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

464 OLD TESTAMENT PSEUDEPIGRAPHA AT QUMRAN
3. pseudepigraphic apocalypses and visions attributed to seers in Babylon; and
4. legendary stories about Jewish courtiers and seers in Assyrian,
Babylonian, or Persian courts.
Thus different literary forms dominate Hebrew and Aramaic literatures.
But they are not mutually exclusive, for we find in Jubilees a Hebrew
Pseudepigraphon and in the Genesis Apocryphon an Aramaic composition
reworking the Hebrew Bible. Nonetheless, reworked Bible texts from
Qumran are usually written in Hebrew, whereas words or books and
apocalypses are mostly composed in Aramaic. The case of Tobit is of special
interest since we find at Qumran four copies in Aramaic and one in
Hebrew. Perhaps this single manuscript contains a text translated from
the Aramaic original. This suggests that an intricate relationship existed
at the time between the two languages. 90
Another interesting feature to emerge from Qumran Pseudepigrapha
is the prominent place in the Aramaic texts assigned to works dealing
with the lives of the Patriarchs. Yet, unlike previous assertions, none of
these works is identical with the Greek Testaments of the Patriarchs transmitted
by Christian tradents. Thus, for instance, the Aramaic fragments previously
labeled the Testament of Levi (1Q21; 4Q213–214), the Testament of
Joseph (4Q539), the Testament of Judah (4Q538), or the Hebrew fragment
called Testament of Naphtali (4Q215), are not copies of the Greek corresponding
testaments. Rather, they may have been their sources. The
presence of such writings at Qumran, together with unknown works
related to other Patriarchs, attests to a literature about these biblical figures
flourishing during the Second Temple period. 91
The different literary forms employed by the Hebrew and Aramaic
compositions are clearly related to their respective different thematics.
Most of the Hebrew texts that rewrite and rework the Bible attach themselves
to periods subsequent to the Sinai revelation. In contrast, most of
the Aramaic compositions deal with pre-Sinaitic times and figures, or the
careers of Jews in the Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian diaspora. These
different orientations may have had to do with the notion that in antediluvian
and patriarchal times, knowledge of Hebrew, the sacred language,
was confined to a few individuals, and only at the revelation at
90. Cf. comments on this problem, Devorah Dimant, “4QApocryphon of Jeremiah:
Introduction” in Qumran Cave 4.XXI; Parabiblical Texts, part 4: Pseudo-Prophetic Texts (DJD
30; Oxford: Clarendon, 2001), 110.
91. Thus the Qumran library has yielded none of the Greek Testaments, only fragments
of what appear to be their Hebrew and Aramaic Jewish sources. A similar
observation is made by Jonas C. Greenfield, Michael E. Stone, and Esther Eshel. The
Aramiac Levi Dociment (SVTP 19; Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2004), 25–32.