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

BRENT A. STRAWN 111
A number of scrolls at Qumran anthologize various biblical compositions
and include interpretations. The pesharim come immediately to
mind, but more similar to the excerpted manuscripts are the so-called
“thematic peshers” such as Florilegium (4QFlor [4Q174]) and Catena a
(4QCat a [4Q177]). 13 As Tov notes, other examples of the thematic-pesher
type include Ordinances, Rules, and Purification Rule (4QOrd a,b,c [4Q159,
4Q513-514], respectively), which interpret various biblical laws;
11QMelch (11Q13) focusing on the figure of Melchizedek; and 4QTanh[
(4Q176), which collects texts relating to the common theme of consolation.
14 Thematic peshers such as these differ from the pesharim in that they
do not comment on a running biblical text. Instead, they combine different
biblical texts apparently according to guiding themes or interests.
Even so, like the pesharim, the thematic peshers tend to include commentary
of some sort, often introduced by specific formulae. 15
Excerpted manuscripts are of a different sort. On the one hand, they
resemble running “biblical” manuscripts, 16 with the exception that units
are often missing, shortened, or rearranged. On the other hand, unlike
commentaries or other “nonbiblical” documents that select from a “biblical”
composition by means of quotation and/or allusion, excerpted “biblical”
manuscripts present small or large segments of the source text
13. Annette Steudel thinks these two texts are from one such pesher, which she
combines and entitles 4QMidrEschat a,b . See her Der Midrasch zur Eschatologie, and,
more briefly, “4QMidrEschat: ‘A Midrash on Eschatology’ (4Q174 + 4Q177),” 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.;
STDJ 11; Madrid: Editorial Complutense; Leiden: Brill, 1992), 2:531–41. (Possibly
related are 4Q178, 4Q182 [4QCat b ], and 4Q183 in which case there would be five
copies of the work.) As there is no material join between 4Q174 and 4Q177 and,
indeed, they come from different scrolls (Steudel, “4QMidrEschat,” 533), Steudel’s
theory must remain uncertain. See the comments in Jacob Milgrom and Lidija
Novakovic, “Catena A (4Q177 = 4QCat a ),” in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Hebrew, Aramaic,
and Greek Texts with English Translations, Vol. 6B: Pesharim, Other Commentaries, and Related
Documents (ed. J. H. Charlesworth et al.; PTSDSSP 6B; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck;
Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002), 287.
14. Tov, “Excerpted and Abbreviated,” 581.
15. See Casey D. Elledge, “Appendix: A Graphic Index of Citation and Commentary
Formulae in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek
Texts with English Translations Vol. 6B: Pesharim, Other Commentaries, and Related Documents
(ed. J. H. Charlesworth et al.; PTSDSSP 6B; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck; Louisville:
Westminster John Knox, 2002), 367–77.
16. It is now commonplace to state that the terms “biblical” and “canonical” as well
as their antonyms are anachronistic at Qumran. While this could be debated, at least
at some levels, I nevertheless accede to such a point by putting such terms in quotation
marks so as to flag their uncertain nature. See further the discussion below in §4.