Greek Minor Prophets Scroll from Nahal Hever

Between 1946 and 1947 the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered by Bedouins. Since 1948, Nahal Hever has been part of Israel, but the Bedouins reported that the manuscripts came from Wadi Seiyal to legitimize their possession.^[3] Due to the excavations of the Bedouins, the archaeological context could no longer be determined. The Bedouins sold their finds to researchers in East Jerusalem, which was under Jordanian control at the time, while Wadi Seiyal was in Israel.^[3]

From 1952 to 1954 the manuscripts that comprised what was known as the Seiyâl collection was acquired by the Palestine Archaeological Museum (today is

Amongst other things, in response to rumors that parts of the sold scrolls came from Israel, Hebrew University of Jerusalem sent two expeditions, in 1960 and 1961, for exploration through the Wadi to the west of the Dead Sea. In the expedition B of the company in spring 1961 under the direction of Yohanan Aharoni, who examined mainly the caves on the southern edge of Nahal Hever, in Cave no. 8 (the Cave of Horror) it found, among other things, fragments of the Greek scroll.^[1] Most of which only a few centimeters between large fragments could still be associated with the twelve minor prophets. It also became apparent relatively quickly that the fragments were parts of the same scroll that had been purchased ten years earlier. The locality of this role - as well as most of the other scrolls of the Seiyâl Collection - was therefore contrary to the specification of the Bedouin of the Nachal Hever determined previously.

The other fragments found in expedition B of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in cave No. 8 in Nahal Hever (

In 1963, Dominique Barthélemy published his preliminary study in French, and describes in detail the facts of the discovering of the scroll.[14] Here he published the main text, but there are still some unidentified fragments.^[4]

In 1990, Emanuel Tov published the textual edition of the Greek Minor Prophets Scroll from Nahal Hever.^[8][4] Throughout studies of the fragments, and in reference works, acronyms such as Se2grXII, LXXIEJ12, LXXVTS10a, Rahlfs 493a, 8HevXIIa, LXXVTS10b, Rahlfs 493b, 8HevXIIa, Rahlfs 493 and 8HevXII have been used, so in 1990, Emanuel Tov, Robert A. Kraft and Peter J. Parsons recommend that scholars use the acronym 8HevXIIgr,^[4] becoming the modern sigla.^[3] Tov, as well as George Howard, agree that if Lifshitz's identifications are correct, then there are two manuscripts of the Minor Prophets.^[4][13]

New discovery 2021

New fragments have been found in 2021 and are being studied for the textual reconstruction of the manuscript.^[15]

Description

Version

Since its discovery, the editors agree that this is an early revision of the Septuagint in alignment with the Hebrew text. Dominique Barthélemy established that text found "is neither a new translation nor an independent one, but rather a recension of the Septuagint text".

Dimensions and content

This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

The roll is one of the partially preserved, basically better in the lower part. Only column 8 contains parts of all four edges, from most other columns usually only the lower one as well, parts of the right or left edge. Reconstruction attempts show that the average number of lines per column is about 42. In contrast, in the back part, which can be assigned to another hand, the letters are written larger, and therefore the columns contain only 33 lines. The columns therefore had a height of about 27 cm. The column width, however, varies between 7.5 and 9 cm or 29 and 43 letters, in the back even only 22-24 letters. This is apparently related to the width of the individual leather sheets sewn together into a roll. While the sheets themselves were different in width, the columns appear to have been drawn relatively evenly on a sheet. The height of the roll can finally be determined with about 35 cm. Calculations on the number of columns depend very much on what content the role had. Assuming an originally complete twelve-prophecy book, the role should have included between 80 and 94 columns, which would correspond to about 9.6 – 10 m. The role would be longer than any surviving scrolls from Qumran. However, only parts of the books Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah and Zechariah are identified.

