never cite the apocryphal literature as scripture (Leiman 1976:39). Further, the evidence from the Alexandrian church Fathers of the third and fourth centuries (Origen, Athanasius) testify that the biblical canon at Alexandria consisted also of no more than twenty-two books following the Jewish tradition. (4) The strongest evidence for a fixed Hebrew canon derives from the history of the stabilization of the Masoretic text. Material from Qumran and adjacent caves indicate that the Masoretic text