Moses, David and Scribal Revelation: Preservation and Renewal in Second Temple Jewish Textual Traditions*
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MOSES, DAVID AND SCRIBAL REVELATION: PRESERVATION AND RENEWAL IN SECOND TEMPLE JEWISH TEXTUAL TRADITIONS* Eva Mroczek University of Toronto, Canada And he gave all his books and his fathers’ books to Levi, his son, so that he might preserve and renew them for his sons until this day. Jubilees 45:151 The continuous process of remaining open and accepting of what may reveal itself through hand and heart on a crafted page is the closest I have ever come to God. Donald Jackson, Artistic Director, St. John’s Bible Project, Monmouth, Wales2 In second temple Judaism, particularly in the texts found at Qumran, the revelatory event at Sinai is recalled again and again through new texts that expand and rework materials connected with Moses and the Law.3 But to speak of a “Mosaic” textual tradition raises a host of * I would like to thank the organizers of the “Giving the Torah at Sinai” conference, Professors George Brooke, Hindy Najman, and Loren Stuckenbruck, for inviting my paper to the volume. This revised version has benefited immeasurably from the sug- gestions of Profs George Brooke and James Kugel. I also thank the members of the Mullins Seminar, led by Prof. Jennifer Harris, St. Michael’s College, for their comments and support. Above all I thank my teacher, Prof. Hindy Najman, who has challenged and guided me with extraordinary generosity since the inception of this project. 1 Translations from the Book of Jubilees are by O. Wintermute, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (2 vols; ed. J. H. Charlesworth; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1985). 2 The St. John’s Bible Project seeks to revive the premodern process of creating a biblical manuscript. The quote from Donald Jackson is from www.stjohnsbible.org. See C. Calderhead, Illuminating the Word: the Making of the Saint John’s Bible (Collegeville, MN: Saint John’s Bible, 2005). 3 Such texts include multiform editions of the Pentateuch and 4QReworked Penta- teuch, but also Jubilees and the Temple Scroll, which link themselves back to Sinai. The “Pseudo-Moses” texts could also be counted here. See the discussion by J. Strugnell in “Moses-Pseudepigrapha at Qumran: 4Q375, 4Q376, and Similar Works,” in Archeology and History in the Dead Sea Scrolls: The New York University Conference in Memory of Yigael Yadin ( JSOPSS 8, JSOT/ASOR Monographs 2; ed. J. H. Charlesworth; Sheffield: JSOT, 92 eva mroczek questions about scriptural status and scribal self-understanding. If a text was attributed to a great mediatory figure and an ancient revelatory event, how could second temple scribes allow themselves to rearrange, rework or rewrite this text?4 How did these scribes understand the link between the ancient figure and the texts in front of them—and how did they conceive of their own role in the transmission and development of their textual heritage? Are we not forced to make distinctions between what would have been understood as a “scriptural” Mosaic text, and “secondary” rewritings and reworkings by later scribes—distinctions that the texts themselves do not make?5 1990), 221–56, and S. White Crawford, “The ‘Rewritten’ Bible at Qumran: A Look at Three Texts,” ErIsr 26 (1999): 1–8. 4 The practice and function of pseudonymous attribution has been the subject of valuable recent studies. See e.g. M. J. Bernstein, “Pseudepigraphy in the Qumran Scrolls: Categories and Functions,” in Pseudepigraphic Perspectives: The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls (eds E. G. Chazon and M. E. Stone; Leiden: Brill, 1999), 1–26, J. J. Collins, “Pseudepigraphy and Group Formation in Second Temple Juda- ism,” Pseudepigraphic Perspectives, 43–58; D. Dimant, “Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha at Qumran,” DSD 1 (1994): 151–59; J. A. Sanders, “Introduction: Why the Pseude- pigrapha?” in Pseudepigrapha and Early Biblical Interpretation (eds J. H. Charlesworth and C. A. Evans; JSOPSS 14, SSEJC 2; Sheffield: JSOT, 1993), 13–19; M. E. Stone, “The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Pseudepigrapha,” DSD 3 (1996): 270–95. H. Najman has written extensively on the practice of pseudepigraphy; see e.g. Seconding Sinai: The Development of Mosaic Discourse in Second Temple Judaism (Leiden: Brill, 2003); “Torah of Moses: Pseudonymous Attribution in Second Temple Writings,” in The Interpretation of Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity: Studies in Language and Tradition (ed. C. A. Evans; JSPSup 33; SSEJC 7; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), 202–16; and most recently, “How Should We Contextualize Pseudepigrapha? Imitation and Emulation in 4Ezra,” Flores Florentino: Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Early Jewish Studies in Honour of Florentino García Martínez (eds A. Hilhorst, E. Puech, and E. J. C. Tigchelaar; JSJSup 122; Leiden: Brill, 2007), 529–36. 5 This is the complex question of how to categorize those texts that are usually called “rewritten Bible” in the second temple period. A clear-cut distinction between “biblical” and “non-biblical” in this era has been challenged by many scholars who have sought to find other terminology and ways of classifying both “rewritten Bible” and pseudepigrapha. See J. Barton’s early argument against using canonical terminology in Oracles of God: Perceptions of Ancient Prophecy in Israel after the Exile (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1986), esp. 80. For a recent statement on the issue see R. A. Kraft, “Para-mania: Before, Beside and Beyond Biblical Studies,” JBL 126 (2007): 5–27. See also J. C. VanderKam, “Authoritative Literature in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” DSD 5/3 (1998): 382–402; and VanderKam, “Questions of Canon Viewed Through the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in The Canon Debate (eds L. M. McDonald and J. A. Sanders; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2002), 91–109. On the concept of “rewritten Bible” see M. J. Bernstein, “‘Rewritten Bible’: A Generic Category Which Has Outlived its Usefulness?” Textus 22 (2005): 169–96; G. J. Brooke, “Rewritten Bible,” Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 777–80; G. W. E. Nickelsburg, “The Bible Rewritten and Expanded,” Jewish Writings of the Second Temple Period (ed. M. E. Stone; CRINT 2/2; Assen/Philadelphia: Van Gorcum/Fortress, 1984), 89–156; .