Psalm Use in Qumran

Following the unrolling of 11QPsa, much attention has been paid to the question of its implications on the process of canonization of the Book of Psalms. Opposing positions have been carved out, mainly stressing either the secondary nature of the scroll, as compared to the MT-150 Book of Psalms, or its true canonical status. Much work has been done to organize the many psalms manuscripts into some systematic schema, as well as studying specific synchronic features of 11QPsa, but I believe that an important piece of the puzzle has so far been overlooked. Namely, the question of use. As often when the impact of a book from the Hebrew Bible is to be evaluated, the sheer number of manuscripts would play an important role, but another aspect must also be taken into consideration, namely how individual psalms are used and referred to as authoritative in other texts. To be able to carry out such an investigation with any methodological rigor, I believe that it will be necessary to approach the DSS-material without preconceived ideas about the process of fixation of text, as well as any polarised views about canonical/non-canonical/apocryphal texts, and consequently, it is important to not only focus on MT-psalms quotations, but also on quotations of psalms specific to 11QPsa. In this paper, I focus on signs of use of the Book of Psalms among the DSS. Thus put, some inevitable questions immediately arise; the first one being what the “Book of Psalms” actually designate, a question I will try to answer in the first part of the paper, and secondly what one means by “use”, a question I will adress and investigate in the second part.