Criteria for Evaluating Textual Readings: The Limitations of Textual Rules

Abstract

Old Testament textual criticism focuses on variant readings (such as “on the seventh day” in the MT of Gen 2:2 as opposed to “on the sixth day” in the Samaritan Pentateuch and in the LXX and the Peshitta) and these readings must be evaluated carefully. Ever since the seventeenth century, abstract rules have been formulated for the evaluation of textual readings. These abstract rules are of different types and each generation of OT scholars has a different approach to them. In the seventeenth century only a few such rules were suggested, but after that time one notices a growing appreciation for and employment of textual rules. In the present century one discovers a frequent reliance on–and often a blind belief in–textual rules.