Discoveries in the Judaean Desert: Volume VIII. The Greek Minor Prophets Scroll from Nahal Hever (8HevXIIgr): The Seiyâl Collection, I: Seiyal Collection Vol 8

D ISCOVERIES IN THE JUDAEAN DESERT · V III

THE

GREEK MINOR PROPHETS SCROLL

F RO M NABAL BEVER

(8 f;1e vX II gr)

(THE SElyAL C OL LECT ION I )

DISCOVERIES IN THE JUDAEAN DESERT · VIII

THE

GREEK MINOR PROPHETS SCROLL

FROM NAHAL HEVER

• • (8BevXIIgr)

( THE SElyAL COLLECTION I)

BY

E MANUEL T OV HE BR EW UNIVER SIT Y, J ERU S ALEM WI TH THE C O L LA BO RA T I ON OF

R . A . KRAFT AND A CO N T R IB U TI O N BY

P . J. PARSONS

C LARENDON P RESS , O XFOR D ~.COl(

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O:>.jord U niversity Press, Wa ltoll Street, Oxford O X2 O:>.jord New Y ork

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O:>.jord is a Iril de mark of Oxford Ulliuersity Press

CONTEN T S PREFAC E

by J.

STRlJGNELL

V ll

FOREWORD

IX

ABBREVIATION S A ND SIG LA

Xl

Pu blished in the United States by

Oxford Un ivenity Press I nc. , New Y ork

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se nt to the RIghts Departmellt , Oxford UlIiversity Press,

a t the address abov e

British L ibra ry C ataloguillg in Publicatioll Data

T ov, E manuel

The ' Seivai' collect ion.

V ol. 1: T he Greek Minor P rophets scroll

f rom Na llal He~ 'er .

1. Greek S eptua!(inl . B ible. O. T. Critical studies

I . T itle 1/. Kraft , R . /I. . 1/1. Parso ns,

P .). I V. Series

22J. 4 '8

ISBN o-}(r 826327- reach es well above the line; the

d escenders of p, 4> and I/J are normally curtailed), although uncertainty in execution, and the enlargement of initial letters, gives an irregular imp ression. F or the sizes of t he letters, see A6a. (b) Shading. T he pen is thick, and there are variations of thickness in the strokes, though not, it seems, to any consistent effect. But in several places th e scribe can be seen to sharpen his pen, or take a newer and thinner one: cols 8, 1.1 2, 20 , 1. 3 5· (c) Ornament. T he script is profusely ornamented. The feet of verticals and descending obliques carry blobs or hooks or half-serifs (horizontal or angular or arched) or-rarely­ fu ll ser ifs; hooks and half-serifs normally point to the right; they may be very large. A glance at fig. I will show that there is no consistency; any suitable letter may carry any of these ornaments. Some ve rticals (11, " K) may be hooked to the left at the top . In some p laces the verticals themselves are given a sinuous shape, which enhances the m annered look.

20

DISCOVERIES IN THE J UDAEAN DE S ERT VIIf

A . INTRODUCTION

21

(d) Letter fonns (see fig. I) A..AAA/to..AAA.

aBB. c- t" .b~

~



e e E:.~ C! €

AAA B

A

rr

B

.l::.

..:j

E~e-~c=

E

Hk

HJ1X

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A M

LUlL )..

J, J J ILl (this scribe makes no attempt to curtail them ). (ii) Horizontal. The gen eral effect is round and square; round ed letters ten d to a circle and even an oblate circle, but t here are examples of oval fonns as well. For the sizes of the letters, see A6a. (b) Shading. Thick strokes (horizontals, obliques descending from left to right ) and thin strokes (obliques ascending from left to righ t) are clearly d ifferentiated; verticals may be eithe r. (c) Ornament. The feet of uprights, t he tops of up rights in L, K, 11, 4>, and the left-hand t ips of v and x. take decoration in t he for m of blobs , hooks and half-serifs (horizontal or oblique),

rarely full serifs; hooks and half-serifs m ore oft en (but not consistently) point to the left. (d) Letter forms (see fi g. 2) A E

B A M

n

sometimes in the capital shape, with horizon tal (or concave) c ross-bar, sometimes with cross-bar slop ing to lower left (in at least on e place made in a single m ovement with the fi rst obliqu e ?) . has its c ross-bar detached ; sometim es the b ack is m ade in a single movement, sometimes the cap is added as a further short curved or ho rizontal stroke. sometimes has its cross-bar detach ed on the left side or on both. has its right-h and stroke p rojecting above the apex. has sloping sides, and its b ow touches the line; the junction well below the summ it on both sides. Generally (always ?) in three m ovements, th e second and third strokes in one . with the right side curved (and m ade in one m ovement with th e top?).

