therefore seems that scrolls of the ήκριβωμένα type were not in absolute agreement, or
were not the only text-type kept in the temple.^718
Less authority is attributed to the scrolls designated as κοινά, although in this particular
categorisation it is important to avoid being overly simplistic. Lieberman’s belief was
that the κοινά type texts were not simply corrupt manuscripts, but rather were texts that
lacked the official emendations and corrections that were present in the copies kept in the
Temple archives. But, as Talmon has indicated, it should be recognised that these κοινά
did not “reflect a single version, common to them all, but rather differed from one an-
other in various details. They were not distinguished by a common textual tradition, but
by deviating, individually and as a group, from the authoritative version which progres-
sively crystallized in the model codices.”^719 The κοινά, then, were those personal copies
made by authoritative figures^720 that could be used for study, as is referred to in various
rabbinic debates.^721 However, κοινά were not seen as fit for deposit as authoritative texts
in the Temple archives.
According to Lieberman, texts of the most inferior quality were limited to smaller locali-
ties throughout Palestine. It is these texts that, we read in the Talmud, should be avoided
718
See, for example, M. Moed Katan 3:4 and P.T. Sanhedrin II, 20c. See also S. Safrai, "The Temple," 906
n. 1. 719
720 S. Talmon, "Three Scrolls of the Law," 15.
Examples given by Leiberman of such scroll-types are the copies ostensibly made by Rabi Meir, and the
scroll taken to the synagogue of Severus. See S. Lieberman, Hellenism in Jewish Palestine, 23-24, and the
references there. 721
See the reference to the practice of using what might amount to vulagata in the academies in S. Talmon,
"Three Scrolls of the Law," 14. See also A. Geiger, Urschrift und Ubersetzungen der Bibel in Ihrer Ab-
hangigkeit von der inneren Entwicklung des Judentums (Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Madda, 1928^2 ) 97-100,
231.