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

136 EXCERPTED MANUSCRIPTS AT QUMRAN
particular geographical locations: Babylon, Egypt, and Palestine, respectively.
114 This thesis was adopted and further elaborated by Frank Moore
Cross (stage/perspective 2). 115 In one sense, the theory of local texts is an
attempt to explain how one Urtext became three. In contrast to this
approach, in light of the great diversity found in the Dead Sea Scrolls,
Shemaryahu Talmon (stage/perspective 3), sought to explain how multiple
text-forms became, instead, just three. He did this by focusing on the textual
and, notably, the socio-religious aspects that led to the creation and
preservation of the different text families. 116 Tov’s work belongs to yet a
fourth stage/perspective: Like Talmon, Tov recognizes a far greater diversity
of text-types preserved at Qumran than did Albright and Cross; he calls
this the “textual plurality and variety” of the period between the third
century B.C.E. and first century C.E. 117 Tov observes that, in contrast to
a theory of local texts, all three “geographical texts” are found together,
in Palestine, at Qumran, along with a number of manuscripts that do not
correspond to the three local texts. Indeed, Tov discusses at least five different
groups of texts at Qumran (with total percentages): (1) texts written
in his so-called “Qumran scribal practice” of orthography and
morphology (20%); (2) proto-MT texts (35%); (3) pre-SamP texts (5%);
(4) texts close to the presumed Hebrew Vorlage of LXX (5%); and (5)
non-aligned (independent) texts (35%). 118 In truth, Tov’s analysis is not
114. William F. Albright, “New Light on Early Recensions of the Hebrew Bible,”
BASOR 140 (1955): 27–33.
115. See Frank Moore Cross, “The Evolution of a Theory of Local Texts,” in
Qumran and the History of the Biblical Text (ed. F. M. Cross and S. Talmon; Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1975), 306–20.
116. Shemaryahu Talmon, “The Old Testament Text,” in CHB 1:159—99; repr. in
Qumran and the History of the Biblical Text (ed. F. M. Cross and S. Talmon; Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1975), 1–41, esp. 39–4; and “The Textual Study of
the Bible—A New Outlook,” in ibid., 321–81. Cf. more recently idem, “The
Crystallization of the ‘Canon of Hebrew Scriptures’ in the Light of Biblical Scrolls
from Qumran,” in The Bible as Book: The Hebrew Bible and the Judaean Desert Discoveries
(ed. E. D. Herbert and E. Tov; New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Press; London: British
Library, 2002), 5–20. Note that much of Ulrich’s recent writing also places emphasis
on certain sociological factors. Cf., similarly, Julio Trebolle Barrera, “The
Authoritative Functions of Scriptural Works at Qumran,” in The Community of the
Renewed Covenant: The Notre Dame Symposium on the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. E. Ulrich and J.
VanderKam; Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), 95–110.
117. Tov, Textual Criticism, 117; cf. further 187–97.
118. See Tov, “Groups of Biblical Texts Found at Qumran,” 85–102; idem, Textual
Criticism, 114–17. Statistics are from the latter source. In a more recent essay (“The
Biblical Texts from the Judaean Desert—An Overview and Analysis,” 139–66), Tov
does not provide statistics for the first Qumran scribal practice group and this represents
a development from his earlier approach (see VanderKam and Flint, The
Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 143–46). See further, ibid., 146, for a critique of Tov’s