The evidence from Qumran includes only
a few of the so-called Apocrypha, that is books found in the LXX canon (ch.
8.2) and not in the Hebrew Bible (e.g., Sirach, Tobit) and the Pseudepigrapha,
that is Jewish Second Temple compositions not found in the Masoretic or LXX
canons (e.g., Jubilees, 4QLevi ar [4Q213-214], 4QTJud ar [4Q538], 4QNaph [4Q215]).
We do not know whether these books were equally as authoritative as the books
of the Hebrew Scripture for the Qumran community. The fact that compositions
were found at Qumran is not sufficient to determine their authoritative status,
but the use of the quotation formula (as Scripture or not) and other evidence
is more compelling. Jubilees probably had a special status at Qumran since many
copies were found there and the book was quoted as if it were Scripture. The
Temple Scroll probably was also considered authoritative; five copies were
found at Qumran, with the main one, 11QTa, representing a luxury
copy. (Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible [4th
ed.; Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 2022], 115)
