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The Context of 4Qmmt and Comfortable Theories*

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The Context of 4Qmmt and Comfortable Theories* THE CONTEXT OF 4QMMT AND COMFORTABLE THEORIES* Charlotte Hempel I. Introduction Six copies of the so-called Halakhic Letter 4QMMT were found in Qumran Cave 4, and palaeographers have suggested that they were copied over a period of about 100 years or more (ca. 75 BCE–50 CE). Whether or not the work was composed at Qumran, it was obviously copied over a long period of time and must, therefore, have been regarded as important. The document falls into three parts: a calen- dric section, a halakhic section, and a homiletic section presented as sections A, B, and C in the editio princeps published as volume 10 of the Series Discoveries in the Judean Desert.1 It is a matter of dis- pute whether or not the calendric section A at the beginning of the work forms an integral part of the document or not.2 The halakhic section B forms the central part of the document and lists a number of legal issues where a ‘we’ group addresses a you plural group to try and convince them of their legal standpoint. Apart from the writers (we) and the addressees (you plural) the document also refers to a ‘they’ group who adopt different, and in the authors’ views intolerable, legal practices. The last part C is usually referred to as the homiletic epilogue. This last part at times addresses an individual, often thought to be a political ruler, who is asked to consider the kings of Israel. The * Outside of the Birmingham conference that gave rise to this volume I presented the material contained in this chapter to the Senior New Testament Seminar in Cam- bridge, UK, and at the Centre for Judaic Studies at Yale University, USA. I am grateful to Prof. Judy Lieu (Cambridge) and Prof. Steven Fraade (Yale) for their invitations and to the learned audiences in both institutions for their contributions. 1 Elisha Qimron and John Strugnell, Qumran Cave 4. V. Miqsaṭ Maʿaśeh ha-Torah (DJD 10; Oxford: Clarendon, 1994). 2 Cf. F. García Martínez, “Dos Notas Sobre 4QMMT,” RevQ 16 (1993): 293–297; J. VanderKam, “The Calendar, 4Q327, and 4Q394,” in Legal Texts and Legal Issues: Proceedings of the Second Meeting of the International Organization for Qumran Stud- ies Published in Honour of Joseph M. Baumgarten (ed. M. Bernstein, F. García Mar- tínez and J. Kampen; Leiden: Brill, 1997), 179–194; and most recently Hanne von Weissenberg, 4QMMT: Reevaluating the Text, the Function, and the Meaning of the Epilogue (STDJ 82; Leiden: Brill, 2009), 33–38. 276 charlotte hempel epilogue also contains a reference to a separation from the majority of the people on the part of the ‘we’ group. When this text was first introduced to scholars the editors argued that we are dealing with a letter by the teacher of righteousness to the wicked priest that goes back to the time just before the teacher’s group segregated itself.3 More recently scholars have become slightly more cautious in their assess- ment of this text.4 Some twelve years ago I published a paper on 4QMMT and the Laws of the Damascus Document presented at a symposium at the Hebrew University.5 On that occasion I tried to show that parts of the legal section of MMT and parts of the Laws of the Damascus Doc- ument deal with the same halakhic issues, and at times even address the same scriptural texts in the same sequence. I concluded that such close links indicate that the compiler/author of MMT probably made us of a halakhic source in a similar manner to the author/compiler of the Damascus Document. If this conclusion were correct, it speaks against considering the document as a letter composed from scratch by the teacher. Almost at the same time and entirely independently, Perez Fernandez also argued for the composite nature of MMT on stylistic grounds.6 II. Looking Back An important avenue of current research is the question of how the more recently published material fits in with the texts we have known and studied for some decades.7 In particular, we may want to ask 3 E. Qimron and J. Strugnell, “An Unpublished Halakhic Letter from Qumran,” in Biblical Archaeology Today: Proceedings of the International Congress on Biblical Archaeology, Jerusalem, April 1984 (Jerusalem: IES, 1985), 400–407. 4 See, e.g., J. Strugnell, “MMT: Second Thoughts on a Forthcoming Edition,” in The Community of the Renewed Covenant: The Notre Dame Symposium on the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. E. Ulrich and J. VanderKam; Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), 57–73. For a recent overview see von Weissenberg, 4QMMT: Reevaluat- ing the Text, the Function, and the Meaning of the Epilogue, 17–25. 5 Charlotte Hempel, “The Laws of the Damascus Document and 4QMMT,” inThe Damascus Document: A Centennial of Discovery. Proceedings of the Third International Symposium of the Orion Center, 4–8 February 1998 (STDJ 34; Leiden: Brill, 2000), 69–84. 6 M. Perez Fernandez, “4QMMT: Redactional Study,” RevQ 18 (1997): 191–205. 7 For an assessment of the current climate in Qumran Studies along these lines see Charlotte Hempel, “Texts, Scribes, Caves and Scholars: Reflections on a Busy Decade in Dead Sea Scrolls Research,” Expository Times 120/6 (2009): 272–276..
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