Early Judaism- A Comprehensive Overview

the textual variety before the post-70-c.e.move toward textual standard-

ization that influenced the other Judean Desert “biblical” manuscripts; or,

mainstream (Pharisaic, proto-rabbinic) Judaism promoted a standardized

text, whereas the group who collected or copied the Dead Sea Scrolls did

not. The pre-73-c.e.“biblical” manuscripts found at Masada make the is-

sue even more complex, since they are found at the same site as “non-

biblical” manuscripts comparable to those from Qumran but seem to dis-

play a text that is arguably closer to the MT than the “biblical” Dead Sea

Scrolls are.

Equally important is the phenomenon of multiple, probably succes-

sive, recensions and rewritings of “biblical” books. For several biblical

books, the LXX and the MT preserve two different recensions, and for the

Pentateuch we have the systematically harmonizing recension of the SP.

Yet another recension is found in the so-calledReworked Pentateuch

manuscripts (4Q158; 4Q364-367), which contain editions of the Penta-

teuch characterized by harmonizations and relocations of materials, but

also by additions of new text relating to, for example, the festival laws. Dis-

cussions of whether these manuscripts should be called biblical or author-

itative scripture relate both to the analysis of the manuscripts and to sup-

positions regarding the concepts “biblical” and “authoritative.” From a

literary point of view, the recension in theReworked Pentateuchgoes one

step beyond that of the SP by adding new materials, generally based on ex-

egesis of the text. The techniques used in this recension are comparable to

those used in some of the LXX recensions, for example, 3 Kingdoms and

Esther. Whether these expansionistReworked Pentateuchtexts were bibli-

cal in the precanonical sense of authoritative depends on whether one as-

sumes a strict boundary between texts or recensions of texts that were re-

garded as authoritative and those that were not.

From the perspective of the later canon, one may ask to what extent

the books of the Tanak already were scriptural among the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The partially reconstructed reference in 4QMMT to “the book of Moses,

the books of the prophets, and David (?)” has been taken to refer to a

threefold structure of scriptures, but this is only one of several possible

readings, reconstructions, and interpretations of this passage. Copies of all

books of the Hebrew Bible have been identified among the scrolls, with the

exception of Esther (though the status of one fragment with a section of

Chronicles and of another text is unclear). The quantity of preserved

scrolls per book differs considerably, and one may contrast the large num-

ber of copies of the books of the Pentateuch, Isaiah, and Psalms (several of

210

eibert tigchelaar

EERDMANS -- Early Judaism (Collins and Harlow) final text
Tuesday, October 09, 2012 12:04:03 PM