Psalms as Prophecy: Qumran Evidence for the Reading of Psalms as Prophetic Text and the Formation of the Canon

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

“…The pesharim provide an appropriate starting point, since they explicitly comment on psalms in a way that invests authority in the psalms while at the same time distributing authority to the commentary (Horgan 1979, Høgenhaven 2017). Throughout the Dead Sea Scrolls, there are five pesharim where psalms are quoted and commented upon: 1Q16 comments on Psalms 57 and 68; 4Q171 on Psalms 37,45,and 60;4Q173 on Psalms 128,129,and 118;4QMidrEschat a.b on Psalms 1,2,5,10(?…”

“…Without changing the words of the psalm quoted-in this sense, the psalm is stableits meaning is explained in a way that creatively applies it to a new situation-in this sense, the psalm is adaptable. The pesharim thus provide a first possible concretization of the authority invested in the psalms: they were understood as having prophetic authority, since they are interpreted as if they had foretold events (Høgenhaven 2017: 233-37, cf. Brooke 2012.…”