174*. “The Greek Biblical Texts from the Judean Desert,” The Bible as Book: London: British Library and Oak Knoll Press in association with The Scriptorium: 2003), 97–122. Revised version: Emanuel Tov, Hebrew Bible, Greek Bible, and Qumran (2008), 339–64 (original) (raw)
Related papers
160. “The Nature of the Greek Texts from the Judean Desert,” NovT 43 (2001): 1–11
1. The evidence 1 The Greek texts found in the Judean Desert constitute merely a small part of the texts found in the area, which are best known for the Hebrew and Aramaic texts, especially the texts found at Qumran. However, the Greek texts are by no means negligible, since in several sites their number equals that of the Hebrew/Aramaic texts, and in one site they even constitute the majority. Thus, while for Qumran in general the number of the Greek texts may be negligible, for cave 7 it is not, since all 19 items found in this cave constitute Greek papyri. This cave thus witnesses activity in the Greek language, but only literary activity, since probably all the fragments found in this cave are non-documentary. Turning now to absolute numbers of texts, a word of caution is in order. Obviously we can only refer to the numbers of the texts which have survived, but as we will turn to statistics, it should be recognized that there is no reason why Greek texts should have perished into a larger or smaller degree than the other documents. Comparative statistics of the various texts found should therefore be considered legitimate. The majority of the texts found in the Judean Desert are Semitic,
At this juncture, it is advisable, I think, to give a brief update regarding the so-called unpublished texts from the Judean Desert. I use the term "so-called unpublished texts," since the terms "published" and "unpublished" mean different things to different people. For scholars, any responsible transcription of a text, together with an apparatus of notes and accompanying photographs, is considered a publication. Such a publication may appear in a dissertation, an article in a scholarly journal, or a book. All these publications provide the public with the essential information needed for further study of the texts under consideration. On another level, however, these publications are considered preliminary, since all the Qumran texts, and actually most texts from the Judean Desert, are to appear in the official publication, namely DJD, Discoveries in the Judaean Desert, published by Oxford University Press. That series is to contain the official publication of all the texts, the editio princeps. Things get a little complicated, however, since the editio princeps may be preceded by preliminary publications, and are often followed by re-editions. The usual course would be that the publication in the DJD series improves on preliminary editions, if any, and that re-editions subsequent to DJD improve on DJD.
THE UNPUBLISHED TEXTS FROM THE JUDEAN DESERT
At this juncture, it is advisable, I think, to give a brief update regarding the so-called unpublished texts from the Judean Desert. I use the term "so-called unpublished texts," since the terms "published" and "unpublished" mean different things to different people. For scholars, any responsible transcription of a text, together with an apparatus of notes and accompanying photographs, is considered a publication. Such a publication may appear in a dissertation, an article in a scholarly journal, or a book. All these publications provide the public with the essential information needed for further study of the texts under consideration. On another level, however, these publications are considered preliminary, since all the Qumran texts, and actually most texts from the Judean Desert, are to appear in the official publication, namely DJD, Discoveries in the Judaean Desert, published by Oxford University Press. That series is to contain the official publication of all the texts, the editio princeps. Things get a little complicated, however, since the editio princeps may be preceded by preliminary publications, and are often followed by re-editions....
The mid-twentieth century discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls helped bridge the troublesome gap between the Hebrew Masoretic Text and the Greek Septuagint. The Dead Sea Scrolls were likely the products of a late Second Temple sect centered around Qumran, an Essenic community that had forsaken the Temple for the wilderness in order to wait out the remaining days in ritual purity until God would finally visit the land of Israel in wrath and judgment. The texts these eschatologically-minded Zadokites left behind can be reliably dated to the second and first centuries BCE, closer to the time of compilation for the Hebrew Bible, and much closer indeed to the creation of the Septuagint. Among the nearly a thousand scrolls and scroll fragments recovered, almost a quarter of them are copies of Scripture — a whopping 213 pre-Common Era manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible. What’s more, approximately 27 of the over 900 texts found at Qumran are in Greek themselves, and the vast majority of them are in fact Greek Scripture, including fragments of Exodus and Leviticus in Greek. All of these texts are unique in that they wholly confirm neither the Septuagint nor the MT’s reading, and even sometimes disagree with one another. What does this mean for understanding the relationship between the Septuagint, or LXX, reading of Scripture and the hypothetical earliest reading? I’ll seek to provide an answer to that question in this paper by analyzing both the Greek texts found at Qumran as well as some of the most influential Hebrew Scriptural texts that speak to the disputed LXX readings. However, over the course of this paper, another larger question will also be held in play: what can the evidence from the Judean desert tell us about the usage of Greek in Second Temple Judaism, and of the emerging practice of translation as a way of developing Judaism in diaspora?