order of books is really very important. I intimated some of my views on this here. The variety of orders do show that people wanted to find a suitable arrangement for the Hagiographa, but they also show that apparently no single arrangement commended itself as the authoritative sequence. Beckwith cites some twelfth century Jewish authors (Mishael ben Uzziel and Joseph of Constantinople; p. 201) as indicating that the Aleppo-Leningrad sequence was the proper one, but apparently a lot of scribes copying Masoretic manuscripts felt free to alter this order. 

The Sequence of the Hagiographa (Part 2)

Last time I looked at the three major sequences for the Hagiographa attested in Hebrew/Jewish sources--the "Traditionally Printed Sequence," the "Aleppo-Leningrad Sequence," and the "Talmudic Sequence." In this post I will look briefly at the order of books attested in Greek/Christian sources and how Roger Beckwith eliminates them from consideration in his discussion of what order of books was 'original' (see here for more on all that).

Actually, there has been somewhat of a change of plans about how this post will go. I originally intended to provide some detailed information about some of the Greek lists (especially those of Melito and Origen; see Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 4.26.12-14 and 6.25.1-2, respectively). But that ended up taking too long, so I've decided to finish up this series on the Hagiographa first, and then blog my way through each of the Greek and Latin canon lists from the first four centuries CE (and include maybe one or two from the early fifth century). If I actually follow through with this plan, it will take quite a while, but it will also be a good exercise for me.

So, now back to the Hagiographa in the Greek sources. Actually, there isn't really a category of "Hagiographa" in Greek sources--the OT canon is arranged differently from the tripartite Jewish canon. A few years ago, I surveyed the Christian canon lists from the first four centuries CE in this post, and I especially drew attention to those that numbered the OT books as 22. I didn't really talk about the order of books then, though. But, the order in these Christian sources is similar to what we are familiar with in the English Bible. That's because the order in these lists apparently set the agenda for the way to order books in Greek codices (LXX), which set the agenda for Latin codices, which set the agenda for English Bibles. Of course, the sequence of books presented by any two Fathers will almost invariably diverge somewhat, sometimes quite a lot, but in the first post in this series I noted that Beckwith surveys 70 different orders for the Hagiographa in Jewish sources, so we should not exaggerate the significance of this variation in Christian sources. The fact is that the Christian sources are fairly consistent in the 'big picture' on the order of books.

But, do these Christian lists reflect Jewish sources? Well, some of them say they do. For instance, Melito of Sardis says that he has traveled 'to the east' (i.e., Palestine) to obtain his list (Beckwith, 184-85, thinks he has consulted Christians), and he explicitly says that he is concerned with the 'order' (τάξις) of books, though there are definitely some problems with the order he presents (like putting Numbers before Leviticus). Origen explicitly says that he is presenting the 22 books "according to the Hebrews" (see Sundberg, pp. 134-38). There is also the "Bryennios List" of books from Codex Hierosolymitanus 54 that probably derives from a Jewish source.

If we are to believe this account, then we would have, on the one hand, ancient attestation for a tripartite canon of scripture known as the Tanak, but, on the other hand, other ancient attestation for a completely different Jewish order of the OT books. I think this is exactly the way it was, and I'm certainly not the only one. Even someone like Brevard Childs--who thinks that OT scholars ought to use the tripartite structure of the Hebrew canon in their canonical approaches to the Hebrew Bible (see pp. 666-67 of his Introduction)--even he recognizes that the tripartite structure was not universal among Jews in the centuries surrounding the turn of the era (same reference, but see also p. 53). A position similar to that of Childs is reflected in Steinberg (this book, p. 87) and Steins (this book, pp. 516-17) and others. One should also consult ch. 5 of the new book by David Carr.

However, Beckwith will have none of this. He will not allow that any Greek Christian list of OT books authentically reflects Jewish sources. Why? Because none of them (save for Jerome's list) divides the books into the three categories of the Tanak. Seriously, that's the reason. I have previously noted that Beckwith attributes this threefold arrangement and sequence to Judas Maccabeus in 164 BCE. Now, before 164 BCE, Beckwith thinks there were two categories called the Law and the Prophets (see, e.g., p. 163), but apparently from that time on every Jew throughout the world gave up the bipartite structure and immediately adopted Judas' new tripartite structure.

