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The Qumran manuscripts as well as the LXX and its secondary versions contribute to identifying two or more editions in some biblical books or sections of a book. The historical and prophetical books are those which better match a model of editorial pluralism. Books which circulated in Qumran times in two or more different Hebrew editions are basically the same which form the "Kaige-Th. group" of the Septuagint: Exodus (chaps. 36-40), Joshua- Judges, Samuel-Kings, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Job, Song of Songs, and Daniel. In these books the OL version witnesses the oldest LXX text, reflecting a Hebrew text different from MT. The OL attests at times readings unknown to the rest of the textual traditions, both in Hebrew and in other ancient versions. The paper ends with a discussion of cases of interpolations or alternative Hebrew readings in Kings reflected in the Greek textual transmission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers together two scholarly controversies that have hitherto been considered separately, and suggests a crossover point. The first concerns the 364-day calendar whose pattern resonates throughout the Dead Sea Scrolls, and whose pre-Qumranic origins have been debated since the 1950's. The second concerns the origin of the perpetual seventhday Sabbath observance (which I will refer to as the "weekly Sabbath"), a debate which dates back to the nineteenth century. The paper proposes that a 364-day calendar similar to those best known from the Qumran Mishmarot texts was put into use in the Jerusalem Temple during the Persian Period, quite possibly as part of the sabbatarian reforms implemented by Nehemiah, and that this was key to the successful institutionalization of the weekly Sabbath. It may even be the case that the 364-day year was a catalyst for the conception of the perpetual weekly Sabbath, rather than vice-versa as is almost universally assumed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]