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

JAMES A. SANDERS 29
speak, in large part after the work of Herbert E. Ryle at the end of the nineteenth
century. 9 Study of the Judean Desert Scrolls in general raised the
issue of canon, but especially because of the contents of Qumran Cave
11. 10 Whether the Temple Scroll or Torah Scroll from Cave 11 (11QT a, b [=
11Q19–20]) was canonical at Qumran was a question addressed by Yigael
Yadin in the editio princeps. 11 Did the large scroll of Psalms from the same
cave indicate a liturgical collection of psalms derivative of an already stable
Psalter in Judaism, or did it mark a stage in the stabilization of the MT-150
collection of Psalms found in medieval codices? 12
A few years before these questions took shape, a study by Jack P.
Lewis had already brought the regnant view of the history of the formation
of the Tanak into question. 13 Lewis investigated all the passages in
rabbinic literature where the gathering of rabbis at Yavneh is mentioned
and found that there was little or no support for the idea that that assembly
was a canonizing council. From time to time scholars have questioned
the idea of a canonizing council in Judaism at such an early date, or at
any time, for that matter, but not enough to cast serious doubt on the
widely accepted view. What Lewis did was to show that people had read
such a view into the passages where Yavneh is mentioned. Lewis’s work
was almost universally accepted as a needed corrective. 14
9. Herbert E. Ryle, The Canon of the Old Testament (London: Macmillan, 1892),
171–79.
10. James A. Sanders, “Cave Eleven Surprises and the Question of Canon,” McCQ
21 (1968): 1–15.
11. Yigael Yadin, The Temple Scroll, vol. 1 (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society,
1983), 390–92, esp. nn8–10.
12. See now the excellent discussions of the debate in Peter W. Flint, “Of Psalms and
Psalters: James Sanders’ Investigation of the Psalms Scrolls,” in A Gift of God in Due Season:
Essays on Scripture and Community in Honor of James A. Sanders (ed. R. D. Weis and D. M.
Carr; JSOTSup 225; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), 65–83; and idem, The
Dead Sea Psalms Scrolls and the Book of Psalms (STDJ 17 Leiden: Brill, 1997), 1–12.
13. Jack P. Lewis, “What Do We Mean by Jabneh?” JBR 32 (1964): 125–32.
14. See Shaye J. D. Cohen, “The Significance of Yavneh: Pharisees, Rabbis, and the
End of Jewish Sectarianism,” HUCA 55 (1984): 27–53, in which Cohen argues that
the importance of the conference at Yavneh at the end of the first century was not to
settle the question of a biblical canon but to create a new “Rabbinic Judaism” headed
by lay leaders (not priests, as when the temple still stood). It was intended to be a
wide-enough tent to include dissent and debate, thus ending the necessity for sects or
“heresies” in order to have dialogue, and putting it in sharp contrast to emerging
Christian orthodoxies, which curbed such debate. Christianity has spawned “heresies”
largely because of its creeds and dogma, according to the thesis of the dialogue
titled Häresien: Religionshermeneutische Studien zur Konstruktion von Norm und Abweichung (ed.
I. Pieper, M. Schimmelpfenning, et J. von Soosten; Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 2003),
papers given at a conference on “Abweichung in der Kirche” at Heidelberg in
September 1995; therein see James A. Sanders, “Canon as Dialogue,” 151–67.