“Was the Dead Sea Sect a Penitential Movement?” in The Oxford Handbook of the Dead Sea Scrolls (2010), 501-513. (original) (raw)
Scriptural Inspiration for Penitential Prayer in the Dead Sea Scrolls
I e purpose of this essay is to evaluate the in uence of scriptural motifs on the development of institutionalized penitential prayer in the Dead Sea Scrolls. I am not interested here in the development of the tradition culminating in the scriptural penitential prayers; Mark Boda has provided an excellent survey of both the primary data and the recent scholarship on the subject in his chapter in the rst volume of this penitential prayer series. 1 As source material for the study of Jewish prayer, the Dead Sea Scrolls di er from earlier sources in two important regards. First, the Dead Sea Scrolls provide the earliest attested certain examples of liturgical texts of penitential prayers in concrete liturgical settings, including daily prayers, festivals, an annual covenant ceremony, and puri cation rituals. By contrast, all the other evidence in the Second Temple period and earlier must be derived from literary texts, and concrete settings must be hypothesized. 2 Moreover, the Dead Sea Scrolls provide the earliest evidence for a practice of daily communal penitential prayer. is is a very signi cant development toward what will become standard in Jewish liturgy, and without any precedent or anticipation in scriptural tradition. at development still requires adequate explanation.
This monograph seeks to reconstruct the conception of repentance at Qumran via a detailed examination of the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS). Methodologically, Jason utilizes a "working definition" of repentance as his framework for approaching the Scrolls (p. 8). The definition: "Repentance is the radical turning away from anything which hinders one's wholehearted devotion to God and the corresponding turning to God in love and obedience."[1] As his work unfolds, this definition expands in light of the content found, in what Jason calls key "repentance texts" (p. 8). His analysis is strictly literary, looking for repentance motifs, language, and images (p. 3). He also approaches the Scrolls as a whole, avoiding textual-critical issues, "such as deciding whether a text is from an early or later stage of the community" (p. 27). Additionally, he surveys other Second Temple literature, asserting that, against the backdrop of "Apocryphal" and "Pseudepigraphic" texts, the remainder of the Scrolls display a distinct understanding of repentance (p. 3).
Celibacy in the dead Sea scrolls and the two kinds of sectarians
… of the International Congress on the Dead Sea Scrolls, …, 1991
Celibacy is one of the major phenomena in which Christianity differs from mainstream Judaism. It was also practiced among the Essenes. No wonder that it has been the subject of many studies, especially by Christian scholars. The attitude of the Dead Sea Scrolls to this question has been discussed in scholarly research especially in connection with the problem of the identifying the sect of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Generally speaking, those scholars who identify the sect with the Essenes believe that celibacy was practiced at Qumran, while those who reject this identification believe that no such practice existed there. The last word has not yet been said on this problem, as Professor Baumgarten has recently stated: «The fact that papers on celibacy continue to find their place on the agenda of Qumran colloquia is ... not only a reflection of the inherent interest in a social phenomenon widely held to be alien to mainstream Judaism, but also of the continuing uncertainty as to whether celibacy was in fact practiced at Qumran.» 1 This difference of opinion emerges not only from the ambiguity of the documentary evidence but also from the comparative approach which has been used. The studies utilize all the available sources that bear on the subject, namely: Greek sources about the Essenes, the New Testament, the excavations at Qumran and the evidence of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The evidence of the Dead Sea Scrolls has never been studied independently without taking into consideration this other comparative '
Journal for the Study of Judaism, 2013
TheDeadSea Scrolls and Contemporary Culture is a superb collection of essays that makes original contributions to the understanding of the scrolls on the 60th anniversary of their discovery. The volume focuses on progress made in research over the last decade and highlights promising areas for fiiture research. The book is highly recommended to all those interested in the DSS, the Hebrew Bible, Second Temple Judaism, early Christianity, and rabbinic Judaism. It would be especially useful for graduate students in the fields listed above since it provides broad insights into recent research as well as timely advice on which questions might be most promising to pursue in the future. The book is a model for the type of rich, interdisciplinary interactions that many colleges and universities yearn to foster in the humanistic disciplines. Emanuel Tov opens the volume with a review of some aspects of the history and current status of the DfD publication project. The first section addresses "Identity and History of the Community." Florentino Garcia Martinez revisits the Groningen hypothesis and suggests that it can still help us explain the textual data from Qumran. Charlotte Hempel examines lQS 6:2c-4a and suggests that when it is read in light of CD i3:2b-3a, one must conclude that S' s use of the preposition in (indicating the existence of a larger or parent group) is a later development or interpolation in the text. Eyal Regev compares features of the Yahad with modem religious sects such as the Quakers, Shakers, Hutterites, Mennonites, and Amish in order to suggest several likely (and unlikely) characteristics of the Yahad. James VanderKam reassesses the early or prehistory of the people associated with the scrolls. He reaches the sober conclusion that we can know very little about the community described in CD 1 and finds no evidence that the Qumran group began or existed as a splinter group that broke away from the group described in CD 1 (à la the Groningen Hypothesis). Section 2a examines scriptural texts. Jonathan Ben-Dov compares scribal practices for writing the divine name in the Elohistic Psalter (Psalms 42-89) and in the DSS and suggests a common explanation for the phenomenon. Peter Flint provides a carefiil summary of non-masoretic variant readings in lQIsa'' and finds that while the majority of the 622 variants are minor and of little consequence, around ten percent (66) are significant and involve clear changes in the meaning of the text. His results overturn preliminary descriptions of lQIsa"» as an exemplar of the Proto-Masoretic text. Eugene Ulrich summarizes some contributions of the study of the DSS for understanding the Bible. If the reviewer might be so bold, I suggest that Ulrich's essay should be required reading for anyone who presumes to study the