F — Bible Interpretation

Part 2

GREEK BIBLE TRANSLATIONS Compared to the quantity of Hebrew and Aramaic manuscripts, the Greek documents found in two of the Qumran caves, Caves and 7, are remarkably few, and this scarcity is significant in itself as regards the cultural identity of the Qumran Community. Those which have been identified with certainty belong to the Greek translation of the Bible, mostly the Pentateuch. Cave has yielded remains of two scrolls of Leviticus, one of leather and one of papyrus, as well as one of Numbers and of Deuteronomy, all dating to the second or the first century BCE. On the whole, they represent the traditional text of the Septuagint with minor variations such as a word being replaced by its synonym, but 4QLXX Numbers testifies to an effort to bring the LXX closer to the Hebrew Pentateuch. Since the translation scarcely differs from the original, there is no purpose in reproducing it. However, it is worth noting that in Lev. iv, the Tetragram is rendered semi- phonetically as Iao, and is not replaced, as was customary later, by the Greek Kurios. Among the nineteen minute fragments found in Cave - which contained only Greek texts - two have been identified as relics of Exodus xxviii, 4-7 and the Letter of Jeremiah, verses 43-4. The former is said to be closer to the traditional Hebrew text than to the LXX. Both are dated to about BCE. OTHER GREEK FRAGMENTS (4Q126-7; 7Q3-

19) The remaining two Greek texts in Cave date roughly to the turn of the era. One cannot be identified and the other is either a paraphrase of Exodus, mentioning among others Pharaoh, Moses and Egypt, or possibly an apocryphal account of Israel in Egypt. Seventeen out of the nineteen minute Greek papyrus fragments from Cave have been declared by the editors to be unidentifiable. Yet against all verisimilitude, several of them have generated sensational and even revolutionary claims, especially that they represented the earliest textual examples of the Greek New Testament. The contention originated with a Spanish Jesuit, José O'Callaghan, who in 1972 persuaded himself that these hardly legible scraps derived from six books of the New Testament: the Gospel of Mark iv, vi, vi, 52-3, xii, the Acts of the Apostles xxviii, Timothy iii, 16, iv, 1, James i, 23-4 and even one of the latest New Testament writings, Peter i, Of these, the case for Mark vi, 52-3 is purported to be the 'strongest'. The real facts are the following. We are dealing with a fragment on which the written area measures 3.3 x 2.3 cm. Letters appear on four lines; these are of unknown length since both the beginning and the end of each line are missing. An unrecognizable trace of another letter is observed at the top of the fragment. In the editio princeps seventeen letters are identified of which only nine are certain. A single complete word has survived: the Greek kai = and! The leading experts in the field, the late C. H. Roberts of Oxford and the German Kurt Aland, unhesitatingly discarded O'Callaghan's theory. Roberts jokingly told me that if he wanted to waste his time, he was sure he would be able to 'demonstrate' that 7Q5 belonged to any ancient Greek text, biblical or non-biblical. Yet this unlikely and clearly unprovable hypothesis was revived in the 1980s by C. P. Thiede and others, only to encounter the same fate of summary dismissal as Father O'Callaghan's a decade or so earlier. For the editio princeps of the 4Q and 7Q material, see P. W. Skehan and E. Ulrich, DJD, 161-97, 219-42; M.

