Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 22/08/2005 13:29, Ken Penner wrote:

> ...
> Second, by far most of the Dead Sea Scrolls containing parts of the Torah
> attest only *one* of the five books per scroll. There are a few exceptions,
> where parts of two books come from the same scroll.
>  

But how significant is this when most of the surviving parts are small 
fragments? It is highly likely that such small fragments would come from 
only one part of a long scroll. And even if fragments from different 
parts of the same scroll do survive, would scholars necessarily know 
that they came from one scroll? A long scroll would come from many 
different skins, and would not necessarily be written by a single 
scribe. This is a good argument only if there are more or less complete 
scrolls of individual books which clearly start at the start of a book 
and/or end at the end of a book.

--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/



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