Bulletin for Biblical Research (BBR) 1995
Bulletin
for Biblical Research 5 (1995) 43-66 [© 1995 Institute for Biblical Research]
4Q246
EDWARD M. COOK
COMPREHENSIVE ARAMAIC LEXICON
HEBREW UNION COLLEGE
CINCINNATI, OHIO
The
Aramaic text 4Q246 (the "son of God" text) is recognized as a
document
of
first-rate importance, but scholars have not been able to agree on its in-
terpretation.
The present study offers new readings, translation, and com-
mentary,
and suggests that a proper understanding of the fragment's
internal
poetic structure and of its affinity to the Akkadian prophecies leads
to
the conclusion that the text represents the "son of God" as a
negative
figure.
The probable historical background of 4Q246 is the Seleucid period,
especially
the struggle against Antiochus IV Epiphanes.
Key
Words: Son of God, 4Q246, Mark 14:64, Luke 1:35, Akkadian proph-
ecies,
Antiochus Epiphanes
The
Aramaic text 4Q246 was acquired by J. T. Milik from the antiqui-
ties
dealer Kando in 1958. J. A. Fitzmyer published part of the text
based
on a lecture of Milik's, and a number of discussions appeared
based
on this partial publication.1 Recently Emile Puech has pub-
lished
the full text with commentary; Fitzmyer has also returned to
the
text with a full commentary and interpretation.2 The availability
of
the complete fragment will undoubtedly initiate a new phase in
the
discussion of this fragmentary document.
1.
Fitzmyer's original article was "The Contribution of Qumran Aramaic to the
Study
of the New Testament," NTS 20 (1974-75) 382– 407; reprinted in Fitzmyer. A
Wan-
dering
Aramean: Collected Aramaic Essays (SBLMS 25; Missoula: Scholars Press, 1979) 85-
113,
esp. 92-93. References to this article use the pagination of the latter
publication.
Other
early articles on this text are David Flusser, "The Hubris of the Antichrist
in a
Fragment
from Qumran," Immanuel 10 (1981) 31-39, and F. García Martiez,
"The Es-
chatological
Figure of 4Q246," Qumran and Apocalyptic: Studies on the Aramaic
Texts from
Qumran (Leiden: Brill, 1991)
162-79, an English translation of "¿Tipo del Anticristo o
Libertador
escatológico?" El Misterio de la Palabra. Homenaje a L. Alonso Schökel (ed. V. Col-
lado
and E. Zurro; Madrid: Cristianidad, 1983) 229– 44. Milik's original
transcription of
the
text can be retrieved from the Preliminary Concordance to the Hebrew and
Aramaic Frag-
ments
from Qumran Caves II–IX (Arranged for Printing by H.-P. Richter; Göttingen, 1988).
2.
Emile Puech, "Fragment d'une apocalypse en araméen (4Q246 = pseudo-Dand)
et
le 'Royaume de Dieu'," RB 99 (1992) 98-131; J. A. Fitzmyer,
"4Q246: The 'Son of God'
Document
from Qumran," Bib (1993) 153-74. Two other treatments of the entire
text
have
appeared: Robert Eisenman and Michael Wise, "The Son of God (4Q246),"
44 Bulletin for Biblical Research 5
4Q246
contains two columns of nine lines each. The first column,
having
been torn approximately through the middle, is missing the
first
half of each line, but the second column is complete. It is of
course
impossible to estimate exactly how long the complete scroll
may
have been, but the column length is only about half that of a
normal
size scroll. Paleographically, the text was said by Milik (ac-
cording
to Fitzmyer) to date from the latter third of the first century
BCE,
a judgment with which Puech agrees.3 The letter forms are those
of
"early formal Herodian" script, although Milik's and Puech's dates
may
be too narrow.
Linguistically,
the text, as luck would have it, contains few of the
diagnostic
features typically used to place Palestinian Aramaic in a
typological
series. There is one example of non-assimilated nun: (Ntny,
II,
8) and one of elided aleph ()tt,
I, 4). The preformative of the third
masculine
singular imperfect of the verb ywh is lamedh (hwhl, I, 7),
typical
of Qumran Aramaic. The orthography is conservative, with
few
indications of vowels by matres lectionis: the third masculine
plural
suffix is Nh-, not Nwh-; lk ("all") not lwk, as is usual at Qumran;
once +w#$q (II, 5) but also +#$q (II, 6); #$wdy (II, 3) but also Psy (II, 6); and
so
on. The text could fit almost anywhere in a typological series from
Daniel
to the Genesis Apocryphon.