DISCOVERIES IN THE JUDAEAN DESERT VIII

22

E T Y

tI> D

generally (always?) in two movements, the top supplied as an additional straight or curving stroke.

has a strong curl down on its left-hand end; that part of the cross-bar is often th ickened.

apparently in two movements, the left-hand prong and the stem fo nned in one .

has a large bowl which fills the whole normal line-space.

sometimes (not always ?) in two movements.

(e) General. We have only a small sample of this script; what survives suggests a much more

fluent and consistent copyist than hand A. 7b. Dating

Principles The manuscript came originally from the 'Cave of Horror'; we therefore have a terminus ante quem of C.A . D . 13S for its writing (see AI). For a terminus post quem we have no objective evidence. No certain d eductions can be made from the format of the roll (see A2) or from the orthography (see FI2); the heavy soiling of upper and lower m argins, and of the back, which Barth. reports, may prove heavy use, but whether intensive use over a short period, or recurrent use over a long period, who can say? W e have therefore to base our date on palaeographic evidence. The reader who surveys the bibliography will not need to be warned that such evidence is shifting sand. Barth. 1953 dated the script (that is, hand A) towards the end of i A. D . Roberts apud Kahle (p. 226) opted for 50 B.C.- A.D. 50, and Schubart ibid. for a d ate around the reign of Augustus; Barth. 1963 accepted Schubart's date for hand A, found parallels for hand B in dated papyri of i A.D. and assigned the whole manuscript to mid i A.D. The scientific aspect of the process is simple enough: it consists in pointing out similarities between the script to be dated and other scripts to which an objective (non­ palaeographic) date can be attached. But such dated hands are rare; and the use to be made of them must be qualified by subjective and ideological fact ors. I list some particular difficulties: (i) 'Styles' and 'similarities'. Ideally, we group scripts together by their similarities; and within one group try to see a definable 'style' of script with its own dynamics of historical development; then undated hands may be placed chronologically within the schema articulated by the dated examples. The difficu lties are twofold. (a) What is a 'similarity'? Two characteristics referred to above are 'ornament' (the use of decorative serifs and the like) and 'shading' (the deliberate alternation of thick and thin pen-strokes, related to the angle at which the pen meets the paper). In one 'style' d efinable by other criteria ornament seems to be essential (the ' Roman Uncial'); in another (the 'Biblical U ncial') heavy shading is always p resent. But in other possible 'styles' shading and ornament seem to be facultative . Thus Turner (GMAW2 p. 21) rightly insists that Schubart's 'decorated style' (to which Schubart assigned hand A) is not really a style, but a single feature of several styles, spread over a period of at least four centuries from ii B.C. (b) What is a style? Some palaeographers speak of a 'canon', that is, a fixed and unitary prescription to which good scribes can be seen conforming, and whose development and decay can be charted . Other palaeographers emphasise that we know effectively nothing about ancient views of these matters or about the training of ancient scribes; t herefore 'canon', with its suggestion of scientific precision and h istorical realism, is inappropriate; 'style', and 'development' within a style, are no more than modern analytic concepts. (ii) Local Styles. There is no special reason to suppose that the same styles of script

A. INTRODUCTIO N

23

existed at the same time, and developed at the same pace, in all parts of the Mediterranean world . It is, for example, arguable that styles which contrast wide and narrow letters appear at Herculaneum in i B.C. , but in Egypt not until ij A.D. (see GMAW2 no. 78). Comparative material from three areas is listed below; it remains an open question how far papyri from Egypt and from Herculaneum are relevant. (iii) Personal styles. We have to add further factors. (a) A scribe may have a working life of 50 years; in that time he may not change his script. Therefore , even if a style can be assumed to show a linear diachronic development, not all practitioners will develop wi th it; very precise datings are risky. (b) Occasionally we can p oint to certain examples of archaising writing: thus POxy L 3529, which I should have assigned on palaeographic evidence to the early Roman period , is shown by its content to date after A.D. 307. We do not know whether archaism was a matter of personal choice or the habit of certain scriptoria or the requirement of certain patrons, or whether it was more likely at certain periods or places or in the copying of certain genres of text (say, scriptural texts).

