Abstract

Discussions on a critical edition of the Hebrew Bible seem to move between two poles: diplomatic or critical­-reconstructive. The second alternative, although considered «scientific» because it is based on the traditional editions of the Latin and Greek classics, has been challenged in the last forty years, especially outside the Italian academic world. A critical edition is based on the collection of variants. But can the collations of medieval Hebrew manuscripts be trusted? The publication of Kennicott’s work immediately attracted much criticism. The number of witnesses is worthless and the individual variants must be checked again.