4QLev-d, 4QDeut-n, and the Pre-Samaritan Tradition

A comment in Emanuel Tov's Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible (3d ed.) surprised me: he lists the scrolls belonging to the Samaritan Pentateuch group of texts found at Qumran, and he says that "possibly also 4QLev-d" should be classed among them (91). I thought that Leviticus stood out from the other books of the Samaritan Pentateuch as the one that did not feature any major expansions of text.

Let me explain: the Samaritan Pentateuch (SP) is a version of the Torah that features several differences from the Jewish Torah. Among these differences are about forty major expansions to the Pentateuchal text, all consisting of material duplicated from elsewhere in the Pentateuch. For instance, in the Jewish Torah (Mosoretic Text--MT), God tells Moses to go warn Pharaoh that frogs are coming, and the next thing you read is that frogs are coming, but you never read that Moses went to warn Pharaoh. Well, in the SP, you do read that Moses warned Pharaoh; the text has been expanded with that conversation inserted. Similarly, when Moses reviews Israel's history in Deuteronomy 1–3, we encounter certain details that are not found in the MT version of Exodus or Numbers. The SP has those details inserted into Exodus and Numbers.

Aside from these major expansions, there is another category of differences between the SP and MT, consisting of Samaritan ideological alterations of the text--that is, someone committed to Samaritan theology, especially its emphasis on Mt. Gerizim as a holy site, inserted certain passages or minor revisions into the Torah to reflect this Samaritan theology. The number of definite Samaritan changes to the text is dwindling under scholarly scrutiny (see my recent article), but at least the Samaritan Tenth Commandment falls into this category.

Notice that the major expansions do not count as Samaritan ideological corrections. For one thing, they have nothing to do with particularly Samaritan theology. For another thing, almost all of these major expansions have been found among the Dead Sea Scrolls (definitely Jewish documents), especially 4QpaleoExod-m (4Q22), 4QNum-b (4Q27), 4Q(Reworked) Pentateuch (4Q158; 4Q364), and 4QEx-Lev (4Q17). Since these scrolls feature the major expansions preserved in the Samaritan Pentateuch, but not the Samaritan ideological insertions (i.e., the Samaritan Tenth Commandment), these Qumran scrolls (4QRP only secondarily) have been categorized as pre-Samaritan, under the assumption that it was one of these types of texts--current generally in Palestine during the last few centuries BCE--that the Samaritans chose as their base text before inserting some of their own ideological alterations into the text.

Now, it seems clear that the Samaritans chose their text deliberately, because most of the books in their Pentateuch bear the same character--expansive texts. (Not the most expansive versions of the respective books, mind you: 4Q158, 4Q364, and other scrolls feature even more additional material.) Sometimes you'll read that the Samaritans chose an expansive text "in all five Torah books" (Tov, Textual Criticism, 93), but this is not technically accurate, because there's no such thing as an expansive text of Leviticus. Eugene Ulrich, who has emphasized more than anyone the pluriform character of ancient scriptural texts and has pushed scholars to think in terms of variant literary editions for ancient scriptural books, says that there are no variant literary editions attested for Leviticus, just the one long known from the MT (see his essay in Tov's Festschrift, p. 459).

But then I find that Tov thinks maybe there is a Leviticus scroll in the expansive tradition. So, why does he think 4QLev-d belongs to this tradition? The main reason seems to be there is a substantial expansion found in the text at Lev 17:4. Here's the text in the Dead Sea Scrolls Bible (p. 95), with the additional material (vis-a-vis MT) in italics.

and [has not brought it] to the door of the tent of meeti[ng so as to sacrifice it as a burnt offering] or an offering of well-being to the Lord to be acceptable as [a pleasing odor, and has slaughtered it without and] does not bring it [to the door of the tent of me]eting to offer it as an offering to the Lord before the taber[nacle] of the Lord...

The SP and the LXX also attest this expansion. But that's about it for the scroll. There are a few other minor variants. The whole scroll is not very big and contains only parts of Lev 14:27–29, 33–36; 15:20–24; 17:2–11.

