The Qumran Scrolls of the Book of Judges: Literary Formation, Textual Criticism, and Historical Linguistics

Abstract

This is a pilot attempt to combine literary-critical, text-critical, and historical linguistic approaches in an analysis of selected linguistic variants between the MT and DSS with an application to the book of Judges. The result of this interdisciplinary exercise is that future research on the history of BH will have to contend more earnestly with the “fluidity” (or “changeability”) of language and the “non-directionality” (or “patternlessness”) of linguistic variants in biblical texts.