The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls: The ... - josephprestonkirk

EUGENE C. ULRICH 79
Moses. This is typical of the many major expansions that characterize the
SP, and thus with respect to general text-type, the MT is an earlier, more
“original” form of the text than the SP.
Similarly, scholars also saw the LXX as generally secondary to the
Hebrew MT. Though there were indications that the LXX sometimes
provided an earlier text, they often stoutly resisted such indications. 2
Josephus also used some ancient form of the biblical texts as a source
for his Jewish Antiquities. But similarly, when critics compared the MT or
LXX with Josephus, they frequently branded Josephus as inserting
“unscriptural details,” and therefore they judged him to be less than reliable
as a witness to the biblical text. 3
Accordingly, the dominant mind-set considered the MT as basically
the best-preserved text of the Hebrew Bible from antiquity, although the
SP and the LXX were at times consulted in order to supply preferable
readings when the MT was unclear or presented problems. This was,
and is, the prevailing approach also for most translations of the Old
Testament in standard Bibles.
2. ILLUMINATION AND PERSPECTIVE AS A RESULT
OF THE SCRIPTURAL SCROLLS
With the discovery of over two hundred biblical manuscripts in the
Judean Desert, the scene and the prevailing mentality changed dramatically
though slowly. It is understandable that scholarly minds moved
slowly. Epistemologically, we assess new data according to already-established
concepts and categories that have been formed from previous
knowledge. Thus, the evidence offered by the scrolls was at first classified
according to the old categories.
2. For a sample of a debate on this issue, see Dominique Barthélemy et al., The Story
of David and Goliath: Textual and Literary Criticism; Papers of a Joint Research Venture (OBO
73; Fribourg: Éditions Universitaires; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1986).
3. See the notes in Josephus, Ant., 5.201 note c, 5.330–31 note a, 5.425 note c,
5.433 note a, etc. (Thackeray, LCL). Those passages, however, are all documented
in the biblical MS 4QSama (4Q51) and thus were in the biblical text at the time of
Josephus; the fact is simply that the specific form of the scriptural text current in his
day, which he used for the composition of the Jewish Antiquities, was subsequently lost;
cf. the text of the NRSV and the note at the end of 1 Samuel 10. See Eugene C.
Ulrich, “Josephus’ Biblical Text for the Books of Samuel,” in Josephus, the Bible, and
History (ed. L. H. Feldman and G. Hata; Detroit: Wayne State University Press,
1989), 81–96, and repr. in Ulrich, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Origins of the Bible,
(SDSSRL; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 184–201; and idem, The Qumran Text of
Samuel and Josephus (HSM 19; Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1978).