Making Sense of Fragmentary Qumran Aramaic Texts: Two Case Studies on Contradictory Grammatical vs. Content or Genre Considerations

Fragmentary ancient texts are notoriously difficult to interpret. In this article, I offer case studies on two short sections of Qumran Aramaic texts. Part 1 analyses the various possible syntactic parsings of 4Q242 1–3, 4 and assesses the extent to which they conform to the grammar of Qumran Aramaic. Based on this assessment, I present my interpretation of the line and offer a potential reconstruction for the end of the preceding line 3. Part 2 shows how methodological decisions of the modern editors of 4Q560 1 I, 3; 5 on the text’s similarity to later Jewish incantations (or lack thereof) have yielded completely different interpretations. In this respect, I argue that the Aramaic is ambiguous, allowing for at least two different coherent readings.