Hi,
Stephen Goranson posted the message below offering a critique of my
article on the stabilization of the Biblical text to both this list and
the ANE list. I copy below my response to his critique already sent to
ANE:
I must apologize to Stephen for not understanding everything he
writes. Below I answer what I understand to be the main points, but
before everyone else on the list nods off, let me state again what Greg
Doudna has already said:
1. The core insight of the first century BCE deposit is that the
absence of allusions to people or events later than the mid-first
century BCE in the Qumran scrolls makes the most obvious conclusion that
the
scrolls were put in the caves in the mid-first century BCE. The burden
of proof is therefore on opponents of this view.
2. The fact that the Masada, Murabbaat etc scrolls are of an utterly
different nature to the Qumran Biblical scrolls is almost certainly a
correct observation. It's not my observation. Tov and Talmon noted it
before me. I think I have substantiated this clearly in my article
cited by Stephen Goranson below, and in even more detail in an article
forthcoming in the Alan Crown Festschrift. In the light of point 1
above the most obvious explanation of this fact is simply that the
Qumran texts come from a different era than do the Masada and later
texts.
3. The question is: is there any evidence that is strong enough to
overturn this, the most obvious reading of the evidence?
I state this because it can be hard to see the main issues when there
are so many side issues being pursued. May I recommend that interested
readers consult my article in Dead Sea Discoveries 9, 2002,
364-390 cited below, and the publications of Greg Doudna mentioned by
Stephen Goranson and in my article, and draw their own conclusions.
Stephen Goranson (SG) wrote:
Ian Young has presented and discussed an article (DSD 9 [2002] 364-
90) on Masada texts, but it misdates both Masada and Qumran texts.
It is not the case that all see the MT situation at Masada as Young has
it.
E.g. E. Ulrich, "Two Perspectives on Two Pentiteuchal Manuscripts from
Masada.'
in Emanuel {Tov FS, 2003] 453f gives good arguments for explanations
other than
the one offered by Young. Plus, it is no small matter that IY excluded
Mas Gen,
recognized as Gen, not Jubilees (cf. J. VanderKam, the leading Jubilees
expert), called Gen by Talmon in Masada VI.
I respond:
Gene Ulrich gives a different point of view on the Masada material, in
particular the so-called Masada Genesis. On this let me repeat what I
already said on g-megillot : The manuscript preserves 8 complete words
and 3 incomplete words. It has 3 minor variants from the MT (twice
missing a locative he and one additional 'et probably meaning "with").
With this little text preserved, can we base any case on it? It could
be a copy of Jubilees (as has been found at Masada- this was Talmon's
original
theory), or a copy of Genesis, or a copy of some other Genesis
apocryphon. I don't know. If a Biblical scroll, it would be the only
Torah manuscript from the Judean Desert outside Qumran which has a
single variant against the MT. Gene Ulrich
argued that evaluating the tiny fragment is a matter of perspective. In
the context of the textual
variety exhibited by the Qumran scrolls one would not stress the
relationship of this scroll and its variants with the MT. However,
since I separate Qumran from Masada by a considerable period of time, I
evaluate the fragment in the context of
the Masada and Bar Kochba era evidence. Don't forget that even medieval
manuscripts exhibit the same small scale variants against each other.
Are you going to find a sentence in
a medieval manuscript with a couple of minor variants like this in it
(you can find such examples), and declare that the Biblical text in the
medieval period was not yet stabilized? Stabilized doesn't mean that
scribes stopped making errors or being sloppy on occasion.
SG writes:
Talmon in Masada VI provides
weighty reasons that the Mas mss came from a variety of places. By IY's
limiting canon and MT sample, e.g.,
the Samaritan text is excluded from view. Also R. Reich's archaeology
articles
(e.g. ZDPV)
argue for different backgrounds in different areas of Masada in the war.
I respond:
I am actually agreeing with this. I don't see what you are saying?
SG writes:
Ian
tells us about MT texts "in use." Does he, do we, know which were in
use? when?
