4Q252: From Re-Written Bible to Biblical Commentary

Abstract

Biblical commentary on the Hebrew Bible in the ancient world begins with the ancient versions. This chapter consists of a series of exegetical remarks, some with lemmas, and some without, situated sequentially and covering Genesis 6-49, but with no overt principle governing its choice of passages on which to comment. It examines and analyzes the manuscript's exegetical remarks in isolation from one another with an eye toward substantiating these claims, then proceeds to discuss earlier attempts at its classification. The chapter attempts to characterize the entire text and its biblical exegesis, we must first establish the ways in which these first efforts to interpret 4Q252 have gone awry. For both Lim and Eisenman-Wise, then, a commitment to or presupposition about this document as a sectarian work has interfered with its interpretation. The author returns now to the commentary for a survey and description of its exegetical principles.Keywords:4Q252; biblical commentary; Eisenman-Wise; exegetical principles; Lim