Differences likely caused by excerpted nature. Each of the above differences discussed are minor since they can be ascribed to the scribal process. Although the variant now under consideration (i.e., the omission of Judg 6:7-10) too can be ascribed to the scribal process, many scholars choose rather to ascribe it to the realm of literary criticism, and thus, many identify this text as independent.99 Scholars who classify 4Q49 as
Grammar, §86. Inversely, when a substantive is not conceived of as a compound, the word is represented as one word (the reading of 4Q49). Thus, the difference between the MT and 4Q49 is meager.
98 Natalio Fernández Marcos, ed., Biblia Hebraica: Quinta Editione ccum Apparatu Critico Novis Curis Elaborato: Judges, 5a ed. cum Apparatu Critico novis Curis Elaborato. Biblia Hebraica Quinta 7 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2011), 6.
99 Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 313, claims that 4Q49 may not represent an independent literary edition, but still identifies it as independent or non-aligned. Thus, for Tov, the non- aligned category is quite expansive; it contains texts that differ in minor details (1QIsaa) and others that may represent an alternative literary edition (possible 4Q49).
representing an alternative literary edition include Trebolle Barrera,100 Eugene Ulrich,101 Erhard Blum,102 and Rezetko.103 Tov classifies 4Q49 as non-aligned, but is less than certain that the text represents an alternative literary edition.104
Others disagree that 4Q49 represents an alternative literary edition. Hess claims that the evidence likely suggests that 4Q49 was a rearranged text, but that the
100 Trebolle Barrera, “4QJudga,” 162. Julio C. Trebolle Barrera, “Textual Variants in 4QJudga and the Textual and Editorial History of the Book of Judges,” Revue de Qumran 14, no. 2 (December 1989): 238.
101 Ulrich, “Multiple Literary Editions,” 86, claims that 4Q49 contains an early literary form of the book of Judges. Ulrich, “The Absence of ‘Sectarian Variants," 182, comments that 4Q49 “retains the old, uninterrupted folk narrative on a single fragment.” See also Eugene Charles Ulrich, “Deuteronomistically Inspired Scribal Insertions into the Developing Biblical Texts: 4QJudga and 4QJera,” in Houses Full of All Good Things: Essays in Memory of Timo Veijola, ed. Juha Pakkala and Martti Nissinen (Helsinki: Finnish Exegetical Society; Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2008), 490. His view is largely based on the omission of Judg 6:7-10. He supports his conclusion with the following arguments: (1) Judg 6:7-10 is a coherent unit that differs from what comes before and after stylistically. (2) It is introduced with a resumptive clause, a common trait of secondary additions, see Ulrich, “Multiple Literary Editions,” 86. (3) It has been viewed as a secondary addition for the past 100 years, see Ulrich, “Multiple Literary Editions,” 86-87. (4) Paragraph markers mark these verses as a separate unity, see Ulrich, “Multiple Literary Editions,” 87. Ulrich, “Multiple Literary Editions,” 87, nuances his conclusion though, by stating that the poor state of the preservation of 4Q49 prohibits a firm conclusion on the nature of the entire text since one cannot be sure if this omission is a singular phenomenon or whether the entire text was originally a separate edition of Judges. See his similar comment in Ulrich, “Deuteronomistically Inspired Scribal Insertions,” 492. Ulrich further discusses that it is unlikely that 4Q49 would preserve the original text in the first century BC against all other witnesses. Ulrich,
“Deuteronomistically Inspired Scribal Insertions,” 492. Thus, he claims that 4Q49 was likely the “dominant text in the early Second Temple period, and that this deuteronomistically inspired insertion in the MT and LXX is part of the late, widespread, developmental growth at the hands of numerous scribes seen in many biblical books.” Ulrich, “Deuteronomistically Inspired Scribal Insertions,” 492-93.
102 Blum, “The Literary Connection,” 103.
103 Rezetko, “The Qumran Scrolls of the Book of Judges,” 30-31.
104 Tov claimed in 2002 that “the texts which are most manifestly non-aligned, and actually independent, are texts which contain (groups of) readings that diverge significantly form the other texts, such as 4QJosha and 4QJudga.” See Tov, “The Biblical Texts from the Judaean Desert,” 156. Nonetheless, Tov is more cautious about the textual nature of 4Q49 in his 2012 edition of Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible.
