tative and non-authoritative text-types posited by Saul Lieberman,^709 which relies on evi-
dence found in the later Talmudic sources and analogy with contemporary Hellenistic
practices. It will be helpful to firstly elucidate the ideas put forward by Lieberman before
exploring the implications for Tov’s system for the categorisation of texts.
Lieberman discussed the practices behind literary transmission in Jewish Palestine in the
period from the first century B.C.E. until the fourth century C.E. In relation to the exact
copying of the Hebrew Bible, perhaps the most often cited section of this work deals with
the texts of Scripture in the early rabbinic period.^710 Lieberman infers from rabbinic
sources that there was one authoritative biblical text that was deposited in the archives of
the Temple. This, Lieberman says, was the
“standard copy par excellence, the book, as the Rabbis tell us, from which the Scroll of
the king was corrected under the supervision of the High Court. A special college of book
readers (Myrps hyhgm), who drew their fees from the Temple funds, checked the text of
the book of the Temple. This was probably the only genuine text which was legally au-
thorized for the public service.”^711However, this was not the only kind of biblical text which was to be found in the textual
milieu of Jewish Palestine during this period. While the ‘copy par excellence’ that was
deposited in the Temple archives represented the authoritative texts of the Hebrew bibli-
709
See S. Lieberman, Hellenism in Jewish Palestine: Studies in the Literary Transmission, Beliefs and
Manners of Palestine in the I Century B.C.E. - IV Century C.E. (New York: The Jewish Theological Semi-
nary of America, 1950). 710
711 See S. Lieberman, Hellenism in Jewish Palestine, 22-27.
S. Lieberman, Hellenism in Jewish Palestine, 22, italics in original.