Transmission of Biblical Texts in Qumran: The Case of the Large Isaiah Scroll 1QIsa [superscript A] Front Cover

Textual analysis of the 'Great Isaiah Scroll' from Cave 1 shows that even biblical scrolls can be products of creative reading of the ancient text by scribes. This book explores the nature of scribal changes in the large Isaiah scroll from Qumran (1QIsaa). It offers a detailed examination of the harmonizations, explications and modernizations of the text of Isaiah by the Qumran scribe. The scribal changes in the manuscript betray his conceptual milieu and the various facets of this milieu are elaborated upon. Pulikottil argues that those scribes who were engaged in the production of the biblical scrolls and who quoted from the biblical scrolls were not committed to a standard text. There is no evidence that the biblical scrolls copied at Qumran were made with a view to being followed by the scribe of the non-biblical texts as their standard text, but were made according to the individual notions of the scribes. His work thus takes a new direction in the study of the biblical scrolls from Qumran, different from that of standard text-critical approaches. Biblical scrolls can be now looked at as products of creative reading of the ancient text by scribes and not just as a bundle of sc ....