הזיקה שבין נוסח המקרא המשתקף במגילות ובין הערות המסורה

The masoretic notes came into being against the background of ancient disputes regarding the version of the Bible, whose echoes reached the Masoretes. As scholars have shown, among the wealth of masoretic notesare those whose purpose was to preserve the Masoretic Text as opposed toprevious versions. Of these, the most important are the Sebirin notes.Obviously, the Masoretes had neither the translations of the Bible intoGreek, Latin, and Syrian, nor manuscripts from the era of the Judean Desert Scrolls at their disposal. On the other hand, we can state with confidence that the ancient variants did not disappear immediately and did in fact reach the Masoretes. For their part, the Masoretes saw these ancient versions (whether original or copied) as an immediate and concrete threat to the uniformityof the Bible version which they safeguarded. We can also, with caution,describe a similar, but opposite process; namely, the Sebirin notes canassist us by pointing to no longer extant, ancient versions.