i^
CONTENTS
(^) List of Tables .................................................................................................................... vii
List of Figures ................................................................................................................... vii
List of Abbreviations ....................................................................................................... viii
Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................. x
CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................... 1
The Hebrew Scriptures and other ancient Near Eastern Traditions ................................ 1
Textual Criticism, Its Objectives and Presuppositions ................................................... 3
Tools Available for Building a Methodology ................................................................. 9
Conceptual Frameworks for Viewing the Texts ........................................................... 10
The Categorisation of Variant Readings ....................................................................... 17
Errors............................................................................................................................. 17
Variants in Reconstructive Approaches ........................................................................ 19
Variants in Comparative Approaches to Biblical Texts ............................................... 22
Variants in Comparative Approaches to Non-Biblical Texts ....................................... 24
CHAPTER 2: METHOD .................................................................................................. 30
Creating a Methodology ............................................................................................... 30
Textual Variants – Orthographic .................................................................................. 33
Textual Variants – Orthographic (linguistic) ................................................................ 34
Stylistic Variants ........................................................................................................... 37