A Canon of Psalms in the Dead Sea Scrolls? Revisiting the Qumran Psalms Hypothesis

Abstract

Ever since the discovery of the Dead Sea psalms scrolls and the initial analysis of 11Q5 by James A. Sanders, there has been discussion as to the shape of the ‘Book’ of Psalms in Qumran and how to evaluate the function and status of 11Q5. By revisiting the initial arguments made by Sanders and putting them in dialogue with the notion of canon ecologies developed by Terje Stordalen, this article argues that the identification of a canon of psalms in the Dead Sea Scrolls can be successful only if one takes into consideration the entire network of canonical relations in a canonical ecology: the canonical body, the canonical community, and the canonical commentary.