1 What Is an Opisthograph?
What exactly do scholars mean when they call a manuscript an ‘opisthograph’? The term has been used by modern scholars to describe a range of different scribal phenomena, but pertains always to a writing medium. As such, opisthograph has been used to describe a variety of objects from the ancient Mediterranean world, ranging from ostraca and inscriptions to wood or clay tablets. For the purpose of this study, the focus is in particular on leather and papyrus manuscripts, though on occasion we will turn to other writing media when comparison is illuminating. The notion of a ‘manuscript’ is used in a variety of ways within scholarship, but when applied here it refers to the physical, text-bearing artefact.1 In this section I will define the concept of the opisthograph by approaching it from both an emic and a modern perspective. ‘Opisthograph’ is one of the few codicological keywords that actually have an ancient origin. Where do we find its origin and how has it been used in the past? In addition to that, we will review the different ways in which it is applied in modern scholarship.
The first use of the term opisthograph that we know of appears in the Latin letter of Pliny the Younger to Baebius Macer, in which he remarks that the inheritance left to him by his uncle Pliny the Elder includes 160 “opisthographos,” written in minute handwriting on both sides of the page.2 A few lines earlier Pliny the Younger had explained how his uncle would write down notes and extracts (“adnotabat excerpebatque”) in these books, so it is plausible that these opisthographs contained said notes and selected passages.3 Though we should not rush to conclusions on the basis of one reference, this reference provides some interesting clues regarding Roman scribal practices. First, the context in which the term opisthograph is employed here refers to a personal collection. These documents are the private property of Pliny the Elder, passed on to his cousin. Second, there is an element of conciseness to these opisthographs. Not only in the fact that they contain writing on both sides, but also because they are written in a small script and consist of selected passages. In antiquity the term opisthograph has been used in a variety of ways. Manfredo Manfredi has demonstrated that in Greek scribal culture opisthograph could refer both to a scroll on which the same text continues on the reverse side, and to a ‘reused’ scroll on which a different text was written on its verso.4 A manuscript that contains writing on the backside seems to have been uncommon enough to warrant the use of a specific term, so that ancient scribes and scholars could distinguish between opisthographs and other types of manuscripts.
The term continued to be used in Renaissance and Early Modern Europe. Erasmus (1466–1536) uses it in his letter to George Spalatin in 1519, where it seems to refer to the text on the reverse side of a letter.5 The Italian scholar Giglio Gregorio Giraldi (1479–1552) writes about opisthographi libelli, when he refers to something like a “handwritten book for private use with annotations, first drafts and excerpts.”6 As far as could be traced back, its earliest occurrence in the English language was in Henry Cockeram’s English Dictionarie, where it is defined as “a booke written on the back side.”7
The origin of the term opisthograph is clearly rooted in classical history, but that does not mean that the practice was unknown elsewhere in the ancient Mediterranean world. Even though in Hebrew literature there does not seem to have been a particular term that was deployed for writing on the reverse side of a manuscript, the practice most certainly did exist. Ezekiel 2:9–10 describes how God extends a scroll containing writing on both sides to Ezekiel and commands him to eat it before prophesying to the Israelites.8 Revelation 5:1 describes a similar scene and should probably be read as a reference to the Ezekiel passage, as here too it is an opisthograph that functions as the medium to transmit secret and divine revelation.
The concept of opisthograph was used in antiquity to indicate the particular scribal practice of writing on the reverse side of a manuscript. Today the term has lost its function in everyday life, but it is still used in scholarship to refer to ancient manuscripts. What do modern scholars mean when they write about opisthographs? David Diringer in his study on the history of the book characterizes the opisthograph as an uncommon type of papyrus that contained text on its reverse side, or verso.9 He associates opisthographs with private use and rough copies, and places them in opposition to papyri that were for sale and of which only one side would have been used. Though in Graeco-Roman writing culture literary texts rarely seem to be written on both sides of a manuscript, Diringer does point to the relative frequency of opisthographs among papyri from Egypt.10
The papyrologist Eric Turner has argued that the term opisthograph should be used for manuscripts on which the text on the front side, the recto, would continue on the back side, the verso.11 This is presumably the type of manuscript that Pliny was referring to in his letter to Baebius Macer. The continuation of the text on the back of a manuscript is what Turner refers to as ‘a true opisthograph.’ This definition is preferred by both Jean-Luc Fournet and William Johnson, the latter of which defines an opisthograph as a “bookroll where the text is written on both front (recto) and back (verso),” and specifically notes that the term “does not apply when both sides are written upon because the papyrus has been reused.”12
However, this definition is not really congruent with the application of the term in many scholarly publications. For example, the Words of the Luminaries manuscript 4Q504 would, if we follow Turner, have been the only true opisthograph from Qumran, because the scribe seems to have run out of writing material and finished his text on the reverse side of the scroll. However, Maurice Baillet does not use the term in his publication of the manuscript in DJD 7, and 4Q504 is also not included in most of the different lists of opisthographs from Qumran that have been published throughout the years.13
The notion of opisthograph is more consistently used within Qumran scholarship for manuscripts which bear a different text on the verso.14 Also outside the study of the Judaean Desert manuscripts, scholars often use the term for a scroll on which we find different texts on either side. This is the type of manuscript for which, for example, Larry Hurtado, AnneMarie Luijendijk, and Paul Foster use the term within New Testament studies.15
From this brief overview we can observe that there are two concurrent definitions of opisthograph used within scholarship, depending on whether it concerns the same composition or different texts on either side.16 In this study, I will refrain from adopting one over the other and employ the term in its broadest sense, referring to both manuscripts on which the text of the recto continues on the verso, and manuscripts that contain different compositions on either side.17
2 Recto and Verso on Ancient Papyri
The terms recto and verso have been used in different ways to describe the two sides of a manuscript.18 Within the field of papyrology, the recto is considered to be the side on which the fibres of the papyrus plant run horizontally, parallel to the text. On the verso we often find the text written across the fibres, or transversa charta, because the layers of the papyrus plant with the fibres running in opposite directions would be pressed together to solidify the manuscript.
A common assumption is that the text found on the verso would be of secondary importance in the eyes of the scribes involved in the writing process, and that the second scribe reused the manuscript because the first, original text ceased to be of interest to him.19 There is good reason for this assumption. By far the majority of the papyri that survived contain writing on only the recto. This applies to many of the major papyrus collections from the ancient world, such as Oxyrhynchus, Herculaneum, and the discoveries from the Judaean Desert. The reason for this is presumably that it would have been smoother to write on the recto (along the fibres of the papyrus plant) than on the verso (across the fibres). However, what this practice signifies in relation to the scribe’s or scribes’ attitudes to the different texts of a manuscript is not entirely clear.
Some papyrologists simply assume that the text on the recto must have been written first, but this seems problematic in some regards. After all, we also have cases of papyri where the papyrological recto is left blank and only the verso with vertical fibres contains writing. P.Oxy. 1228, which is dated to the late third century CE, for example preserves fragments of two columns from the Gospel of John on the verso while the recto is blank.20 A number of these manuscripts are also found among the Aramaic documents from Elephantine. The presence of such papyri problematizes the assumption to automatically date the text on the recto of an opisthograph as the oldest text.
It is true that establishing the direction of the fibres cannot be used on its own as a decisive (relative) dating method, but it is at least an indication that can be used alongside other evidence. This is apparent from comparative evidence. In his study on the time interval between writing on both sides of Greek papyri, Eric Turner concluded that the verso was usually inscribed between 1 and 100 years after the text on the recto had been written down, with the majority occurring within the first 25 years.21 This inquiry was based on 40 papyrus opisthographs from a variety of collections (15 of which originated from Oxyrhynchus), each containing an official document on the recto. As a general rule of thumb, we can assume that ancient scribes would start writing on the side with fibres in horizontal direction, which seems to have made it so easy to write straight that additional ruling was often not necessary.22 Nevertheless, in order to establish this with confidence for individual manuscripts, we would be required to date the texts on either side of the scroll on palaeographic grounds as well and provide a general assessment of the materiality of the manuscript.
