Editorial Techniques in the Hebrew Bible: Toward a Refined Literary Criticism presents and applies a model for understanding and reconstructing the diachronic development of the Hebrew Bible through historical criticism (or the historical-critical method). Reinhard Müller and Juha Pakkala refine the methodologies of literary and redaction criticism through a systematic investigation of the evidence of additions, omissions, replacements, and transpositions that are documented by divergent ancient textual traditions. At stake is not only historical criticism but also the Hebrew Bible as a historical source, for historical criticism has been and continues to be the only method to unwind those scribal changes that left no traces in textual variants.

Reinhard Müller is Professor of Old Testament Studies at the University of Göttingen, Germany. He is the coauthor of Evidence of Editing: Growth and Change of Texts in the Hebrew Bible (2013) and coeditor of Chaos from the Ancient World to Early Modernity: Formations of the Formless (2020).

Juha Pakkala is Senior University Lecturer and Docent at the University of Helsinki, Finland. He is the coauthor of Evidence of Editing: Growth and Change of Texts in the Hebrew Bible (2013) and author of God's Word Omitted: Omissions in the Transmission of the Hebrew Bible (2013).