Abstract
The copying of a manuscript involves a number of complex cognitive processes that are important for understanding the nature of ancient textual transmission. Although the cognitive sciences have been productively applied to a number of other areas in biblical and classical studies, this cognitive dimension of copying has received almost no attention in textual scholarship of the Hebrew Bible. This article provides an example of how basic concepts from the cognitive sciences can be applied to aspects of ancient textual transmission. Using a well-known variant in Exod. 22.4 as an example, it explores the implications that cognitive psychology can have for understanding the copying error of haplography; it identifies two previously unknown constraints on this phenomenon: (1) haplography is caused by the repetition of words, not single letters; (2) haplography does not result in the loss of large portions of text.
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