Textual Criticism of Hebrew Scripture and Scripture-Like Texts

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the contribution of the Scripture-like compositions and commentaries to textual criticism. The analysis starts with compositions that can easily be confused with Scripture, that is liturgical texts, and rewritten Scripture compositions. A third group is usually not confused with Scripture, viz., commentaries, although in fact fragments of such commentaries have sometimes been confused with Scripture. Scripture-like scrolls are problematic in the text-critical procedure, as they reflect both variants similar to those included in ancient Scripture texts, and variations on a large scale, for example, the different sequence of the Psalms in the liturgical Qumran Psalters. Of the three groups of Scripture-like texts, the Bible commentaries and pesharim are usually not confused with Scripture texts. They are discussed in the chapter because the problems of extracting variants from them resemble the recognition of variants in Scripture-like texts. Keywords: Bible commentaries; Hebrew scripture; liturgical texts; pesharim ; rewritten scripture compositions; scripture-like texts; textual criticism