Series: Pericope, 3 Along with other contrbutions this volume brings together the papers read during the Second Pericope Meeting at the Rome, 2001 SBL conference. The Pericope series aims at making available the data on unit delimitation found in the ancient manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint, the Peshitta and the Vulgate to Bible translators and exegetes and to evaluate these data for the benefit of biblical interpretation. It will contribute significantly to our understanding of the meaning of Scripture as it was written and understood in Antiquity. Contents M.C.A. Korpel, J.M. Oesch - Preface B. Becking - Petuhah and Setumah in Jeremiah 30-31 J. Cook - Unit Delimitation in the Book of Proverbs: In the Light of the Septuagint of Proverbs W.M. de Bruin - Interpreting Delimiters: The Complexity of Text Delimitation J.C. de Moor - The Structure of Micah 2:1-13: The Contribution of the Ancient Witnesses Th. Janz - A System of Unit Division from Byzantine Manuscripts of Ezra-Nehemiah K.D. Jenner, W.Th. van Peursen - Unit Delimitation and the Text of Ben Sira J.W. Olley - Paragraphing in the Greek Text of Ezekiel in P967: With Particular Reference to the Cologne Portion P. Sanders - The Colometric Layout of Psalms 1 to 14 in the Aleppo Codex J.C. de Moor - Workshop on Unit Delimitation: Micah 4:14-5:8

Employing text-critical, literary, and codicological analysis, this book shows the significance of Papyrus 967 for understanding the book of Ezekiel's textual transmission and status as a variant literary edition.

The Orion Center Bibliography of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature (2000–2006) is the fifth official Scrolls bibliography, following volumes covering the periods 1948-1957 (W. S. LaSor), 1958-1969 (B. Jongeling), 1970-1995 (F. García Martínez and D. W. Parry), and 1995-2000 (A. Pinnick). The interdisciplinary cast of the Bibliography reflects the current emphasis in Scrolls scholarship on integrating the knowledge gained from the Qumran corpus into the larger picture of Second Temple Judaism. The volume contains over 4100 entries, including approximately 850 reviews; source, subject, and language indices facilitate its use by scholars and students within and outside the field. This work is based on the On-Line Bibliography maintained by the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Jerusalem.

This commentary on Deuteronomion is based on Codex Alexandrinus, the single best complete witness to the Old Greek. It features a new transcription of the manuscript with a fresh translation that treats Deuteronomion as a sacred text that would have been read, studied, and cherished in a worshipping community. Notations of important variants with the other key manuscripts, such as p848, p963, and B (Vaticanus), appear regularly. This commentary represents an interpretative adventure, intentionally giving room for varied ancient reader-responses, and accordingly it functions within several literary spaces. First, it recognizes the substantial intratextual features between the book’s narrative framing and its legal materials. Deuteronomion is also read in its hypotextual relation with the Pentateuch’s other narratives and legal materials, chiefly within Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. Sensitivity to the Greek linguistic climate, the so-called koine Greek, is another space. Finally, and most distinctively, this commentary adds to its reading the many voices who read and used Deuteronomy, in either Hebrew or Greek forms, from the late Second Temple Period.

Series: Pericope 5 - Scripture as written and read in antiquity A lucid delimitation of textual units appears to have been a serious concern of ancient scribes. In this fifth volume of the Pericope series this is demonstrated in the papers read at the Fourth Pericope Meeting held in connection with the SBL International Meeting at Cambridge, 2003. For the first time articles on text division in New Testament manuscripts are included: one on the pericope markers in some relatively early manuscripts, especially papyri, as well as in the four major codices, and another article on Codex Boernerianus and papyrus 46 of the letters of Paul. Other topics discussed are the setumot and petuchot in Numbers and Amos, and the special phrases preceding or following them. Is it possible to get more insight in the way the ancient scribes put in the spaces and blank lines in their manuscripts? Furthermore, the divisions made by Jerome in his commentary on the Book of Isaiah are investigated, and the question about the frame story of the Book of Job - is it prose or poetry? The structural unity of Micah 6 is discussed, resulting in some challenging proposals to resolve old exegetical problems. The structure of Zechariah 4 is illuminated by data from ancient manuscripts and compared to modern divisions of the chapter. Finally a study on physical division markers in ritual texts from Ugarit, Babylonia and Israel reveals a long-standing tradition of fixed liturgical sequences in the cult. The Pericope series aims at making available data on unit delimitation found in biblical and related manuscripts to the scholarly world and provides a platform for evaluating this hitherto largely neglected evidence for the benefit of biblical interpretation. Layout Markers in Biblical Manuscripts and Ugaritic Tablets M.C.A. Korpel & J.M. Oesch, Preface D.J. Clark, Delimitation Markers in the Book of Numbers W.M. de Bruin, Traces of a Hebrew Text Division in the Bible Commentaries of Jerome R. de Hoop, The Frame Story of the Book of Job: Prose or Verse? Job 1:1-5 as a Test Case J.C. de Moor, The Structure of Micah 6 in the Light of Ancient Delimitations M. Dijkstra, Unit Delimitation and Interpretation in the Book of Amos M.C.A. Korpel, Unit Delimitation in Ugaritic Cultic Texts and Some Babylonian and Hebrew Parallels S.E. Porter, Pericope Markers in Some Early Greek New Testament Manuscripts D. Trobisch, Structural Markers in New Testament Manuscripts with Special Attention to Observations in Codex Boernerianus (G 012) and Papyrus 46 of the Letters of Paul M. van Amerongen, The Structure of Zechariah 4: A Comparison Between the Divisions in the Masoretic Text, Ancient Translations, and Modern Commentaries Abbreviations Index of Authors Index of Texts

