The Dead Sea Scrolls and Christian Origins

The fragmentary Aramaic and Hebrew texts of Tobit from Qumran Cave 4 were acquired in 1952 along with many others from the same cave and were assigned for study and publication to Jósef Tadeusz Milik,¹ but they remained unpublished until 1995.² Milik was mainly responsible for identifying and piecing together the many tiny fragments that form the Tobit texts, and I am happy to recognize his contribution. Much of what I have to say here about the Qumran Aramaic and Hebrew texts depends on him, and I gladly acknowledge my dependence on his remarkable pioneering work.

¹. See the report of J. T. Milik in P. Benoit et al., “Editing the Manuscript Fragments
from Qumran,” BA 19 (1956) 75-96, esp. 88 (French original in RB 63 [1956] 49-67, esp.
60). There Milik spoke of only two manuscripts in Aramaic. See also his article, “Le travail
d'édition des manuscrits du désert de Juda,” in Volume du Congrès, Strasbourg 1956
(VTSup 4; Leiden: Brill, 1957) 17-26, esp. 23-24, where he mentions “un troisième ms. du
Tobie araméen”; andhis book, TYDWJ, 31-32. Eventually we learned something about the
contents of the Aramaic and Hebrew fragments in his article, “La patrie de Tobie,” RB 73
(1966) 522-30, esp. 522 n. 3.

². See now J. A. Fitzmyer, “Tobit,” in Qumran Cave 4, XIV: Parabiblical Texts, Part 2
(DJD 19; ed. M. Broshi et al.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1995) 1-76 (pls. I-X): “196. 4QpapTobit^a
ar,” 7-39; “197. 4QTobit^b ar,” 41-56; “198. 4QTobit^c ar,” 57-60; “199. 4QTobit^d ar,” 61-62;
“200. 4QTobit^e,” 63-76. The Aramaic and Hebrew texts of Tobit are reprinted in Chapter 9
below. Cf. my article, “Preliminary Publication of pap4QTob^a ar, Fragment 2,” Bib 75
(1994) 220-24.

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