Tov states, “If this minus [the omission of Judges 6:7-10] did not stem from a textual accident, such as the omission of a complete paragraph, it could reflect an earlier literary version of the book, in which part of the Dtr+ framework, contained here in 6:7-10, had not yet been found” in Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 313.
fragmentary evidence should caution scholars from making definitive conclusions.105 Rofé understands the omission as a mechanical error, and thus, it is not indicative of a separate literary edition.106 Fernández Marcos is sympathetic to both Hess’s and Rofé’s view,107 while O’Connell understands the omission as possibly intentional. He, therefore, too concludes that this difference does not indicate an independent literary edition.108
Several details ought to shape the interpretation of this large omission. First, the text is poorly preserved as several scholars admit.109 Whether one accepts the cautious count here (59 words as sufficiently present) or one accepts the word count of Trebolle Barrera (he accepts 71 words as sufficiently present in the text), the fact remains that the text is poorly preserved. Moreover, only nine lines are partially present, and no line remains fully preserved. Line 5 only preserves partially fourteen letters while
105 Hess, “The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible,” 122-28.
106 Rofé too disagrees with scholars who claim that 4Q49 represents an independent text. Rofé reasons that this passage was omitted by means of parablepsis. See Alexander Rofé, “Studying the Biblical Text in the light of Historico-Literary Criticism: The Reproach of the Prophet in Judg 6:7-10 and 4QJudga,”
in The Dead Sea Scrolls in Context: Integrating the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Study of Ancient Texts, Languages, and Cultures, ed. Armin Lange, Emanuel Tov, and Matthias Weigold, Supplements to Vetus Testamentum 140 (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2011), 121. It appears plausible that mechanical errors lead to the omission of more than a few lines. Mennahem Haran points out that the British Library MS 9399 from the thirteenth century omits Psalm 47 probably because of the similarity between the beginnings of Psalm 47 and 48. See Menahem Haran, “11QPsa and the Canonical Book of Psalms,” in Minḥah Le- Naḥum: Biblical and Other Studies Presented to Nahum M. Sarna in Honour of His 70th Birthday, ed.
Marc Zvi. Brettler and Michael A. Fishbane, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament. Supplement Series 154 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993), 195n3. Thus, one cannot rule out a mechanical error here.
107 Natalio Fernández Marcos, “The Genuine Text of Judges,” in Sôfer Mahîr: Essays in Honour of Adrian Schenker, ed. Adrian Schenker et al., Supplements to Vetus Testamentum 110 (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2006), 34.
108 See Robert H. O’Connell, The Rhetoric of the Book of Judges, Supplements to Vetus Testamentum 63 (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1996), 147. Compare these comments to his comment that the omission may have been a deliberate change or it may attest a form of Judges that circulated without Judg 6:7-10. Ibid., 467. See also O’Connell’s comments that “the Hebrew text of Judges reflects a relatively reliable history of scribal transmission.” Ibid., 384.
109 See Hess, “The Dead Sea Scrolls,” 125. See also Fernández Marcos, Biblia Hebraica, 6.
Trebolle Barrera estimates that each line originally contained 59-65 letters per line.110 Any discussion of the textual tradition of this text must account for this fact.
Second, the text contains two supralinear corrections in the span of only nine very partially preserved lines. However, one should note that the space above the first line is missing. Thus, in reality, 4Q49 preserves two supralinear corrections in the span of only eight very partially preserved lines. Out of the fifty-nine sufficiently preserved words, two words are corrected, meaning that the scribe has corrected 3.4 percent of the preserved words. To put it another way, 4Q49 preserves eight lines where one can discern if a supralinear correction has occurred, and two of those lines have corrections. Thus, 25 percent of the lines that can be tested for supralinearly corrections have them.
