Timothy H. Lim

Qumran Scholarship and the Study of the Old Testament in the New Testament

This article argues that Qumran scholarship provides contextual and contingent perspectives in the study of the use of scripture by the New Testament authors. First, post-Qumran textual criticism has highlighted textual diversity in the period of the New Testament, raising questions about alleged exegetical variants as well as the characterizations of the Pauline citations as ‘septuagintal’. Second, while the canon of the Hebrew Bible remained open in the middle of the first century, Paul’s implied bible was consistent with the Pharisaic canon that eventually became the Rabbinic Bible. Finally, the theory of the sectarian matrix both accounts for the use of the same biblical passages and the divergent interpretations of them among various sects in the Second Temple period.

A Theory of the Majority Canon

This article proposes a theory of the formation of the Jewish canon. It suggests that the Pharisaic canon became the canon of Rabbinic Judaism, because the majority of those who re-founded the religion after the destruction of the Temple were Pharisees. The theory of the majority canon further advances the view that before the emergence of the one traditional canon Jewish communities held varying collections of texts as authoritative scriptures. The origins and development of the canon were influenced by internal and external factors. There was no central body that pronounced on the canon. Rather the authority arose from the bottom-up as Jews came to regard certain books, but not others, as canonical.

The Psalms of Joshua (4Q379 fr. 22 col. 2): A Reconsideration of its Text

Les Psaumes de Joshua sont reconsideres en comparant les textes de 4Q379 fr. 22 col. 2 avec la section correspondante en 4Q175