It seems unlikely that 4QLev-d does belong to the expansive group, or certainly that it should be classified as pre-Samaritan, without further evidence. It doesn't really conform to the pattern: yes, it has a major expansion shared by SP, but that same expansion is also shared by LXX. But the LXX doesn't share the SP expansions as a rule. Though the LXX and SP frequently agree against MT in minor variants, they do so in none of the other major expansions. In fact, elsewhere Tov has classified the scroll as in the LXX group (see here, p. 297). Neither does it conform to the pattern in the sense of duplicating material found elsewhere in the Pentateuch. Magnar Kartveit doesn't even count this case as one of the major expansions in SP, presumably because of its deviation from the pattern. Eugene Ulrich considers this reading to be an "isolated supplement," not indicative of a variant literary edition.

This case may be compared to that of 4QDeut-n. Scholarly consensus says that 4QDeut-n is not a pre-Samaritan text (Elizabeth Own, Sidnie White Crawford), a view with which Tov (91n147) is in agreement. This view makes sense because 4QDeut-n doesn't actually share any major expansions with SP. But it does share the method of expansion. That is, 4QDeut-n has only one major expansion: in the Ten Commandments (Deut 5), our scroll combines the Sabbath command justification from Exodus (creation) with the justification from Deuteronomy (Egyptian slavery), so that both justifications appear in the Deuteronomy text. This expansion is not known in any other text, including the SP. But the method of expanding the text is very similar to the way the SP expansions operate. Indeed, the method here is much more similar to the major expansions of SP than is the method of the expansion of Lev 17:4 in 4QLev-d. Based on this example, one might want to label 4QDeut-n as pre-Samaritan. After all, 4QNum-b contains an expansion (in ch. 36) not attested in the SP, but it still gets the label pre-Samaritan because all of the SP expansions in Numbers are found in 4QNum-b. Who's to say whether--if we had more of 4QDeut-n--it would not also contain the expansions of SP Deuteronomy? There are only two expansions in SP Deuteronomy at Deut 2:7 and 10:6, both duplicating material from Numbers. 4QDeut-n is not extant for these passages. The scroll probably never contained the entire text of Deuteronomy, but was instead an excerpted text. The only preserved portions of text are Deut 8:5–10 (col. 1) and Deut 5:1–6:1 (cols. 2–6). At any rate, it could have received the label pre-Samaritan on the basis of method of expansion, under the assumption that had more of the text been preserved, there probably would have been overlaps with the expansions in SP. And the 4QDeut-n expansion not attested in SP would be like the 4QNum-b expansion not attested in SP. Nevertheless, on the basis of lack of evidence, 4QDeut-n gets the label non-aligned because it doesn't line up with the MT or the SP or the LXX.

The case with 4QLev-d is different, but not completely dissimilar. We don't have much of the text. What we do have features a shared expansion with SP and LXX, but there is no overall pattern to expansion in Leviticus, so that even Ulrich wont go so far as to say there are variant literary editions for this book.

All that to say, I consider it very dubious that 4QLev-d belongs to the pre-Samaritan group, despite Tov's opinion that it possibly does so.

The Samaritans and the Septuagint

I've been reading through Gary Knoppers' new book Jews and Samaritans (Oxford, 2013). It's really quite excellent, and I may have more to say about it in a later post. His main theme is that these two religious groups share a close history up to the time that John Hyrcanus destroyed the Samari(t)an temple at Mt. Gerizim in 111-110 BCE. It is now widely accepted that it was this act by Hyrcanus that precipitated the irrevocable split between the two groups, but I suppose it is Knoppers' contribution to emphasize the almost complete lack of evidence for animosity before that point. His chapter on Nehemiah (ch. 6) emphasizes that Nehemiah's opposition to Sanballat was apparently an attitude not shared by many other powerful Judeans at the time.

