American Scholarship on Jewish Law in the Dead Sea Scrolls

Abstract

This chapter surveys research on Jewish law in the Dead Sea Scrolls as undertaken by scholars working in the United States. Jewish law in the Dead Sea Scrolls encompasses diverse norms, practices, and observance ranging across religious, social, civil, and criminal aspects of law. Several critical themes recur throughout the hundred years of scholarship treated here. Already in the pre-Qumran stage of research, Schechter and Ginzberg recognized the inextricable link between Jewish law and the identity of the sectarian community. With the full availability of the Scrolls, scholars have now been able to sketch a comprehensive portrait of law in the Dead Sea Scrolls and locate it within the broader history of Jewish law in antiquity. It only took a hundred years and the miraculous discovery of a (second) hoard of ancient scrolls to realize the ambitious goals first outlined by Schechter and Ginzberg. Keywords:dead sea scrolls; Ginzberg; Jewish Law; Qumran; Schechter; United States