כתיבה ושכתוב במגילות קדומות: השלכות על הביקורת הספרותית של המקרא

Based on the premise that the external shape of the earliest scrolls of Hebrew Scripture did not differ from that of the Qumran scrolls, I set out to analyze the procedures for writing and rewriting ancient scrolls. It is important to note that the inscribed area in scrolls was not a flexible entity. In fact, once the scroll was inscribed, there was simply no technical possibility for a scribe to insert substantial additions into the text, or to delete or rewrite segments larger than a few words or a line. I therefore suggest that editors or scribes did not use earlier copies as a basis for changes in content, but constantly created fresh scrolls for expressing their new thoughts instead. That scribes did not insert their changes in earlier copies is also evident from a comparison of the parallel copies of Qumran sectarian compositions. This understanding should now be taken into consideration in the historical-critical analysis of Hebrew Scripture, since in the past the realia of rewriting were beyond the scholarly purview. Each layer of rewriting probably involved the penning of a new copy. Inherent in this hypothesis is the further assumption that scriptural books developed linearly, and that scriptural scrolls were deposited, written, and rewritten in a central place, viz., the temple.