Timothy H. Lim, Holy Scripture in the Qumran Commentaries and 
Pauline Letters. Oxford: Clarendon 1997.

Reviewed by Elisabeth Berger for R.Kraft's RelSt 436 course
at UPenn (Spring 1999)


Lim's book on the use of Jewish scriptural quotations in Qumran 
and Paul is a revision of his dissertation, which he submitted to 
the University of Oxford in 1991. It is written in very readable 
language, but the nature of the study is very technical and not, 
therefore, appropriate for casual reading. 

Lim's goal in this book is "an examination of the attitude to 
holy scripture" (p. 8) in works that pertain to the period of so-
called "post-biblical interpretation," in particular the pesharim 
of the Essenes (Essenes and Qumran represent the same group to 
Lim) and the letters of Paul. Lim proceeds from the assumption 
that both the pesherists and Paul modified texts in their 
citations of scripture. Given this pre-understanding, he attempts 
to locate the hermeneutical center of both parties in their use 
of scripture. 

[RAK: Interesting that he assumes rather than argues the point. 
Does he at least discuss the relevance of the fact that there are 
variant texts in existence in general at that time, which shows 
that someone has been making changes at some point in the textual 
history? Your report makes him sound rather naive about textual 
criticism at one level (the origin of variations); would you say 
that is accurate? 

EB: Yes, Lim does acknowledge the existence of variant texts at 
the time of Paul's and the Qumran writings, but only to say that 
it is impossible to know whether a citation is a reformulation or 
not (see below). He does not, however, dwell on the issue, but 
rather states, in chapter 7, that "it is not the intention here 
to go over ground already covered." This relates to both the 
question of variants in and of themselves, and of the manner in 
which scribes treated such variants when they encountered them. 

RAK: If, for example, an intelligent and aware reader/copyist in 
the DSS community encountered a biblical passage that already 
varied in some way from other copies, would that person "correct" 
the text, or annotate it, or do something else --perhaps in the 
process producing a new variation? How did the fact of textual 
fluidity affect attitudes to the treatment of texts? Etc. 

EB: He does not go into this at all. All in all, he is more 
concerned with the motivation of the writers, and their attitude 
toward what we consider to be "holy scripture." He wants to know: 
did they view scripture as carved in stone, never to be changed? 
So he dwells on issues such as how they studied, their view of 
prophetic inspiration and if/how it applied to them, the role of 
the Teacher of Righteousness (in the case of Qumran). Once he 
arrives at his conclusion that they saw themselves as authors, 
not just editors or commentators, then he goes on to show how 
they "changed" quoted texts.] 

Throughout the book, the reader finds a tension in Lim's own mind 
between this assumption, i.e. that both parties altered their 
quoted texts, and the acknowledgment that divergence from the 
Masoretic Text (MT), Septuagint (LXX) or Samaritan Pentateuch 
(SP) does not necessarily point to a creative reformulation of 
traditional material, but could indicate the use of an unknown 
Vorlage (text which writer had before him as the basis of the 
citation). 

The manner in which this tension crops up at regular intervals 
indicates either that Lim has not resolved it for himself, or 
else he has not been able adequately to represent the solution to 
his readers. For this reason, it is at times difficult to follow 
his conclusions. For example, Lim will spend a considerable 
amount of time showing how a particular citation differs from 
it's Vorlage in MT, LXX and SP. Then he will remind the reader of 
the fact that the divergence could be due to a Vorlage different 
from what we have before us today. In the next paragraph, 
however, Lim will make an assertive statement such as, "the 
pesherists did not consider the words of their biblical texts to 
be fixed and immutable" (p. 120) or "it has been shown that in 
their exegesis, pesherists did not always adhere strictly to the 
wording of their biblical texts" and then goes on to ask the 
question, "why did they modify the very words of scripture when 
there existed a range of exegetical techniques by which a desired 
meaning might be drawn out of or read into biblical texts?" (p. 
110). Although these conclusions and questions may be correct, I 
do not believe that they have been demonstrated to be so by the 
preceding form of argumentation. 

In dealing with the question of Vorlage, Lim acknowledges that in 
order to confirm that an exegetical alteration on the part of 
either Paul or Qumran actually took place, the reading which the 
writer had before him must be identifiable. However, as he points 
out, the Qumran pesharim and pauline letters belong to a period 
when the textual situation of scripture was very fluid. 

