the-bible-and-the-dead-sea-scrolls

174 THE COMMUNITY OF LAY READERS
scholars have contributed to the study of the Qumran Samuel texts, especially
Ulrich 30 and P. Kyle McCarter. 31 In spite of its obvious wear and
fragmented condition, 4QSam a is the best preserved of the biblical manuscripts
from Cave 4. Approximately 10 percent of the text of 1 and 2
Samuel is extant.
Like other books of the Bible discovered in the Judean Desert,
4QSam a has contributed to our knowledge of ancient biblical writing
materials as well as the practices of the scribes and their transmissional
errors, orthography, and paleography. More significantly, 4QSam a contributes
to biblical studies in the following six ways:
1. A number of the individual variant readings of 4QSam a establish that the
Old Greek Bible is based on a Vorlage that is similar to 4QSam a .
Professors Cross and Ulrich have demonstrated this in a number of publications.
Under the title “A New Qumran Biblical Fragment Related to
the Original Hebrew Underlying the Septuagint,” 32 Cross concludes:
Our fragment (4QSam a ) stands in the same general tradition as the
Hebrew text upon which the Septuagint was based. The divergences
between 4QSam a and LXX are sufficiently explained by the century or
so between the translation of Samuel into Greek, and the copying of our
MS, during which time there was certainly some cross-fertilization
between Hebrew textual traditions current in Palestine. 33
Although this statement was authored almost half a century ago, the
claim that the Old Greek Bible was translated from an ancestor of the
4QSam a text is still accepted by most scholars. This close connection
between the two texts often manifests itself. 34
Bible, 334–48; and in Qumran and the History of the Biblical Text, 278–92; and as “Der Beitrag
der Qumranfunde zur Erforschung des Bibeltextes,” in Qumran (ed. K. E. Grözinger et
al.; trans. E. Grözinger; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1981), 365–84;
idem, “‘Textual Notes’ on 1-2 Samuel,” in The New American Bible (Paterson, NJ: St.
Anthony Guild, 1970), 342–51; idem, “The Ammonite Oppression of the Tribes of Gad
and Reuben: Missing Verses from 1 Samuel 11 Found in 4QSamuel a ,” in History,
Historiography and Interpretation: Studies in Biblical and Cuneiform Literatures (ed. H. Tadmor
and M. Weinfeld; Jerusalem: Magnes, 1983), 148–58; repr., in The Hebrew and Greek Texts
of Samuel (ed. E. Tov; Jerusalem: Academon, 1980), 105–19.
30. Eugene C. Ulrich, “4QSam a and Septuagintal Research,” BIOSCS 8 (1975),
24–39; idem, The Qumran Text of Samuel and Josephus (HSM 19; Missoula, MT:
Scholars Press, 1978).
31. P. Kyle McCarter, Jr., II Samuel: A New Translation with Introduction, Notes and Commentary
(AB 9; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984).
32. Cross, “A New Qumrân Biblical Fragment,” 15–26.
33. Ibid., 23.
34. For a host of examples, see the variants set forth Cross et al., eds., Qumran Cave
4.XII: 1 and 2 Samuel (DJD 17).