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The internal diversity in MT described above should not surprise us, since the other collections of the Hebrew and translated Bible, such as the LXX, Peshitta (the Syriac Bible translation) and the Targumim (the Aramaic Bible translations), also are not unified. This lack of unity of the scriptural corpora was created by the combination of a large number of diverse scrolls in the archetype of each corpus. MT was no exception, showing internal diversity in the following practices:

1. Section divisions—named in MT »open section« (parashah petuhah), a space at the end of a line, and »closed section« (parashah setumah), a space in the middle of a line—occur frequently in all the Judean Desert fragments, non-biblical and biblical, the latter of Masoretic and non-Masoretic content.

There is no rule regarding the length of a section demarcated by preceding and following section breaks; that depended much on the scribe’s understanding. The two extremes of frequent and infrequent section divisions can be seen in the Qumran scrolls as well as in MT. While most books in MT average one section unit per 7–10 verses, some books stand out having a substantially lower or higher percentage, when compared with other units in the same literary genre:²⁹

Some books of Scripture stand out as having many more or many fewer divisions than other books in the same literary genre. Since the different paragraphing systems go back to the personalities of the scribes, the scribes of the MT books must have differed among themselves.

2. Dotted letters. In fifteen places, all the medieval manuscripts of MT denote dots above certain letters and words, and in one place (Ps 27:13) also below them. Ten of these instances are found in the Torah, four in the Prophets, and one in the Writings. Thus, the Torah contains significantly more scribal dots above letters than the other books. The background of this unusual distribution is unclear. Possibly the custom of canceling letters was essentially discontinued in the later Scripture books.

3. »A section division in the middle of a verse« (pisqa be-emtsa pasuq) (henceforth pbp). As a general rule, the section divisions in MT coincide with the ends of verses. Nevertheless, MT has 28 instances of pbp noted.³⁰ The indication of a pbp signifies a break in content similar to that indicated at the end of a section.

The occurrences of pbp are unevenly distributed in the Bible, since 65 percent of them (following the Aleppo codex) occur in one book, viz., Samuel.³¹ The high frequency of this phenomenon in Samuel probably implies that the textual tradition of this book was less stable than that of the other books, as do many of its differences from the LXX and the Qumran scrolls.

4. Spelling. The distribution of full and defective orthography shows some peculiarities of the individual books. The Torah and the book of Kings in MT reflect the most conservative (defective) orthography and also contain the greatest degree of internal consistency.³² In the Torah, this description applies especially to Exodus and Leviticus, in particular the Book of the Covenant (Exodus 21–23).³³

Among the Minor Prophets, Amos is the most defective, and Jonah is the fullest spelling.³⁴ The books with the fullest orthography in MT are Qohelet, Song of Songs, and Esther, followed by Ezra–Nehemiah and Chronicles.

5. Orthographic features of the Torah. Four archaic spellings and forms characterize the Torah as a whole:

a) The Ketiv³⁵ הוא. The majority spelling (ketiv) of the third person single feminine pronoun in the Torah is accompanied by a Qere הִוא (pronounced hee).³⁶ This possibly represents an early dialectal form in which the masculine and feminine forms (both: huʾ) were not distinguished.³⁷ This form occurs mainly in the Torah.

b) The Ketiv: na‛arā. The unusual Ketiv נער accompanied by a Qere נַעֲרָ occurs twenty-two times in the Torah, as opposed to a single occurrence of נערה in Deut 22:19 (also occurring elsewhere in MT).

c) The archaic pronominal suffix הֹ- (instead of with a vav) of the type of אהלֹה is much more frequent in the Torah (»his tent,« e.g., Gen 9:21) than in the later books. The fourteen instances in the Torah should be compared with thirty-seven in the remainder of the books.³⁸ In addition, the unique spelling כֻּלּה also occurs eighteen times outside the Torah.³⁹

d) The demonstrative pronoun הָאֵל for האלה occurs only in the Torah (8x),⁴⁰ including three times in the phrase הערים האל (Gen 19:25; Deut 4:42; 19:11) and twice in הארצת האל (Gen 26:3, 4).

6. Mistakes in MT. Scribes err all the time, but when a book contains a high number of mistakes, this feature is to be considered as part of the scribal character of the book,⁴¹ as in the frequent scribal errors in the MT of 1–2 Samuel, as compared with the LXX and 4QSam^a.⁴² Such mistakes are rare in the Torah.

Overall, compared with the other known texts, MT is generally the best text available. If we say »generally,« we mean that this is not the case in all words or all verses, nor in all books. Much depends on the views of this or that scholar, because who can determine what is the best text?