The Copper Scroll Revisited

171 Pages·2015·4.808 MB·English

by  Émile Puech

The Copper Scroll Revisited
Studies on the Texts of the
Desert of Judah
Edited by
George J. Brooke
Associate Editors
Eibert J.C. Tigchelaar
Jonathan Ben-Dov
Alison Schofield
volume 112

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/stdj
Studies on the Texts of the The Copper Scroll Revisited
Desert of Judah
By
Edited by Émile Puech
George J. Brooke
English Translation by
Associate Editors David E. Orton
Eibert J.C. Tigchelaar
Jonathan Ben-Dov
Alison Schofield
volume 112

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/stdj leiden | boston
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Puech, Émile.
 The Copper scroll revisited / by Émile Puech ; English translation by David E. Orton.
  p. cm. — (Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah ; vol. 112)
 The text by Émile Puech is excerpted from v. 1 of Le rouleau de cuivre de la grotte 3 de Qumrân
(3Q15) (Leiden : Brill : École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem : EDF Foundation,
2006).
 Includes the text of the Copper scroll in Hebrew with English translation.
 Includes bibliographical references and index.
 ISBN 978-90-04-17100-8 (hardback : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-90-47-42431-4 (e-book) 1. Copper
scroll. I. Orton, David E. II. Rouleau de cuivre de la grotte 3 de Qumrân (3Q15). III. Copper
scroll. English & Hebrew. IV. Title.
 BM488.C6P84 2015
 296.1’55—dc22
2008027705
This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters
covering Latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the
humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface.
ISSN 0169-9962
ISBN 978-90-04-17100-8 (hardback)
ISBN 978-90-47-42431-4 (e-book)
Copyright 2015 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi
and Hotei Publishing.
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CONTENTS
Foreword  .............................................................................................................. vii
Introduction  ........................................................................................................ 1
The Scroll  ......................................................................................................... 6
The Deposits  ................................................................................................... 9
Authentic Deposits?  ..................................................................................... 12
Text, Translation and Commentary  ............................................................. 25
Column I  .......................................................................................................... 25
Column II  ........................................................................................................ 38
Column III  ....................................................................................................... 43
Column IV  ....................................................................................................... 48
Column V  ........................................................................................................ 54
Column VI  ....................................................................................................... 59
Column VII ...................................................................................................... 62
Column VIII  .................................................................................................... 68
Column IX  ....................................................................................................... 75
Column X  ........................................................................................................ 85
Column XI  ....................................................................................................... 93
Column XII  ..................................................................................................... 106
General View of the Copper Scroll (Drawings)  ........................................ 115
Drawings, Text and Translation: an Overview  .......................................... 119
Indices .................................................................................................................... 145
Abbreviations ....................................................................................................... 150
Corrigenda to the French Edition 2006 ....................................................... 151
Bibliography of 3Q15 .......................................................................................... 153

FOREWORD
This long awaited English translation of my updated edition of the Hebrew
text of the Copper Scroll, which accompanied the restoration and conser-
vation project carried out by EDF in the middle of the 1990s, is intended
to make the contents of the Copper Scroll accessible to an even greater
number of readers.
This new English translation has the benefit of being able to correct
some typographical and other errors in my earlier text. I have also taken
the opportunity to bring the text up-to-date by including the most impor-
tant studies to have appeared since the final redaction of my text more
than ten years ago.
The study of the three engraved and riveted sheets of fine oxidized
copper cannot be accomplished without a close scrutiny of all the dif-
ferent plates at our disposal, including the infrared photographs and the
photographs of the galvanoplastic duplicates by EDF. These have then
to be compared with my hand facsimile in order to be able to ascertain
the content and meaning of the enigmatic summary of a more elaborate
composition, as stated in the final sentence at the end of the scroll. My
hand copy also incorporates the small fragments lost since the first deci-
pherment by the editor, as Milik quoted in 1959, in order to recover as
far as possible the best preserved text of the scroll as discovered in 1952
in Cave 3.
May the English translation help the reader to advance further in gain-
ing a fuller understanding of this unique and final scroll from the Essenes’
settlement in the Desert of Judah.
Jerusalem, March 22, 2015
Plate I Segment No. 6 after immersion in benzotriazol 1% w/v.
Plate II Segment on its support—removing the silicone.