Textual Criticism is Cool

Michael Kruger argues that textual criticism is now cool among evangelicals, after 30 years of developments in the field. Certainly this resonates with my experience. People love tangible artifacts, and it's a nice entry point for deeper discussions about the text and transmission of the Bible. I wonder how much this applies to the OT though.

McGill Septuagint Virtual Seminar

McGill University's forthcoming The Septuagint in Modern Research Virtual Seminars include the following interesting seminars:

Monday, October 20 2025 | 15:00 BST with Felix Albrecht, on LXX Psalms

Monday, December 1 2025 | 15:00 GMT with Marieke Dhont, on the T&T Clark Handbook of Hellenistic Jewish Literature in Greek

Cox's Annotated Bibliography of Septuagint Research

I just became aware of Claude Cox's annotated bibliography of Septuagint research that he has posted online. It's a great starting point for getting into the Septuagint and finding key resources on various topics and books.

Job Opening on the Corpus Masoreticum Project

The Corpus Masoreticum project in Heidelberg has posted a postdoc job opening working on editing the Masorah of early Ashkenazi manuscripts. See the advertisement below from Agade:

_____________________________

POSITION RESEARCH FELLOW
The Center for Jewish Studies Heidelberg (Hochschule für Jüdische Studien Heidelberg ) offers a vacant job position for a

Research Fellow Jewish Studies / Masorah Research (E 13 100%; fixed-term employment), start: January 1, 2026idelberg

The Long Term Project (12 years; 2018–2029) Corpus Masoreticum: The Inculturation of the Masorah into Jewish Law and Lore from the 11th to the 14th Centuries: Digital Acquisition of a Forgotten Domain of Knowledge funded by the German Research Foundation in 2018 at the University of Jewish Studies Heidelberg is looking for an exceptionally qualified research fellow (Post-Doc) willing to contribute his/her specialist competences to this project.

For being considered you need to have:
-       A completed dissertation in Biblical and/or Jewish Studies.
-       Very good knowledge of Hebrew and Aramaic.
-       Profound knowledge in the culture and literature theories relevant to the Western European Medieval Jewish Culture.
-       Willingness to acquaint yourself with Masorah Research.
-       Capacity for teamwork.
-       Experience with project research.
-       If possible: Experience in Manuscript Studies.

Part of the job will be:

-       Edition and annotation of the entire Masorah (masora magna; masora parva) in selected Ashkenazi Bible Codices from the 11th to the 14th centuries.
-       Further development of the project.
-       Communication of your research and results within the project as well as within the teaching and research activities of the Center for Jewish Studies Heidelberg.
-       Scientific preparation of and contribution to conferences and workshops of the project.

The University of Jewish Studies Heidelberg offers the scope for individual academic development and an inspiring research environment. The conception and commencement of a habilitation at the University of Heidelberg in the course of the project is possible.
The language of communication within the project and for the publications is German and English.

The compensation is made according to TV-L (E13); the position is initially limited to 18 months from the start date but may be extended into the next funding period following an interim evaluation. Applicants with disabilities who possess essentially equal qualifications will be given preference. The University of Jewish Studies Heidelberg is an equal opportunity employer committed to excellence through diversity, and therefore explicitly encourages women to apply.

Please submit your application and the following required application documents electronically as one PDF file)
(1) Application letter (letter of motivation)
(2) Curriculum vitae
(3) List of publications
(4) Degree certificates

exclusively via email to: hanna.liss at hfjs.eu

Jordan Penkower z"l

On 19 September 2025, Michael Avioz informed via Agade of the sad passing of Jordan Penkower as attached below. Penkower was a prolific scholar of the late-antique and medieval Jewish Bible, whose works are of critical importance for the study of the biblical text.

______________________________

Prof. Jordan S. Penkower z"l (1943–2025)

The Department of Bible, together with the Penkower family, regret to announce the death of Prof. Jordan S. Penkower z"l.

Prof. Jordan S. Penkower was a world-renowned expert on the history of the Hebrew Bible’s textual transmission. He served for many years as a member of the Department of Bible at Bar-Ilan University, where he made pioneering contributions in three principal areas of research:

Transmission of the Hebrew Bible and the Masorah – investigating manuscripts and printed editions, with special attention to their textual history.

