Between Imitation and Interpretation:Reuse of Scripture and Composition in Hodayot (1QHa) 11:6-19.

1QHodayota 11:6-19 exemplifies some of the techniques by which an author could, successfully, imitate biblical language without, simultaneously, implying that the reuse was exegetical. Seven scriptural texts-each crafted around themes of life, death, or the sea-dictated the poem's themes and much of its vocabulary (Jonah 2:3-7; Ps 77:17-18; 107:23-27; Isa 66:7; Jer 10:13/51:16; Job 36:16-17; 41:23). The author of 1QHa 11:6-19 mimicked the biblical idiom of these sources, but, to avoid evoking the sources too clearly, the author broke up and/or adapted many of the most rare and distinctive of the borrowed locutions. In those cases where the author reused multiple locutions from a single source-text, the borrowed elements were separated from one another, scattered widely across the new poem. The outcome was a new text that reflected biblical expression and style, yet it did not offer or imply any interpretation of the sources of that style. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]