In
the essay that follows, I will first offer a transcription of the
text
that differs in some respects from Puech's. Afterwards I give a
stichometric
translation and a commentary on the text, followed by a
summary
and conclusions.
TRANSCRIPTION
Column
I
)ysrk Mdq lpn tr#$ yhwl[(. . . . . . . . ] .1
Kyn#$w zgr ht)
)ml(l )k [
. . . . . . . ] .2
)ml( d( ht) )lkw
Kwzx )[. .
. . . .] .3
)(l) l( )tt hq(
Nybr[br . . . . . ] .4
)tnyd[ml] br Nwry#$xnw[. . . . . . . .] .5
Nyrc[mw] rwt) Klm[ . . . . . . . ] .6
)(r[)]l( hwhl br[w . . . . . . ] .7
The
Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered (Shaftesbury, Dorset: Element, 1992) 68-71; and John J.
Collins,
"A Pre-Christian 'Son of God' Among the Dead Sea Scrolls," BibRev 9/3 (June
1993)
34-38, 57. Collins' longer treatment of the text was published after the
present
article
was written ("The Son of God Text from Qumran," From Jesus
to John: Essays on
Jesus
and New Testament Oiristology in Honour of Marinus de Jonge [ed. M. C. De Boer;
JSTNSup
84; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993] 65-82).
3.
Puech, "Fragment," 105.
COOK: 4Q246 45
Nw#$[m]#$y )lkw Nwdb([t#$y. . . . . . ] .8
hnkty hm#$bw )rqty )b[r . . . . .] .9
Column
II
)yqyzk hnwrqy Nwyl( rbw rm)ty
l) yd hrb .1
l( Nwklmy Nyn#$ )wht Nhtwklm Nk
)tyzx yd .2
h[ny]dml hnydmw #$wdy M(l M( Nw#$dy
)lkw )(r) .3
brx Nm xwny )lkw
l) M( Mwqy d( .4
[N]ydy +w#$qb htxr) lkw Ml( twklm
htwklm .5
Psy )(r) Nm brx Ml#$ db(y )lkw +#$qb )(r) .6
hly)b )br l) Nwdgsy hl )tnydm lkw .7
Nhlkw hdyb Ntny
Nymm( brq hl db(y )wh .8
ymwht lkw Ml(
N+l#$ hn+l#$ yhwmdq hmry .9
NOTES ON THE TRANSCRIPTION
Column
I, line 2: Puech reads xml(<<m>>{{ l}} Puech thinks that the
lamedh
was to be replaced by a sublinear mem. There is a crude circle
underneath
the ayin that could be taken to be a cursive mem. It does
not
resemble the other mems in the document, however, and sublin-
ear
corrections are unexpected. Puech's reading is therefore unlikely,
although
the circle is unexplained. Collins reads )ml([l], Eisenman
and
Wise )ml(. The photograph clearly
shows a faint lamedh before
the
ayin.
Line
2: Milik read zygr, but the yodh he
thought he saw is simply
a
spot of ink where the scribe initially put down the pen for the gimel.
Line
2: Kyn#$w: so also Puech and
Eisenman and Wise. Collins
reads,
less probably, Kwn#$w.
Line
3: Kwzx )[. . .]. So also
Collins. Eisenman and Wise restore
Kyzx
)b[r l)], an unlikely
restoration grammatically; Fitzmyer also
sees
a beth, but restores Kyzx
)b[yl(]; however, the word wzx "vision"
(not
"face"!) is masculine, not feminine. Puech restores Kwzx )r[#$/q)].
The
trace of the letter before the aleph is too small for identification.
Line
4: Milik read Nybrb[r]; there is a trace of a letter before
the
resh,
but it cannot be identified with certainty. Puech, Fitzmyer, and
Collins
unwarrantedly read an unquestioned beth.