Text and scribe

As differences in letter form and size show, the manuscript was written by two different scribes.^[19] On the other hand, the assumption that instead the fragments should be divided into two different roles is less likely. The cause of the various clerk hands, however, is unclear. Either the role was first started by a writer and later ended by a second, or else the leather sheets with the second manuscript were inserted for repair. Several lines have been left between the individual books, but possible book titles are not attested. The continuous text is divided into larger and smaller sections, and it is even possible to observe a division into verses. The division into units of meaning agrees largely with the division of the Masoretic text in Setumot and Petuchot. To mark such sections, either draw a horizontal line between the lines - an paragraph - or the new line starts slightly to the left and with a slightly larger initial letter. Between individual words of a verse, however, at first hand there is usually no gap left.

Tetragrammaton

This manuscript shows the use of the tetragrammaton in the 1st century.

In this manuscript the tetragrammaton in Old Hebrew script appears in Jon 3:3; Jon 4:2; Mic 1:1, 3; Mic 4:4, 5, 7; Mic 5:4, 4; Hab 2:14, 16, 20; Hab 3:9; Zep 1:3, 14; Zep 2:10; Zec 1:3, 3, 4; Zec 3:5, 6, 7; Zec 8:20; 9:1, 1, 4.[26] The scribe himself seems to have inserted the paleo-Hebrew characters directly, probably from left to right, contrary to the normal direction for Hebrew, when writing the Greek text. George Howard states, in Journal of Biblical Literature (1977):

In 1952 fragments of a scroll of the Twelve Prophets in Greek were found in a cave in Nahal Hever in the Judean Desert. The first announcement, along with a brief analysis of the fragments, came from D. Barthelemy in 1953. Ten years later he published most of the fragments with a full analysis of the text and the place that it holds in the transmission history of the LXX. According to him the text belongs to a

C. H. Roberts has preferred an earlier date, ascribing it to the century 50 B.C.-A.D. 50. Sometime around the beginning of the first Christian century is probably correct. The MS is distinguished for its closeness to MT against the Christian MSS of the LXX and for its preservation of the Tetragram where the Christian codices employ the word κυριος. It differs from P. Fuadd 266 in that it writes the Tetragram not in Aramaic letters, but in paleo-Hebrew letters. In 1962 B. Lifshitz published nine fragments of a Greek scroll which he believed to belong to Barthelemy's MS. According to Lifshitz's reconstructions they include: (1) Hos 2:8; (2) Amos 1:5; (3) Joel 1:14; (4) Jonah 3:2- 5; (5) Nah 1:9; (6) Nah 2:8-9; (7) Zech 3:1-2; (8) Zech 4:8-9; (9) Zech 8:21. Barthelemy accepted the fragments as belonging to his scroll but he did not agree with all of Lifshitz's identifications. In our judgment Lifshitz's identifications fit quite well with our LXX MSS with only few alterations in the direction of MT. If Lifshitz is correct, some of these fragments must not come from Barthelemy's scroll, but from another MS of the Twelve Prophets in Greek, since Lifshitz's fragments overlap twice with the fragments published by Barthelemy: viz., Nah 2:8 and Zech 8:21. Furthermore, if Lifshitz's restorations are correct, the text represented by his fragments differs in character from Barthelemy's in that the word θεος appears at least once (Zech 4:9) and possibly twice (Joel 1:14), where the MT has the Tetragram. In Jonah 3:3, on the other hand, it preserves the Tetragram in a similar fashion to Barthelemy's scroll. The one (or two) place(s) where θεος appears instead of יהוה possibly represents a textual variation to the MT. If this is the case, θεος must not be considered a substitute for the Tetragram. However, it is possible that this MS represents a later transitional period in which the Tetragram was being replaced by θεος. The date of these fragments, therefore, may need reevaluating in the light of this.^[5]

It has the tetragrammaton everywhere in the phrase ἄγγελος יהוה‬ (Angel of YHWH) instead of ἄγγελος Κυρίου (Angel of the Lord) in Zech 3:1-2, 5 and 6. The oldest example of ἄγγελος Κυρίου is in P. Oxy. 1166 from 3rd century, more than two centuries after LXX^VTS10a.

In March 2021, archaeologists announced the discovery of a Dead Sea Scroll, this time written in Hebrew, that also wrote the Tetragrammaton in the paleo-Hebrew script.^[27]

See also

• Kaige revision

References