Ernst Würthwein and Alexander Achilles Fischer, The Text of the Old Testament: An Introduction to the Biblia Hebraica

Fischer, the one continuing Wrthwein's legacy, is a professor of Old Testament at Friedrich Schiller University in Jena.Returning to a commentary on the present volume, while maintaining the ethos of Wrthwein's Der Text des Alten Testaments and previous editions of The Text of the Old Testament, the third edition boasts an assortment of new content reflecting recent biblical and extrabiblical archeological discoveries and the development of the Biblia Hebraica Quinta, new volumes in the Gttingen Septuagint, as well as an edition of the Antiochene texts of the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, to list a few.All this has resulted in Fischer's near one-hundred-page expansion.As the present review engages with a revised volume, I give my attention to Fischer's expansions and revisions, which I summarize momentarily, while encouraging the reader to direct him or herself to other articles addressing the first and second editions for a summary of the remaining content.2To summarize the revisions and expansions, there are three changes to the section "Plates" (207-303).First, the Izbet Sartah abecedary has been eliminated.Second, plate 1 is now the Tel Dan inscription (208-9), discovered in 1996 that contains reference to the "house of David."Third, plate 15 is a fragment of Ecclesiastes discovered at Qumran (236-37).Otherwise, a selection of plate photographs has been improved.Concerning plate descriptions, when necessary, Fischer has edited, expanded, or adapted these descriptions to include subsequent developments in recent research since the publication of the previous edition.Also, added below each plate's caption is a brief identification of the manuscript or witness that includes its designated symbol, date, location, and a sample of the text.3 Another improvement from the previous edition is the provision of selective topical bibliographies that follow each section.These bibliographies contain references to an assortment of significant research in Old Testament textual criticism that students and other interested people should be aware of.A more extensive bibliography remains at the end of the volume, though it is not topically divided.