And so Beckwith can say things like this:

Up to the first century AD, the desire to adopt such arrangements of the books [i.e., mingling the Prophets and Hagiographa together, as in the Greek lists] seems to have been restrained by the force of Jewish tradition: only Josephus [...] gives cautious expression to it. (p. 182)

One may wonder who besides Josephus attests anything like an order of books "up to the first century AD." I can't think of anyone. But Beckwith is convinced that all Jews between Judas and Josephus would have unequivocally adhered to the tripartite canon of Baba Bathra.

Or again:

Melito's regrouping of the Prophets and Hagiographa in four categories is alone sufficient to defeat his purpose of reproducing the authentic 'order' [...]. (p. 184)

[...] there is one respect in which Origen's list resembles Melito's, that it regroups the Prophets and Hagiographa in four categories [...]. This is a characteristically Christian arrangement, which Origen does not claim to have found among the Jews, and which in all probability had a different source. Hence, whatever we may learn about the Jewish canon from Origen's list, we learn nothing from it about the Jewish structure or about the Jewish order of books. (pp. 186-87)

Epiphanius and his sources pursue chronology without regard to the distinction between the Prophets and Hagiographa, and each of his lists intermingles them, thus demonstrating that his orders are not Jewish. (p. 188)

J. P. Audet, who first published the Bryennios text [JTS 1.2 (1950): 135-54], claimed that it was a Jewish list of the first or second century. However, since it mixes the Prophets and Hagiographa indiscriminately together, it must be of Christian rather than Jewish authorship [...]. (p. 188)

Etc.

So, for Beckwith, unless the order corresponds to the tripartite arrangement of the Tanak, it cannot be Jewish. If it mixes the Prophets and Hagiographa, it cannot be Jewish. No Jew would do that!

The Sequence of the Hagiographa (Part 1)

This post starts a series, but it also continues a theme on this blog. I have recently been posting on the sequence of the Hagiographa (a.k.a., the Ketuvim, a.k.a., the Writings = third section of Hebrew Bible) in printed Hebrew Bibles (here and here), and before that I looked at how Roger Beckwith argues that the order of the Hagiographa in b. B. Bathra 14b derives from Judas Maccabeus in 164 BCE. Before that I did a couple posts on whether there is any hermeneutical significance to the order of the Hagiographa (1 and 2).

In this post and the next couple, I'm going to look at ch. 5 in Beckwith's book, which chapter is titled "The Order of the Canonical Books" (pp. 181-222, with notes on pp. 222-34). What I am really interested in is how Beckwith knows that the order of b. B. Bathra 14b is the original order, when so many other orders are attested in ancient Jewish and Christian sources. In this post I'll survey the primary sequences attested in Hebrew sources that deserve discussion. In the next post I'll give some consideration to how Beckwith rules out all the Greek evidence for the sequence of books, and after that I'll look at how Beckwith eliminates all the Hebrew orders other than the one in Baba Bathra.

[I will mention here several times the columns in Beckwith's second appendix (pp. 450-64) where he has collected seventy different orders for the Hagiographa in manuscripts and other sources (and nine different orders for the Latter Prophets).]

As for Jewish sources, my posts on printed Hebrew Bibles have highlighted two major sequences for the Hagiographa, neither of which is the one mentioned in the Talmudic baraita. I'll call the order printed in early Hebrew Bibles and still today in the Jewish Study Bible and other places the "Traditionally Printed Sequence." I put spaces before and after the Five Megilloth just for convenience, to see them easily.

The Traditionally Printed Sequence (col. LIX of Beckwith's app. 2, p. 462)

Psalms
Proverbs
Job

Song of Songs
Ruth
Lamentations
Qoheleth
Esther

Daniel
Ezra-Nehemiah
Chronicles

Beckwith says this sequence is found in a "defective" German manuscript of the thirteenth century (De-Rossi 379) and five early printed editions. Presumably he omits from consideration here those printed editions that actually do follow this sequence but extract the the Five Megilloth as a unit and place them after the Pentateuch (i.e., the first four editions of the Hebrew Bible, noted here). So, it doesn't have a whole lot of ancient authority, despite its popularity since printing. 

