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Re: orion-list Were DSS Expansions? Was TOR in t



On Fri, 11 Jun 1999 10:51:09 -0400, davic@pop.erols.com writes:
>
>I think I may have posted about this a while ago, but I am still
>interested......I have long wondered how much sanctity the believers in the
>DSS ascribed to their re-worked versions of the Torah, and the
>aprocryphal/pseudipigraphical works. If they weren't valued to the same
>extent as the Torah or the rest of scripture, did those works reflect
>"commentaries" or "koines" or expansions that incorporated commentary in a
>way similar to rabbinic midrashic works?? Thus, when we find a re-worked
>version of Deuteronomy or such, was this really a competing version of the
>Bible itself, or just a "midrashic" version? Indeed, this question could be
>asked of the Samaritan Torah too; Moses Gastner argued that it was an
>expansion document that came to be the official canonized version for the
>Samaritans......

   Two years ago, I'd not have responded to the question.  A year
   ago, I knew there was another answer but I had no idea what it
   was.  Now, I still haven't much to cite supporting me, but at
   least there are some hooks to hang some answers on.

   o The earliest extant mss of the Tanakh is a fragment from the
     reign of Ptolemy II.  
   o If there are Hebrew or Aramaic fragments earlier than the Dead
     Sea Scrolls I haven't heard of them.
   o Egypt had undergone a massive assemblage, consolidation and
     rewriting of their past pressed first by the Late Period
     Nubian rule, next the Assyrian rule, then the two Persian
     intrusions.
     +  Most extant Egyptian temples today were constructed by the
        Ptolemies, ie before Pompey's arrival created the Qumran
        Cache.  Their massive libraries were assembled and created
        then.  So, an answer to how long it took may lie in the
        statement, "Ask H.C.Andersen."
     +  The surviving Septuagint scraps echo the Dead Sea Scrolls
        more often than the Massoretic text.
   o I suspect a major revision, rewriting, even creating of texts
     after Titus destroyed the Temple in 70 CE, took place in Gali-
     lee mostly before the Second Revolt under Hadrian, likely from
     similar impulses to those causing the above noted Egyptian
     literary explosion.
   
>When it comes to the Damascus Document, some like Prof. Benzion Wacholder
>believe it to reflect a discussion of the messianic future rather than the
>past. I have wondered why that is still questionable....isn't the grammar
>of the DD rather obvious one way or the other?

   I haven't the faintest notion what to tell you, David, other than
   to get the above matters settled first.  Remember, there are even
   SOME SMALL internal indications of revising going on of the Mas-
   soretic text as late as the Severan Emperors.

Tom Simms

>David Goldman
>davic@erols.com
For private reply, e-mail to Tom Simms <tsimms@mailserv.nbnet.nb.ca>
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