Abstract

The Psalms are still one of the most used books of the HB/OT in both Judaism and Christianity. This literary composition was one of the first to appear in print at the end of the 15th century. No other Bible book was as popular for private reading as the Psalms. In terms of the number of manuscripts handed down, it is second only to the Gospels. Among the Dead Sea Scrolls, it is the best atte sted: ca. 40 exemplars, all fragmentary and none containing all the psalms: 150 according to the Hebrew canon or 151 according to the Greek canon. The Psalms is also the most used text in the NT. Despite this, there is still no critical edition of the Psalms in the prestigious Biblia Hebraica Quinta series edited by A. Schenker, while the current edition of the Greek text dates back to A. Rahlfs in 1931 (with subsequent revisions in 1967 and 1979), in the well-known series "Septuaginta Gottingensis". The diplomatic edition of the BHQ will replace the edition of the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia and should come out in a few years. In 2020 a new project dedicated exclusively to the Greek text of the Psalms was launched: «"Editio critica maior des griechischen Psalters"». The result of this project of the Septuagint will be a high-quality eclectic edition with a complete critical apparatus due to appear in about two decades. The article analyzes the limitations of the existing editions of both the Hebrew and the Greek versions of the Psalms. It also suggests how to work methodologically in the absence of new editions. Some objective methodological difficulties which have delayed their publication are also reported. We conclude by outlining some objective limits that risk remaining even after the publication of the new editions. Although the article mainly focuses on the evaluation of ancient Hebrew and Greek scrolls and codices for textual criticism, we also deal with the Latin and Syriac textual traditions and their editions as important witnesses of these long-awaited new critical editions.