ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the fact that the relevance of textual criticism has regularly been minimised in diachronic linguistic research on Biblical Hebrew (BH). It explains that advocates of the linguistic dating of biblical texts have typically focused almost exclusively on the Mishnaic Hebrew (MT) of the Hebrew Bible. They consider this restriction the cornerstone of an objective methodology. The linguistic characteristics and profiles of biblical books are not separable from the textual variations people see in their earliest versions of the Bible-Hebrew, Greek, and so on. The textual fluidity and pluriformity of the Hebrew Bible in its 'prestabilisation' phase has analogies in ancient Near Eastern literature. The chapter describes that the language of Samuel-Kings and the language of Chronicles are nearly identical in their characteristics. Scholars of the language of the Hebrew Bible must take seriously the text-critical dimension in their research on chronological layers in BH and in their efforts to date biblical texts on a linguistic basis.
