SCRIBAL PRACTICES AND APPROACHE S ... - Emanuel Tov

Scribal Practices and Approaches Reflected in the Texts from the Judean Desert 259
remarkable. While most of the common features are inherent in the writing itself, the more
specific features include:
• Division into units (spacing in the line, at the end of the line, indentation), see ch. 5a.
• Stichographic arrangement of poetical passages, see ch. 5b.
• Writing of superscriptions similar to those of the Psalms, see ch. 5b.
• Use of the paragraphos, see ch. 5c1.
• Use of a specific sign in open and closed sections denoting a sense division, see ch. 5c1.
c. Possible influence from Greek scribal practices
Contemporary Greek papyri, especially from Egypt, share several scribal features with the
Hebrew and Aramaic texts found at Qumran (see below and SUBJECT INDEX, ‘Greek texts’). Crossinfluence
is therefore possible in some details, although such influence is less likely if the same
procedure is also evidenced in texts written in the square script that precede the earliest
documents from the Judean Desert (see § b above).
• The marginal symbol X, explained in ch. 5c5 as drawing attention to a certain feature in the text.
• Several correction procedures in the scrolls from the Judean Desert resemble systems used in Greek sources:
crossing out of letters or words with a horizontal line, antisigma and sigma (parenthesis signs), cancellation
dots/strokes (see ch. 5c2 and cf. Turner, Greek Manuscripts, 16). The latter two systems are not known from earlier
Semitic sources, and may have been transferred from Greek scribal practices.
• The box-like form of the parenthesis sign found in some Qumran texts (ch. 5c2iii) is paralleled by the LXX
manuscripts P.Berlin 17212 of Jeremiah 2–3 (3 CE) and P.Bodmer XXIV of Psalms 17–53, 55–118, hands A and B
(3 CE).
On the other hand, the majority of the Alexandrian critical signs used in the editions of earlier literary texts have
not been used in the Judean Desert texts: asteriskos, obelos, diple (with the possible exception of the ‘fish hook
shape paragraphos’), diple obelismene (with the exception of a doubtful instance in 4QCant b at the left edge of the
last line of frg. 3 [fig. 12 . 6]), 6 keraunion, ancora (with the possible exception of MasSir col. V top right margin
above the beginning of the column [fig. 15]). 15 See the analysis in Paulys Real-Encyclopädie der Classischen
Altertumswissenschaft (ed. G. Wissowa and W. Krohl; Stuttgart 1922) 22.1916–27 (‘Kritische Zeichen’).
d. Scribal practices mentioned in rabbinic sources
Comparative study of the scribal practices reflected in the Judean Desert texts and of
descriptions and prescriptions of such practices in rabbinic literature is helpful as long as it is
recognized that the latter refer to the writing of religious texts at a later period, and in circles
which only partially overlapped with those which produced the texts found in the Judean Desert.
Thus, probably only the proto-Masoretic biblical texts and some tefillin and mezuzot (ch. 7c)
from the Judean Desert derived from the same or similar circles as those issuing the rabbinic
prescriptions.
The instructions pertaining to the writing of religious texts are scattered in rabbinic literature,
while some are combined in small compilations dealing with topics of various nature, such as b.
Menah≥. 29b–32b; b. Meg. passim; b. Shabb. 103a–105a; b. B. Bat. 13b–14b. See below and
further SUBJECT INDEX, ‘rabbinic literature’ and INDEX I.4. The internally best-organized group of
such instructions is found in y. Meg. 1.71b–72a and in the later compilation Massekhet Soferim
(see ch. 2a). The rabbinic instructions are greatly concerned also with various aspects of the
sanctity and authority of the religious documents, issues which are not treated here.
The prescriptions in y. Meg. 1.71b–72a, which provide a good example of the topics treated
in rabbinic literature, are presented in TABLE 1 in the sequence in which they appear in the text.
The arrangement in y. Meg. follows principles of free association and memorizing of the dicta