SCRIBAL PRACTICES AND APPROACHE S ... - Emanuel Tov

Scribal Practices and Approaches Reflected in the Texts from the Judean Desert 13
well as tefillin, mezuzot, and marriage and divorce documents. Some scribes worked independently,
while others were engaged by specific Rabbis, a city, or the Sanhedrin.
Scribes were introduced to their trade during the course of a training period, in which they
learned writing and the various scribal procedures connected with it (such as writing at a fixed
distance below ruled lines and in columns; the division of a composition into sense units; the
treatment of the divine names; the correction of mistakes, etc.). Furthermore, scribes had to master
various technical skills relating to the material on which they wrote, the use of writing implements,
and the preparation of ink.
The abecedaries (lists of letters of the alphabet) found at Qumran, 24 Murabba>at, 25 Masada
(Mas ostraca 606, 608), and at many additional sites dating to the First and Second Temple
periods 26 probably witness to such a learning process for scribes. Lemaire claimed that such
abecedaries deriving from the First Temple period point to the existence of scribal schools, and
this argument may be valid also with regard to Qumran. 27
A learning process is probably also reflected in such scribal exercises as 4QExercitium Calami
A (4Q234), 4QExercitium Calami B (4Q360), and 4QExercitium Calami C (4Q341; see illustr. 2)
containing lists of names and other words. Lists of names also served as scribal exercises in other
environments; see, e.g. H. Harrauer and P. J. Sijpesteijn, Neue Texte aus dem antiken Unterricht
(Vienna 1985) items 43–60, 65. 4QExercitium Calami C (4Q341) contains a sequence of proper
names starting with the letter mem, a series of words, mainly proper names, in alphabetical order,
from bet to zayin, as well as sequences of single letters. A similar mixture of exercises is found in
the abecedary published by É. Puech (see n. 26). 4QExercitium Calami A (4Q234) contains words
written in three different directions. Similar exercises were listed by Y. Yadin and J. Naveh,
Masada I, 61–4 (‘Writing Exercises and Scribbles’). Similar to 4Q341, Ostraca 608 and 609 from
Masada are fragments of two series of personal names in alphabetical order.
Certain Qumran documents, containing very inelegant and irregular handwriting, were
considered by some scholars to have been written by apprentice scribes. Thus Milik, Enoch, 141
considered 4QEn a ar (4Q201) to be a ‘school-exercise copied by a young scribe from the master’s
dictation.’ P. W. Skehan considered 4QPs x (4Q98g) to be a ‘practice page written from
memory.’ 28 J. T. Milik suggested that 4QDanSuz? ar (4Q551) was written by an apprentice
scribe, 29 and É. Puech surmised that 4QBirth of Noah a ar (4Q534) was written by a child (DJD
XXXI, 135). Likewise, many of the calendrical texts and Mishmarot (‘Temple Watches’) are
poorly inscribed with irregular layout of the lines: 4QMish B (4Q323), 4QMish C (4Q324),
4QMish G (4Q329), 4QMish H (4Q329a), 4QMish I (4Q330), 4QCal Doc D (4Q394 1–2).
Furthermore, we cautiously suggest that 4QGen f , containing Gen 48:1-11 and written with an
unskilled hand, also constitutes a scribal exercise, as this fragment was written on a single sheet
with no signs of sewing on the right side. For a similar type of exercise from Mesopotamia, see W.
Hallo, who noted that ‘two small tablets from Assur . . . show extracts, not just from two or three
24 See ostracon 3 from Khirbet Qumran published by E. Eshel in DJD XXXVI, pl. XXXIV (see illustr. 5 below). Two
additional abecedaries, described as deriving from the first century BCE, are displayed in the Israel Museum as “Qumran
?”.
25 Some of the abecedaries from Murabba>at were written on leather (Mur 10B, 11), while others were inscribed on sherds
(Mur 73, 78–80), all published in DJD II.
26 See É. Puech, “Abécédaire et liste alphabétique de noms hébreux du début des IIe S. A.D.,” RB 87 (1980) 118–26; A.
Lemaire, Les écoles et la formation de la Bible dans l’ancien Israël (OBO 39; Fribourg/Göttingen 1981) 7–32; M.
Haran, “On the Diffusion of Literacy and Schools in Ancient Israel,” VTSup 40 (1988) 81–95; J. Renz and W. Röllig,
Handbuch der althebräischen Epigraphik 2 (Darmstadt 1995) 22–5; W. Nebe, “Alphabets,” Encyclopedia DSS, 1.18–
20.
27 Lemaire, Les écoles, 7–33. Additional, internal, evidence for the existence of a Qumran scribal practice, referring to
scribal traits common to certain documents, is analyzed in ch. 7a.
28 P. W. Skehan, “Gleanings from Psalm Texts from Qumran,” in Mélanges bibliques et orientaux en l’honneur de M.
Henri Cazelles (ed. A. Caquot and M. Delcor; AOAT 212; Neukirchen/Vluyn 1981) 439–52 (439).
29 J. T. Milik, “Daniel et Susanne à Qumrân?” in De la Tôrah au Messie (ed. M. Carrez et al.; Paris 1981) 337–59,
especially 355.