3 Opisthographic Practices in the Dead Sea Scrolls
We can now turn our attention to Qumran and ask which types of opisthographic manuscripts we exactly encounter among the Dead Sea Scrolls. We have observed above that there is a variety in the ways in which the term opisthograph has been applied, especially with regard to the distinction between manuscripts that bear one continuous text or different compositions on either side. Within the field of Qumran studies this has led to different categorisations.23
Of particular importance for our purposes and for the research questions outlined in the introduction are those opisthographs that contain different literary compositions on either side. However, these texts were not composed and transmitted in isolation. They emerged within a textual culture and, as such, circulated in a context or in a relationship with other manuscripts. It is therefore important to analyse the opisthographs that carry literary compositions against the backdrop of other, similar opisthographic practices that may have been documented. The present section aims to provide an overview of the body of materials under consideration, in order to appreciate the significance of these manuscripts in terms of their scribal setting, usage, and potential circulation. The following sections will offer concise discussions of each of these individual manuscripts.
The opisthographs from Qumran can broadly be subdivided between several categories. The first group concerns the difficult group of unidentified manuscripts. This is a small set of three scrolls that are too fragmentary to assess the character of the texts they preserve (see table 1 below).
The second category is made up of two types of manuscripts that do contain some writing on the reverse side, but that are nevertheless generally not classified as opisthographs (also not according to our definition above): the tefillin and a group of manuscripts that carries a title on the reverse side.
The tefillin are physical objects, usually small leather cases, in which a leather slip would be placed containing passages from scripture. According to Rabbinic practice these leather cases would have to be worn on the head and arm. At least 17 of the leather strips identified to be tefillin are opisthographs: that is, they contain text on both the recto and verso.24
Table 1
Unidentified opisthographic manuscripts
|
1Q70 |
10 papyrus fragments in a cursive hand |
|
4Q250 |
Fragments containing cryptic writing |
|
4Q518/4Q519 |
68 fragments bearing a literary composition |
Table 2
Opisthographic tefillin from Qumran
|
4Q128 (4QPhyl A) |
4Q138 (4QPhyl K) |
|
4Q129 (4QPhyl B) |
4Q140 (4QPhyl M) |
|
4Q131 (4QPhyl D) |
4Q142 (4QPhyl O) |
|
4Q132 (4QPhyl E) |
4Q143 (4QPhyl P) |
|
4Q133 (4QPhyl F) |
4Q144 (4QPhyl Q) |
|
4Q134 (4QPhyl G) |
4Q145 (4QPhyl R) |
|
4Q135 (4QPhyl H) |
4Q148 (4QPhyl U) |
|
4Q136 (4QPhyl I) |
XQPhyl Slip 4 |
|
4Q137 (4QPhyl J) |
The third category concerns manuscripts where the title of the composition is written on the verso of the scroll. Though these manuscripts are not seen as opisthographs in the traditional sense, they do share the practice of carrying text on both sides. Emanuel Tov distinguishes five instances of this scribal practice, but some have been disputed.
Let us now turn to the central body of this study: the manuscripts from Qumran that traditionally have been classified as opisthographs. We can subdivide these opisthographs into four groups: one opisthograph with continuous text on both sides, opisthographs with documentary texts on the recto and verso, opisthographs with a literary text on the recto and a documentary text on the verso, and finally opisthographs with literary texts on the recto and verso. The exact distinction between ‘literary’ and ‘documentary’ texts can be difficult to make and has regularly led to scholarly confusion. A case in point can be found in the genre of speeches. Public speeches and rhetorics have been preserved across different ancient literatures, but they often defy our textual classifications. A speech can be regarded as a form of literature but also as an administrative statement, depending on its literary context and whether or not the speech was actually given.25 Here, I will follow the Italian classicist and papyrologist Italo Gallo, who defines documentary papyri as “concerning all aspects of everyday life, from letters to contracts, laws, record-books, lists, and so on.”26
Table 3
Manuscripts carrying titles on the verso
|
4Q249 |
Title written on the verso of probably the first inscribed sheet27 |
|
4Q504 |
Title written on the verso of the first inscribed sheet |
|
1QS |
Title written on the verso of the ‘handle sheet’ of the scroll |
|
4QGenh-title |
Title probably written on the recto or verso of the ‘handle sheet’ of a scroll28 |
|
4Q257 |
Something, probably a title, written on the verso of frag. 1 |
Only one manuscript from Qumran, 4Q504, concerns a ‘true’ opisthograph with a single continuous composition on both the recto and verso. This indicates that this practice was very uncommon; it appears that if the scribes behind the Dead Sea Scrolls ‘reused’ the backside of a manuscript they preferred to do so for a different text. Interestingly, 4Q504 was already mentioned above because the title
From this overview we may surmise that the Dead Sea Scrolls opisthographs display quite some variation in the types of texts that were written down together on each side. We find literary opisthographs, documentary opisthographs, and a combination of the two with a literary text on the front. The only type of manuscript that is not present is an opisthograph with a literary text on the back of a documentary text. The Dead Sea Scrolls differ in this regard from other ancient collections where this combination of types of texts is quite widely attested.29 In the subsequent paragraphs we will consider each of these categories of documentary opisthographs from Qumran.
Table 4
Qumran opisthographs
|
Opisthograph with continuous text on both sides |
– 4Q504 |
|
Documentary text on recto and verso |
– 4Q343 – 4Q345 – 4Q342 (disputed) |
|
Literary text on recto and documentary text on verso |
– 4Q201/4Q33830 – 4Q460 frag. 9/4Q350 – 4Q324/4Q355 |
|
Literary texts on recto and verso |
– 4Q415/4Q414 – 4Q433a/4Q255 – 4Q499/4Q497 – 4Q503/4Q512 – 4Q509/4Q496/4Q506 |
4 Unidentified Opisthographic Manuscripts
We will first briefly turn to three manuscripts (or perhaps: groups of fragments that were assembled together) that could not be identified because their state of preservation was too poor: 1Q70, 4Q250, and 4Q518/519.
-
1Q70 consists of 32 small papyrus fragments (33 if we follow Milik and include the fragment of 1Q70bis to this manuscript as well), of which fragments 1–10 are opisthographic.31 This papyrus is of a particular palaeographic importance because, in Milik’s view, 1Q70 would have been the first example of a Jewish cursive manuscript. This concerns the verso all fragments, except frags. 13–19, where the cursive is found on the recto. Milik distinguishes five different hands for 1Q70, of which the opisthographic fragments would have been written by two scribes: frags. 1–6 and 7–10.32 However, this is difficult to establish with certainty. It cannot be excluded that some (or all) of these fragments belong to other opisthographic papyri. The few words that can be discerned suggest that at least some of these opisthographs are of a literary character.
-
4Q250 concerns the opisthographic fragments from a large group of papyrus fragments from Cave 4 that carry cryptic writing.33 It is unclear how many compositions 4Q250 contains, though Pfann distinguishes 11 (4Q250, 4Q250a-j), many of which are represented by only one or two tiny fragments.34 Pfann published 4Q250a as 4Qpap cryptA Text Concerning Cultic Service B?, and 4Q250b as 4Qpap cryptA Text Related to Isaiah 11, but the text on the other fragments remain unidentified.35
-
4Q518/519 consists of 68 papyrus fragments, but much like 1Q70 they could belong to one or more other opisthographic manuscripts.36 The composition is in Hebrew. The reconstruction of words such as
קודש (frag. 32) and רשעה (frag, 40) suggest a literary text, but little else can be remarked about it. Both Falk and Brooke point to the different scribal hands on recto and verso and to their different orientation, which does suggest that they represent different manuscripts.37
5 Qumran Tefillin
The tefillin or phylacteries are excluded from most studies about opisthographs from Qumran.38 This has to do with the fact that tefillin are not considered to be scrolls in the traditional sense of the term. The written texts are contained in a small leather box and cannot be consulted anymore when the tefillin is sealed. Nevertheless, the reason to include the tefillin in this study is two-fold. First, the tefillin are manuscripts in the sense that we are dealing with text-bearing artefacts. Some of them are, as we will see, undoubtedly opisthographic. In order to fully appreciate how to understand these opisthographs and the different reading practices related to them, all possible bodies of evidence should be taken into consideration. Second, the Qumran tefillin are the oldest examples that survived. They are the product of an intriguing scribal practice that may offer new perspectives on the circulation of manuscripts in the context of ritual. For these reasons, they deserve to be discussed here.
