What the Dead Sea Scrolls teach us - Part 3

In the 1960s a fragment from a first century scroll of the Psalms was discovered in a Zealot hideout at Nahal Hever in the Judean wilderness. The scroll fragment was found along with letters from Zealot leader Simon bar Kochba. Tov notes that scrolls from Nahal Hever, because of their association to the Zealots, were probably representative of 'main-stream' Jewish scribal texts. Interestingly this fragment preserves the text from Psalm 22:16(17). This scroll is of great interest to textual critics as the majority of Masoretic manuscripts read differently to the text normally followed by English translations of Psalm 22.

Most English Bibles read at verse 16(17 in the Hebrew), “They have pierced my hands and my feet”. While the Masoretic text in the Hebrew Bible reads, “like a lion [are] my hands and my feet”. The difference between ‘like a lion’ (כארי) and ‘they have pierced (כארו) is quite tiny visually. The reading, “they have pierced”, is attested in several medieval Hebrew Masoretic manuscripts. BHS lists כארו as supported by pauci manuscripti (i.e. a few, Kenicott gives seven), it also lists כרו (also pierce) as supported by two manuscripts, (Kenicott adds that it is also found in the margin of three other manuscripts). Thus the variant ‘pierced’ was attested (though slimly) in later Masoretic manuscripts. Textual criticism does not follow democratic principles, according to Tov, so a minority reading should not be ruled out straight away. Furthermore the Septuagint reads ὤρυξαν (pierced) as did the ancient Syriac and Vulgate translations. The vorlage for the Syriac and Vulgate was the proto-Masoretic Text; thereby we have indirect evidence for the variant reading via translation.

Midrash commentary for כארי in Psalm 22 mark ‘like a lion’ as a verb, and the Masoretic notes for verse 17 (in Heb) note that this word כארי occurs also in Isaiah 38.13, but it informs the reader that the two occurrences are not identical. Thus there was an early tradition that כארי in Psalm 22 meant something different to the occurrence in Isaiah.

Finally to the scroll from Nahal Hever! I quote here from The DSS Bible, translated with commentary by M. Abegg and P. Flint (Directors of the DSS Institute) and E. Ulrich (professor of Hebrew at Notre Dame University and one of the chief editors of the Qumran Biblical texts).
“Psalm 22 is a favourite among Christians since it is often linked to the NT with the suffering and death of Jesus. A well known and controversial reading is found in verse 16, where the Masoretic Text reads, ‘Like a lion are my hands and feet,’ whereas the Septuagint has ‘They have pierced my hands and my feet.’ Among the scrolls the reading in question is found only in the Psalms scroll found at Nahal Hever (abbreviated as 5/6HevPs), which reads ‘They have pierced my hands and feet’!”

What the Dead Sea Scrolls teach us - part 2

The majority of what we now call the DSS came from a religious community at Qumran. Several other important scrolls and fragments were discovered at other locations in the Judean desert, such as Masada and Nahal Hever. The DSS at Qumran date from the third century BC to roughly AD 70. Thus they allow us to view the Biblical text as it stood in the Second Temple period. The scrolls at Qumran fall into four families of texts. Broadly speaking there is the proto-Masoretic text, Septuagint aligned, proto-Samaritan and non-aligned.
The majority of the scrolls at Qumran reflected the proto-Masoretic text (MT), which is extremely close to the modern Masoretic Text which is the basis for most English Old Testaments. The texts found outside of Qumran in the Judean Desert almost entirely reflect the proto-MT. As Emmanuel Tov points out, “When one compares early Qumran Masoretic manuscripts with [codex] L (AD 1009) one realizes how close they are to medieval sources. The combined evidence shows that the consonantal framework of the MT changed very little, if at all, in the course of more than one thousand years. Even more striking is the fact that the texts from the other sites in the Judean desert are virtually identical with the medieval texts.”
Qumran was a breakaway group from mainstream Judaism. Several of their scrolls reflect poor scribal habits. The Qumran community was a far cry from the professional sopherim in the Temple and thus not necessarily a reflection of the best or most accurate textual witnesses. Yet, with that said, even the scrolls from Qumran testify to the stability of the proto-MT. Scrolls from outside Qumran, especially those associated with the Zealots reflect even better texts. This is not surprising since the Zealots were supported in their uprising in AD 132 by the Rabbis and religious leaders. The Temple circles, with access to the Temple scrolls, are seen to be preservers of the MT. The plurality of textual streams from Qumran is testimony to popular editions, and non-professional copies.
Next we will examine a fragment from Nahal Hever of Psalm 22. Psalm 22.16(17) in the modern Hebrew Bible doesn't read 'they pierced my hands and my feet', instead it reads 'like a lion my hands and my feet', it will be interesting to see how this Psalm read in the first century.

What the Dead Sea Scrolls teach us - Part 1

This advert appeared in the Wall Street Journal on July 1, 1954. Among the scrolls for sale from Qumran was the famous Isaiah scroll, a complete copy of the book of Isaiah (with minor lacunae) from c. 120BC. The Israeli government succeeded in purchasing the scroll and it now resides in the Shrine of the Book Museum in Jerusalem, well worth a visit if you’re ever in Jerusalem. The Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) have shed invaluable light on the textual transmission of the Hebrew Bible.

One curious lesson drawn from the DSS, however, was mentioned in a Soviet Newspaper
Комсомoльская прaвда, (Komsomolskaya Pravda), Комсомoльская is an abbreviation for the Union of Communist Youth, and прaвда means the Truth). It concluded, in a 1958 article, that the primary lesson to be drawn from the DSS was that it conclusively proved that Jesus never existed! Fortunately, as F. F. Bruce noted in his book ‘Second Thoughts on the DSS’, “more objective Qumran studies than this one have been published in Russia.”

There are certainly many lessons we can learn from the DSS and I hope to mention a few of them over the next few days, this one, however, is probably not one of them.