Naming God in Early Judaism. Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek 9783506703507, 9783657703500

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Naming God in Early Judaism

Studies in Cultural Contexts of the Bible Edited by Sandra Huebenthal (Passau), Anselm C. Hagedorn (Osnabrück), Jacqueline Eliza Vayntrub (New Haven), Zeba Crook (Ottawa)

Advisory Board Christine Gerber, Thomas R. Hatina, Jeremy Hutton, Corinna Körting, Laura Quick, Colleen Shantz, Michael Sommer, Erin Vearncombe, Jakob Wöhrle, Korinna Zamfir, Christiane Zimmermann

Volume 2

Anthony R. Meyer

Naming God in Early Judaism Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek. The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data available online: http://dnb.d-nb.de All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. © 2022 by Brill Schöningh, Wollmarktstraße 115, 33098 Paderborn, Germany, an imprint of the Brill-Group (Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands; Brill USA Inc., Boston MA, USA; Brill Asia Pte Ltd, Singapore; Brill Deutschland GmbH, Paderborn, Germany; Brill Österreich GmbH, Vienna, Austria) Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Hotei, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau, V&R unipress and Wageningen Academic. www.schoeningh.de Cover design: Evelyn Ziegler, Munich Production: Brill Deutschland GmbH, Paderborn ISSN 2629-9224 ISBN 978-3-506-70350-7 (hardback) ISBN 978-3-657-70350-0 (e-book)

Table of Contents Abstract  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

ix

Acknowledgments  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

xi

PART I Introduction 1

The Name of God  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 Sources and Method  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 Names and Epithets  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

3 12 13

2

YHWH Adrift and the Quest of Modern Scholars  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Summary of Modern Scholarship  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

17 49

PART II Naming God in Aramaic 3

From Elephantine to the British Museum Drachm  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 The Elephantine Papyri and Ostraca  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Ostraca . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Mibtahiah Archive  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 Anani Archive  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5 Jedaniah Archive  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.6 Papyrus Amherst 63  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.7 Idumean ‘House of YHW’ Ostracon  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.8 British Museum Drachm  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.9 Conclusion  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

55 56 57 58 60 61 64 67 68 71

4

Mount Gerizim, Ezra, and Daniel  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Mount Gerizim Inscriptions  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Ezra  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Daniel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

73 73 78 84

vi 5

Table of Contents

Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1 Enoch  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 The Book of Giants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3 Birth of Noah (or: Elect of God)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4 Genesis Apocryphon  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5 Tobit  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.6 The Aramaic Levi Document  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.7 Testament of Qahat  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.8 Visions of Amram  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.9 Words of Michael  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.10 4QTestament of Judah?  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.11 Son of God Text (or: Aramaic Apocalypse)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.12 Four Kingdoms and other Visionary Texts  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.13 Prayer of Nabonidus  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.14 Pseudo–Daniel Texts  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.15 Jews at the Persian Court  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.16 New Jerusalem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.17 Other Aramaic Texts  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.18 Aramaic Translations: Job, Leviticus, and Isaiah  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.19 Summary of Divine Titles and Epithets in Aramaic  . . . . . . . . . .

90 91 92 94 95 98 102 103 105 106 107 108 109 109 110 112 113 114 115 118

PART III Naming God in Hebrew 6

7

Qumran “Biblical” Scrolls  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1 The Divine Name and the Tripartite Division of Hebrew Scrolls  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2 The Qumran Biblical Scrolls  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3 Text-Critical Observations on Divine Name Transmission  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.4 Divine Name Variant Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.5 Scribal Changes and Corrections to the Divine Name  . . . . . . . . 6.6 Paleo-Hebrew Script in Qumran Biblical Scrolls  . . . . . . . . . . . . .

133

140 142 147 151

Qumran Yahad Scrolls  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.1 Use and Avoidance of the Divine Name  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2 The title ‫ אל‬replaces the Tetragrammaton  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.3 The titles ‫ אדני‬and ‫ אלהים‬replace the Tetragrammaton  . . . . . . .

160 160 162 164

135 138

Table of Contents

vii

7.4 The Paleo-Hebrew Script for Divine Names in Qumran Yahad Scrolls  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170 8

Qumran Scrolls of Non-Yahad Origin  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.1 Temple Scroll (11Q19–21, 4Q524)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.2 Apocryphon of Moses (1Q29, 4Q376, 4Q408)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.3 Jubilees  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.4 4QProphecy of Joshua (4Q522)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.5 8QHymn (8Q5) and 11QApocryphal Psalms (11Q11)  . . . . . . . . . . . 8.6 Summary: Naming God in Hebrew  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

175 181 183 185 187 188 205

PART IV Naming God in Greek 9

Earliest Jewish-Greek Scriptures  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.1 The Divine Name ιαω  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.2 YHWH in the Square Aramaic Script  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.3 YHWH in the Paleo-Hebrew Script  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

211 221 226 228

10

ΚΥΡΙΟΣ in the Second Temple Period  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.1 K(ΥΡΙΟ)C in Septuagint Manuscripts of the Common Era  . . 10.2 The Earliest Evidence for κύριος  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.3 The Literary Use of Κύριος  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.4 Κύριος in the Graeco-Roman World: Comparative Backdrop  . . .

236 237 240 249 257

11

The Original Rendering  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.1 Stages of Development in Greek Manuscripts  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.2 Critique of the Divine Name as Original in the LXX  . . . . . . . . . 11.3 The Originality of ιαω  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

261 262 265 266

PART V The Name “YHWH” in Early Judaism 12

A Linear Paradigm?  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271

13

Speech and Text in the Second Temple Period  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279

viii

Table of Contents

Appendices for Evidence of Use and Non-use of the Tetragrammaton  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289 The Tetragrammaton in Biblical Quotations of Yahad Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289 Divine Name Variants and Replacements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290 Bibliography  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306

Abstract During the Second Temple period (516 BCE–70 CE) Jews became reticent to speak and write the divine name, YHWH, known by its four letters in Greek as the tetragrammaton. Priestly and pious circles gradually restricted the divine name’s use, and then it disappeared. The variables are poorly understood and the evidence is scattered. Scholars have supposed that the second century BCE was a definitive turning point from the use to avoidance of the divine name and that this change was absolute. The current study brings together all extant evidence from the Second Temple period in Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek to describe how, when, and in what sources Jews approached naming God. The outcome is a modified chronology for the history of the divine name. Instead of a clear trend from use to avoidance, the extant evidence suggests diverse and overlapping practices within distinctive linguistic, geographic, theological, and social contexts.

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Acknowledgments This book is a revision of my doctoral dissertation from McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario. I am most grateful for the guidance and doctoral supervision of Daniel Machiela. His attention to detail, encouragement, and sincere desire to see this work through to completion was invaluable. I also thank Eileen Schuller and Stephen Westerholm for their extensive feedback on various chapters of this study, as well as my external examiner, Kristin De Troyer. Throughout my graduate school experience, my committee members modeled academic rigor, an unwavering commitment to precision in scholarship, and a dedication to bringing their students to the frontiers of knowledge in their respective fields of early Judaism and early Christianity. It has also been delightful to work with Martin Abegg, my MA advisor, who first introduced me to the academic study of the Dead Sea Scrolls. His love for texts and databases was infectious. I am grateful to the editors for accepting this manuscript in the SCCB series, notably Martina Kayser, Anselm Hagedorn, and Jeremy Hutton. Their comments and notes significantly improved the quality of this work. I also thank my colleagues in the department of Middle East Studies at the University of Michigan, where I worked as a Research Associate in Ancient Judaism and Rabbinic Literature and later as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Lecturer of Jewish and Roman History (2017–2018). This position afforded me time to research, write, and travel, during which I completed the initial revision of this book. The staff at the Israel Museum and Israel Antiquities Authorities were supportive and generous with their time as I examined fragments of the Greek Dead Sea Scrolls. My long-term academic colleagues, most notably John Screnock, Jarrod Jacobs, and Kipp Davis have contributed to the success of this study through feedback on select passages and numerous late-night conversations at annual/national conferences. To them—cheers. The generosity and support from many more colleagues, friends, and family over the years have made my academic career possible. I dedicate this book to Justina and our three children—Isaiah, Tessa, and Venture. The journey from graduate school to dissertation to publication spanned over a decade and was full of unpredictable turns. I could not ask for a better coterie of travelers with whom to share this path.

PART I Introduction

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On the dusty moshav of Yachini, southern Israel, I visit with a friend’s Yemenite family. On the way to the front door, a cow bellows across the street. A calf is born. The grandfather is a scribe and torah scroll maker. After a lavish dinner, centerpieced by a bowl of marak temani, spiced richly with hawaij, the grandfather leaves the room, returning with an armful of Hebrew texts. He describes his method for copying the name of God—the Tetragrammaton (YHWH)—in a new manuscript. To write the letters yod-heh-vav-heh, one needs the quill of a turkey feather, sharpened at a precise angle to prevent the ink from blotting. Only careful attention to the smallest detail ensures that the letters have a uniform consistency. He begins to copy a verse, then pauses, leaving the word incomplete just before the Tetragrammaton. After re-dipping the quill, he makes the ink smooth and balanced by finishing the prior word. He then begins writing the yod, taps his foot, and says a blessing for ha-Shem. The foottapping continues with each letter: heh, vav, and finally heh. In the history of Judaism, few topics have stirred more curiosity and wonder than the sacred name of God. For mystics, the name has been revered for its numinous power. The possibility of knowing God and feeling connected to the source of divine power through an experience of seeing, touching, wearing, hearing, speaking, or writing the divine name has pulled many into countless hours of worship, study, and meditation. Among academics, intense and protracted scholarly debates have ensued for centuries over the meaning and etymology of the Tetragrammaton. The divine name sparks curiosity also because scholars are uncertain about how it was pronounced in antiquity, a knowledge that was guarded and then lost in ancient times. In another way, people have been respectful of the divine name because its misuse in antiquity was tied For discussion of the etymology of the divine name, see Ernst Jenni and Claus Westermann, “‫ יה ה‬TLOT 1:522–26; David N. Freedman and Murphy O’Connor, ‫יה ה‬, YHWH, TDOT 5:500–21; Martin Rose, Name of God in the OT, ABD 4:1001–12. In the early Iron Age Levant, the divine name appears in numerous epigraphic, literary, and even non-Israelite sources. The earliest occurrences for the Tetragrammaton include the Moabite Stone and the Kuntillet Ajrud inscriptions, which date to around the 850s BCE. The Lachish letters are often considered proof that the YHWH was pronounced during the late Iron Age because of its spelling in oath formulas as one word, ‫ יה ה‬, in contrast to its rendering in the Bible as ‫יה ה י‬. See H. Misgav, Epigraphical Notes, EI 26 (1996): 109–111; N. H. Tur-Sinai, The Lachish Ostraca—Letters of the Time of Jeremiah (Jerusalem, 1988), no. 3 Hebrew .

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to grave consequences. The two most well-known passages from the Hebrew Bible encourage extreme caution: the Decalogue (Exod 20:7, Deut 5:11) states that one should not lift (‫ )נ א‬the divine name to emptiness, or falseness triviality (‫ ) א‬and the case of blasphemy (Lev 24:10–14, 23) mandates that anyone who curses God ( ‫ )י לל אלהי‬shall bear the sin. One who blasphemes the name YHWH (‫ם יה ה‬ ‫ ) נ‬shall be put to death (Lev 24:15–16). In addition to the theological significance of the divine name, how and where it occurs within biblical passages has sparked a major paradigm shift in our thinking about the origin and composition of the Torah. For those who have read the Hebrew Bible closely, a comparison of the first two chapters of Genesis reveals striking differences with how the Jewish deity is named: by the title Elohim in the first chapter, but by the compound YHWH Elohim in the second chapter. This simple observation takes us from the ancient scriptural sources to the ancient faith communities that held diverging views about God. As the history of Israel unfolded over hundreds of years, amidst the ever-changing political circumstances of the ancient Near East, colored by Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Hellenistic, and then Roman aspirations, the concept of God became more complex and layered. Naming God, which began as a Hebrew language phenomenon, became also the endeavor of Aramaic and Greek writers, those steeped in the other primary languages of ancient Judaism. While Jewish literature has always carried a rich vocabulary of divine titles and epithets, some terms for God are held with deeper reverence, fear, or awe. The religious impulse to sacralize particular designations, though, is not unique to Judaism. We find, for example, in the scriptures of Hinduism, Islam, and especially Sikhism many parallels to reverencing names and epithets of the divine. Special to Judaism, however, is the particular history surrounding the sacred name YHWH as well as its disappearance. Later Jewish texts, not part of the rabbinic canon of scripture (i.e., the Tanakh) Sir 23:9– 10, Jub 23:21, Pss. Sol. 17:5 all express concern that the holy name should be used with great care, so as not to profane the deity. For a recent study on blasphemy, particularly as it relates to the severity of death punishment, see Theodore J. Lewis, Piercing God’s Name: A Mythological Subtext of Deicide Underlying Blasphemy in Leviticus 24, in Le-maʿan Ziony: Essays in Honor of Ziony Zevit (ed. Frederick E. Greenspahn and Gary Rendsburg; Eugene, Or: Wipf and Stock, 2017), 213–38. In comparison with the Hebrew passage, the problem appears to be not only blasphemy but according to the LXX, merely pronouncing the name ( ο ω ο α; Lev 24:16). This interpretation, however, is not necessarily required. See Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 23–27 (Anchor Bible 3B; New York: Doubleday, 2001), 2114–2119; Sean McDonough, YHWH at Patmos, 62–63; and Simeon Chavel, Oracular Law and Priestly Historiography in the Torah (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 23. Sikhism, for example, is perhaps the most explicit with its emphasis on the power of the Holy Name, a reference to Adi Granth Sahib, both the sacred scriptures and the eternal guru

T e Name of o

5

For all the scholarly and popular fascination with the divine name, there are still many gaps in our understanding of its early history and the remarkable conditions that eventually led to its avoidance in both speech and writing. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the 1940–50s provided a rich trove of new evidence for studying divine names and epithets and the many contextual factors of their use. The Qumran scrolls had a double effect on academic study. These documents confirmed what scholars had long suspected about the avoidance tradition—avoiding the divine name was widespread by the late Second Temple period—but as we continue studying the dizzying array of new manuscript evidence, more elusive and buried issues in the history of the divine name have surfaced. On the one hand, it is clear that the cautions for using the Tetragrammaton in ancient Israel evolved into avoidance by the second century BCE. Among the Qumran yahad literature, notably the Rule of the Community (1QS 6:27–7:2), dated to the early first century BCE, we find that a community member is expelled from the yahad if he pronounces the name, for any reason, whether reading or praying ( ‫א‬ ). If he speaks the divine name, he is banished for‫ם הנ ד‬ ‫י י ד‬ ever. The Damascus Document explicitly prohibits using the divine name in oaths (CD 15:1). All original Qumran yahad texts avoid the divine name, even in writing. Beyond the Qumran finds, evidence from Ben Sira, Philo, and Josephus, shows that an avoidance tradition was strong in the first century

for the Sikh community. The hymns of Guru Amar Das and Guru Ram Das are particularly notable. See Selections from the Sacred Writings of the Sikhs (Trilochan Singh et al., trans. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1960), 133–144. The general view that the divine name was avoided during the second century BCE is often mentioned in conjunction with other discussions, or as an addendum to argumentation, where the Tetragrammaton itself is not the object of study. For example, Annette Steudel prefers an earlier dating of Ps 110:4 because the use of the Tetragrammaton, which died out in the second century BCE, speaks against a late date. See Steudel, Melchizedek, in EDSS (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 535. 1QS 7.1–2: ‫הי ד‬ ‫ד ל‬ ‫ה דילה ל א י‬ ‫א‬ ‫ה‬ ‫ה אה‬. Mut. 1.9–14; Mos. 1.75–76; 2.114–15; Leg. 353. Additionally, the scribal corrections in the Cave 1 scroll of Isaiah (1QIsa ) change readings from ‫ אד ני‬to ‫ יה ה‬and vice versa. These have been interpreted as evidence for spoken avoidance with ‫ אד ני‬as a substitute for the Tetragrammaton. 1QIsa dates to the late second or early first century BCE. Skehan, The Divine Name, 35, n. 14: That Adonay is read for Yhwh in Scriptures by the copyist of 1QIsa is a solid inference from his scribal habits. Also, Arie van der Kooij, The Old Greek of Isaiah in Relation to the Qumran Texts of Isaiah: Some General Comments, in Septuagint, Scrolls, and Cognate Writings (ed. George J. Brooke and Barnabas Lindars; SCS 33; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992), 195. Ant. 2.276.

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CE. Epigraphic evidence points in a similar direction. From the Hebrew and Aramaic inscriptions at Mount Gerizim, Yitzhak Magen and others conclude that priests were the sole group using the Tetragrammaton by the second century BCE: The priests used the Hebrew language and script, and were the only ones to use the Tetragrammaton, a practice that had fallen into disuse among the other strata of society. Kristin De Troyer writes that the pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton was not an issue up till the second century B.C.E Consequently, it can be said that up till the second century B.C.E., the Name of God was pronounced. The impression one gets from a cursory glance of the sources and the secondary discussion is that by the late Second Temple period the divine name had disappeared from daily use. The complex variables that contributed to its avoidance coalesced with particular force in rabbinic Judaism. Because the rabbis were the primary Jewish group to survive the crushing defeat of the Great Revolt (66–73 4 CE) and the Bar Kochba Rainer Albertz, A History of Israelite Religion in the Old Testament Period: Volume 1 From the Beginnings to the End of the Monarchy (Westminster: John Knox Press, 1994), 49; M. Reisel, The Mysterious Name of Y.H.W.H.: The Tetragrammaton in Connection with the Names of EHYEH Ašer EHYEH-H h -and Sem Hammephôr s (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1957), 64, 71; Samuel S. Cohon, The Name of God, A Study in Rabbinic Theology, HUCA 23 (1951): 591–592. More recently, see Jacob Neusner and William Green, Dictionary of Judaism in the Biblical Period (Peabody, Mass.; Hendrickson Publishers, 1999), 259: By the third century BCE, God’s name had become so hallowed that it could not be pronounced  ; Nathanael Andrade, The Jewish Tetragrammaton: Secrecy, Community, and Prestige among Greek-Writing Jews of the Early Roman Empire, JSJ 46 (2015): 8: Texts from Qumran and early manuscripts from the Septuagint demonstrate that Jews of varied orientations or sectarian affiliations treated the divine name as particularly sacred and employed an assortment of scribal measures to mark it as such after the second century B.C.E.” Y. Magen, H. Misgav, L. Tsfania, Mount Gerizim Excavations Volume 1: The Aramaic, Hebrew, and Samaritan Inscriptions (Judea and Samaria Publications 2; Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authorities, 2004) no. 383. For dating, see Jan Dušek, Aramaic and Hebrew Inscriptions from Mt. Gerizim and Samaria between Antiochus III the Great and Antiochus IV Epiphanes (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 59; for further discussion, see Chapter 2. De Troyer, The Pronunciation of the Names of God: With Some Notes Regarding nomina sacra, in Gott Nennen—Religion in Philosophy and Theology (ed. Ingolf U. Dalferth and Phillip Stoellger; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 144, 148. The avoidance of the name YHWH is explicit in R. Johanan ben Nuri’s famous claim that there is no share in the world to come for those who utter the divine name by its letters (m. Sanh. 10:1; or Abba Saul according to y. Sanh 11). B. Qidd. 71a states, Not as I am written am I pronounced. I am written yod he vav he, and I am pronounced alef dalet. B. Pes. 50a interprets ‫ א ד‬as follows, Not like this world is the future world. In this world, God’s name is written with yod-heh and read as alef-dalet but in the future world it shall be one: it shall be written with yod-heh and read as yod-heh. Note also Exodus Rabba 3:7: This is my memorial to all generations,’ namely that one is to pronounce it only by its substitute.

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Revolt (132–135 CE), their posture towards divine name use avoidance became Judaism’s classical expression. Until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, most nineteenth and twentieth-century research relied on the late biblical literature and early rabbinic sources, such as the Mishnah and Talmud(s), as primary reference points for understanding divine name practices of the Second Temple period. What scholars discerned from these corpora became the dominant assumption about divine name avoidance until today. With the publication of Urschrift und Übersetzungen der Bibel (1857), Abraham Geiger sparked a movement to study Judaism through the lens of historical criticism. As it relates to the divine name, he proposed that some groups, namely the Zadokites Sadducees, Samaritans, and Qumranites, restricted speaking and writing the divine name out of concerns for ritual purity. Because of its sacredness, the only proper context for using the Tetragrammaton would have been the Temple. The Pharisees, on the other hand, were primarily concerned with maintaining respect and honor for the God of Israel. This deferential posture towards the deity was troubled by irreverent uses in spells, magic, and oaths that might tarnish the reputation of God, should one use the divine name simply as a means to an end or leave their obligations unfulfilled. Through Geiger, scholars learned to discern two basic principles at the heart of early Jewish perspectives on the use and avoidance of God’s name, one premised on its sacredness, and the other arising out of a posture of respect. Most modern scholars agree that these two principles eventually led to avoidance, but have since taken additional steps to argue for a discernible and irreversible trend towards avoidance, characterized by the general use of the The position of both Yerushalmi and Bavli by the end of the sixth century CE is unequivocal on the avoidance of the divine name. Abraham Geiger, Urschrift und Übersetzungen der Bibel in ihrer Abhängigkeit von der inner Entwicklung des Judentums (Breslau: Heinauer, 1857). The divine name is explicitly referred to as holy sacred in CD 20:34, 1QpHab 2:4; 1QM 11:3, and elsewhere. For discussion of the concept of holy sacred at Qumran, see Hanne von Weissenberg and Christian Seppänen, Constructing the Boundary Between Two Worlds: The Concept of Sacred in the Qumran Texts, in Crossing Imaginary Boundaries: The Dead Sea Scrolls in the Context of Second Temple Judaism (ed. Mika S. Pajunen and Hanna Tervanotko; Helsinki: The Finish Exegetical Society, 2015), 71–97. This may be correlated with the overall rise in concerns for ritual purity and impurity in the late Second Temple period. For a concise summary of the epigraphic, archaeological, and literary evidence for this phenomenon, for example, as it relates to the increased use of stone utensils and ritual baths, see Eric M. Meyers and Mark A. Chancey, Alexander to Constantine: Archaeology of the Land of the Bible, Vol. 3 (ed. John J. Collins; AYBRL; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), 47–49; also, Jonathan Klawans, Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).

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divine name in the late Iron Age towards full-scale avoidance by the close of the Second Temple period. Indeed, from the Hebrew Bible to the Mishnah, the divine name appears subject to increasing restrictions until it disappears completely. For all of the general coherence of this outline, an abundance of new inscriptional, literary, and archaeological discoveries, not just from Qumran, but Egypt and elsewhere, show this view to be drastically oversimplified. It is a curiosity as to why the general assumption about divine name avoidance remains so strong among academics. This recent evidence does not fit well with the traditional view among scholars on the divine name. The lack of integration of the new evidence is perpetuated by several factors. This includes, first, the quest for the etymological origins of the divine name, along with its linguistic and philological details. Fascination over the origins of the Tetragrammaton has kept the scope of inquiry quite restricted to historicalcritical details. While foundational in many aspects, such studies are unable to illuminate broader trends in the history of the divine name. Second, and equally limiting, has been the puzzlement over the divine name’s historical pronunciation, which is tied to linguistic details as well. The historical pronunciation is also important as an academic endeavor but does not lend itself to a broader re ection on the name’s history. Third, the vast amount of energy in divine name research has focused narrowly on the second to first centuries BCE and the halakhic disputes among the Jewish groups mentioned above. To gain clarity on the broader outline of divine name use avoidance, we must look afresh at all the currently known literary and epigraphic evidence in Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek from the Second Temple period. The objective of this book is to fill the lacunae in our historical understanding of the divine name, made apparent by recent discoveries. Most inquiries into the etymology of the Tetragrammaton have endeavored to ascertain something of the theological meaning of the name, based on its alleged context of origins. While the philological study of a word’s origin is important, it is erroneous to think that early Jewish views of God are dependent on etymology. R. Albertz observes that these quests for the meaning of the Tetragrammaton are methodologically misguided: The fundamental objection to all these attempts at explanation is that only in the rarest instances is etymology appropriate for making statements about the actual significance of a god. Divine names are often very much older than the religions which use them, and ideas about a god change under the covering of the same name. Albertz, A History of Israelite Religion, 50. In a similar vein, Quell urged caution when searching for meaning based on an etymological interpretation. He writes, The data reveal that it is impossible to state indisputably what ‫ יה ה‬means. All attempts at etymological interpretation, which are also attempts to convey the religious content of the word and which are affected by particular theories about this, suffer from ambiguity. See Gottfried Quell, κύριος; C. The Old Testament Name for God, TWNT 2.1044.

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A detailed survey of all extant evidence allows for a more accurate description of the history of the Tetragrammaton, but it also provides a framework for further study, particularly for scholars interested in the role of divine titles and epithets in the portrayal of the Jewish deity during the formative period of early Judaism and early Christianity. Even apart from the Tetragrammaton, a broad survey of divine titles and epithets in Second Temple literature is still lacking. James Aitken observes: There has been little attempt at a systematic synthesis of the portrayal of God in the period  and there is a need to re-evaluate our understanding of the God of the Jews in the formative era of the later Persian and early Hellenistic periods and to begin to gather systematically the data relating to his portrayal in literary and non-literary sources.

In a study on the epithet Most High in early Jewish literature, Richard Bauckham writes: The nature of Jewish Monotheism in the late Second Temple period has been much discussed and debated in recent decades. Such discussion can now make significant progress mainly, in my view, through careful study of the ways Jewish writers of the period talk about God. There is a huge amount of evidence, but little study of it. It would be extremely useful, for example, to have a complete listing of the use of various divine names and titles in early Jewish literature, because only then can we observe which were popular, which were not, in which types or categories of literature.

Bauckham offers a survey of the epithet Most High, and Aitken examines the portrayals of the God of the Pre-Maccabees. The current study contributes to this area of scholarship by collecting and describing the extant evidence for the divine name itself and various titles and epithets that come to replace it. In the minds of early Jewish authors, there were numerous divine titles and epithets from which they selectively drew. The Tetragrammaton was among these and the dynamic interplay between the divine name and the diverse array of titles and epithets requires more attention. James Aitken, The God of the Pre-Maccabees: Designations of the Divine in the Early Hellenistic Period, in The God of Israel (ed. Robert P. Gordon; UCOP 64; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 246–7. Richard Bauckham, The Nature of the Most High’ God and the Nature of Early Jewish Monotheism, in Israel’s God and Rebecca’s Children: Christology and Community in Early Judaism and Christianity: Essays in Honor of Larry W. Hurtado and Alan F. Segal (ed. David B. Capes, April D. DeConick, Helen K. Bond and Troy A. Miller; Waco: Baylor University Press, 2007), 107.

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Some of the recent discoveries from the early Second Temple period are still not widely known or easily accessible, including the use of ‫ יה‬and ‫ יהה‬in the Idumean Ostracon, P. Amherst 63, and the BM Drachm, as well as diverse uses of the divine name in the Elephantine papyri. In the context of the current study, it is also important to look afresh at the Aramaic passages of Ezra and Daniel and the Qumran Aramaic scrolls, which consistently avoid the divine name, even as the other Aramaic sources use it. In such Jewish Aramaic literature, we encounter diverse literary contexts, some bilingual, where we find evidence for divine name avoidance, but a close reading of these sources suggests that neither the sacredness of the name nor concern for the Jewish deity’s honor pushed the authors towards avoidance. Even if these factors are implicit or assumed, they are not connected to the author’s choice in naming God. In my view, these literary situations reveal forces external to Judaism that have not received focused attention. That early Jewish authors avoided the divine name for multiple reasons may be presumed, but the evidence I discuss in this study allows for a more extended focus on the possible motivating factors. For example, the reasons for divine name avoidance among Persian period authors are distinct from the types of yahad avoidance in the writings from Qumran. This leads to the conclusion that the avoidance tradition is more complex and multifaceted than previously recognized. In academic studies of the divine name, there has been too much dependency on the more well-known cases of avoidance, as in the Qumran literature and the views espoused by the Jewish literary elite of antiquity—Philo and Josephus. The evidence for divine name A few recent studies re ect a growing awareness that divine name avoidance is not only a phenomenon of the second century BCE. See the review of Ben-Dov and Shaw below. Similarly, Wilkinson writes: The reluctance to use the Tetragrammaton–and even ‫–אלהים‬ does not begin in the 2nd century B.C. with the Judean scrolls, but it is characteristic of some, but not all, later books of the Hebrew Bible itself. Wilkinson, Tetragrammaton, 81; and further, C. L. Seow, God, Names of, NIDB (vol. 2; ed. Katherine D. Sakenfeld; Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2007), 588–95: Beginning in at least the post-exilic period, the name was deemed too sacred to pronounce. Dennis Green, Divine Titles: Rabbinic and Qumran Scribal Techniques, in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Fifty Years After Their Discovery (ed. Lawrence H. Schiffman, Emanuel Tov, and James VanderKam; Jerusalem: IES and the Israel Museum, 2000), 499: The literary evidence suggests that a deliberate avoidance of using the Tetragrammaton in free composition developed some time prior to the second century BCE. The evidence from Philo and Josephus has often been invoked as support for the view that avoidance in the second century BCE continued to be decisive for Jews of the first century CE. In recounting the episode of the burning bush, the late first century CE historian Josephus (Ant. 2:275–76) says that he is not allowed to say the divine name revealed to Moses ( ρ ς ο οι ι ι ). The Alexandrian philosopher Philo also writes on the burning bush episode (Mos. 1:74–76). In response to Moses’ question of what name

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avoidance in the second century BCE, moreover, should also not obscure the fact that writers avoid the divine name at earlier times as well, in both Hebrew and Aramaic works. Throughout this study, it will become evident that the divine name was known and used by Jews and non-Jews more than scholars have assumed. Even within the Dead Sea Scrolls, there are numerous sources, previously unknown until their discovery, that frequently use the divine name. These works are not copies of biblical manuscripts, in which the Tetragrammaton would be expected, but instead, come from early Jewish writers that likely held broad appeal. Such sources have never been the focus of intensive study in divine name research. They demonstrate that writers continued to use the divine name even up through the late Second Temple period. The tradition of writhe is to give the people, Philo writes, God replied: First tell them that I am He Who is ( ι ) that they may learn the difference between what is and what is not, and also the further lesson that no name at all can properly be used of Me, to Whom alone existence belongs.’ For restrictions on the divine name and its holiness, see Mos. 2:114, 132; Migr. 103. I discuss Philo further in the conclusion of this study along with a recent essay by Andrade, The Jewish Tetragrammaton, 1–26. Andrade suggests that the references to the divine name in Philo and Josephus are best understood in the context of their particular social milieu. The implication is that their views on divine name avoidance are not as straightforward as often assumed, and are not representative of most Jews. Furthermore, there is much debate over the evidence in Philo itself, particularly his view of the names of God, knowledge of the Tetragrammaton, and what designations he may have encountered in his Greek translation. For the contours of the debated issues, see N. A. Dahl and A. F. Segal, Philo and the Rabbis on the Names of God, JSJ 9 (1978): 1–28; James R. Royse, Philo, Kyrios, and the Tetragrammaton, in Heirs of the Septuagint: Philo, Hellenistic Judaism, and Early Christianity. Festschrift for Earle Hilgert (ed. D.T. Runia, et al.; Studia Philonica Annual 3; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991), 167–183. More recently, Francesca Calabi, Conoscibilità e inconoscibilità di Dio in Filone di Alessandria, in Arrhetos Theos: l’ineffabilità del primo principio nel medio platonismo (ed. F. Calabi; Pisa: ETS, 2002), 35–54, who discusses whether for Philo God is unnamable, or humans are simply unable to know God’s name. See also McDonough, YHWH, 79–87; Shaw, Earliest, 169–70; 185–86. Lastly, for a recent discussion of Philo’s knowledge of Hebrew, see Tessa Rajak, Philo’s Knowledge of Hebrew: The Meaning of the Etymologies, in The Jewish–Greek Tradition in Antiquity and the Byzantine Empire (ed. James K. Aitken and James C. Paget; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 173–87. Regarding the continued use of the Tetragrammaton in oaths, see Lawrence Schiffman, Sectarian Law in the Dead Sea Scrolls (BJS 33; Chico, California: Scholars Press, 1983), 140: T here can be no question that early tannaitic practice required the judicial oaths be taken by the Tetragrammaton. For earlier times, in the context of discussing late books of the Hebrew Bible, Patrick Skehan says that Qohelet avoids Yhwh altogether but uses Elohim quite freely  Proverbs would, by contrast, be unthinkable without Yhwh, so that there were at least two streams of in uence continuously in wisdom circles. See Skehan, The Divine Name, 21.

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ing the divine name has continued for over three thousand years, from the ancient Hebrew sofer to modern torah-scroll makers, even in many scrolls from Qumran both biblical as well as previously unknown literary works that are not re ected in later books of the Tanakh. Ironically, the Tetragrammaton also continued in writing in Jewish-Greek biblical texts, even as κύριος became the dominant rendering for the Tetragrammaton beginning in the second century CE. Just as the avoidance tradition is more layered and complex than often assumed, so to the continued use of the divine name is rarely acknowledged in scholarship. This study provides heightened granularity for a bewildering array of data.

1.1 The majority of evidence that I discuss pertains to the fragmentary discoveries from the caves of the Judean desert, collectively known as the Dead Sea Scrolls, but more generally, I examine all known literary and epigraphic sources from the Second Temple period with relevance for the history of the divine name. Unless otherwise noted, whenever I refer to the date of a manuscript in this study, I specifically mean its paleographic date, as derived from the science of determining when a copy of a manuscript was produced based on the historical comparison of scripts, ligatures, syntax, and philological details. This contrasts with the hypothetical date of when a work was originally composed. With only a rare exception, there is not a single original composition (i.e., autograph) of any work from the ancient world, biblical or otherwise. All that we have are copies. So, when considering what sources to include in this study, I looked for important details that add verifiable evidence for the history of the divine name during the Second Temple period. I give careful attention to the material evidence of manuscripts—the ways that scribes write, modify, stylize, or replace the divine name at a given point in the compositional or redactional history of a work. I also examine direct literary references to the divine name or conventions for its use or avoidance. To be clear, this study prioritizes evidence from actual copies of works that date paleographically to the Second Temple period. While I document the evidence for divine titles and epithets in the Aramaic and Hebrew versions of works discovered at Qumran, such as Jubilees, Enoch, and Tobit, I rarely discuss the later Greek versions of these works. As will become evident in Part IV, Naming God in Greek, the divine While the Ethiopic versions of Jubilees and Enoch are invaluable for studying how these authors conceptualized the deity, in the end, the later versions do not provide decisive

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titles and epithets in Greek texts, especially in Christian transmission, undergo a significant transformation after the first century CE. The naming practices in these texts, then, are helpful but complicated. Perhaps most significant in this regard, is the intricate history of κύριος in Jewish-Greek works, including the Septuagint translation—the Greek rendering of the Jewish scriptures that began in the mid-third century BCE with the Pentateuch—and the correspondence between κύριος, Adonai, and Tetragrammaton. The pre-Christian use of κύριος in Judaism is a special problem, extensively debated among scholars. While I enter this debate in later chapters, with a focus on Jewish works original in Greek, the Jewish-Greek sources that do not have extant copies from the Second Temple period can provide only indirect evidence for divine name research, so I refer to them when relevant.

1.2 A few comments on definitions are helpful. Regarding the Jewish deity, I take the terms name, title, and epithet as proper nouns, common nouns, and adjectives. Even so, ancient writers do not strictly adhere to these grammatical categories. While a common noun typically denotes a title, it can also be used as a proper name. For example, the title ‫( אלהים‬Elohim) in the Psalms and probably ‫( אל‬El) in Qumran texts, as suggested by Jonathon Ben-Dov, function as proper names. In the Septuagint, the title κύριος is construed as a proper evidence for the questions of the current study focused on the Second Temple period. In addition, theophoric elements of personal names are taken by some scholars as evidence for the use and non-use of the Tetragrammaton, but these do not provide direct evidence for the independent use of the divine name, and so are also excluded from the present study. Theophoric names are formed by the combination of the divine name with other letters or words. For example, the names Isaiah ( ‫)י יה‬, Jeremiah ( ‫)י יה‬, and Jehoiakim (‫ )יה י ים‬contain the shorter spellings, ‫ יה‬or ‫יהה‬, of the Tetragrammaton, ‫יה ה‬. Other names contain the prefix suffix ‫ יה‬or various other theophoric elements such as ‫ אל‬in Eleazar ( ‫)אל‬. Some names are entirely composed of theophoric elements, such as Elijah ( ‫)אליה‬. Such elements may help discern the religious affiliation or ethnic identity of their bearers, as explored in the recently published Babylonian Al-Yahudu tablets, or the Aramaic Wadi Daliyeh Samarian Papyri, but they do not provide definitive evidence for what independent divine names and titles were used by those communities. Ben-Dov is careful to distinguish between Elohim as a divine name in the Pentateuch and its subsequent use as a substitute for the Tetragrammaton in works that relied on earlier sources, such as Chronicles, the Elohistic Psalter, and scrolls from Qumran. He distinguishes the employment of Elohim in authorship from its use in redaction. See Ben-Dov, ‫א‬ ‫האל‬ ‫י‬ ‫ים האל הי י‬ ‫ה‬ ‫יל‬, Meghillot 8–9 (2010): 53–80 Hebrew ; repr. The Elohistic Psalter and the Writing of Divine Names

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name without the definite article . Hartmut Stegemann and Martin Rösel consider ‫( אל לי‬El Elyon, God Most High ) to function as a proper name in the Aramaic Genesis Apocryphon. These examples show that designations for the Jewish deity do not always follow grammatical rules, which requires some openness to the semantic possibilities in our interpretation of these terms. Because the overlapping function of name, title, and epithet is not problematic for my study, the following definitions offer a starting point: – denotes the proper name of the Jewish deity, the Tetragrammaton, along with its variant forms and spellings. The divine name occurs in five different forms in three languages: ‫ יה ה‬and ‫( יה‬Hebrew), ‫יה‬, ‫יהה‬, ‫יה‬ (Aramaic), and ιαω (Greek). These are all independent, non-theophoric uses of the divine name. I use Tetragrammaton when referring to the fourletter Hebrew divine name, YHWH. – is the practice of writing or speaking the divine name. – - refers to the absence of the divine name where it might be expected; divine name avoidance refers to more restrictive and intentional types of non-use. These are discernible from comparative material, consistent patterns, quotations, and allusions. – refers to terms such as God or Lord, including ‫אלהים‬, ‫אדני‬, ‫אל‬, and κύριος, typically understood as common nouns with reference to the God of Israel, but also function as proper nouns for some authors. at Qumran, in The Dead Sea Scrolls and Contemporary Culture: Proceedings of the International Conference Held at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem ( July 6–8, 2008) (ed. A. D. Roitman, L. Schiffman, S. Tzoref; STDJ 93; Leiden: Brill, 2011), 81. For a discussion of terminology related to Greek titles and epithets, see Christiane Zimmermann, Die Namen des Vaters: Studien zu ausgewählten neutestamentlichen Gottesbezeichnungen vor ihrem frühjüdischen und paganen Sprachhorizont (AJEC 69; Leiden: Brill, 2007), 20–3. Stegemann writes, Dieser Befund zeigt, daß der Autor von 1Q Genesis-Apokryphon darin nicht ein bloßes Gottesprädikat gesehen hat, das etwa dessem besondere Erhabenheit kennzeichnete, sondern eien Art Eigennamen seines Gottes. See Stegemann, Gottesbezeichnungen, 214; Rösel, Names of God, in Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. L. Schiffman and J. C. VanderKam; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 602. See also David S. Cunningham, On Translating the Divine Name, Theological Studies 56 (1995): 418. Rösel observed that it is difficult to distinguish between name,’ epithet,’ and attribute’ with certainty, EDSS, 602. Mathias Delcor believed that ‫ יה‬must have occurred in the Hebrew scriptures before they were standardized. He supports this through a comparison of 1 Esdras 1:3 and 1 Chr 36:23. He writes, Il y a donc tout lieu de croire qu’il était également représenté dans un état antérieur du texte hébreu, avant l’uniformisation des Massorètes. Delcor, Des diverses manières d’écrire le tétragramme sacré dans les anciens documents hébraiques, RHR 147 (1955): 168.

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–

is the attributive or substantive adjective that describes the features or characteristics of the deity. These include the combination of titles and attributive phrases, such as ‫אל לי‬, ‫ ל א א‬, ‫אלה יא‬, ‫אל א‬, ‫אל נה‬, or ‫אל ד‬. These definitions are heuristic tools for describing a complex array of designations for the Jewish deity. They provide the reader with a sense of how I use them and do not depict technical or rigid grammatical categories. The present study sets out to accomplish the task of collecting and describing all available evidence from the Second Temple period in three main parts, each comprising the primary languages of early Judaism: Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek. Part II presents the Aramaic evidence and is generally structured chronologically, beginning with the Elephantine papyri and ostraca, P. Amherst 63, the Idumean Ostracon, and the British Museum Drachm. These sources use various forms of the divine name, ‫יה‬, ‫יהה‬, or ‫( יה‬YH, YHH, or YHW). Next, I discuss both the use and non-use of the divine name among the Mt. Gerizim Inscriptions, Ezra-(Nehemiah), and Daniel. In the final section, I present the evidence for divine name avoidance in the Qumran Aramaic scrolls. This section also lists every extant Aramaic divine title and epithet from over twenty literary texts, including the Genesis Apocryphon, Aramaic Levi Document, Book of Giants, Birth of Noah, Testament of Qahat, and Aramaic Job. Part III presents the collection of Hebrew evidence from the caves of the Judean desert, known as the Dead Sea Scrolls. In copies of books later found in the Jewish canon of scripture, often referred to as biblical manuscripts, I examine the text-critical evidence for scribal changes to divine name readings and corresponding variant patterns. In the scrolls that were composed by the self-described yahad community, often called sectarian scrolls, the Tetragrammaton is consistently avoided, although it is used in biblical quotations within these scrolls. Lastly, I investigate the prevalent use of the Tetragrammaton in many texts that were previously unknown before the 1950s and 60s, some of which comprise the so-called rewritten scriptural texts (e.g., 4QReworked Pentateuch A–E, Temple Scroll, Jubilees), but others are pseudo-prophetic works (e.g., 4QPseudo Ezek - ), or apocryphon or liturgical type texts (e.g., 4QApocryphon of Moses ? and 11QApocryphal Psalms). In all genres of Dead Sea Scrolls, we encounter uses of the paleo-Hebrew script for the Tetragrammaton and other divine titles, as well as the use of Tetrapuncta, William M. Sale’s definition of epithet is helpful: an adjective, a noun in apposition, a noun-phrase in apposition, a noun in the genitive, a governing noun, or a noun in a combination that preserves a singular sense. See Sale, Trojans, Statistics, and Milman Parry, GRBS 30 (1989): 350.

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which is a strong argument that Qumran scribes transmitted the majority of texts known collectively as the Dead Sea Scrolls. Part IV presents a collection of evidence from copies of Greek texts that date on paleographic grounds to the Second Temple period. These come from Judea or Egypt and include P. Fouad 266b, 4QpapL Lev (4Q120), 4Qpap paraExod gr (4Q127), Greek Twelve Minor Prophets (8 ev IIgr), P. Oxy 3522, and P. Oxy 5101. In summary of these sources, I discuss the significance of the Greek transliteration ιαω and the Hebrew Tetragrammaton within the Greek biblical texts. This is followed by a discussion of epigraphic and literary evidence for the use and non-use of κύριος in early Jewish-Greek literature as it pertains to the debate over the divine name in the textual history of the LXX. In the context of this discussion, I also provide an itemized list of the earliest Christian copies of the LXX before the appearance of the major codices Vaticanus, Alexandrinus, and Sinaiticus, which allows us to observe the standardization of divine titles in Christian copies of LXX manuscripts in contrast to the diversity of practices in copies from the Second Temple period. In the final analysis, I draw on the collected evidence to offer a modified chronology for the use and non-use of the divine name in early Judaism. The last chapter compares and contrasts the Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek evidence to offer a historical description of divine name practices beginning in the late sixth century BCE Persian period, leading up through the Hellenistic and early Roman times, and ending in the late first century CE. I integrate the full collection of extant evidence with a survey of past scholarship on reasons for divine name avoidance to suggest that while much evidence becomes available for divine name avoidance during the second century BCE, this evidence should not overshadow the continued uses of the divine name in Judea and abroad. A decisive turning point from the general use of the divine name to avoidance in speech and writing does not happen during the Second Temple period but more accurately describes the centuries that follow, after the Jewish wars with Rome and the beginning of the rabbinic movement.

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YHWH Adrift and the Quest of Modern Scholars Abraham Geiger, the great German-Jewish scholar of the mid-nineteenth century, approached rabbinic literature through the lens of historical criticism to better understand the halakhic debates of the Second Temple period. One observation from his landmark study Urschrift und Übersetzungen der Bibel (1857) was a close connection between the spectrum of halachic principles that early Jewish groups held and the extent to which they used or avoided the Tetragrammaton. Those practicing strict halakha tended to avoid the divine name, while those advocating more lenient principles used it more freely. The Pharisees, for example, were more lenient in their application of the Torah to everyday life, therefore common use of the divine name was acceptable under appropriate conditions. The Zadokites and Samaritans, however, exercised greater restrictions and held higher standards of ritual purity. Because they considered the divine name itself to be sacred, it required protection from impurity. Thus a range of halakhic principles is evident in the continuum of practices associated with the use and non-use of the Tetragrammaton. Since Geiger’s time, scholars have agreed on this general correlation. Debate continues, however, on nearly every other aspect of the history of the divine name, including the timeline for the emergence of the avoidance tradition, how pervasive it was, and by extension, how the diversity of divine name conventions for writing and speaking can be understood against the background of Second Temple period history. Geiger offered a few primary starting points. The death of the high priest Simon the Just set in motion a series of changes to the Temple liturgy, part of which included the regular pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton before Simon’s death. Geiger takes, as a point of departure, the description of Simon’s blessing in Sirach 50:20 Then Simon came down and raised his hands over the whole congregation of Israelites, to pronounce the blessing of the Lord with his lips, and to glory in his name. This passage gives us a mystical image of Simon. To glory in the divine name seems to imply some kind of meditative or worshipful experience, finding repose in both the visual sight of the name and its aurality. According to tradition, Simon held a prestigious position when officiating in the Temple. Geiger took the death of Abraham Geiger, Urschrift und Übersetzungen der Bibel in ihrer Abhängigkeit von der inner Entwicklung des Judentums (Breslau: Heinauer, 1857). Geiger, Urschrift, 263–264.

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Simon to mark a change in the Temple liturgy, but evidence for this change is not found in the book of Sirach, which says nothing about the cessation of the divine name. The claim for a changed liturgy following Simon’s death is based on a rabbinic passage centuries later: t. Sotah 13.8 (quoted in b. Mena 109b, and b. Yoma 39b), which states explicitly that after the death of Simon the Just, priests refrained from blessing the people in the Name. The characterization of Simon in Ben Sira must have contributed to the rabbinic view of his remarkable stature. They reasoned that after his death subsequent priests felt unworthy to officiate his former duties, and more so that the special privilege of speaking the divine name should cease out of respect, not necessarily for the deity, but for the righteous career of the high priest Simon. To my knowledge, this is the earliest direct reference to an avoidance tradition among the rabbinic sources. Before the time of Simon the Just, there are no clear restrictions on the use of the Tetragrammaton, but after his death, the picture becomes increasingly complicated. Unfortunately, neither Ben Sira nor Geiger specifies if Simon the Just is Simon I (around 300 BCE) or Simon II (around 200 BCE), an issue that has generated much debate in recent years. If Simon I is in view, then the changes to the Temple liturgy would have taken place around 300 BCE, a century earlier than generally assumed. Geiger does not address the question of Simon’s identity, but given the context of his discussion, he likely thought that the Just was Simon II, whose death around 200 BCE coincided with significant changes to the political structure of Judaea, as it shifted from Ptolemaic to Seleucid rule after the Battle of Panium in the summer of that same year. We know about the politics of the priesthood and the succession from Simon II to Onias III from 1–2 Maccabees and Josephus. Onias III is described as pious, loved by Jews and Greeks, and according to the appreciative account of 2 Macc, even Antiochus IV wept over his assassination in 170 BCE, designed by his usurping brother Menelaus. Circumstantial evidence from the life of Onias III, namely his reputation and respectability, does not give any indication of how he might have approached the use of the divine name. If pronouncing the Tetragrammaton was regarded as a special privilege, then Onias III was more Most scholars consider this Simon to be Simon II, although James VanderKam has argued for Simon I in Simon the Just: Simon 1 or Simon II? in Pomegranates & Golden Bells: Studies in Biblical, Jewish, and Near Eastern Ritual, Law, and Literature in Honor of Jacob Milgrom (ed. David P. Wright, et al.; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1995), 303–18. For a defense of the traditional view, see Otto Mulder, Simon the High Priest in Sirach 50: An Exegetical Study of the Signi cance of Simon the High Priest as the Climax to the Praise of the Fathers in Ben Sira’s Concept of the History of Israel (JSJSup 78; Leiden: Brill, 2003), 345–52. 2 Macc 4:30–39.

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than suitable for the honor. But his piety could equally have found expression in refraining from the use of the name out of reverence for the God of Israel and at the same time, commemorating the passing of his predecessor Simon II. Geiger took the evidence of t. Sotah 13.8 at face value and believed that the cessation of the Tetragrammaton, after the death of the high priest, indicated complete spoken avoidance, even on Yom Kippur. He writes that the pronunciation of the divine name had been omitted, even in the most sacred service. He held the Zadokites responsible for initiating the avoidance in speech, related to the events following the death of Simon. According to Geiger, the Zadokites proposed instead to replace the Tetragrammaton with ‫ אלהים‬or ‫ א‬. The Pharisees, however, found this Zadokite initiative problematic. This dispute, Geiger believed, was the backdrop for the reference of m. Ber. 9:5 and its citation of Ruth 2:4: And they ordained ( ‫ )ה ינ‬that a man should greet his fellow with the Name (‫ ) ם‬as was done by Boaz when he greeted the harvesters, may Yhwh be with you (‫ם‬ ‫)יה ה‬. The harvesters then responded, may Yhwh bless you (‫יה ה‬ ‫)י‬. The Pharisees saw in Ruth 2:4, along with other passages, a biblical precedent for using the divine name when appropriate, primarily in greetings and blessings. In this purported exchange between the Pharisees and Zadokites, we see how some early Jewish groups advocated for the continued use of the Tetragrammaton, while others mandated its avoidance. From the perspective of modern research, Geiger was the first to situate the phenomenon of divine name avoidance in the context of Jewish polemics and the distinct halachic positions that emerged during the second century BCE. Arthur Marmorstein, in his classic work The Old Rabbinic Doctrine of God (1927), followed Geiger on the view that the death of Simon the Just marked the beginning of an avoidance tradition. He believed, however, that Simon the Just was Simon I (ca. 300 BCE). For Marmorstein, this meant that the entire third century BCE was marked by the development of an avoidance tradition. This is why, for example, the book of Esther does not use the Tetragrammaton:  the author lived in an age and in a country where and when the pronunciation of the Name was strictly forbidden  exactly the time after the death of Simon the Just. The Greek translation of the Pentateuch, beginning in the mid-third Geiger, Urschrift, 263. Ibid., 262; cf. y. Sanh. 11:1. Ruth 2:4 is discussed further below; see Urbach especially. Marmorstein, The Old Rabbinic Doctrine of God, Vol. 1: Names and Attributes of God (Oxford University Press: London, 1927), 30. Ibid., 30.

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century BCE, was further evidence in Marmorstein’s view for an avoidance tradition that spread during the early Hellenistic period. Admittedly, while the evidence could be construed to fit these historical parameters, there is a lack of cogency in Marmorstein’s argumentation. He considered his conclusions to be self-evident, yet several scholars have strongly critiqued his historical reconstruction because of his unsupported premises. Marmorstein’s timeline for the avoidance tradition has not been taken seriously in this regard, but he nonetheless made a meaningful contribution to divine name research by identifying and integrating more rabbinic sources than Geiger had discussed. By comparing and contrasting rabbinic texts, Marmorstein offered a method that later scholars would follow, even as they disagreed with his conclusions. If the Tetragrammaton was abrogated following the death of Simon the Just, Marmorstein’s research convinced him that it must have resurfaced at a later point. Some passages in the Mishnah can only be explained on the assumption that the avoidance tradition was either temporary, narrowly confined, or not as pervasive as traditionally thought. For example, at odds with the avoidance tradition reconstructed by Geiger from Sirach 50:20 and t. Sotah 13.8 we encounter m. Tamid 7:2 ( m. Sotah 7:6), claiming that i n the Temple they pronounced the Name as it was written, but in the provinces by its substitute. This passage shows the continued use of the Tetragrammaton, despite the claim that it was avoided since Simon II. A few scholars have attempted to mitigate the tension between t. Sotah 13.8 and m. Tamid 7:2 by arguing that the issue was one of degree or quality rather than use or non-use. Max Reisel, for example, claimed that after Simon the Just (II) the other priests no longer considered themselves worthy to pronounce the Tetragrammaton distinctly and completely in the daily priestly blessing  The High Priest continued to use the original pronunciation on the Day of Atonement but reduced its sonority. Eventually, after the destruction of the Second Temple, this pronunciation lost its audibility altogether. It can also be recognized that m. Tamid 7:2 refers to both practices, use and non-use, in distinct geographic spheres, which gives a slightly more complicated picture than we find in research before Marmorstein. The public rituals in m. Yoma, Marmostein demonstrated, are also in tension with a tradition of complete avoidance. The use of the Tetragrammaton in this Perhaps he had in mind the Greek translation of Lev 24:16 that seems to make naming the name punishable by death, rather than simply its misuse in the Hebrew text. Urbach strongly critiqued Marmorstein’s method of historical reconstruction, a view also shared by M. Segal. See Urbach, Sages, 2:737 n. 30. See Reisel, The Mysterious Name, 64, 71. For the same view, see Samuel S. Cohon, The Name of God, 591–592.

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tractate presupposes its knowledge among both priests and the general public in attendance at the Yom Kippur ceremony. The ritual activity elaborates on the descriptions of Lev 16, with additional blessings in the divine name. The high priest, for example, utters the divine name during the scapegoat ritual and blesses the people, unparalleled in Lev 16. According to m. Yoma, everyone in the Temple Court heard the ‫( ם ה‬the expressed name ) and responded with a communal blessing. when the priests and the people who stood in the Temple Court heard the Expressed name ( ‫ ) ם ה‬come forth from the mouth of the High Priest, they used to kneel and bow themselves and fall on their faces and say, Blessed be the name of the glory of his kingdom forever and ever.

This passage shows no awareness of an avoidance tradition sparked by the death of Simon the Just. It depicts a national ceremony in which the ‫ם‬ ‫ ה‬was presumably spoken according to its letters. Beyond passages like m. Tamid 7:2 and m. Yoma 3:8, Marmorstein saw in prohibitions against using the divine name the sociological axiom that the law was in place precisely because people were acting contrary to the law. He makes this observation about the famous passage in b. Sanh. 55b, which advises the death penalty for speaking the name. Marmorstein observed that such a proscription would only make sense during a time when the pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton was still known. Thus, in addition to Geiger’s See m. Yoma 3:8, 4:2, and 6:2. For a discussion of the role of ‫ ה ם‬in this tractate, see Gedalyahu Alon, ews, udaism, and the Classical orld (trans. Israel Abrahams; Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1977), 237–43. See also Sifre (Num 6:27), which records the discussion of R. Josiah and R. Jonathan: Thus shall you bless the children of Israel’ with the name ( ‫) ם ה‬. For discussion of the historicity of Yoma concerning the pronunciation of the divine name, see Emil Schürer, The History of the ewish People in the Age of esus Christ B C –A.D. 135) (rev. and ed. G. Vermes, F. Millar, and M. Black; vol. 2; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1979), 307. For discussion on the literary nature of m. Yoma, and particularly the exegetical agenda of its authors, see Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra, Impact of Yom ippur on Early Christianity: The Day of Atonement from Second Temple udaism to the Fifth Century (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), 20. He argues that Yoma is the fruit of rabbinic exegetical activity. Gunter Stemberger also emphasizes exegetical skills at work in m. Yoma; see Yom Kippur and Mishnah Yoma, in The Day of Atonement: Its Interpretation in Early ewish and Christian Traditions (ed. Thomas Hieke and Tobias Nicklas; Leiden: Brill, 2012), 130–31. Marmorstein, Rabbinic Doctrine of God, 32. Even the Bavli maintains a tradition that the rabbis taught the divine name to their disciples. B. Qidd. 71a, Rabba bar ana says Rabbi Yo anan says: The Sages transmit the four-letter name to their students once every seven years, and some say twice every seven years. Although this too is ambiguous because

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reference to m. Ber. 9:5, Marmorstein surfaces m. Yoma 3:8, deconstructs b. Sanh. 55b, and pits the conclusions against t. Sotah 13.8, claiming that it must have been foreign to the teachers of the Mishna that the Name of God must not be pronounced. He then downplayed the significance of m. Tamid 7:2, believing that diaspora Jewish communities were unaware of any prohibitions on using the divine name. This evidence suggests that despite the preponderance of an avoidance tradition, Jews continued to debate appropriate uses of the Tetragrammaton well into the Talmudic era. Marmorstein maintained that avoidance was common during the third century BCE. This required him to explain the return of the Tetragrammaton in the late Second Temple period, during an era when other scholars argued for its diminution. Responsibility for the resurgence of the divine name, according to Marmorstein, lay with the Hasmoneans. This reversed Geiger’s earlier proposal and would also come to stand in opposition to the later scholarly consensus following the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, a few decades after Marmorstein’s time. He arrived at this Hasmonean resurgence view based on a novel interpretation of m. Ber. 9:5. Geiger understood this source as a Pharisaic balancing of an extreme Zadokite Sadducean priestly position. While Marmorstein also took this passage as a type of countermeasure, he argues that the priests advocating avoidance were not traditional Hebrew Aramaic speakers. They were, instead, Hellenized-Jewish priests, who after the death of Simon, under Greek in uence and Hellenistic teaching, held that God has no name. Important for Marmorstein’s resurgence thesis is not the purity of the Zadokites, but the in uence of the Greek philosophical tradition on Greek-speaking Jews. it is followed by a reference to Exod 3:15 This is my name forever (‫)ל לם‬, which Rav Na man bar Yitz ak discerned a wordplay, ‫ ל לם‬should be read ‫ ( ל לם‬to hide ). Ibid., 19. He also mentioned the tradition of y. Yoma 3:7, and further Eccl. R. 3.11, which shows that many stories of the early Tannaitic period continue to relate knowledge of the Tetragrammaton even into the third century CE. A Persian woman curses her son with one letter of the divine name, a doctor in Sepphoris attempted to teach R. Phineas b. Hama divine name techniques and the Academy leader pronounced the Tetragrammaton when declaring the New-Moon, as the High Priest did on Yom Kippur. See also Schiffman, Sectarian Law, 141. Marmorstein, Rabbinic Doctrine of God, 19: Neither in Egypt nor in Babylonia, did the Jews know or keep a law prohibiting the use of God’s name, the Tetragrammaton, in ordinary conversation or greetings. Ibid., 29. Marmorstein, Rabbinic Doctrine of God, 24–25. The idea that the Greeks in uenced the disuse of the name is also discussed by Martin Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism: Studies in Their Encounter in Palestine During the Early Hellenistic Period (London: SCM Press, 1974) 1:266–7, that Jews developed the idea of the

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To bolster his interpretation of m. Ber. 9:5 and the in uence of Greek culture, Marmorstein looks to egillat Taʿanit. This document seems to provide some evidence for the use of the divine name in public legal documents, such as loans and land contracts, after the Maccabean independence. A proHasmonean Jewish group proposed using the divine name in public documents, but this initiative was blocked by the sages because of the potential for profanation once the loan or contract expired. egillat Taʿanit is a complex source. Scholars today are uncertain about how much we can know about the history of the divine name from its details. We know that egillat Taʿanit was written in the first century CE. It records about thirty-five days in the history of Israel when God provided guidance or rescue. Vered Noam explains that on these days Jews should avoid fasting (taʿanit) because on them miracles had been performed. The relevant passage concerns something that happened giving cause for celebration on the third of Tishrei, making this a non-fasting day. The text reads: On the third of Tishrei, the mention’ was removed from the documents. As one can see, the meaning of this line is notoriously laconic. The precise meaning of the mention (‫ )אד א‬why it was removed, why it marks an occasion for celebration, and even what documents are in view is debated. Noam states that even though the reference to the mention is obscure, it belongs to the Hasmonean period; so, at least there is confidence in the historical context for this passage. Early rabbinic views on the meaning of the mention were in uential for Marmorstein. We find the rabbinic understanding of the mention in b. Roš Haš 18b, amidst a larger discussion of whether or not egillat Taʿanit should remain in effect after the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE. On the surface, and indeed as understood by the rabbis, it seems that the mention is a euphemism for the Tetragrammaton. But the use of other divine designations in this passage muddle how we might understand this text as a source for reconstructing the history of the divine name: essential namelessness of God after the cultic prohibition on pronouncing the name, in his words, making a virtue of necessity. Samuel Cohon adopts a similar position: Following the death of Simon the Just–which was marked by the spread of Hellenism and its heretical trends–the Tetragrammaton ceased to be spoken even in the Temple by the ordinary priests. See Cohon, The Name of God, 591–592. y. Taan 2:13, 66a y. Meg 1:6, 70c . For discussion, see Vered Noam, Megillat Taanit–The Scroll of Fasting, in The Literature of the Sages, Part II (ed. Shmuel Safrai, Zeev Safrai, Joshua Schwartz, Peter J. Tomson; Netherlands: Royal Van Gorcum, 2006), 339. See Noam, ‫לד יהם‬ ,‫ם‬ ,‫ הנ ים‬. ‫ני‬ ‫( יל‬Megillat Taʿanit Versions, Interpretation, History) (Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi, 2003), 235–238; ibid., Megillat Taanit– The Scroll of Fasting, 343. Ms Parma was removed ( ‫ ;)א נ ל‬Ms Oxf and Bavli was nullified ( ‫יל‬ ‫ ;)אי‬Noam, Megillat Taanit, 345.

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Rav A a bar Huna raised an objection: On the third of Tishrei the ordinance requiring the mention in documents was abolished, and on that day, fasting is forbidden. For the kingdom of Greece had issued a decree against the Jews forbidding them to mention the name of Heaven on their lips. When the Hasmonean kingdom became strong and defeated the Greeks , they instituted that people should mention the name of Heaven even in their legal documents. And therefore, they would write: In year such and such of Yo anan the High Priest of the God Most High.

From a close reading of the passage, several complexities emerge. The Greeks in this passage, who mandate avoidance, seem to be non-Jewish given the reference to the kingdom of Greece, in contrast to Marmorstein’s view that they were Hellenistic Jews. Then comes the issue of the name itself. While the Greeks forbid the Jews to mention the name of Heaven, it is not clear if the name of Heaven is referential to the concept of the Jewish deity, in other words, a stand-in for all the designations of the deity, or more literally the epithet Heaven as used for God in passages like 1 Macc 4:24. The former would make sense if we are to imagine the Seleucid program of unification in the background, which sought to blur ethnic differences between the Greeks and non-Greeks. A particularly Jewish term for God would maintain the boundaries of identity, and so challenge the unification agenda. A third option is to understand the name of Heaven as a euphemism for the Tetragrammaton. This would be plausible according to the rationale that ‫ אד א‬in Megillat Taʿanit means Heaven in b. Roš Haš 18b, both of which are allusions to the Tetragrammaton, the designation under discussion. But an additional curiosity is found in the formulaic expression that the Hasmoneans mandated for use in legal documents: when the example is given ( In year such and such ) the epithet Heaven is not used, but instead God Most High. The question arises if these terms are synonymous, and why vary the terms for God at all? The designation God Most High does not seem to function as a substitute for the Tetragrammaton in the same way that Heaven might. In this instance, God Most High seems to be the actual designation for the Jewish deity mandated for use in legal documents. But then why not use God Most High in the previous references to the Jewish deity? On all accounts, the referent of ‫ אד א‬is elusive. It seems at least clear that the decree forbidding the mention of the name of Heaven was issued before the Maccabean revolt (ca. 167 BCE). The debate continues in b. Roš Haš 18b. What began as a description of how the Greeks controlled naming God becomes an internal controversy, following Hasmonean independence, between the Hasmoneans and the Sages,

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And when the Sages heard about this they said: Tomorrow this one the borrower will repay his debt, the lender will no longer need to save the loan document , the document will be cast on a dunghill and the name of Heaven written there will come to disgrace . And so they annulled the ordinance to mention God’s name in documents , and they made that day into a Festival.

This is the rabbinic line of reasoning that Marmorstein follows. The Sages challenge the Hasmonean mandate on the principle that God’s name will fall into disrepute once a legal document, such as a loan contract, expires and is cast on a dunghill. The removal of the Tetragrammaton from legal documents, or at least its avoidance in future contracts, would safeguard the divine name, both from ritual impurity and impiety. At the end of the rabbinic passage, the Hasmonean ordinance is annulled, ensuring that God’s name is not trashed. This would indeed be an occasion to celebrate, making the third of Tishrei a non-fasting day. Marmorstein was furthermore certain that ‫ אד א‬referred to the Tetragrammaton because ‫ אד א‬is found in later rabbinic literature as a divine designation. But while ‫ אד א‬must have referred to the Tetragrammaton according to the logic of the rabbinic discussion, to which Marmorstein adhered, modern scholars entertain other possibilities for the meaning of ‫א‬ ‫ אד‬that fit the context of egillat Ta’anit without recourse to the Talmud. For example, some scholars take the mention to be the name of a Greek or Syrian king. This is supported by several lines of reasoning, notably m. Yad. 4:8, the dating formula of Simon in 1 Macc 13:41, and the coins of John Hyrcanus. b. Roš Haš. 18b. Text and translation are from https: www.sefaria.org Rosh Hashanah.18b (accessed Nov 13, 2021). The same principle is found in t. Shab 13:4, where rabbis discourage the publication of blessings containing the divine name or citations of Torah because if they were discarded the name would be disgraced. On this basis, they have stated that those who write blessings are as if they burn the Torah. Furthermore, other sources point to the Greek demand for Jews to reject the God of Israel: The Jews were ordered by the Greeks to write on the horn of the ox, We have no share in the God of Israel,’ (Mekhilta 71b; Gen. Rab. 11, 4). Marmorstein, Old Rabbinic Doctrine of God, 35. See Zeitlin and Lichtenstein who cite m. Yad. 4:8. Solomon Zeitlin, Megillat Taanit (Philadelphia, 1922), 97. The evidence of 1 Macc 13:41 reads, In the one hundred seventieth year 142 BCE the yoke of the Gentiles was removed from Israel, and the people began to write in their documents and contracts, In the first year of Simon the great high priest and commander and leader of the Jews.’ The removal of a king’s name from documents is not explicitly mentioned, but the emphasis of the phrase In the first year of Simon  presupposes that the name of a Greek king was used before Simon.

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Removing a foreign ruler’s name from Jewish documents, especially following Hasmonean liberation, would also provide an occasion to celebrate. If this is not enough to raise questions about the meaning of ‫אד א‬, even the Talmud itself proposes an alternative, found in the Gemara of b. Roš Haš. 19a, appended to the discussion above: But if this was at the time that the Temple was standing derive the prohibition against fasting on the third of Tishrei from the fact that it is the day that Gedaliah, son of Ahikam, was killed.

Some rabbis took ‫ אד א‬as a reference to the removal of the Tetragrammaton from public documents, but this view was not unanimously held, even in antiquity. The Gemara shows that other events on the third of Tishrei could qualify as non-fasting days. The origins of this particular non-fasting day were uncertain enough for the rabbis to speculate about its significance for the Tetragrammaton’s history. Given the internal contradictions and alternative explanations, it is difficult to verify the historicity of the discussion found in b. Roš Haš 18b the use or avoidance of the Tetragrammaton in legal documents during the early Hasmonean period. Marmorstein sided with the predominant rabbinic view, but the details remain uncertain. What this does show is that we have strong evidence for a diversity of views on divine name practices in early Judaism of the late Second Temple period. Marmorstein used egillat Taʿanit to support the third stage of his pendulum-like theory on the history of the divine name: cessation (Simon the Just, Book of Esther, and the L ), reemergence (m. Yoma, m. Tamid, m. Berakot), and then cessation again ( egillat Taʿanit). To this sequence of events, he added one more observation, relevant for the pre–70 CE period. He believed that by the first century BCE, the Tetragrammaton was muf ed Otherwise, there is no reason to mention the formula. The coins of John Hyrcanus also do not mention God, but generally follow the text of 1 Macc. Fitzmyer and Harrington, appear to have also considered a foreign king to be in view; they translate, On the third in Tishri the mention (of a foreign ruler?) was removed from the (public) documents. See Joseph A. Fitzmyer and Daniel J. Harrington, A Manual of Palestinian Aramaic Texts Second Century B C –Second Century A.D.) (2nd repr.; Rome: Editrice Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 1994), 186–187. Despite the secondary discussion on MegTaan, even if the mention refers to God, it is not clear that the Tetragrammaton itself was in view. The sources associated with MegTaan mention Heaven or Most High. This observation is central to Daniel Schwartz’s interpretation of the mention. He suggests that the use of God Most High in the documents evoked the context of Gen 14:18–24 involving Melchizedek, who is both priest and king, which offered an important precedent for the Hasmonean innovation to subsume the roles of priest and king under Simon in 142 BCE. See Schwartz, Perushim, 445; Vered Noam, MegTaan, 236.

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in the Temple. He refers to the evidence of y. Yoma 3:7 (40d–41a) and b. Qidd. 71a, which describes the divine name being swallowed during the sweet melody ( ‫ ) ה לי ם נ י‬of the liturgy. The purpose was to conceal the Tetragrammaton from those eager to use it for their gain. Such people were referred to as the unruly (‫)ה י ים‬. Alongside the custom of ‫ה ל ה ם‬, Marmorstein aligns the tradition of m. Sukkah 4:5, where people circle the altar and quote Ps 118:25: Save us, we beseech you, O YHWH O YHWH, we beseech you, give us success ‫אנא יה ה ה י ה נא אנא יה ה ה לי ה נא‬

The participants, however, say ‫ אני ה א‬rather than ‫אנא יה ה‬. He concluded that the custom of ‫ ה ם ה ל‬was the usual one in the last decades of the Temple. In summary, Marmorstein brought a wide array of evidence into divine name research. The undulating history of the Tetragrammaton, according to his reconstruction, resulted from varying customs and goals of Jewish groups of the Second Temple period who seem to have been caught in a sequence of cause-and-effect, as if the array of ancient sources could simply be linked in an unbroken chain of practices. When reading his work, one may puzzle over his construal of events, as he leans heavily towards causative relationships, and offers no reasons for why the sources should be viewed in these sequences, but despite the gaps in his historical description, he raised important questions See also Qohelet Rabba 3.11.3; R. Tarphon is an eyewitness to this tradition. The Yerushalmi and Bavli both contain this tradition, but have redacted it to re ect different interests the concealing of the divine name in Palestine out of respect for the deity, purportedly during late Second Temple times, versus the concealing of the name in light of Babylonian magical practices. They agree nonetheless on the major points: ‫ה י ים‬ ( unruly men ) used the name improperly or inappropriately, and the priestly response to conceal it (‫) לי ים‬. For a discussion of the respective emphasis of the Talmuds, see Hans-Jürgen Becker, The Magic of the Name and Palestinian Rabbinic Literature, in The Talmud Yerushalmi in Greco-Roman Culture III (ed. Peter Schäfer; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002), 403–407. R. Judah b. Ilai states that they do not say the precise wording ‫אנא יה ה ה י ה נא‬ ‫אנא יה ה ה לי ה נא‬, but rather ‫אני ה א ה י ה נא אני ה א ה י ה נא‬. The subtle difference between ‫ אנא יה ה‬and ‫ אני ה א‬is understood as a type of muf ing. Joseph Baumgarten also suggested that the curious phrase from 4QD (4Q266) ‫ א נ ה‬has an analogous function to ‫ אני ה‬in m. Sukkah 4:5. See Baumgarten, ‫א ה ה ל א נ ה‬ ‫ה ל‬, A Reply to Kister, JQR 84 (1994): 485–87; ibid, A New Qumran Substitute for the Divine Name and Mishna Sukkah 4.5, JQR 83 (1992): 1–5; Menahem Kister, On A New Fragment of the Damascus Covenant, JQR 84 (1993 1994): 249–251. Marmorstein, Old Rabbinic Doctrine of God, 31.

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about the tensions and contradictions within the rabbinic material itself. While he seemed unable to consider multiple speaking and writing customs for the divine name overlapping occurring at the same time in the same geographic area he importantly understood the Tetragrammaton’s history as one of debate. He broke with the dominant assumption that the history of the divine name could be told as a story following one trajectory: from use to avoidance. But for Marmostein, still, each episode was a tidy sequence of events. Much would change in the coming years as scholars encountered new levels of diversity with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Saul Lieberman (1951) wanted to illuminate the obscurities of the Qumran scrolls by comparing them with rabbinic sources and other early Jewish texts. Scholars suddenly had direct evidence from the Qumran scrolls of a separatist community whose ideas, according to Josephus, Pliny, and other ancient sources, closely aligned with the Essenes. The divine name appeared in new written forms, with striking calligraphic styles. Scribes also employed new techniques for avoidance. All of this demanded attention. Lieberman considered the Qumranites along with the Sadducees and Essenes as sects of extremists who adopted stricter measures than the Pharisees for regulating the use of the Tetragrammaton. He found support for this categorization by comparing two sources that address the use of divine titles and epithets in blessings and oaths. The first source is t. Berakot 6:26 in which the rabbis give an evaluation of four types of people according to how they begin and end a blessing. The structure of the blessing has repetition at the beginning and ending, which resembles the kiddush-type blessing for Shabbat. The rabbis appraise the wise, average, boorish, and followers of a heterodoxy ( ‫)ד א‬: ‫ם‬

‫ם י ד ה אה י ה‬ ‫י ד הא‬ ‫ה‬ ‫ם י ד ה א ה ינ ני‬ ‫אל ל ד‬ ‫ם אל ל ד ה י ה‬ ‫אל ל ד‬ ‫ם אל ל ד ה י ד א‬ ‫י ד הא‬

Saul Lieberman, Light on the Cave Scrolls from Rabbinic Sources, in Texts and Studies (repr. 1951; New York: Ktav, 1974), 190–99. Other important studies to address Qumran and rabbinic literature include Jonathan Siegel, The employment of Palaeo-Hebrew characters for the divine names at Qumran in the light of Tannaitic Sources, H CA 42 (1971): 159–172; ibid., The Alexandrians in Jerusalem and their Torah Scroll with Gold Tetragrammata, IE 22 (1972): 39–43. Siegel provides evidence of the belief that once written down the Tetragrammaton could not be erased, and that paleo-Hebrew was one way to ensure non-erasure. See also, Dennis Green, Divine Titles, 497–511. Lieberman, Light, 190–99. Lieberman used Ed. Zuckermandel p. 17, 1.6, citing t. Berakot 7:29.

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A person who begins his Berachot (blessings) with God’s name that is represented by Hebrew letters Yud Heh (i.e. Adonai) and ends his Berachot with God’s name that is represented by Hebrew letters Yud Heh (i.e. Adonai) is a wise person  with Aleph amed (i.e. El or Elohim), but ends with Yud Heh (i.e. Adonai) is an average person  with Yud Heh (i.e. Adonai), but ends with Aleph Lamed (i.e. El or Elohim) is a boor  with Aleph amed (i.e. El or Elohim), and ends with Aleph amed (i.e. El or Elohim) follows a foreign way.

This hierarchy reveals the preferred rabbinic blessing. The highest approval is given to those that begin and end with yod-heh, an abbreviation for the Tetragrammaton, which in this context means a spoken Adonai. This is the pattern of the wise. The remaining options are less acceptable as they begin and end with Elohim Adonai, Elohim Elohim, and Adonai Elohim. (It is not clear if aleph lamed in the Tosefta stands for El or Elohim). Thus, the hierarchy represents a sliding scale of ignorance with the last method used by those completely lacking the fear of God: one begins with Adonai, presumably showing an awareness of the orthodox (i.e., rabbinic ) perspective, but ends with Elohim or El, thereby rejecting it. To judge how far the Qumran view lined up with the rabbis, Lieberman compared t. Berakot 6:26 with the Damascus Document. A version of the Damascus Document was already known from the Cairo Geniza, but its presence among the Qumran scrolls sparked further interest in its social and literary history. The manuscripts from Qumran contained new passages, unparalleled in the Geniza copies (CD A B). Lieberman focused on Damascus Document 15:1–4, which differs from the rabbinic context as the Tosefta addresses blessings, not oaths. What intrigued Liberman was the similar method of abbreviation: ‫ם אל ל ד ם אל דל‬ ‫ה נים י‬ ‫י אם‬ ‫ה ם‬ ‫י ה ל‬ ‫ה אל י‬ ‫א‬ ‫אל ה י‬ ‫ל ני‬ ‫אם אל ה י י‬ ‫לל א ה ם‬ ‫אם י‬ ‫א ם ה א ה דה ה י לא י א אה‬ ‫אם‬ ‫ים‬ ‫ה‬

A man must not sw ear either by Aleph and Lamedh or by Aleph and Daleth, but rather by the oath of those who enter 2 into the covenant vows. He must not make mention of the Law of Moses, because the Name of God is written out fully in it, 3 and if he swears by it, and then commits a sin, he will have defiled the Name. But if he has sw orn by the covenant vows in front of 4 the judges, if he has violated them, he is guilty; he should then confess his sin and make restitution and then he will not bear the burden of sin  Translation from: https: www.sefaria.org Tosefta Berakhot.6.27?lang bi (accessed Nov 13, 2021). Translation from Wise, Abegg, Cook, The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2005).

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Both passages use abbreviations. The Tosefta uses yod-heh to signify Adonai, while the author of the Damascus Document uses aleph-dalet to signify Adonai. The Damascus Document mandates that instead of taking oaths in God’s name, one should rather swear by the covenant vows, removing God entirely from the equation, safeguarding the deity from defilement. Lieberman observed that the rabbis approved of using Adonai, but the Qumranites disapproved of using both the divine name and also its substitute. He offers corroborating evidence from the Rule of the Community, where one finds the blessing formula ‫א ה אלי‬ (1QS 11:15), containing the title El and omitting the more standard Adonai in blessing formulae. Lieberman was aware that the Thanksgiving Hymns use Adonai, but he considered such uses to be exceptions to the general rule. Lieberman thought that the rabbinic tradition was aimed at correcting the excessive piety of the Qumran authors because of the similar styles of abbreviation. Yet there are important differences that would qualify the direct comparison of these texts. The Damascus Document discusses the principle of taking oaths, not per se the use of God’s name. We should not, therefore, expect to discover from this text a clear depiction of the author’s stance on divine name avoidance. Also, the full range of uses of Adonai in the Qumran scrolls tempers Lieberman’s view that the scrolls can be used as evidence for the complete avoidance of a blessing formulae approved by the rabbis. Debates over strict versus lenient halakha in early Judaism are illustrated further by ritual bathing practices. While piety was at issue in the above prescription on using the divine name, purity concerns take center stage in t. Yadayim 2:20. This passage recounts a debate between the Pharisees and Sadducees: The Morning Bathers said: We charge against you, O Pharisees, that you mention the Name without previous ritual immersion. Said the Pharisees: We charge against you, O Morning Bathers, that you mention the Name when your body holds ritual uncleanliness.

The bathers, identified as the Sadducees, believed that the Tetragrammaton should be used only in a state of ritual purity, but the Pharisees claim that the human body is in a perpetual state of impurity because of bodily uids, in this case, semen. The Sadducees, according to the rabbinic perspective, are inconsistent and too rigid in their observances. Overall, Lieberman’s study showed that Geiger’s intuitions were accurate: a central motivation for avoiding the See Schiffman, Sectarian Law, 136. Lieberman, Light, 191. Tosefta Rishonim IV, 160 (Lieberman).

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divine name was a heightened concern for ritual purity impurity in the late Second Temple period and the halakhic positions of various groups paralleled their approach to writing and speaking the divine name. Lieberman offered a comparative paradigm for the study of Qumran and rabbinic literature that helped scholars see how the ideas from Qumran texts could be aligned with debates already underway among early Jewish groups. Hartmut Stegemann published two studies that advanced divine name research and also stirred interest in the cultural background of Greek titles in the Septuagint. His monumental habilitation, C C und C C C (1969), addressed the longstanding debate over the Hellenistic meaning of the title κύριος in early Judaism and Christianity as a designation for both the God of Israel and Jesus of Nazareth. His much shorter essay, however, Religionsgeschichtliche Erwägungen zu den Gottesbezeichnungen in den Qumrantexten (1978), seems to have had greater impact on Qumran scholarship. Stegemann’s study on the use of the Tetragrammaton in Qumran scrolls surpassed the general observations of earlier scholars. Stegemann integrates not just late-biblical and rabbinic literature for context on divine name practices, but also geographic and linguistic diversity from diaspora Judaism. He compared and contrasted divine name practices in the Qumran scrolls with Aramaic and Greek customs in the broader Mediterranean and Mesopotamian diasporas. Continuing the thread of discussion on Simon the Just, Stegemann thought that while the pronunciation of the divine name might have been Simon’s privilege alone, which purportedly ceased after his death, it was not realistic to project what happened in Jerusalem onto Jewish communities abroad. Stegemann was also skeptical about the extent to which early rabbinic customs would have been recognized in diaspora synagogue worship, or in private readings of Scripture where the context was much less holy. While Stegemann believed that the divine name was widely avoided, a stark contrast between the center and periphery as portrayed in m. Tamid 7:2 should be viewed with more nuance. Still, however, Stegemann maintained that geographic and linguistic factors, rather than halakhic disputes, best accounted for the diverse customs of speaking and writing the Tetragrammaton. He sought to demonstrate how divine epithets and titles ‫אל‬, ‫אדני‬, ‫ אלהים‬, ‫ לי‬, ‫אל לי‬, κύριος, and Stegemann, Gottesbezeichnungen, 195–217. Stegemann, Gottesbezeichnungen, 199: Meiner Einschätzung nach spricht nichts dagegen, diese Nachricht als historisch zutreffend zu werten  Dort könnten gleichzeitig ganz andere Bräuche bestanden haben  Dieser feste Punkt gilt freilich zunächst nur für Palästina und nur für den Segen der Priester im Tempel.

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ς were used as substitutes for the Tetragrammaton in distinct settings of Palestine, Babylon, and the Greek-speaking diaspora. The Tetragrammaton, according to Stegemann, was first avoided in Babylonian Judaism, which resulted from the Kraft und Heiligkeit, also ein Sanktum’ of the Tetragrammaton. ‫ אלהים‬became the technical replacement of the divine name in Scripture readings in Mesopotamia, perhaps beginning as early as the sixth century BCE, and certainly by the fourth century BCE. Evidence for this proposal was sought in the dating of the Priestly Source and the special role of ‫ אלהים‬in Ezekiel. For Stegemann, the use of ‫ אלהים‬to replace the Tetragrammaton in Hebrew in uenced the use of ‫ אלהא‬in Jewish Aramaic. The popularity of the term ‫אל‬, as found among the Qumran scrolls, must have developed later because during the exile Jews would have been careful not to associate the God of Israel too closely with the Babylonian pantheon: Denn diese bezeichnung ist allzu nahe verwandt mit dem akkadischen ilu(m). Communal readings of Scripture in diaspora required translation, especially in areas where Hebrew was poorly understood. This must have played a prominent role in replacing the Tetragrammaton with divine titles and epithets in regional languages ( Landessprachen ), the primary mechanism for rendering the Tetragrammaton in the Septuagint and Targums. After several centuries, the conventions for naming God in the diaspora eventually returned to Palestine. For Greek-speakers, Stegemann proposed that the title κύριος became the substitute for the Tetragrammaton, which then in uenced the reading of Adonai in Hebrew biblical manuscripts. Stegemann also studied Ibid., 216: Denn wahrscheinlich ist die Vermeidung der Aussprache des Gottesnamens, zunächst im babylonischen, dann auch im palästinischen und schließlich im gesamten griechischsprachigen Judentum, weniger aus Scheu vor den Fremden geschehen, also ein, Arkanum’ gewesen, sondern – als genuin innerjüdische Entwicklung – Verzicht auf die Aussprache dieses Namens wegen seiner besonderen Kraft und Heiligkeit, also ein Sanktum’. Ibid., 209: Wenn man diesen ins Aramäische übertrug, sprach man wahrscheinlich an diesen Stellen ‫אלהא‬. Stegemann, Gottesbezeichnungen, 209. Ibid., 198. In this regard, Stegemann’s position is similar to Baudissin’s proposal that κύριος was read for the Tetragrammaton in Egypt, which then in uenced the use of ‫ אדני‬in Scripture readings of Palestine; see Baudissin, yrios als ottesname im udentum und seine Stelle in der Religionsgeschichte (3 vols; Giessen: Alfred Töpelmann, 1929), 2:1–17. Stegemann, Gottesbezeichnungen, 198: Im griechisch-sprachigen Judentum schließlich las man (ab I. Hälfte des 2.Jh.v.Chr.) bei der Schriftlesung im hebräischen Text ‫אד ני‬, im Targum faktisch also bei Verlesung der Septuaginta Formen von ( ) κύριος, denen im Text der griechischen Bibelhandschriften selbst hebräische Tetragramme (teils althebräisch, teils in Qaudratschrift) zugrundelagen.

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the occurrences of the Hebrew Tetragrammaton within Greek biblical manuscripts. In these sources, the Tetragrammaton is the only Hebrew word in otherwise completely Greek texts. Stegemann emphasized that when these Greek manuscripts were part of communal readings, the Hebrew Tetragrammaton would be pronounced as κύριος. Against this broader context Aramaic uses of ‫ אלהא‬and Greek uses of κύριος—Stegemann assessed the avoidance practices in Qumran literature. He argued that in Scripture readings, ‫ אל‬functioned as the technische Ersetzung for the Tetragrammaton among Qumranites. In liturgical genres of blessing, prayer, and praise, the Qumran scrolls often use ‫אד ני‬, but not to replace the Tetragrammaton, in this technical sense. His view was based on the evidence available to him at the time that ‫ אד ני‬never occurred in biblical quotations as a replacement or substitute for the divine name. His view that ‫ אל‬should be considered the technical replacement at Qumran is warranted by the broader use of the Aramaic ‫אלהא‬: Im palästinischen Judentum hingegen, dokumentiert durch die Qumrantexte, die zwar einer Sondergruppe entstammen, die aber hinsichtlich der Gottesnamenwiedergabe wahrscheinlich repräsentativ sind für das damalige lokale Judentum, las man (etwa vom 2.Jh.v.Chr. an) anstelle der Tetragramme ‫אל‬, im Targum entsprechend ‫אלהא‬.

