Greg's review
Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible by Emanuel Tov
This is a fabulous book. I wish I had read it as an undergraduate, however it was published 11 years after I graduated. It is an excellent book covering all aspects of textual criticism - that is the lowest level of criticism - of the Hebrew Bible. It deals with the issue of the selection of the appropriate reading from multiple versions (i.e., prefer the reconstructed Hebrew from the Greek Septuagint or a particular manuscript from the Dead Sea Scrolls, the reconstructed text of another translation like the Targums, Latin Vulgate, etc.).
Anyone who is a believer should read this book to understand that the Bible cannot be infallible, because there are variations among versions, and that none can possibly date back to the time of Moses, nor can they be reconstructed to reflect the "original". That said, it appears that the various versions we have now of the books of the Old Testament do originate in a common ancestor. Recovering that ancestor, is not really possible,...more
Anyone who is a believer should read this book to understand that the Bible cannot be infallible, because there are variations among versions, and that none can possibly date back to the time of Moses, nor can they be reconstructed to reflect the "original". That said, it appears that the various versions we have now of the books of the Old Testament do originate in a common ancestor. Recovering that ancestor, is not really possible,...more