The other major order highlighted in that other post is the one familiar from BHK-3 and BHS, but it is not one I'll include in the three sequences I discuss here because it is not actually found in the Leningrad Codex, the base text for both BHK-3 and BHS. The order of these two editions of Biblica Hebraica is, to be sure, found in some Masoretic manuscripts (see col. LIV in Beckwith's app. 2, p. 461, where he notes that this sequence is found in, inter alia, some twelfth century Spanish manuscripts). But it is too similar to the "Traditionally Printed Sequence" to merit independent inclusion, so I'll discuss instead the actual order of the Leningrad Codex itself, which is the same as that found in the Aleppo Codex. I'll call this the "Aleppo-Leningrad Sequence". This will be reflected in the new BHQ, as I mentioned last time.

The Aleppo-Leningrad Sequence (col. XXXII of Beckwith's app. 2, p. 458)

Chronicles
Psalms
Job
Proverbs

Ruth
Song of Songs
Qoheleth
Lamentations
Esther

Daniel
Ezra-Nehemiah

Beckwith says this sequence is found in:

Many MSS of C.10-15 [i.e., tenth-fifteenth centuries], esp. Spanish, but also Italian etc., including the following very early MSS: Aleppo Codex (defective, C.10? Tiberian?), Cairo Codex of Prophets (C.10? Tiberian?), Sassoon 1053 (C.10), Leningrad B 19a (C.11 Egyptian), 2 Firkovich 34 and 94 (both defective, C.11 Egyptian); and the following C.12 or 13 MSS: Harley 5710f., Earl of Leicester's Codex, Kennicott 31 and 682, Schiller Szinessy 13, Taschereau 105 (defective), Cassuto 9, Copenhagen 1; Ben Uzziel, Kitab al-Khilaf (C.12? Egyptian/Palestinian); Joseph of Constantinople, Adath Deborim (C.12?). (p. 458)

I find the question marks very interesting especially in relation to the Aleppo Codex. Is there a serious question about whether this manuscript is tenth century? I have consistently seen the date of about 925 CE given for this manuscript. The Aleppo Codex website gives the date "about 930". And is there really a question about whether it was produced in Tiberias?

The third order I'll note in this post is the one in the baraita of b. B. Bathra 14b. I have previously given the passage in full on this blog. Now I'll just list the books. I'll call this the "Talmudic Sequence".

The Talmudic Sequence (col. I of Beckwith's app. 2, p. 452)

Ruth
Psalms
Job
Proverbs
Qoheleth
Song of Songs
Lamentations
Daniel
Esther
Ezra-Nehemiah
Chronicles

According to Beckwith, this sequence is found in the following sources:

Bab. Baba Bathra 14b (C.5-6 Babylonian); Anonymous Chronicle (Neubauer's no. 6, C.11? Italian?); Babylonian MSS Ec1 (or or. qu. 680, defective), Ec 19 (or Or. 2373, defective, C.13-14?); many MSS of C.12-15, Italian, German, Franco-German, Spanish, Yemenite, including the following C.12 MSS: Add. 21161, Kennicott 201 and 224, Schwarz 4, Modona 5b; Ben Uzziel, Kitab al-Khilaf (C.12? Egyptian/Palestinian); Joseph of Constantinople, Adath Deborim (C.12?). (p. 452)

So, now we have listed all three of the major orders for the Hagiographa attested in Jewish sources (leaving out of consideration, for now, Josephus, Against Apion, 1.37-43). Once again I'll note that Beckwith actually lists 70 different orders, so these three are in one sense just a drop in the bucket. On the other hand, these three sequences seem to be the most significant today, so I'm somewhat justified in limiting the discussion to just these.

But, of course, even the 70 different orders listed by Beckwith in his second appendix does not exhaust the arrangements for the OT books in antiquity. We haven't even touched on the arrangement reflected in Greek sources. We'll look at them next time.

