De Megillot als samenhangende verzameling

The Megilloth as Coherent Unity

After referring to recent overviews of the scholarly research on the individual books of the ‘Five Scrolls’ this articles describes and evaluates the study of these books as a meaningful unity. The relation between these books with Jewish feasts was made long after they were written. The first indications of them being seen as a collection date from the Middle Ages. There are many variations in the order of the books within the collection. Some (among whom the Codex Leningradensis) follow a chronological order of their assumed origin, others place them in the liturgical order of the feasts during the year. Despite all these counter indications, serious attempts have been made, especially in a number of thematic session at meetings of the SBL, to look for coherence of the Megilloth in their canonical order. Over all, the search for coherence appears to have been not very successful, but it also stimulated the comparison between a number of individual books with some interesting new perspectives.