Tov’s very helpful appendix 8 of his book Scribal Practices provides a way to compare the amount of scribal activity found in 4Q49 to several other texts from Qumran and other Judean Desert locations since he lists the number of scribal interventions and the average number of lines between scribal interventions for 97 texts.111 Out of the 97 texts surveyed, only three texts have a lower average number of lines between scribal interventions than 4Q49 (i.e., 5QDeut, 1QIsaa, 4QJera) while one text has the same average number of lines between scribal interventions (4QQoha). One can see that this fragment has a considerable amount of scribal activity when compared to the other texts listed in this appendix. However, because of the poor preservation of this text, one cannot be sure that this fragment is representative of the entire text. Nonetheless, this evidence does indicate that this fragment was poorly copied or at least was copied from a poor
110 Trebolle Barrera, “4QJudga,” 161.
111 Tov, Scribal Practices and Approaches, 331-35. Tov discusses 163 texts in his table, but only provides data for 97 of these texts. Tov does not provide data in columns 10 and 11 for 66 texts likely because of these texts poor preservation: 4Q49 is one of these texts.
exemplar. Fernández Marcos’s conclusion that 4Q49 is a poorly copied text is, therefore, plausible.112
Third, the text contains one omission that likely derived from a mechanical error (i.e., haplography).113 The fact that there is one omission that most likely derived from haplography in the span of only 59 sufficiently preserved words is high. This fact, again, indicates that 4Q49 was either copied from a poor exemplar or was itself poorly copied.114
Fourth, the omission of Judges 6:7-10 occurs in a lacuna. This fact casts some doubt on the nature of this omission. Although the lacuna is far too small to contain Judges 6:7-10 written on the line in the same size font as the rest of the text, there is precedent for large amounts of text corrected in small spaces. For example, Col 30:11 of 1QIsaa preserves a considerable amount of text written above the line by the original scribe and down the margin of the next column.115 Although this phenomenon happens infrequently, it does cast some doubt on the nature of this difference.
Fifth, the omitted text coincides closely with paragraph markers, a detail integral to Hess’s argument.116 This fact is important since abbreviated texts exist in Qumran and the omitted material at times occurs between paragraph markers. For example, Tov argues that 4Q106 (4QCanta) and 4Q107 (4QCantb) omitted text between paragraph markers not because of scribal negligence or because they testify to a separate literary edition, but
112 Fernández Marcos, “The Genuine Text of Judges,” 39. Cf. Rezetko, “The Qumran Scrolls of the Book of Judges,” 29n117, concludes that this claim is uncorroborated.
113 If one accepts the possible omission of םֶהי ֵלּ ַמְגִלְו at L4 (Judg 6:5), then two omissions in this text likely derived from mechanical errors. However, this second omission is possible, but uncertain due to insufficient manuscript evidence
114 Fernández Marcos, “The Genuine Text of Judges,” 39, argues for the latter.
115 Col 32:14 and Col 33:7 of 1QIsaa similarly preserve content supralinearly and down the margin but come from a secondary hand.
116 Hess, “The Dead Sea Scrolls,” 125-27.
because of the scribes’ conscious desire to shorter the texts.117 Tov further argues that 4Q15 (4QExodd) may reasonably be labeled an abbreviated text,118 a point supported by Judith Sanderson, who suggests that 4Q15 may be a liturgical scroll.119 Like 4Q49, this text too omits material between paragraph markers. Thus, the fact that a complete literary unit is likely omitted in 4Q49 might suggest that the text is rearranged, abbreviated, or excerpted.
Sixth, 4Q49 is unique in omitting Judges 6:7-10.120 Rezetko argues that this claim, pointed out by Fernández Marcos’, is irrelevant because of the limited early textual evidence and other comparable textual situations.121 He argues that 4QJudga is the oldest surviving text to preserve Judges 6:2-13 and precedes Codex Vaticanus by at least 300 years.122 This gap in time could have resulted in numerous textual alterations and
developments that could have led to 4Q49’s shorter reading becoming unique among the manuscripts.123 Rezetko’s view is possible, but does not match the surviving evidence.
Fernández Marcos’s thorough examination of the Greek witnesses leads him to the conclusion that the “Hebrew text known by the translators [of the LXX] was only slightly different from M.”124 Moreover, it is hard to image how this addition would infiltrate all textual witnesses except 4Q49. Understanding 4Q49 as some type of abbreviated text
117 Emanuel Tov, “106-107. Introduction to 4QCanta-C,” in Qumran Cave 4. XI, Psalms to Chronicles, vol. 11, Discoveries in the Judaean Desert 16 (Oxford: Clarendon, 2000), 195.
118 Ibid., 196.
119 Judith E. Sanderson, “4QExodd,” in Qumrân Cave 4: Genesis to Numbers, 127.
120 Fernández Marcos, “The Hebrew and Greek Texts of Judges,” 6.
121 Rezetko, “The Qumran Scrolls of the Book of Judges,” 29.
122 Ibid., 30.
123 Ibid.
124 Fernández Marcos, Biblia Hebraica, 8.
makes better sense of the data.
