Paleo-Hebrew Leviticus Scroll

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11QpaleoLev (Paleo-Hebrew Leviticus Scroll)
Paleo-Hebrew characters
Createdcirca 2nd–1st-century BCE
Discovered1956
Present locationIAA
www.deadseascrolls.org.il/explore-the-archive/image/B-295277

Paleo-Hebrew Leviticus Scroll, known also as 11QpaleoLev, is an ancient text preserved in one of the

Leviticus. The scroll is thought to have been penned by the scribe between the late 2nd century BCE to early 1st century BCE, while others place its writing in the 1st century CE.[2]

The paleo-Hebrew Leviticus Scroll, although many centuries more recent than the well-known earlier ancient paleo-Hebrew epigraphic materials, such as the

Museum of the Ancient Orient, Istanbul,[3] and the Phoenician inscription on the sarcophagus of King Eshmun-Azar at Sidon, dating to the fifth-fourth century BCE,[4] the Lachish ostraca (ca. 6th-century BCE), the Gezer calendar (ca. 950–918 BCE), and the paleo-Hebrew sacerdotal blessing discovered in 1979 near the St Andrew's Church in Jerusalem, is of no less importance to palaeography[5][6][7][8]
—even though the manuscript is fragmentary and only partially preserved on leather parchment.

Today, the paleo-Hebrew Leviticus Scroll (11QpaleoLev) is housed at the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), but is not on public display.

Discovery

The discovery of the first

D.N. Freedman for study and publication, who published the first report on the manuscript in 1974. Today, the 11QpaleoLev is held by the Israel Antiquities Authority
(IAA).

The scroll was first photographed in 1956 by the Palestine Archaeological Museum (PAM), and again in 1970 under the auspices of the IAA, when infrared photographs were made of the manuscript.[10] Between 1956 and 1970 the scroll had suffered, losing at several places tiny fragments from the edges. Thus, the 1956 photographs preserve a better stage of the scroll and show readings which were lost in 1970.[10]

One fragment belonging to the 11QpaleoLev but not with the IAA is Fragment L (formerly, 11Q1), purchased by Georges Roux of France from the antiquities dealer Khalil Eskander Shaheen (Kando) of Bethlehem in 1967, showing Leviticus 21:7–12 / 22:21–27.[11] Similar paleo-Hebrew fragments exist for the Books of Genesis, Exodus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, discovered in Qumran Cave 4.[12]

Qumran Cave 11 Entrance

Historical background

The

paleo-Hebrew script used is similar to the script still preserved today by the Samaritans, in the Samaritan Pentateuch, which itself is thought to be a direct descendant of the paleo-Hebrew alphabet (known in other circles as the Phoenician alphabet).[13]

The Leviticus Scroll is of primary importance in helping secular and religious scholars better understand the textual development of the Hebrew Bible

Urtext
.

Although secular linguistic experts agree that the Ashurit script (i.e., the modern square Jewish Hebrew alphabet) evolved from the earlier Paleo-Hebrew script via the Aramaic alphabet—their secular consensus view is based on palaeographic evidentiary discoveries, the timelines and assigned eras of those discoveries, and the slowly evolving letter/character morphologies as they offshoot from earlier scripts—the question remains undecided among Jewish religious sages as to whether or not the discovery of the 11QpaleoLev scroll has implications on what the original script of the first Torah was.

Among some Jewish religious sages, the find of 11QpaleoLev would corroborate one rabbinic view that the Torah was originally written in the

Ezra the Scribe in the 5th century BCE.[16] This latter view, however, is incongruous with secular linguistic findings. Nevertheless, the matter remains undecided and in dispute among Jewish religious sages, with some holding the opinion that the Torah was originally inscribed in the Old Hebrew (Paleo-Hebrew) script,[17]
while others that it was not.

What is generally acknowledged by all Jewish religious sages

Babylonian exile, officially did away with the ancient characters,[18]
but preserved the language intact, as the paleo-Hebrew letters were replaced, letter by letter, with their exact Ashurit equivalent, and where the newer characters represented the same phonetic sounds used in the Old Hebrew script. Both old and new systems consisted of 22 corresponding characters with (at that time) the same Semitic sound values.

