2024 marks the five hundredth anniversary of the Second Rabbinic Bible printed by Daniel Bomberg and edited by Yaakov (Jacob) ben Ḥayyim ibn Adonijah.¹ This edition of the Masoretic Hebrew text underlies the Old Testament of the Authorised (King James) Bible, and which the Society publishes.² Setting the standard for all later Hebrew Bibles, this was indeed the text used to translate the Old Testament into many languages.³ It remains the preferred text of religious Jews and is the Old Testament for Hebrew Christians.

This volume was a faithful edition of the painstaking work of the Masoretic scribes who copied the Old Testament according to special rules that enabled them to transmit Scripture accurately (see the TBS article by Malcolm Watts, The Lord Gave the Word). It presented the Hebrew text with full vowel and cantillation marks, and was a remarkable production given that the first printed Hebrew book appeared in 1475.

Bomberg had obtained permission to print the Hebrew Bible in 1516 and produced the first Rabbinic Bible in 1517. This was the first to present a complete Masorah, and in time it became the ‘textus receptus’ of the Old Testament. It was published and reprinted more or less as it stood in numerous well-known editions, including Plantin 1566, Hutter 1587, Buxtorf 1619, Athias 1611, Leusden 1667, van der Hooght 1705, Kennicott 1780, Letteris 1852, and our own Ginsburg 1894/1998, and was used as the basis for the Old Testament for many Reformation-era translations such as the English Authorised Version and the Dutch Statenvertaling.

Sadly, in our own day the Hebrew Masoretic text preserved for us by Divine providence is undermined by those who wish to add text outside of the Masoretic editions. The majority of these look to ancient translations in other languages.

The title page of the first volume of the Bomberg 1524 contains a decorated archway and the words ‘This gate of the LORD, into which the righteous shall enter’ (Psalm 118.20). Many of the Lord’s people have gained an entrance into the truth of His Word through this faithful edition. We must continue to value this great edition of the Hebrew Old Testament that continues to serve our work of translation today.

Endnotes

¹ The son of an Antwerp merchant, Bomberg was born as Daniël van Bomberghen (c. 1480) and pursued a printing business in Venice.

² It was known in Hebrew as the Mikraot Gedolot.

³ During the Reformation period it was used by R. I. Estienne (also known in Latin as Robertus Stephanus; 1503–1559) in his Hebrew Bible of 1544–1546.