Statistics and Conclusion of 4Q49’s Textual Tradition
The conclusion that 4Q49 represented a separate literary edition is not
persuasive. Too little of the manuscript is preserved to substantiate this claim. Moreover, ample evidence suggests that the text was either poorly copied or copied from a poor exemplar. Last, the nature of the omission (it likely omits a complete literary unit) and the fact that the text alone preserves this reading suggests that this text is a type of abbreviated text. 4Q49 resembles other excerpted texts in at least two ways.125 First, one complete literary unit is omitted. Second, these texts are at times unique in how they abbreviate/excerpt the biblical text, and thus, not all abbreviated texts need to be
abbreviated in the exact same manner. The evidence suggests, therefore, that 4Q49 does not represent an independent textual edition of Judges but represents an abbreviated text.
The base of this text could reasonably be understood as a text belonging to the Masoretic tradition.126
The overarching statistical relationship between these texts furnishes some
125 The text contains several minor differences that might indicate, although does not necessarily indicate, that the text was copied from memory. See Julie A Duncan, “Excerpted Texts of Deuteronomy at Qumran,” Revue de Qumran 18, no. 1 (April 1997): 60. Rabbinic tradition permitted mezuzot and
phylacteries to be written by heart, not from a written text (b. Megilla 18b). See ibid., 61 n68. See also Edward L. Greenstein, “Misquotation of Scripture in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in The Frank Talmage Memorial Volume, ed. Barry Walfish, vol. 1, Jewish History 6 (Haifa, Israel: Haifa University Press, 1993), 71-83.
See also Brooke’s comments about the nature of the tefillin and mezuzot from Qumran, in George J. Brooke,
“The Textual Tradition of the Temple Scroll and Recently Published Manuscripts of the Pentateuch,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Forty Years of Research, ed. Devorah Dimant and Uriel Rappaport, Series on the Texts of the Desert of Judah 10 (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1992), 279-80. He says that the types of differences between these texts and biblical texts may not simply be the result of scribal memory, but they might be the result of a desire to make the Pentateuch more internally consistent through assimilation. However, the example of parablepsis at L2 (Judg 6:3) likely indicates that these small differences derive from poor copying, not copying from memory.
126 Despite this evidence and due to the limited size of the text, one could reasonably withhold judgment on the nature of this text.
support for this explanation. The agreement is moderate, less than most other texts from the Prophets identified by Tov as textual non-aligned, but this is because half of the differences derive from an example of parablepsis.127 The lower statistical relationship between the texts, therefore, is likely the result of poor copying. Nonetheless, because of the presence of a large-scale difference in a fragmentary setting, this text is labeled as ambiguous here.
Table 18. The statistical relationship between 4Q49 and the MT Total # of
Words in 4Q49 Categories
1, 2, and 3 Statistical
Relationship Categories
2 and 3 Statistical
Relationship Category
3 Statistical Relationship
59 8 86.44% 5 93.22% 0 100%
6Q4
6Q4 (6QpapKgs) is a text poorly preserved on 94 fragments of papyri.128 The contents of only 17 fragments have been identified. The script is described as archaic and is dated to the second half of the second century BC.129
Tov has discussed the nature of papyri at Qumran in detail. The use of papyrus as a writing material is not uncommon among literary works from Qumran even though most literary works (non-documentary) were written on leather, not papyrus.130
According to Tov, 131 non-documentary works are preserved on papyri at Qumran—14
127 Twelve words transcribed by Trebolle Barrera are not accepted here since they are not sufficiently preserved.
128 Maurice Baillet, “Livres des Rois,” in Les “Petites Grottes” de Qumran: Exploration de la Falaise, les Grottes 2Q, 3Q, 5Q, 7Q à 10Q, le Rouleau de Cuivre, ed. Maurice Baillet, J. T. Milik, R. de Vaux, Discoveries in the Judaean Desert of Jordan 3 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1962), 107.