The Hebrew sages of the 1st-century CE augmented the use of the modern Hebrew script over that of the former script, declaring that sanctity only applied to those texts transcribed in the Ashurit (modern Hebrew) script, effectively doing away with the Old Hebrew (paleo-Hebrew) writing system.[19]

Description

The paleo-Hebrew Leviticus Scroll consists of fifteen fragments and one scroll of seven columns, measuring 100.5 centimetres (39.6 in) in length. The scroll is thought to have been originally part of a larger Torah scroll made-up of individual sheets of parchment that were sewn together.[20] The surviving scroll, showing portions of the Book of Leviticus, shows only the bottom portion of two sheets of parchment (ca. one-fifth of its original height), now measuring 10.9 centimetres (4.3 in) in height. The two sheets of parchment are shown sewn together; one containing three columns, and the other four columns, for a total of seven extant columns.[20] The paleo-Hebrew script is written upon horizontal ruled lines, indented in the parchment by a semi-sharp instrument, from which the scribe "hangs" his letters. The rule lines were made mechanically and have a distinctive lighter shade of brown, and are intersected with indented vertical lines at the ends of the margins.[21]

The parchment consists of light to dark brown, tanned leather, with the ancient Hebrew writing inscribed on the grain-side of the leather,

lampblack ink.[22]
Individual words are divided by dots.

The top portion of the scroll is irregularly worn away, with no indication that it had been deliberately torn or cut.[22] Letter and line calculations suggest that the scroll's height was roughly four times greater than the extant lower portion, based upon letter and scribal dot counts of columns four to six.[22] The average number of letters per line is forty-seven.[23] Columns 4 to 7 measure 14.9 cm. in width, except for the narrow, final column.[24] Columns 2 and 3 measure 13.6 cm. and 12.0 cm., respectively.[24]

The scroll contains much of Leviticus chapters 22:21–27, 23:22–29, 24:9–14, 25:28–36, 26:17–26, and 27:11–19, with smaller fragments showing portions of chapters 4:24–26, 10:4–7, 11:27–32, 13:3–9, 14:16–21, 18:26–19:3, 20:1–6, et al. Based on a cursory review and comparison of extant texts, the 11QpaleoLev Leviticus Scroll is considered by many to be a primary textual witness of the Proto-Masoretic text.[25]

As was apparently common for the time, the scribe who copied the paleo-Hebrew Leviticus scroll has joined all words together, with only a dot separating word from word.

Orthography

A comparative study made between the

plene and defective scripta, the Leviticus Scroll generally showing more full spellings than the MT.[26] This makes sense, since the Masoretic scholars are the ones who created the vowel pointing system that was added to the consonantal text, whereas the fuller spellings were the only available aid to the reader for discerning the vowel sounds at the earlier period. According to the Talmud, at some time during the Second Temple period the Sages saw a need to bring conformity to the writing, and therefore began work on establishing an authoritative text, which eventually became known as the MT.[27]

Variant spellings[28]
Source Leviticus Scroll Masoretic Text (MT) Transliteration
Lev. 11:31 במותמ במתם (bĕmōtam)
Lev. 13:4 מראיה מראה (marʾehā)
Lev. 13:39 לב]נות לבנת (lĕbānōt)
Lev. 17:2 אלהמ אליהם (ʾălēhem)
Lev. 17:5 זב]היהמ[29] זבחיהם (zibḥêhem)
Lev. 17:5 והביאומ והביאם (wehebîʾūm)
Lev. 13:4 מראיה מראה (marʾehā)
Lev. 18:27, 30 הת(ו)]עבות התועבת (hattôʿēbōt)
Lev. 18:29 התעבות התועבות (hattôʿēbôt)
Lev. 18:29 העשות העשת (hāʿōśōt)
Lev. 19:3 שבתותי שבתתי (šabbĕtōtay)
Lev. 20:4 יעלמו יעלימו (yaʿlimû)
Lev. 21:6 מקריבימ מקריבם (maqrîbīm)
Lev. 21:7; 24:9 קדוש קדש (qādōš)
Lev. 21:10 מאחו מאחיו (mēʾeḥāyw)
Lev. 21:11 נפשות נפשת (napšōt)
Lev. 21:11 יבוא יבא (yābōʾ)
Lev. 22:22 או ילפת או גרב או יבלת או יבלת או גרב או ילפת (reverse order)
Lev. 22:22 תקרבו תקריבו (taqrîbû)
Lev. 22:23 תעשו תעשה (taʿăśû)
Lev. 22:25 משחתימ המ[30] משחתם בהם (mašḥatām behem)
Lev. 23:24, 27 השבעי השביעי (haššĕbîʿî)
Lev. 24:10 והאיש הישראלי ואיש הישראלי (weʾiš hayyiśrĕʾēlî)
Lev. 24:12 ויניחו אתו ויניחהו (wayannîḥû ʾôtō)
Lev. 24:14 הציאו הוצא (hôṣēʾ)
Lev. 25:28 ביובל ביבל (bayyōbēl)
Lev. 25:30 מלאות מלאת (mĕlōʾt)
Lev. 25:30 לו[31] אשר לא (ʾašer lō)
Lev. 25:30 חומה[32] חמה (ḥōmâ)
Lev. 25:30 לצמיתות לצמיתת (laṣṣĕmîtût)
Lev. 25:32 אזתמ[33] אחזתם (ʾaḥuzzatām)
Lev. 25:34 מגש[34] מגרש (migraš)
Lev. 26:5 איב אויב (ʾôyēb)
Lev. 26:18, 21 חטתיכמ[35] חטאתיכם (ḥaṭṭoʾtêkem)
Lev. 26:19 ונתתי שמיכמ ונתתי את שמיכם (omission of the particle et)
Lev. 26:19 כנחה[36] כנחשה (kannĕḥušâ)
Lev. 26:21 תבו תאבו (tōʾbû)
Lev. 26:22 ושלחתי והשלחתי (wĕhîšlaḥtî)
Lev. 26:24 והלכתי עמכמ בחמת ק[ר]י והלכתי אף אני עמכם בקרי (major differences)
Lev. 26:25 והביאתי והבאתי (wĕhēbēʾtî)
Lev. 27:13 יגאלנו יגאלנה (yigʾālennû)
Lev. 27:13 חמישיתו חמישתו (ḥămîšītô)
Lev. 27:14 יקדיש יקדש (yaqdīš)
Lev. 27:15 חמשית חמישית (ḥămîšît)
Lev. 27:18 ה]נתרות] הנותרת (hannôtārōt)

