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

CHAPTER SEVEN
EXCERPTED MANUSCRIPTS AT QUMRAN: THEIR
SIGNIFICANCE FOR THE TEXTUAL HISTORY OF THE
HEBREW BIBLE AND THE SOCIO-RELIGIOUS HISTORY
OF THE QUMRAN COMMUNITY AND ITS LITERATURE 1
Brent A. Strawn
“These texts are of interest at all levels for the biblical scholar, as they
relate to…exegesis, literary criticism, liturgy, the development of the
canon, and textual criticism.” 2
1. INTRODUCTION
The phenomenon of excerption—or extraction as it is sometimes called—
is a fairly widespread and well-known practice in antiquity. A. Kirk
Grayson, for instance, argued that the Assyrian and Babylonian chronicles
are, in large part, extracted from longer astronomical texts. 3 If he is
1. I wish to thank several colleagues for responding to this article or discussing its
argument with me in various capacities: James H. Charlesworth, Steve Delamarter,
Steven J. Kraftchick, Carol A. Newsom, Henry W. Rietz, and Christine Roy Yoder.
Additionally, I would like to thank Eugene Ulrich, Eileen Schuller, and Paul Garnet
who each offered helpful feedback, critique, and encouragement at the Princeton
symposium. None of the individuals listed here should be held responsible for errors
or problems that remain in the article and it will be immediately apparent that many
would disagree strongly with several of the points made below.
2. Emanuel Tov, “Excerpted and Abbreviated Biblical Texts from Qumran,” RevQ
16 (1995): 582.
3. See A. Kirk Grayson, Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles (TCS 5; Locust Valley,
NY: J. J. Augustin, 1975). Of the possibility of extraction in chronographic texts,
Grayson writes: “In connection with the problem of the form in which a text has been
preserved the size and shape of the tablet should always be considered. In general
large tablets, which contain carefully written inscriptions, formed an integral part of
a permanent library. Small tablets, particularly those shaped like business documents,
were made for a particular reason and would not normally be intended to form part
of a permanent collection” (ibid., 4–5). For more on the chronicle texts, see John Van
Seters, In Search of History: Historiography in the Ancient World and the Origins of Biblical
History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), 80–82, 95–92.
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