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THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS : THE TRUTH BEHIND THE MYSTIQUE COURSE GUIDE

Professor Lawrence H. Schiffman NEW YORK UNIVERSITY The Dead Sea Scrolls: The Truth Behind the Mystique Professor Lawrence H. Schiffman New York University

Executive Editor Donna F. Carnahan

RECORDING Producer - David Markowitz Director - Matthew Cavnar

COURSE GUIDE Editor - James Gallagher Karen Sparrough Design - Edward White

72007 by Recorded Books, LLC #UT102 ISBN: 978-1-4281-5625-8 All beliefs and opinions expressed in this audio/video program and accompanying course guide are those of the author and not of Recorded Books, LLC, or its employees. Course Syllabus The Dead Sea Scrolls: The Truth Behind the Mystique

About Your Professor ...... 4

Introduction ...... 5

Lecture 1 The Library of Qumran ...... 6

Lecture 2 Scandal and Publication ...... 12

Lecture 3 Sects of the Second Temple Period ...... 17

Lecture 4 The Halakhic Letter and the Founding of the Sect ...... 22

Lecture 5 The Qumran Sect ...... 27

Lecture 6 Women and the Dead Sea Scrolls Sect ...... 32

Lecture 7 Theology and Beliefs of the Dead Sea Sect ...... 37

Lecture 8 Biblical Interpretation ...... 42

Lecture 9 The Hebrew Bible in Second Temple Times ...... 46

Lecture 10 The Messiah and the End of Days ...... 51

Lecture 11 The Temple Scroll ...... 56

Lecture 12 The Scrolls, Judaism, and Christianity ...... 62

Lecture 13 Controversial Messianic Texts ...... 67

Lecture 14 The Scrolls in Public Culture ...... 72

Course Materials ...... 77

3 n a m f f i h c S . H e c n e r w a L f o y

s About Your Professor e t r u o c o t o h

P Lawrence H. Schiffman

Lawrence H. Schiffman is chairman of New York University’s Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies and serves as Ethel and Irvin A. Edelman Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies. He is also a member of the University’s Centers for Ancient Studies and Near Eastern Studies. He is a past president of the Association for Jewish Studies. He currently serves as editor-in-chief of the Center for Online Judaic Studies in New York. Professor Schiffman was featured in the PBS Nova television series docu - mentary, “Secrets of the Dead Sea Scrolls,” as well as in four BBC documen - taries on the scrolls, the McNeil-Lehrer program, and a Discovery special. He appears regularly in the popular educational series “Mysteries of the Bible,” which appears on Arts and Entertainment (A&E), and he appeared in Kingdom of David on PBS. Professor Schiffman received his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees from the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University. He is a specialist in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Judaism in late antiquity, the history of Jewish law, and Talmudic literature. His publications include The Halakhah at Qumran (E.J. Brill, 1975); Sectarian Law in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Courts, Testimony, and the Penal Code (Scholars Press, 1983); Who Was a Jew? Rabbinic Perspectives on the Jewish-Christian Schism (Ktav, 1985); From Text to Tradition: A History of Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism (Ktav, 1991); a Hebrew book entitled Halakhah, Halikhah u-Meshihiyut be-Khat Midbar Yehudah (Law, Custom, and Messianism in the Dead Sea Sect) (Merkaz Shazar, 1993); the jointly authored monograph, Hebrew and Aramaic Magical Texts from the Cairo Genizah (Sheffield, 1992); Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls (Jewish Publication Society, 1994; Doubleday paperback, in the Anchor Research Library, 1995); and almost two hundred articles on the Dead Sea Scrolls and Rabbinic Judaism. His most recent book is Texts and Traditions: A Source Reader for the Study of Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism (Ktav, 1998).

4 m o c . k c o t s r e t t u h s / v e l a C h p e s o J ©

Introduction This series of lectures sets before the public the real Dead Sea Scrolls, our most important collection of Jewish texts from the centuries before the rise of Christianity. Only through efforts to understand what the scrolls can teach us about the history of Judaism is it possible for us to learn what they have to teach us about the history of Christianity, because Christianity came into being only after these texts were composed and copied. Despite many false claims to the contrary, the scrolls do not mention John the Baptist or Jesus, because they are Jewish texts composed before the rise of Christianity. Rather, they illuminate the Judaism of the period after the composition of the Hebrew Scriptures and before the solidification of postbiblical Judaism and the rise of Christianity. Although this description of the scrolls collection may seem obvious, its full implications for the understanding of both Judaism and Christianity have only recently been recognized. The popular press remains far behind the scholars who, despite disagreements on many specific matters of interpreta - tion, have reached virtual consensus on this central point. In fact, the media continue to provide a forum for exaggerated and irresponsible claims that the scrolls belong primarily to the Christian domain or that they represent the normative Judaism of the Jerusalem Temple, both patently incorrect. Numerous books have come out advocating theories of the scrolls that are incompatible with the texts and the archaeological evidence. To a great extent, we can attribute such unfounded series to the unfortunate veil of secrecy that long surrounded the scrolls. But the monopoly of the original publication team has been completely lifted for some time, and responsible and intelligent syntheses such as that proposed here are becoming the norm. It is my hope that these recordings will enable listeners to draw their own conclusions about the Dead Sea Scrolls, perhaps the most important archaeological discovery of the twentieth century.

5 Lecture 1: The Library of Qumran

The Suggested Reading for this lecture is Lawrence H. Schiffman’s Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their True Meaning for Judaism and Christianity, introduction and chapters 1 through 3.

A Discovery of Immeasurable Import The Dead Sea Scrolls are arguably the most important find of the twentieth century. These scrolls illuminate the history of Western civilization and reli - gious tradition in a way that is immeasurable, and they provide valuable insights into the background of Christianity and the development of Judaism. The average discussion of the Dead Sea Scrolls begins with what has become a kind of foundation myth: A young Bedouin goatherd wandering near a place called Qumran threw a stone into a cave while looking for one of his goats and discovered a group of scrolls in jars. The more important ques - tions, however, are not how the scrolls were discovered, but what they are and what they are not, as well as the question of why they should be studied. What Are the Dead Sea Scrolls? First of all, most of the Dead Sea Scrolls are not really scrolls. In reality, there are about ten scrolls that can actually be rolled out on a table and read. Many of the Dead Sea Scrolls are the fragments of what were once scrolls in ancient times, but that over the years have deteriorated because of the way they lay in their cases. Today, approximately 5 to 10 percent of the original collection remains. The Dead Sea Scrolls were an ancient library, what once upon a time was a collection of entire scrolls numbering somewhere close to nine hundred. Today, they are a small collection of complete scrolls and a large number of remnants, something like eighty thousand pieces that, when fit together, account for approximately twenty thousand pieces. These twenty thousand pieces occupy about twelve thousand of what are called plates. These used to be behind glass and are today kept in special rice paper. These are the remnants of approximately nine hundred scrolls, and because many of these are duplicates, they are the remnants of a library of some 250 texts from ancient times. The Dating of the Scrolls The scrolls can be dated by a number of means, including carbon-14 dating and paleography, the study of the shape of letters and the way in which writ - ing developed. Then there is historical dating, which entails looking at the E

N contents of the material and its language. O

E It appears that the scrolls were copied, a few in the third century BCE, a R

U large number in the second and first centuries BCE, and a few in the first T

C century CE. In terms of the actual composition of the scrolls, the earliest E L

6 scrolls are copies of the Hebrew Bible, and Hebrew Bible compositions can be dated from around 1200 BCE and on; the latest composition in the collec - tion would be in the first century BCE. This means that the scrolls were all composed before the rise of Christianity. The scrolls were found at a location called Qumran, which is a modern Arabic designation for a place a bit south of Jericho, along the Dead Sea, where some ruins of buildings were found that apparently were used by the sectarians who gathered the scrolls. These scrolls were then placed in caves in this area, and apparently the gathering process occurred during the period in which the buildings were occupied. The settlement existed sometime after 134 BCE or, by another reckoning, sometime after about 100 BCE. It was destroyed in 68 CE during the Great Revolt of the Jews against Rome, which took place between 66 and 73 CE and which resulted in events that are well known today: the destruction of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE and the destruction of the last strong - hold of the rebels, Masada, in 73 CE. Some of the books in the ancient sectarian library of Qumran were a part of their religious heritage and other books were composed by them. Many of the scrolls were not composed at the sectarian settlement of Qumran, and many of them are not, in fact, compositions of the group who occupied these buildings. What the Scrolls Are Not The scrolls are not Christian and there is absolutely no distinctively Christian idea found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, nor in the scrolls is there even the possi - bility that any of them were authored after the rise of Christianity. Here and there in the scrolls are important ideas that help to explain where certain Christian ideas come from, ideas that were not previously known within the orbit of Judaism. Increasingly, whether it is in the land of Israel or the Hellenistic world, more and more Christian ideas can be traced to Jewish roots. This is one of the great contributions of modern scholarship, but it often leads people to jump to the conclusion that some of those materials that help explain the origins of Christianity are somehow Christian, and they are not. The scrolls are also not documents of third- and fourth-century Christians, as has been put forward. There was a theory that these were documents from a medieval Jewish sect known as the Karaites, literalists who had not accepted the Talmudic interpretations of the rabbis, people who thought the Bible should be taken literally. Carbon-14 dating, however, proves they could not be responsible for the scrolls. More recently, it was put forth that Qumran was not a sectarian center but was, in fact, a fortress. Therefore, all the manuscripts were brought from Jerusalem and represent Judaism at that time. The problem here is that this theory does not seem to take into account either the archaeology or the con - tent of the scrolls. Archaeologically, the Qumran site just isn’t a fortress, even if it has a watchtower and some security perimeter. The documents from the Qumran collection constantly argue against the Jerusalem Temple’s proce - dures, as if these procedures were impure and not kosher. If these were the

7 LECTURE ONE 8 ep c s tor to b tu He to th Ju d p e b Ch th th se a b b g St b g s a s i x e i t t s u n a m a c e b w h T c n e d fi c u d o r p d n e h e r e h T Wh An In Th n o m A r e h t o n A all erv n ecomi ist ro no et rch eyond e ro o io ocume s a r o e e udying he dai d con igr n a th u ian ie e r e b r u a u ter ces up th ance er i rmou n ks, se sto su a e D th n e t rew sti e s en so over s, ae gh e a e s u e ap t i u q i t d a r t e sm s d st e f d com bs Joseph u a un w cro m o r s i me o b whe c ry g t ol t o i t e c n st a in ha, udie o re he h th nd nizato Ol a p i r nts d ho tha B g equ nd og ne con o a s der a e udy t o s nd k o a n to ey aly s a ll hat the y ib d e S e h t t erst th mun nes o a , s t do s amo scr n in m e y s l e the t. lived m s c a f t f b le, o d it T lo a m u s e h stan m ent a f centr a se first e wer , a s a Ju a o f e of f cume W r estament) o ea us, is C is wa u b ren’ is oks ols and gr , e r e h w e o p o t c th l l a y t i l i S r f s a ity a par b col unt atho lf e v i s daism ha e n a t a lit cr ea rly th the bou of r t e he ose dev t a o p ding s at .m u i r ce e an and t n o i t p m u s t a o b .y r y a m t atio t i n o i t de in pr t lection e a d ate ol pr le a th s ter nts the t t i abo Chr ntu sho t Q he s i site g lic d p m i scr ope t na n o y e b t e m e c c o d ot dicate g e th wh qu s e c e r um n lo 45 o Ch the rou at k ext re s a h is b th ries B tur e v a h e only c o d scro istan f ut uld ols, pm o n . s on est y l -Ch o temp ackgro rly 0 k ib ligon and the o ra at But p b ristany re p o e . d e d the le n w le er ecom BCE, e o d a c e b ent h t nt n ion d k t f y r e b s realy B to supo deicat ls he ristan of d sources are boo ther iod n e e histor ity, and e r e a w e b a CE, t to s a w the books t of t a h h t t backg , und nd s t has, he to of tha sectari his t e b und T th n e e s u the s t a in books the ks t i l betwn e b an r e h s i re h t un in e both who becau be s i ut f g rted Jerusal e l t erstan h t y thro n e e w h d n u o m gr a ed t a d preserved al the o n scr cur coletin as the has of T dersta a a from n a found e of round in n a oup, for t p i r c s studie t n o t almud sign he e h t t o l s i ugh to ols gathe Christany. the Jud Q r b i idea or in n y so-cal o r a l a e Gre se en th made b d s t i r m u e usly e h t der a o period gr f o an the a e n e e w t e t m u Q n e d i v ations ifcane the is f nd aism he u i r o th sta re m of the life wh oup s p p u s ek n w o ic e h t o o b g red e p n a informal o s an pres r e h w to is an T Apocrypha e ma wh end er way ed Juda a at in us , m b translations of empl, nough it r scrol. e l l a c - nd the e c n a unde ackgro d a m i iod d a h s k a overcn in t the t r o various o t at imposb is ny of self nd Qu purity q t a e t of he nt of studying e h r e h t the uo. of e r e w r a r c s u n ism rea the u s Lo natur Westrn e e c a l p o f ide e h t scrol. mran o t Christany, d ither. rstand t e a the and , collection li he history r o p p r oking e t i s a the ly, n f r und secon e Q The as e e b scrol e h t a educ and a e s tralizon s a w e a r m u Eastern nd e s t p i h t f o storyline (Jewish scrol of n norm on le realy o f an d n a setl t a T of . e r e of of t o n a scrol on the e h t Ch here of thes r at Much piet fo u o w e d a r t d civlzato d the e r e w of a the t a o b t what Christan n e h e r say a o i historca th a ristany e h t d n i k r e h T called the group, many a e d i religon. ment t n e m e l t t e s y. nd intersg would us e, goes n libray d l e is Jud churches whic books p o c of t a h t of u i r o p m e grou , k c o d ca abou of b d a e D one Christians e v a h third contrib also ch th g u o r e f o the f o aism n what g n i y the was ances n. scholar way s i pseudo expct b and ity. na r m u Q tel p l must of r m u Q t form is ko o pre the cen iv e ne e b t u b .a e S the as a fo ution of a ctual has an m that dn a the - is - his - reli of eh t the na s - to - - date from the third, second, and first centuries BCE and the first century CE. When these other sources are viewed together with the Dead Sea Scrolls, the history of this period is illuminated in a magnificent way. Who Gathered the Scrolls? Most scholars have come to the conclusion that the sect who left the scrolls is the group called the Essenes, a sect described by a variety of Jewish authors who wrote in Greek in the first century BCE and by Josephus and Pliny the Elder, the Roman author. There are a lot of parallels between the Essenes and the Dead Sea group, and the average book on the Dead Sea Scrolls will simply say that the Dead Sea group is the Essenes or a subset of them. But the matter is more complex. Another group to consider is the Sadducees, who were a priestly group. Parallels can be made between their views on Jewish law and those of the Qumran sect. In fact, the Qumran sect may have originated from a group of pious Sadducees. There are about twenty theories about what the word “Essene” means. We don’t really know what these people were called, and the name “Essene” doesn’t appear anywhere in the Dead Sea Scrolls. “Essene” could even be a term for a collection of sectarian groups that have a lot in common. One cannot simply assume the identity of the Qumran group from the descriptions of the Essenes among Jewish authors and in Pliny. Even so, the Qumran group is strongly parallel in many ways to the sect of the Essenes. At the same time, one should also caution against the assumption that the Essenes can be viewed as proto-Christians. This assumption ignores funda - mental differences between the Qumran group and the early Christians. For instance, the sectarian scrolls encourage hatred of outsiders and sinners, an approach that is negated both by Pharasitic Judaism and its ethics and also negated by early Christianity, which to a great extent drew its ethics from the Pharasitic tradition. The Materials in the Library The scrolls collection can be divided into three parts: first, biblical scrolls, texts previously known from the Hebrew scriptures. Second are texts called apocryphal, which doesn’t refer to the Apocrypha, but rather to books about the Bible, like the Bible, or imitative of the Bible. Both of these types of works are a window into the way Jews in third-, sec - ond-, and first-century Judea understood and studied the Bible. These two types of works, Hebrew Bible and apocryphal-type texts, are not unique to the group who occupied the settlement at Qumran and collected the scrolls. In fact, these are texts that were spread throughout the Jewish community in Judea and would have been read by Jews in Hebrew and in some cases in Greek. In addition, biblical and apocryphal-type texts were also found at Masada. The third type of text in the Qumran collection is unique to the collection and is what are called sectarian texts. These are documents that have the distinctive ideas and terminology of the Qumran sectarians and were com -

9 LECTURE ONE 1 0 th o a ta e s o p d e i p o c Th nd cti e r ia y vel es n a d we s. n y y b d t a re thr It’s u th sed. e h t m u Q e re ird imp wo m clase a Th r , nd ort und .n a a ey d n ant evn pr s go h t t op of o t y e worn fo n er docum ote urth a ly, e r an tha do e h t scribe ents d wn so m this an t s o meti make s. was d T y l e k i l h hey ad up a s to show libr f o the t he be ary t e h y li fixed, wer bray e and t c e l l o c videnc n’t. the of so n o i metis the bo tha o t Qum ks a h som wer e v ran b etims y ne e b sec sec - - FOR GREATER UNDERSTANDING

Questions

1. What are the main categories of literature in the collection we call the Dead Sea Scrolls? 2. How do we know that the Dead Sea Scrolls are pre-Christian?

Suggested Reading

Schiffman, Lawrence H. Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their True Meaning for Judaism and Christianity. Garden City, NY: Anchor Doubleday, 1995.

Other Books of Interest

VanderKam, James C., and Peter Flint. The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their Significance for Understanding the Bible, Judaism, Jesus, and Christianity. Reprint ed. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2004.

11 Lecture 2: Scandal and Publication

The Suggested Reading for this lecture is Lawrence H. Schiffman’s Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their True Meaning for Judaism and Christianity, chapters 2 and 3.