Baillet et al. DJD,III, 142-6. For the theory that 7Q contains New Testament texts, see J. O'Callaghan, Los papipros griegos de la cueva deQumrân, and C. P. Thiede, The Earliest Gospel Manuscripts; Re-Kindling the Word. For views for and against expressed at a symposium, see B. Mayer, ed. Christen und Christliches inQumran?. Against the theory, see C. H. Roberts, 'On Some Presumed Papyrus Fragments of the New Testament from Qumran', Journal of Theological Studies, 446-7; K. Aland, 'Neue neutestamentlische Papyri III', New Testament Study, 357-81. For the latest authoritative views, see G. Stanton, Gospel Truth?; E. Puech, 'Des fragments grecs de la grotte et le Nouveau Testament?', RB, 570- 84; M.-E. Boismard, 'Apropos de 7Q5 et Mc. 6, 52-53', ibid. 102-4. The Reworked Pentateuch Five badly preserved manuscripts have been classified as reworkings of the Pentateuch, i.e. copies of the Torah partly entailing rearrangements of biblical passages and partly incorporating interpretative supplements inserted into the text. The length of the supplement varies from a few words to seven or eight lines, the most significant example being the long, but broken, addition to the Song of Miriam in 4Q365 6a ii, c. Judging from the surviving passages, the original Reworked Pentateuch must have been a very substantial document, probably the longest of all the Qumran Scrolls. All the manuscripts may be dated on palaeographical grounds to the first century BCE. Only those texts which contain more or less intelligible supplements are included. For the editio princeps of the Reworked Pentateuch, see J. M. Allegro, DJD, V, 1-6 and E. Tov and S. White, DJD, XIII, 187-.

4Q158, frs. 1-2.. And Jacob was left alone there. And a man wrestled with him. When the man did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his thigh; and Jacob's thigh was put out of joint as he wrestled with him and he seized him. And he said to him, What is your name?.. And he said to him, Jacob. And he said, Your name shall be Israel, for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed. And Jacob asked and said, Tell me, pray, what is your name. And he said, Why is it that you ask my name, and he blessed him there. And he said to him, 'May the Lord make you fruitful and multiply you. May he grant you knowledge and understanding and may he save you from all violence and.. until this day and until everlasting generations. And he went on his way after he had blessed him there. And he.. And the sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his thigh.. on this day. And he said, You shall not eat the sinew of the hip which is upon the two hollows of the thigh until this day. And the Lord said to Aaron, Go to meet Moses in the wilderness. So he went and met him at the mountain of God and kissed him. And Moses told Aaron all the words of the Lord with which he had sent him and all the signs which he had charged him to do. And the Lord spoke to me saying, When you bring out the people of Israel.. to go as slaves and behold these are four hundred and thirty you shall see him.. you shall see in peace.. your death. And upon your eyes.. Why should I be bereft of both of you? And Isaac called Rebecca his wife and told her all these words.. after Jacob her son.. And Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Padan Aram to take a wife from there.. 4Q365, fr. 6b, 6a ii, 6c

Fr. 6b.. till Thy people, Lord, pass by, till the people pass by whom thou hast purchased. Thou wilt bring them in, and plant them on thine own mountain, the place, Lord, which thou hast made for thine abode, the sanctuary which thy hands have established. The Lord will reign for ever and ever. For when the horses of Pharaoh with his chariots and his horsemen went into the sea, the Lord brought back the waters of the sea upon them; but the people of Israel walked on dry ground in the midst of the sea. And the waters were a wall to them on their right and on their left. And Miriam the prophetess, sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and dancing. And Miriam sang to them, Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea. Fr. 6a ii, 6c.. thou hast despised.. For pride.. Thou art great, a saviour.. The hope of the enemy has perished and.. has stopped.. They have perished in the mighty waters, the enemy.. and lifts up to their height. Thou hast given a ransom... he who acts proudly. And Moses led Israel onward from the sea, and they went to the wilderness of Shur; they went three days and found no water. They came to Marah, but they could not drink the water of Marah because

