CHAPTER ONE

ESTABLISHING THE TEXT OF 4QINSTRUCTION

I. INTRODUCTION

4QInstruction is the scholarly name given to a literary composition written in Hebrew, parts of which have been preserved amongst the tens of thou• sands oHragments found in caves in the Judaean Desert, at . More than fifty years after the discovery of the first of these fragments, and forty-five years after John Strugnell started his work on the fragments from Cave 4, we now have an impressive volume in the series Discoveries in the Judaean Desert. Presented here are the editions of several manuscripts of this nonbiblical work, referred to by the editors, J. Strugnell and D.J. Harrington, S.J., as 4Q415 ff., 4QInstruction or Musiir {Mevfn (IU)Y.) 1':m7).1 The editors' own phrasing, "editions of the fragments of several manu• scripts of [ ... J 4QInstruction", is a precise indication of the contents and scope of their work. 2 The bulk of the volume consists of the editions (tran• scriptions, notes on readings, translations, comments) of fragments, which are believed to belong to seven (or eight) manuscripts, which in turn are recognized to be copies of the same literary composition. Of course, the editors also give descriptions and discussions of the manuscripts, and present a lengthy introduction to the composition. Yet, and the editors are the first to admit this, the volume is not an edition of the composition entitled 4QInstruction or Instruction, or even of the separate manuscripts of this composition. Thus, for example, the editors expressly state that their tenta• ti ve and preliminary ordering of the fragments of 4Q418 on grounds of appearance alone should [oo.] be combined with the sugges• tions of the morpho-phthiseo-critical analyses of Stegemann and others,

1 Discoveries in the Judaean Desert XXXIV. Qumran Cave 4 XXIV. Sapiential Texts. Part 2. 4QInstruction (MII.wir l"Mel'in): 4Q41 5 ff. with a Re-edition of iQ26 by John Strugnell and Daniel J. Harrington. s.J.. and {m Edition of 4Q423 by Torlelf Elgvin. in Consultation with Joseph A. Fitzmyer. S.J. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999). In the present work I use the term 'editors' (plural) to refer to J. Strugnell and DJ. Harrington. whereas (when discussing 4Q423) 'editor' refers to T. Elgvin. In specific cases one or more of these editors are men• tioned by name. 2 DJD XXXiV, xiii. 4 CHAPTER ONE

and with yet others that come from lexical study; and even then the real work of material reconstruction will have only just begun.3 Similarly, they enumerate a series of tasks for subsequent study of 4Q418a by others.4 In the preface to the DJD volume, Strugnell describes the stages in the history of the edition. Between 1954 and 1960 Strugnell concentrated on the identification, the decipherment, and the material joining of the fragments, leaving to a later stage attempts at understanding the text and commenting on it. S This indeed is the only possible procedure when dealing with fragments preserving parts of a hitherto unknown text. Thus, the work consists of several stages, including: the identification of multiple fragments as belong• ing to the same manuscript; the decipherment of the text of the fragments; the material joining of fragments; the identification of textual overlaps between fragments of different manuscripts; the following identification of multiple manuscripts as being copies of the same composition; the recon• struction of a composite text where two or more fragmentary manuscripts overlap; the material reconstruction of the manuscripts' and different kinds of attempts at understanding the text. Ideally, all this work would eventually result in an editio maior, but the editors themselves refer to their volumi• nous edition as a minimalist one. 6 Of course, the characterization 'minimalist' is an understatement. Com• pared to most other editions in the DJD series, the comments are very ex• tensive and thorough. Yet the editors are aware of all the work that still has to be done, amongst which is the already mentioned material reconstruction of the work. In order to evaluate the work already done, I will discuss the two main periods of research on Instruction, in particular the attempts to establish its text. The first period is that of the nineteen-fifties, culminating in the recording of the transcriptions of the fragments in the so-called Pre• liminary Concordance. The second period is that of the nineteen-nineties, a period which starts with the controversial 'preliminary edition' of the manu• scripts, presented by Wacholder and Abegg, and now is concluded with the official edition in the series Discoveries in the Judaean Desert.

3 DID XXXIV, 212. 4 DID XXXIV, 477. S DID XXXIV, xiv. 6 DID XXXIV, 5.