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

JAMES C. VANDERKAM 473
imperative, or the use of the conjunction r#) to introduce an object
clause, or even a causal clause, in the sense of “because.” 22
As he properly notes, the last example could well point to an Aramaic
base text, as Aramaic yd bears both meanings. 23 As a word formation
that is “peculiarly Aramaic,” he cites txwb#t in 4QTob e 6.4. 24 Beyer had
drawn attention to a number of indicators that he thought showed the
non-Aramaic origin of the text:
Auffällig ist die häufige Fortsetzung eines Perfekts durch den Inf. absol. (4,
4; 10, 8; 11, 10f.; 13, 15). Der aramäische Text ist aus dem Hebräischen
übersetzt. Das beweist vor allem das unaramäische hn) )h “hier bin ich”
(6, 11; vgl. bt )n)h ; syr. cc )n) )h; hebr. ynnh), aber auch die Beihaltung
der hebräischen Wörter lyl) “Götzenbild” (14, 6) rwr) “verflucht” (13,
4), Nylht “Psalmen” (13, 10), )rq “ruf!” (5, 9) und hxp#m “Familie” (1,
22) und der unaramäischen Bezeichnung des Gottesnamens durch \\\[\]
(14, 2 4Q196; 4Q198 )hl), griechisch to_n qeo_n). 25
Michael Wise has also appealed to the use of the infinitive absolute in
place of a finite verb in the Hebrew copy as both idiomatic and surprising
“if this text is translation Hebrew, not least because one rarely
encounters the infinitive absolute at all in Qumran Hebrew.” 26 There are
five instances of this usage (2.2; 4.3; 5.2; 6.4; and frag. 7, col. 1, line 2),
itself an unexpectedly high number. One wonders whether it was not a
stylistic peculiarity of the person who translated the text.
Recensions of Tobit
Where the Qumran copies preserve passages in which the longer and
shorter Greek recensions differ they support the longer one. Milik had
drawn this conclusion at an early point in his study of the Tobit fragments.
He wrote in 1959:
Both the Hebrew and the Aramaic texts follow the longer recension, which
is that attested by the Codex Sinaiticus and by the Vetus Latina. Sinaiticus
is, however, corrupt, especially where homoeoteleuton causes two long omissions,
and comparison with the Qumrân texts here supports the recension
of the Vetus Latina; both are often the only witnesses to certain readings,
as, e.g., the seven sons of the young Tobiah (Tob 14.3). 27
22. Fitzmyer, “Aramaic and Hebrew Fragments,” 669.
23. Ibid., 669–70.
24. Ibid., 670.
25. Beyer, Ergänzungsband, 134.
26. Wise, “A Note on 4Q196,” 569n4.
27. Milik, Ten Years of Discovery, 31–32.