The Bible in Rabbinic Interpretation – exploring how rabbinic literature received and reinterpreted biblical texts.

Medieval Jewish Biblical Exegesis – with a particular focus on Rashi’s commentary and its place in Jewish intellectual history.

In addition to numerous scholarly articles, Prof. Penkower published several influential books in these fields. A full list of his publications is available here.

Prof. Penkower is survived by his brother, Prof. Monti Noam Penkower, and by his sisters and brothers-in-law, Dr. Andrea and David Rosen, and Dr. Sharon and Joseph Kaplan.

He was buried today in Beit Shemesh.

_______________________________

HT Agade

Yiftah 2025 - The Taxonomy of the Legal Document

Uri Yiftah has published online here a very useful book on the typology of language in ancient Greek legal documents.

Public Domain Loeb Volumes

The public domain Loeb library volumes are now all available here. I think they had all been previously available elsewhere, but this is a nice, convenient site to access and download them all.

Conference on the Ezekiel Papyrus

The recording of a recent conference on the famous Chester Beatty Ezekiel Papyrus (Ra 967) has been uploaded here. They have lots of interesting material about the purchasing and history of the papyrus, as well as some discussions of its format and text.

Johnson and Wagner on Material and Scribal Features of Greek Bookrolls

William Johnson and Nicholas Wagner have published their curated dataset of material and scribal features of early Greek bookrolls (3rd cent CE and earlier) at https://ancientbooks.papyrology.org/. They expect to supplement this and add their work on early codices in 2026. This is an extremely valuable database for those interested in the study of early scroll formats and scribal practices. Congratulations to both for seeing their hard work come to fruition, and thanks for making it so easily accessible!

Sikes' Catalogue of Early Greek Psalms Fragments

Ryan Sikes has uploaded an updated version of his catalogue of early Greek Psalms fragments here. This is a very helpful resource with links to images and editions, which I use regularly.

CEHP Transcription Update

I just posted an update on the transcription progress for the Critical Edition of the Hebrew Psalter (CEHP) project on the project blog. If you're interested in learning more about the project or getting involved, do check it out and fill out our Google form to register your interest. We are going to be working mostly with manuscripts from the Cairo Genizah and early Greek papyri, which is a great opportunity to learn more about working with manuscripts and textual criticism. 

Diachronic Diversity in Classical Biblical Hebrew

I just saw that Aaron Hornkohl has published an open-access book on Diachronic Diversity in Classical Biblical Hebrew, where he argues that we can see diachronic indications even within the corpus of Classical Biblical Hebrew. He suggests that, on balance, the Pentateuch reflects an earlier stage of Hebrew than the early prophets et al.

Rezetko et al. have published a critical review of the book, where they repeat their criticism of "linguistic dating" as unwarranted, given the complex formation and transmission histories of the texts. In the comments, Ron Hendel provides his own response to the review, which is generally supportive of Hornkohl's approach (if not all of the details of his argument).

I would not claim to be a historical linguist, and I haven't spent a lot of time in the literature. But I guess as a textual critic I have some stake in the argument. I agree, in principle, that it is not safe to just uncritically assume the MT text form for linguistic analysis. Scribes sometimes did update orthography or other linguistic features, and critical comparison of different versions sometimes helps us to restore earlier states of the text. That said, it would be wrong to imagine that updating on the scale of the (in)famous 1QIsa-a was common, when it is rather the exception to the rule. I see very little evidence of any kind of systematic linguistic leveling or updating in the tradition. Most ancient biblical manuscripts are much more conservative in their copying approach, and in general I have been impressed by the way the distinctive linguistic profiles of different works are so well preserved despite many centuries of copying. This is evident in orthography, morphology, lexicon (including loanwords), and even syntax. And bringing in traditions like the Dead Sea Scrolls and Samaritan Pentateuch is unlikely to change much, since these are precisely where we find most of the linguistic innovations, in contrast to the generally more conservative MT. My prediction is that systematic text-critical work will help reverse some linguistic changes and provide improved clarity at points, but that improved resolution will more often reinforce the more established diachronic observations of language typologists than undermine the typological distinctions.

