Evidence for variation within ήκριβωμένα texts is purely inferential, and the same must
be said of evidence for the exactitude with which such texts were replicated. Our only
hint at the requirement for a high level of exactitude in copying authoritative texts in the
Second Temple period comes from the Damascus Document. While this evidence is
slightly stronger than the Tannaitic material mentioned immediately above – due to the
fact that the fragments of the Damascus Document uncovered at Qumran at least allow us
to proceed from a point which is contemporary with the period in question – it still re-
quires inferred reasoning to make it applicable to our present discussion.
The passage in question is partially preserved in three of the ten copies of the Damascus
Document found at Qumran: 4Q266 frag. 5ii 1-3; 4Q267 frag. 5iii 3-5; and 4Q273 frag. 2
- The passage informs us that there existed, at least at Qumran, a requirement for an ac-
curate reading of an authoritative text.^731
w) wnw#]lb lqn r#) lwkw Ny[b]hl rhmm wny) r#) lwk [--] w) M[yny(] hhk lwkw
rp]sb )rqy )wl [hl)m #y) wlwq] (ym#hl wrbd lcp )lw wl rbd dwr+ [lwqb
twm rbdb gw#y hml [hrwthtual settings in F.H. Polak, "Sociolinguistics: A Key to the Typology and the Social Background of Biblical
Hebrew," Hebrew Studies 47 (2006) 116-19. The grammatical form of the last feature, whether a substitu-
tion of masculine and feminine synonyms, or the presence or absence of a locative suffix, is more difficult
to decide. Of the various interpretations of this form, see in particular S. Talmon, "Three Scrolls of the
Law," 22-25, esp. n. 14. 731
See L.H. Schiffman, "The Early History of Public Reading of the Torah," Jews, Christians and Polythe-
ists in the Ancient Synagogue: Cultural Interaction During the Greco-Roman Period (ed. S. Fine; New
York: Routledge, 1999) 45-46.