above, canonization is defined not only as the recognition of a writing as sacred but also as the final fixing of its wording, it is then hardly possible to speak of a Jewish canon until the third or fourth century CE. Here it seems relevant to consider the technical problems connected with book production in those days.21 Book production depended on copying by hand, which made it almost impossible to avoid variants. On the whole, antiquity had great problems keeping a text uncorrupted. Inspired