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The Divine Name in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in New Testament Writings

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The Divine Name in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in New Testament Writings The Divine Name in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in New Testament Writings Hermann Lichtenberger 1 Introduction: The Status Quaestionis In the present article I will first concentrate on the writing of the Tetragrammaton in the Dead Sea Scrolls.1 The emphasis will be on the accen- tuation and/or substitution of the Tetragrammaton. In the second section of the paper, I will discuss substitutions for “God” in 1 Maccabees and in New Testament writings. The theological significance of the writing practices surrounding the repre- sentation of or substitutions for the Tetragrammaton can hardly be overesti- mated. The scribal practice is certainly an expression of Jewish monotheism, as stated rightly by David Hamidović.2 The manuscripts from the Dead Sea give in- sight into a scribal tradition of more than two centuries and show special char- acteristics related to the use and writing of the Divine Name in extra-sectarian such as 1QS we never find the יחד and sectarian manuscripts. In the texts of the or the replacement of the Tetragrammaton by אל Tetragrammaton, but always pronouns. In 1QpHab, in the biblical lemmata, the Tetragrammaton is written in אל in paleo-Hebrew characters; but in the interpretation, it is replaced by square script. This leads to the conclusion that the Essene community showed 1 For basic information, see E. Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress; Assen: Van Gorcum, 1992), 216, 220; idem, Der Text der Hebräischen Bibel: Handbuch der Textkritik (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1997), 177, 180. On the Tetragrammaton in the Dead Sea Scrolls, see P. W. Skehan, “The Divine Name at Qumran, in the Masada Scroll, and in the Septuagint,” BIOSCS 13 (1980): 14–44; E. Tov, “Further Evidence for the Existence of a Qumran Scribal School,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls, Fifty Years after their Discovery: Proceedings of the Jerusalem Congress, July 20–25, 1997, ed. L. H. Schiffman, E. Tov, and J. C. VanderKam (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society and The Shrine of the Book, The Israel Museum, 2000), 199–216; M. Rösel, Adonaj: Warum Gott ‘Herr’ genannt wird, FAT 29 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000), 207–11; K. De Troyer, “The Pronunciation of the Names of God: With some Notes Regarding the nomina sacra,” in Gott Nennen: Gottes Namen und Gott als Name, ed. I. U. Dalferth and P. Stoellger, Religion in Philosophy and Theology 35 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, ,.ThWQ 2:101–6; for additional literature, see ibid ”,יהוה“ ,H. Lichtenberger ;72–143 ,(2008 101–2. 2 See D. Hamidović, “Les théonymes témoignent-ils d’une évolution du monothéisme juif à l’aube de l’ère chrétienne?” in Le Monothéisme Biblique: Évolution, Contextes et Perspectives, ed. E. Bons and T. Legrand, Lectio Divina 244 (Paris: Cerf, 2011), 285–97. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/9789004384231_008 The Divine Name in the DSS and NT 141 its high veneration of God and his name by not using the Tetragrammaton, apart from biblical texts and quotations. Similar observations may be made in regard to 1QHa, where the introductory formula of the psalms usually runs אלי we find ,אדוני although sometimes instead of ;ברוך אתה אדוני or אודכה אדוני (written in paleo-Hebrew script). The avoidance of the Tetragrammaton in this text is also striking. As the above observation indicates, within the Scrolls corpus, other divine names were also written in paleo-Hebrew characters and/or replaced by other designations for God. In some manuscripts only the Tetragrammaton is writ- -is sometimes writ אל ten in paleo-Hebrew characters (e.g., 11QPsa), in others 1QHa 10:36).3 אלי ;ten in paleo-Hebrew characters (1QHa 7:38; 9:28; 1Q35 1 5 In 4Q57 (Isac), not only is the Tetragrammaton, together with its prepositions together ,אלוהים and conjunctions, written in paleo-Hebrew script, but also occurs here in paleo-Hebrew and Aramaic צבאות with its suffixed forms.4 never appears in 4Q57.5 Here, in one and the אדוני ;אל square script, as well as same manuscript, occur various forms attested elsewhere in diverse contexts.6 Apart from this evidence, it must be recognized that in the majority of manu- scripts from the Dead Sea, divine names are written in the same script as the surrounding text. In scholarship, this special writing practice is often said to be associated with the nonerasability of the Divine Name, by analogy with the later regulations of the second and third centuries CE. But the concept of the nonerasibility of the Divine Name is independent of the manner in which such names were written; thus, the use of paleo-Hebrew characters has nothing to do with the question of nonerasibility. The only alternative seems to be that this practice reflects a tradition of nonpronunciation. But this is also far from convincing. in a document in square script see also 4Q267 (4QDb 9 i אל For the occasional paleo-Hebrew 3 2; 9 iv 4; 9 v 4; the same word is found in the same document in square script in fragments 2 in fragments אל and 9 iv 7). In the manuscript of D in 6Q15, the preserved instances of ;13 ,7 ,5 is also written in אל .and 5 are written in paleo-Hebrew script, except for one instance in 5 5 3 paleo-Hebrew in 4Q180 11 and 4Q183 1 ii 3 (the Tetragrammaton is found in paleo-Hebrew in ;is written in paleo-Hebrew script אל 4Q183 2 1 and 3 1); in 1Q14 (pMic) 12 3, the only preserved this is also true for the preserved Tetragrammata in 1Q14 1–5 1 and 2. In 6Q18 all preserved ”,אלוהים“ ,are written in paleo-Hebrew script (6 5; 8 1; 10 3); see J. S. Burnett אל examples of in ThWQ 1:178–90, esp. 181. .(?) in paleo-Hebrew script see also 4Q406 1 2; 3 2 אלוהים For 4 5 P. W. Skehan and E. Ulrich, Qumran Cave 4.X: The Prophets: Isaiah, DJD 15 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1997), 7–143 (46). 6 On 4Q57 (Isac) see D. Green, “Divine Names: Rabbinic and Qumran Scribal Techniques,” in Schiffman, Tov, and VanderKam, The Dead Sea Scrolls, Fifty Years after their Discovery, 497– 511; idem, “4QIsc: A Rabbinic Production of Isaiah Found at Qumran?” JJS 53 (2002): 120–45..
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