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

156 EXCERPTED MANUSCRIPTS AT QUMRAN
Favoring Flint, Sanders, et al., is the consideration that such texts were
used and that use implies and manifests scriptural—that is, authoritative—
status. In a sense, then, both sides of the debate are correct. 11QPs a cannot
be considered “irrelevant to the issue of canon, since…it constituted a
liturgical collection.” 195 Liturgical collections in their construction and use
are, by definition, authoritative. This means that the two options offered
by Flint regarding 11QPs a —“True Psalter or Secondary Collection?”—are
too extreme and perhaps too facile. 196 The psalms texts can be “true”
psalters—if by that it is meant that they are functional, used, and authoritative—and,
simultaneously, be excerpted, abbreviated, rearranged, or
“secondary” collections. Is 11QPs a “canonical?” If it was used in authoritative
(“canonical”) fashion at Qumran, the answer is affirmative. Is
11QPs a (also) representative of a variant literary edition? Answering that
question is more complex. That the 11QPs a “edition” is also represented
in 4QPs e and 11QPs b , and perhaps also 4QPs b , may tip the balance
toward the affirmative. Here, that is, could be multiple exemplars of the
“edition.” 197 But, one might also use those same manuscripts to argue that
this particular liturgical construction was well known and well used—the “edition”
may not be a variant literary edition of a “biblical” text but a popular
liturgical edition of the psalms. In this understanding, the liturgical
construction would be representative of text-use and text-function not
text-type or text-family/edition. The issue, again, is one of adjudication
between options and the extensive text-critical apparatus must not be
overlooked or underestimated. In particular, the corpus of Flint’s work is
11QPs a (11Q5), insofar as it ends with Psalm 150. See Shemaryahu Talmon et al.,
Masada VI: Yigael Yadin Excavations 1963–1965: Final Reports (Jerusalem: Israel
Exploration Society, 1999), 91–97; and Strawn’s review of Flint, The Dead Sea Psalms
Scrolls, 148–49.
195. Tov, “Excerpted and Abbreviated,” 593, summarizing Talmon, Goshen-Gottstein,
Skehan, and Haran; my emphasis.
196. One of the problems seems to be that Flint conjoins the position that 11QPs a
(11Q5) is liturgical with a belief that the “MT-150” Psalter was already established.
While it may be true that most proponents of 11QPs a as a liturgical scroll have also
believed that the MT-150 Psalter was already established, the two elements are not necessarily
or logically connected. The MT-150 Psalter need not be entirely stabilized (it was,
in fact, probably not, as Flint has demonstrated) and 11QPs a could still be a liturgical
collection (cf., perhaps, excerpted Exodus scrolls [see Table 1] alongside the “multiple
editions” of Exodus [see Ulrich]). Cf. Davies, Scribes and Schools, 156 for some similar
points (not on the Psalms texts), and note Schuller, who also thinks that stating the
question as variant psalter or liturgical hymnbook is not the most helpful. She adds:
“It is to be noted that the recension with the most pronounced liturgical features exists
in only two copies from Cave 11” (“Prayer, Hymnic, and Liturgical Texts,” 165).
197. See Flint’s work, esp. “The ‘11QPs a -Psalter’ in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” 173–94;
idem, The Dead Sea Psalms Scrolls, 150–71.