Tov lists in total 28 tefillin and 9 mezuzot from the Judaean Desert.39 The identification of the leather slips as tefillin or phylacteries is based on the 25 leather cases that were found, five of which still contained the leather slips inside.40 Nevertheless, some reservation concerning their identification as tefillin is required, especially because of their uncertain provenance. These leather slips were sometimes discovered in situ by archaeologists, and sometimes they were purchased from the Bedouin that discovered the majority of the Dead Sea Scrolls and related artefacts.41 The tefillin contain segments from Exodus and Deuteronomy, which is in accordance with Rabbinic practice.42 The distinction between tefillin and mezuzot by scholars was based on material features: nine of the 45 leather slips were bigger, made of higher quality leather, and written in higher quality handwriting and were for that reason identified as mezuzot.43 It has been argued that the scribes of the tefillin “may well have been unconcerned about the aesthetic features of tefillin slips,” because they could not have been read anyway as they were kept in their closed cases.44 Alternatively, because none of the cases or housings of mezuzot survived, it is also possible that the mezuzot were simply tefillin that were stored in larger cases.45
At least 14 of the leather strips identified to be tefillin are opisthographs: that is, they contain text on both the recto and verso.46 We do not know why both opisthographic and anopisthographic exemplars were produced. Because there is no mentioning in the Hebrew Bible of the verso of tefillin being inscribed as well, Tov assumes that the practice developed to save writing material and not for example as the result of a halakhic prescription.47 The text on the verso of the tefillin is generally perpendicular to that of the recto, which means that the manuscript is flipped around and turned 90 degrees in a horizontal direction before the reverse side was penned down. The only exception to the perpendicular orientation is 4Q136 (4QPhyl I), where the leather slip is only flipped around, but not turned as well.
Milik observed that the perpendicular orientation that we encounter for the tefillin is throughout the Mediterranean world more common for papyri than for parchment manuscripts.48 The most likely explanation for this is that by turning the manuscript 90 degrees the scribe would be able to write parallel to the fibres of the papyrus plant, which he could use as ruling lines. This advantage does not exist on leather. This scribal convention for the production of leather tefillin brings George Brooke to hypothesizing that the tefillin could have been written on papyrus in the past and that this practice survived the transition of the production of tefillin from papyrus to leather.49
With regard to the palaeography of the Qumran tefillin published in DJD 6, Milik differentiates between two types of scribal hands: firstly, a number of tefillin is written in a literary hand. In this group we find one opisthograph: 4Q143 (4QPhyl P), both recto and verso indeed seem to be written in an early formal hand (“l’écriture presque calligraphique”).50 The other opisthographic tefillin are all written in what Milik characterizes as a “remarkably constant semi-cursive,” which he calls “écriture de phylactère.”51 The letterforms are rudimentary and often difficult to read, which is caused by occasional blotting of ink.52 The letter size is tiny, to the degree that Falk calls it “micro-writing.”53 The cursive elements might be an indication that the lines were written fast.54 It seems that both sides of the tefillin opisthographs are written by the same scribes. Due to their idiosyncratic script style it is difficult to date individual tefillin to a more narrow time frame than the second century BCE to the first century CE.55 A full palaeographic analysis of the tefillin thus far is missing: they are not discussed in the studies of the palaeography of the early Judaean scripts by Cross, Joseph Naveh, or Émile Puech.56
Brooke argued that “if the use of opisthographs is a reflection of personal use, then the Qumran tefillin, though hidden in cases, are artefacts that correspond with developments in private prayer.”57 Falk has recently analysed the tefillin in the context of private textual artefacts. He concludes that the tefillin should be seen as personal copies on the basis of three reasons: (1) economy was a major concern in the production of the tefillin (more than size), (2) they seem to be made by an unskilled manufacturer, and (3) the lay-out and material features of the tefillin were very inconsistent.58 Falk notes a difference in the aesthetics of the recto and verso that cannot be related to the content of the text. While the arrangement of the recto is quite orderly, the verso appears disorderly: the perpendicular orientation results in awkward columnisation, while the middle of the verso is often left blank, even when there is text on the top and the bottom of the slip.59 The exact reason for their disorganized layout is unclear, and Falk argues that the “tefillin cannot be the product of professionals who are expert at producing tefillin.”60 Some caution is warranted in this regard however. A disorganized layout does not necessarily have to mean that the scribe that produced the manuscript was unskilled: it can be difficult to determine whether sloppy writing is the result of a lack of professional training, or a conscious decision on the scribe’s part. Their disorderly production could be intentional. After all, the tefillin were never destined to be read, reviewed, or studied closely, which indicates that they most probably did not circulate as textual artefacts within reading communities. This quality sets them apart from the other opisthographic manuscripts discussed in chapter one and two, such as the literary opisthographs. The texts the tefillin bear were not intended to transfer meaning, but rather served a symbolic function. This means that it was not a problem if the tefillin were cramped and therefore difficult to read. Such an informally produced text on a small slip of leather probably drastically brought down financial costs, which suggests that tefillin could have been more affordable than regular scrolls. It is indeed possible that “tefillin and mezuzot may have been the only personal portions of scripture that many people had.”61
Additional evidence for tefillin as private artefacts has been offered by Ariel Feldman and Faina Feldman. They inspected 4Q148, one of the two opisthographic leather slips that remained unpublished by Milik in DJD 6, and (tentatively) conclude that it indeed seems to have been a tefillin-like amulet.62 Feldman and Feldman argue that the verso of the slip probably contained a legal document (a will seems a likely possibility), which probably would have been written before the literary text on the recto.63 They offer a number of possible reconstructions, but all include the act of reusing a legal text for the manufacturing of a tefillin-like amulet. It seems very unlikely that a professional scribe would use someone’s personal will in the production of a tefillin. Taking these different considerations in mind when examining the tefillin’s materiality, palaeography, and their hypothesized function as devices to support prayer, it seems probable that the opisthographic tefillin were private artefacts.
6 Manuscripts Carrying Titles on the Verso
Among the Dead Sea Scrolls there are a number of manuscripts where the title of the composition is written on the verso of the scroll. Tov lists two instances of titles written on the verso of the first inscribed sheet (4Q249 and 4Q504), and two instances of the titles written on the so-called ‘handle sheet’ of the manuscript (1QS and 4QGenh-title).64 The handle sheet was the protective sheet that could be stitched to the first inscribed sheet of the manuscript, much like the protocollon from the classical world.65 This handle sheet served a number of purposes: it serves as an outside layer of protection against deteroration, it facilitates readers to hold and navigate the manuscript without touching the actual inscribed text, and in the Byzantine period the sheet could be used to describe the contents of the scroll or provide bibliographical information.66
In addition to these four instances, Tov includes a fifth manuscript where a title could have been written on the verso: 4Q257, 4QpapSerekh ha-Yaḥadʿ.67 On the back of the first fragment, 12.4 centimetres from the right edge of this papyrus scroll, a few poorly legible letters are written down.68 Philip Alexander and Géza Vermes in their principal edition read
-
4Q249 concerns the cryptic manuscript of Midrash Sefer Moshe. On the verso of the first column of the scroll we find the title written in an ordinary square script (so not in cryptic):
מדרש ספר מושה . The writing direction is perpendicular to the text on the recto, following the papyrus fibres. Pfann dates this manuscript to no later than the first half of the second century BCE, but this date is based on only the letterforms of the eleven letters of the title and remains therefore very insecure.71 However, the palaeographic analyses by Ben-Dov and Stökl Ben Ezra argued for not one but two scribes that would have penned the manuscript around 100 BCE.72 C14 datings of the manuscript published in 1995 resorted to a two sigma dating to 242 BCE–6 CE.73 4Q249 is not the only cryptic text with the title written in the square script: the first line of 4Q298 gives the title in the square script, which was dated by Pfann to the Late Hasmonean or Early Herodian Period (50–1 BCE).74 It seems plausible that the writing down of titles of cryptic manuscripts in the square script played a role in the storage of the scrolls in antiquity, but this remains speculation. -
4Q504 is one of the two manuscripts of Words of the Luminaries and carries the title on the verso of frag. 8:
דברי המארות , which is written in perpendicular direction. The column on the recto is generally taken to be the start of the composition. The title seems to be written in the same script style as the rest of the composition, but by a different scribe that wrote in a more angular fashion. Baillet leaves open the possibility that the title might have been added slightly later.75 -
1QS carries the title […]
ך היחד ומן [סר ], “Rule of the Community and of” on the verso of the handle sheet, which was stitched to the first sheet of 1QS. The title is written perpendicular to the main composition and seems to be written in the same style. The addition of the preposition “ומן ” is intriguing, possibly referring to the addition of 1QSa and 1QSb in the same manuscript.76 It is unlikely that the “ומן ” used to be part of the title of the Rule of the Community, because it is not present in the other attestations of the title (1QS col. I, 1, 16; 4Q255 1, 1; 4Q256 2, 1). -
4QGenh-title, 4Q8c, is a small leather fragment that is grouped together with three other small manuscripts that are related to Genesis.77 This fragment only reads the word
ברשית , which is written in the middle of the fragment. Davila notes that the word occurs on the hair side of the manuscript, with the flesh side left blank. Because most scrolls were only inscribed on the hair side it is possible that this manuscript is not an opisthograph, but used to have a handle sheet with a title on the recto. Tov however speculates that the title was written on the verso of the manuscript.78
In the case of 4Q249, 4Q504, and 1QS the title was written perpendicular to the script on the recto of the manuscript. This means that when these scrolls were rolled up and placed on a table or shelf the title could be read. This is less clear for 4QGenh, where we do not know the orientation of the text following the title.