Stegemann also believed that the Qumran texts were representative of Palestinian Judaism more broadly, even if they were from a Sondergruppe (a special group). He may have been inclined to this position because it lends a sense of cogency to his theory that divine name customs followed geographic and linguistic boundaries Palestine Hebrew, diaspora Greek, and Babylonian Aramaic. We know from the survey of the rabbinic literature alone, however, that taking any one group as representative of a regional variety of Judaism cannot adequately represent the whole. He was successful, nonetheless, in his demonstration of how scholars need to examine larger networks of divine titles and epithets if we are to understand the full complexity of the avoidance tradition. Stegemann’s theory on the interconnectedness of divine name practices remains plausible in outline: the use of ‫ אל‬at Qumran, indebted to the spoken use of ‫ אלהא‬in Aramaic, which in turn re ects the This view goes back at least to Origen (mid-third century CE). Stegemann, Gottesbezeichnungen, 202. Ibid., 203. The current evidence, however, shows ‫ אד ני‬as a substitute for ‫ יה ה‬in biblical citations in 5 documents (11 total). See Appendix 6.1.3. Ibid., 196.

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customs of the post-exilic Babylonian Jewish use of ‫ אלהים‬in Scripture readings. There has been more debate over other aspects of his thesis, especially the direction of in uence between kyrios and adonai. I return to these topics in the later chapters. Ephraim Urbach (1979) drew more attention to the literary and historical contexts of the rabbinic evidence in his renowned work The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs, which engaged the work of Geiger, Marmorstein, and Lieberman on the Second Temple history of the Tetragrammaton. He carefully balanced the contradictions in the Mishnaic sources with statements found in the Tosefta and Talmud(s) to conclude that the death of Simon the Just may have been significant for the cessation of the Tetragrammaton, but we must not regard this tradition as fundamental and infer from it, in contradiction of all other sources, that a law was promulgated forbidding the use of the Name in the priestly benediction in the Temple. Urbach scales back Marmorstein’s largely hypothetical assertion that m. Ber. 9:5 was a reaction against a Hellenizing trend among Jerusalem priests to prohibit the Tetragrammaton’s use. Instead, Urbach interprets m. Ber. 9:5 according to its immediate literary context. The Sadducees have advanced the doctrine that there is no afterlife, and the sages respond by modifying the Temple liturgy to safeguard both the doctrine of the afterlife and a sense of God’s immanence. M. Ber. 9:5 states: All the conclusions of blessings that were in the Temple they would say, forever lit. as long as the world is (‫) ה לם‬. When the sectarians ( ‫ )ה יני‬perverted their ways and said that there was only one world, they the sages decreed that they should say, forever and ever lit. from the end of the world to the end of the world (‫) ה לם ד ה לם‬. They also decreed that a person should greet his fellow in God’s name, as it says And behold Boaz came from Bethlehem and said to the reapers, May the Lord be with you’ (‫ם‬ ) And they answered him, May the Lord bless you’ ( ) (Ruth 2:4).

The reason for the first decree is explicit. In the liturgy, the Sadducees understood forever to mean the current age. For the sages, the addition of ‫ד ה לם‬ signifies the world to come; the expansion of the phrase confirms that there is an afterlife. As Urbach notes, the rationale for the second decree is implied. It is, however, related in principle to the larger context of counterbalancing Urbach, Sages, 124–34. Ibid., 128. Important for Urbach’s literary focus is that the cessation of the divine name in t. Sotah 13.8 is not an isolated statement but mentioned in the context of the cessation of several other miracles that themselves are symbolic of the departure of greatness from Israel.

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incorrect teaching that was contrary to the rabbinic view. Urbach emphasizes the interrelationship of the first and second decree to better understand why the rabbis encouraged the use of the divine name in greetings, even as this might seem dangerously close to a violation of scriptural precedent (e.g., Exod 20:7). For additional support, the sages refer to Ruth 2:4 and Boaz’s greeting. This passage is cited, according to Urbach, because it reminds the reader of God’s protective care at a crucial moment in the agricultural year. He takes this emphasis on divine providence as the unifying principle of m. Ber. 9:5, with the sages pushing against the Sadducean position that tended to portray God as distant and abstract. We have in m. Ber. 9:5 not a reaction, but a reform, which in Urbach’s estimation, renews an ancient benedictory formula of the Bible and was intended to instill the belief in Divine Providence and is not at all concerned with the pronunciation of the Name. The implied meaning of the decree serves the rabbinic agenda of correcting an inaccurate theological view of God. Urbach seems right that m. Ber. 9:5 does not intend to give an authoritative statement on the use or avoidance of the Tetragrammaton, but his rhetoric should be softened. Just as one should not give Simon the Just too much responsibility, this passage does appear to engage a tradition of avoidance, even if indirectly. In other words, Urbach exaggerates when he says that the passage is not at all concerned with the divine name. In a close reading of m. Ber. 9:5 we notice that three additional scriptural citations follow Ruth 2:4, namely Judg 6:12, Prov 23:22, and Pss 119:126. Each of these verses supports using the divine name or affirming the principle of taking extreme measures, on behalf of God and Torah, to counter extreme non-rabbinic teachings. Thus, recourse to divine providence alone cannot fully explain the use of the Tetragrammaton in greetings. For example, Prov 23:22 ( and do not despise your mother when she is old ) seems incongruent with a theme of divine care. Most likely we can understand this passage, as Herbert Danby suggested, in the sense that a timehonored tradition should not be lightly set aside. In other words, antiquity is on the side of using the divine name in appropriate and sensible ways, reaching back, at least in the imagination of the sages, to early pre-monarchic Israel.

The literary structure of the text supports reading them in light of each other. For example, note the parallel uses of the verb ‫ ( ה ינ‬they decreed ). Urbach, Sages, 129. The same texts are cited in t. Ber. 6:29; comparing these contexts helps understand the rabbinic rationale. Danby, The ishnah: Translated from the Hebrew with Introduction and Brief Explanatory Notes (3rd edition; Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers 2015), 10 n. 11.

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Urbach affirmed Marmorstein’s view that the Tetragrammaton was in some way muf ed according to the ‫ ה ל ה ם‬custom (y. Yoma 3:7 40d–41a and b. Qidd. 71a) in the priestly liturgy by the first-century CE. But rather than speculating on how the divine name was swallowed, Urbach focuses on the conditions behind the development: If the exact date when caution began to be exercised in respect to the pronunciation of the Name in the Temple and it commenced to be muf ed is unknown to us, the reason at least for the change is stated: when unruly men (‫ )ה י ים‬increased’. Urbach believes these unruly men are those who might use the Tetragrammaton irresponsibly and negligibly. He compares the expression ‫ ה י ים‬with another use of this lexeme in m. Demai 2:3, in which the rabbis describe the profile of someone who wishes to become a chaver ( (. They conclude: ‫נד ים י‬ ‫ ( לא יהא‬not may he be excessive in vows and merriment ) with the implication that such activity is improper for the chaver and can only lead to transgression. Without fixing the emergence of an avoidance tradition to a specific institution or custom, Urbach finds support for a general mood of negligence and lack of care concerning the Torah, and by extension the divine name. Urbach brings into the discussion another important source: m. Sanh. 10:1. Many scholars have quoted Abba Shaul’s famous dictum, that he who pronounces the divine name has no share in the world to come. A close reading of this passage, however, suggests that more nuance is required for what appears to be an absolute proscription: And these are the ones who have no portion in the world to come: He who maintains that resurrection is not a biblical doctrine, that the torah was not divinely revealed, and an epikoros. Rabbi Akiva says: Even one who reads non-canonical books and one who whispers a charm over a wound and says, I will not bring upon you any of the diseases which I brought upon the Egyptians: for I am H ashem your healer’ ( ‫( ) י אני ה א‬Exod 15:26). Abba Shaul says: Also one who pronounces the divine name as it is spelled ( ‫)א ה ה א ה ם א י י‬.

This passage begins with a description of three kinds of people who have no share in the world to come. Rabbi Akiva adds two more: those reading noncanonical books and whispering charms for healing. The central issue is the rabbinic disapproval of magic, through which one might enter an ambiguous relationship with the deity, relying on the power of the Tetragrammaton, not the source of that power. The rabbis feared that rather than an authentic prayer for healing, whisperers would seek to force the hand of God by quoting Scripture for their own purposes, and perhaps worse, turn a profit. Urbach, Sages, 129.

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Abba Shaul adds a sixth category as an addendum to the unfolding discussion one who utters the name according to its letters. The quotation of Exod 15:26 in m. Sanh. 10:1 shows the typical cipher for the Tetragrammaton in mishnaic literature ‫ ה‬meaning ‫ ה ם‬with reference to God and ‫ אד ני‬in liturgy and blessings. In the Tanakh, the Tetragrammaton is written in full and only implied in m. Sanh. 10:1. Given this context, Abba Shaul intended to highlight improper or irreverent uses of the divine name, closely tied to magic and charms. M. Sanh. 10:1, issued from Abba Shaul in the mid-second century CE, does not appear to advocate for a universal, unqualified abrogation of the Tetragrammaton as others have taken it. More likely, as Urbach suggests, m. Sanh. 10:1 offers a statement tied closely to cases of misuse in magic. This limits the jurisdiction of a misunderstood text. In the end, the emergence of the avoidance tradition arose not so much from historical or geographic factors, but rather a genuine theological concern: E qually unacceptable is the view that the desistance from the pronunciation of the name had its origin in the Babylonian exile, and that it resulted from fear of the Gentiles’ mockery and blasphemies of the type mentioned in Ezekiel (36:20) and Psalms (40:5 4 ; 74:10). It appears that actually the discontinuance of the enunciation and mention of the Name was intended to prevent the blurring of the distance between God and man and the use of the Name for magical purposes.

Concerning historicity, Urbach shows that the significance of the diverse rabbinic traditions is not so much in their reliability, but in the way that they manifest a profound tension that characterized the attitudes of the sages: a sense of both the aloofness and nearness of the Ineffable. The avoidance tradition, as found in rabbinic literature, emerges from a posture of respect. The sages aim to safeguard the honor and character of the deity, distancing the divine from misuses in magic and incantations, but maintaining access to the Jewish deity at the right times in respectable ways. Urbach strongly affirmed the second motivating factor for divine name avoidance, traced back to the work of Geiger. According to those who followed less stringent halakha, the Tetragrammaton was avoided out of respect for the deity. Misuses in magic, oaths, blasphemy, or curses, are all variations on the same theme impiety. Many scholars have pointed to the misuse of the name in magic as an example leading to its official cessation. For example, Parke-Taylor writes: Undoubtedly, one of the factors operative in forbidding the use of the divine name was the avoidance of magical practices. Parke-Taylor, ‫ יה ה‬Yahweh: The Divine Name in the Bible (Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1975), 87. Urbach, Sages, 134.

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As the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls continued into the 1980s, confusion persisted on the history of the divine name in the late Second Temple period. Access to the abundance of new data from Qumran was hindered by debates and setbacks on the publication team, as well as the ongoing political fallout of the Arab-Israeli con ict. Even by this time, scholars were not able to study the Cave 4 texts comprehensively. Patrick Skehan (1980) used his expertise on this material to give a much-needed update on the divine name practices in the Qumran scrolls. His short essay on the divine name in Ben Sira, Qumran manuscripts, and the L became quickly in uential for its accessibility and has been cited in almost every study on the topic since its publication. It was even recently described as a masterful article. Skehan’s primary contribution was to describe the use and avoidance of the divine name in a series of chronological stages with an emphasis on writing practices. As several scholars have done, Skehan begins his essay by discussing the role of Simon the Just in the book of Ben Sira (Sir 50:20–21). Skehan focuses more on the text of Ben Sira, however, rather than on the figure of Simon. He concludes that t he book of Ben Sira comes from a period and a milieu in which Yhwh was certainly still pronounced in the Jerusalem temple. This text seems to make not only the blessing but also the pronouncing of the Name, a special privilege of the high priest. A few notes on the Ben Sira manuscripts are important to situate this discussion. Our oldest manuscript witness to the Hebrew book of Ben Sira is a copy discovered at Masada, which was produced around 100–50 BCE according to paleographic analysis. This version of Ben Sira does not contain the Tetragrammaton or even the title ‫אלהים‬. Instead, we find the frequent use of ‫ לי‬, ‫אל‬, and ‫אדני‬. When we compare the Masada copy to much later medieval manuscripts of Ben Sira (i.e., from Egypt among the cache of manuscripts from the Cairo Geniza), we find, ironically, both the Tetragrammaton and ‫אלהים‬. I discuss the text-critical significance of these manuscripts in a later chapter, but for Skehan’s present argument the importance is in the fact that Simon the Just Patrick Skehan, The Divine Name at Qumran, in the Masada Scroll, and in the Septuagint, BIOSCS 13 (1980): 14–44. Mattathias Delcor offered a similar study in the 1950s, Des diverses manières, 145–173, though less material was available to him at the time. Eugene Ulrich, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Developmental Composition of the Bible (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 154. Skehan agrees with F. O’ Fearghail, Sir 50:5–21: Yom Kippur or the Daily Whole Offering? Bib 59 (1978): 301–316, that a better parallel for Sir 50 is the events of the daily morning sacrifice, rather than the annual blessing on the Day of Atonement. This would mean that in the Temple, the Tetragrammaton would have been pronounced every day, not once a year.

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used the divine name (and the medieval copies suggest that it was original to the text of Ben Sira), but by the time the Masada copy was produced roughly a hundred years later, a tradition of avoidance had emerged and exerted its in uence over the Masada copy. Skehan relied on the literary description of Simon’s privilege and the manuscript evidence of the Masada copy, including its paleographic date, to establish a chronology for the avoidance tradition. He writes that h esitancy to write the name Yhwh, or even Elohim, would seem to account for the use of ‫ אדני‬by the copyist of the Masada MS, and the solution he accepted foreshadows a wide range of developments in the centuries that followed, including Kyrios for Yhwh in L and elsewhere. After the discussion of the Masada copy, Skehan examined the puzzling scribal edits in the Cave 1 copy of Isaiah (1QIsa ), dated around 125 BCE. In some places, the scribe would mark the replacement of ‫ יה ה‬with ‫אד ני‬, but in other places correct ‫ אד ני‬to ‫( יה ה‬e.g., Isa 3:14–18). Something was amiss with the method of copying this scroll as it relates to writing the divine name. Skehan believed that two scribes were at work. One scribe would read from the source text, while his copyist would write the new scroll. The latter copied by dictation, not by sight. Skehan argued that the best way to understand the editorial activity is to imagine the dictating scribe pronouncing adonai when reading the Tetragrammaton in the source text. The copyist heard adonai but knew that this signified the written Tetragrammaton, so he copied accordingly, always hearing adonai but writing the Tetragrammaton. When the source text contained the written adonai, however, a special problem arose. The copyist might write the Tetragrammaton unless otherwise notified. Skehan argued that in a few cases, proper notification was not given, which led to mistakes. He argued that if we posit such a scenario, coupled with the paleographic date of this manuscript, we can derive evidence for the spoken avoidance of the Tetragrammaton among the scribes copying this scroll around 125 BCE. Building on his observations from the 1QIsa manuscript, Skehan then discussed the sectarian texts from Qumran and their avoidance methods. More than any other term for the Jewish deity, Qumran authors have a special preference for the use of ‫אל‬. In several works, one also finds the unique method of representing the Tetragrammaton with four dots, one dot for each letter, known as Tetrapuncta. The use of ‫ אל‬and Tetrapuncta are found in manuscripts that date roughly between 125–50 BCE. According to Skehan’s layout, Skehan, The Divine Name, 20. For example, see the scribal emendations in digitized Isaiah Scroll near the bottom of column 3: http: dss.collections.imj.org.il isaiah (accessed Nov 13, 2021).

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the first century BCE comprises the final stage for the unanimous adoption of the avoidance tradition. He understood this as a process that began in the early second century BCE and was completed by the late first century BCE. The final portion of Skehan’s essay addresses the evidence from Jewish Greek translation texts. He summarized the methods for writing the divine name in the earliest surviving texts of the Septuagint. Skehan proposed four stages of development based on the four different ways that the Tetragrammaton appears in these Greek manuscripts. For example, Qumran Cave 4 yielded fragments of a Greek translation of Leviticus. In the fragment 4QpapL Lev (4Q120), the divine name was written as ιαω in Greek letters iota-alpha-omega. This appears to be a phonetic transliteration of the Aramaic ‫יה‬. Skehan believed that ιαω was the original rendering of the divine name in the Septuagint, not κύριος as attested in the later Christian Septuagint codices. For Skehan, the use of ιαω was the logical rendering of the divine name as it followed the pattern of transliteration for most Hebrew proper nouns into Greek. This was stage one, the earliest method of writing the divine name from the mid-third century BCE. Among the papyri discovered at Fayyum, Egypt, fragmentary Greek translations of Genesis, Exodus, and Deuteronomy have survived, known collectively as P. Fouad 266a, b, and c. Notably, the scribes of P. Fouad 266b used the Hebrew Tetragrammaton, in the square-Aramaic script, for writing the divine name, while copying the rest of the text in Greek. The P. Fouad manuscripts contain the Hebrew Tetragrammaton in the square script and date to the first centuries BCE and CE. Skehan took this as the second stage in the development of writing the divine name in Greek translation texts. In the caves of Nahal Hever, south of Qumran in the Judean desert, archaeologists discovered tattered manuscripts of the Greek Minor Prophets. These texts also contained the Hebrew Tetragrammaton, in otherwise completely Greek texts, but the divine name was not written in the square script. Instead, scribes used two different paleo-Hebrew scripts. Like P. Fouad 266, the scribe copied the manuscript entirely in Greek but switched to Hebrew for the divine name. The Minor Prophets scroll dates roughly to the first century CE, slightly later than the material from Fayyum. From this evidence, Skehan suggested a third stage in which scribes adopted increasingly elaborate customs for writing the divine name in Greek translation texts. In a fourth and final stage, copyists began to replace all prior methods of writing the divine name with the Greek title κύριος. The use of a Greek title, instead of a transliteration or Hebrew Tetragrammaton, coincides with a few striking facts. None of the surviving Jewish-Greek (or pre-Christian) translation texts preserve a clear use of the title κύριος. In all ancient manuscripts, we

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find instead the abbreviated kappa-sigma KC form that is characteristic of Christian copies of the Septuagint. This is part of the nomina sacra tradition and includes the major Christian codices, such as Alexandrinus, Vaticanus, and Sinaiticus. As noted above, all surviving pre-Christian Greek translation copies, whether from Fayyum, Qumran, or Nahal Hever, contain some form of the divine name, but neither κύριος nor KC. The use of KC is a distinct feature of the Christian transmission of the L . In fact, to my knowledge, κύριος, written in full, never appears in any Greek translation manuscripts. We find this form only in modern critical editions. Despite this evidence, several scholars, with varying degrees of plausibility, continue to argue that κύριος was the original rendering of the divine name in the mid-third century BCE. Others, like Skehan, propose that some form of the divine name was original. The debate over the original rendering continues to the present day. Some scholars have also argued for more indirect in uences. Stegemann, for example, suggested that κύριος fanned early modes of avoidance because the pervasive use of κύριος since the third century BCE among Greek-speaking Jews popularized the use of ‫ אדני‬as the equivalent for Hebrew speakers. This Hebrew title then gained in uence as a substitution for ιαω and ‫יה ה‬. Skehan places all the methods above in approximate chronological order, according to the paleographic dating of the manuscripts, and describes a development that began with the transliteration ιαω, shifted towards the use of the Tetragrammaton in various scripts within Greek translation texts, and then led to a fourth stage with the rendering of κύριος, now evident in the Christian copies of the Septuagint. As new copies were made during the second and third centuries CE, scribes systematically replaced the earlier ιαω and ‫ יה ה‬in their sources with the standard κύριος. Skehan’s model of genealogical development discerned from the evidence of Ben Sira, Qumran, and the L is based largely on the paleographic dating assigned to each manuscript, supported in theory by the long-term trend towards avoidance. His heuristic arrangement of the data offers a helpful starting point for comparing and contrasting the manuscript evidence, but he makes the unnecessary assumption that early Jewish authors were synchronized in their approaches to writing the divine name at each stage. One needs to consider, at least, the possibility that four different methods of writing the divine name in Greek texts coexisted and overlapped, even if the surviving evidence can be separated into distinct periods. As Skehan focused mainly on writing practices, the lasting impression of his essay was that avoidance in writing was equally pervasive as avoidance in speaking. His notion of

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sequential development, overall, brought clarity and organization to divine name research, but some exceptions complicate his paradigm. Sean McDonough’s monograph YH H at Patmos (1999) examines the Hellenistic and Jewish background of Rev 1:4: κα κα ρ ος ( the one who is and who was and who is to come ). Foundational to this passage as a background is the Greek translation of burning bush theophany in Exod 3:14, which includes the partial revelation of the divine name. McDonough dedicates several chapters of his monograph to study systematically the Tetragrammaton’s use and non-use and makes several helpful distinctions. First, he carefully discerns between both written and spoken evidence. Although this seems basic, before his monograph such distinctions were haphazardly made. Second, he argues that divine name conventions differed according to official versus popular contexts: There were two streams of tradition with regards to the pronunciation of the divine name in Judaism. The official version, presumably passed along by the temple hierarchy and the rabbis, may well have been Yahweh At the same time, a more popular version of the name, Iao, ourished among some Jews, perhaps, especially in the diaspora.

Within the framework of an official or authorized custom of divine name use, McDonough reads the much-debated passage in m. Tamid 7:2 ( in the Temple, they pronounced the Name as it was written, but in the provinces by In addition to the Tetragrammaton itself, another focus of Skehan’s essay is the development from the square-script to the spread of paleo-Hebrew. This notion also needs revision. While many documents use the paleo-Hebrew script in the first century BCE CE, they also contain the square script during this same period. We do not see development because these practices exist side by side. In fact, according to paleographic date, the highest concentration of the use of square script for the Tetragrammaton is in the early to the mid-Herodian period (30 BCE–30 CE). This is the same time that paleo-Hebrew is used most frequently. The use of the square script and paleo-Hebrew script re ect contemporaneous streams of tradition. Stegemann also discussed the paleo-Hebrew and square-Aramaic script for the Tetragrammaton and emphasized their overlap; see Stegemann, Gottesbezeichnung, 206. Sean McDonough, YH H at Patmos. Rev. 1:4 in its Hellenistic and Early Jewish Setting (WUNT 2.107; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999). Fitzmyer hinted at the need to treat issues of pronunciation and writing separately in The Semitic Background of the New Testament Kyrios Title, 122–23; see also Skehan, The Divine Name, 1, and more recently, Nathanael Andrade, The Jewish Tetragrammaton, 205: The manner in which Hellenistic and Roman imperial Jews of the period wrote or transcribed the Tetragrammaton is connected to the issues of its pronunciation, but one also has to distinguish between the two. McDonough, YH H at Patmos, 122.

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its substitute ). He reasons that the background issue involved the consolidation of power by the Jerusalem authorities. They were motivated to preserve national identity in the new cultural and political environment of the late Second Temple period. McDonough draws an analogy to the cult centralization program of the Deuteronomistic writers, with their name-theology as a central feature of their program: But you shall seek the place that the YHWH your God will choose out of all your tribes as his habitation to put his name there (cf. Deut 12:5, 11; 1 Kgs 8:16–19; 9:3). This tradition attributes special status to the Temple in Jerusalem as the place where the Tetragrammaton, and also the deity, would reside in a uniquely powerful way. McDonough draws a third distinction between public and private contexts. Even if the use of the divine name became publicly politicized, either by a Temple hierarchy or religious authorities, people continued using the name in both personal and devotional ways to foster a relational connection with the deity. This would mostly preclude irreverent uses or ulterior motives in the context of magic and oaths. In this way, McDonough reasons that t he Tetragrammaton continued to have a rich underground life even after its public profile lessened. YH H at Patmos is detailed and well-researched, but McDonough’s goal of elucidating the meaning of Rev 1:4 required him to narrow his survey of the Tetragrammaton’s history. This has been the challenge of most monographs that discuss the divine name. Their scope is too restrictive to advance the field because they view the Tetragrammaton, and other divine titles epithets, as ancillary evidence, often omitting important considerations due to the confines of their study. McDonough, for example, begins his discussion of divine name avoidance with the use of κύριος in the original L . In his construal, the avoidance tradition begins as a corollary of translation. He has in mind Alexandria of the mid-third century BCE. This line of reasoning is similar to that put forward by Marmorstein in how he views κύριος as evidence for divine name avoidance. McDonough states plainly that before the Greek translation the evidence for early second temple Judaism dries up. The situation with the earliest Greek translation texts taking κύριος at face value as a replacement of the Tetragrammaton is much more complex when considering the actual manuscript evidence, as mentioned above. But even before the theoretical evidence of the Greek translation, new material is abundant from the Persian and Hellenistic periods that gives us insight into early periods of the divine name’s history, some of which was not available to McDonough in 1999. The McDonough, YH H at Patmos, 111. Ibid., 112.

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extensive scope of the current study allows scholars to appreciate the complexity of divine name customs more fully than if our starting point began with the Greek translation in the mid-third century BCE. Jonathan Ben-Dov recently published two insightful essays that explore the relationship between the Tetragrammaton and ‫ אלהים‬and ‫אל‬. His 2008 study on the Elohistic Psalter (EP) focused on the mechanisms for divine name avoidance. In agreement with Geiger and Lieberman, Ben-Dov shows how the spread of an avoidance tradition coincided with greater adherence to strict purity halakha, first promulgated by the Sadducees. Ben-Dov considers it likely that the authors of the EP were early advocates of an avoidance tradition. He argues that when compared with Qumran literature, a clear concern for ritual purity is discernible, for example, where the EP avoids the divine name in the Levitical-type psalms of Asaph. Ben-Dov highlights how this custom preceded the Second Temple Sadducean practice by several centuries and is situated firmly within priestly circles. The relevance for the larger history of the divine name, according to Ben-Dov, is that avoidance practices are found not only in the Hasmonean era, as is commonly thought, but in a significantly earlier time during the Persian period. His view on the avoidance practices in the EP is consistent with Stegemann’s position on the use of ‫ אלהים‬in the Priestly Source. The use of ‫ אלהים‬in Ezekiel also follows this pattern, which supplanted the Tetragrammaton because of its Kraft und Heiligkeit, also ein Sanktum’, although Ben-Dov does not discuss Stegemann on this point. Ben-Dov then examines how far Qumran literature shares not only the practice of avoiding the divine name but also the central motivation: heightened sensitivity to ritual impurity. The best explanation for avoidance at Qumran, he suggests, is indeed found with recourse to the ritual purity system. This explanation aligns with Geiger and Lieberman’s views that those practicing stricter halakha avoided the Tetragrammaton, but Ben-Dov offers a more developed theoretical discussion of priestly ideology by drawing on the work of Eyal Regev. He describes how the ritual purity system is designed to compensate for a special vulnerability of the Holy that is dangerously susceptible to contamination or defilement. Impurity is not merely static or inert, to be handled Ben-Dov, The Elohistic Psalter, 79–104; ibid., The Resurrection of the Divine Assembly and the Divine Title El in the Dead Sea Scrolls, in Submerged Literature in Ancient ree Culture Beyond reece: Volume 3 The Comparative Perspective (ed. A. Ercolani and M. Giordano; de Gruyter, 2016), 9–31. Ben-Dov, The Elohistic Psalter, 103. Ibid., 82, 88. See Eyal Regev, Reconstructing Rabbinic and Qumranic Worldviews: Dynamic Holiness vs. Static Holiness, in Rabbinic Perspectives: Rabbinic iterature and the Dead Sea Scrolls:

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by rote ritual procedure. It poses an imminent threat as an evil, dynamic force that actively seeks to defile the Holy. The divine name, a hypostasis of the deity and representative of the divine essence, was especially sensitive to defilement because at any moment it could be profaned by non-sacral use. By extension, the holiness of God was in danger of defilement. Careful regulation, therefore, was required to maintain the sanctity of the Holy. According to Ben-Dov: A priestly ideal of protecting the Name found a limited expression during the Persian period in the redaction of EP. This ideology was continued or possibly revived in the late Hellenistic period by the yahad scribes.

While strands of continuity can be drawn from the EP to Qumran literature, Ben-Dov is careful to point out that the priestly ideal for ritual perfection is just one factor in the larger history of the Tetragrammaton. He observes, for example, that t he scribes who practiced strict protection of the Tetragram both the tradent of EP and the yahad scribes were exceptional in their times, since, as we saw, only a small minority of the Qumran scrolls took the pains to avoid the Tetragram. In the core chapters of the current study, I show in comprehensive detail how the avoidance practices in the Qumran scrolls were indeed a minority and should not be taken as representative of broader trends in Judaism of the time. Ben-Dov’s essay is also suggestive for further research on some occurrences of the Tetragrammaton in Dead Sea Scrolls that do not originate with Qumran authors, even though they were likely copied by Qumran scribes. These uses of the divine name are found in texts that do not parallel books of the Jewish or Christian canons of scripture and are therefore somewhat of an anomaly in divine name research. These uses of the Tetragrammaton, outside of the known scriptural texts, were unexpected before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. This continues to be a fascinating and understudied phenomenon at Qumran as it shows the use of the divine Proceedings of the Eighth International Symposium of the Orion Center (ed. Steven D. Fraade et al.; STDJ 62; Leiden: Brill, 2006), 112: The Qumranic strictness in avoiding or eliminating pollution and desecration arises from a perception that holiness is dynamic  , that is, holiness is sensitive to desecration, vulnerable, and in some manner changeable. The Pharisees, and later rabbis  were less worried by the danger of defilement and desecration, and did not require such extensive efforts to protect the holy  holiness is not sensitive to human activity and thus desecration’ does not really change it. This had clear implications for speech, but also for writing: The protection requires both a prohibition against improper pronunciation of the Name and a need to replace it with various substitutes when committed to writing. Ben-Dov, Elohistic Psalter, 103. Ben-Dov, Elohistic Psalter, 104.

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name in literature that was copied, and in some cases originally composed, at a time when the avoidance traditions at Qumran were in full sway. The socalled rewritten scriptural texts are some examples, but also many others that defy modern classifications of early Jewish literature. Ben-Dov mentions this phenomenon, but given his focus on the EP and the Qumran-Yahad texts, he does not explore the implications further. In 2016, Ben-Dov examined the use of ‫ אל‬in Qumran literature. He was curious to know why ‫ אל‬became the preferred designation to replace the Tetragrammaton among Yahad authors. One possibility, he suggests, is likely related to the ancient Near Eastern mythological tradition of the divine assembly. The core feature of this tradition includes a chief deity typically designated by the title El who is joined by other lesser deities or angels to deliberate over the fate of humanity. Ben-Dov shows how the scene of the divine assembly was active, sacred, revered in that community i.e., yahad . He then argues that the divine assembly tradition, featuring the title El, was suppressed in canonical Jewish literature, but revived among the Qumran Yahad for the important conceptual and theological connections that the Yahad wished to establish: It may not be too far-fetched to claim that the mythical scene of the divine assembly, which was so powerful for the self-construction of the community, is what prompted the choice of El as the main divine title within the Yahad  The title El is most suitable to convey this particular sense i.e., supreme God because it had been used for at least a millennium throughout the Levant as an indication for the head of the divine assembly.

Ben-Dov’s study is insightful because he explores the possible motivations that in uence the choice of divine titles and epithets at Qumran. He suggests, especially regarding ‫אל‬, that the intentional use of this title adds something to the author’s conceptual or theological outlook. In divine name research from Geiger to the present study, the central motivation behind avoidance is Ben-Dov shows that focus solely on disuse or avoidance misses the larger picture, that some scribes chose divine titles and epithets to replace the Tetragrammaton because they wanted to use them, not simply as default options. Ben-Dov, Divine Assembly, 19–20. Regarding ‫ אל אלים‬in 1QM18:6, he writes that the phrase is meant to convey the greatness of the One, but this cannot be expressed without recourse to the way He stands out among the Many. The more common biblical name ‫ אל הים‬does not lend itself to such a construct, since it is grammatically plural even in designating the one and only God. A scribal culture like that of the Yahad which wished to make constant references to various powers in heaven cannot use the standard Hebrew titles for God; the old West Semitic title El would be a perfect choice for that purpose. Ben-Dov, Divine Assembly, 24–25.

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normally understood as a reaction against impurity or impiety. In these cases, the Tetragrammaton is safeguarded by its avoidance or negation. The designations that replace the Tetragrammaton have been somewhat of an afterthought in scholarship, assumed to be simply generic titles, used by default. Implicit in Ben-Dov’s study is a positive principle; avoidance has a ip side. The practices of avoidance make possible an alternative portrayal that adds a layer of characterization to the Jewish deity through the use of another divine epithet or title. For the tradent of the EP and the Yahad authors, the negative principle of safeguarding the divine name from impurity was foundational. But at the same time, it allowed for the development of a positive principle in the sense that it helped the authors articulate their view of God. For the Yahad authors, the divine name is holy so it must be avoided, but importantly the use of ‫אל‬ opens new theological horizons, providing access to notions of sovereignty and communal assembly. Such notions are not implied by the Tetragrammaton. In the manifest agenda of the Yahad authors, the non-use of the Tetragrammaton left a conceptual gap that required attention. This gap was filled, not by default with a generic title, but through an intentional selection of a designation that further illustrates the ideas and concepts that were important at Qumran. Ben-Dov shows how early Jewish writers preferred some titles and not others and this leads us towards a more complete understanding of the story of the divine name. His work is especially valuable for exploring early Jewish compositions that avoid the Tetragrammaton, but where the traditional reactionary impulses of negation concerns for purity and piety are lacking. In these situations, a positive principle in divine name avoidance is likely at work, enabling the author to articulate new portrayals of the divine. Even as Ben-Dov’s study makes significant contributions to our understanding of divine names and epithets in the Second Temple period and Qumran

Ben-Dov writes that Since a great part of the EP constitutes what may be called Levitical literature the psalms of Asaph and Korah we may be justified to see in it a forerunner of the priestly tendency of the latter Second Temple period (103). This view is based on the assumption that priestly literature in the Hebrew Bible re ected the concerns for ritual purity and safeguarding the name later also found among the Sadducees. In this regard, Ben-Dov also rightly notes: Admittedly, the priestly literature in the Pentateuch  does not explicitly promote an ideology of protecting the Divine name (104 n. 73). Still, however, texts like Lev 24:14–16 have a distinctly ritual component in which the action of cursing the name contaminated all who heard, which needed to be transferred back to the source blasphemer to be contained stoned ( and let all who were within hearing lay their hands on his head ). The dynamics of purity impurity are different in the Hebrew Bible, but the implications for the beliefs about the Tetragrammaton seem to be transferable to priestly groups of the Second Temple period.

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literature, he still maintains the traditional paradigm of sequential development in the divine name’s history. He writes: The biography of God in the Hebrew Bible unfolds as a story of gradual distancing already in biblical times, a tendency emerged most notably in late biblical books to avoid the Tetragram and replace it with epithets: ‫אלהים‬, ‫אל‬, ‫אדני‬, etc the process of distancing oneself from the Godhead intensified in the postbiblical period, with the coining in rabbinic literature of such Divine epithets as ‫( ה ם‬the Place), ‫( ה ינה‬the Presence), ‫ה א‬ ‫( ה ד‬the Holy, Blessed be He), or of surnames used in apocalyptic literature like ‫( א ל א‬Master of the world).

On the grand scale, from the Iron Age to the Tannaitic period, scholars agree that we see a trend from use to non-use. But as I demonstrate in the following chapters, the view that the Second Temple period witnessed a steady transformation in clear stages needs to be reconsidered. Frank Shaw, The Earliest Non-Mystical Jewish Use of (2014), offers a comprehensive assessment of the early history of ιαω, a poorly understood Greek form of the divine name. His study makes a serious contribution to research on the divine name by correcting much of nineteenth and twentieth-century scholarship, but he also offers insights on the methods with which scholars approach the manuscript evidence. In his study, Shaw undermines two pervasive assumptions: (1) that ιαω was a post-Second Temple phenomenon, with relevance primarily in circles enamored with mysticism and magic; and (2) that ιαω was a marginal designation for the Jewish deity, for example, as some scholars have characterized its occurrence in 4QpapL Lev (4Q120). Shaw convincingly demonstrates that the name ιαω had a vibrant non-mystical use in the second and first centuries BCE and that knowledge of the name was more widespread than traditionally thought, not only in Egypt but elsewhere in the Mediterranean world. Following his integrative assessment of Ben-Dov, Elohistic Psalter, 79–80. See Frank Shaw, The Earliest Non-Mystical Jewish Use of (Leuven: Peeters, 2014). Martin Rösel refers to ιαω as a strange reading in the Septuagint’s textual history. See Rösel, The Reading and Translation of the Divine Name in the Masoretic Tradition and the Greek Pentateuch, JSOT 31 (2007): 419. He discusses the use of ιαω in 4Q120, Jewish and ecclesiastical writers, as well as the use of ιαω in the explanatory columns of L onomastica, such as P. Oxy. 2745, Pap. Heid. I.5, and Vat. Pius II Gr. 15. In these onomastica, the Greek transliterations of Hebrew names are listed in one column (e.g., Ιω α α ) and explicated in another (e.g., Ιαω α; or Ιω rendered as Ιαω ρ α). The basic fact that a scribe writes Ιαω in the explanatory column suggests that there must have been a somewhat substantial number of Jews employing, and copies of the LXX itself that contained, the divine name Ιαω. (33). Shaw also describes

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the evidence for the use and non-use of the divine name, Shaw examines the long-standing debate over the original rendering of the Tetragrammaton in the L . He argues that t he matter of any (especially single) original’ form of the divine name in the L is too complex, the evidence is too scattered and indefinite, and the various approaches offered for the issue are too simplistic  to account for the uses of the divine name as they happened. He makes a compelling case that an either or framework for understanding the earliest rendering(s) of the divine name in the L is historically implausible. The complex and incomplete sources at hand obscure rather than clarify our reconstructions. Shaw’s monograph confirms what will likely prove to be the standard view of divine name traditions in early Judaism and also in early Christianity for years to come. Pending new evidence, complexity and diversity are givens in any historical reconstruction. Shaw’s efforts were directed, in particular, towards better understanding the Greek form of the divine name. The current study, while informed by Shaw’s approach of integrating all known evidence into our reconstructions, takes additional steps to include not only Greek evidence but also the extensive data from the Aramaic and Hebrew sources of the Second Temple period.

2.1

Summary of Modern Scholarship

Most modern scholars, from Geiger to Ben-Dov, agree that the Zadokites Sadducees, Samaritans, and Qumranites were motivated to avoid the Tetragrammaton because they believed firmly in the holiness of the divine name. According to the logic of the ritual purity impurity system, any profane or non-sacral uses put the divine name in danger of defilement. Precisely when this belief peaked, made manifest by various customs, and how these practices spread among Jewish groups is difficult to ascertain. We have a rough outline, at least, that starts with the wave of evidence among priestly circles and their shaping of the Elohistic Psalter during the early exilic post-exilic period. A second wave of avoidance practices, in both speech and writing, emerges later in the Qumran-Yahad literature.

in great detail knowledge of the name Ιαω among non-Jewish, Greco-Roman authors of the first century BCE CE, including Diodorus Siculus (Biblioteca 1.94.2), Varro, Philo of Byblus, Valerius Maximus, and Emperor Gaius. Shaw, Earliest, 158. For my review of Shaw’s work, see https: jhsonline.org index.php jhs article view 29457 (accessed Nov 13, 2021).

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Marmorstein and Urbach made compelling cases that for early rabbinic thinkers, avoidance was customary because they believed God’s honor and reputation were at stake through irreverent uses of the divine name, for example, in oaths and magic. In some contexts, the rabbis encouraged the use of the name when appropriate, which could be understood as a reaction to the extreme halakhic positions of the Sadducees. But the rabbis also prohibited the use of the divine name for reasons of impiety. These sentiments can be traced from Exod 20:7 (and Deut 5:11) and Lev 24:14–16 to later passages like Sir 23:9– 10, Pss. Sol. 17:5, Jub 23:21, and the vast array of rabbinic literature. According to Marmorstein, it was only after a long struggle that the Pharisaic teachers reestablished the old usage of pronouncing the Tetragrammaton in the Temple, and more broadly, under appropriate and respectful conditions. Both Geiger and Marmorstein agreed that m. Ber. 9:5 was evidence for a Pharisaic correction of an extreme and limited position for avoidance. In summary, modern scholarship has held closely to these two explanatory models one priestly the other pious for understanding what motivated the growth and persistence of divine name avoidance during the Second Temple period. Despite the agreement on these motivating factors, many questions remain about the general historical outline: how and when did the avoidance tradition(s) spread? To what extent was avoidance standard or universal? For the Persian and early Hellenistic eras especially, scholars have been reticent to discuss the divine name’s history given the paucity of evidence. Even such basic questions as to the identity of the sages who advocated for the use or non-use of the divine name during such critical times as the early Hasmonean period are unanswered. Do the rabbis have in mind the Hasidim, Pharisees, or possibly even the Essenes? What stance might early Jewish authorities, such as the zugot the nasi and the av bet din have taken on the Tetragrammaton’s use and avoidance? Marmorstein revealed the need for a larger synthesis of divine name practices as he exposed the contradictory evidence of early rabbinic literature. His general conclusions were accurate in principle that the avoidance tradition could not be described according to a simple trajectory from use to avoidance but his specific reconstruction was superficial. He assumed that there existed standard adherence to a particular custom at a particular time. Following the Qumran discoveries, Stegemann and Skehan formulated the most systematic and cogent explanations for the diverse manuscript evidence from the Judean desert. Stegemann argued that geography and regional languages were the most prominent factors in the use of divine titles and epithets. Skehan described the evidence according to stages of

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development. Intriguingly, they disagreed on the relationship between κύριος, ‫אדני‬, and the Tetragrammaton. Stegemann supposed that the rendering of the Tetragrammaton with κύριος in the Greek-speaking diaspora eventually led Jews from Judea to replace the Tetragrammaton with the title ‫אדני‬, the equivalent of the title κύριος. This position is somewhat counter-intuitive because it requires a younger foreign term κύριος, along with its novel application, to exert considerable in uence on the use of a native designation that has precedent even in the Hebrew Bible as a term for God. Skehan argued for the inverse of Stegemann’s position, namely that the spoken avoidance of the Tetragrammaton with the pronunciation ‫ אדני‬eventually led the copyists of the L to use κύριος. Stegemann relied more heavily on theoretical argumentation, while Skehan prioritized the surviving manuscript evidence. Skehan’s concise summary of the Qumran material became the standard view among most Dead Sea Scrolls scholars since the mid-1980s. He took the second century BCE as the decisive transition away from using the Tetragrammaton. In his view, the death of Simon the Just (around 200 BCE) sparked an avoidance tradition that was completed by the first century BCE, supported by evidence from the manuscript copies of the Masada Ben Sira and 1QIsa . Overall, Skehan was also in uential for his four-stage development approach to divine name practices within Greek biblical texts. Translators first rendered the divine name as ιαω in the mid-third century, then later copyists used the Tetragrammaton, first in the square script and then in the paleo-Hebrew script. Lastly, κύριος replaced all former practices, as it now stands in the surviving Christian copies of the L . Important for Skehan, in every major aspect of his study on divine name customs, is the notion of linear or genealogical development, such that different practices and conventions did not overlap, but could be arranged in chronological order, as one gave way to the next with the passage of time. His study was a good description of the contours of late Second Temple practices, but he left little room for the types of overlap and complexity that emerge through an extensive examination of the sources. It should also be noted that his reconstruction of the late Second Temple history of the divine name heavily relied on the paleographic dating of manuscripts, and often the acceptable range of dates for a scribal hand spans a century. This observation complicates Skehan’s notion of developmental stages. Recent studies have helped us think more concretely about the history of the divine name. McDonough assessed both spoken and written conventions of divine name use and avoidance. Shaw re ected on the fact that some terms for God, in particular ιαω, were more prevalent and more widely known than a cursory survey would reveal. Ben-Dov opened new lines of inquiry in divine

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name research on Qumran literature by arguing that some early Jewish authors used divine titles and epithets to replace the Tetragrammaton not because they were prohibited from using it, but rather because such titles, notably ‫אל‬, allowed the yahad writers to express key aspects of their ideology and identity. Divine name research has advanced significantly since the time of Geiger, but we are still in need of a study that collects all relevant evidence and brings that data to bear on the Second Temple history of the divine name. The comprehensive survey of the evidence in the current study will allow for greater complexity and nuance that has hindered our understanding of the diversity of early Jewish approaches towards the use and avoidance of the divine name. This study fills gaps in previous discussions of primary sources and also invites scholars to see the divine name’s complicated history in greater resolution and with increased granularity.

PART II Naming God in Aramaic

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The Jewish literature from the Persian Achaemenid period (550–330 BCE) emerges from a time of great transformation for the people of Israel. The Judaism we recognize today was shaped by the loss of the Jerusalem Temple in 586 BCE and the experience of exile and return. Those who returned from the Babylonian exile were named after the resettled province of Yehud, known to the Aramaic speaking Achaemenid administration as Yehudin ( Jews ). Changes to the political and social structure of life in Yehud necessarily led to changes in the theological and philosophical ideas as re ected in the Hebrew Bible and early Jewish literature. The literary and epigraphic sources that date from the Persian to the Hellenistic periods reveal a subtle change in how divine power was understood and articulated. With the adoption of Aramaic as the language of international discourse, Jews began using new epithets and titles for the God of Israel, as well as new spellings and pronunciations of the divine name itself. What occurred in Hebrew with four letters as the Tetragrammaton, YHWH, appears in Aramaic with two alternative spellings, both three letter forms, YHW and YHH. The earliest evidence for the Aramaic uses of the divine name is found in the fifth century BCE among the Elephantine ostraca and papyri. The literary narratives of the biblical books Ezra and Daniel contain rare bilingual compositions, mixing both Aramaic and Hebrew. While these works were composed during the Persian period, their final shaping is probably Hellenistic. Additional evidence for the use of the divine name comes from the fourth century BCE British Museum drachm and an Idumean Ostracon. We encounter P. Amherst 63 around the early third century BCE. The dedicatory inscriptions of Mt. Gerizim provide more inscriptional evidence that dates to the early second century BCE. Lastly, the Qumran Aramaic Scrolls comprise a remarkable corpus of literary evidence for the study of divine names and epithets during the Hellenistic to the early Roman period. When considering these diverse Aramaic sources together we can see more clearly how Jews of the Second

These books have a very complex redaction history. The final collection of Aramaic tales in Daniel (2–7) are probably Hellenistic based on the interpretation that the fourth kingdom in Daniel 2 must be the Greek, but the Aramaic tales likely circulated independently or as a loose collection in the Persian period.

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Temple period were thinking about their deity and expressing their thoughts in names, titles, and epithets.

3.1 Along the Upper Nile region of Egypt, modern-day Aswan, not far from the headwaters of the Nile at Lake Nasser, a Jewish community established residence on the island of Elephantine known also as Yeb ( ‫)י‬. They left a record of manuscripts and artifacts that span roughly a century, from the early fifth to the fourth century BCE. They built a temple on Elephantine to worship the God of Israel. The temple was constructed sometime before the reign of Cambyses (ca. 529 BCE) and is referred to as ‫ י‬and ‫ א א‬in their documents. The divine name is found across four collections of sources, including the Ostraca and three archives, which are named after leading members of the community: Mibtahiah, Anani, and Jedaniah. But nowhere does the name occur with four letters as the Tetragrammaton. Instead, we find shorter spellings. These are independent, non-theophoric forms of the divine name: ‫ יה‬occurs 35 in the papyri; ‫ יהה‬occurs 5 in ostraca and 2 in the papyri; ‫יה‬ occurs once.

The Elephantine references come from Porten and Yardeni, Textbook of Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt: Volumes 1–4 (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1986–1999); TAD A ( Vol. 1, 1986); TAD B ( Vol. 2, 1989); TAD C ( Vol. 3, 1993); TAD D ( Vol. 4, 1999). The following example illustrates the reference system: TAD B3.4, 25 refers to volume B , archive 3 , document 4 , and line number 25. The reign of Cambyses is referred to in A4.6, 17; A4.7, 14; A4.9, 5. In particular, A4.9, 5 seems to suggest that the Elephantine temple was built before Cambyses. It may have stood at the same time as the First Temple in Jerusalem. On this assumption, Porten states that once the Jerusalem Temple was destroyed 586 BCE , the one at Elephantine was likely to have gained in stature. The Elephantine Jews were proud of the fact that their Temple was not harmed by Cambyses, although the Egyptian temples were overthrown.’ The effect on the Elephantine Temple of the reconstruction of the Jerusalem Temple is unknown, but it continued to exist until it was destroyed at the instigation of the Egyptians in the summer of 410 B.C.E. See Porten and Yardeni, TAD Vol. 1, 121–22.

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3.2 Altogether, there are about 57 ostraca from Elephantine. These provide a window into the everyday life of the community, including economic and legal activities. The ostraca are older than the papyri and date roughly to around 475–425 BCE. Table 1

Occurrence of the divine name in the ostraca

Divine Name/Title ‫י יהה‬ ‫יליהה‬ ‫ליהה ל נ ם‬ ‫ל יהה י א ל‬ ‫אנה ם אלהא‬

Reference D D D D D

. . . . .

Frequency

, – , , , , ,

D7.16, 3–4 recounts a standard procedure for delivering legumes and barley. The owner places a high premium on his product because he swears an oath to ensure they do not get lost along the way: Lest, if they get lost, by the life of YHH (‫) יליהה‬, if not yo ur life I shall take. The phrase ‫ יליהה‬is used again in line 7. The oath formula prefixed to the divine name suggests that the name itself was pronounced. This type of prefixed oath formula is also used with the Tetragrammaton in the sixth century BCE Lachish letters. D7.18, 2–3 contains a request to retrieve a tunic left near the temple. The divine name occurs in the construct phrase ‫ ( י יהה‬house of YHH ). D7.21, 3 preserves a request for a garment to be mended, which is prefaced with a salutation: I blessed you by YHH and Khnum (‫ליהה ל נ ם‬ ), now send me the garment . In these examples, the Jewish deity is invoked by name as a guarantor of material well-being. But this is not the exclusive domain of the deity. Other sources of divine power are invoked alongside the God of Israel, in this case, The papyri date from 420–395 BCE. Several Aramaic ostraca discovered at Elephantine come from other locations and date to the Ptolemaic period. There are at least six ostraca from Edfu (possibly seven), one from Kom el–A mar, one from Oxyrhynchus, and one from an unknown site (D8.13). See Porten and Yardeni, TAD Vol. 4, Introduction, VI. The document D.8 comes from an unknown site, so the identity of ‫ אלהא‬may be questioned. The occurrence of the name Judith, however, suggests that the Jewish deity is in view.

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Khnum. Elsewhere in the Elephantine papyri, the names of other deities are invoked in similar formulae.

3.3 The Mibtahiah papyri consist of 11 documents that record the family business of Mahseiah and his daughters Mibtahiah and Miptahiah. The records in this archive consist of betrothal contracts and property claims. The divine name occurs 5 in this archive. Table 2

Occurrence of the divine name in the Mibtahiah Archive

Divine Name/Title ‫יה אלהא‬ ‫יה‬ ‫א א י יהה אלה‬ ‫א א י יה אלהא‬

Reference B B B B

. . . .

Frequency

, , , , ,

B2.2, 4–6 refers to the litigation of Dargamana, who speaks in the first person about his temporary use or (disputed) ownership of land that belongs to Mahseiah. The document contains the date of the recorded dispute: January 2, 464 BCE. Dargamana files his complaint and then recounts the land boundaries, of which his own house is on the eastern side of the property. Throughout the document, Dargamana repeatedly mentions the oath sworn by Mahseiah:

For the implications of invoking multiple deities by the Elephantine Jews, see André Dupont-Sommer, Le syncretisme religieux des juifs d’Éléphantine d’après un ostracon araméen inédit, Revue d’Histoire des Religions 130 (1945): 17–28; Bezalel Porten, The Religion of the Jews of Elephantine in light of the Hermopolis Papyri, JNES 28 (1969): 121; ibid., Elephantine Papyri, in The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary (ed. David Noel Freedman; New York: Doubleday, 1990), 2:445–55; E. Stern, Religion in Palestine in the Assyrian and Persian Periods, in The Crisis of Israelite Religion: Transformation of Religious Tradition in Exilic and Post-Exilic Times (ed. Bob Becking and Marjo C. A. Korpel; Leiden: Brill, 1999), 245–55; ibid., The Religious Revolution in Persian-Period Judah, in Judah and the Judeans in the Persian Period (ed. Oded Lipschits and Manfred Oeming; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2006), 199–205. For example, the papyrus document A2.5, 1–2 reads, We have blessed you by Pta that he may show me your face in peace. This formula also occurs earlier in the Ostraca, see D1.1, 1–2 ( I blessed you by Pta ).

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You swore to me by YHW the God (‫ ) יה אלהא‬in Yeb the fortress and they imposed upon you for me the oath to swear by YHW ( ‫ )ל א יה‬on account of that land

In the end, Dargamana is pleased with the arrangement and waives any future suit against Mahseiah: You swore to me by YHW ( ‫ ) יה‬and satisfied my heart about that land , which shows the efficacy of swearing oaths. The Jewish deity is repeatedly invoked as surety for property claims in this land dispute. The use of the divine name in this record of daily life from Elephantine is similar to the economic and legal concerns recorded in the Ostraca. The Mibtahiah archive, however, frequently contains the title ‫ אלהא‬as a compound designation with the divine name ‫יה‬. This is typical of the Elephantine papyri overall, with the compound ‫ יה אלהא‬occurring 27 of the total 43 occurrences of the divine name ‫יה‬. But notably, the title ‫ אלהא‬is not specific to the Jewish deity. It is used with the proper names of other deities in both the ostraca and papyri, such as Khnub, erembethel, Pta , Isis, Hamilat, Shamash, Atumnebon, Anilat, and Osiris. This shows that the title ‫ אלהא‬is a common designation of divinity in the Aramaic milieu of Elephantine. B2.7, 14 is the record of a house grant from Mahseiah to his daughter Miptahiah. The property boundaries include reference to the Jewish temple: ‫יא לה א א י יהה אלה‬ . The divine name occurs here with the spelling YHH, another characteristic of the ostraca. In contrast, we never find the spelling YHW in the ostraca, which suggests that YHH is the earlier historical form. Both spellings, YHH and YHW, occur in the papyri and even in the same The compound ‫ יהה אלהא‬occurs once in the papyri, but not in the ostraca. See respectively A4.5, 3; B7.2, 7–8; C3.12, 27; D15.2, 1; D20.3, 2; D22.47, 4; D23.1, 11; D23.17, 1; D24.1, 4–5. The historical-linguistic development and pronunciation of these spellings have been debated, especially as they relate to the so-called original pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton. Nineteenth century positions are summarized by G. R. Driver, The Original Form of the Name Yahweh: Evidence and Conclusions, ZAW 46 (1928): 7; and Otto Eissfeldt, Neue Zeugnisse für die Aussprache des Tetragramms als Jahwe, ZAW 53 (1935): 59. William F. Albright regarded YHW as the jussive form of the verbal Yahweh; see Albright, The Names Israel’ and Judah’ with an Excurses on the Etymology of Todah and Torah, JBL 46 (1927): 175. Cf. Bauddisin, Kyrios als Gottesname, 2:193–202; Emil Kraeling argued that YHH was probably pronounced Yahô  the difference between YHW and YHH is simply due to accent: Yehô, but Yâh . We transcribe the name as Yahu in accordance with our tendency to accent it on the first syllable, see Kraeling, The Brooklyn Museum Aramaic Papyri: New Documents of the 5th century BCE from the Jewish Colony at Elephantine (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953), 85. He also writes, on the same page, that Dupont-Sommer thinks Yhh is a popular way of writing the name Yahweh and that it is perhaps more ancient than the writing Yhw, but that the latter recommended itself by the resemblance to Yhwh (the officially accepted form). Along similar lines, David N. Freedman suggested that yhw may be a slight archaism and that yhh was a more accurate indication of the pronunciation of the final ; see YHWH, TDOT 5:504–5. More recently, Bezalel Porten suggested that

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family documents; the scribes keeping the records are father and son. Nathan the son of Ananiah spells the divine name YHH (B2.7, 14), while Mauziah son of Nathan spells the divine name YHW (B2.10, 6, ‫)א א י יה אלהא‬. The spelling of the title ‫ אלה אלהא‬also varies. These scribes did not attach much significance to orthography.

3.4 The divine name occurs 17 in the Anani Archive. We also find here the frequent mention of Anani’s title, ‫ ( ל‬servitor ). Table 3

Occurrence of the divine name in the Anani Archive

Divine Name/Title

Reference

‫ליה‬ ‫י יהה אלהא‬ ‫ליה אלהא‬ ‫ליה‬ ‫י יה‬ ‫י יה אלהא‬

‫ל‬ ‫ל‬ ‫ל‬ ‫ל‬ ‫ל‬ ‫ל‬

‫יה אלהא‬ ‫א י יה אלהא‬ ‫א י יה‬

‫א‬ ‫א‬ ‫א‬

B B B B B B B B B B B

. . . . . . . . . . .

Frequency

, , , ;B . , ;B . , – , , , ;B . , ;B . , ; , – ;B . , ;B . , ; , , – , , –

B3.2, 2–3 records Anani’s payment to Mica of 5 shekels. The document begins: Mica son of A hio said to Anani son of Azar iah , a servitor to YHW in Yeb ( ‫יה ל ליה י‬ ) From this archive, we are given a clue into Anani’s role in the community as a servitor to YHW. The role of servitor should be distinguished from a priest because we find the term ‫ הניא‬in the Jedaniah archive. The phrase ‫ ל ליה‬occurs about 14 with considerable orthographic variation. For example, B3.3, 2 ( Document of Wifehood ) records the name YHH (‫ל י‬ The spelling YHH is probably an orthographic variation of YHW; cf. yr h for Jericho (1 Kings 16:34). See Porten, The Elephantine Papyri in English. Three Millennia of Cross-Cultural Continuity and Change (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 105 n. 5. The noun ‫ ל‬sometimes occurs in the determined state (e.g., ‫ ל נא‬in B3.11, 17).

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‫)יהה אלהא‬, while B3.4, 3 ( Sale of Abandoned Property ) uses the spelling YHW (‫ )ל ליה אלהא‬along with the preposition ‫ ל‬instead of ‫ י‬. Then, in line 25 of the same document, we find the divine name spelled ‫ יה‬in the phrase ‫ל ליה י‬. This archive shows three different spellings of the divine name at the hand of the same scribe. As with the examples from the Mibtahiah Archive, the Anani Archive shows little concern for orthographic standardization.

3.5 The Jedaniah Archive dates from 419 BCE to sometime after 407 BCE. The most well-known document, A4.7, is the request for aid in rebuilding the ‫י‬ ‫ ( יה‬House of YHW ) that was destroyed by the local Egyptians. Beyond a record of daily economic activity, this archive is unique because it describes particular events in the history of the community. It also contains a special assortment of divine names and epithets, particularly ‫יא‬ ‫ יה אלה‬and ‫יא‬ ‫א‬ ‫יה‬. These are noticeably absent from the documentary ostraca and papyri examined above. The following terms for God appear in this archive: Table 4

Occurrence of the divine name in the Jedaniah Archive

Divine Name/Title

Reference

‫הניא י יה אלהא‬ ‫יא‬ ‫אלה‬ ‫יא‬ ‫יה אלה‬ ‫יא‬ ‫א‬ ‫יה‬ ‫ד ה ליה א להא‬ ‫ל‬ ‫א א י יה אלהא‬ ‫א י יה אלהא‬

‫ד‬

A A A A A A A A

. . . . . . . .

Frequency

, , , ;A . , ;A . , ;A . , – , – ;A . , , , , ;A . , ;A . , ;A . , ; , , ;A . ,

A4.3, 1–5 ( Recommendation to Aid Benefactors ) offers a first-person description of a con ict and the subsequent imprisonment of the speaker. At the last There are also variations of the phrase referring to the Temple. In particular, note ‫א יה‬ ‫( אלהא‬B3.4, 9–10), ‫( א א י יה אלהא‬B3.5, 10), and ‫( א א י יה‬B3.12, 18–19). The Jedaniah Archive also contains important documents related to the Passover or Feast of Unleavened Bread (A4.1), Egyptian-Jewish relations (A4.2–3), and the imprisonment of Jewish leaders (A4.4). See Porten and Yardeni, TAD Vol. 1, 53.

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moment, ‫ אלה יא‬comes to the aid of the speaker by assisting two others in their rescue efforts. The compound ‫יה אלהא‬, which we encountered in the archives above, is coupled with the new use of ‫ ( אלה יא‬God of Heaven ): 1 To my lords Jedaniah, Uriah and the priests of YHW the God ( ‫הניא י יה‬ may you be in favor before 3 the God of Heaven (‫יא‬ ‫)אלה‬. And now, when Vidranga the garrison commander arrived at Abydos he imprisoned me because of 1 dyer’s stone which 4 they found stolen in the hand of the merchants. Finally, e a and or, servants of Anani, intervened with Vidranga 5 and ornufi, with the help of the God of Heaven (‫)אלה יא‬, until they rescued me. ‫)אלהא‬

This epithet ‫יא‬ ‫ אלה‬occurs an additional 5 in the Jedaniah Archive, but only once elsewhere, which points to a special relationship between this epithet and the contents of the Jedaniah Archive. A4.7, 2 uses the epithet in the address to the Judean governor: May the God of Heaven (‫ )אלה יא‬seek after the welfare of our lord i.e., Bagohi abundantly at all times. The following lines recount the events leading up to the destruction of the temple of YHW: In the month of Tammuz, year 14 of King Darius, when Arsames 5 had departed and gone to the king, the priests of Khnub the god who are in Yeb the fortress, in agreement with Vidranga who was Chief here, (said), 6 saying, Let them remove from there the Temple of YHW the God (‫ )א א י יה אלהא‬which is in Yeb the fortress.

In lines 14–15, Jedaniah argues that the Temple once held prominence. He refers to an earlier event in which Cambyses destroyed all other temples except the Jewish Temple at Elephantine: And they overthrew the temples of the gods of Egypt ( ‫י‬ ‫)אלהי‬, all (of them), but one did not damage anything in that Temple. And when this had been done, we with our wives and our children were wearing sackcloth and fasting and praying to YHW the Lord of Heaven (‫)ליה א יא‬.

Jedaniah seeks to demonstrate the legitimacy of the Jewish Temple by highlighting its previous protection under ‫א יא‬ ‫ ( יה‬YHW Lord of Heaven ). A3.6, 1, May the God of Heaven (‫יא‬ ‫ ) אל ה‬seek your welfare at all times The context of this letter is fragmentary, but it appears to be from one brother to another expressing sympathy. Jedaniah sent a letter to Bagohi (governor of Judah) on November 25, 407 BCE. A copy of this letter was also sent to Delaiah and Shelemiah (sons of Sanballat governor of Samaria), who were presumably the temple authorities of Mt. Gerizim. The epithet ‫יא‬ ‫ אלה‬is partially preserved in the second draft of A4.7 (i.e., A4.8 lines 2 and 27). A4.9, 3–4 provides a seventh occurrence in the ( Memorandum of what Bagohi and Delaiah said . ).

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This is the only use of Lord of Heaven in all of the Elephantine material. In lines 25–28, Jedaniah makes a final pitch for aid, obligating the Elephantine community to all who help rebuild the Elephantine Temple: And they i.e., Elephantine priests will offer the meal-offering and the incense, and the holocaust 26 on the altar of YHW the God (‫ )יה אלהא‬in your name and we shall pray for you at all times—we and our wives and our children and the Jews, 27 all who are here. If they do thus until that Temple be (re)built, you will have merit before YHW the God of 28 Heaven ( ‫ד ה יה ה ל דם יה‬ ‫יא‬ ‫ )אלה‬more than a person who offers him holocaust and sacrifices

In the context of this reciprocal arrangement, Jedaniah uses the epithet ‫יה‬ ‫יא‬ ‫אלה‬. He seems to associate this epithet with the bold claim that there will be ‫ ( ד ה‬merit, righteousness ) for the person who helps to rebuild the Temple, more than that achieved through sacrifices. Jedaniah notarizes the striking offer of ‫ ד ה‬by stating that it will be acquired before YHW the God of Heaven. A4.9 ( Memorandum ) is the reply of Bagohi and Delaiah, the governors of Judea and Samaria, to Jedaniah’s request for aid: }}‫ד‬ }}‫י‬

‫י הי דליה א‬ ‫י ל‬ ‫לם יה י ל‬ ‫לי‬ ‫דם א ם ל י ד א י אלה‬ ‫יא י י י א נה‬

Memorandum of what Bagohi and Delaiah said to me, saying: Memorandum: You may say in Egypt (ERASURE: bef ) before Arsames about the Altar-house of the God of (ERASURE: Heav ) Heaven which in Elephantine the fortress built 

In this , the governors Bagohi and Delaiah refer to the deity as ‫אלה יא‬ God of Heaven, which parallels the use of ‫יא‬ in Jedaniah’s letter. But one thing is missing—the divine name. Their return letter omits, possibly As we find below, ‫יא‬ ‫ א‬occurs in Daniel (5:23) and the Genesis Apocryphon (1Q20 7.7; 12.17; 22.16, 21). The title ‫ א‬is used 84 in the Elephantine texts, but usually not regarding the Jewish deity. For example, the combined title ‫ ( א ל‬lord of kings ) is used of Pharaoh (A1.6). Generally, the referent is a human lord or master. Most uses are found in forms of address with a pronominal suffix as in ‫ ( אי‬my lord ) or ‫ ( א‬our lord ). The relationship between the content of the Jedaniah letter and the frequent use of ‫יא‬ deserves more attention. Jedaniah may have sought common ground with the Judean community through the use of ‫ יא‬, or perhaps this epithet was the conventional way of referring to the God in the context of international diplomacy. These erasures pertain to the physical formatting of the memorandum.

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intentionally avoiding, the divine name ‫יה‬, in contrast to its frequent use in Jedaniah’s request (A4.7). The divine name is prominent in the letter from Elephantine to Yehud and Shomron, but not found in the response. It is difficult to know how intentional this omission was from the memorandum. There are no contextual clues to suggest if the memorandum represents the precise wording of Bagohi and Delaiah, other than the fact that the Elephantine scribe who recorded the memorandum had no probable reason for omitting the name because it is used freely throughout the archives. If the wording of the memorandum is accurate, the omission could re ect an early tradition of avoidance in Judea Samaria. The ostraca and papyri collections account for nearly all uses of the divine name at Elephantine. But beyond the collection above, there are four more sources from Elephantine that use the divine name—a private letter, an oath text, a collection account, and an unclassified papyrus fragment. These re ect, nonetheless, similar genres and themes encountered in the primary collections. Many texts in the ostraca, Mibtahiah, and Anani Archives use the divine name with reference to property boundaries, daily tasks, or in formulaic blessings, greetings, farewells, and curses. The Jedaniah Archive contains epithets that have a special correlation with important events in the community’s history. As mentioned above, ‫ אלה יא‬and ‫ א יא‬occur in the request for aid to rebuild the Elephantine Temple. Throughout the primary archives, moreover, the divine name occurs with various spellings: ‫יה‬, ‫יהה‬, and ‫יה‬, and because several of them come from the same scribe, their different orthographic features are not significant for the Elephantine community. These sources show the active written and spoken use of the divine name throughout the fifth century BCE, in Upper Egypt, as well as in their diplomatic efforts abroad.

3.6 The diverse collection of Aramaic-Egyptian prayers and psalms written on Papyrus Amherst 63 (P. Amh 63) originated also in Upper Egypt. Similar to the Elephantine material, this papyrus is thought to be the product of Aramean and Judean mercenaries who were stationed near Egypt’s southern border. It was written in the late fourth or early third century BCE and contains twentyone columns, 422 lines of text. Richard Steiner describes the papyrus as a poetic liturgy of the New Year’s festival of an Aramaic-speaking community in Upper Egypt, perhaps in Syene. He supposed that this community was deported See A3.3, 1; B7.1, 4; C3.15, 1, 126; D4.9, 1–2. He continues that i t seems to have been dictated by a priest of the community, possibly at the beginning of the third century BCE, to an Egyptian scribe trained in the fourth

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from Babylonia to Bethel by the Assyrians, where they picked up the worship of YHWH before migrating to Egypt. One of the most remarkable features of P. Amh 63 is the striking parallel between Column I and Psalm 20. Some parts of this column in P. Amh 63 contain nearly identical wording to Ps 20, but in the former, the Tetragrammaton does not occur. Instead, we find the typical three-letter Aramaic form of the divine name, syncretized with Horus as Horus-YHH : Table 5

Comparison of Column I and Psalm 20 in P. Amh 63

P. Amh 63 col. XI, 11–19

Ps 20:2–7 (MT)

May Horus answer us in our troubles May Adonai answer us in our troubles O crescent (lit. bow) Bowman in heaven, Sahar shine forth; send your emissary from the temple of Arash, and from Zephon may Horus help us. May Horus fulfill— may Adonai not fall short in satisfying— every request of our hearts. Some with the bow, some with the spear; But (lit., behold) as for us—Mar is our god; Horus-Yaho, our bull, is with us. May the lord of Bethel answer us on the morrow. May Baal of Heaven, Mar grant a blessing bless you; to your pious ones your blessings.

May YHWH answer you in time of trouble. May the name of the God of Jacob keep you out of harm’s reach. May he send you(r) help from the sanctuary and from Zion may he sustain you. May he accept the reminders of your meal offerings and accept the fatness of your burnt offerings. May he grant you your heart’s desire and may he fulfill your every plan May we shout for joy at your victory and in the name of our God raise our banners. May YHWH fulfill all your requests. Now I know that YHWH will give victory to his anointed 

century BCE. See Richard C. Steiner, The Aramaic Text in Demotic Script (1.99), in The Context of Scripture I: Canonical Compositions from the Biblical World (ed. William W. Hallo and K. Lawson Younger; Leiden: Brill, 1997), 310. See also Steiner and Nims, A Paganized Version of Ps 20:2–6 from the Aramaic Text in Demotic Script, JAOS 103 (1983): 261–274. Regarding all known papyri, they mention that the Genesis Apocryphon is a close second, in terms of length. Column II also contains words and themes reminiscent of Northern Israelite worship, especially the cult of Jeroboam at Bethel.

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Numerous features of this papyrus continue to be debated, including direction of in uence between column I and Ps 20, the singular versus plural pronouns, and especially the significance of the name theology of Ps 20 compared with the plethora of divine designations in P. Amh 63: Horus, Mar, El, El Bethel, Baal of Heaven, Adonai, and Horus-YHW. Important for the current study is the Aramaic divine name, which appears in apposition to Horus, the chief sky-king deity of the Egyptians. Horus and YHWH are paralleled in Ps 20:2, 5, 6, which was likely facilitated by their similar spheres of authority. The use of the divine name in P. Amh 63 is analogous to the Elephantine material in that other deities are mentioned alongside YHW, in similar expressions. In one instance from Elephantine, the name of the Jewish deity is combined with Anat: Anat-YHW. While these naming practices are similar, there are also important differences. For example, the community that produced P. Amh 63 does not explicitly identify themselves as yehudin, as do the authors of the Elephantine material. In summary, this document shows the See especially Karel van der Toorn, Psalm 20 and Amherst Papyrus 63, II, 11–19: A Case Study of a Text in Transit, in Le-maʿan Ziony, 244–61; Sven P. Vleeming and Jan–Wim Wesselius, Studies in Papyrus Amherst 63: Essays on the Aramaic texts in Aramaic/Demotic Papyrus Amherst 63 (Vol. I, II; Juda Plache Instituut: Amsterdam 1985, 1990); Jan Wim Wesselius, Aramäische Gebete 1. Gebete aus dem demotisch–aramäischen Papyrus Amherst 63, in Texte aus der Umwelt des Alten Testaments (ed. Otto Kaiser, et al.; TUAT; Bd. 2: Religiöse Texte; Gütersloher Verlagshaus Mohn, Gütersloh 1991), 930–935; Steiner, The Aramaic Text, 309–27. See David M. Carr, Formation of The Hebrew Bible: A New Reconstruction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 396: Pap Amherst may represent a de–royalized (and Aramaized) form of what was originally a Hebrew royal psalm. Yet not all aspects of Pap Amherst may be later than their counterparts in Psalm 20. Pap Amherst may preserve a form of the psalm before the name theology in Ps 20:2, 6, 8, and perhaps the petition about sacrifice (Ps 20:4) were added. For further discussion of Adonai see Steiner and Nims, A Paganized Version, 265; Fitzmyer, A Wandering Aramean (SBL Monograph Series 16, 1979), 135. Moreover, there is debate over whether the final w of Horus-YHW represents the divine determinative, which is an ancient scribal notation that occurs with a divine title or name, as with Horus in the present text, or if it represents the waw of the divine name itself. E.g., TAD D7.21, 3: I blessed you by YHH and Khnum (‫ליהה ל נ ם‬ ). TAD B7.3. See Karel van der Toorn, Anat–Yahu, Some Other Deities, and the Jews of Elephantine, Numen 39 (1992): 80–101. For further discussion of the polytheistic nature of P. Amh 63, see Nims and Steiner, A Paganized Version of Psa 20, 272: Were the Jews of Edfu as polytheistic or syncretistic in their beliefs as those of Patros had been in the Babylonian period (cf. Jer 44:15–29) and as those of Elephantine had been in the Persian period (cf. Dupont-Sommer, 1945; Kraeling, 1953:84–8; Porten, 1968:173–9)? Did they themselves replace the psalm’s references to the God of Israel with references to the Egyptian god Horus, possibly as the result of a syncretistic fusion of the two? Or was the substitution made after the prayer left their hands, by Aramean pagans who wished to adapt the prayer for use in the cult of Horus (cf. Tigay 1976:376–7)? These are questions for which we have no answer at the moment.

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continued use of the divine name, during the fourth or early third century BCE in Upper Egypt.

3.7 The House of YHW Ostracon is from a large collection of Aramaic ostraca from Makkedah Khirbet El–Qom, northern Idumea, just south of the postexilic borders of Yehud. This broken piece of pottery refers to two temples, a field, a marshland, and two tombs. One of the temples is listed as the house of YHW. Very little is known about these sites and their significance. When this ostracon was inscribed, the temples were in ruins. André Lemaire suggests that the ostracon provides a list of uncultivated areas, a type of cadastre for taxing or registry purposes. Lemaire translates the ostracon as follows: Table 6

Translation of the House of YHW Ostracon

The hill ruin that is below the house of Uzza and the strip rope of the house of YHW. the marshland of Zabi, the terrace of the terebinth tree, the wasted (field) of Sa’ad ru, the tomb of Gilgoul, (the) pool of the house of Nabu, the tomb of Yinqom.

‫א‬

‫לא י‬ ‫י לא י י יה‬ ‫ידא י נא‬ ‫דנ‬ ‫ל ל‬ ‫א‬ ‫יל‬ ‫ינ ם‬

The Idumean Ostraca comprise a diverse collection of over 2,000 ostraca from 30 different collections around the world. Most of these are now published in the four-volume series by Porten and Yardeni, Textbook of Aramaic Ostraca from Idumea, 1–4 (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2014–2020). Regarding provenance, André Lemaire notes that Makkedah appears at least 25 times in these ostraca, and the identification of Khirbet el–Kom with Makkedah is generally accepted today (Dorsey 1980; de Vos 2003: 402–3,406,411–14). See Lemaire, New Aramaic Ostraca from Idumea and Their Historical Interpretation, in Judah and the Judeans in the Persian period, 414; ibid., Nouvelles inscriptions araméennes d’Idumée, Tome II (Transeuphratène Supplement 9. Paris, 2002), pl. LVIII n. 283. Lemaire, Nouveau Temple de Yaho (IV S. AV. J.-C.), 270. He also writes that t he great number of Aramaic ostraca and their dating scheme make clearer and clearer that they are somehow connected with Achaemenid administration. Most of the ostraca probably record taxes in kind (barley, wheat, oil, and so on), and it is no surprise that quantities of barley, wheat, and oil were, at the time of the harvesting of each crop, entering the storerooms of Makkedah. See Lemaire, New Aramaic Ostraca, 414. Lemaire, Nouvelles, 149–50; ibid., New Aramaic Ostraca, 413–56. See Lemaire for notes on the translation equivalencies. An image of the ostracon (without commentary) is found in Porten and Yardeni, TAOI, H1.1; ISAP 1283 JA107 .

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The ‫ ( י לא‬strip rope ) of the house of YHW may refer to the ruins of the temple or one of the property lines. Either way, scholars have taken the reference as evidence for the worship of the Jewish deity in Idumea during the Achaemenid period. The parallel reference to the deity ‫ א‬shows that the term ‫ י‬is intended in the technical cultic sense of temple. Lemaire notes that here we have evidence for the Temple of the Arabic deity Uzza, well known in Lihyanite, Thamudic, and Nabatean inscriptions, and the Temple of Yaho, also known during this period at Elephantine, Jerusalem, and Mount Gerizim. The closest analogy for the use of the divine name in the Idumean Ostracon is also the Elephantine material, where the temple of YHW coexisted with other temples on the island. Given the long history of ethnic diversity in this region, the Idumean YHW worshippers were likely syncretistic in their devotion, which would parallel the Iron Age epigraphic record, in particular the reference to YHWH and his Asherah from Khirbet El-Qom. The House of YHW Ostracon, in summary, demonstrates common knowledge of the divine name at least among the scribal administrative levels in this region during the fourth century BCE.

3.8 The British Museum Drachm (BM Drachm) is addressed here because recent arguments favor the interpretation of the coin’s inscription not as YHD of the Yehud collections, but rather YHW, advocated most recently by Michael Shenkar. In another assessment, Haim Gitler and Oren Tal prefer YHW but Lemaire, Nouvelles, 40. Lemaire notes that t he coexistence of these temples  is also evidence of the mixed ethnicities and religions characteristic of the Idumean province during the fourth century BCE. B2.7, 13–15: below it is the Temple of YHH (the) God  west of it is the house of arwodj son of Pal u, priest of the god. William G. Dever, Iron Age Epigraphic Material from the Area of Khirbet el-Qom, HUCA 40 41 (1969–70): 158–69, 200–01, Pls. VI:13; S. Mittman, Die Grabinschrift der Sängers Urijahw, ZDPV 97 (1981): 139–52; Lemaire, Les inscriptions de Khirbet el-Qom et l’Asherah de YHWH, RB 84 (1977): 595–608; P. Kyle McCarter, Pieces of Puzzle, BAR 22 2 (1996): 42; Meindert Djikstra, I Have Blessed you by YHWH of Samaria and his Asherah: Texts with Religious Elements from the Soil Archive of Ancient Israel, in Only One God? Monotheism in Ancient Israel and the Veneration of the Goddess Asherah (ed. Bob Becking; London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 32–4. Michael Shenkar, The Coin of the God on the Winged Wheel’, BOREAS–Münstersche Beiträge zur Archäologie 30 31 (2007 2008): 13–23. For original publication, see T. Combe,

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leave the question open. Mildenberg and Meshorer date the coin between 380–360 BCE. The coin pictures a bearded deity, seated on a winged wheel, the identity of whom is much debated. The long tradition of aniconism in Israelite religion and early Judaism rules out, for many scholars, the likelihood that the bearded figure represents the God of Israel. God never receives iconographic or sculptural depiction in Jewish tradition. On the reverse of the coin, two letters appear to the right of the head; the third is behind the head, above the wings.

Veterum populorum et regum numiqui in Museo Britannico adservantur (1814), 242, no. 5. pl. xiii 12. They argue for relocating the minting of the coin to Philistia, contra Sukenik and Mildenberg who argued for Judea. See H. Gitler and O. Tal, The Coinage of Philistia of the Fifth and Fourth Centuries BC. A Study of the Earliest Coins of Palestine (New York: Amphora Books, 2006), 230. Mildenberg, Yehud, 184–85; For an overview of the consensus reading as YHD, see Ya akov Meshorer, ‫א‬ ‫ד ד‬ ‫היה דים י י ל‬ ‫ א‬/ Treasury of Jewish Coins: From the Persian Period to the Bar Kochba Revolt (trans. Robert Amoils; Jerusalem: Yad ben–Zvi, 2001), 1–6. As a result of the complexities of this coin, he notes that the interest in this exceptional coin has exceeded the bounds of numismatic research, and scholars from various fields, such as historians and theologians, have discussed it more extensively and rigorously than any other Jewish coin before it. For a list of proposals for the figure depicted on the coin, see Shenkar, The Coin, 15–17; T. Ornan, A Complex System of Religious Symbols: The Case of the Winged–disc in First– Millennium Near Eastern Imagery, in Crafts and Images in Contact: Studies on Eastern Mediterranean Art of the First Millennium BCE (ed. C. E. Suter; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2005), 212; Diana V. Edelman, Tracking Observance of the Aniconic Tradition through Numismatics, in The Triumph of Elohim: From Yahwisms to Judaisms (ed. Diana V. Edelman; Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1995), 190–94; and E. Blum, Der Schiqquz schomem’ und die Jehud Drachme BMC Palestine S. 181, Nr 29, Biblische Notizen 90 (1997): 13–27. L. Mildenberg suggested that the figure is not the Jewish God but a composite creature, a highly syncretistic image formed from most heterogeneous elements  not a specific god, but a general conception of deity comprehensible to many people in the western part of the Persian Empire. See Mildenberg, Yehud: A Preliminary Study of the Provincial Coinage of Judea, in Greek Numismatics and Archaeology: Essays in Honor of Margaret Thompson (ed. O. Mørkholm and N. M. Waggoner; Wetteren: NR, 1979), 183–96. In addition to the bearded deity, there is a smaller, even more puzzling depiction of a masked face on the coin. The grotesque bearded face mask in the lower right corner is probably the most enigmatic detail of the composition. Scholars have argued that it could be an image of the Egyptian god Bes, of Penuel, The Face of God’, or of Silenus. However, there is as yet no satisfactory and acceptable identification. See Shenkar, The Coin, 21. Http: www.bmimages.com results.asp?image 00275252001 (accessed Nov 13, 2021). See British Museum website for the description of the coin. Note that under Inscription Content they give the transcription ‫ ( יה‬YHW ) but transliterate YHD. This discrepancy may be an accidental graphical error.

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The earliest consensus on the reading of this inscription was established by G. F. Hill, who already proposed YHW in 1914. But Sukenik turned the tide in 1934 by arguing that the coin instead read YHD, making it the earliest known Yehud coin. Most scholars agree that the first two letters are yod and heh, but the third is contested, either waw or dalet. Comparative examples are helpful to illustrate the complexity of reading the third letter. Two Yehud coins, Meshorer 15 and 29, are approximately from the same period. The paleo-Hebrew script on these coins is more square-like than the script of the BM Drachm. The dalet, in particular, almost resembles the number seven. The third letter of the BM Drachm, in contrast, looks nothing like the paleo-Hebrew dalet of the Yehud coins, but rather resembles the number four, with a subtle u shaped top, not the horizontal bar typical of the YHD coins. Numerous examples of the paleo-Hebrew yod in other inscriptions and epigraphic sources share this u shape that appears on the BM Drachm. Despite this notable break from standard YHD coins of this period, scholars have explained the divergence in various ways. Frank M. Cross, for example, describes the third letter as following the archaic Aramaic lapidary script, suggesting it shares features with scripts from documents of the fifth century BCE. The analysis of Gitler and Tal marks a partial return to Hill’s original position. Scholars have been hesitant to accept the reading YHW in part because of the standard assumption that the coin is thoroughly Jewish. Shenkar reassesses arguments on both sides and suggests that the drachm by weight, chemical composition and iconography, is much closer to Samarian coinage than to any other  and further suggests that the deity seated on the winged wheel may be Samarian Yahweh. Shenkar concludes with this re ection: The riddles of this unique coin could be ultimately solved only by the inscription. If the reading YHD’ is accepted, the BM drachm would be a unique image of the God of Israel, and, despite its obvious divergence from the known YHD’ coinage, was minted in Jerusalem or Philistia (Gaza) for Judea. But if the inscription

See Hill, Catalogue of the Greek Coins of Palestine in the British Museum (1914) xxxvi– lxxxvii, 189 n. 29; E. L. Sukenik, Paralipomena Palaestinensia I: The Oldest Coins of Judea, Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society 14 (1934): 178–182, pl. I–II. Sukenik was followed by P. Vincent, Les épigraphes judéo–araméennes postexiliques, RB 56 (1949): 280; and M. Delcor, Des diverses Manières, 167. See Meshorer, Treasury of Jewish Coins, inv. 15 and 29. Cross, Seals from Judah, Eretz Israel 9 (1969): 23. Shenkar, The Coin, 22.

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reads YHW’, an attribution to the Samarian mint is plausible. In that case, it is an equally unique attempt to depict a Samarian Yahweh.

The interpretation of the inscription certainly has implications for the identity of the bearded figure. If YHW is accepted, however, this would not necessarily make an identification with Samarian Yahweh more plausible. In other words, YHD would limit the interpretation of the bearded figure, but YHW could equally depict a Samarian or Judean Yahweh, although the latter would be at odds with iconographic tradition. In summary, Hill, Gitler, Tal, and Shenkar consider this coin more likely to contain the divine name YHW than the reading YHD. Based on the comparison of the paleographic features of the BM Drachm with contemporary YHD coins, I am inclined to agree with the reading YHW. If this is correct, it would offer numismatic evidence for the use of the divine name, either in Judea or Samaria, from the Persian period. While we do not know on what scale this coin was produced, the administrative and industrial infrastructure required for coin production would seem to presuppose general knowledge and acceptance of written and spoken uses of the divine name.

3.9 Each Aramaic source addressed so far explicitly refers to the God of Israel, but the diversity of socio-religious background behind these sources is important. The community of the Elephantine material, for example, refer to themselves as both Jews and Arameans, and they invoke other deities in addition Ibid., 22. One statement in Shenkar’s article needs correction. In fn. 83, he mentions that an ostracon with the inscription YHW’ in New Jewish script was discovered during the excavation of Mount Gerizim. He refers specifically to no. 383. Shenkar mentions this inscription as decisive evidence for his proposal that the BM coin derives from Samaria by claiming that the spelling on the drachm is identical to the spelling of the divine name at Mt. Gerizim. His statement, however, is misleading. Inscription no. 383 does not read YHW, but contains the Tetragrammaton (YHWH) in paleo-Hebrew. For further discussion, see no. 383 below. We have no idea how many coins of this type may have been minted, but the iconography on the coin may help to situate it historically. A depiction of the deity would have been atypical for the aniconic beliefs that develop in Judea from the second century BCE onwards. The lack of anthropomorphic imagery on Hasmonean coins is a good example. Note the use of an anchor and a lily on a coin of Alexander Janneus, but no deities, humans, or animals. See Meshorer, Treasury of Jewish Coins, 37.

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to the God of Israel. The situation of P. Amh 63 is more complex, with the current form of the papyrus pointing towards liturgical use among non-Jews who invoked a range of deities, including Horus-YHW. The Idumean ostracon is a documentary text that mentions the Temple of YHW but also refers to the adjacent temples of other deities. And lastly, the BM Drachm may contain a highly syncretistic representation of the deity along with the inscription YHW, the provenance of which could be either Philistia, Samaria, or Judea. Collectively, this material shows the prevalent use of the Aramaic divine name in both speaking and writing from the Persian to Hellenistic period.

See TAD B2 1:2; van der Toorn, Anat-Yahu, 80–101; Bob Becking, Die Gottheiten der Juden in Elephantine, in Der eine Gott und die Götter: Polytheismus und Monotheismus im antiken Israel (ed. M. Oeming and K. Schmid; AThANT 82; Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, 2003), 203–26; Dupont-Sommer, Le syncretisme religieux des juifs d’Éléphantine, 23. For discussion of the depiction of the deity as Zeus, see Edelman, Tracking Observance of the Aniconic Tradition through Numismatics, 190–4.