His seventh chapter treats the Samaritan Pentateuch. This chapter, along with the main emphasis of the entire book, made me think of an as-yet unpublished essay by Jan Joosten which he has already uploaded to his academia.edu page. The essay is called "Septuagint and Samareitikon," and it argues that the Samareitikon was the Samaritan equivalent, not to the Septuagint, but to the later Jewish revisers (Aquila and Theodotion; see pp. 14-15). This means that the Samaritans had the Septuagint and then, like the Jews, revised it toward their Hebrew text, thus producing the Samareitikon. But, Joosten asks, how did the Samaritans get the LXX in the first place? Did they borrow it from the Jews? Joosten suggests the more likely scenario that there were people on the original translation committee who looked to Gerizim as their spiritual homeland (pp. 15-16). Since the major split probably did not occur before the very end of the second century BCE and the LXX was translated in the first half of the third century BCE, it is very possible, even probable, that the translators counted among their members some who looked to Jerusalem and some who looked to Gerizim as the legitimate place of worship.

Now, in this essay Joosten never mentions the Letter of Aristeas, but I am reminded of the composition of the translation committee according to this earliest (and legendary) account: 6 sages from each of the 12 tribes. I had always taken that as sort of a hypothetical, even imaginary reckoning, since, I assumed, the 12 tribes no longer existed after the Assryian destruction of the north in 722 BCE. But in light of Knoppers' emphasis in his book and Joosten's argument in his essay, maybe there is a little more to Aristeas' mentioning of the 12 tribes than I had given him credit for. I'm not at all suggesting that the translation committee really was composed of 6 sages from each of the 12 tribes, but perhaps Aristeas is acknowledging that not only Jews (Judeans) use the LXX and that it was an effort of "all Israel" and not just those in the south. The usual date for the Letter to Aristeas is sometime during the second century BCE, and thus most likely also before the major split occasioned by the Gerizim temple destruction.

UPDATE (15 April 2014): I see that Knoppers has largely anticipated my point here. He notes the pan-Israelite perspective of Aristeas in relation to the identity of the translators (p. 193 n. 65, p. 218 n. 4).

Did the ancients notice that there were different editions of biblical books?

As I have been trying to press on with my thoughts on the ancient library housed in the temple (I really have, I promise), I've read some brief pieces by Eugene Ulrich. He likes to emphasize the textual plurality of the pre-rabbinic biblical text; in other words, there were multiple editions of various books of the Bible.

The Qumran biblical MSS show that at least six books (or possibly ten) of the twenty-four in the Masoretic canon circulated in variant literary editions in the closing centuries of the Second Temple period: Exodus, Numbers, Joshua, Judges(?), Samuel(?), Jeremiah, the Twelve Prophets(?), Psalms, Song, and Lamentations(?). When the study is widened to include the witness of the LXX and SP, seven (or eight) more can be added or become clear: Genesis (chapters 5 and 11), Samuel (at least 1 Samuel 16-17), Kings, Ezekiel, the Twelve Prophets, Job(?), Proverbs, and Daniel. Thus, we have MS evidence that Judaism during the last two and a half centuries while the Second Temple stood knew variant literary editions for half or more of the books that would become Tanakh: thirteen (or up to sixteen) of the traditional twenty-four books. ("Two Perspectives," p. 460). 

This is all well-known. There would certainly be disagreement among scholars as to how much variation, or which types of variation, render a copy a "variant literary edition," and some would want to dispute whether certain biblical books are actually attested in multiple editions--and Ulrich's question marks show that he himself is not sure about some of these--but the fact that variant editions of some books did circulate in antiquity I will take as a matter beyond serious doubt.

But, what did ancient people think about these multiple editions? I think that is a question to be pondered (as I have done before). I am led to think about this issue again by another of Ulrich's essays, which contains this paragraph:

It is possible, although undocumented, that some individuals may have been conscious of differences between variant editions of particular books and may have chosen one deliberately instead of another. But scrolls not in use were usually rolled up; and if there was more than one scroll of a book, it seems more in line with the evidence that a reader would have picked up one of the available rolled-up scrolls marked "במדבר" without knowing, and apparently from the Qumran evidence, without caring which text form of Numbers was inscribed inside. If there were an awareness of different editions and a conscious choice between them, the articulation of the choice is less likely to have been in terms of "pre-Samaritan versus proto-MT" and more likely "the newer, fuller edition versus the earlier, shorter edition. ("Determining Scriptural Status," p. 156). 

