Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Jimmy Doyle" <jimmy AT liquidthinking.org>]

Thanks for those of you who responded to my question concerning Hebrew MSS
(both here and personally).  It seems that this isn't something that is very
well known.  I have Tov's most recent edition of Textual Criticism of the
Hebrew Bible, but only in one place does he suggest a possible number of
MSS, and that is only of the Masoretic Text.

I contacted Dr. Tov personally, and he graciously took the time to answer my
question.  For those interested, here is his answer:

before 1500 ce we reckon with some 6000 masoretic mss, 200 fragmentary
dss, and a large number of fragmentary texts from the cairo genizah.
for the latter i have no number, i trust you will find the sources (if
you would pressure me i would say 200-500, but this is a mere guess)

Thanks
Jimmy Doyle