Can he tell us which Qumran texts were in use and when?
I respond:
No, but I guess that scrolls deposits generally represent scrolls that
were in use in the preceding period. I can't think of a plausible
alternative. Can you?
SG:
To ignore the evidence
for variety of all Mas texts greatly weakens the article, and reminds me
of
Meier's JBL
article on "halakha" at Qumran which in catch-22 fashion brackets out
the
question of other evidence for the clear Qumran criticism of Pharisees.
(For
more excellent evidence that Qumranites indeed criticized Pharisees, as
seekers
of smooth things, see VanderKam in the Tov Festschrift.
I respond:
What variety of all Masada texts? The variety of non-Biblical texts was
a key part of MY argument. If you are talking about the Biblical
scrolls, then you are once again talking about the one sentence worth
of text preserved in MasGen. If that is your whole case, then all the
better for me.
SG:
Speaking of Pharisees, it is quite unnecessary to demonstrate that
Pharisees
controlled Judaism in late second temple in order to be associated with
a
particular text tradition, one that largely survived.
The quote from Josephus contra Apion does nothing to help IY's case, as
Josephus
claimed that for "long ages" no text change was made--plainly false,
unless one
follows IY's assurance of 24 books (inc. Daniel) in the temple in
164/3--
implied MT-related (not clear?)--quite speculative, not at all stringent
for
dating (IY
put Qumran as a midpoint somehow between 164 temple and masada MT).
Plus, the
quote from Josephus, if limited to the time of writing, was 90s AD--too
late to
indicate widespread stabilization pre 70.
I respond:
Josephus tells us that long before 90CE the Biblical text was
stabilized. It's a straightforward statement. Any statement of any
author may be false, but this statement turns out to be accurate on my
reading
of the evidence. I think that claiming your source is making the whole
thing up (since it doesn't fit your theory) is less satisfactory if an
alternative is available.
SG:
AD Crown affirms? Recall his Jer. 50 yr. conf. abstract "If we ignore
the
Essene
identification...[sic!]" Recall others, some wishing big redating:
farewell to
Essenes in the cemetery! and Essenes cannot be located but they aren't
here.
Golb on Essenes as an "obscure sect," then trying to make them obscure.
Doudna:
Essenes are too hard to know (even while he offers the [easy to know?!]
Hyrcanus II as Teacher of
Righteousness). Didn't different tradents have different texts all
through the
second temple period? What would Qumran texts be doing with criticism of
the
temple administration?
I respond:
This is not a clear paragraph to me. Are you saying that Alan Crown
can't be trusted because (for the sake of the argument) he was wrong on
another occasion (more accurately: he has been known to say
things you don't agree with)?
SG:
Calling on early Qumran deposit is not only a deus ex
machina but one undefined: Ian Young does not investigate whether the
Doudna/
Ian Hutchesson dating has made any credible claim, has any merit, can
really
toss out paleography, archaeology, C14, says that's outside the bounds
of the
article. Not so, since that deposit time does not work.
I respond:
Of course I have looked at the other arguments. I must say that I have
not gleaned from your e-mails any reason to change my views. I think
that Greg Doudna has made out a reasonable case on all these
issues, and my article referred to Greg's views. His arguments make
sense to me.
SG:
Ian slights the fact that a 73/4 end date does not date the mss--how
much
older are they? Paleography suggests 1st BC dates, hence a difference of
tradition, not chronology.
I respond:
Laying aside the problems of dating (i.e. whether the manuscripts are
correctly dated), you have at least raised a case that could and has
been made about the Masada scrolls, by Emanuel Tov. Could they
represent a separatist group that had only one sort of Biblical text? I
investigate this in the article, and conclude, agreeing with Talmon, see
above, that the evidence for diversity of the Masada community
makes this theory problematic.
-Ian Young
Sydney University
_______________________________________________
g-Megillot mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://mailman.McMaster.CA/mailman/listinfo/g-megillot