The Famous Bedouin Boy The first Dead Sea Scroll was not found in 1947 by the famous Bedouin boy looking for his missing goat. It was actually found much earlier. Beginning in the late 1800s, fragments of Hebrew manuscripts from a syna - gogue in Old Cairo began to become known in Europe. Solomon Schechter, who found out about the scrolls in 1896 and who was a faculty member at Cambridge University, decided that he would journey to this synagogue, known as the Ben Ezra Synagogue, and recover the rest of the manuscripts. Among these texts was a document that Schechter recognized as being from the Second Temple period, a book known as Ben Sira, or Sirach, or Ecclesiasticus. Schechter acquired the collection, some 250,000 items of incredible impor - tance to the history of Hebrew and Judaic literature. As Schechter delved into these materials, he found a document that is now generally referred to as the Damascus Document. This text would later be found in ten copies among the fragmentary manu - scripts from Qumran. Schechter had thereby succeeded in finding what was essentially the first Dead Sea Scroll in 1897. Some thought these materials belonged to early Christians. Some thought they were the documents of the Zadokites, referring to a group similar to the Sadducees. Others claimed that the fragments Schechter had found were Karaite manuscripts. Others thought that these were proto-Rabbinic Pharisaic documents. In any case, this debate went on from Schechter’s publication in 1911 until the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in 1947. The debate, however, was interrupted by World War II and the Holocaust, which all but froze biblical and Judaic studies. These studies reopened immediately in 1947 when the Bedouin boy entered the cave at Qumran looking for a missing animal from his flock and found the seven complete scrolls. The story of the Bedouin boy is a bit more complex, however, than its retelling would imply. The Sale of the Seven

O The Bedouin boy’s name was Mohammad Adib (Mohammad the Wolf), and W

T he was part of a clan of Bedouins known as Ta’amireh, who were heavily

E involved in the antiquities trade. The boy’s immediate relations would have R

U spent much of their time prospecting for antiquities, so it’s safe to conclude T

C that the boy was actually searching for antiquities when he found the scrolls. E L

12 Unfortunately, the boy was a poor judge of the worth of his find, for it seems that he sold the whole thing for about $125. The sale divided the original seven scrolls into two groups, the first group of four scrolls pur - chased on behalf of the soon-to-be State of Israel by Eliezer Sukenik, the head of the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University. An intermediary purchased the other three and sold these to Athanasius Yeshua Samuel, the Syrian Metropolitan (bishop of the Syrian church in Jerusalem), and he eventually sold these to Yigael Yadin, the famous archae - ologist who was also the son of Sukenik (Yadin had changed his name). In 1954, Yadin was able to buy the scrolls because he was in the United States on a lecture tour and there was an ad for the scrolls that appeared in the Wall Street Journal . Yadin acquired these scrolls for a quarter of a million dollars. This placed the seven original scrolls in the hands of Israel, and they were deposited in the Shrine of the Book, where they sit today, in the Israel Museum of Jerusalem. However, what then ensued was the search for the place of origins for these manuscripts, for Qumran. The Scandal of the Scrolls After the first group of scrolls was acquired by Sukenik, and before the oth - ers were acquired, there ensued the 1948 war of independence of the State of Israel. This war left the region split in two. Jordan occupied what was known as the West Bank and the east part of Jerusalem, and the rest of the territory ended up in the hands of the new State of Israel. This meant that Qumran was in the hands of Jordan. The Jordanians immediately set out to find the place from which the scrolls had come and soon located the caves of Qumran. The entire publication fight, the so-called “Scandal of the Scrolls” reported in the late 1980s and early 1990s, had nothing to do with the scrolls found by the Bedouin boy. They pertained to those scrolls found in Jordan after Jordan took control of the area after the 1948 war. Once the Jordanians had located the place from which the scrolls had come, they began the systematic archaeological excavation of the area of Qumran under Father Roland de Vaux and G. Lankester Harding. De Vaux was a Dominican monk and an important French archaeologist who worked at the École Biblique. Harding was a Englishman who stayed in Jordan to be head of the Antiquities Department after the British mandate was eliminated with Israel’s War of Independence in 1948. While these scholars began digging at Qumran, the very same Ta’amireh Bedouins came to work at the excavations. When the archaeologists would go home for the weekend, Ta’amireh would go into the caves searching for more manuscripts to sell to a fellow nicknamed Kando, who was the very same antiquities dealer who had been involved in the buying and selling of the original seven scrolls. In September 1952, Caves 4 and 6 were found. It was Cave 4 that would yield some 550 to six hundred fragmentary manuscripts. Throughout the early 1950s, there was a constant stream of manuscript frag - ments that the Bedouins sold to Kando, which Kando then sold to the

13 Palestine Archaeological Museum in East Jerusalem, which is now the Rockefeller Museum. De Vaux and Harding set up a process to sort and publish the material. After trying to have some of de Vaux’s colleagues at the École Biblique do the job, it became clear that a larger publication team for this material was needed. A group of Christian scholars, Catholics and Protestants, was assembled. At this time, Jordan was free of Jews, and the idea of having Jews participate in this process was absolutely impossible. It also seems that some of those involved in the initial process were anti-Semites who sought to keep Jews out of the process. But to be fair, others were upstanding scholars who kept close relations throughout with Jewish and Israeli scholars. The notion that this initial group was only Catholic is not true, and it should also be noted that the Vatican had nothing to do with the process. The rumor that the Vatican kept the scrolls secret is simply unfounded. However, it is also true that of the Protestants who got involved in the beginning, one became agnostic, one converted to Catholicism, and one withdrew from the process. So by the end, the project was overwhelmingly Catholic. Those involved sorted the manuscripts according to handwriting, composi - tion, and genre, but what they were not able to do was publish the whole lot. This situation dragged on until the 1967 war between Israel and its Arab neighbors. This war caused a transfer of territory, including Qumran and the Rockefeller Museum, to Israeli hands. Toward Publication After 1967, one would have expected that the Israelis would have brought in their own people to get the material published, but this didn’t happen. A series of false commitments was made by the publication team and then there was a dragging out of the entire situation. But an important thing happened during the 1967 war that would bring about a new approach to the Dead Sea Scrolls and a completely different recognition of their significance. In 1960, Reverend Joseph Uhrig contacted Yigael Yadin and told him that he had a then-unknown Dead Sea Scroll. He asked Yadin for a deposit of ten thousand dollars and in return provided a few fragments of the scroll. After Yadin gave him the money and received the fragments, Uhrig disappeared. In May of 1967, the antiquities dealer Kando somehow managed to have a meeting with Frank Cross of Harvard, an important Dead Sea Scrolls scholar, and tried to sell him this very same scroll, now known as the Temple Scroll, under a bridge in Lebanon. Cross couldn’t buy the scroll because he couldn’t legally export it from Israel. By the time the 1967 war started in June, Yadin knew that he had to recover this scroll. With the help of Israeli intelligence agents, he was able to per -

O suade Kando to give up the scroll, which had been rotting under the floor - W

T boards of his home in Bethlehem. On behalf of Israel, Yadin acquired the

E sixty-six-column long Temple Scroll, a document that set forth a long list of R

U Jewish laws. T C E L

14 This managed to energize the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls. On the one hand, it emphasized the extent to which the scrolls should be understood as a source for the history of the Judaism of the time. On the other hand, this scroll showed that there was more to be done, not simply in the caves, but in terms of the documents sitting unpublished. Still, it took a while for Yadin to publish the scroll, and after the scroll came out in a Hebrew edition, the English edition was delayed until 1983. (Yadin was heavily involved in the process of investigating the perceived failures of Israel in the 1973 Yom Kippur War.) Soon after the publication of the Temple Scroll, an important Israeli scholar delivered a presentation on a text that has become very important to Dead Sea Scrolls scholars. This text is abbreviated as MMT, Hebrew for “some rules and regulations for observing the Torah.” This text further showed how signifi - cant the still-unpublished scrolls were and also raised issues regarding the identity of the sect and the role of the Sadducees in its history. Interestingly, the effect of the 1967 Israeli takeover was delayed until the 1980s when the combination of the publication of the Temple Scroll and the announcement of the MMT text made it very clear that Dead Sea Scrolls material had to be published in total. At present, every single scroll has been published.

15 FOR GREATER UNDERSTANDING

Questions

1. What factors delayed the publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls for so many years? 2. What led to their full publication and how was it accomplished ?

Suggested Reading

Schiffman, Lawrence H. Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their True Meaning for Judaism and Christianity. Garden City, NY: Anchor Doubleday, 1995.

Other Books of Interest

16 Lecture 3: Sects of the Second Temple Period

The Suggested Reading for this lecture is Lawrence H. Schiffman’s Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their True Meaning for Judaism and Christianity, introduction and chapter 4.

Historical Context The period in which the Dead Sea Scrolls were collected is the period known as the Hellenistic period. In 586 BCE, the Jewish Temple had been destroyed by the Babylonians, bringing to a close the First Temple period. By 540 BCE, Babylonia had been replaced by the Persian Empire as the main ruling empire of the Near East. The Persian Empire allowed some of the Jews who had been exiled to Babylonia to return to the land of Israel, and they established a Jewish commonwealth. By 520 BCE, the Jews had rebuilt the Temple, and sometime around 450 BCE the biblical story breaks off. Judea emerged into the light of history again around the time of Alexander the Great’s conquest, at what could be considered the onset of the Hellenistic period in 334 BCE. Alexander set off a new period in which the culture and civilization of the Near East would be greatly challenged by this outside, Greek-like culture, which brought with it developments in terms of government, material culture, and religious ideas. In 311 BCE, Alexander’s successors carved up the empire and effectively, from 311 to 198 BCE, the Ptolemies, ruling from Egypt, ruled over the land of Israel. When the situation changed in 198 BCE, the Seleucids, who were the rulers primarily over Syria, became the rulers over the land of Israel. All during this time, Judaism had developed in many ways. All kinds of new compositions had been written, including many Aramaic texts that are pre - served at Qumran. Jews were increasingly faced with the challenge of how to deal with this new Hellenistic culture. As a result, there seemed to have been considerable debate about how to practice Judaism in this atmosphere. The Sect Comes into Being It is arguable that the Dead Sea Scrolls sect came into being as an indirect result of the Maccabean Revolt of 168 to 164 BCE. Events began to heat up during the reign of Antiochus, known as Epiphanius. He ruled from 175 BCE on. During this period, there was an inner struggle among the Jewish high priests. The high priesthood was a hereditary job that was limited to members of the family of Zadok, the core of the Zadokite priesthood. Among this group, there started to be some who sought to buy the right to the high priesthood as well as the right to transform Jerusalem into a Hellenistic polis and to begin to create a greater emphasis on Hellenistic culture.

17 LECTURE THREE 1 8 of con au Ma th in pr of Und th ma to tice in au He Sad Ha we tu sucei Sel Jud con wi d n u o r a t n A y b Jew . e l p o e p , 6 6 1 c i d e d e r i l n i y l i m a f y B s w e J f o Aco T I I T I T T h g n n n g e e rn i l he hi he s i h w th est th th th Jews: fo h t l smone a s ca ing d euci , 4 6 1 u h c o i th th 16 g n i t stan ah vi t hi Esen eni ed s duce s itho ker. i o p p u e er o e e h o e rm e n a nced is e Sad f . g rita rit w i d n a rd u t i s 0 or a com s fat e H b the o Th h t w za t s th , aft d o h n i t a fte t i c p ut o t h t ean tly i f f o es. ces the y B t he ng as d u J Jud H on s er tive p s u r her e eriod t h t tion n i t r e n e l l acom ey t a duce he an Jon e erm y riest rma an e comp t Te in h t mon d set a g g e h g e H s. n o i exp 6 1 se t q o and by d i c e en s.” r h a ah o of R e g be lar P per a en th u c i t s i an f mp t a M a hig e l n tha ath e h th , evol ct 8 smo Jose t s e ha e J es g i e h t vir of th e the Z lie Jud b eld aco ge The wa o c d s cau romis d e u s n e mo , E C B io e le in s e e b a c c ado e e m a c e th an, o ter u o Jud r ri onm m e T n o i ved re d wer t h of u m r o f e r as f n d, . to t, se s at p n e l l e H n ah Se th ne l a s phu Jo r e u q dat t h g ed As se e h c n a r b - t ject riestho um Sa rd t a h the t kile k, Jud ean fro at fro he the becam f o e k en a n le p so m e s, ng would in e r e h t e with Jerusa o a ns duces athn’s s, . e l ber place p m o t strug uc m w o h d e g t ne hig ah’s wa e h t e v e s d. me n i d , the Selucid rima reaction opn , s i hils. th in t n a d n a id 152 a s i d to he Jeru T the d e l t A h w rs of e u r e J h o the c i s i h whic d r e n n i a h Sad em f the d be c u m br stru e r m e t t a r p Sa spect in d a le betw Je ily f le h c i fo eligon Solm th w o l l b use riest to o t e c r o salem a k a n a H coming other Phar ents s i m, y pire m e l a s r e r u d the expld duce ws ap th duce historan an n e e b gle , 63 p m i h h u J h c o i t n A e h t Qu e J rule er a the aving tok of t p J s o t g n i tha Jerusa , h a d aristo sough h s i w e ise aren sma BCE. of , on’s h s i w wer of v o r t mran n of oth to t a h o t an m a f p e c c a tok wer Dead would f s, h o c t the e h t th to m o r the s contr Israel. becom e th d o f er l r “ ( tly made e o h w an e d i s n s u fro t t n a w crati wer s u o powe u r t s Jose wo e h t is z i l a m r to Jo almost t gro T l r p sect, Pharise p M place d e d e e Helnistc texs to tho d he two h t m t d o i r e a i t i n i was m Sea nath e e c i t c a acbe e take e H hig e l g g up t e v e n e l l e H o c l, stablih re he d e p phus, b a r The e ught Ha T po kn r group ower d i c u e l e S an compe n o i t a c i ach e c i t s i n e l l kno t n e empl a m m h in for a of in y l l the gro Esen own e r g sible al smone e l f con h c u s n d p ir u o c m o r gu . s 152 p the s, riest. wn only p law. es ch m o c b c i t s i up s a n Sad ious r e t a ther core erila e H u c e s r e and d e d n ecam e f i r t trol ame cen who wo to d l Ph co ose ) ” , ting a und b a Sel by d es. r a th the nd u t l u c t a r o m e m , s duces. ans T the e e b f re evlopd, mpro o n e m e rld arisc r G Sad d e c a of terd g n a r other t u o e he ct o m a n o i t a c u d Up mos we to ject was er wer e g h t fightn th ucid ex Ha k e e d e v l o s e r d e t Jerusa could g n i l l e p x roups. apro To b hig e . e r S s duce e re t 5 7 1 until lamed trem he s t n e m e g n uport .h a r aduces t smonea s the h s i w e J f f o rah Selucids on deriv ise gn i c i t c a r p scholar thre law f n i prot- emp I who n d e Seluci h t p n o ach, t s n i a g a be es a . e c n e u l the “tradio lem. was riest. ,6 6 1 the aginst Each with f o e and hig y b m e h t th ire y b u a c e b went bro we w e J the d gr u o y dr a g e r .t l o v e R e and from eh t They oups th ove re mi h ught pra d a we s a gn e ns t s n a I of eh n the n es r c re d d - - Talmudic rabbis and later became the main arbiters of Jewish tradition. Much of the distinction between these groups rests in where the authority for the law is derived. The Sadducees rejected many of the ideas the Pharisees believed in: reward and punishment after death, immortality of the soul, and the concept of angels. The Sadducees seem to have been a major part of the society of the time, but they don’t look to have ever gained as much influence as the Pharisees. The Pharisees The word “Pharisees” means “those who are separated,” which is usually taken to refer to the fact that they separated themselves from impure foods and lived their lives as though they were observing the purity required by the Jerusalem Temple. They were scrupulous in regard to tithing the produce of the land in accord with the laws of the Torah. The Pharisees’ way of conduct - ing their group and holding their meals is parallel to that of the priests and those who will be seen in the Dead Sea sect. These Pharisees are also referred to by the Talmudic texts and the Sages. The Pharisees are often painted as those from whom the rabbis inherited their position. Hence, there is often reference to the Pharisaic Rabbinic tradition. This group was closest to the Judaism that later became the dominant form of the religion. Under the ruler John Hyrcanus, 138 to 134 BCE, and Alexander Janneus, 133 to 126 BCE, the Pharisees entered further and further into the political arena, and the Hasmoneans became more and more Hellenized. The Pharisees fought against this Hellenization. The Pharisees were divided as to the extent they should oppose the Hellenistic rulers. After the Hasmonean period came to an end and the Romans began to rule (63 BCE), the division among the Pharisees left them also divided over whether to revolt against the Romans. The Pharisees were drawn primarily from the lower and middle classes. They believed in the immortality of the soul, reward and punishment after death, the idea of angels, and the notion that human beings had free will. The Pharisees and Sadducees also differed over the involvement of God in human affairs and the notion of free will. The Pharisees believed God could interfere in human affairs while the Sadducees did not. The Pharisees consti - tuted the background for what the rabbis will call the “oral law.” The Essenes The meaning of the word “Essenes” is simply not known, though there are many theories, and the word does not appear in the Dead Sea Scrolls. But what’s important is that there is much information in Philo and Josephus and Pliny about the Essenes. Josephus and Philo picture the Essenes as living throughout the land. The notion that Qumran might be the home of the Essenes comes specifically from Pliny the Elder, who describes the Dead Sea area as if he had been there, though he probably had not been. The Essenes had a community of as many as four thousand members and a court by which members who had transgressed could be expelled.

19 LECTURE THREE 2 0 exi th th he er Esen t f a o j r e b m e M T T Jo n i e ro ty. he he a r e st sep d e rd perio ugh se Jo c i h w up g a ro t h e h seph s bo thr us the s t up d hro din h h u e g of say d a t t b o r R us ugh e h righ ecam He ’t gro oman p u a y sp thin ro . t t r a e y e s the ups he ea up dia e k d e v r co ks g p de th t n exist ro hroug o ro nque e f rule, strucion o up mine t s f Templ w u t two o pract d y d h st f e y rom f th rom of types t d n a s r a e so i ce of 63 was G abou the d f o the reat n . h t of T a a n e r p toaly hey Hasmon fter t cen Esen, Tem t a b o Revolt. 4 d l u o c 0 contiue the traly to ple . n o i pure 4 Mac d ean in BCE, o adminste h T celibat . 70 c d a t r e perio n e t bean CE. o the e n o n i exist, d n and a u t i r red fr Rev the a m om esp comunal m l y e d olt ,s n o i s r e m m i 152 arying. contiue ecialy n a and BCE h t a o a re Th during d pro dn a to e p - FOR GREATER UNDERSTANDING

Questions

1. What were the main groups of Jews that existed in the Second Temple period? 2. How do the Dead Sea Scrolls add to our knowledge of these groups?

Suggested Reading

Schiffman, Lawrence H. Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their True Meaning for Judaism and Christianity. Garden City, NY: Anchor Doubleday, 1995.

Other Books of Interest

21 Lecture 4: The Halakhic Letter and the Founding of the Sect

The Suggested Reading for this lecture is Lawrence H. Schiffman’s Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their True Meaning for Judaism and Christianity, chapters 5 and 6.