Line
5: )tnyd[ml] br Nwry#$xn Puech, Fitzmyer, and
Collins read
)tnydmb, with no brackets, but
the beth and mem are not visible in
the
photograph. Eisenman and Wise read )tnyd[m] wbr Nyry#$xn, but the
Ny- ending of the first
word is unlikely for grammatical reasons (see
below),
while the waw of wbr is not visible and is
again prima facie
unlikely.
There are traces of at least one letter between the beth of br
and
the daleth of )tnyd[m]; there is also a trace of ink above the
line
that
seems to be the remnant of the upper shaft of a lamedh.
46 Bulletin for Biblical Research 5
Column
II, line 2: )tyzx: so also Collins and
Eisenman and Wise.
Puech's
and Fitzmyer's )twzx is unlikely both
paleographically and
grammatically
(see below).
Line
2: )wht: so also Eisenman and
Wise (Collins omits!). Puech
and
Fitzmyer read hwht, but the "K"
shape of the final letter is clear
enough
to make the identification with aleph probable.
Line
6: +#$qb: Collins erroneously
reads +w#$qb.
Line
6: Ml#$: Collins erroneously
reads Ml#$l.
Line
7: Nwdgsy: Collins erroneously
reads Nydgsy.
Line
8: db(y: so also Collins and
Eisenman and Wise. Puech and
Fitzmyer
read, less probably, db(w.
Line
8: Nhlkw: Eisenman and Wise
erroneously read Nhlk.
Line
8: ymwht: Eisenman and Wise
erroneously read ymwxt.
Since
the first column is damaged, one must rely on the second
column
for information about the arrangement and composition of
the
text. It is evident that the text is arranged in parallelistic bicola,
with
generally three stresses to a line. This 3+3 stress pattern is occa-
sionally
broken for a two-stress second line (3+2). The fragmentary
sentences
of the first column must be construed to fit this pattern..
I
now offer my reconstruction of the stichometry and structure
of
the text, followed by a translation and commentary on the text by
bicola.
The siglum | | indicates the caesura between bicola.
Column
I—Stichometric reconstruction
tr#$ yhwl[( l) xwr] | | [ ] A
)k[lm ] | | )ysrk Mdq lpn B
[ ] Kyn#$w | | zgr ht) )ml(l C
)ml( d( ht) )lkw | | Kwzx )[ ] D
)(r) l( )tt hq( | | Nybr[br ] E
Nwry#$xnw[ | | [
] F
[
] | | [Mwqy] )tnyd[ml] br G
[
] | | Nyrc[mw] rwt) Klm H
)(r) l( hwhl br | | [ ]
I
[hl] Nw#$[m]#$y )lkw | | Nwdb([t#$y ] J
hnkty hm#$bw | | )rqty )[br hrb Nk] K
Column
II—Stichometric division
hnwrqy Nwyl( rbw | | rm)ty l) yd hrb A
)wht htwklm Nk | | )tyzx yd )yqyzk B
Nw#$dy )lkw | | )(r) l( Nwklmy Nyn#$ C
h[ny]dml
hnydmw | | #$wdy M(l M( D
brx Nm xyny lkw | | l) M( Mwqy y( E
COOK: 4Q246 47
+w#$qb htxr) lkw | | Ml( twklm htwklm F
Ml#$ db(y )lkw | | +#$qb )(r) [N]ydy G
Nwdgsy hl )tnydm
lkw | | Psy )(r) Nm brx H
brq hl db(y )wh | | hly)b )br l) I
yhwmdq hmry Nhlkw | | hdyb Ntny Nymm( J
[hl )(r)] ymwht lkw | | Ml( N+l#$ hn+l44#$ K
TRANSLATION
Column
I
A
[ ]
[the
spirit of God] rested upon him
B He
fell before the throne
[ ki]ng
C
To the world (?) wrath is coming
And
your years [ ]
D [ ]your
vision
And
all is coming to the world (?)
E [ ]great
Tribulation
will come upon the land
F [ ]
[ ]
and slaughters
G A
prince of nations [will arise]
[ ]
H The
king of Assyria and Egypt
[ ]
I [ ]
He
will be chief over the land
J
[ ] will be enslaved
And
all will serve him
K [Likewise
his son] will be called The Great
And
by his name he will be designated.