The 11QpaleoLev scroll is unique in that where the MT requires reading לו in Leviticus 25:30 as the ḳeri (קרי), although the text is written לא as the actual ketiv (כתיב) in the MT, the paleo-Hebrew Leviticus Scroll shows the original reading and is written plainly as לו, without the necessity of changing its reading.[37] This suggests that the Masoretes who transmitted the readings for words had access to an early orthographic tradition.[38]

Another unique feature of the paleo-Hebrew Leviticus Scroll is that it shows an ancient scribal practice of aligning all words in the columns in a natural progressive order, without the necessity of stretching words as is typically practised by scribes in the Ashurit script (modern Hebrew script) to justify the end of the line at the left margin. To avoid a long word extending beyond the column, the scribe simply broke-off the word, writing one or several letters of that word at the end of one line, and the remaining letters of the same word at the beginning of the next line (e.g. the Tetragrammaton in Lev. 24:9, the word ישראל in Lev. 24:10, the word אל in Lev. 24:11 - all in column no. 3; the word ארצכם in Lev. 26:19 in column no. 5, et al.)

In column no. 4 of the 11QpaleoLev scroll (the second line from the bottom) it shows no section break for Leviticus 25:35 (

Menahem Meiri in his Kiryat Sefer.[41]

Partial translation of scroll

In the following nine lines, a translation of the paleo-Hebrew Leviticus Scroll is rendered as follows:[42]

Lev. 23:22-29 (contained in the second column). Words written here in brackets are based on the scrolls reconstruction, as they are missing in the original manuscript.
  1. (22)[…edges of your field, or] gather [the gleanings of your harvest; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger; I the LO]RD [am]
  2. your God.
  3. (23)The LORD spoke to Moses saying: (24)Speak to the Israelite people thus: In the seventh month
  4. on the first day of the month, you shall observe complete rest, a sacred occasion commemorated with load blasts.
  5. (25)You shall not work at your occupations; and you shall bring an offering by fire to the LORD.
  6. (26)The LORD spoke to Moses saying: (27)Mark, the tenth day of this seventh month is the Day
  7. of Atonement. It shall be a sacred occasion for you: you shall practice self-denial, and you shall bring an offering
  8. by fire to the LORD; (28)you shall do no work throughout that day. For
  9. [it is a Day of Atonement on which] expiation is made on your behalf [before the LO]RD your God. (29)Indeed, any person who...