The inclusion of the titles on the verso could be an indication of library practices as they were intended “to help in the storage and retrieval of the scrolls.”79 The presence of these titles is not an exclusively Judaean scribal phenomenon. Though the practice of writing titles either at the beginning of a text (inscriptiones) or at the end of a text (subscriptiones) is more widely attested, titles on the back scrolls can also be found in Graeco-Roman manuscript traditions.80 This would have made it easier to identify the right manuscript when the scroll was rolled up. Mario Capasso and Menico Caroli explore different examples of these manuscripts from Egypt and Italy.81 It is unclear if the title would have been immediately visible on the outside of the scroll. Capasso suggests that the title was covered by the left margin of the scroll to prevent deterioration from direct contact with the surface on which the scroll was placed.82 The Leuven Database of Ancient Books lists a total of 12 examples of such manuscripts, which suggests that noting a title on the papyrological verso was a shared practice across different collections and writing cultures:83
Table 5
Opisthographs in the Leuven Database of Ancient Books
|
Collection inventory No. |
TM No. |
Text on recto |
|
|---|---|---|---|
|
1 |
P.Oxy. 2358 |
59063 |
Alcaeus, Unknown composition |
|
2 |
P.Oxy. 2741 |
59787 |
Eupolis, Maricas |
|
3 |
Zürich 1894 |
51507 |
Legal Contract |
|
4 |
P.Herc 339 |
62406 |
Philodemus, On the Stoics |
|
5 |
P.Ryl. 1 19 |
62836 |
Theopompus, Philippica |
|
6 |
P.Oxy. 407 |
64310 |
Amulet with prayer |
|
7 |
P.Laur. 3 56 |
65567 |
Unknown literary text |
|
8 |
P.Acad. Inv. Nr. 6d |
69033 |
Medical prescription |
|
9 |
P.CtYBR inv. 4006 |
69034 |
Unknown literary text? (?) |
|
10 |
P.Mich.inv. 3589 |
107778 |
Psalm 115 |
|
11 |
Private collection |
107787 |
Theodorus, Letter |
|
12 |
P.Chester Beatty Ac. 1495 |
108131 |
Horsiesios,’ Letter 4 |
7 Opisthograph with Continuous Text on Both Sides: 4Q504
Above, we briefly reflected on Turner’s notion of the ‘true opisthograph,’ which he defines as a “continuation of same text on back.”84 This understanding is shared by scholars such as Fournet and Johnson and applies to single sheets and scrolls, but also to, for example, ostraca and codices. Among the Dead Sea Scrolls only one such opisthograph has been preserved: the leather scroll 4Q504, 4QWords of the Luminaries. Esther G. Chazon’s proposed reconstruction preserves about half of the original manuscript.85 It seems clear that both sides of the scroll were to be used simultaneously.
Frag. 8 of this manuscript carries
The discussion of 4Q504 allows us to finally turn to the manuscripts that are traditionally understood to be opisthographs: scrolls that contain (parts) of different compositions on either side. A significant number of these carry documentary texts. These documentary opisthographs can be subdivided into two groups: manuscripts that carry documentary texts on both sides, and manuscripts that contain a documentary text on the verso of a literary text.
8 Documentary Opisthographs
The first group consists of three opisthographs: 4Q343, 4Q342, and 4Q345. It should be noted that the provenance of these manuscripts is insecure; scholars have proposed that they did not derive from Qumran at all.90
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4Q343, 4QLetter nab, was most probably a sheet made of leather of which only one fragment survived.91 The recto consists of nine lines, and the verso of six lines that are written perpendicularly to the recto. Both recto and verso seem to be written by the same hand, which Ada Yardeni dates to “an early phase in the evolution of the Nabatean script, perhaps from the middle of the first century BCE.”92 The text on both sides concerns a Nabatean Aramaic letter or economic document, the exact topic of which is unclear.93 It seems probable that both sides of the manuscript are part of the same continuous text. Aramaic letters written on leather are usually not opisthographs, but Lutz Doering suggests that in the case of 4Q343 the scribe might not have had the space to continue anywhere else apart from the verso.94
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Whether or not 4Q342, 4QLetter? ar, is an opisthograph has caused some confusion. Tov includes 4Q342 in his list of opisthographs, but Yardeni does not observe remains of script on the verso.95 After inspection of the digital PAM image I also could not identify text on the verso.96
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To the Nabatean letter we may add the double deed or Doppelurkunde 4Q345, 4QDeed A ar or heb.97 The double deed is a standardized form of contracts that goes as far back as the fourth century BCE.98 The contracts are written twice on one side of a manuscript and subsequently signed by the witnesses that were present. After this process the upper version of the two is folded and sealed, while the lower text remains visible. In case of disagreement about the authenticity of the document was it possible to open the upper, folded copy of the text so it could be verified by comparing it to the lower text. Yardeni reconstructs the names of
הושעיה and ישמעאל בר שמעון on the verso of 4Q345.99 This manuscript is excluded from Tov’s list of opisthographs, but should be classified as such because of the presence of signatures on the verso.
9 Documentary Opisthographs on the Verso of Literary Texts
The second group of documentary opisthographs concerns documentary texts that are written on the verso of literary texts. This type of manuscripts is well documented in the ancient Mediterranean world.100 We find many letters and accounts written on the verso of literary texts among the documents of the Heroninos Archive from Faiyum (253–306 CE), the largest business archive of Roman Egypt.101 Three examples of such documentary texts on the back of biblical uncials are listed by Don Barker.102 Among the Dead Sea Scrolls we find three scrolls that carry a literary composition on the recto and a documentary text on the verso:
9.1 4Q201/4Q338
This manuscript is the only Aramaic literary opisthograph from the Judaean Desert. The recto bears 4Q201, 4QEna, which preserves parts of the first twelve chapters of the Aramaic version of the Book of Watchers.103 On the backside of the section with the first three columns we encounter 4Q338, 4QGenealogical List?, a very fragmentary text that is largely faded. Whether or not 4Q338 actually concerns a documentary text in its traditional sense is a matter of debate. Both Milik and Cross read
4Q338 on the verso appears to be an example of material reuse in Qumran. 4Q338 was written upside-down in relation to recto, so after both flipping the manuscript and turning it 180 degrees. Milik suggests that 4Q338 was inscribed when 4Q201 was rendered obsolete, about a century after it was written. 4Q338 is not in a condition to allow independent palaeographic dating. Based on the blots of ink on the verso Milik proposed that 4Q338 could have been a school-exercise.108 Though certainly possible, this is by no means certain. Too little of the text is preserved to assess whether we are dealing with the hand of a student, and the scribal characteristics that could typically point to an educational context (guide-lines, punctuation, lectional signs) seem to be absent.109
9.2 4Q460 frag. 9/4Q350
4Q460, 4Q Narrative Work and Prayer, is a Hebrew composition consisting of both a narrative presented in the third person, and a number of prayers in both the first and second person.110 Erik Larson has proposed that the text is “a collection of psalms somewhat akin to the Hodayot.”111 Elsewhere Hannah Cotton and Larson suggested to read 4Q460 as either rewritten bible, or as a “collection of prayers with some historical elements embedded within them.”112 Elisha Qimron has proposed to rename the text Words of Levi (
How these two seemingly unrelated texts ended up on the same manuscript is a question that has continued to intrigue scholars. 4Q460/4Q350 seems a clear illustration of material reuse in a different context. After all, it is improbable that the scribe of a Hebrew literary religious text would also keep record of Greek cereal accounts. What is unclear is whether the manuscript was reused by the same group that copied, read, studied, and otherwise engaged with the other manuscripts from Qumran. To put the matter differently, did the reuse take place within the same textual community?