The Sequence of the Hagiographa in Recent Hebrew Bibles

In a previous post, I surveyed the order of the Hagiographa in early printed Hebrew Bibles, from the editio princeps of the Hagiographa (1486-87) to the Second Rabbinic Bible (1524-25), edited by Jacob ben Chayim. We saw that while the editio princeps of the Hagiographa was a bit of an oddball--because of the strange order of the Five Megilloth: Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, Ruth, Esther--the editio princeps of the entire Bible (Soncino, 1488) established a standard order for the Hagiorapha which was carried through almost all printed Bibles (excluding the Complutensian Polyglot, which intentionally followed the Christian [LXX or Vulgate] order) until quite recent times. 


Thus, the first four editions of the Bible (Soncino, 1488; Naples, 1491-93; Brescia, 1494; Pesaro, 1511-17) all printed the Hagiographa in this order, as did the first two Rabbinic Bibles (Venice, 1516-17; Venice, 1524-25). 


Psalms
Proverbs
Job

Song of Songs
Ruth
Lamentations
Qoheleth [Ecclesiastes]
Esther

Daniel
Ezra-Nehemiah
Chronicles


There are three issues with regard to this order that we will explore in this post: (a) the order of the first three books, (b) the order of the Five Megilloth, and (c) the placement of Chronicles. 


Now, the sequence of the Hagiographa I have just listed has become more-or-less standard, just as the Ben Chayim text itself (Second Rabbinic Bible) became standard for a long time. That is, the Ben Chayim text was reprinted many times and became the basis for further editions, including the first two editions of Rudolf Kittel's Biblia Hebraica (1906; 1912). Not only did Kittel adopt the Ben Chayim text as his base text, but he also adopted the order of books from Ben Chayim. This same order of books is still represented in the Jewish Study Bible and Marvin Sweeney's recent critical introduction and theology, Tanak. Thus, this order has become somewhat normative. 


However, the Biblia Hebraica editions no longer follow this exact order for the Hagiographa. When Paul Kahle determined to make the Leningrad Codex B19A--the earliest complete Hebrew Bible now in existence, dating to 1008 or 1009 CE--the basis for the third edition of Biblia Hebraica (1937), he also determined to follow the order of books in this codex, at least, to a point. That is, even though Chronicles is at the beginning of the Ketuvim in the Leningrad Codex, Kahle left it at its by-now traditional place at the end of the Ketuvim, but he altered the order of the first three books and the Five Megilloth to agree with the Leningrad Codex. Thus, the order for BHK-3, as also for the fourth edition, known as BHS (1977), is: 


Psalms
Job
Proverbs

Ruth
Song of Songs
Qoheleth
Lamentations
Esther

Daniel
Ezra-Nehemiah
Chronicles

Again, this exactly reproduces the order for the Leningrad Codex, except for the placement of Chronicles. By the way, this is also the order in which Brevard Childs discussed the books in his Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture (Fortress, 1979), though he made nothing of it, as far as I can tell. (He did consider it correct to follow the tripartite arrangement of the Hebrew Bible--see his last chapter--but I do not see any place where he says that this particular order for the Hagiographa should be followed.)

The order of the first three books is thus altered in BHK-3/BHS as opposed to the traditional order represented in the first two editions of BHK. I am not sure about the significance of this, or why one order might be preferred to another. It looks to me like the order of BHS would be based on the length of the three books, from longest to shortest. And, this allows for Prov. 31--with its acrostic about the virtuous woman--to sort of introduce Ruth, as long as Ruth is also printed as the first of the Five Megilloth, as it is in BHS. The traditional order of Psalms, Proverbs, Job, I learned once-upon-a-time formed the reverse acronym in Hebrew Emet ('truth')--Iyov (Job), Mishlei (Proverbs), and Tehillim (Psalms). But it's doubtful to me that that is a reason they were put in this order; probably it just developed as a mneumonic after the fact.


As for the order of the Megilloth, the two possibilities do reflect some logic. The traditionally printed order reflects the liturgical order, that is, the order of the festivals to which each of the Megilloth is tied (see here).

Song of Songs--Passover
Ruth--Shavuot
Lamentations--Ninth of Av
Qoheleth--Sukkot
Esther--Purim

The order in the Leningrad Codex and BHS (and the Aleppo Codex) reflects a chronological order according to the events related or the presumed author. 