The Book List provides short reviews of up to 500 books a year. It includes publications not only on the Old Testament directly but also on many related areas, including archaeology, epigraphy, Hebrew and related Semitic languages (especially Northwest Semitic), relevant ancient Near Eastern history and literature, the Hellenistic world, early Judaism, and social anthropology. The main value of the Book List is its comprehensiveness and its immediacy, in that it is usually among the first periodicals to review a book.

In 1946, Gillis Gerleman proposed a single translator for LXX Proverbs and LXX Job. After he launched this hypothesis, scholars have either confirmed or debunked this hypothesis. Although attempts have been made to come up with an adequate answer to the question of a single translator for both Proverbs and Job, scholars have, thus far, not reached consensus. Moreover, the attempts that have been made are not at all elaborate. Thus, the question remains unsolved. This book tries to formulate an answer to the question of a single translator for both Proverbs and Job by examining the translation technique and theology of both books. The translation technique of both books is analysed by examining the Greek rendering of Hebrew hapax legomena, animal, floral, plant and herb names. The theology is examined by looking at the pluses in the LXX version which contain θεός and κύριος. The results of these studies are compared with one another in order to formulate an answer to a single translator. By doing so, this book not only formulates an answer to a single translator for both LXX Proverbs and Job but also characterises their translation technique and theology in greater detail.

This book explores the little-regarded phenomenon of the tricolon in biblical Hebrew poetry, that is, those poetic lines that appear to have a tripartite form rather than the more common bipartite form. Taking the Psalms of Ascents as a sample corpus of poetic texts, it identifies tricola on an explicit and consistent basis. It draws on the rhythmical-accentual approach of Eduard Sievers, and in so doing highlights an important but neglected aspect of his method. The concept of a "para-tricolon" is developed, designating a line that is tripartite, yet rhythmically equivalent to a conventional bicolon. Analyses of psalm structures and of the syntactic and semantic structures of each tripartite line facilitate an assessment of the function of, and characterization of, tripartite lines. The significance of enjambment is explored as a distinguishing factor between different line-forms and as a means of uniting non-parallel cola. The study demonstrates clear differences between the form and function of para-tricola and those of tricola, and so will facilitate a more nuanced and realistic appraisal of the functional significance of Hebrew poetic line-forms.

The final text of the Book of Micah provokes a series of questions: - Can the Book be read as a coherent composition or is it the result of a complex redaction history? - Was Micah a prophet of doom whose literary heritage was later softened by the inclusion of oracles of salvation? The essays in this book center around these questions. Some of them are of a more general character, while others analyze specific passages. Some articles discuss the Book of Micah by looking at specific themes (prophecy; religious polemics; metaphors). The others are concerned with the proclamation of a peaceful future (Micah 4:1-5); the famous moral incentive in Micah 6:8 and the question of prophetic and divine gender in Micah 7:8-13. They have two features in common: - A thorough reading of the Hebrew text informed by grammar and syntax. - A comparative approach: the Book of Micah is seen as part of the ancient Near Eastern culture. All in all, the author defends the view that the Book of Micah contains three independent literary elements: Micah 1: a prophecy of doom; Micah 2-5 a two-sided futurology, and 6-8 a later appropriation of Micah’s message.

This book is the result of an innovative linguistic study of the Syriac translation of Ben Sira. It contains both a traditional philological analysis, incorporating matters of text-historical interest and translation technique, and also the results of a computational linguistic analysis of phrases, clauses and texts. It arrives at new linguistic insights, including a proposal for a corpus-based description of phrase structure based on a so-called maximum matrix. The book also addresses the fundamentally different way in which a text is approached in a computer-assisted analysis compared with the way in which this is done in traditional philological approaches. It demonstrates how the computer-assisted analysis can fruitfully shed light on or supplement traditional philological research.