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Brackets in the DSS

David Jeroslow

As you know, Logos provides portions of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

I’ve noticed in some of the passages in Logos, Hebrew text appears in [brackets]. Typically brackets indicate an editorial insert, but it may not for the DSS.

What precisely does this mean? Were those words on the original scroll?

Thanks.

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Comments

Ronald Quick

I'm going from memory, but I think it means the same in the Dead Sea Scrolls too.

Mark Barnes

Typically brackets indicate an editorial insert

They usually represent reconstructions of damaged or lost areas.

Dr. Keith Pang Ph.D.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/943846#Comment_943846

It is the translator supplying what probably was originally there.

Francis

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/943848#Comment_943848

Some editions will explain the nomenclature in the introductory matters, such as this one:

"When we are not reasonably assured of a reading, we have noted the letter within square brackets, as a reconstruction, or replaced it by one or more dots. We have not reproduced the extent of lacunae; three dots within square brackets ([…]) indicate any amount of missing text and three dots outside square brackets (]…[) any amount of unreadable (either undecipherable or meaningless) letters or words. Readings corrected by a copyist are indicated within accolades. The text printed within accolades ({…}) may represent erasures, letters with cancellation dots, or text otherwise marked by the copyist as not to be read. One particular type of scribal correction, the overwriting and reshaping of individual letters, has not always been presented in the transcription. The indication vacat in the transcription, and Blank in the translation, indicate any amount of space left blank in the manuscript, either intentionally (as indication of a new paragraph) or accidentally. Words written above the line or in Palaeohebrew characters in the manuscript are reproduced as such in our transcription. In only a limited number of cases we have indicated obvious mistakes in the text which have not been corrected by the copyist. Text presented within angled brackets (< >) was written in the manuscripts, but should, in our opinion, be read otherwise or be deleted. Text within round brackets either presents our addition to the text, or indicates our corrected reading of the preceding word or words."

Florentino Garcı́a Martı́nez and Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar, “The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition (translations)” (Leiden; New York: Brill, 1997–1998).