Ruth--period of the Judges, leading to a genealogy of David
Song of Songs--traditionally attributed to Solomon, in his youth
Qoheleth--traditionally attributed to Solomon, late in his life
Lamentations--traditionally attributed to Jeremiah
Esther--post-exilic period


The last issue concerns the placement of Chronicles. As I mentioned, Kahle apparently decided to leave Chronicles at the end of the Ketuvim, as it had been in all printed Hebrew Bibles since the days of the editio princeps of the Hagiographa, even though in all other respects he followed the order of the Leningrad Codex, which itself placed Chronicles at the head of the Ketuvim. [I have not found anything actually attributing this decision to Kahle, so possibly it was not he who decided this. But, the fact is BHK-3, edited by Kahle, left Chronicles at the end of the Ketuvim, and BHS has followed BHK-3 in this sequence.] 


But, apparently Biblia Hebraica Quinta (BHQ), being published now in fascicles, will completely follow the Leningrad Codex in terms of order, including placing Chronicles (being edited by Zipora Talshir) at the head of the Ketuvim. Now, I'm almost positive I read this somewhere some years ago, but many Google searches and a perusal of the General Introduction to BHQ published along with the Five Megilloth in the first fascicle (numbered fasc. 18, published in 2004) has failed to reveal where I might have come across this. Maybe somebody said it at a conference, I don't know. At any rate, the fact that Chronicles will be at the head of the Ketuvim is shown by the fascicle numbers. You can see at the Wikipedia entry that the Twelve Minor Prophets--which concludes the order of the Prophets--is fasc. 13, and Proverbs is fasc. 17, so Chronicles, Psalms, and Job must come in between these two. Moreover, Ezra-Nehemiah is fasc. 20, and according to the BHS Wikipedia entry, BHQ will be published in 20 installments. So, Ezra-Nehemiah must be at the end of the Ketuvim, not Chronicles.


In a later post, I'll try to do some evaluation of these orders, bringing in some of the arguments by Roger Beckwith in favor of the Talmudic order, which is not represented here.

The Sequence of the Hagiographa in Printed Hebrew Bibles

This post continues a prominent theme on this blog of late (see here, here, here, here, and here). The information below comes from the following book.

Christian D. Ginsburg, Introduction to the Massoretico-Critical Edition of the Hebrew Bible (London: Trinitarian Bible Society, 1897), reprinted with a prolegomenon by Harry M. Orlinsky (New York: Ktav, 1966).

Editio Princeps of the Hagiographa (Naples 1486-87)

The first edition of the Hagiographa (Ginsburg 807-14) followed editions of the Psalter (Bologna?, 1477; Ginsburg 780-94), the Pentateuch (Bologna, 1482; Ginsburg 794-802), and the Prophets (Soncino, 1485-86; Ginsburg 803-7). 


The Hagiographa were printed in three volumes. The sequence of books is as follows (Ginsburg 811). 


vol. 1: Psalms
vol. 2: Proverbs
vol. 3: Job, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, Ruth, Esther, Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah, Chronicles. 

Editio Princeps of the Entire Hebrew Bible (Soncino, 1488)

See Ginsburg 820-31

The sequence of the hagiographa is different in two respects from the editio princeps of the hagiographa (Ginsburg 822). First, the Five Megilloth are extracted from the Hagiographa and placed as a unit immediately after the Pentateuch (cf. Ginsburg 847). Second, three of the Megilloth are rearranged into the order Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes.

Second Edition of the Entire Hebrew Bible (Naples, 1491-93) 

See Ginsburg 847-55

The sequence of the Hagiographa is exactly the same as in the editio princeps of the Bible (Ginsburg 847-48).

Third Edition of the Entire Hebrew Bible (Brescia, 1494) 

See Ginsburg 871-80

The sequence of the Hagiographa is exactly the same as in the first two editions of the Bible (Ginsburg 872; cf. p. 868). 

Fourth Edition of the Entire Hebrew Bible (Pesaro, 1511-17) 

See Ginsburg 895-906


The sequence of the Hagiographa is exactly the same as in the first two editions of the Bible (Ginsburg 897).


