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.
Read more about this topic: Psalm 151
Famous quotes containing the words dead, sea and/or discovery:
“Some sepulcher, remote, alone,
Against whose portal she hath thrown,
In childhood, many an idle stone—
Some tomb from out whose sounding door
She ne’er shall force an echo more,
Thrilling to think, poor child of sin!
It was the dead who groaned within.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)
““The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes—and ships—and sealing wax—
Of cabbages—and kings—
And why the sea is boiling hot—
And whether pigs have wings.””
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)
“That the discovery of this great truth, which lies so near and obvious to the mind, should be attained to by the reason of so very few, is a sad instance of the stupidity and inattention of men, who, though they are surrounded with such clear manifestations of the Deity, are yet so little affected by them, that they seem as it were blinded with excess of light.”
—George Berkeley (1685–1753)