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

250 PSALMS AND PSALTERSINTHEDEAD SEA SCROLLS
While these arguments admit the possibility that the Qumran
covenanters assembled the 11QPs a -Psalter, they do not prove this to be
so. Several other factors indicate that the collection was in fact compiled
and used by wider Jewish circles—including those at Qumran—who advocated
the solar calendar: (a) The individual compositions in 11QPs a (=
11Q5) all seem to predate the Qumran period. (b) The absence of “sectually
explicit” Qumranic indicators 56 in 11QPs a (= 11Q5) suggest that
none of the pieces was actually composed there. (c) Expanded
orthography is by no means a sure indicator of necessarily Qumran
provenance. 57 (d) The 364-day solar calendar evident in this collection is not
restricted to Qumran but is also attested in other Jewish works written
before the founding of the community (e.g., 1 Enoch, Jubilees, the Temple Scroll).
The evidence suggests that as a collection the 11QPs a -Psalter originated
before the Qumran period; there is no convincing proof that it was
compiled by the covenanters. More recently, Sanders has stated that
11QPs a (= 11Q5) did not originate at Qumran but was brought there
from the outside, possibly as the hôn (substance/wealth) offered as surety
by a novice on entering the community. 58 The notion of an 11QPs a -
Psalter that was used not only at Qumran, but also among other Jewish
circles advocating the solar calendar, attests to a widespread type of
Judaism that possibly included the Sadducees. This is in marked contrast
to the Pharisees and rabbis with their 354-day lunar calendar, and thus it
cannot be viewed as sectarian. Restricting the solar calendar to “Qumran
or other sects” (as termed by Moshe H. Goshen-Gottstein) 59 is inappropriate
and constitutes a retrospective judgment from the standpoint of a
later status quo.
Yet we must draw a distinction between the origin of collections and the
production of individual scrolls. While the 11QPs a -Psalter was compiled
56. For example, references to the Righteous Teacher.
57. For evidence on why the thesis of “Qumran orthography” is to be regarded as
far from convincing, see Ulrich, “Pluriformity in the Biblical Text,” 1:31–32. Ulrich
disputes Tov’s position on two main grounds: (a) Examples of expanded orthography
are found in Palestine outside of Qumran and in Egypt. (b) The tendency of “copyists”
at Qumran to reproduce texts exactly as they found them. See now his “Multiple
Literary Editions: Reflections toward a Theory of the History of the Biblical Text,”
in Current Research and Technological Developments on the Dead Sea Scrolls: Conference on the
Texts from the Judean Desert, Jerusalem, 30 April 1995 (ed. D. W. Parry and S. D. Ricks;
STDJ 20; Leiden: Brill), 78–105 + pls. 1–2, esp. 93–96.
58. James A. Sanders, “Psalm 154 Revisited,” in Biblische Theologie und gesellschaftlicher
Wandel für Norbert Lohfink S.J. (ed. G. Braulik, W. Gross, and S. E. McEvenue;
Freiburg: Herder, 1993), 296–306, esp. 301–2 and n22. In this more recent article,
Sanders focuses on the “acquisition policy” of the Qumran community for its library.
59. Goshen-Gottstein, “The Psalms Scroll (11QPs a ),” 28.