Bible Review

4QJer^d, like the LXX, is shorter than MT in several details. In Jeremiah 10, 4QJer^b is also shorter than MT, and it arranges the verses differently, again as in the LXX.

The Qumran texts have been published by this author, Emanuel Tov, in Eugene Ulrich et al., Qumran Cave—The Prophets, Discoveries in the Judaean Desert XV (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1997), pp. 145–207.

The name Septuagint, from the Latin for 70, and its abbreviation, LXX, refer to the legendary 72 Jewish translators brought to Egypt from Jerusalem in the third century B.C.E. to translate the Torah into Greek.

The Masoretic Text—the traditional Hebrew text—is named for the Masoretes (meaning “those who transmit [the biblical text]”), who in the late first millennium C.E. devised a complex system of vowel marks, cantillation signs and annotations to safeguard the text of the Hebrew Bible.

Halpern, “Centre and Sentry: Megiddo’s Role in Transit, Administration and Trade,” in Megiddo III, ed. Finkelstein, Ussishkin and Halpern (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv Univ., 2000), pp. 534–575.

Stanley B. Frost, “The Death of Josiah: A Conspiracy of Silence,” Journal of Biblical Literature 87 (1968), p. 375; Graham I. Davies, Megiddo (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1986), pp. 104–105; Kempinski, Megiddo, p. 15.

Frank M. Cross and David N. Freedman, “Josiah’s Revolt Against Assyria,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 12 (1953), pp. 56–57; Nadav Na’aman, “The Kingdom of Judah Under Josiah,” Tel Aviv 18 (1991), pp. 3–71.