copies of ancient texts are frequently presented in translation as single composite ver-
sions. The case is similar with the bulk of critical editions, as a cursory glance at the text
of BHS will confirm. The copy-text, in this case the Leningrad Codex, is accompanied by
a critical apparatus that is purposefully positioned to leave the text, to as great an extent
as possible, free from distracting notation and comment. The elected text of the critic is
the unmistakeable focus, with other evidence from less authoritative manuscripts rele-
gated to the apparatus.^12
That is not to say that our translations and critical editions lack any significant informa-
tion. The focus on a normative text obviously makes the texts themselves far more read-
ily understood, and the critical apparatus, should we care to consult it, serves to inform us
of variant readings. However, the presentation of an ancient text in a normative ‘stan-
dardised’ form often draws attention away from the fact that this standardised form is
something imposed on the evidence by the text-critical method itself, and does not reflect
a text that was extant at any time in antiquity.
(^12) See the comments, including a thorough discussion of the development of the ‘score’ presentation of
multiple textual editions, in J. Black, Reading Sumerian Poetry: A Study of the Oldest Literature (New
York: Cornell University Press, 1998) 33-38. A recent vision of this same text-critical goal is stated by R.
Hendel, "Prologue," 329-330 with n. 15: “The practical goal for the OHB [Oxford Hebrew Bible] is to ap-
proximate in its critical text the textual ‘archetype,’ by which I mean the ‘earliest inferable textual state.’ In
the case of multiple editions, the practical goal is to approximate the archetype of each edition and, where
one edition is not plausibly the ancestor of the other(s), also the archetype of the multiple editions ... In this
[latter] case, the archetypal readings will be included in the critical text and the variants from the subse-
quent editions will be included in the apparatus.”