What is it about?
This article wishes to demonstrate the urgency of new methodological thinking caused by the paradigm shift experienced in Biblical studies after the Qumran discoveries. The aim is to achieve this through the analysis of one biblical passage. The main focus is on the two passages that give expression to Hannah’s vow (1 Sam 1:11 and 1:22–23): Was it originally meant to be a Nazirite vow on behalf of her unborn child? Seeing Samuel as a Nazirite would obviously not have been a problem, but a mother’s vow on behalf of an unborn child definitely was one. The analysis results in the identification of editorial reworking, especially in the MT, and less so in 4QSama, whereas the Septuagint mainly represents an older Hebrew Vorlage, often in agreement with 4QSama. The chain of changes concerning Hannahʼs vow in the MT seems to spring from halakic motivation. Hannah’s behaviour should not be taken as an example for other mothers after her. For this reason, the nature of Hannah’s prayer had to be retouched. The fact that the textual evidence is found to reveal processes at work during the editorial history of the text makes it evident that the borderline between the so-called “lower” and “higher” criticism – that is, textual criticism and literary criticism – no longer exists. The paradigm shift after Qumran unavoidably means a paradigm shift for the historical-critical methodology.
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Why is it important?
The historical-critical methodology widely used in Biblical studies is based on the work of several great scholars of the 19th century. Since then, the circumstances in which Biblical research is conducted have been fundamentally changed by discoveries of early copies of Biblical texts and related literature especially in the Dead Sea area. Today, we know so much more of the history and development of Biblical texts than our predecessors. This new knowledge allows the present generation of Biblical scholars to solve old problems in a more reliable way but also makes them aware of the need to adjust the methodology to the recent discoveries.
Perspectives
For me it is especially important to be able to demonstrate how to use the Septuagint to shed light on the history of the Hebrew Bible. Although the Septuagint is a translation, the translation technique typical of each individual Septuagint translator often reveals the underlying Hebrew, at times identical with the later MT, at times an earlier form of the Hebrew text. As far as we are able to reconstruct the original wording of the translator, it will take us to a Hebrew Vorlage as early as the date of the translation, in case of 1 Samuel the latter part of the 2nd century BCE, a time from which we only know small fragments of the Hebrew text.
Professor Anneli Pirjo Marjukka Aejmelaeus
University of Helsinki
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This page is a summary of: Was Samuel Meant to Be a Nazirite? The First Chapter of Samuel and the Paradigm Shift in Textual Study of the Hebrew Bible, Textus, August 2019, Brill,
DOI: 10.1163/2589255x-02801001.
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