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

158 A NEW EDITION OF THE HEBREW BIBLE
While this position is possible and solves several problems, another
interpretation of the textual data is also available. Alexander Rofé has
observed that some features in this paragraph indicate that it may be a late
scribal composition, and therefore it may be secondary in all of its contexts
(MT, LXX, and 4QJosh a ). 20 He suggests that the author of this paragraph
was “a late Deuteronomistic (= Dtr) scribe, perhaps even a post-Dtr one.” 21
The most striking reason that he gives is that the author of this paragraph
misunderstood Moses’ instructions about the altar in Deuteronomy 27.
The present story is wholly dependent on the text of Deuteronomy
27: the laws there (vv. 2–3, 4 + 8, 5–7) ordered the erection of big stones
and their inscription with the words of the Torah; separately they prescribed
the building of an altar; however, the author of Josh 8:30–35 was
already familiar with the present, garbled, text of Deut 27:2–8 and therefore
described Joshua as writing the Torah on the stones of the altar. 22
The author of this paragraph equated the phrase “big stones” (Mynb)
twldg), which were to be coated with plaster and inscribed with the
words of the Torah, and the “whole stones” (twml# Mynb)), which were
to be made into the altar. To be sure, the text of Deut 27:1–8 is confusing
(the combination of the inscribed stones and the stone altar may be
an editorial embellishment), 23 but the secondary quality of the Joshua
passage is nevertheless indicated by its unifying reading of the originally
different stones. Moshe Weinfeld has observed that the author of Josh
8:30–35 treated the whole section [of Deut 27:1–8] as an organic literary
unit and therefore found it necessary to remove the friction between the
two traditions by describing the stones upon which the law was inscribed
as those from which the altar was constructed. 24
The construction of Joshua’s altar from the inscribed stones shows
that the author (perhaps understandably) misread Deuteronomy 27, and
20. Alexander Rofé, “The Editing of the Book of Joshua in the Light of 4QJosh a ,” in
New Qumran Texts and Studies: Proceedings of the First Meeting of the International Organization for
Qumran Studies, Paris 1992 (ed. G. J. Brooke and F. García Martínez; STDJ 15; Leiden:
Brill, 1994), 73–80. Cf. the similar position (before the availability of 4QJosh a (= 4Q47)
in Emanuel Tov, “Some Sequence Differences between the MT and LXX and Their
Ramifications for the Literary Criticism of the Bible,” JNSL 13 (1987): 152–54; see also
Leonard J. Greenspoon, “The Qumran Fragments of Joshua: Which Puzzle Are They
Part of and Where Do They Fit?” in Septuagint, Scrolls, and Cognate Writings (ed. G. J. Brooke
and Barnabus [Barnabas] Lindars; SBLSCS 33; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992), 173–74;
Richard D. Nelson, Joshua (OTL; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1997), 116–20.
21. Rofé, “Editing,” 76.
22. Ibid.
23. See Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford: Clarendon,
1972), 165–66.
24. Ibid., 166.