Book Notes
A Preliminary Edition of the Unpublished Dead Sea Scrolls: The Hebrew and Aramaic Texts from Cave 4, Fascicle 2
Reconstructed and Edited by B.Z. Wacholder and M.G. Abegg
(Washington: Biblical Archaeology Society, 1992) 309 pp., $67.50
When Fascicle 1 of this projected 5-volume series appeared in 1991, it caused a major stir because of the backwards method used to reconstruct the texts (utilizing a computer to reconstitute texts from a concordance to those texts) and the widespread belief that it broke an official monopoly on unpublished material. The second fascicle has not caused as much excitement, though the reader can be more confident of the accuracy of its readings because the editors not only used their computer but also consulted photographs of the texts. …