Comparative Material Hands A and B clearly differ in size and polish (hand B looks much less crabbed and inconsistent than h and A); but they are of the same type, bilinear and decorated . I list some datable comparative material: (i) Egypt. T he overwhelming bulk of our material is from here; but even here the d ated examples are rare . GLH provides an essent ial selection; for the serifed styles with which we shaH be concerned see the detailed lists in Menci. i

B. C .

i

A.D.

GLH 8a document 99 B.C. PLond III 1209 doc. 89 883 doc. 88 PAmh II 51 doc. 88 G LH 8b doc. 30-29 P GB 12 doc. 13 GL H 9a doc. C.7-4 PQasrl b rim Homer later i B.C. ? [See JE A 62 (1976) II6; all datable texts from this find have been early Augu stan .) PMerton I I 52 Homer before 5 B.C. [The verso carries a document of that date.] GMAW 56 LXX later i B.C. ? [See GMAW2 Add . 125 , where Tumer judges a cursive note in th is papyrus to be ' unmistakably Ptolemaic' . Since dated cursive hand s are relatively common, the pa\aeographic dat ing of such hands is relatively reliable .] [GMAW 12, a good paraJlel , has no objective date : see GMAW 2 Add. 16.] POxy 25 55 horoscope after 46 POxy 3700 mime b efore c .48-9 GMAW 64 doc. C. 50 POxy 3332 doc. 53 POxy 3250 doc. c.63 G LH IOC doc. 66 POxy 2987 doc. c.78-9

Most of this material is documentary; but the comparison is rathe r appropriate, since the use of enlarged initials at line-beginning (hands A and B) and phrase-beginning (hand A) and (set out in the m argin ) to mark a new section (hand A) gives this manuscript a documentary look (see A4) . The fact is itself remarkable . Early Christian books show the

DISCOVERIES IN THE JUDAEAN DESERT VIII

A . INTRODUCTION

same characteristic; copies of the Greek classics do not. It has therefore been tempting to argue that the texts of the Early Church stood closer to the world of business than to that of literature, and to draw conclusions about the social milieu in which the texts circulated or the esteem in which they were held . Now we see the same thing in a Jewish manuscript of pre-Christian date. T his may suggest that the Christians inherited the practice, rather than inventing it; the problem remains, why G reek-speaking Jews should h ave adopted it in the first place. In Egyptian context, bot h hands give a clear immediate impression of being late Ptolemaic or early Roman; that was the m eaning of Roberts's original dating' 50 B.C. - A.D. 50'. The question is, whether the period can be narrowed down . Hand A could certainly be ascribed to the earlier part of the period. It has striking similarities with GLH 8a, of 99 B.C. (not to be pressed too far , for part of the similarity- the fact that both scribes handle a thick pen clumsily-is irrelevant). The literary style to which it aspires, the bilinear serifed manner in which only the riser of phi b reaks the mould, occurs in t wo Homer texts, assigned on objective grounds to i B.C., and (in a less insistent form) in G MAW 56 (PFouad Inv. 266), reasonably assigned to the same period , as well as in many literary papyri dated on simple palaeographic grounds to that cen tury; in the epsilon whose cross-bar occasionally becomes a dot there is a point of contact with the 'Epsilon Theta' style, which is represented at Herculaneum (i.e. before c.40 B.C.?) (see C avallo, Cron. Erc. 4 (1974) 33; Menci 38-40). Among letters one may note some older-looking forms, which ap pear alongside later (more cursive) shapes ofthe same letter: alpha in the capital form, mu in four movements, xi in three strokes. All in all, I can see n othing against ascri bing this hand to the late r first century B.C., and nothing specifically in favou r of datin g it later. But POxy 2555, a horoscope fo r A.D. 46 (copied, therefore, some indefinite period after), warns that the later date would be perfectly possible. Hand B has at first sight a later look; that may be m erely that t he execution is more regular and elegant, and the round letters wider and fuller. But the width has parallels e.g. in GLH 8b, 9~ (later i B.C.); and, although this h and deliberately m akes rho and phi break the b ilinearity, there is a likeness to the two Homers cited and to PFouad Inv. 266 (note here the neckless u psilon). Among letter-fo rm s, Mr. Skeat notes theta with the cross-bar d etached; add the tau wit h the left extremity thickened and hooked down, which in this form seems to me a P tolemaic inheritance (t hough the ductus which produces this form , i.e. , ~ , is still fo und in d ocuments of the early Roman period). (ii) Herculaneum. The Greek papyri, all literary, come from a single library. There is a certain terminus ante, A.D. 79 , when the town was buried. There is a less certain one C. 40 B.C., the presumed date of Philodemus ' d eath: since the collection includes so many of Philodemus' own works, some (it can be argued) in draft as well as in fair copy , and includes no author demonstrably late r than him , it seems reasonable to suppose that this was P hilodemus' own library. Where the books were originally copied, and where the local copyists were originally trained, we have no means of saying. Bilinear serifed hands are common in this library, as a glance at LSSE will show . I should make a general comparison with PHerc 182 (LSSE pI. 18) and 1005 (p I. 22) (both assigned by Cavallo to mid-i B.C.), and of hand B with PHerc. 1471 (PI.36) (assigned to earlier i B.C.), 1186 (pI. 33) (assigned to m id­ i B.C.), 1423 and 1507 (pll. 50 and 53; these often have alpha in the pointed, not the capital form, and are assigned to later i B.C.).

