158 H.G.M. Williamson others are certainly to be judged as inferior, there are certainly readings preserved which most scholars would judge to be superior to those preserved in the medieval manuscripts (some, indeed, happily confirming what had previously been suggested by way of scholarly conjecture). It is not widely known, for instance, but worthy of note in this regard that in what was for half a century the standard English Bible translation, the Revised Standard Version, something approaching twenty readings from the Isaiah scroll were included in the text of that book which it translated. Another factor which has altered since the Biblia Hebraica project was first launched is that we now have modern critical — eclectic — editions of most of the ancient versions, the translations of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, Latin, Syriac and Aramaic. These versions too, though differing in their importance for this particular purpose, are generally agreed in some places to be rendering a form of text which differs in one way or another from the Hebrew text as known to us today. This is particularly important with regard to the translation into Greek, for this was undertaken in the last pre-Christian centuries and thus prior to the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70, an event whose consequences for the development of rabbinic Judaism are of especial importance in that it included the stabilization of the received text of the Hebrew Bible in such a way that significant change could not be entertained thereafter. 2. The Proposed New Edition and its Strengths In these circumstances it may come as no surprise to learn that from time to time there have been calls for a completely new edition of the Hebrew Bible (10). The argument has been that it should be treated like any other text from antiquity. We should no longer just print a copy of a medieval manuscript and include all comment upon it in an apparatus, but rather, on the basis of all the evidence that is now (10) E.g., A. GELSTON, “Isaiah 52:13-53:12: An Eclectic Text and a Supplementary Note on the Hebrew Manuscript Kennicott 96”, JSS 35 (1990) 187-211; for an earlier attempt at just such an eclectic text (though not so methodologically disciplined) see the series The Sacred Books of the Old Testament. A Critical Edition of the Hebrew Text, Printed in Colors with Notes (ed. P. HAUPT) (Leipzig – Baltimore – London 1893-1904). For a list of other examples with regard to individual books or parts of books, see TOV, “Textual Basis”, 194, n. 3. Needless to say, many critical commentaries also provide and justify an eclectic text.