Variorum in the Psalms Scroll (llQPsa)

Fragments of biblical psalms have been found at Qumran in Caves 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 and ll; and there is the Psalms Scroll from Cave ll. There were undoubtedly more texts of the Psalter in the Qumran library than of any other biblical literature — 27 accounted for to date. By and large, the biblical psalms recovered thus far from Qumran are in very close textual agreement with the psalms of the early medieval Ben Asher manuscripts from Cairo and Aleppo (the textus receptus). In fact, all witnesses to the texts of the biblical psalms, whether in Hebrew or in early Greek, Latin, Aramaic, or Syriac translations, are in broad general agreement, that is, are of one basic recension. It is because of this that it was possible, in a comparatively short time in 1961–62, to construct a supporting critical apparatus for the scientific edition of the Psalms Scroll. The texts of the 38 biblical psalms in the Psalms Scroll are, with some interesting exceptions, the texts we have always known; the order of the psalms and the presence among them of nonbiblical psalms, however, are very surprising.