Are the Dead Sea Scrolls Pharisaic?

Chapter 4 Are the Dead Sea Scrolls Pharisaic?

Bartosz Adamczewski

The suggestion that the Damascus Document contains distinctively Pharisaic halakah was first put forward by Louis Ginzberg. In the opinion of this Talmudic scholar, the halakic regulations of the Damascus Document gener- ally agree with those of the Pharisees, as they are known from Josephus’s writings and rabbinic sources.1 After the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Chaim Rabin became the main champion of the hypothesis of the Pharisaic origin of these documents.2 These first insights can now by supported with other arguments, which are based on the analysis of the New Testament writings and on linguistic con- siderations. Understandably, it is not possible to demonstrate that all Dead Sea Scrolls were written by a distinct group of people whom ancient sources identify as the Pharisees, not least because attempts at reconstructing social or ideological groups behind our historical sources are always problematic. Nevertheless, it seems that at least some important writings among the so- called sectarian compositions have features that share Pharisaic traits, as we know them from other sources. Due to the current stage of research on the identity of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the analysis of their Pharisaic-like features should be preceded by an analysis of the counter-arguments against such an identification.

1 Are the Dead Sea Scrolls Essene?

It is well known that the Dead Sea Scrolls were first identified as Essene writings. This identification is espoused today by most scholars working on the scrolls.3 However, an analysis of the history of this identification reveals that to a considerable extent it resulted from chance.

1 Louis Ginzberg, Eine unbekannte jüdische Sekte (New York, NY: published by the author, 1922), 1:177–85, 228–32. 2 Chaim Rabin, Qumran Studies, ScJ 2 (London: Oxford University Press, 1957). 3 See Jonathan Klawans, “The Essene Hypothesis: Insights from Religion 101,” DSD 23 (2016): 51–78. For an analysis of the logical and hermeneutical premises in identifying the Dead Sea Scrolls as Essene writings, see Edna Ullmann-Margalit, “Interpretive Circles: The Case

The identification of the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls with the Essenes originated from Pliny’s remark (Nat. 5.73) that the Essenes lived in the region of Ein Gedi. Since the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered not far from the Dead Sea, Ibrahim Sowmy suggested that they might have been hidden there by the Essenes during a period of persecution.4 This idea was taken up by Millar Burrows, although he admitted that this identification was merely a conjecture based on the geographical proximity between the place of the finding of the documents and the Dead Sea.5 The identification of the scrolls as Essene writings was independently argued by Eleazar L. Sukenik.6 In this way, the opinion that the Dead Sea Scrolls were related to the Essenes came to be espoused by a number of scholars soon after the discovery of the documents.7 However, numerous scholars have argued that the remark made by Pliny the Elder, who described a large number of the Essenes living among palms above the town of Ein Gedi, at a safe distance from the shores of the harmful Dead Sea (Nat. 5.73), cannot be regarded as constituting a distinctive link to Qumran, and consequently to the Dead Sea Scrolls.8 Moreover, we do not have much information concerning the ideology of the Essenes, apart from the clearly idealizing description of Philo (Prob. 75–91), which was later probably emulated by Josephus (B.J. 2.119–161; Ant. 13.172;

of the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls and Contemporary Culture: Proceedings of the International Conference held at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem (July 6–8, 2008), ed. Adolfo D. Roitman, Lawrence H. Schiffman, and Shani Tzoref, STDJ 93 (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 649–64. 4 See Millar Burrows, The Dead Sea Scrolls: With Translations by the Author (New York, NY: Viking, 1956), 279. 5 Idem, “The Contents and Significance of the Manuscripts,” BA 11 (1948): 57–61, esp. 58. 6 Eleazar L. Sukenik, Megillot genuzot mittokh genizah qedumah shenimtsaʾah‌ bemidbar Yehudah [Hidden Scrolls from an Ancient Genizah Found in the Judean Desert] (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1948), 16. 7 See Émile Puech, “Khirbet Qumrân et les Esséniens,” RevQ 25 (2011): 63–102, esp. 64–72. 8 See Yizhar Hirschfeld, Qumran in Context: Reassessing the Archaeological Evidence (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2004), 230–33; Jürgen Zangenberg, “Region oder Religion? Überlegungen zum interpretatorischen Kontext von Chirbet Qumran,” in Texte—Fakten—Artefakte: Beiträge zur Bedeutung der Archäologie für die neutestamentliche Forschung, ed. Max Küchler and Karl Matthias Schmidt, NTOA 59 (Fribourg: Academic Press; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006), 25–67, esp. 59–60; Steve Mason, “The Historical Problem of the Essenes,” in Celebrating the Dead Sea Scrolls: A Canadian Collection, ed. Peter W. Flint, Jean Duhaime, and Kyung S. Baek, EJL 30 (Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011), 201–51, esp. 221– 34; Roland Bergmeier, Die Qumran-Essener-Hypothese: Die Handschriftenfunde bei Khirbet Qumran, ihr spezifischer Trägerkreis und die essenische Gemeinschaftsbewegung, BThSt 133 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 2013), 18–24.