Amazon Customer Reviews:

Wurthwein first wrote this book to "meet a practical need," the need that many students of Biblia Hebraica Kittel did not understand the "wealth of material" in the critical apparatus(or apparati, if you prefer). This book incorporates the changes in the criticial apparatus of BH Stuttgartensia (but not later editions such as BH Quinta).

As one might expect, the siglia for the Masora Parva are explained. So are the siglia for the texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls whose textual witness is now being considered by scholars. Wurthwein goes on to consider the primary versions, the LXX, the Targums, the Syriac versions, and the Latin, Coptic, Ethiopic, Armenian, and Arabic versions.

Wurthwein does not spend most of his book arguing for a particular theory of the origen of the Hebrew Bible such as Cross' theory of local texts. It is his purpose to introduce the tools and resources to the student of BHS. To this end he devotes over 40 pages of his short book to plates of sources (these are terrific) that many of us will never see. Instead Wurthwein presents the sources so that the student of textual theory may find his/her way for him/her-self.