Qumran results: some notes

koot van wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD)

Kyungbook National University

Sangju Campus

South Korea

Conjoint lecturer of Avondale College

Australia

16 March 2010

Qumran manuscripts were discovered first in 1947 and since then many other manuscripts were discovered in other nearby caves as well.

What exactly is the relationship of these manuscripts to the Bible like the KJV or the RSV or NIV? For this matter, we make a number of observations about Qumran, listing some results that we have experienced from Qumran.

When we use the term biblical texts at Qumran, not all of them are Bible texts since they only make reference to the Bible. Investigation of texts at Qumran convinced this researcher that there was an authoritative text or a concept of an authoritative text at Qumran. The text 4QJera demonstrates this endeavor to correct towards an authoritative text. This text, is in this researcher's definition, "Bible". Any deviation of a text from the "Bible text" in the sense of length, omissions, additions, reformulations, and paraphrases, should be considered not with a formal investigation but with a functional investigation.

Form and Function of a text

The rules we apply when we make a formal investigation is different than the rules that we apply to investigate a text from a functional point of view. With a formal text, we have to look how wide or how narrow the differences are to a standard text that we defined. The modus operandi is a one-standard text analysis. With the functional text, the form was made secondary, since the primary focus of the scribe was to create a biblical text that could be used as a hymnal, prayerbook, educational tool or other functions.

Many texts from Qumran appear to be similar to a "Bible text" but on closer investigation, it was found that it was not intended to stand in the space of an authoritative text but rather the intention was to apply the text to a specific context. Such was the case with 4QPhyl J, which is a copy of a pericope from Deuteronomy 5 and 6 but the number of omissions, change in the order of the verses and intentional spaces demonstrate that this text was to fulfil a role not in control checking the corrections of a copy of a "Bible text", but to fulfil a role in the prayer life of an individual or group.

There is not an equal value between a formal "Bible text" and a functional "Bible text".

With a formal Bible text, the focus of the copyist is on the exact and correct reproduction of what is in front of him. In a functional Bible text the focus of the copyist is on the role-play of an individual or audience and the Bible text is adapted to assist in the current communicative event of that time. In the formal Bible text the copyist attempts to reproduce the past as it is in front of him, but in the functional Bible text the copyist attempts to satisfy social needs of his time, and the Bible text is only instrumental towards that satisfying attempt.

Past Qumran research did not sufficiently distinguish between these two aspects of Bible texts. That is why E. Tov et al is suggesting that there was a "fluid" concept of biblical text in the Second Temple period (Tov 1992).

The conventional view of a plurality of texts during the Second Temple Period can be turned around: if one text was not important in the Hellenistic and Early Roman periods to the Jewish community, why did some Qumran scribes find it necessary to correct their product towards a specific textual tradition?

Para-biblical text

A para-biblical text at Qumran will be any biblical text that does not intend to have an authoritative form that must function to control check other copies. Para-biblical texts are thus texts like 4QPhyl J; 4Q248; 4QSama (contra F. M. Cross) and 4QJerd (contra E. Tov 1992).

Multiplicity of texts at Qumran?

A quick glance at Qumran may give an uninformed scholar the impression that the fragments of Qumran is characterized by their variety. The formal variety may create the impression of a plurality of texts, but that is not correct. The correction towards one tradition (especially towards the consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition) emphasize to us that there was an authoritative "form" not "forms".

When we do see a multiplicity of forms (longer form, shorter form, adaptations etc.) then these are cases where the form was subordinated to the function of the text. The authoritative form in these cases have become an authoritative function and no longer an authoritative form. If a modern scholar misses to distinguish this point, a plurality of texts at Qumran will be promulgated. If the scholar belongs to a church or religious movement where a plurality of texts are promulgated for their canon, or where they are not sure about what "Bible" is, then a plurality of texts will be the result of their investigation. Is that right? No. There is a standard authoritative Hebrew text and that text is the Codex Aleppo of 1008 CE and one can find it represented in 4QDana 99.9% the same.

Some have argued that because there are 172 cases where the Vulgate agrees with 1QIsaa (Isaiah scroll from cave One), therefore it proves that the "Vulgate kind" as opposed to the consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition also existed at Qumran. Thus, a plurality of texts, thus a fluidity of texts in the Second Temple period. Not so.

Canceling the plurality of texts at Qumran with a control

Here is the test case: if one compares the copy practices of Hebrew manuscripts in the Middle Ages (Kennicott lists) then one finds exactly the same scribal errors by oversight and other reasons in those manuscripts that one finds in the Isaiah scroll of cave One. There is also: singular to plural; copulative waw added or omitted; ligature misreadings: /b/ as an /m/, /w/ as /b/, /y/ as /t/, /h/ as /w/, or /t/ as /y/, or /m/ as /b/; scripto plena or defectiva; addition of prepositions. All these cases are present in manuscripts of the Hebrew that were copied between 1200-1500 CE. Since the Middle Age manuscript errors are the same as the Qumran errors, we can only conclude that defective scribal practices are to be blamed, not a manuscript tradition or a different form of tradition of the text.

The modus operandi that the scribe is translating with, direct copying, copying by dictation or copying by memory are three avenues that will result in its own set of common human errors. It is not a fluidity of texts in this period. It is not a variety of traditions [pro-versional (Latin Vetus Latina, Vulgate, Targum etc.) form], [pro-Greek form], [pro-consonantal text of the Masoretic text form], [pro-Samaritan form] that existed side by side here. Not at all. 

The strong connection with the versional forms are there but the Qumran manuscript is defective for the same reason as the Kennicott lists of variants are defective between 1200-1500 CE for the Hebrew manuscrips of the consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition. It is a nice correlate to investigate. The same modus operandi that caused the Middle Age period scribe to commit his errors must have been also operative at Qumran with those manuscipts. 

It is thus not so much a "second Isaiah tradition" that is in circulation here at Qumran next to the "first Isaiah tradition" but it is a scribal praxis of a single scribe that contaminated all other manuscripts in deviation with the consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition through cross-mutation. Slips of the ear, eye, hand, memory, tongue were reproduced and passed on.

4QJudga and its variants

When you study the fragment of 4QJudga for example, you have to ask yourself whether the variants are due to an early literary history of the book of Judges or whether the form should be subordinated to that of the consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition due to slips of the scribe and or adapting the form to function. This researcher opted for the last scenario. This is against E. Tov and T. Barrera et al.

Dear God

There are people who wants to throw doubt upon the sure Word of God by creating a plurality of text scenario for Qumran in order to pull Your Word down to these defective manuscripts. We thank you for the codex Aleppo scribes through the centuries, preserving the very Word of God with such precision. Amen.