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  • From: "Dave Washburn" <dwashbur AT nyx.net>
  • To: b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: That Qumran fragment of Deut 32
  • Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 21:49:02 -0700


I got the BASOR article today, thanks to the kindness of Kevin
Barney, and as I suspected, the scroll 4QDeut(q) apparently does
not contain verse 8. Skehan's article is confusing; first, he doesn't
give any Q siglum for the manuscript. Second, he only comments
on Deut 32:41-43, despite the fact that he mentions "another
fragment on the same leather in the same hand" with part of Deut
4. Of course, the article is vintage 1956, so some things probably
hadn't been worked out yet as far as numbering etc. However, the
way he treated verse 8 is, even for 1956, somewhat inexcusable. I
will reproduce the paragraph in full:

--
To follow the order of the poem itself, however, mention should first
be made of another Qumran fragment, containing in a large, firm
and practiced hand on brownish leather, presumably from the lower
right corner of a column of text, the following:
bhnxy[l]
bny 'l[
{note that for x he had the h with a dot under it - dw}
Deut 32:8 is unquestionably the source, not in a stichometrically
written copy, but either in a copy written as prose, or in a
paraphrase. The result is our first evidence in an ancient Hebrew
manuscript for the reading of lemispar bene 'El, regularly inferred
from the LXX form of this verse, and surely original. {I have had to
gloss over diacritics such as the raised e for shwa in "lemispar"
and "bene," and the acute accent over the second e in "bene" - dw}

The manuscript containing the ending of the song may have been
copied by the same scrie as the little fragment just mentioned; its
script is somewhat smaller, however, and is on different, grayish
leather.
--

Comments on Skehan's comments: first, "another Qumran
fragment" doesn't tell us anything. It will take a little time to track
down this fragment, if indeed it can be done. Second, I find
"unquestionably" a little optimistic, especially given the notion that
it was either written as prose or as a paraphrase. If it was written
as prose, it's doubtful that it would have been written by the same
scribe as 4QDeut(q), because the latter is written in stichometric
layout (or as Skehan himself put it, "by hemistichs"). If it's a
paraphrase, its usefulness for reconstructing the original of Deut
32:8 is more than a little questionable, as the reading could easily
have been based on later theology or even on the LXX text itself.
But more than that, the doubt about its layout makes even the
identification questionable, so it doesn't seem to me that this
fragment (whatever it is) should not be given serious consideration
for determining the reading of Deut 32:8. Finally, "surely original"
is drastically overstated given the evidence.

Thanks again to Kevin, and I hope this puts the topic to bed.
Sincerely, the Loose-Ends Dept.

Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
A Bible that's falling apart means a life that isn't.



  • That Qumran fragment of Deut 32, Dave Washburn, 01/27/1999

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