The N factor

Recently I reread the introduction to Everett Fox's book Genesis and Exodus: A new English rendition with commentary and notes (Schocken Books, 1983/1990), i.e. the "Preface to the paperback edition", pp. xiii-xxx. As will sometimes happen with good books, what I recall from my first reading over twenty years ago was the sensation that this is good stuff but it doesn't tell me much I hadn't already figured out. By saying that I don't mean to ask to be given any special credit, just to say that, to quote one of my mother's favourite sayings, "all great thinkers think alike".

The beads of the necklace (2)

This is a short passage from Genesis 36 which lists the kings of Edom. The English translation is that of the King James Version:

31 And these are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom, before there reigned any king over the children of Israel.	לא וְאֵלֶּה הַמְּלָכִים אֲשֶׁר מָלְכוּ בְּאֶרֶץ אֱדוֹם לִפְנֵי מְלָךְ-מֶלֶךְ לִבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל:
32 And Bela the son of Beor reigned in Edom: and the name of his city was Dinhabah.	לב וַיִּמְלֹךְ בֶּאֱדוֹם בֶּלַע בֶּן-בְּעוֹר וְשֵׁם עִירוֹ דִּנְהָבָה:
33 And Bela died, and Jobab the son of Zerah of Bozrah reigned in his stead.	לג וַיָּמָת בָּלַע וַיִּמְלֹךְ תַּחְתָּיו יוֹבָב בֶּן-זֶרַח מִבָּצְרָה:
34 And Jobab died, and Husham of the land of Temani reigned in his stead.	לד וַיָּמָת יוֹבָב וַיִּמְלֹךְ תַּחְתָּיו חֻשָׁם מֵאֶרֶץ הַתֵּימָנִי:
35 And Husham died, and Hadad the son of Bedad, who smote Midian in the field of Moab, reigned in his stead: and the name of his city was Avith.	לה וַיָּמָת חֻשָׁם וַיִּמְלֹךְ תַּחְתָּיו הֲדַד בֶּן-בְּדַד הַמַּכֶּה אֶת-מִדְיָן בִּשְׂדֵה מוֹאָב וְשֵׁם עִירוֹ עֲוִית:
36 And Hadad died, and Samlah of Masrekah reigned in his stead.	לו וַיָּמָת הֲדָד וַיִּמְלֹךְ תַּחְתָּיו שַׂמְלָה מִמַּשְׂרֵקָה:
37 And Samlah died, and Saul of Rehoboth by the river reigned in his stead.	לז וַיָּמָת שַׂמְלָה וַיִּמְלֹךְ תַּחְתָּיו שָׁאוּל מֵרְחֹבוֹת הַנָּהָר:
38 And Saul died, and Baalhanan the son of Achbor reigned in his stead.	לח וַיָּמָת שָׁאוּל וַיִּמְלֹךְ תַּחְתָּיו בַּעַל חָנָן בֶּן-עַכְבּוֹר:
39 And Baalhanan the son of Achbor died, and Hadar reigned in his stead: and the name of his city was Pau; and his wife's name was Mehetabel, the daughter of Matred, the daughter of Mezahab.	לט וַיָּמָת בַּעַל חָנָן בֶּן-עַכְבּוֹר וַיִּמְלֹךְ תַּחְתָּיו הֲדַר וְשֵׁם עִירוֹ פָּעוּ וְשֵׁם אִשְׁתּוֹ מְהֵיטַבְאֵל בַּת-מַטְרֵד בַּת מֵי זָהָב:

The beads of the necklace

Today I am going to begin with a little experiment, and I must ask you, dear reader, to participate in it with me. If you will bear with me and do as I say, I promise it will be interesting!

First of all I would like you to look at this, figure out what it is (that shouldn't take long, I don't think) and then - and this is the important bit - read it out loud. This is not to find out if you can read, we know that; just do it anyway...

hmpty dmpty st n ' wll hmpty dmpty hd ' grt fll ll th kngs hrss nd ll th kngs mn cldnt stck hmpty tgthr gn t b r nt t b tht s th qstn whthr ts nblr n th mnd t sffr th slngs nd rrws f trgs frtn r t tk rms gnst ' s f trbls nd by ppsng nd thm nc pn ' tm thr wr thr brs dddy br mmmy br nd bby br...

Now of course what I have done here is to remove the letters a, e, i, o and u (but I have replaced the occurrences of the indefinite article a with an apostrophe to stop it disappearing altogether). One purpose of this was to give those of you who don't already know this from experience a glimpse of approximately how it feels to be reading a Biblical Hebrew consonantal text, as it appears in torah scrolls for example, and what all Hebrew (or Aramaic or Ugaritic or Arabic etc.) reading was like before the introduction of vowel signs.

When is a chapter not a chapter?

The current division of the Bible into chapters and the verse numbers within the chapters has no basis in any ancient textual tradition. Rather, they are medieval and early modern Christian inventions. They were later adopted by many Jews as well, as technical references within the Hebrew text.... The earliest extant Jewish manuscript to note the chapter divisions dates from 1330, and the first printed edition was in 1516. (Wikipedia article on "Chapters and verses of the Bible", 26-11-2014)

I understand "technical references" to mean that, whatever else their worth or significance may or may not be, the practical value of the conventional divisions of the text of Bible books into chapters and verses is that we can all be sure which spot in the original text we think we're at. When asked where in the Bible the Ten Commandments are to be found, if there were no chapters and verses (or some such system) we wouldn't be able to reply that the first place they are found is in the book of Exodus, chapter 20, versus 1 to 17 (Exodus 20:1-17). We'd have to say "somewhere in Exodus", or "on page 115", or open our bible and point to it and say "here." Footnotes in bibles would be more complicated, as would biblical commentaries, blogs like this one, and so on.