Paleography of the Old Testament and its bearing upon textual and literary criticism of the Old Testament

Abstract

Paleography and Criticism are apparently as independent of each other as they are in reality interrelated. The origin, authorship, structure, analysis of a book as well as the recovery of the original form of a corrupt passage are problems intimately connected not only with a particular way of writing, but also with the way in which a book, or what we are accustomed to call a book was originally produced. Our methods of book-writing and book-making differ immensely from those of the remote ages of the O. T., but very often we unconsciously fail to realize and to appreciate this difference and consequently we think and speak of the composition and transmission of ancient literary works and their various editions in terms of modern usage.