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In many ways, the origin of MT remains enigmatic. This text is far from being unified or consistent in its spelling and other editorial characteristics. Through the generations the MT scribes copied their scrolls faithfully, but these scrolls inherited an earlier tradition that was not always precise or consistent. The variation in the nature and quality of the texts that ended up being included strongly implies that there was no selection process of manuscripts for inclusion in the archetype of MT.¹² There probably was only one candidate for inclusion in the archetype of MT for each text. The persons who created the archetype were, for the most part, unaware of differences between scrolls and did not pay attention to the small details under scrutiny in this study,¹³ otherwise the specific MT text of Samuel, for instance, with its many errors as compared to the Qumran and LXX versions, would not have been included.

In this corpus we find books of different types. Large books, such as Samuel, Kings, Jeremiah, and Psalms, consisting of several smaller scrolls, could coincidentally be combined from scrolls of a different textual nature. Thus, in only two of the five books of Psalms in MT¹⁴ the main divine appellation is elohim, while in the other three books it is YHWH. In this way also, Jeremiah 27–29 differs from the remainder of the book.

The same processes happened in the creation of the archetype of the LXX, whose books differ much from one another. For example, the various segments of the books of Samuel-Kings are of a divergent nature.¹⁵ We note that in a corpus that developed over the course of such a long period, internal differences such as those in the LXX and MT are to be expected.