I assume Ulrich had a wry smile on his face as he typed that last sentence. I too doubt that an ancient person would have thought about the textual diversity (if he thought about it at all) in terms of proto-MT and pre-Samaritan. Point well-taken. These are anachronistic names for the textual forms of antiquity, and if we want to get inside the heads of the ancients, we might want to think about how they labeled these variant editions (if they thought about the issue).

But did ancient persons think about the issue? Ulrich wonders whether people were even "conscious of differences between variant editions of particular books."

Surely some people were conscious of the differences. First of all, someone had to have created the "newer, fuller edition," so he must have known about it. I don't guess we can say confidently much more about this scribe, but we might speculate that he would have a desire to disseminate his "newer, fuller edition" and so would have wanted to tell others about it. But how that would have happened, and how it would have been received, we can only guess.

Second, the Samaritans apparently made a conscious choice as to their text form. I think Carr more-or-less represents the consensus when he dates this to no later than the mid- to late-second century BCE (Formation, p. 177), so right during the time of the textual plurality attested at Qumran. For their Pentateuch, the Samaritans chose basically the same type of text for each book (except for Leviticus, which only existed in one form; Ulrich, "Two Perspectives," p. 459). They chose expanded texts, but not the most expanded texts (Kartveit, Origin, 285-88; Eshel and Eshel, "Dating," 237). According to Kartveit: "This makes the SP a deliberately chosen text" (Origin, p. 299).

Third,

Those who studied scripture intensively, which of course includes Essenes and Pharisees in particular, knew the material inside out and could evoke a whole world of textual reference with a word or phrase. The rabbis continued this tradition. (Wright, Paul, 176-77)

This sounds about right to me, that is, Wright's description of ancient Jews knowing the text "inside out." At least the Rabbis surely had a lot of scripture memorized. I don't guess we really know this for the earlier period, but Carr has presented a thesis (developed in Writing and Formation) in which memorization was an important part of textual transmission. If that is the case--if some literate ancients can be assumed to have had a good amount of scripture stuck in their heads--then the chances increase that they would notice when they are reading a different edition of a biblical book. That is not to say that they would have cared about the textual variation, though I suspect that at least some ancients would have noticed and cared. Despite Ulrich's assertion (quoted above), it is not at all apparent from the Qumran evidence that the ancients would have picked up a scroll of Numbers "without caring" about the textual form. It is possible that they did not care, but it is also possible that they did care. (See again this earlier post.) The evidence of the Samaritan Pentateuch suggests that the Samaritans did care.

But if someone in antiquity did care about the textual form of Numbers, still, how could he have determined which text form he was picking up? The physical scrolls do not seem to have been distinguished in any way (at least not in a way that is still apparent to us). So I don't know how he could tell. But I do know that when someone at church asks me about a new translation of the Bible, which I've never before seen or heard of, there are certain verses I'll read to see how the new translation rendered them, usually some familiar verses (John 3:16, etc.), but also some that I know some translations have messed up in the past (e.g. Gen 2:8; Isa. 7:14; etc.). Okay, I know, if someone handed me a biblical scroll in Hebrew with no vowels or chapter divisions, it would be somewhat more difficult to look up these verses. But I'm just using this modern analogy to say that there are ways of figuring out what kind of Bible you're looking at, even when you can't tell from the cover. 

On the Samaritans

There's a recent article in Der Spiegel on the Samaritans. I read a good bit of the article last week and found it informative in regard to some features of the modern Samaritans and their history within the last century. I thought of linking to it here, but there are so many weird bits in it--the article takes the Samaritan view of history as correct in opposition to the Jewish view reported in the Hebrew Bible. Just read the article and you'll see what I mean.

Anyway, I didn't want to link to the article without providing some commentary, which I was not prepared to write at the time. But now Jim Davila has done the hard work. He has provided extensive commentary to the article, noting all the dubious points and correcting them. So, now I feel good about telling you to read the original article for its information about modern Samaritans, and read Davila's notes to the article to learn more about the ancient Samaritans.