When Variants Speak: Textual Criticism and the Linguistic Periodization of Biblical Hebrew

How can textual criticism illuminate the history of Biblical Hebrew? This book addresses that question by examining the linguistic profile of secondary readings in the Classical Biblical Hebrew, or pre-exilic, corpus. By analysing variants preserved in the textual tradition of the Hebrew Bible, it shows that textual fluidity is not an obstacle but a valuable resource for describing the linguistic history of Biblical Hebrew. The study demonstrates the importance of textual criticism for a fi...