Miqsat Ma’ase Ha-Torah MMT (Miqsat Ma’ase Ha-Torah) means “some legal rulings pertaining to the Torah.” This is the text the New York Times editorialized about when it said the scrolls had to be totally published and that secrets could not be kept from the public with regard to important historical texts. This text had a huge effect in shaking up the field of Dead Sea Scrolls research. This text is also sometimes called the Halakhic letter, referring to Jewish law. The text deals with twenty-two questions of Jewish law. In its present literary form it is referred to as a letter, and it looks like some document that was written to be sent from the Dead Sea sect to the Jerusalem high priests. The text begins with a statement: “These are some of our legal rulings regarding God’s Torah, which are some of the rulings of the laws that we hold, and all of them regard sacrifices and purity.” This document sets out places where the authors don’t agree with what’s going on in Jerusalem. One of the manuscripts of this document provides us with a calendar written above the previously quoted passage. The Qumran sectarian texts include a whole variety of calendar texts, including a kind of reformist calendar that demands a calendar that will work on a 364-day scheme in which there are 91-day quarters. In such a calendar there are solar months and solar years, as opposed to the Jewish calendar that is used to this day, which has lunar months made to be equivalent to solar years by adding an extra month approximately every three years. Because the letter or document that follows the calendar has major differ - ences between the sectarians and the establishment, it is apparent that some scribe tacked the calendar on to point out yet another difference. This calen - dar also includes extra festivals also found in the Dead Sea Scrolls texts. This second specifies twenty-two laws, stated as the sect’s opinions versus the opinions of their opponents following the solar calendar. When the authors say “we,” they are taking the position associated with the Sadducees in other Jewish legal traditions. When they say “you,” they refer to the Pharisaic tradition. After the list of laws, they say the following:

R “You know that we have separated from the mainstream of the people, from U

O all their impurities, from mixing in these matters, and from being involved F

E with them. . . . But you know that there cannot be found in our hands dis - R

U honesty, falsehood, or evil.” T C E L

22 Then they say that the people they are writing to should consult the books of the Bible to know what they are doing. They mention the curses that were visited on Israel during the period of the Divided Monarchy after about 954 BCE or so, when the monarchy was divided into the north and south. They argue that it is the End of Days. They are basically arguing in the document that the period in which the Israelites will go astray and then repent has already passed and that they are in the period of repentance on the eve of the End of Days. There comes a key issue in the conclusion of the document: that the addressees should rec - ognize that the sect is right and that if they follow their ways they will more or less return to the mainstream, but if not, they will remain in opposition. The conclusion: “Indeed, we have written to you some of the rulings pertain - ing to the Torah, which we considered were good for you and your people, for we have seen that you have wisdom and knowledge of the Torah, under - stand these matters, and seek from Him that He correct your council and dis - tance you from evil thoughts and the council of Belial in order that you shall rejoice in the end when you find some of our words correct, and let it be con - sidered right for you and lead you to do righteousness and good and be to your benefit and for that of Israel.” This is before the sectarians had given up, before they had separated from the Jerusalem establishment, when they believed they could convince their associates to follow their approach. It is possible that after 152 BCE or so, some Sadducee priests separated from the Temple because Jonathan had followed the Pharisaic ways and installed their legal rulings into the Temple. The sectarian group could have come into being in protest against these decisions. What Are the Controversies in Jewish Law That Appear in the Text? These controversies are minor matters of ritual at which what is at stake is the interpretation of the Torah and the way in which these interpretations are put into effect. One of the problems that existed in ancient Jerusalem was how to treat the purity of vessels. Temple worship required that all vessels be retained in ritu - al purity. Sectarian groups all observed purity laws in their eating. A problem was what happened when you poured into an impure vessel. Does the impu - rity go back up the stream from the impure vessel to the pure one? From MMT: “We say that they (the waters from the originally pure vessel) do not have purity (after being in contact with an impure liquid) and even the liq - uid streams do not separate between the impure and pure, for the moisture of the liquid streams and the vessel that receives it from them are both consid - ered one identical moisture.” This is in direct disagreement with the view of the Pharisees and in agree - ment with the view ascribed to the Sadducees. Often what is seen in these sectarian disagreements is agreement among all the Jews of the period about fundamentals and disagreement about how to put them into effect. The first lesson is to understand that many of the legal views of the Sadducees on Jewish law became the legal views of the

23 LECTURE FOUR 2 4 th th be ty sect 15 th of me gr Ne in Bli li Sad wo we ou ad schol sect De th Sad sect exi est te Ri The de M sam chu ap Jud o c e S r u c c a i h e D T T So T Wh T e g t s at ose e e xts, o ght he he he he years came 2 tsi d ta p Ri b nd u r a ste d a in abl n w l a c i r o e r aism me of T ed ear sect Phar duce duce ’s uch ld d e o ch i sp BC ghte Aut ders, re re and th ls g d n eou ars a e sc th Sad e t a w n ishm w Sea S o p wr t Men ro l ar a ar eak he e lat ce o Sa il f e ri obse is is scho E, a e ro to holar ar t ade ping e T l ho f gue ise ote later th nciple li , t an e dne sne ousn wh in ev as er he r ap te p e Jew a a ia du sect. t ot bef b tha b at a h en Scr uce pr S o r st p m of rs Gr the e n elif quo tex, r, o t st pea la t rve t r c the E o s, zar iest he ntu hose o tha o t o t. ore me E. ove t gr th th ish ce rain d of es rs and sen op ols e l f s l l o f n t s. , s i th it isag o B R d te I P. er e h t ou th s r aly M t t w docu th e a in mbe a w the .s e m i t ut in oma Eve , fol r the tr law, th claims th a “n th n e h w e rgu ho MT in p to gro wh the as to e kin San te c e s h pla m at iva t es. g a re t es e e cam ew b e hi ha end m ro xt inor the Dam y dire e t n world rs on o wa e sect t me g w e se a n r u nt, heir led s he do . t h c u this lie . l e ad de couldn This d p. the exitd th covena of a to confu period sem o Phar types ctarins t e ed s T is nt? fs Damscu e h the cu ct bout tha come namely f mater at r cor ascu e h the for s the Ba the an te coa the is mentio f o Jews specif ment the t u the use sem T o achings e Some isac p Roa bylon, exc s tweny sed, u m l a afte s i h t s ou ’t sectari Te co . this lead lescd, the of e secta o s m a into no T be n o c d s f sectar t tsider, t.” Docu me, acher his wer purity to who its in the d r Qu th am d n i k t lie law. Jer leadr a s d Go dingly to scholar d to e to nd the explain existnc of r He rian decison Docum ve is mran d n a years” ong and belif Dead o e l usalem t ns ment, d be con also and ian erm the the f Saduce the f o This who but n o s s laws. of r t ways th h hose em grou les to h s i M ad the grou th r stiued e Righte docume sig sect, son r o p e afte it s noti ward “com to be in Sea at ent his se an fel would tha hand prob th -making s i nifcat. case p The esta of g some p things. s ps t h a n ap ctarin supor r d ought berd heir roup, g n i t red wo a h t disagre t tha es, whic t of sect. His tha “ he ousne. the pare se He ably t ed th hat entir blishment the on . uld nts t Za e r expla historcal one T only n i stinao, at H t say, hea way s i h ms he r e f set an over the tha dok Judaism” Isr ted ntly a No pro basicly cor gr h demon h t wa in e m smone emnts ave d who ael oup e d rt.” s i t o t in any list to th up “son ma ces. e s senibl th by ocument the the a afte a l the “They at He h t why s auth e h t be o at be T and r e t for of ny f a and acording e n of the und the strae his origns Teachr r ans and th evntu Tem beca a va isue b someti s w a l the Ther of ways them with o s to subcrie the ored n bout throug e g e re caused erstand le al we riety fo pious nascet s e c r u Zadok” de tok th p g n i n n i aders ple came strugle rmed is me debat ha erson m e re the at f o scribe may b the aly a p a eans in are of y tred to arle like of if e i l r a e the Teach up to e out ot Templ si the to texs they found the of i t fo we nto so many hers. to wen the s with b o the tha the in lin f me the re r er - d - The Damascus Document is so called because it refers to the fact that at some point the sectarians went back to live in the “land of Damascus.” Many scholars have come to the conclusion that Damascus is a code word for Qumran. One text refers to the people who have “entered the new covenant in the land of Damascus and (members who later left the sect) have turned away and rebelled and turned aside from the well of living waters.” In the 1920s, before the Dead Sea Scrolls were found at Qumran, there were scholars who wanted to excavate in the Jewish quarter of Damascus because they thought that this group might have come from there. If Damascus is a code word for Qumran, then the Zadokite Fragments fit perfectly with the MMT document. There would have been a period at the beginning of inner debate in 152 BCE or shortly thereafter when some disagreed with the Pharisaic way of Jonathan, and broke off to form a proto sect. The proto-sectarians were “groping around for twenty years” and during the period of groping would have continued to follow the Sadducean ways while protesting the Pharisaic processes and procedures that had become significant in the Temple. Finally, a sectarian leader, the Teacher of Righteousness, emerged and led them to establish themselves at the sectarian settlement at Qumran, which would become the center for the group, and on the other hand he led them toward the specific sectarian beliefs and the specific invective that then became typical of the sectarian group as we know it. This would give a picture of how the sect came into being, explain the large amount of Sadducean tradi - tion in its early teachings, and it would also provide a fixed period for the beginning of the sectarian group after 152 BCE.

25 FOR GREATER UNDERSTANDING

Questions

1. What effect did the MMT text have on Dead Sea Scrolls scholarship ? 2. What is meant by “common Judaism”?

Suggested Reading

Schiffman, Lawrence H. Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their True Meaning for Judaism and Christianity. Garden City, NY: Anchor Doubleday, 1995.

Other Books of Interest

26 Lecture 5: The Qumran Sect

The Suggested Reading for this lecture is Lawrence H. Schiffman’s Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their True Meaning for Judaism and Christianity, and chapters 6 and 7.

The Character of the Qumran Community A basic assumption of Dead Sea Scrolls study is that there is an intimate link between the scrolls and buildings at the site of Qumran. The caves are just a few minutes’ walk from the site, and the very same types of pottery were found in both places. These buildings provide evidence for a religious community that practiced rit - ual purity and communal meals, and it is probable that members of this group were buried at the cemetery between Qumran and the Dead Sea. Still, there are some scholars who hold other views, claiming the scrolls might be the library of the Jerusalem Temple or of some groups in Jeru- salem, or claiming perhaps that Qumran was really a Roman fortress, or that the place was simply a commercial center. It seems more probable, however, that this was a center for a sectarian religious group that had retired to this place to pursue a life of “perfect holiness,” as they called it in the texts. Rule of the Community There are three types of scrolls in the collection: biblical scrolls, apocryphal works, and sectarian literature. The sectarian literature sets out specific things about the theology of the group, and information about the way the group was structured and its peculiar way of life. A text called the Rule of the Community describes the way of life of this group in terms of entrance (initiation) rites. Similar rites are described by Josephus and Philo for the group they call they Essenes, and also in Talmudic sources for a group linked closely with the Pharisees. At first, there is an examination regarding an initiate’s aptitude before he or she can begin to move through the process of initiation. The initiate then stands before the assembly and there is a process of voting. The person will be either “brought near” or “kept away.” He is then evaluated in terms of reli - gious commitment and beliefs. If he passes the test, he is allowed to come into contact with the solid food of the sect, but not the liquids, because liquids are more susceptible to impurity. Only after another year would he get to come into contact with the liquid foods of the sect, participate fully in the com - munal meals, and mingle his property. This initiation rite is effectively based on the questions of ritual purity. The Bible outlines ritual purity in great detail. It was supposed to be prac - ticed by the priests in the Temple and those who wished to enter the Temple. Numerous groups had come into existence that practiced purity outside the

27 LECTURE FIVE 2 8 ot Th ove pr vie re sha mo in Pha Ra in th we of Esen th The of wh is th it ow be Qu gr th ot no Te Aco I T R A T T T “ t of de be wa H it it sem he is e e is he o n o he he he he a e ti it stu th er mpl sh w iat iat b r o n mra pa n pert der up e l r e r on u n Co terms ri mo bi ’ve sem re sp hi ed rs r e te Qu re ev p al a i of o sa wi t Q t n ye dy sa u o o h fo n rd s er ext u ct e. nd sect. who rs u is mu tha n m se n n a y ic st um p l ri a the s a i tr ld the re d mra com i ars if , ms c es nd, ng ryda ur f re aint l t I w r r of ie uly no ge tha an ie w d te o n reg e it it a s , in com t used be ran th as it uals es. d? xactly l er d on ar on by th Jew xts pr th man pa scro t lu t nity y o d use n the o the fro eir yo re ist y be e in f e e e stra rem oce is e tho ha in w e unity. S rale T Jose mu site te Je T pent lives. as re m er ur divne N scat ish er he a d w ec p w by sho y l a he and Da Rule pu tha nde stin ny se w ro ew q tion. ou em ho nity the e fo th se par pro pr reg t u d, d s se co Dam rifed t pe mascu com phu r t g ter uld ” e ire he to a ld g wat wh oce ct, d w thro d w ber Testam drew The iven it t nd but ales nta pe sa ar he Rule rty of wer in bef re ho over d hat ed what He be and r rab o s’ it’s u ealy munity. ds er s rty. me ed gu to t Second ins ugh the by se liq in he scu lived would or pr cemt e al s sure a wil Jo b , de lations, the o posib star of wa bet uid e to com actied also of i atone orde In h Do as pu t was a s. f Comu ent, houg s ove sephu Ese was the atche, scripton o self- the not the large nt ablution w the rity Docum at ne Th gr t cumen nder tha and ery mon. have e o r rs descr oup to sen Tem Jesu last Qum e en f ment le Com ownersh t was improve be sect nes t a Dea he so s , b r th jo ritua s use solid in also num th itual etwn nity th what loin say in san Havur eir t a g ple be Once t la ent as wo at ibed ran . at in d a for te d sepa ritua t nd. Im of th and lo l he ber unity Sea entra t co tels ctifed it ls n the purity cloth, fods pur he b t n sta is speak im ment wer pure we we ot the comu abo ip y wasn’t ntais in use, g Peopl of ls, you gro his rato es. th of the proe ity iven ges h to secta b d : Scrols, of t nce lea , ut Esen, eing he e a no ritual t and up her whic in he b ou in mselv he prima and folwers a This beca T but two-sag t e rn and . he r Mishna back to almudic nal the only only fo tside sea i rty rian can n wil d wil pure would sure in white ur-stag to iscplned not those re is sect bath tels me rily ther use. becom might tex s existd th penta tha re h the the materi becom based if the or e e the they nder main a one for e a s ma of di clothing. us have be De nd we rab rive n F me grav Esen and tha no e sect was T m have rom o the les. Esen, e come empl ad n re tha othe wnership. sem not ce. le bis. vitae. mbe e withn on by as ovitae o d. f ls. s, ul es ft in would f g true very with Esen. Sea the the one holy a Only the the sup nor long gr be rs oth mebr rs of s pu Folw sytem to oups in en idea who wer the meb poin one simla of male How Rule er gro counil wil you re to . wate h have ort their as th On turned the ave Bu in up. ose t ha t he w ye he the ing sur ha s, co of is of s. t r th r. ers ith tha d ar to so t m e Al - - According to sectarian regulations, you needed the approval of an examiner to do business. It seems that all the transactions were considered as if they were made with the approval of the sect, because the property had been handed over. Also, you had to pay an 8 percent tax to sustain the poor and needy. The word “Essene” could include a wide variety of groups that had a lot in common. If you understand it that way, it’s possible that our group could be considered Essene. But it’s hard to find complete identity between the Essenes described by Philo and Josephus and the sectarians, because there are a lot of small differences. In the Dead Sea Scrolls, there was a whole sect of penal codes and punish - ments. A person who transgressed could face permanent expulsion, tempo - rary expulsion, separation from the solid food for one year, reduction of one’s food ration by a quarter for two years, or separation from the pure liquids for two years. In these terms, what one sees is that the admissions process was being reversed. This group had a number of interesting laws regarding outsiders. For exam - ple, when a person entered the group, he was not allowed to bring in any work or money that came from the outside, and he couldn’t eat food belong - ing to someone on the outside, nor drink something from an outsider or make trade with something other than cash with an outsider. Social and economic relations were all conducted in a special, separate way. Essentially, there was a community with a special purity, communal proper - ty, and with others barred from participation. In other words, this community constituted a separate group designed to preserve and foster the idea of per - fect ritual holiness. Leadership of the Sect The sect could very well have been formed by a group of Zadokite priests. These leaders would have not only formed the sect but given it its initial tradi - tions as far as Jewish law was concerned. On the other hand, over time, other members of the sect became more and more important, and these leaders included a very special character, the Teacher of Righteousness. Despite theories that have been put forth, it’s impossible that the Teacher of Righteousness could be Jesus or John the Baptist, and the sectarian texts were, in fact authored before the births of Jesus or John the Baptist. This Teacher of Righteousness seems to have come into leadership some short time after the founding of the sect around 152 BCE. This seems to be the teacher who taught the sectarians the particular idea of separation and led them toward the sectarian mentality. It must have been he who taught them the idea that the world was divided strictly into good and evil. He seems to have been succeeded by other leaders, and one of them was known as the Examiner, and that leader was charged with keeping the sectarian records.

29 LECTURE FIVE 3 0 th com be an bo O e i th ne ng o la mu ve prie w. o run ra f nity. the stly l by te A ma nde le p fte riest ade in ncy r al, thing rs to and a it nd ward s was abo star lay not t ut he lead ed t he ver rise being ers. sectarin y o long f It lay run se un ems lead by til lea rab the ership tha dership bis, Jewish thes in wh is th o e lea com tha ar a e d n er munity cien lay ther s te are t Jewis achers wer stop pa e rt h of ed of FOR GREATER UNDERSTANDING

Questions

1. What was the basic nature of the organization of the sect and how did it flow from their fundamental beliefs? 2. What are the most significant texts for understanding the sectarian way of life and what do they teach us ?

Suggested Reading

Schiffman, Lawrence H. Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their True Meaning for Judaism and Christianity. Garden City, NY: Anchor Doubleday, 1995.

Other Books of Interest

Magness, Jodi. The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003.

31 Lecture 6: Women and the Dead Sea Scrolls Sect

The Suggested Reading for this lecture is Lawrence H. Schiffman’s Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their True Meaning for Judaism and Christianity, chapters 8 and 9.

The Evidence of the Ancient Greek Authors From the first day the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, the issue of women was being discussed. The early scholars who worked with the scrolls came to the conclusion that the Dead Sea sectarians were a celibate group assumed to be identical with the Essenes by a variety of Greek sources, including Philo and Josephus. Pliny the Elder, who lived between 23 and 79 CE, wrote a description of the nature of Judean society in which he describes the Essenes as celibate and as living above Masada. This information has frequently been used to sup - port the claim that the sect of Qumran is the Essenes and that the group was celibate. One problem is that Pliny did not visit the Dead Sea area, so he didn’t real - ize that Qumran and the whole Dead Sea area were destroyed in 68. He therefore described people living at what we think is Qumran when it was in fact already destroyed. But Pliny had still gotten information from someone who had been there, and that someone thought the people there were the Essenes and that they were celibate. Pliny explained why he thought the Essenes were celibate: “It has no women and has renounced all sexual desire.” Philo wrote in a similar way: “They abstain from marriage because they plainly perceive it to be the only or the primary danger to the maintenance of communal life as well as because they especially practice continence, for no Essene take wife because a wife is a selfish creature addicted to jealousy and skillful at beguiling the morals of her husband and seducing him by her contin - ued deceptions.” This point of view expressed about the Essenes by Pliny and Philo, if correct, would mean that that group was celibate because they had a negative view about the institution of marriage and also of women. But then how could they set aside the Bible’s commandment to be fruitful and multiply, and how was it possible to practice abstinence from childbearing if you were a pious Jew? The complex description from Josephus may be more important for X

I this discussion: S

E “They avoid pleasures as a vice and regard continence and the control of R

U the desires as a special virtue. They disdain marriage. They do not actually T

C on principle reject wedlock and that propagation therein of humanity, but E L

32 they want to protect themselves from promiscuous women, since they are convinced that none of them preserves her fidelity to one man.” All of this indicates that the Essenes were a celibate group, but was this the case with the sect of the Dead Sea Scrolls? Josephus complicates matters by writing of another order of Essenes (and remember that “Essenes” could be a term for a group of sects ): “They believe that those who refuse to marry negate the purpose of life, the propagation of humanity, and furthermore if everyone were to adopt the same approach, the entire human race would quickly become extinct. . . . But they subject their wives to three years’ probation and marry them only after they have by three periods of ritual purification demonstrated proof of fertility. They do not have sexual relations with them during preg - nancy, thus showing that their purpose in marriage is not pleasure, but the assurance of posterity.” Apparently, there was then a group of Essenes who minimized sexual rela - tions, did not marry women who could not be shown by three periods to be fertile, and that never had sex with women who could not have children. It is very possible that the Qumran sect could either have belonged to the group of celibate Essenes or to the group of marrying Essenes. The Question of Celibacy in the Texts When one looks at the society described in the Zadokite Fragments, or Damascus Document, the norm is family and children. It seems that the text is describing the group that is scattered about the land of Israel, and this doc - ument mentions only the two stages of initiation that would be practiced out - side of Qumran. The text, for example, includes a spirited attack on polygamy. According to the Hebrew scriptures, polygamy was permitted, though it was later forbidden in the New Testament and in the Jewish tradition. The attack on polygamy here, however, seems to assume that marriage is the norm. In fact, the text claims that it is fornication to have “two wives in your lifetime.” This apparent - ly indicates that if a woman’s husband died, she could remarry, but if a cou - ple got divorced, neither party could get remarried (they would only be able to live in a state of separation). The text makes clear that polygamy is forbidden, but within the marital rela - tionship, monogamy is permitted. There are laws of menstrual purity in which sexual relations cannot occur when a woman is having her period. And the text also goes on to argue strongly against someone marrying his niece. The implication is clear: People are allowed to marry and have children. The Rule of Congregation , a text regarding the End of Days, sets out the following: “At twenty years of age he shall pass among them that are numbered to enter into full status along with his family, to join the holy congregation. He shall not approach a woman to have sexual relations with her until he reaches the age of twenty, at which time he knows good and evil.” Indeed, this seems to imply that a person can bring a family into alliance with the sectarian group.

