The Assessment of Variation: The Case of the Aramaic Levi Document

Updated by: 
Shlomo Brand
Research notes: 
SB/not checked/25/11/2021
Reference type: 
Journal Article
Author(s): 
van der Schoor, Hanneke
year: 
2021
Full title: 

The Assessment of Variation: The Case of the Aramaic Levi Document

Journal / Book Title || Series Title: 
Dead Sea Discoveries
Volume: 
28
Issue / Series Volume: 
2
Abbreviated Series Name: 
DSD
Place of Publication: 
Leiden
Publisher: 
Brill
Pages: 
179–206
Work type: 
Essay/Monograph
Abstract: 

Paleographers differ in considering variation in scribal hands preserved in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Mostly formal manuscripts have been used as pegs both in establishing the date of a particular manuscript and in assessing whether different fragments could have been written by the same scribe. However, informal manuscripts are likely to display more variation in arrangement and formation of letter forms. This article proposes to differentiate between formal and informal manuscripts and to assess the degree of variation in both. Such a distinction leads to a reassessment of the manuscript evidence of the Aramaic Levi Document, which this article argues has been preserved in a maximum of three, instead of six, manuscripts in Cave 4.

Primary Texts: Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha: 
Composition / Author: 
Aramaic Levi Document
URL: 
https://brill.com/view/journals/dsd/28/2/article-p179_2.xml
Label: 
29/11/2021
Record number: 
108 250