Case closed: Nehemiah in Qumran

Esther was not a Qumranian book; we all know this, just like Judith was not Qumranian - but we're not here to discuss this. Today I'd discuss that other Not-Qumran book: Nehemiah.

It's worth here to pre-discuss what we might mean by NonQumranian. For instance: copies of Ruth and Jonah were stashed in those Qumran caves. But these two went uncited in Qumran literature when, say, Jubilees, much of Daniel, and the 4Q380 Prophetic hymn all got widely disseminated.

So far Nehemiah has got "asterisked". Most schooltexts just say that Esther was excluded. Some expand the exclusion to Nehemiah. It happens that Ezra, which is Qumranian, exists in two forms: one contains Nehemiah, the other doesn't extend that far. The form which omits Nehemiah also omits our Ezra 4:6 - which verse does exist in Qumran's Ezra. Also (you'd think) the Yahad should have approved Nehemiah, over the diaspora-ish legend in the Greek. It's been conjectured that this Dead-Sea scroll could have gone on to Nehemiah. But it's not been proven.

So: now, Michael Segal on 4Q365. Besides its notorious inclusion of the "full" chanson de Marie this takes the 11Q Temple Scroll's festival of new oil to append it to Leviticus 23:42-4. Segal points out that people were always injecting Odes into Torah and, indeed, shuffling laws between Torah books. Nobody is arguing that 4Q365 preserves the best text of Leviticus. Segal's consideration is the wood-offering which Nehemiah 10:35 claims is in "Torah"; another plus to 4Q365.

One could surmise that as 4Q365 depends upon the Temple Scroll, Nehemiah depends upon this expanded Leviticus - Torah for him, if not for us. But Segal does not see this particular addition to Leviticus as from the Temple Scroll alone. Segal thinks the wood-offering comes from Nehemiah 10.