The Bible at Qumran: Text, Shape, and Interpretation & Liturgical Works.

• Author: Van Peursen, W. Th.
• Position: Book Review

The Bible at Qumran: Text, Shape, and Interpretation. Edited by PETER W. FLINT. Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature. Grand Rapids, Mich.: WM. B. EERDMANS PUBLISHING Co., 2001. Pp. xv + 266. $22 (paper).

Liturgical Works. By JAMES R. DAVILA. Eerdmans Commentaries on the Dead Sea Scrolls, vol. 6. Grand Rapids, Mich.: WM. B. EERDMANS PUBLISHING Co., 2000. Pp. xi + 338. $25 (paper).

The volume edited by Peter W. Flint consists of two parts. Part one, entitled "The Scriptures, the Canon, and the Scrolls," contains five essays on the text and shape of the "Bible" at Qumran. James A. Sanders argues for "reading Scripture dialogically through intertextuality," which in his view provides a sound basis for interfaith dialogue: "One might think of a round table with the cited or echoed passage from the Tanak in the middle and all the tradents who used it in early Jewish literature, down through the New Testament, seated around the table in imaginary dialogue about the significance of the Scripture traced" (p. 21).

Bruce K. Waltke gives an overview of the textual witnesses to the Hebrew Bible and the methods of textual criticism. He arrives at an affirmative answer to the question, Can the Church still confess that "by His singular care and providence" the text has been "kept pure in all ages" (Westminster Confession of Faith 1.8)? (p. 47).

Eugene Ulrich discusses the Shape of the Scriptures at Qumran. He argues that the Scriptures were pluriform till the end of the first century A.D., that the textual forms of the individual books of the Scriptures that the Samaritans, Jews, and Christians received were accidental, and that from a text-critical perspective the Masoretic Text does not deserve a status different from that of other texts. This has consequences for Bible translations. In Ulrich's view, religious communities are entitled to use the text that is considered as the received text within that community, but an academically sound translation must be based on a critically established text, not just a diplomatic text such as the MT or the LXX.

Craig A. Evans focuses on the question of whether the tripartite structure of the Hebrew Bible had been established in the time of Jesus. Evans thinks that passages like 4QMMT, C 10, and Luke 24:27 do not presuppose the tripartite division of the canon attested in later Jewish sources, but show that their authors were concerned with all parts of the scriptures of Israel for their...