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

BRENT A. STRAWN 119
The affinity with SamP is perhaps clearest in 4QDeut n with its harmonization
of Exod 20:11 with Deut 5:12–13 in the Sabbath commandment.
66 Harmonizations are not, of course, restricted to SamP. 67 Indeed,
the other corpus of material that shows this same tendency is, not surprisingly,
the phylacteries. 68 The relationship of 4QDeut j,k1,n , that is, may
not be to SamP but to the phylacteries, or—more precisely—to the tradition
of excerpting certain types and passages of texts and the method by
which such excerption took place. 69
Other factors, besides possible affinity with SamP and/or the phylactery
texts, could explain the expansionistic and harmonizing tendency of
the excerpted manuscripts. In the Deuteronomy scrolls, these factors
would include influence from closely parallel passages and the highly
repetitive style of Deuteronomy. 70 Related to both of these is “another
possibility which might explain the specific kinds of variants and errors
found in these manuscripts, and that is that excerpted texts were sometimes
66. See White (Crawford), “4QDt n ,” 15; further, idem, “The All Souls Deuteronomy,”
193–206. Tov, “Excerpted and Abbreviated,” 589 notes the same is true of 4QPhyl G
(4Q134), 8QPhyl (8Q3), 4QMez A (4Q139), and the Nash papyrus. See also Esther
Eshel’s extensive study, “4QDeut n —A Text That Has Undergone Harmonistic
Editing,” HUCA 62 (1991): 117–54.
67. Note White (Crawford), “4QDt n ,” 15–16, who points out harmonizations in
other “biblical” manuscripts (e.g., 4QpaleoExod m [4Q22]). But, as White points out,
they “are particularly noticeable in the phylactery texts found at Qumran, that is, in
specially excerpted texts.” Duncan (“Excerpted Texts,” 60) adds 4QNum b (4Q27) to
4QpaleoExod m . Both texts, of course, do have some relationship with the SamP. See
Judith E. Sanderson, An Exodus Scroll from Qumran: 4QpaleoExod m and the Samaritan
Tradition (HSS 30; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986), esp. 189; and Nathan Jastram, “A
Comparison of Two ‘Proto-Samaritan’ Texts from Qumran: 4QpaleoExod m and
4QNum b ,” DSD 5 (1998): 264–89. See further Eshel (“4QDeut n ,” 117–54), who
prefers the general nomenclature “harmonistic” over pre- or proto-Samaritan.
68. See note 54 above and White (Crawford), “4QDt n ,” 15–16; further, Tov, “Teffilin
of Different Origin,” 49* and nn14-15 (with literature) on the text-critical data of the
tefilllin. See above and also Tov, “Excerpted and Abbreviated,” 587, 600.
69. Duncan, “Excerpted Texts,” 51. 4QDeut q (4Q44) should perhaps be included
with the other Deuteronomy manuscripts (i.e., slightly expansionistic), but it is hard
to say since it is so fragmentary and because of the complicated history of transmission
of Deuteronomy 32 (ibid., 51n38).
70. Duncan, “Excerpted Texts,” 60; Duncan, “Deuteronomy,” 199. For repetition in
Deuteronomy, see Brent A. Strawn, “Keep/Observe/Do—Carefully—Today! The
Rhetoric of Repetition in Deuteronomy,” in A God So Near: Essays on Old Testament
Theology in Honor of Patrick D. Miller (ed. B. A. Strawn and N. R. Bowen; Winona Lake,
IN: Eisenbrauns, 2003), 215–40; and, for the phenomenon and its text-critical impact
on LXX Deuteronomy, John W. Wevers, Text History of the Greek Deuteronomy
(Abhandlung der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen, Philologisch-
Histroische Klasse, Dritte Folge 106; MSU 13; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht,
1978), esp. 86–98.