Abstract
This chapter addresses two questions. First, what was the context of the transmission of scholarly knowledge in Second Temple Judaism? Second, what evidence is there that the Qumran texts are translations of Babylonian or Hellenistic precursors? Regarding the context of transmission, the chapter focuses first and foremost on the literary context: what textual formats or genres of scientific writings are attested? And what sort of authorial strategies did ancient Jewish scholars pursue? It divides the Jewish texts from the Hellenistic and early Roman periods that shows a scientific interest into two categories: on the one hand, scientific material that has been framed or reworked into other writings such as apocalyptic texts and, on the other hand, those Dead Sea Scrolls from Qumran that provide manuscript evidence for actual scholarly/ scientific texts. The chapter also focuses on a specific case study of the Aramaic manuscript 4Q561 and the Hebrew manuscript 4Q186. Keywords: ancient judaism; Aramaic manuscript 4Q561; Hebrew manuscript 4Q186; Qumran texts; transmission of scientific knowledge
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