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Mount Gerizim, Ezra, and Daniel The Aramaic evidence we consider next stands apart from the sources above in three ways. The divine name is consistently avoided in the Aramaic inscriptions from Mt. Gerizim and in the Aramaic literary narratives of Ezra and Daniel. These sources are bilingual in that they contain a mix of both Aramaic and Hebrew inscriptions or literary passages. In the Hebrew texts, furthermore, the authors use the Tetragrammaton, but not in the Aramaic material. These sources, lastly, share the belief that the God of Israel alone is powerful. Other deities are not acknowledged or invoked alongside the Jewish deity. Although the Mt. Gerizim inscriptions are more laconic, they do not mention other deities, such as we find in the Elephantine material, P. Amh 63, and the Idumean Ostracon.

4.1

Mount Gerizim Inscriptions

Excavations over the last couple of decades on Mt. Gerizim, modern Nablus, have unearthed about 390 dedicatory and votive inscriptions that commemorate offerings to the Samarian Temple that existed during the Persian and Hellenistic periods. The Temple was destroyed by the Hasmonean king John Hyrcanus around 112–111 BCE. The inscriptions date roughly between 200–168 BCE. While most are in Aramaic, nine are in Hebrew. Two of the Hebrew Jan Dušek dates the majority between the 5th and 6th Syrian war (i.e., ca. 200–168 BCE); See, Dušek, Aramaic and Hebrew Inscriptions from Mt. Gerizim and Samaria between Antiochus III the Great and Antiochus IV Epiphanes (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 59. He suggests that the Aramaic inscriptions were probably carved under the rule of Antiochus III, in the context of the rebuilding of the sacred precinct. Similarly, in the editio princeps, Magen and others date most of the inscriptions to the Hellenistic period (late 3rd early 2nd century BCE); Y. Magen, H. Misgav, L. Tsfania, Mount Gerizim Excavations Volume 1: The Aramaic, Hebrew, and Samaritan Inscriptions (Judea and Samaria Publications 2; Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authorities, 2004), 41. They also note that some may belong to the earliest period of the sacred precinct (fifth–fourth centuries BCE), 14. Moreover, the inscriptions were found inside the city’s Hellenistic period sacred precinct. Only one inscription was discovered in situ due to the multiple destructions of the city and sanctuary, first by John Hyrcanus and again by Zenon in 484 CE. Magen, Misgav, Tsfania, Mount Gerizim. Greek and Samaritan inscriptions have also been found, but these generally date to later periods. See Magen, et al., The Samaritan Script,

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inscriptions are written in the square-Aramaic script, while seven are in the paleo-Hebrew script. The content of the two square inscriptions overlaps with the Aramaic inscriptions, which mostly comprise dedications. The paleoHebrew inscriptions, however, contain distinctive priestly terminology. The Aramaic inscriptions use the title ‫אלהא‬, often in the formulaic expression: before the God in this place (‫) ד אלהא א א דנה‬. The Hebrew inscriptions, on the other hand, contain ‫אדני‬, ‫אלהים‬, and the Tetragrammaton. The Tetragrammaton occurs twice: once in a paleo-Hebrew inscription, and once on a silver ring in the square-Aramaic script, found at the site. Table 7

Occurrence of the divine name in the Mt. Gerizim Temple inscriptions

Divine Name/Title ‫א‬

‫ד אלהא א‬ ‫דנה‬

‫ד‬

‫דאלה א‬ ‫אלהא‬ ‫י דם אל הא‬ ‫ל ני א דני‬ ‫ד אד ני‬ ‫יה ה ל‬

Reference , , ,

, ,

, ,

Language

Script

Aramaic

Cursive

Aramaic Aramaic Aramaic Hebrew Hebrew(?) Hebrew

Cursive Monumental Monumental Cursive Cursive paleo-Hebrew

Frequency

in Mount Gerizim Inscriptions catalog nos. 395–396 ; Esther and Hanan Eshel, Dating the Samaritan Pentateuch’s Compilation in Light of the Qumran Biblical Scrolls, in Emanuel: Studies in the Hebrew Bible, Septuagint, and Dead Sea Scrolls in Honor of Emanuel Tov (ed. Shalom M. Paul, et al.; Leiden: Brill, 2003), 222–227; Ingrid Hjelm, Mt. Gerizim and Samaritans in Recent Research, in Samaritans: Past and Present (ed. Menachem Mor and Friedrich V. Reiterer; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010), 25–44. Magen reconstructs no. 387 as follows: ‫ם ה ה‬ ‫ל ני ה אלה ים‬ ‫ ל‬. The use of ‫ אלהים‬is probably accurate because this is a paleo-Hebrew inscription. Scholars differ in how they refer to the scripts used at Mt. Gerizim. The current study follows the terms used by Jan Dušek. In the edition princeps, Magen uses Neo-Hebrew instead of the more common term paleo-Hebrew. He also distinguishes between two Aramaic scripts: lapidary’ and proto-Jewish’ (Magen, 36–40). Dušek finds these inappropriate as (1) all of these inscriptions are lapidary by definition (i.e., carved in stone) and (2) proto-Jewish is unsuitable for inscriptions that come from Samaria (i.e., not associated with Judea). Regarding the latter, he writes, From a paleographic point of view, this style of Aramaic script is a direct descendant of the official Aramaic cursive used in the Persian period, and we will call it simply cursive script’ which was in use in the southern Levant in the Hellenistic period (5). Thus, for the two types of Aramaic scripts ( lapidary and proto–Jewish ), he proposes the alternatives monumental and cursive script respectively.

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Occurrence of the divine name in the Mt. Gerizim Temple inscriptions (cont.)

Divine Name/Title

Reference

‫יה ה א ד‬ ‫אלה‬

Language

Script

Hebrew Hebrew

Cursive paleo-Hebrew

Frequency

No. 147 is the best-preserved example of an Aramaic inscription: ‫א דנה‬

‫ד אלהא א‬

‫ל נ הי א נא דה ל ד נ‬

‫ל הי‬

‫דליה‬

‫די ה‬

Dalayah son of Shim on offered this stone for himself and his sons for good remembrance before God in this place.

Magen notes a parallel between the phrase ‫ ד אלהא‬and the biblical ‫ל ני יה ה‬ ( before YHWH ). He observes that in the Bible ‫ ל ני יה ה‬signifies the physical location where sacrifices were brought, such as before the Ark of the Covenant or the altar in the Temple (e.g., Lev 4:4). Because the Aramaic dedicatory inscriptions are from the Mt. Gerizim Temple, Magen suggests that ‫ד אלהא‬ is a technical phrase that replicates the semantic idea of ‫ ל ני יה ה‬and should therefore be taken as an Aramaic translation of the biblical phrase. For Magen, this makes ‫ אלהא‬an intentional replacement of ‫ יה ה‬at the hand of the priest or scribe. While we have no direct insight into the motivation for using ‫אלהא‬ instead of a form of the divine name, we know that the choice was made consistently from the comparative evidence of the entire collection of inscriptions. We find a clear distinction between Aramaic and Hebrew divine name practices. Magen, et al., Gerizim II, 19. The prepositional phrase ‫ ד אלהא‬appears to have a locative meaning, referring to the actual location of the offering at the Mt. Gerizim Temple, rather than a figurative meaning, such as before the presence of the deity. For the possible figurative meaning of the preposition ‫ ל ני דם‬used in a deferential sense, see Jan Joosten, L’araméen de Qumran entre l’araméen d’empire et les Targumim: L’emploi de la préposition devant’ pour exprimer le respect dû au roi et à Dieu, in Aramaica Qumranica: Proceedings of the Conference on the Aramaic Texts from Qumran in Aix–en–Provence, 30 June–2 July 2008 (ed. by K. Berthelot, D. Stökl Ben Ezra; STDJ 94; Leiden: Brill, 2010), 84–85: La préposition ‫ דם‬re ète un style particulier qui vise à créer une distance entre les actions humaines et le roi Ce trait stylistique n’est probablement pas l’invention des auteurs bibliques. Comme l’a reconnu Sebastian Brock, des tournures analogues se rencontrent dans l’araméen d’empire. The biblical phrase ‫ל ני יה ה‬, by the late Second Temple period, may have been read in light of the deferential langage de la cour related to the use of the Aramaic preposition ‫ דם‬, as found in the Official Aramaic of Ezra and Daniel.

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Even though this distinction is consistent, there is no one-for-one equivalency between the terms for God in Aramaic and Hebrew, nor is it always clear the direction of in uence from one language to the other. In No. 147 above, Magen spoke of an Aramaic translation, but in No. 150 below he seems to assume that the Hebrew inscriber followed an Aramaic template. The inscription contains, for example, the phrase ‫ד‬ ‫ ל ני א דני‬. This mirrors the Aramaic expression ‫ ד אלהא א א דנה‬. But Magen understands the Aramaic inscription to have chronological priority, suggesting that the Hebrew writer preferred replacing the general concepts with explicit names: ‫ אדני‬the Lord’ instead of ‫ אלהא‬God,’ and ‫ד‬ in the temple’ instead of ‫ א א דנה‬in this place.’ In both examples, No. 147 and 150, the situation is similar: different divine name practices according to different languages without a clear indication of the motivations for the different terms for God and the Temple site. What the regular inscriptions from Mt. Gerizim share, however, is the avoidance of both the Tetragrammaton and its short Aramaic form. The square script Hebrew inscriptions use ‫אדני‬, while the Aramaic inscriptions prefer ‫אלהא‬. No. 151 contains the phrase ‫ד אד ני‬ . This inscription is peculiar because it has features of both Aramaic and Hebrew formulae. The use of ‫אדני‬, if the partial reconstruction is accurate, would make this a Hebrew inscription. But the preposition ‫ ד‬is featured only in the Aramaic inscriptions. While ancient literary and epigraphic Hebrew sources use ‫ל ני‬, there are no inscriptions from Mt. Gerizim where this preposition is preserved, so a comparison in this regard is not possible. Magen considered no. 151 to be a Hebrew inscription with a mixed formula because i n none of the Mt. Gerizim inscriptions, and, in fact, in none of any of the known Jewish inscriptions from any site, does the epithet ‫ אדני‬appear in an Aramaic text. This is not entirely true because, as we observed above, Adonai is found in P. Amh 63 I and II. The script is demotic, but the language of the text is Aramaic. The question of language aside, this inscription breaks the mold by apparently mixing elements. It may be simple enough to consider it a bilingual inscription, but the fact remains that the author uses ‫ אדני‬for the Jewish deity, which demonstrates a preference for the former and not the Tetragrammaton.

See Magen, et al., Gerizim II, 30. One could argue that P. Amh 63 is not Jewish, but the cluster of uses of Adonai seem to re ect at least an earlier Israelite source behind the present form of columns I and II.

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No. 383 is a paleo-Hebrew inscription from Mt. Gerizim, and while the evidence is somewhat sparse, scholars agree that it contains the Tetragrammaton. This is the sole occurrence of the Tetragrammaton among the inscriptions: h HWH l

‫ה‬ ‫יה ה ל‬

There is also agreement that the paleo-Hebrew inscriptions are distinctly priestly. Magen, Gudme, and Dušek discuss the occurrence of priestly terms, such as ‫ הנים‬and ‫ ינ‬. Magen summarizes: In inscriptions using Aramaic scripts, God is referred to as ‫ אלהא‬the God,’ but in inscriptions whose language is Hebrew, the terminology ‫ אדני‬the Lord’, is employed (nos. 150–151). The discussion of the latter inscriptions indicates a seeming hierarchical usage of different names of God. The priests used the Hebrew language and script and were the only ones to use the Tetragrammaton, a practice that had fallen into disuse among the other strata of society.

Remarkably, distinct practices correspond to linguistic features in this hierarchical relationship. The evidence, nonetheless, is somewhat fragmentary. As it relates to the Tetragrammaton, for example, the idea that only priests could write the divine name is based solely on its occurrence in No. 383. Furthermore, there is one additional occurrence of the divine name from Mt. Gerizim, although not an inscription, that deserves attention. No. 391 was classified as a Special Find by Magen; it is a silver ring that appears to contain the phrase ‫ ( יה ה א ד‬YHWH is one ) in the third line. The two additional lines of text, above and below the pillar-like image, have not been deciphered. Magen considers the script of the Tetragrammaton to postdate the other inscriptions from the site. Besides this basic information, very little is known about this silver ring with the Shema. See the image from Magen, Mount Gerizim Inscriptions, no. 383. For comparative purposes, the waw of the Tetragrammaton here shows much closer resemblance to the third letter in the BM Drachm, with the small u shaped top of the waw, in contrast to the horizontal crossbar of the dalet in other YHD coins from the fourth century BCE. See drawing from Magen, et al., 2004, 254; Naveh and Magen 1997; Magen, Tsfania, Misgav, 2000, 125–132. See also Dušek, Mt. Gerizim, 55. See Anne Gudme, Before the God in this Place for Good Remembrance: A Comparative Analysis of the Aramaic Votive Inscriptions from Mount Gerizim (BZAW 441; Boston: de Gruyter, 2013). Magen, et al., 2004: no. 383. See Magen, et al., 2004: no. 391. He entertains the possibility that t he other marks on the ring are perhaps not real letters at all, but only the letter-like signs that appear on

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The names for God at Mt. Gerizim appear to follow Aramaic and Hebrew patterns, both of which avoid using the Tetragrammaton, except for the priestly paleo-Hebrew inscription. An additional complexity involves the use of the paleo-Hebrew script in the priestly inscriptions. Magen emphasizes the priestly context for using the Tetragrammaton and the differentiation between ‫ אדני‬among the general Jewish population and the Tetragrammaton among the priests: If the Hebrew characters were indeed in use only by priests, then it may be concluded that during that period priests wrote God’s explicit name, while the average Israelite using the Jewish script, even when he wrote in the Hebrew language, would refer to God only by the appellation Lord.’ If so, then this inscription is the earliest extant testimony to the use of the appellation Lord instead of the explicit YHWH name.

This option remains a viable explanation for the data that we have, but it should be qualified by the overall picture of the Mt. Gerizim collection. Over a thousand inscriptions once existed at Mt. Gerizim and we have only a collection of 391 fragments, among which we find evidence of mixed scripts and formulae. If diversity exists on this limited scale, then scholars may have overstated the priestly setting of the paleo-Hebrew inscriptions and the hierarchy of divine name customs. The evidence from Mt. Gerizim, at any rate, shows yet another example of Aramaic divine name avoidance, juxtaposed to its varied use in Hebrew.

4.2

Ezra

In the closing pages of the Hebrew Bible, we encounter the books of Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles. These books come from the early Persian period and look very positively on King Cyrus and the Persians. Ezra, in particular, contains five Aramaic letters (Ezra 4:8–6:18 and 7:12–26) that purport to be authentic correspondences between the Jews and the Persians over the administration of Judea Samaria during the mid-fifth century BCE. These letters, Samaritan amulets. There is also no consensus regarding the depiction on the ring or its proper direction. Magen suggests that it might depict a facade with a pediment on top of some stairs or a monolithic base(?), Magen, Gerizim, 260–261. Magen, Gerizim, 150. Ibid., intro. For a discussion of the sources, composition, and dating of Ezra, see Hugh G. M. Williamson, Ezra-Nehemiah (Word Biblical Commentary Series; Waco: Word Books,

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along with some Aramaic narration, now appear in the book of Ezra within a broader Hebrew literary framework that tells the story of the Babylonian exiles returning to Jerusalem. The God of Israel plays a key role in the return of the exiles, especially in stirring the spirit of King Cyrus to fully sponsor the return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple. Thematic and narrative continuity exists between the Hebrew and Aramaic passages in Ezra and God is present in all parts of the book. Nonetheless, we find a striking contrast in the terms for God when comparing the Aramaic and Hebrew divine designations. Perhaps most obvious, the Tetragrammaton is frequent in the Hebrew of Ezra but avoided in the Aramaic passages, even when its use would seem natural. The divine name was known and used among Aramaic writers and officials, as clear from the Elephantine ostraca papyri, P. Amh 63, and the Idumean Ostracon, which makes the avoidance of the divine name in the Aramaic of Ezra all the more peculiar. The following Aramaic designations are found in Ezra: Table 8

Aramaic designations of the divine name in the book of Ezra-Nehemiah

Divine Name/Title ‫י אלהא‬ ‫יא א א‬ ‫אלה‬

Chapter

Frequency

, ( ), ( ),

1985), 16:xxiii–xxxvii. For studies on the authenticity of the Aramaic letters see Philip S. Alexander, Remarks on Aramaic Epistolography in the Persian Period, JSS 23 (1978): 155–70; J. D. Whitehead, Some Distinctive Features of the Language of the Aramaic Arsames Correspondence, JNES 37 (1978): 119–40; P. E. Dion, Les Types épistolaires hébréo-araméens jusqu’au temps de Bar-Kokhbah, RB 96 (1979): 544–79; Fitzmyer, Aramaic Epistolography, in A Wandering Aramean: Collected Aramaic Essays (SBLMS 25; Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1979), 183–204; Steiner, Bishlam’s Archival Search Report in Nehemiah’s Archive: Multiple Introductions and Reverse Chronological Order as Clues to the Origin of the Aramaic Letters in Ezra 4–6, JBL 125 (2006): 641–85; and Tamara Cohn Eskenazi, In An Age of Prose: A Literary Approach to Ezra-Nehemiah (SBL Monograph Series 36; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988), 55. The final form of Ezra shares a close literary relation to Nehemiah. At a very early time, these books were considered one and read as Ezra-Nehemiah. On the original form of Ezra-Nehemiah, see recently Lisbeth S. Fried, Ezra. A Commentary (Sheffield: Phoenix Press, 2015), 3: Although the final product must be read as one book (pace VanderKam 1992; Kraemer 1993; Becking 1998), it includes the work of several independent authors and editors, whose writings have now been completely intertwined. In this study, I discuss Ezra apart from Nehemiah simply from a historical-critical perspective, and because Nehemiah does not use Aramaic. It is difficult, furthermore, to discern when Ezra and Nehemiah were read as one book. Some ancient sources refer to one, but not the other. For example, Sir 49:12–13 and 2 Macc 1:18, 20–36 mention Nehemiah, but not Ezra.

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Aramaic designations of the divine name in the book of Ezra-Nehemiah (cont.)

Divine Name/Title

Chapter

‫אלה י אל‬ ‫יא‬ ‫אלה‬ ‫אלהא‬ ‫אלהא א‬ ‫אלההם‬ ‫אלה‬ ‫אלה ם‬

Frequency

, , , ( ), ( ) , ( ) ,

With notable consistency, every Aramaic designation contains the title ‫אלה‬, even when compounded with other epithets. The Aramaic designations are also generally equivalent to the Hebrew designations, except concerning the Tetragrammaton. The second most frequent Aramaic designation is ‫אלה יא‬ God of Heaven, also prominent in the letters from the Jedaniah archive, especially in the request for aid to rebuild the house of YHW. Ezra and Jedaniah are roughly contemporary and their writings are intended as letters for audiences abroad. The designation ‫ אלהא א‬the Great God (Ezra 5:8) is another notable epithet, occurring in the Elephantine papyri, although also with reference to Pta , Shamash, and Osiris. We find this epithet also in the book of Daniel and some of the Qumran Aramaic Scrolls. Given the consistent use of the title ‫ אלה‬in the Aramaic of Ezra, the occurrence of ‫ אלהים‬some 55 in the Hebrew passages is not surprising. The Tetragrammaton, however, occurs 37 without parallel in the Aramaic parts of Ezra. The following are the Hebrew designations found in Ezra: Table 9

Hebrew designations of the divine name in the book of Ezra-Nehemiah

Divine Name/Title ‫יה ה אלהי ה ים‬ ‫יה ה אלהי י אל‬ ‫י יה ה‬

Chapter

Frequency

, ( ), , , ( ), , ( ), ,

TAD C3.12, 26 contains the line ‫אלהא א‬ ‫ ( לנ יה דם א‬for libations before Pta the great god ); cf. TAD D22.47, 4; D24.1, 4–5. Of these total occurrences, the construct phrase ‫ יה ה אלהי‬occurs 14 .

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Hebrew designations of the divine name in the book of Ezra-Nehemiah (cont.)

Divine Name/Title ‫הי ל יה ה‬ ‫י האלהים‬ ‫אלהי י אל‬ ‫ה אי האלהים‬ ‫לאלהי ם‬ ‫לאלהינ‬ ‫אלהי‬ ‫יה ה אלהי א ינ‬ ‫יה ה אלהי‬ ‫יה ה אלהי‬ ‫יה ה אלהי א י ם‬ ‫יה ה אלהינ‬ ‫יה ה אלהי א י ם‬ ‫אלהינ‬

Chapter ( ) , , ( ), , ,

Frequency

( )

,

( ), ( ),

( )

The Tetragrammaton and ‫ אלהים‬are the standard terms for God in Hebrew. We find no adjectival or descriptive epithets in Hebrew like we have in Aramaic, such as ‫אלהא א‬. The more national focused ‫ ( יה ה אלהי י אל‬YHWH, God of Israel ) occurs 6 , while the international designation ‫יה ה אלהי ים‬ ( YHWH, God of Heaven ) occurs only once. This suggests that for the Hebrew of Ezra, the designation Israel is preferred over Heaven. Furthermore, ‫יה ה‬ and ‫ אלהים‬appear to be interchangeable, as seen in the uses of ‫( י יה ה‬8 ) and ‫( י אלהים‬9 ). The Aramaic equivalent is more consistent, while the Hebrew passages move freely between ‫ י יה ה‬and ‫ י אלהים‬. Every time the Jerusalem Temple is mentioned, the Aramaic consistently has ‫( י אלהא‬18 ). Overall, the Aramaic passages show a strong preference for Heaven or ‫אלהא‬, as alternatives to the divine name. Three examples are illustrative.

Ezra 8–10 stands out for the relatively high frequency of ‫ אלהים‬a pronominal suffix; most notable are the 18 occurrences of ‫ ( אלהינ‬our God ). Several distinct features occur in the so-called Ezra Memoir. The common designation for the Jewish deity in Ezra 8 is our God, and the phrase hand of our God occurs several times, apparently as protective surety for the journey back to Jerusalem, parallel to the idea that God delivered us from the hand of the enemy and from ambushes along the way (Ezra 8:31). This theme also occurs in Nehemiah 2:8, 18.

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Ezra’s restoration program faces opposition and after he excludes the locals from taking part in rebuilding the Temple, they attempt to discredit Ezra and his associates. Looking for legal precedent, the Persian King discovers a memorandum (‫ )ד נה‬in the archives of Ecbatana that authorized the rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple. He then commands Ezra’s adversary, Tattenai, to keep away let the governor of the Jews and the elders of the Jews rebuild this house of God (‫ ) י אלהא‬on its site. Darius further subsidizes the rebuilding of the Temple with money from the royal revenue, offering unlimited support: Whatever is needed—young bulls, rams, or sheep for burnt offerings to the God of heaven ‫ לאלה יא‬, wheat, salt, wine, or oil, as the priests in Jerusalem require—let that be given to them day by day without fail, so that they may offer pleasing sacrifices to the God of heaven ‫ לאלה יא‬, and pray for the life of the king and his children May the God who has established his name there ‫ה ה‬ ‫ אלהא די‬overthrow any king or people that shall put forth a hand to alter this, or to destroy this house of God in Jerusalem. I, Darius, make a decree; let it be done with all diligence. (Ezra 6:9–12)

The Aramaic speech of King Darius has peculiar resonances with the book of Deuteronomy, especially the notion of God making a place for his name to dwell. This theme has long been debated as part of Deuteronomistic nametheology, a perennial topic in the study of redaction history and the extent to which these correspondences are authentic. For the present study, I am interested not so much in the authenticity of Darius’ speech, but rather in the divergent ways of naming God in Hebrew versus Aramaic. The wording of Ezra 6:12 and Deut 16:2 is too close to ignore: ‫ל ה הי‬ ‫יד אהלא‬

‫ה‬

‫ם‬ ‫ה‬

Deut : Ezra :

Even if the Aramaic correspondences are largely authentic, which is entirely possible, scholars agree that this account was made to conform with Jewish interests and expressed in the style and idiom of biblical literature. The context in which this happened, however, is not immediately clear. Williamson believed that Jewish scribes were behind the drafts of the authentic correspondences, produced for the Persian administration. After discussing examples in which the Persian authorities acquainted themselves with the specifics of other local cults, Williamson commented on the list of items declared by Darius for the service of the Jerusalem temple: The Jewishness of the list is no objection to authenticity either since we have observed repeatedly that Jews were doubtless involved in one way or another with the drafting of legislation that concerned their religion and its cult. So, the presence of distinctly Jewish terms does not detract from the authenticity of the correspondences: Jewish in uence on the drafting of the decree is again to be discerned in the typically Deuteronomic phrase the God who has caused his name to dwell there’. See Williamson, Ezra-Nehemiah, 16:82–83.

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Because the name-theology of the Deuteronomistic writers has historical priority in the Hebrew language, the Aramaic text is presumably a recasting or translation of an original Hebrew source. In this instance, the borrowed language has only one modification: the divine name, YHWH, replaced with ‫אלהא‬. The writer intentionally avoided the divine name in biblical Aramaic. Another example from Ezra shows that even when we find continuity between the Hebrew and Aramaic passages, especially in terms of shared themes, characters, and settings, there are still divergent practices for naming God. The Aramaic writers avoid the divine name in favor of ‫אלהא‬. In a defining moment, the Aramaic author describes the dedication of the Temple (6:16–18): The people of Israel, the priests and the Levites, and the rest of the returned exiles, celebrated the dedication of this house of God (‫ ) י אלהא‬with joy Then they set the priests in their divisions and the Levites in their courses for the service of God at Jerusalem (‫) ל יד אלהא די י לם‬, as it is written in the book of Moses.

The Aramaic narrator depicts this as a national event. He is unconstrained by diplomatic rhetoric or the conventions of official Persian discourse, which seem to motivate the use of general epithets like ‫אלה יא‬. Three verses later, the language of Ezra 6 switches to Hebrew and we find a description of the Passover celebration (6:21–22): And they ate the Passover , the people of Israel who had returned from exile, and all who had joined them and separated themselves from the pollutions of the nations of the land to worship YHWH, the God of Israel (‫)יה ה אלהי י אל‬ With joy they celebrated the festival of unleavened bread seven days; for YHWH (‫ )יה ה‬had made them joyful (Ezra 6:21–22)

In both passages, we encounter priestly themes as well as references to Israel, exile, national moments, and the Jewish deity. But despite these overlaps, the Aramaic narration avoids the divine name in contrast with the adjacent Hebrew passage. A third example comes from the characterization of Ezra himself. These occur along a literary seam with the Hebrew introduction (Ezra 7:6–11) to the Aramaic letter of King Artaxerxes (Ezra 7:12). The adjacent passages describe the role of Ezra: This is a copy of the letter that King Artaxerxes gave to the priest Ezra, the scribe, a scholar of the text of the commandments of YHWH ( ‫אה ה ה‬ ‫יה ה‬ ‫ד י‬ ) and his statutes for Israel:

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Artaxerxes, king of kings, to the priest Ezra, the scribe of the law of the God of heaven (‫יא‬ ‫ד א די אלה‬ ‫) א הנא‬: Peace.

The purported speaker, the Persian King Artaxerxes, is not enough to explain why the divine name is avoided in the Aramaic description of Ezra’s title. As is well known, King Cyrus of Persia announces in Ezra 1:2–4 the famous return decree, narrated in Hebrew, referring to YHWH, God of Heaven (‫ה ים‬ ‫ )יה ה אלהי‬and a verse later YHWH, God of Israel. These contrasting naming conventions, in Hebrew versus Aramaic, are unrelated to the ethnicity or location of the speaker. The dual descriptions of Ezra are lexically identical but in Hebrew, Ezra is the scribe of the commandments of ‫יה ה‬, while in Aramaic he is the scribe of ‫יא‬ ‫אלה‬. This literary seam, marking the transitions between Hebrew and Aramaic, reveals distinct naming customs that highlight the avoidance of the divine name in Aramaic and its use in Hebrew. The three examples above—the decree of Darius with deuteronimistic parallels (Ezra 6:12), the Temple dedication and Passover celebration (Ezra 6:16–18, 21–22), and the bilingual portrayals of Ezra (Ezra 7:11–12) suggest that the avoidance in the Aramaic of Ezra is intentional.

4.3

Daniel

The book of Daniel is another bilingual work produced sometime between the Persian and early Hellenistic periods. It begins with a Hebrew narration of Nebuchadnezzar’s capture of Jerusalem and the exile, but then describes the Babylonian education of Daniel and his friends (Dan 1:1–2:4a). The remaining court tales are narrated in Aramaic (Dan 2:4b–7). Then, for the last five chapters of the book of Daniel, the narration returns to Hebrew (Dan 8–12). In addition, the remarkable combination of genres in this book is worth mentioning: the court-tales that feature stories of Jewish survival in foreign contexts (Dan 1–6) are often distinguished from the apocalyptic visions (Dan 7–12). The languages, however, do not strictly follow these genre distinctions. The court tale of Dan 1 is written in Hebrew with the remaining tales in Aramaic, while the apocalyptic vision of Dan 7 is written in Aramaic with the remaining visions in Hebrew. This distribution of genre and language has implicaFor discussion of this phenomenon and the debate over the composition history of Daniel, see John Collins, Daniel (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991), 33–39; Rainer Albertz, Der Gott des Daniel: Untersuchungen zu Daniel 4–6 in der Septuagintafassung sowie zu Komposition und Theologie des aramäischen Danielbuches (SBS 131; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1988), 170–83; ibid., The Social Setting of the Aramaic and Hebrew Book of Daniel, in The Book of Daniel: Composition and Reception (Leiden: Brill,

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tions for the unique clusters of divine titles and epithets in Daniel. Like Ezra, the Tetragrammaton is found only in the Hebrew of Daniel, more specifically, only in the penitential prayer of Dan 9. As we might now expect, the divine name is consistently avoided in the Aramaic court-tales. The following are the Aramaic designations in Dan 2–7: Table 10

Aramaic designations of the divine name in the book of Daniel 2–7

Divine Name/Title

‫א ל י‬

‫אלה‬ ‫אלה‬ ‫אלה ה א אלה אלהי‬ ‫יא‬ ‫אלה‬ ‫אלהא‬ ‫א‬ ‫אלה‬ ‫אלה‬ ‫אלהי‬ ‫יא‬ ‫יא‬ ‫ל‬ ‫יא‬ ‫א‬ ‫אלהא יא‬ ‫אלהנא‬ ‫אלהה‬ ‫ד ה ל אלהי‬ ‫לי ני די י‬ ‫אלהא ליא‬ ‫י ל א‬ ‫ליא‬ ‫י י י‬

Chapter

Frequency

, ( ) ,

, ( ) , ,

2001), 171–204; Maurice Casey, Son of an: The Interpretation and In luence of Daniel 7 (London: SPCK, 1979), 7–9; and Carol Newsom, Daniel (OTL; Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2014), 1–28. Similar themes to this penitential prayer can be found in Neh 1:5–11 and 9:5–37. The name ‫ א‬refers to Nebuchadnezzar in Dan 4:16 and 21. The plural ‫ אלהי‬in the phrase likeness of a son of the gods refers to the fourth figure in the furnace of blazing fire (Dan 3:25), which Nebuchadnezzar describes as a ‫לא‬ ( angel messenger ) in verse 28. This is not a designation of the God of Israel but likened to a figure associated with the divine council (cf. Gen 6:2; Job 1:6, 38:7; Ps 29:1).

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The most frequent divine title in Aramaic is ‫אלהא‬. It occurs independently and in conjunction with other epithets. While ‫ אלהא‬is used in chapters 2–6, it does not occur in the Aramaic apocalyptic vision of Dan 7, the vision and interpretation of the four beasts. Dan 7:9–14 depicts the God of Israel as the ‫י י יא‬ ( Ancient of days ) and ‫ ( ליא‬Most High ). The genre seems to play a role in the preference for these epithets rather than the standard ‫ אלהא‬in the previous chapters of Aramaic Daniel. The book of Daniel stands apart from the Aramaic sources previously discussed for its unique use of ‫ ( ליא‬Most High ), ‫ ( די י לי ני‬holy ones of the Most High ), ‫ ( י ל א‬One Living Forever ), ‫ ( אלהא יא‬Living God ), ‫אלה‬ ( Great God ), and ‫ ( י י יא‬Ancient of Days ). The designations ‫ יא‬and ‫ ליא‬are common in epithet chains, but ‫יא‬ ‫ אלה‬is found only in Dan 2 and the independent use of ‫ ליא‬occurs only in Dan 4, 5, and 7. Another curious epithet is ‫ לי ני‬, the meaning of which is elusive. In Daniel, it always occurs in the construct phrase ‫ די י לי ני‬. It can be translated in an adjectival sense ( most high holy ones or holy ones on high ) or as a divine epithet ( holy ones of the Most High ). It also occurs in 4QBirth of Noah ( Elect of God 4Q536) in the phrase ‫י לא י לי ני‬. Contextual and linguistic variables seem equally balanced to interpret ‫ לי ני‬either as an adjective describing the ‫ די י‬or as a divine epithet.

The idea that ‫ די י לי ני‬describes celestial beings (not faithful Israelites or Jews) can be traced back to O. Procksch and M. Noth. For bibliography and history of discussion, see John Goldingay, Holy Ones On High’ in Daniel 7:18, JBL 107 (1988): 495–497; and John Collins, Excurses: Holy Ones, in Daniel: A Commentary On the Book of Daniel (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 312–19. Goldingay argues that t here is no difficulty involved in taking ‫ לי ני‬as a genuine plural referring to beings who are on high’ Grammatically, the most obvious understanding would then be to take the construct phrase as partitive, so that it translates as holy ones among ones on high. Regarding the use of ‫ די י לי‬in CD 20.8, Goldingay observes: A writer who wishes to refer to the holy ones of the Most High in Hebrew does so by using the singular ‫ לי‬, which suggests that ‫ לי ני‬would not naturally be taken to have a singular reference. (495) Collins thinks that this comparison does not take account of the role of ‫ לי‬in Aramaic; cf. Collins, 312–13: The Aramaic for highest, however, is ‫( ליא‬plural). ‫ לי‬is an epithet for the Deity. The plural, then, should be taken as a plural of manifestations and the traditional translation maintained. Both interpretations communicate the same general meaning. The head noun refers to the holy ones, and the epithet or adjective puts them near the deity, either by default of their holiness or through their physical proximity to the deity in the celestial realm.

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The Hebrew chapters of Daniel also feature unique groupings of divine designations. The God of Israel is mentioned 30 in Hebrew; 23 of these are in Dan 9 alone. Table 11

Hebrew designations of the divine name in the book of Daniel 1, 9–11

Divine Name/Title ‫אדני‬ ‫האלהים‬ ‫י האלהים‬ ‫ה ד האלהים‬ ‫אדני האלהים‬ ‫אדני אלהינ‬ ‫אדני האל ה ד ל הנ א‬ ‫יה ה‬ ‫יה ה אלהי‬ ‫יה ה אלהינ‬ ‫אלהינ‬ ‫אלהי‬ ‫אלהי‬ ‫אלהי‬ ‫אל אלים‬

Chapter

Frequency

, ( )

The scholarly literature on the composition and redaction of the prayer in Dan 9 is extensive. For similar prayers, see Ezra 9:6–15; Neh 1:5–11; 9:5–37; Psalm 79; Bar 1:15–3:8; 28 and the Prayer of Azariah, 1QS 1.22–2.1. For an important early study, see Maurice Baillet, Un Receuil liturgique de Qumrân, grotte 4: Les Paroles des luminaires’, RB 68 (1961): 195–250, and more recently Barbara Schlenke, Verantwortung angesichts des Endes. Das Gebet des Daniel in Dan 9,4–20,  in Juda und Jerusalem in der Seleukidenzeit: Herrschaft— Widerstand—Identität. Festschrift für Heinz-Josef Fabry (ed. Ulrich Dahmen, Johannes Schnocks; Bonner Biblische Beiträge 159; Göttingen: V&R Unipress, 2010), 105–23. At present, it may suffice to mention the observations of John Collins: The prayer in Daniel 9 is a traditional piece that could have been composed at any time after the Exile. Such prayers are common in post-exilic Judaism, from the canonical books of Ezra and Nehemiah to the Words of the Heavenly Luminaries at Qumran and the book of Baruch. This prayer cannot tell us what was distinctive in the theology of Daniel, and its own provenance remains obscure. Collins, Daniel, 359. The title ‫ אדני‬my lord occurs with reference to Nebuchadnezzar (1:10) and 5 with reference to the revelatory agent (Dan 10:16–19; 12:8). These occurrences are not counted here.

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The frequency of divine designations in Dan 9 is connected to addressing God in prayer: both admission of sin and acceptance of responsibility for breaking the covenant and requests for forgiveness and restoration. Dan 9 is also the only chapter that contains the Tetragrammaton. Dan 9:1 begins with the firstperson narrative voice of Daniel: I, Daniel, perceived in the books the number of years that, according to the word of YHWH (‫ )יה ה‬to the prophet Jeremiah, must be fulfilled for the devastation of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years. Then I turned to the Lord God (‫)אדני האלהים‬, to seek an answer by prayer and supplication with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. I prayed to YHWH my God (‫ )אלהי יה ה‬and made confession, saying, Ah, Lord, great and awesome God (‫)ה ד ל הנ א אנא אדני האל‬

The Tetragrammaton is used 2 in the introduction, and then 6 in the prayer itself, where it is interchangeable with ‫אדני‬. This relationship with the title ‫אדני‬ extends beyond the penitential prayer in Dan 9 and connects with the broader issues of genre and language distribution in Daniel as a whole. Dan 1, for example, is narrated in Hebrew although its themes and characters have much in common with the Aramaic of Dan 2–6. The title ‫ אדני‬occurs at the very beginning of the book, Dan 1:1–2: In the third year of the reign of King Jehoiakim of Judah, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord (‫ )אדני‬let King Jehoiakim of Judah fall into his power, as well as some of the vessels of the house of God (‫) י האלהים‬. These he brought to the land of Shinar and placed the vessels in the treasury of his gods.

The intention behind Daniel’s choice of terms for God is highlighted by comparison with similar passages that describe the Babylonian captivity, such as 2 Chr 36:7. Where Daniel uses ‫ אדני‬or ‫ אלהים‬the Chronicler uses ‫יה ה‬: Nebuchadnezzar also carried some of the vessels of the house of YHWH (‫ ) י יה ה‬to Babylon and put them in his palace in Babylon. Also, in the Hebrew textual witnesses to Daniel 1:1–2, we find a manuscript that uses the Tetragrammaton, which suggests to Carol Newsom that the Tetragrammaton may be original, later replaced by ‫אדני‬. Alternatively, the use of ‫ אדני‬could be based on translation. If Dan 1 was originally in Aramaic—as some scholars Newsom, Daniel, 36. BHS notes, nonn Mss ‫יה ה‬, sed inusitatum in hoc libro except cp 9, and most commentators simply repeat this statement. The number can be found in Kennicott, where he lists fifteen mss with ‫יה ה‬, and one that reads ‫ ;אדני יה ה‬see Benjamin Kennicott, Vetus Testamentum Hebraicum cum Variis Lectionibus (vol. 2; Clarendoniano, 1776), 571.

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have argued given that its narrative framing is crucial for understanding the Aramaic tales that follow (Dan 2–6) then the original divine title in Aramaic may have been ‫ א‬. The title ‫ א‬is used for the Jewish deity in Dan 2 and 5; it is also the translation equivalent of ‫ אדני‬in Hebrew. This scenario could explain why the phrase ‫ י האלהים‬appears in Dan 1:2 instead of ‫ י יה ה‬, which occurs in parallel descriptions of the same event, as in 2 Chr 36:7. In that case, the original underlying Aramaic would have contained the standard title ‫אלהא‬. The divine designations used most in Daniel, in summary, are ‫ אלהא‬in Aramaic and ‫ אלהים‬in Hebrew, while other titles and epithets pertain to specific chapters. The book of Daniel as a whole demonstrates the same approach to naming God that we found in the biblical account of Ezra: avoidance in Aramaic and use in Hebrew. An additional chronological observation is important. Most scholars hold that the Aramaic tales were collected in the Hellenistic period, and thus predate the Hebrew passages, which were combined with the Aramaic tales sometime in the 160s BCE. This suggests that the tradition of divine name avoidance in the Aramaic of Daniel predates the use of the Tetragrammaton in the Hebrew of Daniel. Language appears to be the determining factor in this case, not a general trend towards avoidance among Jewish authors as a whole. See Collins, Daniel, 35: The collection of the tales presupposes the introduction that is provided by chap. 1. This introduction was most probably supplied, in Aramaic, by the editor or collector of the tales. Besides establishing the identity of Daniel, it prepares for chap. 5 by mentioning the temple vessels, for chap. 3 by introducing Daniel’s three companions, and for chaps. 2 and 4 by noting Daniel’s insight into visions and dreams. It concludes with an indication of the length of Daniel’s career Daniel 1–6 is remarkably free of insertions referring to the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes This, together with the lack of Maccabean references in the tales, suggests that chaps. 1–6 were already in circulation as an Aramaic book before the time of Antiochus Epiphanes. Goldingay assumed that ‫ אדני‬was a replacement of the Tetragrammaton. If ‫ אדני‬is re ecting the underlying Aramaic original of Dan 1 it would be a translation from ‫ א‬. But either way, the larger implications of this activity—either original avoidance in Aramaic, or a replacement of an earlier Hebrew Tetragrammaton—the following comments of Goldingay are relevant. He states that while the (purported) replacement may issue from reverence, the effect is also to undermine any hint that he is merely Israel’s national God and the temple its national shrine, as Babylon has its gods and shrines. The titles the Lord and God belong only to Yahweh; they have absolute implications, hinting that the exile happened by the act of the sovereign God who is also Israel’s God, not Nebuchadnezzar’s. Goldingay, Daniel, 14; see also A. Lacocque, Daniel et son temps (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1983); O. Plöger, Das Buch Daniel (Gütersloh: Mohn, 1965). The designations of foreign deities are not listed here, but similar observations regarding their distribution could be made. The title ‫אל ה‬, for example, occurs 4 (only in Dan 11) exclusively with reference to foreign gods. For overview and bibliography, see Carol Newsom, Daniel, 1–2, 23–28.

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Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls The full publication of the Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls in recent decades has enlivened research on early Judaism. This has brought to scholarly attention not only new primary source material but also a chance to explore afresh how Jews articulated their ideas and visions of the divine in the international language of the day. As noted above, the God of Israel shares epithets and titles with other deities in the eastern Mediterranean and the new evidence from the Qumran Aramaic scrolls has yet to be fully integrated into a broader history of the divine name. The most basic fact of the Aramaic scrolls, relevant for the current study, is that not a single author or translator uses the Tetragrammaton or any other form of the Aramaic divine name. This is surprising because there are several translations, paraphrases, quotations, and rewritings of Hebrew biblical texts among the Aramaic Scrolls. The Aramaic authors regularly viewed the Tetragrammaton in their Hebrew source texts, but in every case made a deliberate choice to omit the divine name or replace it with another title or epithet. This aligns with the avoidance approach in the Aramaic of Ezra and Daniel in contrast to the uses of the divine name in the Elephantine material, P. Amh 63, Idumean Ostracon, and the BM Drachm. The clearest evidence for deliberate avoidance practices comes from 1QapGen, 11QNew Jerusalem, 4QpsDan , 11QAramaic Job, and 4QpapTob . In a recent study of the Aramaic Tobit manuscripts, Daniel Machiela assesses the larger picture of divine name avoidance in Qumran Aramaic: One of the distinctive features of Jewish Aramaic literature from the Second Temple period is the general absence of the divine name most closely associated with the God of Israel in the Hebrew Bible Old Testament, the Tetragrammaton (Yhwh). This absence is all the more striking since many of the Aramaic compositions rewrite portions of biblical books—mainly Genesis—in which the Tetragrammaton is found regularly (e.g., 1 Enoch, Aramaic Levi Document, and Genesis Apocryphon), suggesting a studied, conscious avoidance of the name. This trait separates the Aramaic writings from most of the canonical Hebrew compositions, on the one hand, and aligns them with the sectarian works from Qumran, on the other.

In his study, Machiela goes on to discuss what may be an intriguing exception in the manuscript history of Tobit, discussed further below. Beyond the basic Daniel A. Machiela, Lord or God? Tobit and the Tetragrammaton, CBQ 75 (2013): 463.

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fact of avoidance in Qumran Aramaic, there is more to say about the motivation driving the avoidance practices, especially when compared and contrasted with the typical scholarly explanations about the role of purity and piety in the concealment of the divine name. Within the Aramaic texts that avoid the divine name, such as Ezra and Daniel, there is little explicit indication of how the traditional explanations might apply. The discussion of Qumran Aramaic texts below offers a survey of the raw material needed to investigate further the motivations for avoiding the divine name in Aramaic.

5.1

Enoch

12 fragmentary manuscripts contain passages from 1 Enoch from Qumran. We find 11 references to the Jewish deity in this material. The following adjectival epithets are particularly prominent: holy, great, eternal, or living. Table 12

References to the Jewish deity in 1 Enoch

Divine Name/Title ‫ה‬

Translation ‫ה‬

‫די‬

‫ה‬ ‫ד א‬ ‫… נא א‬ ‫… א ל א‬ ‫יא‬ ‫י א די ל ל לם ד ל י‬ ‫א נא‬ ‫אל ה‬

Great Holy One Great One Holy One our Great Lord, Eternal Lord Lord Living One Lord of the Flock God

Reference Q Q Q

Q

Frequency

i i v iii iii iv i

These include 4QEn – (4Q201–207, 4Q212), 4QEnastr – (4Q208–211), and QpapEnoch. There may be one Greek manuscript of Enoch from Cave 7 (7QpapEn 7Q4 7Q8 7Q11–14 ). Apart from DJD and preliminary editions of Enochic texts, a helpful introduction is found in Loren T. Stuckenbruck, The Early Traditions Related to 1 Enoch from the Dead Sea Scrolls: An Overview and Assessment, in The Early Enoch Literature (ed. Gabriele Boccaccini and John J. Collins; JSJSup 121; Leiden: Brill, 2007), 41–63; George W. E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, Chapters 1–36; 81–108 (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001), 9–21. See also 4Q204 1 vi 11; 4Q206 2 3; and 4Q209 23 3. Note also 4Q212 1 ii 11, ‫ ( י ה א ל לם ד ל י‬He who is for Eternity of Eternities ).

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These terms focus on the attributes of God. Three epithets are used independently or combined with other epithets: ‫ ( די ה‬Holy One ), ‫ ( א‬Great One ), and ‫ ( א‬Lord ). These fragments also contain longer epithet chains: 4QEn contains ‫ה‬ ‫ ( די ה‬the Great Holy One, ) and 4QEn uses ‫נא‬ ‫ ( א ה א א ל א‬our Great Lord, he is the Eternal Lord ). The title ‫אל ה‬ appears once.

5.2

The Book of Giants

The Book of Giants was largely unknown before the discovery of the DSS. It is thematically related to 1 Enoch, though not represented in the Ethiopic version. This work is attested in 10 manuscripts from four different caves. Table 13

References to the Jewish deity in the Book of Giants

Divine Name/Title ‫די א‬ ‫א‬ ‫יא‬ ‫ל‬ ‫די א א‬ ‫אלהא‬

Translation Holy One Great One Ruler of Heaven Great Holy One God

Reference Q Q Q

ii ii

Frequency

(?) (?)

Q

These are 4Q201 1 i 5 and 4Q202 1 iii 14. A few references are found in Manichean and rabbinic literature. See W. B. Henning, The Book of Giants, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 11 (1943): 52–74. He pieced together several sources (Middle Persian, Sogdian, Coptic, and Parthian) that contained giant traditions. 1QEnGiants – (1Q23–26), 2QBook of Giants (2Q26), 4QEnGiants – (4Q203, 4Q530–533), 4QEnGiants ? (4Q206 2–3), and 6QpapEnGiants (6Q8). The total number of manuscripts for the Book of Giants is debated. See J. T. Milik and Mathew Black, The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments from Qumran Cave 4 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1976), 309; Milik, Turfan et Qumran: Livre des géants juif et manichéen, in Tradition und Glaube: Das frühe Christentum in seiner Umwelt, Festgabe für Karl George Kuhn zum 65. Geburststag (ed. Gert Jeremias, Heinze–Wolfgang Kuhn, and Hartmut Stegemann; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1971), 117–27; García Martínez, Qumran and Apocalyptic, 110–13; Puech, DJD I, 11–12; Loren T. Stuckenbruck, The Book of Giants from Qumran: Texts, Translation, and Commentary (TSAJ 63; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997), 41; idem, The Sequencing of Fragments Belonging to the Qumran Book of Giants: An Inquiry into the Structure and Purpose of an Early Jewish Composition, JSP 16 (1997): 3–24.

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The relationship between Giants and 1 Enoch is illustrated through their shared epithets, notably ‫ ( די א א‬Great Holy One ). We also have hints of a close relationship between Giants and Daniel as both contain the unique epithet ‫יא‬ ‫ ל‬. The dream-vision of the giant Ohya in 4QEnGiants is a good example of how these epithets are used: Then, his brother Ohya sp oke up and said before the giants, I too, I saw in my dream during this night, O giants, behold, the Ruler of Heaven (‫יא‬ ‫) ל‬ descended to the earth and thrones were established and the Great Holy One (‫ ) די א א‬sa t serving him a thousand thousands

This passage in 4QEnGiants resonates with scenes from Dan 7; God descends to establish dominion on earth, with thousands in service. Milik argued that Ohya’s dream was inspired by Dan 7:9–10, but others have been more cautious. Beyer and Reeves have simply noted the similarities without proposing a direction of in uence. Stuckenbruck argues that the correspondences do not determine the direction of in uence. He even considers it likely that Dan 7 may have drawn from Giants or a common tradition. Even with the shared epithets, however, Giants and Daniel have notable differences. Where Daniel uses the unique ‫ ( י י יא‬Ancient of Days ), 4QEnGiants gives the formulations ‫יא‬ ‫ ל‬and ‫ די א א‬. Concerning the clause from Dan 4:23, ‫נד‬ ‫יא‬ ‫ ( די ל‬you will know that Heaven is sovereign ), the term ‫ ל‬in the phrase ‫יא‬ ‫ ל‬is the complement of the verbless clause ( is sovereign ). In 4QEnGiants , ‫ ל‬is part of the compound divine epithet ( Sovereign Ruler of Heaven ), namely the subject of the clause. The precise nature of the relationship between Giants and Daniel is difficult to determine. There are many subtleties. The writers, nonetheless, prefer divine epithets and avoid the 4Q530 2 ii 6 7 i 8 9 10 11 12(?) 16–17. The root ‫ ל‬is reconstructed in 4QEn (4Q212) 1 iv 24 with reference to the stars: lights of heaven. See Milik, Turfan et Qumran, 122; ibid., The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments of Qumrân Cave 4 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), 305; cf. also Beyer, ATTM 264 n. 1; Reeves, Jewish Lore, 92; and García Martínez, Qumran Apocalyptic, 104. García Marínez based his dating of the Book of Giants on the dependence of Ohyah’s dream on Dan 7. Stuckenbruck, Giants, 122–23: The likelihood of the derivation of BG from Daniel is, however, significantly diminished on the basis of difference listed above, namely, the scene described in BG Numbers the worshippers in hundreds’ and thousands’ while in Daniel they are numbered as thousands’ and myriads’. He suggests that the numbers would get bigger in the transmission of the theophanic vision, rather than diminish. Therefore, Daniel either adapts and extends the text of BG, or BG preserves a form of the tradition that antedates Daniel, in which case both would be relying on an underlying tradition. See Stuckenbruck’s synopsis in Giants, 121. The singular construct ‫ ל‬shaltan is not distinguished in form from the plural absolute shalitin, but the syntax is a clear guide for its use in this instance.

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divine name. Instead of using the divine name, they experiment with unique portrayals of the Jewish deity, ‫ י י יא‬is not attested anywhere else, and Giants offers the new formulation of ‫יא‬ ‫ ל‬.

5.3

Birth of Noah (or: Elect of God)

The Birth of Noah is represented by 3 manuscripts: 4QBirth of Noah – (4Q534– 536). The literary setting is antediluvian, and while scholars detect clear overlaps with Noah traditions, the ambiguous figure depicted in this work remains a mystery. The Birth of Noah preserves the title ‫ אלהא‬and the term ‫ לי ני‬. The first occurs in 4QBirth of Noah , 9 Al l their designs against him will fail, and the array (?) of all living things will be great 10 his purposes because he is the chosen one of God ( ‫י‬ ‫)אלהא ה א‬. His birth and the spirit of his breath 11 his purposes will last forever

The author uses the standard title ‫ אלהא‬in the construct chain ‫ ( י אלהא‬chosen of God ), a unique locution among the Qumran scrolls. The term ‫לי ני‬ occurs in 4QBirth of Noah in the clause ‫ י לא י לי ני‬. As with ‫ לי ני‬in the book of Daniel, the meaning here is also debated. Wise, Abegg, and Cook have translated he will reveal secrets like the Most High. Puech takes ‫ לי ני‬as a reference to angels or most high ones and so translates, il révélera des mystères comme des anges Martínez and Tigchelaar similarly translate, he will reveal mysteries like the Most High Ones. These latSee the Book of Noah found in 1 Enoch 106–107. For discussion, see Dorothy Peters, Noah Traditions in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Conversations and Controversies in Antiquity (SBLEJL 26; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2008), 101–107; Puech, DJD I, 139–140; Florentino García Martínez, 4QMess ar and the Book of Noah, in Qumran and Apocalyptic: Studies on the Aramaic Texts from Qumran (ed. R. Aguirre and F. García Martínez; STDJ 9; Leiden: Brill, 1992), 17–19; Devorah Dimant, Noah in Early Jewish literature, in Biblical Figures Outside the Bible (Harrisburg: Trinity Press, 1998), 123–50; see also Noah and His Books (ed. Michael E. Stone, Aryeh Amihay, Vered Hillel; SBL–EJL 28; Atlanta: SBL Press, 2010). 4Q534 1 i 10. The phrase is reconstructed in 4QVisions of Amram (4Q543) 2 a b 4. 4Q536 2 i 3 8. WAC, 541. Puech, DJD 31:166–167. See Florentino García Martínez and Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar, DSSSE (Leiden; New York; Köln: Brill, 1999), 1073.

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ter options—the translations of Puech, Martínez, and Tigchelaar—seem the most accurate, given the context of priestly and angelic modes of revelation, favored by the scribal milieu of the Aramaic writings from Qumran. In Dan 7 the term always occurs in the construct chain ‫ די י לי ני‬, but in 4QBirth of Noah the interpretation concerns the action of the chosen one in revealing secrets. The prepositional use of raises the question of how far the chosen one will reveal secrets in like-manner as the Most High.

5.4

Genesis Apocryphon

The Genesis Apocryphon (1QapGen or 1Q20) dates paleographically to the first century BCE CE. It was likely composed no later than the mid-second century BCE. The author follows the storyline of Genesis 6–15 but inserts lively firstperson speeches of Enoch, Methusaleh, Lamech, Batenosh, Noah, Abram, and Sarai. 1Q20 is an important source for the study of divine titles and epithets not only because it preserves numerous designations, but because the text closely parallels the MT text of Genesis, allowing for several close comparisons: Table 14

References to the Jewish deity in the Genesis Apocryphon

Divine Name/Title

‫א‬

‫די א‬

‫… די א‬ ‫יא‬ ‫ה‬ ‫יא א א‬ ‫ה‬ ‫ה ל א‬ ‫הא‬ …‫ליא‬ …‫א‬ ‫… ה‬

Translation

Great Holy One Holy One  ? Lord of Heaven Lord of Heaven and Earth Lord of Eternity Lord Most High Great Mighty Lord

Reference (column number) Q

Frequency

, , , , ( ), (?) , ,

( ), , , , , , , ,

See Daniel Machiela, The Dead Sea Genesis Apocryphon, A New Text and Translation with Introduction and Special Treatment of Columns 13–17 (STDJ 79; Leiden: Brill, 2009), 134–42. In col. 0.14 and 6.11, ‫ ה‬is reconstructed, although its extant use elsewhere in these columns makes it the probable choice.

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Table 14

5

References to the Jewish deity in the Genesis Apocryphon (cont.)

Divine Name/Title

…‫ל ל ים‬ ‫ל‬ ‫ל ל ים‬ …‫יא‬ ‫ל‬ ‫ה לא‬ ‫יא‬ … ‫…אל לי‬ ‫אל‬ ‫נא‬ ‫אל ל א‬ ‫אלהא‬ …‫… י ל ל ל ים‬ ‫ל‬

T

‫לי‬

‫ה‬

‫ל‬ ‫לי‬ ‫ה ל יא‬ ‫י אלהא‬

Translation

King of all Eternity King of Eternity King of Heaven Lord of All Creator your Lord God Most High God Merciful One God of Eternity God my Lord, of All Eternity Lord and Ruler of All

Reference (column number)

Frequency

( ), , , ,

, , ( )

,

( ),

( ),

Ruler Lord of Eternity my Lord, God

The diverse array of titles and epithets for the Jewish deity in 1Q20 likely come from different authors. The terms cluster in specific sections, which re ect literary seams or previously independent sources. Moshe Bernstein observes that ‫ ה א‬,‫א‬ , ‫ די א‬, and ‫ ליא‬occur only in Part i of the Genesis Apocryphon (columns 0–17), while ‫אלהא‬, the most general title for the Jewish deity, occurs only in Part ii (columns 19–22). He also considers it significant that Part i uses ‫ ל‬in compound with other terms, while Part ii does not. Still, if we are to attribute the diversity of epithets in 1Q20 to individual preferences, we must reckon with the fact that some epithets bridge the literary seams, most notably

Moshe Bernstein, Divine Titles and Epithets and the Sources of the Genesis Apocryphon, JBL 128 (2009): 291–310.

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‫אל לי‬. For example, in 1Q20 12 17 (Part i), Noah speaks in the first person after surviving the ood: I was blessing the Lord of Heaven, God Most High, the Great Holy One, who saved us from the destruction (‫ל ה יא לאל לי ל די א א די‬ ‫הי‬ ‫) ל נא א דנא‬

A different scene opens in 1Q20 20.12–13 (Part ii) when Abram entreats God on behalf of Sarai, who was taken forcibly by Pharaoh Zoan: That night I prayed and entreated and asked for mercy. Through sorrow and streaming tears, I said, Blessed are you God Most High, my Lord, for all ages; for you are Lord and Ruler over everything (‫י ל ל ל ים די אנ ה ה‬ ‫אל לי‬ ‫) לי ל לא‬

Even as individual authors used different epithets, they shared a preference for ‫אל לי‬, occurring in both Parts i and ii of 1Q20. This epithet is also used as a replacement for the Tetragrammaton where comparisons with the Hebrew of Genesis are possible. The best comparative evidence for studying the avoidance of the Tetragrammaton comes from Part ii (columns 19–22). Some passages of 1Q20 follow the MT text of Genesis closely. Where the MT contains ‫אל לי‬, 1Q20 also uses ‫אל לי‬. However, where the MT uses the Tetragrammaton, 1Q20 replaces it: ‫י‬

MT 1Q20 19.7–8

Gen 12:8

‫י א ם א ם ם יה ה‬ ‫ם ה ל יא הלל ל ם‬ ‫י‬ ‫אלהא א די‬ ‫אלהא‬

MT 1Q20 21.2–3

Gen 13:4

‫ליה ה‬ ‫ם‬ ‫י‬ ‫א‬ ‫ד‬ ‫ני‬ ‫נ א לאל לי‬

MT 1Q20 21.20

Gen 13:14

MT

Gen 14:18

‫ם יה ה‬ ‫ם א ל הא‬

‫לא‬

‫להי‬

‫לם ה יא ל ם יי ה א‬

‫א‬ ‫י‬

‫ל י ד‬ ‫ה לאל לי‬ ‫א ל‬ ‫ל י ד ל א ד לם אנ‬ ‫ה לא ם ל ל אנ א די ה ה א ה א‬ ‫ה לאל לי‬ ‫נה‬

‫א ם לאל לי‬ … ‫אל לי‬

‫ל‬

‫י ה יא‬ ‫ים א‬

1Q20 22.14–15

MT

Gen 14:19–20

See 1Q20 12.21, 15.24, 21.2, 21.20, 22.15–17. Genesis reports that Abram invoked the name ‫יה ה‬, but the author of 1Q20 19.7–8 includes the words of Abram’s invocation: You are God (‫ )אלהא‬and King of Etern i ty.

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‫נה‬ ‫ה‬

‫לא ם א‬ ‫ה יא א א‬

‫י ידי אל יה ה אל לי‬

‫ה י‬ ‫א‬ ‫ים אנה ידי י א ד לאל לי‬ ‫יא א א‬

‫יה ה אל‬

‫א הד ים האלה היה ד‬ ‫ה‬ ‫א ם‬ ‫יא אל א י{ אלהא לא ם‬ ‫א‬ ‫לי אנ י‬ ‫י‬ ‫ה י‬

‫נ‬

‫ם אדני יה ה ה‬ ‫י‬ ‫ם י אלהא י לי‬ ‫ל אל‬ ‫לא יי‬

‫א‬ ‫י‬

‫יא‬ ‫הל‬ ‫א א‬ ‫ל א לי‬

‫הנה ד יה ה אלי לא‬ ‫אם א י א‬ ‫א לה לא י נ ד לה די י‬

T

5

1Q20 22.15–16 MT

Gen 14:22

1Q20 22.20–21 MT

Gen 15:1

1Q20 22.27 MT

Gen 15:2

1Q20 22.32–33 MT

Gen 15:4

1Q20 22.34

Despite the preference of individual authors for some Aramaic epithets over others, all are unanimous in their decision to avoid the divine name in the composition as a whole. The Tetragrammaton occurs 7 in the MT in passages that are nearly identical with 1Q20. In these locations, 1Q20 avoids the Tetragrammaton consistently, omitting it twice and replacing it with ‫אלהא‬ (3 ), ‫( ה ל יא‬1 ), and ‫( אל לי‬1 ).

5.5

Tobit

There are five Tobit manuscripts from Qumran Cave 4. Four of these were written in Aramaic, and one was written in Hebrew. We find the title ‫ אלהא‬as For discussion between Fitzmyer, Tov, and Bernstein over translating, omitting, or stylistically rendering divine designations in 1Q20 22.20–21 compared to Gen 14:22, see Fitzmyer, The Genesis Apocryphon of Qumran Cave 1 [1Q20]: A Commentary (BibOr 18B; 3rd ed.; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 2004), 251; Tov, Text Criticism of the Hebrew, 260–61; and M. Bernstein Divine Titles and Epithets, 303, fn 38. 4QpapTob (4Q196), 4QTob – (4Q197–199), and Schøyen Tobit (4Q196a). The oldest of these is 4Q199, dated to ca. 100 BCE. See Fitzmyer, DJD 19:1–76. Tobit is attested in Hebrew by 4QTob (4Q200). Some have taken this as an indication that Tobit was originally composed in Hebrew. At present, the majority of scholars favor an Aramaic original. For an overview of this debate see Fitzmyer, Tobit (Commentaries on Early Jewish Literature; Berlin NewYork: de Gruyter, 2003), 21–28. A recent discussion can be found in D. Machiela and A. Perrin, Tobit and the Genesis Apocryphon: Toward a Family Portrait, JBL 133 (2014): 111–132. For all other versions of Tobit, see Stuart Weeks, Simon Gathercole,

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well as a unique epithet, ‫ ל א א‬, in the Aramaic manuscripts, but the most striking feature of the Tobit manuscripts is the appearance of the Tetrapuncta, four scribal dots that are typically understood as a replacement for the Tetragrammaton. The practice of using Tetrapuncta is otherwise only attested in the Hebrew Dead Sea Scrolls, but it occurs twice in the Aramaic fragments of Tobit: 4QpapTob 17 I 5 (Tob 12:22) and 18 5 (Tob 14:2). These instances are represented with in the following table: Table 15

References to the Jewish deity in the Tobit manuscripts

Divine Name/Title ‫א לה‬ ‫לא‬ ‫לה דיה‬ ‫ל‬ ‫ה‬ ‫ל א א‬ ‫אלהא‬

Translation LORD your God angel of the LOR D

Reference Q

to the LORD  Great King God

Q

Frequency

(Tob : ) i (Tob : ) (Tob : )

, ,

The first instance, 4Q196 17 i 5, contains all four dots. The second instance, 4Q196 18 15, contains only three dots, but according to Fitzmyer the first dot was legible on the edge of the fragment. Scribes employed the Tetrapuncta when this manuscript was copied, thus providing evidence of an intentional and explicit type of avoidance in Aramaic Tobit. There is debate, nevertheless, about what the Tetrapuncta signifies in 4QpapTob . Based on comparisons with the Tetrapuncta in Hebrew scrolls, scholars assumed that Tetrapuncta in Tobit meant that the Tetragrammaton was

and Loren Stuckenbruck, The Book of Tobit: Texts from the Principal Ancient and Medieval Traditions with Synopsis, Concordances, and Annotated Texts in Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Syriac (Fontes et Subsidia ad Bibliam pertinentes 3; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2004). The reconstruction of both the Tetrapuncta and ‫ אלה‬is tenuous. Fitzmyer only saw three dots and so reconstructed the fourth, but upon closer inspection of modern digital images, it is represented. See Machiela, Lord or God? 466. For the image on the IAA website, see https: www.deadseascrolls.org.il explore-the-archive search q 4q196’ (accessed Nov 13, 2021). Fitzmyer, DJD 19:30: Not visible in the photograph is the tiny part of a dot to the right of the three preserved; it is still visible on the fragment itself. Before it is a small space of the same width as those between the first and second and the second and third dots.

00

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5

original to this composition, even if it was written in Aramaic. This would be at odds with the evidence overall because in Aramaic the divine name occurs only in its three-letter form. Taking this principle into consideration, along with comparable Greek manuscript traditions of Tobit, Machiela has recently argued that 4QpapTob 4Q196 employs the tetrapuncta as a substitute not for the Tetragrammaton but for the Aramaic designation, ‫אלהא‬, God’. Machiela supports his claim with evidence from the most reliable Greek and Latin witnesses, standard Aramaic translation practices, and the elevation of the name ‫ אלהא‬in other Aramaic texts from Qumran. Perhaps the most intriguing evidence for this position is a textual observation, in which Machiela compares overlapping passages: 4QpapTob 18 15 and 4QTob 1.1 both represent Tob 14:2. In the latter passage, the Tetrapuncta corresponds to ‫אלהא‬:

Fitzmyer, DJD 19:26, 30; Florentino García Martínez, Scribal Practices in the Aramaic Literary Texts from Qumran, in Myths, Martyrs, and Modernity: Studies in the History of Religions in Honour of Jan N. Bremmer (ed. Jitse Dijkstra, Justin Kroesen, and Yme Kuiper; Numen 127; Leiden: Brill, 2010), 338; Michaela Hallermayer, Text und Überlieferung des Buches Tobit (DCLS 3; Berlin New York: de Gruyter, 2008), 71, 80. Machiela, Lord or God? 468. Importantly, Machiela shows that ‫ אלהא‬does not occur elsewhere in 4Q196 (at least in a non-puncta form), which in part leads him question Fitzmyer’s reconstruction of ‫א לה‬ in 4Q196 11 1 ( Tob 3:11). The strongest material challenge for Fitzmyer’s proposal here is that there is enough space on the edge of the fragment (where the aleph of ‫ אלה‬should be legible) but the aleph is not there. Machiela notes further the discrepancy between the shorter and longer recensions of Greek I and II and their correspondence with the Aramaic, suggesting the reconstruction of ‫ אלהא‬is unlikely in this location. For example, the Greek texts contain ς where the Tetrapuncta are extant. Machiela notes that where κύριος may re ect an Aramaic Vorlage in the Greek translations, this word translates ‫ ( א‬Lord lord ), not the Tetragrammaton (472). Furthermore, if Tobit was original in Hebrew, the use of the Tetragrammaton would be expected, as found, for example, in Hebrew manuscripts of Jubilees from Qumran. But if Tobit was original in Aramaic, the use of the Tetragrammaton would be an anomaly. Machiela, along with Edward Cook, Matthew Morgenstern, and Fitzmyer, supports the view that Aramaic is the original language of Tobit, which makes the use of the Tetragrammaton unlikely. This latter observation, that ‫ אלהא‬achieved a high level of sanctity by the mid-Second Temple period, a level that may well have warranted its replacement with tetrapuncta (Machiela, Lord or God? 471) is less certain than the other lines of support. This observation is based on the use of the title to replace the Tetragrammaton in 11Q10, an Aramaic translation of Job, and the paleo-Hebrew script is used for ‫ אלה ה‬in 4QpsDan (4Q243 1 2). See below for more discussion on these texts. The elevated status of ‫ אלהא‬may be inferred by association in the sense that ‫ אלהים‬is avoided in the Hebrew Qumran sectarian scrolls.

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4QTob 1.1 ( Tob 14:2) 4QpapTob 18.15 ( Tob 14:2)

‫א‬ ‫א‬

‫ל ד ל לאלהא לה דיה‬ ‫לה דיה‬ ‫ל הל‬

Assuming that ‫ אלהא‬in 4QTob is original and represents the vorlage reading of 4QpapTob , the comparison above would provide material support that the Tetrapuncta seems to replace ‫אלהא‬. Machiela’s proposal is well argued and the original interpretation of this phenomenon, that the Tetrapuncta replaces the Tetragrammaton, seems more problematic than Machiela’s position. But difficult questions remain. If ‫אלהא‬ was revered for the scribe author of Aramaic Tobit, why does it occur in the parallel passage 4QTob (4Q198) 1.1 ( Tob 14:2)? Should we assume that the scribe was consistent in his copying strategy? And perhaps the more immediate question, given the widespread use of ‫ אלהא‬in many Aramaic compositions from Qumran and elsewhere, why was it necessary to replace this specific instance in Aramaic Tobit? Lastly, a more hypothetical question, but worth asking: is it possible that both ‫ אלהא‬and the Tetrapuncta are techniques for replacing a form of the divine name? It should also be noted that the Hebrew manuscript of Tobit has ‫ אלהים‬4 as well as ‫ אד ני‬once (4Q200 2 3, 7; 7 ii 2; 6 5, 9), but not the Tetragrammaton. On the one hand, ‫ אלהים‬may be considered a substitute for the Tetragrammaton, but ‫ אלהים‬itself is not avoided, a practice we also find in the Qumran sectarian scrolls. Thus, the scribal use of ‫אלהים‬ in 4Q200 is similar to the use of ‫ אלהא‬in 4Q199, which diverges from the use of the Tetrapuncta for ‫ אלהא‬in 4Q196. Despite these questions, the basic fact remains that Tetrapuncta are used in 4QpapTob and this is an anomaly in a first-century BCE Aramaic text. That the scribe of 4QpapTob uses dots for a divine designation suggests an attitude towards the divine name that is much closer to the avoidance in Hebrew sectarian scrolls, where a priestly scribal milieu favored avoidance because of the name’s sacredness.

When I first studied this material based on Fitzmyer’s edition princeps, I thought that maybe there were only three dots in both locations. I wondered if these along with the title ‫ אלהא‬could be replacing the Aramaic form of the divine name, YHW. Even though this would be unusual for the Qumran corpus of Aramaic scrolls, there is at least precedent for this form in Aramaic, unlike the Tetragrammaton. But this seems to be ruled out on material grounds by the faint trace of a second dot (missed by Fitzmyer, caught by Machiela) in 4Q196 18 15 (Tob 14:2), which makes it relatively clear that four dots exist in this location. The situation is doubly complicated because several Hebrew documents that use the Tetrapuncta can be traced to the sectarian scribe who copied 1QS, but the use of Tetrapuncta in 4QpapTob falls outside this group of manuscripts on the basis that it was not copied in the Qumran Scribal Practice; see Tov, Scribal Practices, 206.

02

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5.6

T

5

The Aramaic Levi Document

The Aramaic Levi Document (ALD) is attested by seven manuscripts. In these, we find three terms for God: Table 16

References to the Jewish deity in the Aramaic Levi Document

Divine Name/Title ‫י‬ ‫א ל ל יא‬ ‫יה‬

Translation O Lord my Lord God of Eternity the Lord

Reference Q Q Q

a b

;

Frequency ;

The epithet ‫ ( י‬my Lord ) occurs with the first-person pronominal suffix – ‫י‬, translated as a vocative in the reconstructed ALD scroll. The epithet ‫לא ל‬ ‫ ( ל יא‬God of Eternity ) also occurs in 1QapGen. The figure of Levi is associated with other Aramaic texts, namely 4Q213 and 4Q541, but these are fragmentary: the unidentified 4Q213 6 1 contains the phrase -- ‫אל‬ ( as when? blessing God ), and 4QApocryphon of Levi ? (4Q541) uses ‫אל‬, ( God ), ‫ י‬, ( Heaven ) and perhaps ‫די א‬ ‫אל‬ ( God of Righteousness ). Notably, ‫ אל‬and ‫ י‬occur in parallel in 4Q541,

1QLevi (1Q21), 4QLevi – (4Q213–214). Before the discovery of the DSS, ALD was known from various sources collected from the Cairo Genizah, Mt. Athos monastery, and a Syriac fragment of the British Museum. See R. H. Charles, The Greek Versions of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (Oxford: Clarendon, 1908), 245–56; Gideon Bohak, A New Genizah Fragment of the Aramaic Levi Document, Tarbiz 79 (2011): 373–383 Hebrew . For an introduction to the critical issues of ALD, see Jonas C. Greenfield, Michael E. Stone, and Esther Eshel, The Aramaic Levi Document: Edition, Translation, Commentary (SVTP 19; Leiden: Brill, 2004), and H. Drawnel, An Aramaic Wisdom Text from Qumran: A New Interpretation of the Levi Document (JSJ Supp. 86; Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2004). DJD 22:31–32. If this is an Aramaic fragment, the form may be a pael participle with a prefixed preposition , although this would be a unique locution. For instances without a preposition, see 1Q20 5.23, ‫ל ה לא‬ (also 1Q20 12:17) and Dan 2:20 ‫ה די אלהא‬ ‫לה א‬ ‫ל א‬ . See 4Q541 1 ii 4, 2 ii 2, and 9 i 3; 4Q541 9 i 3; 4Q541 24 ii 3. On paleographic grounds, 4Q541 has been dated to ca. 100 BCE; cf. DJD 31:217. Note the uncertain relationship between 4Q541 and 4QapocrLevi (4Q540); See Dimant Review of É. Puech, Qumrân Grotte 4. II: Textes Araméens, première partie 4Q529–549, DSD 10 (2003): 292–304; also, Stone, Greenfield, and Eshel, The Aramaic Levi Document, 32.

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‫אל‬

‫י אל נה‬

‫א‬

‫ה‬

‫א‬

Sa parole (sera) comme une parole des Cieux et son enseignement conforme à la volonté de Dieu.

Puech considers these terms to be synonymous because ‫ י‬is absolute (i.e., not written as ‫) יא‬, which makes an important conceptual link between God and Heaven.

5.7

Testament of Qahat

The Testament of Qahat (4Q542) dates paleographically to 125–100 BCE. In this text, Qahat, the father of Amram and grandfather of Moses, encourages his sons to be prudent and careful with the inheritance that has been entrusted to you, which most likely refers to the priesthood. 4Q542 combines priestly themes with descriptive divine epithets while avoiding the divine name itself: Table 17

References to the Jewish deity in the Testament of Qahat

Divine Name/Title ‫ל ל ל י‬ ‫לםיה‬ ‫ל ם דיא‬ ‫לא‬

Translation

‫אל אלי‬ ‫אלה‬ ‫א‬ ‫לי‬

Reference

God of gods  God of Eternity Lord of All Deeds Ruler of All

Q

Frequency

i i i i

These divine epithets are strung together in a long epithet chain, part of the blessing that prefaces Qahat’s final words to Amram: ‫לי‬

1

‫ה א‬ ‫ל ם דיא‬

‫א‬

‫יד נ‬ ‫אל אלי ל ל ל י ינה נהי ה לי‬ ‫נד נה די ה א אלה לםיה‬ ‫נד נה‬ ‫ה‬ ‫ד ה‬ ‫לא ל‬

1 2 3

(parce) qu’il qui est Seigneur des seigneurs et Dieu des dieux pour tous les siècles. Et Il fera briller sur vous Sa lumière et Il vous fera connaître Son grand nom

Puech, DJD 31:242. For discussion of ‫ אל‬as a Hebraism, see Christian Stadel, Hebraismen in den aramäischen Texten vom Toten Meer (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2008). Puech, DJD 31:242.

04

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5

2 et vous Le connaîtrez et vous Le connaîtrez parce que, Lui, Il est le Dieu des siècles et le Seigneur de toutes les œuvres et (qu’)Il est souverain 3 sur toutes choses en agissant avec elles selon Sa volonté 

The first epithet is ‫ ( אל אלי ל ל ל י‬God of gods for all Eternity ). The vivid portrayal of the deity continues until line three, ending with the epithet ‫לי‬ ( Ruler of All ). We previously encountered ‫ לי‬in 1QapGen. A simi‫לא‬ lar expression comes from 4QEnGiants ‫יא‬ ‫ ( ל‬Ruler of Heaven ). The most intriguing aspect of 4Q542, however, is Qahat’s claim that God will make known his great name (‫) ה א‬. This passage creates a tension between knowledge of the divine name and its avoidance in the blessing. The ‫ה א‬ is almost certainly the Tetragrammaton. This means that the Aramaic author had the divine name in his mind and by explicitly referring to the name, brings the fact of avoidance to the minds of his readers. The author also has very strong convictions about the efficacy of the divine name, because he equates knowledge of the name with knowledge of the deity. The following phrase is best understood as a result clause: ‫נד נה די ה א אלה לםיה‬

‫א‬

‫ה‬

‫יד נ‬

He will make known to you his great name so that you will know him 

Scholars debate whether the referent of the 3ms pronominal suffix on the verb ‫ נד נה‬denotes the divine name or God. Puech translates you will know it thus taking the antecedent to be the divine name. The majority of scholars, however, take the pronoun as a reference to God ( you will know him ), and this seems to find further support in that the following relative clause, ‫די‬ ‫ה א אלה לםיה‬, has the deity in view. Puech also translates ‫ נד נה‬as an independent clause, rendering a waw conjunctive, et vous Le connaîtrez , it is equally plausible, however, to understand ‫ נד נה‬as a result clause ( so that you will know him ), given the syntax of the imperfect verbs. Overall, 4Q542 Puech suggests that ‫ אל אלי‬est un hébraïsme quelque peu aramaïsé (pluriel en –) de ‫אל‬ ‫ אלים‬en Dn 11:36 ou même ‫אל אלהים‬, Jos 22:22, DJD 31:272. He also remarks, On pourrait aussi se demander si ‫ אל אלי‬n’est pas un décalque aramïsé de l’expression hébraïque très frèquente ‫ אל לי‬dans les textes araméens de Qumrân For details on the orthographic features of 4Q542 (and other notes), see Puech, DJD 31: 269–273; Ed Cook, Remarks on the Testament of Qahat from Qumran Cave 4, JJS 44 (1993): 205–219. He writes, Le suffixe de ‫ נד נה‬reprend le précédent dans ‫ ה א‬. Puech, DJD 31:272. This translation was also suggested by Cook, Remarks, 206. Regarding the syntax of these clauses, Cook gives several examples (one of which includes 4Q542): When preceded

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brings together priestly themes, an allusion to the Tetragrammaton (‫) ה א‬, and invokes the deity in the context of blessing through descriptive epithets. In this text, we find both the strong belief in the efficacy of the divine name coupled with its avoidance.

5.8

Visions of Amram

The Visions of Amram is attested by five manuscripts from Cave 4. The literary themes and concerns overlap with Aramaic Levi and Qahat (4Q542), as one might suspect given the family lineage of Amram. The following epithets are preserved: Table 18

References to the Jewish deity in the Visions of Amram

Divine Name/Title ‫י אל‬ ‫לא אל‬ ‫לי‬ ‫אי‬ ‫אל‬

Translation God angel of God Most High my Lord God

Reference Q

Frequency

a b a b

Q Q

by a waw and following an imperative or another imperfect, it may express purpose or result: ‫ י לה ל הי י ה‬, and he will pray for him that he might be cured’ (1QapGen 20:23); ‫ה א נד נה‬ ‫ י ד נ‬, and he will make his great name known to you that you may know him’ (4QTQahat ar 4Q542 1 ii 1–2); and ‫אנד‬ ‫י לי ל‬ ‫א‬, tell me your dream so I may know it’ (1QapGen 19:18). See Cook, Aramaic of the Dead Sea Scrolls, in Dead Sea Scrolls after Fifty Years: A Comprehensive Assessment (ed. Peter W. Flint and James C. VanderKam; Leiden: Brill, 1998–1999), 376. U. Schattner–Rieser follows Cook regarding the same principle; see L’araméen des manuscrits de la mer Morte: I. Grammaire (Laussane, Ch–Switzerland: Editions du Zébre, 2004), 117. Additional examples of the waw imperfect preceded by an imperfect expressing result may include 11Q10 34.3–4 (‫א‬ ‫די‬ ‫י נני ל ד‬ ‫דא דינה‬ ‫ )הא‬and 4Q541 24 ii 5 (‫ים‬ ‫ה‬ ‫א אל‬ ‫)לא ה ם ד א‬. 4QVisAmram – (4Q543–547). While in DJD 31, Puech considered 4Q548 and 4Q549 (4QVisAmramf ? and 4QVisAmramg ? ) as part of the Visions of Amram, more recently Robert Duke has argued otherwise; see The Social Location of the Visions of Amram (4Q543–547) (SBL 135; New York: Peter Lang, 2010), 35–42. See also 4Q545 1 a i 17. See also 4Q548 1 ii 2 7; 4Q546 8 5 (‫) י‬.

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In the Visions of Amram, we find several notable uses of the Hebraism ‫אל‬. The title occurs once independently, but also in construct phrases, such as ‫לא אל‬ ( the messenger of God ) and ‫י‬ ‫ ( אל‬chosen of God ). ‫ לי‬occurs in 4Q543, but the context is fragmentary. The same with understanding ‫ אי‬, the manuscript is too fragmentary to know if this reference is to God or another figure.

5.9

Words of Michael

4QWords of Michael (4Q529) dates to around 50 BCE and depicts a scene reminiscent of the apocalyptic visions of Ezekiel. It begins with references to troops of fire, mountains, and a prophetic book from which the archangel Michael reads to other angels. We find in this text the striking repetition of the epithet chain ‫ ( י א ל א‬my Master, Eternal Lord ). It occurs in quick succession in lines 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, and 12. Note, for example, 4Q529 1 5–7, ‫לי ד י‬ ‫י‬

‫ה א‬

‫א ה י ה‬ ‫י הא‬ ‫א ל א‬

‫י די י א ל א‬ ‫ני ם ל ני ם הא י‬

5 6 7

5 comme la vision et je lui montrai la vision et il me dit qu e  6 dans mon mes livre(s), (celui ceux) de mon Seigneur, le Souverain éternel, il est écrit: voici entre 7 les fils de Ham et les fils de Šem. Et voici, mon Seigneur, le Souverain éternel

In 4Q544 2 13, for example, the use of ‫ ( אי‬my lord ) in ‫אי א ל‬ ‫ ( א‬And I said, My lord, what is the do minion ) probably refers to the angel of light, with whom Amram enquires about his vision of Malki–Resha. A similar phrase occurs in 4Q546 8 5, and I said, My lord (‫) י‬, y ou , but the referent is probably some revelatory agent, not the Jewish deity. Two additional manuscripts may belong to this work: 4QAramaic (4Q571) and 6QpapUnclassified (6Q23); See Milik, The Books of Enoch, 91; David Hamidovic, La Transtextualité dans le livre de Michel (4Q529; 6Q23): Une étude du répertoire des motifs littéraires apocalyptiques sur Hénoch, Daniel et les Jubilés, Semitica 55 (2013): 117–37. The only other extant divine name in this text is the partially preserved ‫ ל י‬in frag. 3 line 1. It is also important to note the possible reconstruction of this phrase in 6QpapUnclassified Fragments (Words of Michael? 6Q23). Fragment 1 line 1 preserves the word ‫ ; ל א‬and in 6Q23 2 2, Baillet transcribes ‫א‬ , although Puech reads this as ‫י‬ ‫א‬ ‫ ל א‬. See also 1 En 58:4, 81:10; Jub 31:13; 25:23; As. Mos. 1:11.

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The mantra of the archangel, ‫ י א ל א‬, occurs in almost every preserved line. This may show how the author imagined a communal reading among the angels—invocation of God in a reverential or poetic refrain that reminds the audience of God’s grandeur or character. The epithet chain is very close to what we find in 4QEnoch : ‫ל יא‬

‫ל‬

‫יא אלה אלהיא‬

‫א‬

‫א ל א אנ ה‬

‫א ה א‬

‫נא‬

‫אנ ה ה א‬

our Great Lord, he is the Eternal Lord

In the latter example, the primary difference is the first-person plural, rather than the singular ‫ י‬. The first-person suffix on ‫ י‬is also worth noting. For Aramaic texts, this could be associated with the literary tendency to use lively, first-person direct discourse, perhaps most evident in the 1QapGen speeches of Enoch, Methusaleh, and others. Examples of ‫ א‬with a first-person suffix include 1QapGen, 4QEnoch , 4QEnGiants , 4QLevi , and 4QVisions of Amram . Overall, 4Q529 gives us a glimpse into the descriptive epithets of God used either in the book of an angel or in the communal reading of these words.

5.10

4QTestament of Judah?

4QTestament of Judah? (4Q538) is a fragmentary first-person account of Judah’s perspective on the events surrounding the betrayal and reunion of Joseph with his brothers. The context shares literary resonance with parts of Gen 37–47. In fragment 3 line 3, we find the phrase ‫ ( ה א אל‬he is a good God ). The use of ‫ אל‬is unique among the Aramaic Scrolls and never occurs in Hebrew. This basic formulation in Aramaic may have been in uenced by Joseph’s response to his brothers in Gen 50:20: Even though you intended to harm me, God intended it for good (‫ה ל ה‬ ‫)אלהים‬. 4Q538 contains a unique Aramaic epithet and maintains the custom of avoidance.

A few other Aramaic manuscripts contain first-person speech, although their contexts are fragmentary, and they do not contain divine names: 4QTestament of Jacob? (4Q537) and 4QTestament of Joseph (4Q539).

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Son of God Text (or: Aramaic Apocalypse)

The 4QSon of God Text (4Q246) dates to late first century BCE. It mentions the son of God  son of the Most High. This manuscript preserves three designations: Table 19

References to the Jewish deity in the Son of God Text

Divine Name/Title

‫א‬

Translation ‫אל‬ ‫לי‬ ‫אל‬

God Most High Great God

Reference Q

Frequency

ii , ii ii

‫נה‬

‫לי י‬

‫ה די אל י א‬

Il sera dit le fils de Dieu et le fils du Très–Haut on l’appellera

In the example above, ‫ אל‬and ‫ לי‬are poetic parallels. This is similar to the expression in ALD, in which ‫ אל‬and ‫ י‬are parallels. ‫ אל‬is also combined elsewhere with ‫ לי‬to form ‫אל לי‬.

