Early Judaism- A Comprehensive Overview

But in light of the accumulating evidence from the biblical manu-

scripts, each of those objections collapsed, and the scroll is being increas-

ingly acknowledged as an alternate edition of the biblical Psalter in ancient

Judaism. (1) The MT Psalter does not have a rigorously or clearly inten-

tionally arranged sequence to its psalms; some deliberate groupings can be

postulated, but there is no discernible comprehensive plan. (2) Four of the

so-called noncanonical compositions are in fact psalms found in Greek

and Syriac manuscripts, and two others are found at other places in the

MT or LXX, namely, 2 Sam. 23:1-7 and Sir. 51:13-30. The remaining psalms

were hitherto unknown but had been composed in the ancient style of the

biblical psalms, not in that of the later QumranHodayot.They were clearly

originally Hebrew psalms, even if not eventually accepted into the MT edi-

tion of the Psalter. (3) 11QPsais indeed a liturgical scroll, but so is the MT

Psalter by its very nature. The antiphon interspersed in Psalm 145, “Blessed

be the Lord, and blessed be his name forever and ever,” is totally derived

from verse 1 of Psalm 145, and it is systematically repeated in the identical

manner in which the antiphon “For his faithfulness endures forever” is re-

peated in Psalm 136 in the MT. (4) “David’s Compositions” stakes an ex-

plicit claim for prophetic inspiration and thus scriptural status of the Psal-

ter. It may have originally been positioned notwithinthe collection but at

theendof an earlier edition of the collection (before Psalms 140, 134, and

151 were appended), thus functioning as a quasi-colophon with the claim

for scriptural status. (5) The use of the Paleo-Hebrew script for the divine

name in a text written in the Jewish script had earlier been considered an

indication that the text was not biblical, but several other biblical scrolls in

the Jewish script have also been identified that write the tetragrammaton

in the Paleo-Hebrew script. Finally, two additional manuscripts (11QPsb

and 4QPse) apparently witness to the 11QPsaedition, whereas none of the

ancient manuscripts found at Qumran unambiguously supports the MT

sequence of Psalms against the 11QPsasequence.

The (Reworked?) Pentateuch

Four sets of fragments, three of them containing text from four or all five

books of the Pentateuch, still pose challenges that deserve exploration.

First, it remains undecided whether 4Q364-367, to which yet a fifth manu-

script (4Q185) has been linked, represent copies of the same composition

or only similar variant forms of pentateuchal development. Second, the

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eugene ulrich

EERDMANS -- Early Judaism (Collins and Harlow) final text
Tuesday, October 09, 2012 12:03:58 PM