Is There Halaka (The Noun) at Qumran?

Abstract

(ProQuest Information and Learning: ... denotes Symbols omitted.) Scholars concerned with Judaism its various forms at the turn of the era readily speak of ha la ka when referring to a legal opinion or ruling of an individual or a group that seeks to prescribe the proper conduct of observant Jews particular situations. Scholarly monographs that discuss the proper interpretation of the ha la ka of Qumran or Jesus or Philo or Josephus are well known.1 This essay does not question the existence at the turn of the era of the phenomenon that we moderns label ha la ka. One need only read the Rule of the Community (IQS) or the so-called Halakic Letter (4QMMT), to say nothing of the extensive treatment of legal issues the corpus of Philo or Josephus's Jewish Antiquities, to settle the question of the existence the first century B.C.E. and C.E. of the reality that we call ha la ka. The question this essay raises is rather a linguistic one with two implicit parts: (1) Was the Hebrew noun ha la ka current use the first century B.C.E. and C.E.; and, if so, (2) did it carry the sense that is clear from the Mishnah onwards, namely, a legal opinion or ruling about proper Jewish conduct a particular situation?2 In itself, the question is a narrow one. But biblical scholars should be aware of when they are defining a particular reality with a label whose existence or at least whose technical meaning arose only at a later date. At times our vocabulary may be anachronistic; our concepts and affirmations should not be.3 Hence the question: Can we find any occurrence of the word ha la ka prior to the Mishnah?4 For all practical purposes, this means: Can we find this Hebrew noun the Dead Sea Scrolls and related texts? Some scholars reply with a flat no.5 However, the Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (ed. David J. A. Clines; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993-) lists sub voce (2:559) two occurrences of the noun ha la ka, both from the Rule of the Community (1QS); the noun never occurs the canon of Jewish Scriptures or the deuterocanonical/apocryphal book of Ben Sira. As the Dictionary properly indicates, there are problems with both supposed occurrences at Qumran. In 1QS 1:25, the Dictionary entry first presents the form hlktnw as the noun ha la ka plus the first person plural suffix -nu (our). Hence it translates the phrase hrs ...nw hlktnw as: We have made our conduct wicked. . However, the entry goes on to note that the Hebrew letter he at the beginning of hlktnw is not clear (this is apparently due to a scribe's attempt to erase the he); hence the Dictionary lists the alternate reading blktnw, in our going (the preposition be with the qal infinitive construct of the verb ha lak [leket] plus the first person plural suffix). The sense of the whole statement would then have to be: We have acted wickedly our conduct. . What is curious the Dictionary's first reading is that the letter bet, which is clearly visible the photographs of the manuscript, is not represented, while the he, which is obscured the text a scribal erasure (more about this below), is represented.6 Quite rightly, therefore, their editions of the Qumran texts, both James H. Charlesworth and Elisha Qimron, on the one hand, and Florentino Garcia Martinez and Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar, on the other, print the Hebrew text with the letter bet without parentheses or brackets and then the letter he parentheses or brackets.7 Charlesworth and Qimron translate the disputed word as by our walking; Garcia Martinez and Tigchelaar translate it as inasmuch as we walk. At least the latter translation seems to take the disputed form to be the qal infinitive construct of the verb. Indeed, his vocalized text, Eduard Lohse simply reads 1QS 1:25 as be lekte nu (the preposition be plus the qal infinitive construct of the verb plus the first personal plural suffix);8 he does not even consider the possibility of reading a form of ha la ka this passage. …