129 Ibid.
130 Tov, Scribal Practices and Approaches, 32.
percent of the total number of texts,131 but biblical papyri only represents 1 percent of the texts found at Qumran.132 Tov characterizes the content of Qumran papyri as follows:
“The collection of Qumran papyri is mainly sectarian and liturgical, and usually non- biblical. Most papyri may reflect personal copies owned by members of the Qumran community, while some may have been imported from other sources.”133 Moreover, several non-documentary texts exist on papyri and on leather,134 but no differences in content between these works distinguish them from each other.135 Likewise, Tov argues that the scribal conventions—orthography, paragraphing system, word division, writing in columns, etc.—of those texts written on papyri do not differ from those written on leather although papyri do not evidence ruling, do not prefer correcting a text by means of crossing words out, and do not prefer cancelation dots.136
The textual tradition of 6Q4 is debated. Baillet describes the text of 6Q4 as shorter than the MT and close to the LXX and Vulgate.137 Trebolle Barrera describes the textual filiation by fragment. He states that fragments 1-9 agree with the MT while fragments 10-16 “show a certain divergence from MT, both in the comparatively few words which have survived and in the length of the text as indicated by the lacunae.”138
131 Ibid., 45-46.
132 Tov, Scribal Practices and Approaches, 47. This fact corresponds to the statement in m.
Yad. 4:5 which says that only passages of Scripture written on skin make the hands unclean.
133 Ibid., 51.
134 See table 5 for a list of works that are preserved on both papyri and leather in ibid., 48.
135 Ibid., 51.
136 Ibid., 52.
137 Baillet, Milik, and Vaux, “Livres des Rois,” 107.
138 Julio Trebolle Barrera, “Qumran Fragments of the Book of Kings,” in The Books of Kings:
Sources, Composition, Historiography and Reception, ed. André Lemaire, Baruch Halpern, and Matthew J.
Adams, Supplements to Vetus Testamentum 129 (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2010), 25.
He suggests that the “Greek proto-Lucianic recension could reflect an original Hebrew close to the textual form of these Qumran fragments.”139 He further describes the content of fragments 16-17 as agreeing with the MT, and the final 76 fragments as too fragmentary to describe.140 Tov identifies 6Q4 as textually non-aligned,141 as does Lange.142
Description and Categorization of Variants
6Q4 is very poorly preserved. Nonetheless, Baillet’s epigraphic skill provides some attempt to comprehend this poorly preserved manuscript. It is important to note that his transcriptions often depend on little manuscript evidence (as he notes most often) and on reconstructions. The text is approached much more cautiously here than Baillet since comparison between Baillet’s transcriptions with photos of IAA demonstrate that most of his readings are less than certain. Therefore, Baillet’s four variants that depend on spatial reconstructions are not accepted here nor are seven further variants that depend on insufficient manuscript grounds.143
139 Trebolle Barrera, “Qumran Fragments of the Book of Kings,” 25.
140 Ibid., 26.
141 Tov, Scribal Practices and Approaches, 33, 333.
142 Lange, “Textual Plurality,” 55.
143 As mentioned, Baillet’s approach to 6Q4 is much more generous than the approach taken here. One of his proposed reconstructed variants illustrates the difference in approaches. This proposed variant is the substitution of שַׂﬠ ַתַּו “and she did” for ךלתו “and she went” at F15:L3 (2 Kgs 8:2). This proposal has no manuscript evidence to support it and no support among the versions but is based on a subsequent variant; namely the omission of רָג ָתַּו הּ ָתיֵבוּ אי ִה �ֶל ֵתַּו “and she went with her household, and she sojourned.” See Baillet, “Livres des Rois,” 109. His reasoning appears to be that since the text omits the form of the verb ךלה later in the verse, it probably substituted the form of the verb השׂע found in the MT and the versions earlier in the verse for a form of ךלה. This reasoning is highly tentative but is further weakened by the fact that the supposed omission of רָג ָתַּו הּ ָתיֵבוּ אי ִה �ֶל ֵתַּו is far from certain. This omission depends on Baillet’s transcription of line 4, but his transcription is doubtful. Although this variant depends on insufficient manuscript evidence, if one accepted Baillet’s reading it would agree with the qere. Overall, very little of this line is preserved, and thus, the proposed omission of רָג ָתַּו הּ ָתיֵבוּ אי ִה �ֶל ֵתַּו is doubtful. Subsequently, his proposed variant with no support among the versions and no manuscript support is further cast into doubt. This proposed variant, thus, illustrates how drastically different the approach taken here is to the approach taken by Baillet. The