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from one of the Judean Desert sites needs to be added to this group, as well as the recently opened En-Gedi scroll which agrees with codex L in all of its details. It is fair to say that we have access to only a very small percentage of proto-MT manuscripts.

      The virtual identity between the early scrolls and the medieval texts can be seen best in an examination of the well-preserved texts such as:⁷

      • The Masada Psalms scroll copy a (MasPs^a) dating to the end of the 1^st century BCE, and containing one complete and two fragmentary columns.

      • The Masada Leviticus scroll copy b (MasLev^b) dating to 30 BCE–30 CE, and containing five fragmentary columns.

      • The Psalms scroll from cave 5/6 in Naḥal Ḥever (5/6ḤevPs) dating to 50–68 CE, and containing twelve fragmentary columns.

      • The Murabbaʿat scroll of the Minor Prophets (MurXII) dating to ca. 115 CE and containing major parts of these books in 21 columns.

      • The En-Gedi scroll of Leviticus chapters 1–2, ascribed to the 1^st–2^nd century CE as shown by Segal et al.⁸

      This last text was deciphered and published only in 2016, and although its evidence is fragmentary, it was the first time an ancient text agreed entirely with the consonantal medieval text.

      The other Judean texts of the same type differ in a few details, but never more than the medieval texts differ among each other. The categories of differences pertain to details of spelling, small linguistic differences, and minute content differences. Thus, the relationship between MT and the ancient Judean Desert texts is one of almost complete identity showing that the consonantal framework of MT changed very little over the course of one thousand years—the period between the scrolls and the earliest medieval codices.

      2.1.2 The Socio-religious Background of the Judean Desert Texts

      The biblical texts found in Judean Desert sites outside of Qumran always represent proto-MT and those found in Qumran never do (with the sole exception of one tefillin [phylactery], 8QPhyl I). The key to understanding the background of this sharp difference lies in the correlation between the texts and the socio-religious background of the archeological sites.

      Both the earlier site of Masada (scrolls written between 50 BCE and 30 CE) and the later Bar Kokhba sites (scrolls written between 20 BCE and 115 CE) in contradistinction with Qumran, were used by people (i.e. the Masada and Bar Kokhba freedom fighters) who closely followed the guidance of pre-rabbinic leaders in religious matters; thus they used exclusively the proto-Masoretic text embraced by that spiritual leadership.⁹ A close link between the Rabbis and the proto-Masoretic text is also reflected in the content of the tefillin (phylacteries) from the Judean Desert written in the MT style that reflect the instructions of the rabbis preserved in later rabbinic texts.

      Although the Qumran texts display a wide textual variety, proto-MT does not appear there.¹⁰

      2.1.3 The Origins of the Proto-MT

      Many scholars suggest that after several centuries of textual plurality, a period of uniformity and stability can be discerned within Judaism at the end of the 1^st century CE. However, the Qumran texts were hidden in caves, and SP (Samaritan Pentateuch) and LXX, both deviating much from MT, were cherished by non-rabbinic religious groups. At that time, the Hebrew and translated texts used within rabbinic Judaism only reflect MT. This situation is usually explained as reflecting a conscious effort to stabilize the Scripture text, and as the creation of a standard text for Palestine as a whole by the rabbinic Jewish leadership. In this context, the terms stabilization and standardization are often used.

      The difference between the sites is not chronological, but socio-religious.¹¹ In other words, at the same time different groups made use of different texts, and this trend continued over time, but these groups either split off from Judaism (Christians and Samaritans) or disappeared (Qumran group), leaving the group that used proto-MT as the only remaining Jewish group. Thus, their version of Scripture became the only version left after the destruction of the Second Temple, and this version became the only version that was used by all streams of Judaism.

      2.1.4 How the Proto-MT Was Created

      In many ways, the origin of MT remains enigmatic. This text is far from being unified or consistent in its spelling and other editorial characteristics. Through the generations the MT scribes copied their scrolls faithfully, but these scrolls inherited an earlier tradition that was not always precise or consistent. The variation in the nature and quality of the texts that ended up being included strongly implies that there was no selection process of manuscripts for inclusion in the archetype of MT.¹² There probably was only one candidate for inclusion in the archetype of MT for each text. The persons who created the archetype were, for the most part, unaware of differences between scrolls and did not pay attention to the small details under scrutiny in this study,¹³ otherwise the specific MT text of Samuel, for instance, with its many errors as compared to the Qumran and LXX versions, would not have been included.

      In this corpus we find books of different types. Large books, such as Samuel, Kings, Jeremiah, and Psalms, consisting of several smaller scrolls, could coincidentally be combined from scrolls of a different textual nature. Thus, in only two of the five books of Psalms in MT¹⁴ the main divine appellation is elohim, while in the other three books it is YHWH. In this way also, Jeremiah 27–29 differs from the remainder of the book.

      The same processes happened in the creation of the archetype of the LXX, whose books differ much from one another. For example, the various segments of the books of Samuel-Kings are of a divergent nature.¹⁵ We note that in a corpus that developed over the course of such a long period, internal differences such as those in the LXX and MT are to be expected.

      2.2 The Scribes of the Proto-Masoretic Text and Their Practices

      The practices of the proto-MT scribes (including the scribes that preceded them) as well as those of the medieval scribes of MT are better known than that of other scribes. This happened not only because there are many more copies of the medieval MT than of any other text of Scripture, but also because proto-MT scribes as a group (i.e., not individually named scribes) are often mentioned in rabbinic literature (viz. Soferim).

      When focusing on the scribes, we refer to their general approach to the text that may be examined with the aid of such criteria as precision, number of mistakes, amount of scribal intervention in the text (corrections, additions and erasures in the text), and the approach to orthography. Included in this group are the scribes of the proto-MT scrolls, the scribes of the medieval scrolls and manuscripts, and the scribes of the texts preceding the proto-Masoretic texts. The scribes of the proto-MT texts from the Judean Desert are well known because they display individual features and they have been well studied.

      An important criterion that can be examined for the MT group and not for the other texts is to what extent the scribes changed the texts from which they were copied. This cannot be examined for most texts since we do not know their Vorlagen (i.e., the texts that preceded them from which the scribes were copying), but for the proto-MT texts we think that we know a little more. After all, since these texts display the same text as the medieval MT, by implication they copied their Vorlagen precisely.

      2.2.1 Precision Copying

      Part of the explanation for the virtual lack of differences between the copies of MT in early times and through the centuries, may be found in rabbinic traditions regarding precision in the copying of scrolls: the existence of master copies of the Torah books in the Temple Court,¹⁶ and the correction procedure of scrolls according to these master copies. On the basis of these traditions, it may be postulated that the Judean Desert scrolls were in fact »corrected copies« that circulated in ancient Israel.

      2.2.2

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