Books in Brief

004

The Damascus Document Reconsidered

Magen Broshi, editor

(Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society and Shrine of the Book, 1992) 83 pp., $20.00

This book is a harbinger of things to come. It illustrates the first-rate scholarship that is burgeoning in Dead Sea Scroll research. It also illustrates the cooperative efforts of top scholars working together to make these ancient texts accessible to all.

The subject is a document that has been characterized as “the first Dead Sea Scroll,”^a a sobriquet adopted by Magen Broshi, curator of the Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem, in his graceful introduction. In fact, the document was not found in the Dead Sea caves. It was found in the genizah (storeroom) of a Cairo synagogue 50 years before the first Dead Sea Scroll was discovered. Today, it is called the Damascus Document. Two partial copies were found in the Cairo Genizah. Then at least eight fragmentary copies were discovered in the Qumran caves. That is why it is called “the first Dead Sea Scroll.” The fragments from the Dead Sea caves more than double the extant text of the document.

It is a terribly important document. Many scholars believe it is the most significant text yet discovered relating to the origin of the Dead Sea Scroll sect. Equally important, about two-thirds of the document consists of laws of the sect, a gold mine for scholars trying to understand the varieties of Judaism at the turn of the era, out of which both rabbinic Judaism and Christianity emerged.

The jewel of the book is a meticulous transcription by Elisha Qimron, of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beer-Sheva, of the two copies of the Damascus Document from the Cairo Genizah, now in the Cambridge University Library. Remarkable photographs of the manuscripts, taken by G. D. Bye, head of the library’s photography department, accompany Qimron’s transcription on facing pages. The painstaking transcription includes even the spacing of the original, while notes provide variations contained in the eight fragmentary copies from Qumran as well as Qimron’s suggestions to correct the readings in the genizah manuscripts. To make his transcription, Qimron studied not only these pellucid photographs but also the original manuscripts—in both ordinary and ultraviolet light.

The Qumran fragments of the Damascus Document were originally assigned to J. T. Milik for publication. They have recently been reassigned to Joseph Baumgarten of Baltimore Hebrew University in Baltimore, Maryland. He gives us a preview of the contents of these fragments, totaling 689 lines. About half (47 percent) parallels the Cairo Genizah text; the other half is new.

The Damascus Document consists of an introduction known as the Admonition, followed by halakhic (pertaining to religious laws) regulations. In the Admonition, the Pharisaic opponents of the Qumran sect are denounced for “seeking smooth things” and for “turning from the paths of righteousness.” Most of the laws that follow are not stated polemically, however, as they are in the document known as MMT (Miqsat Ma’aseh ha-Torah),^b but quite objectively. They cover everything from a ban on slaughtering pregnant animals to a prohibition on conjugal intercourse during pregnancy—so much for the commonly held misconception that all Essenes were celibate. A section on skin diseases contains some of the earliest references to the movement of blood through the body—a fact likely to surprise students of the history of medicine. Another law prohibits a father from giving his daughter in marriage to an incompatible husband; this would be tantamount to plowing with animals of different species, which is prohibited in Deuteronomy 22:10. Thus was the Oral Law derived from Scripture.

At the end of the text is a ritual for the expulsion of those who reject the laws of the community.

Surprisingly, the Cairo Genizah texts of the document, which are medieval copies, are proving to be remarkably accurate when compared to the Qumran copies. In short, medieval copies of rabbinic documents may be more reliable than has previously been thought.

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The final section of this book consists of a bibliography of Damascus Document studies from 1970 to 1989 prepared by Florentino García Martínez of the Qumran Institute at Gröningen, the Netherlands, which brings nearly up to date an earlier bibliography prepared by Joseph A. Fitzmyer of the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

All in all, this is a significant addition to the scholar’s bookshelf.

