Notes on A. Penna's analysis of Qumran Isaiah

koot van wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD)

Kyungbook National University

Sangju Campus

South Korea

Conjoint lecturer of Avondale College

Australia

9 February 2010

What one says about M. H. Gottstein and his conclusions on the variants that Qumran Isaiah scrolls have with the consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition and these variants comparison with the Syriac version or Peshitta, the Targum, the LXX or socalled byzantine Septuagint, can be said also about A. Penna and his articles on the matter, especially the article "La Volgata e il Manoscritto 1QIsa" Biblica 38 (1957): 381-395.

Penna studied these variants from another angle. He wanted to see how many Vulgate readings follow the Qumran Isaiah form and roughly, the result was that 172 variants of the Vulgate with the consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition are also shared by Qumran Isaiah. Of these 75 are also in the Syro-hexapla, 76 in the Vetus Latina, 52 in the Targum and 110 in the Peshitta or Syriac translation. One lesson we have to learn here is: do not run away with statistics. The case is not solved by studying statistics. One needs to go in to the variants themselves, one needs to ask oneself how these variants originated. If one takes the consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition as the perfect example, the standard, the rule, the yardstick and measure these other manuscripts from it, it is possible to see the origin of the errors. In dating order: Qumran Isaiah, Vetus Latina, Vulgate, Targum, Byzantine LXX, Peshitta.

Again, the dating order is no safe guideline since the Qumran Isaiah scroll with these variants and defects was in cave 1 in 1947 and 1948 but we need to acquaint ourselves with some realities about the situation.

1. The caves were visited twice before 1947. First in 218 CE in the days of Severus as reported by Origen. The other case is in 811 CE as is mentioned in a document translated by Paul Kahle and discussed by him.

2. Visiting the caves before 1947 is very important since it removes the caves from a virgin site to a possible contamination at two points in time: 218 CE and 811 CE.

3. Evidence for the first day in 218 CE is actually supplied by Father R. de Vaux in the publication of the fourth cave material and finds. A Late Roman IV lamp dating to 250 CE undoubtedly, was found at the entrance of caves 1, 4 and 11. This is very important since we raise the question: who entered the cave in 250 CE, saw or left the manuscripts and then placed his lamp carefully at the cave opening before he departed?

12. It is true that Albright argued that the manuscripts were found in jars that came from the Essene community site down at Ain-Feshka and that the jars were made for the scrolls so that if the jars dates to about 70-30 BCE then these scrolls are older. What Albright and others did not consider, is that someone can easily come in 218 CE, arriving with defective manuscripts like Qumran Isaiah, from another mobile library in the Levant whether it is Alexandria, Caesarea, Tarsus or Rome and then faced with a dilemma how to safeguard them, are relieved to hear of some discarded jars at the ruins of the ancient Essense site down the valley. Thus, running back and forth bringing some of these jars to safeguard the manuscripts [that may still be in a BCE range of dating] only placed the manuscripts there in 218 BCE. Does the ceramics of the manuscripts date the manuscripts? No, but the radiocarbon  analysis twice by two teams, including an Israeli team,  indicated that the assumed date for the Qumran Isaiah as appromiximately 80-50 BCE is not wrong.

13. Scriptura defectiva were then dumped or stored in the caves.

14. Here is the other point. Say they were defective manuscripts that were grabbed before the burning of the Library of Alexandria in 30 BCE and say they were brought to Qumran to be stored there, then Origen entered the caves in 218 CE and these manuscripts were placed with others in an attempt to translate a kind of Greek translationg that do make use of them, accounting for the great number of correspondences with the byzantine Greek text called the Septuagint. This would serve as Vorlage to the speedy duplicates that Constantine requested (50 of them) in 250 CE, only duplicating the errors of the defective manuscript used before.

15. The manuscripts of the Peshitta are all dating between the 6th to 12th centuries CE. This is a fact. Leonna Running will tell one that and Johann Erbes will also tell one that.

16. The second visit to the caves were in 811 CE and in fact a certain cave movement started in those days. It is a second time that Qumran Isaiah could have been available for contamination of the versions of those days, whether Greek or whether Syriac. Since the number of contamination between the Syro-hexapla and Vetus Latina are the same, one can expect that the first period the manuscript consultation was during the Vetus Latina origin and Syro-hexapla production. The Hexapla was created by Origen and duplicated by a friend of his or his student and the Syro-hexapla dated to 616 CE. Also the Targum shared this low number of correspondes with the Vetus Latina and Syro-hexapla. More defective errors crept in when Jerome translated the Vulgate and it may be that he got hold of copies of this Qumran Isaiah so that the Vulgate has 172 variants that it shared with the Qumran Isaiah. The Peshitta can also be counted with the Vulgate period of contamination of this manuscript, since it has 110 variants that corresponds with the Qumran Isaiah.

17. A. Penna's data indicates that Qumran Isaiah was already available to Aquila in 130 CE and Symmachus in 170 CE and to Theodotion and the Vetus Latina in 190 CE. Was Qumran Isaiah available in a library of Tarsus or Caesarea or Antioch in these days? The Roman libraries were public libraries. One probably could not take out the manuscript overnight, but one can enter, memorize and go out and dictate it to a scribe copyist.

