additional category representing lexical interchange is subdivided into interchanges of
verbs, and other words (nouns, adjectives, adverbs and pronouns).^69 Perhaps most impor-
tantly for our present purposes, Cogan defines a category for changes in details. Though
limited to a small number of examples,^70 he points to a need to define some variants as
introducing conflicting or different information that does not agree with the parallel data.
This could be likened to the category for revised exegetical readings defined by Tov.
Another study relevant to our investigation is the examination of copying practices
among Northwest Semitic scribes by Dobrusin.^71 She utilises inner-biblical parallel texts
as well as Phoenician and Ugaritic material, and compares variants from each body of
evidence. The texts that were examined by Dobrusin included parallel material in Isaiah
and Kings, parallel material from the Phoenician inscriptions at Karatepe, and the hippiat-
ric texts from Ugarit. She discriminated between three different types of variants in her
analysis, namely ‘stylistic,’ ‘substantive’ and ‘error’ variants. Variants considered as ‘sty-
listic’ were found “to do little to change the content of the text but affect the presentation
and form of the text ... [while] substantive variants represent a level of creativity that
makes a significant impact on the text.”^72 The important difference between these classi-
fications is that, while one class of variant allows for reworking the text without impact-
ing on its meaning, another class of variant allows for changes that do in fact alter the
sense of the text. This distinction, while not elaborated beyond this in Dobrusin’s study,
(^69) M. Cogan, "Some Text-Critical Issues," 6-13.
(^70) See the examples given in M. Cogan, "Some Text-Critical Issues," 10.
(^71) See D. Dobrusin, The Nature of Ancient Northwest Semitic Copying Practices as Reflected Through
Variants 72 (Columbia University Ph.D. Dissertation: New York, 1987).
D. Dobrusin, The Nature of Ancient Northwest Semitic Copying Practices, 24.