Expanded Team of Editors Hard at Work on Variety of Texts

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A new day has dawned in the world of Dead Sea Scrolls research. For the first time in more than 40 years, complete access to photographs of all the scrolls is available to all scholars. This situation, the culmination of more than a decade of administrative change and policy-making, was instituted by the Israel Antiquities Authority last fall. This article will acquaint the public with just how the scrolls will reach publication and with what is involved in working with the scrolls.

The Qumran Scrolls

The texts from Qumran can be divided into four categories:

1. Biblical texts. More than 190 Biblical scrolls were found in the Qumran caves. There is only one scroll, however, of a complete book, in this case a long one-the Isaiah text from Cave 1, named 1QIsa^a. Most of the fragmentary texts are small, containing no more than one-tenth of a Biblical book. Fragments have been found of all the Biblical books, except Esther and Nehemiah (however, in the Hebrew Bible Ezra-Nehemiah form one book, and a fragment of Ezra was found at Qumran).

The oldest Biblical manuscripts known before 1947 dated from a very late period in the transmission of the Biblical text—from the Middle Ages. The Qumran fragments of the Hebrew Bible go back to a time as early as the third century B.C.E., bringing our knowledge about the text of the Bible back more than 1,000 years, significantly closer to the time of composition of the books themselves.

2. Sectarian texts. The inhabitants of Qumran, usually identified as the Essenes, produced a vast body of their own literature, which we now call “sectarian” due to the nature of their community. Most of the lengthy sectarian documents have already been published, although significant fragments are now being prepared for publication.

3. Other Jewish compositions from the Second Temple period. These compositions were written by various Jewish groups outside of Qumran. In some cases, however, the origin—Qumranic or not—cannot be determined. Some of these compositions were known previously from the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible called the Septuagint (abbreviated LXX). These ancient compositions included in the LXX were eventually excluded from the canon of the Hebrew Bible. Traditionally, these books are called Apocrypha or deutero-canonical works. Other extra-Biblical works not included in the canon of the LXX have traditionally been called Pseudepigrapha. Examples of these—Epoch is the best known—were also found at Qumran. Still other books in this category are hitherto unknown Jewish works.

4. Nonliterary texts. Small fragments of some 30 nonliterary works, mainly lists and contracts, have also been found at Qumran.

Other Scrolls from the Judean Desert

In addition to the Qumran caves where inscriptional materials were discovered between 1947 and 1956—the Dead Sea Scrolls, in stricto sensu—other texts were discovered by Bedouin and archaeologists at a number of other sites, 072from the Wadi ed-Daliyeh north of Jericho to Masada in the south (see map of sites). The texts from these other sites are in various stages of the publication process and, with two exceptions, are not part of our team’s efforts or responsibilities. These exceptions are the manuscripts from Wadi ed-Daliyeh and Nahal Setelim, which will be included in the series called Discoveries in the Judaean Desert (DJD).

The texts from Wadi ed-Daliyeh consist of a large group of legal and administrative documents written in Aramaic on papyrus and sealed with clay bullae, dating from 375 to 335 B.C.E.^a

The texts reportedly derived from Nahal Se’elim (Wadi Seiyal) include fragments of Hebrew and Aramaic Biblical and legal documents, including contracts, deeds and writs of divorce, comprising more than 50 documents in all. In addition, five Nabatean contacts were found at this site. The star of the collection is a letter in Aramaic written to Bar-Kokhba, the leader of the Second Jewish Revolt against Rome (132–135 C.E.).

The Editorial Team

The tens of thousands of fragments of written material from the Judean Desert needed to be deciphered, sorted, catalogued, photographed, commented upon and sometimes translated. This enormous task was initially entrusted to a team of scholars that was too small. This resulted in an overlong delay in publication, often criticized, especially in the pages of this magazine. One should not forget, though, that the original team consisted of truly great scholars who devoted all their time to producing thorough and original work as seen in the eight published volumes of the Discoveries in the Judaean Desert series, the official publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls released by Clarendon Press at Oxford University, as well as in dozens of preliminary publications. Two further DJD volumes are now in press, and an additional 20 are scheduled to be submitted to the press over the next five years.

In order to obtain a reasonable pace of publication, significant reorganization has been undertaken. The previous editor in chief, John Strugnell, set the ball rolling by adding some 20 scholars to the international team. The present editor in chief (the author of this article), in collaboration with his colleagues Professor Eugene Ulrich of the University of Notre Dame and Monsieur L’Abbe Emile Puech of the École Biblique of Jerusalem, have enlarged the editorial team to 53. The invitation to join the team is issued by the Advisory Committee of the Israel Antiquities Authority upon suggestions made by the editor in chief. Proven expertise in publishing the difficult texts from Qumran remains the main criterion for inclusion of a scholar in this international enterprise.

