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

HENRY W. MORISADA RIETZ 207
of the Rule of the Community. 15 Moreover, the Angelic Liturgy, which was at
least redacted and recited by the Qumran community, is structured on
position and final mems in the first position. Thus, the material Qimron and Strugnell
have identified as 4Q394 frags. 1–2 are probably from a different manuscript than the
rest of the fragments of 4Q394 and therefore are more correctly designated 4Q327.
Although the material preserved in 4Q327 (a.k.a. 4Q394 frags. 1–2) does not provide
evidence for a calendar at the beginning of Some Works of the Torah, such evidence
is provided by 4Q394 frags. 3a–4. 4Q394 frags. 3a–4, col. 1, preserves the end of the
calendar and the beginning of section B, clearly on the same manuscript. The last line
of the calendar, line 3, is vacat with the exception of a single inscribed word, “day(s)”
(Mwy), at the beginning. The next line, line 4, preserves the beginning of section B; the
vacat at the end of line 3 indicates a new section (4Q394 frags. 3a–4; see Qimron and
Strugnell, Miqsat Ma(ase ha-Torah [DJD 10], pl. 2). According to Qimron, the association
of 4Q394 frags. 1–2 with the rest of 4Q394 is based on the palaeographic similarities,
although he notes some differences, and similarities in subject matter with frags. 3a–4,
lines 1–3 (ibid., 201). Schiffman questions the association of frags. 1–2 with the rest of
4Q394 because of the unusual single word column length (Lawrence H. Schiffman,
“The Place of 4QMMT in the Corpus of Qumran Manuscripts,” in Reading 4QMMT
[ed. J. Kampen and M. Bernstein; SBL Symposium Series 2; Atlanta: Scholars Press,
1996], 82). While Schiffman may be correct, the contiguous material connecting the calendar
in frags. 3a–4, lines 1–3, with section B beginning in line 4, establishes that a calendrical
text stood at the beginning of 4Q394, as Schiffman acknowledges (in Reading
4QMMT, 82–83). The only other manuscript witness to the beginning of section B is
4Q395 frag. 1. Strugnell suggests that the extant blank leather to the right of the
inscribed area probably indicates the beginning of the manuscript and thus, that the calendar
was not at the beginning of this manuscript (Strugnell, “MMT: Second
Thoughts on a Forthcoming Edition,” The Community of the Renewed Covenant: The
Notre Dame Symposium on the Dead Sea Scrolls [ed. E. C. Ulrich and J. C. VanderKam;
Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity series 10; Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre
Dame Press, 1994]), 61; see Miqsat Ma(ase ha-Torah [DJD 10], pl. 3). VanderKam, however,
cautions against following Strugnell’s suggestion. VanderKam points out that since
we only have one column extant on 4Q395 we do not know how wide were the spaces
between columns on that manuscript and that the space extant to the right of 4Q395 is
comparable to the space between columns on 4Q394 (VanderKam, “The Calendar,
4Q327, and 4Q394,” 184). While it is possible that a calendrical text existed on other
manuscripts of Some Works of the Torah, there is no manuscript evidence extant. Thus, the
presence of a calendar at the beginning of Some Works of the Torah may be idiosyncratic
to 4Q394. Nevertheless, its presence on 4Q394 attests to a 364-day calendar at the
beginning of one manuscript copy of Some Works of the Torah.
15. 4Q319 and 4Q259. See Uwe Glessmer, “Investigation of the Otot-text (4Q319)
and Questions about Methodology,” in Methods of Investigation of the Dead Sea Scrolls and
Khirbet Qumran Site: Present Realities and Future Prospects (ed. M. O. Wise et al.; Annals of
the New York Academy of Sciences 722; New York: New York Academy of Sciences,
1994), 429–40; Uwe Glessmer, “The Otot-Texts (4Q319) and the Problem of
Intercalations in the Context of the 364-Day Calendar,” in Qumranstudien: Vorträge und
Beiträge der Teilnehmer des Qumranseminars auf dem internationalen Treffen der Society of Biblical
Literature, Münster, 25.–26. Juli 1993 (ed. H.-J. Fabry, A. Lange, and H. Lichtenberger;
Göttingen: Vanderhoeck and Ruprecht, 1996), 125–64; Sarianna Metso, “The
Primary Results of the Reconstruction of 4QS e ,” LLS 44 (1993): 303–8; idem, The
Textual Development of the Qumran Community Rule (STDJ 21; Leiden: Brill, 1997), 48–51.