it was bitter; therefore it was named Marah. And the people murmured against Moses saying, What shall we drink? And Moses cried to the Lord who showed him a tree, and he threw it into the water, and the water became sweet. There he made for them a statute and an ordinance and there he proved them. And he said, If you will listen diligently to the voice of the Lord your God and do that which is right in his eyes and give heed to his commandments and judgements, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases upon you which I put on the Egyptians. For I am the Lord, your healer. Fr. You shall dwell in booths for seven days; all that are native in Israel shall dwell in booths, that your generations may know that I made your fathers dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt; I am the Lord your God. vacat And Moses declared to the people of Israel the appointed feasts of the Lord. vacat And the Lord said to Moses, Command the children of Israel, saying, When you enter the land which I am giving to you as an inheritance, and you dwell upon it securely, you shall bring wood for a burnt-offering and for all the service of the House which you shall build for me in the land, to lay it on the altar of burnt-offering, and the calves.. for Passover sacrifices and peace-offerings and thank-offerings and free-will offerings and burnt-offerings daily.. and for the doors and for all the service of the House you shall offer.. the festival of Oil, the twelve tribes they shall offer wood.. Those who offer on the first day shall be Levi and.. on the third day, Reuben and Simeon, and on the fourth day..

A Paraphrase of Genesis and Exodus Nine fragments of a manuscript written in Hasmonaean characters contain a paraphrase of Gen. i-iv, vi- ix, judging from disconnected expressions relating to the creation of the world by God's word, to various living creatures, the establishment of man as ruler over the rest of beings, the prohibition against eating from the tree of knowledge and the rebellion against God which led to the flood. Fr. refers to the throwing of Israelite boys into the Nile, the commissioning of Moses, his vision of the burning bush, Moses' and Aaron's encounter with Pharaoh and the plagues which afflicted Egypt. The text can be arranged in three columns. Further unidentified fragments, which are not included here, are numbered from A to T. If the word ywsr in col. 1, line actually means 'inclination', the phrase 'evil inclination' could be the earliest attestation of the rabbinic concept. For the editio princeps, see T. Elgvin and E. Tov, DJD, XIII, 417-41.

I... The heavens and the earth and all their host He made by His word. And God rested on the seventh day from all the work which He had made. And His holy spirit.. all the living and creeping creatures.. He put man on the earth to rule over it and to eat the fruits of the ground.. without eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.. He rose against Him and they forgot.. with an evil inclination and for deeds of.. peace/payment..

II.. save Noah and his wife and the wives of his sons from the waters of the Flood.. God closed behind them.. the windows of heaven opened under all the heaven.. for the waters to rise on the earth forty days and forty nights was rain over the earth.. and in order to know the glory of the Most High.. to reach to Him, He enlightened the heaven.. sign for generations of eternity.. and never more will a flood destroy the earth.. the periods of day and night.. to shine on heaven and earth... their sons into the river

.. And He sent to them Moses.. in the vision.. in the signs and marvels.. And He sent them to Pharaoh.. plagues.. marvels for Egypt.. and they carried His word to Pharaoh to send away their people. But He hardened his heart to sin so that the men of Israel might know for eternal generations. And He changed their waters to blood. Frogs were in all their land and lice in all their territories, gnats in their houses and they struck all their.. And He smote with pestilence all their flock and their beasts He delivered to death. He put darkness into their land and obscurity into their houses so that they could not see one another. And He smote their land with hail and their soil with frost to cause all the fruit of nourishment to perish. And He brought locust to cover the face of the earth, heavy locust in all their territory to eat everything green in their land.. And God hardened Pharaoh's heart so that he should not dismiss them.. and in order to increase wonders. And He smote their first-born, the beginning of al1 their strength.. The Genesis Apocryphon Found in Cave 1, and partly published by N. Avigad and Y. Yadin, IQapGen is an incomplete manuscript with twenty-two surviving columns of Aramaic text. Remains of a further column, 'The Genesis Apocryphon Col. XII', have since been edited by J. C. Greenfield and E. Qimron, 70-77). A preliminary transcription and translation of the rest of the unpublished material, deciphered with the help of advanced infra-red technology, has been issued by M. Morgenstern, E. Qimron and D. Sinan in 'The Hitherto Unpublished Columns of the Genesis Apocryphon', Abr- Nabrain, 3—52. The beginning of the manuscript is missing. But since the sheet starting with col. v is numbered by the Hebrew letter pe, col. x by sade, and col. by qoph, i.e. the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth letters of the Hebrew alphabet, it would seem that the surviving section