The identity of the son has been extensively debated, which has implications for the notion of the divine in this text. For discussion on the figure in this text, see Milik, The Books of Enoch, 60; David Flusser, The New Testament and Judaism on the First Centuries C.E.: The Hubris of the Antichrist in a Fragment from Qumran, Immanuel 10 (1980): 31–37; Fitzmyer, The Aramaic Son of God’ Text from Qumran Cave 4 (4Q246), in The Dead Sea Scrolls and Christian Origins (SDSSRL; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 41–61; Puech, Le fils de Dieu, le fils du Très–Haut, messie roi en 4Q246, in Le Jugement dans l’un et l’autre Testament I: langes offerts à Raymond untzmann (ed. Eberhard Bons; Lectio Divina 197; Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 2004), 271–86; John J. Collins, The Messiah as the Son of God, in The Scepter and the Star (New York: Doubleday, 1995), 154–72. For various reconstructions of these lines see DJD 22:173–174. The other uses of ‫ אל‬in 4Q246 include the phrase ‫( ם אל‬e.g., ‫ד י ם ם אל לא ינ‬ , Until the people of God arise, all will rest from the sword, 4Q246 1 ii 4) and the rare epithet ‫ ( אל א‬the Great God, 4Q246 1 ii 7).

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Four Kingdoms and other Visionary Texts

4QFour Kingdoms (4Q552) describes a vision of four trees, each representing a kingdom. Here, ‫ ( אל לי‬God Most High ) gives one kingdom to another. Additional divine titles and epithets appear in other fragmentary sources. 4QVision (4Q557) preserves ‫אלהא‬. 4QpapVision (4Q558) consists of 141 fragments, containing the following designations: Table 20

References to the Jewish deity in Four Kingdoms and other Visionary Texts

Divine Name/Title ‫יא‬ ‫אל‬ ‫א ל לי‬ ‫י‬ ‫אל הא‬

Translation Lord God God Most High my Lord God

Reference

Frequency

Q

Fragment 29 line 6 may portray God speaking in the first person: ‫יא‬ ‫א נה‬ ( moi, le Se ign eur, deman dais ). Without a discernible literary ‫הי‬ context, it is difficult to say anything about these divine titles.

5.13

Prayer of Nabonidus

4QPrayer of Nabonidus (4Q242) dates between 75–50 BCE and contains the tale of a seven-year af iction suffered by king Nabonidus of Babylon. The text begins with the prayer of Nabonidus: The words of the pra y er which Nabonidus, king of Baby lon, the great king, prayed when he was smitten 4Q552 6 10. The word ‫ א‬is used in 4Q552 of human leaders: ‫ ( איה‬their lords ) in 4Q552 1 i 2 11 and ‫ ( איא‬the lords ) in 4Q552 6 9. Furthermore, there may be a firstperson reference to my Lord in 4QFour Kingdoms (4Q553a) 4 3, ‫ל אי יניא ל‬ ‫( לא‬ to my Lo rd I lifted my eyes a b ov e ). 4Q557 1 7, ‫דם א להא‬ ‫י‬ ( and mercies from before G od ); DJD 37:175. A trace of ‫ אלהא‬is also found in 4QVision (4Q575). Puech notes, Cette ligne fait allusion à un requête ou demande du Seigneur au prophète (Moïse ou Élie) à l’Oreb, demande dont le contenu échappe: observation des lois et coutumes? (Ml 3:22). DJD 37:201.

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with a bad disease by the decree of G o d (‫ )אלהא‬in Teima . A close comparison of this account with the biblical story of Daniel 4 reveals some obvious parallels, especially between Nabonidus here and Nebuchadnezzar in Dan 4. In both accounts, the king suffers an af iction until he recognizes the sovereignty of God. Instrumental in this process is the role of an intercessor: Daniel in the biblical story and an unnamed Jewish diviner (‫ה א יה די‬ ) in 4Q242. But while Daniel entreats the king: atone for your sins with righteousness, and your iniquities with mercy to the oppressed, so that your prosperity may be prolonged (Dan 4:27), the Jewish diviner of 4Q242 commands: Pro cla im and write to give honor and exal tatio n to the name of G od Most High ( ‫)להא ליא ל ם א‬. What stands out in the comparison of these parallel stories is that Nabonidus’ healing is the direct result of honoring the name of God. This unique element in 4Q242, in light of parallels, seems to have gone unnoticed in scholarship. The efficacy of the divine name is similar to what we find in 4QTQahat (4Q542) above. When compared to Dan 4, the issue of name theology appears only insofar as Daniel’s Babylonian name, Belteshazzar, is concerned. The biblical writer makes an effort to explain that this name is derived from the name of Nebuchadnezzar’s god. Even though this etymology is likely not factual, it elevates the question of sovereignty between the God of Israel and the god of Nebuchadnezzar; and while the literary relationship between these sources is debated, the author of 4Q242 solves the question of sovereignty by making Nabonidus explicitly honor the name of God.

5.14

Pseudo–Daniel Texts

Pseudo-Daniel comprises three manuscripts: 4QpsDan – (4Q243–245). Even though these are linked by textual and thematic features, they contain different divine name practices. Perhaps the most remarkable practice in 4Q243 occurs at frag 1 line 2; the scribe writes the Aramaic divine title ‫ ( אלה ה‬your God ) in the paleo-Hebrew script. The use of paleo-Hebrew is not found

4Q242 1 3 1–2. 4Q242 1 3 5. E.g., Collins, DJD 22:91. Two other texts that are sometimes associated with Daniel are 4Q246 (4QSon of God Text) and 4Q551 (4QDaniel–Suzanna?). Note, for example, the overlap between 4Q243 and 4Q244 in their quotation of Ps 106:37.

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elsewhere in the Pseudo-Daniel fragments. This is rare for an Aramaic composition and suggests a heightened focus on the divine title in this text. There is some debate over the scribal practice itself, whether the scribe knew how to write all the letters in paleo-Hebrew or not, but the fact that the title appears in paleo-Hebrew at all shows us that it was significant for the scribe. Yet, whatever importance this has for 4Q243, it cannot be extended to the other divine titles in Pseudo-Daniel because they occur in the square-Aramaic script. For example, the title ‫ אל הי‬occurs 2 in 4Q244, closely connected with 4Q243, but both occurrences are in the square script. The literary overlap between 4Q243 and 4Q244 deserves special note. They both contain parts of Ps 106:37 and 40–41, either in loose translation or allusion. This is important because we can see the different ways the divine title was rendered in Pseudo-Daniel compared to the biblical psalm. The following passage is based on 4Q244 12 1–4, with some gaps filled in by 4Q243 13:

This manuscript includes 40 fragments that have been dated to 30–1 BCE. See Collins and Flint, DJD 22:98, Plate VII. At first glance, it appears that the kaf is not written in the paleo-Hebrew script (second letter from the end). Emanuel Tov writes, The suffixed divine name is written in paleoHebrew characters, with the kaf of the suffix written in a square script different from the hand evident throughout the rest of the manuscript, perhaps indicating the scribe’s ignorance of the paleo-Hebrew alphabet beyond those characters required for penning the divine name (Tov, Scribal Practices, 240). Milik, however, considered the kaf to be clearly Samaritan, a script closely identified with the paleo-Hebrew script (DJD 22:98). Collins also agrees with Milik, who is probably right. When we compare the kaf in 4Q243 1 2 with another kaf in this manuscript (e.g., the square-Aramaic script of ‫ ל ה‬in 4Q243 3 2) they look different. Furthermore, the top bar of the kaf in 4Q243 1 2 extends towards the right, a characteristic feature of the Samaritan paleo-Hebrew script. The first occurrence of ‫ אל הי‬is in 4Q244 5 ii 5, and the second is found in 4Q244 12, parts of which overlap with 4Q243 13. There are possible traces of the term ‫א להי‬, in 4Q243 32 1 written in the square script. Collins notes that this might read ‫ ( לה‬to them ), cf. DJD 22:118. At any rate, if it is ‫( אלהי‬without the waw as in ‫ )אל הי‬then it probably refers to foreign deities, in which case the scribe would not use paleo-Hebrew anyway. The four occurrences of ‫ אלהי‬in the Aramaic scrolls (4Q242 1 3 8; 4Q243 32 1; 4Q570 17 2; 4Q570 21 2) are probably all references to foreign deities. This is also the case with the 9 occurrences of ‫ אלהי‬in Daniel. García Martínez and Beyer have suggested that Ps 106:37 and 40 provide the background for this text. See K. Beyer, Die aramäischen Texte vom Totem Meer (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1984), 224–225; F. García Martínez, Qumran and Apocalyptic, 137–149; DJD 22:150. The editors of DJD 22 have combined these manuscripts into one work referred to as 4Q243–244. See DJD 22:133–134 and p. 142 for the fragment. The reconstruction here depends on the extant text of 4Q244 12 1–4.

2

C ‫אנ י אל הי‬ ‫ל נ‬

‫ני י אל אנ יה‬ ‫ליה אל הי א‬ ‫די‬ ‫א א ה נה‬ ‫ני ל א‬ ‫א‬

T

‫א‬ ‫ה ד י ל ניה ל ידי‬ ‫ל לא‬ ‫ל‬ ‫אנ יד נ דנ‬ ‫א‬

5 1 2 3 4

1 2

The Israelites chose their presence rather than the presence of God and they were sacri ficing their children to the demons of error, and God became angry at them and sa id to give 3 them into the hand of Neb uchadnezzar, king of Ba bylon, and to make their land desolate of them, because 4 the exiles

The comparison of Ps 106:40 with 4Q244 12 2 offers an example of divine name avoidance: ‫א יה ה‬ ‫ליה אל הי א‬

‫י‬

MT Pseud-Dan

Ps 106:40 4Q244 12 2

This is not a direct citation of Ps 106, but scholars agree that Ps 106 provides the framework for this portion of 4Q244, and so the wording and expressions of the psalm must have been foremost in the author’s mind. The Aramaic of 4Q244 shows a different word order—the prepositional phrase comes before the divine title ‫—אל הי‬but the parallel grammatical elements make a strong case for the deliberate avoidance of the Tetragrammaton.

5.15

Jews at the Persian Court

Jews at the Persian Court (4Q550) dates paleographically to the early first century BCE. This work is quite fragmentary, but there are enough details to piece together a story about Patireza and Bagasraw, two Jews, caught up in the royal circles of the Persian diaspora. The story re ects prominent themes of Jewish diaspora literature, namely the unexpected rise to prominent positions of leadership of otherwise marginalized individuals, a motif of God’s continued providence in foreign lands. 4Q550 concludes with the Persian king, in an ironic reversal, defending the Jew Bagasraw and commanding everyone to worship the Most High. The king vindicates Bagasraw, proclaiming: Puech, DJD 37:9. Examples from biblical literature include Joseph in Egypt (Gen 38–40), Daniel in Babylon (Dan 1–6), or Esther in the Persian Court of erxes.

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fear the Most High (‫) ליא‬, who you (all) fear and worship. He is Ruler over all the la nd (‫ל א א‬ ‫)ה לי‬. All that he desires is near his hand to d o.

Two divine epithets stand out—‫ ( ליא‬Most High ) and ‫ל א א‬ ‫( לי‬ Ruler ov er all the la nd ) because they occur at the precise moment when the supremacy and sovereignty of the Jewish deity is in question. The foreign king gives a definitive declaration. Puech calls this the profession de foi du roi perse. The absence of the Tetragrammaton in this Aramaic tale is unsurprising because the exigent concern is not whether the God of Israel holds intra-national sway, but rather how the Jewish deity compares on the worldstage with other divine powers. The divine name does not provide a suitable description of the deity’s identity for this genre. These epithets were chosen over the Tetragrammaton for the specific portrayal of God that the authors wished to provide their beleaguered diaspora community. We have previously encountered the substantive adjective ‫ לי‬and the noun ‫ ל‬in 1QapGen, 4QEnGiants , and 4QTQahat, but here the deity is said to be the ‫ל‬ ‫לי‬ ‫א א‬, yet another variation on the theme of sovereignty. Jews could trust that their deity was the Most-High and Ruler over all the land, not just in the land of Israel, but the distant lands where they now resided.

5.16

New Jerusalem

New Jerusalem (NJ) comprises seven manuscripts from five different caves. The most complete copy of this work is 11Q18, but the earliest manuscript, 4Q554a, dates to around 100–75 BCE. The work imagines a new layout for the holy city. Similar themes are found in Ezekiel, Revelation, and the Temple Scroll, and such parallels offer insightful data for comparing divine name practices. The title ‫ אל‬appears twice in New Jerusalem, both are found in 11Q18. The fragmentary line of the first occurrence reads: eve ry seventh day

4Q550 7 7 a 1. DJD 37:38. Other texts use the noun to describe the dominion of God, but not necessarily using it as an epithet. For example, 4QSon of God Text (4Q246) 1 ii 9: ‫לם‬ ‫ ( ל נה ל‬His rule will be an eternal rule ). 1QNew Jerusalem (1Q32), 2QNew Jerusalem (2Q24), 4QNew Jerusalem – (4Q554–555), 5QNew Jerusalem (5Q15), and 11QNew Jerusalem (11Q18). See DJD 37:98.

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before God (‫)אל‬, a memori al offering , which refers to the changing of the showbread each Sabbath. Because this is a specific ceremony described in technical language, we may compare this text to its biblical precedent in Lev 24. I draw attention, in particular, to the divine designations: ‫יד‬

‫נ ל ני יה ה‬ ‫נא‬

‫י‬ ‫יםה‬ ‫י י דם אל ד‬

‫יםה‬ ‫לים‬

MT New Jerusalem

Lev 24:8 11Q18 20 1

The scribe of 11Q18 must have been familiar with Lev 24:8, and so this comparison also underscores the deliberate avoidance of the Tetragrammaton. The title ‫ אל‬occurs again in the phrase from the festivals of G od (‫ ) די אל‬in 11Q18 30 4. This stock expression parallels the Hebrew ‫ די יה ה‬. The point is not that the scribe is quoting a source text here and replacing the divine name. These manuscripts are too fragmentary to establish the dependence of one text on another. The approximate expressions, however, point to a common milieu of festival language within which it was customary to use the divine name in Hebrew, but not in Aramaic equivalents.

5.17

Other Aramaic Texts

The Wisdom Instruction texts are fragmentary, with only one attestation of the name ‫ אלהא‬in 4QWisdom Composition (4Q563) 1 3. Several unidentified Aramaic texts contain divine titles, such as ‫( אלהא‬4Q562 4 2 and 4Q475a 1 3), ‫ אלה י אל‬God of Israel (4Q570 2 5), ‫( א‬4Q573 1 7), and the phrase ‫ל ה‬ ‫ דאלה א‬for to a priest of God in 4Q586. Without much context, we cannot compare these epithets with other sources. On these scraps of parchment, we find merely traces of words, suffice it to say that even in the most obscure fragments of the Aramaic scrolls from Qumran we find no evidence for the Tetragrammaton.

11Q18 20 1. For other connections, see DJD 23:337, Josephus, Ant. 3.255, and m. Mena 11.7. The ‫ נא ד‬refers to the memorial portion; the parallel Hebrew term is ‫ה‬ ‫( א‬Lev 6:8). See Lev 23:2, 4, 37, 44; 2 Chr 2:3; Ezra 3:5. 4Q563 dates to ca. 100 BCE. In 4QProverbs (4Q569) 1 2 4 and 6, we ( your master ), but the referent is human. For these texts, see DJD 37:323 and 492.

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Aramaic Translations: Job, Leviticus, and Isaiah

Aramaic translations of Hebrew source texts offer valuable comparative material for the study of divine titles and epithets. The Aramaic translation of Job (11Q10) dates paleographically to the mid first-century CE. About 20 of the book of Job is preserved in the Aramaic translation, including parts of each chapter from Job 17–42 (MT). The following table compares the divine titles in 11Q10 with the parallel passages in MT Job: Table 21

Comparison of the divine titles in the Aramaic translation of Job (11Q10) with MT Job

11 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

m c o ‫אלהא‬ ‫אלהא‬ ‫הלא להא‬ ‫א להא‬ ‫אלה א‬ ‫אלהא‬ ‫אלהא‬ ‫אלהא‬ ‫אלהא‬ ‫אלהא‬ ‫אלהא‬ ‫אלהא‬ ‫אלהא‬ ‫אלה א‬ ‫אלהא‬ ‫לאלהא‬ ‫א‬ ‫אלהא‬ ‫א‬ ‫אלהא‬

Hebrew (MT o ‫אל ה‬

– ‫אל‬ ‫די‬ ‫די‬ ‫אל ה‬

– ‫( אל‬or pron.) ‫אל‬ ‫אל‬ ‫אל‬ ‫אל‬ ‫אל ה‬ ‫אל‬ ‫אלהים‬ ‫אל‬ ‫די‬ ‫אל‬ ‫די‬ ‫אל ה‬

: : : : : : : : – : : : : : : : : : : a : b :

DJD 23:87; Bruce Zuckerman, Jobs, Targums of, ABD 3:869. For the relationship between 11Q10 and 4QTargum of Job (4Q157), dating to ca. 20–50 CE, see Milik, DJD 6:90 and DJD 23:79. This form shows the ‫–ה‬interrogative, and the ‫–ל‬preposition: Is it to G od you will teach ?

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Table 21

5

Comparison of the divine titles in the Aramaic translation of Job (11Q10) (cont.)

11 . . . . . . . . . . . .

T

m c o ‫אלהא‬ ‫אלהא‬ ‫אלהא‬ ‫לא י אלהא‬ ‫אלהא‬ ‫אלה‬ ‫אלהא‬ ‫אלהא‬ ‫א ל הא‬ ‫אלהא‬ ‫אלהא‬ ‫אלהא‬

Hebrew (MT o ‫אל‬ ‫אל‬ ‫אל ה‬ ‫ל ני אלהים‬ ‫יה ה‬ ‫אל‬ ‫יה ה‬ ‫יה ה‬ ‫יה ה‬ ‫יה ה‬ ‫יה ה‬ ‫יה ה‬

: : : : : : : : : : : :

This table illustrates that compared to the MT the Aramaic translation of Job is far more consistent in its use of the divine title ‫אלהא‬. The scribe of 11Q10 has made a full-scale, systematic replacement of all Hebrew designations in Job with ‫אלהא‬. But of further importance, and deriving from this principle of standardization, the translator does not seem particularly concerned with avoiding the Tetragrammaton, as most scholars often assume. We know this because the translator levels the diversity of Hebrew names and epithets—‫ די‬, ‫אל‬, ‫אלהים‬, ‫ אל ה‬and ‫—יה ה‬with the Aramaic ‫אלהא‬. This is an important point as it requires more nuance when considering 11Q10 as an example of the avoidance tradition. The reasons for avoidance, in this case, are broader, connected somehow to the translator’s preference for ‫אלהא‬. Clues for using ‫ אלהא‬may be found in the insertion of this title where the MT does not contain a divine name. These instances seem to clarify the antecedent of an ambiguous pronoun. For example, note the 3ms pronominal suffix in Job 21:21:

Zuckerman ( Job, ABD 3:868) and others have noted that w here there appear on occasion to be editorial alterations in 11QtgJob, they tend to be focused upon avoiding implicit disrespect for the Deity, upgrading the image of Job, and perhaps downgrading the image of the friends, especially Elihu. These adjustments are different than described by the rabbis concerned with avoiding the divine name. The fact that the translator rendered all Hebrew names with ‫ אלהא‬requires an explanation that is not primarily about avoidance.

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‫י א‬ ‫לאלהא‬

‫א‬

‫י ה‬ ‫א‬

MT 11Q10 5.2

Job 21:21

The translator likely inserted ‫ אלהא‬for clarity. A similar scenario is found in Job 25:2: ‫ה‬

‫י‬ ‫ד לם‬

‫ה לם‬ ‫ם אלהא‬

‫ד‬

‫ל‬ ‫ל‬

‫ה‬ MT Job 25:2 ‫ א‬11Q10 9.4–5

Both uses of ‫ אלהא‬make potentially ambiguous or confusing passages more readable. This suggests that the Aramaic translator, despite the systematic use of ‫אלהא‬, was attentive to each rendering of the divine name. One further example shows that the translator was even capable of varying his technique, this time regarding poetic parallelism: ‫די לא י‬ ‫א‬

‫י‬

‫א א נם אל לא י‬ ‫דא אלהא י‬ ‫ה‬

MT 11Q10 24.6–7

Job 34:12

The translator’s interests remain pragmatic, but not rote. For clarity or necessity, he could adjust his rendering of divine designations. This is important because we can see that the translation choices were well-reasoned. The translator seems most concerned with offering his reader a more intelligible text. Given the difficulty of understanding the Hebrew text of Job—for ancient and modern readers alike—the translator wanted to smooth the coarse syntax, hapax legomena, and dense poetry, to achieve a simple, consistent, and readable text. The title ‫ אלהא‬probably became the standard designation because it was the most widely known in Aramaic literature. The evidence of 11Q10 is also important because it shows that, beyond the avoidance of the Tetragrammaton, the use of Aramaic divine designations is motivated by specific concerns intrinsic to either the composition or the author translator. The avoidance of the Tetragrammaton is not sufficiently explained on the traditional assumption that the translator believed the divine name was holy or worthy of respect, even though he may have held both convictions. The following two sources, 4QAramaic Leviticus (4Q156) and 4QProphecy (4Q583) are Aramaic translations of Hebrew biblical texts, but they do not preserve any material where the divine name would occur. We are unable, therefore, to compare what once existed in these translations with the Hebrew Ironically, we also find the clarification of the pronoun in modern English versions. The NRSV, for example, inserts God in Job 25:2, a decision not supported by a reading in any ancient witnesses, apart from its use in 11Q10.

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source text, a situation that is quite different from the evidence of 11Q10 above. I bring attention to the fact that here both Milik and Puech reconstruct the Tetragrammaton in their critical editions. The comprehensive assessment of the Aramaic evidence from this chapter, and especially the comparative witness of 11Q10, suggests that instead of the Tetragrammaton, we would likely have found the Aramaic title ‫אלהא‬. Milik uses the Tetragrammaton in his reconstruction of 4QAramaic Leviticus: ‫ים ד ה‬ ‫א ה‬

‫ל הא‬

‫א לנ א‬

‫יה ה לא ני‬ ‫ נ‬: ‫ה יא י ל‬ ‫ל ני יה ה ה נ ה‬

‫נה י‬ ‫יה ה לא‬ ‫ י ה‬:‫א‬ ‫אל‬ ‫י ל‬ ‫ל דם יה ה י ה ננא‬

MT

Lev 16:12–13

4Q156 1 2–4

More recently, Puech interprets 4QProphecy (4Q583) as une citation presque littérale of Isa 14:32. He reconstructs the Tetragrammaton also: ‫ה‬

‫ל ניי‬

‫הי‬

‫ניי‬ ‫נה י‬

‫הי‬ ‫י יה ה י ד י‬ ‫י ד‬ ‫א י יה ה י‬

MT 4Q583 1 2

Isa 14:32

These reconstructions should be corrected to either omit the Tetragrammaton in the reconstruction or use the title ‫אלהא‬. Another possibility might be to reconstruct this passage using the three-letter Aramaic form of the divine name, ‫יה‬, found in the Elephantine texts and elsewhere, but given the pervasive avoidance of the divine name in Qumran Aramaic literature the former options are preferable.

5.19

Summary of Divine Titles and Epithets in Aramaic

The Jewish Aramaic literature from the Second Temple period shows that naming God was far from settled in the everyday activities of authors, scribes, and translators, interwoven as it was with the need for self-definition in a dramatically shifting political environment. How one referred to God required deliberation, part of a rich and varied dialogue about what divine titles and epithets matched the occasion—public, private, literary, or diplomatic. Several motivations led individual authors to choose some designations over others. In the table that follows, I summarize the use of divine names and epithets according See Milik, DJD 6:86–89; Puech, DJD 37:447–450.

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to frequency and then discuss a few implications. In the extant Aramaic texts, we find roughly 37 different terms for the Jewish deity. The title ‫ אלהא‬is the most frequent, used 138 , followed by short forms of the divine name—‫יה‬, ‫יהה‬, or ‫—יה‬attested 46 . Table 22

Summary of the usage of divine titles and epithets in the Jewish Aramaic literature from the Second Temple period

Divine Name/Title Translation ‫ אלהא‬God

‫יה‬, ‫יהה‬, ‫ יה‬YHW, YHH, YH

Reference

Frequency

Elephantine ( ) Mt. Gerizim ( ) Ezra ( ) Daniel ( ) QapGen ( ) QTob ( ) QPrayer of Nabonidus ( ) QEn QpsDan QEschatalogical Vision? QBirth of Noah QAccount QVision QpapVision QUnidentified A QUnidentified D QWisdom Composition QAramaic Job ( ) Elephantine ( ) BM Drachm ( ) P. Amh ( ) Idumean Ostracon ( )

The title ‫ אלהא‬is used only twice independently in the Elephantine material: TAD B3.6, 10 ( Manumission ) ‫י ה לאלהא‬ ‫ אנ י‬, you are released to God, D8.8, 1 I in the name of God . This number includes ‫ אלהא‬pronominal suffixes as well as phrases such as ‫ י אלהא‬in Ezra (18 ). In 27 of these 43 occurrences, we find the compound name ‫יה אלהא‬.

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Summary of the usage of divine titles and epithets in the Jewish Aramaic (cont.)

Divine Name/Title Translation ‫ אלה‬God of Heaven

‫יא‬

‫ליא‬

Most High

‫ אל‬God

‫ אל לי‬God Most High

‫ אלהא ליא‬God Most High ‫ לי ני‬Most High

‫א‬

‫לי‬

Most High

‫י‬

my Lord O Lord

‫די א‬

‫א ל א‬

‫י‬

Great Holy One My Master, Eternal Lord

Reference Elephantine ( ) Ezra ( ) Daniel ( ) Daniel ( ) QapGen ( ) QProphecy QJews at the Persian Court QSon of God Text ( ) QTestament of Judah QApocryphon of Levi , ( ) QVisions of Amram , , ( ) QNew Jerusalem ( ) QapGen ( ) QKingdoms QpapVision Daniel Daniel ( ) QBirth of Noah QSon of God Text QWords of Michael QVisions of Amram QapGen ( ) QEnGiants QLevi ( ) QVisions of Amram QpapVision QTestament ? QapGen ( ) QEn , , ( ) QWords of Michael

Frequency

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Summary of the usage of divine titles and epithets in the Jewish Aramaic (cont.)

Divine Name/Title Translation ‫א‬

Great One

‫יא‬

‫ה‬

Lord of Heaven

‫יא א א‬

‫ה‬

Lord of Heaven and Earth Heaven Ruler

‫יא‬ ‫לי‬

‫ה‬ ‫אל‬

Lord

‫ אלה י‬God of Israel

‫ה ל א‬

Lord of Eternity

‫ל ל ים‬ ‫ ל‬King of all Eternity ‫ אל ל א‬God of Eternity

‫א‬

‫ אלהא‬Great God

‫ אל הי‬God ‫ אלהא יא‬Living God ‫ י ל א‬One Living Forever ‫יא א א‬ ‫ אלה‬God of Heaven and

Earth ‫ אלה ה א אלה‬your God, he is God ‫א ל י‬ ‫ אלהי‬of gods and Lord of Kings

Reference QEnoch , ( ) QEnGiants ? QAstronomical Enoch QSon of God Text Elephantine Daniel QapGen ( ) QapGen Daniel QapGen ( ) QTQahat QJews at the Persian Court Daniel ( ) QapGen ( ) Ezra ( ) QUnidentified D ar ( Q ) QapGen ( ) QEn QapGen QapGen Aramaic Levi Document QTQahat (‫)אלה לםיה‬ Ezra Daniel ( ‫)אלה‬ QSon of God Text (‫)אל א‬ QpsDan Daniel Daniel Ezra Daniel

Frequency

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Summary of the usage of divine titles and epithets in the Jewish Aramaic (cont.)

Divine Name/Title Translation ‫ל א א‬ ‫יא‬ ‫ל‬ ‫לא‬ ‫ל ם דיא‬

‫ה‬ ‫א‬ ‫יא‬ ‫י אלהא‬ ‫אל‬ ‫יא‬ ‫ל‬

Great King King of Heaven Lord of All Lord of All Deeds Creator my Lord, God Good God Ruler of Heaven

Reference

Frequency

QpapTob Daniel QapGen QapGen QTQahat QapGen QapGen QTestament of Judah? QEnGiants

Two categorizations are helpful to explore this data further: (1) sources that avoid the divine name, including the Aramaic of Ezra, Daniel, Mt. Gerizim inscriptions, and Qumran Aramaic scrolls; and (2) sources that use the Aramaic divine name: the Elephantine material, Idumean Ostracon, P. Amh 63, and the BM Drachm. The sources in the first category are diverse in genre, purpose, and period, including diplomatic correspondences, Aramaic court-tales, dedicatory inscriptions, apocalyptic visions, wisdom, and testamentary texts. Is there an overarching motivation for avoidance in these sources? Do they have a shared theological vision, or should we assume that the motivations are as diverse as the sources themselves? Concerning the second category, can we know if the Aramaic texts that use the divine name also share commonalities that might help us understand the naming customs within? The traditional explanations for avoidance—purity and piety—can be applied to some cases of avoidance in Aramaic literature; this is clear from the Qumran texts such as New Jerusalem, 4QTQahat, and Visions of Amram. Each emphasizes priestly themes. Strict observance of purity halakha and clear statements about the divine name’s power are evident, for example, in 4QTQahat, in which the author firmly believes in the efficacy of the divine name: He will make known to you his great name (‫ ) ה א‬so that you will know him. The same is true for 4QPrayer of Nabonidus, in which the foreign king is exhorted to proclaim honor and exaltation specifically to the name of

4Q542 1 1.

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God (‫) ל ם א להא‬. The author channels piety towards the name itself, an object worthy of reverence, and a unique element that is missing from Dan 4, the parallel story of Nebuchadnezzar’s rehabilitation. To these examples, we could add texts that show scribal attentiveness to avoidance practices, such as the use of Tetrapuncta in 4QpapTob (4Q196) and the use of paleo-Hebrew writing of ‫ אלה ה‬in 4QpsDan (4Q243). In these cases, the traditional explanations for avoidance among pious and priestly scribes suffice; and such avoidance is not by chance. The intentionality of the custom is clear from Aramaic compositions that rely on Hebrew source material, namely 1QapGen, 11QNew Jerusalem, 4QpsDan , and 11QAramaic Job. Together these contain 15 explicit replacements of the Tetragrammaton in the process of translation or rewriting. It is true, nonetheless, that when looking at this material as a whole, most Aramaic authors do not indicate why they avoid the divine name. Among the bilingual sources—Ezra, Daniel, and Mt. Gerizim—there are explicit patterns of use in Hebrew and avoidance in Aramaic, but no commentary or material evidence to suggest why it was necessary to avoid the divine name. Even in cases like 11QAramaic Job, where the translator replaces the Tetragrammaton with ‫אלהא‬, we have no indication that this was motivated out of reverence for the divine name because the translator renders all Hebrew designations consistently with ‫אלהא‬. Although roughly 37 different names for God are found in Aramaic, 25 of these are compound titles or epithets, underscoring the importance of descriptive or adjectival elements in the designations. The book of Daniel and the Qumran Aramaic scrolls especially use epithets that are fundamentally expansive—geographically, temporally, and spatially. The dominion or sovereignty of God encompasses all land, heavens, and even all time. It is no surprise, then, that the adjective ‫ א‬is used frequently, both as a substantive, ‫ ( א‬Great One ), and as a modifier: ‫ ( אל א‬Great God ), ‫ ( אלה‬Great God ), ‫ ( נא א‬our Great Lord ), ‫ ( ל א א‬Great King ), ‫ ( ד א א‬Great Holy One ). George Nickelsburg considered this epithet as a window into In addition to the texts that follow above, see 4Q246 1 i 9, called the Great, and be designated by his name (‫ה י נה‬ ) ; 4Q529 1 9, behold a city is to be built to the name (‫ )ל ה‬of the Great One The terms that replace the divine name are ‫( אלהא‬1Q20, 11Q10), ‫( ה ל יא‬1Q20), ‫אל הי‬ (4Q244), ‫( אל‬11Q18), and ‫( אל לי‬1Q20). In the Hebrew Bible, by contrast, the adjective is often attributive or used in the predicate position, but not as an epithet itself. We find ‫ד‬ ( rich in loving-kindness, Ex 34:6), ( rich in goodness, Isa 63:7), ( rich in power, Ps 147:5), ‫ה ליליה‬ ( great in action deed, Jer 32:19). The word ‫ ( ד ל‬great ) also has this sense; cf. Ps 47:3, 48:2, 95:3; Mal 1:14. The increased use of ‫ א‬in the Aramaic scrolls may explain one subtle but intriguing variant in the cave 4 copy of Daniel. The MT (Dan 2:20) reads blessed be the

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the author’s mind. Concerning 1 Enoch, he comments that the terms God’ and Lord’ are almost always elaborated with modifiers that emphasize God’s transcendent character. If the idea of transcendence was a strong attribute of God’s character for the Aramaic writer, what better way to articulate this than to collapse the idea with the character trait through a divine epithet? With precision and brevity, these Aramaic authors used metonymy to open new portrayals of God. Excellent examples can be found in Dan 7 and the Book of Giants. The epithets ‫ ( י י יא‬Ancient of Days ) and ‫יא‬ ‫לי‬ ( Ruler of Heaven ) are unique formulations in Jewish literature. Such epithets offer portrayals of God that parallel the distinct message of the text in which they occur, something a standard or generic title could not accomplish. The Tetragrammaton carries particular connotations that hedge its broader import outside geographic, national, and in the case of Dan 7, temporal boundaries. For all its power and sacredness, the Tetragrammaton is not boundless in the ways that compound epithets can be inventively construed. When compared to divine name avoidance, James Aitken argues that the use of divine titles and epithets offers a gain from the descriptive elements in the name, not a loss of theological significance as the history of interpretation has tended to emphasize. The gain offered through new divine titles and epithets was a driving motivation for Jewish writers to adopt such designations instead of the Tetragrammaton. Still, the use of descriptive epithets should not be viewed in competitive terms that would rule out the pious and priestly motivations for avoidance. The fact remains that in several Aramaic texts, descriptive titles and epithets coexist alongside the short form of the divine name. The role of compound titles and epithets turns out to be an active consideration in our investigation of reasons for avoidance, as an appealing alternative, but to appreciate the nuance of this material, we need to consider also the second categorization above, the texts that use the short form of the divine name. Throughout the first half of the Second Temple period, we find the Aramaic form of the divine name in diverse sources: Elephantine material, the Idumean name of God (‫ )אלהא‬from age to age, but 4Q112 reads, Blessed be the name of the Great God (‫ ) א אלהא‬from age to age. This may be understood as a harmonization with the use in Dan 2:45, where we find ‫אלה‬. But the use of ‫ א‬may also re ect a trend towards the expansion of divine epithets with modifiers in late Second Temple period Aramaic. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch, 42. Aitken ( God of the Pre-Maccabees, 266) makes this observation in the context of rightly criticizing the twentieth-century perspective shared among protestant scholars that Israelite religion witnessed a decline or degeneration from the prophets to the legalism of the rabbis. According to this past view, the disuse of the Tetragrammaton simply showed the deficiency of Judaism’s theological system.

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Ostracon, P. Amh 63, and the BM Drachm. For the most part, authors are not attentive to the actual writing of the divine name, nor concerned with guarding its use in oaths and curses. The Elephantine ostraca and papyri contain inconsistencies, orthographic and formulaic, that show a complete lack of the fastidious scribal activity around the divine name that became typical of sources in the late Second Temple period. This unregulated use of the divine name, coupled with the use of new descriptive epithets, creates the impression of a transitional period in naming practices. A complex situation arises in the Jedaniah archive, for example, specifically in the well-known letter for aid (A4.7–8). We find the special use of ‫ יא‬and a high frequency of ‫יה‬. This contrasts with the avoidance of the divine name in the memorandum of the return letter (A4.9) from the governors of Yehud and Samaria. This archive, then, presents us with both the use and avoidance of the divine name, as well as the prominent use of ‫ יא‬. The notion of Heaven as significant a metonym, understood on the shared association between God and universal sovereignty, is the mediating power that the administrations of Elephantine, Yehud, and Samaria could agree on. The epithet God of Heaven has drawn much attention in scholarship, particularly from the history of Israelite religion. Kraeling emphasized the role of God of Heaven in the diplomatic letters from Elephantine. Freedman understood the diplomatic sense of this title to have both administrative and theological implications, with more direct relevance for the latter as the God of Israel would unavoidably be subject to the partial but marginal syncretism with Ahura Mazda, the sky god of Zoroastrianism. D. K. Andrew made the astute observation that God of Heaven was likely a double entendre. Jews wished to continue worshipping their ancestral deity, but they also wanted the Ernst A. Knauf, Die Umwelt des Alten Testaments (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1994), 252, has explained the emergence of such terms as part of a much broader phenomenon of the ancient Near East: T he withdrawal of the gods from the earth into heaven begins already in the third millennium BCE. The use of epithets with heaven, therefore, is simply describing the natural evolution of this belief. Kraeling, The Brooklyn Museum Aramaic Papyri, 84: The occurrences are restricted to the diplomatic’ documents and two other letters, A.P. 38:2, 3 and 40:2 Since this phrase is also found in Old Testament writings of the Persian or Hellenistic age, the predilection shown for it in the diplomatic texts may be in conformity with recent Palestinian custom, re ecting Yahweh’s absorption of the title of the god Baalshamin  Certainly God of Heaven does not seem to have been a term in general use for Yahu at Elephantine. For the early connection to ancient Syria, see R. A. Oden, Baʿal m m and El, CBQ 39 (1977): 457–73; and Eissfeldt, Ba alšam m und Jahwe, ZAW 57 (1939): 1–31. Freedman, YHWH, TDOT 5:521; Thomas M. Bolin, The Temple of ‫ יה‬at Elephantine and Persian Religious Policy, in The Triumph of Elohim, 127–42.

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Persian authorities to officially recognize their cult, thus qualifying for financial support. The objective was to put forward a divine designation that Persian officials could tacitly accept. Andrews made the point that political overtones of God of Heaven must have been foremost, and the theological meanings only implied, or at least unidirectional. He states that YHWH may have been syncretized with Ahura Mazda using this epithet, but Persian sources never actually refer to Ahura Mazda as God of Heaven. Aitken also considers the diplomatic or international context to be most helpful for understanding the prominence of this epithet during the Persian period: I t was in conversation with Persian officials that God was given this epithet. Williamson argues that t he title is thus to be seen as a product of administrative terminology by which the deities of subject peoples might be tested for their relation to Ahura Mazda. It is certainly noteworthy that its use in the OT is largely confined to points of official contact between Jews and Persians. The overwhelming scholarly consensus is that God of Heaven, and related epithets, are connected to the new political context of the post-exilic Persian period. These political circumstances, a development external to the history of Judaism, required Jews to articulate new portrayals of God. In the context of this shifting political stage, the Tetragrammaton seems ill-suited for the international profile managed more easily by God of Heaven. An important yet understudied question arises precisely on this point, and it concerns the historic relationship between the Tetragrammaton and other divine designations: is the avoidance tradition an internal or external phenomenon? Did the avoidance tradition leave gaps later filled by other divine titles and epithets? Or did the need for other portrayals of God, an external mechanism, push the Tetragrammaton aside in the context of international-facing, political discourse? In the little research done on this question, scholars have affirmed the importance of the metonym Heaven, and related descriptive epithets, but are less clear on its relationship with the Tetragrammaton. Aitken takes the use of ‫ יא‬to have become standard in Jewish texts of the Second Temple period (e.g., 1 Macc. 3:50; 4:10, 24, 40; 12:15; 16:3; cf. Dan. 4:23), but attributes its popularity to the decline the use of the tetragrammaton. He would answer the question above by saying that Tetragrammaton avoidance is the mechanism for the rise of other divine titles and epithets. George F. Moore, in the early D. K. Andrews, Yahweh the God of the Heavens, in The Seed of Wisdom. Festschrift T. J. Meek (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1964), 45–57. Aitken, God of the Pre-Maccabees, 259. Williamson, Ezra, 12. Aitken, God of the Pre-Maccabees, 259.

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twentieth century, posited a similar dynamic concerning ‫ לי‬, namely that its increased use was intended to fill the vacuum left by the avoidance tradition. Importantly, however, he also correlated the rise in the use of ‫ לי‬with the early Jewish preference for terms that portrayed God in the language of exaltation. Thus scholars are uncertain about the driving motivations for naming God: the avoidance tradition or the need for unique and exigent portrayals of the divine. When examining the full scope of Aramaic evidence, we can plausibly see how both forces are active, in varying degrees, for scribes over the centuries. We should take seriously the impact of descriptive titles and epithets on subsequent naming traditions. Some of these epithets appear to create clear networks among Aramaic compositions. The epithets ‫ לי‬and ‫ ( ליא‬Most High ), for example, along with various compounds, are found only in Daniel and the Qumran Aramaic Scrolls. They do not occur in Ezra, the Elephantine material, or elsewhere. God of Heaven was not universally important for all Jewish writers, although we see ‫יא‬ used continually. Aitken makes the striking observation that: the title God of heaven’ is absent from Ben Sira, where ‫ לי‬and, in the Greek translation, ι ος are very important. This suggests that for some the title God of heaven’ had significance, whilst for others, their preference lay elsewhere.

The preference for some divine designations over others provides an excellent background for why Aramaic authors continued to avoid the divine name. The new divine titles and epithets carry unique depictions of God. They do not function simply in a secondary sense to fill a void left by the divine name. Two remaining considerations—one linguistic and the other theological socio-religious—should be kept in mind as we move into the Hebrew and Greek evidence for the divine name. One of the dominant theories about the use of the Aramaic divine name is that it occurs exclusively in vernacular texts. In his monograph on the Elephantine material, Porten suggested that this triliteral form of the divine name  was virtually confined to the vernacular. The literary form was almost always YHWH  This explanation seems to Moore, Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era: The Age of the Tannaim (3 vols.; Cambridge, Mass.; Cambridge University Press, 1927–30), 429–30. See further Bauckham, The Nature of the Most high’, 107–126. Aitken, God of the Pre-Maccabees, 264. Porten, Archives from Elephantine: The Life of an Ancient Jewish Military Colony (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1968), 106; cf. also Kittel quoted by L. Blau, Tetragrammaton in The Jewish Encyclopedia (ed. I Singer; New York, 1907), II, 118ff.

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account for a substantial amount of the data. It can be argued that nearly all of the uses of the divine name in Aramaic—Elephantine, P. Amh 63, Idumean Ostracon, and BM Drachm—re ect varying degrees of vernacular language. The orthographic inconsistency of this material re ects phonetic variation, untouched by literary convention. The main problem with this linguistic explanation, however, is that it accounts for only half of the picture, and therefore its usefulness is limited. For example, it is helpful to understand the social context in which the Aramaic divine name found common expression, but we are still left wondering why in the literary Aramaic texts of Ezra, Daniel, and some Qumran Aramaic scrolls, the divine name is avoided? There are also problems with understanding YHWH as a purely literary form. As I show in the following chapter, the Tetragrammaton occurs in several non-literary Hebrew inscriptions, incantations, and formulas, to say nothing about the numerous Iron-Age, non-literary uses, such as the Arad and Lachish ostraca. The linguistic distinction made by Porten and others is heuristically valuable, but decidedly inconclusive when the full spectrum of evidence is considered. Theological explanations for divine name use avoidance seem to account for a broader range of naming practices. The uses of the name in the Elephantine material, Idumean Ostracon, P. Amh 63, and the BM Drachm all point to broad geographic distribution, stretching across Egypt, Idumea, and Judea, Philistia, or Samaria. While the socio-religious contexts of these materials are diverse, they nonetheless share what may be thought of as a syncretistic or polytheistic horizon. Not a single Aramaic text that uses the divine name is representative of an early Jewish monotheism. Each source acknowledges multiple deities in prayer, blessings, and curses; they also depict syncretistic practices. At Elephantine, the divine name is used alongside other titles and epithets of local deities. The community had few religious restrictions, even as they self-identified as Jews (literally, yehudin). In contrast, the texts that avoid the Aramaic divine name exclusively acknowledge the God of Israel as the one sovereign deity. Many of these compositions, such as Ezra and Daniel, take up Kraeling, The Brooklyn Museum Aramaic Papyri, 84: The Jews there lived among Egyptians, Aramaeans, Phoenicians, Babylonians, and Persians. Mutual tolerance and a willingness to recognize other deities were almost a practical necessity. The invocation of the God of Israel, alongside other deities, is militated against in the biblical prophetic tradition. The well-known example, as it pertains to Jews in Upper Egypt, is the indictment of Jer 44:24–30: Therefore hear the word of the LORD, all you Judeans who live in the land of Egypt: Lo, I swear by my great name, says the LORD, that my name shall no longer be pronounced on the lips of any of the people of Judah in all the land of Egypt, saying, As the Lord GOD lives (‫’) י אדני יה ה‬, (Jer 44:24–30). Ironically, this is exactly what the Elephantine material shows (e.g., TAD D7.16, 3–4). See also Isa 19 and Ezek 29.

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this theme emphatically. The God of Israel as Most High becomes the true counterpoint to the supposed gods of the Babylonians. Much of the data aligns with these broad categorizations, but the lack of explicit theological statements in connection with divine name avoidance among the Aramaic writers leaves this explanation open to further inquiry. In another way, it does not tell us why the Tetragrammaton is used in the Hebrew of the bilingual compositions, but not the Aramaic. If indeed they share the same theological vision, why not use the Hebrew and Aramaic forms of the divine name in the same books? More evidence from the Hebrew and Greek sources will be helpful to know how far we can apply these linguistic and socio-religious explanations for the use non-use of the divine name.

PART III Naming God in Hebrew

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The oldest Hebrew manuscripts on record are from the Qumran caves. The paleographic date of these manuscripts spans roughly three hundred years, from about 250 BCE to 100 CE. Additional caves yielded Hebrew manuscripts south of Qumran, along the ridge-line that follows the western shore of the Dead Sea, but none of these matched the preservation and quality of the manuscripts from Qumran. The use of the divine name in the Hebrew Dead Sea Scrolls is a complex phenomenon that I address in several chapters. To make this evidence accessible to the reader, it is important to consider carefully our point of departure. A widely-accepted scholarly construct for thinking about the vast diversity of textual material from Caves 1–11, known as the three-fold or tripartite division, categorizes the Hebrew sources into (a) copies of works that were later included in the Jewish canon, (b) works originally authored and transmitted among the Qumran-yahad authors (e.g., Rule of the Community, Thanksgiving Scroll, and the War Scroll), and lastly, (c) works that originated in the wider literary milieu of Judea, but were nonetheless transmitted and edited by the Qumran scribes. Most of the latter were previously unknown before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. A shorthand way of discussing these categories is by referring to them as biblical, There are earlier Iron-Age Hebrew inscriptions and documentary evidence, such as the Arad and Lachish ostraca, but biblical manuscripts enter the material record with the Qumran finds. Some may consider the Nash Papyrus from Egypt as an exception. It dates paleographically to around 125 BCE and contains a unique combination of the Decalogue and Shema. These include Na al e elim, Na al ever, Wadi Murabba at, and Masada. See DJD 39 C: Annotated List of Texts from the Judean Desert. Na al e elim contained a phylactery with the Tetragrammaton (34Se Phylactery) (Y. Yadin, IEJ 11, 36–52); the Cave of Letters from Na al ever preserved extensive passages from Psalms (Peter Flint, DJD 38:133–34); Wadi Murabba at preserved fragments of Gen, Num, Deut, and Isa (Mur1–3) as well as a phylactery (Mur4). The term biblical can be misleading for those unfamiliar with the diversity of textual forms found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. A Bible did not exist as a fixed collection of sacred scripture during the late Second Temple period. Even though the Torah and Prophets were authoritative, for example, their textual content was not fixed in the sense of a canon of scripture. See Eugene Ulrich, Pluriformity in the Biblical Text, Text Groups, and Questions of Canon, in The Madrid Qumran Congress: Proceedings of the International Congress on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Madrid, 18–21 March 1991, Vol. 1 (ed. J. Trebolle Barrera and L. Vegas Montaner; Leiden: Brill, 1992), 36: it was the sacred work or book that was important, not the specific edition or specific wording of the work  According to James VanderKam, the textual pluriformity

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sectarian, and non-sectarian. This terminology, however, tends to confuse as much as it clarifies because it takes us from an emic description of the sources that creates some misunderstandings, an issue that continues to be heavily debated among Qumran scholars. These categories, nonetheless, are heuristically representative of the material. With some qualifications and exceptions, even the short-hand terms for these categories are useful, as long as we keep in mind that these terms denote broad, complex groupings of texts, more porous than a reified genre and that these groupings did not mean the same thing or carry the same connotations for the ancient authors as they do today. We can use biblical, for example, without assuming the kind of the Qumran scrolls gives way to greater uniformity by the end of the first or beginning of the second century CE; see VankerKam, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible, 15. These are texts that originate with the Qumran writers, self-described as members of the yahad. These texts contain distinctive ideas and terms, as found in compositions like 1QS, CD, 1QH , and 1QM, that are generally not shared as far as we know, among other groups of early Judaism during the late Second Temple period. Scrolls of non-sectarian origin do not fit the other categories in so far as they were not included in the present Jewish canon and have few sectarian affinities. The non-sectarian scrolls are often referred to as non-biblical, but the latter is more problematic because it imposes a (potentially anachronistic) modern assumption about how an ancient text was understood within a community that used it. The labels apocryphal and pseudepigraphical have also been applied to the non-sectarian scrolls, but these may confuse readers as most of the non-sectarian texts do not belong to the traditional collection of books found in the Apocrypha or Pseudepigrapha. For further discussion, see James VanderKam, Apocryphal and Pseudepigraphical Texts, in The Dead Sea Scrolls Today (2nd ed.; Grand Rapids; Eerdmans, 2010), 52–61. For copies of Qumran works that were later collected in the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha see Peter Flint, Index of Passages from the Apocrypha and Previously-Known Writings ( Pseudepigrapha ) In the Scrolls, in The Dead Sea Scrolls After Fifty Years. A Comprehensive Assessment (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 666–68. For a helpful discussion of emic versus etic terminology used to describe scriptural texts, see Anders Klostergaard Petersen, Rewritten Bible as a Borderline Phenomenon: Genre, Textual Strategy, or Canonical Anachronism? in Flores Florentino: Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Early Jewish Studies in Honour of Florentino García Martínez (ed. A. Hilhorst, Émile Puech, and Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar; JSJSup 122; Leiden: Brill, 2007), 285–306. Devorah Dimant recently affirmed the utility of the tripartite structure in The Library of Qumran in Recent Scholarship, in The Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran and the Concept of a Library (ed. S. W. Crawford and C. Wassen; STDJ 116; Leiden: Brill, 2016), 8. Årstein Justnes reviews prevailing terminology in On Being a Librarian’: Labels, Categories, and Classifications, in The Dead Scrolls at Qumran and the Concept of a Library, 15–32. Florentino García Martínez also discusses problems for categorizing texts from Qumran in Sectario, no-sectario, o qué? Problemas de una taxonomía correcta de los textos qumránicos, RevQ 23 91 (2008): 383–94. This point is well illustrated when comparing modern versus ancient views of the Cave 11 Psalms Scroll (11QPs ). This scroll comprises a composite collection of material. It contains both biblical psalms, although arranged in a different order than the MT Psalter, as well as previously unknown psalms, such as Plea for Deliverance, Apostrophe to Zion, Hymn to the

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of authority such texts had for a community. It is possible to use sectarian without pejorative connotations or limiting the scope of in uence these texts may have had. Non-sectarian, also, need not imply an exclusion of sectarian interests or theology. For the current chapter, the tripartite division of scrolls offers a convenient structure for this survey of Hebrew evidence. I find this framework beneficial for another reason, beyond its organizational utility. The patterns of naming God are surprisingly consistent within each category. By considering the customs of naming God within each category texts, we can see more clearly how they compare and contrast.

6.1 Questions abound over the use and avoidance of the divine name in each of these three major divisions of the scrolls. In the Qumran biblical scrolls, the divine name ‫ יה ה‬occurs some 2,100 . When the original discoveries were made in the 1940–50s, these biblical manuscripts were found to be in remarkable agreement with the medieval version of the Hebrew Bible, known as the Masoretic Text (MT). There are some exceptions, and clearly, other textual forms and traditions are represented, but the stability of the MT was famously verified by the Qumran discoveries. There are, nonetheless, many variant readings of the divine name that have continued to be misunderstood by scholars. Creator, and David’s Compositions. The previously unknown psalms are interwoven among the MT psalms. We also find here the poem to Wisdom that concludes Ben Sira (Sir 51:13–22). This means that the compiler of 11QPs did not discern between what we call today biblical versus non-biblical or apocryphal material. That the compiler viewed the contents of the Psalms Scroll holistically is further demonstrated by the fact that the Tetragrammaton, written consistently in the paleo-Hebrew script, occurs throughout the entire scroll. This creates a problem for the modern categorization of evidence from this scroll according to the tripartite division. But because 11QPs is a composite of earlier works, I think my approach can be justified to include the evidence of the MT-like psalms of 11QPs (11Q5 cols 1–17, 20–28; frgs. A–F) under the biblical category, and the evidence for the Tetragrammaton in the previously unknown psalms of 11QPs (11Q5 18–19 and parts of 22, 24, 26–28) under the nonsectarian category. The scrolls of non-sectarian origin do not represent a unified category. The label nonsectarian does not assume that these works were authoritative, which is why non-sectarian is preferable to non-biblical. The latter makes the implicit assumption that the works it describes were not authoritative. This makes it possible, then, to discuss such works as Pseudo-Ezekiel, 4QReworked Pentateuch A–E, the Temple Scroll, and Jubilees, under the heading non-sectarian without assuming coherence or intending to con ate the differences in exegetical intention, purpose, literary aims, or most importantly the degree to which some compositions were more authoritative than others.

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The use of ‫ אדני‬in Qumran biblical scrolls, where the MT reads ‫יה ה‬, is perhaps the most persistent area of confusion. Are these divine name variants related to the avoidance tradition, or is an alternative explanation more plausible? In the Qumran sectarian or yahad compositions, the divine name is consistently avoided, except when the yahad authors quote biblical verses within their writings. In biblical quotations, the divine name occurs 46 in 15 different manuscripts, but the use of the divine name is far from consistent across all biblical quotations. The yahad writers use a range of omission or replacement techniques to avoid the Tetragrammaton. One of the more notable replacements is with the title ‫אל‬, which shows that Qumran authors modified the wording of biblical verses to accommodate their theology and fit the style of their compositions. That the Qumran yahad authors replaced the divine name in biblical quotations is evidence for a trend towards avoidance. How does this compare with the divine name variant readings in the Qumran biblical manuscripts? Is the same principle at work in both categories of texts? In the remaining scrolls from Qumran, the so-called non-sectarian texts, the Tetragrammaton occurs about 254 in some 54 documents. The authors of these works rewrite, expand, adapt, and interpret earlier biblical source texts, and also contain new material. This category includes the much-debated rewritten scripture texts, such as the Temple Scroll, 4QReworked Pentateuch A–E, and Jubilees, and here the Tetragrammaton occurs frequently where it See appendices for documents, references, and a working list of total yahad compositions used in this study. The frequently discussed criteria that determine the degree of changes made to a sourcetext include: expansions, using a new speaker to recast the material, claims to revelation, changes to the scope and setting, rearrangements, and noticeable theological agenda. Thus, for example, because some of the 4QRP manuscripts have no new speaker, no claim to revelation, and no new scope or setting, they are essentially biblical. This is often contrasted with the Temple Scroll and Genesis Apocryphon, where we find large expansions, changes in speaker, and rearrangements of the source material. Magnus Riska, The Temple Scroll–Is it More or Less Biblical? in Scripture in Transition: Essays on Septuagint, Hebrew Bible, and Dead Sea Scrolls in Honour of Raija Sollamo (ed. A. Voitila and J. Jokiranta; JSJSup 126; Leiden: Brill, 2008), 607–14. The term rewritten Bible was coined by Geza Vermes, Scripture and Tradition in Judaism (Studia Post-Biblica 4; Leiden: Brill, 1961). The debate has been well-documented by other scholars. I mention here a few important studies: Daniel J. Harrington, The Bible Rewritten (Narratives), in Early Judaism and Its Modern Interpreters (ed. Robert A. Kraft and George W. E. Nickelsburg; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986), 239–47; Philip S. Alexander, Retelling the Old Testament, in It Is Written: Scripture Citing Scripture (ed. D. A. Carson and H. G. M. Williamson; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 99–121; Emanuel Tov, Biblical Texts as Reworked in Some Qumran Manuscripts with Special Attention to 4QRP and 4QparaGen-Exod, in The Community of the Renewed Covenant: The Notre Dame Symposium on the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. Eugene Ulrich and James VanderKam; Notre

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would be expected: paraphrases, quotations, and various rearrangements of biblical sources. But the divine name is also found outside para-biblical or rewritten compositions, for example, Pseudo-Ezekiel, 4QSapiential Work (4Q185), 4QNarrative Work Prayer (4Q460), 1QLiturgy of the Three Tongues of Fire (1Q29), 4QExhortation Based on the Flood (4Q370). The use of the divine name in these scrolls has received little focused attention. The reason for the Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), 111–34; ibid., Three Strange Books of the L : 1 Kings, Esther, and Daniel Compared with Similar Rewritten Compositions from Qumran and Elsewhere, in Hebrew Bible, Greek Bible, and Qumran: Collected Essays (ed. Emanuel Tov; TSAJ 121; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 283–305; ibid., The Many forms of Hebrew Scripture: Re ections in Light of the L and 4QReworked Pentateuch, in From Qumran to Aleppo: Discussion with Emanuel Tov about the Textual History of Jewish Scriptures in Honor of His 65th Birthday (ed. Armin Lange, Matthias Weigold, and József Zsengellér; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2009), 11–28; Moshe J. Bernstein, Rewritten Bible’: A Generic Category Which Has Outlived its Usefulness? Textus 22 (2005): 169–96; Molly Zahn, Rethinking Rewritten Scripture: Composition and Exegesis in the 4QReworkedPentateuch Manuscripts (STDJ 95; Leiden: Brill, 2011), 1–23; ibid., Genre and Rewritten Scripture: A Reassessment, JBL 131 (2012): 271–288; Anders Klostergaard Petersen, Rewritten Bible as a Borderline Phenomenon: Genre, Textual Strategy, or Canonical Anachronism? in Flores Florentino: Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Early Jewish Studies in Honour of Florentino García Martínez (ed. A. Hilhorst, Émile Puech, and Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar; JSJSup 122; Leiden: Brill, 2007), 285–306; Michael Segal, The Book of Jubilees: Rewritten Bible, Redaction, Ideology and Theology (JSJSup 117. Leiden: Brill, 2007); Daniel K. Falk, The Parabiblical Texts: Strategies for Extending the Scriptures among the Dead Sea Scrolls (LSTS 63; New York: T & T Clark, 2007); Sidnie W. Crawford, Rewriting Scripture in Second Temple Times (SDSSRL; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008); Daniel A. Machiela, Once More, with Feeling: Rewritten Scripture in Ancient Judaism–A Review of Recent Developments, JJS 61 (2010): 308–320; John F. Quant, Rewriting Scripture Inside and Out: A Typology of Rewriting in Variant Editions and Rewritten Scripture, (PhD Dissertation; Emory University; advisor Brent Strawn, 2014). Sidnie W. Crawford excluded Pseudo-Ezekiel from the rewritten genre because although it is thematically related to Ezekiel, it does not reuse the actual biblical text. Sidnie W. Crawford, The Rewritten Bible’ at Qumran: A Look at Three Texts, in Eretz-Israel: Archaeological, Historical and Geographical Studies (vol. 26; ed. Baruch A. Levine, Philip J. King, Joseph Naveh, and Ephraim Stern; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1999), 1. She mentions two major criteria for the categorization of Rewritten Bible as a grouping of texts that show a close attachment, either through narrative or themes and some type of reworking, whether through rearrangement, con ation, or supplementation of the present canonical biblical text. For the types of biblical interpretation in Pseudo-Ezekiel manuscripts, see Monica Brady, Biblical Interpretation in the Pseudo-Ezekiel’ Fragments (4Q383–391) from Cave Four, in Biblical Interpretation at Qumran (ed. Matthias Henze; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 88–109. See notes on the use of ‫ יה ה‬and ‫ אל‬in Goldman, Scripture and Interpretation, 49. As early as 1986, however, Eileen Schuller pointed to the significance of this area in her work involving 4Q380 and 4Q381; see Schuller, Non-Canonical Psalms from Qumran: A Pseudepigraphic Collection (Harvard Semitic Studies; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986),

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lack of discussion, in part, is because a survey of this material has yet to be done; and for those who have taken notice, many assume that these works simply behave like scriptural texts and therefore have not pursued more focused inquiry into the uses of the Tetragrammaton. The rewritten compositions have received some attention, but many occurrences of the Tetragrammaton have never been collectively investigated for their approach to naming God. How does the use of the Tetragrammaton in these texts inform our understandings of the divine name’s history against the pervasive assumption that the divine name was subject to ever-increasing restrictions and then categorically avoided? Clarification on these questions is the goal of the subsequent chapters, pursued in three stages that roughly corresponding to the tripartite division of scrolls.

6.2 The Qumran biblical scrolls contain divine name readings at odds with other biblical witnesses. While variant readings are common in text-critical work, special problems arise when viewing this data through the lens of the divine name avoidance tradition. Scholars are uncertain about how divine name variants should be understood, especially as it relates to the ketiv-qere tradition and the interplay between ‫ אדני‬and ‫יה ה‬. I begin with several examples that illustrate these issues. Deut 32:27 (MT) contains the Tetragrammaton, but we find ‫ אדני‬in the Cave 1 manuscript of Deut, 1QDeut (1Q5): ‫לא יה ה ל ל א‬ ] ‫]לא אדני[ ל ל א‬

MT 1Q5 5.1

Deut 32:27

The typical explanation for ‫ אדני‬in the Qumran scroll is that the text was copied from dictation. The reader would have pronounced ‫אדני‬, avoiding the divine name in speech, and scribe presumably wrote ‫ אדני‬instead of ‫יה ה‬. Thus, ‫אדני‬ entered the textual history of biblical verses in the process of transmission.

38–43. Writing before the publication of the Cave 4 material, she observed that the Tetragrammaton occurs some fifty times in over a dozen different works  None of these are, in origin, necessarily Essene. The current statistics, as stated above, have now increased beyond what seemed to be an exceptionally large number in the 1980s. Devorah Dimant has also called attention to this situation in The Qumran Manuscripts: Contents and Significance, in Time to Prepare the Way in the Wilderness (ed. D. Dimant and L. H. Schiffman; STDJ 10; Leiden: Brill, 1995), 29 n. 15. E.g., James R. Davila, The Name of God at Moriah: An Unpublished Fragment from 4QGenExod-a, JBL 110 (1991): 577–82.

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Regarding the same variant type in the Cave 4 copy of Lamentations, 4QLam (4Q111), Frank M. Cross wrote: Presumably the direction of change is from ‫יה ה‬ to ‫אדני‬, since in late times ‫ יה ה‬was not read aloud, and often the manuscripts were dictated. In referring to a direction of change, Cross implied the scribal activity is not haphazard or accidental, but deliberate, thus motivated by a conscious choice to avoid the divine name. This explanation is also at the heart of the most-discussed biblical manuscript from Qumran, the Cave 1 copy of Isaiah (1QIsa ). The relationship between ‫ אד ני‬and ‫ יה ה‬in 1QIsa deserves special attention because of the context in which the scroll was produced. The scribe who copied 1QIsa was also the copyist of the yahad composition Rule of the Community (1QS). The material evidence of scribal editing, therefore, needs careful consideration. Most scholars agree that the Tetragrammaton was read as ‫אדני‬, but written by the 1QS scribe as ‫יה ה‬, except where he confused the two designations when they occurred near each other. This situation is well illustrated by the example of 1QIsa 3.24–26 (Isa 3:17–18). In line 24, the scribe cancels ‫ אד ני‬and inserts ‫יה ה‬, but in line 25 the scribe cancels ‫ יה ה‬and inserts ‫;אד ני‬ this seems to be a contradiction. For the sectarian scribe copying 1QIsa , writing the Tetragrammaton itself is not a problem. Skehan provided one possible explanation for this situation, although his theory depends almost entirely on a hypothetical scenario in which the reader of the scroll warned the copyist everytime he was about to encounter the Tetragrammaton in the biblical source text. Skehan describes the process as follows: both he and his reader pronounce Adonay for both ‫ יה ה‬and ‫אד ני‬. When he hears Adonay, unless somehow warned, he automatically writes ‫ יה ה‬the copyist has no problem with the name Yhwh as such, which he writes in his ordinary script. He always has a problem with the name ‫אד ני‬, and when that name occurs in close conjunction with Yhwh, a secondary problem arises for the tetragrammaton.

Cross, DJD 16:236. Russel Hobson, Transforming Literature into Scripture: Texts as Cult Objects at Nineveh and Qumran (BW; Sheffield: Equinox, 2012), 130, brie y notes a few examples of what he calls interchanges in the context of linguistic features of some Qumran biblical manuscripts but does not sample the larger context of variant patterns. In a description of the linguistic profile of 1QIsa , Martin Abegg writes: Although the 30 occurrences of variation in 1QIsa may defy a unified explanation, the phenomenon is almost certainly related in part to the scribe’s vocalization of the tetragrammaton as ad n y; and thus, his propensity to replace ‫ אדני‬with ‫יה ה‬. See DJD 32:39. This view was first entertained Millar Burrows, Variant Readings in the Isaiah Manuscript (Continued), BASOR 113 (1949): 24–32, and developed further by Skehan. Skehan, The Divine Name, 41 n. 14.

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In particular, regarding the seemingly contradictory corrections in 1QIsa 3.24– 26, Skehan writes: There are 2 false corrections; unfortunately for readers’ impressions, the first, in 3:17, is the most botched. Warned that ‫ אד ני‬occurred in the verse the scribe wrote it correctly, then within the same verse and the same line of script, where ‫ יה ה‬should occur, he wrote ‫ אד ני‬see image above: second from the last word in the first line . Learning (from the 2 ‫אד ני‬s in one verse) that he had made an error, he corrected the first ‫ אד ני‬by writing ‫ יה ה‬above it and placing 5 dots below it. He thus left both names wrong.

The best way to account for the mistakes or corrections that entered this manuscript is to assume that ‫ אד ני‬was read for the Tetragrammaton. And to this extent, we can agree that the divine name was avoided in speech. We should take caution, however, with the degree to which this scenario becomes a model to understand divine name variants more broadly. It is no surprise that the divine name was avoided in the production of this text, at the hands of the same scribe of 1QS. But how do we make sense of the textual evidence itself, the contradiction of writing and canceling the divine name?

6.3

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While we have evidence in this special case for spoken avoidance, another way to understand the scribal activity of 1QIsa is to acknowledge the goal of the scribes for textual accuracy vis-à-vis their Vorlage. In other words, 1QIsa provides evidence for the spoken replacement of the Tetragrammaton with ‫אדני‬, but the textual evidence itself, the divine name variants, cannot be taken as evidence for an overarching trend towards avoidance. From such examples, scholars implicitly think that the textual evidence of biblical manuscripts involves theologically motivated changes to the text, either consciously or subconsciously. Only on the rarest occasions could this be the case. Importantly, all scribal changes to divine names in 1QIsa are in the direction of the MT, except the botched false corrections discussed by Skehan. This evidence shows that divine name changes are best understood as attempts to transmit an accurate text according to the Vorlage. The deliberate, seemingly contradictory corrections, in1QIsa prove that the scribe is not concerned with avoiding the Tetragrammaton in writing, but instead with accurate transmission. Nevertheless, confusion over the implications of these biblical divine name variants persist, and not just concerning ‫אדני‬, but also the title ‫ אל‬and ‫אלהים‬. Skehan, The Divine Name, 41 n. 14.

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In a more recent study, Nathanael Andrade suggested that in Qumran scriptural passages the avoidance tradition in uenced the replacement of the Tetragrammaton with ‫ אל‬and ‫אדני‬. He writes: Hebrew texts from Qumran in fact contain instances in which the Tetragrammaton was consistently replaced with ‫ אל‬or ‫ אד ני‬in scriptural passages. In this way, the scribes uniformly avoided writing the Tetragrammaton, thereby preventing its pronunciation.

The broader conclusions of Andrade’s essay are very insightful, but his description of biblical texts in this case requires more accuracy. When he refers to scriptural passages he does not seem to have in mind only quotations within yahad type texts. He continues to write: For example, one scribe who normally copied the Tetragrammaton sometimes substituted ‫ אד ני‬for it; apparently the scribe was mistakenly writing the Tetragrammaton in the manner that he pronounced it. Andrade then lists 11QPs 5.1, 6, and 10 (Pss 129–130) to show that a Qumran scroll contains ‫ אד ני‬but the MT uses ‫יה ה‬. The problem here is a mistake of association, assuming that the text-critical data itself is evidence for divine name avoidance, a view based on a narrow selection of examples. No one disputes that ‫ אד ני‬was pronounced for the Tetragrammaton at Qumran, but the important distinction that needs to be made is that evidence for the avoidance in speech is not clear from a text-critical analysis of the Qumran biblical scrolls. The same holds for our understanding of variant patterns with ‫אלהים‬. In a text-critical study of seventeen divine name variants in the Qumran biblical manuscript of 4QSam , Donald Parry concludes: T he MT avoids or lacks the Tetragrammaton on twelve occasions. If one discounts the three secondary pluses belonging to 4Q 51 in which the name Yhwh appears to have been added, we are still left with nine occasions when MT either lacks or has substituted for the Tetragrammaton. Compare this with the one occasion where MT reads Yhwh against 4Q 51 , which reads Elohim (2 Samuel 12:15). Does this suggest the avoidance of the Tetragrammaton on the part of MT’s version of Samuel? The evidence does not necessarily point to avoidance, but certainly one can see preferences being made by the textual witnesses for divine names. Andrade, The Jewish Tetragrammaton, 9–10. If the scribe mistakenly wrote the Tetragrammaton, then it cannot be used as evidence for deliberate replacement or that Qumran scribes uniformly avoided writing the Tetragrammaton. Parry, 4QSam and the Tetragrammaton, in Current Research and Technological Developments on the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. Donald W. Parry and Stephen D. Ricks; Leiden: Brill, 1996), 121.

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Parry neatly lays out the evidence for the seventeen examples that comprise his study. But his conclusions require some clarification. In five out of the nine instances, where the MT either lacks or has substituted for the Tetragrammaton, the parallel has been reconstructed in 4Q51. In other words, we should not assume that 4Q51 reads ‫ יה ה‬in lacunae and count these against ‫ אלהים‬in the MT. There is no way to know whether 4Q51 and the MT agreed on these readings or not. What remains for consideration is only four variant readings in which the MT has ‫ אלהים‬against ‫ יה ה‬in 4Q51. In two locations, however, 4Q51 reads ‫ אלהים‬where the MT has ‫יה ה‬. We are left with one remaining example upon which Parry’s conclusions rest, namely that the MT compared with 4Q51 and L , prefers the epithet Elohim over Yhwh and that one can certainly see preference being made by the textual witnesses for divine names This creates an impression that scribes were actively expressing their preferences about divine names in the biblical texts they copied. Can this view be sustained in light of an overall collection of divine name variants? What can be said about the general scholarly assumption that the avoidance tradition in uences divine name variants in biblical texts, as in the cases 1QIsa , 1Q5, 4Q111, 11QPs , and 4Q51? How do these examples look when compared with the total collection of divine name variant patterns in the Qumran biblical scrolls?

6.4 Despite claims to the contrary, I argue that we cannot discern from text-critical data a preference for specific names in the copying of Qumran biblical scrolls primarily because the overall collection of evidence turns out to be neutral. For example, the alleged avoidance pattern that has ‫ יה ה‬in the MT and ‫אדני‬ in a Qumran biblical scroll cannot be considered as evidence for avoidance per se, because there are more attestations of the opposite pattern, namely ‫ אדני‬in See 2 Sam 12:15 (4Q51 100–101 2) and 2 Sam 20:19 (4Q51 147–148 1). Parry, 4QSam , 121. It should also be noted that the evidence discussed by Parry has alternative explanations. The MT of 1 Sam 6:3 does not preserve the Tetragrammaton ( ‫א‬ ‫)אלהי י אל‬, while 4Q51 does preserve it (‫י יה ה אל הי י אל‬ ‫)א‬, but the data of these readings should not be gathered in isolation from other passages. This phrase occurs in 4Q51 4 without the Tetragrammaton (1Sam 5:8, 10, 11; 2Sam 6:6; (‫ם‬/‫)א אל הי‬. The selection of evidence in Parry’s study is not representative. Based on the MT alone, we can make some meaningful observations. The MT of 1–2 Samuel uses ‫ יה ה‬473 , while ‫ אלהים‬only 154 . These numbers do not support the view that MT Samuel preferred ‫אלהים‬.

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the MT where the Qumran biblical scroll reads ‫יה ה‬. For example, Exod 15:17 (MT) contains ‫אדני‬, while the Cave 4 copy of Exodus, 4QExod (4Q14) uses the Tetragrammaton: ‫ד אדני‬ ‫ד יה ה‬

‫ל יה ה‬ ‫יה ה‬

‫ל‬

‫ל‬

‫נ ל‬ ‫ידי‬ [ ‫נ ל‬ ‫יד‬

‫ל‬

‫ה‬ ‫ננ‬ ‫ה‬ ‫ננ‬

MT

Exod 15:17

4Q14 6.40–41

This scenario—the opposite variant pattern to the one typically taken as evidence for avoidance—requires a different explanation, one that cannot be based on the principles of avoidance and copying by dictation. To better understand this situation, the chart below illustrates the relationship between all divine name variant patterns in the Qumran biblical scrolls. For reference, I have numbered the variant patterns in the first column. The second column contains the divine name reading in a Qumran biblical scroll, while the third contains the reading in the MT. The fourth column shows how many times each variant pattern occurs. I write null where the MT or Qumran scroll does not contain a divine name reading for a given verse. The variant patterns are grouped in sets (1–2, 3–4, etc) to visualize their opposite patterns. Table 23

Divine name variant patterns in the Biblical Scrolls

Variant Pattern Number

Qumran Scroll

MT

Occurrences

‫ יה ה‬null

null

‫יה ה‬ ‫יה ה אלהים‬

‫יה ה‬

‫יה ה‬

‫יה ה אלהים‬

‫אלהים‬

‫יה ה‬

‫יה ה‬

‫אלהים‬

‫יה ה‬

‫אדני‬

‫אדני‬

‫יה ה‬

The manuscript references can be found in the appendix.

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Divine name variant patterns in the Biblical Scrolls (cont.)

Variant Pattern Number

Qumran Scroll

MT

Occurrences

‫יה ה אלהים‬ ‫אלהים‬

‫אלהים‬ ‫יה ה אלהים‬

‫יה ה‬ ‫אדני יה ה‬

‫אדני יה ה‬ ‫יה ה‬

‫א‬

‫יה ה‬ ‫יה ה‬

‫אדני יה ה‬ ‫יה ה אלהים‬

‫א‬

‫יה ה‬ ‫יה ה‬

‫יה ה אלהים‬ ‫אדני יה ה‬

‫ יה ה אלהים‬null

null

‫יה ה אלהים‬ ‫ אד ני‬null

null

‫אדני‬

Variant patterns nos. 2, 5, and 8 each of which contain the Tetragrammaton in the MT, but not in the Qumran biblical copy—might be understood as the result of avoidance tradition’s in uence, and this is the case with the examples mentioned above. I have paired these with their opposite variant pattern, nos. 1, 6, and 7, to show that the Qumran biblical copies contain the Tetragrammaton where it is absent in the MT. The complete collection of data, showing opposite variant patterns, requires a broader explanation than recourse to an avoidance tradition. A few examples will illustrate the issues more clearly. Taking variant pattern no. 8, it may seem like the divine name ‫ יה ה‬in the MT has been replaced 9 by the Qumran biblical copyist, which reads instead ‫ אדני‬for these verses. But variant pattern no. 7 shows that the divine name occurs 11 in the Qumran biblical copies where the MT reads ‫אדני‬. This makes it problematic to argue that the use of ‫ אדני‬is in uenced by an avoidance trend when copying biblical manuscripts when in fact the overall occurrences of the Tetragrammaton are higher in the Qumran when compared, verse-by-verse, to the MT. The same insight comes from looking at variant pattern nos. 1 and

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2. We find more attestations of the Tetragrammaton in the Qumran biblical manuscripts than we find in the parallel MT verses. When looking at this statistic, an important observation should be noted. 11Q5 16–17 contains the blessing ‫ל לם ד‬ ‫יה ה‬ ( blessed is YHWH, and blessed is his name, forever and ever ) a total of 16 . This recurring line is not found in the MT or L versions of Ps 145. This contributes to the higher number of uses in the Qumran biblical scrolls: ‫( יה ה‬28 ) versus the null in the MT (23 ). At this point, the evidence of 11Q5 17 2–3 is noteworthy, which contains the much-discussed missing nun verse of the acrostic (‫יד‬ ‫נא אל הים ד י‬ ‫י‬ ‫) ל‬, obviously absent from the MT. Scholars have pointed out that the divine designation here is ‫אל הים‬, which occurs only once elsewhere in this psalm (145:1), in contrast to the frequently used ‫( יה ה‬9 ). The use of ‫אל הים‬ in the missing nun verse has been taken to re ect the broader trend towards divine name avoidance. Ben-Dov states that t he use of Elohim to replace YHWH, although not a common practice in the scrolls, does appear in some interesting examples It is often missed, however, that the recurring blessing with the Tetragrammaton (‫ל לם ד‬ ‫יה ה‬ ), is also added to the missing nun verse. If the divine name is used in this novel blessing formula, apparently a late addition, this shows that avoidance was not foremost for the copyist of this scroll. Instead, the use of ‫ אל הים‬should simply be understood as representing variant pattern no. 5, and therefore not evidence for a trend towards avoidance. An example of the null-type, variant pattern no. 1, comes from Ps 138:1. The MT reads ‫א ד‬, I give you thanks, while 11QPs (11Q5) has the divine name in the vocative, underlined below: (Note: the divine name is written in the paleoHebrew script in 11Q5, while the remaining text is the normal square-Aramaic script. I discuss this phenomenon later). ‫ה‬

‫ל ל י נ ד אלהים א‬ ‫לד ד א ד‬ MT ‫ לד יד א ד ה יה ה ל ל י נ ד יה ה אל הים א‬11Q5 21 1–2

Ps 138:1

The null comparison is based on the first instance of the Tetragrammaton above. 11Q5 contains the Tetragrammaton a second time, shown in brackets above. In the manuscript, a scribe has placed dots around the divine name He refers to 11Q5 17 2–3 (Ps 145), 1QIsa 35.14 (Isa 42:5), and 4QCommGen A (4Q252) 1 1–2 (Gen 6:3). See Ben-Dov, Elohistic Psalter, 100. Ben-Dov also mentions Yehoshua Amir’s study, Excursus on a Lost Verse, Beit Miqra 38 (1993): 80–82 (Hebrew), who shows that the wording with the Tetragrammaton in the missing nun verse was preserved in Jewish liturgical paraphrase within the blessing of the Haftarah.

46

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(four above and four below) apparently to mark it as a mistake. With these examples, I do not imply that the reading in 11Q5 originates with the scribe himself as if working directly with or against the tradition of MT. In this instance, the L (Ps 137:1) also reads the vocative κύρι , agreeing with 11Q5 against the MT. My point is that the implications we draw from this material remain neutral because the opposite variant pattern, no. 2, shows the L and MT in agreement against 11Q5: ‫ה ד לם‬ ‫ה ד [ לם‬

‫א‬ ‫א ה‬

‫א‬ ‫ה‬

‫א‬

‫יה ה י‬ ‫י‬

MT 11Q5 3 6

Ps 121:8

The divine name in this example is the explicit subject in the MT but implied in the verb form ‫ י‬of Qumran biblical copy. The L of Ps 120:8 also contains the explicit subject κύριος, in agreement with the MT. The reading in 11Q5, then, cannot be aligned with a known Vorlage. When we consider the larger patterns of variation, this situation cannot be explained by the in uence of the avoidance tradition. The textual evidence is mutually exclusive. In this study, I cannot offer a rationale for every omission of the Tetragrammaton in the Qumran biblical scrolls. My point is to show that a trend towards avoidance cannot be demonstrated from the biblical manuscripts on text-critical grounds. It makes sense, then, that some divine name omissions can be explained according to the principles of textual criticism. The absence of the Tetragrammaton, for example, in 1QIsa 2.9–10 (Isa 2:3) is probably due to haplography: ‫נ לה אל ה יה ה אל י אלהי‬

‫ל‬

‫ים א‬

‫ים‬

MT

‫הל‬

Isa 2:3

‫י‬ ‫נ לה אל י אל הי י‬

‫ל‬

‫ים א‬

‫ים‬

‫הל‬

1QIsa 2.9–10

The repeated use of the preposition ‫ ( אל‬to ) may have caused the scribe to skip over the phrase that contained the Tetragrammaton. Moreover, our appreciation for the nuance and diversity of variant readings of the divine name can be enhanced when we compare Qumran biblical sources with other types of textual witnesses, for example, the te llin (phylacteries). Even though some scholars suggest that this material is primarily liturgical rather than a regular biblical text (as with 4Q41), the following examples offer a helpful context for thinking about variation in divine name use. Below is a summary of the known witnesses to Deut 5:26: There is no vacat in 11Q5 at this locus to suggest that the scribe writing the paleo-Hebrew Tetragrammaton failed to do so. 4QIsa and 4QIsa follow the MT. See Tov, Scribal Practices, 76. For observations on how the scribal practices for te llin compare with biblical manuscripts, cf. Tov, Textual Criticism, 218–219.

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‫ל אלהים יים ד‬ ‫ל יה האלהים ד‬ ‫ל אל הים י ד‬ ‫ל אל הים יי ם‬ ‫א‬

‫א‬ ‫א‬ ‫א‬ ‫א‬

‫ל‬ ‫ל‬ ‫ל‬ ‫ל‬

‫י י‬ ‫י י‬ ‫י י‬ ‫י י‬

MT SP L 4QPhyl H (4Q135) 1 4 4QDeut (4Q41) 5 8–9 4QPhyl J (4Q137) 1 32–34

Each source contains the title ‫אלהים‬, but 4QPhyl H contains the compound ‫יה ה אלהים‬. The scribe made a sublinear editorial insertion of the aleph, showing heightened attention to the divine name reading in this location. It seems to me that if there was a strong trend towards avoidance, a scribe might also take the liberty here to correct this text by marking the Tetragrammaton for removal, aligning it with other witnesses. But the evidence in the te llin material moves in the opposite direction, towards the increased use of the Tetragrammaton. The case of Deut 10:20, for example, against all known witnesses, is deliberate: ‫ד‬

{

‫ד‬ ][ ‫[ ]ה ד‬

MT SP L 8QPhyl (8Q3) 3 12 16 14 4QMez B (4Q150) 1 6 4QPhyl K (4Q138) 1 7

Deut 10:20

‫יה ה אל הי ה‬

Most of the sources agree on the text Deut 10:20, by his name you shall swear, except for 4QPhyl K (4Q138). The scribe erases the 3ms pronominal suffix and makes a sublinear insertion, clearly denoting the name by which to swear: ‫יה ה‬ ‫אל הי ה‬. This gives us a clear scenario in which an individual scribe does show some prerogative for a specific designation. It is unlikely that the scribe was correcting the text because all known witnesses of Deut 10:20 agree with the reading .

6.5 In the Qumran biblical and related manuscripts thus far, we have found no evidence on text-critical grounds for the in uence of an avoidance tradition. While the Tetragrammaton was avoided in speech at Qumran, the manuscripts themselves do not indicate how widespread this practice may have been, and at the very least avoidance is nowhere present in the biblical scrolls themselves. Questions remain, however, as to how many prerogatives individual scribes had when copying biblical scrolls. This is especially the case with editorial activity related to the divine name. There are many well-known cases in which editorial activity intended to change divine name readings. Is there an underlying principle to divine name emendations in the Qumran biblical

48

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scrolls? When we look at these direct emendations in isolation from the overall collection of data, it is easy to see how a trend towards avoidance might in uence the scribe, either directly or indirectly. I maintain, as with the basic copying of biblical texts above, that even with direct emendations in biblical manuscripts, the best explanation is that scribes are attempting to improve the accuracy of their work, according to a presumed Vorlage. The evidence is charted below. There are two methods of emendations: (I) supralinear insertions, and (II) dots marking the deletion or erasure of certain letters. Each emendation is numbered, 1–18, for later reference. The second column contains the correction in the Qumran mss found in the biblical scrolls. The third column, MT, contains the parallel reading in the Masoretic Text; other textual witnesses are in footnotes. The last column gives the parallel manuscript references. The carat symbol shows where the supralinear insertion was made. The entire line of text is not included to aid comparison. Noteworthy are the Tetrapuncta, nos. 3 and 4, in the supralinear insertions of 1QIsa . Table 24

Divine name emendations in Qumran Biblical Scrolls

Intervention Qumran mss reading

MT reading

References

I

‫ה‬

‫יה ה‬

‫יה ה‬

‫יה ה‬

‫יה ה‬

‫יה ה‬

‫יה ה‬

‫יה ה אל הי‬

‫יה ה אלהי ם‬

‫י‬

‫יה ה‬

‫י‬

Q Ex : Q i Ps : Q Isa : Q – Deut : QIsa . Isa :

I give special attention to this practice later. Overall, there are five instances in the Qumran biblical scrolls where Tetrapuncta occur. Two are found at 1QIsa 33.7 Isa 40:7 and 35.15 ]Isa 42:6 , both of which are supralinear insertions. In 4QSam (4Q53), Tetrapuncta occur 3 in the main text. The use of Tetrapuncta was probably used throughout this scroll, which preserves parts of 1 Sam 25:30–32 and 2 Sam 14:7–15:15 (no instances of the Tetragrammaton are extant in 4Q53). The remaining biblical manuscripts of Samuel (i.e., 1Q7, 4Q52, and 4Q51) contain the Tetragrammaton in square script. The Tetragrammaton is a supralinear insertion in a lighter second hand in the paleoHebrew scroll. There is some debate whether the Qumran scribe corrected 1QIsa 33.7 by supplying the omission (Tov) or added this line to 1QIsa re ecting the developmental growth of the book itself (Ulrich). See Ulrich, Developmental Composition (Leiden: Brill, 2015); ibid., Identification of a Scribe Active at Qumran: 1QPsb-4QIsac-11QM, in ‫יל‬

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Divine name emendations in Qumran Biblical Scrolls (cont.)

Intervention Qumran mss reading

MT reading

References ‫יה ה‬

‫א‬ ‫ד‬

‫]א‬ ‫א‬

‫יה ה‬

‫יה ה‬

‫י יה ה‬

‫אד ני יה ה‬

‫יה ה‬ ‫א‬

‫אדני יה ה‬

‫אד ני יה ה‬

‫אד ני יה ה‬

‫אד ני יה ה‬

‫אד ני יה ה‬

‫אד ני יה ה‬

‫אד ני יה ה‬

‫אד ני יה ה‬

‫אדני‬

‫א‬

‫יה ה‬

‫א‬

] ‫]יה ה א להי‬

‫יה ה‬ ‫אלהי‬

QIsa . Q ii Q QIsa QIsa QIsa QIsa QIsa QIsa Q Deut

Isa : Isa : Joel : Isa : Isa : Isa : Isa : Isa : Isa :

. . . . . . –

i

:

II ‫י יה א י ה י‬

‫אדני‬

Q Q Q Q QIsa QIsa

‫יה ה אדני‬

QIsa

‫יא יה י‬

‫יה ה אלהי‬

‫אלהי‬

‫יה ה אל הים‬

‫אלהי‬

‫יה ה אל הים‬

‫אלהי‬

‫אד ני יה ה‬

‫אדני‬

‫אד ני‬

‫יה ה‬

Isa : Isa : Ps : Ps : Isa : Isa :

. . . .

