Читать книгу Judaism II - Группа авторов - Страница 19

Many scholars suggest that after several centuries of textual plurality, a period of uniformity and stability can be discerned within Judaism at the end of the 1^st century CE. However, the Qumran texts were hidden in caves, and SP (Samaritan Pentateuch) and LXX, both deviating much from MT, were cherished by non-rabbinic religious groups. At that time, the Hebrew and translated texts used within rabbinic Judaism only reflect MT. This situation is usually explained as reflecting a conscious effort to stabilize the Scripture text, and as the creation of a standard text for Palestine as a whole by the rabbinic Jewish leadership. In this context, the terms stabilization and standardization are often used.

The difference between the sites is not chronological, but socio-religious.¹¹ In other words, at the same time different groups made use of different texts, and this trend continued over time, but these groups either split off from Judaism (Christians and Samaritans) or disappeared (Qumran group), leaving the group that used proto-MT as the only remaining Jewish group. Thus, their version of Scripture became the only version left after the destruction of the Second Temple, and this version became the only version that was used by all streams of Judaism.