33 LECTURE SIX 3 4 wo at gr s e v a r g of so- r i e h t wo t s cem th e l p o e p ar d e v i e c Ar g n i k a m e l p o e p m e r t n i y p o c t o u q s e s o M y t i n u m e g a i r r a m y D l p o r h t t n e m u id me Th wo te ri sect gr a ag sect Esen A T T T A T D I tu t e s e g a e at r ce e e o he he he s i h D r e h t o n c a e M th e t s a n i men men men a ca a n ater a up. of s d n a hae inst spi h g u iv ari e l l. o i t a as es if u o d n e o re wa ibat th a a i t i n i argu be d Q l te is ri tru s e o d This th nd ed g a te , is at b g Stil, . y um , t ry u d f o is s, e w o c n i o io s tw nu ” n o at in this e l c e r da s n e a c i s a in cover h t e th a o log th “ t o s l a wo n I c s able a l spindle n a d n life, o i t e b n i r u t en th n i bjects h t he a g youn al se mbe e ran the , sect e r Qu hat , t ’ n s r a ” e te d l r f celib s w De o t a i t i ey o r bu e ma is n a .n d i m y l l a y: men “ ctar g ed r m o a xt evid e r h t e r f o son se n i d mr h t h y , l l e S a h m but cem cem in t the f e m th , O ad tha y rs w a v a g it e e l f Th ny q n o i ha e ct of no m the t n u o e l d ate an. clud or d n ians t pino at g g n i r i u t e s h t e v er c t o c e h m s w a l enc ha o e to t c wh l a g e l s n n e , e s a t Sea e wo s wa sch ne se smal , n e m o w e et f e etr a en ca th re the d n o t n i n o i m o c g t s o t f o t Q so such nd gr t a u r t e h e l p m e T ed w e r b e H or the ethr tlemn me thels, e o h w s f o w would le u o um ry. is n olar oup, and me a e m f o e T o r e t u e D ls. y Scro er e h t a Rule n tha sectar f o h c daughte d i d the t n o c e n t other ot e h finds ha mar , n o i d n i k e h t ran e l p m a e e h t object It the s r a t a l d i c n i o c are t phrase o virgns,” and celiba t x e t not n s at n a ls the n r e c sem do grave e s s w e t c a have of e h t t o r c S a t a h t T e l b i B yin t u b t a h ians a l Cem it do an f o le d was ne , t c evidn pro docu a r o m o n celibat not r e p the of n i w e m ca Ese rs,” s ast e s e h t cumen g d r m u Q o c ver f te. e h t e m o w a t n e s n a s r o , l l t at belo f o f o t n .h rep e h Esen th we d o i , etry e h n o i t n agr also xim Comu t i t s n tha like of ment , y “b a “sed s b d s k l a t e oth u c s i d t m o w ne mentio t c i f i c e p ce e h e rodu r re t c e s n a r oys r b e H y l l wome g n i l l a c t i nged t s e e: th De g e r e w ately , t co “and n o i t u er n s Qum made sect, o c not e o th r o T a es. and d ad tha n e e r ne t x e u o h s o w nclude d r a e s g n i s s a ction f o Many at Q d e i sit of d l u “ma s a w w e nity nd ned. y l l a h a umran to celibat twelv n t c t o n Se t The l a es n e m a h w e v i s n e n i ran his wo they blesin g n i o f acord Smal is e l i h w a e b at girls,” riage women B d l o t r o r f e h t r a. nd list e c wo in uld o i s i v e m o r f s w a l b i often h t wife,” wil e h t demo e m o w t Qumr b only o r p r a wer e s T , e t a b i l m . e l e the s i th uld e children. cen n o c her hundr y l expct d e u g , t a al g,” s w e i v a r e v at say in Fin r a p e s e h t n i d l i u b d e e c and ritu h T t tha e p n a e h . ref Dea realy g sem nstrae “to an: h t ter. th t x e t ; n kinds t u o b t Th “old in o e h s i ds n i n i a t r to al.” t n e was e tha l er h f ed e v i F “fruit h t g n i s i h t if red make fa er m i t e v e w o o d d e t a d e h t h t m t i s f o Gre a d l l o r c s t a f o they ct men One Its go Se o w h g u o r g akeup to t n e m u c wer la e f o of . s e th h t also f o d raves ar s a w o m t a h w g s k o o B a e n o m s a H a of rge t od o t e a suport e r . n e m o m o r f a deta su d o x E k efrncs e a se o t marying e wer , r T Dead ar are, an the a i r a t c e s s i t s as smal et e l p m o c author much argum g i g a e r e h apre number yl p m i s n e m o w u a c e b e h t gument kits, a d t i f o d,” in ils smal a h t womb.” d a h T c i t n a o re p old s e i r e s the m es e h t the s i h f e suc t a l about Sea “daug th nu r a bea s, ari ent mo c - es s n e re n ntly a e mber co d side m h was me t o dn a of is ds, f ain as ro fo ge - h - - - Some claim that a document called the Wiles of the Wicked Woman is an attack on women, but this passage could be seen as simply showing the con - demnation of the sectarians for the type of woman that they regarded as leading men astray. Essentially, the document assumes the goodness of the marital relationship and condemns women who practice wanton relationships and who are sinners and who lead men astray. Scholars will likely continue to argue for a very long time about whether the sectarians were celibate and whether women were part of the sect.

35 FOR GREATER UNDERSTANDING

Questions

1. What are the arguments for and against the celibacy of the Qumran sect? 2. What evidence has been mustered to argue for the presence of women at Qumran ?

Suggested Reading

Schiffman, Lawrence H. Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their True Meaning for Judaism and Christianity. Garden City, NY: Anchor Doubleday, 1995.

Other Books of Interest

Schuller, Eileen. “Women in the Dead Sea Scrolls.” The Dead Sea Scrolls after Fifty Years: A Comprehensive Assessment. By James C. VanderKam and Peter Flint. Leiden, NE: Brill, 1999. X I S E R U T C E L

36 Lecture 7: Theology and Beliefs of the Dead Sea Sect

The Suggested Reading for this lecture is Lawrence H. Schiffman’s Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their True Meaning for Judaism and Christianity, chapter 9.

Predestination At the very beginning of the Bible is the idea that there is a God who is the creator. For the sectarians, God is a complete unity. There is one God, and while there may be competing forces in the universe, these are forces that God let loose. The one God is all-powerful, but there are all kinds of beings under him that could be seen as almost divine: angels and other types of beings, including Belial, the leader of the forces of evil. The sectarians believed in fundamental predestination. The following pas - sage is taken from the Zadokite documents: “And before they were established He knew their deeds. He knew the years of their existence and the set time and exact epochs of all that have come into being and knows what will happen to all those that will come into being for all the years of eternity. God has determined everything in advance and knows what all people will ever do.” The sectarian God is also all-controlling, very different from the concept of God found in Pharisaic Judaism and almost all forms of early Christianity. The assumption that God has complete foreknowledge is based on the idea that time doesn’t apply to Him. Here the idea is that all decisions in a per - son’s life are made by God. The Sectarian Calendar The sectarian calendar was meant to be a sign of the continuity of God’s creation and of its inexorability. Whereas the regular Jewish calendar had lunar months, and every three years the calendar was made equivalent to solar years by adding an extra month, the calendar of the Qumran sectarians was structured on a solar calendar. The notion was that it should be inex - orable and never change (it should be noted that the sectarians’ calendar was based on a 364-day year and would not, in fact, have worked). Good and Evil The Mystery texts lay out the whole sense of how the world works, which as part of God’s mystery can never be truly understood. God is eventually going to reward the righteous and punish the wicked. The sectarians, at the End of Days, will be victorious and all the attributes of God, according to their teach - ings, will be made clear and obvious. It follows that there is a kind of dualism here, because God is absolute good, and if that’s the fact, there has to be some explanation for evil.

37 LECTURE SEVEN 3 8 mo be au wi tu hu Lowl of sect ho th re im me de ma be th th tio an th ab East or On on wha tha t co wit h T O T Pe M T A “ t A s f o i T l e H re e es er er a th t i u q i n i hi he he ntr p n y e h c cause th m l ci l d solut d ne t t h g a s t i r i p ines. iev e’ st a d s e h Earth ds l e g n he co res s o ual Tha e e s n t’s ari de e t h g i r an o sure, e th H ern mad g w s re p ol y y a e r c o f wi r a i l o rd ood . e or le a ere a the s ver ow l l a r a f a w e is e ot Hu se i re wi f e b re a ter fe b l nksgiv . y t in io n the can’t ces a l vil f o o s the m ha du in ; oth , ar e re a eing. e h d l l e em y g Th o n k l in l e e t m t e r u o man t i is ma ext n I . . uma ualism hey e s e h t nd e f r a D T ou ask t a by sentia a or clea a es to h t th The d emb Ra mp n i th is lism ma he a d of a de p s n s h t h t but in fe t a at r van m re up amo thi e some ea pe co to Aco rn h t o is n k e t e ity of bis, n h go ter s s e erin ho w in r R n a is texs g i r d so t h ers ave sec tari ans , s e al s t i r i p s he a h mpe titi on ly rso ev be aco b s e sa ule on estin ce? clay, , e bu t mine w in H the exp d n i k y con ly exts un s n i ns s y a w . d g po il d n ings y s ymns rdi b se n y e h T n a m hop the this t w bu th kind dom an of has ts of e mes in re tha s i at wers of mplished re hic ce is ng f o e ctarins’ o d , or t co r o f t d d peatdly the f o it, e h t sed ha ed f Rule o the er ther evil. sid pt, are al is f o t , by t , ino no t its h t of f to mp h t u r dust, descr a w he o c b th t u r t is t m o d in go difer ther u and r a d to e e too k Com muni ty ecaus go God r i t n e se th t self- se same at own rges sinful, d l u etd ns t k l T thi s simp force o r P he of over h e ge n a is em his ctarin f . s s e n k d e n o i n i d tha n i ibe d n a e c n i they in is lo in e ent merg the w o l l o f thi s e depr t a a is noti d tha is vil. cap tain o wor ld and t close with. t nd ly an co to the Heav n i m o d s time r e h majo and f he the they an thes m o r the than has Comu a of u q i n i as con cept ncept f o comp in f o evil l es ” ab hu s y a w desir idea sectari is cation, evil dicate ult imat e , evil e h t evil, ove g i L Bible h t bet ween exp lain s r a of to solute man th t are be whe placed n o i e h n the d , y t i or in e wo ideas, e m a if et t h God s, for is r th do es. t r a e fern and their f o lea der nity Qu n r u o s dive perso in e v o rld, n l i t n u r o f at go th s i being and co has ce the by m n not for t h g i l r noti F e the mran eading aut hor od h t by also . nect in: ade e h view or r f tha but in on thi s e c ce: goo d h seing m o r But per posib d n a domin tra said e h t h t nal uman simply depn d some inclatos s Than and the e the m o d b e f o in sonality. as nsf orme d st I by are dua lism t u evr sect com do n in h t s n o s of t se to e H rugle e m i r a d of and tha d sectar the lot th the refo re in n i e m n o i n i ion. ilty a ksgivn how arch the one pred bein with dent es the e bot h divuals, cord ything o es ixng n i l l e w d t n e s k does e h t of perat f o scro Rab evi l, God f o r a se tha self secta a th g estinao. ians, exp with as th But for ntialy s i H f o e of way d n a h n i w i e and r e v o is two t tha t binc ls, e with no y t i u q i tha t e h t hat ’s has is a i fol lows : God. as peol son g nto God. Hymn com pete a idea l l when t a t i s i v rians with on riencg t al-pow with howevr, e c a l p espcialy lo lowy e h t b a beliv clay a s n i g i r o f o sinful m e h t God the be ad a sytem, e nd ts, goo d low n a Rat o o eh t In sen another their s sn o s the realy f f .n o i one incl this have and . ideas or n d light fo crea fact, may . Th y e her, er s t se ow And His d and o in lo ful e is ust f a - ts - . Is Everything Fated? The sectarian view raises the question of how a person can be predestined to be on the side of evil and then punished by God for being so predestined. This is a difficult notion for those who believe that people are punished or rewarded for their individual deeds. How can one achieve forgiveness? The sectarians believed this was accom - plished through God’s grace. This fits in with the idea of predestination by understanding that there are people predestined to repent and predestined to receive God’s grace. The sectarians assumed that there would come a day when there was a great slaughter and all the evildoers would be destroyed and the good people (the elect) protected. The sectarians would survive into the next era. The good would be justly rewarded, and the evildoers would be punished. On the issue of predestination and dualism, Josephus wrote the following: “Regarding the Pharisees, they say that certain events are the work of fate, but not all. Regarding other events, it depends upon us as to whether they will take place or not. The view of the Essenes states that Fate is the mis - tress of all things, that nothing happens unless it is in accordance with her decision, but the Sadducees do away with Fate, believing that there is no such thing, and that human actions are not determined in accordance with her decision but that all things are within our power so that we ourselves are responsible for our well-being, while we suffer misfortune as a result of our own folly.” The passage relates that the Pharisees believe that God can interfere in some events, but basically human beings have free will. The Essene view is that God has predetermined everything. The Sadducees basically believe that God controls nothing and they do not believe in the immortality of the soul. The Dead Sea sectarians seemed to believe in a world to come and reward and punishment, and they also seemed to believe in the immortality of the soul. This would put them in conflict with Sadducee beliefs, so people will say that they cannot be Sadducees. But it is possible that a group of Sadducees left the Temple structure and eventually constituted this separate sect. From the time of its formation this sectarian sect underwent a total transition into a group that was highly radicalized and highly sectarian. The earliest founders of the sect could have been Sadducees who may not have believed in life after death or reward and punishment, but as the sectari - an community developed, the leader of the sect, probably the Teacher of Righteousness, taught these new ideas and they were adopted by the group. Predestination and the Revealed and Hidden Law In terms of the Dead Sea Scrolls’ understanding of the laws of the Torah, the laws divide into two categories: the hidden and the revealed. The revealed laws are known to anyone who reads the Five Books of Moses. The hidden laws are known only to those who study in the sectarian group and learn its laws, and yet everybody is punished, according to the sect, for fol - lowing incorrect laws that they had no way to know.

39 LECTURE SEVEN 4 0 cen we Te po of wo sol it’ ap El T s he w p why stame r r ves e i e se turi roa mpo er men se fl o q es t ch the cer o ctar ating ue sible ts nt, b B co tain stio e pr o C ians w f u a oblem E. aro the h ld n go peo to ich of be b se un kn eliv d is wh d caled o o le ide pe ea w f a y go why nd rson. as a si right t ly hat pe down being ar th t under her rson e e or one Achiles fo wrong the und deb shou is stod is e wrong respon ated in vil ld or hel the in in do con by lig the pa sible Rabinc of go Jews ht trol th, world, od pred of f but one’s or if t he in estinao it’s his it tradio the and fact also actions. not or second it tha her withn ope so n n. t and lves Pr b thes ns ehavior This edstina and his in up the the pa ideas or the first proble rtic ev h Ne er much ion ular w n m if FOR GREATER UNDERSTANDING

Questions

1. How do the sectarian concepts of dualism and predestination relate to one another? 2. How does the theology of the Qumran sect compare with what we know of the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes? To which group are they most similar and why ?

Suggested Reading

Schiffman, Lawrence H. Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their True Meaning for Judaism and Christianity. Garden City, NY: Anchor Doubleday, 1995.

Other Books of Interest

41 Lecture 8: Biblical Interpretation

The Suggested Reading for this lecture is Lawrence H. Schiffman’s Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their True Meaning for Judaism and Christianity, chapters 13 and 14.