Cotton and Larson point to the presence of the divine name or Tetragrammaton on the recto of frag. 9, and maintain that “it is simply inconceivable that a Jew would reuse for a profane purpose a scroll that contained the Tetragrammaton.”115 They argue that the site must have been visited by a non-Judaean occupant that entered Cave 4, used the verso of frag. 9 to write a list of objects that were stored there, and subsequently discarded the manuscript again in the cave. The most plausible scenario in the view of Cotton and Larson is that the manuscript was used as note-paper by an auxiliary unit in the Roman army that occupied the site after the destruction of Qumran in 68 CE.116
Popović is not fully convinced by this explanation and wonders why a Roman soldier would first enter Cave 4, take one manuscript to note down an administrative list and subsequently return the manuscript back to the cave.117 In his view opisthographs such as 4Q201/4Q338, discussed above, indicate that the reuse of writing material occurred already before the destruction of the site by Roman legionaries.
To this argument we could add that the reuse of scripture for administrative purposes is attested elsewhere as well.118 Even more: a study by Luijendijk describes the extensive practice of discarding Christian biblical manuscripts as garbage in ancient Oxyrhynchus.119 Also outside ancient Jewish and Christian communities there is evidence present for the reuse of manuscripts carrying culturally significant texts in a different context.120 The point at issue is whether we do know for sure if the divine name was so revered that a manuscript with the Tetragrammaton could not be reused. Though it appears that Tetragrammata were used sparsely in non-biblical texts, we do not know precisely what this means.121 Furthermore, it is possible that the reverse side of a text from Masada that contained the Tetragrammaton was reused, though the reading is fragmentary.122 In conclusion, we cannot exclude the possibility that also manuscripts carrying the Tetragrammaton could have been reused by the scribes behind the Dead Sea Scrolls.
9.3 4Q324/4Q355
This opisthograph is a leather manuscript of which two small fragments have survived. 4Q324, 4QMishmarot C, concerns a Hebrew calendrical text which, according to Shemaryahu Talmon and Jonathan Ben-Dov, “contained a register of dates of the Saturday afternoons on which the different priestly courses entered the Temple prior to the onset of their week of service on the following Sunday morning.”123 4Q324 is written by a hand from the late Hasmonaean or Early Herodian period and reveals, according to the editors, “the hand of a trained scribe.”124 The script is regular and well legible.
On the verso of both fragments we find 4Q355, 4QAccount C ar or heb.125 Apart from a few isolated letters and numbers no text could be identified, although Yardeni suggests on the basis of the numerals that it concerns an account. While it might be possible to estimate the length of Mishmarot C, it is impossible to establish how long the text on the verso might have been. It is unclear if the text is Hebrew or Aramaic. The script is cursive, but could not be dated. Just as the other documentary opisthographs, 4Q355 was written upside-down in relation to 4Q324 on the recto.
None of the editors propose an explanation for the presence of these two texts together.126 It is interesting to note that both 4Q324 and 4Q355 contain numbers. The numbers on 4Q324 all seem to concern dates and are written out, while 4Q355 uses numerals. This does not seem an indication that both texts are thematically related. Brooke argues that “there is no clear relationship between the compositions on the two sides, unless one envisages a priest making a calculation on the reverse of his rota.”127 For now we would have to conclude that 4Q355 is an example of material reuse of the back of an unrelated text.128
On different definitions of ‘manuscript’ in the field of scrolls studies, see Eibert J.C. Tigchelaar, “Constructing, Deconstructing and Reconstructing Fragmentary Manuscripts: Illustrated by a Study of 4Q184 (4QWiles of the Wicked Woman),” in Rediscovering the Dead Sea Scrolls: An Assessment of Old and New Approaches and Methods, ed. Maxine L. Grossman (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 26–47, at 26–28.
Pliny the Younger, Epistulae, 3.5.17. Both Betty Radice in her LCL edition and the translation by Peter Walsh translate ‘opisthographos’ here as ‘notebooks.’ Peter G. Walsh (ed.), Pliny the Younger: Complete Letters (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).
Pliny the Younger, Epistulae, 3.5.10.
Manfredo Manfredi, “Opistografo,” Parola del Passato 38 (1983): 44–54.
Letter 1001. Desiderius Erasmus, Opus Epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami, vol. 4: 1519–1521, ed. Percy S. Allen and Heathcote W. Garrod (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1922). Cf. ‘opisthographia’ in Dictionary of Renaissance Latin from Prose Sources, ed. René Hoven, 2nd ed. (Leiden: Brill, 2006).
Karl A.E. Enenkel, “The Making of 16th-century Mythography: Giraldi’s Syntagma de Musis (1507, 1511 and 1539), De deis gentium historia (ca. 1500–1548) and Julien de Havrech’s De cognominibus deorum gentilium (1541),” Humanistica Lovaniensia 51 (2002): 9–53, at 15.
Henry Cockeram, The English Dictionarie: or, An Interpreter of Hard English Words (1623; repr., New York: Huntington, 1930).
According to Exod 32:15 also the stone tablets of Moses would have been double-sided.
David Diringer, The Book before Printing: Ancient, Medieval and Oriental (New York: Dover, 1982), 137–138.
Diringer, The Book before Printing, 138.
Eric G. Turner, “The Terms Recto and Verso: The Anatomy of the Papyrus Roll,” in Actes du XVe Congrès International de Papyrologie, vol. 1, ed. Jean Bingen and Georges Nachtergael (Brussels: Fondation Égyptologique Reine Élisabeth, 1978), 8–10.
Jean-Luc Fournet, “Papyrus, Greco-Roman Period,” in The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, ed. Roger S. Bagnall et al. (Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013), 5057–5058; Johnson, Bookrolls and Scribes, 342.
The first of these lists was published by Michael Wise in 1994 and contains 16 opisthographs: Michael O. Wise, “Accidents and Accidence: A Scribal View of Linguistic Dating of the Aramaic Scrolls from Qumran,” in Thunder in Gemini: And Other Essays on the History, Language and Literature of Second Temple Palestine, JSPSup 15 (Sheffield: JSOT, 1994), 103–151, at 133.
Emanuel Tov has published one in 1999 (14 opisthographs), and one in 2004 (21 opisthographs): Emanuel Tov, “Opisthographs from the Judean Desert,” in A Multiform Heritage: Studies on Early Judaism and Christianity in Honor of Robert A. Kraft, ed. Ben G. Wright (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999), 11–18; idem, Scribal Practices and Approaches Reflected in the Texts Found in the Judean Desert, STDJ 54 (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 295–297. He does refer to 4Q504 as an opisthograph at Scribal Practices and Approaches, 109 n. 145.
George Brooke lists in total 32 opisthographs (which includes 16 tefillin): George J. Brooke, “Between Scroll and Codex? Reconsidering the Qumran Opisthographs,” in On Stone and Scroll: Essays in Honour of Graham Ivor Davies, ed. James K. Aitken, Katharine J. Dell, and Brian A. Mastin, BZAW 420 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011), 123–138, at 126–127.
Daniel K. Falk and Antony Perrot do mention 4Q504 in their recent overviews of the Qumran opisthographs: Daniel K. Falk, “Material Aspects of Prayer Manuscripts at Qumran,” in Literature or Liturgy? Early Christian Hymns and Prayers in their Literary and Liturgical Context in Antiquity, ed. Clemens Leonhard and Hermut Löhr, WUNT 363 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 33–88, at 45–56; Antony Perrot, “Reading an Opisthograph at Qumran,” in Material Aspects of Reading in Ancient and Medieval Cultures: Materiality, Presence and Performance, ed. Anna Krauß, Jonas Leipziger and Friederike Schücking-Jungblut, MTK 26 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2020), 101–114.
