WHAT TEXT(S) ARE WE ATTEMPTING TO RECONSTRUCT?
In chapter 7 we briefly considered the goal of textual criticism. There, without getting into much complexity, we said that our goal is to recover the final, authoritative text or texts of biblical compositions. In this appendix, we will consider this question in a bit more depth by surveying three views on what a text critic should attempt to reconstruct. How one understands the goal of textual criticism is related to how one thinks that biblical books were created. It also depends on how we account for new data, especially important contributions from the Qumran scrolls in the Judean Desert.
Restore the Original Composition
Historically, text critics—not just of the Bible but of classic texts such as those of Homer or Shakespeare—“tried to produce a text as close as possible to the text that left the author’s hand.”1 The goal of textual criticism in this view is to recover the actual words (ipsissima verba) of the inspired author, such as Moses or Isaiah.
For example, Roland K. Harrison writes that the “aim of the textual critic is to recover the original Hebrew form.”2 He continues, “If the doctrine of inspiration means anything at all for the written Word of God, it surely refers to the original autographs, since subsequent copyists, however gifted or diligent, were not themselves inspired. The true objective of the textual critic, therefore, should be the restoration of the Hebrew to the point where it is as near as possible to what the original author is deemed to have written.”3
Note that Harrison suggests a sharp distinction between the writing of the work and “subsequent copyists” who transmitted the work. This is illustrated in figure B.1 below:
An Ideal Text History
This view has been critiqued (and largely rejected) because of its overly simplistic view of the development phase of the text. The assumption is that biblical authors sat down and wrote books of the Bible that were complete and ready to hand over to scribes for copying. However, most scholars agree that there was at least some process in the development of biblical books. Some books contain evidence of scribal updating. For example, in Gen. 14:14 Abram led his fighting men in pursuit of his nephew Lot as far as the city of Dan. But we are told in Josh. 19:47 that the city had been called Leshem previously, and in Judg. 18:29 that it had been called Laish.4 Therefore, Genesis presumably contained either “Leshem” or “Laish,” and a scribe updated the city name so that his readers would understand the referent.
Other books of the Bible explicitly state that they were the product of lengthy development. For example, editorial superscriptions in the book of Proverbs state that some of the material comes from Solomon (10:1), some from anonymous sages (22:17), some from Solomon that were collected by the men of King Hezekiah about three hundred years later (25:1), and some by Agur (30:1) and Lemuel (31:1).
Mainstream critical biblical scholarship generally sees many or most of the biblical books as having undergone a lengthy process of development. Ferdinand Deist and Walter Winckler write succinctly, “What is an autograph? The biblical text developed over time.”5 In this view, the Pentateuch was assembled over hundreds of years from various sources; Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings were shaped and revised by subsequent editors; and the Prophets contain multiple redactional additions.
Restore the Final Form (sg.) of the Text
With the advent of higher criticism, many scholars no longer saw the text as the actual words (ipsissima verba) of one person but as the final redaction of earlier sources and revisions. Deist writes, “The final text is the end product of the genetic processes and, at the same time, the starting point of the processes of written transmission.”6 However, if the text of a biblical book underwent a lengthy process of development, this would mean that the copying phase would need to begin before the composition phase ended (see fig. B.2).
Composition and Copying Overlap
Therefore, in this view, the distinction between composition and transmission is blurred. The text may have undergone some change even as it was being copied. Some of these changes might be due to scribal error, but others would reflect the ongoing development of the book.
Restore the Final Forms (pl.) of the Text
As mentioned in chapter 7, there are some significant differences between textual witnesses that appear to have been created in this blurring of composition and transmission. Emanuel Tov writes, “Modern researchers pay attention to a category of evidence when claiming that not all differences between textual witnesses could have derived from later copyists-scribes, but that some must have derived from the earlier authors/editors-scribes.”7
The Septuagint version of Jeremiah (G-Jeremiah) contains some significant differences from the MT representation of the book. It is shorter overall by one-eighth (ca. 2,700 words). Some of the pluses in the MT are inconsequential, but some do affect the meaning of the text.8 However, G-Jeremiah also contains some pluses that are not found in the MT. In addition, the structure of the book is different. In the Septuagint the prophecies against the nations occur in chapters 25–31 following opening oracles against Israel and Judah, the more typical location in prophetic books.9 In the MT, the prophecies against the nations occur in chapters 46–51 where they constitute the culmination of the book. Table B.1 summarizes the basic differences between the versions.
