162 H.G.M. Williamson commentaries on Chronicles, on Ezra-Nehemiah and on parts of Isaiah, and in all three there are places where, along with all others, I have sought to set out the reasons for the text-critical choices of just this sort that I have made. Third, I would go further and agree also that there are occasions where none of the surviving evidence is sufficient to produce a plausible reading and where the scholar has ultimately to conjecture what the original reading must have been such that it explains the development of the textual evidence that now survives. This procedure has long been known as emendation, a term with which Hendel is unhappy because it implies a certain innate superiority in the Masoretic Text. While we may have some sympathy with his cavil in theory, his objection is not well founded. “Emendation” is the term almost universally used in textual criticism for the procedure involved, and in most cases it has nothing whatever to do with the favouring of one manuscript tradition over another, so that if we are to adhere to Hendel’s plea to apply standard critical procedures to the Hebrew Bible, it seems to me that we might as well keep its preferred terminology as well. 3. Reservations about the Proposal Given this extent of agreement with Hendel’s basic critical position, as well as with the apparently cautious approach which his collaborators’ demonstrate in their published samples, it may be asked why any difficulty should then be expressed with this project. My reservations fall into three groups, one of a technical nature deriving from closer consideration of the nature of the Hebrew text, another about some fundamental aspects of the project itself, and the third more pragmatic or practical, based on considerations of the likely reception of the publication. a) The Distinctive Nature of the Hebrew Text I start, then, with consideration of the first group. Along with others, Hendel urges that the text of the Hebrew Bible should be edited in the same way as any other text from antiquity for which there is multiple attestation. This seemingly obvious procedure in fact covers two issues which need to be more sharply distinguished. When such claims are made, many who advance them mean that the scholar should exercise his or her judgment in the same way as any other text-critical scholar. All relevant evidence should be dispassionately collected and