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

GEORGE J. BROOKE 301
worth saying a little more about the character of the canon at Qumran.
The list of authoritative works can only be proposed on the basis of several
factors taken together.
The number of copies of a work suggests something of its popularity
and importance. By this criterion we can note that from the eleven manuscript-bearing
Qumran caves, we seem to have more than twenty copies
each of Genesis, Deuteronomy, Isaiah, and the Psalms. There are approximately
seventeen copies of Exodus and at least fifteen of the book of
Jubilees. There are more than ten of Leviticus, the Hodayot, and the Rule
of the Community. The number of explicit quotations of a work suggests
that the community could appeal to it as an authority; of the compositions
just listed, there may be some doubt about whether the Qumranites
used the Hodayot and the Rule of the Community 44 in this way; yet most of
the works which are now called biblical are used explicitly as proof texts
in the Qumran literature. The number of implicit allusions to a work
implies how much it may have been part of the consciousness of a particular
author or group. In all this explicit and implicit use of earlier
authoritative texts, we must remember that certain genres are more likely
to use certain texts explicitly, while others work implicitly. Thus, legal
texts are likely to make explicit use of texts from the Torah; whereas
poetry is likely to make implicit use of prophetic and cultic poems. How
many times might one expect a legal interpreter to quote a psalm as a
proof text or a poet to cite part of a legal tradition? What stands out as
remarkable in the Qumran literature is that, in one way or another, the
Qumran community compositions quote most of what is included in the
later Hebrew canon as authoritative, but there are some uncertainties. 45
Furthermore, they give similar treatment to only a few other writings: the
Words of Levi (CD 4.15–17) 46 and the book of Jubilees (CD 16.3–4), and
possibly some of the Enochic corpus. If rightly reconstructed and construed,
the so-called canon list in 4QMMT d (4Q397 frags. 7–8 lines
10–11; cf. composite text, lines 95–96) may also suggest what may have
44. For the authoritative use of the Hodayot, see the very suggestive treatment by
Philip R. Davies, Behind the Essenes: History and Ideology in the Dead Sea Scrolls (BJS 94;
Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987), 87–105; on the possible authoritative use of the Rule of
the Community in 4Q265, see Joseph M. Baumgarten, “The Cave 4 Versions of the
Qumran Penal Code (compared to the Community Rule [1QS]),” JJS 43 (1992): 268–76.
45. Most well known is lack of any manuscript copy of Esther and the concomitant
absence of the Feast of Purim from all calendrical and festival texts coming from the
Qumran caves. However, note the study of S. Talmon in which he has convincingly
argued that the Qumran authors knew of the book of Esther: Shemaryahu Talmon,
“Was the Book of Esther Known at Qumran?” DSD 2 (1995): 249–67.
46. Especially see Jonas C. Greenfield, “The Words of Levi Son of Jacob in
Damascus Document IV, 15–19, ” RevQ 13 (1988): 319–22.