SCRIBAL PRACTICES AND APPROACHE S ... - Emanuel Tov

1
INTRODUCTION
a. Purpose and nature of the description
The documents from the Judean Desert (often named the ‘Dead Sea Scrolls’) constitute the largest
corpus of texts in non-lapidary scripts providing information regarding scribal habits in early
Israel relating to biblical and nonbiblical texts. These practices may be compared with other texts
in Hebrew and Aramaic in nonlapidary texts, both those contemporary and earlier, especially the
large corpora of Elephantine papyri and other Aramaic texts from the fifth and fourth centuries
BCE. These two groups of texts are very significant as comparative material for the present
analysis; among other things, the analysis in ch. 8b shows that the texts from the Judean Desert
continue the writing tradition of the Aramaic documents from the fifth century BCE in several
practices (see SUBJECT INDEX, ‘parallels’).
The Egyptian Aramaic corpus is significant, as it is extensive and derives from an early period,
and provides various relevant parallels. However, the corpus of documents from the Judean
Desert is much larger and its scribal habits were far more developed. As such, it constitutes the
largest source of information on scribal habits for Hebrew and Aramaic texts from Israel prior to
the early Middle Ages, from which time the first documents from the Cairo Genizah derive.
Comparison of these practices with scribal habits of Greek texts from the seventh century BCE
onwards is mandatory, and is therefore often invoked in this monograph (see SUBJECT INDEX,
‘parallels’). Furthermore, the analysis leads us often to the writing practices of even older cultures
such as ancient Egypt, Ugarit, and Mesopotamia. Obviously, one needs to be careful with such
comparisons since the texts produced in these areas were written in different languages and often
on different materials. Equal care needs to be taken in the comparison with the rabbinic
prescriptions, since they are later than the texts from the Judean Desert and pertain only to the
writing of Scripture and sacred documents (see SUBJECT INDEX, ‘rabbinic literature’).
The analysis of scribal practices refers to the following aspects: the copyists and their
background (ch. 2 below), writing materials (ch. 3) such as scrolls (3c–d), technical aspects of the
writing of scrolls such as ruling, the length of scrolls, sheets, and columns (ch. 4). It also refers to
writing practices (ch. 5), such as divisions between words, small sense units (stichs and verses),
and larger sense units (sections; 5a), the special layout of poetical units (5b), scribal marks (5c),
correction procedures (5e–f), the scripts (ch. 6), special scribal characteristics reflected in certain
types of texts (ch. 7), and various scribal traditions (ch. 8).
The topics covered in this monograph thus pertain to most aspects of scribal activity, and go a
little further, as the production of scrolls is covered as well. Skilled scribes may have been
involved in some aspects of this activity, but most probably made use of ready-made writing
materials. This study pertains mainly to the technical aspects of scribal activity, while the
differing scribal approaches are discussed only briefly, for example in ch. 2g and as background
material to the description of most aspects of scribal activity. The analysis covers only some
aspects of the textual transmission of compositions (e.g. ch. 2g), while exegetical approaches and
liberties taken by scribes in changing the biblical text are not analyzed at all.
Our description of scribal practices reflected in the documents from the Judean Desert is as
complete as possible with the publication of these texts almost completed. Yet, the present