4Q1962
Aramaic Tobit - 1 fragment


MS 5234

TOBIT DEAD SEA SCROLL

 
BIBLE: TOBIT 14:4 - 6

MS in Aramaic on papyrus, Qumran, ca. 50 BC, 1 fragment, 6,8x2,1 cm, part of right side of a column, (5,9x1,6 cm), part of 7 lines in a late semiformal Hasmonaean Hebrew book script. Context: Part of fragment 14 of 4Qpap.TobitAar=4Q196 (ca. 50 BC). 4QTobitBar=4Q197 (ca. 30 BC-25 AD) have parts of the same text, both published in DJD XIX, pl. I-VII. 

Context: Part of the column next to fragment 8 of 4Qpap.TobitAar=4Q196 (ca. 50 BC). 4QTobitCar=4Q198 (ca. 50 BC) has parts of the same text, both published in DJD XIX, pl. I-VIII.

Provenance: 1. Community of the Essenes, Qumran (ca 50 BC -68 AD); 2. Qumran Cave 4 (68-1956); 3. Khalil Iskander Shahin ("Kando"), Bethlehem (1956-1972); 4. American priest, later serving in Switzerland (1972-1995).

Commentary: This MS with the other fragments of 4Q196, is the earliest witness to this part of the Bible. Tobit (or Tobias) was written in the 5th or 4th c. BC, and is an apochryphal book in the Hebrew Bible, but part of the Septuagint. The present text is Tobit's instructions given when he was at the point of death in Nineveh, to his son Tobias and his seven sons, ordering them to hurry away to Media, as Assyria and Babylonia will not be safe according to the prophets' of Israel. The present Aramaic text is rather different from the Septuagint, and shorter. 
The allocation of this MS to 4Q196 was kindly communicated by Florentino Garcia Martinez.