SCRIBAL PRACTICES AND APPROACHE S ... - Emanuel Tov

Scribal Practices and Approaches Reflected in the Texts from the Judean Desert 33
the hairy side of the skin’ (cf. Massekhet Sefer Torah 1.4). On the other hand, the very thin scroll
11QTa (11Q19), of the kelaph type, was inscribed on the inside of the skin (the flesh side).
It stands to reason that the approximate length of the composition was calculated before the
writing was commenced; with this information, the required number of sheets could be ordered
from a manufacturer or prepared to fit the size of the composition. Subsequently, the individual
sheets were ruled and inscribed and only afterwards stitched together. The fact that some ruled
sheets were used as uninscribed handle sheets (e.g. the final sheets of 11QTa and 11QShirShabb
[ch. 4g]) and that some uninscribed top margins were ruled (the second sheet of 1QpHab [see
below]) shows that the ruling was executed as part of a separate process from the writing. The
numbering of a few sheets (ch. 5c8) probably indicates that they were inscribed individually, to
be joined subsequently based on the numerical sequence (however, the great majority of the
sheets were not numbered). On the other hand, some sheets must have been joined before being
inscribed (§ c below).
A further indication of the separate preparation of the individual sheets is the different nature
of the two surviving sheets of 1QpHab. The first sheet (cols. I–VII) contained regular top
margins of 2.0–3.0 cm, while the top margins of the second sheet (VIII–XIII) measuring 1.6–2.0
cm contain one, two, or three uninscribed ruled lines (illustr. 3). Since ruled lines are visible in the
top margin of the second sheet, while all other sheets from Qumran compositions have unruled
top margins, it is evident that the manufacturer of this scroll used an existing ruled sheet of larger
specifications than needed for the second sheet of this scroll; when preparing this scroll, he cut
the sheet to the size required for the present purpose, cutting off the unruled top margin of that
sheet, and using the ruled area as top margin. A similar procedure was followed for the first sheet
of 4QDeutn (illustr. 15) 15 which was cut to the size of the second sheet. Additional relevant
material is recorded in § d below listing the juxtaposition of unrelated sheets that must have been
prepared separately.
There is evidence for the existence of rolls of blank papyrus sheets at Elephantine70 and
possibly also in Murabba>at. 71 These rolls consisted of sheets that had been glued together, from
which the required smaller pieces were then cut off.
The calculation of the number of sheets needed for copying a composition could never be
precise, as evidenced by the ruled column often left uninscribed following the final inscribed
column of a sheet (ch. 4g).
c. Sheets
Documents were written either on single pieces of leather or papyrus (a sheet or a scrap of
leather) or on scrolls composed of several sheets.
Short documents were written on single sheets and in rare cases on scraps of leather. For
example, letters and other documentary texts written on papyrus and 4QTest (4Q175) written on
leather were inscribed on single sheets. Likewise, P.Nash of the Decalogue probably consisted of
only a single sheet (thus Peters, Nash, 5). The shape of some documents is irregular (neither
rectangular nor square, with uneven borders); it is probable that they were inscribed on remnants
70 Cf. the description of the Elephantine papyri in Porten–Yardeni, TAD 3.xiii: ‘Fresh, rectangular papyrus sheets were
not stored in a pile but were glued together along their length to make a scroll. In writing a document, the scribe
detached from the scroll a piece of required size.’ A similar remark with regard to the papyrus production in Egypt was
made by S. Emmel, “The Christian Book in Egypt: Innovation in the Coptic Tradition,” in The Bible as Book—The
Manuscript Tradition (ed. J. L. Sharpe III and K. Van Kampen; London and New Castle, Del. 1998) 35–43. Emmel
remarked that many of the single-sheet documents from Egypt include a seam, where two originally separate sheets were
overlapped and glued together. In other examples from the classical world, some single papyrus sheets had stitches on
both sides.
71 Lewis, Bar Kochba, 10: ‘Papyrus was shipped from the factories in rolls formed by gluing together the overlapping
edges of consecutive sheets. A standard roll contained twenty sheets.’