Lady Folly and Her House in Three Qumran Manuscripts: On the Relation between 4Q525 15, 5Q16, and 4Q184

The manuscript 5Q16, hitherto not identified, overlaps with 4Q525 15, and should be regarded as a second copy of the same composition which has been entitled Beatitudes. The article gives a composite text of the poem of 4Q525 15 and 5Q16 1+2, 5, which describes the house of Lady Folly, and discusses its structure and content. The correspondences between 4Q525 and 4Q184 are discussed in some detail, and it is argued that Qimron’s suggestion that these are copies of one and the same composition, Words of Solomon, is plausible.