Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia
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The Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS) is the standard scholarly edition of the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, based on the Leningrad Codex. For half a century it has been the working Hebrew Bible of universities, seminaries and translation committees worldwide.
History and Context
The Biblia Hebraica tradition begins with Rudolf Kittel, whose first edition appeared in 1906. The third edition (BHK, 1937) broke new ground by abandoning the received rabbinic text in favour of the Leningrad Codex as its base — the first printed Hebrew Bible to reproduce a single, complete manuscript.
The Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, edited by Karl Elliger and Wilhelm Rudolph and published by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft in fascicles between 1968 and 1976, revised that work thoroughly. It was collated afresh against photographs of the manuscript, its Masoretic apparatus was rebuilt under the direction of Gérard Weil, and its critical apparatus was rewritten in the light of the Dead Sea Scrolls, unknown when Kittel worked.
Content and Apparatus
The BHS presents a diplomatic text: the Leningrad Codex is reproduced as it stands, with consonants, vowels and accents, and editorial judgements are confined to the apparatus rather than imposed on the text. Two sets of notes accompany it.
- The Masora parva in the margins and the Masora magna — the ancient scribal apparatus that guards the text against alteration.
- The critical apparatus at the foot of the page, recording variants from the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Septuagint, the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Targums, the Peshitta and the Vulgate, together with conjectural emendations.
Use and Importance
The BHS is the text from which the Old Testament of essentially every modern Bible translation is made, and the standard edition for teaching biblical Hebrew and for academic exegesis. Learning to read its apparatus is a normal part of graduate training in Old Testament studies.
Contemporary Relevance
A successor, the Biblia Hebraica Quinta (BHQ), has been appearing in fascicles since 2004 with a fuller apparatus and commentary, but it is not yet complete, and the BHS remains the working edition in print and in digital form. Its combination of a faithful diplomatic text with a compact, disciplined apparatus has kept it the reference Hebrew Bible for scholars and students alike.