170 H.G.M. Williamson presentation runs more risks than it solves in terms of a critical edition of the Bible. To repeat my earlier remarks, however, I remain intrigued to see what our learned colleagues will produce from a narrowly academic point of view. c) The Likely Reception of the New Edition This distinction brings me to the final area where some reserva- tions about this project may be expressed. Hendel claims as the first advantage of an eclectic text that it leaves the judgment about textual questions to the experts rather than to “the reader, who is often innocent of the discipline of textual criticism” (31). That seems rather to raise several considerations that require further thought. First, the number of those who use any form of critical edition of the Hebrew Bible is relatively limited, simply because of the language requirement. Of those that do, some may be wedded to a conservative textual approach for religious or similar reasons, and they would be likely either to use another edition or to pick out the unemended text of their choice without full understanding of the issues anyway. This view may be unduly pessimistic on my part, but given the scale of the textual issues involved, as we shall see in a moment, I am sceptical about the ability of the production of this edition seriously to remedy the position. To this pragmatic argument of Hendel, therefore, I strongly incline to the view that commentary is a more appropriate form of presentation. The new edition will include commentary, of course, and that is to be greatly welcomed, for this is where the expertise of the editor really comes into view and where he or she can lay out the evidence and the issues it raises in a manner that will be intelligible to Hendel’s hypothesized type of reader in far the best way. Crawford’s extended presentation of the problems of Deut 32,5 (pp. 355-356), for instance, makes clear that there is a range of versional evidence, that previous scholars have come up with a variety of proposed solutions, which are helpfully summarized, and then her own preferred solution is presented with justifying arguments. These include stylistic considerations from the wider context as the consideration of first importance (a subject which cannot be included in a strictly textual apparatus). This leads to the adoption of a plural form of the verb, for which the versions are cited, though of course with the exception of the (31) HENDEL, “Oxford Hebrew Bible”, 325.