Figure - Average Variation Including Nineveh Ritual Tablets and 'de Luxe' mss
The Significance of Ritual Texts
Among the representative texts of the five textual genres examined here, the genres of
ritual and, to a lesser extent, law appear to reflect a high level of exactitude in transmis-
sion. The type and frequency of variation found in the ritual texts most closely reflects
the type and frequency of variation found in the most stable biblical texts. In fact, most of
the variations between copies of mīs pî stem from copies of the ritual that have been
classed as Late Babylonian school texts. The copies of mīs pî that stem from the royal
collections at Nineveh in particular exhibit a very high degree of textual constancy. Sig-
nificant amounts of variation between the Nineveh manuscripts of the mīs pî ritual are
limited to matters of orthography and, as has been shown in the above analysis, ortho-
graphic variation is especially prevalent in the cuneiform writing system.
EAE 63
MUL.APIN
LH
Gilgamesh XI
Mīs Pî
Mīs Pî Nineveh
Qumran
Non-Qumran
de Luxe mss
% HV % SV % OV(l) % OV %Pll