These parallels ten d to show that the hands of our scroll could be of i B.C. (though of course they cannot exclude a later date). (iii) Judaean Desert. These hands should be the most relevant . But it seems that no very precise archaeological dates can be given. At Qumran, the material probably antedates A.D. 68 (DJD VI 2 I), although there remains the possibility that some of the caves were occupied again at the time of the Second Revolt (DJD III 32); at Murabba'at, the terminus ante is no earlier than for the Minor Prophets scroll, i.e., C.A.D. 135 (or even later?: DJD II 47f)· Qumran. 7QILXXEx (van H aelst 38), see DJD III p. 142 and pI. 30. Assigned date: c. 100 B.C. (Rob erts). T h is small serifed bilinear hand has some sim ilarities with hands A and B (note the pointed alpha, and wide tau hooked down at the left), so far as can be seen from the scrap which survives. 4QLXX Le~ (van Haelst 49), see P. W. Skehan, S V T 4 (1957) 148ff with plate fac ing p. 159. Assigned d ate: late ii B.C. (Roberts). This is a pinched, undecorated hand of the type of GLH 6a, with a pronounced Ptolemaic look; not sim ilar to h ands A or B, and probably earlier. 4QLXXNum (van Haelst 5 1), see P. W . Skehan, HTR70 (1977) 39ffwjth plate. Assigned dat e: i B.C. / i A.D. (Roberts). This b ilinear script (the descenders of rho and phi are curtailed) , heavily ornam ented with half- and full serifs, has some similarities wit h hand A, but it is much more elegant and finely written; a d istinctive feature is that the oval letters tend to lean backward s. 4QL X XDeut, see E. U lrich in De Septuaginta: Studies in H onour ofJohn William Wevers on his Sixty-Fifth Birthday (eds. A. Pietersma and C. C ox, Mississauga, Ont., 1984) 71ff with plate. The hand of this scrap shows no similarities with hand A or B; it is an in formal script of Ptolem aic look with some cursive tendencies and no decoration except some terminal hooks and blobs. 4Qsn. A non- biblical text to be p ublished by E. Ulrich, in a decorated hand of the same typ e as 4QLXXNum, but not so elegant. 7Q2EpistJer (van Haelst 3 12), see DJD III p . 143 and pI. 30. Assigned date: C.IOO B.C. (Roberts). This t in y scrap shows a b road bilinear script without ornament (except for a half­ serif on the foot of t au). 7Q4-9 (van H aelst 1094), ibid. O f these unprofitable scraps, no. 5 (assigned date: 50 B.C.- A.D. 50) shows some likeness to hands A and B (half-serifs; alpha in capital shape). . Murabba 6fJep fI. £y &'Aep 'Tall t~]n Kat f{)va!?:oav 8[ ua ]{av' • " '\ -i Ka L' W/: £vxaS' .] _________ __ _____ __ _ _ _ , , 29 [ 'T ep• ~ 3 0 [2. I Kal 7TpOa''Ta~E~ ~? K7}'TEL fl.Ey&,Acp K]a'Ta7T!£iv Tall Lwvall' , \' ] . " '[A] 31 [ Ka L,.,% 'I" LWII~ £v _KO'''Lq. TOU" K71'TOV ~ Tp£LS' 71f1.fipaS' KaL Tp£ LS' ~

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