Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yigal Levin <Yigal.Levin AT biu.ac.il>]

Hi Jerry,

Your questions are somewhat off-topic, but I think we can allow them for
now. 

I doubt that there will ever be conclusive evidence one way of another, but
my guess would be that no, not every village synagogue would have had
anything near a complete set. The priorities would have probably been the
Torah, the Prophets, Psalms, Esther (at least once Purim was widely
celebrated) and Lamentations. The rest would have been less widespread. Just
as an example, in the DDS we have several copies of the books of the Torah
and of Psalms, less of other books.

And yes, it is perfectly possible that a wealthy individual could have had
his own copies of the books. 

Best,

Yigal Levin

-----Original Message-----
From: b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Jerry Shepherd
Sent: Monday, September 03, 2012 1:00 AM
To: b-hebrew
Subject: [b-hebrew] First Century CE Scrolls

Hi List,

The moderators, of course, may feel free to consider this to be outside the
list boundaries, but I have two questions.

With regard to Judea, realizing that the the exact limits of the canon may
or may not have been established in the early first century CE,

(1)  Would every synagogue have had a complete collection of biblical
scrolls?

and

(2) Is it possible that there could have been any private ownership of
either individual biblical scrolls, or even a complete collection?

What is your understanding of the possibilities here?  And do you think
there would be a scholarly consensus on these questions?

Blessings,

Jerry Shepherd
Taylor Seminary
Edmonton, Alberta
Jerry Shepherd
jshepherd53 AT gmail.com
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