The Act of Cannonizatoin

Dead Sea Scrolls

DSS has impacted understanding of Hebrew bible in two ways. One way, formation of the text leading up to the Masoretic text. The second way, canonization of the Hebrew Bible, in other words, where does the authority come from?

The Dead Sea Scrolls that were found in the caves in Qumran are undoubtedly of great historical and religious significance and have made a valuable contribution to human history in general. The biblical texts that were found predate the former oldest known manuscripts by roughly a thousand years. Some of the texts an extra-biblical manuscripts highlight some of the nuances in the canonization process that the leaders of the Jewish community used. There are also sectarian manuscripts that help understand how this particular group lived. Texts such as the Habakkuk Commentary, the Community Rule, the War Scroll and the Thanksgiving Hymns and the best-preserved columns of the Genesis Apocryphon tells a large amount of information about the culture of the Qumran peoples (Vermes P5).

Yet the revelation of the texts seems to pose more questions than it answers and there are several theories in place that are largely untestable. In fact, many of the mysteries that are presented in the Dead Sea Scrolls may never be answered. Still, the order of the Bible, juxtaposed with Dead Sea Scrolls, does provide some insights to the modern scholar about why the Bible was formatted in the way it was and attests to the nature of the authoritativeness of the document.

Formation

To err is human. No matter how well-trained someone is at their job, they are prone to make mistakes. Even if a scribe felt the greatest inspiration in regards to doing God's work, they are still subject to the limitations of being human and making errors. A process known as homeoteluton has been noted in which scribes may inadvertently start copying from the wrong place on a page; generally where there are the same words used. Furthermore, copying texts as lengthy of these has to be monotonous at some points. But errors may not account for all the deviations in the DSSs.

There are also indications that there may have been activist scribes that corrected some sections based on their own personal interpretations of what the text should say. Many academics have cited the prevalence of pseudepigrapha in which the writer will claim his work to be that of someone more famous, such as Moses. Some academic theories that multiple writers originally created Moses work and then even later it was pieced together as one body by an editor. While some of the Qumran biblical manuscripts that were found are nearly identical to the Masoretic, or traditional, Hebrew text of the Old Testament, some manuscripts of the books of Exodus and Samuel found in Cave Four exhibit dramatic differences in both language and content.

Given the wide range of varying types of literature found near the Dead Sea, the Qumran biblical discoveries have served as a foundation for scholars to challenge traditionally accepted theories related to the development of the modern biblical text from only three families of manuscripts: the Masoretic text, the Hebrew original of the Septuagint, and of the Samaritan Pentateuch. It now seems convincing that the Old Testament scripture was prone to such alterations up unto the point in which it was finally canonized. At which point, the Dead Sea Scrolls seem to provide sufficient evidence that after canonization the documents were accurately preserved from that point forward.

Sources of Authority

It is also interesting to consider why some books made it into the official canonization while others did not. For example, the Pseudepigrapha, though very popular in some Jewish circles, failed to attain canonical rank either in Palestine or in the Diaspora; furthermore, good many further compositions pertaining to this class have also come to light, such as fictional accounts relating among others to Joseph, Amram, Moses, Joshua or Jeremiah, as well as apocryphal psalms, five of which have survived also in Syriac translation, others being revealed for the first time at Qumran (Vermes 34-35).

4 QMMT (or MMT) tradition of authority that is revealed seems to come from knowledge of scriptural text, traditions, "this is how we have always done it" mentality. Furthermore, the sect seems to have taken on social boundaries and an "us" vs. "them" approach to the validation of their own ideas and ideology. The Teacher of Righteousness has special authority because God chose him to give them direction, this etcher has the divine word. There are also different theories on exactly who this group was and where they came from, however it seems clear that they had a sense of self-efficacy in their spiritual understandings.

There was more evidence about the group that was collected from the surrounding areas and about the documents themselves using the latest advancements in science. Several scientific methods for situating the scrolls have been adopted using findings in archeology, paleography (the study of ancient handwriting styles and changes in them), and carbon dating techniques (VanderKan and Flint 77-78). Many of the excavations of the site were pressured by many factors including weather. The principal excavator of the site, Roland de Vaux, believed after five seasons of working on these sites that they had been inhabited in the Israelite period (eighth-seventh centuries BCE) but then later re-inhabited by the people who possessed the scrolls from about the second century BCE until the middle of the first century CE (VanderKan and Flint 81-82). The reasons that the groups may have inhabited these caves in the first place is also an interesting part of the story and seems to indicate the group's sectarian nature.