Perspectives on the Existence of a Particular Authoritative Book of Psalms in the Late Second Temple Period

Abstract

This study focuses on a statistical illusion created by the high number of so-called Psalms manuscripts that were found at Qumran. These manuscripts contain psalms that eventually ended up in the canonical book of Psalms, and they have frequently been used as solid evidence for the importance of the book of psalms during the Qumran period. This use of the manuscript evidence is highly problematic and the severe weaknesses in such claims is demonstrated in this article through the use of several different perspectives on the empirical material and its relation to other available evidence, such as the mt Psalter. First the article illustrates what the so-called Psalms manuscripts actually contain and how this material is different from the manuscripts preserving parts of, e.g., Deuteronomy or Isaiah. The second major perspective taken up here is the question of the existence of a specific authoritative book of psalms during the Qumran period. Through these perspectives it is shown that the manuscript statistics cannot be used as evidence for the influence of a particular book of psalms, and furthermore that there probably was no fixed authoritative book of psalms during this period.