(supralinear insertion deletion dots) ‫אל הי‬

‫יה ה אד ני‬

.

Isa

:

When compared to other textual witnesses, we find that each divine name emendation to a biblical scroll agrees with at least one other biblical witness; almost all of them align with the MT. Only 4Q56 (Isa 5:25) and 4Q30 (Deut 31:17) share readings with the L against the MT. The unique reading, -‫ד יה דה ה‬ ‫יל‬ ‫ים‬ ‫ים לד ה די נ‬ , Meghillot: Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls V–VI. A Festschrift for Devorah Dimant (ed. Moshe Bar-Asher, Emanuel Tov; Jerusalem: Bialik Institute and Haifa University Press, 2007), 201–10. There seem to be correction dots around the Tetragrammaton, but only the tops of the letters are preserved on the scroll. The scribe began to write the Tetragrammaton but continued with the correct word. At this location, the scribe inserted ‫ אל הי‬as a supralinear correction, but then signaled its error with one dot on each side. It is directly above ‫אד ני‬.

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non-aligned, is 4Q78 18 20 2 (Joel 4:8). It seems that several verses here were accidentally omitted, and the supralinear insertion, [ ‫ א ד‬, gives us the tail end of the added verses. The use of ‫ א‬Hosts is interesting because the epithet itself does not occur in the MT of Joel, thus a novel depiction of the deity by the scribe. It is unclear, however, if this epithet was original with the scribe, or as the context would suggest, present in his Vorlage. A further example illustrates how these divine name emendations likely represent the desire to produce an accurate text, and not evidence of theological motivation. Note the following example: ‫ל י א אלהי‬ ‫י א יה ה‬ ‫ל י א יה ה אלהי‬ ‫י א יה ה‬

‫א‬ ‫[ א‬

MT 4Q58 4.10

Isa 49:4

The scribe placed dots around the Tetragrammaton, marking it for deletion, bringing it closer to the majority of witnesses. Scholars can agree that these dots, or nequdot, do not provide evidence for divine name avoidance. The scribe is simply concerned with the accurate transmission of Isaiah. In summary, this collection of divine name variant patterns affirms strongly what Eugene Ulrich has previously stated: there are no sectarian variants in the biblical scrolls. He writes: All actors had limited viewpoints, but all apparently agreed that the text of the original’ Scriptures should not be altered, and if there were problems, the texts should be corrected toward the original’ This does not mean, of course, that no ancient scribe ever made a sectarian variant; but it does mean that intentional sectarian-motivated alteration of Scripture would not be a problem-free action.

Russell Fuller suggests it was plausible that the verses were lost due to homoioteleuton from ‫ ל ני‬of 4:6 to ‫ ני‬of 4:8. See DJD 15:235. See DJD 15:235. I am curious, though, why there are three divine name emendations in 4QIsa (4Q58) within five lines of text. This high concentration seems to suggest something more than coincidence. The L reads κ ριο ο ο . See DJD 15:82. The same is true for the cases in 4QpaleoExod (4Q22) and 4QPs (4Q87), which show the supralinear insertion of the Tetragrammaton to align these readings with the presumable Vorlage of the scribe. Eugene Ulrich, The Absence of Sectarian Variants’ in the Jewish Scriptural Scrolls Found at Qumran, in The Bible as Book: The Hebrew Bible and the Judean Desert Discoveries (ed. Edward D. Herbert and Emanuel Tov; London: The British Library and Oak Knoll Press, 2002), 181, 191: Almost always, the scribes tried simply to copy faithfully the text that lay before them, or at least the text their eye or mind perceived.

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5

While Qumran scholarship today would qualify Ulrich’s use of sectarian, it is nevertheless true that the Qumran biblical scrolls show no evidence for a larger trend towards avoidance in writing the divine name. The view that scribes made preferences for some divine names and not others in biblical writings can only be sustained from a narrow selection of evidence. In original yahad compositions, however, naming God is a much more complicated phenomenon. This is true both in freely composed yahad writings, as well as biblical quotations embedded within these writings, where we find a range of deliberate changes and omissions. The discussion so far, at any rate, does not negate the fact that the Tetragrammaton held a very special place for some scribes of the Qumran biblical scrolls. This is clear from the use of the paleoHebrew script to write the divine name within scrolls that are otherwise written entirely in the square-Aramaic script.

6.6

-

Before exploring the Qumran yahad material, a brief excursus on the paleoHebrew script in biblical scrolls will make our task more manageable. A few observations are helpful. Scribes on occasion use the paleo-Hebrew script to write the Tetragrammaton, even as they continued to copy the remaining scroll in the regular square-Aramaic script. A great example is 11Q5 8 5–9 (Psa 119:41–45). The writing of the Tetragrammaton in the paleo-Hebrew script creates a striking contrast with the surrounding text, written in the squareAramaic script. Nothing about this practice is standard. In some cases, the Tetragrammaton is written in the same scribal hand as the remaining scroll, but other times, multiple hands are at work. We even find several different styles of paleo-Hebrew script; the shapes of some letters are vertical, while others are more italicized. Perhaps most notable, this practice is found in all genres of Dead Sea Scrolls: Qumran biblical manuscripts, yahad-type compositions, and non-sectarian works. This is one indication that Qumran scribes copied some versions of all the works found among the Qumran caves. Theories abound for the use of paleo-Hebrew in the Qumran scrolls. The general view holds that this script expresses a sense of reverence, sacredness, or piety. This understanding is often paired with the idea that the script

Raymond Edge outlined at least nine theories for the use of paleo-Hebrew; see Edge The Use of Palaeo-Hebrew in the Dead Sea Scrolls, (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Texas, Austin, 1995), 334.

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offered a visual reminder to avoid pronunciation. Some argue that the use of paleo-Hebrew stems from ritual purity concerns. In light of later rabbinic Delcor, Siegel, Howard, Stegemann, Schiffman, McDonough, Miller, and more recently, Brooke, Tov, and Wilkinson hold this view. See, for example, Schiffman, Sectarian Law in the Dead Sea Scrolls, 135; Tov, Scribal Practices, 218–21, 238–246: These practices re ect reverence for the divine names, considered so sacred that they were not to be written with regular characters lest an error be made or lest they be erased by mistake. An additional purpose may have been a warning against pronouncing the divine name. Ibid., Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2012), 205; ibid, Scribal Characteristics of the Qumran Scrolls, in The Caves from Qumran: Proceedings of the International Conference, Lugano 2014 (ed. Marcello Fidanzio; Leiden: Brill, 2016), 93–94. Wilkinson, Tetragrammaton, 56: This distinctive script and the retention of the original language do, however, mark off the Tetragrammaton as being of a special sanctity–it may also be a warning to the reader not to attempt to read (i.e., say aloud) the word, but this cannot be said for certain. Boaz Zissu and Omri Abadi, Paleo-Hebrew script in Jerusalem and Judea from the Second Century B.C.E. Through the Second Century C.E.: A Reconsideration, Journal for Semitics 23 (2014): 653–66, have departed from the consensus by returning to the position espoused in early Qumran scholarship that the use of paleo-Hebrew was less sacred than the use of the square-Aramaic script. They write: Studies of the Dead Sea Scrolls commonly premise that greater holiness and value was attached to the Paleo-Hebrew script than to the square script. The article shows that, in the Second Temple period, the square script was considered holy. Consequently, those who were scrupulous about observing the laws of ritual purity refrained from using the square script for mundane purposes and used the Paleo-Hebrew script instead. (653) They essentially argue that the purpose of the scroll determines the use of the script—mundane purposes utilize paleoHebrew, while sacred purposes require the square-Aramaic. Their proposal, however, is overly simplistic because they assume that all uses of paleo-Hebrew (e.g., on Hasmonean coins, at Mt. Gerizim, and in the Qumran Scrolls) have the same purpose and that we can infer the purpose of one from the other. They claim, for example, that because coins use paleo-Hebrew, and coins are part of everyday mundane life, then the paleo-Hebrew in the Qumran scrolls must also be for mundane purposes. They seek further support in rabbinic sources, but the backbone of their argument rests on coins. I quote: Studies of the Dead Sea Scrolls commonly premise that greater holiness and value attached to the Paleo-Hebrew script than to the square script (Tov 2004; Siegel 1971:245). However, an examination of coins does not support this assertion. (658) Similar views were held early in Qumran scholarship, before more evidence was available, by Segal, Birnbaum, and Mueller. Segal argued that writing the Tetragrammaton in paleo-Hebrew prevented scribes from contaminating the hands. See Segal Problems of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Erets-Israel I (1951): 39 n. 6 Hebrew . But such views have been thoroughly critiqued; see Patrick Skehan, The Text of Isaias at Qumran, CBQ 17 (1955): 42–43. Moreover, Zissu and Abadi cite Tov on inaccurate information in support of their study: No scroll has been found in which the divine name is written in both the Paleo-Hebrew script and the square script (Tov 2004:225). (659) This is simply not correct, and many scholars are now aware that paleo-Hebrew and the square-script do occur for divine designations on the same fragment of at least three manuscripts. This involves the Tetragrammaton in 4QLev and 4QpPsa and ‫ אל‬in 4QD .

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sources, the use of paleo-Hebrew may have been used to guard against the erasure of the Tetragrammaton. Scholars have also argued that paleoHebrew reemerges in the late Second Temple period to evoke sentiments of nationalism, archaism, or historicism, while others propose that paleoHebrew continued in use, albeit with some gaps, from the Iron Age up through the Bar Kochba revolt among different groups for varying sociological reasons. Some of these proposals are compatible and may indeed overlap. Others are contradictory or mutually exclusive. Both George Brooke and Emanuel Tov, Siegel, The employment of palaeo-Hebrew characters, 159–72; ibid., The Alexandrians in Jerusalem and their Torah Scroll with Gold Tetragrammata, 42. J. Naveh, Early History of the Alphabet: An Introduction to West Semitic Epigraphy and Palaeography (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1982), 119. He argues that paleo-Hebrew on the Yehud, Hasmonean, and Jewish coins was motivated by political national convictions. Cross, Delcor, Sanderson, and Mathews advocated this view. Frank M. Cross considered the use of paleo-Hebrew in terms of revival. He writes, Evidently the script was taken up anew in the era of nationalistic revival of the second century B.C., to judge from its use as a monumental script by the Hasmoneans on their coinage, as well as its resurgence as a Biblical hand. See Cross, The Development of the Jewish Scripts, in The Bible and the Ancient Near East: Essays in Honor of William Foxwell Albright (ed. G. Ernest Wright; Garden City: Doubleday, 1961), 189 n. 4; Matthews, The Paleo-Hebrew Leviticus Scroll from Qumran, Biblical Archaeologist 50 (1987): 49; ibid., The Background of the Paleo-Hebrew Texts at Qumran, in The Word of the Lord Shall Go Forth (ed. C. Meyers and M. O’Connor; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1983), 549–68. Edge, The Use of Palaeo-Hebrew, 368, argued that no theory has sufficiently distinguished between manuscripts written entirely in paleo-Hebrew and the later manuscripts written in the square-script with paleo-Hebrew divine names. Edge proposes what he calls the Historical Tetragrammaton Hypothesis, based on his idiosyncratic reconstruction of the community’s history. Paleo-Hebrew can be ascribed to two separate scribal traditions. The first tradition, perpetuated by conservative, priestly founders of the community, wrote the entire Hebrew scroll in the Palaeo-Hebrew script. The second tradition produced square Hebrew and Greek scrolls with the Tetragrammaton and other names of God in the Palaeo-Hebrew script (vii-viii). Paleo-Hebrew was intended to reemphasize the authenticity of the interpretations of the Teacher of Righteousness. The Teacher had no doubt used Palaeo-Hebrew as the authentic script of ancient Israel to represent the unique God of Israel  s o too was the Tetragrammaton represented in the community’s copies of his writings and interpretations. More importantly, the Tetragrammaton in Palaeo-Hebrew gave the Qumran community its identity. An identity centered around the traditional values and roots of ancient Israel’s experience in the wilderness. Mark D. McLean The Use and Development of Palaeo-Hebrew in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods, (Ph.D. Dissertation; Harvard University, 1982), discusses how paleoHebrew may have been used alongside the square-script by all major religious parties for different purposes (e.g., Hasmoneans, Samaritans, Zadokite priests at Qumran, and later Essenes at Qumran). For example, the archaism theory and the continued use theory are to some extent mutually exclusive. Edge comments, If other groups used the Palaeo-Hebrew script, then

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for example, hold that the paleo-Hebrew script is a marker of divine name sanctity, while at the same time prevented the possibility of erasing the divine name, and also prevented the reader from pronouncing it. At a minimum, all theories must account for the fact that not just the Tetragrammaton occurs in paleo-Hebrew, but also other divine titles and epithets. We find, for example, ‫ אל‬written in paleo-Hebrew in the yahad compositions; but it is unlikely that the use of paleo-Hebrew for ‫ אל‬was intended to mark its avoidance in speech. This point is further underscored by the fact that ‫ אד ני‬occurs in paleo-Hebrew (4QIsa ), presumably the spoken replacement for the Tetragrammaton. Scribes used paleo-Hebrew for a variety of purposes. There are also questions about the diversity and inconsistency in how the paleo-Hebrew script is applied, along with the fact that the square-Aramaic script for the Tetragrammaton is far more common. This study is not designed to present a consensus theory on the reasons for the paleo-Hebrew script, but instead to offer a clear illustration and document all known evidence for this practice. There are about 230 biblical scrolls written in the square-Aramaic script from the Judean desert. There are also about 17 biblical scrolls written entirely in paleo-Hebrew. These naturally use paleo-Hebrew for the Tetragrammaton as

they all could not have revived the script due to an archaistic ideology. See Edge, Use of Palaeo-Hebrew, 339. George J. Brooke, Aspects of the Physical and Scribal Features of Some Cave 4 Continuous’ Pesharim, in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Transmission of Traditions and Production of Texts (ed. Sarianna Metso, Hindy Najman, and Eileen Schuller; STDJ 92; Leiden: Brill, 2010), 146, 148–49. Furthermore, Brooke offers an insightful study on the role paleo-Hebrew with preference either to the function of the manuscript or to those who might read it, especially in public. (149) His views are based on the following views: (1) scribes who wrote the Tetragrammaton in paleo-Hebrew had specialist training, and (2) the use of paleoHebrew may re ect higher social stratification: Perhaps such specialists were even of a higher social grade because of their competence in handling the divine name. (148) From this premise, he suggests that manuscripts with the square script for the Tetragrammaton were copies for expert use, such as being scribal base text exemplars or archive copies, while those with the divine name in paleo-Hebrew might have been produced to be used by the less adroit, perhaps in public performance as the prophetic texts were studied afresh by novices and longstanding members in the community. (149) He also suggests that i t is possible that in the second half of the first century B.C.E. and later the increasing tendency for copies of the pesharim to use the tetragrammaton in paleoHebrew indicates a change in the dominant use of such compositions. Perhaps, increasingly, they were performed by community members in contexts where those with less knowledge of the Hebrew scriptures might inadvertently pronounce the divine name. (147)

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well. There are 9 biblical scrolls with notable uses of paleo-Hebrew for divine names, which are otherwise copied with the square-Aramaic script, shown in the chart below. The practices within are not consistent; two scrolls, in particular, contain mixed practices. Table 25

The divine name in Paleo-Hebrew

Manuscript

Divine Name Script

Paleographic Date

Occurrences

I QExod ( Q ) QLam ( Q ) QDeut ( Q a) QExod ( Q ) QLev ( Q ) QPs ( Q ) QPs ( Q ) II QLev ( Q b) QIsa ( Q )

‫ יה ה‬paleo ‫ יה ה‬paleo ‫ יה ה‬paleo ‫ יה ה‬paleo ‫ יה ה‬paleo ‫ יה ה‬paleo ‫ יה ה‬paleo ‫ יה ה‬both s p ‫ יה ה‬paleo

BCE– CE BCE– CE – BCE – CE CE – CE – CE; – CE no date – CE

The best-preserved manuscripts with paleo-Hebrew divine names are 11QPs and 4QIsa , and so it makes sense why these have garnered more discussion than other texts. Scholars have studied the use of paleo-Hebrew for the For a description of the paleo-Hebrew manuscripts, see James C. VanderKam, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), 1. While Tov mentions a smaller number (six or seven) in Scribal Practices, 265, (considering 2QEx probably a rewritten Bible manuscript, and the nature of 3Q14 unclear ) he counts nine on pgs. 279–80. He lists the following: 1QPs , 3QLam, 2QEx , 4QEx , 4QLev , 4QDeut , 4QIsa , 11QLev , 11QPs . Manuscripts of the same book do not always follow consistent practices. For example, 3QLam (3Q3) uses paleo-Hebrew for the Tetragrammaton, but 4QLam (4Q111), uses the square script. 11QPs (11Q5) uses paleo-Hebrew, but 11QPs (11Q6) uses the square script. 4QDeut (4Q38a) uses paleo-Hebrew for the Tetragrammaton, but 4QDeut (4Q38) uses the square script. This number includes only the MT Psalms. 4QIsa also uses paleo-Hebrew for other divine titles, but not consistently. The Qumran Psalms Scroll, represented by 11QPs (11Q5) along with the more fragmentary copies 11QPs and 4QPs , forms a collection of psalms that are also found in Books 4 and

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Tetragrammaton in 11QPs to gain clarity on how this stylistic expression came about and what it signifies for the history of the divine name in the late-Second Temple period. The unclear procedure for writing the Tetragrammaton has fueled the debate. Emanuel Tov states that same scribe wrote both the square characters and the paleo-Hebrew letters, as is evident from ligatures of the two types of characters in cols. IV, 3, 11 and III, 12, 14 which seem to have been performed in one stroke. In the example from 11Q5 4 3, the bet prepositional prefix is bound to the Tetragrammaton. The ligature connects the bet to the paleoHebrew yod. The evidence, however, is not entirely clear. In 11Q5 16 4, the bet prepositional prefix does not connect to the paleo-Hebrew yod, which looks as if an initial scribe left a blank space, filled in with the Tetragrammaton by a second scribe. The letters also look slightly expanded to fill the entire space. In the second case, the bet prefix connects with the paleo-Hebrew yod, and the letters of the Tetragrammaton are condensed. There are additional cases where the paleo-Hebrew yod connects with the preceding letter, even though

5 of the MT Psalter (Psalms 90–150). In addition, however, 11QPs includes Hebrew compositions that are not found in the MT Psalter, such as versions of the medieval Syriac Psalms I ( L Ps 151 A, B), II, and III (11Q5 28.3–14; 18; 19.3–17), as well as previously unknown psalms, including Plea for Deliverance (11Q5 19), Apostrophe to Zion (11Q5 22), Hymn to the Creator (11Q5 26.9–15), and David’s Compositions (11Q5 27.2–11). Notably, we also find a snippet of Ben Sira (Sir 51:13–20b 11Q5 21.11–22.1). James A. Sanders, The Psalms Scroll of Qumran Cave 11 (11QPs ) (DJD 4; Oxford: Clarendon, 1965), 5–6. Sanders considered 11QPs to have functioned as the canonical psalter at Qumran; see Sanders, The Qumran Psalms Scroll (11QPs ) Reviewed, in On Language, Culture, and Religion: In Honor of Eugene A. Nida (ed. M. Black and W. A. Smalley; The Hague: Mouton, 1974), 98. But others have stressed the nonbiblical or secondary status of the Psalms Scroll, notably Patrick Skehan, A Liturgical Complex in 11QPs , CBQ 34 (1973): 201 n. 24; ibid., Qumran and Old Testament Textual Criticism, in Qumrân: Sa Piété, sa théologie et son milieu, 169, 172; a view also held by Talmon, Goshen-Gottstein, Wacholder, and Haran. Peter Flint, however, has comprehensively reassessed the material and agrees largely with Sanders’ earlier position; see Flint, The Dead Sea Psalms Scrolls and the Book of Psalms (STDJ 17; Leiden: Brill, 1997), 223: T he 11QPs -Psalter is the foremost representative of the Book of Psalms in the Dead Sea Scrolls. As such it must have been used as Scripture. Tov, The Socio-Religious Background of the Paleo-Hebrew Biblical Texts Found at Qumran, in Geschichte–Tradition–Re lexion: Festschrift für Martin Hengel zum 70. Geburtstag (ed. H. Cancik et al.; 2 vols.; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1996), 1:356. Regarding 11Q5 III, only line 11 has the Tetragrammaton with the connecting ligature; lines 12 and 14 do not contain the Tetragrammaton. See images on the IAA website: https: www.deadseascrolls.org.il explore-the-archive image B-371135. We should also consider the possibility that one scribe is working with two different writing implements.

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not a preposition. Such ligatures could be explained on the basis that a second scribe began writing the Tetragrammaton at the very beginning of the blank space to ensure that he had enough room; this seems to be the case because the final heh never crashes into the following word. There are also many examples with no connecting ligatures, as in 11Q5 12 10. The ligatures turn out to be inconclusive for fully describing the mechanics or sequences behind writing the Tetragrammaton in paleo-Hebrew. Shemaryahu Talmon originally advanced the two-stage hypothesis. The main text of 11QPs was first written in square-Aramaic script, and then a second scribe inserted the divine name in the paleo-Hebrew script. Both Stegemann and Wolters supported this view. They argued that the varying shapes and sizes of the blank spaces where the Tetragrammaton was to be inserted would not exist if the Tetragrammaton was written at the same time as the entire scroll. In a thorough and independent analysis, Wolters concluded that the two-stage method best explains the writing practices in 11QPs and also accounts for the mistakes that arose in the process. Wolters begins with three claims: (1) that the scribe who wrote the main text originally left blank spaces which were filled afterward with the tetragrammaton in Paleo-Hebrew script, (2) that the subsequent filling-in procedure gave rise to a number of scribal errors in the biblical text of 11QPs , and (3) that in all likelihood it was not the original scribe who later inserted the tetragrammata into the blank spaces.

Wolters shows how the varying spaces affected the size of the Tetragrammaton, producing a cramped version  and a sprawling version. This theory is further supported by the scribal errors introduced into 11Q5 as a result of this procedure. The scribe left two kinds of gaps, one for the Tetragrammaton but another due to imperfections or scars of the animal skin. There are two instances where the Tetragrammaton was inserted into the latter, but these were corrected by placing scribal dots around the divine name (11Q5 16.7 ]Ps 145:1 and 21.2 Ps 138:1 ). Can we know more about what motivated the S. Talmon, The Qumran Psalms Scroll, Tarbiz 37 (1967): 101 Hebrew ; Stegemann, C, 90 n. 501; Al Wolters, The Tetragrammaton in the Psalms Scroll, Textus 18 (1995): 87–99. Wolters, The Tetragrammaton, 87. Ibid., 91. Examples can be seen in 11Q5 16.10 and 21.9. He also argues that two scribes wrote 11Q5 because the secondary writing procedure would have been inefficient and unnecessary if only one scribe wrote this scroll, and at any rate, there also appear to be two paleo-Hebrew hands. The downstroke of the paleoHebrew waw is thinner than the downstroke of the hehs up until 11Q5 6 11, then the waw

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scribe to use paleo-Hebrew for the divine name and adopt this procedure of writing? Wolters considers Skehan’s proposal likely, that the paleo-Hebrew script was intended to signal avoidance in reading. He writes: We know that the tetragrammaton was associated with a number of strict taboos in the Judaism of the early centuries of our era  The religious awe with which the ineffable name was treated also extended to its written form. Wolters concludes that the religious mystique surrounding the divine name led to ever more elaborate precautions against profaning it. He lastly entertains the idea that scribes who wrote the Tetragrammaton belonged to a higher echelon within the Qumran hierarchy than the original scribe  only certain scribes within the Qumran community were permitted (that is, were considered sufficiently advanced in piety) to put it down in writing. George Brooke also considers the paleoHebrew to have been written by a second hand: The writing of the tetragrammaton in paleo-Hebrew script was probably done by a different scribe with specialist training; this seems to be likely given that the scribe of Pesher Isaiah E has left a space (6 4) for the tetragrammaton to be added later but it never was. Perhaps such specialists were even of a higher social grade because of their competence in handling the divine name. We return to discussing the divine name in paleo-Hebrew within the earliest biblical Jewish-Greek manuscripts, which helps us see that very few manuscripts and methods of using paleo-Hebrew were alike. Two other biblical scrolls deserve mention to help us appreciate such diversity. 4QIsa writes the Tetragrammaton in paleo-Hebrew but varies the script for other divine titles. In one remarkable example, and heh are identical; Wolters, The Tetragrammaton, 96–7: A change in writing instrument would not account for the bolder line, since a downstroke of the same thickness is used for the he’s from the beginning. In that case, one scribe filled in all the tetragrammata of Fragments A–E and the first six columns of the extant scroll, and another scribe did all the rest. Skehan, Divine Name, 28; Wolters, Tetragrammaton, 98. Wolters also cites Siegel ( The Employment of Palaeo-Hebrew, 169) in support of the proposal that once written down the Tetragrammaton could not be erased. Wolters, The Tetragrammaton, 98–99: Such a regulation would be consistent with what we know of the scrupulous outward piety and strict hierarchical ranking which was observed in the Qumran community. See Brooke, Aspects, 148 n. 61. The designations ‫אדני אלהים‬, and ‫( א‬as well as their bound prefixes and suffixes) occur in both paleo-Hebrew and the square script. ‫ אל הים‬occurs in paleo-Hebrew in 24.39, 37.3, and 35.10, but in the square script in 47.16. ‫ א‬occurs in paleo-Hebrew in 24.38 and 62.1, but in the square script in 40.3 and 57.2. ‫ אד ני‬occurs in paleo-Hebrew in 9 i 25, 20.11, and 63.2, but in the square script in 9 ii 27. Paleo-Hebrew is not used for the title ‫אל‬.

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4QLev (4Q26b) writes the Tetragrammaton in both the square and paleoHebrew scripts on the very same fragment. The motivations for using paleoHebrew vary and should be studied on an individual basis. Theories about the meaning of the paleo-Hebrew script must take into account this kind of inconsistency.

See 4Q26b 2, 8; Ulrich and Cross, DJD 12:203. Paleo-Hebrew is also used for the preposition lamed, ‫ליה ה‬.

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Qumran Yahad Scrolls The Qumran yahad compositions, studied now for over 70 years, continue to provide striking perspectives on early Jewish thought and society. The approaches to naming God in the yahad scrolls are no exception. The Qumran scribal enterprise brought a tidal wave of evidence for divine name avoidance into the material record. Given the complex layers of writing, editing, and copying the Dead Sea Scrolls, however, it is extremely challenging to reconstruct a full picture of divine titles and epithets. In light of the previous chapter, the most sensible place to begin is to consider how original yahad compositions quote biblical passages. The divine name is found 46 within biblical quotations of 15 different yahad compositions. How do the approaches to writing the divine name in the biblical quotations compare with regular biblical texts? Can we identify consistent patterns of use, avoidance, or methods of replacement?

7.1

Use and Avoidance of the Divine Name

The following examples illustrate the range of approaches to divine name use and avoidance among the Hebrew Qumran yahad scrolls. The pesher of Isaiah systematically quotes the book of Isaiah and then interprets its significance in light of the author’s community. The quotation of Isa 30:18 (4Q163 23 ii 9–10) is word for word and replicates each feature of the biblical passage. The author then provides his pesher ( ), or interpretation, of the end of days :

For the list of biblical quotations provided in the appendix, I have compared, contrasted, corrected, and supplemented the data compiled by Martin G. Abegg and Joëlle Lake in The Ineffable Name (MA Thesis: Trinity Western University, 2014) with Armin Lange and Matthias Weigold, Biblical Quotations and Allusions in Second Temple Jewish Literature (JAJSup 5; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011). In addition, I have consulted other works in attempts to refine the current data set. This includes Devorah Dimant, Use and Interpretation of Mikra in the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, in Mikra: Text, Translation, Reading and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity (ed. M. J. Mulder and H. Sysling; CRINT, 2.1; Assen: Van Gorcum, 1988), 379–419; Fitzmyer, The Use of Explicit Old Testament Quotations in Qumran Literature and in the NT, in Essays on the Semitic Background of the New Testament (London: Chapman, 1971), 3–58; and Shani Tzoref, Qumran Pesharim and the Pentateuch: Explicit Citation, Overt Typologies, and Implicit Interpretive Traditions, DSD 16 (2009): 190–220.  B ill S

nin

, 2022    oi: 0.30965 9783657703500 008

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‫י ם‬

‫הד‬

6

olls ‫יל‬ ‫יל‬

‫י ל‬ ‫ל‬

‫י‬

‫יה ה א‬ ‫יה ה א‬

‫י אלהי‬ ‫י לם‬ ‫יא אל הי‬ ‫לא י הי ים‬

MT

Isa 30:18–19

4Q163

The Tetragrammaton here is simply included in the quotation, much like a scribe copying a biblical scroll. But this is not always the case. In the Damascus Document (CD), the Tetragrammaton is replaced with the divine title ‫ אל‬in the quotation of Mal 3:14. ‫י‬ ‫י‬

‫ל ני לי אי יה ה ל‬ ‫ל ני לי אי אל ל‬

‫י‬ ‫י‬

MT CD 20.19–20

Mal 3:16

In other yahad texts, such as 1QS, the author simply omits the Tetragrammaton when quoting Zeph 1:6. ‫א יה ה לא ד ה‬ ‫יה‬ ‫לאד ה‬

‫א לא‬ ‫יא ל א‬

MT 1QS 5.11

Zeph 1:6

These three examples show how the divine name could be used, replaced, or omitted in biblical quotations. Yahad scribes adopted any of these approaches when encountering the divine name in the biblical text. Focusing for a moment on the most discussed approach to the Tetragrammaton, namely its replacement, the chart below captures the full range activity in the yahad scrolls. I identify four types of replacements: (I) use of ‫אל‬, (II) use of ‫ אדני‬or ‫אלהים‬, (III) use of pronominal or cryptic elements and (IV) use of epithets or Tetrapuncta.

Table 26

Divine name replacements in Biblical Quotations

Replacement

Scroll

MT

Occurrences

I. Use of ‫אל‬ ‫אל‬

‫יה ה‬

‫אל‬

‫אלהים‬

MT 4Q II (4Q76) 4 4. For a discussion of nine types of avoidance, see Donald Parry, Notes on Divine Name Avoidance in Scriptural Units of the Legal Texts of Qumran, in Legal Texts and Legal Issues: Proceedings of the Second Meeting of the International Organization for Qumran Studies Cambridge 1995 (ed. M. Bernstein, F. G. Martínez, and J. Kampen; Leiden: Brill, 1997), 437–49. The manuscript references for each type of replacement can be found in the appendix.

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Divine name replacements in Biblical Quotations (cont.)

Replacement

Scroll

MT ‫אל‬

Occurrences

‫אל י‬

‫יה ה‬

‫אל אלים‬

‫יה ה‬

‫אל לי‬

‫יה ה‬

‫אל‬

‫א‬

‫יה ה‬

‫אל ה ד‬

‫יה ה אדני‬

‫אל י‬

‫יה ה אלהים‬

‫אל‬

‫( י‬suffix)

‫אדני‬

‫יה ה‬

‫אלהים‬

‫יה ה אלהים‬

‫אלהים‬

‫יה ה‬

II. Use of Divine Titles ‫יה ה‬

null

III. Use of Pronominal or Cryptic Elements (as ms)

‫יה ה‬

‫הא‬

‫יה ה‬

‫א ה‬

‫יה ה אלהים‬ ‫יה ה‬

ms verb ‫אנה‬

‫יה ה‬

‫ה אהא‬

‫יה ה‬

IV. Use of Divine Epithets and Tetrapuncta ‫א‬ ‫ל י ד‬

(Tetrapuncta) ‫ם‬

7.2

‫יה ה‬ ‫יה ה‬ ‫יה ה‬ ‫יה ה‬

The title ‫ אל‬replaces the Tetragrammaton

The most frequent replacement of the Tetragrammaton in biblical quotations is with the title ‫אל‬. If we include compounds like ‫אל לי‬, this strategy occurs

In original sectarian compositions, the Tetrapuncta only occurs in 1QS 8.14. I treat the remaining instances in the scrolls listed under the non-sectarian section.

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about 30 total. In the Damascus Document, for example, the scribe replaces ‫ יה ה‬with ‫ אל‬in his quotation of Zech 13:7: ‫י י נאם יה ה‬ ‫י י נאם אל‬

‫י ל‬ ‫י ל‬

MT CD 19:8

‫י ל‬ ‫י ל‬

Zech 13:7

This practice is also found in 1QS. The Tetragrammaton is replaced with ‫ אל‬in the paraphrase of Deut 29:19–20: ‫ל‬ ‫ל‬

‫ה‬ ‫אי הה א‬ ‫א יה ה נא‬ ‫יא י‬ ‫ה ה ה דיל יה ה ל ה‬ ‫ה‬ ‫האלה ה‬ ‫י י אל‬ ‫ל ים יד‬ ‫ל ל‬ ‫י י‬ ‫א אל נא‬ ‫י דילה אל ל ה נ‬ ‫ל אל ה י ה‬ ‫ל ני א‬

MT

Deut 29

1QS 2.15–16

The overall preference for the title ‫ אל‬is clear from these examples. Comparing these biblical quotations with the scribal copying of regular biblical manuscripts, we detect an altogether different approach to using the divine name. The divine name variants within the biblical scrolls themselves, for example, do not show an intentional effort to avoid the Tetragrammaton. Perhaps the most striking observation from the evidence of yahad biblical quotations is that with one exception, we never see the variant pattern in which the yahad scribe uses the Tetragrammaton where a biblical quotation contains another divine title or epithet. The only place this happens is in 4QpPsa (4Q171) 1–2 ii 12. Here the MT of Ps 37:12–13 contains ‫ אדני‬while the Qumran scroll uses the Tetragrammaton: ‫ל‬ ‫ל‬

‫לי ני אדני י‬ ‫[לי ני יה ה י‬

‫ל די‬ ‫ל די‬

‫ם‬ ‫ם‬

MT Ps 37:12–13a 4Q171 1–2 ii 12

But in this instance, it is most likely that the scribe’s Vorlage contained the Tetragrammaton. We also never find, furthermore, ‫ אל‬in the MT where the yahad biblical quotation has the Tetragrammaton. In the biblical scrolls, The fragment is broken at the place where the Tetragrammaton occurs, although faint traces of the top of the paleo-Hebrew final heh may be detected. In the original publication (Allegro’s DJD 5), the Tetragrammaton was partially reconstructed. Strugnell later moved fragment 3 of 4Q183 to this location, thus fully restoring the Tetragrammaton. Skehan supported this placement in writing that fragment 3 of 4Q183 belongs with 4Q171 and its different paleohebrew hand: Strugnell’s Planche IIIa shows the join. See Skehan Divine Name, 27. See the image at http: www.deadseascrolls.org.il explore-the-archive image B-285025 (accessed Nov 13, 2021).

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every divine name variant pattern also occurred in the opposite direction. The Tetragrammaton is more frequent in the biblical scrolls when compared with the MT. In contrast, the yahad biblical quotations show a clear trend towards avoidance. The most important indication of this phenomenon is the intentional use of ‫ אל‬to replace ‫יה ה‬. We can also detect a preference for ‫ אל‬in phrases and idioms that are more loosely connected to biblical parlance. In the Hodayot and 1QS, for example, the expression ‫ ( א ה אל‬You, O God ) occurs about 31 . In contrast, ‫א ה‬ ‫ ( יה ה‬You, O YHWH ) does not occur once in the yahad literature but shows up 29 in the MT. Another example includes the formula ‫א ה אל‬ , found in the Hodayot, which contrasts with the biblical idiom ‫א ה יה ה‬ . The combinations ‫ ידה אל‬and ‫א ה אל‬ never occur in biblical texts, while ‫ ידה יה ה‬and ‫א ה יה ה‬ never occur in yahad texts. In freely composed, original yahad writings there is no question that ‫ אל‬was the favorite way of naming God. The title occurs about 492 , including biblical quotations, found most frequently in CD (64 ), 1QS (55 ), 1QpHab (23 ), 1QM (106 ), 1QH (43 ), 4QInstruction (17 ), and 4QDaily Prayers (35 ). It is no surprise that this title replaces the Tetragrammaton in biblical quotations.

7.3

The titles ‫ אדני‬and ‫ אלהים‬replace the Tetragrammaton

The titles ‫ אדני‬and ‫ אלהים‬also replace the Tetragrammaton in biblical quotations of the yahad scrolls. ‫ אד ני‬replaces the divine name 11 . In the Hodayot, for example, the author uses ‫ אד ני‬when quoting Exod 15:11: ‫ה אלם יה ה‬ ‫י‬ ‫ה אלים אד ני‬ ‫י י‬

MT 1QH 15.31

Exod 15:11

See, for example, 1QS 11.15; 1QM 12.7; 13.7, 18.8, 1QH 10.36, 12.13, 19, 13.34, 16.17. Such uses are found especially in the Psalms, such as Ps 91:9, ‫י‬ ‫ ( י א ה יה ה‬For you, O YHWH, are my refuge ) or Ps 102:13 ‫ ( א ה יה ה ל לם‬You, O YHWH, are enthroned forever ). See also Ps 3:3, 4:8, 6:4, 12:7, 22:19, 40:12, 41:11, 86:17, but also 1Chr 17:22, Lam 5:19. This expression is found a few times in non-sectarian literature: 4QPs 10.13; 11QPs 19.16; 24.13. See 1QH 19.32, 22.34. For the parallel biblical wording, see 1 Chr 29:10; Ps 119:12. Here, the expression ‫ ( א ד ה אלי‬I thank you, O my God ) in 1QH 19.6, 18 may be contrasted with biblical expression ‫ ( א דה יה ה‬I will thank YHWH ) in Ps 7:18, 9:2, 109:30, 111:1. This number is derived from a search of the 122 yahad documents listed in the Appendix. This count does not include the plural ‫( אלים‬35 ), or ‫ אל‬in Aramaic texts (31 ).

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We can detect a preference for the title ‫ אד ני‬in phrases and idioms that mirror biblical parlance, similar to the use of ‫אל‬, most notably in blessing formulas. For example, ‫אד ני‬ occurs 5 in the yahad scrolls, but only once in the MT (Ps 68:20). In contrast, we find ‫יה ה‬ about 27 in the MT. In the Hodayot, the formulas ‫א ה אד ני‬ and ‫ א ד ה אד ני‬are fairly common, but rare in the MT. The title ‫ אלהים‬occurs 22 in yahad documents, but these are almost entirely in biblical quotations. 6 occurrences cannot be identified with a biblical quote. The yahad manuscript 1QSb 4 25 uses the phrase ‫אל הי א‬. 4QSelf Glorification Hymn uses ‫ אלהים‬in a freely composed passage. This occurs at 4Q491 11 i 20: ‫ה‬ ‫ה ד‬ ‫די ים אל הי‬ . Some have taken ‫ אל הי‬as a reference to angels, but the usual term for angels or divine beings in this manuscript is ‫אלים‬. We find the phrase ‫ די ים אל הי‬elsewhere with reference to God. The use of ‫ אל הים‬appears in some prayer texts, but it is not the most common designation in those texts. 5QRule contains -- ‫אל הי‬ 1QFestival Prayer (1Q34) 2 1 4; 4QFestival Prayers (4Q507) 2 2; 3 1; and 4QFestival Prayers (4Q509) 3 9; 206 1. For ‫א ה אד ני‬ see 1QH 8.26, 13.22 (correction), 17.38, 18.16, 19.30, 35–36. For ‫א ד ה‬ ‫אד ני‬, see 6.34, 10.22 and 33, 11.20, 11.38, 12.6, 13.7 and 22 (erased), 15.9 and 29, 15.37, and 4QH (4Q428) 10 11. The deity is directly addressed as ‫ אד ני‬about 18 in 1QH . In the MT, the closest we find is Ps 68:20 (‫אדני י ם י ם‬ ), Ps 86:5 ( ‫ל‬ ‫) י א ה אדני‬, Ps 86:12, (‫)א ד אדני אלהי ל ל י‬, Ps 86:15, ( ‫ם נ‬ ‫)א ה אדני אל‬, and 2 Sam 7:27 (‫י א ה‬ ‫)אדני יה ה דנ‬. See 1QSb 4.25; 1QM 10.4, 7; 4Q163 23 ii 9, 4Q171 1–2 i 16, 13 3; 4Q177 1–4 9, 7 5; 4Q252 1 1; 4Q259 3 5; 4Q491 11 i 20; 4Q503 13 1, 37–38 14; 4Q509 214 2, 244 2; 5Q13 1 2; 11Q13 2 10, 16, 23, 24. This compound designation, although with the Tetragrammaton, ‫יה ה אלהי א‬, is found 21 in the MT. There are two occurrences in the Elohistic psalter (Ps 80:8 and 15), where ‫ יה ה‬is omitted. But even so, Ps 80:5 and 20 contain ‫יה ה אלהי א‬, with the Tetragrammaton. Note WAC: rejoice, you righteous among the angels of in the holy habitation. Praise Him in song . For examples of ‫ אלים‬as references to angels, see ‫ד אלים‬ (4Q491 11 i 12), ‫( אני ם אלים‬4Q491 11 i 14), and ‫( אניא ם אלים‬4Q491 11 i 18). Other copies or recensions of this hymn are found in 1QH , 4Q427 (4QH ), and 4Q431 (4QH ) 1 4Q471b 1a–d. 4Q510 1 8, ‫ ננ די ים אל הי לא‬. This observation was made by Martin Abegg (personal correspondence). For example, 4QDaily Prayers prefers ‫אל‬, while 4QFestival Prayers uses ‫אד ני‬. 4QDaily Prayers (4Q503 13 1, 37 38 14) contains -- ‫ אל הי א ים‬-- and ‫אל הי ל ד ים‬. The usual reference to the deity in this manuscript is ‫( אל‬35 ), and especially the expression ‫אל‬ , and so to find the longer title is somewhat peculiar. 4QFestival Prayers (4Q503 7 9 6, 15 16 8, or 69 2) contains traces of -- ‫ ה אל הינ‬-- and -- ‫ אל ה‬-- . Note also the analogous phrase ‫ ( אל א ים‬God of lights ) 4Q503 29 32 9. But again, the preference is for ‫( אד ני‬7 ).

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‫ ה ל‬-- , but similar phrases are rare in the MT. The remaining uses of ‫אלהים‬ at Qumran are all within biblical quotations. It is important to note also that ‫ אלהים‬itself is replaced on occasion. The author of the Damascus Document, for example, uses ‫ אל‬in this biblical quotation: ‫ד אלהים לא‬ ‫ד אל לא‬

‫י‬ ‫י‬

‫ם‬ ‫ד‬ ‫ם אי ם י די‬ ‫ד‬

MT

‫אי ם י די ל‬

Mal 3:18

‫לא‬

CD 20.20–21 ‫לא‬

Because ‫ אלהים‬is rarely used in freely-composed yahad passages, and at times replaced with ‫אל‬, the title ‫ אלהים‬seems to have a status similar to the Tetragrammaton; and so, there seems to be an implicit hierarchy between these terms. For example, 4QCommGen A (4Q252) 1 1–2 uses ‫ אלהים‬instead of the Tetragrammaton in the quotation of Gen 6:3, against all witnesses. At times, the difference between these designations is more subtle. The War Scroll (1QM) retains ‫ אלהים‬but omits the Tetragrammaton in Deut 20:3–4: ‫ניהם י יה ה אלהי ם ההל‬

‫אל‬

‫אל‬

MT

‫אל‬

1QM 10.4

Deut 20:3b–4a

‫ם‬ ‫ניהם יא אל הי ם ה ל‬

‫אל‬

[ ‫ם‬

Overall, the majority of freely-composed yahad writings avoid ‫ אלהים‬much like the Tetragrammaton. Apart from replacing the Tetragrammaton with titles, like ‫אל‬, ‫אדני‬, and ‫אלהים‬, Qumran authors replaced the divine name with pronouns, including the independent pronouns ‫ ( ה א‬He ) and ‫ ( א ה‬You ), as well as the pronominal suffix– ( His ). For example, the Damascus Document replaces the divine name with the pronoun ‫ ה א‬in a quotation of Nahum 1:2: ‫ה א לא י י‬

‫ה א לאי י‬ ‫נ ם יה ה ל י נ‬ ‫י אם נ ם ה א ל י נ‬ ‫אי‬

MT CD 9:5

Nah 1:2b

5Q13 1 2. The closest parallels are ‫ אלהי ל הא‬in Isa 54:5 and ‫ אלהי ל‬in Jer 32:27. Many aspects of 4Q252 are debated, which obscures the implications of divine name changes here. Tov lists this scroll as sectarian (Scribal Practices, 267), but others argue that it was originally non-sectarian. For the major points of debate, see Moshe Bernstein, 4Q252: Method, Genre, and Sources, JQR 85 (1994–95): 61–79; Brooke, 4Q252 as Early Jewish Commentary, RevQ 17 (1996): 385–401; and Machiela, Once More, With Feeling, 311. MT Mur 88 16.9.

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In another example, the War Scroll uses the pronoun ‫ א ה‬to replace ‫יה ה אלהים‬, a scribal change that is masked with a narrative change in voice. This biblical quotation, in the new literary context of the War Scroll, marks the beginning of the priest’s first-person speech: ‫אל ד ל נ א‬ ‫י יה ה אלהי‬ ‫נ אל ד ל נ א ל ל א‬ ‫יא א ה‬

‫ל‬

MT 1QM 10:1–2

Deut 7:21

The War Scroll also repeatedly modifies the biblical idiom of 1 Sam 17:47, ‫י‬ ‫ליה ה ה ל ה‬, replacing ‫ יה ה‬with the second person suffix–‫ ( ה‬You ): ‫ם ידנ‬

‫א‬

‫ה נ‬ ‫ה‬

‫י ליה ה ה ל‬ ‫יא ל ה ה ל‬

MT 1QM 11:1–4

1 Sam 17:47

Pronominal replacements are introduced as the Qumran authors recast biblical material, events, or divine promises, typically in the context of prayer or supplication. In another example, the Damascus Document uses the third person pronominal suffix to replace the Tetragrammaton: ‫ה‬ ‫ה‬

‫א ה‬ ‫א ה‬

‫ם‬ ‫י‬

‫יה ה א‬ ‫א א‬

‫י אה‬ ‫י אה‬

MT CD 8.15

Deut 7:8

The use of pronominal elements provides yahad authors with a convenient way to avoid the divine name. By comparing this activity to the biblical scroll divine name variants, we see a clear break in the scribal method. In the biblical scrolls, we never find variants with pronouns as we have in these yahad documents. The avoidance of the Tetragrammaton is discernible in other texts, though these replacements are rare and slightly ambiguous. 11QMelchizedek uses ‫ל י‬ ‫ ד‬where one would expect ‫יה ה‬, but it is not clear in this context that ‫ל י‬ ‫ ד‬is an epithet for God. …‫ליה ה‬ ‫ל א נ‬ … ‫ל ל י ד‬ ‫ה אה ה ל נ ה‬

MT 11Q13 2.9

Isa 61:2

The use of the preposition ‫ ל‬may indicate that the author had in mind the replacement of ‫ יה ה‬with ‫ ל י ד‬, but 11Q13 seems to use ‫ ל י ד‬as a type of divine agent or messenger. The fact that multiple divine or semi-divine Note especially 11Q13 2 13, ‫י א‬ ‫ ( ל ל י ד י ם נ ם‬Melchizedek will carry out the vengeance of Go d’s judgments ). Annette Steudel considers the figure in 11Q13 to be a heavenly high priest, eschatological savior of the righteous ones; as the instrument of God, he will be judge on the day of atonement’ at the time of God’s final judgment

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beings are imagined in this text further obscures the referents of the divine titles. At any rate, the author avoids the Tetragrammaton after making a clear allusion to Isa 61:2, in preference for some divine agent, if not the God of Israel. The last type of replacement in biblical quotations concerns ciphers and other cryptic designations. A concentration of three examples is found in the famous interpretation of Isa 40:3 in the Serekh ha-Yahad (1QS 8.13–14), along with its parallel passage in the Cave 4 copy (4QS ). 1QS 8:13 gives one of the yahad’s foundational theological ideas, preparing a way for God’s return by studying Torah in the desert: they shall separate themselves from the session of the men of deceit to depart into the wilderness to prepare there the way of huhah (‫)ה אהא‬ This statement is followed by the quotation of Isa 40:3, in which the scribe uses the Tetrapuncta to replace the divine name. The term ‫ה אהא‬, then, clearly refers to the Jewish deity, and therefore can be understood as a cipher for the divine name. The letters resemble a type of pronoun or perhaps a divine acronym. This interpretation is somewhat muddled, however, by the textual evidence from the Cave 4 copy of Serek ha-Yahad (4QS ), which preserves the same line but reads ‫ ד הא‬rather than ‫ ד ה אהא‬of 1QS: ‫הא‬

‫הא ד‬

‫ה [ד [ ה ל נ‬

‫אנ י ה[ ל לל‬ [ ‫א‬

4QS (4Q259) 3.4

It seems most likely that ‫ הא‬was intended as a noun (e.g., way of the truth ), with the definite article suggesting a well-known way of truth, namely the study of Torah. If this was a divine epithet, it would be unique in the Qumran scrolls. The quotation of Isa 40:3 appears in 1QS 8.14:

(EDSS, 536). Van der Woude writes: The column focuses on the acts of redemption which will free the sons of light from Belial and the spirits of his lot. These acts will be brought about by Melchizedek, who figures here as a heavenly figure comparable to the Prince of Lights (1QS III 30; CD V 18; 1QM III 10), and the archangel Michael (1QM VII 6–7). See DJD 23:222. 11Q13 2 10, for example, quotes Ps 82:1 ‫ד אלהים‬ ‫אל נ‬ ‫אלהים‬ ‫ ( י‬God has taken his place in the council of El, among gods he holds judgment ). Van de Water has examined the identification of Melchizedek in 11Q13 against the background of the rabbinic doctrine of the two powers. This is related to Philo’s description of God according to attributes related to his various titles. See Van de Water, Michael or Yhwh? Toward Identifying Melchizedek in 11Q13, JSP 16 (2006): 75–86; also, Pierre Boyancé, Le Dieu très haut chez Philon, in langes d’histoire des religions offerts à Henri-Charles Puech (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1974), 139–49. For options of interpreting this cryptic reference, see Charlesworth, PTDDSP 1:37 fn. 210.

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‫ה‬

‫יה ה י‬ ‫י‬

‫נ ד‬ ‫נ ד‬

‫ד‬

MT

‫א‬

‫ל‬ ‫לאלהינ‬ ‫ד‬ ‫א‬ ‫לה לאל הינ‬

Isa 40:3

1QS 8.14

The Tetrapuncta strategy is used 35 overall in the Dead Sea Scrolls, but only once in an original yahad composition, the example above. The fact that this is a yahad scribal practice, it may seem odd that Tetrapuncta hardly occurs in original yahad manuscripts. But upon further re ection, we can better understand the distribution of this replacement strategy from a couple of observations. First, the yahad authors generally agree on their preference for ‫אל‬. Thus, many would-be-uses of the Tetragrammaton are pre-empted by replacement with ‫אל‬. Most opportunities to replace the Tetragrammaton, would not be in scrolls original to the yahad, but in those scrolls that entered the Qumran orbit of scribal activity from the broader literary milieu of Judea. As such compositions were copied, and in some cases adapted, the scribes also replaced the Tetragrammaton as they worked. Second, the majority of Tetrapuncta cases can be traced to a few scribes. I discuss the important aspects of this practice in greater detail below. Another rare pronoun-type replacement for the Tetragrammaton is found in the Cave 4 copy of the Damascus Document (4QD , 4Q266). The priest was to say ‫ א נ ה‬instead of the divine name, in the priestly blessing as part of an ex-communication ceremony. ‫א‬

‫הה ל‬

‫ידי ה ל‬

‫אנה ה ל‬

‫א‬

4Q266 11 8–9

And he the priest shall say: Blessed are you, n hu of everything, in your hand is everything, and who makes everything.

Joseph Baumgarten has suggested that ‫ א נ ה‬probably functioned like the rabbinic use of ‫ אני ה‬in m. Sukkah 4:5, which re ects the tradition of using a mufed pronunciation of the divine name in the priestly liturgy of the Temple. The evidence for scribal changes concerning the divine name in biblical The nun in ‫ א נ ה‬is written in the medial form. Translation modified from DJD 18:77. For rabbinic use of ‫אני ה‬, see J. Baumgarten, A New Qumran Substitute for the Divine Name and Mishnah Sukkah 4:5, JQR 83 (1992): 1–5; Kister, On A New Fragment of the Damascus Covenant, 249–251; Baumgarten, ‫ה ל ה א —ה ל ה א נ‬, A Reply to Kister, 485–487, and subsequently Catrin Williams, I Am He: The Interpretation of ani hu in Jewish and Early Christian Literature (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000).

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quotations is more varied and unique in original Qumran yahad material as compared to regular biblical texts. The replacements of the divine name show that the authors were free to make the changes they saw fit within the new literary context of their documents. Biblical texts were revised and adapted when brought into the compositions of the yahad, with special attention to the ways of naming God. A further indication of the divine name’s special role in Qumran texts comes from an analysis of various styles with which scribes wrote the names and titles of God.

7.4

The Paleo-Hebrew Script for Divine Names in Qumran Yahad Scrolls

In addition to the regular square-script, both the divine name and the favorite title ‫אל‬, appear in paleo-Hebrew within Qumran yahad scrolls. This adds yet another level of significance for studying the divine name in early Judaism. As mentioned above, the Tetragrammaton occurs 46 in yahad biblical quotations; 18 of these are written in paleo-Hebrew. The title ‫ אל‬occurs 492 in original yahad compositions; 21 of these are in paleo-Hebrew. The chart below illustrates this data. Some details are quite complex and footnoted along the way. The first section lists ‫ יה ה‬in the square script for comparison with section two, containing ‫ יה ה‬in paleo-Hebrew or mixed scripts. Section three lists ‫ אל‬in paleo-Hebrew or mixed scripts. I also include the paleographic date for each manuscript to help contextualize the chronological aspect of this practice. Table 27

The divine name and the title ‫ אל‬in Yahad Scrolls

Manuscript

Name

Script

I. Tetragrammaton in the Square Script QpIsa ( Q ) ‫ יה ה‬square QpNah ( Q ) ‫ יה ה‬square QpIsa ( Q ) ‫ יה ה‬square QpMicah? ( Q ) ‫ יה ה‬square

Date

Occurrences

BCE – BCE – BCE BCE– CE

4Q168 may be a biblical manuscript. Allegro tentatively classified it as a pesher. More recently, Lim has not included 4Q168 in his companion volume on the pesharim. Brooke considers it a pesher (cf. Brooke, Aspects, 141). Tov does not have a firm opinion: 4Q168 is presented in all lists as 4QpMic?, but it could be presented equally well as 4QMic? (DJD 39:165–66). Whatever one decides about 4Q168, it may be wise to avoid dependence on different script practices as the sole criterion for discerning whether or not it

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The divine name and the title ‫ אל‬in Yahad Scrolls (cont.)

Manuscript QpZeph ( Q ) QMidrEschat ( Q QpPsa ( Q ) QH ( Q ) QMidrEschat ( Q

Name

Script

‫ יה ה‬square

)

‫ יה ה‬square ‫ יה ה‬square ‫ יה ה‬square

)

‫ יה ה‬square

Date no date – BCE BCE– CE BCE – BCE

II. Tetragrammaton in Paleo-Hebrew (or mixed) ‫ יה ה‬paleo – BCE QpHab ‫ יה ה‬paleo – CE QpIsa ( Q ) ‫ יה ה‬mixed – CE QpPsa ( Q ) ‫ה‬ ‫יה‬ paleo no date QpZeph ( Q ) ‫ יה ה‬paleo late st BCE QpMic ( Q ) ‫ יה ה‬paleo BCE– CE QMidrEschat ? ( Q )

Occurrences

(?)

(p) (sq)

is a biblical or pesher text. Other material observations or orthographic features may be helpful. The fragmentary evidence seems to suggest that the orthography is mixed (e.g., ‫ י לם‬in frg. 1 1, compared to ‫ י לים‬in yahad texts such as 1QM, but ‫ ה י ה‬in frg. 1 2, compared to ‫)ה י‬. ‫ אל‬occurs 1 in the square-script. In 4Q173 4, the Tetragrammaton occurs in the square-script, but in 4Q173 5, ‫ ( לאל‬to for God ) is written in a strange type of paleo or cryptic script. Fragment 5 is also written in a hand later than frgs. 1–4. Timothy Lim writes, Fragment 5 is paleographically later than the other four fragments and it probably belongs to another exegetical text that quotes Ps. 118.20. See Lim, Pesharim, 39. For descriptions of the script, see Allegro, DJD 5:53; Skehan, Divine Name, 27; Tov, Paleo-Hebrew Biblical Texts Found at Qumran, 356; and M. Horgan, Pesharim, 226. Recently, frg. 5 has been designated 4QHouse of Stumbling Fragment. See IAA website: http: www.deadseascrolls.org.il explore-the-archive search q 4q173’ (accessed Nov 13, 2021). Regarding the possible reading of the Tetragrammaton in fragment 6 line 2 (traditionally associated with 4Q429), Eileen Schuller comments: The use of the tetragrammaton in line 2 (if this is the correct reading) precludes taking this as a Hodayot fragment. The fragment is presented here only because of its traditional association with this manuscript. Schuller, DJD 29:194. ‫ אל‬occurs 23 in the square-script. Milik, DJD 1:80; Lim, Pesharim, 21–22. García Martínez, Literatura judia intertestamentaria, 99. T. Lim (Pesharim, 21) cites Martínez as giving a date before the first century BCE, but this is a mistake. Martínez writes, copiado a finales del siglo 1 a.C. (i.e., copied at the end of the first century BCE). ‫ אל‬occurs 1 in the paleo-Hebrew script. ‫ אל‬occurs 1 in the paleo-Hebrew script. Originally, there were two attestations of the Tetragrammaton in 4Q183, but Strugnell joined fragment 3 with 4Q171 1–2.

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T

7

The divine name and the title ‫ אל‬in Yahad Scrolls (cont.)

Manuscript

Name

III. ‫ אל‬in Paleo-Hebrew (or mixed) ‫אל‬ QH ‫אל‬ QH ( Q ) ‫אל‬ QS ( Q ) ‫אל‬ QD ( Q )

Script

Date

mixed paleo paleo mixed

– BCE no date – BCE – BCE

QD ( Q ) QD ( Q )

‫ אל‬paleo

QpapHymn ( Q ) QAgesCreat ( Q )

‫ אל‬paleo

QUnclassFrag ( Q )

‫ אל‬paleo

‫ אל‬mixed ‫ אל‬paleo

– –

Occurrences

CE CE

(p)

(sq)

(p) (sq) (p) (sq)

BCE– CE – CE no date

A few observations are important. ‫ יה ה‬and ‫ אל‬are the only designations written in paleo-Hebrew in the yahad scrolls. The titles ‫ אלהים‬or ‫ אדני‬do not occur in paleo-Hebrew. The majority of divine designations in paleo-Hebrew appear in earnest around the same time (Herodian; 30–1 BCE). Another significant distinction is that the paleo-Hebrew divine name appears only in the pesharim (with the possible exception of 4Q183), while ‫ אל‬in paleo-Hebrew is found mostly in yahad community compositions (e.g., H, S, and D). The use of the Tetragrammaton in the square script begins with 4QpIsa (4Q163) around 100 BCE, the oldest extant pesher. The next two pesharim, 4QpNah (4Q169) and 4QpIsa (4Q162) date to 50 BCE. Apart from these early instances, the remaining scrolls mostly date to the Herodian period of the late first-century BCE. At this later time, both the square and paleo-Hebrew scripts are used for the divine name. It seems that scribes of yahad works chose either script for divine designations. The meaning of the paleo-Hebrew script, and why some chose one over the other, continues to be debated. A few observations help establish a common starting point for further analysis. Because both the divine name and the title ‫ אל‬occur in paleo-Hebrew, we need to assume multiple purposes for using this script. For example, it is The fragmentary nature of 4QMidrEschat ? (4Q183) makes identification uncertain, but its themes and orthography probably suggest that it is some type of pesher. No biblical quotations are identifiable in 4Q183, but the fragment with the paleo-Hebrew Tetragrammaton is probably part of a quote.

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not likely that explanations for the paleo-Hebrew Tetragrammaton pertain to ‫אל‬. The most frequent explanations for writing in paleo-Hebrew—to avoid pronunciation or to guarantee non-erasure—are not fitting for ‫אל‬, the favorite replacement at Qumran. An additional explanation is required. The same observation is relevant for understanding the use of paleo-Hebrew for ‫אד ני‬, as in the biblical scroll 4QIsa . Overall, we find considerable diversity, or inconsistency, in the use of square and paleo-Hebrew for the Tetragrammaton and ‫ אל‬in the yahad scrolls. This suggests that standardization did not take place with this scribal practice, or at least points to a lack of a widespread or unified program. 4QpPsa , for example, presents a striking level of diversity. In iii 5, the Tetragrammaton occurs once in the square script as part of the supralinear insertion, but in iii 14–15 (the same column) the Tetragrammaton occurs 2 in paleo-Hebrew. We have multiple writing practices, closely associated, where the convention of the main text did not in uence the correcting scribe. This suggests that either it was of no consequence for the correcting scribe, or for some reason, he was not able or permitted to write the Tetragrammaton in paleo-Hebrew. Perhaps the privilege of using this special script resided with more esteemed members of the community, as some scholars have suggested. The evidence for the divine title ‫ אל‬in paleo-Hebrew is complex. Scribes did not use this script in a unified way either. While most of the divine titles in the Hodayot are written in the square script, 1QH uses paleo-Hebrew for ‫ אל‬3 , and 1QH uses it once. Most Serekh manuscripts use the square script for divine names and titles, for example, 1QS uses the square script for ‫אל‬, but the shorter version, 4QS (4Q258), uses paleo-Hebrew for ‫( אל‬cf. 2 iii 9 and 2 iv 8). The copies of the Damascus Document also show diversity in their uses of ‫אל‬. Several copies have ‫ אל‬in the square script (4Q266, 269, 270, 271), but the scribe of 4QD (4Q268) writes ‫ אל‬in paleo-Hebrew. Two copies of the Damascus Document have mixed practices. The scribe of 6Q15 writes ‫ אל‬in both scripts, but even more striking, the scribe of 4QD (4Q267) uses both scripts for ‫ אל‬on the very same fragment (9 iv). The closest comparison for the use of Ps 37:20 (4Q171 1 3–4 iii 5). The use of paleo-Hebrew in the Hodayot was observed by Delcor already in 1955 ( Des diverses manières, 147 n. 2). These occur at 1QH 7.38, 9.28, 10.36, and 1Q35 (1QH ) 1 5 (respectively, DJD 40:98, 119, 133 and DJD 1:137). The relationship between 4Q258 and 1QS is debated. The important point is that paleoHebrew is applied inconsistently and this must be taken into account when thinking about the role of paleo-Hebrew at Qumran. Baumgarten, DJD 18:95–96; Hempel, The Damascus Texts, 21. In 4Q267 ‫ אל‬occurs 6 in the square script (4Q267 2 5, 7 2 , 13; 7 6; and 9 iv 11) and 4 in the paleo-Hebrew script (4Q267 3 7; 9 i 2; 9 iv 4; and 9 v 4).

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multiple scripts in such proximity is the biblical scroll 4QLev (4Q26b) that has the Tetragrammaton in square and paleo-Hebrew on the same fragment. In summary, Qumran scribes avoided the Tetragrammaton in original yahad compositions. Some use the Tetragrammaton in biblical quotations while others replaced it with ‫אל‬, pronominal elements, or cryptic designations. The title ‫ אל‬is the most frequent replacement of the Tetragrammaton, occurring in paleo-Hebrew 21 , mostly in community compositions. All of the pesharim use the Tetragrammaton when found in their source texts. About half use the square script for the divine name, while the other half use paleo-Hebrew, a practice that enters the picture around 30 BCE, which continues alongside the use of the square script into the first century CE. Because yahad scribes more freely adjust divine designations in their works, these sources do not offer reliable text-critical data, although they do provide a window into the ideology of the yahad. The divine name readings within biblical quotations are not subject to the same changes as divine name readings in regular biblical manuscripts. This shows, moreover, that the use of divine titles and epithets in the yahad biblical quotations are theologically motivated. Such scribal activity helps us to appreciate the degree of reverence scribes held for the divine name and provides further background as we move to consider the third major division of Dead Sea Scrolls—those of non-yahad origin.

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Qumran Scrolls of Non-Yahad Origin The remaining Dead Sea Scrolls, understood neither as regular biblical texts nor original yahad compositions, comprise a fascinating assortment of texts. Such sources have pushed the boundaries of Jewish literary activity and led to a revolution in our understanding of the process of Jewish canonization. These works have a clear affinity to biblical texts, notably 4QReworked Pentateuch A–E, the Temple Scroll, and Jubilees. Other scrolls combine known biblical texts with previously unknown material. The author of 4QProphecy of Joshua (4Q522), for example, added Ps 122 to the end of his composition. The last song of 11QApocryphal Psalms (11Q11) is a version of Ps 91. The Psalms Scroll (11QPs ) interweaves previously unknown compositions with biblical psalms from Book 4 and 5 of the MT-Psalter. These are not understood as copies of regular biblical texts. Still, we find that the divine name is prevalent in all these compositions. This material has never been the focus of systematic study nor integrated into an overall picture of the Tetragrammaton’s Second Temple history. How can these texts contribute to a fuller understanding of the ways that early Jewish authors named God in their literature? How might this material compare and contrast with the regular biblical scrolls and the original yahad compositions? The Tetragrammaton occurs 253 in some 55 scrolls that cannot be identified as original yahad texts. The rewritten scripture material accounts for about half of these occurrences. Most notable are the Temple Scroll (52 ), 4QRP A–E (60 ), and passages in 11QPs (21 ) without parallel in the MT-Psalter. The question of how these works compare with traditional biblical scrolls is vigorously debated. The outcome of this debate has substantial implications for the use of the divine name. If these originally non-yahad compositions carried the same status as regular biblical texts, then we can more readily assume that the Tetragrammaton occurs because such compositions were considered, in some sense, holy—sacred books, sacred name. If these compositions are categorically or conceptually different from regular biblical texts, however, we need to search for another rationale, especially as these works come from a time when early Jewish writers, according to most scholars, staunchly avoided the Tetragrammaton.

The Tetragrammaton occur.s an additional 13 in unidentified fragments.

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Eugene Ulrich and James VanderKam have argued that the expansions and harmonizations in the 4QRP manuscripts are characteristics shared by other biblical texts, whose content was still in ux. Michael Segal, however, takes a more selective view. He argues that 4Q364–367 appear to qualify as biblical, but 4Q158 is a rewritten scriptural text. Molly Zahn judges the evidence more critically. For example, she confirms Segal and Bernstein’s observations that 4Q158 has a distinct exegetical profile, and 4Q364 is more conservative in rewriting than the other manuscripts, but she takes their work a step further by examining the compositional technique of the 4QRP scrolls to argue that each manuscript shows different exegetical tendencies and should not be conated. Through a comparison of 4QRP, the Temple Scroll, and the Samaritan Pentateuch, Zahn concludes that all made use of virtually the same compositional techniques, but no two manuscripts were alike in the proportions or purposes. Sidnie Crawford examined the concepts biblical and authority in relation to the 4QRP texts. She concludes that there is hardly any evidence that they were authoritative because they are not quoted or the subject of a commentary. Falk and Bernstein also tend to think that the 4QRP manuscripts, which omit key legal material, were not intended to be typical copies of the Pentateuch. In other words, these works do not stand alone; they depend on the earlier biblical source material and lack important biblical laws. A similar 4QRP manuscripts re ect the same type of exegetical activity, namely the moderate harmonizing expansions found in the pre-Samaritan manuscripts 4QpaleoExod , 4QNum , and 4QExod-Lev , suggesting that they can be viewed as biblical. Ulrich, in particular, has argued that 4QRP , should not be considered a new work, but an expanded biblical text; see Ulrich, The Qumran Scrolls and the Biblical Text, in The Dead Sea Scrolls—Fifty Years After Their Discovery-Proceedings of the Jerusalem Congress, July 10–25, 1997 (ed. Lawrence H. Schiffman, Emanuel Tov, and James VanderKam; Jerusalem, 2000). See also Tov, Rewritten Bible Compositions, 341; Tov and Crawford, Reworked Pentateuch, in DJD 13:187–352. For a summary of types of compositional techniques in the 4QRP manuscripts, see Zahn, Rethinking Rewriting, 129. Ulrich, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Biblical Text, in The Dead Sea Scrolls after Fifty Years, 1:79–100; James VanderKam, Questions of Canon Viewed through the Dead Sea Scrolls, in The Canon Debate (ed. Lee Martin McDonald and James A. Sanders; Peabody: Hendrikson, 2002), 96–100. Segal, 4QReworked Pentateuch or 4QPentateuch? in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Fifty Years After Their Discovery, 394–95. For a summary of types of compositional techniques in the 4QRP manuscripts, see Zahn, Rethinking Rewriting, 129. Note also Segal, Biblical Exegesis in 4Q158: Techniques and Genre, Textus 19 (1998): 45–62; Bernstein, What Has Happened? 48–49. Zahn, Rethinking Rewritten, 228. Crawford, Rewriting Scripture, 56–57. Bernstein, What Has Happened to the Laws? The Treatment of Legal Material in 4QReworked Pentateuch, DSD 15 (2008): 48–49; Falk, The Parabiblical Texts, 111.

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observation was made by Schiffman regarding the absence of the Decalogue in the Temple Scroll. These works could not have been considered functional in the same way as the Pentateuch. Many of the rewritten scripture works can be understood, to some degree, as interpretive compositions. By rearranging or juxtaposing biblical passages, the scribes of 4QRP offer interpretive suggestions or clues to the larger framing of biblical narratives. The outlook of these compositions is also concerned with their self-presentation, unlike regular biblical texts, which seem to be related to achieving acceptance or an authoritative status. This tells us that as the authors re ected on the compositional shape or design of their works, with authoritative status as a goal to be achieved, which at the beginning, was neither self-evident nor inherent in the writing. All of this suggests that even if these texts are much closer to regular biblical compositions, on a comparative spectrum, we are at least justified in asking questions about the widespread use of the Tetragrammaton in this material. How might the Tetragrammaton function in compositions similar to but different from regular biblical texts? Was the Tetragrammaton simply considered a biblical feature for some authors, and accordingly replicated? Or could the ways of naming God have been part of a larger, deliberate compositional strategy? One thing is clear. The scrolls of non-yahad origin provide important evidence for the continued use of the Tetragrammaton, in striking contrast to the plethora of avoidance strategies in both speech and writing, in the yahad texts of the late Second Temple period. Zahn discusses how 3Q365 36 presents Num 27:11 followed directly by Num 36:1–2, without so much as an extra space to mark a new paragraph. This seems to be an implicit interpretation of these passages. See Zahn, Rethinking Rewritten, 117. The logic behind these juxtapositions is to join thematically related units, such as the issue of Zelophehad’s (Num 27) daughters with women’s inheritance rights (Num 36). She concludes: Ultimately, the importance of understanding rewritten texts lies in their prevalence as a mode of interpretation in the late Second Temple period. (242) VanderKam has enumerated criteria for determining whether a work was considered authoritative: (1) the number of copies, (2) self-presentation of a work (i.e., compositional intention) as authoritative or coming from God, (3) the subsequent use of a work by other works, for example, in quotation (i.e., the acceptance by a community), and (4) the focus of the work as a commentary. See VanderKam, Authoritative Literature in the Dead Sea Scrolls, DSD 5 (1998): 382–402, and more recently, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible, 66–71. Some of these compositions present themselves as authoritative, such as 4QRP, the Temple Scroll, and Jubilees, but they are also not the subject of commentaries, which places them outside of the Qumran biblical texts proper. Jubilees probably has a better claim to authoritative status because this work has about 14 manuscript witnesses (although some of these most likely did not contain the entire book), along with Enoch (11 mss.) and the Book of Giants (9–10 mss.). Very low on the authoritative scale at Qumran were probably Chronicles, Esther, Ezra, and Nehemiah, even though they were later accepted in the Jewish canon.

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The use of the divine name is not the only notable feature in the non-yahad scrolls. We also find, especially in passages that overlap with regular biblical texts, an editorial activity that seems in uenced by the avoidance tradition. In what follows, I will first illustrate the use of the Tetragrammaton in freely composed material (neither quotations of regular biblical texts nor original yahad works). Then, I examine closely quotations and rewritings of regular biblical texts to see if these offer evidence for avoidance, and if so, at what stage in the literary development of these works: their original authorship or transmission? The chart below presents the evidence for the divine name in scrolls of non-yahad origin. These manuscripts are diverse. For ease of survey, I have organized them into four categories: torah and narrative texts, prophetic texts, hymnic liturgical texts, and a catch-all category labeled other. These are not intended to be genre classifications, but simply to facilitate comparison. This chart gives an overall picture of the divine name in these works. Table 28

The divine name in the Scrolls of Non-Yahad Origin

Composition

I. Torah and Narrative Traditions QExhort on Flood ( Q ) Mas m (MasapocrGen) QText Rachel Joseph ( Q ) QApocrMoses ? ( Q ) QApocrMoses ( Q ) QApocrMoses ( Q ) QDiscourseExod ( Q ) QRP A ( Q ) QRP B ( Q ) QRP C ( Q ) QRP D ( Q )

Date

Divine Name Occurrences

– BCE – BCE – BCE – BCE – BCE BCE– CE – BCE – BCE – BCE – BCE – BCE

The diversity of these scrolls is evident even in the modern labels give to these works. For example, 4Q408 has been named both ApocrMoses and Morning and Evening Prayer (DJD 36:298) and 4Q522 has been named ApocrJosh and Prophecy of Joshua (DJD 29:39–74). For further discussion, see Dimant, Between Sectarian and Non-Sectarian: The Case of the Apocryphon of Joshua, in Reworking the Bible: Apocryphal and Related Texts at Qumran (ed. E. Chazon, et al.; STDJ 58; Leiden: Brill, 2005), 105–34. Yadin, Masada VI, 101. He compares the preserved fragment to Gen 41:25, 32.

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The divine name in the Scrolls of Non-Yahad Origin (cont.)

Composition QRP E ( Q ) QApocrPent A ( Q ) QApocrPent B ( Q ) QJub ( Q ) QJub ( Q ) QJub ( Q ) Qpseudo Jub ( Q ) Qpseudo Jub ( Q ) QTemple ( Q ) QTemple ( Q ) QNarr B ( Q ) QNarr F ( Q ) QNarr and Poetic ( Q ) QNarr Work and Prayer ( Q QNarr and Poetic ( Q ) QNarr and Poetic ( Q ) II. Prophetic Traditions QApocrJoshua ( Q ) QApocrJoshua ( Q ) QProphecy of Joshua Ps QParaKings ( Q ) QApocrJer C ( Q a) QApocrJer C ( Q a) QPseudo Ezek ( Q )

Date – BCE – BCE – BCE – BCE – BCE – BCE BCE- CE – BCE – BCE – CE – BCE – BCE – BCE – BCE BCE – CE

)

( Q

Divine Name Occurrences

)

– BCE – CE – BCE BCE – BCE – BCE – BCE

Columns V–VII date to 125–100 BCE, while columns I–II, and IV date to 75–50 BCE. The Tetragrammaton occurs 3 in column I. On the verso of fragment 9 is 4QAccount gr, a Greek documentary text. Because the sectarian scribes would not have reused a fragment that contained the Tetragrammaton for listing cereals in Greek, Larson suggested that this list could become evidence of a later occupation of the Qumran caves in the wake of the destruction of the settlement in 68 CE. Larson, DJD 26:369. For an overview of the discussion of this document, see Tov, The Greek Biblical Texts from the Judean Desert, in The Bible as Book: The Transmission of the Greek Text (ed. Scott McKendrick and Orlaith A. O’Sullivan; Grand Haven, MI: The Scriptorium, Center for Christian Antiquities, 2003), 100–1.

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The divine name in the Scrolls of Non-Yahad Origin (cont.)

Composition QPseudo Ezek ( Q QPseudo Ezek ( Q QPseudo Ezek ( Q QApocrProphecy ( Q

Date b) ) ) )

Divine Name Occurrences

– BCE – BCE – BCE undated

III. Hymnic, Liturgical, and Poetic Traditions QNon-Canonical Ps A ( Q ) – BCE QNon-Canonical Ps B ( Q ) BCE QHym or Sap B ( Q ) – BCE QPs AposZion, Judah; Esch Hymn ( Q ) BCE QHymn ( Q ) BCE- CE QPs ( Q ) – BCE QPs ( Q ) – CE; – CE QApocrPsalms ( Q ) – CE QThree Tongues of Fire ( Q ) undated QSapWork ( Q ) – BCE QSapHymn ( Q ) – BCE IV. Other Qpaleo Unidentified ( Q ) – BCE QConfession ( Q ) BCE- CE QUnclassified ( Q ) undated QCongr of the Lord ( Q ) undated QTanh ( Q ) – BCE – CE QMidrEschat ( Q ) – BCE

The 21 occurrences of the Tetragrammaton in 11Q5 here include only those not paralleled by books of the Psalter as represented by the MT. The scribe has used red ink for ‫ ;לאלהי‬cf. Tov Scribal Practices, 239. Pike, DJD 36:396–397. Very little is known about the 4Q466. The phrase ‫ ד יה ה‬occurs at 4Q446 1 3. We find the same phrase in 4Q377 2 ii 3, which also has a fuller orthography, bringing it closer in line to QSP; cf. DJD 28:207; also, Num 27:17, 31:16, Josh 22:16, 22:17. See further, Pike, The Congregation of YHWH in the Bible and at Qumran, Revue de Qumrân 17 (1996): 233–40.

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These sources date, on paleographic grounds, from the mid-second century BCE to the mid-first century CE, spanning roughly two hundred years. We have only general guesses about when these works were originally composed. Their continued copying, though, shows that many scribes were interested in them and continued to use the divine name up through the mid-first century CE. Not all scrolls use the Tetragrammaton unquestionably, however. There seems to be evidence for divine name avoidance in this material on two levels: the original composition and their subsequent transmission.

8.1

Temple Scroll (11Q19–21, 4Q524)

The Temple Scroll replicates closely the architectural, legal, and administrative passages of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The authors strive to create an ideal blueprint for a massive Jerusalem Temple, which they believe God will build in the future. Ritual purity laws and festivals are also included in the Temple Scroll because they pertain to the idealized Temple. The content of this work is almost entirely a pastiche of biblical quotations, rearranged to fit the author’s compositional and thematic designs. Because The purpose of the Temple Scroll has been debated since Yigael Yadin’s editio princeps, The Temple Scroll (3 vols. and supplement; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1983 1977 Hebrew ). See Stephen A. Kaufman, The Temple Scroll and Higher Criticism, Hebrew Union College Annual 53 (1982): 29–43; Andrew M. Wilson and Lawrence Wills. Literary Sources of the Temple Scroll’, HTR 75 (1982): 275–88; Hartmut Stegemann, The Literary Composition of the Temple Scroll and its Status at Qumran, in Temple Scroll Studies (ed. George J. Brooke; JSP 7. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1989), 123–148; Dwight Swanson, The Temple Scroll and the Bible: The Methodology of 11QT (STDJ 14; Leiden, Brill, 1995); Brooke, The Temple Scroll: A Law unto itself? in Law and Religion: Essays on the Place of the Law in Israel and Early Christianity (ed. B. Lindars; Cambridge: James Clarke, 1988), 34–43, 164–166; ibid., The Temple Scroll and LXX Exodus 35–40, in Septuagint, Scrolls and Cognate Writings: Papers Presented to the International Symposium on the Septuagint and Its Relations to the Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Writings (ed. George J. Brooke and B. Lindars; SBLSCS 33; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992), 81–106; Sidnie W. Crawford, The Temple Scroll and Related Texts (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000); Bernard M. Levinson and Molly M. Zahn, Revelation Regained: The Hermeneutics of ‫י‬ and ‫ אם‬in the Temple Scroll, DSD 9 3 (2002): 295–346; Larry Schiffman’s collected essays in The Courtyards of the House of the Lord: Studies on the Temple Scroll (ed. Florentino García Martínez; Leiden: Brill, 2008). This claim is made by God speaking in the first-person, see 11Q19 29.8–10 (‫א א א אני‬ ‫ד י‬ ‫)א‬. The authors of the Temple Scroll reorganize the biblical material into unique discrete literary and thematic blocks. Wilson and Wills, Literary Sources, 275–88; Stegemann, The Literary Composition of the Temple Scroll, 123–148; Swanson, The Temple Scroll, 230–31.

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these passages regularly use the divine name, it is no surprise that it occurs 52 throughout the Temple Scroll. At times, though, the Tetragrammaton is intentionally omitted. When we examine some of the key compositional features of the Temple Scroll, it is clear that non-use of the divine name is different from the deliberate avoidance in original yahad scrolls. The most in uential characteristic of the Temple Scroll, accounting for the Tetragrammaton’s non-use, is the striking literary recasting of the biblical passages in the narrative voice of God. We encounter the divine voice in Leviticus. God narrates the laws directly to Moses in the first person. In Deuteronomy, Moses narrates the laws to the people, speaking about God in the third person. As passages are adapted to create the Temple Scroll, the author changes all the third-person narration of Torah, mostly borrowed from Deuteronomy, to the first-person revelatory divine voice of Leviticus. The author applies this method throughout the Temple Scroll. If we place this alongside the traditional Torah, we see that the author effectively erases Moses as the lawgiver and expands the scope of Leviticus. To achieve the first-person narrative voice, the author removes some of the third-person references to the Tetragrammaton, changes pronouns, verbs, and prepositions. For example, the Tetragrammaton is exchanged for the first-person pronoun ‫ אנ י‬when 11Q19 53.20 quotes Num 30:6. In another example 11Q19 55.11 quoting Deut 13:18b—the author changes the verb from third-person, ‫ נ‬, and omits the explicit subject, YHWH, to first-person ‫ נ י‬, embedding the subject in the first-person verb conjugation. In a third example, 11Q19 52.10 adapts Deut 15:21 to replacement the Tetragrammaton in the phrase ‫נ ליה ה אלהי‬ with the first-person suffix ‫נ לי‬ Notably, in original yahad scrolls, we also find pronominal replacements of the divine name, but these authors always use second or third-person pronouns; they avoid the Tetragrammaton in their compositions and do cast their material in the voice Swanson proposes four methods of compositional patterns operative for the scribe editor of 11QT, including (a) Word-form insertion, (b) Key-word link, (c) Signaling, and (d) Developing. Scholars have enumerated a continuum of compositional activity evident in the author’s biblical source texts, including original composition, echo, allusion, periphrastic con ation, fine con ation, gross con ation, modified quotation, and extended quotation. These categories were formulated by Kaufman, The Temple Scroll, 29–43; Michael Wise, A Critical Study of the Temple Scroll, Appendix I. Crawford, Temple Scroll and Related Texts, 17–18. For a recent overview of the literary goals of the author as seen through editorial activity, see Juha Pakkala, The Temple Scroll as Evidence for Editorial Processes of the Pentateuch, in Crossing Imaginary Boundaries, 101–127. M. Weinfeld, God versus Moses in the Temple Scroll ’I do not Speak on my Own but on God’s Authority, RevQ 15 (1991): 175–80.

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of God. The authors of the Temple Scroll do not shy away from using the divine name but probably think of it as part of their larger strategy to lend an additional level of sacredness to their composition, most evident in the systematic revising of biblical legislation so that everything is cast in the divine voice.

8.2

Apocryphon of Moses (1Q29, 4Q376, 4Q408)

The Apocryphon of Moses addresses the age-old question of discerning God’s will. It begins with a discussion of the divination stones, Urim and Thummim, and how these might be used for identifying true versus false prophets. These stones also help with military strategy, for example, when and how to lay siege to a city. The work ends with a blessing that praises God for creating the day, night, and the heavenly lights that rule them. The Tetragrammaton occurs several times in this work, particularly in the fragments about the oracle stones. In the final blessing, the purported direct speech of Moses, a scribe has marked the Tetragrammaton for deletion and added the supralinear reading ‫א ה‬ : ‫ אדני‬instead of ‫יה ה‬ ‫א ה אדני‬

‫י הנא‬

‫יד‬

‫ה‬

‫לד י ה‬

‫יה ה ה די‬

4Q408 3 3a 6

The editorial activity here—replacing the divine name in the blessing formula—is much closer to the practices in regular yahad texts, which stand apart from what we find in the Temple Scroll and other rewritten scriptural texts that use the Tetragrammaton. While the replacement was deliberate, can we know more about the motivation behind it? Did the scribe want to uphold the same priestly or pious concerns espoused in yahad texts? For clarity, we need to look at additional contextual features. The supralinear insertion, ‫א ה אדני‬ , is also found in the Hodayot. In fragment 3 line 3, we encounter two additional clues: use of the term ‫ י ד‬and the favorite title of God in Qumran literature, ‫אל‬.

This work appears to comprise three manuscripts: 1QLiturgy of the Three Tongues on Fire (apocrMos ?) (1Q29), 4QApocrMoses (4Q376), and 4QApocrMoses ? (4Q408); Steudel, DJD 36:298. But see recently, Ariel Feldman and Liora Goldman, Scripture and Interpretation: Qumran Texts that Rework the Bible (ed. Devorah Dimant; Berlin Boston: de Gruyter, 2014), 263–351. Cf. Num 27:21. For notes on the reconstruction of ‫אל‬, see DJD 36:305–6.

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‫אל ה‬

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4Q408 3 3a 3

Scholars have debated the meaning of all three elements—the supralinear insertion, the use of ‫אל‬, and the prepositional phrase ‫לי ד‬. That the Tetragrammaton occurs in other parts of this work, apart from its deletion in the final blessing, is also important. Goldman does not interpret ‫ אל‬and ‫לי ד‬ as sectarian terms but renders them as a preposition and infinitive, respectively. Even so, she suggests that fragment 3 has a strong affinity with the yahad scrolls. Key evidence is the supralinear insertion. Steudel, on the other hand, translates ‫ אל‬and ‫ לי ד‬as nouns with sectarian connotations but thinks that the deletion of the Tetragrammaton is simply a correction of a scribal mistake. She reasons that s ince the Tetragrammaton occurs also in frg. 2 1, 3 (cf. the parallel text 1Q29 3–4) the correction cannot be explained as an intentional replacement for the Tetragrammaton which was no longer used; rather, it is simply a correction of a scribal mistake. Baumgarten offers a third option. He suggests that the correction of the use of the Tetragrammaton in the blessing with the formula ‫ אדני א ה‬may serve as a testimony both for the increasing restriction in the use of the divine name and the standardization of the liturgical blessing into the form with direct address of the deity which also became fixed in rabbinic Judaism. This explanation is more of a middle ground that situates the formulaic blessing as part of a growing liturgical tradition without the divine name. We know from the Hodayot that yahad authors found this particular standardized blessing useful for communal settings. The concentration of special terms in this fragment, coupled with the deletion of the Tetragrammaton in the liturgical blessing, gives a strong indication that yahad interests are present in the copying or editing of this fragment. The avoidance of the divine name was deliberate, not simply a scribal correction. The sacredness of the name, moreover, was clearly on the mind of the author; line 9 refers to the holy name ( ‫ד‬ ‫א‬ ‫)ל‬. The contrast in the kind of writing about the oracle stones, where the Tetragrammaton occurs, and the final prayer or blessing, which contains special yahad terms and the divine title ‫אדני‬, opens questions about how this work was originally composed or copied. Goldman thought that perhaps the prayer itself may have been extracted from a sectarian source This would assume that the author or redactor of Apocryphon of Moses gathered available See Goldman, Scripture and Interpretation, 331; also, DJD 36:307. DJD 36:302. Joseph M. Baumgarten, Some Notes on 4Q408, RevQ 18 (1997): 143–44. Goldman, Scripture and Interpretation, 349–50.

