Forward or Drawrof?

Advances in Ancient, Biblical and Near Eastern Research, 2023

This essay is an updated proposal for a material historical scroll approach to the formation of the Hebrew Bible, particularly the Pentateuch (cf. Carr in Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 2020). Since this approach draws on data concerning scroll practices in nearby ancient cultures, the article provides a brief survey of potentially significant aspects of ancient Egyptian, Levantine, Greek, Demotic and Second Temple Jewish practices surrounding literary scrolls—how compositions (or parts of them) were inscribed on them, scroll length ranges and types, and ways in which existing scrolls were revised. This preliminary survey suggests that a substantial shift occurred around early Hellenistic period toward development of scrolls with unusually high carrying capacity (both in writing density and length), facilitating somewhat of a media revolution in the amount of literary material that could be recorded on a single written object. Though possibly prompted in part by Greek writing practices and technologies, this development toward use of some high-carrying-capacity scrolls seems associated with some temple and priest-adjacent preservationist scribal contexts where scribes used such high-carrying-capacity scrolls to conserve indigenous literary traditions amidst a broader environment dominated by another language. These and other findings have significant implications for exploring the complex relation between written artifacts and memorized/performed textual works in the Ancient Near East and the development of models for the inscription of Hebrew textual traditions across scrolls in the pre-Hellenistic and Greco-Roman periods. In addition, the article proposes several measures and terms that might be adapted to discuss scroll features across multiple culture areas, such as letter spaces (or the quadrat or other equivalent for Egyptian sign systems) per linear centimeter, cumulative line space, and square centimeters of white space per linear centimeter.

2014

One of the points of departure for the idea of Rewritten Bible is the assumption that there was a relatively fixed Biblical text in front of the author of the respective Rewritten Bible composition. The present article, with the help of examples taken from Jubilees, argues that references to the Biblical text should not only consider the consonantal framework, but should also examine the vocalization of this consonantal framework. On the other hand, and most pertinent to the argument, the different witnesses for the vocalization of Biblical Hebrew texts, especially the Masoretic text and the Samaritan reading tradition, preserve reading traditions which originate in the late Second temple period or even before. Thus, compositions of the Rewritten Bible genre may help to reconstruct the development of reading Biblical texts in this early period. Generally, one should realize that vocalization has been a factor of no less importance ‒ as a source, a point of departure, or a matter of dissociation ‒ than the consonantal framework in both the course of textual transmission and the process of re-writing of Biblical compositions.

In summary, there are two key ideas here: one, the central role of the Bible in Western cultural development; and two, the rational, scientific nature of the Bible. The primal and symbolic nature of Biblical Hebrew, based on the world’s first alphabet, contains insights into the deep and complex nature of reality. In essence, the Hebraic Bible, both Old and New Testaments, constitutes a fundamental scientific textbook of the world we live in. It holds an account of creation, its development over the eons and its further progression, in terms of the fundamental laws and principles governing the various powers, forces and energies involved. The key to understanding this ‘Science Bible’ lies in properly deciphering the letter-symbols and letter-symbol complexes.

Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, 2014

In his work on poetic parallelisms in the Book of Mormon, Donald W. Parry has demonstrated that that book is replete with Hebrew poetry and parallel- isms such as chiasmus. Through analyzing individual texts, this paper seeks to determine whether the patterns Parry points out are deliberately included in the Book of Mormon. Texts selected for the analysis include those that (1) are self-contained with regard to the larger narrative, (2) are explicitly included as embedded documents, and (3) whose authorship is clearly stated or implied; twenty texts totaling 884 verses meet those criteria. After analyzing the per- centage of each texts that has parallelisms, it becomes clear that texts created for oral recitation (sermons) have a substantially higher percentage of parallelisms than those created for written circulation (narratives, proclamations, and letters). Since a major purpose of poetic parallelisms is to facilitate memorization for oral delivery, this means we find parallelisms precisely where we would expect them to appear in the Book of Mormon, thus lending credence to the hypothesis that these parallelisms are deliberate and not accidental.

SCRIPTURE Dating from the mid-third century BCE until the mid-second century CE, the biblical scrolls from the Judean Desert are very early in comparison with the medieval codices of MT. However, compared with the earliest copies of Hebrew Scripture, they are actually late. Whatever view one holds on the dates of the composition and final redaction of the books of Hebrew Scripture, it remains true to say that these activities preceded the copying of the Qumran scrolls by several centuries. Likewise, the composition and redaction of the biblical books preceded the OG translation by the same time span, as the LXX translation was produced between the beginning of the third century BCE and the end of the second century BCE. The realia of writing and rewriting ancient scrolls forms the topic of this chapter, treated here in conjunction with a seemingly remote issue, namely the literary analysis of the Hebrew Bible.

T.C. Schmidt, 2020

This paper examines the reception of the book of Revelation in the hands of eastern Christian scribes. It first explores Revelation’s troubled standing within many eastern churches and then discusses the role scribes played in authorizing, preserving and even influencing Revelation’s status and textual makeup. Such included decisions over whether Revelation should be bound with a biblical or nonbiblical text, or if it should be bound alone; and whether, how, and where a scribe should add a colophon, a preface, or a title. Other choices concerned the use of accents, vocalizations, artwork, script style and a host of still more possibilities as to whether Revelation should be transcribed with accompanying interpretive aids like scholia, marginal notes or even fulllength commentaries. While some of these decisions may seem quite innocuous, this paper shows that even the most minor could promote or demote Revelation’s authority in the eyes of later eastern Christian readers.

The Dead Sea Scrolls are fragments of the oldest Hebrew Bible text, while the Aleppo Codex and the Leningrad Codex are the oldest complete versions, written by the Masoretes in the 10th and 11th centuries, respectively. The Ashkar-Gilson Manuscript falls in between the early scrolls and the later codices. This article discusses the role the Ashkar-Gilson Manuscipt had in bridging the gap between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the later Aleppo Codex and Leningrad Codex.

Aleph Historical Studies in Science and Judaism

1. Y. Tzvi Langermann, "Some Remarks on Judah ben Solomon ha-Cohen and His Encyclopedia, Midrash ha-ḥokmah" in Steven Harvey, ed., The Medieval Hebrew Encyclopedias of Science and Philosophy (Dordrecht, 2000), pp. 71-389, esp. 380-385; idem, "Ha-ḥibbur ha-teimani ha-meḵuneh Ḥafiṣah," Kiryat Sefer 61 (1986/7): 363-367 (repr. in A. David, ed., Mi-ginzei ha-Makhon le-taṣlumei kitvei ha-yad ha-ʿivriyyim [Jerusalem, 1996], pp. 53-57). 2. Taking into consideration the state of knowledge concerning Jewish mysticism as well as the way the term "kabbalistic" was freely bandied about the time that he prepared his catalogue, one can easily forgive G. Margoliouth (Catalogue of the Hebrew and Samaritan Manuscripts in the British Museum, vol. 3 [London, 1915], p. 492) for calling this a treatise of "mystical interpretation," whose design was "to approximate Kabbalistical ideas to philosophic and astronomic theory." Indeed, Margoliouth's well-c...