This is the first published monograph on 4Q185 Sapiential Admonitions B, an enigmatic Dead Sea Scroll’s wisdom text. The author offers a new edition that is based on the IAA images and aided by the Göttingen Qumran-Digital database. In an intertextual analysis, she shows that the text of 4Q185 radically transforms the sapiential discourse manifested in Proverbs, by integrating both eschatological tropes and the discourse on memory and national identity reflected in Pss 78, 105 and 106. Before it was conserved in the manuscript, the text underwent literary growth: the section discussing Isa 40:6–8 proves to be a redactional insertion.
Isabell Christine Hoppe studied Theology, focusing on the Hebrew Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls, at the Universities of Tübingen, Jerusalem, and Berlin. She was a member of the Berliner Antike Kolleg, Class: Ancient Languages and Texts (2019–2021). She now works as a pastor close to Hamburg, Germany.
1
Introduction 1 4Q185 A Dead Sea Scrolls Manuscript
2 Previous Research
3 Purpose and Layout of This Study
2
Edition 1 Graphic Material
2 Material Remarks
3 The Text of 4Q185
4 Translation and Additions
5 Conclusion
3
Analysis 1 Stanza
I Divine wrath and judgement (frag. 1–3 i ?–i 9a)
2 Stanza
II Contemplation on human mortality (frag. 1–3 i 9b–13a)
3 Stanza
III–
IV Sapiential Admonitions (frag. 1–3 i 13b–8b)
4 Stanzas
V and
VI the Beatitudes (frag. 1–3 ii 8c–ii 15 ff.)
5 Stanza
VII Fragmentary phrases on God testing and searching the human (body) (iii 8–15)
6 Coherence and Cohesion in the Extant Text of 4Q185
4
4Q185 in Context 1 Intertextuality, Wisdom, and the Sapiential Discourse
2 Engaging with Wisdom: Sapiential Traits in 4Q185
3 Engaging with Eschatology
4 Engaging with History: 4Q185 and Israel’s ‘National Lore’ represented in Pss 78, 105, 106 and 4QAdmonidions on the Flood
5 Engaging with Isaiah
5
Summary and Conclusion
Bibliography Index
The reader is a scholar of Dead Sea Scroll’s literature, focusing on wisdom and palaeography.