Biblica_1:Layout 1 21-11-2011 12:59 Pagina 330 330 MARK LEUCHTER preserved its original, archaic linguistic features in the copy eventu- ally utilized by the Exodus narrative’s redactor. We may go further, in fact, and support Russell’s view that the current form of the poem reflects a compositional unity by noting that this process of textualization must have included the entirety of the work in its canonical form 35. Had Exod 15 undergone stages of redactional development, some less-archaic linguistic elements would have invariably crept into its verses. As studies of ancient scribal methodology have demonstrated, redaction of older material provides ample opportunity for change based on the scribes’ own cultural, ide- ological and linguistic predilections 36. A comparison with Judg 5 is instructive here. As some scholars have noted, Judg 5 originated in the 12th century BCE but received redactional expansion in the 10th century 37. This expansion would account for the minor introduction of less-archaic linguistic forms into its verses. The utter lack of such linguistic features in Exod 15 suggests that it was not subjected to similar redactional/textualizing processes. Rather, it was committed to text in a wholesale manner and remained fixed in such an unadul- terated form, at least insofar as the archival source utilized by the redactor of the Exodus narrative is concerned. When might this period of textualization have taken place? I would proposed that we should consider the period of the early monarchy under David and Solomon as the background to this process, and several lines of evidence converge to support this pro- posal. First, scribal activity and propaganda are characteristic of shifts in power and the accession of rulers in the Ancient Near East. The production of such literature surely benefits from a well-devel- exiles of 597 BCE, for whom both Jeremiah and Ezekiel identify an ongoing covenantal relationship with YHWH. Temple scribes of the Persian period would have invariably inherited these and other texts after the waves of imperially- sponsored repatriation. 35 RUSSELL, Song, 19-23. 36 CARR, Tablet of the Heart, 148-149; B.M. LEVINSON, Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation (New York – Oxford 1997) 23-52 (re: redactional reworking of diverse sources in Deuteronomy 12); VAN DER TOORN, Scribal Culture, 115. 37 C.L. ECHOLS, “Tell Me, O Muse”. The Song of Deborah (Judges 5) in the Light of Heroic Poetry (LHBOTS 487; London – New York 2008). R. DE HOOP, “Judges 5 Reconsidered: Which Tribes? What Land? Whose Song?”, The Land of Israel in Bible, History and Theology (eds. J. VAN RUITEN – J.C. DE VOS) (VTS 124; Leiden 2009) 151-166.