Qumram Cave 4, V: Miqsat Ma ase ha-Torah.

• Author: Baumgarten, Joseph M.

Editors of fragmentary ancient writings may by their methodologies be classified into two categories: those who limit their published text to what is actually readable in the manuscripts, adding only restorations which are virtually certain; and those who feel that they have not accomplished their task unless they present the reader with as much of the original work as they believe they can recreate with any degree of plausibility.(1) The long-awaited publication of the authorized version of Miqsat Maase ha-Torah (MMT) indicates that its editors, E. Qimron and J. Strugnell, belong philosophically to the second category. Their creative efforts invested in obtaining a meaningful composite text from the fragments of six Cave 4 manuscripts are truly remarkable. They tend to vindicate the Israeli court decision awarding Qimron intellectual property rights for his version of the Hebrew text. At the same time, the editors, who estimate the restorations to constitute about forty percent of the text, are quite frank in cautioning the reader about the conjectural nature of some of those which they proposed. One of the reconstituted laws is prefaced by the editorial comment: "The text is so fragmentary that we can do no more than guess what it may have said" (p. 154). Another is accompanied by the avowal that "our conclusions are based largely on conjecture" (p. 158). Such scholarly honesty is refreshing and bids the reader to weigh carefully the textual basis for various hypotheses which are proposed.

Since the editors were kind enough to invite early on this reviewer's comments on the seventeen rulings in section B, the central portion of this "halakhic letter," and since some of these confirm inferences which I postulated on the basis of the Temple Scroll and other Qumran writings before 1980, it seems appropriate now to evaluate the interpretations of religious law adopted in this editio princeps.

1. Gentile Grain

   The identification of this law as "concerning the sowed gifts of the new wheat grains of the gentiles" (p. 46) hinges on the restoration [Hebrew Text Omitted], which is decidedly conjectural. If we grant that the subject is grain, it is uncertain that it is the grain of gentiles. If we assume that it deals with the grain of gentiles, it is uncertain whether the restriction is grounded in concerns of purity or the need to strengthen ethnic social barriers. If we assume that it deals particularly with terumah, the heave offering from grain donated to the priests by gentiles, then the tannaitic sources on terumot would not "seem to be irrelevant" (p. 148), as indicated in the commentary. But these compounded "ifs" hardly support any conclusions which are "clear" or "obvious" (p. 148).(2)

2. Cooking of the Purification Offering

   Here the identification with the purification offering (Lev. 6:21) hinges on the restoration [Hebrew Text Omitted] "and concerning the sacrifice of the purification offering that they cook" (p. 46), although this does not suffice to tell us what the accusation might have been. I suggested to the editors that the law may relate to the mandatory separation between the offerings of the priests and the laity stressed in Ezekiel 46 and in 11QTemple 35 and 37; they allude to this as a possible alternative (p. 149).

3. Sacrifices Offered by Gentiles

   That the subject is gentile sacrifices is vouchsafed by the rubric, [Hebrew Text Omitted]. The question is, where were the gentile offerings being made? The editors take it for granted that they were brought to the Temple and that the critique stems from sectarian opposition to accepting Temple offerings from non-Jews. However, this is difficult to harmonize with the motivating clause, [Hebrew Text Omitted], which is oddly rendered, "that it is like (a woman) who whored with him" (p. 149). More plausibly it means, "that it is as if you whored after him," that is, by facilitating offerings to pagan deities a Jew is reckoned as if he himself had strayed after the strange gods. The wording recalls Exod. 34:15-16, "for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to their gods (someone) will invite you, and you will eat of the sacrifice...