[Originally published on the blog of the Sherman Centre for Digital Scholarship]

In my last post, I introduced my Sherman Centre project, which is examining the placement of fragment 10 in the Dead Sea scroll, 1QHodayot^a, a manuscript from c. 30–1 BCE that contains a collection of previously unknown psalms called the Thanksgiving Hymns. Over the next several posts, I am going to describe my research problem in greater detail, highlighting why the placement of fragment 10 in column 7 is so uncertain. This entry discusses two kinds of reconstructions that are important concepts for understanding this research problem: 1) reconstructions of entire manuscripts, and 2) reconstructions of the text between fragments of a manuscript.

1) Reconstructions of Manuscripts

Almost every Dead Sea scroll has sustained enough damage that it has broken into pieces, so a significant proportion of the first fifty years of scrolls scholarship was dedicated to putting these pieces back together in order that they could be published in the Discoveries in the Judaean Desert Series by Oxford University Press. These attempts to arrange the fragments in their original places in the scroll are called manuscript reconstructions. The fragments in such a reconstruction are placed on the basis of other copies of the same text, material joins between fragments, or the regularly appearing contours of damage sustained while the scroll was in a cave for two millennia.

Stegemann reconstructed 1QH^a in his dissertation in the early-1960s, and he continued to refine his proposal for the rest of his career.^[1] Stegemann’s reconstruction was edited and published posthumously in 2009 by Eileen Schuller, currently a professor at McMaster University and my dissertation supervisor.^[2] Before Stegemann’s unexpected death, they had arranged to work together to publish his reconstruction as one of the final volumes in the Discoveries in the Judaean Desert series, the official publication series of the Dead Sea scrolls. Schuller had published six other manuscripts found in a nearby cave that contained the same psalms, so she was uniquely qualified to bring Stegemann’s work to publication.^[3] Most aspects of Stegemann’s reconstruction were well received; however, the placement of fragment 10 in column 7 is still debated.^[4]

2) Textual Reconstructions

Almost every Dead Sea scroll manuscript has lines of text that processes of decomposition have interrupted with large gaps, and scholars sometimes make educated guesses about which words might have been lost. These proposals for the missing sections of manuscripts are referred to as textual reconstructions. In some cases, scholars can supply text by using other manuscripts containing the same composition. In other cases, where there is not a manuscript containing a parallel text, scholars may propose a reconstruction of what they suppose to have existed in the gap based on the context of the passage. These suggestions are usually made on the basis of formal similarities or standard phrases found in other compositions. For example, if a Dead Sea scroll is loosely alluding to a passage from the book of Isaiah, and there is a gap between fragments, a scholar may offer a suggestion for the missing text using words from the same part of Isaiah that fit into the space. In Dead Sea scrolls scholarship, it is commonly held that any reconstruction proposed without the aid of a parallel text from another manuscript is very tentative and provisional. In fact, even those reconstructions made with the benefit of a parallel are subject to debate.

As we will see in the following posts, the problem created by Stegemann’s placement of fragment 10 arises out of both his approach to manuscript reconstruction in columns 5–8 and his proposal of several words for the gap between column 7 and fragment 10—a textual reconstruction. In the next post, I will discuss why the placement of fragment 10 in column 7 on the basis of its shape is problematic. In subsequent posts, I will explain why many of the very distinctive characteristics of this fragment seem out of place in Stegemann’s reconstruction.

[1]. Hartmut Stegemann, “Rekonstruktion der Hodajot: Ursprüngliche Gestalt und kritisch bearbeiteter Text der Hymnenrolle aus Höhle 1 von Qumran,” (PhD diss., University of Heidelberg, 1963).

[2]. Hartmut Stegemann and Eileen Schuller Qumran Cave 1.III:1QHodayot^a with Incorporation of 1QHodayot^b and 4QHodayot^a–f DJD XL (Oxford: Clarendon, 2009).

[3]. Eileen M. Schuller, “Hodayot” in Qumran Cave 4.XX: Poetical and Liturgical Texts, Part 2 (eds. E. Chazon et al.; DJD 29; Oxford: Clarendon, 1999)

[4]. Elisha Qimron, The Dead Sea Scrolls: The Hebrew Writings, Volume One, Between Bible and Mishnah (Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi Press, 2010), 66.

Works Cited

Qimron, Elisha. The Dead Sea Scrolls: The Hebrew Writings, Volume One. Between Bible and Mishnah. Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi Press, 2010.

Schuller, Eileen and Hartmut Stegemann. Qumran Cave 1.III: 1QHodayot^a with Incorporation of 1QHodayot^b and 4QHodayot^a-f. DJD XL. Oxford: Clarendon, 2009.

Schuller, Eileen. “Hodayot.” Pages 69–254 in Qumran Cave 4.XX: Poetical and Liturgical Texts. Part 2. DJD XXIX. Edited by Esther Chazon et al. Oxford: Clarendon,1999.

Stegemann, Hartmut. “Rekonstruktion der Hodajot: Ursprüngliche Gestalt und kritisch bearbeiteter Text der Hymnenrolle aus Höhle 1 von Qumran.” PhD diss., University of Heidelberg, 1963.