In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

203 CHAPTER TEN THE QUMRAN CONCEPT OF TIME1 Henry W. Morisada Rietz The concept of “time” provides us with a heuristic category to coordinate several different aspects of the Qumran community’s thought and theology . These aspects include the calendar, halakot, predetermination of history , cosmology, angelology, and the “latter days” (so-called eschatology). Scholars have long recognized that the collection of documents found in eleven caves near Khirbet Qumran constitute a sort of “library” of the community whose ruins are adjacent to the caves.2 The significance of the collection being a “library” is the recognition that the documents represented are from a variety of sources. Thus, in order to study the Qumran community, it is necessary to identify documents that were composed by the community, i.e., the “sectarian” Dead Sea Scrolls.3 The most reliable indicator of Qumran authorship is the distinctive use of certain technical terms.4 The sectarian Dead Sea Scrolls include the Rule of the 1. I adapted and subsequently developed portions of this paper in my dissertation, “Collapsing of the Heavens and the Earth: Conceptions of time in the sectarian Dead Sea Scrolls” (Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton Theological Seminary, 2000). I greatly appreciate the guidance provided by the members of my committee, Dennis T. Olson, Donald H. Juel, and initially Brian K. Blount, and especially, James H. Charlesworth, who chaired the committee. For a fuller discussion, see my Time in the Sectarian Dead Sea Scrolls (WUNT II; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, [forthcoming]). 2. The association between the manuscripts, the caves and the ruins is well supported . See the classic work by Roland de Vaux, Archaeology and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Schweich Lectures 1959; rev. ed.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973), 53–57. More recently, see Jodi Magness, The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), esp. 43–44. The few proposals that seek to separate the connection between the ruins and the manuscripts are not persuasive; e.g., Norman Golb who disassociates the scrolls from the ruins at Qumran and suggests that they are the remains of the Jerusalem temple’s library, which was hidden in the caves during the first revolt (Norman Golb, “Who Hid the Dead Sea Scrolls?” BA 48 [1985]: 68–82; and Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls? The Search for the Secret of Qumran [New York: Scribners, 1995], 3–171). 3. The word sectarian is used in mutually exclusive ways by various scholars. In this paper, it denotes documents composed or edited by the Qumran Community. 4. For example, the classic but dated work of Friedrich Nötscher, Zur theologischen Terminologie der Qumran Texte (Bonn: Peter Hanstein, 1956). Devorah Dimant provides 204 THE QUMRAN CONCEPT OF TIME Community, the Rule of the Congregation, the War Scroll, the Thanksgiving Hymns, Some Works of the Torah, the Damascus Document, the Pesharim, Wicked and Holy (4Q180 and 4Q181), and the Angelic Liturgy.5 In addition to the sectarian documents, there is another category of documents which can be identified as the “traditions” used by the community . An initial indication of the documents that functioned as the community ’s traditions is found in the number of copies of manuscripts that were found.6 In addition to the existence of multiple copies, the traditional function of a document may be indicated by the provenience of the manuscript copies, i.e., whether a manuscript was copied by a member of the community.7 By indicating which manuscripts were copied at Qumran, this criterion provides more evidence for determining which documents, though composed elsewhere, were valued by the community and thus served as traditions for the community. There are other more explicit clues that a document functioned as an authoritative source of traditions for the community. These involve positive references, allusions, and quotations in the sectarian documents. In addition to the biblical traditions, the most important traditions inherited by the Qumran community for this discussion include First Enoch8 and Jubilees.9 a useful attempt using this criterion to distinguish the Qumran Community’s documents from the rest of the Dead Sea Scrolls. For a fuller discussion of the criterion of technical terminology, see my essay, “Identifying Compositions and Traditions of the Qumran Community: Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, a Case Study,” in Qumran Studies (ed. M. T. Davis and B. A. Strawn; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, forthcoming). 5. Carol A. Newsom in her editio princeps (Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice: A Critical Edition [HSS 27; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985]). Newsom, however, has...

Share