The arrangement of the lines does not necessarily follow the arrangements used by modern scribes when copying from their

Tikkun Soferim, a thing which does invalidate a Torah scroll. However, the use of section breaks follows closely the traditions bequeathed by the Masoretes, so that the Open section (Hebrew: פרשה פתוחה) in line no. 3 (Lev. 23:23) starts at the beginning of the margin, after the previous verse ended on the previous line, followed by a very long vacant space (vacat) extending to the left margin, showing that it is an Open Section, whereas line no. 6 (Lev. 23:26) is an anomaly of sorts, insofar that the MT makes it a Closed Section (Hebrew: פרשה סתומה), which should start in the middle of the column, with an intermediate space between it and the previous verse,[43] but in the paleo-Hebrew Leviticus Scroll the section here starts at the beginning of the right margin, with the previous verse ending in the previous line and followed by a short vacant space extending to the left margin (which space is equivalent to that of about 14 letters).[44]

Likewise, in column no. three, the verse Lev. 24:10 is made a Closed Section in the MT, but in the paleo-Hebrew Leviticus Scroll the section break starts at the beginning of the right margin, preceded by a line where the previous verse ends close to the start of the line, and a solitary paleo-Hebrew letter

BCE.[47]

As was customary for ancient Torah scrolls, words were joined together without spacing, as is seen in the paleo-Hebrew Leviticus scroll. Some words are broken in two, between two consecutive lines. The original paleo-Hebrew Leviticus scroll contained approximately 45 lines.

Paleo-Hebrew scroll vs. the parent text of the Septuagint

From this one surviving relic of Israel's distant past, it can be shown that the unknown

Greek Septuagint (LXX) was similar to the text of the paleo-Hebrew Leviticus Scroll in some places, such as in Lev. 26:24, where it adds the words beḥamat ḳerī = "in rage of froward behaviour" – the words "in rage" not appearing in the MT
. In yet other places (Lev. 25:31 and Lev. 23:23–24), the paleo-Hebrew Leviticus Scroll follows more closely the MT than does the Septuagint.

