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“slightly corrupt,” 23 “particularly faulty,” 24 “incomplete and difficult,” 25 or
of “poor repair.” 26 We must read and understand such statements in their
full context.
I will not attempt to repeat the lengthy discussions of the nineteenthand
twentieth-century textual critics concerning the textual weaknesses of
the books of Samuel in the Masoretic textual family; rather, I refer to
Driver’s summary. 27
DISCOVERY OF THE QUMRAN SAMUEL TEXTS
In September 1952, archaeologists Roland de Vaux and Lankester
Harding unearthed three manuscripts of Samuel 28 in Qumran Cave 4,
now known as 4QSam a , 4QSam b , and 4QSam c . 4QSam a was buried
under more than three feet of deposit. Its darkened leather was reinforced
with glued papyrus backing, an indication that the scroll was well worn
before its deposit. In 1953, Professor Frank Moore Cross cleaned the
fragments, sorted and arranged them onto museum plates, and published
representative fragments. In subsequent years, he presented other parts
of 4QSam a to various audiences, both scholarly and popular. 29 Other
23. Tov, Textual Criticism, 161.
24. Frank M. Cross, “A New Qumrân Biblical Fragment Related to the Original
Hebrew Underlying the Septuagint,” BASOR 132 (1953): 15–26, esp. 24.
25. Harry M. Orlinsky, “The Textual Criticism of the Old Testament,” in The Bible
and the Ancient Near East: Essays in Honor of William Foxwell Albright (ed. G. Ernest Wright;
Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1961), 120.
26. P. Kyle McCarter, Jr., I Samuel: A New Translation with Introduction, Notes and
Commentary (AB 8; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1980), 5.
27. Adapted from Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text, xxxviii, who draws upon a presentation
by Professor Kirkpatrick in 1885 at Portsmouth.
28. Publications dealing with 4QSam b (= 4Q52) include Frank M. Cross, “The
Oldest Manuscripts from Qumran,” JBL 74 (1955): 147–72; repr., in Qumran and the
History of the Biblical Text (ed. F. M. Cross and S. Talmon; Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1975), 147–76; and Frank M. Cross and Donald W. Parry, “A
Preliminary Edition of a Fragment of 4QSam b (4Q52),” BASOR 306 (1997): 63–74;
Eugene C. Ulrich, “4QSamuel c : A Fragmentary Manuscript of 2 Samuel 14–15 from
the Scribe of the Serek Hay-yahad (1QS),” BASOR 235 (1979): 1–25, a preliminary
report on the full text of 4QSam c (= 4Q53). The three manuscripts—4QSam a (=
4Q51), 4QSam b (= 4Q52) and 4QSam c —are in Qumran Cave 4.XII: 1 and 2 Samuel (ed.
F. M. Cross et al.; DJD 17; Oxford: Clarendon, 2005); F. M. Cross, D. W. Parry, and
Richard J. Saley are the editors of 4QSam a and 4QSam b , and E. Ulrich is the editor
of 4QSam c .
29. Frank M. Cross, “The Contribution of the Qumrân Discoveries to the Study of
the Biblical Text,” IEJ 16 (1966): 81–95; repr., in The Canon and Masorah of the Hebrew