Reflections on Literacy, Textuality, and Community in the Qumran Dead Sea Scrolls,' in Ariel Feldman, Maria Cioata, and Charlotte Hempel, eds, Is There a Text in this Cave? Studies in the Textuality of the Dead Sea Scrolls in Honour of George J. Brooke (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 69-82 (original) (raw)
Related papers
Dead Sea Scrolls, Revise and Repeat: New Methods and Perspectives (Oct 2020)
Dead Sea Scrolls, Revise and Repeat: New Methods and Perspectives, 2020
A reexamination of the people and movements associated with Qumran, their outlook on the world, and what bound them together Dead Sea Scrolls, Revise and Repeat examines the identity of the Qumran movement by reassessing former conclusions and bringing new methodologies to the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The collection as a whole addresses questions of identity as they relate to law, language, and literary formation; considerations of time and space; and demarcations of the body. The thirteen essays in this volume reassess the categorization of rule texts, the reuse of scripture, the significance of angelic fellowship, the varieties of calendrical use, and celibacy within the Qumran movement. Contributors consider identity in the Dead Sea Scrolls from new interdisciplinary perspectives, including spatial theory, legal theory, historical linguistics, ethnicity theory, cognitive literary theory, monster theory, and masculinity theory. Edited by C Palmer, A Krause, E Schuller, and J Screnock.
Resurrecting the Dead Sea Scrolls Communities: An Alternative Vew of Qumran and the Scrolls
Desert beginning in 1947, scholars have attempted to sift through the archaeological and textual evidence to determine what it can tell us about the owners or collectors of the scrolls. With only about 200 of the 931 manuscripts (MSS) unearthed at Qumran being found in our modern day biblical canon 2 and therefore familiar to us, the vast majority of the remaining texts, about 115 (15% of the corpus, according to Michael Wise 3 ) of them sectarian in nature 4 , might be able to provide us with clues as to why these owners collected them in the first place.
The scrolls found in the caves near Qumran are archaeological artefacts that belong to the settlement, but the question is what the exact significance is of the scrolls lying in those caves. Is it a coincidence and did the scrolls somehow end up there during the revolt against Rome, at which moment the inhabitants of Qumran helped because they were around? Or is it less of a coincidence that the scrolls ended up in those caves? If some scrolls were present at the site before the revolt broke out and if some of the inhabitants were collectors and copyists of scrolls then the site of Qumran in combination with the nearby caves in which the scrolls were found represents a fascinating mixture of rural and regional material culture on the one hand and, on the other hand, urban and high literary culture. Comparative analysis of the text finds in the Judaean Desert highlights two issues. 1 First, the find sites indicate the spread of literary texts within various strata of ancient Jewish society, outside of urban centres such as Jerusalem. Second, the context, number of literary texts, and character of texts of the Judaean Desert text finds reveal a differentiated engagement with literary texts by different kinds of people in Jewish society at the time. The movement behind the scrolls can be characterized as a milieu of Jewish intellectuals or scholars who were engaged at a very high level with their ancestral traditions.
Journal of Theological Studies, 2020
Reviewed for Journal of Theological Studies 71 (2020): 311–13.
BRILL eBooks, 2011
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
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
4QMMT and D: Reconsidering the Social Context and Early History of the Dead Sea Scrolls Communities
Emerging Sectarianism in the Dead Sea Scrolls, STDJ 141, John J. Collins and Ananda Geyser-Fouché, eds. , 2022
A decade before its official publication in 1994, 4QMMT (hereafter "MMT") was presented to the scholarly community as an important new witness to the early years of the Qumran group. 1 Speaking on behalf of the editors at the International Congress on Biblical Archaeology in 1984, Elisha Qimron described the work as "one of the most important documents from Qumran," and posited that it was "a letter from a leader of the Qumran sect (possibly the Teacher of Righteousness himself) to the leader of its opponents (possibly Jonathan or Simon)." 2 Despite early enthusiasm, subsequent studies have tended to revise this maximalist interpretation, noting in particular its indebtedness to an outmoded paradigm of the schismatic origins of the Qumran community as a result of a dispute over the high priesthood. 3 This in turn led to attempts to reconceptualize MMT as either a treatise or a fictive letter, and to de-emphasize the possible connection between MMT and the origin of the group(s) who were at one time associated with Qumran. 4 Most recently, John Collins has offered a substantially revised version of the early hypothesis, suggesting that MMT was a letter sent by the Teacher to a Hasmonean ruler, possibly Hyrcanus I, or more likely Hyrcanus II, in order to persuade him to side with the sectarians over against their opponents, the Pharisees. 5
Doctrines of the Dead Sea Scrolls: The Doctrine of the Community
This paper examines the origin and history of the Qumran community. Who were the Jews who lived in Qumran? Dead Sea Scroll scholars have argued for Sadducees (Schiffman), Pharisees (Girzberg), Zealots (Malik, Driver), unknown Jewish group (Talmon), early Christian sect (Eisenman), and Essenes (Sukenik). The Manual of Discipline now called Rule of the Community (1QS) has many parallels with the description of the Essenes by Josephus. A list of 36 items is given and referenced. The problems with identifying the Essenes as the Qumran community are also listed. Next, some summaries are given of the sectarian writings of the Qumran community: The Rule of the Community (1QS), The Damascus Document (CD), the Rule of the Congregation (1QSa), and the Temple Scroll (11QT). Finally a comparison is made between the Qumran community and the early church described in the book of Acts.