ABSTRACT
The purpose of this chapter, which complements another study (Brooke 2010), is to consider the evidence of six manuscripts from the Qumran caves, evidence that pertains to their layout and production as well as to their contents, to see what might be extrapolated from them about scribal practices and on the basis of such practices to see whether any contribution can be made to the discussion of scribal schools and scribal culture in Second Temple Judaism. 1 As L. Perdue (2008: 380) has observed in relation to his discussion of apocalyptic wisdom at Qumran, 2 it needs to be noted at the outset that the term “scribe” https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315487212/4bb5525b-a2ba-4208-b846-947b25e9e87b/content/fig10_1_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>/swpr) is not common in Qumran literature, occurring but four times (4Q274 1 I, 7; 4Q282q 1; 4Q461 2, 1; 11Q5 XXVII, 2). However, the verb https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315487212/4bb5525b-a2ba-4208-b846-947b25e9e87b/content/fig10_2_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>/spr (”to recount”) and the noun “ https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315487212/4bb5525b-a2ba-4208-b846-947b25e9e87b/content/fig10_2_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>/spr (“document, scroll”) are frequent. Perdue is happy to discuss the Qumran teachers as ”sages” of some sort, whereas others, such as David Carr (2005: 215–39), have preferred to focus on their status as “priests”. This chapter will use the term ”scribe” as neutral shorthand for those who wrote out the manuscript copies of the thematic commentaries that are the concern of this study.
