Structured by four important themes, the book discusses various aspects pertaining to the interpretation of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The first theme is comprised by a number of essays that deal with different aspects of textual interpretation of particular Qumran writings. The second theme centers on the question of historical referentiality. How can the purported referentiality of particular Qumran writings be used in order to reconstruct an underlying historical reality? The third theme includes essays that pertain to different dimensions concerning the methodology of interpretation. The fourth theme focuses on problems relating to the textual reconstruction of specific Qumran texts. In the final section of the book, the perspective is widened to other writings outside the more specific Qumran context.
The Dead Sea Scrolls continue to shed ancient light on both the text and interpretation of the Hebrew Bible during the Second Temple period. Among the scrolls are several copies of Genesis dating from the first century BC to the mid-first century AD that contain portions of text from the creation account. These fragmentary copies have provided an unprecedented glimpse into the condition of the text in antiquity and have also provided a unique window into certain scribal practices in the copying of the text. In addition, several texts from Qumran contain the most ancient surviving interpretations of the Genesis creation account, dating from the mid-second century BC to the first century AD. A literary analysis of these texts reveals how ancient Jews interpreted and employed the creation account. These diverse texts address issues such as the creation of various entities (the universe, angels, Eden, humanity), Adam’s dominion and knowledge in Eden, God’s election of Israel on the first Sabbath, the prohibition in the garden and Adam’s rebellion, and the Garden of Eden as an archetype of the sanctuary.
This book is a collection of cutting-edge essays on the Dead Sea Scrolls as part of ancient Mediterranean media culture, featuring interdisciplinary feedback from scholars in New Testament studies and Classics.
A large amount of Leviticus material has been found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Yet there is surprisingly little secondary scholarly analysis of the role of Leviticus in this corpus. The book of Leviticus survives in several manuscripts; it also features in quotations and allusions, so that it seems to be a foundational source for the ideology behind the composition of some of the nonscriptural texts. Indeed this volume argues that the ideology of the Holiness Code persisted in the communities that collected the manuscripts and placed them in the Qumran Caves.
How were Jewish texts produced and transmitted in late antiquity? What role did scribal practices play in the shaping of both scriptural and interpretive traditions, which are—as the Scrolls show so decisively—intimately intertwined? How were texts assembled from a variety of earlier sources, both oral and written? Why were they often attributed to pseudonymous authors from the remote past such as Moses and David? How did the composers of these texts understand the enterprise in which they were engaged? This volume furthers current debates about Qumran Scribal Practice and the transmission of traditions in Jewish Antiquity. It is published with the conviction that the transmission of traditions and the details of scribal practices—so often treated separately—should be considered in conversation with each other.
Discovered in 1947, the Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of ancient Israelite documents, many of which were written by a Jewish sectarian community at Qumran living in self-exile from the priesthood of the Second Temple. This first book-length study of the rhetoric of these texts illustrates how the Essenes employed different rhetorics over time as they struggled to understand God’s word and their mission to their people, who seemed to have turned away from God and his purposes. Applying methods of rhetorical analysis to six substantive texts—Miqṣat Maʿaśeh ha-Torah, Rule of the Community, Damascus Document, Purification Rules, Temple Scroll, and Habakkuk Pesher—Bruce McComiskey traces the Essenes’ use of rhetorical strategies based on identification, dissociation, entitlement, and interpretation. Through his analysis, McComiskey uncovers a unique, fascinating story of an ancient religious community that had sought to reintegrate into Temple life but, dejected, instead established itself as the new covenant people of God for this world, only to turn ultimately to a trust in a metaphysical afterlife. Presenting forms of ancient Jewish rhetoric largely uninfluenced by classical rhetoric, this book broadens our understanding of human and religious rhetorical practice, even as it provides new insight into the events that led to the emergence of the Talmudic period. Rhetoric and the Dead Sea Scrolls will be useful to scholars working in the fields of religious rhetoric, Jewish studies, and early Christianity.
This volume contains 17 essays on the subjects of text, canon, and scribal practice. The volume is introduced by an overview of the Qumran evidence for text and canon of the Bible. Most of the text critical studies deal with texts from the Dead Sea Scrolls, including sectarian as well as canonical texts. Two essays shed light on the formation of authoritative literature. Scribal practice is illustrated in various ways, again mostly from the Dead Sea Scrolls. One essay deals with diachronic change in Qumran Hebrew. Rounding out the volume are two thematic studies, a wide-ranging study of the “ambiguous oracle” of Josephus, which he identifies as Balaam’s oracle, and a review of the use of female metaphors for Wisdom.
In The Dead Sea Scrolls for a New Millennium, Phillip R. Callaway presents the most comprehensive survey of the Dead Sea Scrolls since the final publication of the cave 4 fragments. The chapters on editing the Scrolls, on the caves, on the scrolls, and on Khirbet Qumran present the evidence without getting bogged down in older controversies. Callaway discusses the so-called yahad ostracon, as well as a fascinating writing exercise, and the supposed Dead Sea Scroll on stone. Those who desire to know more about the Bible among the Scrolls are offered brief comments on over one hundred readings from Qumran's biblical manuscripts and other biblical texts. In the chapter on the pseudepigrapha and apocrypha, Callaway emphasizes the rich literary production of the mid- to late Second Temple period, with sections on Enoch, Jubilees, the Genesis Apocryphon, a Genesis commentary, the Reworked Pentateuch, targums on Leviticus and Job, the Temple Scroll, the New Jerusalem, an Apocryphon of Joshua, the psalms, various works of wisdom, Tobit, Ben Sira, the Epistle of Jeremiah, and the Greek fragments from cave 7. The chapter on the Community Scrolls deals with the Damascus Document, the Rule of the Community and its appendages, a Hybrid Rule, the Rule of War, the Thanksgiving Hymns, Florilegium, Testimonia, Melchizedek, the pesher commentaries on Habakkuk, Nahum, and Psalm 37, Ordinances, Calendar texts, Some Works of the Law, the Angelic Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, and the phylacteries. In terms of the Scrolls and Jewish history, Callaway discusses the text called Praise for Jerusalem and King Jonathan, the Copper Scroll, the documentary texts (which may or may not be from Qumran), the history of the Qumran community, and some similarities to early Christian thought and language. In addition to clarifying discussions of all the works mentioned above, the author hopes that The Dead Sea Scrolls for a New Millennium will help readers understand the Scrolls not as the product of a radical, separatist community, but rather as the literary heritage of many of the greatest Jewish minds that lived in the Second Temple period.
The volume consists of 27 surveys of research into the Dead Sea Scrolls in the past 60 years, written by 26 authors. An innovation of the volume is that it covers Qumran scholarship in separate countries: the USA, Canada, Israel, France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Italy and the Eastern bloc. Each essay also carries a detailed bibliography for the respective country. Biographies of all the major scholars active in the field are briefly given as well. This book thereby exhaustively surveys past and present Qumran research, outlining its particular development in various circumstances and national contexts. For the first time, perspectives and information not recorded in any other publication are highlighted.
These essays reflect the lively debate about the sectarian movement of the Scrolls. They debate the degree to which the movement was separated from the rest of Judaism, and whether there was one or several watershed moments in the separation. Notable contributions include a cluster of essays on the Teacher of Righteousness and a thorough survey of the archaeology of Qumran. The texts are problematic in historical research because they rely on biblical stereotypes. Nonetheless, possible interpretations can be compared and degrees of probability debated. The debate is significant not only for the sect but for the nature of ancient Judaism.
