Making the Biblical Text

Originating in a symposium organized by the Institut Dominique Barthélemy and held on 4-5 November 2011 at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, this book presents eight essays on the textual and literary history of the Hebrew Bible and the Greek Bible. It is commonplace today to speak of multiple text types in the earliest text history of the Hebrew Bible. But how can this multiplicity be most adequately explained? Does it result from different places, or from different Jewish communities reading texts in parallel text forms (Jews in Jerusalem, Samaritans, Alexandrian Jews, etc.)? Does one have to reckon with different qualities and/or evaluations of certain text forms? In other words, among the different text types known to us, were there some which enjoyed special esteem and recognition in antiquity – and if yes, by whom?