The Jewish and Samaritan Pentateuchs: Reflections on the Difference (?) between Textual Criticism and Literary Criticism

Prior to the discovery of the Judean Desert manuscripts, the line dividing the disciplines of textual criticism and literary (source) criticism was firmly drawn. Since the Judean Desert discoveries that line has become much more porous as editorial work by scribes in the ongoing transmission of the classical literature of ancient Israel became apparent. This article uses three examples to demonstrate that scribal editorial work in extant Judean Desert Pentateuchal manuscripts and the Samaritan Pentateuch. These examples show that the techniques used by literary critics to discover sources behind the known textual forms of the Pentateuch were the editorial techniques still in use by scribes in the late Second Temple period. Thus, the disciplines of textual criticism and literary criticism, far from being completely separate, complement and support each other.