A. Penna and the variants

18. When one considers the variants of Qumran Isaiah with the consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition or the Word of God, one can say the following:

a. memorizing a verse and then walking out to dictate it to another person to write down can give origin to the addition of waw consecutives or waw copulatives as one find in Qumran Isaiah 1:3. It will also explain the extra preposition lamed in Qumran Isaiah 1:12 that is shared by the Peshitta and the Syro-hexapla later. Slips of the memory, we call it.

b. In Qumran Isaiah 1:18 the omission of the mem which is shared by Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, Targum, Peshitta, the socalled byzantine Greek and the Vulgate could be also due to a slip of the memory.

c. Defective writings by copyists falls into about five kinds of errors: slips of the tongue, slips of the ear, slips of the eye, slips of the hand, slips of the memory. These are very important to recognize and can explain the variants in Qumran Isaiah effectively, using the Word of God or consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition as the yardstick or measure stick.

d. What right do we have to use the consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition as yard stick and not the other way around? 4QDana compares 99.9% with the consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition as one have it in Codex Alleppo from the year 1008 CE. This means, that such a correct perfection in scribal transmission over such a long period, qualify the text to be superior than any other text. 

e. Slip of the memory after walking out of a public library where the proper text was available for consultation, resulted in the change from singular of the consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition to plural by Qumran Isaiah scribe. See Qumran Isaiah 1:23. This defective notebook or defective copy then became the template for other copies that fell into the hands of Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion and also the Vetus Latina translator, the Targum translator and also Jerome for the Vulgate and the Syriac translation. The more direct access the scribe had to the defective manuscript, the more the variants will coincide with the copy or translation from it. That is why the Syriac has such a high percentage of correspondences with the defective Qumran Isaiah.

f. Slips of the memory is also where the scribe walked out and interchanged a 3rd person with a 2nd person in a word, for example in Qumran Isaiah 1:31; 2:11; or the 3rd person with the 1st person as in 14:30, a defective case that also Jerome followed when he consulted a defective manuscript copy of Qumran Isaiah for his Vulgate translation.

g. An acoustic misperception is a case of slip of the ear. Normally, this happens when dictation is at play. This means someone walked into the Roman public library, saw the consonantal text of the Hebrew tradition, not easily available for Christians persecuted by Jews or Jewish works banned by Romans, whatever is at stake, and memorizing the text, walking out dictate it to a copyist scribe who acoustically misperceived letters, especially gutturals. Such a case turns up in Qumran Isaiah variant in Isaiah 19:18. Duplication of this defective variant in Symmachus in 170 CE and in the Targum we have already explained above. Statistics do not determine the truth. All factors need to be carefully considered.

What happened here is that a he was acoustically misperceived as a heth. See also the guttural misperception in Qumran Isaiah 46:10; 48:11 and 49:7. All are slips of the ear. An excellent example of a slip of the ear is the guttural misperception in Qumran Isaiah 30:16 which Jerome also consulted from a copy of the defective Qumran Isaiah copy for his ad = unto. The aleph of the Word of God or consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition was misperceived by the scribe listening to the dictation of the one coming out of the Roman public library, as ayin. See also Qumran Isaiah 53:1. 

The same is the addition of a extra waw vowel or scripto defectiva by Qumran Isaiah in Isaiah 18:6 which is an acoustic misperception or slip of the ear.

It is also the same with the case of the metathesis of letters as one can find in Qurman Isaiah 45:11.

h. There is a clear case of a paleographical misreading or slip of the eye in Qumran Isaiah 28:21 where the scribe saw the kaph-preposition added to the noun in the verse as a beth and went out to dictate it to the copyist of the Qumran Isaiah as a beth-preposition. Symmachus, Theodotion and Jerome with the Vulgate shared this defective reading with the defective Qumran Isaiah manuscript from cave one.

Another clear case of paleographical or orthographical misperception or slip of the eye, is Qumran Isaiah 49:24. This case is beyond any doubt. The Peshitta or Syriac translation and the Vulgate of Jerome share these defective readings of Qumran Isaiah. Again, statistics or number of witnesses does not establish the correct reading. 

Finally, we conclude that the modern conventional textual criticism cannot work simply because they want to maintain the sanctity of the versions against he sanctity of the consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition and employ an eclectic approach to piecemeal select their own Word of God reconstruction by here an little and there a little. This will not work. Instead of placing all texts, defective ones (versions) and the consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition on a similar basis, one has to uphold the consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition as the very Word of God, as a rule, in spelling, in strange syntax, in strange spelling practices, and the deviations of it, like in Qumran Isaiah from cave one, Peshitta, Targum, Vulgate, Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, Vetus Latina, Syro-Hexapla as all defective because they have consulted either the Qurman copy themselves or defective copies of it.

Dear God,

In a world where people want to believe anything and give up everything, even the Word of God, help us to cling to the Word of God as our beacon for our lives. Amen.