Stadel, Christian2025-01-142025-01-142024"The Biblical Annals", 2024, Vol. 14, No. 4, pp. 637-6492451-2168https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12153/8152Fragmentary 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.enAttribution 4.0 Internationalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Dead Sea ScrollsAramaic4Q242 Prayer of Nabonid4Q560 Magical Textsyntaxgenreincantationinfo:eu-repo/semantics/article10.31743/ba.17101