historical perspectives: from the hasmoneans to bar kokhba in light ...

26 DAVID GOODBLATT
literature may involve issues of calendar and angelology. In sum, the
only frequently occurring book which I have difficulty explaining as
a performance text is Tobit, and this work is at the low end of the
frequency list.
Assuming that we are dealing with performance texts, it is also
possible to suggest reasons why Psalms, Deuteronomy, and Isaiah
occur in the most exemplars. Other compositions like Shirot 0lat
Hashabbat, 4QBerakhot, and Hodayot show the importance of hymns at
Qumran. The book of Psalms was the model and inspiration for
these compositions and thus the most likely source of hymns read
out loud. Deuteronomy is perhaps the most suitable of all the books
of the Pentateuch for public recitation. It has the highest concentration
of homiletic material and rhetorical embellishment. For example,
it is the book that contributed the Shema, the emergent central
prayer of Judaism. The suitability of Isaiah, with its poetic style and
variety of themes, for public reading is also obvious. Less clear is
why it was considered more suitable than Jeremiah or the Twelve
Prophets. But it is worth noting that Isaiah provides more hqftorah
readings, i.e., lections from the second of the three parts of the
Hebrew Bible known as the Prophets, than any other book. 53 Finally,
Ulrich points that these three books are also the ones most frequently
cited in the New Testament. 54 This could mean no more than that
Psalms, Deuteronomy, and Isaiah were the most widely available
manuscripts. After all, those who wrote the New Testament were literate.
However, it might also indicate that these three books were
the most familiar to the nonliterate earliest followers of Jesus, and
that they were most familiar because they were most often read
aloud. It is probably coincidental that the one book, in addition to
"Moses/the Law," that the New Testament mentions by name as
read in a synagogue is Isaiah—but perhaps not!
To sum up, the finds at Qumran give us for the first time a large
collection of books from Second Temple times. In view of the evi-
53 See the chart in L. Jacobs, "Torah, Reading of, History of," EJ 15 (1971):
1250. Isaiah supplies fifteen, followed by eleven from Kings, eight from the Twelve
Prophets, seven from Jeremiah, and five from Ezekiel. See also the chart for the
holiday lections, EJ 15 (1971): 1251. Isaiah leads there as well with six, but the
distribution is much more even: Kings, Ezekiel, and the Twelve supply five each
and Samuel provides four.
54 E. Ulrich, "The Bible in the Making: The Scriptures at Qumran," in Community
of the Renewed Covenant, 79.