Pseudepigrapha since the Enlightenment and the Dead Sea Scrolls
Since the beginning of the nineteenth century there has been a significant
growth in textual witness to a number of pseudepigraphal writings. Many
of these texts survive in the following languages: Latin, Greek, Old Sla-
vonic, Armenian, Georgian, Rumanian, Coptic, Syriac, and Ethiopic; as
such, they demonstrate how much the preservation of Jewish traditions
composed during or derived from the Second Temple period depended on
the activity of Christian writers, translators, editors, and copyists through
many centuries since the first centuryc.e.
The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in eleven caves from 1947 to 1956
made a significant impact on the study of ancient pseudepigraphy. This is
so in two main respects. First, the Dead Sea materials have yielded non-
Christian Jewish evidence for at least some of this literature. Among the
previously known pseudepigrapha (if we take the technical meaning of the
term as the point of departure), the following works have been confirmed
as present at Qumran:- 1 Enoch(Aramaic)
Book of Watchers(chaps. 1–36): 4Q201, 4Q202, 4Q204, 4Q205,
4Q206, XQpapEnoch
Astronomical Book(chaps. 72–82): 4Q208, 4Q209, 4Q210, 4Q211
Animal Apocalypse(chaps. 85–90): 4Q204, 4Q205, 4Q206, 4Q207
Exhortation(91:1-10, 18-19): 4Q212
Apocalypse of Weeks(93:1-10; 91:11-17): 4Q212
Epistle of Enoch(92:1-5; 94:1–105:2): 4Q204, 4Q212
Birth of Noah(chaps. 106–7): 4Q204 - Daniel (Aramaic): 1Q71, 1Q72, 4Q12, 4Q13, 4Q14, 4Q15, 4Q16, 6Q7
- Jubilees(Hebrew): 1Q17, 1Q18, 2Q19, 2Q20, 3Q5, 4Q176 frgs. 17-19,
4Q216, 4Q217, 4Q218, 4Q219, 4Q220, 4Q221, 4Q222, 4Q223-224, 11Q12 - Materials related toTestaments of the Twelve Patriarchs
Testament of Judah[?]: 3Q7 Hebrew, 4Q484 Aramaic
Testament of Naphtali:4Q215 Aramaic
Aramaic Levi Document(Aramaic): 1Q21, 4Q213, 4Q213a, 4Q213b,
4Q214, 4Q214a, 4Q214b
197Apocrypha and PseudepigraphaEERDMANS -- Early Judaism (Collins and Harlow) final text
Tuesday, October 09, 2012 12:04:02 PM