Qumran Grotte 4.X VIII: Textes hebreux.

• Author: TALSHIR, ZIPORA
• Position: Review

Qumran Grotte 4.X VIII: Textes hebreux (4Q521-4Q528, 4Q576-579). By EMILE PUECH. Discoveries in the Judaean Desert, vol. 25. Oxford: CLARENDON PRESS, 1998. Pp. xviii + 229, 2 figures, 15 plates. $105.

In recent years volumes in the series Discoveries in the Judaean Desert (DJD) have been published at an accelerated rate under the guidance of editor-in-chief Emanuel Toy. The appearance of each new volume is a thrill to the small but ardent community involved in Qumran and cognate studies, revealing yet another concealed treasure for scholars to enjoy and study. As usual, the present volume appears in the glamorous robe of this series, with the generous space and eye-catching format afforded by the Clarendon Press. This volume, in French, has been produced by Emile Puech and edited by James Vanderkam, both renowned scholars in the field.

The treasures of cave 4 continue to nourish the DJD series, the present volume containing Hebrew texts of a varied nature, all paleographically identified as Hasmonean. A forthcoming volume--also by Puech--will present Aramaic texts from the same cave. All of these texts had previously been assigned to Jean Starcky, to whose memory this volume is dedicated.

The texts published here are numbered 4Q521-528 and 567- 579. Several of them have previously been studied in articles over the years and now gain their deserved fuller treatment. In fact, all of the more significant texts among these scrolls have been pre-published by Puech himself. Only the smaller fragments appear for the first time in this volume.

This publication contains a physical and paleographic description of the scrolls, concise discussions of their language and orthography, consideration of the genre of the texts, and other remarks, e.g., on the divine names which serve Puech as an almost absolute criterion for the dating of the original works. The texts themselves are then presented in a reconstructed format, accompanied by notes on the readings, a translation into French, and a quite extensive commentary on the linguistic, exegetical, and ideological aspects of the texts, with a mass of references to biblical, Qumranic, and other works. The amount of work invested in this volume is immense and encompasses many fields of research.

We turn to some notes on the various texts published in this volume.

4Q521, Pp. 1-38, "Apocalypse messianique." Paleographic evaluation of this manuscript places it in the first quarter of the first century B.C.E. Puech, however, asserts that this scroll, produced in the Qumranic scriptorium, is a copy of an earlier work, possibly from the second half of the second century. His main argument, here as on other occasions, is the author's attitude towards the divine names: he consistently avoids the use of [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], even when quoting Ps 146. This, as well as other features of vocabulary and concepts, show this author to be close to that of [1QH.sup.a].

The scroll comprises seventeen fragments, many of which are very small and of little interest. The most significant text is found in fragments 2ii+4 and 7 1-8 + 5ii 7-16. Its characterization as a messianic apocalypse is based first and foremost on the explicit mention of the word [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] in fragment 2ii, line 1: [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] and in fragment 8, line 9: [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] probably also in fragment 9, line 3. Unfortunately, there is very little in the preserved text centered on the Messiah or Messiahs; it does not allow a clear picture of the [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] envisaged by the author and calls for speculation. Thus, one finds an assertive discussion (pp. 1-2; 19-20) of the place of Elijah redivivus in this text based on nothing more than the partial citation of Mal 3:24: [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] in fragment 2iii, line 2: [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] Later on (p. 37) Puech takes the validity of this sup position as a fact. The text's use of Malachi's wording in an apocalyptic context is quite natural; the question of whether he also borrowed the concept of a future Elijah (Mal 3:23) remains without answer.

4Q522, pp. 39-74, "Prophetie de Josue." We gather that the main fragment of this scroll, fragment 9ii (15 lines, significant parts of which are preserved), pp. 55-62, which includes Joshua's predictions regarding David and Solomon, the conquest of Jerusalem, and the building of the Temple, lent the title to the entire work. We suspect that were greater parts of this composition preserved it would have gained a completely different title--e.g., Puech's alternative, 4Qapocr Josue[subset].

For this challenging text, Puech fails to mention beside his own pre-publications Qimron's contribution in Tarbiz 1994, although he repeatedly refers to it in the notes (p. 57, n. 35 and following). Significantly, Qimron found mention of Joshua twice in the text ([LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], lines 13 and 14), and his reconstruction introduced into the text Beth-El and Shiloh (line 13). These readings, inter alia, resulted in a completely different understanding of the text's setting and meaning. According to Qimron's interpretation, most of the text (through line 12) consists of Joshua's words to Eleazar. Joshua maintains that they cannot place the Tent of Meeting in Zion (line 2) until, as Joshua foresees, David will have conquered Jerusalem and Solomon will have built the Temple (lines 3-9, referring to the future, not as Puech first understood). He then explains why he himself has not accomplished this sacred mission. The reason lies in his sin in regard to the inhabitants of Gibeon (lines 9-11; Puech insists, however, that Qimron's reading [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN...