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

BRENT A. STRAWN 129
In the case of the excerpted manuscripts, the cited material is primary—
indeed, solitary; in the interpretive texts, the cited material may still be
considered primary but it is supplemented by additional material that may
well exceed it in size and ultimately, therefore, importance. The presence
of this additional material indicates a gestalt difference between excerpted
manuscripts and these others. In the case of the exegetical texts, the overall
gestalt is one of interpretation. The cited texts are explained or related
to the audience, context, or reader in some (usually explicit) way; that
interpretive move is, moreover and to no small degree, the primary function
of the manuscript. 104 Such is not the case with excerpted manuscripts.
They too may be interpretive, but they are not interpretive in the same
way. They are interpretive by means of selection and arrangement of the
base text(s) without commentary; commentary texts are interpretive by
means of selection and arrangement and the addition of commentary.
Said differently, the excerpted manuscripts represent a kind of minimalist
program of interpretation; the commentary texts represent a maximalist
version.
Yet even with this important distinction made, a relationship of sorts
is apparent between the excerpted manuscripts and commentary texts,
on the one hand, and excerpted manuscripts and their base texts, the
51:22–23a; 51:8[?]; 52:1–3; 54:4–10a; 52:1; 52:1c–2a; note the ordering and arrangement
and that the first citation that is extant is from Ps 79:3, and that the last is apparently
from Zech 13:9) and which apparently does so by conscious thematic
selection—“for the sake of consolation” (Hermann Lichtenberger, “Consolations
[4Q176 = 4QTanh9],” 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], 330). Much depends on a few lines: esp. frags. 1–2
1.1–3, 4b; frags. 4 and 5 line 5 (one word); frags. 8–11 lines 13–17; frag. 14 lines 1–7;
frag. 15 lines 5–6; and frags. 16–18, 22–23, 51 and 53 lines 1–9. Cf. also the remaining
fragments (24–32, 34–41, 43–50, 52, 54–57), which are too small for identification.
The issue is whether or not these passages contain non-citation material and, if
so, what the nature and extent of that is. Again, the accidence of preservation precludes
certainty, but it seems clear that at least some of these passages contain the
additional, non-citation material that would identify the text as belonging to a different
genre than the excerpted manuscripts proper. For the text, see further
Lichtenberger, “Consolations,” 329–49 and the notes there. See also Cristopher D.
Stanley, “The Importance of 4QTanh9umim (4Q176),” RevQ 15 (1992): 569–82; and
idem, Paul and the Language of Scripture: Citation Technique in the Pauline Epistles and
Contemporary Literature (SNTSMS 69; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992),
esp. 74–77, 267–91, and 296–306 for citation technique in the Greco-Roman world
and in Early Jewish literature (including Testimonia, Consolations, Melchizedek), which has
significant bearing on the topic at hand.
104. Cf. James H. Charlesworth’s reflections on the hermeneutics of the pesharim in
The Pesharim and Qumran History: Chaos or Consensus? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002).