Most Comprehensive Critical Ed. of the Hebrew Bible takes shape... slowly

This article leaves much to be desired.

There are already very good compilations of how all the ancient Hebrew texts vary from one another. The standard one (which the linked article doesnt't even mention) is the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia. (http://www.amazon.com/Biblia-Hebraica-Stuttgartensia-Karl-El...) The Jewish sect of Masoretes began the process in the 1300s, but obviously many new sources have been discovered in just the last century. To my amateur knowledge, no significant sources have been discovered since the BHS.

The article also talks about theories about multiple authorship of the Bible, but no new sources would be able to tell us anything about that. That would require significant documents from 100s of years before the Dead Sea Scrolls were written, which simply isn't going to happen. The way scholars actually do it is by comparing the sentence structure and word choice of different verses. I think the modern view stretches things a little too far, but there can really be no doubt that, for example, Moses is not the sole author of the Torah.

That said, any mainstream article educating Christians about the fallibility of the Bible is a godsend. I am a Christian, but inerrantists are the most frustrating people -- and often the worst behaved people -- in the world.

Fascinating hacker information! Flagged.