Column
II
A
He will be called the son of God,
And
the son of the Most High they will call him.
B Like
the meteors that you saw,
So
will be their kingdom.
C
(A few) years they will reign over the land,
And
they will crush everyone (or everything)
D People
will crush people,
Nation
(will crush) nation.
48 Bulletin for Biblical Research 5
E Until
the people of God shall arise,
And
all will have rest from the sword.
F
His/their kingdom is an eternal kingdom,
And
all his/their ways are in truth.
G He/they
shall judge the land in truth,
And
all will make peace.
H The
sword will cease from the land,
And
all the nations shall do homage to him/there.
I
The Great God is his/their help
He
himself will fight for him/them.
J
He will put the nations in his/their power,
And
all of them he will place before him/them.
K His
dominion is an eternal dominion,
And
all the deeps of [the earth are his].
COMMENTARY
tr#$ yhwl[( l) xwr] | | [ ]
A
[ ] | | [the spirit of God] rested upon him
The
verb yr#$, when used
intransitively in the Pecal as here,
means
"to rest, stay." It is often used of a quality or presence coming
to
rest on or to endue a person, as for instance, in Tg. Num 11:26:
h)wbn
xwr Nwhyl( tr#$w,
"and a spirit of prophecy rested on them." It
seems
likely that the word xwr or something similar
should be re-
stored.
Puech, followed by Fitzmyer, suggests tr#$ yhwl[( hbr hlxd]
"une
grande frayeur (?) demeura sur lui." Besides yielding an over-
long
four-stress line, the word hlxd or the like is never used with
yr#$.4 Eisenman
and Wise restore tr#$
yhwl[( hxwr ydkw] "and when the
Spirit
came to rest upon him." This is possible, but it is doubtful that
the
writer would have referred to "the spirit" without qualification.
The
probable context is that of a vision interpreter receiving the
power
or knowledge to understand a symbolic vision.
)k[lm ] | | )ysrk Mdq lpn B
B
He fell before the throne
[ ki]ng
Eisenman
and Wise take the first line above to be paired with the
second
line of bicolon A: "And when the Spirit came to rest upon him
he
fell before the throne." Such a reconstruction is unlikely, because,
4.
A check of Targum Onqelos, Targum Jonathan, and Targum Neofiti shows that
words
for fear (hxy), hlxd, etc.) are never used
with yr#$, but "spirit"
(Tg. Isa 11:2, Tg. Ezek
11:5, Tg. Neof. Gen 41:38), "glory" (rqy, Tg. Onq. Exod 19:2, Tg. Isa 6:1)
and "presence"
(hnyk#$, Tg. Neof. Exod
32:32, Num 14:42) occur often. An examination of the Syriac Dem-
onstrationes of
Aphrahat reveals that only "spirit" is used with the collocation šry cl.
COOK: 4Q246 49
on
the evidence of Column II, the poet avoids subordinate clauses,
preferring
the paratactic style. He also prefers to begin the second
colon
with waw. The line beginning with lpn is therefore probably
the
first of a bicolon.
At
the reception of divine inspiration, the interpreter falls before
the
throne, implying that the figure requiring his divinely given in-
terpretive
powers is a king or other royal figure. The situation, then,
is
similar to the biblical stories about Daniel or Joseph. In view of the
link
between some of the text's phrases and the book of Daniel, several
commentators
restore a reference to Daniel in the second line. Puech
produces
a nicely balanced )k[lml l)ynd rmxw], "et Daniel dit
au roi."
Fitzmyer's
restoration )ml(l
)kl[m yyx )klml rm) Nyd)] "Then he said to
the
king, ‘Live, O King, forever’ is far too long for the available space,
and
is moreover not consistent with the poetic style of this text.
[
] Kyn#$w | | zgr ht) )ml(l C
C
To the world(?) wrath is coming
And
your years [ ]
Previous
commentators have differed widely on how to construe
these
lines. Almost every word is problematic. All agree, however, in
understanding
them to be referring to the putative king's state of
mind.
