Greek Minor Prophets Scroll from Nahal Hever
The Greek Minor Prophets Scroll from Nahal Hever (8HevXII gr) is a Greek manuscript of a revision of the Septuagint dated to the 1st century CE. The manuscripts is kept in the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem. It was first published by Dominique Barthélemy in 1963. The Rahlfs-Siglum is 943.
Discovery
Parts of the manuscript were found by an expedition of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in the early sixties in cave No. 8 in Nahal Hever (Judean Desert) named Cave of Horror. Other fragments had been purchased a decade earlier from beduins. For those the siglum Se2grXII was used when they were rescued for the Palestine Archaeological Museum (today is Rockefeller Museum).
History
In 1953, scarcely a year after the bedouin had brought these materials to the École biblique et archéologique française in Jordanian Jerusalem, Jean-Dominique Barthélemy (1921-2002) published his preliminary study in French of the Greek Minor Prophets scroll from the then "unknown provenance" somewhere south of Wadi Murabbaat. This was followed in 1963 by his work "Predecessors of Aquila" (Devanciers).
Different fragments have been published:
- Se2grXII (LXXIEJ 12, Rahlfs 943): contains parts of the Jonas.
- 8HevXII a (LXXVTS10 a, Rahlfs 943a): contains parts of Jonas, Micheas, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Zechariah.
- 8HevXII b (LXXVTS10 b, Rahlfs 943b): contains parts of the Zechariah.
Description
It is a roll of skin that contains the books of Minor Prophets in a direct translation from a Masoretic text type manuscript into the Greek, i.e. not part of the Septuagint tradition.[1] Rather, it "attests the recension commonly referred to as Proto-Theodotion or καιγε".[2] Like other ancient Greek manuscripts (i. e. Septuagint, Proto-masoretic, kaige, translation by Aquila of Sinope, Symmachus the Ebionite, Theodotion and the Hexapla) it contains the Tetragrammaton in Hebrew or paleo-Hebrew script.
References
- ↑ David L. Washburn, A Catalog of Biblical Passages in the Dead Sea Scrolls, vol. 2, Leiden: Brill, 2003, p. 2.
- ↑ Eugene Ulrich, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Origins of the Bible, Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1999, p. 231.
Bibliography
- Dominique Barthélemy: Les devanciers d’Aquila. Supplements to Vetus Testamentum 10. Leiden 1963.
- Emanuel Tov (1990). Discoveries in the Judean Desert: VIII. The Greek Minor Prophets Scroll from Nahal Hever (8HevXIIgr). Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 978-0-198263272.