This article evaluates the reconstruction of 4Q264a offered by Vered Noam and Elisha Qimron. While those scholars find precedent in this scroll fragment for later rabbinic and Karaitic Sabbath prohibitions regarding playing musical instruments, using fire, and reading Scripture, the current article argues that this reconstruction is anachronistic and has insufficient support in the text. Instead, this article supports previous scholars whose reconstructions of this fragment of Sabbath laws include a rule encouraging singing, a prohibition against using fire for cooking but not for other uses, and a requirement to study Scriptures on the Sabbath.
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See, for example, Lawrence Schiffman, The Halakhah at Qumran (Leiden: Brill, 1975); Yaakov Sussman, “The History of Halakha and the Dead Sea Scrolls: Preliminary Observations on Miqsat Mavase Ha-Torah (4QMMT),” Tarbiz 59 (1990) [Hebrew]: 11–76; Steven Fraade, “Shifting from Priestly to Non-Priestly Legal Authority: A Comparison of the Damascus Document and the Midrash Sifra,” dsd 6, no. 2 (1999): 109–25; Vered Noam, “Traces of Sectarian Halakha in the Rabbinic World,” in Rabbinic Perspectives: Rabbinic Literature and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Proceedings of the Eighth International Symposium of the Orion Center, ed. S. D. Fraade et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 67–85; eadem, From Qumran to the Rabbinic Revolution: Conceptions of Impurity (Jerusalem: Yad Ben Zvi Press, 2010) [Hebrew]; and Aharon Shemesh, Halakhah in the Making: The Development of Jewish Law from Qumran to the Rabbis (Berkley: University of California Press, 2009), among many others.
Idem, “The Sabbath Trumpets in 4Q493,” RevQ 12 (1987): 556–59.
E. J. C. Tigchelaar, “Sabbath Halakha and Worship in 4QWays of Righteousness: 4Q421 11 and 13+2+8 par 4Q264a 1–2,” RevQ 18 (1998): 365; and idem, “More on 4Q264a (4QHalakha A or 4QWays of Righteousness(c)?),” RevQ 19 (2000): 454.
Joseph Baumgarten, “A Proposed Re-interpretation of Qumran Shabbat Regulations,” in Zaphenath-Paneah: Linguistic Studies Presented to Elisha Qimron on the Occasion of His Sixty-Fifth Birthday, ed. D. Sivan, et al. (Beer-Sheva: Beer-Sheva University Press, 2009), *10.
See further at David Henshke, “Teqiʿat shofar be-Shabbat,” Sidra 8 (1992): 31–34.
Ibid., 66 n. 25. See also a hint to this idea in Baumgarten, djd 35:55, cited above, n. 7.
Hanoch Albeck, Mavo la-Talmudim (Tel-Aviv: Dvir, 1987), 639–40 [Hebrew].
Ibid., 66 n. 25.
See analysis at Lutz Doering, “New Aspects of Qumran Sabbath Law from Cave 4 Fragments,” in Legal Texts and Legal Issues. Proceedings of the Second Meeting of the International Organization for Qumran Studies, Published in Honour of Joseph M. Baumgarten, ed. M. Bernstein, et al. (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 256–64.
E. Larson et al., “251. 4QHalakha A,” in Discoveries in the Judaean Desert (Oxford: Clarendon, 1999), 35:28. Possible candidates for this word are יש or צריך. On the usage of יש followed by a proper noun or pronoun and an infinitive, see 2 Chr 25:9; m. Roš Haš. 2:9; m. Sanh. 5:4, 6:1; and m. Soṭah 9:15. In those contexts, the phrase means “can” but perhaps it can also mean “should” or “must,” as in this context. צריך followed by a pronoun and an infinitive is used in Amoraic literature in the sense of “one must”; see y. Ned. 5:5, 39a; y. Šeb. 6:2, 36c; and ʿAvot R. Nat. B 21.
See Elisha Qimron, The Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986), 21. The word לו followed by an infinitive is also found at 4Q266 f6i:11: ואם לו ליוסף.
Tigchelaar, “Sabbath Halakha,” 369. See also Alex Jassen, Scripture and Law in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Ancient Judaism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), ch. 5.
Nehemiah Brüll, “Heʿarot shonot,” Beth Talmud 4 (1885): 75 [Hebrew], shows that this explanation borrows terminology from other rabbinic laws and must therefore be a later application. See also Friedman, “Primacy of Tosefta,” 321.
See Friedman, “Primacy of Tosefta,” 328–29; and Noam and Qimron, “Qumran Composition,” 83–84.
Ibid., 88.
Abraham Geiger, “Die gesetzlichen Differenzen zwischen Samaritanern und Juden,” Zeitschriften der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 20 (1866): 527–73, 532–33.
See Anan ben David, Karaite Anthology: Excerpts from the Early Literature (trans. L. Nemoy; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1952), 18, who writes: “If the fire has been kindled on a weekday, prior to the arrival of the Sabbath, it must be extinguished.” See further at Noam and Qimron, “Qumran Composition,” 91.
Ibid., 89.
Translation from Steve Mason, ed., Flavius Josephus: Translation and Commentary (Leiden: Brill, 2000), vol. 1B, 117–18.
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This article evaluates the reconstruction of 4Q264a offered by Vered Noam and Elisha Qimron. While those scholars find precedent in this scroll fragment for later rabbinic and Karaitic Sabbath prohibitions regarding playing musical instruments, using fire, and reading Scripture, the current article argues that this reconstruction is anachronistic and has insufficient support in the text. Instead, this article supports previous scholars whose reconstructions of this fragment of Sabbath laws include a rule encouraging singing, a prohibition against using fire for cooking but not for other uses, and a requirement to study Scriptures on the Sabbath.
All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 205 | 30 | 4 |
Full Text Views | 159 | 2 | 0 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 54 | 4 | 0 |