SCRIBAL PRACTICES AND APPROACHE S ... - Emanuel Tov

148 Chapter 5: Writing Practices
2:7 cereal offering (cooked) closed none
2:14 cereal offering (first fruits) closed open
2. When determining new section units during the course of the writing, without any overall
plan, scribes would have been influenced by external factors, such as the occurrence of certain
words or phrases that in their mind would be appropriate beginnings of new units.
Scribes may have been influenced by the fact that in the Torah many of the new sections
coincide with the beginning of divine speech. 123 of the 290 open sections (not of the closed
ones) listed in the traditional list of Maimonides, Code, book II, Ahabah, Hilkhot Sefer Torah,
VIII 4, start with either rbdyw or rmayw. Although Perrot and Langlamet 200 attached much
importance to this fact (Perrot suggested that this situation reflected the public reading of the
Law), it was only to be expected that many new sections in the Torah would begin with divine
speech. By the same token, many new section units in 1QIsa a start with phrases of divine speech
(Olley, “Structure,” 29). Furthermore, Langlamet, “Samuel” suggested that certain phrases at the
beginning of new units in the book of Samuel, such as yhyw, verbs of moving, etc. triggered the
indication of a new unit.
3. The impressionistic nature of the section divisions may be illustrated by two examples:
• While 11QT a (11Q19) indicated many section divisions, according to the logic of its scribe,
other divisions should also have been indicated in col. LVII in order to separate the different
topics:
Lines 1–5 Organization of the army and officers.
5–11 The bodyguard (topic changes in the middle of line 5 without a sense division).
11–15 The judicial council (topic changes in the middle of line 11 without a sense division).
15–19 Ban on polygamy (closed section in the middle of line 15).
19–21 Duties of the king toward his people (topic changes in the middle of line 19 without a sense
division).
Likewise, in col. LII 8–21 in a section in which 11QT a juxtaposed various laws deriving from
different chapters in Deuteronomy, which in the scribe’s mind were connected, no divisions were
indicated. All these laws were presented in 11QT a (11Q19) as one running text without sense
divisions:
The firstborn (Deut 15:19-23)
Muzzling of the ox (Deut 25:4)
Joint plowing with an ox and ass (Deut 22:10)
Centralization of the cult (Deuteronomy 12)
• The differences in layout between the section divisions in Deut 12:1–14:22 in MT and those
inserted by a modern edition, such as in BHS, illustrate the different points of view involved,
summarized in TABLE 7.
TABLE 7: Section Units in Deut 12:1–14:22
After Verse Topic Section in MT Section in BHS
11:32 Introduction to the laws none open
12:3 Centralization formula none closed
12:7 Centralization formula none closed
200 Perrot, “Petuhot et setumot,” 83; F. Langlamet, “‘Le Seigneur dit à Moïse . . . ’—Une clé de lecture des divisions
massorétiques,” Mélanges bibliques et orientaux en l’honneur de M. Mathias Delcor (AOAT 215; Neukirchen/Vluyn
1985) 255–74.