Translation and Commentary Throughout the history of Judaism, biblical interpretation has been a central theme. It runs through the biblical period itself, because even in the Hebrew Scriptures, one can see interpretations of earlier scriptural works. In the post-Hebrew Bible period (as soon as the fourth century BCE), there is the phenomenon of the “rewritten Bible,” in which texts of the Old Testament begin to be interpreted, and these interpretations form the basis for developments in Judaism that go on throughout its history. With the Dead Sea Scrolls, there are some of the earliest documents that tell of this process of biblical interpretation (also known as “exegesis”). Cave 7 at Qumran contained a number of Greek manuscripts. Some schol - ars incorrectly identified Greek material from this cave as the Gospel of Mark, but here instead are fragments of the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Bible). Two Targum texts (Aramaic translations of the Bible) show the earliest evidence of what would be the Targumic tradition. There are also large parts of the Book of Job, which gives us a large amount of information about how the Book of Job was understood in the time of the Dead Sea Scrolls (that is, the second century BCE). Plain-Sense Commentary Similar to translation is another kind of commentary called plain-sense com - mentary, an attempt to explain what the Bible really says. There is a Dead Sea Scrolls document called the Genesis Commentary that addresses a fun - damental problem in the Book of Genesis: After Noah awakens from his drunkenness, he cursed Canaan, the son of Ham. According to the Bible, the sons, including Ham, had seen the nakedness of Noah, so it would be under - standable to curse Ham rather than Canaan. The commentary says the following: “He, Noah, did not curse Ham, but rather his son, for God had blessed the sons of Noah.” So apparently, because God had blessed the sons of Noah, Noah could not curse them and could only instead curse the grandson, Canaan. T

H There is another question in the Bible about a complex verse, Genesis 49:4. G I There among the blessings that Jacob gives to his sons is this difficult pas - E

E sage about Reuben: R

U “For when you mounted your father’s bed, you brought disgrace—my couch T

C he mounted!” E L

42 Some biblical commentaries seek to interpret away Reuben’s sin, but the Dead Sea Scrolls’ interpretation is that Jacob reproved Reuben because he had had sexual relations with Jacob’s concubine. The plain-sense commen - taries are examples of the Dead Sea Scrolls group trying to find out the same kinds of things about the Bible that people today want to know. The Rewritten Bible In Genesis 12, Abram tells Sarai to claim that she is his sister rather than his wife. The biblical verse poses the question, Why did Abram tell Sarai to lie? The Dead Sea Scrolls text tells us that if it were known that Sarai was his wife when they entered Egypt to escape the famine in the land of Canaan, the Egyptian king would kill Abram and take his wife. The Genesis Apocryphon tells us that God appeared to Abram in a dream and instructed him to say that Sarai was his sister, which would save Abram’s life. This is a kind of fanciful interpretation to answer a question that the Bible does not answer. Throughout the Dead Sea Scrolls text, we find such interpretations in which the biblical text in its Aramaic translation is closely woven together with these interpretations. In these passages, there is no distinction between that which is biblical and that which is not. The whole concept of the rewritten Bible was held in a very negative light by the later Talmudic Rabbis. For them, one had to separate the biblical word of God from the interpretations that emerged from the divine-human partnership that created the traditions of ancient Israel. Harmonizing Interpretation Another type of interpretation that runs throughout Qumran literature is what is called “harmonization” or “harmonizing interpretation.” Both texts composed before the Qumran sect and texts composed during the time of the sect con - tain examples of harmonization. The Bible is rich in accounts, ideas, statements, and laws. Harmonization seeks to bring together passages on the same topic and make them become one. The Temple Scroll gives laws of sacrifice, among which are “You shall not sacrifice to me an ox or sheep in which there is any serious defect, for they are an abomination to me.” In Deuteronomy 17, the text speaks of an animal “which has a defect, anything serious.” But in Deuteronomy 15, there is another term, “any serious blemish.” In our text, the two biblical phrases that are about the same thing are added together to create one phrase: “serious defect.” This happens not just in interpretation, but in the scribal passing down of text. Harmonization can also refer to entire passages and bodies of content. The Temple Scroll lists the festivals of the people of Israel according to the biblical accounts found in Numbers and Leviticus. But there are festivals in the Dead Sea Scrolls that don’t exist in the Hebrew scriptural account. One of these is the Spring New Year. Harmonization occurred when scribes simply copied what was said for the Fall New Year in the Scripture and used it for the Spring New Year.

43 LECTURE EIGHT 4 4 d n a t a p e t n i r e t e ad use bi Jud in te Te te sect en me fa me A Jew of con or tim Te po re ver in he ver me er an wa “H ha Mi n I M Be Pe T An M An b fo sp nce l shi i a a fu hi a o gi dr d r r d p th acher acher u i r e t s y li e n n se se a r e t iz l e, l dr d r aism lakh tex cau she o o p r pte ed s a n cal is ch s ndam irato nat y mati ts t ni me e so h C of o as on it th th b ash ng s s. r p b from h-C o t e r t ki s n sel f u ut a Qum h l l er er y o me d f u o a h l se r se a e g nd t s i r nd in an e y er i .” Ofte of of f p fe H f a nd on the i ab f. by t a t of inte n. h c and gro nvo hr ter an w o int e l e r mo type is th d e o i t eb I in pr n a ” th ve the a i t f tha don o T A a ith for n ist ra out s n o i Righ is F to co er they tels g is e th a f pre d nd he ovidng n, tal n ey ram n re up N rp de lves rse ur arly co n v b s ia C e, y t i p o e t kin typ Pe the ew me un re auth w ’t of n a re e t the re f a led hrista ta secta n t a so etd a hes ntem w te o he . , aic teo t fer like the s l a some su e r derst S can d f she ha e in t taio late f de s h is co o C th xts: Te ugh io Te r, criptu inte n i o d n u of or ter to o fro hr e u t o d n u o f e n to th ba “Ha m us m f o wor stamen to ntir th sto a sne rians. prohe po r r s , e in c istany. n inte n s its bilca ar pr n t e ment, m od cher Peshr ption rp thing but Hebrw time, oncer r e v te. e ity. v r e are . ly terp to use with rizng, t a h t lakh ra eta story od e ds T re s the wo sep e. rpe thes exts up y ngem cont e r n i Tr taion tha foun tion ather b of of Of rd and it n i s ,” of of cy has a an l l l i w date vers, y artion Hebrw ansltio h t taions ted , inte s write for o Righ the meani ent an al of in ar the cour the e l g r f e law. is the t is d enor efr ent divne e h a a f f a an e is d wh the d a e D the ab rpet kinds mate in a the caled ancie so-ca of conf Gospel e g difcultes g teousn d t c e tex s se, evn n a m com two of out ich inter ear enr id mous fr in are Jewish Dead pro to word r e n an om g ly s ation g bilca rial ronta no e h t this -part ly a e S of nt a spea the “ crea wer le r e n cie t inte a Halkh aly o i t a ba o n furth t the hets es. Jud sting ent. subject. p d h ta trea su a a e “Halkh nt Sea is sed roph rea ad tha is tion rpet n nciet “ n i te r i t n r c S x” . n pr L ks ar wicke port aism, pa mainstr tha er proh one aw. t int th Esentialy, sure The exts oces. and h w their range der’s a in e h T parle e no on ic s l l o Scrols, ets. rt at involes tha separ erp ed fu Aram a l h c i br Midr of T t of d the ndam ,” tex complex the tha tex , r e t ab f ecis, he and of proh texs. a e ought olwed Ther time, p d a Je the tok meani eam. e h t taion riest.” d n out ated inform life ash. e i l r in term Te h aic. wish is in relat he sevra so r o t s i ental main e bi the t i b e H acher. no t s ecis the place the Numeros in of th the thes di is from Th “Halkh s i The is e whic lica anlysi t e The literau g by y ation this Jesu comparisn s an about a x r e h N w e r a e Pasher efct isu sect a “ o so l nciet tha to ew explict f constiue term betwn s e l p m of term Talmudic the T asum orde inte case same e s i a d u J under go,” his e l b i B about es is thes Testam t re into is th t a h its litera on rpetaions “cont refs o types of e type ” , in histo texs and f or in own f o the is tex pti sta later ex ci s a b bi m a t s fuli d th wer per l a t gen blica ivne of e h t on he em is the term, te wer e of rical time sy of to - nt. - - - es - - a FOR GREATER UNDERSTANDING

Questions

1. How do the biblical interpretive methods of the Dead Sea sectarians com - pare to those of other early Jewish groups and nascent Christianity? 2. What was the role of biblical interpretation in the Qumran sect?

Suggested Reading

Schiffman, Lawrence H. Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their True Meaning for Judaism and Christianity. Garden City, NY: Anchor Doubleday, 1995.

Other Books of Interest

45 Lecture 9: The Hebrew Bible in Second Temple Times

The Suggested Reading for this lecture is Lawrence H. Schiffman’s Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their True Meaning for Judaism and Christianity, chapter 10.

Handing Down the Biblical Text Underlying the whole phenomenon of the Dead Sea Scrolls is the Hebrew Bible. The books of the Hebrew Bible were such a profound product of the culture of ancient Israel that they shaped the later development of all forms of Judaism and Christianity. Indeed, one can even approach the development of Judaism and Christianity as if it is a question of how one should interpret the Hebrew Scriptures and how one can live a life that tries to actualize the teachings of the Hebrew Bible. For the Qumran sectarians, the Hebrew Bible was passed down in all kinds of manuscripts that represented the nature of the Bible as it existed in Second Temple times. People often ask whether the Dead Sea Scrolls answer such questions as whether the Torah had one author or whether Isaiah was one or two (or even more) prophets. The scrolls do not answer these questions. In fact, the scrolls do not say anything about what happened in the period of the Hebrew Scriptures (the First Temple period). The scrolls, rather, comment on the text as it came down to them. When one examines the biblical texts found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, one is basically reading the Bible of today. The very small biblical variances found in the Dead Sea Scrolls attest to the extreme care with which the Hebrew Bible was handed down. The State of the Bible at Qumran The nature of the manuscripts of the Dead Sea Scrolls is often oversimpli - fied in debates over the continuity of biblical tradition and the authority of the Bible. One might read that the Dead Sea Scrolls prove that every single letter of the Bible has never changed and that there are no variations in any of the manuscripts. This, of course, is false. One might also read that the Dead Sea Scrolls prove that the Bible was fluid, developing, that the biblical writing had not been solidified, and that no one knew what books were in the Bible. This too is false. The situation is much more complex. First, the Book of Esther was not found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. One opinion is that the Book of Esther, which describes the redemption of the Jews from an anti-Semitic attack in the Persian Empire, was simply not there

E because of coincidence. Perhaps the fragments were too small and simply N I didn’t survive. The other opinion is that the members of the Qumran group N

E rejected the holiday called Purim, held in March, which celebrated this victory. R

U In fact, this holiday was not mentioned in any of the calendar texts from the T

C Dead Sea Scrolls. So some simply said that the Book of Esther was left out E L

46 because the sectarians didn’t accept it as biblical. All the rest of the books, however, were clearly part of their Bible and had authority. The Canon of the Bible There might be two other books that were admitted into the canon of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the so-called Aramaic Levi document, parallel to the Testament of Levi, which purports to be a kind of speech by Levi, the ances - tor of the Priests and Levites. The other book is Jubilees, a kind of retelling of the story of Genesis that structures itself on the biblical Jubilees and tries to make the point that all the laws were observed by the Patriarchs even before they were given. A canon that contains the three parts of the Hebrew Bible (Torah, Prophets, and Writings) was already in existence during the time of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Rule of the Community speaks of “that which has been revealed to Moses” as well as the Prophets, and that combination is known to have existed. But perhaps most importantly, there is the MMT text, which has the follow - ing passage. The sectarians write to the addressee, “We have written to you in order that you should understand the Book of Moses and the words of the Prophets and David (Psalms) and the Chronicles of each generation (later historical books of the Bible).” So it seems that this idea of a three-part Bible was already entrenched in Second Temple times. The concept of the division of the Hebrew Bible into three parts is based on decreasing strength of revelation (the Torah is God’s word spoken through Moses; the Prophets are God’s revelations to his prophets; and then with the Writings, the Holy Spirit was a kind of mediator in which God’s spirit rested on those who wrote those books). This collection was not formally sealed for Talmudic Jews until later in the first century after the destruction of the Temple, but there’s no question that there was a recognized canon before. Masoretic, Proto-Samaritan, and Proto-Septuagint There are varying forms of the biblical text found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Most textbooks say about the Dead Sea Scrolls that there were three types of biblical texts found at Qumran: the proto-Masoretic, proto-Samaritan, and Septuagint. The Masoretic text is the name of the received text. The ones at Qumran were called “proto” because the later Bibles had vowels and cantillation notes, whereas the earlier one preserved only the consonantal text. The Samaritans were a group that existed in small numbers in the land of Israel, and they were descendants of the original northern Israelites. Their descendants represented a distinct group that seems to have accepted only the Five Books of Moses, because they apparently came into existence before there really was a corpus of Prophets, and this group had a Bible text with many variations, some of which were intentionally introduced. However, if you take away the intentionally introduced variations you get the proto-Samaritan text found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The third kind, proto-Septuagint, repre - sents a Hebrew text similar to the one translated by the translators of the Greek Bible (Septuagint).

47 LECTURE NINE 4 8 re al ot Psal c i t e r o s a M e e r G f o a e S t p i r c s l a t c a , l e u m a S a w Int s n i a l p x e l a e m o s t a h t e N we we re al th ge ha au an Was th ne ove te ta up te an ma T I S O D Bu M n s, t s o m o s he e e xt, ri xts a vi he o m t d th d r d d o h t nl e a r s w y l l a u a y l . e h t get e sed r t ate es Bar s a M Bib ntio n very y ate ms r ns lap t o y n tha o e s a h Mi i r w c S re e be t th e h k t s e T y the f , us ex rita ot nl Ps kno ro a l p x p f o B I thi er d b i B xed l o r o t s l l o r a x e a s ri used y is ro e e t t in to t o o o Ka m m i r o nal the s ye f a h alms n al tive to e t c i m isu h t h t clo s w five B o r c g i to- h w th m a w g a h a i an th t e e l n s n i lo va k e J wh t e thba is ith r e s e ib n m y l t c is as a n i texs ly sp e , th e larg be . s wh se ci M n i o o r uscript s l l u a n e rious es ean h w c s i d te e r on e le an an m m te ich em k B f , B eak m e m o s A a o s a e s n t l A a v - en t ransmi xts eth a J .h a i m ha to , h t l ar e h ateri like an .t xts m e s goin d d F othe l est anu h c i pe n o d e d d a r e r s a w a kind apted in e n o i s s u the f o e f d t a to tha w n r ou reso ci t e r n e v uscrip re Ko er in i m e riod t a i wer w Q sp de in t ished e m a s hic t s l a i r e the p r p e r sc o w a v e h folw r a r f o m u t a a or a khb s n o i tha G eling l s f d ys th t ted Bible, de ripts , h a th u o e lved. ype t n a i r of s n Hebrw -down, large tex rek tion. ma (1 e h t of p e r Hebr e o r c n a r t n e s e Bible e ts may those t bate n i with e r e h t s a , d n a an 32 ? De o i s n e c s a are e t micr Bible r e h t t u b teria from lok mat th of , s l l r a v with e g a s e h t a is x e t s e p y t L A had ap and to ad nd h c i h w e elm y f i t e h t ater, evn tex oth be Bible virtu w s i e o-vari a few n o i t a i recivd e h t erials, T of l a s t ocryph 13 T s dialect as ear Se in wa ad e r orah e r a a M h s cause s n n i d u m l a o t er be n o we n i f o can : the o t 5 e r aly so “vu the lo a e t r o thoug s h t o h t nt be lie a e v i g texs, e r o s e e h t f o o CE) r w it s e t e d o w t ok s a w e n Scro no me r e io tions prot e l b i B r re the n i be and lgar” t i w al ven r e , g n i t i u m a S th pecu in Ta tr nal r simlar a p ther , t p o adings like o s anslte ci t o tenio ntiquy e e c o r o i s r e v ther na m sta h e n i m r fin h case fou s r e v f lmudic o- r u stand ls a a almost n o i n i sa include have t s u n a mater th e r b e H tha ture. e h tex, i Bib e a h t M lia m o c sh m ndar ear a nd r b e H lok l e e ey me s s d n a o s a s n o i e r o r ed? to o r p a l re t n n i e in ardizto l aly to n i at when d. more t p i r c y re we f o s i f o t e l p Gre a , in d Some h g i r ia Rabis f o as tha p r e t ci t e r w distrbu w e like some t versio the b o s s e c th M e h tex m Heb l, most u t r i v only o s g n i e b It re a ecaus r e h t ad b i B e em. o asd s an e r o t s s e l sem va e m . e l b i B t e r ur k , s l l o r c s early e r o s a M synago whic serio exam I n apted f char times h a i a s rew r o tha’s d y l l a e l t x e Bibles riety f o o o b p Dead ns s n o i t a n Psalm of T r o would rot- ted som . s r a l o h c s t s t o r p m e r e J t x e t hen is a t s . us the of a d n a o t B l a c i t n e d i ap version s s e l k ined In t e Y cte the to almost o Bible. ib it in a m lingustcay gue r a l i m i s a d n e ci t M - o a M o the f , t i texual Sea n w o n k tha materils s, the le is v e n d n a be are manuscr r of a de n i ulgar h a i , t p i r c s u n Dead s a . d e z i d r a texs turn from ci t e r o s a . tex. difcult n o i t a z i d r random Sam c i t e r o s a r e h t o n re th cide the f o nd By ntly e h t ha Scrols n I t i . s w a l is com n i is o t o o t hc i h w ou s i varince ve we n i the texs. e h t f whic a case aditon Sea e h t a c Jews mix tha eh t Hebrw nd h t ritan, d o t t ipt si h T eh t pl materi from ben to e s un a m ha to e t I t h w c man et. ime s ed e D t th h dn a es a ,y a tx e sec th th ve fo is we hc i da e at - - - - - Apocryphal texts represent a group of books from the Greco-Roman period that are preserved in Septuagint Bibles and in Latin and Greek Bibles by the Catholic Church. These are Jewish books from the second and third cen - turies BCE. This Apocrypha is a very specific corpus. A few of the books in the Apocrypha are found in the Dead Sea Scrolls in the original language. The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Masada texts preserve parts of the Book of Ben Sira, known as the Ecclesiasticus (not to be confused with Ecclesiastes). This is the work of a scribe in Jerusalem circa 180 BCE. No original Hebrew of Maccabees has been found, and this is because the sectarians really dis - agreed with the Hasmoneans, the descendants of the Maccabees. Besides the Bible itself, Apocryphal books circulated at Qumran, and some are exactly the same ones found in the corpus of Apocrypha in the Greek (Catholic) Bible. There is a whole series of books, pseudepigrapha, that technically are books that purport to be written by ancient authors. Enoch is an example of pseude - pigrapha. Some of these books have been preserved in the scrolls. The Genesis Apocryphon adds details to Genesis but tells it all as one continuous story (rewritten Bible). Another genre of pseudepigrapha texts that appears at Qumran is that of Testaments, the stories of what great biblical figures revealed on their deathbeds. Here we have the Aramaic Levi document. These texts were preserved and passed on with the Bible. Were they considered biblical by the sectarians? There may be room in the canon at Qumran for some of these books. There is also the phenomenon of the rewritten Bible, in which biblical texts get rewritten secondarily. These rewritten texts are kind of updatings and expansions of the Bible to bring the Bible into the world of those who are writing the text.

49 FOR GREATER UNDERSTANDING

Questions

1. How do the scrolls illustrate for us the character of the text of the Hebrew Scriptures in the second and first centuries BCE? 2. How does this information help us to understand the role of the Bible in Judaism and Christianity?

Suggested Reading

Schiffman, Lawrence H. Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their True Meaning for Judaism and Christianity. Garden City, NY: Anchor Doubleday, 1995.

Other Books of Interest

50 Lecture 10: The Messiah and the End of Days

The Suggested Reading for this lecture is Lawrence H. Schiffman’s Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their True Meaning for Judaism and Christianity, chapters 19 and 20.

