Timothy H. Lim. Holy Scripture in the Qumran Commentaries and Pauline
Letters. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. ISBN: 0-19-826206-X. Pp. xiv
+ 221. US $75.00; Can $116.00; UK £40.00.
1. Lim, Lecturer in Dead Sea Scrolls and Christian origins at the Faculty of
Divinity, University of Edinburgh, has thoroughly revised his 1991 Oxford
dissertation to produce this book. It is a work of about 10 years in the
making. It is an inquiry into how we can get at the attitudes that ancient
Jewish authors had toward their Scriptures. There is a continuum along which
they can lie, from considering themselves (1) to be composing scriptures and
thus freely altering the texts they had; to (2) to be rewriting scriptures,
as in Jubilees; and to (3) merely to be commenting on their scriptures,
which they considered the inviolable word of God. The concern that Lim
brings to this study is that scholars have simply assumed that such ancient
authors altered their texts, thus placing them somewhere in the first and
second options on the continuum, but no clear evidence has been provided
that this was the case. It has simply been assumed that citations that vary
from the MT, SP, or Greek were altered.
2. In order to address this sloppy approach to the question, Lim writes what
is more of a programmatic essay than a detailed consideration of passages.
There is the latter, but each case that is discussed is only an example used
to prove a point. In his work Lim is seeking to sharpen, possibly even move
to a higher level, the scholarly discussion of ancient exegesis of holy
scriptures in the second temple period. He challenges several unquestioned
working assumptions and brings more rigor to the methods used for examining
quotes. However, the comprehensive, detailed work that makes use of Lim's
methodological refinements remains to be done. The monograph has ten
chapters arranged into five parts. The first two parts ("Prolegomena" and
"Aspects of Ancient Bible Interpretation") cover a variety of preliminary
matters. The second two parts come to the issue at hand and treat the
pesherists ("Pesherite Exegesis and Hermeneutics") and Paul ("Pauline
Interpretation of the Bible"). The volume has a very brief summary for the
final part.
3. Lim takes as his starting point the light shed by the Dead Sea Scrolls on
second temple scribal and interpretative practices and the textual
situation. He shows why it is no longer possible to assume that a quote that
diverges from the MT, SP, or Greek is an exegetical alteration. By placing
the quotes that one examines into the broader picture of the fluid textual
situation as outlined by Emanuel Tov in his theory of multiple-texts
(Qumranian, proto-Masoretic, pre-Samaritan, Septuagintal,
non-aligned/independent; as opposed to that of Frank Moore Cross's theory of
local texts [Egypt, Palestine, Babylonia]), it becomes clear that divergence
from the traditional standards may be due to the use of a different or
non-aligned text type (Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible
[Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992; Assen/Maastricht: Van Gorcum, 1992], 114-117,
160-163; Frank Moore Cross, The Ancient Library of Qumran, 3rd ed.
[Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995],168-194). While Lim provides
examples to prove this, he also observes that for cases where there are no
extant texts that have survived at Qumran, there is still good reason for
caution.
4. The second refinement that Lim makes is to show that there was a concern
for the very words of the scriptures used by the two faith groups under
consideration. This concern is widely found in such sources as Deut 4:2 and
13:1 (and a variety of similar injunctions in a wide assortment of
literatures), Mt 5:17-19, and what is reported about Rabbi Akiba ben
Joseph's teachings. Furthermore, there are the highly literal Greek
translations represented by 8H9evXIIgr, the kaige recension of the LXX,
Qohelet, Song of Songs, and Aquila, along with the Aramaic translation by
Onkelos. Lim places the pesherists and Paul into that general milieu and
notes how they were concerned at times with the specific words of the text
more than with the general sense of passages. He demonstrates that in Qumran
exegesis could be governed by the structure of the biblical texts; by focus
upon key words to which particular interpretations are attached; and by the
lexical interplay between the lemma and interpretations, where among other
things there is evidence that the pesherists made use of variants to broaden
the possibilities for interpretation. Paul exhibits a similar exegetical
approach, for example in Gal 3, where much is made of the singular number of
the word for "seed."
5. Against this backdrop of complexity, Lim sets out to examine the writings
of the pesherists and Paul to discover whether it can be shown that they did
in fact alter their texts. His conclusion is that alterations did take place
but that the burden of proof is on the scholar to show it in any given
instance. Beginning with the pesherists in part three and then moving to
Paul in part four, Lim examines what we can now say about the text-types
used by each, considers how we can know if they changed the texts that were
before them, and then ends each part with a consideration of the authors'
understanding of whether they were merely interpreting or were authoring
scriptures. He concludes that the textual situation of both is complicated.
The texts cited in the 16 continuous pesherim (based upon a comparison of
the lemmata they cite) differ from the MT on average in 12% of the readings
(excluding orthographic differences), as compared to 1QIsaa, which differs
only 3% of the time (based upon chapter 10, which has the longest portion
cited in any pesher and occurs in two pesherim). The highest reliable
percentage difference is found in 4QpNah at 17%, and the lowest in 4QpIsac
at 5%. Whether it is possible to say that the texts of the pesherim are
proto-Masoretic or not will depend upon what a scholar is willing to allow,
but the range of percentages shows the problem of identifying the
text-types.
6. The situation with Paul is just as inconclusive. In "Paul and his Old
Testament Quotations" (chapter 9), Lim argues that, although Paul shows that
he had no problem using different forms of the same text, e.g., Isa 40:13 in
1 Cor 2:16 and Rom 11:34, it is now uncertain to what extent he altered
texts and to what extent he used existing, differing texts. Also, he claims,
it is not possible to say that Paul used primarily Septuagintal biblical
texts. Texts should not be referred to as "Septuagintal" simply because the
same words are found in one of the editions of the Greek Jewish scriptures.
