Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Dave Washburn" <dwashbur AT nyx.net>]

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.