The Music of the Bible Revealed

Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura, 2nd French ed. [1978], trans Dennis Weber; ed. John Wheeler

(Berkeley, CA: BIBAL Press, 1991) 576 pp., $29 95, paperback

Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura claims to have reconstructed the melodies to which the Psalms, the Song of Songs and the rest of the Hebrew Bible were originally sung. She does this by proposing a novel interpretation of the te>aµmim (pronounced teh-ah-MEEM), the punctuation marks found in the Hebrew text. Both Jewish tradition and modern scholarship regard these marks primarily as indicators of syntactical information, markers for the places where a reader should pause at the end of verses, clauses and phrases of varying importance, as well as for places where there should be no pause. But the Bible is not read aloud in a speaking voice in the traditional synagogue; instead it is sung, a practice known as cantillation. Therefore the te>aµmim also serve as a kind of musical notation, with each punctuation sign representing a specific phrase of melody that the reader applies to the words of the scriptural text. Jewish communities around the world use different melodies, but all use the same written signs, called the Tiberian system. This system was brought to its final form by the Masoretes^c between the eighth and tenth centuries C.E.,^d though these scholars built on earlier traditions.

Haïk-Vantoura claims that the Tiberian signs have been misunderstood for centuries, and she proposes a new “key” to deciphering their original musical meaning. Her credentials do not inspire confidence, for she is neither a Biblical nor a musical scholar but rather an organist by profession. Having no training in Biblical scholarship, she assumes the Psalms were composed by David and the Torah by Moses, and accepts historical statements in the Bible at face value. With no training in historical musicology, she assumes that Pope Gregory I established Gregorian chant, that Christian music derives from that of the synagogue and that ancient cultures recognized the same “eternal principles of musical value” as modern musicians. Unlike most scholarly authors, she writes in an exuberant style full of rhetorical questions and exclamations; anticipating opposition, she includes ten pages of “Comments of Noted Personalities,” mostly polite demurrers misconstrued as endorsements. But unqualified amateurs have occasionally made important discoveries, so this book can be judged fairly only on the basis of the argument it makes.

In fact her argument is essentially circular. Haïk-Vantoura regards the traditional cantillation melodies as having “no movement, no joy, no ‘life,’ … no soul”; “they ravage the texts” and “are devoid of the charm and natural expression of all music worthy of the name.” Hence they could not possibly be the affective tunes sung by David or the Levites. Mock-historical support for this personal prejudice is supplied by a series of spurious arguments: The Tiberian system of te>aµmim is too complicated to be primarily syntactical in meaning, and purely syntactical signs could never have developed a musical significance unless they had had one from the beginning. Since the Masoretes themselves did not recognize this, they could not have invented the Tiberian system, but must have been transmitting a much older musical tradition, which they had failed to understand. This could not have been a merely oral tradition, because an oral tradition could not have preserved the original melodies of the Bible very accurately. Therefore it must have involved the use of chironomy, a system of hand gestures that convey musical meaning, like those that can be seen in ancient Egyptian paintings of musicians. Though little information about ancient Hebrew chironomy survives, it is “child’s play,” asserts Haïk-Vantoura, to reconstruct the gestures from the shapes and names of the te>aµmim. From these names and shapes, it is “obvious” that each sign represents a pitch on a scale, or an ornamental modification of a pitch indicated by another sign. The scale itself can be reconstructed “with the greatest of ease” since “it is necessitated by the meaning of the passage.” In other words, the correct pitches will “confer on each word, each syllable, an appropriate color,” while a word set to the wrong pitch will seem “insipid” or “quite ‘pale!’” (emphases in original). The accuracy of this “systematic deciphering” finds “amazing confirmation” in that it “resurrects a majestic, awe-inspiring music, melodically radiant, corresponding perfectly to the transcendence of the verbal text, … expressive and beautiful,” unlike the debased chant now performed in synagogues. “One has only to hear it to be persuaded.” By this criterion, finally, it is evident that over the centuries many te>aµmim have come to be omitted or displaced to the wrong syllables; these can now be corrected accordingly and the original beauty of the melodies restored.