Complutensian Polyglot (Alcalá, 1514-17)


See Ginsburg 906-25


This Christian edition of the Old Testament and New Testament, undertaken by Cardinal Ximenes, Archbishop of Toledo, consists of six volumes and is responsible for several significant innovations in the text of the Hebrew Bible. Volumes 5 (New Testament) and 6 (Grammatical and Critical Apparatus) are beyond the purview of this post, as also of Ginsburg's treatment. 


The sequence of the Hebrew Bible is as follows (Ginsburg 908-10). Each volume prints the books in Hebrew, Greek (LXX), and Latin (Vulgate). The first volume also contains Aramaic (Targum Onkelos). The LXX column is supplied with a Latin interlinear translation.


Vol. 1: Pentateuch. 
Vol. 2: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Prayer of Manasseh.
Vol. 3: Ezra, Nehemiah, Tobit, Judith, Esther with deuterocanonical additions, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus.
Vol. 4: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Baruch, Ezekiel, Daniel with deuterocanonical additions, Minor Prophets, 1-3 Maccabees. 


The books absent from the Hebrew Bible are given only in the Vulgate and LXX, while 3 Maccabees (absent from the Vulgate) is given only in the LXX version. 


Ginsburg (912) remarks on some of the features of the Hebrew text in this edition. 

This unbounded veneration for the Vulgate naturally influenced the redactors of the Hebrew text. Hence they assimilated it in form to the central Latin Version. They made the folios of the Hebrew text go from left to right; they divided Samuel, Kings, Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles respectively into two books, and named the first two books thus divided into four, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 3 Kings and 4 Kings; they inserted the deutero-canoncial Additions into the text; they discarded the Massoretic division of the text into sections and adopted the Christian chapters; they re-arranged the Hebrew order of the books and made them follow the sequence of the Vulgate; they discarded the accents and though they retained the vowel-points, they in many instances altered them into forms which are rightly rejected by grammarians as inadmissible.

First Edition of the Rabbinic Bible (Venice, 1516-17)

See Ginsburg 925-48

This edition, printed by Daniel Bomberg and edited by Felix Pratensis, contains several rabbinic commentaries alongside the Hebrew text and targum. It was issued in four volumes.

Vol. 1: Pentateuch.
Vol. 2: Former Prophets.
Vol. 3: Latter Prophets.
Vol. 4: Hagiographa, according to the order of the first four editions of the Hebrew Bible, with the Megilloth in their proper place among the Hagiographa. Thus, the order is: Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah, Chronicles.

First Edition of the Bible in Quarto (Venice, 1516-17)

See Ginsburg 948-52

This is a cheaper version of the above, reprinting the same text in the same sequence. 

Second Edition of the Bible in Quarto (Venice, 1521) 


See Ginsburg 952-56

This follow-up to the above was apparently designed to make an inexpensive Bible palatable to Jews. The Jewish-Christian editor Felix Pratensis is replaced by Jewish editors, and instead of dedicating the work to the Pope, as the First Rabbinic Bible is (Ginsburg 927), this edition is explicitly for the synagogue (Ginsburg 953). 


The sequence of the Hagiographa is exactly the same as in the first four editions of the Hebrew Bible, complete with the removal of the Five Megilloth from the Hagiographa to a position immediately following the Pentateuch (Ginsburg 953).


Second Edition of the Rabbinic Bible (Venice, 1524-25)
a.k.a the editio princeps of the Ben Chayim text


See Ginsburg 956-74


Ginsburg (956) on the significance of this edition: 

[...] the enthusiastic Massorite [Jacob ben Chayim] persuaded Bomberg in the course of a few years to undertake the publication of the justly celebrated Bible with the Massorah which finally settled the Massoretic text as it is now exhibited in the present recension of the Hebrew Scriptures.

This edition was printed by Daniel Bomberg in four volumes (Ginsburg 958-63).

Vol. 1: Pentateuch.
Vol. 2: Former Prophets.
Vol. 3: Latter Prophets.
Vol. 4: Hagiographa, in the same order as the First Rabbinic Bible.

This is more-or-less where Ginsburg concludes his survey of printed Hebrew Bibles; he does briefly report on one more quarto edition by Bomberg, which he says contains, in his personal copy, marginal notes in the handwriting of Luther (Ginsburg 974-76).

Perhaps in a later post I can bring this discussion up to the time of BHS.