See for example Jonathan Ben-Dov, Asaf Gayer, and Eshbal Ratzon, Material and Digital Reconstruction of Fragmentary Dead Sea Scrolls: The Case of 4Q418a, STDJ 136 (Leiden: Brill, 2022), 57.
Larry W. Hurtado, The Earliest Christian Artifacts: Manuscripts and Christian Origins (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 31–32; AnneMarie Luijendijk, “Sacred Scriptures as Trash: Biblical Papyri from Oxyrhynchus,” VC 64 (2010): 217–254; Paul Foster, “Papyrus Oxyrhynchus X 1224,” in Early Christian Manuscripts: Examples of Applied Method and Approach, ed. Thomas J. Kraus and Tobias Nicklas, TENTS 5 (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 59–96, at 60–61.
Tiziano Dorandi distinguishes between an ancient understanding of ‘opisthograph’ that denotes “either a roll with a text which continued from the recto to the verso (…) or a roll with a text on the back of the papyrus,” and modern usage of the term, where ‘opisthograph’ is “used only when a papyrus roll or a roll fragment consisting of only one leaf had new text written on the verso shortly after the inscribing of the recto, usually without bearing any relation to the latter.” Tiziano Dorandi, “Opisthographos,” BNP.
A type of manuscript that will be excluded from this study concerns the loose leaves from codices that survived separate from the codex they were once a part of. Such a sheet may often look like an opisthograph to our eyes, but would probably have been something very different for ancient scribes and readers. The transition of scroll to codex has been a continuous subject for discussion, but in general we may assume that codices would have invited other forms of engagement than scrolls or sheets, if only because in the case of a codex different individual texts are generally embedded within a larger text-bearing artefact. See Colin H. Roberts and Theodore C. Skeat, The Birth of the Codex (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983); Hurtado, The Earliest Christian Artifacts, 43–93; Brooke, “Between Scroll and Codex.”
The main difference in scholarly use occurs where the terms are defined by the content of the texts or by the physical properties of the material: Turner, “The Terms Recto and Verso.”
Florian Coulmas, “Opisthograph,” in Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), 371.
Bernard P. Grenfell and Arthur S. Hunt, The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. 10 (London: Egypt Exploration Fund, 1914), 14–16.
Eric G. Turner, “Recto and Verso,” JEA 40 (1954): 102–106.
Emanuel Tov, “Corpus of the Qumran Papyri,” in Semitic Papyrology in Context: A Climate of Creativity. Papers from a New York University Conference Marking the Retirement of Baruch A. Levine, ed. Lawrence H. Schiffman, CHANE 14 (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 85–103, at 97. Turner is not familiar with any horizontal or vertical ruling in literary papyri from Egypt, except occasionally in school exercises: Eric G. Turner, Greek Manuscripts of the Ancient World, ed. Peter J. Parsons, 2nd ed. (London: Institute of Classical Studies, 1987), 6. William Johnson however has identified a group of 13 papyri from Oxyrhynchus for which he argued that dots were used to arrange column alignment: Johnson, Bookrolls and Scribes in Oxyrhynchus, 93–99.
Though the lists of opisthographs from Qumran presented by Wise, Tov, Brooke, Falk, and Perrot overlap to a large extent, the exact numbers are different. Only Brooke, for example, includes the tefillin in his classification, while only Falk and Perrot mention the ‘true’ opisthograph 4Q504. Cf. section 1.1.
For unclear reasons George Brooke does list 4Q139 (4QPhyl L) and 4Q141 (4QPhyl N) as opisthographs as well, but the versos of these slips are blank. See PAM images 43.455 (4Q139) and 43.457 (4Q141). Also, Józef Milik and Yehudah Cohn do not observe text on the versos; Brooke, “Between Scroll and Codex,” 127; Roland de Vaux and Józef T. Milik, Qumrân grotte 4.II, DJD 6 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1977), 70, 72–74; Yehudah B. Cohn, Tangled Up in Text: Tefillin and the Ancient World, BJS 361 (Providence: Brown Judaic Studies, 2008), 65. See also Emanuel Tov, “The Tefillin from the Judean Desert and the Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible,” in Is There a Text in This Cave? Studies in the Textuality of the Dead Sea Scrolls in Honour of George J. Brooke, ed. Ariel Feldman, Maria Cioată, and Charlotte Hempel, STDJ 119 (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 277–292.
Johannes Kramer, “Papyrologie: eine interdisziplinäre Altertumswissenschaft,” in Von der Papyrologie zur Romanistik, Archiv für Papyrusforschung und verwandte Gebiete 30 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011), 15–25, at 17.
Italo Gallo, Greek and Latin Papyrology (London: Institute of Classical Studies, 1986), 2.
Because of the fragmentary condition of this manuscript we do not know at which fragment the text exactly starts.
The title is written on the hair side. James R. Davila suggests that this concerns the back of an opening handle sheet, but it could also be the recto of the first fragment of the manuscript; Eugene C. Ulrich and Frank Moore Cross, Qumran Cave 4.VII: Genesis to Numbers, DJD 12 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994), 63.
Turner discusses a number of cases in Turner, “Recto and Verso.”
4Q338 does not concern a documentary list in its traditional sense, but rather what seems to be a genealogical list based on Genesis 5. Cf. section 1.9.
Milik, DJD 1:148–149, 155. Tov (probably accidently) mentions 1Q70 in a list of leather documents: Tov, Scribal Practices, 70.
Milik, DJD 1:148–149. This suggestion is also put forward in Wise, “Accidents and Accidence,” 130 n. 85; Eibert J.C. Tigchelaar, “The Material Variance of the Dead Sea Scrolls: On Texts and Artefacts,” HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies 72 (2016): 1–6, at 4 n. 9.
The group also includes the fragments attributed to 4Q249: Stephen Pfann, Qumran Cave 4.XXVI: Cryptic Texts; Philip S. Alexander et al., Miscellanea, Part 1, DJD 36 (Oxford: Clarendon. 2000), 515–701.
Falk notes that at least 4Q250 is not a real opisthograph, but that the text on the recto only concerns traces of ink from another papyrus layer. This might be the case for other fragments from 4Q250 as well: Falk, “Material Aspects of Prayer Manuscripts,” 45–46.
Pfann, DJD 36:680–682.
4Q518/4Q519 was published by Baillet in DJD 7:304–309.
Brooke, “Between Scroll and Codex,” 133 n. 61. Falk notes at least three different hands: Falk, “Material Aspects of Prayer Manuscripts,” 48 n. 56.
Interestingly, Tov does not list the tefillin in his appendix ‘Opisthographs from the Judean Deasert,’ but does discuss them in his discussion of opisthographs and palimpsests: Tov, Scribal Practices and Approaches, 68–73, 295–297. Also Michael Wise and Falk do not consider the tefillin as opisthographs: Wise, “Accidents and Accidence,” 133; Falk, “Material Aspects of Prayer Manuscripts,” 46.
25 of these tefillin would have orginated from Qumran, 1 from Wadi Murabbaʿat, 1 from Nahal Hever, and 1 from Naḥal Ṣeʾelim. Of the mezuzot 8 would have originated from Qumran and 1 from Wadi Murabbaʿat: Emanuel Tov, “Categorized List of the ‘Biblical Texts’,” in The Texts from the Judaean Desert: Indices and an Introduction to the Discoveries in the Judaean Desert Series, DJD 39 (Oxford: Clarendon, 2002), 165–183, at 182–183.
The total number of tefilin and mezuzot however is contested because some illegible slips were ignored and others were grouped together as a single item. Yonatan Adler for example counts 23 leather tefillin cases from Qumran, while Yehuda Cohn’s overview includes as many as 45 leather slips from the Judaean Desert that have been identified as either tefilin or mezuzot: Adler, “The Distribution of Tefillin Finds among the Judean Desert Caves”; Cohn, Tangled Up in Text, 55–102; idem, “Reading Material Features of Qumran Tefillin and Mezuzot,” in Material Aspects of Reading in Ancient and Medieval Cultures, 89–99.
