text) are not regarded by scholars as possessing much independent authority on the whole, so the differences are even more minimized.12 Until forty-five years ago, the oldest major Hebrew manuscripts dated from the tenth century A.D., and there were several others from a little later. The present Hebrew Bible is based mostly on these medieval texts, and although conservatives at least always believed they were essentially the same as the Old Testament originals, there was no way to demonstrate this.
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