Ha-Masorah 'al pi kitvei yad 'atikim: The Massorah Compiled from Manuscripts Alphabetically and Lexically Arranged [AND] The Massorah Translated into English with a Critical and Exegetical Commentary [COMPLETE SET IN 4 VOLUMES - SIGNED BY THE EDITOR]

London: the Author, 1880. First edition. Hardcover. Good+. Four volumes, elephant folio (50 by 33 cm). [8], 758; [12], 829, [1]; [10], 383; [4], 546 pp. Text in two columns. Vols. 1-3 with English half-titles; Hebrew and English title-pages. Later red buckram, gilt morocco lettering pieces at spines. Light foxing and embrowning to outermost leaves (and edges throughout); slight chipping and occasional small tears at uncut edges. Final leaf of vol. 4 skilfully mounted on Japan paper to repair full-length tear (no loss of legibility). A good or better, amply-margined, uncut copy.

Vol. I. Aleph-Yod (1880)
Vol. II. Caph-Tav (1883)
Vol. (truncated) III. Supplement (1885)
Vol. IV. The Massorah: Translated into English with a Critical and Exegetical Commentary (1897-1905)

First edition.

"It is well known that the received text of the Hebrew Bible is called the Massoretic, i.e., printed according to the Massorah. Now, the Massorah is a marginal directory, indicating... how the letters, words and phrases are to be written, according to the most ancient rules laid down by those who compiled, preserved, and transmitted the canon of the Old Testament Scriptures... This invaluable key to the text of the Old Testament is called Massorah (tradition) because it was traditionally transmitted by the authorized and professional scribes, who afterwards committed it to writing" (the editor's prospectus). These Jewish scholar-scribes, known as the Masoretes, lived between the seventh and tenth centuries CE. The oldest surviving manuscripts which contain substantial parts of the Masoretic Text date from approximately the ninth century.

Christian David Ginsburg (1831-1914), Jewish scholar, born in Warsaw on 25 December 1831. Coming to England shortly after the completion of his education in the Rabbinic College at Warsaw, Ginsburg continued his study of the Hebrew Scriptures, with special attention to the Five Megillot. The first result of these studies was a translation of the Song of Songs, with a historical and critical commentary, published in 1857. A similar translation of Ecclesiastes, followed by treatises on the Karaites, the Essenes, and the Kabbalah, kept the author prominently before biblical students while he was preparing the first sections of his magnum opus, the critical study of the Massorah. Beginning in 1867 with the publication of Jacob ben Hayyim's Introduction to the Rabbinic Bible, Hebrew and English and the Massoreth HaMassoreth of Elias Levita, in Hebrew, with translation and commentary, Ginsburg became known as an eminent Hebrew scholar. In 1870 he was appointed one of the first members of the committee for the revision of the English version of the Old Testament.

The work at hand is considered his life work. Ginsburg had one predecessor in the field, the learned Jacob ben Hayyim (or, Chajim), who in 1524-1525 published the second Rabbinic Bible, containing what has ever since been known as the Massorah. Ginsburg took up the subject almost where it was left by those early pioneers, and collected portions of the Massorah from the countless manuscripts scattered throughout Europe and the East.

Ginsburg published Facsimiles of Manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible (1897 and 1898), the Text of the Hebrew Bible in Abbreviations (1903), in addition to a critical treatise on the relationship of the so-called Codex Babylonicus of A.D. 916 to the Eastern Recension of the Hebrew Text (1899, for private circulation). In the last-mentioned work he seeks to prove that the St. Petersburg Codex, for so many years accepted as the genuine text of the Babylonian school, is in reality a Palestinian text carefully altered so as to render it conformable with Babylonian recension. He subsequently undertook the preparation of a new edition of the Hebrew Bible for the British and Foreign Bible Society. He also contributed many articles to J. Kitto's Encyclopedia, W. Smith's Dictionary of Christian Biography, and the Encyclopedia Britannica. [from Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed. (1911) Volume V12, p. 29]

Provenance and inscriptions: The first three volumes are signed by the editor, note the subscriber as Dr. F. Chance M.D., and copy number 14. The first two volumes provide a printed limitation page; in the third volume this information is entered on the printer's colophon. References: H. M. Orlinsky, ‘The Masoretic Text: a critical evaluation’, in C. D. Ginsburg, Introduction to the Massoretico-critical edition of the Hebrew Bible (1966) [Prolegomenon]. (Inventory #: 30754)