On the question of redaction, no one doubts that many of the texts of the Hebrew Bible had long and complex editorial (pre-)histories. But there are many disagreements and uncertainties on the details of those histories, and I, for one, am hesitant to rely on proposed redactional histories as firm ground truths for dating the texts of the Hebrew Bible. If faced with a choice, I would personally much rather bring historical linguistic typology to bear as an independent control on redaction-critical models than the reverse. Linguistic typology is less dependent upon complex and subjective literary readings, and it is more easily pegged to materially datable evidence in the form of ancient inscriptions and comparative evidence. Of course, this is not to discount dating based on literary criteria entirely, and sometimes internal indications of date may be the best criteria. But too much of the tradition of dating the biblical books has been based on highly ambiguous literary data and is heavily dependent on very speculative redaction-critical theories. So I welcome attempts like Hornkohl's to provide more objective controls on literary-critical speculation. Whether the details of Hornkohl's particular arguments hold up or not remains to be seen.

HT Agade

Old Latin of Esther

Dionisio Candido has published a new book on the Old Latin translation of Esther, a book with one of the most complicated textual histories with numerous distinct versions.

Friedberg Genizah Fragments in the Ktiv Database

In a recent update that was sent out by the Friedberg Genizah Project, they announced that most of the images and metadata from the site have now been migrated to the Ktiv database, and they are continuing to work on developing new tools and transferring the remaining data.

Scriptura Psalms Resources

Scriptura has just updated their website with exegetical and translation resources on the Psalms. This is an incredibly detailed and helpful site with extensive exegetical and linguistic treatments of many of the Psalms (work still in progress). They also give sustained (if not fully systematic) attention to important text-critical issues in the Psalms. I had the privilege of working with Scriptura for nearly two years and have great appreciation for their contributions to the study of the Psalms. My own exegetical work focused on Psalm 51, and I was also responsible for reviewing most of the grammatical and text-critical analysis done by the individual exegetes. If you haven't used these resources, I highly recommend checking out the website.

Verse Numbering in Hebrew

David Moster has produced a nice video on the role of concordances in the development of verse numbering in the Hebrew tradition.

Digital Latin Library

I recently learned from Hugh Cayless about the Digital Latin Library, a very useful resource for accessing digital editions of Latin literature. They also provide a number of helpful videos reflecting on the work of textual criticism in Latin literature.

Radiocarbon Dating, AI, and Paleography

Mladen Popovic et al. have published their long-anticipated article from the ERC project at the University of Groningen entitled The Hands that Wrote the Bible: Digital Palaeography and Scribal Culture of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The article describes the process of extracting new radiocarbon dates from a selection of Dead Sea Scrolls, digitally extracting quantifiable features of their scripts, and building an automated date estimation system called "Enoch." Roughly 80% of the resulting estimates agree with traditional, qualitative paleographical datings, but the results of both the radiocarbon dating and Enoch predictions suggests that several manuscripts throughout the series may well have been earlier than commonly supposed. This research moves the field forward considerably by adding quantitative, computational tools to aid paleographers that are not dependent upon conventional models for script development. In many cases, these new tools support previous approaches by grounding them in more secure dates derived from scientific analysis of the material remains instead of the handwriting style. But the results sometimes challenge conventional wisdom and have potential to help refine our understanding of Hebrew script development in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Congratulations to everyone involved for a job well done and a significant contribution to the field!

For a popular-level news report on the publication, see Science.

*Disclaimer: I worked with Mladen et al. on the project for several years during the foundational stages of the research, but I was not a co-author for this academic article.

Update on the Virtual Unrolling of Herculaneum Papyri

The Economist gives a useful update on progress virtually unrolling the Herculaneum scrolls, which is one of the more exciting technological advances in manuscript studies today.

Ezekiel Papyrus in Madrid

Sofia Torallas Tovar gives a good discussion of Ra 967, parts of which are on display currently in Madrid. They have compiled digital images of the entire manuscript, which will be nice to have for such an important manuscript.