ABSTRACT
Interestingly, Fishbane's concept of Mikra is as strangely transcendent of the actual textual picture at Khirbe Qumran as had been Freedman's 'Hebrew Bible' earlier. The community that lived and worshiped in Qumran did not know an integral canon of the Old Testament corresponding to the later Masoretic Text. Indeed, the freedom, in respect to tradition, which is displayed by the 'proto-biblical' texts in Qumran, the New Testament, Josephus, as well as by inner-biblical rewritings of Pentateuchal and Deuteronomistic narratives. As far as sheer numbers are concerned, it is important to note that the so-called 'biblica' manuscripts are by no means as dominant as one might expect, if there is a question of a pre-existent 'canon'. Early in the years subsequent to the discovery of the finds in Khirbet Qumran, it was determined, as so many biblical scholars have preferred to think, that the community in Qumran knew a collection corresponding to the canonical Masoretic text.
