The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls

CONTENTS

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pp. xi-xii

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

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pp. xiii-

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

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pp. xv-xx

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

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pp. xxi-

PREFACE: The New Perspective on Second Temple Judaism and “Christian Origins”

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pp. xxiii-xxxi

The Dead Sea Scrolls (or Qumran Scrolls) comprise about eight hundred documents. These scrolls are actual leather or papyrus manuscripts that Jews held and read over two thousand years ago. All the Qumran Scrolls were hidden before 68 C.E., and they were discovered between the winter of 1947 (Cave 1) and February 1956 (Cave 11), in eleven caves on the northwestern shores of the Dead Sea. ...

INTRODUCTION: The Dead Sea Scrolls: Their Discovery and Challenge to Biblical Studies

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pp. 1-24

Origins are fundamental. We are each what we have become because of the way we began both genetically and socially. Often our choices are dictated because of our beginnings, even though we may be only tacitly aware (if at all) of that dimension of our lives. Readily, we comprehend that we will never know where we are and where we seem to be going until we glance back at our past, examining ...

1: THE IMPACT OF THE JUDEAN DESERT SCROLLS ON ISSUES OF TEXT AND CANON OF THE HEBREW BIBLE

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pp. 25-36

Elsewhere I have elaborated on others of the five areas.² I want to focus here on what study of the scrolls has done for understanding concept and method in the study of Jewish and Christian canons of Scripture. Miqra in Judaism and the First or Old Testament in Protestant Christianity, though the same in contents, are structurally quite different; they are in fact different canons. The received canon of Miqra (Miqra ...

2: QUMRAN AND THE ENOCH GROUPS: Revisiting the Enochic-Essene Hypothesis

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pp. 37-66

Since the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, there has been considerable discussion about the nature of the “Qumran library.”¹ The presence of biblical material and the recognition of diverse theologies in the scrolls² demonstrate that the literature was not composed by the same group. However, geographical, chronological, and literary elements concur in support of the view that all the manuscripts were originally part of a single ...

3: THE BIBLICAL SCROLLS FROM QUMRAN AND THE CANONICAL TEXT

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pp. 67-76

The finds in the Judean Desert have taught us a good deal about how and when the stabilized text and canon of the Hebrew Bible came into existence. They extend the labors and insights revealed by the intense searches and collations of medieval manuscripts carried out in the last decades of the eighteenth century. ...

4: THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS AND THE HEBREW SCRIPTURAL TEXTS

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pp. 77-100

The historical evidence for our understanding of the textual character and the contents of the Bible in antiquity has multiplied greatly. As is often the case with new knowledge, our ability to understand, digest, and describe it adequately languishes somewhat behind the evidence. At Qumran and neighboring sites in the Judean Desert, explorers discovered about 230 manuscripts of the books of the Hebrew Scriptures, ...

5: THE FORMATION AND RE-FORMATION OF DANIEL IN THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS

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pp. 101-130

Following the discoveries in the eleven caves near Khirbet Qumran in 1947–1956, scholars have used two main ways for conceiving the relationship between the circles that produced and copied these materials, and the group in which the book of Daniel originated. First, some scholars have argued that Daniel is best characterized as early or pre-Essene;¹ ...

6: THE REWRITTEN BIBLE AT QUMRAN

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pp. 164-181

Since the discovery of the scrolls from the Qumran caves in the late 1940s and early-to-mid 1950s, the process of sorting, identifying, and editing the fragmentary manuscripts has occupied the attention of scholars. Now, as that period in the history of scrolls scholarship draws to a close, more and more attention has turned to the contents of the texts ...

7: QUMRAN AND A NEW EDITION OF THE HEBREW BIBLE

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pp. 149-166

In 1616, the Italian traveler Pietro della Valle acquired in Damascus a copy of the Samaritan Pentateuch, which was brought to Paris seven years later.¹ This discovery caused a sensation among biblical scholars, because in the Samaritan Pentateuch they now had a biblical text in Hebrew that differed in many instances from the traditional Hebrew ...

8: 4QSAMa (= 4Q51), THE CANON, AND THE COMMUNITY OF LAY READERS

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pp. 167-182

The topic of the biblical “canon” is complex and enigmatic. Sometimes in a puzzling manner, scholars and theologians use a variety of expressions to describe aspects of the canon, including scripture, authoritative text, sacred book, canonical criticism, canonical process, open/closed canon, and canonical text. Scholars do not always agree on the definition of canon,¹ its historical and sociopolitical framework, its original composition, or its meaning ...

9: THREE SOBRIQUETS, THEIR MEANING AND FUNCTION: The Wicked Priest, Synagogue of Satan, and the Woman Jezebel

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pp. 183-208

One of the distinctive features of the sectarian literature in the Qumran texts is the frequently occurring sobriquets. Names such as “The Righteous Teacher,” “The Wicked Priest,” “The Man of Lie,” and “The Kittim” appear to have been used in a systematic way, above all in the pesharim. These names apparently are designations used by the Qumran community for persons ...

10: THE BIBLICAL AND QUMRANIC CONCEPT OF WAR

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pp. 209-233

The extent of military discourse in the Hebrew Bible is not particularly surprising, for warfare constituted (and has constituted until quite recently) a major activity of the ruling classes. The extension of territory, protection of taxpaying peasants and of the assets of king and courtiers, and the diminution of the power of neighbors—all justified and guaranteed ...

11: PSALMS AND PSALTERS IN THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS

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pp. 233-272

As specified in Appendix 1, the Dead Sea Scrolls include forty Psalms scrolls or manuscripts that incorporate psalms. Thirty-seven of these were found in eight locations at Qumran: three in Cave 1, one each in five minor caves (2, 3, 5, 6, and 8), twenty-three in Cave 4, and six in Cave 11. Three more scrolls were discovered further south: two at ...

12: THE IMPORTANCE OF ISAIAH AT QUMRAN

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pp. 373-286

My assigned topic is the importance of Isaiah at Qumran.¹ Here I explore three indications of that importance: (1) the number and nature of the manuscripts of Isaiah found at Qumran, (2) the number and nature of the allusions and citations from Isaiah found in other Qumran literature, and (3) the exegetical approach to Isaiah reflected in the commentaries on ...

13: BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION AT QUMRAN

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pp. 287-319

The purpose of this chapter is to outline the principal aspects of biblical interpretation at Qumran. After a brief consideration of the history of research in this area, I focus on two areas, the types of biblical interpretation found in the compositions most clearly to be associated with the Qumran community or the wider movement of which it was a part, and the theological issues that lie behind discerning the variety of types of ...