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

BRENT A. STRAWN 159
this was coined a theory of “hyper-local” texts, but it is in fact the kind
of work that is found, to some degree at least, in the fields of codicology
and papyrology. 202
Finally, the socio-religious functioning of the excerpted manuscripts
(and, perhaps, other texts from Qumran) urges a “functionalist”
approach to authoritative literature at Qumran (see §4). Another criterion
is added to the lists of Flint, VanderKam, and others: if scribes
excerpted from a source text in order to produce a scroll that played
some sort of liturgical, exegetical, or devotional purpose, the source text
is clearly authoritative. But, depending on the precise purpose, the
excerpted text itself may also be authoritative: if used in the liturgy, such
a text is authoritative; if used in private study or in public instruction,
such a text is authoritative. The modern analogies are several and run
the range from hymnals and songbooks, where laity often know more
hymns than Scripture by heart; devotional books that are often catenae
of various biblical texts; or ecclesiastical “manuals of discipline” (cf.
1QS!) or books of order that are as functionally authoritative as “the
canonical text.” Whether such entities are as textually authoritative, however,
is quite another question and comprises just one more in the long
list offered by the excerpted manuscripts in our ongoing study of the
Dead Sea Scrolls. 203
202. There are also obvious affinities with some of the emphases of Talmon.
203. One of the more fascinating of these questions is whether it is possible that the
Qumran community excerpted from its “nonbiblical,” “sectarian” compositions as it
did from its “biblical” texts. The answer must be positive, at least for a text like
Testimonia. The possibility that the same is true for other texts is raised in James H.
Charlesworth and Brent A. Strawn, “Reflections on the Text of Serek Ha-Yah[ad Found
in Cave IV,” RevQ 17 (1996): 414–16. I explore it more fully in another article, which
is a continuation of the present study: “Excerpted ‘Non-Biblical’ Scrolls at Qumran?
Background, Analogies, Function,” in Qumran Studies: New Approaches, New Questions
(ed. M. T. Davis and B. A. Strawn; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, in press). See further
there, esp. for listings of “nonbiblical” scrolls of small and medium-sized dimensions
that exist in multiple copies and for additional discussion of the purpose and function
of excerpted manuscripts.