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sources and created the work we now have. More likely, though, this final blessing or prayer was originally a non-yahad prayer, which was later modified by a Qumran scribe as they copied the Apocryphon of Moses. This makes sense too because most of the scrolls of non-yahad origin predate the original yahad compositions, suggesting a more likely direction of dependence. The Qumran scribe must have found this passage amenable for yahad usage and prepared it accordingly. The inconsistent use of the Tetragrammaton—in fragment 2 about the oracle stones, but not in the blessing of fragment 3 can be explained simply on the basis that fragment 2 would not have been put to liturgical use, so the presence of the divine name there did not concern the scribe. The Apocryphon of Moses is an example of the dynamic process in which scrolls of non-yahad origin were later modified for yahad purposes, whether for prayer or blessing. Here, we find the unproblematic use of the Tetragrammaton outside of regular biblical texts in passages that concern divination, an everyday curiosity of those attempting to discern the will of God. In contrast, the blessing that showed promise for liturgical re-use among yahad members was edited to avoid the Tetragrammaton, replacing it with a standard formula.

8.3

Jubilees

The Book of Jubilees is a massive work that retells portions of Genesis and Exodus in the form of angelic revelation to Moses on Mt. Sinai. The original work, written in Hebrew, was some 50 chapters long. Among the Qumran scrolls, 14 fragmentary manuscripts contain various passages of Jubilees. While the more complete editions of the book have survived in Greek and through the Ethiopic Church (in Ge’ez), the early manuscripts from Qumran show how God was named in Hebrew. These fragments are not fully representative, but we do find ‫( יה ה‬5 ), ‫( אלהים‬16 ), and ‫( אל‬3 ). There are several examples of manuscripts that were repurposed for use within the yahad community settings. See the discussion above regarding 4Q252; also, Feldman, following Tov, argues that 4Q422 was originally a non-sectarian scroll that was copied by yahad scribes. This scroll uses ‫ אל‬God instead of ‫ אלהים‬or ‫( יה ה‬e.g., 4Q422 2:5 Gen 7:16). See Ariel Feldman and Liora Goldman, Scripture and Interpretation, 85–86. Some of these manuscripts are very fragmentary, others may belong to the same manuscript, and each manuscript probably did not contain the entire book. For further discussion of the Jubilee manuscripts, see James C. VanderKam, The Manuscript Tradition of Jubilees, in Enoch and the Mosaic Torah: The Evidence of Jubilees (ed. Gabriele Boccaccini and Giovanni Ibba; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009), 4–8.

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In biblical literature, the Tetragrammaton and ‫ אל‬are found together, notably in Gen, Exod, Josh, and Ps, but the manuscripts of Jubilees offer rare pairings of ‫ אל‬with other divine designations as the author reworked his source text. For example, 4QJub contains ‫ ה אל לי יה‬, a compound designation thought to come from Gen 14:22, the only other place where this designation occurs. But curiously, the author of 4QJub is not paraphrasing Gen 14:22 when using it. He is reporting, instead, Abraham’s final words, a scene that would be situated near the beginning of Gen 25. This means that the author did not use the divine name in a biblical quote within Jubilees, but rendered it freely and paired it with the compound designation in a new context. In a similar example, 4QJub uses a standard blessing formula in a newly composed passage, unparalleled in Genesis. Rebekah blesses God for the birth of Jacob (Jub 25.12–13): And she Rebekah said, May YHWH God be blessed ( ‫יה ה אל ה ים‬ ) and may his holy name be blessed forever and ever, he who gave to me Jacob, a pure son and a holy seed; because he is yours and his seed will (belong) to you for all times and in all generations forever.

While the characters and themes in Jubilees are inspired by Genesis, the book shows no hesitation with re-using and mixing elements in new ways. The free use of the divine name in original passages, in a late work, is an example of this continued literary activity. We find a similar use of ‫ יה ה‬in 4QRP A (4Q158) 1–2 7. Following the wrestling match between Jacob and the divine figure at Penuel (Gen 32:30) the writer inserts a blessing for Jacob, not paralleled in the biblical story. Pseudo-Jubilees also uses the Tetragrammaton. This work comprises several manuscripts that are not direct copies of Jubilees even as they were likely inspired by this rewriting tradition. 4QPsJub recounts God’s blessing of Isaac: ‫אל יה ה א י‬ ‫ ( י‬And God, YHWH, shall bless Isaac ). The word order of this divine compound, ‫אל יה ה‬, is unique. This is the only time the divine name appears in apposition to ‫אל‬. In the MT, the locution is inversed, ‫יה ה אל‬. This places a particular emphasis on the title ‫ אל‬itself. Almost all For a broader discussion on the role of divine epithets in Jubilees, see Kugel, James. A Note on Divine Names and Epithets in The Book of Jubilees, in A Teacher for All Generations, Festschriften in Honor of James VanderKam (Leiden, Brill: 2012), 757–63. 4Q219 2 21 ( Jub 21.20). 4Q225 2 ii 10. The closest parallel is Ps 118:27 where ‫ אל יה ה‬is a verbless clause God is YHWH.

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occurrences of ‫ אל‬are from Gen (18 ), Deut (13 ), Isa (22 ), Ps (77 ), and Job (56 ). Importantly, the use of ‫ אל‬in 4QPsJub is not from a quotation or paraphrase of a biblical source. The examples above provide evidence for the original uses of ‫ יה ה‬and ‫ אל‬in texts that were composed late in the Second Temple period. In other passages of Pseudo-Jubilees, however, the evidence is more ambiguous. Comparing a passage in 4QpsJub with its source, Gen 15:2, the divine name is omitted: ‫י י‬ ‫לי אנ י ה ל‬ ‫א ם אדני יה ה ה‬ ‫י אל י‬ ‫א הם אל אל הים אדני הנני א‬

‫יא‬ ‫יא‬

MT 4Q225 2 i 3

Gen 15:2

Abram appeals O Lord, YHWH, pointed in the MT ‫ אדני יה ה‬to be read as Adonai Elohim. The Massoretes wanted to avoid the redundant spoken Adonai, Adonai. The author of 4QpsJub writes ‫אל אל הים‬, which can be interpreted as either to God, with‫ אל‬as a preposition marking the divine address, or a superlative designation God of Gods. We find the compound ‫אל אלהים‬ ‫ יה ה‬in Josh 22:22 and Ps 50:1. The use of ‫ אדני‬in this passage may represent the in uence of a broader avoidance tradition, made clear by the parallel syntax of the source text, Gen 15:2. Still, because the Tetragrammaton is used elsewhere in this scroll (4Q225 2 ii 10), it is difficult to tell if the author deliberately avoided the divine name or if he simply wanted to avoid redundancy, like the Massoretes. On the one hand, the divine name practices in Jubilees cohere with what we find in the biblical scrolls. Yet, on the other hand, Jubilees and the related Pseudo-Jubilees move beyond their source texts of Genesis to create unique combinations of the Tetragrammaton and ‫אל‬. These texts, similar to the Apocryphon of Moses, likely bear witness to a period of transition in which scrolls of non-yahad origin were later modified for yahad purposes.

8.4

4QProphecy of Joshua (4Q522)

4QProphecy of Joshua is set within the pre-Davidic era and looks forward to the time when the Amorites and Canaanites will be driven from Jerusalem and the temple established on the ‫ ( ל י‬rock of Zion ). Until that time, the author is content to set up the ‫ד‬ ‫ ( אהל‬Tent of Meeting ) from afar. To the end of this prophetic, pro-Jerusalem composition the author has appended Ps 122, a psalm about the peace and prosperity of Jerusalem. The divine name occurs 3 in this psalm. The version of Ps 122 in 4Q522 adheres closely to the

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MT. The scribe replicates the divine name 1 in the short form ‫יה‬, identical to its use in the MT, ‫ים‬ ‫י יה ל‬ . Overall, the divine name occurs 6 in this work. 4Q522 thus combines an original prophetic-like work with a known biblical psalm and makes no distinction the use of the Tetragrammaton.

8.5

8QHymn (8Q5) and 11QApocryphal Psalms (11Q11)

In several hymns from Qumran, the use of the Tetragrammaton was believed to ward off evil spirits. The recitation or performance of these apotropaic texts protected the individual or community from malevolent forces. 8Q5 uses the Tetragrammaton in what Esther Eshel takes to be an incantational text of non-sectarian origin. 11Q11 comprises six columns of text that contain three apotropaic psalms against demons. The divine name occurs 9 total. The final song is a version of Ps 91. The biblical psalm coheres thematically with the contents of 11Q11. The speaker in 11Q11 4 4 addresses God directly, invoking

4Q522 22 26 3 ( Ps 122:4); Puech, DJD 25:39–74; Skehan, Ulrich, Flint, DJD 16:169–70. Esther Eshel, Apotropaic Prayers in the Second Temple Period, in Liturgical Perspectives Prayer and Poetry in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Proceedings of the Fifth International Symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, 19–23, January 2000 (ed. Esther G. Chazon, Ruth Clements, and Avital Pinnick; Leiden: Brill, 2003), 69. Eshel examines two groups of apotropaic prayers. The first comprises five prayers from Qumran of non-sectarian origin: one in ALD, two in 11Q5, and two in Jubilees. In addition, she discusses four documents that seem to be close to the thought of the Qumran sect : 4Q510–511, 4Q444, 6Q18, 1QH frg 4. She then contrasts these apotropaic prayers with three magical texts (incantations against demons) that are probably non-sectarian in origin: 4Q560, 8Q5, 11Q11. For an early discussion of the criteria for apotropaic prayers, see D. Flusser, Qumran and Jewish Apotropaic Prayers, IEJ 16 (1966): 194–205. For an explanation of the different versions of Psalm 91, see Mika S. Pajunen, Qumranic Psalm 91: A Structural Analysis, in Scripture in Transition: Essay on Septuagint, Hebrew Bible, and Dead Sea Scrolls in Honour of Raija Sollamo (ed. A. Voitila and J. Jokiranta; JSJSup 126; Leiden: Brill, 2008), 591–605. See also Puech, Les Psaumes davidiques du ritual d’exorcisme (11Q11), in Sapiential, Liturgical and Poetical Texts from Qumran: Proceedings of the Third Meeting of the International Organization for Qumran Studies, Oslo 1998. Published in Memory of Maurice Baillet (ed. Daniel K. Falk, Florentino García Martínez and Eileen M. Schuller; STDJ 35; Leiden: Brill, 2000), 160–81; and earlier 11QPsAp : un rituel d’exorcisme. Essai de réconstruction, RevQ 14 (1990): 377–408. DJD 23:181–205. See further Brennan Breed, Reception of the Psalms: The Example of Psalm 91, in Oxford Handbook of the Psalms (ed. William P. Brown; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 299: 11QApocryphal Psalms most likely derives from a nonsectarian source and was thus in circulation beyond the Qumran community. Among several textual variances, this version of Psalm 91 includes a superscription attributing it to David,

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the Tetragrammaton, apparently to destroy the demonic force: ‫ה‬ ‫י ה יה ה‬ ‫ ד ל]ה א לא ד‬. Puech considers the divine name to serve as a shield against evil spirits and was necessary for the efficacy of the exorcism. 11Q11 shares themes and concerns with other apotropaic works, such as Songs of the Sage. The latter, however, avoids the Tetragrammaton. Given this contrast, Puech suggests that Songs of the Sage was an original Essene composition, in part, because it replaces the Tetragrammaton with Yod in the locution borrowed from Ps 19:10: ‫י יה ה א‬ ‫ייד‬

‫ד ל ד‬ ‫די א‬

‫ל‬

‫י א יה ה ה ה‬ ‫ד י ד‬ ‫ים‬ ‫ם‬

MT

Ps 19:10

4Q511 10 12

In contrast, the use of the divine name in 11Q11 fits the genre of pre-Qumran psalmic literature, like Ps 91. Matthias Henze also notes that 11Q11 deviates from the usual practice in the sectarian writings at Qumran, as well as from the majority of Jewish magical songs. This situates 11Q11 as another example of an originally non-yahad composition that was found appealing to the interests of Qumran scribes, and here the spoken and written use of the Tetragrammaton is assumed. If the apotropaic texts were actively used by the Qumran yahad, it follows that under special circumstances some community members would have pronounced the Tetragrammaton. In the context of highly ritualized exorcisms, of which we find glimpses of in 11Q11 and 8Q5. This is an exception to the otherwise consistent divine name avoidance in yahad literature. Puech insightfully draws attention to Josephus’s description of the Essenes as experts in the art of healing and medical properties of plants (War. 7:136). The ritual use of the divine name could likely have been one aspect of their healing arts. Regardless of how and in what context 11Q11 was used, Pajunen entertains the possibility that it might be an original composition, in other words, not a copy of an earlier work. With a paleographic date between 50–70 CE, this scroll might

which draws on the tradition of his apotropaic musicianship (cf. 1 Sam. 16:23; Eshel 2003: 85). Puech, Les derniers Psaumes davidiques, 181. Puech follows Baillet with the identification of 4Q511 10 12 as a citation of Ps 19:10. Cf. G. W. Nebe, Der Buchstabe YOD als Ersatz des Tetragrams in 4Q511, Frag. 10 Zeile 12? RevQ 12 (1986): 284. Matthias Henze, Psalm 91 in Premodern Interpretation and at Qumran, in Biblical Interpretation at Qumran, 190–91. Pajunen, How to Expel a Demon, 128–61.

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provide evidence for the active use of the Tetragrammaton in the mid-first century CE. In summary, we find layers of complexity in the Temple Scroll, Apocryphon of Moses, Jubilees, 4QProphecy of Joshua, 8QHymn, and 11QApocryphal Psalms concerning divine name use, especially when compared to the common use of the Tetragrammaton in Qumran biblical scrolls and avoidance in the yahad scrolls. While the authors of these compositions use the Tetragrammaton freely, in original passages, some omit the divine name or pair it with ‫אל‬. Such diversity is related, at least in part, to the transmission of this material by Qumran scribes. As members of the yahad copied and repurposed these scrolls, they also modified the divine names and titles. An additional example is found in the narrative insertion of 11QPs 27, known as David’s Compositions. This brief narrative gives a running total of all the songs and psalms composed by David but opens with ‫ים ל ד י ל ני אל אנ ים‬ ‫ ( נ‬discerning and perfect in all his ways before God and men (11Q5 27 1–3). This is the only use of ‫ אל‬in the entire scroll, and can probably be attributed to a yahad scribe. The texts discussed above offer only a small sample of literature that originated in the broader literary milieu of Judea but was subsequently preserved and copied by yahad members. In cases like the Apocryphon of Moses (4Q408) and 4QpsJub , the avoidance tradition seems to have exerted some in uence on the naming practices. The examples of avoidance appear to concentrate in the stages of later transmission and editing. The quotations and allusions of biblical source texts in scrolls of non-yahad origin offer a comparative backdrop to explore this further. This allows us to compare approaches to naming God in originally non-yahad works with the variants in Qumran biblical scrolls. Conversely, this shows how divine name changes in biblical quotations within original yahad compositions compare and contrast. The chart below provides a summary of this data. Section I compares divine designations in scrolls of non-yahad origin with the MT. Section II lists the evidence for replacing the divine name with pronominal features. Section III shows special replacements DJD 23:184. For the 4QRP manuscripts, a list of the variants has been enumerated by Andrew Perrin, The Variants of 4Q(Reworked) Pentateuch: A Comprehensive List of the Textual Variants in 4Q158, 4Q364–367 in Biblical Sequence, JJS 63 (2012): 127–57. For a discussion of the problems with using books of the Rewritten Scriptures for the text-critical purposes, but also the problems inherent in the label biblical, see James C. VanderKam, The Wording of Biblical Citations in Some Rewritten Scriptural Works, in The Bible as Book: The Hebrew Bible and the Judean Desert Discoveries (ed. Edward D. Herbert and Emanuel Tov; London: The British Library and Oak Knoll Press, 2002), 41–56. He examines the variants in the source-texts of the Reworked Pentateuch, the Temple Scroll, Pseudo-Philo’s Biblical Antiquities, Jubilees, and the Genesis Apocryphon.

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of the divine name: the use of Tetrapuncta, two vertical dots, and one cryptic designation. In some examples, the non-use of the Tetragrammaton feels like the divine name variant patterns that we encountered in the biblical scrolls, not motivated by the avoidance tradition. At the same time, the intentional use of Tetrapuncta in originally non-yahad works shows that some of these divine name changes were deliberate. Table 29

Divine designations in quotations within the Scrolls of Non-Yahad Origin

Scroll

MT

Occurrences

I. Divine Name/Titles ‫אדני‬

‫יה ה‬

‫אדני‬

‫אדני יה ה‬

‫אל‬

‫יה ה‬

‫אלהים‬

‫יה ה‬

‫אלהים‬

‫יה ה אלהים‬

‫אלהי אלהים‬

‫יה ה אלהים‬

‫יה ה אלהים‬

‫יה ה‬

‫יה ה‬

‫יה ה אלהים‬

‫יה ה‬

‫אלהים‬

null

‫יה ה‬

‫לי‬

‫יה ה‬

‫יה ה‬

unparalleled

II. Pronominal Elements (suffix, ms)

‫יה ה‬

‫הא‬

‫יה ה‬

‫אנ י‬

‫יה ה‬

‫( י‬suffix, cs)

‫יה ה‬

‫א ה‬

‫יה ה‬

(?)

- (Temple Scroll)

(Temple Scroll) (Temple Scroll)

III. Special Practices ‫יה ה‬ ‫אלהים‬

‫אלהים‬

‫ יה ה‬:

‫יה ה‬

‫יד‬

‫יה ה‬

 Note: manuscript references for the evidence below are found in the Appendix.

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The variant patterns in section I are not balanced in the same way as the regular Qumran biblical scrolls. In other words, we do not find the same number of opposite patterns for each variation. There is only a handful of instances where the Tetragrammaton is found in a scroll of non-yahad origin and not in the MT or another biblical witness. The direction of change is typically away from the Tetragrammaton. The Temple Scroll illustrates why the data looks this way and also what implications we can draw from these divine name omissions. Pattern no. 10 shows that the author has omitted the Tetragrammaton 16 in comparison with the biblical source text. As noted at the beginning of this chapter, however, the literary agenda or compositional strategy of the Temple Scroll factors prominently in its ways of naming God. Along literary seams, first-person divine speech or first-person pronominal replacements (pattern nos. 15 and 16) requires the omission of the divine name. This is not avoidance out of concern for the divine name’s sacredness but rather intended to achieve the larger compositional goals of the author. It is also telling that the biblical quotations in the Temple Scroll never use ‫ יה ה‬freely, when not found in another biblical witness. In other texts, by contrast, we find some original uses of ‫ יה ה‬unparalleled in biblical sources (e.g., Jubilees and 4Q158, above). The Joshua Apocryphon from Masada (Mas 1l) paraphrases a sequence of events in Josh 23–24. In this text, we find an intriguing use of ‫אל‬, an example of variant pattern no. 3. Very little is known about the production and transmission of Mas 1l and its relationship to the yahad-type literature from Qumran. While this title was the favorite designation of God among Qumran authors, it is not an exclusive feature of yahad writing. It is also found, for example, in the Jubilee manuscripts. The title ‫ אל‬in Mas 1l may be intended as a replacement for the Tetragrammaton, although this is not an explicit biblical quote. In line 6, we read, ‫ם‬

‫י‬

‫ם י‬

‫הם י‬

‫ניהם י אל‬

‫לאי א‬

There is no parallel to the phrase ‫ ( י אל הם‬God is with them ) in Joshua, but we find similar uses of the Tetragrammaton in other biblical passages. The context surrounding line 6 also resonates with commands similar to Josh 8:1, 10:8, 25, and 11:6 that use the Tetragrammaton (e.g., ‫אל‬ ‫יא יה ה אל יה‬ ‫) י א‬. We also may have an example of variant pattern no. 1 with the use of In comparing Josh 23–24 with Mas 1l, the editors suggest that t he dependence of the Masada fragment on the latter part of the Book of Joshua is emphasized by the juxtaposition of significant phrases in both texts. Masada VI, 110–12. E.g., 1 Sam 18:28; 2 Sam 7:3; and Zech 10:5.

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the title ‫ אד ני‬in line 8. In addition to the use of these titles, Yadin argued for a link between this Masada fragment and the yahad scrolls based on the plene orthography of Mas 1l. The connection is strong, but not certain, as these titles do not show explicit avoidance for substitution or replacement of the Tetragrammaton. Still, unlike the other apocryphon sources, Mas 1l contains features of yahad-type writing. The book of Ben Sira, also known as Sirach (and to the Latin Church, Ecclesiasticus) is arguably the largest collection of ethical and wisdom teaching from antiquity. It was originally written in Hebrew, early in the second century BCE, and then translated into Greek by Ben Sira’s grandson around 132 BCE, according to the description in the prologue to the Greek version. The earliest copies of Ben Sira come from the Cairo Geniza (Egypt), Qumran, and Masada. The fragments from Qumran do not preserve any divine names, but we find significant evidence for naming God in the Masada copy (Mas 1h) and the Geniza copies (MSS A-F). The oldest manuscript of Ben Sira is from Masada (Mas 1h), which dates on paleographic grounds to 100–75 BCE. Even though Mas 1h brings us within a hundred years of the original work, careful text-critical study suggests that its divine titles and epithets are not a good indication of Ben Sira’s original wording. This is important because in Mas 1h we find ‫אדני‬, ‫ לי‬and ‫אל‬, but not ‫יה ה‬ Yadin, Masada VI, 111. To gain greater clarity on the naming practices in the Joshua Apocryphon texts one could look to 4QApocrJosh - (4Q378–9) and 4QProphecy of Joshua (4Q522). See Émile Puech, Les manuscrits de Qumrân inspirés du Livre de Josué: 4Q378, 4Q379, 4Q175, 4Q522, 5Q9 et Mas1039–211, RevQ 28 (2016): 45–116. Tov suggests that Mas 1l and 4Q522 could belong to the same composition (Scribal Practices, 98). See Yadin, Masada VI, 116; and also, Strawn and Rietz, (More) Sectarian Terminology in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice: The Case of ‫ י י ד‬, in Qumran Studies, 63 n. 41. This view is supported by the abundant marginal notations in the Cairo MS B, made by the copyists of MS B himself. According to Yadin, this shows an attempt to introduce, into the margin, variants from other MSS available to the copyist and the other readers, thus suggesting that the scribe was working to discern the original text of Ben Sira. Yadin, Masada VI, 160. Yadin further writes: O ne significant conclusion unmistakably emerges even from the most cursory study: the text of the scroll unquestionably confirms that Btext and the glosses of Bmarg represent the original Hebrew version Yadin, The Ben Sira Scroll from Masada, 161; See also Di Lella, The Hebrew Text, 23–105. By comparison, the Cairo Damascus Document (CD A, B; dating from the tenth and twelfth century CE, respectively) is considered to be more accurate than the Cave 4 copies (dated from the first century BCE to the mid-first century CE) as it pertained to the divine name readings in the earliest form of the Damascus Document; see Stegemann ( Gottesbezeichnungen, 201). For an overview of the compositional history of CD, see Charlotte Hempel, The Damascus Texts (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000); Menahem Kister, The Development of the Early Recensions of the Damascus Document, DSD 14 (2007): 61–76.

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or ‫אלהים‬. In contrast, the Cairo Geniza copies of Ben Sira were produced many centuries after the Masada copy, but ironically, they represent a more reliable line of transmission from the original work, especially MS B. The divine name occurs here in the characteristic medieval scribal convention of three yods (‫)ייי‬. MS B also contains ‫אלהים‬, ‫אל‬, and ‫אדני‬. The three-yod arrangement is technically a replacement or cipher for the Tetragrammaton, but this is different from avoidance with another epithet or title during the Second Temple period. The textual witness of MS B indicates that the Tetragrammaton once stood in Ben Sira’s original text. The following chart illustrates the parallel divine name readings between Mas 1h and MS B. Table 30

s

Parallel divine name readings between the Masada and Cairo Geniza copies

o

: – (Sir

(

s 1h

: – )

: (Sir : ) : (Sir : ) : (Sir : a) : (Sir : ) : (Sir : ) Q (Sir : )

Cairo Geniza MS B ‫אל‬ ‫אדני‬ ‫אדני‬ ‫אל‬ ‫נ לא י‬ ‫אדני‬ ‫לי‬ ‫אדני‬ ‫אדני‬ ‫אל‬ ‫י י אל‬ —

‫אל‬ ‫אלהים‬ ‫ייי‬ ‫אל‬ ‫נ לא ייי‬ ‫אלהים‬ ‫ייי‬ ‫ייי‬ ‫אל‬ ‫אל‬ ‫ד‬ ‫יי‬ ‫אדני‬

r: –

v: v: v: v: r: r:

Two examples illustrate the different approaches to naming God in the Masada and Cairo Geniza manuscripts. The first involves the variant readings ‫( אדני‬Mas 1h) for ‫( אלהים‬SirB) and the second pertains to ‫( אדני‬Mas 1h) for ‫ייי‬, the three yods, i.e., the Tetragrammaton (SirB).

Other divine name readings are found in the medieval copies (MSS A–F), but these were not produced with the same attention to detail that we find in MS B, which makes their readings less significant.

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‫אדני‬ ‫אלהים‬

‫י י א ננה א‬ ‫ה א‬

‫י י א‬

‫ה‬

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‫י אל‬ ‫ה נא‬ ‫ל נ ל‬ ‫י‬ ‫י אל ה‬ ‫נא‬ >‫י‬ ‫נ‬

‫א‬

Mas 1h

‫א‬

SirB

Sir 42:15–16

Both witnesses agree on the reading of ‫ אל‬in the first clause, but in the second clause Mas 1h uses ‫ אדני‬and MS B reads ‫אלהים‬. Skehan suggests that this passage (Sir 42:15) is an allusion to Gen 1:1–2 ( ‫א אלהים‬ ‫) א י‬, and therefore the original reading was probably ‫אלהים‬, as re ected in MS B. The copyist of Mas 1h replaced ‫ אלהים‬with ‫אדני‬, perhaps to avoid ‫אלהים‬, a practice commonly found in the yahad scrolls. On the whole, Mas 1h contains ‫ אדני‬for God more frequently than other manuscripts. A trend towards standardization with ‫אדני‬ might account for its use here instead of ‫אלהים‬, without necessarily requiring that ‫ אלהים‬be replaced. That ‫ אדני‬seems to have become standard in Mas 1h is suggested by the rendering of ‫אל‬, at least once, as ‫אדני‬. In a second example, Mas 1h contains ‫אדני‬, while MS B contains the three yods: ‫י‬ ‫י‬

‫ד אדני לא‬ ‫ד ייי ל ל‬

‫ל לנל ה‬ ‫ל לנל ה‬

‫ה‬

Mas 1h SirB

Sir 42:16

As mentioned above, the convention of using three yods indicates that the divine name originally stood in this textual tradition. We can compare this evidence with Mas 1h to draw inferences about the naming practices in the Masada scroll during the Second Temple period. Given what we know about the text-critical acumen of the scribe of MS B, along with the possibility that Mas 1h replaced ‫ אלהים‬in the first example above, it is likely that the title ‫ אדני‬is secondary. Mas 1h also provides hints that it was used in liturgical or communal settings, as opposed to private study or devotion. Near the beginning of the pericope in praise of God’s works of creation (Sir 42:15), for example, we find a scribal notation resembling the Greek letter . Yadin writes: Perhaps the sign connotes the content of this poetic portion which constitutes a psalm of praise to God, similar to the Biblical psalms ( α ς ?). If Mas 1h was intended to be read in a communal setting, this might partially explain the standardization of divine designations with ‫אדני‬, a term that also frequently appears in the contexts of blessing and praise in yahad literature. In summary, the comparison Skehan writes, ‫ אדני‬here stands for Elohim, which the Masada scribe—it is not likely that Ben Sira himself did this—deliberately avoided. Skehan, The Divine Name, 19. Skehan writes, In the light of Isa 6:3, the reading of ‫ ייי‬in Cairo MS B here re ects ‫ יה ה‬as the presumptive original reading. Skehan, The Divine Name, 19. Yadin, Masada VI, 156.

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of Mas 1h with the medieval Cairo Genizo evidence of MS B (or SirB) shows that the Tetragrammaton, and perhaps also ‫אלהים‬, were avoided by the scribe of Mas 1h. This scroll provides evidence for the avoidance tradition, in both speech and writing, near the beginning of the first century BCE. The original Ben Sira, however, most likely used the Tetragrammaton, similar to the evidence of 4Q408, Jubilees, and other scrolls of non-yahad origin. Sabbath Songs (4Q400–4Q407, 11Q17, Mas 1k) comprise a fragmentary collection of thirteen songs that describe the heavenly throne room and worship by or with angels. This work is filled with lofty visions and numinous references, inspired by theophanic imagery from Exodus, Ezekiel, and Isaiah. This work also factors prominently at the early end of a long history of Jewish mysticism, known as the Merkavah tradition for its focus on the divine throne chariot of God. In this work, the author avoids the divine name, but in contrast with original yahad literature, we find extensive use of ‫אלהים‬. The approach to naming God here is very similar to the Songs of the Sage (4Q511), an apotropaic text that shares features with 11Q11. In these works, ‫ אלהים‬occurs about 157 , accounting for roughly 40 of the overall 383 uses of ‫ אלהים‬in the scrolls of non-yahad origin. Importantly, the Sabbath Songs is attested by a copy This is a convenient place to note two partially reconstructed occurrences of the Tetragrammaton in texts from Masada. The first is Mas 1o, A Papyrus Fragment Inscribed in Paleo-Hebrew, which has been considered Samaritan in origin; see Talmon, Masada VI, 138–43. This is the only paleo-Hebrew text from Masada, and the only Hebrew text written on papyrus (the rest are Latin and Greek). Line 4 of the observe is transcribed -·‫ ה ה‬-- . See Naveh, Eshel, and Yardeni read ‫ יה‬at the beginning of the line. For bibliography, see Yadin, Masada VI, 140–41. The Tetragrammaton may also occur in MasapocrGen (Mas 1m), an apocryphal composition based upon the Joseph story or on the entire Book of Genesis, of the same or similar literary genre as Jubilees or the Qumran Genesis Apocryphon. This work was presumably carried to Masada by a member of the Covenanters’ community, who ed to the wilderness fortress when the Romans overran their settlement at Qumran. Yadin Masada VI, 104. Traces of three letters, which Yadin reads as the Tetragrammaton, are found at Mas 1m 6 1, ‫]ה ה ה‬-- . The following line reads ‫י ה א‬, a possible allusion to Gen 41:25, ‫ה ה יד‬ ‫האלהים‬ ‫א א‬ ‫ ( ל ה‬God has revealed to Pharaoh what he is about to do ). Yadin comments that the Tetragrammaton in Mas 1m would, in this case, replace ‫האלהים‬. If his proposal is accurate, it could be a variant similar to the variant patterns we found in the biblical scrolls. See Newsom, DJD 11:173–401; Newsom and Yadin, Masada VI, 120–32; Martínez, Tigchelaar, van der Woude, DJD 23:259–304. Note also the prevalence of ‫אלים‬, translated variously as gods, divinities, divine beings, or divine-like being . Such referents are not on equal footing with ‫ ( אל הים‬God ), indicated by the construct phrase ‫אל הי אלים‬ ( God of divine beings, e.g., 4Q402 4 8). See also ‫( אל אלים‬e.g., 4Q403 1 ii 26). For these statistics, I used Accordance software to search the total occurrences of ‫אלהים‬ in the QUMRAN module (405 ). I then subtracted the use of ‫ אלהים‬in sectarian biblical quotations (22 ).

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from Masada (Mas 1k), which regularly uses ‫אלהים‬. This has implications for thinking about the overall profile of the Masada scrolls. They do not all re ect the same scribal interests or contexts of copying or transmission. The Masada copy of Ben Sira (Mas 1h), for example, avoids the Tetragrammaton and ‫אלהים‬, which distinguishes it from the Sabbath Songs copy Mas 1k. The former is more closely aligned with the transmission of the yahad-type scrolls. The Joshua Apocryphon (Mas 1l), discussed above, favors the use of ‫ אל‬and also shows strong affiliation with yahad language. The three sources discovered at Masada—Mas 1l, Mas 1h, and Mas 1k—all of original non-yahad authorship, entered different streams of transmission, attested by their different naming conventions and use of divine titles. The naming preferences in Mas 1l match closely yahad-type texts in their use of ‫אל‬, Mas 1h is somewhere in the middle with its preference for ‫אדני‬, and Mas 1k is comfortable using ‫אלהים‬, a common title in biblical texts, which is replaced or avoided in regular yahad compositions. 1QWords of Moses (1Q22) resembles the farewell discourse of Moses. It draws inspiration from a pastiche of quotations and allusions to Deuteronomy and emphasizes the appointment of special teachers and priests. The most striking feature of 1Q22 is the repeated use of the compound ‫ אל הי אלהי‬in places where the biblical phrasing usually contains ‫יה ה אלהי‬. This happens at least 3 . The following example is illustrative: ‫הי ם ה ה נהיי ל ם ליה ה אלהי‬ ‫הי ם ה ה היה ל ם לאל הי אל הי‬

Mas 1h 1Q22 1 ii 1

Deut 27:9

The awkward repetition of the title underscores its purpose to avoid the Tetragrammaton. This also shows that the author was comfortable using ‫אלהים‬, which aligns 1Q22 with the naming customs in Songs of the Sage: ‫ א ה אל ה י ה א ל הים‬. The closest analogy outside of the scrolls to the double use of ‫ אלהים‬is Chronicles and the Elohistic Psalter, but in these sources, the first term is always absolute and the second is an appositive compound epithet. While the regular biblical scrolls use both ‫ יה ה‬and ‫ אלהים‬and the original yahad scrolls avoid both ‫ יה ה‬and ‫אלהים‬, we find numerous works For recent bibliography and recent discussion, see Ariel Feldman, Scripture and Interpretation, 225. 1Q22 may be sectarian in origin. It is classified as a thematic pesher by Lim, Pesharim, 22. The use of ‫ אלהים‬here would be suitable for biblical quotations within sectarian texts, similar to the use of ‫ אלהים‬in 1QM 10.4. 1Q22 1 ii 1, 6, and 1 iii 6. 4Q511 8 12. E.g., ‫י אלהים אלהי א יהם‬ (2Chr 34:32), or ‫( ני אלהים אלהי י אל‬Ps 68:9).

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like the Sabbath Songs, Songs of the Sage, and 1Q22 somewhere in the middle; they use ‫ אלהים‬but avoid the Tetragrammaton. 4QNon-canonical Psalms B (4Q381) is representative of the majority of scrolls of non-yahad origin. This scroll uses both ‫ אלהים‬and ‫יה ה‬, sometimes favoring the former, but not to the exclusion of the latter. For example, ‫אלהים‬ occurs 21 in 4Q381, while the Tetragrammaton is found 6 . There are at least 3 occurrences in 4Q381 where comparative material with biblical psalms suggests that ‫ אלהים‬is a variant reading for the Tetragrammaton. These examples should not be taken as instances of avoidance or replacement because the divine name continues to be used. Admittedly, 4Q381 has a complicated transmission history, comparable to what we encountered in 4Q408. Apart from the regular use of the divine name, one example provides evidence of a deliberate replacement, although not with another title or epithet. The scribe of 4Q381 changes his version of Ps 18:3 to read ‫ ( י י‬your name is my salvation ) rather than ‫ ( ל י יה ה‬YHWH is my salvation ). ‫ל י‬

‫ל י‬ ‫ד י‬ ‫יה ה ל י‬ ‫ד י‬ ‫י י ל י‬

Mas 1h 4Q381 24 a b 7

Ps 18:3

This change makes the divine name the subject of the clause instead of the Jewish deity. We find precedent in the Psalms for presenting the divine name as a mode of salvation. Ps 54:3, for example, reads ‫ה י ני‬ ‫אלהים‬ ‫ ( דינני‬O God, by your name, save me; by your might, vindicate me ). Given the context of 4Q381 as a whole, still this example does not fit the avoidance practices in regular yahad texts. At the same time, it certainly emphasizes the efficacy and power of the divine name as a mode of salvation, similar to what we found in Aramaic Testament of Qahat (4Q542), with the ‫ ה ה‬as the very means of knowing God. In summary, 4Q381 illustrates the complexity of how originally non-yahad scrolls, in which the Tetragrammaton was used regularly, became subject to partial and inconsistent changes at the hands of Qumran copyists in the dynamic process of reception, reuse, and transmission.

4Q381 15 3, 6; 17 3 (Ps 86:17; 89:7; 21:10). Schuller suggested that the treatment of the Divine Name might suggest that the psalm in 4Q381 15 (and probably 17) had a different origin or author from the other psalms which are now part of the 4Q381 collection. Schuller, Non-Canonical Psalms, 43. 4QBarki Nafshi and 4QMyst provide evidence for even more subtle divine name replacements when compared to language familiar from biblical sources. Such examples include the use of pronoun elements where comparable biblical texts use the Tetragrammaton. For example, 4QBarki Nafshi uses the third person suffix ( ). 4Q434 1 i 12 ( Ps 34:8). 4QMyst draws on the language of Exod 15:3 ‫ל ה יה ה‬ ‫יה ה אי‬, but instead uses

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Yahad scribes transmitted numerous literary works that they did not author. This reality is most readily illustrated by the presence of Tetrapuncta in multiple works of non-yahad origin, as this feature is characteristically a Qumran scribal practice. The Tetrapuncta are typically written with four dots, although multiple scribal hands account for different styles of writing. This replacement strategy never became standard or reached a type of consistent protocol, but rather was the prerogative of specific scribes. A couple of manuscripts contain both the Tetragrammaton and Tetrapuncta. In the chart below, I categorize this evidence according to (I) scrolls with the Tetrapuncta, and (II) scrolls with the Tetragrammaton and Tetrapuncta. Table 31

Tetrapuncta in the Scrolls of Non-Yahad Origin

Manuscript I. Scrolls with Tetrapuncta QMen of People Who Err ( Q QpapPseudo Ezekiel ( Q ) QTemple Scroll ( Q ) QTestimonia ( Q ) QPersonal Prayer ( Q ) QNarrative C ( Q ) QHistText A ( Q ) Eschat Hymn ( Hev Se )

Date

)

Occurrence

– BCE – BCE – BCE – BCE – BCE – BCE – BCE BCE– CE

II. Scrolls with Tetragrammaton and Tetrapuncta QTanhumim ( Q ) BCE– QpapParaphrae of Kings ( Q ) BCE

CE

( ) (‫)יה ה‬ ( ) (‫)יה ה‬

the pronoun‫( ה אה‬4Q299 3a ii–b 12) ‫ל לם‬ ‫ ה אה ]דם לם ה אה‬--]. Schiffman, DJD 20:43; ibid., Sectarian Law, 100–1 n. 16. Chazon, DJD 29:347–366. Two clear dots precede ‫אל הי‬, although Chazon considers the dots to be traces of letters. She writes, Only one dot of ink remains of each of the first two letters. See Chazon, DJD 29:351. Puech considers the dots to be Tetrapuncta; Puech, DJD 25:89. Eshel and Broshi note the peculiar use of Tetrapuncta in 4QHistText A (4Q248): Here, the tetragrammaton is denoted by five small lines (the second and third are connected, making an N shape). DJD 36:195. Morgenstern, DJD 38:193.

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A few observations follow. It would be a mistake to understand these uses of Tetrapuncta as evidence for divine name avoidance on a broad scale or as characteristic of the original literary works in which they occur. This replacement strategy entered the manuscript transmission history when such works became the property of yahad scribes. It is telling that 11 out of 35 occurrences (about 30 ) of Tetrapuncta can be traced to the work of a single scribe—the scribe of 1QS. The scrolls at his disposal date on paleographic grounds roughly to ca. 100–50 BCE. Below is a list of scrolls copied by the 1QS scribe, along with the divine name practices where extant evidence allows: Table 32

1

Scrolls copied by the 1QS scribe and their divine name practices

c

QS QSa QSb corrections to QIsa QSam ( Q ) QTestimonia ( Q ) QpIsa ( Q ) QNarrative G ( Q b) Hand B of QpHab QQahat ar ( Q ) QThanksgiving A ( Q ) QPrayer ( Q ) QEschHymn ( Q b)

Divine Name Practices Tetrapuncta ( – – Tetrapuncta ( Tetrapuncta ( Tetrapuncta ( ‫) ( יה ה‬ – – – – Tetrapuncta ( –

), ‫ה אהא‬

) ) )

)

The use of Tetrapuncta has a complicated history. The 1QS scribe, while making much use of this replacement strategy, was not the first or last to use it, according to paleographic dating. A copy of the Temple Scroll (4Q524), for example, contains this practice early (ca. 150–125 BCE), and some scrolls use it rather late, such as Eschat Hymn ( Hev Se6; ca. first century CE). The 1QS For discussion about the identity of this scribe, see Tov, Scribal Practices, 23–24; Tigchelaar, In Search of the Scribe of 1QS, in Emanuel Studies in Hebrew Bible, Septuagint, and Dead Sea Scrolls in Honor of Emanuel Tov (ed. Shalom M. Paul, Robert A. Kraft and Weston W. Fields; VTSupp 94; Leiden: Brill, 2002), 339–52; Ulrich, Identification of a Scribe Active at Qumran, 1QPs , 4QIsa , 11QM, in Meghillot 5–6 (2008): 204; ibid., 4QSam : A Fragmentary Manuscript of 2 Samuel 14–15 from the Scribe of the Serek Hay-ya ad (1QS), BASOR 235 (1979): 1–25.

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scribe, nevertheless, was the most ardent proponent of the Tetrapuncta. He applied it in regular biblical scrolls (1QIsa , 4QSam ), yahad works (1QS), and several scrolls of non-yahad origin. The lack of consistency in the application of Tetrapuncta among Qumran scribes is notable. A good example is 4QTanhumim (4Q176), a fragmentary manuscript that comprises a list of consoling biblical quotations, mostly from Isaiah and one from Zechariah. In this work, we find three different approaches for writing the divine name. The Tetrapuncta occurs 8 but in two different forms. The regular four dots appear in 4Q176 1–2 i 7, but beginning in column ii, a second scribe uses small downward strokes in groups of two. A third scribe writes the Tetragrammaton in the square-Aramaic script in 4Q176 3 1. Table 33

Three different approaches for writing the divine name in 4QTanhumim

Manuscript Q Q Q Q

– i – ii –

Divine Name

Context ‫ד‬ ‫ני יי יי‬ ‫א‬ ‫יי יי‬ ‫א יה ה‬

Isa Isa Isa Isa

: : : :

In the last example, the Tetragrammaton is partially reconstructed, but the use of the yod is unlike any of the Tetrapuncta shapes above and so rules out the Tetrapuncta here. Although 4Q175 and 4Q176 have not been classified as thematic pesharim they have in common the collection of biblical quotations with 4Q177, 4Q178, and 4Q182. Timothy Lim has suggested that 4Q177 along with 4Q158, 4Q175, and 4Q176 were biblical anthologies with comments that may have originally been used for private devotion or disputation. See T. Lim, Pesharim, 47. For further discussion on the literary context of 4Q176, see Jesper Høgenhaven, 4QTanhumim (4Q176): Between Exegesis and Treatise? in The Mermaid and the Partridge: Essays from the Copenhagen Conference on Revising Texts from Cave Four (STDJ 96; Brill, Leiden-Boston, 2011), 151–167; idem, The literary character of 4QTanhumim, DSD 14 (2006): 99–123. For images of these examples, see: https: www.deadseascrolls.org.il explore-the-archive manuscript 4Q176-2. See also 4Q176 1–2 i 6, 9. See also 4Q176 8–11 8 (2 ), 10. There is perhaps a replacement of the Tetragrammaton with ‫ אלהים‬in the quotation Isa 49:13b (4Q176 1–2 ii 2), against the MT and 1QIsa reading ‫יה ה‬, but in agreement with the LXX reading ς. Because this variant is found in the LXX, the evidence is inconclusive to understand it as an intentional replacement in 4Q176.

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4QpapParaphrase of Kings (4Q382) also contains mixed practices. The Tetrapuncta and the Tetragrammaton each occur twice. This evidence could be explained, as Saul Olyan proposes, on the assumption that 4Q382 was pieced together by the modern-day editors from fragments of multiple works, which were not originally part of the same composition. It is highly unlikely that 4Q382 is a single work. Some fragments appear to be part of a work recasting or quoting from the Elijah-Elisha stories in 1–2 Kings; other fragments may be related to psalmic materials found elsewhere. Finally, a few fragments do not belong with the majority at all, having been erroneously assigned in the first place.

This seems to offer a sufficient explanation for the diversity in this material. On closer inspection, however, the assumption of consistency—that some scribes would adopt consistent methods when rendering divine names and epithets— may prove erroneous. 4Q382 presents us with two different fragments—frag 9 and frag 11 but together comprise the quotation of 2 Kgs 2:3–4. The former begins the quotation and the latter completes it. Unless these fragments were once part of two different works that both quote the same passage (i.e., two independent quotations of 2 Kgs 2:3–4), which by coincidence both happen to preserve the other part of the verse, then the fragments must belong together, part of the same work. The puzzle that concerns us, however, is that frag 9 contains Tetrapuncta while frag 11 contains the Tetragrammaton. Do we have two different scribes of the same work in this situation? Was the use of both practices, Tetrapuncta and Tetragrammaton, acceptable ways of copying these texts even though they are contradictory in principle? Scholars have not been able to offer a convincing theory to explain why this occurs. What can be said with confidence is that the use of Tetrapuncta, and associated replacement strategies, can be traced to the transmission stage of these originally non-yahad documents. That avoidance practices entered these manuscripts at a later stage, and have a specifically yahad character, is further suggested by various annotations that relate to divine name readings. In 4QRP B (4Q364) 14 3, for example, we find two vertical dots placed before the Tetragrammaton (‫ה‬ ‫יה ה אל‬ ‫) יא‬. This could have signaled spoken avoidance in reading. This practice is found 16 and does not occur in other 4QRP manuscripts, or anywhere else in the Qumran scrolls. Such annotations are further evidence See 4Q382 9 5 and 78 2 (Tetrapuncta), and 4Q382 11 1 and 53 1 (Tetragrammaton). Olyan, DJD 13:363. Ibid., 13:370. Siegel mentions that Strugnell drew his attention to this same practice in 4Q134 (cf. Siegel, The Employment of Paleo-Hebrew, 171 n. 41), but this is a mistake. Siegel refers to 4Q134 as a Biblical paraphrase’ along the lines of 4Q158, when in fact 4Q134 is Phylactery G.

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that in our historical reconstruction of divine name practices, we must make a careful distinction between the original compositional stage of non-yahad scrolls and their later transmission at the hands of yahad scribes. On the whole, there is little evidence for divine name avoidance at the compositional stage of these texts. In this last section, it is important to consider how the use of the paleoHebrew script in scrolls of non-yahad origin compares with the regular biblical scrolls and those of original yahad authorship. Notably, 11QPs is the only scroll to contain the Tetragrammaton in paleo-Hebrew (21 ). Most scrolls use the regular square-Aramaic script for the divine name. On a few rare occasions, paleo-Hebrew is also used for ‫ אלהים‬and ‫אל‬. 4QDivineProv (4Q413) writes ‫אל‬ in paleo-Hebrew 2 . 1QMyst (1Q27) contains ‫ אל‬once. 4QShirShabb (4Q406) uses paleo-Hebrew for ‫ אל הים‬2 . Table 34

Use of paleo-Hebrew in the Scrolls of Non-Yahad Origin

Manuscript QDivineProv ( Q ) QShirShab ( Q ) QPs ( Q ) QMyst ( Q )

Name

Script

Date

‫אל‬ ‫אל הים‬ ‫יה ה‬ ‫אל‬

paleo paleo paleo paleo

BCE – BCE – CE late Herodian

Frequency

The images show no clear evidence of dots in 4Q134, and nothing is mentioned of this in the official publication of DJD VI. This mistake seems to have continued in McDonough, YHWH at Patmos, 70, who cites Strugnell via Siegel. Also, Donald Parry, 4QSam and the Tetragrammaton, in Current Research and Technological Developments on the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. Donald W. Parry and Stephen D. Ricks; Leiden: Brill, 1995), 107, mentions that two dots are located before the name in 4Q139 Phylactery L , but this is also apparently a mistake. The beginning of the divine name is not extant in 4Q139; only the ending of ‫אל הים‬. These are found in Psalm II (11Q5 18), Plea for Deliverance (11Q5 18) 19), Psalm III (11Q5 24), Hymn to the Creator (11Q5 26), David’s Compositions (11Q5 27), and Psalm I (11Q5 28 Ps 151 LXX). 1Q27 2 11. Other manuscripts of the Book of Mysteries use the square script for divine designations. 1Q27 overlaps with 4Q299, but in the latter ‫ אל‬appears in the square script. 4Q300 and 4Q301 also write ‫ אל‬in the square script. 4Q406 1 2 and 3 2; cf. Newsom, DJD 11:395. The other copies of the Sabbath Songs (4Q400–4Q407, 11Q17) have ‫ אל הים‬in the square script. The title ‫ אל‬also occurs in the square script (e.g., 4Q403 1 i 4; 4Q405 6 6). The date of 1Q27 is uncertain. Torleif Elgvin classifies it as late Herodian; Elgvin, Priestly Sages? The Milieus of Origin of 4QMysteries and 4QInstruction, in Sapiential Perspectives: Wisdom Literature in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. Collins, Sterling, Clements; STDJ 51; Leiden: Brill, 2004), 69–70.

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The purpose of paleo-Hebrew in these scrolls is obscured by its occasional and inconsistent use, except in 11QPs , where it is used for the Tetragrammaton only, throughout the scroll, for both MT-like psalms and those of non-yahad origin. The common explanation for use of paleo-Hebrew is that this special script reminds the reader not to speak the sacred name. This explanation works for the divine name, but it does not suffice for ‫אלהים‬and ‫אל‬. Regarding 4QShirShab (4Q406), Newsom considered the paleo-Hebrew to be an expression of scribal piety. We know that preference for the title ‫ אלהים‬is a major feature of the Sabbath Songs (4Q400–407), which contrasts with the general avoidance of ‫ אלהים‬in regular yahad scrolls. The title ‫ אל הים‬occurs 94 in these manuscripts, so scribal piety or reverence for this title is likely. Before concluding this survey of Hebrew evidence from the Judean desert, we should also mention the Nash Papyrus. This is the only Hebrew manuscript from the Second Temple period that was not discovered near Qumran. It was found in Egypt, likely Fayyum, and dates to around 150–100 BCE. This scroll offers an intriguing con ation of the Decalogue in Exod 20 and Deut 5 (lines 1–21), with the last few lines containing the Shema (Deut 6:4). The Tetragrammaton occurs several times throughout the scroll, in both the Decalogue and the Shema, in the square-Aramaic script. This manuscript has no scribal interventions, or variant divine name readings when compared to the MT.

Newsom, DJD 11:396. F. C. Burkitt, The Nash Papyrus. A New Photograph, JQR 16 (1904): 559–61; William F. Albright, A Biblical Fragment from the Maccabaean Age: The Nash Papyrus, JBL 56 (1937): 145–176; Gary D. Martin, Multiple Originals: New Approaches to Hebrew Bible Textual Criticism (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2010), 206–208. An image of the papyrus can be viewed at: https: cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk view MS-OR-00233 1 (accessed Nov 13, 2021). The combination of Decalogue and Shema is attested in other early Jewish sources, which may provide an important clue to discerning the function of this papyrus. For example, portions of Exod 20, Deut 5, 6, 10, and 11 are found in 4QMezuzah A–G (4Q149–155), 8QMezuzah (8Q4). Important literary references can also be found in Letter of Aristeas (line 158), Josephus (Ant. 4.213), and Philo (Spec. 4.142). In the LXX preface to Deut 6:4 (also re ected in Nash Papyrus), the papyrus refers to the statutes and judgments that Moses commanded the sons of Israel in the wilderness  The LXX version reads κύριος instead of Moses ; cf. Albright, Nash, 175–6.

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Summary: Naming God in Hebrew

Part III of this book has brought together disparate and complex Hebrew sources, heuristically addressed as regular biblical texts, yahad works, and compositions of non-yahad origin. The regular biblical scrolls, even though they show remarkable accord with the textual tradition of the MT, also contain many variant readings that agree with other textual witnesses. This study is concerned primarily with variant readings for divine names and epithets. The patterns of variation, importantly, do not suggest a trend towards the avoidance of the Tetragrammaton. All scribes of biblical scrolls unwaveringly show concern for the accurate transmission of the books they copied. At times, mistakes entered the text, as in the case of 1QIsa , but such instances, along with their scribal corrections do not indicate attempts to avoid the divine name in writing. Whenever scribes made direct changes to the text, it was almost always in the direction of a known scriptural witness. Scribes show little preference or individual prerogative for naming God in the biblical scrolls. The quotations of regular biblical texts within yahad works allow us to better understand variant patterns in the biblical scrolls themselves. The Tetragrammaton is used 46 , mostly in biblical quotations found within the pesharim. But in contrast to the variant patterns of regular biblical scrolls, we find a clear trend towards avoidance, either through omission or replacement with ‫ אל‬or with various other titles. The fact that the Tetragrammaton never occurs in a sectarian biblical quotation where it is missing in the MT confirms this trend towards avoidance. Qumran scribes show a clear distinction between copying the biblical text and using rewriting biblical quotations within their compositions. There are clear signs of spoken avoidance in the Hebrew scrolls copied at Qumran. The most well-known examples are the scribal errors related to ‫ אדני‬and ‫ יה ה‬in 1QIsa , the use of two vertical dots in 4QRP B (4Q364) placed before the Tetragrammaton (‫יה ה‬:), and the use of the paleo-Hebrew script, as in 11QPs , which likely signals spoken avoidance in addition to other functions. The scrolls of non-yahad origin present a more complex picture of divine name practices. The avoidance tradition rarely exerts in uence on the compositional stage of these manuscripts. During transmission, however, we begin to find evidence for avoidance, though not consistent or standardized. This was true for the Apocryphon of Moses, Masada copy of Ben Sira (Mas 1h), Tov, Textual Criticism, 55–56 n. 75: The dicolon (:) before the occurrences of ‫ יה ה‬in 4QRP (4Q364) probably resembles the Qere, indicating that the word should be read differently or not at all.

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MasapocrJosh (Mas 1l), 4QTanhumim (4Q176), and possibly Jubilees. Scholars have, at times, mistaken the omission of the divine name in these sources for avoidance. In a comparison of the Temple Scroll with regular biblical texts, for example, the divine name is omitted on occasion. But the author did not avoid the Tetragrammaton for reasons of piety or purity. Instead, his approach is related to the overall compositional strategy of putting all the legislation of this scroll in the voice of God; it follows that first-person pronouns would logically replace the divine name in discourse. Scholars have also detected avoidance in 4QNon-canonical Psalms B (4Q381), which seems to prioritize the use of ‫אלהים‬. Notably, however, this is not to the exclusion of the Tetragrammaton, which still occurs 6 . Furthermore, several scrolls of non-yahad origin show a distinct preference for ‫אל הים‬, namely Sabbath Songs, Songs of the Sage, and 1QWords of Moses. The use of ‫ אל הים‬in these scrolls is difficult to explain. It is not a feature of typical yahad writings, which avoid ‫ אל הים‬outside of biblical quotations, similar to ‫יה ה‬. Lastly, the Tetragrammaton is found in a range of works that seem to have been compiled from previously independent sources of non-yahad origin. These include 4QProphecy of Joshua (4Q522), 8QHymn, and 11QApocryphal Psalms (11Q11). The latter were used by the yahad as apotropaic psalms against demons. The use of Tetrapuncta is also a prominent feature of the scrolls of nonyahad origin, which highlights the extent to which most, if not all, of this material passed through the hands of Qumran scribes. The same is true with the distribution of paleo-Hebrew for the divine name, occurring across all genres of scrolls. Emanuel Tov has observed that all texts using paleo-Hebrew for divine names, whether biblical, sectarian, or non-sectarian with the exception of 4QS (4Q258), re ect the orthography and morphology of the Qumran scribal practice  and so, a special link between the writing of the divine names in paleo-Hebrew characters and the Qumran community is therefore highly conceivable. The biblical scrolls contain paleo-Hebrew for the Tetragrammaton in 9 out of roughly 230 manuscripts (about 4 ). The scrolls For the use of ‫ אלהים‬as a criterion for discerning the social setting of the Sabbath Songs, and to what extent similar works may be considered sectarian or non-sectarian, see Carol Newsom, Sectually Explicit’ Literature from Qumran, in The Hebrew Bible and Its Interpreters (ed. W. H. Propp, B. Halpern, and D. N. Freedman; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 182–83. For more bibliography and continued discussion on the sectarian nature of the Sabbath Songs, see Henry W. Morisada Rietz, Identifying Compositions and Traditions of the Qumran Community: The Songs of the Sabbath Sacri ce as a Test Case, in Qumran Studies: New Approaches, New Questions (ed. Michael T. Davis and Brent A. Strawn; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 29–52; Strawn and Reitz, (More) Sectarian Terminology, 53–64. Tov, Scribal Practices, 229.

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of non-yahad origin have paleo-Hebrew in 4 out of 55 manuscripts (about 7 ), and lastly, the yahad-type scrolls use paleo-Hebrew in about 14 out of 122 documents (about 11 ). Overall, the evidence for the written avoidance of the Tetragrammaton in Hebrew is difficult to quantify. The regular biblical scrolls provide no evidence for avoidance in writing. The yahad scrolls are equally clear—unanimous avoidance in original compositions. The scrolls of non-yahad origin show pervasive use of the divine name, especially at the original stage of composition, but through transmission, begin to look more like yahad scrolls. Many of the copies from Qumran continue to use the Tetragrammaton. This tells us that Qumran scribes copied the divine name in the compositions that came into their possession, even as they replaced it on occasion. The scrolls of non-yahad origin raise an important question: Was the Tetragrammaton actively used in new compositions during the late Second Temple period? Upon learning about the presence of the Tetragrammaton in the Temple Scroll, before its publication in the late 1970s, Stegemann suggested the possibility that it may have functioned to imitate the language of the Pentateuch: Ich bin deshalb gespannt auf den Befund in der Tempelrolle, von der Herr Kollege Yigael Yadin vorhin berichtet hat, sie verwende als Gottesbezeichnung in der Regel das Tetragramm. Nach meinen heutigen Erwägungen gibt es dafür nur zwei Erklärungsmöglichkeiten: Entweder stammt der Text der Tempelrolle tatsächlich bereits aus dem 4. oder spätestens aus dem 3.Jh.v.Chr., oder der Autor dieses Textes hat den Sprachstill des Pentateuch darin zu imitieren versucht, daß er den dortigen Befunden entsprechend den Gottesnamen schrieb.

That Stegemann was surprised to see the divine name in the Temple Scroll highlights the expectation of many scholars that the Tetragrammaton was a feature of biblical scrolls. The dominant view favored complete avoidance in new compositions during the Second Temple period. With the full publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls in recent decades, we can see that the Tetragrammaton occurs outside of regular biblical texts with greater frequency than scholars have previously noticed. While many compositions may have been originally composed in the early Second Temple period—a time when divine name use was commonplace—the sheer number of Tetragrammaton occurrences and copious among of non-yahad literature from Qumran indicates that it must have been actively used in new compositions at the same time that the copies Stegemann, Gottesbezeichnungen, 216. This quotation follows his earlier remark on the restriction of the free use of the Tetragrammaton in the third to second century BCE (see Chapter 1).

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preserved at Qumran began to avoid it. Even from the material now preserved, such as the apotropaic psalms in 11Q11 and 8Q5, we have a strong suggestion that the divine name continued in spoken and written form into the first centuries BCE CE, if not by members of the yahad, then most likely by other priests or ritual specialists of early Judaism. The prolific use of the Tetragrammaton, either at the compositional or copying stage of works of non-yahad origin, shows that the divine name was far more prominent in the late Second Temple period than the rabbinic tradition and modern scholarship have supposed. No doubt the avoidance tradition has a strong presence in Qumran literature, but we must also keep in mind, as suggested by the use of paleo-Hebrew and Tetrapuncta, that an overwhelming majority of our evidence during this period comes from Qumran scribes, a relatively small segment of Jewish society. Before we attempt a broader integration of this evidence into the divine name’s early history, we need to examine another important collection of texts: the Jewish-Greek scriptures from the Second Temple period. An investigation into how Jews began naming God in Greek will complete our inquiry into the three primary languages of early Judaism.

PART IV Naming God in Greek

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Jewish-Greek During the third century BCE, roughly the middle of the Second Temple period, Jews began translating Hebrew and Aramaic works into Greek. Such translation activity, not just for Jews but for many people of the eastern Mediterranean, was connected to the spread of Greek learning in the wake of Alexander’s conquest and the emergence of major libraries in cities of the Hellenistic world. The most renowned was the Library of Alexandria, founded by Ptolemy I (311–283 BCE). It ourished for several hundred years under illustrious head librarians like Zenodotus of Ephesus, Apollonius of Rhodes, and Eratosthenes of Cyrene. It is no coincidence that the accounts of the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures—the Jewish versions of its cultural watershed moment—are located in Alexandria. Even if some elements in the Letter of Aristeas and Josephus are fictitious, they indicate mounting pressure for Greek uency. For early Jewish translators, an exigent question took shape. What should one call the God of Israel in Greek? Greek divine names and epithets offer important data for thinking about how Jews understood their deity in relation to the gods and goddesses of the Graeco-Roman world. The Jewish naming conventions must have been the result of intentional and careful study, with the desire to balance the concept of God with each chosen designation vis-à-vis the titles and epithets of other deities. As time went on, some designations gained more currency than others. For an accurate historical reconstruction, nonetheless, the state of early Jewish-Greek evidence is such that we cannot simply tally up the divine titles and epithets in the literature that survived to the present day. What Jews called God in Greek during the Second Temple period, for example, is far more complex than a cursory reading of the Septuagint and related literature would suggest. While most literature that is now part of the Septuagint (L ) was originally written or translated by Jews, in later centuries it was transmitted exclusively by Christian scribes. Rabbinic Judaism largely abandoned the Greek scriptures to Christians, and instead prioritized their Hebrew and Aramaic writings. This fact might be negligible except for two interrelated observations. First, the vast majority of manuscripts that have survived from antiquity were transmitted by Christian scribes. There are only about 15 extant Greek biblical The Library steadily declined in late antiquity until it was eventually destroyed in the recapture of the city by Aurelian in 272 CE.

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manuscripts that date on paleographic grounds to the Second Temple period. Because the content of the Greek translation is relatively consistent with the Hebrew Aramaic source texts, we might assume that the same holds for divine names and epithets, as transmission crossed from Jewish to Christian scribes. It would seem plausible, in other words, that terms for God found in Christian copies of the L would represent the same as in earlier pre-Christian copies. The startling reality, however, is that all Jewish-Greek copies of the L before the late-first century CE have surprisingly divergent divine name readings, none of which contain the standard title kyrios regularly found in all Christian copies of the L , albeit in the nomina sacra form KC . Our ability to fully understand the scope of Jewish naming conventions is compounded further by the paucity of pre-Christian manuscript evidence. As mentioned above, only about 15 manuscript copies are verifiably pre-Christian. Apart from the Greek Dead Sea Scrolls, almost everything outside of Christian transmission did not survive, which raises questions about the representative value of the Jewish evidence in the earliest Greek manuscripts. It is difficult to know if the divine names and epithets in these earliest manuscripts represent what Jews were speaking and writing in Greek when the translation was first made, going back to the mid-third century BCE. Very few academic studies have attempted a comprehensive survey of this fragmentary and disparate material. In what follows, I describe key features of the extant copies of Jewish-Greek biblical texts from the Second Temple period. These 15 fragmentary manuscripts were produced as copies of scriptural texts from the second century BCE to the end of the first century CE. While copious amounts of Jewish-Greek literature originated in the Hellenistic and early Roman periods—including Jewish-Hellenistic poets, historians, apologists, Philo, New Testament writings, and many works known today as Pseudepigrapha—not a single copy of these writings date on paleographic grounds before the second century CE. Even if the content of these writings was relatively stable during transmission over the centuries, manuscript evidence tells us that divine names and epithets were subject to changes and replacements. As such, they do not offer a direct window into Jewish divine name practices from earlier times, even though the writings themselves were composed during this period. Another important observation is that all Jewish-Greek literary manuscripts dated paleographically to the Second Temple period are scriptural in a broad sense. There are a few Greek fragments from the Judean desert that were found alongside Greek biblical manuscripts, but they cannot be aligned with known Septuagint passages. Because all surviving texts are scriptural, and not original Greek compositions, the divine designations within are somewhat restricted by the medium of translation. Robert Kraft, The Textual Mechanics’ of Early Jewish L OG Papyri and Fragments, in Bible as Book, 51–72, has collected a list of Jewish L manuscripts numbering about 30, although he includes those also from the first several centuries of the Common Era. His list needs to be revised now to include the recently published P. Oxy 5101. For earlier studies,

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Much of this material, as mentioned above, belongs to the collection of Greek Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered alongside the Hebrew and Aramaic scrolls from the Judean desert—Caves 4, 7, and Na al ever (Wadi Habra). Additionally, we have a few Jewish-Greek scriptural texts from Egypt, mainly Fayyum and Oxyrhynchus. Not all of these texts preserve evidence for divine names, but I list them here to clear up some misconceptions about what sources are available and what kinds of evidence they contain. Table 35

Jewish literary texts from the Second Temple period

Date Q ( QL Deut; Ra ) P. Rylands (Ra ; Deut) Q ( QpapL Exod; Ra ) Q ( QpapEpJer gr; Ra ) Q ( QL Lev ; Ra Q ( QpapL Lev ; Ra ) Q ( QL Numb; Ra ) Q (Unidentified gr) Q ( QparaExod) P. Fouad P. Fouad Deut)

a (Ra b (Ra

)

, Gen) ,

BCE

no evidence

BCE

no evidence

BCE

no evidence

BCE

no evidence

– BCE BCE

no evidence ιαω ( )

BCE–

CE

no evidence

BCE– CE κ ριος? late BCE, early CE traces of ιαω ( )? BCE BCE

ος ‫יה ה‬,

ος

see A. R. C. Leany, Greek Manuscripts from the Judean Desert, in Studies in New Testament Language and Text: Essays in Honor of George D. Kilpatrick on the Occasion of His Sixty-Fifth Birthday (ed. J. K. Elliot; NTSup 44; Leiden: Brill, 1976), 283–300; Leonard Greenspoon, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Greek Bible, in The Dead Sea Scrolls after Fifty Years, 101–27; Eugene Ulrich, The Septuagint Manuscripts from Qumran: A Reappraisal, in Septuagint, Scrolls, and Cognate Writings, 49–80. For further bibliography and a convenient text-critical comparison, see Tov, The Greek Biblical Texts, 97–122.

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Jewish literary texts from the Second Temple period (cont.)

Date P. Fouad c (Ra , late BCE Deut) Hev IIgr (Minor Prophets; BCE– CE Ra ) P. Oxy (Ra , CE Job : – ) P. Oxy (Ra , CE Psalms)

ος paleo ‫( ה הי‬two hands) paleo ‫ה הי‬ paleo ‫ה הי‬, ος

(1) 4QL Deut (4Q122; Ra 819) is perhaps the oldest Greek biblical text, dating to the early or mid-second century BCE. Found in Qumran Cave 4, this manuscript is represented by one large fragment and four tiny fragments. These contain the text of Deut 11:4. These fragments do not preserve material where the divine name would occur. (2) P. Rylands 458 (Ra 957) dates to around the same time as 4Q122. This papyrus scroll was extracted from the cartonnage of a mummy acquired in 1917 near Fayyum, Egypt. It contains 8 small fragments from Deuteronomy but does also does not preserve material where the divine name would occur. Skehan, DJD 9:195–97. At the edge of frg D, where textual material is not extant, L Deut 26:18 uses κ ριος. Here scholars have debated various divine name readings. In the editio princeps, for example, C. H. Roberts writes: It is probable that κύριος was written in full, i.e. that the scribe did not employ the theological contractions almost universal in later MSS, see Roberts, Two Biblical Papyri in the John Rylands Library Manchester (Manchester University Press, 1936), 44. Later, Paul Kahle, Problems of the Septuagint, in Studia Patristica Vol. 1 (ed. Kurt Aland and F. L. Cross; Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1957), 329–30, mentions that Roberts changed his mind, and agreed with Kahle’s view that this space contained the Tetragrammaton. Françoise Dunand, Papyrus Grecs Bibliques, 45: Sans doute dans le P. Rylands 458 du Deutéronome le tétragramme était-il écrit soit en hébreu carré comme dans le Papyrus F. 266, soit en caractères archaïques  A few decades later Albert Pietersma, Kyrios or Tetragram, 92, commented: That P. Ryl. Gk. 458 did not read KC is, of course, to be expected since the contractions of the nomina sacra are of Christian origin, but the full κύριος would seem to be perfectly acceptable from every perspective. Kahle wished to insert the tetragrammaton because he thought he knew what the original L must have read. More recently, Martin Rösel, Reading and Translating, 415, remarked that a n interesting phenomenon can be seen in Papyrus Rylands Greek 458 (Rahlfs 2004: no. 957, p. 241). Here we find a gap in Deut. 26.18 where one would expect either κύριος or the tetragrammaton. This gap is large

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(3) 7QpapL Exod (7Q1; Ra 805) dates to around 100 BCE. It comes from Qumran Cave 7 and comprises two fragments of Exod 28:4–6, 7, describing the priestly vestments. These fragments do not preserve evidence for the divine name. (4) 7QpapEpJer gr (7Q2; Ra 804) dates to around 100 BCE and also comes from Cave 7. This is a copy of the Letter of Jeremiah and preserves 6 lines of verses 43–44. The topic concerns the worship of idols and false gods: W hy then must anyone thi nk that they are g ods, or call th em gods? . The plural title ο ς occurs, but there are no references to the Jewish deity. (5) 4QL Lev (4Q119; Ra 801) dates on paleographic grounds to the late second or early first century BCE. It was found in Qumran Cave 4 and has one large fragment representing Lev 26:2–16, a passage that recounts the covenant blessings and curses. Material has not been preserved where the divine name would occur in Lev 26. (6) 4QpapL Lev (4Q120; Ra 802) dates to the first century BCE. This manuscript found in Cave 4 contains about 31 fragments from 13 columns covering portions of Leviticus 1–6. Another 66 unidentified fragments are associated with 4Q120. The most striking feature of this scroll is the clear attestation of ιαω, the Greek transliteration of the divine name, rendered phonetically. It occurs 2 (4Q120 6 12; 20 4) with a third likely in frg. 61. (7) 4QL Numb (4Q121; Ra 803) dates between the late first century BCE and the early first century CE. It contains 3 columns, pieced together by 23

enough to accommodate both words, and it seems likely that the scribe of the Greek text left the space free for someone else to insert the Hebrew characters of the tetragrammaton. This discussion gives the impression of a clear measurable gap that likely contained a term for God. But as clearly discussed already by Kahle, there is no gap but the text breaks off before the name of God. The later comments have entered into discussion unchecked but were built on the mistaken premise that extant material exists for the use of a divine name in this location. P. Rylands 458 should be dismissed from the debate over the earliest rendering of the divine name in Greek texts. For an image and transliteration of P. Rylands 458 frg D lines 27–28, see  6.2. Baillet, DJD 3:142–43. Ibid., DJD 3:143. There are more Greek fragments from Cave 7, numbered 7Q3–18. These appear to date to the first century BCE but are extremely fragmentary. See Baillet, DJD 3:144–45. For further discussion and proposals for identification, see Tov, The Greek Biblical Texts, 103–5: In the wake of the existence in cave 4 and 7 of texts of the Greek Pentateuch, the most likely assumption is that 7Q3–7 contain either the Septuagint text of the Pentateuch (L Pentateuch) or L Enoch. See also Lincoln H. Blumell, A Proposal for a New L Text Among the Cave 7 Fragments, Rev Q 109 (2017): 105–17; Émile Puech, Les fragments de papyrus 7Q6 1–2, 7Q9 et 7Q7 pap7QL Dt, RevQ 109 (2017): 119–27.

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fragments, that represent Num 3:40–43; 4:1, 5–9, and 11–16. The extant fragments do not preserve material where the divine name would occur. (8) 4QUnidentified gr (4Q126) dates to the late first century BCE or early first century CE. Found in Cave 4, this manuscript comprises 8 fragments. These appear to share similar scribal hands, paleographic date, and location of discovery with the other Cave 4 Greek scrolls. Of special note, fragment 2 contains the line: ι κ ριο . Although 4Q126 cannot be identified with any known passage of the L or any Greek text elsewhere, it may provide evidence for a first-century BCE use of κύριος. (9) 4Qpap paraExod gr (4Q127) dates to the first century BCE or early first century CE and appears to paraphrase Exodus. It comprises 10 legible fragments and another 68 tiny fragments. The scribal hand is very similar to 4Q120. There is no clear evidence for how the divine name was written, although two fragments preserve letters that may be read as ιαω. (10) P. Fouad 266a (Ra 942) dates to the mid-first century BCE and comprises 6 columns made up of 9 fragments. These contain parts of Genesis 3, 4, 7, 37–38. As evident below, the P. Fouad 266 material has been divided into three manuscripts: a, b, and c. Manuscript a and c do not preserve material where the divine name would occur. Manuscript b, contains numerous uses of the square-Aramaic script Tetragrammaton. (11) P. Fouad 266b (Ra 848) dates to the mid-first century BCE and consists of 177 fragments that preserve parts of Deuteronomy 17–33. The first half of The editors comment that i n reconstruction, spacing would seem to allow either κύριος or ‫יה ה‬, whereas ιαω as in pap4QL Lev and the (Christian) abbreviation KC would be too short. I discuss this more fully below. Skehan, DJD 9:188. He also suggests that paleoHebrew forms in a manuscript this early would be improbable. Parsons suggests a date between 50 BCE–50 CE, and states that the hand of 4Q126 is similar to 4Q120 and 121 (but more shakily executed). See Parsons, DJD 9:12. Skehan, DJD 9:223–42. Ludwig Koenen and Zaki Aly, Three Rolls of the Early Septuagint: Genesis and Deuteronomy. A Photographic Edition Prepared in Collaboration with the International Photographic Archive of the Association Internationale de Papyrologues. With Preface, Introduction, and Notes by Ludwig Koenen (Papyrologische Texte und Abhandlungen 27; Bonn, 1980), 3. The editors wrote that the tetragrammaton may be inferred from the fact that 942 has probably been written by the same hand as 848 or, at least, by a scribe belonging to the same school and scribal tradition. Koenen and Aly, Three Rolls, 3. The title ος occurs in P. Fouad 266a–c, but these readings are also found in other biblical witnesses, except one important textual variant at Gen 4:6, where P. Fouad 266a reads ο ος against the MT (‫ )יה ה‬and the L (κ ριος ο ος). Koenen and Aly, Three Rolls, 31. P. Fouad 266a may provide evidence for the use of ος, as an early rendering of the Tetragrammaton, as argued by Kristin De Troyer, but the evidence for this position in the extant witnesses from the Second Temple copies is very limited.

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this roll has disappeared, which led the editors to surmise that the entire Greek Deuteronomy may have originally been contained in two rolls. Most importantly, this manuscript contains over 30 occurrences of the Tetragrammaton in the square-Aramaic script. The first scribe left a blank space at the initial stage of copying, and a second scribe inserted the Tetragrammaton. (12) P. Fouad 266c (Ra 847) dates to the late first century BCE and comprises a total of 49 small fragments that represent parts of Deut 10–11 and 31–33. There is no extant material where the divine name would occur in this manuscript, but instances of ς are preserved. Overall, the three rolls designated P. Fouad 266a–c (Ra 942, 848, 847) are most likely separate rolls, even though P. Fouad 266a–b were probably copied by the same hand. Regarding the relationship between these rolls, Koenen and Aly summarize: Both rolls may nevertheless have been part of the same ensemble of 5 (or even more) rolls of the torah. Intriguingly, there are no extant fragments in the P. Fouad material from Gen 39–Deut 16, which probably supports the claim that they are individual scrolls. P. Fouad 266c (Ra 847) is the outlier in this group, written in a different hand and probably not part of the ensemble to which P. Fouad 266a–b may belong. (13) 8 ev IIgr (Ra 943) Greek Minor Prophets Scroll from Na al ever dates between 25 BCE and 25 CE. It was found in the so-called Cave of Horrors, about 25 miles south of Qumran, 8 miles north of Masada. About 26 columns are extant from six of the Minor Prophets (Jonah, Mic, Nah, Hab, Zeph, and Zech); the fully reconstructed scroll comprises close to 55 columns. This manuscript was produced by two different hands. The Tetragrammaton occurs in the paleo-Hebrew script in this scroll 28 (24 in hand A; 4 in hand B). (14) P. Oxy 3522 (Ra 857) dates to the first century CE and preserves two verses from Job 42:11–12. This manuscript is likely from Oxyrhynchus, Egypt, and contains two occurrences of the Tetragrammaton in the paleo-Hebrew script. Koenen and Aly, Three Rolls, 8. Tov, DJD 8:1–19. This scroll was officially published in 1987, as part of DJD 8, which combined manuscripts from the 1952 discovery by the Bedouins, allegedly from Seiyal, with those found in the 1961 excavations of the Cave of Horrors. For a description of the discovery see Barthélemy, Les Devanciers d’ Aquila, SVT 10 (1963); Y. Aharoni, Expedition B—The Cave of Horror, IEJ 12 (1962): 186–99; B. Lifschitz, The Greek Documents from the Cave of Horror, RB 60 (1962): 201–207. The 1961 excavation showed that manuscript no. 2 of the Seiyal collection (Se2gr II) probably belonged to the finds from Na al ever. Tov, DJD 8:7. As of 2021, more portions of this scroll have been recovered in recent IAA-led excavations. P. Parsons, The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Volume L (London: Egypt Exploration Society, 1983), 1–3.

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(15) P. Oxy 5101 (Ra 2227) dates paleographically to the first century CE and therefore constitutes the earliest extant witness to the Greek Psalter. It likely comes from Oxyrhynchus, Egypt, and preserves portions of 56 verses of the Psalter. There are at least three occurrences of the Tetragrammaton in the paleo-Hebrew script. It also contains ς. The above manuscripts comprise the total collection Jewish-Greek manuscripts that date paleographically to the Second Temple period. The remaining works now part of the Septuagint and Pseudepigrapha, originally composed during the Hellenistic era, survive in manuscript copies no older than the second century CE. Of the fifteen earliest Jewish-Greek texts, nine contain divine names or epithets. The divine name itself appears in five of these manuscripts, but curiously in three different forms: (1) Ιαω: The scroll 4Q120 uses the Greek three-letter transliteration of the divine name, spelled iota, alpha, omega. This form is most likely related to the three-letter Aramaic form of the divine name ‫יה‬. Both the Greek and Aramaic forms have significant Egyptian connections. (2) ‫יה ה‬: The square-Aramaic script Tetragrammaton is found in P. Fouad 266b (e.g., ρος ‫ יה ה‬ο ο ). (3) Paleo-Hebrew Tetragrammaton: in various scripts, occurs in 8Hev IIgr, P. Oxy 3522, and P. Oxy 5101.

Each rendering of the divine name in the Greek manuscripts is striking. The transliteration ιαω, with Greek vowel letters, indicates how this form would have been spoken. The Tetragrammaton in the other Greek texts is distinctive, not just in its various scripts (square-Aramaic and paleo-Hebrew), but in the simple fact that Greek reads left-to-right while Hebrew reads right-to-left. The use of the Hebrew Tetragrammaton in Greek biblical texts has been known by scholars for a very long time, dating back at least to the early third century CE in the work of Christianity’s greatest text critic, Origen, who copied the Hebrew Tetragrammaton in his Hexaplaric versions of Aquila, Symmachus, the Septuagint, and Theodotion. In his Selecta in Psalmos 2:2, Origen explicitly states, Daniel Colomo and W.B. Henry, 5101. L , Psalms xxvi 9–14, xliv 4–8, xlvii 13–15, xlviii 6–21, xlix 2–16, lxiii 6–lxiv 5, in The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Vol. LXXVII (Greco-Roman Memoirs 98; ed. A. Benaissa; London: Egypt Exploration Society, 2011), 1–11. For Greek documentary texts from the Judean desert and their relationship to the literary texts, see Emanuel Tov, The Greek Biblical Texts, 98–99. E.g., Mal 2:13 in Frederick Field, Origenis Hexaplorum Quae Supersunt: Veterum Interpretum Grecorum in Totum Vetus Testamentum Fragmenta (Oxonii: e typographeo Clarendoniano, 1875). For the Aquila fragments, see F. C. Burkitt, Fragments of the Books of Kings according to the Translation of Aquila (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

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There is a certain word of four letters which is not pronounced by them Jews , which also was written on the gold breastplate of the high priest; but it is read as Adonai, not as it is really written in the four letters, while among Greeks it is pronounced Kύριος. And in the more accurate copies this name stands written in Hebrew characters—not the Hebrew used now, but the ancient ( ρα κο ς ο ος , ο ς ρ αιο οις).

From Origen, we learn that Jews of his day, at least in Alexandria when this commentary was written (before his move to Caesarea) pronounced a substitute for the Tetragrammaton. It may be inferred from Origen that in Greek biblical copies the Tetragrammaton was written in both scripts, and presumably, both were pronounced κύριος. This would mean, from Origen’s perspective, that both scripts had the same purpose—signaling spoken avoidance. He does not specify the purpose of paleo-Hebrew, only that the more accurate copies contained it. The account of Origen provides insight into divine name practices in Greek manuscripts during the early third century CE, relatively close to the Second Temple period. I return to these observations when 1897). On the complex nature of the Hexapla, and Origen’s role as the compiler, see Nautin Pierre, Origène: sa vie et son œuvre (Paris, 1977), 303–61. He argues that Origen inherited a Jewish synopsis that likely contained a column of transliterated Hebrew, Aquilas, and Symmachus, to which Origen added the two columns of Christian copies—the Septuagint and Theodotion. The original synopsis was intended for Jews to learn accurate Hebrew pronunciation, given the rabbinic movement to encourage the reading of Hebrew in synagogue worship. Nicholas de Lange finds Nautin’s proposal convincing and notes that the final work provided Origen with a handy reference work in compiling his homilies and commentaries. See de Lange, Japheth in the Tents of Shem, Greek Bible Translations in Byzantine Judaism (ed. Ivan G. Marcus and Peter Schäfer; TSMEMJ 30; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015), 46. On the rabbinic encouragement to use Hebrew at a time when Greek still held considerable sway, see Willem F. Smelik, Rabbis, Language, and Translation in Late Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 89–99; and Philip Alexander, How did the Rabbis Learn Hebrew? in Hebrew Study from Ezra to Ben-Yehuda (ed. W. Horbury; Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1999), 71–89. PG 12.1104. In the fourth century CE, Jerome echoed Origen’s statement, claiming that t he name of the Lord (Domini), the tetragrammaton, in certain Greek versions even today we find expressed in ancient letters. PG (Migne, Patr. Lat. VIII, cols. 594). Jerome also writes, (Dei nomen est) tetragrammum, quod κ ο , id est ineffabile, putaverunt et his litteris scribitur: iod, he, vau, he. quod quidam non intelhgentes propter elementorum similitudinem, cum in Graecis libris reppererint, Ι Ι legere consueverunt. See Ep. 25, Ad Marcellam (ed. Hilberg, 219). While Origen provides a helpful starting point for broader comparisons, it is important not to impose his views anachronistically on earlier texts. We know that Hadrian’s Syria-Palestina was a radically different place following the Bar Kochba Revolt (132–135 CE), with Judaism banned, the Temple gone, and Jerusalem converted to the Roman colony Aelia Capitolina. This is a small example of the drastic changes on the societal level

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re ecting on the purpose(s) of the different scripts of the Tetragrammaton in Second Temple Greek biblical texts. These manuscripts illustrate for us another big surprise, namely the complete absence of an identifiable use of kyrios. All the major Christian codices of the fourth and fifth centuries CE—Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, and Alexandrinus— use kyrios as a translation or replacement of the divine name. It should be clarified that, in a technical sense, these codices do not actually use kyrios, but consistently render kyrios in the nomina sacra form, such that KYRIOC is abbreviated KC, KY, or KN depending on case ending. Similarly, ΟC appears as C, Υ, or . This title, in the nomina sacra form, is not found in manuscripts earlier than the second century CE. From that point on, however, Christian copies of Greek biblical texts invariably use KC where the Hebrew source text contains the Tetragrammaton. I give priority to two questions in this chapter: If kyrios is not attested in any Greek biblical translation manuscripts that survived from the Second Temple period, when did the use of kyrios begin? How far are the fifteen Jewish-Greek manuscripts representative of Jewish naming conventions? Progress on these questions is tied to the minute details of the ancient manuscripts themselves. The study of different scripts, along with textualcritical analysis, and even material measurements of line spacing and letter styles, which help to reconstruct the procedures for writing the divine name, all play a role in our ability to discern the significance of using the divine name in Greek biblical texts. For example, the earliest Greek texts are all written in scriptio continua. There are some spaces for verse and sense divisions, but generally no spaces between the words. Some words are even split at the end and the beginning of the column margins. Wherever the divine name occurs, however, we find noticeable irregularities. These become obvious when compared to standard customs of copying early Greek texts. A case in point, when ιαω occurs in 4QpapL Lev (4Q120; Ra 802) there is a slight blank space on either side of the word. What is the purpose of this space in an otherwise scriptio continua text? In P. Fouad 266b (Ra 848), the square-Aramaic script Tetragrammaton (‫ )יה ה‬seems to be inserted by a second scribe into a blank that would make it problematic to draw a line of continuity in religious practices, such as the scribal use of divine names. Ludwig Trobe argued that these names were abbreviated because they were sacred. He coined the technical term nomina sacra and considered this phenomenon to have Jewish roots. See Traube, Nomina Sacra: Versuch einer Geschichte der christlichen Kürzung (München: Beck, 1907). For a recent discussion of the origin and meaning of nomina sacra, see Larry Hurtado, The Earliest Christian Artifacts; and more recently, Alan Mugridge, Copying Early Christian Texts: A Study of Scribal Practice (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2016).

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space after the initial copying of the Greek text. Is the Tetragrammaton here replacing an earlier divine title or was this scroll copied in a two-stage process: first the main text, then the sacred name? In other Greek biblical texts, we find the Tetragrammaton in paleo-Hebrew without any blank spaces surrounding it. The name appears to have been written in sequence with the Greek text, perhaps even from left to right. All of this suggests that divine name changes, edits, or replacements were typical in the early transmission of Greek texts. If we are to use these manuscripts as evidence for naming God in early Judaism, we need to consider more closely individual forms of the divine name, material features of manuscripts, and the role of the divine name in the textual history of the Septuagint.

