At the third meeting of the International Organisation for Qumran Studies, held in Oslo in 1998, a variety of papers were presented concerning the study of the Sapiential, Liturgical and Poetical Texts from Qumran. The fourteen papers selected for this volume are arranged in three sections. ‘Sapiential Texts’ contains four studies on different wisdom texts from Cave 4; ‘Liturgical and Poetical Texts’ is formed by seven papers dealing with independent poetic or liturgical compositions; while ‘Qumran Wisdom and the New Testament’ presents three papers that explore the relationship of wisdom materials found at Qumran and some passages of the New Testament. The volume is published in memory of Maurice Baillet, who passed away shortly before the meeting. It contains a biographical sketch and his complete bibliography provided by Emile Puech.
The last major volume of articles devoted to the topic of prayer and poetry in the Dead Sea Scrolls comprised a collection of articles presented at a conference in the year 2000 (Liturgical Perspectives: Prayer and Poetry in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls). This collection reflects the state of research in the field broadly and on specific prayers and poetic texts found among the Dead Sea Scrolls; it also offers new insights into topics on which Eileen Schuller has written extensively.
In 1946 the first of the Dead Sea Scroll discoveries was made near the site of Qumran, at the northern end of the Dead Sea. Despite the much publicized delays in the publication and editing of the Scrolls, practically all of them had been made public by the time of the fiftieth anniversary of the first discovery. That occasion was marked by a spate of major publications that attempted to sum up the state of scholarship at the end of the twentieth century, including The Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls (OUP 2000). These publications produced an authoritative synthesis to which the majority of scholars in the field subscribed, granted disagreements in detail. A decade or so later, The Oxford Handbook of the Dead Sea Scrolls has a different objective and character. It seeks to probe the main disputed issues in the study of the Scrolls. Lively debate continues over the archaeology and history of the site, the nature and identity of the sect, and its relation to the broader world of Second Temple Judaism and to later Jewish and Christian tradition. It is the Handbook's intention here to reflect on diverse opinions and viewpoints, highlight the points of disagreement, and point to promising directions for future research.
This book is a comprehensive treatment of prophecy and revelation in the Dead Sea Scrolls. It examines the reconfiguration of biblical prophecy and revelation, the portrait of prophecy at the end of days, and the evidence for ongoing prophetic activity.
The articles in this book tackle important linguistic, exegetical and historical questions concerning the Aramaic scrolls from Qumran, addressing for instance the issue of their relevance to the development of apocalypticism and messianism in the Jewish tradition.
Ancient Readers and their Scriptures explores the various ways that ancient Jewish and Christian writers engaged with and interpreted the Hebrew Bible in antiquity, focusing on physical mechanics of rewriting and reuse, modes of allusion and quotation, texts and text forms, text collecting, and the development of interpretative traditions. Contributions examine the use of the Hebrew Bible and its early versions in a variety of ancient corpora, including the Septuagint, Dead Sea Scrolls, New Testament, and Rabbinic works, analysing the vast array of textual permutations that define ancient engagement with Jewish scripture. This volume argues that the processes of reading and cognition, influenced by the physical and intellectual contexts of interpretation, are central aspects of ancient biblical interpretation that are underappreciated in current scholarship.
The relationships between Pauline literature and the Dead Sea scrolls have fascinated specialists ever since the latter were first discovered. Now that all the Qumran scrolls have been published, it is possible to see more clearly the amplitude and impact of this corpus on first century Judaism. This book offers some syntheses of the results obtained in the last decades, and also opens up new perspectives, by highlighting similarities and indicating possible relationships between these various writings within Mediterranean Judaism. In addition, the authors wish to show how certain traditions spread, evolve and are reconfigured in ancient Judaism as they meet new religious, cultural and social challenges.
Mika S. Pajunen contributes both to the understanding of manuscript 4Q381 from the Dead Sea Scrolls and to broader issues related to the reconstruction of damaged scrolls and to the reading of psalms in late Second Temple Judaism. The author focuses especially on the collection of "apocryphal" psalms in 4Q381 and other similar psalm collections, but it is also of interest to the ongoing search for the functions of psalmody in this period.A material reconstruction of manuscript 4Q381 has been made to determine the original placement of all the substantial fragments within the scroll. The reconstruction shows there to be eight psalms in the preserved scroll. A thorough analysis of all of them is incorporated in this study, including a critical Hebrew text and the first English translation of the psalms, a basic outline of the psalms' content with comments on their details, and a presentation of their overall message.All the psalms in 4Q381 discuss specific periods of time. The first three psalms cover a period from the Creation to the expected future of a group identified as God's chosen ones. These are followed by five pseudepigraphic psalms that are named in this study as Praise of the Man of God (David), Praise of Hezekiah, Penitential Prayer of Manasseh, Lament of Josiah, and Penitential Prayer of Jehoiachin. The psalms in 4Q381 make up a consistent whole that is shown to function as a unified lesson on the justice of God toward his elect.In this investigation 4Q381 is placed into its proper place inside some of the larger developments and ideologies perceivable within late Second Temple Judaism. For instance, 4Q381 is part of the general trends discernible in psalmody of this period, namely, a general increase in reflection upon the past and the use of wisdom motifs. But in addition, 4Q381 also gives evidence of a perception of psalms as sources of history that is in the end found to be a much broader phenomenon.
In Turning Proverbs towards Torah, Elisa Uusimäki offers the first monograph on the early Jewish wisdom text 4Q525 from Qumran. Following the reconstruction of the fragmentary manuscript, Uusimäki analyses the text with a focus on the reception and renewal of the Proverbs tradition and the ways in which 4Q525 illustrates aspects of Jewish pedagogy in the late Second Temple period. She argues that the author was inspired by Proverbs 1-9 but sought to demonstrate that true wisdom is found in the concept of torah. He also weaved dualistic elements and eschatological ideas into the wisdom frame. The author's intention, Uusimäki argues, is to form the audience spiritually, encouraging it to trust in divine protection and blessings that are bestowed upon the pious.