The team of scholars now assigned to edit and publish the as-yet-unpublished scrolls from Qumran Caves 4 and 11 includes 40 men and 13 women. Half are senior scholars; half, junior scholars specializing in texts from the Judean Desert. The editors come from eight different countries. Although Jews were excluded in the past, the team now includes Catholic, Protestant and Jewish scholars.

Decipherment—The Key to the Texts

Decipherment is the major task facing the editors of the scrolls. Of necessity all the editors have become experts in reading these sometimes hardly legible texts. Some texts, of course, are more difficult than others. For example, in some fragments, the iron-based ink has corroded and eaten through the leather, creating the impression of a negative. At times this process has led to the disintegration of the leather itself.

Most of the Qumran documents are written in Hebrew; the second largest group is in Aramaic. A few are in Greek. Nabatean documents have also been found at some sites.

Two forms of Semitic script were used in the Qumran texts: the Aramaic or “square” script that the Jews brought back with them from the Babylonian Exile; and the so called paleo-Hebrew script, continuing the “early” Hebrew script, in which Hebrew documents had been written before the adoption of the square Aramaic script.

In addition, Qumran also presented scholars with two previously unknown scripts. A member of the initial team, J. T. Milik, at first identified them as one, dubbing them the Cryptic Script. They are now recognized as two scripts, Cryptic A and Cryptic B. Cryptic A has been deciphered, and editions of those texts are presently being prepared. Work is proceeding on the very fragmentary Cryptic B texts both as to the decipherment of the script and the content of the texts. The language of documents written in both scripts appears to be Hebrew.

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The Organization and Designation of the Texts

I have recently published a list of the unpublished texts from Qumran Caves 4 and 11, the only caves from which significant texts remain unpublished.^b The release of this list marks the end of an era of speculation surrounding the scrolls. This list of all the as-yet-unpublished documents from Qumran provides the following information: the sequential number in the list of the manuscripts of the Qumran inventory of Cave 4, such as 4Q201; the name of the composition, such as En^a (this stands for Enoch, copy a); previous sigla; the name(s) of the editor(s) of the text; references to preliminary publications of the text(s); and notes on the material on which the text is written (papyrus or leather), the language and the script. All these data were submitted to the editor in chief by the individual editors, who took great care in providing the most up-to date information available. An example of a listing appears in a footnote.^c

Obviously, these bare data give only minimal information about the unpublished texts. For those of us on the editorial team, however, the list tells a story of its own, and many of its details reveal aspects of the complicated and ever-changing nature of our enterprise.

Take, for example, the number of compositions on the list. How does one distinguish between two different compositions if all you have are two tiny fragments? Script—handwriting—is the main criterion for distinguishing between compositions. For example, what in the past was called 4QJer^b (Jeremiah, text b, from Cave 4) consisting of three different fragments, is now assigned to three different scrolls named 4QJer^b, 4QJer^d, and 4QJer^e, due to differences in script. Obviously, decisions are often very difficult. For example, if a scribe penned several manuscripts of similar or identical content on similar leather (and there is no reason to believe that this didn’t take place), fragments now assigned to a single 4Q number may in fact represent the remains of two or more different compositions. Because of these difficulties, the exact number of compositions represented in the Qumran fragments will never be known.

Another aspect illustrating the complicated nature of the editorial process is reflected in the occasional change of names of compositions. These names are part of the sigla designating individual compositions. Editors may change the name of a composition for a number of reasons.

1. At times, specific names of Qumran texts are replaced by more general appellations; for example, various documents named Mishmarot, “priestly courses” (a specific name), are now called Calendrical Documents (a more general name, given because not all fragments are concerned with the courses of the priests).

2. Many of the once general names are now more specific. A text once called “poetic fragment” (4Q448) is now called “Apocryphal Psalm (154) and Prayer (for Jonathan).”

3. Names are changed as a result of a better understanding of the major figures or topics featured in a specific fragment. Two of the fragments of 4QpsEzek (pseudo-Ezekiel) have become 4QApocrJer (Apocryphal Jeremiah, 4Q385, 387); other fragments previously named pseudo-Ezekiel are now called 4QpsMos (pseudo-Moses, 4Q385, 387, 388). Another one, now called 4Qproverbs (4Q560) may become 4QMagicText with continued study of the nature of that text.

