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

BRENT A. STRAWN 121
and morphology, including the use of scribal marks and, occasionally, cryptic
script. 76 The same holds true for some of the tefillin. Still, many of these
manuscripts are not written in accordance with these practices (so also for
other of the tefillin) and thus Tov’s theory must remain, at best, a secondary
supportive criterion in the taxonomy of excerpted manuscripts. 77
Be that as it may, scribal practices when conceived largely, not just as
assessed by Tov in his theory, 78 remain an important, if not primary,
idem, Textual Criticism, 100–17; idem, “Tefillin of Different Origin,” 44*–54*; idem,
“Letters of the Cryptic A Script and Paleo-Hebrew Letters used as Scribal Marks in
Some Qumran Scrolls,” DSD 2 (1995): 330–39; idem, “Scribal Markings in the Texts
from the Judean Desert,” in Proceedings of the Judaean Desert Scrolls Conference, Jerusalem,
30 April 1995 (ed. D. W. Parry and S. D. Ricks; Leiden: Brill, 1996), 41–77; and
idem, “Groups of Biblical Texts found at Qumran,” in Time to Prepare the Way in the
Wilderness: Papers on the Qumran Scrolls by Fellows of the Institute for Advanced Studies of the
Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1989–1990 (ed. D. Dimant and L. H. Schiffman; STDJ
16; Leiden: Brill, 1995), 85–102. William M. Schniedewind, “Qumran Hebrew as an
Antilanguage,” JBL 118 (1999): 247, has helpfully summarized Tov’s longer list of
scribal features by reducing them to two: “(1) the use of elongated forms with h– and
(2) the tendency toward full phonetic spelling.” Tov’s theory has not gone unchallenged:
see, e.g., Frank Moore Cross’s remarks in “Notes on a Generation of
Qumrân Studies,” in idem, The Ancient Library of Qumran (3d ed.; Minneapolis:
Fortress, 1995), 176–77; and James VanderKam and Peter Flint, The Meaning of the
Dead Sea Scrolls: Their Significance for Understanding the Bible, Judaism, Jesus, and Christianity
(San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2002), 142–46, who draw attention to Tov’s
more recent article (“The Biblical Texts from the Judaean Desert—An Overview and
Analysis of the Published Texts,” in The Bible as Book: The Hebrew Bible and the Judaean
Desert Discoveries [ed. E. D. Herbert and E. Tov; London: The British Library and Oak
Knoll Press, 2002], 139–66), which seems more nuanced with regard to this category.
See note 118 below.
76. See Tov, “Excerpted and Abbreviated,” 600: in the practice are 4QDeut j (4Q37)
(though there is no solid evidence), 4QDeut k1 (4Q38), 4QTestim (4Q175), several
phylacteries and mezuzot, and some psalm texts (11QPs a [11Q5]; cf. 4QPs e [4Q87],
11QPs b [4Q84]; 4QPs f [4Q88]; 4QPs n [4Q95]; 4QPs q [4Q98]; and 4QPsAp a ).
77. Tov, “Excerpted and Abbreviated,” 600: not in the practice are several of the
phylacteries and mezuzot, 4QExod d (4Q15), 4QDeut n (4Q41), 4QDeut q (4Q44),
4QCant a,b (4Q106, 4Q107). Note Tov’s admission of evidence contrary to his general
theory in other, “sectarian” texts such as 4Q252, 4Q395, and 4QpNah (4Q169)
(“Tefillin of Different Origin,” 44* n3). (Cf. also note 75 above.) Important, too, are the
observations of Schniedewind, “Qumran Hebrew as an Antilanguage,” 237: “just
because a document was copied by a Qumran scribe does not mean it was composed
within the community. Hence, orthography must still be studied in concert with terminology
in determining whether each scroll is a sectarian composition.” Cf. the
insights of Carol A. Newsom, “‘Sectually Explicit’ Literature from Qumran,” in The
Hebrew Bible and Its Interpreters (ed. W. H. Propp, B. Halpern, and D. N. Freedman;
BJSUCSD 1; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 167–87, who has demonstrated
the opposite is true as well: just because a work was not composed at Qumran does
not mean that it cannot be read for information relating to the sect proper.
78. Cf. Stegemann, “Weitere Stücke,” 217–18, who mentions the use of certain
kinds of handwriting. Tov, “Excerpted and Abbreviated,” 586n18 thinks this dubious.