Cohn, Tangled Up in Text, 56–59; idem, “Reading Material Features of Qumran Tefillin and Mezuzot,” 89–90.
Cohn, Tangled Up in Text, 59–60; Yonatan Adler, “The Distribution of Tefillin Finds among the Judean Desert Caves,” in The Caves of Qumran, 161–173.
Exodus 13:1–10; 11–16; Deuteronomy 6:4–9, 11:13–21. Some tefillin however carry different passages from these books. Hermann L. Strack and Günter Stemberger, Introduction to the Talmud and Mishnah, trans. Markus Bockmuehl, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996), 232; Cohn, Tangled Up in Text, 28–32, 65–67.
Cohn, Tangled Up in Text, 60–62; idem, “Reading Material Features of Qumran Tefillin and Mezuzot,” 90–91.
Cohn, “Reading Material Features of Qumran Tefillin and Mezuzot,” 91.
Cohn, Tangled Up in Text, 60, 62.
These are: 4Q128 (4QPhyl A), 4Q129 (4QPhyl B), 4Q134 (4QPhyl G), 4Q135 (4QPhyl H), 4Q136 (4QPhyl I), 4Q137 (4QPhyl J), 4Q138 (4QPhyl K), 4Q140 (4QPhyl M), 4Q142 (4QPhyl O), 4Q143 (4QPhyl P), 4Q144 (4QPhyl Q), 4Q145 (4QPhyl R), and 4Q148 (4QPhyl U), and XQPhyl Slip 4.
Tov, Scribal Practices and Approaches, 70.
Milik, DJD 6:36.
Brooke, “Between Scroll and Codex,” 131.
Milik, DJD 6:75.
Milik, DJD 6:37.
Milik was unable to decipher 4Q147 (4QPhyl T) and 4Q148 (4QPhyl U): DJD 6:37,79. Preliminary editions of these two tefillin however have recently been published in Ariel Feldman and Faina Feldman, “4Q147: An Amulet?” DSD 26 (2019): 1–29; idem “4Q148 (4QPhylactère U): Another Amulet from Qumran?” JSJ 50 (2019): 197–222.
Falk, “Material Aspects of Prayer Manuscripts,” 77.
Peter T. Daniels, “A Calligraphic Approach to Aramaic Palaeography,” JNES 43 (1984): 55–68, at 59.
See also the discussion on the palaeography of the tefillin in Mladen Popović and Eibert Tigchelaar, “Assessing the Maresha Ostracon as a Palaeographic Anchor Point for Dating the Nash Papyrus and Some of the Oldest Qumran Manuscripts,” Forthcoming.
Cross, “Development of the Jewish Scripts”; Joseph Naveh, The Development of the Aramaic Script, PIASH 5 (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1970); Puech, “La paléographie des manuscrits de la mer Morte.” The current research project “Comprehensive Analysis of the Ancient Tefillin Remains from the Judean Desert” by Yonatan Adler and Gemma Hayes aims to fill this scholarly lacuna. Hayes highlighted in private communication the remarkable diversity of the tefillin in terms of their scribal capacity, style, and typological dating: there are early and late examples written by both skilled and unskilled scribes.
Brooke, “Between Scroll and Codex,” 137.
Falk, “Material Aspects of Prayer Manuscripts,” 77–78.
Falk, “Material Aspects of Prayer Manuscripts,” 78.
Falk, “Material Aspects of Prayer Manuscripts,” 80.
Stephen Reed, “Physical Features of Exerpted Torah Texts,” in Jewish and Christian Scripture as Artifact and Canon, ed. Craig A. Evans and H. Daniel Zacharias, LSTS 70 (London: T&T Clark, 2009), 82–104, at 98.
Feldman and Feldman, “4Q148 (4QPhylactère U): Another Amulet from Qumran.”
Feldman and Feldman, “4Q148 (4QPhylactère U): Another Amulet from Qumran,” 211–213.
Tov, Scribal Practices and Approaches, 120–121.
Tov, Scribal Practices and Approaches, 114. On different forms of handle sheets: Emanuel Tov, “Scribal Aspects of the Manufacturing and Writing of the Qumran Scrolls,” in Jewish Manuscript Cultures: New Perspectives, ed. Irina Wandrey, SMC 13 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2017), 29–48.
Eric G. Turner, Greek Papyri: An Introduction (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968), 5; Hartmut Stegemann, “How to Connect Dead Sea Scrolls Fragments,” in Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. Hershel Shanks (New York: Vintage Books, 1993) 245–255, at 250; Michael B. Johnson, “Getting a Handle on 1QIsaiahb: A New Proposal for the So-Called Handle Sheet of 1QHodayota,” DSD 29 (2022): 1–26.
Tov, Scribal Practices and Approaches, 121.
Alexander and Vermes, DJD 26:65–82.
Alexander and Vermes, DJD 26:69–70; Stephen Pfann, DJD 35:1.
Alexander and Vermes, DJD 26:69.
Pfann, DJD 35:5–6.
Jonathan Ben-Dov and Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra, “4Q249 Midrash Moshe: A New Reading and Some Implications,” DSD 21 (2014): 131–149.
A.J. Timothy Jull, Douglas J. Donahue, Magen Broshi, and Emanuel Tov, “Radiocarbon Dating of Scrolls and Linen Fragments from the Judean Desert,” Radiocarbon 37 (1995): 11–19, at 14. This two sigma range has a probability of 92 %, the second two sigma dating (380–354 BCE) has a probability of 8 %.
Pfann, DJD 20:7–9.
Baillet, DJD 7:138.
Tov, Scribal Practices and Approaches, 120–121.
James R. Davila, DJD 12:61–64.
Tov, Scribal Practices and Approaches, 120.
Sidnie W. Crawford, “Where Are All the Colophons? Colophons in the Ancient Near East and in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Mighty Baal: Essays in Honor of Mark S. Smith, ed. Stephen C. Russell and Esther J. Hamori, HSS 66 (Leiden: Brill, 2020), 101–118, at 111. See also Tov, Scribal Practices and Approaches, 120–121.
Among the Herculaneum papyri titles were generally placed at the end of the text: Guglielmo Cavallo, Libri scritture scribi a Ercolano: Introduzione allo studio dei materiali greci, Supplements to CErc 13 (Naples: Gaetano Macchiaroli, 1983), 22.
In addition to inscriptions, subscriptiones, and titles on the verso, manuscripts could also have been provided with a sillybon: a small piece of papyrus or leather with the author and title that would be attached to the edge of the scroll: George W. Houston, Inside Roman Libraries: Book Collections and Their Management in Antiquity (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2014), 9–10.
Mario Capasso, “I titoli nei papiri ercolanesi. III: i titoli esterni (PHerc 339, 1491 e “scorza” non identificata),” in Atti del II convegno nazionale di egittologia e papirologia, Siracusa, 1–3 dicembre 1995 (Syracusa: Istituto internazionale del papiro, 1996), 137–155; Menico Caroli, Il titolo iniziale nel rotolo librario greco-egizio: Con un catalogo delle testimonianze iconografiche greche e di area Vesuviana (Bari: Levante, 2007), 23–28, 133–173.
Capasso, “I titoli nei papiri ercolanesi. III: i titoli esterni,” 149.
I am grateful to Prof. Mark Depauw of KU Leuven for his kind help in identifying these manuscripts.
Turner, “The Terms Recto and Verso,” 8–10. Turner provides a preliminary list of such opisthographs on page 60.
Baillet, DJD 7:137–168; Esther G. Chazon, “A Liturgical Document from Qumran and Its Implications: Words of the Luminaries” (Hebrew) (PhD diss., Hebrew University, 1991).
This part of the composition preserves the prayer dedicated to Sabbath, as evidenced by the liturgical opening in column 7 line 4:
Tov, Scribal Practices and Approaches, 295–297; Wise, “Accidents and Accidence,” 133. In general the opisthograph nature of 4Q504 seems to have been largely overlooked: Falk, “Material Aspects of Prayer Manuscripts,” 45–46.
Falk, “Material Aspects of Prayer Manuscripts,” 51.
Perrot, “Reading an Opisthograph at Qumran,” 103–104; Mika S. Pajunen, “Reading Psalm and Prayer Manuscripts from Qumran,” in Material Aspects of Reading in Ancient and Medieval Cultures: Materiality, Presence and Performance, ed. Anna Krauß, Jonas Leipziger and Friederike Schücking-Jungblut, MTK 26 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2020), 55–70, at 65.
