The Formation of the (Proto‑)Masoretic Text

We define several principles for analyzing the development patterns of the proto-MT, such as the two stages in the life of the proto-MT books, the assumption that there was only a single copy of the proto-MT of each book, and the different textual quality of the scripture books. A guiding principle for our thinking is that the archetype of the proto-MT was not formed at one time. To the assumption that the canonization of the three parts of scripture was gradual, I add the hypothesis that the fixation of the three sections of the archetype of the text (the proto-MT) also took place in stages, together with the fixing of the content.