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

RONALD S. HENDEL 163
LXX has suffered a slightly different haplography, beginning with the phrase,
“and I have not chosen” (ytrxb )lw), until the similar phrase, “and I have
chosen” (rxb)w). Hence, LXX preserves part of the sequence lacking in MT.
The editor of 4QKings, Julio Trebolle Barrera, observes that this fragment
preserves “a substantial original reading of Kings.” 36 The textual
relationships among MT, LXX, 4QKings, and Chronicles are best comprehended
by this solution, and hence the longer reading should be preferred.
A NEW EDITION
For the textual critic of the Hebrew Bible, the Dead Sea Scrolls are indeed
“the greatest manuscript discovery of modern times,” as William F.
Albright proclaimed fifty years ago. The examples surveyed above of new
Qumran readings and new understandings of old readings (primarily from
SP and LXX) demonstrate their significance for our understanding of the
biblical text. The chief question that remains is, What should we do with
these new readings and new understandings? The discipline of textual criticism
is founded on the desire for better editions of texts. In every literature
for which textual criticism is practiced, the ultimate goal is the production
of new and better critical texts, meaning the best text that the editor can
reconstruct through using the available textual evidence and sound critical
methods. Such is the normal practice in the textual criticism of the other literatures
of antiquity, including the Septuagint and the New Testament.
Only in the study of the Hebrew Bible is this goal not commonly held. In
light of the advances in practicing textual criticism in the post-Qumran era,
it is worth reconsidering whether this position is justifiable.
The most extensive rationale for a critical edition of the Hebrew Bible
is that of Rudolf Kittel, who founded the Biblia Hebraica Project, now in
its fifth incarnation. In his 1902 monograph, “On the Necessity and
Possibility of a New Edition of the Hebrew Bible,” Kittel conceded:
In principle one must therefore absolutely agree that this arrangement [viz.,
a critical, eclectic text, with apparatus] is the only proper one; the question
can only be whether it is practical as well as easily accomplished, compared
to the other, basically inferior alternative. 37
36. Trebolle Barrera, ibid. (DJD 14), 183; see also idem, “A Preliminary Edition of
4QKings (4Q54),” in The Madrid Qumran Congress: Proceedings of the International Congress on
the Dead Sea Scrolls, Madrid, 18–21 March 1991 (ed. J. C. Trebolle Barrera and L. Vegas
Montaner; 2 vols.; Madrid: Editorial Complutense; Leiden: Brill, 1992), 1:246.
37. Rudolf Kittel, Über die Notwendigkeit und Möglichkeit einer neuen Ausgabe der hebräischen
Bibel (Leipzig: Deichert, 1902), 77–78