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Re: DSS in Hebrew
Dear Fred,
Let me correct you. Lohse's edition is i standard block letters. Rashi
script (which Rashi probably never saw) is the densely printed
semi-cursive french script used in Jewish biblical commentaries,
TAlmudic commentaries, and all sorts of other publications. It is being
phased out now by modern editions of the classic works. From what you
say about Lohse, his ability to read Rashi script may have been about
that of Rashi! (but Rashi would undoubedly have been able to figure it out).
As for Lohse's edition, I used it when I studied DSS twenty years ago.
It was very helpful and does have a small amount of helpful comments and
textual notes. I used it because Habermann was unavailable. It becoms
available again only years later when a book storeroom was discovered or
taken out of bond. I saw a copy at Ludwig Mayer's in Jerusalem and
immeiately paid his exhorbitant price because I thought it was a quirk.
The next day I saw half a dozen copies in the Academon (Hebrew
University's book store).
I already answered Bruriah and also added to Jim West's comments. Even
as I write I recall the Avigad-Yadin edition of Genesis Apocryphon.
This has been re-edited by Fitzmeyer, and is being edited once again by
Qimron. THere is also the massive Handschriften von Toten Meer whose
editor slips my mind (I'm embarassed so don't rub it in!).
AVigdor Hurowitz
On Tue, 15 Oct 1996, Frederick Cryer wrote:
> I'm sure everybody and his uncle will be responding to your post,
> Beruriah, but: the standard editions of the various texts are the
> Discoveries in the Judaean Desert series (originally: Discoveries in
> the Judaean Desert of Jordan) which are published by the Clarendon
> Press, Oxford, and which have appeared irregularly since the late
> 1950s. The series are now under the general editorship of Prof.
> Emanuel Tov. Lohse is Eduard Lohse, a German professor of moderate
> ability. His edition is only a student's edition of the so-called
> "sectarian" texts (War Scroll, Manual of Discipline, Habakkuk Pesher,
> etc.); it therefore has virtually no critical apparatus as to how he
> has arrived at the readings he has decided on. He presents the texts
> in Rashi script, which is nicely readable, but then *vocalises* the
> texts according to the Masoretic paradigm we have all learnt: an
> anachronism of about a millennium, as far as the DSS are concerned.
> Lohse's readings are not always reliable; he has in particular
> considerable difficulty telling a Waw from a Yod, although that is,
> of course, a common problem with the late scripts.
> Individual DSS texts that have not yet been published in the large
> collections in the DJD (Discoveries...) will have been published in
> either the Revue de Qumran or the new journal from Sheffield, Dead
> Sea Discoveries. All of these entail: photographs of all or at least
> part of the text (the DJD include all) in question; transcription
> into Rashi typescript for convenience of reading, English or French
> translation, plus notes and commentary on the text. Your advisor
> obviously doesn't no much about the DSS, but don't tell him I said
> so.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Fred Cryer
>