«We can infer that the standardization of the proto-Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible had basically already taken place in certain Jewish circles before 70 AD not only from the discoveries of biblical writings at Masada, but also from the fact that 'normative' Judaism had rejected the textual tradition of the Septuagint at an early stage. A Greek manuscript of the Minor Prophets found in the desert of Judah and deriving from the latter half of the first century BC has a text which is a revision of the Septuagint tradition on the basis of a Hebrew text which shows marked similarities with the proto-Masoretic tradition which became generally current after 70 AD. There are indications that the process of adapting the early Greek tradition to the proto-Masoretic text already started in the second century BC. The later attempts of Aquila, Theodotion, and Symmachus to offer the Jewish diaspora a Greek translation of the Old Testament which corresponded with the standardized Hebrew text follow on from this pre-Christian revision of the Septuagint and so should not be explained as being aimed against the Christians, who had accepted the Septuagint as their Bible. Rather one sees here the need to provide a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible which corresponded in content with the supported Hebrew textual tradition. These attempts to harmonize the Greek text of the Septuagint with that of the proto-Masoretic tradition not only presuppose a guiding Hebrew prototype but also great uniformity of the proto-Masoretic tradition. Moreover, the endeavour to create new Greek translations which agreed with the standard Hebrew text most certainly does evidence text-critical work. One therefore has reason to assume that the realization of the standardized proto-Masoretic textual tradition did not take place without critical interventions in the text. This is also suggested by the Rabbinic tradition about the three scrolls kept in the temple court in Jerusalem: we are told that in the case of textual variants between these three the reading which two of the three had in common was chosen. The tiqqune sopherim, the 'corrections of the Scribes', which seem to go back to the pre-Christian era, also point in the direction of textual criticism, though of a particular kind. At the same time the standardization of the proto-Masoretic tradition should be thought of as a process, in which readings regarded as erroneous were gradually expurgated, sporadic changes were made in the text for theological reasons, and manuscripts which did not meet the requirement of the standardized text were removed in the course of time. We know little about the details of this process, but one does not get the impression that this text-critical work drastically encroached upon the proto-Masoretic tradition. Conversely, it is hard to understand how Josephus, at the end of the first century AD, could state that the traditional writings were passed down by the forefathers with scrupulous precision and that nobody dared to add, omit, or change anything in them. The events of 70 AD at most precipitated the final phase in the proto-Masoretic textual tradition, but did not bring about the process of standardization as such.»
* J.N. Bremmer & F. García Martínez,
Sacred History and Sacred Texts in Early Judaism: A Symposium in Honour of A.S. Van Der Woude (1992), #
pp./σσ. 161, 162.
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