The evidence adduced to support these assertions is consistently unimpressive, culled from secondary sources that are frequently decades old and often inaccurately cited. Half-understood tidbits from Greek, Latin, Etruscan, Armenian, Near Eastern, Chinese and Indian cultures are paraded triumphantly with little regard for their geographic or chronological distance from ancient Israel. The author has read no primary sources in the original languages, is completely uninformed about ancient and medieval music theory and has overlooked much of the recent scholarly literature on the te>aµmim, including almost all publications in languages other than her native French.”

“It is difficult to think that such music, rooted in the same principles as ours, could have been created some twenty-five centuries ago,” she crows, and indeed it is. For what Haïk-Vantoura has really done is to impose her own thoroughly modern musical preferences on the te>aµmim. Because modern presuppositions (such as the harmonic implications of pitches in the modern scale) were read into the te>aµmim, the results cannot fail to be consistent with these same presuppositions. Any series of random symbols could have been “deciphered” with comparable results. One may still enjoy the melodies that Haïk-Vantoura has presented in this and in her other publications and recordings, but her claim to have “revealed” the original “music of the Bible” is utterly untrue.

Archaeology and the Bible

Jonathan M. Tubb and Rupert L. Chapman, editors

(London: British Museum Publications, 1990) 112 pp., £7.95

The four concise essays in this book provide a British view of archaeology in the Holy Land during the last 150 years—particularly the accomplishments under the auspices of the Palestine Exploration Fund and the British Museum—without completely overlooking non-British archaeologists. The essays, written by Chapman, Tubb and Peter G. Dorrell, focus on the implications of archaeological results for our understanding of the Bible.

The results of this worthy endeavor are 008generally commendable. Chapman’s essay, “Pioneers of Biblical Archaeology,” recalls the pioneering work of Charles W. Wilson and Charles Warren in Jerusalem; of E. H. Palmer, F. W. Holland and C. F. Tyrwhitt Drake’s explorations in the Sinai, all in the late 1860s; and of Claude R. Conder and H. H. Kitchener’s survey of Western Palestine, published in 1881 through 1884. Chapman also includes Flinders Petrie and Frederick J. Bliss’ work at Tell el-Hesy, as well as that of other major figures in Palestinian archaeology from 1890 to the outbreak of World War I. The hardships under which many of these early excavators worked were daunting; their tenacity and determination, awe-inspiring. The book’s excellent photos help bring to life former generations of archaeologists.

Peter G. Dorrell’s brief contribution, “Geographical Background to the Holy Land,” provides an important perspective on geology, geography and climate, so necessary for understanding both the Bible and archaeology. Surprisingly, the map that should accompany this essay appears at the beginning of the book, apart from the essay, and bears a legend—Map of the Levant Showing Geographical Features—that is misleading since only the part of the Levant south of Tyre and Damascus is illustrated.

Jonathan Tubb’s first essay, “Biblical Archaeology: A Synthesis and Overview,” concisely surveys the Neolithic through the Greco-Roman eras, ending with the Second Jewish Revolt against Rome (132–135 A.D.). This straightforward account notes, for example, the problem of the “Early Bronze IV Interlude,” a time when pronounced changes in the material culture, settlement patterns and economy distinguished the period from that of the preceding EB III. It was caused by the demise of urbanization due to an economic recession during the First Intermediate Period in Egypt (c. 2200–2000 B.C.), when Palestinian products lost their Egyptian markets.

The Hyksos are duly noted as Canaanites who moved into the Delta region of Egypt. Tubb leaves open the question of an Israelite Exodus and conquest of Canaan, but follows the current trend of connecting the rise of Israel largely to the increase of dispossessed and homeless Canaanites. Changes in Egyptian policies within Canaan at the close of the Late Bronze Age forced the Canaanites to seek refuge in the hill country.

In the final essay, “Excavations at Tell es-Sa’idiyeh,” Tubb reports on the British Museum’s current project in the region, the excavation that he directs at Tell es-Sa’idiyeh, located in the central Jordan Valley east of the Jordan River, perhaps the location of biblical Zarethan (Joshua 3:16; 1 Kings 7:46).

Sixty illustrations, three maps and a chronological table aid the general reader in this gallant attempt to cover a broad topic within 112 pages.