From an hermeneutical viewpoint, in looking for the pesherite and 
pauline attitude toward scripture in the context of their 
scriptural quotations, Lim realizes that one generally assumes 
that the ancient exegetes cared about precision in wording when 
citing scripture. He asks whether this method of analyzing 
pesherite and pauline literature is merely the result of a modern 
interest, anachronistically imposed upon them. His answer is 
"no," for he accepts as a valid assumption that "attention to the 
wording of the biblical text was also a feature of ancient Bible 
interpreters and of the pesherists and Paul" (p. 32). 

Nevertheless, as with all interpreters of the Bible, both the 
pesherists and Paul stood in the constant tension between making 
the scriptural text applicable and understandable to their 
generation and yet also preserving the tradition of the text 
(33). And in this context, Lim argues that the ancient exegetes 
did not view the prohibitions against adding or subtracting from 
a text, found in Deut 4.2 and 13.1, literalistically, for Deut 
5.1-3 defined for them the manner in which one was to keep the 
words of God carefully, faithfully and within the present 
context of one's life (37-40). The general consensus in 
scholarship, according to Lim, is that scribal practices of the 
first century CE demonstrate great attention to literalism, but 
also an exegetical "confidence in the ability to transpose the 
sense into the terms and contexts of the targeted audience" (47). 

Literalism, according to Lim, can be found in both the pesharim 
and in Paul. In the case of Qumran, it is evidenced in three main 
features of their writings: a) a verse-by-verse interpretation of 
prophetic text; b) isolation and identification of key scriptural 
words and c) lexical play between biblical quotation and 
exposition. In the pauline corpus, the clearest appeal to word, 
rather than sense, in citation is found in Galatians 3, where the 
argument for one seed makes it possible to identify the seed in 
the one person, Jesus. 

[RAK: Does he make any attempt to deal with the end of Gal 3, 
where sense seems to have interacted with word for Paul? This 
would be a good place to provide a few more of Lim's examples of 
Paul's textual adjusting. 

EB: Yes, Lim does mention that Paul recognizes the fact that 
"seed" can be both singular and plural and uses this ambiquity in 
meaning to make his point (singular in 3.16, and plural in 3.29), 
but his interest at this point is more to demonstrate the 
literalism which Paul at times employs. He therefore dwells more 
on the singular use made by Paul.] 

An example of how Paul uses a scriptural citation is found in 1 
Cor 2.16 and Rom 11.34, where he quotes the same OT verse, but in 
two different manners. The passage Paul quotes from is found in 
Isa 40.13, and in the MT reads: "Who has known the spirit of the 
Lord and as his advisor will instruct him?" The LXX translates 
it to read: "Who has known the mind of the Lord, and who has 
become his counselor, so as to instruct him?" In 1 Cor 2.16, 
Paul wants the Corinthian Christians to understand that they 
"have the mind of Christ." In this context, he cites the question 
from Isaiah and asks: "who has known the mind of the Lord so as 
to instruct him?" (leaving out "as his advisor" or "has become 
his counsellor"). 

In Rom 11.34, however, he wants to emphasize that the mind of the 
Lord cannot be penetrated by anyone, so he asks, in a rhetorical 
fashion: "for how has known the mind of the Lord or who has 
become his counsellor?" The expected answer is, obviously, 
"noone." 

It is interesting to note here that the Isaiah scroll found at 
Qumran also contains two variants of this verse. The first 
version reads: "who has estimated the spirit of the Lord and made 
his counsel known?" while the second one has the same text with a 
scribal correction which added the word "man" above counsel, 
implying a "man of counsel" or counselor. 

Summary: Lim repeatedly demonstrates that it is basically 
impossible to determine a variant in a quotation of biblical text 
since there were so many different texts around in the first 
century CE, and because the textual and exegetical variants are, 
at times, so inextricably intertwined that it is basically 
impossible to say what is a variant and what is due to a 
different Vorlage. Nevertheless, Lim's working assumption 
throughout is that the "ancient exegete modified his biblical 
text". Although this is very possible, Lim weakens his argument 
by basically negating the possibility of recognizing a variant, 
but then using psychology (author's intent in exegesis) to make 
his point. 

The book is written for academic use, not popular consumption, 
since it makes use of careful grammatical analysis of many 
examples of pesherist and pauline citations, with Greek and 
Hebrew interspersed throughout, making it tedious for the non-
Greek or non-Hebrew reader. 

[EB to RAK: I have added some information and responded to your 
comments; I hope that it makes the report clearer. All in all, I 
found the book somewhat confusing to read, since Lim tends to 
want to deal with motivational and attitudinal issues more than 
with clear examples of possible variants, and because he jumps 
back and forth between pre-first century, first century and 
Masoretic times and methods. I think he could have safely stayed 
in the one era he was interested in without losing anything.]

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