SCRIBAL PRACTICES AND APPROACHE S ... - Emanuel Tov

Scribal Practices and Approaches Reflected in the Texts from the Judean Desert 155
top of a column and 11QpaleoLev a ending in the middle of a column, and not followed by
Numbers; both scrolls probably contained a single biblical book only. 208
4QGen-Exod a : In this scroll (MT), Exodus begins more than halfway down the column. Spacing between the
books or joined Genesis–Exodus fragments have not been preserved.
4QpaleoGen-Exod l : three blank lines were left in the middle of the column between what appears to be the last
line of Genesis and the beginning of Exodus in this scroll (MT), preceded by at least one sheet of written text.
4Q[Gen-]Exod b : In this scroll (probably independent character), Exodus starts in the middle of a column,
preceded by at least two blank lines and probably also by Genesis.
4QRP c (4Q365): the first verse of Numbers is preceded by what is probably a paraphrastic version of the last
verse of Leviticus (26, a–b), followed by an empty line. This is not a biblical manuscript.
Minor Prophets
4QXII b 3 5: one line is left between Zephaniah and Haggai.
4QXII g 70–75: one-and-a-half lines were left between Amos and Obadiah, and in frgs. 76–81 there is at least one
line before Jonah.
MurXII: a space of three lines was left between various books as evidenced by the transition between Jonah and
Micah, Micah and Nahum, and Zephaniah and Haggai (DJD III, 182, 192, 197, 200, 202, 205 and pls. LXI, LXVI,
LXIX, LXXI, LXXII).
Five Scrolls
While most Qumran copies of the Five Scrolls were probably contained in separate scrolls, indirect evidence
indicates that 4QLam may have contained all five Megillot or at least one additional book beyond Lamentations; see
ch. 4, TABLE 10.
Some scrolls are more in agreement with the instructions in rabbinic literature than others, but
it should be remembered that most scrolls found in the Judean Desert did not derive from the
circles that later were to formulate rabbinic literature. See b. B. Bat. 13b:
ˆyfyç ‘g rç[ µynç lç aybnbw aybnl aybn lk ˆyb ˆkw ˆyfyç h[bra hrwt lç çmwjl çmwj ˆyb
Between each book of the Torah there should be left a space of four lines, and so between one Prophet
and the next. In the Twelve Minor Prophets, however, the space should only be three lines.
For similar statements, see Sof. 2.4. A slightly different instruction is given in y. Meg. 1.71d:
rwsa rç[ µynç lç aybnbw wçarb lyjtmw wpwsb rmwg aybnbw wty[xmab lyjtmw πdh [xmab rmwg ahyç ˚yrxw
one has to finish in the middle of a page and to commence in the middle of the
page. In the Prophets one finishes at the end and begins at the top of a page, but in the
Dodekapropheton this is forbidden.
The following differences between the Judean Desert scrolls and the rabbinic instructions are
noticeable: In 4QpaleoGen-Exod l , three lines are left as opposed to the four lines prescribed by b.
B. Bat. 13b. Between the books in 4QXII b and 4QXII b less space is left than prescribed by b. B.
Bat. 13b for the Minor Prophets (three lines). On the other hand, these instructions are exactly
followed in MurXII.
In 8H≥evXIIgr (end of 1 BCE), an early Jewish revision of Greek Scripture, six lines were left in the middle of
the column between Jonah and Micah (cf. DJD VIII, 33 and pl. IV).
Manuscripts of SP often ended biblical books one-third of the way down a column, leaving two-thirds empty
before the start of the next book or at the end of the manuscript. This practice sometimes implied excessive spacing
in the first lines of a column in order to reach that point, such as, e.g. in the MS Jew. Nat. and Univ. Libr. Sam. 2°2,
Cambr. Add. MS 1846, Topkapi Mus G i 101 (Crown, Dated Samaritan MSS).
b. Special layout and superscriptions of poetical units
208 According to Milik, Enoch, 143, the scribes of 4QEn a ar (4Q201) and other Qumran texts left half-blank pages in the
first column for easy handling. This is not confirmed, however, for 4QEn a ar, where such spacing is not evidenced, while
the list of the ‘other texts’ has not been supplied. Examples such as those listed here (books that form part of a multibook
composition) would not be valid examples for this description. See ch. 4g above.