(TESTAMENT) of QAHAT Henryk Drawnel Catholic University Of

THE LITERARY FORM AND DIDACTIC CONTENT OF THE ADMONITIONS (TESTAMENT) OF QAHAT

Henryk Drawnel Catholic University of Lublin

I. General Presentation

In his article on the Visions of Amram J.T. Milik published four lines of a short Aramaic fragment from Qumran that speaks about the transmission of patriarchal books to Amram, Qahat’s son and Levi’s grandson.1 The content of the fragment (4Q542 1 ii 9–12) indicates that the main speaker is Qahat, hence Milik named this composition “Testament of Qahat.” He thus was able to prove that in Second Temple Judaism there existed a priestly trilogy (Aramaic Levi Document, Testament of Qahat, Visions of Amram) that centered on the forefathers of the Levitical tribe. Most probably, the Greek version of this literary cycle circulated in early Christianity as a note in the Apostolic Constitutions (VI 16 3: t«n tri«n patriarx«n) would suggest. The Qumran manuscripts of the Testament of Qahat originally belonged to the lot assigned for publication to Jean Starcky, but after his death Émile Puech2 took care of all the remaining unpublished texts. He prepared a preliminary edition of the Testament of Qahat in a volume dedicated to the memory of prof. Starcky,3 and then published the Aramaic document in the oﬃcial DJD series.4 The fragmentary Qumran manuscript (4Q542 1) written on leather contains one full column of the text and the right side of the fol- lowing column. Jean Starcky joined to this well-preserved part of the

1 Józef Tadeusz Milik, “4Q Visions de 'Amram et une citation d’Origène,” RB 79 (1972): 77–97, at 97. 2 I dedicate this article to prof. É. Puech on the occasion of his sixty-fifth birth- day anniversary in reconnaissance of his unfailing friendship, astounding paleographic skills, and in-depth knowledge of Qumran manuscripts and problematics. 3 Émile Puech, “Le Testament de Qahat en araméen de la grotte 4 (4QTQah),” RevQ 15/57–58 (1991): 23–54. 4 Émile Puech, Qumran Grotte 4. XXII. Textes araméens: Première partie 4Q529–549 (Discoveries in the Judaean Desert XXXI; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001), 257–82, Pl. XV. 56 henryk drawnel text one small fragment that he placed at the last line of the first column. Additionally, he also joined another small fragment with the central part of the second, partially preserved column. On the ground of paleographic identity, Starcky also grouped two different fragments (4Q542 2 and 3), one of which was composed of two pieces. These two fragments contain only few Aramaic words, and it is impossi- ble to judge whether they precede or follow frg. 1 in the order of the whole composition. Thus the Qumran scrollery yielded only one manuscript of the Admonitions, while the number of the Aramaic Levi Document amounts to seven fragmentary copies.5 The radiocarbon analysis of the manuscript indicated the tempo- ral span of 2240 (± 39) years, and, according to the calibrated age range, the manuscript leather would date to 388–353 B.C.E.6 The authors of the article on the radiocarbon dating do not rule out possible contamination of Admonitions’ manuscript samples.7 The paleographic description of the manuscript by É. Puech characterizes the writing as archaic Hasmonean, later than 4QDeutc and probably contemporary to 4QDanc and to the ostracon from Wadi Murabba'at (Mur 72) dated to the last quarter, or the end of the second c. B.C.E. at the latest.8 The difference between the radiocarbon dating and paleographic judgment covers more than two centuries, but, given the approximate nature of radiocarbon procedure, the paleographic judgment is probably a safe criterion, at least for the preserved manuscript of the document. From many corrections in the text it appears evident that one deals here not with an autograph, but with a copy of an earlier version. As to the language of the composition, Aramaic, although with sensible Hebrew influence, appears as the language in which this work was created. The two related compositions, the Aramaic Levi Document 9 and Visions of Amram, are also written in Aramaic,

5 Michael E. Stone and Jonas C. Greenfield, “Aramaic Levi Document,” in Qumran Cave 4: XVII. Parabilical Texts, Part 3 (ed. George Brooke et al.; Discoveries in the Judaean Desert XXII; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 1–72, Pls. I–IV. 6 G. Bonani et al., “Radiocarbon Dating of the Dead Sea Scrolls,” Atiqot 20 (1991): 27–32, at 30. 7 Ibid., 31. 8 Puech, DJD XXXI, 262–64. 9 I cite the Aramaic Levi Document in accordance with my reconstructed text of that fragmentary composition published in Drawnel 2004. The verse numbers in that publication follow with a few exceptions versifications found in other publica- tions of that Aramaic text. A completely new verse division introduced by Greenfield (2004) unnecessarily adds to the confusion while its chapter division does not respect literary forms of the Levi Document.