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orion-list MMT C24 and 4QDamascus 270 restorations

Jacqueline C.R. de Roo, "David's Deeds in the Dead Sea Scrolls," Dead Sea
Discoveries 6 (1999) 44-65 is an interesting article. She argues that the
sentence in CD 5:5-6 on David's deeds can be better understood (as refering
to God leaving a remnant) when read together with 4Q174 and 4QMMT. 4Q174
she reads a referring to ma'ase torah rather than ma'ase todah and a
remnant who serve. She wrote (p.65), "This remnant is described as 'doing
the whole law....' It reminds us of 'those doing the law...' in 4Q171, col.
2, line 14 [15] who are described as being 'in the council of the
Yahad....'" Other usages also have 'doers of torah,' in apposition with,
i.e., synonymous with, the Essene group.
	Yet in her translation of MMT C 24, which has usages of 'asah
before and after, she follows the Qimron and Strugnell restoration and
translation: seekers of torah. Perhaps it is better to accept the
restoration of Wacholder and Abegg (vol. 3, p. 292): 'osey hatorah. (I use
the line numbering of the DJD edition's composite text here, but I question
Qimron's placement of the papyrus fragments, and prefer the view held, I
think, by Strugnell, Stegemann, and Pfann.) Compare the restorations in
many editions of 1QpMic 8-9 8 and 1QSb 1:1.
	4QDamascus 270 2 ii 19 (in Baumgarten's DJD numbering; elsewhere
sometimes numbered 9 ii 19). Wacholder and Abegg (1, 41) restored 'osey
hatorah. That is an interesting possibility in part because it follows on
this fragment just a couple of lines after a legal determination about
fetal life, one discussed by J. Bamgarten (who affirms the Essene
identification) in the Milgrom Festschrift and by me in DSS After 50 Years,
both noting that this ruling matches a passage in Contra Apion Book 2, in a
section of that work with possibly a shared source with Philo's
Hypothetica/Apology for the Jews and links to other accounts of Essenes.
	Compare 1QpHab 7:11, 8:11; 12:4-5; 1QS 8:3; 4Q171 1-10 ii 5, 15,
23; 4Q177 5-6 18; 5Q13 10 1; 1Q36 7 1; 4Q470 (part of MMT C?); 4Q422 1:6,7;
4Q216 7:2; 4Q306.

Stephen Goranson
Durham NC
goranson@duke.edu


For private reply, e-mail to stephen goranson <goranson@duke.edu>
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