That term should be reserved for those texts where citations agree with the
Greek against the MT and SP.
7. The question of alteration of texts has different answers for the two
groups. Looking at the peshers on Hab 2:17; 1:13; 1:14-15; Nah 3:5; 2:14;
Pss 37:20 and 37:10, Lim concludes that the pesherists did alter their
texts. His comparison is not with external texts (MT, LXX, Qumran texts) but
between the lemmata and their interpretations and citations elsewhere in the
peshers considered. By carefully analyzing these, Lim concludes that some of
the apparent alterations are more certain than others. The types of changes
found are the reordering of the sequence of words and phrases, the
atomization of phrases, and the changing of words to alter such things as
the grammatical person of verbs and pronouns. For Paul, again, the situation
is more complex. As noted above, Paul was not adverse to using different
forms of a text, but given the pluriformity of texts available it is now not
possible to determine with certainty whether he was consulting more than one
form or altering the one before him. It is now necessary to compare
citations to the Qumran texts and to allow for such things as differences in
pointings. Lim also argues that Paul used collections of excerpted texts
with differing text-types.
8. Lim's findings lead him to conclude that both the pesherists and Paul did
alter their texts and considered themselves to be composing scriptures, not
just interpreting existing scriptures. In chapter 7, "The Nature of
Pesherite Interpretation," Lim looks for the hermeneutical principles
underlying the pesherists' exegesis. Based upon his working hypothesis of a
Qumran-Essene sectarian community, he builds the picture of a community that
was devoted to the interpretation of scripture and saw itself as part of a
continuing process of an unfolding revelation. The epitome of this was the
Teacher of Righteousness, to whom God made known all the mysteries of the
prophets (1QpHab 7 ll. 4-5) in a quasi-prophetic attribution. In this way,
the pesherists seem, to Lim, to be more than mere interpreters of the
scriptures; they became biblical authors who reused the texts they had
before them.
9. Paul functions in a way similar to the pesherists, using techniques
similar to theirs--what Lim labels as "pesheresque." In addition to those
techniques, at least one more is noted by Lim that has not been noted
before; that is, the use of phrases like "as it is written" to introduce
abbreviated quotes or summaries, such as in Ezr 3:2-5, which refers to the
content of Num 29:12-38. This technique is also found in MMT. Lim argues
that it helps to clarify Gal 3:13, which is more of a digest of the content
of, than the words of, Deut 21:22-23. There is one major difference between
the pesherists and Paul, however. What allows Paul to use a range of
techniques, from an insistence upon the singularity of a noun like "seed" to
free renderings of passages, in the same letter (Galatians) is his
Christological hermeneutic: Christ is the key to understanding the
scriptures, but only with the aid of God who must lift the veil on their
eyes of understanding and, in Paul's case, give him revelations. These, Lim
argues, allowed Paul the freedom to utilize a variety of methods to show how
the scriptures are to be understood in light of the Christ event.
10. As is inevitable, a number of errors and typos occur in the book. Those
that were noted are here listed for the reader's benefit. One is confusing:
on pages 73, 88, and 109, reference is made to a difference between MT Ps
37:10 and 4QpPsa 1-10. ii. 7. On p. 73 we find whtbwnnt and
w)tbwnnt; on p. 88 )tbwnnh and hbwnnt; and
on p. 109 )tbwnnh and the second person in the MT (i.e.,
htbwnnt). Another is exactly the opposite of what is expected
because a 'not' has been left out: p. 109, "... has been careful [not] to
impute to the pesherists exegetical modifications simply ...."! A few others
are: p. 93, in line 2, 12% should probably be 11%; "Table 9" seems to refer
to "Table 8"; p. 103, "you are not able to regard upon trouble" ("regard
evil" or "look upon trouble"); p. 106, "particularly in view of the
immediately following the Lord's proclamation" for something like "... the
Lord's proclamation immediately following...."; 148 aui)tw=| for
au)tw=|; p. 160 "begin[n]ing"; pp. 166-167 have two garbled lines
of Hebrew from 4QpNah and the Temple Scroll; and p. 167 "... Paul
understands[,] is paradoxically ...."
11. As with any work, there will be details with which we could take issue.
We will not deal with these. It seems to this reviewer that Lim has
established his methodological modifications sufficiently that his work must
be reckoned with by anyone trying to understand the quotes and techniques
used by the pesherists and Paul, and by others. Clearly he is correct when
he writes on p. 149, "a comprehensive study of all the Pauline quotations
from the perspective of textual plurality is a desideratum." This, of
course, is true of other such writings as well. There is a need, with all
such literature, for a more nuanced discussion of both the lemmata cited and
the interpretations offered on the basis of them. He makes this point well
in the introduction to chapter 6:
The ancient exegete modified his biblical text. This is the
premise on which this study is based, since reinterpreting
biblical texts and recasting their words are ways of renewing the
sacred message, fixed in written words, for subsequent
generations. Scripture is believed to be holy not because it is
unchangeable and static, but because it is divinely inspired. Yet
the occasional emphasis upon the preservation of the literal word
of the written text suggests that ancient exegetes worked with a
more complex set of procedures. It was not simply a matter of
moulding holy scripture, whether by paraphrase of whole passages
or modification of verbatim quotations, to say something quite
different from its written form, but there existed a tension
between a multiplicity of interpretative forces.
\051 TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism, 1998.
R. Glenn Wooden
Acadia Divinity College