The Serugin, Te’amim, and Meturgeman in Christian Perspective-part 7

The Serugin, Te’amim, and Meturgeman in Christian Perspective-part 7 

            The Babylonian Talmud (Yome 38a, Gittin 60a) attests to the existence of the serugin by mentioning “…condensed forms for the reading of the texts in which just the first word of each verse is given, followed only by the accented syllables of the remaining words.”  Haik-Vantoura, TMotBR, p.106.  Haik-Vantoura goes on to hypothesize, “This is a procedure sufficient enough to protect any tradition, no matter how meticulous…Besides the School of Tiberius was tottering…Under the yoke of Islam, denigrated and beaten down by their own brethren, it is likely that these ‘masters of the transmission’ became fearful that this venerated tradition would sink into the gulf of oblivion.  Consequently they decided to hand it over, not in its abridged form but in clear terms, to their contemporaries and to posterity.” Haik-Vantoura, TMotBR, pp. 39, 66, 108.  .

            Almost all of the scholars whose writings have attested the belief that the te’amim system is much older than the time that the School of Tiberius have not left for us exact knowledge as to why the te’amim are not found in the earlier extant fragments of the OT that are anterior to the MT. The two exceptions to this lack of specifity is first, the known rabbinical tradition of only reading from the Consonantal Texts [OT Bible texts containing only consonants].  Second, if in very ancient times perhaps the te’amim notation was not ever placed in complete manuscripts [that have not survived]; this could have been because of a fear that the melodies of the OT would be corrupted over the centuries.  The second hypothesis lends credence to the belief that these protected manuscripts were kept completely for esoteric use [intended for only a small number of people with a specialized knowledge].  In these abbreviated manuscripts the graphic signs were much easier to protect than in the complete scrolls of the OT which would be much more accessible to vilification by those who did have sufficient knowledge to utilize them accurately.