be claimed that the Christian church had accepted the MT of about 100 C.E. and was committed to the interpretation of a standard, authoritative, and normative biblical text. Accordingly the canonical final text cannot be considered an exclusive option for determining the goal of textual criticism.8 The final text, however, should be considered not only in regard to its canonicity, but also for its significance in the history of the text. The final text refers not simply to the whole canonical entity