Journal: Southeastern Theological Review
Volume: STR 16:1 (Spring 2025)
Article: Book Reviews
Author: Anonymous

STR 16:1 (Spring 2025) p. 79

Book Reviews

Ruth A. Clements, Russell E. Fuller, Armin Lange, and Paul D. Mandel, eds. The Textual History of the Bible from the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Biblical Manuscripts of the Vienna Papyrus Collection. Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah 137. Leiden: Brill, 2023. xxvi + 668 pp. Hardback. ISBN 978–9004504622. $198.00

This volume is one of the latest contributions to the impressive series Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah. It provides a textual history of the Bible from our earliest manuscripts to medieval manuscripts of the Vienna Papyrus Collection—which most likely originated from the Cairo Genizah. The work’s title is like that of the monumental series Textual History of the Bible (THB), and it often complements those works. THB, however, provides a more thorough overview of the textual history of the Hebrew Bible. The volume under review is much more selective in its presentation but provides groundbreaking analysis in some key areas of the discipline.

The Textual History of the Bible is divided chronologically into three parts in addition to an introduction to the textual history of the Hebrew Bible. The book’s first part focuses on the Jewish Scriptures of the Second Temple period. Russell E. Fuller begins by surveying how two important books—Isaiah and the Twelve—were used in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Ben Sira, and the Septuagint (pp. 25‒42). Armin Lange’s contribution to this section on the history of Jeremiah is impressive (pp. 43‒154). He builds on his earlier work and draws several important conclusions on the history of this book, including the claim that MT-Jeremiah was the dominant text since at least the third century BCE (p. 127). Other important contributions in this section include Pablo A. Torijano Morales’s investigation into the relevance of the Old Latin Text for textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible (pp. 155‒82). David Frankel, then, investigates Gen 9:6 to illustrate the common notion that textual and literary criticism overlap (pp. 183‒218). Guy Darshan attempts to show how 1 Kings 6‒8 in the MT tradition evidences a free approach to copying (pp. 219‒40). Alexander Rofé discusses midrashic elements in the biblical texts as he has helpfully done in other works (pp. 241‒52), while Jonathan Ben-Dov explores the witnesses to the book of Deuteronomy and the degree to which these texts refer to angels and demons (pp. 253‒84).

The second part of the book surveys the history of the Hebrew Bible

STR 16:1 (Spring 2025) p. 80

from the Jewish Wars to the early Masoretic codices. In this section, Noah Hacham and Armin Lange helpfully outline cri...