26. (a) When was a critical study of the Hebrew text advanced, and what are some master texts that have been printed? (b) How has the Ginsburg text been used?

²⁶ The standard printed edition of the Hebrew Bible right into the 19th century was the Second Rabbinic Bible of Jacob ben Chayyim published in 1524-25. It was not until the 18th century that scholars began to advance the critical study of the Hebrew text.

27, 28. (a) What is the Biblia Hebraica, and how has it been developed? (b) How has the New World Translation used this text?

²⁷ In 1906 Hebrew scholar Rudolf Kittel released in Germany the first edition (and later, a second edition) of his refined Hebrew text entitled Biblia Hebraica, or “The Hebrew Bible.” In this book Kittel provided a textual apparatus through extended footnotes, which collated or compared the many Hebrew manuscripts of the Masoretic text available at that time. He used the generally accepted text by Jacob ben Chayyim as the basic text.