Hannah M. Cotton and Ada Yardeni, Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek Documentary Texts from Nahal Hever and Other Sites, with an Appendix Containing Alleged Qumran Texts, DJD 27 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1997), 283; Tov, Scribal Practices and Approaches, 47. Hanan Eshel does argue that at least a few of the economic texts come from Qumran: Hanan Eshel, “4Q348, 4Q343 and 4Q345: Three Economic Documents from Qumran Cave 4?” JJS 52 (2001): 132–135. For a discussion of the provenance of 4Q342 and 4Q343 see also Lutz Doering, Ancient Jewish Letters and the Beginnings of Christian Epistolography, WUNT 298 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), 47–54.
Yardeni, DJD 27:286–288.
Yardeni, DJD 27:286.
The official publication by Yardeni classified 4Q343 as a letter, though Hanan Eshel refers to the manuscript as an economic document, Eshel, “4Q348, 4Q343 and 4Q345.”
Bezalel Porten notes that when the recto would be full, the scribe would turn the manuscript 90 degrees and continue to write along the right margin: Bezalel Porten, “Aramaic Papyri and Parchments: A New Look,” BA 42 (1979): 74–104, at 92. The Aramaic letter Khalili IA 15 from Ancient Bactria contains both text on the right margin of the recto, but also an address written down in perpendicular orientation on the verso: Joseph Naveh and Shaul Shaked, Aramaic Documents from Ancient Bactria (Fourth Century BCE): From the Khalili Collections (London: The Khalili Family Trust, 2012), 122–126. On 4Q343 see Doering, Ancient Jewish Letters, 50.
Tov, Scribal Practices and Approaches, 296; Yardeni, DJD 27:285.
PAM Photo: M43.405,
Yardeni, DJD 27:292–295.
Uri Yiftach-Firanko, “Doppelurkunde,” in The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, 2209–2210. The practice of the double deed is described in Jeremiah 32:10–14 and m. B. Bat 10:1–2. Studies on double deeds in the Judaean Desert are provided by Elisabeth Koffmahn and Gregor Geiger: Elisabeth Koffmahn, Die Doppelurkunden aus der Wüste Juda. Recht und Praxis der jüdischen Papyri des 1. und 2. Jahrhunderts n. Chr. samt Übertragung der Texte und deutscher Übersetzung, STDJ 5 (Leiden: Brill, 1968); Gregor Geiger, “Die Doppelurkunden aus der Judäischen Wüste: Das Verhältnis vom oberen (inneren) und unteren (äusseren) Text,” RevQ 29 (2017): 247–279.
Yardeni, DJD 27:293.
Gallo, Greek and Latin Papyrology, 10. Literary texts on the back of documents are also common among ancient Mediterranean archives and collections. Mariachiara Lama lists at least 182 such scrolls form Oxyrhynchus alone, which excludes Christian texts and compositions dealing with magical-religious subjects: Mariachiara Lama, “Aspetti di tecnica libraria ad Ossirinco: Copie letterarie su rotoli documentari,” Aeg 71 (1991): 55–120. See also AnneMarie Luijendijk, “Books and Private Readers in Early Christian Oxyrhynchus: “A Spiritual Meadow and a Garden of Delight,” ” Books and Readers in the Premodern World: Essays in Honor of Harry Gamble, ed. Karl Shuve, WGRWSup 12 (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2018), 101–135, at 117.
Curiously however, there are no literary texts on the back of documentary texts preserved from Qumran.
On the Archive of Heroninus: Dominic Rathbone, Economic Rationalism and Rural Society in Third-century A.D. Egypt: The Heroninos Archive and the Appianus Estate (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
Willy Clarysse in his study of Heroninus’ archive notes that “several of his correspondents wrote their letters on the verso of used papyrus, usually a discarded document; but some did not shrink from cutting up a roll of Homer, Demosthenes, Menander, or using a fragment of Old Comedy, or even a philosopher.” Willy Clarysse, “Literary Papyri in Documentary Archives,” in Egypt and the Hellenistic World: Proceedings of the International Colloquium Leuven, 24–26 May 1982, ed. Edmond van ’t Dack et al., Studia Hellenistica 27 (Leuven: Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, 1983), 43–61, at 47.
P.Oxy. 20, where the verso of a manuscript with the second book of Homer’s Iliad in a calligraphic hand is used to note some accounts in a cursive hand. P.Ryl. 16, which had as letter on the verso of an unknown comedy. P.Oxy. 661 concerns a documentary text written in a cursive hand on the back of an exemplar of Callimachus’ collection of Iambi: Don Barker, “The Dating of New Testament Papyri,” NTS 57 (2011): 571–582, at 576.
Józef T. Milik, The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments of Qumrân Cave 4 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976), 139–163, 340–343; Loren T. Stuckenbruck, DJD 36:3–7.
Milik, The Books of Enoch, 139; Tov, DJD 36:290.
Cf. James Nati, “The Rolling Corpus: Materiality and Pluriformity at Qumran, with Special Consideration of the Serekh ha-Yaḥad,” DSD 27 (2020): 161–201, 186–187.
Eibert J.C. Tigchelaar, “Apocalyptic worldview and periodization of history in the Dead Sea Scrolls, with a focus on the Apocryphon of Jeremiah C and Danielic texts” (paper presented at the PEJ VII Seminário Internacional; Universidade de Brasília, 31-10-2012).
Milik, The Books of Enoch, 139.
Milik, The Books of Enoch, 139.
Raffaella Cribiore, “Education in the Papyri,” in The Oxford Handbook of Papyrology, 320–337, at 321–322.
Erik Larson, DJD 36:369–386.
Larson, DJD 36:372.
Hannah Cotton and Erik Larson, “4Q460/4Q350 and Tampering with Qumran Texts in Antiquity?” in Emanuel, 113–125, at 115.
Elisha Qimron, The Dead Sea Scrolls: The Hebrew Writings, vol. 3 (Jerusalem: Yad Ben Zvi, 2014), 197.
Hannah Cotton, DJD 36:294–295.
Cotton and Larson, “4Q460/4Q350 and Tampering with Qumran Texts in Antiquity,” 122.
Cotton and Larson, “4Q460/4Q350 and Tampering with Qumran Texts in Antiquity,” 122.
Popović, “Roman Book Destruction in Qumran Cave 4,” at 249.
Cotton and Larson provide the example of P.Rylands 458, an early copy of the Septuagint that was first reused for an account of expenditures, and later on a second time as cartonnage in a mummy: Cotton and Larson, “4Q460/4Q350 and Tampering with Qumran Texts in Antiquity,” 121. Another example is P.Oxy 209, which presents a documentary text underneath a copy of Romans 1:1–7: AnneMarie Luijendijk, “A New Testament Papyrus and Its Documentary Context: An Early Christian Writing Exercise from the Archive of Leonides (“P.Oxy.” II 209/P10),” JBL 129 (2010): 575–596.
Luijendijk, “Sacred Scriptures as Trash.”
Turner for example lists four papyri that carry, among others, parts of the Iliad and Demosthenes’s On the Crown. These papyri were reused by businessmen to write letters on the back: Eric G. Turner, “Writing Material for Businessmen,” BASP 15 (1978): 163–169.
Martin Rösel, “Names of God,” in Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. Lawrence H. Schiffman and James C. VanderKam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 600–602.
Mas 1o: Shemaryahu Talmon and Yigael Yadin, eds., Masada VI, The Yigal Yadin Excavations 1963–1965, Final Reports (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1999), 138–147. Talmon argues that both sides were written by different scribes.
Shemaryahu Talmon, Jonathan Ben-Dov, and Uwe Glessmer, Qumran Cave 4.XVI: Calendrical Texts, DJD 21 (Oxford: Clarendon 2001), 103.
Talmon and Ben-Dov, DJD 21:104.
Yardeni, DJD 36:296.
The official publication of 4Q324 does not mention the presence of text on the verso.
Brooke, “Between Scroll and Codex,” 135.
Tigchelaar has speculated in private communication that 4Q324 either concerned an exercise or was rejected because the scribe misinterpreted the Aramaic numbers.