Puech restores the line [Nh
hlxdb] Kyn#$w zgr ht) )ml(<<m>>{{l}},
"{Pour}
<Depuis> toujours to t'irrites et tes années [se derulent dans
la
crainte!]." Eisenman and Wise read [qrxm] Kyn#$w
zgr ht) )m l(,
"Why
are you angry; why do you [grind] your teeth?" Collins gives
no
restoration after Kwn#$w, but translates
"[for]ever you are angry, and
[your
features] are changed," apparently construing Kwn#$w as form of
the
verb yn#$. Fitzmyer, as already
seen, construes )ml( with the pre-
vious
sentence, and renders the present words as wyz] Kyn#$w
zgr ht),
[Kypn) "you are vexed,
and changed is the complexion of your face."
All
of these suggestions are unlikely, because ht) is not the
proper
Aramaic form of the second person singular masculine pro-
noun
"you." In Qumran Aramaic, the form is always htn). In other
dialects,
the form varies between t) and tn); ht) is never found. The
words zgr ht) must mean something
like "wrath is approaching,"
vocalizing zgar; ht')f (compare the Peshitta
New Testament at Matt 3:7,
rugzā
d’âtē,
"the coming wrath").
As
for )ml(l, it makes little sense
to understand it temporally
("forever")
with a present participle, whether the participle is con-
strued
as zgr or htx. And there is clearly
no space between the
lamedh
and the mem, as would be expected of )m l(, "why," with
Eisenman
and Wise. The best solution is to take Ml( as an early ex-
ample
of the meaning "world" for this lexeme. The line would then
mean
"wrath is coming to the world."
50 Bulletin for Biblical Research 5
The
second line must remain mysterious; all the previous resto-
rations
are based, as is apparent, on a misunderstanding of the first
line.
Collin's Kwn#$ is grammatically impossible.
The verb yn#$, intransi-
tive
in the Pecal, cannot take a direct object, as here; and the transi-
tive
Pacel would be spelled Kwyn#$. Fitzmyer apparently understands
the
text as Collins does and attempts to avoid the solecism by a ref-
erence
to the forms yhwn#$
yhwyz in
Dan 5:6. But there the text is cor-
rupt,
as most Aramaists have recognized.5
The
correct reading then is Kyn#$ and likely refers to
the years of
the
king being either lengthened or shortened, depending on whether
we
feel that the approaching wrath will affect him: perhaps Kyn#$,
[Nycqty, "your years will
be shortened," or [Nkr)y] Kyn#$w, "but your
years
will be long."
)ml( d( ht) )lkw | | Kwzx ) [ ] D
D
[ ] your vision
And all is coming to the world
The
word Kwzx, "your
vision," refers to the vision being inter-
preted.
The third letter actually looks more like a yodh than a waw,
that
is, Kyzx, the Pecal
masculine singular participle of yzx: "sees you,
seeing
you." Yet in the context the king has seen something (II, 2),
not
vice versa. Another possibility is to join the preceding aleph to
this
sequence of letters to yield Kyzx),
"he has shown you" (Aphcel):
yet
the gap between the aleph and the heth is too definite to allow
this.
Eisenman and Wise read Kyzx but translate "has
revealed to
you,"
presumably parsing the form as Pacel; but the Pacel of yzx does
not
have this meaning.
The
following line is difficult to construe. Collins simply has "and
you
forever," giving no account of the word )lk. Puech divides the
cola
differently, restoring [yyx] )ml( d( ht) | | )lkw Kwzx )r[#$/q)],
"Je
vais interp[reter /expl]iquer ta vision et toute chose. Toi, à jamais,
[vis!]"
This is exceedingly clumsy; the expression "ta vision et toute
chose"
is peculiar, since one would expect "all your vision" (Kwzx lk or
hlk
Kwzx). The
placement here of a wish for the king's welfare is also
odd;
it would be expected at the beginning of the speech (e.g., Dan 2:4).
The
word )lk probably refers to the
vision: "all, the whole
thing." ht), as in the previous
line, is probably to be understood as
the
participle ht') "approaching,
about to come (true)." If the verse
division
given here is correct, then )ml( ends a line, and probably
should
be taken to mean "world."
5.
Hans Bauer and Pontus Leander, Grammatik des Biblisch-Aramäischen (Hildes-
heim:
Olms, 1981, orig. pub. 1927) §47n, 154.
&nbs |