Messianic Overtones Some of the most important themes in the Dead Sea Scrolls are those of the Messiah, the Messianic Era, and the End of Days. The Dead Sea Scrolls con - stitute the first discussions of this concept of messianism after the Hebrew Scriptures, and hence provide important background information for under - standing the rise of Christianity and also the Jewish Revolts against Rome in 66 to 73 CE and 132 to 135 CE, both of which had messianic overtones. In many ways, the messianic idea has become exceedingly important in Judaism and Christianity, both in terms of the notion that there is a kind of progression to the world and as a matter of identity within these religious traditions. The origins of these concepts lie in the Hebrew Bible. Some maintain that there is no Messiah in the Hebrew Bible, that this is a post-biblical notion. But evidence for all the elements of the core of the messianic idea are in the Hebrew Scriptures, although they have not been integrated into one concept. It is in the Dead Sea Scrolls that these ideas are first integrated. Elements of the Messianic Tradition According to the Hebrew Bible, God chose, as seen in Samuel, the House of David to be rulers over Israel. The kingdom split after the death of Solo- mon, but the idea that there would be restored a Davidic monarchy is found in Isaiah. The notion of the restoration of the Kingdom of David is fundamental to the concept of messianism. Another idea that is part of the messianic idea in general is the notion of the Day of the Lord, an idea found in some Prophets, especially Ezekiel, that there is going to be a day when there will be a com - plete destruction of the wicked. Another element of the messianic tradition is found in Daniel, where there is a progression of kingdoms. The idea is that there will be a progression of for - eign rule until Israel rules itself again. So there is the idea of restoring the Kingdom of Israel, but there is no king yet, no messiah. There are none of the specifics here of the notion of what is called the messianic era. Messiah or Messiahs? One could trace a whole series of texts in the Second Temple period that begin to move toward the concept of messianism. Among these texts are dif - ferent kinds of approaches.

51 LECTURE TEN 5 2 gr ba ic com The me wh to la sia wo me clysm Me excl on in Afte Li The pe r Lo r d e l l a c u t a n n e e b o w te me i t a al pl me T T T G T I T T I T e m n n w g ly e mpo f e h he he he he he s e h w th n e th e en e h u d l r ht . si si si si si io d. at th som e quet -me w ar, usiv r pre some n s ld e e Th s i l a r e Me Wa re re re d e h t eral e ca al R Q ve He o me ani ah ah ah, ani a e to t n i i ra End cou t ap s e r n e of e e s b o u n um th D su a wer a sia , e ta st ro p si h t to rsu ely. xts r l le d re c i h w c i t de re re is r o w c- c t l ead sianc b fo of to pea is pe r y, af exts S te mes the r o t e r ncil e kin ran he e e v r f in of r ani of s e cro also cla i ig also some g xts in t h A co s xist th e In fo e p y t a ter d l fe ct io n ro r the lp he so ure d ar h ir the Se me D a con e e v i t p a d me re w u of c in sect d s hi c tha l up the c of the pr enc t on a gh to me co nc ep t on’t hic sect n i h n i kn a B secta n a som w . r p ys ba o sia th mesia t So et Co cep . he tex Go vio anque i t f wo hile exp Scrols, i re h s i w e J me own a a o e de a De s g nq som ca o , s e m wh a o r p m i ns n ari e ngr r-o ut bu t ther co e lent End nd d h when u t, d h c is xplicty s ad n uet rians, lain r a ld th o p of would o a the munity is acording f-thela wh from one eg s e diately. eon b . m s i n a i s ns asg evryon nic f th a e e th th e t be Sea e mesiah conflag e v Dar Israe of th e tha th ation pr m oug er e m the are s i x e o c mesiah held caled the t re war e tra mesia ther Days. u i a th er e a e knes id ea wil h c say m s i n a i s s brin tex d n t stly es ht wil the ver mu st w l, eaching two nsform variety mesia Yet descr the e agin e who in ration e b t idea T p o e p th come . d e t hat g , re y apocly how to wil celb me e of th a e h ca n Th we mesiah th at r e t t h, th wel-kn lse at folws two- fi rs t of is the e David. , a e is siah is ibes t ed u t a n describ st co T t of h . e l the find th : an he this Isra pi ck s p b wil T n t of e r e h rate to a idea e h t n a h resn e mesiah th co be me is ru ew each othe c in d idea resto God n a an e work sam t s i l a r a les own el. mes. is to num tic ivn would b mang s, th e t o t u e e he a the e m e h t up a of clo r y b er a those vil- ra T be t a e r o d esianc-p kiled. ’s ely e Seco of r n a i p a his c i er erous vi ol en t f id a scr ay ed along on mesia se on or o doers. Its cause e h t u c tim To th o w t mesia ea a. th at mesian cone the t f come ap e p y es ol wh is set is e r r new Da Righ th e to rah r e r i who This nd o ( ole of pointe War c i s a b gen End sid of en r th n w o texs ne ve r t n the vidc r eligou o ov er th ro w s i no ti on Utopian h T it for Fol ey pt, teousn f r t s a t a c p abou wo the e nic e t a t s eriod would empl o new the exp e h t erfction of late Scrol. ic nly of raly th exp o f f e the d b uld kin r t tha Aaron War p wa elivn e interp wing n e Days fig End s n o i t o n t, rop r . they c o cted g, m ectd counil s t r End ) c i h p o be h T idea a ouncil s, b f true ure d take te mesian reflct s-type esiah fairs. ut th e s het. and of of xts. an d s i of e v i l the to t a h t a to g withou wil etr ther’s the , to of the al l of nd s i t a h t Da y part Days but d in the Like His ther would mes d n a ecid mange th is Days. n i sim t f o Elij survie ev il . also ev a h the a Son or of figu not cat a re v o ne of i l peo n ah . ay ilar m. th sian th is mes eh t us a The ar the s th e re a e e . a - - e of - - - According to these documents, there is a whole set of individuals who can - not participate in the messianic council because they are disqualified by some blemish, or by being too old or too young, and there is an idea that the messianic council and the messianic banquet would represent the perfect holiness, and that this perfect holiness would be necessary to start the mes - sianic battle. After the battle, this group will represent the nature of the soci - ety of the sect, which will be essentially the only Jewish society left in the End of Days. The Leader at the End of Days Most think of a messiah as a redeemer or a savior. The redeemer will bring about the End of Days and then rule over the people in that era. The word “messiah” comes from the Hebrew word that means “to anoint.” In the Hebrew Bible, the word refers to one who is anointed to be king or priest. This might be a perfect term for the sectarians, because if the messiah is the Davidic king, then he himself is a continuator of those who were anointed in the Hebrew tradition. For the first time, in the Qumran documents, the messiah emerges very specifically as the leader for the End of Days. That concept is not expressed directly in the Hebrew Scriptures. This is another example of why these scrolls are so significant for our understanding of messianism. This important force that would influence Judaism and Christianity first comes together in the scrolls. Much of the messianic material in the scrolls is based on biblical references: the Rule of Benedictions speaks about a prince of the congregation who seems to be identical with the messiah of Israel who will arrive in the End of Days. All the terms for the messiah found in biblical passages are loaded upon each other in the Dead Sea text. In the War Scroll, on some of the weapons are banners that read “your anointed ones, the seers of things ordained.” The notion here is that prophesy leads to messianism and that messianism is the key to the battle at the End of Days. The Rule of the Congregation outlines what the assembly will decide at the onset of the messianic battle. Among those things listed for the Council of the Community is specifically an invocation of war. Apparently, some kind of deci - sion by this council was necessary. Once this council has declared war, then the text of the War Scroll describes the specific stages in the war, and this war is described as a ritualized war. Before the initial Roman conquest of Judea in 63 CE, the sectarians were sure there would be the great war that would usher in the messianic redemp - tion. The passage speaks of stages of the war according to time stages over a forty-year period, all conducted according to a very specific schedule. The text also refers to the need for ritual purity in the camp. The War Scroll Poems The author of the War Scroll decided to place preexisting poems in his text. They are beautiful poems, and they suggest the Isaianic prophecy, that all will survive. It is amazing that this idea is found in the midst of the battle plan in which all the rest of humanity is to die. So the competition between these

53 LECTURE TEN 5 4 br m p o l e v e d h w th n i a g a e H e g o t sia h C Scrol 13 ag ef A we Jew an th La me ha Ban tio Jesu th th Th Links scro th th exp uscr uscr tio id O T T M A T e e fe e at e e at i he he he Fu n n ng 5 a d st ve ey e n u n r c i w e r b n a i t s i r as very a e s l ct inst Ro fact wo sect s que ch ic ai l i i a l, e h t C at th the h l’ pt pt se re Sup nda l f War co nd b t t s w n h t E ou ne wh o r p he h ried is wa s i to an s mans rl en th o s wa h n h ad g r t g n i i d mo R ar im i w L v o dea f f c S n ver s tex o ave imp en a e h y t i c men ich oun d an r, Ch t En ast ome th d n e er to ia he l l n a s ow er S po th at e d i e to M th p i r incor so s i e d ns in crol v o n a xpect comp s, . d at ris t rove end come e ra spea esianc d wo e rta n existd b h S crea b me Mo th t u t o it fire c of Se r e en h t a som com istor d th l in e up exp in N a so f r e tia e nt cou e r l uld co t re ed t e is ew s i a d u J is sianc st s Da me d con r i e h h t Ef : n i a t 6 Ca per me ba ed th ose ks , s te ni , n e e . a nce ctly t s e i l r a e ect e muna y a at e b on scho ld The is am spect b ys. ty? tle nt poca ect Testamn ve h t y to t o of t d o e in d a e D he o d an hat emp e s u o i g i l e r Banquet time. be f pts. f mesianc e r o f made f of ong Templ overth d 73 d n a redmp .m over the 4 th m o do the d comu lar o y a w perfct mat l their f tha lyptic the the e or am n o h C meals in ts the CE s p a h s f no Jews the a e S Jewish e Je s i h t me erial me the to time th ong a i t s i r to h t wo Roman t t the own han world orig a wish . in t. se al co e tion a f in litera sectar nd ref sianm nal g n i holy a h rld s l l o r c S k Qumr Virtu toge fluenc h t i o i r a v aspir frag b in em mpar pa an au s n in th ecaus one s to and reb meals and in f o al th at tern Histo d ture, thor d n a to e s d n a to society, menta ther aly to a ians, e t r e x th an m s u s i h t se wou it e be versio , tions. ve tha Jesu. ls scr e h catlysm ade , ten a w s ven th used h t ave at r a p al tex. h t an se d e acor ry r p in a for ar e d i to e ld r i e y ols the ast e ry s ds Qumra d victory p the g both up e m s t a scrol. be some n. J ms a recu whic Just had the . a reat e y a w m This po eal , s w e p m compe But r ha r e w o p f o specialy a d n u f ding ather of arle T anuscr mesianc r o F ove ore ems t his s sect re o e h t much at extn difer as sor n and f o the be over is ext h volts e h t would rtho to t toward r t is Bu ave e h t n e m l u f he e f i l elats t tha be tion a i s s e m en tha he wer to betwn ipts idea ding evidn destr t nt m t cause efct t s r i f . u l f n i the th End nt n wn ther the se wer the h a n a i s s e e h T l a th disag e ad utho be in tiles tha s betwn p en mu the e to Romans in uction. De iecs, e c n e f e e m i t m e c i n of revolt th r o t c a of paterns a a ce t J s l l o r c s on to convie esianc the the are thes e r ch ewish ad show the fundam foretas Christany red Days Paso and c i of a r e tha futre, be Chr r e t f a the o Sea gr noti g a t i r e h some the n i whic o Mesia n restoa pointg f em o c eat descrip with wer would this istany. e ht o b er e h eh t Rev with 132 sam ver tha videnc W eh t ental Sc d era. but mes e ma ar of th tha ma ,e olt the ro e to the nic al a - ls, - n as t - n to - - FOR GREATER UNDERSTANDING

Questions

1. What are the various messianic approaches evidenced by the Dead Sea Scrolls? 2. What is the relationship of Qumran messianism to the Hebrew Bible and later Jewish and Christian traditions ?

Suggested Reading

Schiffman, Lawrence H. Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their True Meaning for Judaism and Christianity. Garden City, NY: Anchor Doubleday, 1995.

Other Books of Interest

Collins, John J. The Scepter and the Star: The Messiahs of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Ancient Literature . New York: Doubleday, 1995.

55 Lecture 11: The Temple Scroll

The Suggested Reading for this lecture is Lawrence H. Schiffman’s Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their True Meaning for Judaism and Christianity, chapters 15 and 16.

A Remarkable Scroll The Temple Scroll is sixty-six columns long and is one of the scrolls that can actually be rolled out. Yet its upper part did not survive well and many of the columns are fragmentary. The author might rather be called an author/redactor. To redact means to edit in the sense of secondarily appropriating existing sources and at the same time composing new sections to make the text flow together. The text is loaded with places where the author rewrites the Torah and, in doing so, inserts interpretations. These interpretations can be small, microlev - el interpretations where a word is added or subtracted, or they can be harmo - nizations in which material is greatly changed. Sometimes the author will even write his own ideas and put them into the scroll as if they were the word of God. The author/redactor of this scroll so much wanted his text to look and sound like a veritable Torah that God had given to Israel that the author even went so far as to remove the immediacy of Moses by taking Moses’s name out of the text. God doesn’t speak to Moses here. God simply gives over His laws and interpretations in what is meant to look like direct revelation. The Hidden Law For the Dead Sea sectarians, there is an idea called the Hidden Law that goes along with the Revealed Law. The Hidden Law is the sectarian interpre - tations that take place through divinely inspired biblical interpretation. For the later rabbis, there was the idea that God had revealed a second law at Sinai, that He had revealed along with the Written Law the so-called Oral Law. This idea built on a Pharisaic concept that there were “traditions of the fathers” that actually went along with the written text of God’s word. Only together did these constitute the teachings. The Temple Scroll author had a different idea. He believed that there was a one-time revelation and all the meaning of the Torah was revealed. Hence, he alters the text by doing these harmonizations, by changing the order, by adding his own ideas and interpretations, and by proclaiming not that this is N

E something that God spoke to Moses, but that his ideas are essentially what V

E God gave to Israel. L E The author used the original Torah to express his own ideas and approach - E

R es. What the author is suggesting is that many things not mentioned in God’s U

T Torah should be understood to be an integral part of God’s revelation at C

E Sinai. In this respect, he differs from almost every other known approach to L

56 Judaism, even from that of the Dead Sea sectarians. He claims that that which supplements the Torah is in essence part of the Torah. This unique idea seems to indicate that this is a particular text with a particular author, but it does relate to other sectarian literature. Sadducee Law Scholars have known from the earliest publication of the Temple Scroll that the author had sources and reedited these sources into a version of the Torah. In doing so, he basically created the document by adapting these sources, which appear to date to a time before the Qumran sect, sometime in the second century BCE. These sources appear to stem from circles that fol - lowed the Sadducean laws. In some cases, these sources agree with laws found in the MMT document, which represents the early members of the sect and their protest against the Hasmonean priesthood and its following of Pharisaic laws. The Sadducean approach to the interpretation of the Torah is the basis of the sources of the Temple Scroll and also of the MMT document, and these are just some of the ways that the Sadducean legal tradition reached the sectarians. The Temple Scroll, probably put together around 120 BCE, makes use of these older sources. So this material will reveal much about Pre-Maccabean law. These documents give early evidence of the nature of Jewish law before the Maccabean Revolt and before the rise of the Qumran sect. A Call for Change Some have suggested that the Temple Scroll is a kind of messianic law. (It speaks about a messianic temple, after all.) The document says that a third courtyard should be added to the Temple precincts that is so large it would have covered the entire inhabited area of what was Jerusalem in the second century BCE. One part of the text is called the Festival Calendar and spells out all the holi - days as based on the holidays found in Leviticus and Numbers. The text also adds additional holidays, including two extra harvest festivals and an extra New Year in the spring. For each and every festival, it discusses the specific sacrifices and how to offer them. The scroll says that the temple outlined in the scroll is to be used until the day of creation or blessing (that is, until the messianic era). The scroll specifi - cally says that it is not about the messianic era; it is for the present. This doc - ument is a reformist document calling for complete changes in the nature of the law and society under the Hasmoneans. In the Dead Sea Scrolls, the authors constantly level attacks against their opponents. This document, however, doesn’t do that. This document just says, “This is what I think and these are the ways to live,” and this can be contrasted with the tremendous invective in the other Dead Sea Scrolls texts. This is one reason why, when this was first published, many thought that it was not closely connected with the Qumran sect.

57 LECTURE ELEVEN 5 8 be The Th pl pu qu er Go bu Jer ea he He con str Th ab th Te Te yar cam la th di t n e o c e h t au re com Inc re Sad th it T T T T T I n I O M n a n vine lo an e e l a l he he he he he s n y cause r e uct i r at o th e at mpl mpl ne a r ns d lt d u d r s r e pose thw l r th e h t oks od stan sti ut cou tex. i ebu duce n ea p ma sha sal ed . o pu n n L La re re a t n a t th of most Te y e L d Je ure r I a o on fo o e. e n a pr s aw esi or Tem d at rp e w o laws f a f e Te w nde f rt l p m e T was a Isr to il as mp w t in red r i a t qua r f the m. d esn t y l re ks, Isr T for T yard his ose t r th th u a o w tha s , s re th o c g mple w ael, a he he of rgin e h r n f wo or t u o le a er er n i f d ple ebu ael built n re thr hou is a To w the S rte wh a fun s to in an re t exp the s c r e th t o tur he scrol w first pe an ce y t r it uld te exts, e w and e e r lo te a spect, a f h r built the d expa th a is ich bui is w as ild gh dam s Scr as nd xt Kin n cate d e b i r c s e d th ned rhap nde a b ctiy of a and s is th King as King mu at d im co Te by d r a y .s e s Te e th ld it d l a o so e docu it a the th lo ol, g r a f King d se bu e wa nd o agin n urt Te a nd ncy en e g ltiped mple ed d o t mple t fro s rest th s eb Te s cated e n m be lso he r the tod out. ems troyed e h t Te t ouped pr in yar tal s evn mple e it size Te the e th a t m ate the Templ. mple, ment gins he e; ovides in a prohe is Te Solmn mple, t an e s p m e T of Tem r he mp the ds “to the ect was As wond an the auth n i plat n i clear is difer Tem in a mple, co the of t econ wa coming he s o t with T le in , olgica in arin make aro cie wha h t the tha mpilaton b Babylo ple empl the ho to form T e l b begin ut s size p ors the e h t e an 586 ts countr ple er empl nt uilt und recint tha wevr, whet to omic nt b i B a t Temp l i u b he tha rep . pre th sanct of und times m gath of Tem e T coma ca his ma t tha b becaus of at BCE. fro otivaed nia smo , e l ne the san y t g n i d noti sent-d the he me in y e l p m Tem erstan t f it ke sent Mou m, King er name he eatur le erd as g it ple: an was e h t par is shou ctiy de y tabe to anciet source in out the Exile b Go the o t thed d mount go a now ple nd uildng. e r nt ale s d ay h t ab an Solmn th e tog wh m esir ding d’s a an es it to rnacle. in ld tho dwe r of law u o r o Qumra s i to e adites to wa eant out T y l o H is n in and the ole kn ethr the b be empl ma a r o expan s a p se h est th world. e h g ner, wh s com by ut, l in resnc for ave own f of a 18 n eling e Fro e pro very exprs terials in top docu wh as o i t o by ich Deut nlarge f o h t rebuilt abou of it T this n the do posed BCE. mid the an empl from a e m sion o ra a a se 520 Mou e i l o H of the n erly it s smal cuments kin o d pu ment diates m the tex date ctari tha a h t sto t e t u sa the the in ron was av ode d le, fou t world. g, and of nt BCE the The h nctuary.” re , s forwad , s th od of or t r oused beliv h b and im T t the in r. a an of i id is r u o c l e he labe my it e l i h w ns. il, ut much empl pre rebuilt. to T of expand was eas r e p portan Ther Te MT Je tha d r empl. the had adites a the filed origna sanctiy Ther’s the the outer - should ther nd d r a y t rusalem. mple n o s a to closey probaly d scrol. thes c n a s God built sm ba nd The entir creatd Mou desrt tex, tha was anyo King in sic cou The aler d wer t l pro o t hat to great yt i t be h no a o nt the so ad f r t e. in - - translated “You may establish” or “You must establish a king over you.” The Law of the King document understands it to be “must.” In the Hasmonean period, the descendants of the Maccabees ruled, but they were high priests. Only later did they call themselves kings, and many ques - tioned their right to be rulers. Indeed, it seems the Qumran sectarians opposed Hasmonean rule on this basis. The text here puts forward the notion that the Torah requires a king. The implication is that these priests have no right to occupy the function that should belong to the king. Furthermore, the sectarians believed that the king had to be Jewish and was not allowed to make use of military force for predatory reasons. There are reports that some of the Hasmonean kings did use military force to take over other lands (predatory reasons). It is likely that the text is arguing against the practices of these kings, and yet the text requires that the king raise an army and provide a royal guard constituted of one thousand men from each tribe. Throughout, the Temple Scroll imagines that all twelve tribes are in existence. These guards are supposed to be trustworthy men who fear God, and they are supposed to remain with the king. The purpose of the law is to make sure no one attempts to attack the king. There was an episode during the Hasmonean period in which one of the leaders was killed after being tricked into an ambush. The text indicates that it came into being sometime after or during the rule of Jonathan, who ruled from 152 to 143, because it was at that time that he was captured, circa 143, and killed. This text also specifies a need for a council of elders. The council, according to the document, should have twelve priests, twelve Levites, and twelve princes of the tribes. The idea is that the king must consult the council. So it seems in many ways that there is a reaction to some negative practices going on in the Hasmonean era. There was a demand that the council of the Hasmonean era, which was made up of friends and associates of the Hasmoneans and which had a lot of aristocrats and other rich people in it, had to be replaced with a council made up according to the constitutional arguments of the Temple Scroll. So when it comes to dating the Law of the King, the author seems to tell us that the text must date from after 143 BCE. Not only did the Temple Scroll call for following Sadducee-like law regarding much of the Temple service and the holidays, but it called for a complete revision of the political system in the Hasmonean period and a replacing of the one that existed. Relation of the Temple Scroll to the Dead Sea Sect This was a reformist document that called for so many changes in the archi - tecture of the Temple, Jewish law, and the political system that to date the scroll one should look for a period in which someone would want these changes because there were injustices and improprieties in the governmental system to which the scroll was reacting. Such a period is the Hasmonean period, around 143 BCE and a bit later. So the Temple Scroll is a polemic, albeit a quiet and peaceful one.

