A text-critical analysis of the Lamentations manuscripts from Qumran (3QLam, 4QLam, 5QLama and 5QLamb): establishing the content of an Old Testament book according to its textual witnesses among the Dead Sea scrolls

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study takes as its point of departure the contributions of the Dead Sea scrolls to the discipline of Old Testament textual criticism. It deals with a particular approach to this discipline and its application to the four Lamentations manuscripts from Qumran (3QLam, 4QLam, 5QLama and 5QLamb). The approach to Old Testament textual criticismfollowed in the study treats the Qumran manuscripts of Lamentations, the Masoretic text and the ancient translations as witnesses to the content of the book and not merely as witnesses to earlier forms of its Hebrew wording. The unique readings in 3QLam, 4QLam, 5QLama and 5QLamb and their difficult or ambiguous readings are subjected to a comparative text-critical analysis. This analysis focuses on how the variant readings in the Qumran manuscripts were created by scribes during the process of copying.It therefore examines the influence that the scribal transmission exercised on the wordings of the passages from Lamentations that are preserved in 3QLam, 4QLam, 5QLamaand 5QLamb The analysis also considers whether comparative philology and/or the ancient .Greek, Syriac, Latin and Aramaic translations can shed light on the textual problems which the Hebrew wordings of the Lamentations manuscripts from Qumran share with the Masoretic text. The aims of this study are to establish, by means of this text-critical analysis, how the Lamentations manuscripts from Qumran present the content of the book and thereby gain a better understanding of these manuscripts as textual witnesses.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University