Tov agrees that the emergence of a relatively fixed text was beginning to emerge by the
middle of the Second Temple period in Palestine. Texts that were deposited in the temple
became authoritative, though it is likely that there was a gradual change in the shape of
that text over time.^38 For example, a text deposited in the temple that looked like an an-
cestor of the Vorlage to the LXX may have over time become a text that looked more like
an ancestor of the MT.^39 Tov posits that perhaps by the third century B.C.E. a text sig-
nificantly like the MT had come to be deposited in the temple archives.^40 This was not
the only text-type that was in circulation in Jewish Palestine in the late centuries B.C.E.
and early first century C.E., but rather was the text-type affiliated with the centre of the
religious institution in Jerusalem. The temple affiliated texts are characterised by those
which were uncovered at sites along the southwest coast of the Dead Sea in the first cen-
tury C.E. (Masada) and the second century C.E. (Murabba‘at, Wadi Sdeir and Naḥal
(^38) E. Tov, "The Biblical Texts from the Judaean Desert: An Overview and Analysis of the Published
Texts," The Bible as Book: The Hebrew Bible and the Judaean Desert Discoveries (eds E.D. Herbert and E.
Tov; London: The British Library & Oak Knoll Press, 2002) 156-57. 39
That the text that was kept in the temple archives underwent some process of textual evolution is sug-
gested by the report of the three differing scrolls found in the temple court in the Talmud. See E. Tov, "The
Biblical Text in Ancient Synagogues in Light of the Judean Desert Finds," Meghillot 1 (2003) 195-97 [He-
brew], and the detailed discussion in chapter 9 pages 290-94. 40
E. Tov, private conversation. It should be noted that the use of the term ‘MT’ here indicates a text that is
the theorised close ancestor to the medieval MT, and not a copy-text that was exactly like the medieval MT
in every detail. Indeed, it is inevitable that some variations creep into the text through multiple cycles of
transmission no matter what level of attempted exactitude accompanies the copying process. Here it is im-
portant to note the cautious tone that Tov employs when discussing the proto-MT and the MT in real terms:
“Only from the early medieval period, when the apparatuses of vocalization, accentuation, and Masoretic
notes were added to the consonants, can one speak of a real Masoretic Text. Nevertheless, the main con-
stituent of [the MT], its consonantal framework, already existed many centuries beforehand, as it is attested
in various texts from the Judean Desert, which date from the third pre-Christian century until the second
century CE” (E. Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001^2 ) 27).