4. At the same time, several documents retain at this stage such general names as “sapiential text,” “prayer,” “work containing prayers,” “liturgy” and “apocryphon.” These generic titles may be replaced by specific names as editorial work continues.

The Electronic Database

The benefits of the computer age have been brought to bear upon the enormous task of organizing and cataloguing the thousands of fragments yet unpublished. An electronic database is being prepared by Stephen Pfann of the Hebrew University. This will eventually enable scholars to work with the material much 074more easily. It is not difficult to imagine how hard it is to work with this material without the use of computers in light of the frequent changes in sigla and the arrangement of fragments, and the complicated photographic recording of the fragments. With regard to the latter, numerous photographs of the fragments were taken in the 1950s and early 1960s, as the fragments were sorted and arranged according to compositions and subsequently rearranged according to a renewed understanding of those compositions. This process was recorded at various stages by photographs taken time and again (mainly on infrared film) by the photographer of the Palestine Archaeological Museum (PAM). Later photographs were taken by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA). These series of photographs thus represent “generations” in the compilation and arrangement of the fragments of each manuscript.

The database is organized in such a way that information of different types is contained in various fields in the computer file. This allows the user to search for certain types of information in one field only or in all of them. One can sort according to special features, such as collecting all documents written in either the paleo-Hebrew script, Cryptic A or Greek. At the same time, information regarding paleographic dates, photographic numbers, editors, size of documents and number of fragments is also at hand.

Any Surprises in Store?

Much speculation has centered on what the unpublished texts contain. What follows are examples of especially significant texts among the unpublished corpus:

The most widely known and eagerly anticipated is the text known as MMT. The complete siglum is 4QMMT (4Q394-399). It is now in press as volume 10 of Discoveries in the Judaean Desert, by John Strugnell and Elisha Qimron. Preserved in six different manuscripts, MMT probably contains a letter by the leader of the Dead Sea Scroll community to an outside source and describes in great detail the differences in legal views between the sect and the outsiders, point by point. The views of the community are, as reflected here, so close to the Sadducees that it is now believed by many scholars that the Dead Sea Scroll community was either Sadducean or an offshoot of the Sadducees.

Another eagerly awaited publication is the pseudepigraphic Book of Jubilees (4Q216-227), hitherto known only from Latin and Ethiopic translations made from a no-longer-extant Greek translation of a Semitic text. Fragments of this Semitic text have now been found at Qumran in both Aramaic and Hebrew versions. The Book of Jubilees provides a rewritten text of the story of the Book of Genesis, with the years subdivided into groups of 50 years. Each 50th year was a Jubilee year.^d

Several sectarian documents in poetry and prose will give us further details of the intellectual and devotional world of the Qumran sect. These documents (4Q415-426) will expand what we know of the sect from the Manual of Discipline, the Damascus Covenant and the Biblical commentaries (pesharim).

A document with the siglum 4Q448 contains part of an apocryphal psalm, hitherto known only in Syriac (as Psalm 154), as well as a prayer for the well-being of King Jonathan. This is one of the few Qumran documents that contain the name of a historical figure. According to Esti and Hanan Eshel and Ada Yardeni, who are to publish this document, the text refers to the Jewish monarch Alexander Janneus, who reigned from 103 to 76 B.C.E.

Hitherto unknown lists of priestly courses, mishmarot (4Q320-330), now known as Calendrical Documents, are to be published soon by Shemaryahu Talmon and Israel Knohl. Some of these lists mention the priestly families that are to serve on certain days in the Temple. These manuscripts provide evidence of the sect’s calendar, which differed from that of other segments of the population in Palestine at the time.

The Book of Tobit (4Q196-199), one of the Apocrypha, hitherto known only in Greek translation, has now been found in different Aramaic manuscripts in Qumran.

The so-called Damascus Covenant, a sectarian document linked to the Qumran community and describing its history and laws, was hitherto known only from a copy found in the Cairo Genizah at the end of the last century.^e Fragments from at least eight manuscripts of that composition have been found in Cave 4, reinforcing the sectarian background of the composition.

The Biblical Manuscripts from Qumran

Because my special interest is the Biblical manuscripts, I would like to discuss them at somewhat greater length. Fragments of more than 190 Biblical scrolls were found in the 11 Qumran caves, most of them small. Isaiah is the exception: We have the full text of that book in the great Isaiah Scroll from Cave 1.