Art and Holy Powers in the Early Christian House

Eunice Dauterman Maguire, Henry P. Maguire and Maggie J. Duncan-Flowers

(Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1989) 251 pp., 8 color plates, 53 figures, 151 photographs, $24 95, paper

The visible world of physical reality and the invisible world of spiritual reality, with all its “beneficent powers and malevolent demons,” are interwoven in Art and Holy Powers in the Early Christian House. This illustrated book, published in conjunction with a 1989–1990 touring exhibit of the same name, presents the ordinary domestic art of the early Christian period (third to seventh centuries A.D.). It is a fascinating collection, too large to comment upon in detail, representing a rich and extremely varied assortment of daily objects from Egypt, Ravenna and Rome in Italy, Palestine, Syria, Gaul, Tunisia and Constantinople.

The authors organize 151 objects into nine categories, according to their function: furnishings, lighting, storage and security, eating and drinking, clothing, jewelry, grooming, health and play.

The introduction, a valuable addition to the literature of everyday culture in the Byzantine period, discusses the book’s theme—the interpenetration of the physical and spiritual worlds—and 15 motifs that appear in the art. Some of these motifs will be familiar to modern readers, such as figures of saints, the cross and Biblical scenes; others may be surprising, such as “women who bring wealth,” “the rayed serpent” and “the holy rider.” The authors explain that the figure of the holy rider—the horseman slaying a foe—emerged in pagan art; St. George slaying the dragon is a medieval adaptation of the motif.

One elaborate bronze medallion, from fifth- or sixth-century Syria or Palestine, exemplifies the intriguing combination of Christian and magical motifs. The front of the medallion seems more or less orthodox, depicting an angel, a haloed horseman (whose spear ends in a cross) and the monster that he slays. The Greek inscription reads “One God Who Conquers Evils.” A quotation from Psalm 91:1–2a—“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High, who abides in the shadow of the Almighty, will say to the Lord, ‘My refuge and my fortress’”—appears around the border. On the reverse side, however, two registers of 010magical symbols appear along with the enthroned Christ and the four beasts of the apocalypse. The magic registers consist of six mysterious signs above a lion, a scorpion (or crab) and a snake. Several written characters look like Hebrew (although the authors do not point this out) but appear to spell nonsense. The Greek inscription reads “Seal of the living God, protect from every evil the bearer of the charm.”

The textiles in the collection are especially fascinating because so little cloth has been preserved. The authors explain the process of weaving ancient cloth and the high value that was placed on cloth items—household items such as blankets, hangings, cushion covers, tapestries, curtains and carpets, and articles of clothing such as tunics, cloaks and shawls. The collection features two intact tunics and five wool and linen tunic decorations from the seventh and eighth centuries, wool and linen tapestry panels from the sixth century and a fourth-century roundel. All are colorfully decorated with human and animal figures, crosses, plants and geometric designs.

The book is not without its flaws. For example, the authors always interpret the name “IAO” on amulets as “Jehovah,” when it is also the name of a Gnostic deity depicted as a man with snake legs. They ignore the fact that the Palestine Archaeological Museum in Jerusalem is now called the Rockefeller Museum. Although the authors are familiar with the work of Varda Sussman in BAR (“Lighting the Way Through History: The Evolution of Oil Lamps,” BAR 11:02), they do not seem to know another relevant work: Renate Rosenthal and Renee Sivan’s Ancient Lamps in the Schloessinger Collection (Qedem 8 [1978]).

Art and Holy Powers in the Early Christian House is very poorly cross-referenced to similar items in Israel, and its discussions of some individual pieces are not as thorough as one might have hoped. Yet despite these shortcomings, this book is one of the most valuable published collections of Christian Byzantine art from daily life in the eastern Mediterranean. Perhaps its publication will inspire someone to assemble, exhibit and publish the corresponding items for Jewish and other Byzantine cultures.

The Damascus Document Reconsidered

Magen Broshi, editor

(Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society and Shrine of the Book, 1992) 83 pp., $20.00