אשה ריח ניחח לפני יהוה: New Readings in the En-Gedi Scroll

This paper reexamines two readings in the En-Gedi scroll based on an analysis of the available composite images. Focusing on the phrase ריח ניחח ליהוה in Lev 2, it proposes – on paleographic and material grounds – reading ריח ניחח לפני יהוה in two instances. Although not without difficulty, these readings remain viable and, in some respects, preferable. They have implications for the textual history of the proto-MT tradition, suggesting that a manuscript associated with this tradition in the early centuries CE still preserves theological modifications absent from the later textus receptus .