220 WESTMINSTER THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL The evidence from Qumran as respects the psalter is very interesting and ought not to be overlooked in a study of our Masoretic psalter. This evi- dence has engendered much debate, particularly over the question of how the material is to be related to the MT. G. H. Wilson goes over this material and its discussion in quite some detail, in particular considering the debate between J. A. Sanders et al. and P. W. Skehan et al. over 11QPsa and its function at Qumran and relation to the MT. This is the only extensive set of mss forming a reasonably sized collection of psalms at Qumran, and thus merits attention.4 It is the more interesting because of its use of many psalms in common with MT (from books 4 and 5), both in a different order and in conjunction with psalms not known from MT. Sanders dates 11QPsa on palaeographical grounds to the first half of the first century AD.5 It is impossible in a paper of this size to go into any significant detail on this matter, yet we ought to note the parameters of the debate and how it affects our view of MT. Sanders has argued that 11QPsa should be con- sidered as a canonical and therefore authoritative, open ended canon of psalms. He argues further that it precedes the completion of the MT psalter as canon, forming an important step in that process. Thus, Sanders places the completion of the MT psalter as canon at the end of the first century in Jamnia.6 Skehan has opposed this view arguing the reverse, i.e. that 11QPsa is merely a liturgical collection with no real authority at all and no bearing on the MT psalter as canon, which at least in its first four books was complete by the fourth century BC, and the final section not much later. He argues that 11QPsa is textually dependent on MT. Wilson has definitively shown that Skehan's criticisms go too far and cannot be sustained.7 There is no real evidence that 11QPsa was dependent on MT. Both may well have been dependent on a common tradition of psalm materials. Furthermore both the MT psalter and 11QPsa seem to function as liturgical collections. (It is important to note at this point that the discussion essentially concerns 4 See J. A. Sanders, The Psalms Scroll of Qumran Cave 11 (11QPsa ) (DJD 4; Oxford: Clarendon, 1965); id., "Cave 11 Surprises and the Question of Canon," McCormick Quarterly 21 (1968) 284-98; P. W. Skehan, "The Qumran Manuscripts and Textual Criticism," in Volume du Congris Strasbourg 1956 (VTSup 4; Leiden: Brill, 1957) 148-58. All other Qumran psalm mss are more fragmented. Wilson is surely correct when he states, "One must be careful when making judgments based on fragmentary texts" (Editing, 67). 5 Sanders, The Psalms Scroll, 9. 6 For a critique of the notion of a late first-century council at Jamnia that determined the extent of the canon, see R. C. Newman, "The Council of Jamnia and the Old Testament Canon," WTJ 38 (1976) 319-49. 7 Wilson, Editing, 76-88. In this respect R. Beckwith's discussion of the same is inadequate (The Old Testament Canon of the, New Testament Church and Its Background in Early Judaism [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985] 77-78).
THE DIVISION AND ORDER OF THE PSALMS 221 books 4 and 5 of the psalter.8 The evidence at Qumran as a whole over- whelmingly supports the arrangement of MT books 1-3 as we know them. 11QPsa begins at Psalm 101, containing no earlier psalm than this except Psalm 93.) Wilson, having rejected Skehan's idea that 11QPsa is merely a library edition based on MT,9 seems unsure whether to see a parallel development of MT books 4 and 5 and 11QPsa , or whether to suppose (with Sanders) that the Qumran psalter was one step in a linear development that ulti- mately led to the MT arrangement of books 4 and 5.10 I propose that a hypothesis of parallel development is more likely to be correct. There is in the first place evidence that the Masoretic psalter even in books 4 and 5 was extant at least contemporaneously with the community at Qumran. This evidence comes in the form of both Josephus and the LXX. First, Josephus' (c. AD 37-110) earliest work. Against Apion, mentions the following in a discussion of the (for him completed) canon: ai[ de> poipai> te
n qeo>n kai> toi?j a]nqrw222 WESTMINSTER THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL contained here apparently bear no mark of having been written by the Qumran sect, but rather evidence a considerably earlier date. Studies have shown that these psalms exhibit a fully biblical character.14 This fact tends to lend support to the apparent Qumran claim that they are in fact inspired psalms of Davidic (temple?) origin. Could we perhaps regard these extra- biblical psalms as indeed examples of more Davidic and prophetic com- positions than those known to us, dating back to the times of David and the prophetic schools following him that provided compositions for the temple liturgy? Our present MT psalter seems to be no more than a collection of what must once have been a rather massive supply of temple psalms. 11QPsa itself testifies to a much larger corpus of material when it notes that David's compositions alone totalled 4,050.15 The Qumran sect thus, when it left Jerusalem c. 150 BC to form its community, may well have taken copies of psalms from a temple depository of prophetic liturgical material.16 The LXX is basically a translation from a proto-Masoretic type copy of the five books of psalms. Our main interest in it concerns its witness to the division of psalms and to superscripts. With respect to the division of psalms, the LXX also has 150 psalms; however, they are divided somewhat collection is clear from the inclusion of Psalm 127 with the same superscript as the MT denoting Solomon as author (cf. MT Ps 72:20). Furthermore, there is no evidence that super- scripts were deliberately altered or edited at Qumran to favor any sectarian view of the authorship of any given psalm material. Thus the superscripts in 11QPsa often fail to indicate an author. In this ms and throughout the Qumran psalms mss, the superscripts overwhelm- ingly agree with MT. Wilson lists the agreements as 64 times out of 76 comparable instances. The differences consist in both additional material (compared to MT) and less material. Thus it cannot be fairly stated that Qumran at this point gives a fuller text. Wilson in this respect is rather weak when he suggests, on the basis of two instances where 11 QPsa adds dvdl, as over against one instance where it omits the same, that Qumran exhibits an expansive tendency (p. 130)! In fact, a study of Wilson's Appendix A, where he gives a comparative list of Qumran and MT superscripts and postscripts, shows that the number of times where Qumran super- scripts or postscripts contain less material than MT far outweigh the cases where they contain more. In verifiable cases, Qumran has less material eleven times, and five times it has more. Of interest is the fact that, in total, Qumran twice attributes Davidic authorship to psalms lacking such in MT and twice contains no reference to Davidic authorship where MT has it. In my judgment, the differences on this score between MT and Qumran are so minimal as to suggest that neither text should be designated expansive, but that the witnesses of both are valuable attestations to possible original documentation. 14 See Wilson, Editing, 71ff. 15 It should be noted that 11 QPsa in no way claims that such a number of psalms and songs from David were extant at the time of its compilation. Of interest, however, is also the ninth-century AD report of a find of biblical and extrabiblical Hebraic writings in a rock-cave near Jericho. Apparently, more than 200 "psalms of David" were found. For text and trans- lation see O. Braun, "Ein Brief des Katholikos Timotheos," Oriens Christianus (1901) 299-313. 16 In this respect we ought to remember the necessity of distinguishing between a sectarian community and the biblical texts that such a community may use. Admitting that Qumran was a minor breakaway sect, possibly a group of Essenes, in no way immediately affects one's judgment on the quality of the text that they used. In this case there is no evidence to suggest that the community deliberately altered any biblical text material that they brought with them.
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