Table B.1
Comparison of the Masoretic Text and G-Jeremiah
There have been a number of suggestions as to the origin of these differences. Perhaps the MT is original and the Septuagint translator shortened the text. Or, perhaps the Septuagint tradition was original, and scribes working in the protomasoretic tradition expanded the text secondarily.10 However, the evidence does not indicate basic reduction or expansion because the differences are spread throughout the book and there are structural differences in sequence as well. More significantly, texts of Jeremiah discovered among the Qumran scrolls correspond to both the MT and Septuagint versions. Three scrolls, 2QJer, 4QJera, and 4QJerc, contain readings that match the MT, whereas 4QJerb (containing 9:22–10:18) agrees with the shorter reading of the Septuagint. This means that the differences in G-Jeremiah were not created in the transmission process, for at Qumran we have evidence of that text type in Hebrew, at the change of the era.
Tov lists differences between versions of a similar nature in portions of Joshua, Ezekiel, 1 Samuel, and Proverbs among others.11 In his view, we should distinguish between two types of textual differences: small variants that were created by copyists-scribes (i.e., the transmission phase), and sizable differences created by earlier authors/editors-scribes (i.e., the composition phase).12 Würthwein concurs, arguing that in the historical development of texts, literary growth does not conclude suddenly at a certain point.13 Texts are completed, begin to be copied, are further revised, and then that newly revised edition is copied. The result is more than one edition (see fig. B.3).14
Multiple Editions?
This reconstruction has implications for textual criticism because textual criticism is oriented only toward working in the transmission phase. Text critics collect manuscript evidence, place it in groups, weigh it, and evaluate it to reconstruct the text at the beginning of the copying and transmission process. If manuscripts differ not because of copying errors or scribal alterations but because of scribal or editorial composition, then this is something that the discipline of textual criticism does not have the tools or the methodology to address. Tov writes, “As a rule, textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible aims neither at the compositions written by the biblical authors, nor at the previous oral stages, if such existed, but only at that stage (those stages) of the composition(s) that is (are) attested in the textual evidence.”15
In this view, it is the task of text critics to restore final texts (plural). The text critic works back through the transmission phase of the Septuagint and MT as far as he or she can go. Adjudicating between the text traditions, however, is beyond the purview of textual criticism. Bruce Waltke writes that the composition process of a book determines the nature of its transmission in various texts. Therefore,
The text critic’s aim will vary according to the nature of the book. If a book had but one author, then the critic will aim to restore his original composition; if it be an edited text, then he will seek to recover the final, canonical text. If he turns up more than one final text, he will turn his data over to the literary and canonical critic to determine whether the text is in process of developing into a final canonical text or whether it existed in more than one canonical form.16
Conclusion
In our view, Waltke’s approach is balanced and helpful. Some books of the OT, probably most of them, were created in a straightforward manner. The author worked on the book and completed it. It was then recognized as authoritative by the community, and copying began. In this case, the original composition and the final form of the text are essentially the same thing, and this text is the goal of text-critical reconstruction.
Certain books, like Psalms, make explicit internal claims that they are the product of a lengthy development. At some point, the collection of psalms was closed and an editor put on the finishing touches. Because this was the final, “published” text, this was the beginning of the transmission process, and this is the text that was maintained, guarded, and promulgated by scribes. This earliest, authoritative, canonical form of the text is our goal.
In cases like Jeremiah or Joshua, where we have two forms of the text with significant differences reflected in Hebrew texts from the Qumran scrolls, we need a more complex explanation. Tov’s reconstruction of multiple literary strata is convincing and is currently the best explanation for these distinct text traditions in certain books. The possibility that a text was recognized as final, copied, and then further revised and copied would explain not only the added or removed material but also the change in the overall shape and sequence of the text.
Note that this does not mean that the two versions are equally authoritative. Hypothesizing that a text underwent compositional revisions after transmission began only means that someone revised the text or that copying began before it was completed. It does not necessarily constitute evidence that the book was originally created in literary stages over a long period of time. Paul Wegner is right when he writes, “It is appropriate to ask which of the texts we know to have existed before the first century [CE] (e.g., Dead Sea Scrolls, G, SP) most likely reflect the original form of the Hebrew text.”17 Wegner takes issue with whether there ever was more than one authoritative form of the text.18
While reconstructing the authoritative form of the text is an important ultimate goal, that project may have to be shared by text critics, literary critics, exegetes, and canon critics. The discipline of textual criticism is equipped to collect data and make judgments about extant textual evidence. Therefore, for example, text critics may be restricted to reconstructing the best text of G-Jeremiah and the best text of MT-Jeremiah. Evaluating the history and authority of the two forms of the book behind the textual evidence is no longer textual criticism, but the domain of other disciplines.
In summary, in the majority of cases we can state:
The goal of Old Testament textual criticism is to recover the final, authoritative text.
To account for those few cases in which manuscript evidence reflects different literary versions, we must add an “(s)” as a qualifier:
The goal of Old Testament textual criticism is to recover the final, authoritative text(s).
