Despite restrictions on the movement of people, the École Biblique is pleased to welcome for two months Mr. Michael Johnson, a graduate of the Department of Religious Studies at McMaster University (Hamilton, Canada), and a post-doctoral student at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, for a research stay at the École Biblique, thanks to a scholarship from the Amis Canadiens de l’École Biblique.
“My research during my stay at the École is an integral part of a larger postdoctoral project at the Hebrew University that examines the liturgical orientations of two overlapping collections of psalms of thanksgiving and praise from the Dead Sea Scrolls: 1QHodayota and 4QHodayota. In this project, I am seeking to improve the material reconstructions of these manuscripts in order to gain better insight into the contents and sequencing of the psalms. Building on earlier proposals by Esther Chazon and Eileen Schuller, the improved reconstructions will be the basis for exploring further whether and how these two Hodayot manuscripts might be regarded as “liturgically oriented.”
My work at the École is focused on two parts of my postdoctoral project. I am working on an article on the material reconstruction of 1QHa columns 1–8, which will propose new fragment placements that affect the sequence and contents of the psalms in these first eight columns of the scroll. This work combines established approaches for the reconstruction of Dead Sea scrolls by damage patterns (known as the “Stegemann Method”) with digital tools for 2D composite images and 3D modelling. This work is especially important to carry out at the École where I can consult with Émile Puech, whose material reconstruction of 1QHa is at the centre of my project.”
Michael B. Johnson, February 26, 2021.
1QHa 1–8