The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

HENGEL The Scriptures in Second Temple Judaism 173
Schools of Shammai and Hillel. He comes to the conclusion that their
'scribal exegesis' must be clearly distinguished from the 'inspired
exegesis' of Qumran, the apocalyptic texts and Philo. The scribes
considered the whole scriptures as a law dictated by God, in which the
exact wording (pesaf) was all important, and in which every detail was
of significance. In this context Brewer speaks of 'nomological
exegesis'. Any search for a deeper meaning in a text (deras) which
went beyond the literal, for example through allegorical interpretation,
would have been rejected. Both types of exegesis, the scribal
'nomological' p e sat and the sectarian 'inspired' d e ras proceeded from
two identical presuppositions: (1) holy scripture is consistent and
(2) every detail in scripture is significant. But for 'scribal exegesis'
every text supposedly has only one meaning.
Brewer's observations are worthwhile, but too one-sided. On the
one hand almost throughout the 100 texts investigated consist of short
remarks and discussions. Here it is the rational point that matters.
Almost 80 per cent of the texts quote from the Torah and deal with
Halachic problems. Furthermore, it is very doubtful whether the texts
were really written before 70. And finally, for the whole second
century one must expect censorship of older traditions of the time
before 70, especially in so far as they concerned national eschatology
and mysticism. The 'mixture' of p e sat and d e ras exegesis, which we
find in the later rabbis, probably existed already before 70. From his
100 texts even Brewer still gives seven examples of d e ras and six
'symbolic'-allegorical interpretations, one of which is from the
Canticle of Canticles, a book which could only be understood as holy
scripture through allegory. Four manuscripts from Qumran show that
there it was already understood in this way. 28 The reason for the predominantly
nomological interpretation among the scribes was that
they were most of all jurists of the Torah, and the literal interpretation
of law texts was therefore part of their daily praxis as judges or
advisers. This does not exclude the possibility that such a scribe could
be an apocalyptic or mystic at the same time or, like Paul later, could
become a Christian. That the Essenes also were able to argue on this
28. Three manuscripts from 4Q: E. Tov, 'The Unpublished Qumran Texts from
Caves 4 and 11', BA 55 (1992), pp. 94-103 (96); E. Ulrich, The Biblical Scrolls
from Qumran Cave 4', RevQ 54.14.2 (1989), pp. 206-28; a manuscript from 6Q,
ed. M. Bailie, J.T. Milik and R. de Vaux, DJD, III (1962), pp. 112ff.