Dead Sea Scrolls Discovery

HUMANITIES Khirbet Qumran, the site of the Dead Sea Scrolls discovery. © Metso Writings of Jewish antiquity

Specialising in the Hebrew Bible and Dead Sea Scrolls, Associate Professor Sarianna Metso describes the complexity involved in deciphering the historical and cultural factors behind them, and outlines how ancient texts are shaping contemporary understanding of ancient literary works

Can you begin by describing what sparked your fascination for writings of Jewish antiquity and, more specifically, the Dead Sea Scrolls?

Very seldom does a scholar interested in the ancient world get the opportunity to work on material that is newly discovered or unresearched. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls unearthed ancient Jewish literature, in the processes of authoring, collating, there is no need to abandon the notion much of which was previously unknown. interpreting and revising textual traditions of a textual archetype, it is important to Fortuitously, at the time I started my doctoral of the communities that had created them; recognise that modern conceptions of a ‘work’ work, the Scrolls archives in Jerusalem were originally, often in communal and oral settings. do not necessarily coincide with those of opened to a broader community of scholars. To what extent a document created in this way ancient scribes. The opportunity to venture into unmapped reflects actual historical circumstances of territory was fascinating to me. The Scrolls that any particular community at any given time is Much of your work involves creating new had lain buried in the desert caves for 2,000 often a difficult question to answer, although editions of ancient Jewish texts. In what ways years provide authentic material contemporary obviously these documents reflect history in a has your research been able to contribute with the emergence of rabbinic Judaism and broader sense. thus far? the beginnings of Christianity. They offer a far more multifaceted and deeper perspective into How has knowledge that these ancient texts As a member of the official Dead Sea Scrolls the religious, cultural and societal currents of were commonly written by more than one publication team, I co-edited two fragmentary that period than was available before. person and augmented by successive scribes Hebrew manuscripts of the Book of Job. The affected understanding of the development of manuscripts show some minor variation in Why is understanding the historical and new versions? comparison with the Masoretic text, which cultural factors that contributed to the lies behind the translations of most standard emergence of religions such as rabbinic Our increasing knowledge of how ancient Bibles. In addition to the manuscripts of Judaism and early Christianity such a scribes worked is now changing – in quite the book of Leviticus that one of my current complex endeavour? fundamental ways – how we approach the editing projects focuses on, another set of concept of a literary work. For example, it manuscripts that interests me belongs to a Much of the complexity is created by the has been quite typical for textual scholars to work called The Community Rule, a non- character of the material. Most of the ancient focus on uncovering the ‘pristine original,’ the biblical work. When I first encountered the writings are multi-layered documents and presumed intended wording of the original material, all that was available were black and compilations of materials stemming from a author, and consider textual differences in white photographs of the preserved fragments, variety of sources written at different times, manuscripts as ‘errors’ or ‘recensions’ – which I compared with the original fragments anonymously modified and transmitted further following rather modern notions stemming in the Scrolls archives in Jerusalem. There are by creative scribes. Rather than simply copyists, primarily from the Western print culture of still many unanswered questions regarding ancient scribes were active participants a copyrighted work of a single author. While this material.

1 INTERNATIONAL INNOVATION The complex development of ancient texts

A researcher working in the Departments of Historical Studies and Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations at the University of Toronto is currently involved in two projects that seek to create new editions of ancient Jewish texts. Her work contributes towards presenting the preserved fragmentary materials in a way that advances their scholarly analysis

THE DEAD SEA Scrolls were discovered between 1946/7 and 1956 in 11 caves at Khirbet Qumran in the West Bank. The manuscripts are Although the 13 fragmentary manuscripts of The Community Rule dated, using accelerator mass spectrometry and palaeography, to circa 250 BCE to 70 CE. have been published individually, there is no single critical edition The approximately 900 texts were written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek on animal skin and of the work papyrus (though one was written on copper).

They are fascinating historical, religious and tends to centre on the quantitatively most- DEAD SEA SCROLLS literary documents that are both biblical and preserved manuscript, irrespective of whether non-biblical in nature. Every book of the Hebrew it is the oldest or most representative. Without OBJECTIVES Bible is represented in the discovery of the inclusion of the full body of preserved material, • To reconstruct literary, social or cultural history from Scrolls except one – the Book of Esther – which, any analysis is necessarily incomplete. ancient sources curiously, is the only book in the Bible that does • To create new editions of ancient Jewish texts not mention God. Naturally, the Scrolls have Thus, Metso – with support from her graduate entitled: Serekh ha-Ya ad (The Community Rule): A proven to be of extreme importance to textual students – has set about presenting the totality ḥ Critical Edition of the Foundational Text of the Dead Sea criticism of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) of the preserved material in a meaningful way Scrolls Community and the Leviticus volume in the and have revolutionised understanding of the that recognises the complexity of its textual series The Hebrew Bible: A Critical Edition work of scribes in antiquity. development and transmission through history. “My technologically savvy students are very KEY COLLABORATORS THE COMMUNITY RULE good at utilising digital technologies, and the For Serekh ha-Yaḥad (The Community Rule), former and Associate Professor Sarianna Metso from the Israel Antiquities Authority recently made high- current students of the University of Toronto: University of Toronto is fascinated with – and resolution images of the Scrolls available,” Dr Chad Stauber; James Tucker, University of an expert in – Jewish antiquity. Her interest explains Metso. “The images have been created Toronto, Canada in ancient Jewish texts and, in particular, the in multiple spectra and have taken our work Dead Sea Scrolls has led to several publications to a new level; some previously unreadable Dr John Screnock, University of Oxford, UK on the subject. She is currently involved in text in the fragments is now visible with near- For Leviticus: two different, yet related, projects that seek to infrared wavelengths.” Ultimately, the project create new editions of ancient Jewish texts. has enabled Metso and her team to create Professor Ronald Hendel, University of California, USA The first involves preparing a new edition of The a comprehensive, unified treatment of the FUNDING Community Rule – one of the first Scrolls to material with the latest revised readings. Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council be discovered. (SSHRC) of Canada (past) THE HEBREW BIBLE Although the 13 fragmentary manuscripts of The second project is a large collaborative CONTACT The Community Rule have been published effort involving senior biblical scholars Associate Professor Sarianna Metso individually, there is no single critical edition, from around the world. Her contribution Room 307, 4 Bancroft Avenue as exists for many other classical works. For concerns the development of the Leviticus Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations Metso and her team, this presents a problem, volume in the Hebrew Bible. Entitled The University of Toronto as without such an edition, scholarly analysis Hebrew Bible: A Critical Edition (HBCE), Toronto, Ontario the full series will include all books of the M5S 1C1 Hebrew Bible, and make use of the Scrolls Canada that are around 1,000 years older than the Hebrew manuscripts previously available. T +1 416 946 3243 Where earlier editions made use of a single E [email protected] manuscript as a base text against which http://hbceonline.org textual variants in other manuscripts were compared, HBCE presents a compilation SARIANNA METSO is Associate of the best readings from all available Professor in the Departments of manuscripts. “These manuscripts can Historical Studies and Near and be from the Scrolls or other important Middle Eastern Civilizations at the manuscripts – Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, University of Toronto, and Associate Latin and Syriac,” says Metso. “Previous Member of the University of Toronto Centre for Jewish editions were the best scholars could Studies. She specialises in the Hebrew Bible and the do because of the paucity of Hebrew Dead Sea Scrolls, particularly on issues of ancient manuscripts, but with the new evidence Jewish legislation, community identity development and Fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls. provided by the Scrolls, we can produce new methodology of historical reconstruction. © Screnock and improved editions of each biblical book.”