See also

References

  1. ^ Siegel, Jonathan P. (1979), p. 28, who writes that prior to the destruction of the First Temple, "the paleo-Hebrew script was the only alphabet used by the Israelites."
  2. Zadokite
    priesthood."
  3. ^ Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol. 2. Jerusalem 1971, s.v. Alphabet, Hebrew (p. 679, figure 6)
  4. ^ Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol. 2. Jerusalem 1971, s.v. Alphabet, Hebrew (p. 679, figure 4)
  5. ^ Freedman, D.N., ed. (1992), p. 96
  6. ^ Mathews (1987), p. 49. Quote: "...a small conservative circle of Jewish scribes preserved the old characters in an attempt to mimic the Hebrew letters of the preexile age (prior to 586 BCE). A comparison of the paleo-Hebrew characters of the Leviticus Scroll with their seventh-century proto-types reveals that the characters evolved over time; the changes, however, are not substantive" (End Quote).
  7. ^ Van de Water (2000), p. 431 (note 48)
  8. ^ Hanson (1964), pp. 26–42
  9. ^ de Vaux, Roland (1973), p. 57
  10. ^ a b Tigchelaar, Eibert J.C. (1997), p. 325
  11. ^ Freedman, D.N.; Mathews, K.A. (1985), pp. IX (Preface); 2
  12. ^ See, for example, 4Q11, 4Q12, and 4Q22, described in Fitzmyer, J. (2008), pp. 30–34.
  13. ^ Kaltner (2002), p. 94
  14. ^ Mathews, K.A. (1986), p. 171
  15. Menahem Meiri
    , entitled Beit HaBechirah, et al.
  16. Babylonian Talmud
    (Megillah 2b; Shabbat 104a; Zevahim 62a; Sanhedrin 22a)
  17. ^ a b Jerusalem Talmud (Megillah 10a)
  18. ^
    OCLC 66267807
    ).
  19. ^ Danby, H., ed. (1933), p. 784, s.v. Yadayim 4:5-6, note 6)
  20. ^ a b c d Freedman, D.N.; Mathews, K.A. (1985), p. 3
  21. ^ Freedman, D.N.; Mathews, K.A. (1985), p. 5 (note 14)
  22. ^ a b c Freedman, D.N.; Mathews, K.A. (1985), p. 4
  23. ^ Freedman, D.N.; Mathews, K.A. (1985), p. 4 (note 11)
  24. ^ a b Freedman, D.N.; Mathews, K.A. (1985), pp. 5, 8
  25. ^ Freedman, D.N.; Mathews, K.A. (1985), p. 78; Ulrich, E.; et al. (eds.) (2016), p. 110
  26. ^ Freedman, D.N.; Mathews, K.A. (1985), pp. 80–81
  27. Tractate Soferim 6:4 (cf. Jerusalem Talmud, Ta'anit
    4:2 [20b]), where R. Shimon b. Lakish said: "Three books [of the Law] were found in the court of the Temple: a book of the Law wherein was written the word מעונה, another book wherein was written זאטוטי, and another book wherein was written the word היא. In one book they found written מעון, but in two books it was written מעונה אלהי קדם (Deut. 33), and they upheld the variant reading where two were concurrent, and cancelled the one that differed. In one book they found written וישלח אל זאטוטי בני ישראל, while in two other books they found written וישלח את נערי בני ישראל (Exo. 24), and they upheld the version of the two books [which agreed], and cancelled the reading of the one that differed. In one book it was written אחד עשר הוא (Gen. 32:23), but in two other books they found written אחד עשר היא, and upheld [the reading variant of] the two [books], and cancelled the one [that differed]."
  28. ^ NOTE: Five letters in the Ashurit script (Modern Hebrew script) (כ‎ ,פ‎ ,צ‎ ,נ‎ ,מ‎) have altered forms when they appear at the end of a word (ך‎ ,ף‎ ,ץ‎ ,ן‎ ,ם‎). These changes do not appear in the paleo-Hebrew script, the five letters being written the same - whether at the beginning, middle, or end of a word.
  29. ^ Fragment H
  30. Freedman, D.N.
    (1985), p. 41)
  31. Freedman, D.N.
    ; Mathews, K.A. (1985), p. 44).
  32. ^ In the paleo-Hebrew scroll, this word appears in the fourth column and is divided between two lines. The ḥet appears at the very end of the second line, and the remaining letters (waw, mem, and he) appear at the start of the third line.
  33. ^ This rendering may have actually been a scribal error (haplography), although D.N. Freedman thinks this to have been an intentional spelling based on the colloquial pronunciation of the word אחוזה.
  34. ^ This rendering may have actually been a scribal error (haplography), although D.N. Freedman thinks this to have been an intentional spelling based on the colloquial pronunciation of the word מגרש.
  35. ^ In these verses, the word חטאת appears in the elided-form, without the quiescent ʾalef, although in Lev. 26:24, the word appears in the usual form, with the quiescent ʾalef.
  36. Freedman, D.N.
    (1985), p. 46, reckons this as being a scribal error by the copyist, where he inadvertently left out the ḥet.
  37. ^ Ulrich, Eugene, ed. (2010), p. 134
  38. Tractate Soferim
    6:5: "In three [places] they write לא, with a lamed - ʾalef, but they read it as lamed - waw (לו), and which [places] are these: (1) אשר לא כרעים ממעל לרגליו (Lev. 11), (2) אשר לא חומה (Lev. 25), (3) אשר לא (יגיד) [יעדה] (Exo. 21)."
  39. ^ Freedman, D.N.; Mathews, K.A. (1985), p. 115; Ulrich, Eugene, ed. (2010), p. 134
  40. Vatican library's Urb.ebr.2 (q.v. folio 62r), a 10th-century codex. The text of the Aleppo Codex cannot now be known, although scholars can only assume that Maimonides copied what he knew to be true of the Aleppo Codex, who writes for this section a Closed Section. See Maimonides
    (1985), p. 403. The apparatus written by the scribe Benaya of Yemen in many of his codices ends with the statement that the present work is "completely according to the arrangement of the book which was in Egypt, which was edited by Ben Asher..." All of these have Leviticus 25:35 as a Closed Section.
  41. Hebrew: setumah), although with regard to this I found a dispute, where there are accurate books showing that there is no section break [here] at all. Likewise, I have found it to be so in a few of the minutiae composed by the Geonim, as well as in a Tikkun (model text) used by a few of the rabbis [where there was no section break]. However, in the Tikkun composed by Maimonides
    , of blessed memory, and in the book that I hinted at, I have found it to be a Closed Section, and it is upon them that I rely.” END QUOTE
  42. ^ Translation from "Tanakh," p. 192. Philadelphia, 1985
  43. Menahot 32a, Tosafot
    , s.v. והאידנא).
  44. ^ For a discussion on the scribal method of making Open and Closed sections found in the Qumran manuscripts and their general outlines, see Tov, Emanuel (2004), pp. 145–147
  45. Freedman, D.N.; Mathews, K.A. (1985), p. 48; Ulrich, Eugene
    , ed. (2010), p. 125
  46. Freedman, D.N.
    ; Mathews, K.A. (1985), p. 48
  47. ^ Skehan, P.W.; et al. (1992), p. 100 (on Exo. 19:23–20:1); p. 116 (on Exo. 28:39–29:5); p. 130 (on Exo. 37:9–16); p. 60 (Table 5), inter alia.

Bibliography

External links
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