SCRIBAL PRACTICES AND APPROACHE S ... - Emanuel Tov

300 Appendix 6
itself; see further ch. 1c. The only scribal activity probably carried out on the spot pertains to the writing of the
Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek ostraca prior to the destruction of Masada, and of Latin ostraca and probably some
Greek papyri under the Roman occupation, while other papyrus and leather texts may have been imported to
Masada, such as the fragment of Virgil in Mas 721. 367 This fragment contains one or possibly two lines from
Virgil, Aeneas 4.9 on the recto and an Unidentified Poetical Text on the verso. The extensive spacing on both sides
of the inscribed text shows that the papyrus probably contained just this limited text.
Beyond these considerations, the only solid piece of evidence concerning the Masada fragments is that two
scrolls of Deuteronomy and Ezekiel were buried under the floor of the synagogue. Why these specific scrolls, and not
others, were buried there remains unknown since only fragments of the scrolls have been preserved. These scrolls, or
segments of them, may have been damaged at an earlier stage or were otherwise deemed unfit for public reading,
rendering mandatory their disposal in a special religious burial place (genizah). These scrolls were probably buried
by the Zealots during their sojourn at Masada (thus providing us with a terminus ante quem for the copying and
storage, namely 73 CE). The burial in separate pits probably shows that the scrolls were discarded at different
times. 368 Note that the two scrolls probably represented two individual biblical books, and were not segments of
larger scrolls. That is, the Deuteronomy scroll probably was not part of a larger Torah scroll, and the Ezekiel scroll
did not contain all of the Later Prophets. If the scrolls had been larger, it is probable that some additional fragments
would have been preserved. The Deuteronomy scroll contains the very end of the book (Deut 32:46-47; 33:17-24;
34:2-6), as well as the attached uninscribed handle sheet, and it is not impossible that the final sheet or sheets had
become damaged due to excessive use (cf. the re-inking of the final column of 1QIsa a ), and hence was/were placed in
storage without the remainder of the book.
1. The nature of the corpora found in the Judean Desert
The approximately 200 biblical texts found at Qumran form 21.5% of the 930 texts found there. 369 Furthermore, a
large number of the 730 nonbiblical texts were inspired by Scripture or represent biblical exegesis. 370
Among the Masada fragments, the biblical texts are proportionally better represented than those at Qumran,
since among the fifteen/sixteen literary texts there are seven biblical texts, four of the Torah, two of Psalms, and one
of Ezekiel. The statistical analysis of the Masada texts is based either on a total of fifteen texts (assuming that Mas
pap paleoUnidentified Text (r) and Mas pap paleoText of Sam. Origin (v) reflect the same text; thus Talmon,
Masada VI, passim) or on a calculation of sixteen texts based on the assumption that the two mentioned texts reflect
different compositions (the scribal features of the two sides of the papyrus are different, and the contents are not
necessarily related). According to these calculations, the biblical component in the Masada corpus is either 46.6 or
43.75%, double the percentage of biblical scrolls in the Qumran corpus, viz., 22%. For a list of the Masada
fragments, see Tov, “Masada,” and idem, DJD XXXIX, 27–114.
2. A Qumran origin for the Masada Nonbiblical Hebrew texts?
It has been suggested by Yadin and Talmon that two or three individual Masada texts were brought to Masada by
fugitives from Qumran. 371 This suggestion is expanded here for the collection of nonbiblical texts as a whole. Our
suggestion is based on the similarity in content and structure of the corpora of Masada and Qumran. First, the texts
which could have originated at Qumran are listed:
367 This is probably the oldest surviving papyrus fragment of the Aeneid. For an analysis, see Cotton and Geiger, Masada
II, 1–2; E. Ulrich, “Aeneid,” Encyclopedia DSS, 1.10–11; C. P. Thiede, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Jewish Origins
of Christianity (Oxford 2000) 75–7.
368 On the other hand, according to C. P. Thiede, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Jewish Origins of Christianity (Oxford
2000) 74, this was not a genizah. Thiede suggest that the scrolls were first located in a room behind the aron hakodesh
and he assumes that ‘when the Romans approached, the scrolls were hastily buried under the floor, and when the
Romans arrived and found the synagogue, they burnt furniture and other objects and threw them into that room. The
scrolls survived underneath the rubble.’ Although the details in the description may be hypothetical, it is not
impossible that the burial does not point to a genizah, and that the scrolls were indeed buried for safeguarding against
burning by the Romans. See further the description of the archeological evidence by Netzer, Masada III, 407 ff.,
especially the discussion on pp. 411–13 regarding the nature of the synagogue building at an earlier stage. In any
event, according to Netzer, p. 410, the pits were dug at a later stage of the occupation by the Zealots.
369 Some texts which are conceived of as ‘biblical’ are probably nonbiblical (e.g. liturgical), while some texts which are
now recorded as ‘parabiblical’ may in fact be biblical. Accordingly, there is imprecision in both cases.
370 The central place of the Bible within the Qumran collection is thus larger than represented by the 200 biblical
manuscripts, but this fact does not change the numerical relation between the two groups of texts.
371 See n. 366 above and S. G. F. Brandon, ‘Zealots,’ Encyclopaedia Judaica (Jerusalem 1971) 16.949–50.