SCRIBAL PRACTICES AND APPROACHE S ... - Emanuel Tov

Scribal Practices and Approaches Reflected in the Texts from the Judean Desert 127
By the same token, some short words were not separated by dots in 11QpaleoLev a (although there were spaces
between the words) in the following instances: B 4 hd[hlk; C 7 ylklkm; I 9 wnptla; col. 5 5 tyjta; col. 5 9 byadyb.
Conversely, a few words that were written too close to one another were subsequently separated by a dot (§ c7).
Cf. further the Tell Dan inscription dating from the eighth or ninth century BCE that has dots between all words,
except for dwdtyb in line 9. There also is no dot in lines 2–3 lar?ç¿y klm, but there is sufficient space between these
two words to indicate that a separation was intended. Likewise, in the Lakhish and Arad ostraca dating to the end of
the First Temple period two words are often combined, e.g. Arad 2 6 rjatla. The Edomite ostracon from Hirbet
Uzzah likewise reads in line 5 ??jb¿zml[.
Closely connected to the lack of space between certain words is the orthographic convention
of 1QIsa a to represent monosyllabic words with a nonfinal rather than a final mem. See § g.
Words were not split between lines in texts written in the square script. The splitting of
words between two lines is evidenced only in the following forms of writing:
• The paleo-Hebrew script, but not the related Samaritan script.
• The writing in the scriptio continua in the tefillin and mezuzot as well as in the Copper Scroll
(e.g. III 1–2, 5–6, 12–13).
• Greek papyri and manuscripts (Turner, Greek Manuscripts, 17), including those found in
the Judean Desert.
(2) Indication of small sense units (stichs and verses) in biblical manuscripts
Among all the Hebrew and Aramaic texts from antiquity and more particularly from the Judean
Desert, the division into smaller units than the larger section divisions (open and closed sections),
though not the smallest units possible, is evidenced only in Hebrew Scripture. The earliest
biblical manuscripts must have contained either a single type of sense division, that of open and
closed sections (thus § 3h below), or none at all. Over the course of generations, as exegetical
traditions developed, smaller units began to be indicated, at first orally and later in a written form.
It remains a matter of speculation as to why among the early texts the text division into small
units developed only for the biblical texts (except for the Mesha stone that used small vertical
lines); the issue is not often discussed in the scholarly literature. In particular, it remains difficult
to know where and in which period the tradition of verse division developed. It is suggested here
that the division into small sense units originated in conjunction with the public reading of
Scripture (in the synagogue service). 173 That reading had to be interrupted at intervals smaller
than open or closed sections, for the sake of the reader and listeners, and at a later stage also for
the meturgeman. After the verse division had come into existence, that system was of practical
use, as it could be invoked in order to determine the length of units to be read liturgically. 174 Only
the Torah and some additional segments of Scripture were read in public service, but the existence
of versification in these books and segments must have influenced the creation of such a system
also in the remainder of the biblical books.
Thus, while the system of subdividing the text into open and closed sections reflects a writing
tradition, similar to other writing traditions (§ 3 below), the division into verses has its origin in
the oral tradition of Scripture reading.
The scribes of the Hebrew/Aramaic biblical texts from the Judean Desert did not indicate
small sense units (verses), not because such a procedure had yet to be developed, but because
173 Although the reading from the Torah is mentioned in Neh 8:8, it is difficult to know when the organized oral reading of
the Torah in the synagogue service started, but there seems to be stable evidence for such reading from the middle of the
second century BCE onwards. See, in much detail, C. Perrot, “The Reading of the Bible in the Ancient Synagogue,” in
Mulder, Mikra, 137–59. A similar point may be made for select readings from the Prophets and Hagiographa. B. Qidd.
30a attributes the counting of the verses, and therefore probably also the verse division, to the period of the Soferim.
174 Thus m. Meg. 4.4 ‘He who reads in the Torah may not read less than three verses; he may not read to the interpreter more
than one verse’ .