Having too much fun
We spent Memorial Day weekend in Durham, NC, visiting Sarah, John, Ethan & Maggie. We had a blast. Not to be outdone by four-year-old Ethan’s antics on the monkeybars (competitive spirits that we are), Sarah and I displayed one of our best monkeybar tricks for the kids.
I actually am looking at the camera… my hair just got in the way!
Sarah and I also went to one of the last days of the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit in Charlotte, NC. I learned one thing about the scrolls that even Steve Taylor didn’t know. One of the methods for piecing together the thousands of fragments is now DNA testing. Since the parchment is an animal skin, each fragment of a scroll has the same DNA, making it easier to “sort” which pieces go with each other. In doing the DNA testing they also discovered that most of the skins are actually gazelle skins (not goat). In addition to an extensive display of the Qumran community life, history of the DSS, and other historical information, we saw the 10 actual fragments on loan from Israel. When I saw the Isaiah scroll in Jerusalem I was not able to read anything… this time it was great to be able to actually read some of the texts! Interesting to see was the use of a Palaeo-Hebrew script for the tetragrammaton (four-letter representation of the divine name) while the rest of the text utilized a later formal book-hand.
Take a look… I’ve circled one incidence, can you find any others? This is from a fragment (11Q5) from the Book of Psalms which was on exhibit.
Special prize to the first one who can tell me which passage this is!
June 3rd, 2006 at 6:56 pm
Psalm 119. well, I pulled a DougGreen and enjoyed the power of Google, so i guess no special prize for me :/.
June 3rd, 2006 at 9:15 pm
Nice try, Tiffany. But, no, it is not Psalm 119! (Read the section that has the circled word in it!) 11Q5 has 41 psalms on it; the fragment on display had just 5 columns from the entire scroll. The cropped photo I show is just one part of column 4. Also, remember that the psalms on the scroll were NOT in the order we are familiar with. Keep trying!
June 6th, 2006 at 10:36 pm
My guess is Psalm 151.
June 9th, 2006 at 11:15 pm
Psalm 133. The title is a song of ascent of David, which narrows it a bit.
June 9th, 2006 at 11:18 pm
Wait, wait- why in the world didn’t you call me? I mean, Charlotte is my home town, I could’ve painted it red with the Traps!
June 9th, 2006 at 11:25 pm
Ah… I should have known that it would take the illustrious Sam Boyd to get it right (and I’m sure you can point out the difference between the Masoretic text and this DSS fragment). Your prize will be awarded when you arrive in August. As for the trip to Charlotte, it was just me and Sarah (Mark was in Durham with John and the kids), and only for a day. The rest of our trip we were in Durham. We’ll just have to figure out some way for you to make it up to us!
June 10th, 2006 at 7:55 am
There are a couple of differences. First, the orthography of DSS Hebrew prefers longer, fuller vocalic renderings- e.g.- the holem waw in “rosh,” or head, in vs. 2 appears in the DSS Hebrew as opposed to the abbreviated holem in the MT. It’s a consistent difference throughout DSS Hebrew and MT. Second, in the MT, “mountains” in verse three has 2 reshes, not one as it (at least to my eyes) appears in the 11Q5. Third, and most significant, 11Q5 ends the psalm with “thither the Lord commanded the blessing until eternity- peace upon Israel,” which differs from the MT, where the blessing is life forever (another slight difference- the MT has “shm,” or there, while the DSS has “thither,” or shmh).
June 10th, 2006 at 8:02 am
There was a goof on the display case for the Deut scroll- the Deut scroll combines the reason for the Sabbath in the MT (creation in Ex 20 AND the Exodus in Deut 5), but the Hebrew display to the side only followed Ex 20 in the MT. When I saw the exhibit, people were furious, like tearing clothes, putting on sackcloth, and putting ashes on the head and stuff. Actually, no one caught it except Lawrence Schiffman who spoke in town that night. That man is wicked smart.
June 10th, 2006 at 10:38 pm
Nicely done, Sam.
The Psalms fragment display also had an error (as does the exhibit catalogue). The fourth line had the Hebrew phrases on either side of the tetragrammaton inverted (I’m guessing it was a software glitch due to the font change necessitated by the Palaeo-Hebrew).
You would think that with all the millions of dollars spent on this exhibit that someone would be proofreading these things more carefully!