The Dead Sea Scrolls, in Hebrew (and preferably English too)
Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011 07:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lethargic_manA few times recently I've found myself looking at a Biblical text, and thinking to myself "I wonder what the Dead Sea Scrolls say here" (because the Bible's evolution is like man's, doncha know?*). So I thought it was time I got myself a copy of the Dead Sea Scrolls text of the Bible.
I was in John Trotter bookshop the other day, and there was a paperback of the Dead Sea Scrolls translated in English going, secondhand, for a couple of quid. I asked if there was an equivalent with the Hebrew text, and was told there was, but it was in multiple volumes, at £100 per volume. I thought that can't be right, and decided to investigate further online. Turns out these are the scholarly critical edition, which is way overkill for my purposes, but the best twenty minutes' googling was able to turn up afterwards was a two-volume copy of the last-bar one edition of The Dead Sea Scrolls: Study Edition going for £50.
I still think I'm missing something, though. If I can buy an English translation for £8, surely the original Hebrew must be accessible too! And you'd have thought the interest in Israel would equal that in the Anglophone world. (Of course, in Israel I'd be likely to be looking at Hebrew only, but with a Tenach in Hebrew and English alongside, I'd only need my dictionary for the occasional word I don't already know.) I had a google for "מגילות ים המלח", but didn't seem to be getting very far there either.
So, is there someone here who can point me in the direction I'm looking for? Or am I chasing a mirage after all?
* We live in a time when there is only one human species, and one canonical Biblical recension, and we tend to think it's always been like that; but in both cases copying errors led to a variety of forms radiating out from a common origin. For most of human prehistory there were other human (or hominid) species, usually more than one, inhabiting the Earth along with us; it's only since the last of the Neanderthals died out, 24,000 years ago, (or just 13,000 years ago on the island of Flores) that that's not been the case. Likewise, until Rabbi Akiva promoted the proto-Masoretic text as the sole authentic textus receptus, there were a family of Biblical texts, including the proto-Masoretic text, the version the Septuagint was translated from, the Samaritan Hexateuch and the Dead Sea Scrolls text; and sometimes examining other texts can shed light on the one we are familiar with.
I was in John Trotter bookshop the other day, and there was a paperback of the Dead Sea Scrolls translated in English going, secondhand, for a couple of quid. I asked if there was an equivalent with the Hebrew text, and was told there was, but it was in multiple volumes, at £100 per volume. I thought that can't be right, and decided to investigate further online. Turns out these are the scholarly critical edition, which is way overkill for my purposes, but the best twenty minutes' googling was able to turn up afterwards was a two-volume copy of the last-bar one edition of The Dead Sea Scrolls: Study Edition going for £50.
I still think I'm missing something, though. If I can buy an English translation for £8, surely the original Hebrew must be accessible too! And you'd have thought the interest in Israel would equal that in the Anglophone world. (Of course, in Israel I'd be likely to be looking at Hebrew only, but with a Tenach in Hebrew and English alongside, I'd only need my dictionary for the occasional word I don't already know.) I had a google for "מגילות ים המלח", but didn't seem to be getting very far there either.
So, is there someone here who can point me in the direction I'm looking for? Or am I chasing a mirage after all?
* We live in a time when there is only one human species, and one canonical Biblical recension, and we tend to think it's always been like that; but in both cases copying errors led to a variety of forms radiating out from a common origin. For most of human prehistory there were other human (or hominid) species, usually more than one, inhabiting the Earth along with us; it's only since the last of the Neanderthals died out, 24,000 years ago, (or just 13,000 years ago on the island of Flores) that that's not been the case. Likewise, until Rabbi Akiva promoted the proto-Masoretic text as the sole authentic textus receptus, there were a family of Biblical texts, including the proto-Masoretic text, the version the Septuagint was translated from, the Samaritan Hexateuch and the Dead Sea Scrolls text; and sometimes examining other texts can shed light on the one we are familiar with.
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