לא נתן הגיו לרוח בשר: קריאה ופירוש חדשים בפרשת רוח בשר בחיבור מוסר למבין

The textual unit 4Q417 1 1–18 is preserved on one of the largest surviving fragments of the composition Musar La-Mevin (4QInstruction). This unit is part of the prologue section of the entire composition and is sometimes considered its primary introduction, or at least one potential opening. The concluding lines of this unit draw a contrast between humans who join forces with the angels (called here רוח עם” the spiritual nation”) and those who own a בשר רוח” a fleshly spirit.” The contrast has often been understood as a dichotomy between two kinds of human beings, which are ontologically distinct. Parallels to this dichotomy were pointed out in the writings of Philo of Alexandria and in Paul’s epistles. Using new digital canvasses for 4Q416 and 4Q417, the present article suggests that the programmatic units in 4Q417 1 and 4Q416 1 were both contained in Musar La-Mevin, with 4Q416 preceding. Text from a previous turn of the scroll is stuck to the verso of 4Q417 1, which therefore could not have been the beginning of Musar La-Mevin. The article suggests several new readings, textual reconstructions, and new interpretations of key terms in this unit. I suggest a reading of this textual unit as an optimistic call for the addressee to observe, decipher and follow the rules of history and cosmology. The capacity to understand the raz nihyeh is inherent in the fashioning of humankind and is rooted in human cognition; the world was initially constructed with this aim in mind. The two categories of humankind mentioned in lines 14–18 are not ontologically distinct butare rather two stages in the initiation of a mevin, as previously suggested by Rey and Bakker. The unit should thus be read as a treatise on education and adolescence, and many phrases in it are explained accordingly. Finally, the parallels with Pauline rhetoric are reinterpreted based on this new reading.