Shaping Text Through Song: The Influence of Singing Upon Processes of Textual Interpretation and Variation in the Dead Sea Scrolls

This book explores the influential role played by singing as a performative medium within processes of textual interpretation and variation during the late Second Temple Period, as reflected in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Singing is argued to be a prominent and widespread mode of performance, and a medium which exerted considerable influence within and upon processes of textual composition, interpretation and transmission. These complex processes result in the variation of textual forms, meaning that sung performance contributed to the widespread pluriformity of textual traditions, including those that were eventually codified in the scriptural canons of Judaism and Christianity.