by Cross that the bulk of the Qumran biblical scrolls that display full orthography and
expansionistic tendencies, including the paleo-Hebrew manuscripts, are related to the
Palestinian textual family, written in what he calls the “new-baroque style.”^24
Tools Available for Building a Methodology
The tools that biblical text criticism offers for the comparison of ancient texts divide ba-
sically into two groups: those that facilitate the aim of reconstructing an original text, and
others that assist a comparative analysis of textual forms. We will label these approaches
‘reconstructive’ and ‘comparative’ respectively. To be sure, this is not a distinction that
textual critics would necessarily make, but rather the two sets of tools work together to
produce critical editions and comprehensive apparatuses. The distinction is important to
make in this study, though, because it is the second set of tools, those that aid a ‘compara-
tive’ approach, that are most important to us. Comparing the accuracy of the transmission
process reflected in ancient texts, across media, genres, cultures, and centuries, requires a
method that allows for the broad comparison of materials that make up textual traditions,
and is not concerned as much with the reconstruction of one particular form of a given
tradition. While some speculation as to what may be an original reading can be justified
(^) the Qumran Scrolls," The Dead Sea Scrolls in Their Historical Context (ed. T.H. Lim; Edinburgh: T&T
Clark, 2000) 116. 24
See F.M. Cross, "The Contribution of the Qumran Discoveries," 90, and F.M. Cross, "The Evolution of a
Theory," 308. More recently, see F.M. Cross, "Some Notes on a Generation of Qumran Studies," The Ma-
drid Qumran Congress: Proceedings of the International Congress on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Madrid, 18-21
March, 1991 (eds L. Trebolle Barrera and L. Vegas Montaner; STDJ 11; Leiden: Brill, 1992) 6.