Childs is interested in the text’s recensional history in the prestabilization period not to recover the original text but to provide a perspective by which critically “to measure the range of mechanical errors” in MT, which is his canon. In short, Childs modifies the second approach: to restore the Masoretic final text. Canonical critics help us to see the scribe not merely as a transmitter of the text but as a publishing editor, striving to keep the Scriptures clear and relevant to successive generations.