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  • From: George Athas <George.Athas AT moore.edu.au>
  • To: "b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] First Century CE Scrolls
  • Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2012 03:48:20 +0000

Jerry,

I'm with Yigal on this one. The evidence is scant, so it's difficult to know
what to say. Given the manuscript evidence from Qumran, Hebrew texts abound,
so I think it's fair enough to deduce a plausibility that synagogues in
Judea, Perea, and Galilee had Hebrew scrolls. I suspect this is what Jesus
cut his teeth on. However, we can't rule out the possibility of there being
Greek scrolls. Given there was no centralisation or 'denominational'
institutions, most synagogues would have been run independently and,
therefore, have gone with an 'anything goes' attitude in terms of stocks of
scrolls. By the first century there is certainly a canonical consciousness,
so they may have tried to compile scriptural libraries, but in which
language, it's hard to say. Perhaps they had a mixture. I think the
possibility of Greek scrolls in Galilee is more likely than in Judea. But
then we're back to the evidential question: what hard data do we have?



GEORGE ATHAS
Dean of Research,
Moore Theological College (moore.edu.au)
Sydney, Australia





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