9.1 Until the discovery of the Greek Dead Sea scrolls, modern scholars only knew about the divine name ιαω from secondary references in Graeco-Roman sources. The first two clear attestations in Jewish sources come from the papyrus scroll 4QpapL Lev (4Q120), dated to the first century BCE. We encounter the name fully written in 4Q120 20–21 4 ( Lev 4:27): α αι α ωι α ια α αρ ι α κο ιως κ ο αο ς ς ωι οι αι ια α ο α ω ω ο ω ιαω ο ο ι

The iota, alpha, and omega in line 4 are visible in the manuscript. There is a 2mm space on both sides of ιαω in this otherwise scriptio continua writing. In the second occurrence below, the divine name is partially reconstructed, 4Q120 6–7 12 ( Lev 3:12–13):

Skehan, The Qumran Manuscripts and Textual Criticism, Volume du congres, Strasbourg 1956 (VTSup 4; Leiden: Brill, 1957), 157. This was followed by a detailed study in 1969 by Hartmut Stegemann, C C, 110–33, 194–228. See also Eugene Ulrich, The Greek Manuscripts of the Pentateuch from Qumran, Including Newly-Identified Fragments of Deuteronomy (4QL Deut), in De Septuaginta: Studies in Honour of John William Wevers on His Sixty-Fifth Birthday (ed. A. Pietersma and C. Cox; Mississauga, ON: Benben, 1984), 79–80. For an image of this example, see: https: www.deadseascrolls.org.il explore-the-archive manuscript 4Q120-1.

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ωι ιαω α α ο ω αι ω ο ωρ ο α ο και ρο α ι α ι ι αω και ι ι ας ι

The space following ιαω here appears slightly larger (3mm) than the first example. This may be related to the sense division, marked by the conjunction και. Fragment 61 (Unidentified) contains a third possible use of the divine name, with the iota and alpha on the top left. ια ι

The combination of iota and alpha could be any word, but there seems to be a faint trace of the omega loop. It is difficult to explain why ιαω occurs with extra spaces in 4Q120 6 12 and 20 4 in this otherwise scriptio continua scroll. No convincing explanation has been offered to date. Johann Lust proposed that the extra spaces could mean that ιαω was inserted into a blank space in the process of replacing an earlier designation, such as an original κ ριος. This proposal, however, disregards the fact that ιαω and the surrounding text appear to be written in the same hand. The direction of change would also run counter to nearly all replacement strategies, which move away from written and spoken uses of the divine name. In this situation, a scribe would be replacing an original κύριος with a pronounceable form of the divine name, a procedure that would be highly unlikely. There is no precedent for change in this direction. We might be able to gain insight into the blank spaces in 4Q120 through a comparative observation with P. Fouad 266 (manuscripts a–c). In this collection of material, we find peculiar and inconsistent use of blank spaces. These may be connected to a loose scribal convention in early Greek biblical manuscripts in which blank spaces are used for punctuation or emphasis. Each instance of blank spacing in the P. Fouad 266 manuscripts varies slightly. For P. Fouad 266a (Ra 942) Koenen observed that l ittle blanks indicate new cola. There is also a tendency to mark Hebrew names by little blanks before and after the names. In P. Fouad 266b, the manuscript that contains the Tetragrammaton, we find that small blanks frequently indicate new verses, See https: www.deadseascrolls.org.il explore-the-archive image B-278298. Johan Lust, Mic 5,1–3 in Qumran and in the New Testament and Messianism in the Septuagint, in The Scriptures in the Gospels (BEThL 131; ed. C. M. Tuckett; Louvain: Leuven University Press, 1997), 66–88. See also Shaw, Earliest, 265.

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sentences, or cola, while Hebrew names are not surrounded by blanks, as is the case in 942. But then P. Fouad 266c, much like P. Fouad 266a, uses small blanks to mark Hebrew names. There is a further variation in P. Fouad 266c; blank spaces occur only in front of the names, never after. In summary, some Hebrew proper names appear with blank spaces on both sides (P. Fouad 266a), others do not (P. Fouad 266b), and lastly, some names have a blank space only in front (P. Fouad 266c). Carrying the observations of Koenen over to the Greek Qumran scrolls, we find blank spaces in 4Q127 around the Hebrew names Moses, Ada, Joseph, Zebulun, Issachar, Gad, but also proper nouns, such as the Red Sea, Egypt, and Pharaoh. These names are all transliterations and not original Greek words. While any Greek reader could comprehend these transliterated names from the context, the small spaces around them may have been intended to facilitate a better understanding of new Greek transliterations. The blank spaces around ιαω may represent a similar convention to the practices found in P. Fouad 266a-c and 4Q127. This seems to be more plausible than explaining the space as a left-over blank space that was originally sized for another divine designation. The name ιαω appears to be written in sequence with the surrounding Greek text by the same scribe. Thus, the small blank spaces seem best understood as a writing convention associated with Greek transliterations. 4Q120 and 4Q127 both share these spacing features. What scholars have not noticed is that fragments of 4Q127 may also contain the name ιαω. 4Q127 (4QpapparaExod gr) appears to have two occurrences of ιαω. Though technically not a Septuagint manuscript—perhaps a paraphrase of Exodus or an apocalyptic work based on Exodus 4Q127 shares similarities

Koenen and Aly, Three Rolls, 3. Ibid., 7. Given the inconsistency of this practice, it is also possible that the Greek scribe was simply double-checking his source for accurate transcription. The blank spaces could be explained on pragmatic grounds as the scribe paused to verify the correct spelling. The editors of 4Q127 observe that the text is too fragmentary to identify the work or to establish it clearly as a biblical text. Rather, it is possibly, as Professor Devorah Dimant suggested in a private communication, an apocalyptic work which involves both a review of history in the former times’ and revelations and moral teaching for the present or future. See DJD 9:223. Regarding the vocabulary of 4Q127, we find that t he text of frg. 1 mentions of Moses, Pharaoh, Egypt, and possibly Aaron, Miriam, the Red Sea. Frg. 2 speaks of angels’ and possibly of hidden things’ ( α κρ α? cf. L Deut 29:28). Sins’ are mentioned in frg. 3, heaven’ in fg. 7, word’ in frgs. 8 and 37, and perhaps lawlessness’ in frg. 9. DJD 9:224.

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with 4Q120. First, some fragments of 4Q127 may belong to 4Q120. The editors note that the small fragments placed with this manuscript have been so placed on paleographic grounds, but they and the unidentified fragments of pap4QL Lev should be studied as possibly belonging to the opposite manuscript. It would not be surprising, therefore, to find the divine name in 4Q127. The most probable occurrence is at 4Q127 8 3. ο ο ος και οι ια ο

There is a clear iota, alpha, and what appears to be the top-left loop of the omega. Importantly, a 4mm space occurs before the iota (after οι, the firstperson dative pronoun). Building from the observation about blank spaces with proper nouns in early Greek manuscripts, the iota and alpha for the divine name ιαω would fit this convention. The larger fragments of 4Q127 contain enough text for comparison showing that they do not overlap with any portion of L Leviticus (or 4Q120), suggesting that this fragment does not belong to 4Q120. Another use of ιαω may be identified in 4Q127 54 2, but this seems less certain. ι αω

DJD 9:167: though generally the ink strokes in this manuscript 4Q120 are thinner than those in 4Q127 and the manner of forming letters is distinctive with each manuscript, nonetheless the unidentified fragments of each manuscript should be compared with those of the other  See also the preliminary publication by E. Ulrich, A Greek Paraphrase of Exodus on Papyrus from Qumran Cave 4, in Studien zur Septuaginto— Robert Hanhart zu Ehren (ed. D. Fraenkel, U. Quasi and J. W. Wevers; MSU 20; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1990), 287–98. DJD 9:223. 4Q127 frgs. 1–9 contains some readable text, though no more than a few complete words. Fragments 10–78 are comprised of tiny scraps and letter traces. Fragments 79–86 may with varying degrees of probability, derive from diverse manuscripts. DJD 9:241. For an image of this example, see https: www.deadseascrolls.org.il explore-the-archive image B-298686. 4Q127 1 6, for example, contains the words ο ς ι ο . In L Lev, ι ο is always preceded by , as in κ ς ο (11 ). For the image of this example, see https: www.deadseascrolls.org.il explore-the-archive image B-298686.

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An alpha and omega are visible. There appears to be a slight space after the omega, but nothing of the context remains, making the reconstruction of ιαω uncertain. At any rate, if the first instance in 4Q127 8 3 is accurate, then ιαω is represented by two manuscripts from Qumran: 4Q120 and 4Q127. By taking these partial reconstructions into account, the total number of occurrences of ιαω is probably four, maybe five. The use of ιαω among the Cave 4 Greek scrolls has been characterized as aberrant or strange, but other scholars consider it a natural transliteration, similar to the normal transliteration of other proper nouns. Importantly, the evidence from Qumran does not stand alone. The divine name ιαω was used broadly in the first century BCE, especially in Egypt. This has been demonstrated by Frank Shaw in his monograph on the uses of ιαω among classical authors, Jewish and ecclesiastical writers, and early L onomastica. He offers a detailed description of the uses of ιαω among non-Jews, such as Diodorus Siculus, Varro, Philo of Byblus, Valerius Maximus, and emperor Gaius. Diodorus (60–30 BCE), for example, mentions that a mong the Jews Moses referred his laws to the god who is invoked as Ιαω. As Shaw argues, the narrow interpretation of ιαω re ects the assumption of twentieth-century scholarship that this term belonged solely to the realm of mysticism and magic, but his fresh examination demonstrates that ιαω was both widely known and used. These factors must be taken into account when considering the history of the divine name in Greek biblical texts. The reality is that even though we have evidence for only four or five uses of ιαω in Qumran Greek texts, this form of the divine name was well-known during the Second Temple period.

Rösel, The Reading and Translation of the Divine Name, JSOT 31 (2007): 419. Stegemann, C, 197; Skehan, The Divine Name, 29; Tov, The Greek Biblical Texts, 112–13. For the onomastica, see P. Oxy 2745, P. Heid 1359, Codex Marchalianus, Vat. Pius II Gr. 15, Onomasticum Coislinianum, and some Syriac and Ethiopic onomastica translated from Greek. Shaw shows how in our earliest extant papyrus onomastica the Greek transliterations of Hebrew names, listed in one column are explicated in another (e.g., Ιω α α rendered as Ιαω α; or Ιω rendered as Ιαω ρ α). The basic fact that a scribe writes ιαω in the explanatory column suggests that there must have been a somewhat substantial number of Jews employing, and copies of the LXX itself that contained [sic], the divine name Ιαω. Shaw, Earliest, 33. Shaw, Earliest, 37–108; David E. Aune, Apocalypticism, Prophecy and Magic in Early Christianity: Collected Essays (Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 363; Bruce M. Metzger, Manuscripts of the Greek Bible: An Introduction to Palaeography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), 94. Biblioteca Historica, 1.94.2. For exhaustive discussion, see Shaw, Earliest, 38–46.

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YHWH

The Greek biblical manuscript P. Fouad 266b (Ra 848) contains the Tetragrammaton in the square-Aramaic script about 30 . The paleographic date of this scroll is around 50 BCE, the same period as the Cave 4 Greek scrolls. Fragment 103 4–8 ( Deut 31:27–28) provides a typical example of the Tetragrammaton: κ ρ ο ι αρ ο ω ρο αρ α α ρος ‫ יה ה‬ο και αο ο αα

ω ος ικραι ο ς ο ως ο ι ο ο

The divine name was written into a large blank space left by the initial scribe. A small dot occurs at the top left of the space near the final heh. This feature accompanies every occurrence of the Tetragrammaton. With the discovery of P. Fouad 266b, Waddell wrote: O ne sees clearly how the scribe had to prepare each time for his insertion of the Hebrew word by making sure that there was plenty of room for his rightto-left-written JHWH—after finishing the last Greek word from left to right, he would measure off the space, marking it with first one dot and then a second. Thus after all those twenty centuries we surprise the scribe at work and catch a glimpse of his technique.

Waddell believed that this settled the question of the original divine name rendering in the Septuagint, thus refuting Baudissin and others. The only question to be decided was what the reader would have pronounced, κύριος or Adonai. Waddell left the question open. Work on the edition princeps went to Françoise Dunand, and with the later photographic edition by Koenen and Aly, the picture grew increasingly complex. Koenen describes the scenario as follows: T he original scribe of 848 was unable to write the tetragrammaton and calculated the space so that it would fit κύριος

For earlier editions of these manuscripts, see Françoise Dunand, Papyrus Grecs Bibliques (Papyrus F. Inv. 266): Volumina de la Genèse et du Deutéronome (L’Institut Francais d’Archéologie Orientale. Recherches d’archéologie, de philologie, et d’histoire 27, 1966); Paul Kahle, Études de Papyrologie 9 (Cairo, 1971), 81–150, 227, 228. Waddell, The Tetragrammaton, 161. Koenen and Aly, Thee Rolls, 2 n. 6.

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And again, he writes, Where it the tetragrammaton was to occur the original scribe left a blank equal to 5–6 letters (i.e. about the size of κύριος written in full) and marked it by a high dot at its beginning. A second scribe filled in the Hebrew letters. They cover only the middle of the blank, usually the space of 2 –3 letters.

Koenen sparked a conversation on two important topics: the size of the space relative to κύριος, and the procedure for writing the Tetragrammaton. While most scholars agree that two scribes were at work, explanations for spacing sizes (and what this suggests about the history of the divine name in the L ) vary considerably. Koenen suggests that the scribe calculated the space to be filled in with κύριος, which presumably means that κύριος was not a feature of this text’s prior history. Tov implies a similar scenario: The first scribe left spaces indicating where the divine name (either kyrios or the Tetragrammaton) was to be filled in. The second scribe wrote these Tetragrammata. The descriptions of Koenen and Tov both point to the use of κύριος as the intended designation, but this did not happen. Instead, the second scribe wrote the Tetragrammaton. If Koenen and Tov are accurate in their assessments, the most likely divine name in the earlier textual history of the P. Fouad 266b copy, would not have been κύριος or the Tetragrammaton. Both are secondary in the sense that κύριος was intended and ‫ יה ה‬was the replacement. This process of elimination leaves ιαω as the logical choice for the designation in the vorlage P. Fouad 266b. This would make sense, furthermore, if Dunand is correct in viewing P. Fouad 266 within the Jewish-Egyptian community, particularly in the context of synagogue reading worship. She does not describe in detail the procedure of writing the Tetragrammaton but suggests that the impetus behind its use was the belief that the divine name was ineffable. The replacement of ιαω with the Tetragrammaton in this scroll would offer a reasonable explanation for avoiding the divine name in speech. Koenen and Aly, Three Rolls, 5–6. See W. G. Waddell, The Tetragrammaton in the L , 161; Hartmut Stegemann Gottesbezeichnungen, 204; Albert Wolters, The Tetragrammaton in the Psalms Scroll, 95. Tov, Scribal Practices, 208. Dunand, Papyrus Grecs Biblique, 50–55. Other explanations for the procedure for writing the Tetragrammaton are possible. Believing the Tetragrammaton to be holy, the scribe may have written it after undergoing ritual purification. Wilkinson (Tetragrammaton, 55) writes: Perhaps one may speculate that the insertion of the Hebrew Tetragrammaton was a separate operation requiring

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Paleo-Hebrew

Three Greek biblical scrolls contain the Tetragrammaton in the paleo-Hebrew script: Twelve Minor Prophets Scroll (8 ev IIgr), P. Oxy 3522, and P. Oxy 5101. Importantly, the paleo-Hebrew script for the Tetragrammaton is found in scrolls from distant regions, both Judea and Egypt. These provide evidence of four different paleo-Hebrew styles. 8 ev IIgr is the earliest manuscript to use paleo-Hebrew for the Tetragrammaton, copied sometime between 25 BCE and 25 CE, found in the Cave of Horrors, so-named after the discovery of the human skulls of those who perished in the Bar Kochba revolt (132–136 CE). This manuscript was produced by two different hands and preserves about twenty-six columns from six of the Minor Prophets (Jonah, Mic, Nah, Hab, Zeph, and Zech). The Tetragrammaton appears 24 in hand A and 4 in hand B. The paleoHebrew style of hand A is evident in 8 ev IIgr 28 37–42 ( Zech 1:3–4). ι ‫יה ה‬ ω , κα ι ρα ο αι ρ ς ς, ‫יה ה‬ ω κα ςο α ρ ς ,ο ς κ ο ρ ςα ο ς ο ρο αι ο ρο ο ς ι ‫יה ה‬ ω ι

The second style ( hand B ) is evident in 8 ev IIgr B2:3–6 ( Zech 9:1): α ο κα α α κο ι ‫יה ה‬ ρ ω κα

‫יה ה‬

κα α α

α ς

α ρα ις α ο , ο

greater sanctity. This explanation would not require the replacement of one term with another, but it is difficult to understand why the space for the Tetragrammaton is so large in this manuscript, or why the second scribe consistently wrote the Tetragrammaton much smaller than the space allows. Tov, DJD 8:1–4. These numbers vary slightly with additional fragments of the Greek Twelve Minor Prophets discovered in recent excavations by the IAA. Note: the square-script font for the Tetragrammaton in this transcription does not represent the appearance of the script in the manuscript. For images, see: https: www.deadseascrolls.org.il explore-the-archive manuscript 8Hev1-1.

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When writing the divine name, the scribe did not leave any blank spaces and no dots are visible as pre-markings. The sizes of the Hebrew letters are approximate to the frame of the Greek letters, and they are often written at the same height. Emanuel Tov has made an interesting observation that the yod in col. 28 line 37 (hand A in the example above) was written with a ligature connecting the following Greek tau of the definite article ω . This suggests that the same scribe wrote the Tetragrammaton and the main Greek text: In our scroll hand A probably wrote both the Greek text and the palaeo-Hebrew tetragrammaton without interruption, since some instances there is little or no space between the tetragrammaton and the adjacent words, and occasionally the tetragrammaton is written in almost one continuous movement together with the next letter (col 28, l. 37; also col 8, l. 6).

If so, the scribe likely also wrote the Tetragrammaton from left-to-right in scriptio continua, as it would be difficult to replicate a ligature moving in the opposite direction. In the other example above (Zech 9:1), the top horizontal stroke of the tau in ω is identical to the top stroke of the paleo-Hebrew final heh. It appears that both hands A and B write the Tetragrammaton left-to-right in scriptio continua along with the Greek text. Another example from hand A supports this view, 8Hev IIgr 8 40–43 ( Mic 5:3–4). κα αι κα ο ι α ι ‫יה ה‬ κα ρ ι α ος ‫ יה ה‬ο α ο κα ι ρα ο αι ι α ο αι ως ρ ω ς ς κα αι

Here, the yod of the Tetragrammaton matches the exact height of the theta in ο , while the word α ος, to the left of the Tetragrammaton, is higher. The writing of ο follows at the same height of the Tetragrammaton.

Tov, DJD 8:12. Larry Perkins notes that the definite article occurs before the Tetragrammaton at 8 ev IIgr 18:39 ( Hab 2:20) και ο ‫יה ה‬, and again here at 8 ev IIgr B2:5 ( Zech 9:1) ο ι ω ‫יה ה‬. He takes this as evidence that the Tetragrammaton is secondary. Perkins, KΥΡΙΟ : Articulation and Non-Articulation in Greek Exodus, BIOSCS 41 (2008): 21–3. For an image of this example, see: https: www.deadseascrolls.org.il explore-the-archive manuscript 8Hev1-1.

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κ αι α α α ο α α ο ‫ יה ה‬α ο ωκ α ω κα ος α α α ι α και ρα ο ρ ο α ο ο ‫ יה ה‬ο α αα ω α ρο ακ α ο ρο α α ρια

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P. Oxy 3522 (Ra 857) contains the Tetragrammaton in paleo-Hebrew. It preserves a small portion of Job 42:11–12 and dates to the first century CE. The first occurrence of the Tetragrammaton is found in line 2, next to the hole in the fragment above. The second occurrence is in line 5, at the beginning of Job 42:12 ( ‫ה הי‬ ). In both examples, the ligature of the paleoHebrew yod extends into the following Greek letter, an epsilon in both cases. P. Oxy 3522 appears to be similar to 8 ev IIgr in that the scribe wrote the Tetragrammaton left-to-right in scriptio continua in sequence with the Greek text in a one-stage writing system. P. Oxy 5101 (Ra 2227), the earliest extant witness to the Old Greek Psalter, dates paleographically to the first century CE. This manuscript contains three occurrences of the Tetragrammaton in paleo-Hebrew, but the procedure for writing the divine is unclear because the evidence is fragmentary and inconclusive. The clearest example of the divine name is at Ps 64:2 (D 13–16):

Parsons, The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Volume L (London: Egypt Exploration Society, 1983), 1–3. See Daniel Colomo and W.B. Henry, 5101. L , Psalms xxvi 9–14, xliv 4–8, xlvii 13–15, xlviii 6–21, xlix 2–16, lxiii 6–lxiv 5, in The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, 1–11.

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i tu es και ι

α ο α ικια α ω ο ι ι αα α α ω ω ο ο ω ο ‫יה ה‬ α ρι ο και κρ α αιο ω καρ ια ο και ο ι ο ο ‫יה ה‬

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The size of the Hebrew and Greek letters is the same and the line heights appear to be approximate. The manuscript generally follows the scriptio continua convention, but there are no preserved ligatures that might suggest which direction the Tetragrammaton was written. There is one peculiarity, however, mentioned by Colomb and Henry: T he scribe of our roll has assimilated the initial yod to the he by giving it a third bar, suggesting that he was not familiar with the paleo-Hebrew letters. It is possible but by no means guaranteed that the preserved instances of the Tetragrammaton in this papyrus were written together with the Greek text.

A lack of familiarity with the correct form of the paleo-Hebrew letters suggests that the scribe was copying by rote. Such ignorance could also suggest that the scribe was not familiar with how the divine name should be written, right-to-left or left-to-right. The default mode would probably be writing the Tetragrammaton according to the direction of the Greek text. One important locus concerns a blank space, where the Tetragrammaton would have occurred, but was left blank. Two scenarios seem possible. In a twostage writing procedure, the blank space left by the original copyist was subsequently missed by the second scribe filling in the Tetragrammaton (although up to this point, this practice is unattested in Greek texts using paleo-Hebrew). If the same scribe wrote the main text and the divine name, the letters of the Colomo and Henry, 5101, 5 n. 12.

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C . . ις ο α ος ω α ι οι ρ ι ‫ יה ה‬ος ιω και οι α ο ο αι ι ακο ο ρο ς: ρος

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Tetragrammaton possibly aked off. The contested blank space, along with the two other occurrences of the Tetragrammaton, is in Ps 26:14 (A 10–14): The empty space follows α α α α in line 11. This space occurs at the middle of the verse, which suggests it is not simply a vacat for punctuation or sense division. Most importantly, in other L manuscripts, κύριος occurs in this location. Colomo and Henry write: Perhaps a space was left blank for the Tetragrammaton to be inserted later, as in P. Fouad inv. 266, though the Tetragrammaton at D 14 at least fits the space well enough to suggest that it may have been written together with the rest of the text. Another possibility is that an earlier copy had left a space of this kind, and that our roll is descended from that copy. The text without κ ριο makes sense, and a scribe might well have forgotten to insert the Tetragrammaton. It is also possible that traces have been lost through abrasion as elsewhere in this scrap.

In a recent essay on the text-critical significance of P. Oxy 5101, Jannes Smith considers both options possible but interprets the space in line 11 as a blank space left for the divine name. He writes: The apparent absence of the Tetragrammaton (for κ ρ ο ) in 26:13 is probably due to a failure to notice that a Two letters of the divine name, waw and heh, are visible on the right edge of the fragment in line 12. Line 14 is almost completely missing, but the tops of the Tetragrammaton letters remain. It is unclear if the scribe wrote the divine name in sequence with the Greek text, left-to-right, or not. The definite article ο in line 12 appears to have aked off the manuscript, which would suggest very little space between the Tetragrammaton and the surrounding Greek text. See Colomo and Henry, 4.

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space had been left for it, because the text makes sense without it and because the space comes at the end of a line. For Smith, the procedure of leaving a blank space, subsequently filled in with the Tetragrammaton, is evidence for the replacement of κύριος, and the secondary nature of the paleo-Hebrew Tetragrammaton. Smith seeks further text-critical support to argue that the divine name came about later in the textual lineage of P. Oxy 5101. Colomb and Henry observed that the Tetragrammaton at D 14 (the first example above) is a unique divine name reading in comparison with Ps 64:2; the MT and the L agree on ‫אלהים‬/ ς. Smith argues that it is highly unlikely that the Tetragrammaton at D 14 goes back to a Hebrew Vorlage, and considers it instead to have arisen in the transmission history. He gives priority to the MT L readings ‫אלהים‬/ ς. The MT, however, is the only Hebrew witness attesting to Ps 64:2, and we are of course dealing with the Elohistic Psalter. This makes it at least equally likely that ‫ ( אלהים‬ς) arose late in the transmission history as a replacement of an earlier Tetragrammaton. In this case, the Old Greek text of P. Oxy 5101 may be a reliable guide to an earlier reading. Still, the evidence of P. Oxy 5101 is too fragmentary to give decisive evidence for the procedure of writing the Tetragrammaton. If P. Oxy 5101 follows the procedure of other Greek biblical texts that write the Tetragrammaton in the paleo-Hebrew script, then it would represent a one-stage writing system. We have encountered so far three procedures for writing the divine name in Greek manuscripts. A handful of instances read ιαω. P. Fouad 266b shows evidence of a two-stage writing system with blank spaces, dots, and the squareAramaic script Tetragrammaton. 8 ev IIgr, P. Oxy 3522, and perhaps P. Oxy 5101 have details that suggest a one-stage writing system, with the paleoHebrew Tetragrammaton copied from left-to-right with the Greek text. These three different approaches, and associated scripts, show that writing God’s name was not yet standardized in the earliest Greek biblical manuscripts. The Greek transliteration of ιαω was most likely written in sequence with the Greek text by the same hand in a one-stage writing system. Even though small spaces appear on both sides of ιαω, these do not provide enough evidence to suggest that ιαω was written into a blank space. Because ιαω was written with vowels—the first attempted written vocalization (as vowels are not J. Smith, The Text-Critical Significance of Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 5101 (Ra 2227) for the Old Greek Psalter, JSCS 45 (2012): 7. P. Oxy 1007 (Ra 907) is a third-century CE fragment of Gen that contains two paleoHebrew yods, as an abbreviation for the Tetragrammaton, and also shows the one-stage writing system, left-to-right. See Robert Kraft’s image database: http: ccat.sas.upenn. edu rak lxxjewpap (accessed Nov 15, 2021).

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indicated in the consonantal Hebrew) the scribe was not concerned with the reader pronouncing or mispronouncing the divine name. There is a further puzzle about finding ιαω among the Qumran Cave 4 scrolls. The Greek biblical texts, in general, comprise a very small percentage of the total number of Hebrew and Aramaic texts, and Tov does not think that these Greek biblical texts were used at Qumran. He draws this inference from the striking absence of Greek documentary texts from the Qumran caves. At all other sites in the Judean desert, we find a higher percentage of Greek documentary texts, but few Hebrew and Aramaic literary texts. The presence of Greek documentary texts logically means active use of Greek, and vice-versa: T here is no proof that Greek was a language in active use by the inhabitants of Qumran. It is possible that at least some of them knew Greek, since fragments of Greek Scripture were deposited in caves 4 and 7. But cave 4 probably served as a depository of some kind (not a library) in which the Qumranites placed all their written texts  This depository in cave 4 contains eight Greek texts, which may signify that the person(s) who brought these texts to Qumran had used them prior to their arrival, which would imply knowledge of Greek. But it is not impossible that these texts came directly from an archive in which case no knowledge of Greek by the Qumranites needs to be assumed. The evidence does not suggest that the Greek texts from cave 4 were read or consulted at Qumran or that they were written there.

The evidence of 4Q120 is incongruous with most of the material from Qumran, particularly the yahad texts that staunchly avoid reading and writing the Tetragrammaton. Nothing about the procedure of writing ιαω, or the material features of the manuscripts, suggests distinctive treatment among pious or The one exception to a Greek documentary text is the opisthograph fragment of 4QNarrative Work and Prayer (4Q460). The verso contains 4QAccount gr (4Q350); see Cotton, DJD 26. Tov assumes that this was written on 4Q460 after the occupation of the site by the Qumranites. Tov, The Greek Biblical Texts, 101. For further discussion, see Madadh Richey, The Use of Greek at Qumran: Manuscript and Epigraphic Evidence for a Marginalized Language, DSD 19 (2012): 177–97. Tov, The Greek Biblical Texts, 99–100. He continues: Cave 7 is a different issue. The contents of that cave which was probably used for lodging (thus R. de Vaux, DJD 3, 30) or as a workplace, consisted solely of Greek literary papyri, probably all Greek Scripture, and possibly all of these were brought directly to the cave from an archive outside Qumran or from a specific spot within the Qumran compound. Furthermore, that Greek speakers were actively using 8 ev IIgr, in contrast to the situation with the Cave 4 Greek scrolls is suggested by the fact that documentary texts were found in Na al ever: Since the documents found in Na al ever show that Greek was used actively by the persons who left the texts behind, including a Scripture scroll, some or much use of that scroll by persons who deposited the text in Na al ever may be assumed. Tov, The Greek Biblical Texts, 100.

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priestly scribes. The transliteration of the divine name probably made sense to Greek readers anywhere in the Greek-speaking diaspora. On analogy, even though the Qumran biblical scrolls regularly wrote the Tetragrammaton in the standard square-Aramaic script, the Tetragrammaton was avoided in speech. But the difference with ιαω is that this form was written with vowels. If a substitute was spoken instead, it would mean that the vowels had no purpose. The use of the Tetragrammaton in Greek biblical texts was an intentional hurdle for vocalization. As Stegemann, Skehan, and others have long noted— usually with reference to Origen—regardless of what was written in Greek biblical manuscripts, the title kyrios (or possibly adonai) was likely pronounced instead of the divine name. While this seems to be a plausible explanation for the Tetragrammaton in Greek manuscripts, the need for a spoken substitution of ιαω is far less certain. We arrive at the extensively debated question of the relationship between κύριος and ιαω in the earliest renderings of the Hebrew text into Greek. We know so far that κύριος is not attested in any known Greek biblical texts from the Second Temple period. But what evidence— circumstantial, contextual, or theoretical—is helpful for our best attempt at historical reconstruction? Clarity here will help us better understand the development of the divine name in Greek biblical texts.

As Tov has shown that these Greek literary scrolls were unlikely to have been used at Qumran, additional lines of evidence could support an Egyptian provenance: 4Q120 and 4Q127 both show unique spacing patterns around Hebrew names transliterated into Greek, only found elsewhere in P. Fouad 266a, c. Skehan and Parsons considered the scripts of 4Q120 and P. Fouad 266b to be very similar. According to Wevers, Text History of the Greek Deuteronomy (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1978), 64, the phonological-orthographic variant , in lieu of κ (cf. 4Q119 frg. 1 ln. 19), is evidence of an Egyptian connection. Stegemann, Gottesbezeichnungen, 198. One of Stegemann’s main critiques of Baudissin’s study on κύριος was that he often depended on late and complicated traditions for reconstructing the Second Temple history. See Stegemann, C, 2: so daß er im wesentlichen auf komplizierte Rückschlüsse aus der späteren Überlieferung angewiesen blieb.

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ΚΥΡΙΟΣ in the Second Temple Period The study of the title κύριος in Judaism and Christianity has elicited some of the largest monographs in the field of biblical studies. Many scholars were motivated to better understand the origins of this New Testament title for Jesus. Landmark studies by New Testament scholars are relevant at present insofar as they offer an entry point into the socio-cultural background of κύριος—its translation, Graeco-Roman usage, and its varied semantic range. The goal of this chapter is to delineate as far as possible where and how κύριος enters Jewish literature, and from there, what we can know about its relationship to the divine name. Scholarship has advanced three hypotheses for the emergence of κύριος in Jewish-Greek literature: (1) as a Greek translation of the Aramaic ‫ א‬and ‫( ; דא‬2) an early development from the Septuagint rendering of the Tetragrammaton; and (3) a late development from Hellenistic secular usage, especially when the title became popular for gods and kings beginning in the first century BCE. New Testament scholars today take the first option, with various modifications, to be the most likely background for understanding how this title was applied to Jesus, but it also rests on the assumption of option two that facilitates the argument of Jesus’ divinity because God was called κύριος in the Septuagint. My objective in this chapter is to introduce epigraphic and literary evidence, not yet discussed in relation to the history of the divine name, that will help clarify what we can know about the early Jewish uses of κύριος. We begin with the itemized survey of all Septuagint manuscripts from the second century CE, when κύριος is first documented in the manuscript record, up to the major Christian codices of the fourth to fifth centuries CE. This sets the chronological frame for the uses of κύριος in L manuscripts. I then discuss the epigraphic evidence for possible Jewish uses of κύριος in the Second Temple period. The above is primary evidence in the sense that we are documenting the actual occurrences of κύριος in inscriptions or manuscripts tied directly to their paleographic date. As the surviving record of Second Temple For a concise overview on the historical issues involving the use of κύριος and documentation of the views of Dalman, Foerster (and Quell), Cullmann, Schweizer, Fuller, Baudissin, Bousset, Bultmann, Vielhauer, and Conzelmann, see Fitzmyer, The Semitic Background of the New Testament Kyrios Title, in A Wandering Aramean, 115–127; also, Stegemann, C. Again, Fitzmyer’s study is often taken as the basis for this consensus.

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Greek biblical manuscripts suggests—none of which preserve the use of κύριος—we cannot be certain about what divine designations this literature contained. Nonetheless, it is important to sample the frequency of the title κύριος in early Jewish-Greek literature, originally authored during the Second Temple period, even if the copies we now have are several centuries later.

10.1

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The following comprehensive list shows evidence of about fifty manuscripts that date paleographically between the second and fourth centuries CE. While outside the purview of my attempt to outline the early history of κύριος, towards the end of the list, I have also included later instances of the divine name writing practices that resemble those found in Second Temple period manuscripts, including the use of ιαω and the Tetragrammaton. These typically occur on rare palimpsests from the sixth to ninth centuries CE. Table 36

Naming God in Greek Biblical Manuscripts from Second to the Fourth Century CE

Manuscript P. Yale (Ra ; Gen ) P. Bodl (Ra ; Ps – ) P. Antinoopolis . (Ra ; Ps – ) P. Baden b (P. Heid. Gr. ; Ra ; Exod ) P. Oxy (Ra ; Gen – ) P. Horsley ( Deissmann; Ra ; Exod )

Date

Form

nd codex nd codex nd codex nd codex nd– rd codex nd– rd codex

Name – – κς κς κ ρι , κς, ος κς, ς

The evidence presented here is drawn from the catalogs of Septuagint manuscripts by Joseph van Haelst, Kurt Aland, and Alfred Rahlfs, and Detlef Fraenkel. This evidence was checked against the catalogs of Robert Kraft, Emanuel Tov, and Larry Hurtado. Kraft provides a list of data at the following website: http: ccat.sas.upenn.edu rak earlylxx earlypaplist.html (accessed Nov 15, 2021). Emanuel Tov’s list of early Greek manuscripts is found in Scribal Practices and Approaches, 304–310. Larry Hurtado has maintained a list entitled Christian Literary Texts in Manuscripts of Second & Third Centuries originally compiled in Larry W. Hurtado, The Earliest Christian Artifacts: anuscripts and Christian Origins (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), Appendix 1, 209–29. I have included some manuscripts that have important material features such as the use of abbreviations, paragraphos, or spacing features that may be relevant for understanding their (presumable) divine name practices, but themselves do not preserve instances of a divine name. These are marked with a dash (–).

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Naming God in Greek Biblical Manuscripts from Second to the Fourth (cont.)

Manuscript P. Chester Beatty VI (Ra ; Num, Deut) P. Chester Beatty VIII (Ra ; Jer – ) P. Leipzig (Ra ; Ps ) Cairo Ostracon (Ra ; Judith ) P. Schøyen (Ra ; Josh – ) P. Schøyen (verses from Lev – , , and ) Flor. Bib. Laur PSI (Ra ; Judges ) P. Scheide P. Chester Beatty I (Ra ; Ezek) P. Chester Beatty (Ra ; Dan and Est) P. Chester Beatty V (Ra ; Gen – ) P. Oxy (Ra ; Gen – ) P. Berlin (Ra ; Gen ) P. Oxy (Ra ; Ps – ) P. Oxy (Ra ; Exod – ) P. Oxy (Ra ; Gen ) P. Oxy (Ra ; Exod ) P. Berlin Fol. I II (Ra ; Gen – ) P. Merton ( P. Chester Beatty VII; Ra ; Isa – and Ezek – ) P. Wash. Freer (Ra W; Minor Prophets) P. Lit. London (Ra ; Ps ) P. LondChrist. (Ra ; Chr ) P. Mich. (Ps – ) P. Mich. (Ra ; Ps – ) P. Vindob. gr. B ( MPER ns ; Ra ; Ps , ) P. Bodmer (Ra ; Ps – , – ) P. Berlin (Ra ; Jer – ) P. Berlin (Ra ; Ps )

Date

Form

Name

nd– rd nd– rd nd– rd rd rd nd- rd

codex codex codex ostracon codex Codex

κς, ς κς κς – κς κς

rd rd rd rd rd rd rd rd rd rd rd rd

codex codex codex codex codex codex codex codex roll roll roll codex

– κς κς κς ‫ יי‬in paleo, ς – κς κς κς κς κς κς

rd rd rd rd rd rd

codex codex codex codex codex codex

κς κς κς κς κς ς

rd rd rd

codex codex codex

κς κς κς

Kraft notes, There is a mid-stop with a space at the end of 19.17, and a space of about three-letter widths at the end of 19.18, where most texts have a form of ΚΥΡΙΟ , see Kraft, Mechanics, 62. Furthermore, Treu comments, as though the scribe omitted the word unintentionally  Or perhaps this resulted from a vorlage that had the Hebrew divine name here?

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Naming God in Greek Biblical Manuscripts from Second to the Fourth (cont.)

Manuscript

Date

Form

Name κς κς κς, ς, et al. , ς ς ς ς ς ς ος – ‫ יה ה‬in paleo, ος ιαω in expl. col. ιαω in expl. col. ος ς κς

P. Berlin (Ra ; BKT . ; Job – ) P. Egerton (Ra ; B. M.; Chr ) P. Antinoopolis . . (Ra ; Prov – ) PSI Cap. (Ra ; Tobit ) P. Heid. (Ra ; Lev ) P. Vindob. Gr. B (Ra ; Ps – ) P. Alex. (Ra ; PSI ; Ps ) P. Mil. . (Ra ) P. Mich . (Qoh , ) P. Oxy (Ra ; Exod ) Hamb. Staats Univ. (Ra ; Qoh) P. Harris (Ra ; Ps ) P. Alex. (Ra ; Isa ) P. Vindob. G (Stud. Pal. . ; Ps , ; Symmachus) P. Heid (Onomasticon)

rd rd rd rd rd rd rd rd rd rd rd rd– th rd– th

re-used codex codex codex codex codex opistho. codex codex codex roll roll roll

rd– th

roll

P. Oxy

rd– th

roll

th th th

roll codex codex

(Onomasticon)

P. Lit. Lond. (Ra ; Dan ; Th) P. Oxy (Ra ; Gen ) P. Oxy (Ra ; Josh – )

Later Writing Conventions That Resemble Second Temple Practices Codex Marchalianus th codex T-S . (Aquila, Kgs : – ) th palimp

ιαω and ‫ה ה‬ ‫ יה ה‬in paleo, KS

The Tetragrammaton in paleo-Hebrew in scriptio continua by the same hand of the Greek text occurs at 2 Kgs 23:16 (far left column, 3rd line from bottom) and 2 Kgs 23:21. This palimpsest appears to contain both nomina sacra and paleo-Hebrew Tetragrammaton forms. The Greek text uses paleo-Hebrew characters for the tetragrammaton. The pronunciation of this word was kurios, lord’ (like Hebrew adonay), for when the scribe ran out of room to write the tetragrammaton at the end of 2 Kgs 23:24 (folio 2b, col. a line 15), he simply wrote κ , as an abbreviation of κ ριος. See http: cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk view MS-TS-00020-00050 1; also, de Lange, apheth in the Tents of Shem, 76, who agrees with the above statement, This indicates, in case we had doubted it, that the tetragram was pronounced κύριος. Even so, this only

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Naming God in Greek Biblical Manuscripts from Second to the Fourth (cont.)

Manuscript T-S . T-S . (Pss – ) T-S . (Ps : – , Hexapla) Ambrosiano O (Ra ; Hexapla, but only  cols. i.e., w out Hebrew column)

Date th th th th

Form

Name

palimp palimp palimp palimp

‫ יה ה‬in paleo ‫יה ה‬

Ι Ι ‫ יה ה‬in

square

When comparing this list with the previous chapter, we can discern a striking contrast, a paradigm shift, in ways of naming God in Greek. The contrast can be correlated with other shifts in the transmission of the Septuagint. The contrast in naming practices, for example, parallels a shift from Jewish to Christian transmission. There is also a large-scale change in the medium and formatting of manuscripts themselves, from scrolls or rolls to codices. Most importantly, we do not find ιαω or the Tetragrammaton in the manuscript record (except under very special circumstances). Instead, the manuscripts attributed to Christian transmission show an extremely high level of standardization: κ( ριο)ς invariably occurs in the nomina sacra form. This is contrasted with the high level of diversity in the relatively few copies of Jewish-Greek biblical texts from the Second Temple period. The list above is comprehensive. It shows that κ( ριο)ς enters the manuscript record beginning only in the second century CE.

In addition to copies of Jewish and Christian Greek biblical texts, we brie y look to the epigraphic record for uses of κύριος. To my knowledge, this evidence has not been integrated into our views of the relationship between κύριος and other forms of the divine name. There are traces of κύριος in two Greek epitaphs indicates the pronunciation practices of the sixth century CE, close to a thousand years after the original translation. See C. Taylor, Hebrew ree Cairo enizah Palimpsests, (1900), 51–85; N. Tchernetska, Pap. Flor. 031 (2000), 737. Kraft provides a very clear outline in The Textual Mechanics’ of Early Jewish L OG Papyri and Fragments, 51–54. See also the major contribution of Larry Hurtado, The Earliest Christian Artifacts: anuscripts and Christian Origins (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006).

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from the island of Rheneia, Ach70 and Ach71, possibly an unidentified Greek text from Qumran (4Q126), and one prayer or apotropaic text (P. Fouad 203). As far as I am aware, this handful of sources comprise all extant Jewish evidence for κύριος. This evidence supports the use of κύριος among Jews beginning early in the first century BCE. Ach70 Epitaph of Heraclea with Curse is an extraordinary white marble stele that was discovered on Rheneia, the burial island of Delos in the middle of the Aegean Sea. A wide range of dates have been proposed, but consensus holds to a paleographic date before the destruction of Delos in 88 BCE. At the top of the stele are two uplifted hands, followed by an inscription, written on the front and the back in scriptio continua. The opening line reads, I call upon and entreat the Highest God, the Lord of the spirits and all esh ( ο ο ο ι ο ο κ ριο ω α ω και α ς αρκος) against who have treacherously murdered or poisoned the wretched, untimely dead Heraclea 

The title κύριος occurs twice in this stele, written in full. The claim that this epitaph is Jewish is based on Deissmann’s identification of allusions in Ach70 to similar wording found in L Num 16:22 and 27:16, particularly the phrase ω α ω και α ς αρκος ( ‫ל ל‬ ‫)ה‬. The near-verbatim wording provides a compelling connection, but there are also some differences. Most importantly, the divine designations in Ach70 do not match the L Num 16:22 or 27:16 passages, nor the underlying Hebrew. For example, Num 16:22 contains ‫( אלהי אל‬MT) and ς ς (L ), whereas Num 27:16 contains ‫( יה ה אלהי‬MT) and κύριος ς (L ). In contrast, Ach70 reads ο ο ο ι ο ο κ ριο . The author of the epitaph uses the definite article for the divine epithet, treating it as a title. The L , however, leaves κύριος unarticulated, probably construing it as a proper name. This does not provide a clear indication of the direction of use between these sources if the connection exists, but it does show that their conception of the deity may have been slightly different. Ach70 may re ect in uence from the widespread worship of theos hypsistos, prevalent throughout the Mediterranean world. There David Noy, Alexander Panayotov, and Hanswulf Bloedhorn (eds), Inscriptiones udaicae Orientis (Vol. 1, Eastern Europe; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004), 1:235–242. See I O 1:239; Deissmann, 1927, 422. I O 1:236–237. The translation follows Couilloud, 1974. Deissmann, 1927, 416–18. Hengel considered this epithet to be an interpretation of God of Heaven : In the synagogue inscriptions we find as the official designation for the God of Israel the title theos hypsistos, a Greek interpretation of the God of heaven’ from Persian times. This then becomes the official designation of the Jewish God throughout later antiquity. See

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is a strong likelihood, furthermore, that the epitaph points not to Jewish, but Samarian origin, or had some connection with the Samarians of Delos. This stele shares close geographic proximity to the two Greek inscriptions that mention The Israelites on Delos who make contribution to the sanctuary Argarizein Ach71 Epitaph of Martina with Curse is another stele from Rheneia that dates on paleographic grounds to the same period. The text is virtually identical to Ach70, except for the replacement of Heraclea with Martina. Its state of preservation is worse than Ach70 (κύριος is legible once). Deissmann has suggested that the two women may have been murdered and buried together. Ach70 and Ach71 are either Jewish or Samarian—both groups used the Greek scriptures and both are pre-Christian—and so this stele provides evidence for the use of κύριος in the late Second Temple period. It is probably not accurate to think that the scribe(s) of Ach70 and Ach71 quoted the Greek biblical translation for the epitaph, as the curse is a formulaic convention. The similarity in phrases and allusions to L Num 16:22 or 27:16, however, seem to suggest that Greek biblical language is somewhere in the background. Two fragments from Qumran Cave 4 may offer leads in our search for Jewish uses of κύριος. 4Q126 (Unidentified gr) comprises 8 fragments that date between Martin Hengel, udaism and Hellenism, 297; ibid., ews ree s, and Barbarians: Aspects of the Hellenization of udaism in the Pre-Christian Period (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980), 95. Note also Stephen Mitchell, Further Thoughts on the Cult of Theos Hypsistos, in One od: Pagan onotheism in the Roman Empire (ed. Stephen Mitchell and Peter van Nuffelen; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 197–208; Nicole Belayche, Hypsistos: A Way of Exalting the Gods in Greco-Roman Polytheism, in The Religious History of the Roman Empire: Pagans, ews, and Christians (ed. J. A. North and S. R. F. Price; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 153; Mark Mueller, Hypsistos Cults in the Greek World During the Roman Imperium, (MA Thesis; advisor Claude Eilers; McMaster University, 2014). L. M. White (1987, 141) translates the inscription: The Israelites on Delos who make contribution to the sanctuary Argarizein crown, with a gold crown, Sarapion, son of Jason, of Knossos, for his benefactions toward them. For a recent discussion, see Jan Dušek, Aramaic and Hebrew Inscriptions from t erizim (2012), 75–79. Reinhard Pummer, The Samaritans in Flavius osephus (TSAJ 129; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 179–199, discusses the diaspora Samarian communities with reference to Josephus Ant. 11.345; 12.7, 10; 13.74–79. I O 1:242. If the families of Heraclea and Martina were non-Israelite then the formula ω α ω και α ς αρκος could have been borrowed from an Israelite community on Rheneia. In this scenario, the divine designations in Ach70 and Ach71, which are at variance with the L and MT, could have resulted from Greek scribes adjusting the Jewish divine designations to standard Hellenistic titles. Thus, the compound epithet in Ach70, ο ο ο ι ο ο κ ριο .

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50 BCE and 50 CE that appear to be related to the other Cave 4 Greek scrolls, but currently cannot be identified with any known L passage. 4Q126 is written in scriptio continua and the words are often split between lines. Two fragments contain letters that could be read as κύριος. In frg. 1 line 2, on the right margin we find the letters κ . ο °[ ]° και κ ω α   ρο ο°  α

[ °[

°[

The margin indicates that if κύριος is the correct reading, and written in full, the remaining letters would occur at the beginning of line 3. The conjunction και precedes κ and may suggest that a new sentence begins here. Many other words could begin with κ , and the identification of the other words is uncertain. This fragment does not offer substantive evidence for reconstructing κύριος. 4Q126 2 5 provides a more plausible basis for reading κύριος. Here we find the letters κ ριο . α ορ   °[ ]°κορ ι °[ α ι κ ριο ]°°[

The editors suggest that κ ριο , if read as κύριος, may indicate that the text is biblical or parabiblical. The preceding ι may be the coordinating conjunction ( or, either or, even if ) or the second person plural present active imperative conjugation of a verb like ω, as in the phrase κύριο (e.g., Isa 12:4). Using database search programs, I have not found any convincing

Parsons suggests a date between 50 BCE–50 CE for 4Q126 and states that the hand is similar to 4Q120 and 121 (but more shakily executed). See DJD 9:12. For an image of this example, see: https: www.deadseascrolls.org.il explore-the-archive image B-284329. For an image of this example, see: https: www.deadseascrolls.org.il explore-the-archive image B-284329. DJD 9:219.

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Greek biblical or Hellenistic parallels matching the wording of 4Q126. Overall, only two complete words from the 8 fragments of 4Q126 may be positively identified: και and ο . The context is unclear, but if κύριος is identified in 4Q126 this would provide evidence for a Jewish use of this title in the first century BCE CE. Even so, there is still no indication that κύριος refers to God. P. Fouad 203 is an early Jewish-Greek prayer dated paleographically to the first century CE or slightly later. The contents of this prayer fit well with other early Jewish prayers from around the first century BCE CE, and so is worthy of consideration even though it comes near the end of our period. There is evidence for 3 columns, but the middle column is best preserved. Benoit, van Haelst, and van der Horst all consider this prayer to have the function of an amulet. Hurtado thinks that it may be exorcistic. Shaw has noted the disagreements in the reconstructions of Benoit and van der Horst and suggests this prayer could fit multiple settings, some of which are not necessarily apotropaic or magical. Lines 1–14 are written in the first person, presumably addressing an unclean spirit. Lines 15–19 comprise what van der Horst considers to be a type of doxology. The opening of this doxology reads, Honor and glory be to the Lord  ( ι και ο α κ ριω). The title κύριω is the last word of line 15, and although it is fragmentary, its occurrence is relatively clear. P. Fouad 203 provides evidence for the Jewish use of κύριος in an independent diaspora prayer towards the end of the first century CE.

I have conducted multiple searches using TLG and Accordance Bible Software with inconclusive results. The only parallel for the letters κορ ι is found in 1 Macc 6:51 κορ ια, but 1 Macc does not match other words in this fragment and does not use κ ριος. P. Benoit, Fragment d’une prière contre les esprits impurs? RB 58 (1951): 549–65. For recent commentary on this prayer, see Pieter van der Horst and Judith Newman, Early Jewish Prayers in Greek (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008), VIII, 125–33. Benoit, Fragment d’une priére, 564; Jan Van Haelst, Catalogue des papyrus littéraires uifs et chrétiens (Paris: Sorbonne, 1975), 298; van der Horst, Early Jewish Prayers, 125. The Trismegistos database lists P. Fouad 203 as magical: amulet with prayer against demons. See http: www.trismegistos.org magic detail.php?tm 63231 (accessed Nov 15, 2021). Hurtado, The Earliest Christian Artifacts, Appendix 1, no. 215. For hesitations regarding the date of this manuscript and its classification as an amulet and or magical see Shaw, Earliest, 237–42. He writes, It is surely a phylactery in the literal meaning, but that is all that one can securely assert about it. E.g., you are unclean. May he send out to you his angel who guided this people at the exodus  for that reason you will not appear anymore neither will you exist to harm any soul. For the translation and notes, see van der Horst, Early Jewish Prayers, 131–33. van der Horst, Early Jewish Prayers, 132–33. Benoit reconstructs the line as follows Ι Κ Ι Ο ΚΥΡ[] (551).

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In summary, evidence for the pre-Christian use of κύριος enters the extant record in the first century BCE. Ach70 and Ach71 provide a close link with L wording, although the divine name conventions differ in details. 4Q126 might contain the word κύριος, but there is no indication of context other than its similarity to the other Cave 4 Greek biblical scrolls. P. Fouad 203 uses κύριος in an apotropaic prayer from the late first century CE, although it likely re ects similar prayers at earlier times. Each of these sources, except 4Q126, can be positively identified as evidence from the popular diaspora level. κύριος is used in formulaic epitaph curses and apotropaic prayers. Turning from the direct evidence of divine titles and names, scholars have endeavored to resolve the question of the earliest L rendering of God’s name through grammatical and linguistic argumentation. This line of inquiry attempts to establish the title κύριος as the logical choice for the original translation and all other divine name forms as secondary developments. Scholars have turned to this evidence out of necessity because there are no extant copies of Jewish-Greek biblical texts from the Second Temple period that use κύριος. Many of these grammatical details, however, are either inconsistent with the overall data sets or have alternative explanations. If these studies do not engage κύριος directly, they often base claims on contextual features. For example, the Tetragrammaton, within Greek biblical manuscripts, is taken as a secondary development because the manuscripts themselves show intentional signs of revision towards a known Hebrew source text, a process often called Hebraization. In other words, these manuscript versions show conscious attempts to realign an earlier dynamic translation with a Hebrew exemplar; the result is a shared formal equivalency between the Greek and Hebrew witnesses. Replacing the (hypothetical) title κύριος with the Hebrew The grammatical evidence proposed by Pietersma for patterns of articulation nonarticulation of κύριος in the Pentateuch do not hold for evidence in the Psalter; see Wevers, The Rendering of the Tetragram in the Psalter and the Pentateuch: A Comparative Study, in The Old ree Psalter: Studies in Honor of Albert Pietersma (ed. Robert J. V. Hiebert; JSOTSup 332; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 21–35. But more important is Emanuel Tov’s observation, The Greek Biblical Texts, 112: According to Pietersma, the first translators wrote κύριος, mainly without the article, considered a personal name in the Greek Pentateuch, as the written surrogate for the tetragram’. However, the internal L evidence offered in support of this assumption is not convincing, as all the irregularities of the anarthrous use of κύριος can also be explained as having been created by a mechanical replacement of ιαω with κύριος by Christian scribes. Furthermore, all of the linguistic evidence furnished for the original use of κύριος— whether the grammatical arguments of oPietersma or the use of quotations in Philo or the New Testament—is based on versions of the Septuagint that are at least four centuries after the purported translation of the Pentateuch.

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Tetragrammaton goes along with the Hebraizing agenda. Origen once commented that the more accurate exemplars used the archaic script. This is a comment about the recensional character of the manuscript in which the paleo-Hebrew divine name occurs. Scholars have drawn the inference that the presence of the Tetragrammaton is yet another sign that a Greek biblical text has been revised towards a Hebrew exemplar. Notwithstanding the circularity of reasoning, the collective impression of this argumentation seems appealing. This requires tracing out a bit more. Following the landmark work of Dominique Barthélemy, many scholars agreed that early Septuagint manuscripts show revisions towards a proto-MTlike Hebrew exemplar. Concerning the Greek biblical texts specifically—not the Qumran Hebrew biblical manuscripts written in the square script with paleo-Hebrew divine names—Septuagint scholars have proposed that, in addition to spoken avoidance, the Tetragrammaton is a recensional trait of Hebraized Greek texts. Tov states: All the texts transcribing the Tetragrammaton in Hebrew characters re ect early revisions, in which the employment of Hebrew characters was considered a sign of authenticity, even though this practice only entered the transmission of Greek Scriptures at a second stage.

Every scholar who has commented on the nature of 8 ev IIgr, for example, holds it to be a revision of the Old Greek Minor Prophets. For P. Fouad 266 manuscripts b–c Koenen and Aly state: T he result of continuous attempts to bring the Greek text into closer accord with the Hebrew are clearly recognizable  Both rolls show the tendency of harmonizing the text of the

For the epoch-making work on the textual history of the Septuagint, see Barthélemy, es Devanciers d’ A uila: Première publication intégrale du texte des fragments du Dodécaprophêton (SVT 10; Leiden: Brill, 1963); ibid., Redécouverte d’un chaînon manquant de l’histoire de la Septante, RB 60 (1953): 18–29; and now Anneli Aejmelaeus and Tuukka Kauhanen (eds.) The egacy of Barthélemy: Years after es Devanciers d’A uila (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2017); see also, Leondard J. Greenspoon, Recensions, Revisions, Rabbinics: Dominique Barthélemy and Early Developments in the Greek Tradition, Textus 15 (1990): 153–167. Tov, The Greek Biblical Texts, 112. Ibid., 105: As a Jewish revision, this text represented the Tetragrammaton in paleoHebrew characters. This was systematically described by Barthélemy, Les Devanciers d’ A uila. See also Tov, DJD 8:131–42; ibid., The Greek Biblical Texts, 116–7; Pietersma, Kyrios or Tetragram, 88–89; Lester Grabbe, The Translation Techniques of the Greek Minor Versions: Translations or Revisions, in Septuagint, Scrolls, and Cognate ritings, 505–56.

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Septuagint with the Hebrew parent text. Because the revision activity is secondary, the logical assumption is that other features of the scroll are also secondary, in particular the Hebrew Tetragrammaton. This correlation has been used to argue that the Tetragrammaton is not an original feature of the Old Greek translation. The answer to the question of why κύριος is not found among the early Septuagint copies is because most are revisions towards a Hebrew exemplar in which κύριος was replaced with the Tetragrammaton. While scholars agree that Greek texts with the Tetragrammaton contain evidence of revision towards a Hebrew exemplar, there are important exceptions, and with only a small pool of evidence, each exception becomes increasingly significant. P. Oxy 5101, for example, is a genuine OG witness of the Psalter, but it also contains the paleo-Hebrew Tetragrammaton. Pietersma states that o n balance nothing impresses me more about 5101 than its early date and its thoroughly Septuagintal character notwithstanding its sole recensional trait, namely, the replacement of κύριος by the tetragram in palaeo-Hebrew script. If the sole recensional trait is the Tetragrammaton, then the criteria used for establishing this recensional trait begins to break down. In a recent text-critical study, Jannes Smith also affirms the OG character of P. Oxy 5101. He agrees with Pietersma that the paleo-Hebrew Tetragrammaton is the sole recensional trait of this manuscript, assuming that it has entered the text at some point in transmission history. Smith concludes his study by suggesting that because the Psalter has borrowed language from the Pentateuch it is likely to have emulated its (hypothetical) use of κύριος. Thus Ra 2227 supports an argument in favour of an original κύριος, with the paleo-Hebrew form of the Tetragram as a secondary, archaizing stage. Even though the important correlation between the recensional features of the manuscript and the presence of the Tetragrammaton is lacking, Pietersma and Smith maintain that the Tetragrammaton is a sign of revision. On the whole, this line of argumentation to establish the Tetragrammaton as a secondary development based on recensional traits of Greek texts is awed. Even as most Septuagint scholars agree that the Hebrew Tetragrammaton is a secondary development in revised Greek biblical texts, the evidence from Qumran is rarely brought into the discussion. When examining the textual nature of the Cave 4 Greek texts, the overall impression is that they are genuine witnesses of the Old Greek translation. 4Q119 and 4Q120 probably re ect

Koenen and Aly, Three Rolls, 9; cf. Wevers, THGD, 26, 66. Colomb and Henry, P. Oxy 5101, 2; Smith, The Text-Critical Significance, 21–22. Smith, The Text-Critical Significance, 22.

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the earliest OG versions of Lev. In a well-known statement, even Pietersma observed that the genuine Septuagintal credentials of 4Q120 are well nigh impeccable. Other texts are more ambiguous. For example, the textual characteristics of 4Q121 place it as an early version of Numbers, but its features are still not clear-cut. 4Q122 is too fragmentary for analysis. Importantly, the divine name ιαω is the only extant evidence for a divine designation in the Cave 4 Greek texts. Suppose we follow the line of reasoning on the recensional nature of a Greek manuscript and the secondary replacement with the Tetragrammaton. On this basis alone, what would hinder the view that ιαω was a sure sign of the original Septuagint translation? This is precisely the course taken by Tov. In the context of the debate over the original divine name rendering of the Septuagint, he states: In absence of convincing evidence in favour of any one explanation, the view of Skehan and Stegemann that ιαω is original seems more plausible in light of the parallels provided. This argument serves as a support for the view that 4QpapL Lev re ects the OG and not a later revision translation.

While this is an insightful observation, the circularity in understanding ιαω as a trait of the OG is evident. This means that the recensional nature of the Cave 4 Greek scrolls and the presence of ιαω does not decisively answer the question of the earliest OG rendering. In summary, there is a correlation between the divine name and the textual character of the Greek biblical manuscripts, but one cannot positively identify one as the cause of the other. At the core of the See Innocent Himbaza,  What are the consequences if 4QL Lev contains earliest formulation of the Septuagint?  in Die Septuaginta Orte und Intentionen: Internationale Fachtagung veranstaltet von Septuaginta Deutsch LXX.D), Wuppertal 24.–27. Juli 2014 (ed. Siegfried Kreuzer, Martin Meiser, and Marcus Sigismund; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 294–308. Pietersma, Kyrios or Tetragram, 91; cf. Himbaza, What are the Consequences, 294–5, 306–8; J. B. Faulkenberry Miller, 4QL Lev and Proto-Septuagint Studies: Reassessing Qumran Evidence for the Urtext Theory, in umran Studies: New Approaches, New uestions (ed. M.Th. Davis and B. A. Strawn; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 1–28. Tov, The Greek Biblical Texts, 106–17; Skehan, 4QL Numb: A Pre-Christian Reworking of the Septuagint, HTR 70 (1977): 49–40; Wevers, An Early Revision of the Septuagint Numbers, Eretz-Israel 16 (1982): 235–39, where Wevers observes that 4Q121 is not kaige or proto-Theodotian, but still shows revision towards MT. Tov, The Greek Biblical Texts, 113. It is worth commenting also that if ιαω can be positively identified in 4Q127 (pap paraExod gr) then this would provide evidence for its use in a scriptural-like composition that seemingly has nothing to do with the debate over the revisions of the OG.

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arguments for understanding the purpose of the Hebrew Tetragrammaton as a recensional trait is a simple correlation. There is no proof that the reason for the Tetragrammaton is caused by or inherent to the textual character of early revisions of the Old Greek. Our surest indication of the purpose of the Hebrew Tetragrammaton in Greek biblical texts is to signal its spoken avoidance in reading.

Κ Stegemann’s detailed study on κύριος in Old Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha demonstrates that this title was a common name for the Jewish God in some of this literature. While many of these texts are Greek translations of earlier Hebrew or Aramaic works, others are original in Greek. As we think about how and when κύριος entered Jewish literature, a brief sampling of texts will show that some original Greek works depend on the use of κύριος, as the original wording, while other Jewish authors prefer other terms for God, such as ς, ς, or ι ος. I discuss below Jewish-Hellenistic writers, Esther (as compared to the Greek additions), 1, 2, and 4 Maccabees, Ezekiel the Dramatist, and the Jewish historian Josephus. The discussion over quotations of the L in Philo and the New Testament, especially their use of κύριος and ς, has been well documented by other scholars. My working hypothesis, drawn from the manuscript and epigraphic evidence for κύριος, accommodates the view that the L copies from the first century BCE CE, which Philo and NT authors likely relied upon for their quotations, could well have contained κύριος. This does not require that κύριος goes back to the Old Greek translation. Many fragments of Jewish-Hellenistic poets, apologists, and historians are preserved in quotations by Josephus, and later Christian writers, such as Stegemann, C, 347. Aitken re ects on the preference of early Jewish writers and comments that the title God of heaven’ is absent from Ben Sira, where ‫ לי‬and, in the Greek translation, ι ος are very important. It suggests that for some the title God of heaven’ had significance, whilst for others, their preference lay elsewhere. Aitken, God of the Pre-Maccabees, 264. For other discussions of naming God in the Hellenistic context, see R. M. van den Berg, Does It Matter to Call God Zeus? Origen Contra Celsum 1.24–25 against the Greek Intellectuals on Divine Names, in The Revelation of the Name YH H to oses: Perspectives from udaism, the Pagan Greco-Roman orld and Early Christianity (ed. G. H. van Kooten; Leiden: Brill, 2006), 169–83; Eberhard Bons, The Noun ο ς as a Divine Title, in The Reception of Septuagint ords in Jewish-Hellenistic and Christian iterature (ed. Eberhard Bons, Ralph Brucker, and Jan Joosten; WUNT II 367; Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 53–66.

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Clement of Alexandria and Eusebius. Among the Jewish-Hellenistic authors, most belonging to the second century BCE, we find that Eupolemus uses God Most High in the purported letters from Solomon to the kings of Egypt, Tyre, Sidon, and Phoenicia. Artapanus prefers ο ς: Moses replied that he had come because the Lord of the universe ( ο ς οικο ς ο ) had commanded him to liberate the Jews. Ezekiel the Dramatist uses ς generally, but ο ς, for example, when quoting L Exod 12:14. In the manuscripts of these early writers, κύριος is attested 4×—twice in Aristobulus, and twice in Pseudo-Orpheus—but it is not clear that these instances should be understood as original. The first occurrence is found in a quotation of Aristobulus by Clement. In Aristobulus’ re ections on the Sabbath, he writes, From this day, the first wisdom and knowledge illuminate us. For the light of truth—a true light, casting no shadow, indivisibly apportioned to all—is the spirit of the Lord ( α κ ριο ) for all those who are sanctified through faith ( ια ι ως), occupying the position of a lamp  (Stromata, 6.16.138)

This passage shows striking resonance with the language of Paul (e.g., Romans 3:22). The phrase ια ι ως is found only in the New Testament, and so Clement may have harmonized Aristoblus with familiar Christian passages. The second occurrence of κύριος appears more straightforward, in a quotation of L Exod 9:3, ρκ ρο αι οςκ ο But another quotation of the L , this time by Pseudo-Orpheus shows that the text of these quotations, as preserved by later Christian scribes, are not always consistent with the MT or L . Pseudo-Orpheus, for example, uses κύριος in a quotation of L Isa 10:14, but neither the Tetragrammaton nor κύριος occur in Isa 10:14 (MT L ). The same is true for Pseudo-Orpheus’ quotation of Jer 10:12. The uses of κύριος, attributed to Aristobulus and Pseudo-Orpheus, are ambiguous. They could represent various types of harmonizations or minor adaptions with Septuagint or New Testament texts as transmitted by Christian scribes. This Holladay, Fragments, 1:120. Ibid., 1:216 (Eusebius, P.E., 9.27.22). Eusebius. P.E. 9.29.13; C. Holladay, Fragments, 2:384); See Stegemann, C 63–77, 345. Howard Jacobson, The Exogoge of Eze iel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983); Pierluigi Lanfranchi, ’Exagoge d’Ezéchiel le Tragi ue: Introduction, texte, et commentaire (Studia in Veteris Testamenti Pseudepigrapha 21; Leiden: Brill, 2006). Eusebius, P.E., 8.10.8. Clement, Stromata, 5.14.127.2–3. For a range of changes in Patristic citations of New Testament texts, see Carroll D. Osburn, Methodology in Identifying Patristic Citations in NT Textual Criticism, NT 47 (2005): 313–43.

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gives an overall impression that the uses of κύριος among Jewish-Hellenistic authors, if original, are very rare. In the Hebrew book of Esther, it is well-known that the Tetragrammaton does not occur, and God plays virtually no role in the narrative. In the translation of this book, then, we have no reason to expect to find κύριος. And this is true, for the parts of Greek Esther that parallel the Hebrew version, but Esther has survived in two distinct Greek versions, designated the Old Greek and the Alpha text. These Greek versions both contain six additional chapters (A–F) interspersed throughout Esther, but not found in the Hebrew version. The Old Greek and Alpha additions are nearly identical, which suggests that they are later insertions, perhaps one copied from the other. The OG version of Esther contains a postscript (F 11.1) that seems to place the date of translation sometime between the late second century and the mid-first century BCE. By this time, Esther seems to have already contained the additional material. The importance of this is clear in the striking contrast in naming God. While the title κύριος does not occur in the translated Greek material, the Greek original additions use κύριος about 25 . A high concentration of κύριος (10 ) is found in Mordecai’s prayer: Then he petitioned the Lord, remembering all the works of the Lord. And he said, Lord, Lord, king of all powers (Κ ρι κ ρι α ι ω κρα ) (C1–2). The absence of κύριος in the translated Greek portions of Esther is easily explained by the fact that the Tetragrammaton does not occur in the Hebrew version either. The frequent use of κύριος in the Greek additions to OG and Alpha, however, suggest growing preference for this title sometime early in the first century BCE. Using κύριος at this time, in these additions, does not necessarily imply that the Tetragrammaton is behind it. The books of 1–2 Maccabees present another striking contrast in their preference of terms for the Jewish deity. After a brief introduction mentioning the conquest of Alexander of Macedon, 1 Macc narrates the events from the revolt up to the accession of John Hyrcanus to the high priesthood (134 BCE). The author of 1 Macc rarely includes God in his Hasmonean story, but when he See Karen H. Jobes, Esther, in The New English Translation of the Septuagint (ed. Albert Pietersma and Benjamin Wright; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 424–25; W. Lee Humphreys and Sidnie White Crawford, Esther, in HCSB, 1333–1334. The opening of the postscript reads: In the fourth year of the reign of Ptolemy  which could refer to several Ptolemies who ruled at 114 BCE, 78 BCE, or 48 BCE. The content of the postscript concerns the authenticity of the Letter about Purim and that it was translated by Lysimachus son of Ptolemy, one of the residents of Jerusalem. The earliest extant copy of Esther is P. Oxy 4443 (E 8–9), which contains a fragment of E (but does not contain material where κύριος would occur) dates to the late first or early second century CE. See Kraft, The Textual Mechanics’, 59.

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does, God is ο ρα ς Heaven. The author uses κύριος 3 , but never for God. The book was probably completed sometime in the late second century BCE. The language and style of 1 Macc have led many to believe that it was original in a Semitic language. If this was the case, a retroversion would suggest that the author avoided the Tetragrammaton. 2 Maccabees was likely written in Greek and contains several rhetorical and literary conventions popular in Hellenistic literature. It was composed around the same time as 1 Macc, but uses κύριος an astonishing 45 . 2 Macc opens with the well-known reference to the two letters from the Jews in Jerusalem to those in Egypt, encouraging them to keep the festival of booths. The first letter is dated to 143 BCE, and the second is 124 BCE; the latter may be the time when 2 Macc was completed. As far as these dates are accurate, the use of κύριος in 2 Macc can be situated in the late second century BCE. 4 Maccabees is original in Greek and contains rhetorical and philosophical conventions aimed to persuade Jews to observe the Torah in light of their persecutions. The author narrates the exemplary faith of Eleazer and the seven brothers and their mother as examples in support of the premise that devout reason is sovereign over emotions (4 Macc 1:7–8, 6:31). Most scholars date this work between the mid-first to early second century CE. Even at this late date, 4 Macc appears to deliberately avoid using κύριος for God. This is clear when we compare passages where 4 Macc depends on 2 Macc. For example, in 2 Macc 3:22, the priests and women pray to the Almighty Lord ( α κρα κ ριο ) for the safeguarding of the temple treasury, but in 4 Macc 4:9, the priests and women implore God ( ). More pointedly, as righteous Eleazer is burned to his very bones he lifted his eyes and said: 4 Macc 6:27

You know, O God ( ) that though I might have saved myself, I am dying in burning torments for the sake of the law 

1 Macc 3:18, 19; 3:50; 4:10, 24, 40, 55; 5:31; 9:46; 12:15; 16:3. 1 Macc 2:53; 8:30; 9:25. Uriel Rappaport,  1 Maccabees,   in The Apocrypha (ed. Martin Goodman, John Barton, John Muddiman; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 129–160. For an overview, see Daniel Swartz, Second accabees: Translation and Commentary (De Gruyter, 2008); Robert Doran and Harold W. Attridge, accabees: A Critical Commentary (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2012). Daniel J. Harrington, Second Maccabees, in HCSB, 1519–20; Robert Doran,  2 Maccabees,  in The Apocrypha, 161–84. See Tessa Rajak, The Fourth Book of Maccabees in a Multi-Cultural City,  in Jewish and Christian Communal Identities in the Roman orld (ed. Yair Furstenberg; AJEC; Leiden: Brill, 2016), 134–150.

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It is clear to the Lord ( κ ρ ) in his holy knowledge that, though I might have been saved from death, I am enduring terrible sufferings in my body under this beating, but in my soul I am glad 

These examples show that 4 Macc deliberately uses ς when the source text contains κύριος. A comparison of 1, 2, and 4 Maccabees demonstrates that even works originally composed in Greek diverge in their choice of term for Jewish deity. Flavius Josephus, writing around the same time as the author of 4 Macc, prefers ς and ς for God. He seems to make considerable use of the L in Anti uities, often following it closely, but we do not find κύριος in his paraphrase or rewriting of biblical events. The question over Josephus’ avoidance of κύριος is important for grasping the larger picture of early Jewish approaches to naming God because, apart from Philo, he is the most prolific Jewish-Greek writer from antiquity. His use of divine titles results from the complex interplay of (1) the re-use of his source text or Vorlage (whether Greek or Hebrew or Aramaic is debated), (2) his preference for some designations over others, (3) his intended audience, and (4) Greek stylistic and rhetorical conventions. The following examples from Josephus show that the title κύριος for God in Greek was not universally adopted by the late first century CE. Concerning the command not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for example, Josephus writes: Gen 2:16

L Ant. 1:40

κα ο

α ο κ ριος ς

ς α ο

α , κ

The text preserves ς but omits κύριος. In another example, when Melchizedek meets Abram in Gen 14 (L ), the deity is ς ι ος, but Josephus again tightens the designation to simply ς. For the destruction of Sodom and Gomorra, Josephus gives God the generic title for divinity, portraying the Jewish deity more like a Hellenistic Zeus, slinging fire bolts:

3 Macc also uses κύριος. Because this work shows dependence on the Greek additions to Esther and Daniel, but also growing tensions between Alexandrians and Jews, it is often taken as an early Roman composition (30 BCE–70 CE). In 3 Macc 2:2, we find an intriguing use of the double vocative in a prayer introducing a long epithet phrase (Κ ρι κ ρι , α ι ο ρα κα οα ς κ ως ). This is similar to the prayer in 2 Macc 1:24 (Κ ρι κ ρι ς, ω κ ς ) and Mordecai’s prayer in the addition to Esther (C1–2; Κ ρι κ ρι α ι ω κρα ).

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L Ant. 1:203

κ ριος ς

ρ κ

ι

T

0

ο ο α κα ο ορρα ος ς ι

Even in the oft-cited passage where Josephus provides an etymology for the name Adonizebek, glossing ω as κ ριος, there is nothing here about the Jewish deity as κύριος: At that time the Chananaians were at the height of their power. They took their stand for battle with a large army at Zebeke, having entrusted the leadership to the king of the Zebekenoi, Adonizebek (whose name means lord of the Zebekenoi, for adoni is lord in the Hebrew language) ( ο α ο ο αι κ κ ριος ω ρ ρα ω ια κ κ ριος αι) (Ant. 5:121)

Josephus understands these terms as formal equivalents but offers no hint at equating κύριος as the designation of the Jewish deity. Josephus does use κύριος, some 50 , but always in the standard Hellenistic idiom of referring to non-Jewish gods and kings. The notion that Josephus avoids κύριος comes from comparative observations, like those above when his recasting of a biblical event is juxtaposed with the L . But to be clear, scholars have more recently doubted how much we can know about his Vorlage. If he was working from a Hebrew text, he may simply have used ς for the Tetragrammaton. Baudissin, Markus, and Fischer assumed that Josephus used a Hebrew Vorlage for his Anti uities, and proposed that he avoided κύριος because it signaled the Tetragrammaton, which Josephus, as a priest, was careful to avoid. It is difficult to believe that such excessive piety would have in uenced Josephus. We see such things happening in the Qumran scrolls, but Josephus is writing in a much different context Paul Spilsbury, Josephus and the Bible, in A Companion to osephus, 128, summarizes the situation: Generally speaking, Josephus implies that he used a Hebrew text throughout (Ant. 1.12), and it would be surprising if he did not, in fact, have recourse to Hebrew biblical texts for his work. Additionally, there is also evidence that he had Greek translations of the Bible (e.g., Begg and Spilsbury 2005, 265–266, on the various versions of the Book of Daniel Josephus may have used), and, likely, he relied heavily on Greek texts throughout his biblical paraphrase  Indeed, while there is nothing intrinsically implausible about the idea of Josephus using Bible texts in each of these languages (Basser 1987, 21; Feldman 1988, 466), his expansive paraphrase is so loosely based on his source texts that determination of the precise character of those texts is now impossible (Rajak 2009, 252–253). J. B. Fischer, The Term despotes in Josephus, R 49 (1958): 132–38; Ralph Marcus, Divine Names and Attributes in Hellenistic Literature, Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 2 (1931–32), 45–120. This is often connected to the view that Josephus did not think the Tetragrammaton should be revealed to Gentiles; cf. Ant. 2.276, which scholars have argued was a factor in his use of ο ς, e.g., Ant 1.72, 272; 2.270.

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for a different audience. The questions over his Vorlage should make us re ect on the reality that while Josephus rephrases biblical events, it is probably not accurate to think of him replacing κύριος with ς along the way. At any rate, further clarity on Josephus’ approach to naming God would allow us to assess the role of divine names and epithets in the earliest L sources, so we must look for more contextual clues to better understand his preference for ς over κύριος. McDonough emphasizes Josephus’ literary context and audience, suggesting that w hile there is a remote possibility that this i.e., evidence from his re-use of scripture indicates a reluctance on his part to employ even the Greek surrogate for the name YHWH, it is far more likely that Josephus is attempting to use the most generally accepted term for God possible. Along similar lines, Morton Smith has claimed that Josephus’ use of ς was intended as a general reference to the deity, to be understood within the larger context of the Jewish adjustment to the pagan world. In many places, Josephus seems to intend double meanings. Regarding divine designations, Josephus’ works are full of such references, which pagans would read as referring to a god.’ Josephus expects his Jewish readers to understand these as references to the Jewish god. Louis Feldman has also stated that throughout Anti uities Josephus while focusing on the achievements of his heroes, de-emphasizes the role of G-d. The title ς is most appealing because it generalizes the divine. Gohei Hata has related Josephus’ avoidance of κύριος to Gentile perceptions of Jewish traditions. Hata examined Josephus’ literary presentation of blasphemy in the context of the simmering antagonistic views of Gentiles towards Jews. As monotheists, the Jews were often accused of atheism, thus threatening the established order of the Greco-Roman pantheon. So, when Josephus changes the object of blasphemy from the name of the Lord to God ο ς in Ant 4:202, the Greek can be construed as a plural. This coheres with the other discussion of blasphemy in Ant. 4:407 (Exod 22:27): α ω ς ο ςο ς ις αι ο ο ι ( You shall not revile God ‫ אלהים‬ο ς , or curse a leader of your people ). For Josephus, this rendering is based in the L reference to ο ς, and presented as a Greek command not to revile gods. Gata takes Josephus’ depiction of this law to confirm that the Jews do not dare

McDonough, YH H at Patmos, 86. Morton Smith, The Occult in Josephus, in osephus, udaism, and Christianity (ed. Louis H. Feldman and Gohei Hata; Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1987), 237. Feldman, Josephus’ Portrayal of the Hasmoneans, in osephus and the History of the Greco-Roman Period (ed. Fausto Parente and Joseph Sievers; Leiden: Brill, 1994), 63. In the Ruth pericope, Josephus does not mention God at all (Ant. 5.318–336).

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to blaspheme any god, be it their god or the gods of any other religion; the Jews are not atheists,’ as it was being rumored. There are two exceptions to Josephus’ avoidance of κύριος. As with the quotations of the early Jewish-Hellenistic authors, however, the originality of these occurrences is unclear. In Ant. 13:68 (Isa 19:19), Josephus states that the prophet Isaiah foretold of an altar in Egypt to the Lord God, Isa 19:19

L Ant. 13:68

αι αι

ια ια

ριο ριο

κ ρ

ρ κ ρ

ω

Josephus’ text has a unique plus, , not attested in any other L witnesses. While it is not surprising to find here, the presence of κ ρ requires explanation because it is inconsistent with Josephus’ typical approach. The most likely explanation is that κ ρ was added in the transmission history of this text to harmonize it more closely with the L reading. The only other use of κύριος for God is found in Ant. 20.89–90. Josephus records the supplication of Izates—a client king of the Parthians—to the God of Israel: Then he called upon God, and said, O Master Lord ( ο α κ ρι ), if I have not in vain committed myself to thy goodness, but have justly determined that thou only art the Lord and principal of all beings ( ω ικα ως ο κα ρ ο αι κ ριο ), come  to my assistance, and defend me  Following the entreaty of Izates, according to Josephus, God vindicates him and he rules in peace for the rest of his life. Here, κύριος is used twice by the Parthian client king, who professes faith in the God of Israel. This use of κύριος, however, fits comfortably within the conventions of Hellenistic political discourse. Even as Josephus writes the title in his text, he puts the term in the mouth of Izates, a non-Jew, who shows deference to foreign deity, in this case, the God of Israel. Thus, Josephus uses κύριος in accord with Greco-Roman idiom. There is not a single reference to God as κύριος in War. In fact, the Roman commanders interpreted the internal sedition among rival Jewish factions to signify that the providence of God had crossed over to their side. Hata, The Story of Moses Interpreted within the Context of anti-Semitism, in osephus, udaism, and Christianity, 192–93; cf. Ant. 4:202–207; Contra Apion 2:237. Fitzmyer, The Semitic Background, 121–22, also discusses the evidence in Josephus and considers the rarity of κύριος as evidence for the rarity of the title in the pre-Christian Greek biblical manuscripts, but he also does not think that these instances result from later Christian scribal habits. He asks if this was the case, why are there only two instances, and not many more? He also suggests that Josephus’ Vorlage could constitute a more complex problem than often assumed, stressing the diversity of Greek versions in the first century CE, thus accounting at some level for the stray occurrences of κύριος. For more on Josephus’ Vorlage see below.

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The commanders then urged Vespasian, their κ ριο ω , to advance on Jerusalem (War 4:366). Vespasian takes the wiser course to let the Jews exhaust their resources in fighting each other, explaining that God acts as a general of the Romans better than he Vespasian can. The reasons for Josephus’ avoidance of κύριος continue to be debated. The sampling above provides us with enough evidence, however, to conclude that the designation κύριος within Jewish literature of the first century CE was hardly standardized. If the one occurrence of κύριος in Josephus’ quotation of L Isa 19:19 (Ant 13:68) can be explained as a later harmonization, then there is not a single use of κύριος in Josephus that has a connection to the Septuagint use of κύριος for God. In summary of the use and non-use of κύριος, the available epigraphic and literary evidence suggests that Jews began using κύριος in written sources approximately during the second and first centuries BCE, but such uses are not uniform or standard. At both ends, there are Jewish writers for whom the title κύριος was not significant: the Jewish-Hellenistic authors of the early second century BCE and Josephus and 4 Macc of the late first century CE. But among these, other writers use κύριος, including Greek additions of earlier works (Esther, A–F), original Jewish-Greek compositions (2 Macc), and also epigraphic sources (Ach 70 and Ach 71). Philo and New Testament writings should also be kept in mind, in which κύριος is frequent, but as discussed elsewhere our earliest record of these manuscript witnesses are late and the context of their transmission unclear. Further evidence may be adduced from 4Q126, if the reading is accurate, and the apotropaic prayer of P. Fouad 203.

Κ

Graeco-Roman

The Jewish epigraphic and literary sources for κύριος fit well with developments in the semantic range of κύριος in Greco-Roman sources from the late Hellenistic and early Roman period. Several monographs have described in detail the uses and meanings of κύριος, so I will not elaborate further except to call attention to two areas that provide a helpful context for the current study. The first concerns the grammatical uses of the κύριος in the first century CE. The second is the much-discussed use of κύριος in non-Jewish sources as a title for gods and human rulers by the first century BCE CE, beginning in the eastern Mediterranean, primarily Egypt and Syria, and spreading west. As noted above, for a helpful presentation of secondary scholarship on the origin of κύριος in Jewish usage, see Fitzmyer, The Semitic Background, 115–127.

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Classicist Eleanor Dickey has demonstrated that κ ριος does not acquire a vocative until the first century CE. An examination of numerous Greek documentary and literary sources shows that κ ριος suddenly acquired a vocative after centuries of being conspicuously unusable in address. This was necessary, she argues, because the need arose for an equivalent to the Latin form of address domine; thus, κύρι became the translation of domine, not the other way around, as often assumed. Dickey notes that apart from one use in Pindar the only exception to the vocative κύρι , before the first century CE, is in the citation of the Septuagint in other sources. When the need arose to address God, the translators rendered κύρι even though this vocative did not really exist in Greek. Other Jewish-Greek works from the Second Temple period, noted above, use the double vocative κύρι κύρι , which appears to be characteristic of some early Jewish prayers, for example, as found in 2 and 3 Macc, and the Greek addition to Esther (C1–2). Dickey views the Septuagint use of the vocative as an innovation, but its emergence across the Mediterranean world was an independent development related to domine. Concerning the New Testament, Dickey suggests that the noticeable rise in the use of κύρι in late NT books, compared to earlier writings, can be explained according to this broader evolution in the Greek language of the first century CE. For all this research on the late emergence of the vocative, Dickey was not aware of the debate over the earliest rendering of the divine name in the Septuagint and assumed that κύριος went back to the third century BCE, as the translation for both ‫ יה ה‬and ‫אדני‬. My purpose in referencing her study is to show that from the perspective of the extant evidence, the Jewish use of κύριος beginning in the second or first century BCE matches the accepted grammatical usage of the vocative κύρι . The Graeco-Roman use of κύριος had evolved another way by the first century CE: in its application to gods and human rulers. The title is frequently used in classical literature as a divine appellative as early as the seventh century BCE, and later in the poems of Pindar: Zeus dispenses both good and Dickey, KYRIE, Ο , Domine: Greek Politeness in the Roman Empire, ournal of Hellenistic Studies 121 (2001): 1–11. Ibid., 6. Dickey, KYRIE, 5. In total, the double vocative is found in the Septuagint (18 ), the New Testament (4 ), Philo (1 ), and Pseudepigrapha (6 ). Dickey, KYRIE, 6. She situates in this development the use by Philo, in his address of Gaius as κύρι ι , around 40 CE (Leg. 356), and the uses of Epictetus. Personal correspondence via email. For the scope of the evidence, see Dickey, KYRIE, 6–7 n. 28.

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bad, Zeus the master of all ( ς ω κ ριος), which written about 478 BCE. The common use of this title for gods and rulers, however, is rare before the first century BCE, but then increasingly thereafter. Augustus (12 BCE) is called ς κα κ ριος Κα αρ οκρ ωρ. Herod the Great is called α ις ρ ς κ ριος, and Agrippa I and II are called κ ριος α ι ς ρ ας, and α ι ς ας ρ ας κ ριος. Nero (54–68 CE) becomes ο ο α ος κο ο κ ριος. According to Foerster f rom Nero on a steady increase in the use of κ ριος may thus be discerned. Most scholars agree that the absolute use of κύριος takes on new political and religious meanings in the eastern Mediterranean, but the point of contact between this Hellenistic secular usage and its employment in Jewish texts and or NT texts has been debated. This debate takes a crucial turn on the assumption of whether or not κύριος was in the original Septuagint translation. Foerster, for example, has stated: There are no instances of Philip of Macedonia, of Alexander the Great, or of any of the early Diadochoi being called κ ριοι, just as there are no instances of gods being called κ ριοι in this period  The first example of κ ριος used of deity is to be found in the L , and in the light of the above exposition it is most unlikely that this is following an accepted usage.

