The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

THE QUMRAN HALAKHAH TEXT Miqsat Ma'ase
Ha-T6rah (4QMMT) AND SADDUCEAN, ESSENE,
AND EARLY PHARISAIC TRADITION*
Otto Betz
The fragmentary text 4QMMT, not yet published officially, has
stirred up considerable controversies and heated debates among some
Qumran scholars. 1 Qumran studies are suffering in the present from
striking theories which find their way into the public press and to
television. Quite a few of them are related to messianic texts, which
were discovered among the fragments of Qumran Cave 4 and hailed
as forerunners of New Testament christology. 4QMMT did not
receive this kind of public attention because it is a legal (halakhic)
document, which demands serious scholarship beyond the somewhat
limited field of Qumran studies. In connection with it, one has to consider
the New Testament, Flavius Josephus, and rabbinic halakhah.
A. The Publication, Content, and Problems of4QMMT
It is puzzling to see how 4QMMT made its way into the scholarly
world. Its first 'publishers', E. Qimron and J. Strugnell, in 1984
* I am grateful to Professor McNamara who invited me to this conference and
gave me the title for my lecture. My Tubingen colleagues Professor Dr M. Hengel
and Dr B. Ego provided me with a preliminary text of 4QMMT and helped me with
many suggestions as did Dr Z. Kapera, Cracow, at the Qumran Meeting at Mogilany,
1991.
1. See the articles in Z. Kapera (ed.), Qumran Cave IV. Special Report on
4QMMT (Krakow, 1991): P.R. Davies, 'Sadducees in the Dead Sea Scrolls',
pp. 85-94; R. Eisenman, 'A Response to Schiffman on 4QMMT', pp. 95-105;
J.C. Vanderkam, 'The Qumran Residents: Essenes not Sadducees!' pp. 105-13.
M.O. Wise read a paper at Mogilany, 1991; '4QMMT and the Sadducees. A Look at
a Recent Theory' (cf. The Qumran Chronicle 3 [1993], pp. 71-74). See postscript,
p. 202 below.