סגנון ולשון במגילת מקצת מעשה התורה: האם כתב 'מורה הצדק' איגרת זו?

The admirable publication of the MMT Scroll by E. Qimron and John Strugnell {Discoveries in the Judaean Desert, X: Qumran Cave 4,V, Oxford 1994) has made the full text of this scroll available to the scholarly world. The book will be referred to hereafter as 'the edition'. The present paper deals with certain linguistic aspects of the scroll, excluding the Calendar (Section A in the edition). The other sections of the edition - B, C, D - evidently constitute a letter of a non-personal character, an epistle (see p. 113 of the edition). We shall first present Qimron's conclusions regarding the nature of MMT's Hebrew, which he sums up at the end of the chapter on the language (par. 3.7.4; pp. 107-108), returning to the topic in the chapter on the literary character (par. 4.1.5.1; pp. 112-113). Qimron's conclusions are as follows: (a) 'The language of MMT most closely reflects the Hebrew spoken at Qumran'. (b) In vocabulary it is closer to Mishnaic Hebrew (henceforth MH) more than to Biblical Hebrew (henceforth BH), while in grammar it is closer to BH more than to MH. (c) The differences between MMT Hebrew and (general) QH (=Qumran Hebrew) may perhaps be explained by assuming that MMT 'was one of the earliest works composed at Qumran, written before the sect developed or adopted a biblicising jargon'. Qimron phrases this assumption cautiously. (d) QH is similar to MH because both 'reflect spoken forms of Hebrew in the Second Temple period'. These are the conclusions given on pp. 107-108 of the edition. On pp. 112-113 Qimron deals more extensively with the problem of dating QH, stating that 'since the spoken dialect found in MMT belongs to a line distinct from both post-exilic BH and QH, and is not a direct antecedent of MH, typological dating is again impossible'. It is definitely clear that the language of MMT is a variety of spoken Hebrew, which was in use in the first century B.C.E. Typologically, it is a low-level kind of spoken Hebrew, deficient in quality, tattered, a sort of vernacular, standing miles away from the language of the Classical Qumran works such as The Thanksgiving Scroll, The Manual of Discipline, The Rule o f the Congregation, The War o f the Sons o f Light with the Sons of Darkness and more fragmentary works such as The Words of (Heavenly) Lights (; דברי המארות 4Q504-506), and many others. Far from being a 'jargon', the language of these works is literary in style and syntax, spotted indeed with biblical expressions, quotations and textual allusions. The gap between this kind of language and that of MMT is self-evident. The latter could not have been an antecedent of the former. Nor can MMTHebrew be regarded, in style and overall structure of discourse, as MH . The language of the Mishnah does not reflect a f o rm of spoken Hebrew (although Hebrew was spoken, alongside Aramaic, up to the end of the second century C.E.); it is highly literary in style, concise and elegant, syntactically well-structured, possessing salient features of its own in the presentation of discourse. In the analysis of late BH and of QH, the notion 'mixing of levels' may be found useful. This term, introduced by the author of the present paper, denotes a process of integration, by which features, primarily morphophonemic and morphological, that had originally been formed in the vernacular, are incorporated into a higher level, namely the literary level of a language. To illustrate, consider the form ובהנכון in ובהנכון לכול עבודת אמת , 'and when the worship of truth had been established for all' (4Q511, 63-64) or the form עתן 'he gives' (4Q175). The nun in these forms is the result of phonological processes that could have occurred only in spoken Hebrew. Classical Qumran texts disclose quite a few cases of this process, the 'mixing of levels', by which features that had been formed in the vernacular became part and parcel of a fairly (although not completely) standardized level of the written language (for the main features constituting this category see the present writer's paper, 'Qumran Hebrew: Some Typological Observations', VT, 38 [1988], pp. 148-164). Unlike the authors of the Classical Qumran texts, the writer of MMT does not use a literary style with scattered phenomena due to the 'mixing of levels'. He writes as he would talk. One wonders whether this style would befit a halakhic document emerging from the circle of Moreh Ha-Sedeq. Qimron observes that the language of MMT is a spoken form of Hebrew, but does not assign this aspect the appropriate places in his conclusion. The poor quality of language and style is also disclosed by orthographical traits (which have a bearing on grammar). The orthography of MMT shows inconsistencies of a much higher degree than those usually encountered in Qumran texts. For example, the conjunction VI ENGLISH SUMMARIES fragmentary works such as The Words of (Heavenly) Lights ( 4 ; דברי המארות Q504-506), and deficient in quality, tattered, a sort of vernacular, standing miles away from the language of the Classical Qumran works such as The Thanksgiving Scroll, The Manual o f Discipline, The Rule o f the Congregation, The War o f the Sons o f Light with the Sons o f Darkness and more s appears as both ש and שא ; the word 4 , ראד deserving' (or: 'should') , is spelled ראו (once) as well as ראואי (twice) - both spellings explainable by phonological features evident in Hebrew and Samaritan dialects. ראוי also occurs: once in the same Ms. which has ראו and ראוי , twice in another Ms. The present paper is not concerned with the halakhic aspects of MMT . But whether the author of MMT belonged to a Sadducee group (or a group influenced by Sadducee halakha) or not, the language patterns of the document do not support the conclusion that he was a member of the collective which authored the Classical Qumran texts. A letter sent from Moreh Ha-Sedeq to his adversary, a person of prominent stature, would require a different kind of style. The following passage appears in 4Qp Psa: צופה רשע לצדיק ומבקש [להמיתו יהוה לוא יעזבנו בידו ולוא י]רשיענו בהשפטו פשרו על [חכו]הן הרשע אשר צ[פה למו]רה הצד[ק יבקש] להמיתו [על דברי החו]ק והתורה אשר שלח אליו . Qimron (the edition, pp. 19-20) sees in the words [ דברי החו[ק והתורה אשר שלח אליו a reference to MMT . What we learn from the passage is that a document concerning halakhic matters was sent from Moreh Ha-Sedeq to Ha-Kohen Ha-Rasac . But whether this letter was MMT or not remains in the realm of conjecture. From a linguistic point of view this does not seem to be the case, all the more so in view of the considerable difference in style between the above passage (which is definitely written in Classical Qumranic) and MMT. Therefore it would not be easy to propose that the passage is indeed referring to MMT . MMT is of considerable significance for the history of the Hebrew language in the period of the Second Temple.