59 This scroll also has an added significance to everything discussed before. When it was discovered in 1967, it triggered a return to the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls in their real Jewish context. Once this happened, it enabled scholars to make new strides in understanding the scrolls and their signifi - cance for Judaism and Christianity. The Temple Scroll illustrated the links between its system of Jewish law and that found in the MMT document and other texts. Altogether, these docu - ments have enabled the recovery of Sadducean laws on all kinds of subjects. Scholars have learned so much about the Sadducean legal system that they can understand how it served as the backdrop for the developments in Jewish law that are illustrated in the Dead Sea Scrolls. N E V E L E E R U T C E L

60 FOR GREATER UNDERSTANDING

Questions

1. What was the theology of Revelation that motivated the author of the Temple Scroll? 2. How did the author reedit and reorganize the Torah (Five Books of Moses) in order to express his own views on matters of Jewish law?

Suggested Reading

Schiffman, Lawrence H. Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their True Meaning for Judaism and Christianity. Garden City, NY: Anchor Doubleday, 1995.

Other Books of Interest

Maier, Johann. The Temple Scroll: An Introduction, Translation and Commentary. Salem, WI: Sheffield, 1985.

61 Lecture 12: The Scrolls, Judaism, and Christianity

The Suggested Reading for this lecture is Lawrence H. Schiffman’s Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their True Meaning for Judaism and Christianity, chapters 23, 24, and 25.

The History of Judaism The Dead Sea Scrolls show the inner development within Judaism in the third, second, and first centuries BCE. In this period, a major transition took place between the religion of ancient Israel (First Temple) and what became Judaism in the form of the Mishnah and the Talmud (the canonical docu - ments of Rabbinic Judaism that set the stage for Medieval and modern Jewish thought and history). The people of the Dead Sea Scrolls were not the Pharisees, the predeces - sors of the Talmudic Rabbis. Rather, the Pharisees only appear in polemical context when they are being argued against by the sectarians. This material, therefore, must be evaluated very carefully, because so much here seems to emphasize traditions of the sectarians, and it was ultimately the Pharisees and Sadducees who shaped the society. The Scrolls’ Influence on Rabbinic Tradition Aspects found in Rabbinic Judaism are already observable in the scrolls. There is a great emphasis on Jewish law and on using interpretation to learn the law from the Bible. Further, there is great emphasis on the role of inter - pretation in understanding the conceptual framework of Judaism. Purity is very important, as are ethics. At the same time, this is a group that has left the Temple, so the sectarians are a kind of forerunner of the Synagogue that would become so significant after the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE. Also, the scrolls show criticisms of how the Second Temple operated and thereby provide insight into Second Temple operations. It is apparent that the sectarians inherited the traditions of the Zadokite priests and used these traditions to create, expand, and foster their own ideas pertaining to Jewish law. Many scholars have argued that laws the later Rabbis claimed were ancient were really not, and the Rabbis’ statements regarding earlier periods should be discarded. But the scrolls prove that some of the statements of the later Rabbis are accurate. A variety of laws in the scrolls reflect practices about which later Rabbis were speaking, so many of the reports of these Rabbis seem to be more authoritative than previously thought. E V

L In the Dead Sea Scrolls, collections were already being arranged by subject, E

W significant because the arrangement of legal materials by subject was a T major part of what became the early Rabbinic tradition. The example of mys - E

R ticism in the scrolls shows that the kind of early mysticism found in rabbinic U

T sources is already presaged in the Dead Sea Scrolls. C E L

62 The Synagogue and Messianism After the destruction of the Temple, the Synagogue, which had begun to emerge somewhat earlier, moved to center stage. The sectarians, who had removed themselves from the Temple, followed a kind of proto-Synagogue approach by praying on their own and not participating in the Temple. They lived a life in which all that was important was the life of the sect, the study of the Torah, and the offering of prayers. The Dead Sea Scrolls also show the extent to which messianism was impor - tant to all Jews. There were kinds of Jewish messianism that did not make it into the first two centuries CE, but somehow these forms of mysticism remained underground within the Jewish communities. By the third and fourth centuries, messianic Apocalyptic ideas reemerged in Jewish thought. Within the rabbinic community, there was a turning toward ideas of mysticism, magic, and supernatural ideas. Important to both Judaism and Christianity is the way the scrolls show the standardization of the Hebrew Bible. In the Dead Sea Scrolls, biblical texts date from the third, second, and first centuries BCE. But in the first century CE and the scrolls from Masada, there no longer are variant text forms. This text, the so-called Masoretic text, over time became the normative form of the biblical text. This is not the only form, because in Christianity the biblical text that was copied into the New Testament is copied from the Greek Septuagint Bible, which often has a text that is different from the Hebrew Bible; but most of the variations between the earlier Bibles and the later Bibles were a result of the process of standardization in which the Rabbinic Masoretic text pushes out the other biblical texts. This is all observable in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Early Church and the Qumran Community When the scrolls were first found, a number of naïve ideas were put forward. One was the assumption that the Essenes might be proto-Christians. But despite the sharing of some ideas, it simply doesn’t make sense to label them as such. There is no evidence that Jesus or John the Baptist or any other major Christian figure was at Qumran. There is no New Testament at Qumran, and there is no evidence that any Christian leader is mentioned in the scrolls. By and large, the ideas of Christianity are not found in these texts, but the scrolls are helpful in understanding the figure of Jesus. All the messianic fig - ures in the text are combined into the figure of Jesus. It is clear that early Christianity inherited a wide variety of messianic ideologies from Judaism, brought those together, and effectively argued that Jesus represented the totality of the messianic traditions. There are important parallels between the early Christian church and the Qumran community. The early church had some communal property and was a close-knit group with official disciples. The early Christian community over time moved away from observance of the Law. But the early Christian community did not accept the idea of ritual purity as a borderline between it and other Jews and did not practice the kind of mes - sianism found in the sectarian groups. The sectarians expected a great war

63 LECTURE TWELVE 6 4 gr Or Sea al Ch ba id th ext er Th re i s e w i s Qu pr on th Ma er in Ch cam Ongo th an var te on ar ab an an Th schol to at So R C T T M I O n c i n a . m s i n a r e d e e e xt o a vo o a e he e h al ead si ces o s. d a le th th e e n a r r l l as, ent mra ir sa i t sou up ture ba ma ist ist ance me ut th sect hose Ne tex of ca n s ect e arly w lt e e h n p th s a S To So ars y f s da m u Q er is o ro ia ia ing in it act crols to y se t Me En ca e t a b n th w fo the rce n h ly h t Dea h must me ra nity nity. io h t and blem y , in wife fo ha e tha H e i asum e un an itself an led se t T g h T g k c have d av th ind g ns sia h e case fluen t Inf und s eb E is enu Qu esta hat a r t w dieval he s ro d o ose exts d ct’s d n an o w t sen e tha a en ap he idea irect f In be n rew fo d o r ups lu an ila have the in nd, of ritag S mr is th nic D n o if d fel i Qum in und s c e s d, n ce. u men re ar ea en ficult t en fa ption ble d influ ays, in who t the tha e s i w e J are .d n live an h he y l w wh ls gue S Ka the hen ct, t it kin E laws co ave ra ce it e i ha s te er texs s n a i r a t n ch cript ta y a w ra a tha t in o t er ran ntly ca scr th Ne e o wid is pies ra xtua g t a 73 t f b t th to mo ke was d an h . tha c nce Cairo f e er cordin th Qumr ut cou creatd n to h it e, in the er th t is the ols. w tha tha ure es, n conlud er ged so was e CE. exist t se contiue lde be r at t e than l most o be ero s t l o v e t contra of Te the he s creat varin rse t Dead me e s Je sa em he ar Q n u e the d a a sho Gineza asume the A docu an stamen lo so umran T destro nd e ed wish m e me ea t literas s r e d no g ms n early dir he n his oked ha Christan to the or se o scrol often , umber wn to e th dicts Qumr rly reach tion at ce. Sea d ect. s i ve o t as ments d lon presa rious early t whic at th me d n a t o th com a Mishn t ch t h. th o t yed hat at a h o chur fter t at scro t h O th e it ger of a houg ans Ye at a convi Scrols Q urch. ave an ciru I u ed n Jewish at wil writ e v the n re as are mar of munity. questio umran Christan ge r e d n vio h t time the in Qumr t th fou had ls th had texs of sectarin ah actuly the th e scro e v e i l e b tha in ben e car le celibay 68 e the en late Christan ried er t is nd e e was trinscaly Christan d n a t s ces o nt and M th and arly y l r a be wo a various ther ry CE an in Tora ls sect the exp idle end te at ns in mesianc This direct and situaon is en gre uld a the sch a xts wer the d ceasd trad th Ch the tha r h C se on a inteo han cer bulk celibat s h t h inteo tha of n i s e at. cted describ may h olars Ag ems th mea ar ristany. mu e t a or o ear to ave itons n a i t s i Qu Christan tain sour influe n a tex the Jewish. influe d, nly. at ea a gath es, y e h t of evid chose st whet rea ly mran a lo ns spe for have y c a i d e m m i to to nal ben of sect, th th mesa overth ces ha drew naly pe oking Chris som ed erd nce comunity, a e v o m nced at in e dr tha exist. the me a h ak nd ve aceful ncig va M er aw w b scrol some of T to in d t e te a typical sianm. y on abou ishna riatons heir m ben w inste hic tian Qum row a to fluencd nd it ge. at a early xt eschw , t n e m of the Josephu ho to t odife, The e Judaism n o r t s Masd, a Chr the has th ven once pr a ide tex of serio ad t led the f o great ran lead h wer e celibat. ogresin a close of influec istan and texual the as se m Dead s a some in drawn from man g had those wa sectari e the ers it the usly. th a s se m whic had va o er s - or th but an f lit of ri e - - - a - This material may have survived underground (among remnants of the Dead Sea sect, for instance). The other possibility is that discoveries of texts were made both in Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages, and it may be that some of the Dead Sea Scrolls were received earlier than was known and became part of the ongoing Jewish tradition. The Shaping of Christianity and Judaism As far as can be seen, all effects of the sectarians on early Jewish tradition ended around the destruction of the Temple. In Judaism, the sectarian influ - ence was felt until the third and fourth centuries. From the scrolls, it is clear that the relationship of early Judaism and Christianity was a dynamic one, and that they each drew in different ways from the Judaism that existed before. They both drew messianic ideas, but these messianic ideas in Judaism called for a kind of redemption that argued for the observance of Jewish law and the following of the ancient Jewish traditions. For Christianity, the messianism that had come to the fore in the Qumran scrolls and which molded Christianity called for a different kind of approach. The observance of the Law and the attempt to follow the Torah as it was understood by the Jews would no longer be necessary. The Qumran scrolls have provided a better understanding of those developments, and it is because of the scrolls that one can chart so well this history and the way in which these two traditions each went its own way.

65 FOR GREATER UNDERSTANDING

Questions

1. How do we understand the Dead Sea Scrolls as part of the wider history of Judaism in Second Temple times? 2. What contributions do the scrolls make to our understanding of the rise of Christianity and the early Christian texts?

Suggested Reading

Schiffman, Lawrence H. Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their True Meaning for Judaism and Christianity. Garden City, NY: Anchor Doubleday, 1995.

Other Books of Interest

66 Lecture 13: Controversial Messianic Texts

The Suggested Reading for this lecture is Lawrence H. Schiffman’s Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their True Meaning for Judaism and Christianity, chapter 21.

Expanding on the Book of Daniel The Book of Daniel is found in a number of manuscripts in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Scholars have long debated when Daniel was composed, but it is recognized as one of the latest books of the Hebrew Bible. At Qumran, there are also a variety of pseudo-Danielic texts, documents that seem to be expansions on the Book of Daniel. Daniel is an apocalyptic book presaging the End of Days and includes mysti - cal visions of God. In the Greek Book of Daniel, there are additions that indi - cate that some people obviously thought there was more that had to be said in the name of Daniel. The Son of God Text Among these additions to Daniel (in Aramaic) in the Dead Sea Scrolls is a text known in the field as the Son of God text, which is really a type of apoc - ryphal Daniel text. The manuscript is dated to the first century BCE. In gener - al terms, texts in Aramaic are considered pre-Qumranian. In Daniel 7: 13 –14 (Hebrew Bible), there is an enigmatic line: “As I looked on in the night vision, one like a human being came with the clouds of Heaven . . . Dominion, glory, and kingship were given to him. All peoples and nations of every language must serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away and his kingship one that shall not be destroyed.” The Qumran addition to Daniel mentions a king, and then somebody, thought to be Daniel, falls before the throne of the king, assumed to be the ruler of Babylon. The king has had a dream that is going to be interpreted in an apocalyptic manner. The speaker says to the king, “You have been angry from eternity and your years have been spent in fear. I will interpret your vision and what will come to pass.” This is typical of Daniel, who explains dreams. “Because of the great kings, there will be great distress on the earth. There will be a war between the peoples and a great slaughter in the cities.” This is a kind of description of the Hellenistic period. The speaker goes on, “Fighting among kings one with another . . . Then there will arise the final king and he will be great among the earth. The nations shall make peace with him and all will serve him. . . . The son of the Great Master shall he be called and by His name he will be called. He will be said to be the son of God and they will call him the son of the Most High.”

