Psalm 151 - Dead Sea Scrolls Discovery

Dead Sea Scrolls Discovery

Although for many years scholars believed that Psalm 151 might have been an original Greek composition and that “there is no evidence that Psalm 151 ever existed in Hebrew”, we now know from the Dead Sea scrolls that this psalm did in fact exist in Hebrew and was a part of the psalter used by the Qumran community.

Psalm 151 appears along with a number of canonical and non-canonical psalms in the Dead Sea scroll 11QPs(a) (named also 11Q5), a first century AD scroll discovered in 1956. The editio princeps of this manuscript was first published in 1963 by J. A. Sanders. This scroll contains two short Hebrew psalms which scholars now agree served as the basis for Psalm 151.

One of these Hebrew psalms, known as “Psalm 151a”, is reflected in verses 1–5 of the Greek Psalm 151, while verses 6 onward are derived from the other Hebrew psalm, known as “Psalm 151b” (which is only partially preserved). The composer has brought the two Hebrew psalms together in a manner that significantly changes their meaning and structure, but the influence of the Hebrew originals is still readily apparent. In some ways the Greek version of Psalm 151 does not seem to make good sense, and the Hebrew text provides a basis for a better understanding of what transpired in the creation of the Greek version. In comparison to the Hebrew text Sanders regards the Greek text of this psalm to be in places “desiccated”, “meaningless”, “truncated”, “ridiculous”, “absurd”, “jumbled”, and “disappointingly different”, all this the result of its having been “made from a truncated amalgamation of the two Hebrew psalms”. On details of translation, structure, and meaning of this psalm see especially the works of Skehan, Brownlee, Carmignac, Strugnell, Rabinowitz, Dupont-Sommer, and Flint.