The script of the Biblical texts serves as the main criterion for distinguishing between the supposedly different copies even when only tiny fragments have been preserved. But one must be cautious in making an estimate of the number of the scrolls on the basis of small fragments. Two scribes could have written a single scroll; or the same scribe could have written more than one scroll.

Three of the scrolls—apparently Torah scrolls—contain two consecutive books.

Some Biblical books were especially popular among the Qumranites. There were 34 copies of the Book of Psalms found at Qumran, 27 copies of Deuteronomy (including two in paleo-Hebrew script), between 20 and 24 copies of Isaiah, as many as 20 copies of Genesis (three in paleo-Hebrew script) and 14 copies of Exodus (one in paleo-Hebrew script).

The Biblical manuscripts can be divided into five different groups, mostly on the basis of similar variations in each textual grouping.

Some texts are what we call proto-Masoretic. The Masoretic text is the so-called textus receptus among Jews. The fully developed Masoretic text, or MT as it is often called, was standardized in about the tenth century with its vocalization, accentuation and Masoretic apparatus of notes and comments. The proto-Masoretic texts from Qumran are examples of the Hebrew texts that lie behind MT. The special textual characteristic of these proto. Masoretic texts from Qumran is their agreement with the medieval MT. The proto-Masoretic texts constitute about 60 percent of 075the Qumran Biblical texts.

Some texts are pre-Samaritan texts, that is, these Qumran texts are very close to the Samaritan Pentateuch. It appears that one of them formed the basis of the Samaritan text.

The third group of Biblical texts is close to the presumed Hebrew source of the LXX. Although no text has been found in Qumran that is identical or even almost identical with the presumed Hebrew source of the LXX, a few texts are very close to it.

Together, the pre-Samaritan texts and the texts close to the presumed Hebrew source of the LXX constitute only about 5 percent of the Qumran Biblical texts.

About 20 percent of the Qumran Biblical texts are what we call texts written in the Qumran Practice. These texts are written in the Qumran system of orthography (spelling), morphology (linguistic features) and scribal practice and reflect a free approach to the Biblical text with adaptations of unusual forms to the context, frequent errors, numerous corrections and, sometimes, negligent script. These texts were probably written by one scribal school, possibly in Qumran. The large Isaiah Scroll from Cave 1, 1QIsa^a, is a good example of such a text.

The final group of Qumran Biblical texts are so-called nonaligned texts. Many texts are not exclusively close to any one of the textual groups mentioned above. These texts agree, sometimes significantly, with MT against the other texts, or they agree with the Samaritan Pentateuch and/or the LXX against the other texts, but the nonaligned texts also disagree with the other texts to the same extent. Furthermore, they contain readings not known from the other texts, so that they are not exclusively close to one of the other textual groups. This characterization is important when one tries to determine the full range of texts current in the Second Temple period.

The coexistence of all these different categories of texts in the Qumran caves is in itself noteworthy. The fact that all these different texts were found in the same Qumran caves probably reflects a certain textual reality in the period between the third century B.C.E. and the first century C.E. This situation may be described as textual plurality and variety reflected in the Biblical Qumran texts.

A few unpublished Biblical manuscripts are of special importance. Some small fragments of Jeremiah (4Q71-71a, 4QJer^b and 4QJer^d) contain a Hebrew text very similar to the LXX. Both the Qumran fragments and the Greek translation differ in major details from MT. This text is much shorter, by one-sixth, and the sequence of the verses and chapters sometimes differs. These deviating texts reflect a different edition of the Book of Jeremiah, not just a different text.

An important text of Samuel (4Q51, 4QSam^a) is in many details superior to the traditional text, which is often defective.

A Final Word

The greatly expanded editorial team is now in position, with each member striving diligently to produce a quality official publication in accordance with our timetable. Interested scholars may now freely access photographs of those texts needed for research or simply because of a desire to see them. Through our list, scholars also know in a general way what they may expect from the as-yet-unpublished texts. Additional projects, such as the electronic database, are underway to aid the worldwide scholarly community’s entry into the rich but complex maze of Dead Sea Scroll study. It is a good time for the scrolls. It is a good time for scholars.

A new day has dawned in the world of Dead Sea Scrolls research. For the first time in more than 40 years, complete access to photographs of all the scrolls is available to all scholars. This situation, the culmination of more than a decade of administrative change and policy-making, was instituted by the Israel Antiquities Authority last fall. This article will acquaint the public with just how the scrolls will reach publication and with what is involved in working with the scrolls. The Qumran Scrolls The texts from Qumran can be divided into four categories: 1. Biblical texts. More […]