The Aramaic Manuscripts of the Book of Tobit from Qumran (4Q196-200). History and Exegesis

Kamil Jan Kowalski

Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawła II , Poland



Abstract

The year 1995 was pivotal for research on the Book of Tobit, when the Aramaic  and Hebrew manuscripts of this work found at Qumran were first published. The present article unfolds the history of the manuscripts’ discovery in 1952 in Qumran Cave 4,  then the long process of publishing the recovered texts, and that publication’s effect  on the renewal of scholarly interest in the Book of Tobit. The first part describes the  Qumran texts’ first publication as well as the significant later works which included the  manuscript texts along with their translations. In the next section the author describes  the actual condition and contents of the discovered manuscripts. Next he explores the  subject of the intertextuality of the book, focusing on Greek and Latin references known  before 1952. The fourth section of the article is the presentation of status quaestionis – selected issues regarding the Book of Tobit and how they have been impacted by the  discovered texts, 4Q196-200. In particular, it reconsiders the language in which the  book was originally written, the compositional integrity of the text, and the matter of  origins and the influence of ancient Near Eastern culture (especially of Words of Ahikar) upon the structure and contents of the biblical text. The last part of the article compares  the Aramaic fragments with the two known Greek versions of Tobit (both the longer  and shorter) and presents the results of this analysis. The purpose of this article is to  show the great importance of the finding and publication of the 4Q196-200 manuscripts  for advancing research on the biblical book, and to retrace the course of such research  on the Book of Tobit, beginning in 1952 until now

Keywords:

Aramaic, Dead Sea Scrolls, Tobit, intertextuality of Tobit, 4Q196, 4Q197, 4Q198, 4Q199, 4Q200

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Published
2017-08-03


Kowalski, K. J. (2017). Aramejskie rękopisy Księgi Tobiasza z Qumran (4Q196-200) – historia i egzegeza. The Biblical Annals, 7(3), 323–345. Retrieved from https://czasopisma.kul.pl/index.php/ba/article/view/2133

Kamil Jan Kowalski  kamil.jan.kowalski@gmail.com
Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawła II



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