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Re: DSS in Hebrew



I'm sure everybody and his uncle will be responding to your post, 
Beruriah, but: the standard editions of the various texts are the 
Discoveries in the Judaean Desert series (originally: Discoveries in 
the Judaean Desert of Jordan) which are published by the Clarendon 
Press, Oxford, and which have appeared irregularly since the late 
1950s. The series are now under the general editorship of Prof. 
Emanuel Tov. Lohse is Eduard Lohse, a German professor of moderate 
ability. His edition is only a student's edition of the so-called 
"sectarian" texts (War Scroll, Manual of Discipline, Habakkuk Pesher, 
etc.); it therefore has virtually no critical apparatus as to how he 
has arrived at the readings he has decided on. He presents the texts 
in Rashi script, which is nicely readable, but then *vocalises* the 
texts according to the Masoretic paradigm we have all learnt: an 
anachronism of about a millennium, as far as the DSS are concerned. 
Lohse's readings are not always reliable; he has in particular 
considerable difficulty telling a Waw from a Yod, although that is, 
of course, a common problem with the late scripts.
Individual DSS texts that have not yet been published in the large 
collections in the DJD (Discoveries...) will have been published in 
either the Revue de Qumran or the new journal from Sheffield, Dead 
Sea Discoveries. All of these entail: photographs of all or at least 
part of the text (the DJD include all) in question; transcription 
into Rashi typescript for convenience of reading, English or French 
translation, plus notes and commentary on the text. Your advisor 
obviously doesn't no much about the DSS, but don't tell him I said 
so.

Best regards,

Fred Cryer