Charles Dodd also emphasized the peculiar use of κύριος in the L : T he absolute use of κύριος in the L differs essentially from such uses as κύριος Isthmian 5, 53. BGU 1197, 1:15. O I 415; 418; 423; 426; 425. SIG 814, 31. Foerster, κύριος, TDNT. These uses are probably connected to philosophical trends in the Hellenistic world. For example, Adolf Deissmann considered the use of κύριος to result from the cultural environment in which a proper name for God was peculiar against the backdrop of universalizing theological trends. See Deissmann, Die Hellenisierung des semitischen onotheismus (repr. 1903; Analecta Gorgiana 179; Georias Press, 2010), 1–28. Wilkinson summarized this perspective on the emergence of κύριος by saying it was more suggestive of universality and better suited to rival in the current idiom the claims of emperors and gods of the Greco-Roman world. Wilkinson, Tetragrammaton, 51. This debate has its origins primarily in the work of Wilhelm Bousset, yrios Christos: A History of the Belief in Christ from the Beginnings of Christianity to Irenaeus (trans. John E. Steely; repr. 1913; Waco: Baylor University Press, 2013), 119–52; see important critique in the foreword by Larry Hurtado. Other studies espouse similar views: Rudolf Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament (vol. 1; trans. Kendrick Grobel; repr. 1951; Waco: Baylor University Press, 2007), 1.124–26; Sigfried Schulz, Maranatha und Kyrios Jesus, ZN 53 (1962): 128–31; Hans Conzelmann, Outline of the Theology of the New Testament (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), 82–84. Foerster, κύριος, TDNT.

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αρ ις, or κύριος α ι ς ς used of a reigning king. Conzelmann, drawing on the extant evidence for the use of both ιαω and the Tetragrammaton in Jewish-Greek biblical texts, argued against the pre-Christian use of κύριος in the L : Christian use of κύριος cannot be derived from the L . The reverse is the case. Once the title began to be used, it was found again in the Bible. The position of Qumran scholars, primarily Stegemann, Skehan, and Tov, has favored the emergence of κύριος at a later stage in the Septuagint’s transmission, at least not part of the Pentateuch’s translation in the mid-third century BCE. As with the evolving grammatical uses of κ ρι in the first century CE, more study is needed on how Jewish authors used κύριος in light of the comparative developments from the Greco-Roman world. The brief sampling of extant epigraphic and literary sources suggests that Jewish use of this title parallels the evolution of κύριος in the broader Hellenistic milieu.

Charles H. Dodd, The Bible and the Greeks (repr. 1935; London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1954), 11: There is no exact parallel to this in earlier or contemporary Greek. The complete disappearance of any personal name for God from the Greek Bible, and the substitution of the title κύριος, amounted in itself to a manifesto of monotheism. Conzelmann, Theology of the New Testament, 83–84. The arrival and occupation of the Romans in the Near East under Pompey in 63 BCE provides the background to the first century BCE work, Psalms of Solomon. The sovereignty of an earthly ruler, presumably a direct allusion to Pompey, is brought into confrontation with God. Pss. Sol. 2:29: He said, I shall be lord of land and sea (κ ριος ς κα α ς),’ and he did not understand that it is God who is great ( ς ας), powerful in his great strength. He is king over the heavens, judging even kings and rulers  now, official of the earth, see the judgment of the Lord ( κρ α ο κ ρ ο ) This text offers a vignette into the process whereby the secular Hellenistic notions of κ ριος are transferred to God. The process is underway by the mid-first century BCE.

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The Original Rendering The analysis of key sources in the previous chapter is necessary to assess scholarly views on the divine name in the textual history of Greek biblical texts. As early as 1929, Baudissin argued in his multi-volume study that κύριος was the original translation of the Tetragrammaton in the Septuagint, which then facilitated or in uenced the later replacement of the Tetragrammaton with ‫ינדא‬, the formal equivalent of κύριος. Many found Baudissin’s argument appealing until the ood of new epigraphic, inscriptional, and archaeological evidence in the following decades. For example, Waddell announced the discovery of P. Fouad 266b, the first known LXX source to have the Hebrew Tetragrammaton within a Greek biblical manuscript. This cast doubt on Baudissin’s understanding of the relationship between ‫ ינדא‬and κύριος. Robert Hanhart summarized the reversal of Baudissin’s position: The replacement of the sacred name with ‫אדני‬, undoubtedly first transmitted masoretically, but already presumed in the Damascus Document 15:1 , is the precursor and origin of the translation of the name ‫ יה ה‬in the LXX as κύριος, not (contra Graf Baudissin) the consequence drawn from it by the Masoretes.

For Hanhart, this meant that by the mid-third century BCE the Tetragrammaton was already replaced with the title ‫ אדני‬in speech. When the need arose to translate the Hebrew text into Greek, the natural equivalent was chosen, κύριος. But Hanhart still believed that κύριος was the original translation in the LXX. Other scholars took the evidence in a different direction. Modifying the earlier proposals of Bousset and Bultman—and with the new pre-Christian Greek biblical discoveries—Kahle, Cerfaux, Schulz, and Conzelman advanced the view that κύριος for God in the LXX was a Christian scribal innovation that began in NT writings and then spread to the LXX copies. The result was the standard replacement of Jewish terms for God with κύριος, as represented in the extant record, of which our earliest manuscripts date to the second century Baudissin, Kyrios, 2:1–17, esp. 15: Aus dem Gebrauch des κύριος in unserem Septuagintatext läßt sich nämlich ersehen, daß in der alexandrinischen Übersetzung von Anfang an nicht nur die Aussprache κύριος für jhwh vorausgesetzt, sondern das κύριος auch geschrieben war. Robert Hanhart, Introduction: Problems in the History of the LXX Text from its Beginnings to Origen, in Martin Hengel, The Septuagint as Christian Scripture: Its Prehistory and the Problem of Its Canon (trans. Bark E. Biddle; Edinburgh & New York: T &T Clark, 2002), 7–8.

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CE. Fitzmyer took the scarcity of evidence for κύριος to indicate that κύριος probably was not the earliest rendering in the Greek translation, but he also suggested that some uses of κύριος, especially in biblical quotations within early Jewish-Greek literature, are difficult to explain on the assumption that later Christian scribes introduced κύριος in the process of transmission.

11.1

Stages of Development in Greek Manuscripts

The work of Stegemann and Skehan can be contrasted with the conclusions of Hanhart. They drew on the evidence from Qumran to argue that ‫ אדני‬replaced the Tetragrammaton about a century after Hanhart assumed, namely the second century BCE. Thus, the use of κύριος, as a spoken replacement, could not have been original. Stegemann offered a three-stage scenario for the evolution of rendering the divine name, to which Skehan added a fourth stage. The first stage began with rendering the Tetragrammaton as ιαω, represented by 4Q120. Skehan’s reasoning is based on the logical priority of ιαω: The MS which allows for the pronunciation, or at least a pronounceable and normal writing, of the Yhwh name in the same hand employed for the rest of the text, derives from a period of LXX transmission prior to all texts which in written form warn against utterance of the Name.

Paul Kahle, The Cairo Geniza, 222; Lucien Cerfaux, Kyrios dans les citations pauliniennes de l’Ancient Testament, in Recueil Lucien Cerfaux (BETL 6; Gemblouz: Duculot, 1954), I. 173–88; Schulz, Maranatha und Kyrios Jesus, 128–31; Conzelmann, Theology, 82–84. Fitzmyer, The Semitic Background, 122, mentions the use of κύριος in a citation of Deut 7:18–19 from the Letter of Aristeas 155, but importantly asks, are we to invoke the habits of Christian scribes in a text-tradition such as this? Similarly, one could here appeal to further pseudepigraphical writings of this period. He also states that This evidence for the use of κύριος among Jews in pre-Christian times or among Jews contemporary with early Christians in Palestine does not outweigh the evidence for the preservation of the tetragrammaton in most Jewish copies of the Greek OT. But it is evidence that must be considered in the background of the following data that are to be adduced from the Semitic area in the next section of this paper. Fitzmyer’s focus was elucidating the origin of the NT title for Jesus, but here he shows the importance of a late Second Temple Jewish use. Skehan, The Divine Name, 29. Here he cites as further support Diodorus, Origen, and the onomastic uses of ιαω, for example, in P. Oxy 2745 which must be archaic  from an earlier period of Jewish practice. Skehan also mentions that Rokeah himself carries the quest farther back and sees the compilation as an anonymous work of the 3d 2d cent. B.C. He makes the point that not merely the names expounded, but also the diction of the interpretation, are drawn from the text of the LXX, and the whole was meant to be a companion to that version. See D. Rokeah, Oxyrhynchus Papyri XXXVI (ed. R. A. Coles et al.; London: British

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Because κύριος is the equivalent of the qere ‫אדני‬, and evidence for ‫ אדני‬as a spoken replacement is sparse until the second century BCE, there was no reason why κύριος should be used. Skehan’s second stage is the use of the Tetragrammaton in the squareAramaic script, as found in P. Fouad 266b. The paleographic date of this manuscript suggests that its use of the Tetragrammaton is a later development. Also, because the square-Aramaic script signals spoken avoidance, this rendering of the divine name logically follows the use of ιαω. The use of paleo-Hebrew for the Tetragrammaton in Greek biblical manuscripts marks the third stage. The manuscripts with this practice date on paleographic grounds later than the earlier texts and show clear evidence of the so-called και revision of the Old Greek towards a Hebrew exemplar. Skehan states that f rom Qumran practice we can see the impetus for a spread of this usage as a phenomenon of the 2d half of the 1st cent. B.C., continuing through the following century until the fall of the settlement in A.D. 68. Skehan here re ects more broadly on the use of paleo-Hebrew for divine names at Qumran and Na al ever, positing that the trend to use paleo-Hebrew characterizes manuscripts from both locations, beginning around 50 BCE. It is important to keep in mind, though, that while Qumran Hebrew manuscripts, written in the square-script, use paleoHebrew for the divine name, there are no Qumran Greek manuscripts that use paleo-Hebrew. The fourth stage of development is the arrival of Kyrios in at least the Christian copies of LXX as a replacement for Ι ‫יה ה‬. Whether this practice had its roots in a corresponding usage in Jewish LXX scrolls continues to be asked; clear indications one way or the other are hard to find. Skehan concludes his essay by examining the translation practices of LXX versions of Ezekiel, Isaiah, and the Minor Prophets against the background of spoken and written avoidance of the divine name at Qumran and Masada. He first addresses LXX Ezekiel, Papyrus 967, commenting that the use of ‫ אדני יה ה‬in first person speech of the prophet is a deliberate, comprehensive structure essential to the book. He states that this structure makes sense when ‫אדני‬ ‫ יה ה‬is understood as My Lord, Yahweh,’ with lord’ not a title or name, but a

Academy, 1970), 1–6. For further confirmation and in-depth treatment of P. Oxy 2745, see Shaw, Earliest Non-Mystical, 15–17. Skehan, The Divine Name, 32: In Hebrew MSS the paleohebrew Yhwh was used to differentiate the name from the rest of the text; in a Greek MS Aramaic script would do that much. Ibid., 33. Skehan, 34.

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personal claim by the prophet. Importantly, almost all occurrences of ‫אדני‬ ‫ יה ה‬in OG Ezekiel are rendered by the single name κύριος, although a cluster of 15 occurrences use Κ Ο . This Christian copy cannot be far from a Jewish prototype Whether from the original translator or from later retouchings (such as Ziegler would put in the 1st cent. A.D.), we have in its 15 Κ Ο readings evidence of a Jewish source that judged the best re ection of ‫ אדני יה ה‬in a translation to be one that followed the Palestinian qere Adonay Elohim. This presupposes that the same source was satisfied that Kyrios in the text was a proper re ection of Hebrew ‫ ;אדני‬and it betokens acceptance also of the practice whereby Kyrios elsewhere in the translation stood (some 217 times in the book) for Yhwh occurring alone—on the basis, clearly, of the same Adonay as qere.

Skehan equates the early rendering of ‫ אדני יה ה‬with the single κύριος in LXX Ezekiel to be on par with the similar patterns of rendering in LXX Isaiah. The first two instances do not re ect an established pattern (7:7; 25:28), but he views the remaining 15 uses all to be in line with Ezekiel. Lastly, Skehan considers the evidence from the LXX Minor Prophets, where there are 23 occurrences of ‫אדני יה ה‬, and 12 read only κύριος, 9 render κύριος ς, and 2 κύρι κύρι . For the LXX prophetic corpus, excluding Jeremiah, Skehan suggests that in the background of the earliest stage of the Greek text is the Jewish qere Ibid., 35. The origin of the compound ‫ יה ה אדני‬has been debated. Some scholars see it as original to the prophetic utterance, such as Moshe Greenberg, Ezekiel 1–20 (AB; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983), 64–65, and Friedrich Baumgärtel, Zu den Gottesnamen in den Büchern Jeremia und Ezechiel, in Verbannung und Heimkehr. Beiträge zur Geschichte und Theologie Israels im 6. und 5. Jahrhundert v. Chr. Festschrift Wilhelm Rudolph (ed. Arnulf Kuschke; Tübingen: Mohr, 1961), 27, while others have argued that ‫ אדני‬entered the text as a written qere to avoid pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton; see Schiffman, Sectarian Law, 217, followed by Ben-Dov, The Elohistic Psalter, 97–100. Ben-Dov suggests that even if the compound is original to the prophet, other instances outside the book of Ezekiel must be related to scribal activity. In his effort to support the view of Schiffman regarding the secondary insertion of ‫ אדני‬as a gloss that found its way into subsequent editions of prophetic books, Ben-Dov drew on the scribal activity of the 1QIsaiah scrolls. But these do not seem to support the hypothesis of the secondary nature of ‫ אדני‬in Ezekiel when viewed in light of the larger situation of divine name variants in the biblical scrolls explored in Chapter 3. Thus, I find Skehan’s assessment plausible. The patterns of divine names renderings in Papyrus 967 are extensively debated in the discussion of the origin of nomina sacra, which has some relevance for the present discussion, although I find Skehan’s outline sufficient for the present discussion. For recent bibliography, see Ingrid E. Lilly, Two Books of Ezekiel: Papyrus 967 and the Masoretic Text as Variant Literary Editions (VTSup 150; Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2012), 52–54. Skehan wrote Κ Ο Κ , but this is clearly a typo; Cf. Skehan, The Divine Name, 36. Skehan, The Divine Name, 36–37.

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tradition. The spoken ‫ אדני‬stands for both the written ‫ יה ה‬and ‫ אדני‬separately, and parallels the use of κύριος for both terms separately or combined ‫אדני יה ה‬. The qere tradition also in uenced the rendering of κύριος ς as ‫אדני יה ה‬. Skehan concludes that this cannot have come about as exclusively the work of Christian scribes. His view is based on the assumption that Christian scribes would not have implemented the Palestinian qere. Overall, Skehan holds that ιαω was the original rendering of the Tetragrammaton, but for some books, the use of κύριος was developed among Jewish writers.

11.2

Critique of the Divine Name as Original in the LXX

Albert Pietersma published a widely in uential essay in support of the view that κύριος was the original rendering of the Tetragrammaton in the LXX. He dismissed the arguments of scholars who favored the Hebrew Tetragrammaton as original because it occurred in manuscripts with a Hebraized recensional character. He notes the evidence for ιαω but does not elaborate on its significance. In support of κύριος, he furnishes grammatical evidence, internal to the LXX, for the articulation non-articulation of the title, suggesting that these patterns could not have come about unless κύριος was original. Several scholars have continued to follow Pietersma’s proposal, with some modifications. Emanuel Tov, in various studies on textual criticism and early Jewish scribal practices, continues to find the hypothesis of Stegemann and Skehan the most compelling, though he observes that the evidence is not decisive. Recently, there is a trend to push against an either or solution to the original rendering Ibid., 38. In short, a simple assessment of the extant material, bearing no witness to the use of κύριος, has led scholars to conclude that translators used some form of the Tetragrammaton in the original manuscripts. But the main critique of this view is its naivety in the historical method—the lack of evidence cannot be taken as proof of the absence of something. On the other hand, the grammatical and exegetical arguments in favor of the early use of κύριος appear more methodologically sophisticated, but they often produce a historical picture that marginalizes the extant material. Most notable are the studies of Wevers, Rösel, Perkins, and Smith. Wevers noted an important qualification to Pietersma’s study. Based on the system of articulation that Pietersma finds in the Greek Pentateuch, Wevers showed that this cannot be universally true. For example, one would expect to find in the Greek Psalter, which is an isolate type of translation, the rendering of the proper noun ‫ יה ה‬by an unarticulated κύριος. This is the case for many occurrences, but there are also many exceptions, thus Pietersma’s arguments cannot be applied to the Greek Psalter. See Wevers, The Rendering of the Tetragram, 33–34; cf. also Perkins, KΥΡΙΟ , 17–33.

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of the Tetragrammaton in Greek biblical text. This tendency, for example, is evident in Shaw, Hong, and Wilkinson, each of whom suggests that diversity was probably characteristic of divine name practices from the earliest attempts at translating the Hebrew scriptures into Greek. Skehan and Fitzmyer both considered the originality of ιαω to have the strongest support, while the written use of κύριος likely played some role in early Jewish Greek texts, even if the evidence is largely indecisive. Skehan’s view was built on the Jewish qere tradition in the background of LXX Ezekiel, Isaiah, and the Minor Prophets. Fitzmyer cites the example of κύριος in Deut 7:18–19 from the Letter of Aristeas 155, which is difficult to explain as a later insertion by a Christian scribe. As argued convincingly by Shaw, an either or answer to the question of the original rendering is likely an oversimplification. In this regard, he offers an insightful observation that some passages call for individual explanations, as may be required for Gen 4:26; Exod 3:15; 8:22; 28:32; 32:5; and 33:19. This leads Shaw to suppose that diversity must have been characteristic of the earliest stages of the LXX’s translation: there was no one original’ form but different translators had different feelings, theological beliefs, motivations, and practices when it came to their handling of the name. The most we can know, empirically, must be drawn from a careful description of each extant source, on an individual basis.

11.3

The Originality of

From the analysis of the writing procedure for the divine name in 4Q120, we know that ιαω is not a replacement of an earlier designation. The slight spaces around ιαω, in a manuscript otherwise written in scriptio continua, re ect similar spacing conventions to 4Q127 and P. Fouad 266a, c. In P. Fouad 266b, the large spaces may have been measured for κύριος, initially, but these spaces were then filled with the square-Aramaic Tetragrammaton. This practice suggests that both κύριος and the square-script Tetragrammaton, at least in P. Fouad 266b, were probably not original. The purpose of the Tetragrammaton within the Greek text was likely intended to avoid its pronunciation. This means that a pronounceable form of the divine name would have the logical priority in this See Koog Hong, The Euphemism for the Ineffable Name of God, 478–79; Shaw, The Earliest Non-Mystical Jewish Use of . Robert Wilkinson also settles on the position that different conventions were held by different groups–perhaps at the same time. See Wilkinson, Tetragrammaton, 63. Skehan, The Divine Name, 34; Fitzmyer, The Semitic Background, 122. Shaw, Earliest, 262, 271.

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manuscript’s textual history. The best hypothesis, in light of available options, would be that ιαω was the earliest divine name in P. Fouad 266b. If we suppose that the earliest rendering was κύριος—as the translation of the spoken qere ‫ אדני‬already in force when the Greek translation began—there would be no rationale for a scribe to replace κύριος with a pronounceable form like ιαω. Yet, how little we know about the origins and purpose of the Septuagint, cast uncertainty about the earliest rendering of the divine name. We can say that during the first century BCE, we have evidence of contrasting Greek practices: 4Q120 re ects both the spoken and written use of the divine name, while the end product of P. Fouad 266b re ects the written use of the Tetragrammaton, but its avoidance in speech. The purpose of the paleo-Hebrew Tetragrammaton in 8 ev IIgr, P. Oxy 3522, and P. Oxy 5101 was likely to avoid the pronunciation of the divine name. These manuscripts are dated from the mid-first century BCE to the end of the first century CE. The interpretation of the Tetragrammaton as a sign of Hebraization or revision towards a Hebrew exemplar is based on other features involving revision that are found in these manuscripts. The procedure for writing the divine name is more difficult to understand. The paleo-Hebrew Tetragrammaton, at least in 8 ev IIgr and P. Oxy 3522, is written left-to-right in sequence with the Greek text, apparently by the same scribe. The paleoHebrew yod in P. Oxy 5101 seems to be inaccurately assimilated with the shape of the heh, which may suggest the scribe did not have genuine knowledge of the Tetragrammaton. In these cases, the scribes would not be spelling the divine name, but instead drawing it, as a symbol they encountered in the text they were copying. If this is correct, the basic implication of the procedure would mean that the scribe is copying from a Vorlage that also contained the Tetragrammaton in paleo-Hebrew, which was simply replicated in the extant copies, but we can only guess how far back this tradition goes. The extant Greek biblical manuscripts from the Second Temple period show both the use and avoidance of the divine name in speech, as well as its continued writing. The latter continued well into the first century CE until Christian scribes largely took over the transmission of Jewish-Greek texts and worked to standardize terms for God with κύριος, albeit in the nomina sacra forms, a convention which seems to have been in force even in the earliest stages of Christian transmission. It is improbable, nonetheless, that κύριος entered Greek biblical manuscripts only in the first-century CE—the views of Kahle, Cerfaux, Schulz, and Conzelman. In addition to the widely held view that Jews began using κύριος in speech when reading Greek biblical texts, written uses of κύριος are indicated by a sampling of key epigraphic and literary sources, such as Greek additions to Esther, 2–3 Macc, Ach 70 and 71, 4Q126 (?), and

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P. Fouad 203. The use of κύριος in these texts cannot be explained as the result of later Christian scribal insertions. Jews likely began writing texts with κύριος during the second century BCE. The emergence of κύριος probably happened first among Jewish-Greek writers composing original Greek works, not biblical translations. At some later point, this approach to naming God worked its way into pre-Christian Greek biblical texts. That some translation patterns are best explained as having the qere system in the background—suggested by Skehan through the rendering of ‫ אדני יה ה‬as the singular κύριος—suggests that κύριος somehow made its way into Jewish scribal circles before the first century CE. But this does not appear to go back to the translation of the Pentateuch. At the same time, the use of κύριος among Jews never became standard to the same extent that we find in Christian copies of the LXX. This much is suggested by the lack of κύριος in the extant record and its avoidance among prominent Jewish-Greek writers like Josephus and 4 Macc.

A very insightful essay by Kristin De Troyer examines this situation and arrives at a similar conclusion with different data. See De Troyer, The Pronunciation of the Names of God, 154–156.

PART V The Name “YHWH” in Early Judaism

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Scholars have demarcated the second century BCE as the time of major shift in divine name practices: from use to full-scale avoidance. Only a handful of sources, however, mostly references in antiquity to various restrictions on the use of the Tetragrammaton, are quoted in support of this notion. The death of the high priest Simon the Just (ca. 200 BCE), first proposed by Geiger, and affirmed by most scholars since, marked the beginning of changes in the Temple liturgy. Hesitancy to use the divine name followed. Urbach and Stegemann have both nuanced the significance of this event. Importantly, for example, without the commentary of t. Sotah 13.8, a much later rabbinic passage, we would only know that Simon the Just raised his hands over the whole congregation of Israelites, to pronounce the blessing of the Lord with his lips, and to glory in his name (Sir 50:20). The later rabbinic passage associates the death of Simon with the cessation of the divine name in Israel. Skehan’s suggestion that Sir 50:20 seems to make not only the blessing, but also the pronouncing of the Name, a special privilege of the high priest is inferred from later Qumran and rabbinic sources. This view cannot be derived from the evidence of Ben Sira himself. It has been demonstrated, moreover, especially by Marmorstein, that rabbinic literature expresses a range of views on the use and non-use of the Tetragrammaton, resulting from diverging halakhic positions and theological perspectives. In addition to the famous text about Simon the Just in t. Sotah 13.8 ( b. Mena 109b; b. Yoma 39b), rabbinic sources contain evidence not only for prohibitions in speech and writing, but also continued use in speech alongside various restrictions or concealments. The rabbinic sources are clearly important to keep in mind, but given their late date and concerns with the social and political worlds of Tannaitic and Amoraic periods, the surviving sources from the Second Temple period should now take precedence in our understanding of the Tetragrammaton’s early history. Infringement of this regulation results in the death penalty, or worse, no share in the world to come; m. Sanh. 10:1; b. Sanh. 55b. MegTaan; b. Roš Haš 18b. m. Ber. 9:5; m. Tamid 7:2 ( m. Sotah 7:6); m. Yoma 3:8, 4:2, 6:2; Sifre (Num 6:27). y. Yoma 3:7 40d–41a ; b. Qidd. 71a; m. Sukkah 4:5; t. Yad. 2:20; Exod. Rab. 3:7; b. Pes. 50a. The extreme prohibitions we find in Talmudic literature probably re ect the staunch rabbinic positions against Babylonian magical practices. Becker, The Magic of the Name, 403–407.  B ill S

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Apart from Ben Sira and the rabbinic sources, the traditional view that the divine name was avoided by the end of the second century BCE has been argued with reference to Qumran literature, most frequently 1QS 6:27–7:2, CD 15:1–4, and 1QIsa . This evidence is typically dated beginning around 100 BCE. According to 1QS, a member is expelled from the yahad if he pronounces the holy name, and in CD it is prohibited in oaths. A tradition of spoken avoidance in uenced the copying of 1QIsa , which is often cited along with the Qumran evidence. The evidence of 1QIsa , in particular, is often assumed to be broadly representative. Jumping forward to the first century CE, the next major sources for the traditional view are Philo and Josephus. In describing the divine name on the head plate of the high priest, Philo writes that only those whose ears and tongues are purified may hear or speak it in the holy place, and no other person, nor in any other place at all (Mos. 2.114–15). Josephus describes the revelation of the divine name at the burning bush (Ant. 2.275– 276) and claims that it is not lawful for him to say ( ρ ς ο οι ι ). Apart from occasional references, this is the sum data for divine name avoidance, which amounts, more-or-less, to a skeleton of sources—Sir 50:20 (200 BCE), Qumran Masada material (100–50 BCE), and Philo and Josephus (first century CE). These have been taken as proof of a decisive transition, from use to avoidance, beginning in the second century BCE. Scholars have filled in some gaps with rabbinic sources, but disagree on where and how these sources impact the larger picture. In the earliest stage of Qumran scholarship, Trevor assumed that divine name avoidance in the sectarian scrolls re ected a trend of the times. Stegemann also considered the sectarian avoidance of the Tetragrammaton to be repräsentativ  für das damalige lokale Judentum of the Second Temple period. In light of the current study, as well as the growing appreciation in recent decades for the complexities and varieties of Judaism in antiquity, such views need to be reevaluated. In my view, the sources outlined above are not as representative as often implied. The view that Qumran practices re ect a trend of the times was stated before volumes of research was conducted in the following decades; this was also the time when scholars leaned more heavily on the rabbinic accounts. In fact, most of the Second Temple manuscript evidence for divine name avoidance is found in Qumran literature. This includes their practice of transmission by dictation (1QIsa ), consistent avoidance in original yahad compositions, and evidence of avoidance in copies of works that are non-yahad in origin. In addition, Qumran scribes employed John C. Trevor, A Paleographic Study of the Jerusalem Scrolls, BASOR 113 (1949): 15. Stegemann, Gottesbezeichnungen, 195.

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Tetrapuncta and the use of paleo-Hebrew script for divine designations in some manuscripts from each group of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Aramaic, biblical, yahad scrolls, and scrolls of non-yahad origin). Furthermore, if the prohibition in yahad texts on using the divine name was in force, the very fact that a prohibition existed underscores the likelihood that some people were accustomed to using the divine name. A similar principle can be found in Marmorstein’s suggestion that if b. Sanh. 55b could issue the death penalty for pronouncing the Tetragrammaton, then some knew the pronunciation and used it. In addition to a more balanced appraisal of the Qumran divine name conventions, there is a need to reevaluate the representative value of the evidence from Philo and Josephus. This topic cannot be sufficiently addressed here, but I brie y discuss a few examples that illustrate the particularity of their views. A close reading of these sources, as well as greater attention to the social and literary contexts of Philo and Josephus, suggests that the evidence they contain is best understood as idealistic and tied to their respective social standings. Philo of Alexandria (25 BCE–50 CE) interprets the Greek version of the revelation of the divine name to Moses (Exod 3:14) according to the principle that God does not have a name. This is a philosophical position. While similar views can be found among contemporary writers, it seems unlikely to have been prevalent among the majority Jewish population of the first century CE, most of whom were not philosophers. Philo recounts Moses’ question to God, and writes: God replied: First tell them that I am He Who is ( ι ), that they may learn the difference between what is and what is not, and also the further lesson that no name at all can properly be used of Me (ο ο α αρ α ο κ ριο ο αι), to whom all existence belongs.

This re ects Philo’s interpretation of the passage according to philosophical principles: God intended to impart a philosophical or ontological lesson. His description of the High Priest’s vestments in Migr. 103 can be understood in a similar way:

Philo, Mos., 1.75 (trans. Colson, LCL 261). McDonough suggests that, t he closest one can get to an accurate designation for God in Philo’s thinking is (and its counterpart ). This is indicated by his frequent use of these terms, and also by his statement in Abr. 121 that is God’s proper name (κ ρ ω α ι κα αι), with the term κύριος used here as an adjective fitting, proper. Still, the use of is not technically a name; this passage is anyhow kept in tension with Mut. 12 and Mos. 1.75, where God cannot have a name. For discussion and bibliography, see McDonough, YHWH at Patmos, 79–84.

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The other parts of that vesture call for a longer treatment than the present occasion allows, and must be deferred. Let us however examine the parts by the extremities, head and feet. On the head, then, there is a plate of pure gold, bearing as an engraving of a signet, a holy thing to the Lord’ ( α ο ρ ο κα αρ , ο κ ω α ρα ος, α α κ ρ ) (Exod 28:36) and at the feet on the end of the skirt, bells and ower patterns. The signet spoken of is the original principle behind all principles, after which God shaped or formed the universe, incorporeal, we know, and discerned by the intellect alone; whereas the ower patterns and bells are symbols of qualities recognized by the senses and tested by sight and hearing.

Philo appears to reference the Tetragrammaton as the signet ( ρα ος) and describes this as the principle behind all principles. In other passages, too, even when the namelessness of God is not in the background, Philo advances his interests in allegorical interpretation. In Mos. 2.114–116, 132, for example, he gives a more extensive discussion of the priestly vestments. His description differs from the account given in Migr. 103, but a tendency to explain the divine name allegorically or symbolically is evident: A piece of gold plate, too, was wrought into the form of a crown with four incisions, showing a name which only those whose ears and tongues are purified may hear or speak in the holy place, and no other person, nor in any other place at all. That name has four letters, so says that master learned in divine verities ( ρα ρ α ο ο ο ι ο ος αι), who, it may be, gives them as symbols of the first numbers, one, two, three and four; since the geometrical categories under which all things fall, point, line, superficies, solid, are all embraced in four. So, too, with the best harmonies in music, the fourth, fifth, octave and double octave intervals, where the ratios are respectively four to three, three to two, two to one and four to one. Four, too, has countless other virtues, most of which I have set forth in detail in my treatise on numbers. Under the crown, to prevent the plate touching the head, was a headband. Above the turban is the golden plate on which the graven shapes of four letters, indicating, as we are told, the name of the Self-Existent ( ο α ο ος), are impressed, meaning that it is impossible for anything that is to subsist without invocation of Him.

The four-letter name can be none other than the Tetragrammaton. According to this passage, the divine name alone occurred on the α ο ‫ ( י‬plate ), incised with four letters. But this cannot be drawn directly from the wording of Migr. 103. Philo apparently quotes the Septuagint, albeit in paraphrase. He smooths its close equivalency to the Hebrew text by rendering κα κ ις α κ ω α with ο κ ω α. The rest of the quotation is verbatim. Mos. 2.114–116.

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scripture itself, which uses either ‫ ליה ה ד‬or α α κ ρ ο (Exod 28:36), and so diverges even from Philo’s earlier account in Migr. 103. Yet, another important difference can be discerned in Moses. The information Philo gives here appears to have been transmitted to him by another source. The line so says that master learned in divine verities ( ο ος) who, it may be, gives them as symbols , and in the continued quotation as we are told seem to point in this direction. After reporting on the divine name, we see Philo’s primary interest. He elaborates on the geometric exegesis of the four letters, an interpretation that is more important to him than a historical-critical investigation of divine name practices in the Temple. Philo presents, not a complete objective picture, but what he considers to be an ideal view of the divine name. It is holy, in keeping with his particular philosophical thoughts about the otherness of God, a deity inexpressible and incomprehensible, but equally important is the symbolic value of the Tetragrammaton’s letters. It is difficult to see how the exegetical concerns of Philo would be representative of Judaism more broadly. There are, no doubt, Jewish sources that corroborate Philo’s claim regarding the spoken restriction of the divine name—only used by priests with purified ears and tongues and only in the Temple—but it leaves much to be filled in regarding the use and non-use of the divine name in Jewish society at large. That Philo promoted an idealized view of the divine name is also suggested, ironically, by another work of Philo, Embassy to Gaius. Philo and others journey to Rome in order to represent the Jews who became the victims of violent outbursts in Alexandria, Egypt (40 CE). The Roman emperor Gaius Caligula appears to have knowledge of the divine name, which indirectly shows that the tradition about its restricted use and concealment are idealistic notions. In Embassy 353, Caligula responds to the Jewish delegation, and mocks the Jewish God. Philo reports: In a sneering, snarling way he said, Are you the god-haters who do not believe me to be a god, a god acknowledged among all the other nations but not to be named by you? (ο ο ο ς α , αρ ι ο ς οις ω οο ο, κα ο α ο ). And stretching out his hands towards heaven he gave utterance to an invocatory address which it was a sin even to listen to, much more to reproduce in the actual words.

For discussion of how the quotations of Josephus and Philo relate to the biblical passages, see R. P. Gordon, Inscribed Pots and Zechariah IV 20–21, VT 42 (1992): 120–23. Francesca Calabi, Conoscibilità e inconoscibilità di Dio in Filone di Alessandria, in Arrhetos Theos, 35–54. Josephus describes the delegation in Ant. 18.257–60.

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Philo writes that Caligula utters a sinful invocatory address. This could be a blasphemous use of the divine name, as many understand it, or more generally mocking slander; the same applies to Philo’s last phrase that it would be a sin to reproduce the actual words. The point is that knowledge of the divine name appears to be more widespread than conveyed by the other works of Philo. If Caligula does in fact have knowledge of the divine name, perhaps in the form ιαω as Frank Shaw suggests, then the view that only the high priest used the name in the most holy place once a year does not re ect reality. Near the end of the first century CE, Josephus wrote a detailed account of the Jewish war with Rome (66–73 4 CE) and later a comprehensive history of the Jewish people. In these works, he discusses the burning bush episode and the priestly vestments. In War 5.235, he mentions that the high priest wore the golden crown inscribed with the divine name, bearing the sacred fourvowels ( α ος κ α ρω ρ ρ αα α α ω α αρα). In Ant. 3.178, Josephus’ description is similar: ς ρο ς ρ α ι ο ο ρο ορ α ι ος . Both passages underscore that for Josephus the divine name was sacred ( ρ ς). This description is natural given that before Josephus reinvented himself as a historian, he was a priest. Josephus recounts the burning bush episode in Ant. 2.275–276 and claims that he is not permitted to say or disclose the divine name ( ρ ς ο οι ι ) because it is sacred. It is also the case, however, that Josephus focuses almost entirely on the spoken avoidance of the divine name. The lack of attention in Josephus to Shaw, Earliest, 93–94, considers it likely that Gaius used ιαω on this occasion, rather than the Hebrew Tetragrammaton. An even earlier reference to the divine name on the high priest’s tiara goes back to the legendary encounter between high priest Yaddua and Alexander of Macedon. After the siege of Tyre, Alexander continues his campaign south towards Jerusalem. He approaches the high priest and to everyone’s amazement bows before the priest and adores the divine name: For Alexander, when he saw the multitude at a distance, in white garments, while the priests stood clothed with fine linen, and the high priest in purple and scarlet clothing, with his mitre on his head, having the golden plate whereon the name of God was engraved, he approached by himself, and adored that name, and first saluted the high priest. (Ant. 11.331) This passage probably tells us much more about Josephus’ view of the divine name, during the first century CE, than the dubious encounter in which Alexander adores the name. In fact, Josephus felt the need to justify this claim by having Parmenio question Alexander’s show of obeisance, Alexander says that he is, in fact, not honoring the priest, but the god who appointed the priest. Josephus then quotes Alexander giving Parmenio this explanation based on a dream that he had while in Dios, a placename derived, of course, from the name Zeus. Josephus gives the reader a little maze of warrants to justify his claim about the divine name. For the Greco-Roman audience, this could easily be read with Zeus in the background, while on the face of it, Josephus enhances the prestige of the Jewish tradition through an encounter with Alexander.

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the actual writing of the divine name is apparent when he discusses the bitter water ritual for the trial of a woman caught in adultery (Ant 3.270–73 Num 5). The writing of the divine name is a major element of the ritual, but Josephus shows no interest. Instead, he focuses on the consequences of taking oaths falsely. A recent study by Nathaniel Andrade underscores how closely the references to divine name avoidance, especially for the Jewish literary elite of the first century CE, are tied to their cultural milieu. Andrade suggests that Jewish writers like Josephus and Philo benefited from the way that Jews could treat their divinity as especially preeminent and his name as sacred. In Andrade’s view, the internal phenomenon of Jewish divine name avoidance became one among the complex and diverse forms of cultural negotiation that characterized Jews of the Hellenistic and Roman imperial periods. He summarizes the dynamics of this cultural negotiation as follows: Josephus ushers his foreign readers into an examination of his society’s history and sacred traditions, but he does not disclose his divinity’s name. By concealing it, he clarifies to foreign readers that he will not communicate it to them and thereby augments the prestige that knowing it confers.

Andrade concludes that Josephus and Philo represent two articulate expressions of the Tetragrammaton’s status as a secret name that only certain Jews knew or should know  by doing so, such Jews sought to enhance the importance of knowing the name and, thereby, their own prestige, and furthermore, Jews like Philo and Josephus did not merely preserve the secrecy of the Tetragrammaton, but they sometimes amplified its reputation for secrecy and engaged in the active milling, polishing, and promotion of the reputation’ of According to Josephus, in the ritual the woman is required to swear an oath of her innocence: Now when these oaths were over, the priest wiped the name of God out of the parchment ( ς ι ρας α ας ο ο α ς ι ), and wrung the water into a vial. He also took some dust out of the temple if any happened to be there, and put a little of it into the vial, and gave it her to drink. (Ant. 3.272) If the woman was innocence, she would have a healthy birth. Otherwise, the bitter water would cause her belly to swell that she might die. The divine name, and the dirt of the Temple, function here as an ancient polygraph test. Writing and consuming the divine name is significant to the ritual, and the specifics of these writing practices are later discussed in the Bavli, but in the first century this emphasis is missing. Nathaniel Andrade, The Jewish Tetragrammaton: Secrecy, Community, and Prestige among Greek-Writing Jews of the Early Roman Empire, JSJ 46 (2015): 1–26. Ibid., 205. Andrade, Jewish Tetragrammaton, 205. Ibid., 203.

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their secret. Andrade’s study offers a compelling description of another way in which the treatment of the divine name in Philo and Josephus is tied to their social contexts. Their discussions of the divine name cannot be taken as broadly representative. The views espoused by Philo and Josephus clearly resonate with practices of avoidance during the first century CE, namely the sacredness of the name and its restriction among priestly groups, but it is inaccurate to extrapolate from these writers that the divine name was unanimously avoided. As shown throughout this study, spoken avoidance of the divine is only part of the story, yet most ancient writers—from Ben Sira to the yahad through Philo and Josephus and into the rabbis—all tend to focus on the spoken avoidance in their explicit statements about the divine name. That these sources represent idealized views of the divine name is underscored by the fact of its continued and pervasive use, even at times in speech, but especially in writing throughout the Second Temple period.

Ibid., 203, 218. Andrade here quotes Paul C. Johnson on his theory of secretism in Secrets, Gossip, and Gods (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 3, where the idea of secretism is not just about knowing something secret, but involves actively disclosing to outsiders that a secret exists and that it is being concealed from them.

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Speech and Text in the Second Temple Period At the beginning of the Second Temple period, we can identify at least two streams of tradition related to speaking and writing the divine name. These coexisted, while also evolving in distinct ways in disparate geographic regions of the eastern Mediterranean and Mesopotamia. These divine name customs show both continuity and discontinuity with earlier Israelite Judahite traditions of the late Iron Age. On the one hand, the Elephantine papyri and ostraca re ect common uses of the divine name, although in the short Aramaic form(s). The blessing and curse formulae, along with various invocations of God, are very similar to what we find in the Lachish and Arad letters from the sixth century BCE. On the other hand, discernible in the early post-exilic period of the eastern diaspora in Babylon, several sources suggest that scribes began to avoid the Tetragrammaton in writing and speech. Stegemann proposed that ‫ םיהלא‬became the technical replacement for the Tetragrammaton in Babylonian scripture reading, where the Priestly source and Ezekiel re ect the Kraft und Heiligkeit, also ein Sanktum of the Tetragrammaton. To this tradition, one could add the trend towards avoidance in the Elohistic Psalter. The Aramaic and Hebrew passages of Ezra and Daniel show the con uence of both streams of tradition for the use and avoidance of the divine name. The Aramaic of Ezra was likely in uenced by the tradition that developed in the eastern diaspora, where the divine name was replaced with ‫אלהים‬. Stegemann considered the use of ‫ אלהים‬in Babylon to have motivated the standard use of ‫ אלהא‬in Jewish Aramaic. ‫אל‬would not have been used Denn diese bezeichnung ist allzu nahe verwandt mit dem akkadischen ilu(m), under the assumption that writers in Babylon would not associate the God of Israel too closely with the Babylonian pantheon. In other contexts, however, scholars have identified a desire to link the God of Israel with other deities. For example, Jewish authors appear to have intentionally forged links, not with the Babylonian deities, but with the Persian Zoroastrian god of the sky, Ahura Mazda. This was achieved through the use of the epithet God of Heaven. On the surface, this might seem to contradict the principle behind Stegemann’s explanation for why ‫ אל‬was not used in Babylonian Judaism, but there are important differences Ben-Dov, Elohistic Psalter, 82, 88. Stegemann, Gottesbezeichnungen, 209: Wenn man diesen ins Aramäische übertrug, sprach man wahrscheinlich an diesen Stellen ‫אהלא‬.

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between the Babylonians and the Persians. In terms of the historical context, Cyrus and the Persians are given an extraordinarily positive profile in the postexilic literature of the Hebrew Bible, especially Second Isaiah. Key personas among the returnees, namely Ezra and Nehemiah, are deeply connected to the administrative apparatus that restored the Judeans to their ancestral land and funded the rebuilding of the Temple. In contrast, the Babylonians were hated for their ruthless devastation of Jerusalem and the Temple’s destruction (e.g., Ps 137:8–9). The preference for ‫ אלהים‬may also be related to the fact that ‫אל‬ was often construed as a proper name, whereas ‫ יא‬was used as compound epithet or title. The latter does not make explicit claims about the deity’s identity. Furthermore, God of Heaven may have been especially welcomed among Jews because Ahura Mazda is not technically named God of Heaven in the Avestan literature, even though conceptually this was Ahura Mazda’s domain. In the Achaemenid context, the Tetragrammaton became increasingly irrelevant as political and diplomatic necessity required divine designations with broader geographic and cultural connotations. The use of divine titles and epithets in Aramaic literature of the Persian period contributed to an environment that favored the non-use of the divine name in Jewish Aramaic literature. Importantly, the impetus or mechanism for the non-use seems to be unrelated to the belief in the sacredness of the divine name. Instead, non-use was initially a response to the new political environment of the Achaemenid administration. Jewish-Aramaic writers from the Hellenistic period appear to have inherited the convention of divine name avoidance, reified earlier by the political circumstances under which some Jews endeavored to tell their stories in Aramaic. From the survey of all extant literature, we see that every Jewish-Aramaic writer uses ‫אלהא‬, but distinct designations developed in different regions. The Aramaic authors at Elephantine introduced vernacular forms of the divine name, ‫ יה‬and ‫יהה‬, which continued in later documentary sources. A tradition of avoidance began with the Babylonian diaspora’s replacement of the Tetragrammaton with ‫אלהים‬, but for convenient political and diplomatic reasons Ezra and Daniel maintained the custom of divine name avoidance. The Persian and early Hellenistic periods must be understood as a time of overlap This explains why even the Elephantine community, so accustomed to using the divine name, also needed to employ ‫ יא‬in the Jedaniah letters. The non-use of the divine name in Aramaic could be explained according to the same principle that Martin Hengel famously described for its avoidance among Hellenistic Jews, who made a virtue of a necessity. The Greek philosophical tradition required that God was nameless, and Jewish writers appropriated this view theologically in their divine name practices. Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism, 1:266–7.

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in both the use and avoidance of the divine name. There are developments in the use of certain titles and epithets, but a straightforward and irreversible trend towards avoidance oversimplifies how complex it was to name God in early Judaism. The fact that both Ezra and Daniel use the Tetragrammaton in Hebrew passages, but consistently avoid it in Aramaic, is yet another suggestion that a simple trend towards avoidance was not characteristic of the divine name’s Second Temple history. In diaspora communal readings of scripture, there must have been some Jews who struggled to understand Hebrew. Maintaining the relevancy of the Jewish scriptures required translation, the most likely background for the emergence of the Septuagint. Pertaining to the divine name, Stegemann reasoned that it would have been rendered in the regional language. But for the Greek-speaking diaspora, the question arises of what options for the divine name were available during the mid-third century BCE? Based on comparative evidence from the Greco-Roman sources, the use of κύριος for God would have been a novelty, an unexpected and innovative use of the title at the time. Whether or not κύριος in uenced the use of ‫ אדני‬as a replacement for the Tetragrammaton in Palestine in the second century BCE is perhaps unknowable given the current state of evidence. There is, at least, very little extant written evidence for this scenario. The Jewish-Greek literary and epigraphic sources, datable on paleographic grounds to the Second Temple period— Ach 70, 71, 4Q126 (?), and P. Fouad 203 show that κύριος enters the extant record in the first century BCE. These sources confirm that Jews were using κύριος for God before the rise of Christianity in the late first-century CE, even if these uses were not in Greek biblical texts. At any rate, if ιαω was read as κύριος then one could still see how κύριος may have encouraged the use of ‫אדני‬. But supposing that κύριος preceded ‫אדני‬, or vice versa, does not challenge the proposal that ιαω preceded both. As I suggested above, it seems unlikely that a qere would have been given for ιαω, because the name itself occurs with vowels. It I mentioned earlier that Dan 9 is a late Second-Temple penitential prayer that uses the Tetragrammaton in Hebrew, while the Aramaic tales are much earlier. This depicts the inverse of a simple trend towards avoidance, and if anything suggests that language was a critical factor in divine name customs. Hengel believed that theos hypsistos was the common designation of God in Greek, as found in synagogue inscriptions, which in turn was related to the Jewish-Greek interpretation of God of Heaven’. He also shared the idea that κύριος was the spoken substitute for the Tetragrammaton in Jewish worship, and that this would have been quite incomprehensible to the Greeks as a designation for God. See Hengel, Jews Greeks, and Barbarians, 95; ibid., Judaism and Hellenism, 297. Stegemann considered κύριος to have this role; cf. Gottesbezeichnungen, 198. As mentioned previously, this position was also held by Baudissin and others; cf. Kyrios, 2:1–17.

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would be counter-intuitive to write the divine name phonetically if it was not intended to be pronounced. The inscriptions from Mt. Gerizim (200–168 BCE) show evidence for a priestly use of the Tetragrammaton in Hebrew, but its avoidance in Aramaic. The Tetragrammaton occurs in paleo-Hebrew, in the context of an entirely paleo-Hebrew inscription. There are, additionally, two Hebrew inscriptions that use ‫ אדני‬in the square-Aramaic script. Language is one factor for determining the use of divine designations, but the priestly or sacred context here appears to determine the use of the Tetragrammaton. This supports the view that the divine name was given distinct treatment by Samarian Samaritan priests, perhaps connected to ritual purity concerns by this time. As Magen and others have suggested, the evidence from Mt. Gerizim presents a hierarchy of divine name practices in the early second century BCE: ‫ אדני‬and ‫ אלהא‬for common use, and the Tetragrammaton for sacral use. It is difficult to know, however, how broadly applicable this hierarchy might have been; even at Mt. Gerizim, the hierarchy of practices is disrupted by the Tetragrammaton in the square-Aramaic script on the silver ring. Many Hebrew works found among the Dead Sea Scrolls that are of nonyahad authorship originated in the third and second centuries BCE. These scrolls provide extensive evidence for the use of the Tetragrammaton, which occurs some 253 , mostly in the square-Aramaic script. While a fine tuning of the compositional date for these works is necessary before drawing historical conclusions, we can be confident that some of these works were composed in the Hellenistic period. The extant copies, most of which date to the first centuries BCE and CE, show that the Qumran scribes, even as they avoided the divine name in their own works, continued to copy the divine name in the scrolls of non-yahad origin. The consistent avoidance of the divine name in Aramaic, whether at Gerizim or Qumran, is striking, especially when compared with the widespread use of the divine name in Hebrew. The Genesis Apocryphon, an Aramaic rewritten biblical text, for example, avoids the divine name, while Jubilees, a very similar work in Hebrew, uses it, even in new material. An even closer comparison might be the use of the Tetragrammaton in the Hebrew apocryphon-type text

It is possible that the ring comes from a later time period, but this is not certain. Skehan gives one example in his description of 11Q5 as a copy, from the 1st half of the 1st cent. A.D., of an instruction book for budding Levite choristers at the Jerusalem temple in the time of the Oniad high priest, c. 200 B.C. It is based on the last third of the canonical Psalter (Pss 101–150) with added materials, of which a limited amount was introduced during its reemployment among the Essenes at Qumran. Skehan, The Divine Name, 42.

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of Genesis from Masada (Mas 1m). In these cases, the genre of literature is not decisive for the use or avoidance of the Tetragrammaton, but rather language. For the third and second centuries BCE, especially given the Hebrew literature that shows extensive use of the Tetragrammaton, it must be concluded that alongside practices of avoidance, many Jewish writers continued to use the divine name. As with the Persian period, overlap in the use and non-use of the divine name is also characteristic of the Hellenistic period. All original yahad works avoid the Tetragrammaton, often replacing it with ‫אל‬, and related compound epithets. Stegemann considered ‫ אל‬as the technische Ersetzung for the Tetragrammaton in Hebrew compositions, even in scripture reading. As mentioned above, he suggested that ‫ אל‬was indebted to the use of ‫ אלהא‬in Jewish Aramaic, which in turn developed from the earlier Babylonian substitution of the Tetragrammaton with ‫אלהים‬. Yahad scribes, particularly the scribe of 1QS, used the Tetrapuncta for the divine name in copies of biblical, yahad, and non-yahad scrolls. The highest concentration of Tetrapuncta occur between 100–50 BCE, although a few manuscripts date earlier than the first century BCE (4QTS and 4QpapPseudEzek ) and a few later (4QHistText A and Hev Se6). The use of Tetrapuncta gives strong indication that Qumran scribes copied a wide range of works, both biblical and non-yahad in origin. Around the same time that the original yahad works were composed or copied, the Masada copy of Ben Sira was produced. The copyist used ‫ אדני‬as the standard designation for God, replacing the earlier use of the Tetragrammaton in the original, as shown by the more accurate readings in the Cairo Geniza MS B. That the Qumran scribes were responsible for the revision of this text is also suggested by the fact that ‫ אלהים‬is replaced, a characteristic feature of yahad scrolls. The use of ‫ אדני‬as the qere for the Tetragrammaton is evident in the transmission of 1QIsa , but this copy was clearly produced by Qumran Talmon, Masada VI, 98. If one required a social milieu for the type of linguistic transfer that takes place between ‫אלהים‬, ‫אלהא‬, and ‫אל‬, apart from the literary connection of the Aramaic and Hebrew writings at Qumran, then the most immediate connection between Judea and Babylon is Damascus. In Ben-Dov’s monograph, Head of All Years, he describes how the Aramaic-speaking Syrian milieu mediated the transfer of Mesopotamian lore – both scientific and mythological – to Judea and to Jewish scholars at the time. See Ben-Dov, Head of All Years: Astronomy and Calendars at Qumran in their Ancient Context (Leiden: Brill, 2008). The connection with the Qumran literature is explicit, though not without some debate, in the Damascus Document, so named after the New Covenanters in the Land of Damascus, and The Well is the Law, and its diggers’ are the captives of Israel who went out of the land of Judah and dwelt in the land of Damascus, (CD 6:4–5 and 4QD 3 ii); cf Ben-Dov, Divine Assembly, 17.

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scribes as well. All of the evidence for divine name avoidance in Hebrew from the first centuries BCE and CE, whether in copies of biblical scrolls or those of non-yahad origin, is tied to the Qumran context of transmission. Moreover, regarding the scrolls of non-yahad origin, most of the copies of these works date to the first century BCE. This does not necessarily point to the active use of the Tetragrammaton in new compositions. It does show, however, that many scribes did not have a problem copying texts that regularly used the Tetragrammaton, even as such texts were not viewed with the same status as biblical texts by the Qumran scribes. The following table shows the date range and occurrences of the Tetragrammaton in scrolls of non-yahad origin during the first century BCE CE. Table 37

Date range and occurrences of the Tetragrammaton in the Scrolls of Non-Yahad in Origin

Date Range

Number of Documents

Occurrences

BCE or before – BCE – BCE – BCE – BCE BCE– BCE – CE – CE

The highest concentration of the divine name is found in the early to midHerodian period (40 BCE–30 CE), but generally spans the first century BCE CE. It is important to stress that these are copies of manuscripts and not original compositions. In total, the non-yahad scrolls that contain the Tetragrammaton comprise roughly 10 of all readable Hebrew scrolls. This material is in need of further research as the use of the Tetragrammaton cannot be explained according to a unified principle. The reasons for its use and avoidance differ with each composition. The occasional non-use of the Tetragrammaton in the Temple scroll, for example, cannot be considered avoidance, since the scroll I refer to Emanuel Tov’s count of some 600 texts, of which 400–500 are large enough for analysis. See Tov, Scribal Practices, 262–63. I divided the 54 documents by 550 to arrive at the estimate of 10 .

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regularly uses it in other passages. The author’s compositional strategy of using the first-person divine voice requires the omission of the Tetragrammaton in several cases. In Jubilees, the Tetragrammaton occurs in new material, such as Rebekah’s blessing (4QJub ). The evidence for divine name avoidance in other scrolls, as we saw in 4Q408 3, or the use of ‫ אל‬where the Tetragrammaton might be expected, as in Mas 1l, is further evidence that Qumran scribes are primarily responsible for the avoidance practices of the extant copies. These do not provide strong evidence for broader practices of avoidance. The earliest Greek biblical texts provide evidence for the divine name beginning in the first century BCE. P. Fouad 266b provides evidence for the use of the Tetragrammaton in writing, but given the contrastive scripts, the reader probably avoided its pronunciation. We do not know the qere, but by this time it was likely κύριος. This view is supported, not just with reference to the use of κύριος in Jewish-Greek literature that originates in the late Second Temple period, but through hints in the extant epigraphic and literary record that κύριος was used by the first century BCE among Jews (or Israelites ), as indicated by the epitaphs Ach70 and Ach71 from Rheneia, P. Fouad 203, and possibly 4Q126, although some aspects of these sources are unclear. While P. Fouad 266b shows evidence for divine name avoidance in speech beyond the confines of Qumran, the evidence should not be pressed too far. This is one manuscript from one location. Also dating to the first century BCE is 4Q120 and its use ιαω. Ironically, the only Greek manuscript with a pronounceable form of the divine name comes a Qumran cave. As discussed above, however, it seems unlikely that the Greek texts were read at Qumran; the reason(s) for their presence in the caves is unclear. The Greek biblical manuscripts show both the use and non-use of the divine in the first century BCE. It is not possible to know for sure what practices were followed in the mid-third century BCE translation of the Pentateuch into Greek, but ιαω seems to be the least problematic and requires the least amount of justification, explanation, and or special pleading. If this is true, then the copy of Leviticus (4Q120) from the first century BCE would show continuity in the use of the divine name in writing, and perhaps also in reading, for the first two hundred years of the Septuagint’s transmission. The first century BCE witnesses many types of divine name avoidance, especially in speech, including the reading of biblical scrolls at Qumran, as well as the Greek biblical scroll from Egypt (P. Fouad 266b). But this material is paralleled by practices that cannot be interpreted at face value as avoidance, for example, the previously mentioned occurrence of ιαω in 4Q120 and the use of the Tetragrammaton in Hebrew scrolls of non-yahad origin. ιαω may also be attested in 4QpapparaExod gr (4Q127). This text has not been identified as

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biblical, and as far as the reading is accurate, it provides an additional point of analogy with the use of the Hebrew Tetragrammaton in works of non-yahad origin. This would suggest that the Greek and Hebrew forms of the divine name, ιαω and ‫יה ה‬, from the third to first centuries BCE, were employed in biblical copies of manuscripts, but also used in a range of compositions that continue to develop themes of earlier literature. Such uses, even if only in writing, show that the divine name was widespread, occurring in copies of scrolls of non-yahad origin, Hebrew biblical texts, Greek biblical texts, and perhaps also Greek parabiblical texts. In summary of the first century BCE, overlap is the most accurate description for divine name practices. The Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek, sources of the first century CE also provide evidence for both the use and avoidance of the Tetragrammaton. The Qumran scribes maintain avoidance as their hallmark custom. Philo and Josephus enter the stage, emphasizing the divine name’s sacredness and ineffability. As suggested above, however, their views are most likely idealistic, tied to their respective philosophical and literary worlds. That the divine name continued in written and spoken use is suggested by the apotropaic prayers and exorcistic texts. In 11QApocryphal Psalms (11Q11) and 8QHymn, the Tetragrammaton is integral to the function and efficacy of these prayers to guard against evil forces and expel demons. These prayers represent a broader cultural phenomenon, which is illustrated by two different types of texts: the individual songs of 11Q11 that are of non-yahad origin, which generally cohere with the appended Ps 91, but also the Jewish-Greek apotropaic prayer of P. Fouad 203. Moreover, the compilation of previously individual songs in 11Q11 may suggest that priests of the yahad, during the mid-first century CE, wrote the Tetragrammaton, and perhaps also pronounced it in the special context of ritual exorcism. In the Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls, the divine name continued to be avoided. For some writers, as indicated by the priestly themes of the New Jerusalem text, the divine name was avoided because the author believed that it was sacred, but for others the reasons are unclear. 11QAramaic Job, for example, uses ‫אלהא‬ to replace the Tetragrammaton, but also for every Hebrew term for God. The translator was not avoiding the Tetragrammaton per se, but simply aiming for a readable and consistent text. Still, these positions are not mutually exclusive. The author of 11QAramaic Job may have believed in the divine name’s sanctity while also replacing other terms for God. The use of paleo-Hebrew for the Tetragrammaton, as well as for other divine titles and epithets, increases in the first century CE, but this does not preclude the continued use of the square-Aramaic script in many other works. Skehan proposed a linear development in which 4QpPs (4Q171) and 1QpHab introduce the practice of systematic substitution of paleohebrew characters for all

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occurrences of certain divine names: at the minimum, for Yhwh; as time goes on, for other divine names as well. The full collection of evidence shows little development or spreading of the paleo-Hebrew script, apart from the general observation that some of the early pesharim use the square-Aramaic script, while some of the later ones use paleo-Hebrew. In short, chronology is not a factor in the use of paleo-Hebrew, but rather scribal preference, or perhaps as Brooke suggests, the function of various manuscripts. According to paleographic date, the highest concentration of texts that contain the Tetragrammaton in the square-Aramaic script (30 BCE–30 CE) overlap with texts that contain the Tetragrammaton in paleo-Hebrew. Beyond Qumran, we also find evidence for the Tetragrammaton in the paleo-Hebrew script in three Greek biblical texts from the first century CE: Greek Twelve Minor Prophets Scroll (8 ev IIgr), a fragment from Job (P. Oxy 3522), and some parts of Psalms (P. Oxy 5101). The use of this script suggests that the divine name was avoided in reading. κύριος seems to be the qere. Lastly, the diversity of divine name practices during the first century CE is well illustrated by the fact that 11Q11, a Hebrew apotropaic prayer that uses the Tetragrammaton, dates to around the same time as the Jewish-Greek prayer, P. Fouad 203, which uses κύριος, for presumably the same purposes. The discoveries from the Judean desert in the mid-twentieth century show that the avoidance traditions, beginning in the post-exilic period, continued into the first-century CE. The accounts of the rabbis and early Jewish writers such as Philo and Josephus confirm this picture. However, a careful evaluation of all extant evidence for the use and non-use of the divine name in Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek demonstrates that the claims of pervasive avoidance have overshadowed the basic fact that the divine name continued to be written in many texts, and probably read aloud in some. The evidence also shows that the story of the Tetragrammaton is not just about its continued use in the first century CE, but also about its earlier non-use in the Aramaic literature of Achaemenid Judaism. The motivations for non-use appear unrelated to pious Skehan, The Divine Name, 22. Brooke, Aspects, 48–49. Miller also stated that the use of paleo-Hebrew was indeed a late development in the history of the community but it did not precede or follow the tradition of writing texts in square script and texts wholly in paleo-Hebrew, but developed alongside of these traditions. Miller, Use of Paleo-Hebrew for the Divine Name, (MA Thesis; McMaster University), 63. Tov observed the chronological overlap between paleoHebrew and square script practices, and suggested that different scribal habits rather than a different chronological background must be assumed. See Tov, The Paleo-Hebrew Biblical Texts Found at Qumran, 356. Stegemann also noted the overlapping practices, Gottesbezeichnungen, 206.

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and priestly avoidance in later Hebrew texts. Jews in new diplomatic and political contexts imaginitively construed divine titles and epithets to name God in ways amendable to their shifting theological views and international settings. These Aramaic naming conventions became reified into a linguistic phenomenon of avoidance, evident later in the Qumran Aramaic scrolls. On the broad scale, we can detect a gradual trend towards avoidance, but the second century BCE was not a decisive prism. The literary and epigraphic evidence points not only to different modes of avoidance, but also variant trajectories in the use of the divine name throughout the Second Temple period.

Appendices for Evidence of Use and Non-use of the Tetragrammaton The data set for the yahad sectarian scrolls comprises 122 documents drawn from works listed as sectarian nature by Emanuel Tov, Scribal Practices, Appendix 1: 1Q14, 1QpHab, 1Q15, 1QS, 1QSa, 1QSb, 1QM, CD, 1QH , 1Q35, 1Q36, 4Q159, 4Q161, 4Q162, 4Q163, 4Q164, 4Q165, 4Q166, 4Q167, 4Q168, 4Q169, 4Q170, 4Q171, 4Q172, 4Q173, 4Q174, 4Q177, 4Q180, 4Q181, 4Q186, 4Q252, 4Q254, 4Q255, 4Q256, 4Q257, 4Q258, 4Q259, 4Q260, 4Q261, 4Q262, 4Q263, 4Q264, 4Q264a, 4Q265, 4Q266, 4Q267, 4Q268, 4Q269, 4Q270, 4Q271, 4Q272, 4Q273, 4Q280, 4Q285, 4Q286, 4Q287, 4Q289, 4Q290, 4Q291, 4Q292, 4Q293, 4Q298, 4Q301, 4Q319, 4Q320, 4Q321, 4Q321a, 4Q322, 4Q326, 4Q394, 4Q395, 4Q396, 4Q397, 4Q398, 4Q399, 4Q410, 4Q420, 4Q421, 4Q427, 4Q428, 4Q429, 4Q430, 4Q431, 4Q432, 4Q433a, 4Q434, 4Q435, 4Q436, 4Q437, 4Q438, 4Q439, 4Q440, 4Q440a, 4Q464, 4Q471, 4Q471, 4Q473, 4Q477, 4Q491, 4Q492, 4Q493, 4Q494, 4Q495, 4Q496, 4Q497, 4Q501, 4Q502, 4Q503, 4Q507, 4Q508, 4Q509, 4Q512, 4Q513, 4Q514, 5Q11, 5Q12, 5Q13, 6Q15, 6Q18, 11Q13, 11Q14, 11Q16.

Some documents listed in Tov’s appendix are not considered sectarian here. I exclude the following from Tov’s list: 4QTest (4Q175), 4QTanh (4Q176), 4QHistWork (4Q183), 4QCommunal Confession (4Q393), 4QShirShabb - (4Q400–407), 4QDibHam - (4Q504–506), and 4QShir - (4Q510–511). The evidence from these scrolls is collected in the non-yahad section.

The Tetragrammaton in Biblical Quotations of Yahad Works The Tetragrammaton occurs 46 (in 15 documents). Table 38

Occurrence of the Tetragrammaton in Biblical Quotations of Yahad Works

Scroll and References QpHab . ; . , ; QpMic ( Q ) – , QpZech ( Q ) ,

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Table 38

Occurrence of the Tetragrammaton in Biblical Quotations of Yahad Works (cont.)

Scroll and References

Frequency

QpIsa ( Q ) – QpIsa ( Q ) , , Qpap pIsa ( Q ) – ii ; ; QpMic? ( Q ) QpNah ( Q ) – ii QpZeph ( Q ) – QpPsa ( Q ) – ii , QpPsa ( Q ) QMidr Eschat ( Q ) – QMidr Eschat ( Q ) – QMidr Eschat ? ( Q ) QHodayot ( Q )

,

,

; –

;

;

–

– iii ,

i , , ; – ;

,

;

,

; –

;

ii ,

iv ,

, , ;

–

i ,

Divine Name Variants and Replacements I list below divine name variants in biblical, yahad, and non-yahad scrolls. These come from a comparison of the Qumran biblical scrolls with the Massoretic version of the Hebrew Bible. The yahad and non-yahad variations derive from occasions where these scrolls quote, paraphrase, or allude to biblical passages. The referencing system to the Dead Sea Scroll manuscripts are provided in the format given by the QUMRAN module of Accordance Bible Software. Variant Patterns in Qumran Biblical Manuscripts null for ‫יה ה‬ 4Q22 37:7 4Q24 f9i 10 17:38 4Q27 f12:3 4Q134 f1:8 4Q134 f1:11

Exod 31:13 Lev 22:31 Num 18:26 Deut 5:2 Deut 5:5

29

N IC S 8Q3 f17 25:7 4Q47 f9i 12:5–6 4Q83 f19ii 20:34 11Q5 fEiii:10–11 4Q88 7:6 11Q5 3:4 11Q5 3:6 11Q5 14:10 11Q5 14:11 4Q87 f26i:8 4Q98 1:8 1QIsa 2:10 1QIsa 38:14 1QIsa 43:19 1QIsa 46:18 1QIsa 49:5 1Q8 26:29 1QIsa 54:4

Deut 10:15 Josh 7:14 Ps 69:17 Ps 105:3 Ps 109:27 Ps 121:5 Ps 121:8 Ps 135:3 Ps 135:4 Ps 126:2 Ps 33:12 Isa 2:3 Isa 45:8 Isa 52:5 Isa 56:6 Isa 59:21 Isa 60:20 Isa 66:16

‫ יה ה‬for null 4Q27 f1 4:12 4Q30 f9:3 1QIsa 24:31 1QIsa 32:12–13 1QIsa 43:19 1QIsa 49:25 11Q5 21:2 8Q4 f1:18 4Q44 f2 5i:1 4Q51 6a b:10 11Q5 16:8–17:17 1QIsa 46:18 4Q111 3:8

Num 12:6 Deut 10:2 Isa 30:19 Isa 38:20 Isa 52:5 Isa 60:21 Ps 138:1 Deut 11:4 Deut 32:37 1 Sam 6:3 Ps 145 (16 ) Isa 56:6 Lam 1:17

Scroll reads ‫ל‬, MT reads ‫ל יה‬. Perhaps visual confusion was at play: Scroll reads ‫ היה אל ה‬, while MT reads, ‫יה ה אלהי‬. Scroll reads ‫ ללי‬, MT reads ‫ ללי יה ה‬. 11Q5 contains the formula ‫יה ה‬ 16 where it is missing in MT.

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‫יה ה אלהים‬

‫יה ה‬

4Q16 f1:5 4Q37 10:12 4Q140 f1:11 4Q145 f1:5 4Q134 f1:27 4Q40 f1 3:3 4Q41 2:10–11 4Q30 f4:2 4Q128 f1:21 4Q138 f1:2 8Q3 f17 25:5 8Q4 f1:3 Q1 1:20 1QIsa 30:26 11Q5 5:9 4Q134 f1:27

Exod 13:5 Exod 13:5 Exod 13:5 Exod 13:5 Exod 13:11 Deut 3:20 Deut 5:5 Deut 7:4 Deut 10:13 Deut 10:13 Deut 10:13 Deut 10:13 Deut 10:13 Isa 37:20 Ps 129:8 Exod 13:11

‫ יה ה‬for ‫יה ה אלהים‬ 4Q51 7a:1

1 Sam 6:20

‫ אלהים‬for ‫יה ה‬ 4Q1 f1:1 4Q27 f23 26:12 4Q134 f1:10 4Q51 f100 101:2 4Q51 f147 148:1 1QIsa 35:14 11Q5 23:14 11Q5 23:15 4Q76 2:8 4Q49 f1:8

Gen 22:14 Num 23:3 Deut 5:5 2 Sam 12:15 2 Sam 20:19 Isa 42:5 Ps 144:3 Ps 144:5 Mal 2:17 Judg 6:13

‫ יה ה‬for ‫אלהים‬ 4Q41 5:6 4Q135 f1:3

Deut 5:24 Deut 5:24

293

N IC S 4Q137 f1:28 4Q11 f20:7 4Q51 3a e:18 4Q51 10a:4 4Q52 f10 23:6

Deut 5:24 Exod 18:21 1 Sam 2:25 1 Sam 10:26 1 Sam 23:14

‫ יה ה‬for ‫אדני‬ 4Q14 6:41 1QIsa 6:6 1QIsa 6:28 1QIsa 8:27 1QIsa 17:1 1QIsa 21:31 4Q82f52b 54b 56b 59 64:2 4Q111 3:6 4Q111 3:7 4Q98a f2ii:1 1Q8 16:3

Exod 15:17 Isa 6:11 Isa 7:14 Isa 9:7 Isa 21:16 Isa 28:2 Amos 7:8 Lam 1:14 Lam 1:15 Ps 30:9 Is 38:14

‫ אדני‬for ‫יה ה‬ 1Q5 f16 19:9 1QIsa 3:24 4Q57 f9ii 11 12i 52:27 4Q56f16ii 17 20 20a:4 11Q5 5:1 11Q5 5:10 4Q111 3:10 4Q111 3:10 11Q5 5:6

Deut 32:27 Isa 3:17 Isa 24:1 Isa 26:4 Ps 128:5 Ps 130:1 Lam 1:18 Lam 1:17 Ps 129:4

‫ יה ה אלהים‬for ‫אלהים‬ 4Q135 f1:4 4Q128 f1:25 4Q138 f1:7 1QIsa 20:7 1QIsa 45:3

Deut 5:26 Deut 10:21 Deut 10:21 Isa 25:9 Isa 54:6

294

N IC S

‫ יה ה‬for ‫אדני יה ה‬ 1QIsa 1QIsa 1QIsa 1QIsa

22:30 41:22 43:17 49:26

Isa 28:22 Isa 49:22 Isa 52:4 Isa 61:1

‫ אדני יה ה‬for ‫יה ה‬ 1QIsa 41:5 1Q8 21:17 4Q82 f52b 54b 56b 59 64:1 4Q82 f52b 54b 56b 59 64:14

‫א‬

‫ יה ה‬for ‫יה ה‬ 4Q56 f10 13:27 4Q78 f18 20:2 4Q72 f4 5:8 4Q56 f3ii:11

‫ יה ה‬for

‫א‬

Isa 19:19 Joel 4:8 Jer 9:2 Isa 5:25

‫יה ה‬

1QIsa 15:2

‫א‬

‫ יה ה‬for

Isa 18:7

‫א‬

‫יה ה אלהים‬

4Q51 f61ii 63 64a b 65 67:21

‫א‬

Isa 49:7 Isa 49:7 Amos 7:8 Amos 7:17

‫ אדני יה ה‬for

‫א‬

4Q60 f18:1

2 Sam 5:10

‫יה ה‬ Isa 22:25

‫ אדני יה ה‬for ‫יה ה אלהים‬ 4Q14 2:39 4Q82 f88 91i:2

Exod 9:30 Jonah 4:6

295

N IC S

‫ יה ה אלהים‬for ‫אדני יה ה‬ 1Q8 26:33 1QIsa 50:10

Isa 61:1 Isa 61:11

‫ יה ה אלהים‬for null 4Q134 f1:5–7 4Q134 f1:24

Deut 5:1 Deut 5:16

null for ‫יה ה אלהים‬ 4Q134 f1:18 8Q3 f17 25:24 4Q137 f1:23 4Q137 f1:59 Hev Se5 f1:8

Deut 5:12 Deut 5:12 Deut 5:16 Deut 6:2 Deut 6:4

‫ אלהים‬for null 4Q44 f5ii:6–7 11Q5 5:9

Deut 32:43 Ps 129:8

‫ אד ני‬for null 11Q5 9:10

Ps 119:68

null for ‫אדני‬ 1QIsa 41:22 1QIsa 49:26

Isa 49:22 Isa 61:1

‫ אדני אלהים‬for ‫אדני יה ה‬ 1QIsa 42:6

Isa 50:5

Text-critical, 11Q5 mistake for ‫ אלי ם‬for ‫אל הים‬.

296

N IC S

‫ אלהים‬for ‫אדני‬ 11Q5 14:12

Ps 135:5

‫ יה ה‬for ‫יה‬ 11Q5 14:10

Ps 135:3

‫ אדני אלהים‬for ‫יה ה אלהים‬ 1Q5 f5:1

‫יה ה‬

Deut 15:14

‫ ה‬for

‫ה‬

4Q51 6a b:4

‫ יה ה‬for ‫לם‬

1 Sam 5:11

‫י‬

4Q111 2:2

Lam 1:7

Replacements and Substitutions in Yahad Scrolls ‫ אל‬for ‫יה ה‬ CD 3:8 CD 20:4 CD 20:19 1QS 2:15 1QS 2:16 1QS 11:15 1QSb 5:25 1QM 4:6 1QM 4:7 (2 ) 1QM 15:3 1QM 19:11 1QH 14:32 1QH 19:32 1QH 22:34 4Q173 f5:4 4Q492 f1:10

Exod 4:14 Isa 54:13 Mal 3:16 Deut 29:19 Deut 29:20 Ps 119:12; 1 Chr 29:10 Isa 11:2 Deut 33:21 Hab 2:16, Zech 14:13 1 Chr 21:12 1 Chr 21:12 Ps 119:12, 1 Chr 29:10 1 Chr 21:12 Ps 119:12, 1 Chr 29:10 Ps 118:20 1 Chr 21:12

297

N IC S 11Q13 2:4 11Q13 2:11

Deut 15:2 Ps 7:9

‫ אל‬for ‫אלהים‬ CD 20:21 1QS 3:24

‫אל‬

Mal 3:18 allusion (‫אל‬

‫אלהי י‬

‫אל‬

‫)אל י‬

‫ אל י‬for ‫יה ה‬ 1QM 6:6 1QM 10:8

Obad 2:1 Exod 15:11

‫ אל אלים‬for ‫יה ה‬ 1QM 14:16 4Q491 f8 10i:13

Ps 21:14 Ps 21:14

‫ אל לי‬for ‫יה ה‬ 4Q285 f8:4 11Q14 f1ii:7

‫ אל‬for

‫א‬

Num 6:24 Num 6:24

‫יה ה‬

CD 19:8

Zech 13:7

‫ אל ה ד‬for ‫אדני יה ה‬ 1QM 18:8

Jer 14:7

‫ אל י‬for ‫יה ה אלהים‬ 4Q504 f1 2Rv:9

Lev 26:44

The phrase ‫ אל י אל‬is extant 50 at Qumran (mostly yahad scrolls), while it occurs only once in the Hebrew Bible (Ps 68:36). This contrasts with the 198 occurrences of ‫אלהי י אל‬ the Hebrew Bible, while the same phrase is found only twice in the Qumran scrolls (4Q379 22 ii 5 and 4Q387 3 5).

298

N IC S

‫ אל‬for ‫י‬ 4Q266 f11:5

‫ יה ה‬for

‫א‬

Joel 2:12 (

‫יד‬

‫)ל‬

‫יה ה‬

4Q162 2:7 4Q177 f10 11:2

Isa 5:24 Zech 3:9

‫ אלהים‬for ‫יה ה אלהים‬ 1QM 10:4 1QM 10:7

Deut 20:4 Num 10:9

‫ אלהים‬for ‫יה ה‬ 4Q252 1 1

Gen 6:3

‫ יה ה אדני‬for ‫אדני יה ה‬ 1Q14 f1 5:1

Mic 1:2

‫ יה ה‬for ‫אדני יה ה‬ 4Q163 f23ii:3

Isa 30:15

‫ יה ה‬for ‫אדני‬ 4Q171 f1 2ii:12

Ps 37:13

‫ אדני‬for ‫יה ה‬ 1QSb 3:1 1QH 5:15 1QH 6:19 1QH 8:26 1QH 13:22 1QH 15:31

Num 6:26 Ps 119:12; 1 Chr 29:10 Ps 119:12; 1 Chr 29:10 Ps 119:12; 1 Chr 29:10 Ps 119:12; 1 Chr 29:10 Exod 15:11

In 1Q14 ‫ אדני‬is reconstructed, but probable given the spacing of the Tetragrammaton.

299

N IC S 1QH 18:16 1QH 19:35 1QM 12:8 4Q163 f23ii:8 4Q428 f12i:4

Ps 119:12; 1 Chr 29:10 Ps 119:12; 1 Chr 29:10 Ps 24:6–9; 99:9 Isa 30:18 Ps 119:12; 1 Chr 29:10

null for ‫יה ה‬ CD 7:11 CD 9:1 1QS 2:2 1QS 2:3 1QS 2:4 1QS 5:11 1QM 13:7 11Q14 f1ii:7

Isa 7:17 Lev 27:28 Num 6:24 Num 6:24 Num 6:25 Zeph 1:6 (2 ) allusion Num 6:25

for ‫יה ה‬ CD 8:15 CD 19:28 1QM 3:9

Deut 7:8 Deut 7:8 Zeph 2:2–3 (?)

‫ ה א‬for ‫יה ה‬ CD 9:5 4Q270 f6iii:19 1QS 8:13

Nah 1:2 Nah 1:2 Isa 40:3

‫ א ה‬for ‫יה ה אלהים‬ 1QM 10:1

Deut 7:21

‫ ה‬for ‫יה ה‬ 1QM 11:1 1QM 11:2 1QM 11:4

1 Sam 17:47b 1 Sam 17:47b 1 Sam 17:47b

300

N IC S

‫ הא‬for ‫יה ה‬ 4Q259 3:4

Isa 40:3

‫ ל י ד‬for ‫יה ה‬ 11Q13 2:9

Isa 61:2

‫ א נ ה‬for ‫יה ה‬ 4Q266 f11:9

Ps 119:12; 1 Chr 29:10

‫ ה אהא‬for ‫יה ה‬ 1QS 8:13

Isa 40:3 (allusion)

for ‫יה ה‬ 1QS 8:14

Isa 40:3

‫ ם‬for ‫יה ה‬ 1QH 10:32

Ps 26:12

Variant Patterns in Scrolls of Non-Yahad Origin Tetrapuncta for ‫יה ה‬ 4Q175 1:1 4Q175 1:19 4Q176 f1 2i:6 4Q176 f1 2i:7 4Q176 f1 2i:9 4Q176 f1 2ii:3 4Q176 f8 11:6 4Q176 f8 11:8 (2 ) 4Q176 f8 11:10 4Q248 f1:5

Exod 20:18 (SP?) Deut 33:11 Isa 40:2 Isa 40:3 Isa 40:5 Isa 49:14 Isa 54:5 Isa 54:6 (‫ םיהלא יייי‬for ‫)םיהלא‬ Isa 54:8 frg.

30

N IC S 4Q306 f3:5 4Q382 f9:5 4Q382 f78:2 4Q391 f36:1 4Q391 f36:3 4Q391 f36:4 4Q391 f52:5 4Q391 f55:2 4Q391 f58:3 4Q391 f65:5 4Q462 f1:7 4Q462 f1:12 4Q524 f6 13:4 4Q524 f6 13:5

frg. 2 Kgs 2:3 frg. frg. frg. frg. frg. frg. frg. frg. frg. frg. Deut 18:1 Deut 18:2

‫ יה ה‬: for ‫יה ה‬ 4Q364 f14:3 4Q364 f23ii:15 4Q364 f24a c:3 4Q364 f24a c:13 4Q364 f25a c:8 4Q364 f26ai:4 4Q364 f26aii:2 4Q364 f26aii:5 4Q364 f26bii e:2 4Q364 f26bii e:3 4Q364 f26bii e:9 4Q364 f28a b:3 4Q364 f28a b:7 4Q364 fK:2 4Q364 fR:2 4Q364 fT:1

Exod 24:12 Num 14:20 Deut 2:31 Deut 3:20 Deut 3:21 Deut 9:12 Deut 9:22 Deut 9:24 Deut 9:25 Deut 10:1 Deut 10:4 Deut 10:11 Deut 10:13 frg. frg. frg.

‫ יה ה‬for (unparalleled) 4Q158 f1 2:7 4Q158 f4:8

Gen 32:30 (Jacob blessing) between Gen 24:6–12

302

N IC S

‫ י ד‬for ‫יה ה‬ 4Q511 f10:12

Isa 24:18; Jer 31:37; Mic 6:2

‫ אדני‬for ‫יה ה‬ 4Q408 f3 3a:6 Mas1l a 8

Ps 45:17 Josh 23–24 (allusion)

‫ אדני‬for ‫אדני יה ה‬ 4Q225 2 i 3

Gen 15:2

‫ אל‬for ‫יה ה‬ MasapocrJosh (Mas 1l) 4Q422 2 5 4Q422 3 11

Josh 23–24 (allusion) Gen 7:16 Exod 11:9–10 (stock expression)

‫ לי‬for ‫יה ה‬ 4Q422 2 9

Hab 2:14 (?)

‫ אלהים‬for ‫יה ה‬ 4Q176 f1 2ii:2 4Q381 f15:3 4Q381 f15:6 4Q381 f17:3 4Q381 f79:6

Isa 49:13 Ps 86:17 Ps 89:7 Ps 21:10 Ps 38:22 (?)

‫ אלהים‬for ‫יה ה אלהים‬ 4Q375 f1i:3 4Q375 f1i:8

Possible variant if syntax is inverted.

Deut 13:18 Deut 12:5

303

N IC S

‫ אלהי אלהים‬for ‫יה ה אלהים‬ 1Q22 f1ii:1 1Q22 f1ii:6 1Q22 f1iii:6

Deut 27:9 Deut 27:9 Deut 27:9

‫ יה ה אלהים‬for ‫יה ה‬ 11Q5 28:10 11Q19 63:8

1 Sam 16:9–10 Deut 21:9

‫ יה ה‬for ‫יה ה אלהים‬ 11Q19 17:16

Deut 16:8

‫ יה ה‬for ‫אלהים‬ 4Q375 f1i:8 4Q158 f10 12:10

Deut 12:14 Exod 22:8

null for ‫יה ה‬ 11Q19 48.9 11Q19 52.8–9 11Q19 53.4a 11Q19 53.9–10 11Q19 53:11–12a 11Q19 53.13–14a 11Q19 54.15–18a 11Q19 55.10b-12 11Q19 56.3–8a 11Q19 56.14–15 11Q19 60.10b-11 11Q19 60.12–14 11Q19 61.2b-5a 11Q19 62.14b-16 11Q19 63.3–4a

Lev 19:28 Deut 15.20 Deut 12.21a Deut 12:26 Deut 23:22; 2 Deut 23.24 Deut 13:6 Deut 13:18 Deut 17.10–11 Deut 17:15 Deut 18:5 Deut 18:6–7 Deut 18:21–22 Deut 20:17 Deut 21:5

‫ יה ה‬4Q158 SP ‫ האלהים‬M G.

304

N IC S

for ‫יה ה‬ 4Q434 f1i:12

Ps 34:8

‫ ה א‬for ‫יה ה‬ 4Q299 f3aii b:12

Exod 15:3

‫ אנ י‬for ‫יה ה‬ 11Q19 51.15–16b 11Q19 53.20 11Q19 54.3 11Q19 54.12 11Q19 55.2 11Q19 55.13 11Q19 56.12–13 11Q19 56.15c–18a 11Q19 60.16–17b 11Q19 60.19b-20 11Q19 61.12c-14a 11Q19 62.10–11 11Q19 62.11b-14a

Deut 16:20 Num 30:6 Num 30:13b Deut 13:4 Deut 13:13 Deut 13:19 Deut 17:14 Deut 17:16 Deut 18:9 Deut 18:12 Deut 20:1 Deut 20.14 Deut 20:15–16

‫ י‬for ‫( יה ה‬often with preposition ‫)ל ני‬ 11Q19 52.10 11Q19 52.3b-5 11Q19 52.7b-8a 11Q19 53.14 11Q19 53.16–17a 11Q19 55.15 11Q19 56.8–10 11Q19 60.10b-11 11Q19 60.12–14 11Q19 60.19b-20 11Q19 61.8–9a 11Q19 63.3–4a

Deut 15:21 Deut 17:1, 2 Deut 15:19 Num. 30:3 Num 30.4 Deut 17:2 Deut 17:12 Deut 18:5 Deut 18:6–7, 2 Deut 18:12 Deut 19:17 Deut 21:5

305

N IC S

‫י‬

‫י‬

for ‫יה ה‬ 4Q381 f24a b:7

Ps 18:3

2ms verb for ‫יה ה‬ 4Q504 f1 2Riii:5 4Q504 f1 2Riv:3 4Q504 f1 2Rv:14

(stock phrase) (stock phrase) (stock phrase)

Use of Tetrapuncta The Tetrapuncta is used 35 (in 14 documents). The manuscripts in bold exhibit multiple writing practices. Yahad Scrolls 1QS 100–50 BCE) 1 Scrolls of Non-Yahad Origin 4QTestimonia (4Q175; 125–75 BCE) 2 4QHistorical Text A (4Q248; 30–1 BCE) 1 4QMen of People Who Err (4Q306; 150–50 BCE) 1 4QPersonal Prayer (4Q443; 100–75 BCE) 1 4QNarrative C (4Q462; 50–25 BCE) 2 Eschatological Hymn ( Hev Se6; 30 BCE–68 CE) 1 4QTanhumim (4Q176; 150–30 BCE (hand A), 30 BCE–68 CE (hand B) 8× 4QParaphrase of Kings (4Q382; 75 BCE) 2× 4QPseudo Ezekiel (4Q391; 150–100 BCE) 7× 4QTemple Scroll (4Q524; 150–125 BCE) 2× Aramaic Scrolls 4QpapTob (4Q196; 50 BCE) 2 Biblical Scrolls 1QIsa (100–75 BCE; supralinear insertions) 2 4QSam (4Q53; 100–75 BCE, main text) 3

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