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

BRENT A. STRAWN 161
Table 1, cont.
Text Contents Number of
lines extant
(height)
Date Remarks
2QExodb Exod 19:9210 7 lines 30–68 Note ordering
(2Q3) esp. followed after B.C.E. (other frags.
frag. 8 (?) 209 vacat 211 by 34:10 reflect standard
order)
and writing of
divine name
in paleo-
Hebrew (also
in frags. 2
and 7) 212
4QExod d Exod 13:15–16 5 lines 250–150 Abbreviation
(4Q15) + 15:1 B.C.E. and ordering;
note omission
of 13:17–14:31
within one
fragment
209. 2QExod b (2Q3) is thought to be an excerpted text by Steudel, “Testimonia,”
in EDSS 2:938; Stegemann, “Weitere Stücke,” 220; and Brooke, “Torah in the
Qumran Scrolls,” 102. Contrast Tov, “Dimensions,” 69; and idem, “Excerpted and
Abbreviated,” 584, who opts instead for a rewritten Bible text.
210. Tov, “Excerpted and Abbreviated,” 584n13 thinks this is not Exod 19:9 (so
Maurice Baillet, “3. Exode [deuxième exemplaire],” in Les “Petites Grottes” de Qumrân
[ed. M. Baillet, J. T. Milik, and R. de Vaux; DJD 3; Oxford: Clarendon, 1962], 55)
but “a nonbiblical addition before 34:10 similar to the additions in 4QRP.”
Unfortunately, the fragmentary nature of the manuscript precludes certainty, though
it should be noted that the text writes the tetragrammaton in paleo-Hebrew script (see
note 212 below). In my judgment, the thematic connections between Exodus 19 and
34, observed by Baillet (ibid., 55), remain a viable explanation for the arrangement
of the text and, hence, its excerption.
211. See Baillet (ibid., 55) who notes that the vacat does not correspond to a
Masoretic division but that SamP does end a pericope at this point. So, similarly,
Exod 34:10 does not begin a new unit in MT but does in the SamP.
212. For the latter point, see VanderKam, “Authoritative Literature,” 385–86, who
notes this trait also in 4QIsa c (4Q57) and 11QPs a (11Q5) though elsewhere it is
largely restricted to works that did not become part of the Hebrew Bible (e.g., 1QpMic
[1Q14], 1QpHab, 1QpZeph [1Q15], etc.).