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Re: orion XII/Minor Prophets question
At 08:18 PM 12/18/97 +0000, you wrote:
> That is, is there any evidence that all existing manuscript
>traditions of the XII do not stem from a single production (as a
>collection of XII), i.e. an ur-text.
>
>A more substantial point, which I have read several times, is that a
>Cave 4 copy of XII has the book of Jonah following Malachi. In DJD
>XV (Ulrich et al, XII texts by R. Fuller), this text is 4QXII(a).
>There this claim is presented as a fact. There is no single fragment
>with Malachi followed by Jonah on it. The support for the claim
>is a fragment with the end of Malachi with three letters from a
>following column which are suposed to be identified with expected
>letters consistent with another fragment with Jonah 1:1-5. This is
>found in the photograph at Plate 76 and the transcription on p. 129.
Its p. 229. And if I am not mistaken, 4QXIIa is found on plates 60-62
(roman numerals XL- XLII). On p. 228 Fuller says "Finally, note that
remnants of three letters are visible on frg. 9 ii, indicating that
something followed the Book of Malachi (see the introduction to this
manuscript)". Indeed, clearly something did follow it. Whether it was
Jonah or a colophon is impossible to tell. If Fuller is right, and he very
well may be, then this merely shows that as in many mss, the order of the
books fluctuated. This is a well known phenomenon in many ancient collections.
>
>While there is evidence of a further column of writing following the
>end of Malachi, its identification as belonging to the Jonah column
>does not look right to me. Specifically, where Fuller reads a Waw
>(start of col. 5, line 10) and He Kaph (start of col. 5, line 11)--which
>is the claim to a match with what is expected in those positions for
>the Jonah column--only the He looks like a correct reading. The other two
>letters do not look like Waw and Kaph to me (yet they must be, in
>order to make the Jonah match claim).
I agree- the first letter at the top looks very much like an 'ayin. The he
is right- but the next letter could be anything fom a nun to a waw.
> Since there is no other
>evidence for the Malachi-Jonah sequence than this single point of the
>match with these three letters, if these readings are not secure the
>Malachi-Jonah sequence claim must be abandoned as lacking any
>evidence.
>
Agreed.
>Greg Doudna
>Copenhagen
Jim
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Jim West
jwest@highland.net