67 LECTURE THIRTEEN 6 8 Ble th is ments well have at e ki Me ss iah re fe me nt i w n I The sect gr Jesu me ea an y t i l a e r e h t pa “G o Me s Is r si e pe r ps we is a Ho gr Ga th Cl T T T F T C Wh T l in e m e e le d. earl l l only hi s he or he he e h i eu ae r r le a h t mpo s r u bri si e io si at li al at g e d a rr ed esia me n o S a v e r p ari se s er at as xa s i p Pie re do -D l. d ’s t ia t Pi q rl y el el e i P h sa wa s hat t do e a er ta i y ani ngs. o ex t To i a t Th ey ue t i ear mp sem w of one yea siah. n n xt n rt o so n” , hat from er is i n s i in id rc cu me nt n i d t gnore f th r a a spe h s c e c r ent te xt , c o L nic stion de st ru re ced ac .l i an i o Jaco a th at nt Jud le d th in c ni ed uke. w e Luke to , Er a. rs, d as Th giv f u o fragment ason par hi ev a il ng esigna d is a a is te xt s ex pe c a D to of other el figur to l r or re ct l l bou king aism. Mes is d l bu t ef a M e th e e M b ne ve r to pas ic a b is the h t r o ale nd to Th w k r T e ct i esiah a e e tex w e b is ne , de si gn at io n fo i (s im il ar he re be e r hic me whe s e t h a i s s s s e n ca th ey de sc c ho wh at it th i on e sia tex it t a t fr ag men tar y in rev entire ly tion ompl o d l i v e de sc ri bi ng o in a c of sho b th a led to so-caled t show s mber re co ge, he of u va out in te rpr ete d Jesu, fo ll ow ed h ts the Luke, ear d e l l tr an sla ti wi ll the se en da nt we re cals . this ul d s i t r, tex wi ll uld e t the rious etel that case the th er e some r to context the r e a ly t x a e m be this Qumra t tha t n ha ve the pasge e h s ha pp not text, y th e tha sh Christan d the s i ju w son deal and newbor fo r e r a o wo rl d di is o or ki st t n on , Son ares of th e is by r a W a ca ther sam al ki fferent f be an d, B pr th for but ex i en th e a h t to n of go in g o t th e oo k n of t x e so u s wi n ng re d s is th e esnc d the d at a of b e be st ed texs. the m es tr uc ti langu u c c o th e l u R pe ac e the at some it e s o p p o actually kingd e m apr in i surp n Ho us e wi th t em pt io n. ni tia ll y, a h t t f esianc o he was God idea ermino He br ew mesianc the idea th e es si ah . co ab ou t r Je f the to most edm text Da ni el ) in . t r nect “son su, age on e be T s i om ise Messianic t a Jews s d e of ently a af te r an ci ent tex o New e h of nd mong known of wer n o s o t there sc ho lar s e h t ang l th e a hig o th ther with what sm al l of of say la ng uag e T texs r a W Da vi d, ing gy. of e b r from a c at es to ra ti on d th e hi s the li te ra tu re . “son Testam n o God” th e he ad els term Ro ma n dr to d e l l t an some t s e d figure are Bu a He br ew. his from t e s the is o th ev il do er s wil awn nothe term fr ag men t. tha Christa in Qumr wi ck ed . War. d f of t e ac tu all y id en tif ied s a t y b quite de of her d e y o r it h e h the f o text fo in be te xt God” e ent the ha d sem Qumr reach fr is th e signato “son y n a m ru le lowing r e h t e wil the om F s n o S Th es e an an d com no tex go i urther, Fu rt her , is s a in main th at nity. to se ct ari an Th n a ar e indca really n a i s s e M was ing number ov er reign be in g Old th Th is e a an of es L th en munity, it be nd.” know er e uke d , s r a l o h c s e tha f o designato : fi ts God as Ther ar e de fe at ed to way sectar War o o g “He herita Testamn be nt early this g i L is th e sm al l is tes about. o th e pi er ced 1: we ll a be on e this ver pr op h used .” d to e t h Pi er c of wil bac c i Scro gr ou 3 phrase la nd a some the cal to el p o e p ge is ians. 2 s on be V frag in to E w tex the fr – t u b k b cr e su s r e a . a r ag , led ou ld 3 of fo e p, ll ed e a an d a of into an d - - fo as - r - . - is It ni r Another fragment actually mentions the four archangels, which is something that Daniel talks about. There are fragments of the War Rule that mention graves and corpses and the return of troops to their base. There is mention of the destruction of evil and there is mention of military horns. The enemy is identified as the Romans, which was also found in the War Scroll. The text in one fragmentary passage describes what is going to happen in the End of days when the Prince of the Congregation, this messianic figure, is going to lead the sectarians. Some leader of the enemy is going to be captured and they will bring him before the Prince of the Congregation. The idea that there is going to be the execution of a pierced messiah, which of course would have been a kind of model for the crucifixion, is false, but this is the passage that has been so controversial: “As it is written in the Book of Isaiah, the Prophet, The thickets in the forest shall be hacked away with iron, and the Lebanon trees in their majesty fall, but a shoot (Messiah) shall grow out of the stump of Jesse. A twig shall sprout from his stock . . . shoot of David, and they will be judged, the . . . Prince of the Congregation will kill him (the leader of Romans) and the army of with drums and with dances. And the high priest commanded . . . the corpses of the Kittim (Romans).” This passage is an interpretation of Isaiah that parallels the Pesher Isaiah A text. The Pesher is a book that interprets the Book of Isaiah as if it is happen - ing now, as a kind of contemporizing biblical prophecy. On the other hand, the sprout from Jesse is an idea that comes from Jeremiah and it clearly refers to the Davidic messiah. This sprout is maneuvered over to become part of the Isaiah text so that it becomes a messianic designation. There is the mention of a word later on that is taken to mean “pierced,” but in reality refers to dances that are to take place at the End of Days during this absolutely happy occasion. What is really being described in the text is the destruction of the leader of the Romans by the Prince of the Congregation. There is no question that this text has nothing to do with the piercing of the messiah. It is a text describing the hope that the Romans would be defeated by a messianic figure, the shoot of Jesse. Jewish Messianism Another interesting messianic text is known as the Messianic Apocalypse. This is a classical statement of Jewish messianism, but some scholars incor - rectly thought that it might presage Christianity. “The heavens and the earth, and all that is in them, will obey God’s Messiah, who will not turn aside from the commandments of the holy ones. Take strength in his service, you who seek the Lord. Will you not find the Lord in this, all you who wait patiently in your hearts? For the Lord will visit the pious ones, and the righteous ones He will call by name.” This quotation has much in agreement with various Jewish texts, including the daily prayer known as the Standing Devotion. The text mentions the revival of the dead (the Resurrection). The Qumran sectarians seem to have believed in the revival of the dead at the End of Days, as did almost all Jews,

69 LECTURE THIRTEEN 7 0 im Mo as of ar bu ta in th tic sta wh Fu asume de th lo from mag Sacri ea th My tin Jew com th as thi n str des des S Al T I An So n g wed ri e e e e e hi p ct o ain t scri ch His rt sm e l yi fo o a st s th g c c act meti o of me De Phar scro me also her is s th n mo ne ic i ns, tic ng ri ri Ch t u th the fi e s fou imp w h. a be be . is be th n a ce G pl i t e a er s an siah i n h e i Ma tex d n g of sm ri n aw mes d s m d e od i l an Th in d s e ek, d, t ls. ise. nd . ain e fo ma stian the or in w t ar the tha entio on se S te T sent dicate the th ot gi Qu ay s. und mo e s, ith wh tan tha her ea ea Th a the i xt gic e ci fo her n is the te nd t res ur wil late A the scr olls mr ms from ans re for i res urr Ju lo er on al spe id ch e S xt a o n ly, in n ia Boo k of goe mos t n f a s cro m e ea M wi daism umbe re sectarians are eru to of r e die is l t inte n lin th ha aks tha exa the rec tio tried yst an ar Ju a to n ca m h we th ca l tha gic typ e s g ect ion ks n e s. t hav e a a t d other agic. ica re und n t ners hirten e o b War all mp le the nd mystic ve mystic aism. r so about re m . ica f t eyond Th intm st se to idea ndar, n of One Dan ie l Jesu ag Jew i me le er a a be te of l e e is solar get poi nted the of Scrol. person of Jewish standi specia ic var xts of secta elm see ately th the of resu inte Ezekil’s can of la sh the was se whic God what e l how ie . h ind ter a med quar thes So m ty mes siah , imself ver sion s resting texts ents w existn divne rians dea d to not . rectd l ateri ica inde Jewish tow ard a g o mesian, me to and Furth Christany a s f the ter sough th to te ver d norm , find no of conta e of o seing ind wo sem aft er cross g of close tha l thron d tex viso t . ermore, the wa sion what per tho se in of r T uld ica he p whi ch thi s mystic. thire ealy t al he ractied ys in s the to mes sian is ther taing the divne re ns ting e p to the caled be re they a magical noti tex t. in erson re in ta make the who la a scro o have e viso com ing whic is n place there whic resu kes whic f lin ap tionshp tra is Ezeki we a throu wanted uniqe But e to by ls wan t the nsform a n dis tinc tly s had of p between A trie m rently mystic str lace use o spells are is ks. the ectd. has the thi s e the study mesiah f of Songs gh . arly d and ong th l glo to For to This and lu texts to Chr the ancie e of Him ativ to in mystic div tex t fi ry. nar ther God. ba Jewish to ear ly gain nd mystica ideas Ben of be C the istan mes siah , m n e Daniel. patern of si hri stia n protect to doe s that e cale nt ysticism Qumra pre -Chr is exprinc, her an recogniz the Qu throne u Simlar irrespec wa vison. Sira Chr isti a of sectarin ndersta d tha idea preac ndar mystic mran l not s magic the Sabth is bent The t fol one one 49, n ide a. so are ve and is tha dis mys - ed of tia n ideas h tive nit y. me sec ry tex to for in s. in - It - - - - FOR GREATER UNDERSTANDING

Questions

1. How have certain texts regarding messianism fed the ongoing controver - sies regarding the Dead Sea Scrolls? 2. What do these texts really teach us about the nature of Jewish messianism in Second Temple times ?

Suggested Reading

Schiffman, Lawrence H. Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their True Meaning for Judaism and Christianity. Garden City, NY: Anchor Doubleday, 1995.

Other Books of Interest

Collins, John J. The Scepter and the Star: The Messiahs of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Ancient Literature . New York: Doubleday, 1995.

71 LECTURE FOURTEEN 7 2 str e ty p im a Scr The fr R T C th e scr wi b fa p b th a sim su Ju th b th ta ti o s ev in T Se An Wh Th T cr ar le nce ven e ro y te el he o he e hr g a ce e e e b l he n. id m ch dai o a m l ri cl ol l ol i God t loi a l bl ol pl ev e fo r ot f ne nge y sol scro scro the scro is en e ous at t fi C Sug l aim Th e a th ems. he mir s fa s y d sm De a in se rse he Jud o i rs s.” tian f w urs ce d ve f th e se J a ci h g ter p to t Dead th cond t ud a r ls ls ls. how be t aculo no ad rea to ublicaton d in o ng re es i This De an a aism s t par ex hi d at it evr e est som es nd in O of solve g havior tion w a t th the y, ar e Se a so o The t d ad is m, u re th n he n t t ted liter e t Dea peo p difcult cate he valid in Ch o bi us S in Se u lution of ything e e th a no rm lo Sea stud sualy to o e tw o ts re lok troduc nd such S scr ext e f n ristany a Ch ri st ia ni ty , a hum oking the ap De ple , pe op le Rea d cr the th gor an tu sa are ot s su sect Sea Ch ols y ent pea s te ov er ol ls is Scr ad re al , an her . d tiona at De f ch p an y of d to ail rad re re d a rista ap ro in t ing d for of re t Se ha ols they ra eus conta or ad i ha ve ion fe al the he T a p ar ch in g Sc fa han t to blems, wr it e b m ocalypti y’s icaly s sp on si bl e, rob h n inte rs wer t y l a r-ou difcultes who a ce e us eu ms . rols f Sea re plagir nity. isue tel e or scr ex p an Sc d, to d influe prob le Sc xcavtion cognize in eopl an d e rest e eus b bo o t ms d th ff ec ti ve ly t about difer ols ro the machin y exp her d r re de Scr stu and I ca te o s nstead evloping ch is God le ls: L lig ci vi ls ks is ism, ex t ep in gro dy. hat ms. phe ect ect an ced ols ap lectu who ious ent an d e th go ri es are ab ou t the li za ti on , in tha m Th , histo mysteri d vi is ups ters u at s, This a nome wern’t some wh achin Most denc st to evryo , re Pu ways? nd eir th b t is come ap pr op th scrol, re vie th th it ory e ha en at ry pe tha 14 ose c one blic e e is 1 tha th e in of True person is w. o ve – no t ople a lack scr peo is kind somen me : u he an 3. impor , i nd s. Law ne. n p up Anot gen think wh sc ro ll s One fo tha t t Cult by this ri a te re st d ols’ o he t peol and Why an of r o Me civlzaton of who wh en b o of with le te An so sen eraly ren h e “curse wil tan her a wil, ur t miraculo idea ic baln they umans anig re corp hink a mo de me this d solve e p on do in an d e ce cognize gr have strang erson’ th n lose ationlsc idea pe op le ways. who in o th e eat aceptd kind of us, ey is the hap are th H. ce of lon d. de ba fact, of for at s tha cu lt ur e to fail lon De ad from war is Schifman’s an the could wrote scrol e the goin ger in te re st . o s th ens O s tha losing Judaism f theoris th d g ex pe ri en ce te ape olve to prevnt er th ther ape Dea or at se the ben se a e th ei und Se a by articles to an d result th some nse who humans time to scrol is comand those read d isue es both th r the others, rance erstand g re-c Th is rance Sea Sc ro ll s. me an ci vi li za e oing ab of p use whe a in eopl bal ers toali n out rig peo in ar th e is d - of - to n - ht e of - - - and wrong. With the scrolls, there is a kind of negative magic, where people who are fine scholars can suddenly begin, based on some feature of the scrolls, to come up with crazy theories. Much of what has happened with the scrolls has to do with the debate over who the sectarians were, or over who composed the Dead Sea Scrolls. In this debate, there are a variety of points of view from normal scholars who studied the material. But there are also people who suggest, for example, that all the scrolls come from the Jerusalem Temple, despite the fact that the scrolls say the opposite, or that Qumran itself was really a trade emporium, despite the fact that they can’t explain the presence of the scrolls there, or that it was a fortress, or a book production facility. All these explanations have in common the selection of one detail and the loss of scholarly objectivity in which this one detail becomes the driving force of an entire theory. Popular Interest in the Scrolls There are a large number of television programs regarding the scrolls. These shows feature an interesting mix of the trends of sensationalism and serious study. The sensational aspects of these programs are certainly intended to generate ratings, but are also connected with the idea of “invert - ing reality,” the phenomenon in which the press continues to believe things that are similar to those things believed by irresponsible scholars, especially as regards the scrolls’ connection with Christianity. From the days of Edmund Wilson and his books on the Dead Sea Scrolls of the 1950s, the media have over and over assumed that the real truth of the scrolls, or at least that which is going to get people to watch programs, is that they must reveal the truth about Jesus, John the Baptist, and the early Christians. No matter how many times they have been shown the entire text in translation, no matter how many times they’ve been told about scientific and increasingly accurate carbon-14 dating, the media acts as if the real real - ity is that of unsupportable theories. The Biblical Archaeological Review , though sensationalistic in some ways, constantly tries to present responsible and appropriate views. Further, the many museum exhibits that have been put together by the Dead Sea Scrolls Foundation, the Israel Antiquities Authority, and the Israel Museum over and over attempt to teach responsible views on the scrolls, but no matter what, the general media continue to assume that the scrolls contain the secret of Christian origins. In fact, some of the media don’t even realize that the scrolls are Jewish texts, and as noted, the only way the scrolls can be used to understand Christianity is by understanding that the scrolls are the texts of the Judaism that existed before Christianity arose. Other Dimensions to the Scrolls in Society The Dead Sea Scrolls, which themselves preach hatred of outsiders, have become a stimulus in society for the improvement of Jewish-Christian rela - tions. This has happened because the scrolls brought together a large com - munity of academics (Jewish, Protestant, and Catholic) who worked together on the scrolls and on the interpretation of early Judaism.

73 LECTURE FOURTEEN 7 4 la Web mo Pur com th and sc De re scro se of ly Eli wi th sig ne mo re s fo r mo n ot De it wi de th ma r Ca ar Ch Jud th Jud tu excp Ch T A I T T O T n n de er e he e ose rn tu e der ro h h he he p ns e xt th nce a n a tholi r r di e vari r d th Israe e e i ist ist aism aism sui zer sta scro k e e rn , the cke d if d lls p l d nt s ey el r fun e sp e ls sh to ed e mu ica si scr De sc sc ut icat g a g ia ia t con Sea Sea i Jew to o , n e o tem re a t pr on ng c s h e re roup in er cti the es Su d nity, nity r r se i f ty th e th e f l by nce cr ad ave nf ner st oll ols ols l ls the re ovide , and of ed th the s S e up tex ons p the ol l eds d orm th keni s of In en s w be Scr lation are eco Sc e ublicato ge n or Sh u Se al s. t vi ct or y br a Am e e to s’ ith he t have te desp of D also ha fun nde on o ori lan to nd t ear con ro in g bo stud to inte of atio ia rine scr ols a tha res for po nd the ho th ui n an t ve r gi lan he ctio spo ls the d Sc ro ll s eli ls s a fir rsta create Ju ri ca n in g e ly si ti ve ols ns tex i use rep n t rest ks, n). Te th e t t becom an a emo led st to ie ab h e d of land scr of scr th da Christany, Exh in ne nd n u ra e ave fact in te re st d of nds to ge th er m th d of s pu res nde e pur le d Th t have and th os e . ism . of ne ols he d to ols in the au di en ce , ple-rio e tha th tional th real the ef fe ct T in Israel rchased ibts inform a ex h of es in co sue tha her w the split, e en the a rstandig t e n Bok nt ha two and thes (t fo Scro Israe the re co me relation various a educational also alow ib it s he sig wh os e in for t in r study r newal widest th link cultural the mplet esarch on th and of u is ation have mu Stae the nifcae the a in eir Sh nder rep er man d ls l. the taken an re pr es en t gr some also to in te rg ro up cu lt ur al Dead across a sch seum, Je Th rine in of ou ps ll ship rela ba resn of com of being in re of is en standig (alon com ters. posible y rusalem of is of olars re the icon. te re st ckgroun early sup the pe a cylo t emr to of tionshp on is wh ic h he of evalutio n Sea Israe munitie o forme of ols of ople ts the pportunity. ar ti fa ct variou the g defintly o the one tha ext an Jewish on veral ly The to th e sc ho la rs , with an On the Judaism pedia ges in re la ti on s. ha Scrols . millenia. other l ent this Bo Jud conte get is Dea d origns. d the T to th e of alow imp ve ra s the scrol he betw s m since Ch an ok). man a n of inculate is in g that partn whic to aism gr aterial phot mate land co d of p sc ro ll s se ortan o placem ristany. asp tech xt, ev en ex tr em e an oups eopl. wh f Sea . wo me At those Ther y nse the an d th T made en They Vaticn At In of ership u ect. Web aspe is rial ich his as of uld e the graph nical ndersta has about has thes Dead th e Scrols, Je gr ea te r en or mo in staemn th stud of th e e is Israel. a it to ea the te inter In at same ws o nt und ct also se ri Je up site who a im po rt an ce ). canot sa me ne ach an sch rly peol s as in y 19 Ju of in perm I, ws, values becaus a Sea com a of ersta ndig estd o ou s se mb l the can instinctive daism nd 47, Judaism, le. ncient give In olary whic us f this bi t first he the time with the early includg ti me Israel mon anet It various Scrols study am ou nt s (t ha t about ta of when imedat also ndig with mod coneti in us rep tex th in y ke o out the ev id side and f Jud the of e Jewish- th i of the the a orign place is se - el esnt itse a exhib of v in a the s , en ce draw, aism. the the , ia and re p lf, of a s - - - wide interest in the scrolls and, as a result, the study of the scrolls has moved forward with an increasing momentum. The Future of the Dead Sea Scrolls The hope is that the scrolls will move from a more secluded field of interest to a general, mainstream discussion of Judaism and Christianity. So far reli - gious traditions have not assimilated the Dead Sea Scrolls either for historical or religious issues, and yet the scrolls have a lot to teach about interpreting Judaism and Christianity and their respective Scriptures. So the development of reactions to these materials, despite the fact that they are not official or canonical, is important to assimilate the scrolls into the history of this period. Scholarship has to expand beyond discussing the scrolls as if the core inter - est is an inner corpus relating only to itself. More work needs to be done on the ways the scrolls relate to the history of Judaism and Christianity. What Have We Learned from the Scrolls? The amazing thing about the scrolls is the feeling that one is reading text that literally came out of the ground and that somehow allows people to bridge a gap of two thousand years. Many questions that people have today were the questions of the Dead Sea sectarians. The issues of Judaism and Christianity raised then are still being raised today, and this is perhaps the reason that in an overarching way, these scrolls generated so much interest. The scrolls have truly become a part of civilization. Something that lay buried for two thousand years has suddenly become a mainstay of modern civilization. When scholars learn something new about the scrolls, there is undoubtedly a feeling that they are uncovering something that no one else knows, something that goes back into the age of antiquity. And there is fur - ther hope for the future. Scholars are now on the verge of new types of dis - coveries in terms of the wider relevance of the scrolls. Stay tuned.

75 FOR GREATER UNDERSTANDING

Questions

1. How have the scrolls functioned within the context of our wider intellectual and religious culture? 2. What factors have led to the exaggerated and sensational claims about the scrolls that constantly appear in the general press ?

Suggested Reading

Schiffman, Lawrence H. “Inverting Reality: The Dead Sea Scrolls in the Popular Media.” Dead Sea Discoveries 12, 2005, pp. 24 –37.

Other Books of Interest

Davies, Philip R., George J. Brooke, and Phillip R. Calaway. The Complete World of the Dead Sea Scrolls. London: Thames and Hudson, 2002. Magness, Jodi. The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002. N E E T R U O F E R U T C E L

76 COURSE MATERIALS