The paper offers an overview of the history of Hebrew text(s) of the Old Testament from oral beginnings to medieval manuscripts (so called Masoretic Text). Following stages are listed: oral tradition – (first) writing down – collecting, supplementing and editing – coping – canonizing – uniforming of the consonantal texts – standardizing (vocalization etc.). All the stages were long processes, partly running simultaneously and non-linearly. The paper calls for a necessity of text criticism and literary criticism in exegetical work of theologians and historians.
Keywords:
oral tradition, writing down, collecting, editing, coping, canonizing, uniforming of the consonantal texts, standardizing, textual criticism, literal criticism
Slawik, J. (2013). History of Hebrew Bible Text(s) – an overview. Theological Yearbook, 55(1), 5–16. Retrieved from https://ojs.chat.edu.pl/index.php/rt/article/view/22