A More Perfect Torah: At the Intersection of Philology and Hermeneutics in Deuteronomy and the Temple Scroll

by Bernard M. Levinson

The historical-critical method that characterizes academic biblical studies too often remains separate from approaches that stress the history of interpretation, which are employed more frequently in the area of Second Temple or Dead Sea Scrolls research. Inaugurating the new Eisenbrauns series, Critical Studies in the Hebrew Bible, A More Perfect Torah explores a series of test-cases in which the two methods mutually reinforce one another. The volume brings together two studies that investigate the relationship between the composition history of the biblical text and its reception history at Qumran and in rabbinic literature.

The Temple Scroll is more than the blueprint for a more perfect Temple. It also represents the attempt to create a more perfect Torah. Its techniques for doing so are the focus of part 1, entitled “Revelation Regained: The Hermeneutics of KI and 'IM in the Temple Scroll.” This study illuminates the techniques for marking conditional clauses in ancient Near Eastern literature, biblical law, and the Dead Sea Scrolls. It also draws new attention to the relationship between the Temple Scroll’s use of conditionals and the manuscript’s carefully organized spacing system for marking paragraphs. Syntax serves as a technique, no less than pseudepigraphy, to advance the Temple Scroll’s claim to be a direct divine revelation.

Part 2 is entitled “Reception History as a Window into Composition History: Deuteronomy’s Law of Vows as Reflected in Qoheleth and the Temple Scroll.” The law of vows in Deut 23:22-24 is difficult in both its syntax and its legal content. The difficulty is resolved once it is recognized that the law contains an interpolation that disrupts the original coherence of the law. The reception history of the law of vows in Numbers 20, Qoh 5:4–7, 11QTemple 53:11–14, and Sipre Deuteronomy confirms the hypothesis of an interpolation. Seen in this new light, the history of interpretation offers a window into the composition history of the biblical text.

The volume shows the significance of syntax and historical linguistics for understanding how ancient scribes established claims of religious and textual authority. Appendixes on the use of conditionals in biblical law and the Dead Sea Scrolls provide resources for further research.

120 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Bernard M. Levinson is a professor of Classical and Near Eastern studies and of Law at the University of Minnesota and holds the Berman Family Chair of Jewish Studies and Hebrew Bible. He is a specialist in biblical and cuneiform law; Deuteronomy and the history of interpretation; and literary approaches to biblical studies. He is the author of Legal Revision and Religious Renewal in Ancient Israel and "The Right Chorale": Studies in Biblical Law and Interpretation. In 1999 Bernard was the co-recipient of the Salo W. Baron Award for Best First Book in Literature and Thought by the American Academy for Jewish Research for his book Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation.

The interdisciplinary significance of Bernard Levinson's work has been recognized with appointments to the Institute for Advanced Study (1997); the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin/Berlin Institute for Advanced Study (2007); and the National Humanities Center, where he served as the Henry Luce Senior Fellow in Religious Studies during the 2010-2011 academic year. He was also recently elected to be a Fellow of the American Academy for Jewish Research (AAJR), the oldest professional organization of Judaica scholars in North America.

Bernard Levinson seeks to bring the academic biblical scholarship to the attention of a broader, non-specialist readership. In this vein, he has recently written on the impact of the King James Version of the Bible upon the American Founding; drawn attention in the national press to the role of early feminist Bible scholars like Elizabeth Cady Stanton in helping win the vote for women; and, in his attention to language, has been cited in the Oxford English Dictionary.