Paleo-Hebrew Leviticus Scroll

11QpaleoLev (Paleo-Hebrew Leviticus Scroll)
The paleo-Hebrew Leviticus Scroll. Courtesy of The Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library; IAA, photo: Shai Halevi
Materialtanned leather
Size100.5 cm. × 10.9 cm.
WritingPaleo-Hebrew characters
Createdcirca 2nd–1st-century BCE
Discovered1956
Present locationIAA
www.deadseascrolls.org.il/explore-the-archive/image/B-295277

Paleo-Hebrew Leviticus Scroll, known also as 11QpaleoLev, is an ancient text preserved in one of the Qumran group of caves, and which provides a rare glimpse of the script used formerly by the Israelites in writing Torah scrolls during pre-exilic history.[1] The fragmentary remains of the Torah scroll is written in the Paleo-Hebrew script and was found stashed away in cave no. 11 at Qumran, showing a portion of Leviticus. The scroll is thought to have been penned by the scribe between the late 2nd century BCE to early 1st century BCE, while others place its writing in the 1st century CE.[2]

The paleo-Hebrew Leviticus Scroll, although many centuries more recent than the well-known earlier ancient paleo-Hebrew epigraphic materials, such as the Royal Steward inscription from Siloam, Jerusalem (8th century BCE), now in the Museum of the Ancient Orient, Istanbul,[3] and the Phoenician inscription on the sarcophagus of King Eshmun-Azar at Sidon, dating to the fifth-fourth century BCE,[4] the Lachish ostraca (ca. 6th-century BCE), the Gezer calendar (ca. 950–918 BCE), and the paleo-Hebrew sacerdotal blessing discovered in 1979 near the St Andrew's Church in Jerusalem, is of no less importance to palaeography[5][6][7][8]—even though the manuscript is fragmentary and only partially preserved on leather parchment.

Today, the paleo-Hebrew Leviticus Scroll (11QpaleoLev) is housed at the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), but is not on public display.

  1. ^ Siegel, Jonathan P. (1979), p. 28, who writes that prior to the destruction of the First Temple, "the paleo-Hebrew script was the only alphabet used by the Israelites."
  2. ^ Problems with dating have much to do with the fact that the paleo-Hebrew script continued in use, both in Judea and in Samaria, long after Israel's return from the Babylonian captivity. This is evidenced by the find of Hasmonean coins and coins of the First and Second Jewish Revolts bearing paleo-Hebrew insignia. According to the Encyclopaedia Judaica (Jerusalem 1971, vol. 2, s.v. Alphabet, Hebrew, pp. 683–685), the Hasmoneans are said to have "struck coins with legends of a known writing which survived," and that the paleo-Hebrew writing was "preserved mainly as a biblical book hand by a coterie of erudite scribes, presumably of the Zadokite priesthood."
  3. ^ Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol. 2. Jerusalem 1971, s.v. Alphabet, Hebrew (p. 679, figure 6)
  4. ^ Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol. 2. Jerusalem 1971, s.v. Alphabet, Hebrew (p. 679, figure 4)
  5. ^ Freedman, D.N., ed. (1992), p. 96
  6. ^ Mathews (1987), p. 49. Quote: "...a small conservative circle of Jewish scribes preserved the old characters in an attempt to mimic the Hebrew letters of the preexile age (prior to 586 BCE). A comparison of the paleo-Hebrew characters of the Leviticus Scroll with their seventh-century proto-types reveals that the characters evolved over time; the changes, however, are not substantive" (End Quote).
  7. ^ Van de Water (2000), p. 431 (note 48)
  8. ^ Hanson (1964), pp. 26–42