Qumran Research Articles

Le Rouleau de cuivre de la grotte 3 de Qumran (3Q15). Expertise--Restauration--Epigraphie. By DANIEL BRIZEMEURE, NOEL LACOUDRE, and EMILE PUECH.

Ever since its discovery in 1952 the Copper Scroll from Qumran Cave 3 has puzzled both scholars and the wider public. The major early challenge of opening the badly deteriorated Scroll was met ingeniously by Professor Baker of the Manchester College of Science and Technology between 1955 and 1956. Once opened, the Scroll revealed a list of buried treasures. Scholars are still debating whether these treasures are best taken to be imaginary or actual riches. Among those scholars that favour the interpretation that the riches listed are real there is disagreement on the provenance of such wealth. Some argue that it most likely refers to the treasures of the Jerusalem Temple, whereas others propose that the valuables belonged to the Qumran community, associated with several hundred leather and papyrus Scrolls found in Cave 3 and ten other caves in the vicinity. All that can be said with certainty is that various expeditions to find the treasures have as yet failed to find it! After Baker's successful operation of opening the Scroll it was returned to the Archaeological Museum of Amman in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, where it remains to this day. In the decades after the delicate process of opening the Scroll, which involved cutting it into strips, the pieces gradually deteriorated and sustained damage when handled. A request by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in the early nineties of the last century supported by the Institut Français d’Archéologie du Proche Orient and the École Biblique et Archéologique Française led to the Scroll being placed in the capable hands of a team of scientific experts of Electricité de France (EDF). The EDF scientific team proceeded to analyse, restore, replicate, and ‘re-house’ the Scroll in a new exhibition case. The series of very complex procedures undertaken over the course of two years included metallurgical study with the aid of electron microscopes, chemical analysis, X-ray imagery as well as the production of digital images and much more. Every step of this complex scientific journey is documented in the form of several hundred plates and detailed descriptions in this two-volume set. The superb X-ray images as well as the exact replica the EDF team were able to produce were used by the renowned epigrapher Émile Puech to produce epigraphical facsimiles as well as a reconstruction of the form of the Scroll as a whole at the end of volume 2 (pp. 397–414). Interdisciplinary approaches and collaboration are highly rated endeavours in the current academic climate. The two-volume set under review here represents the fruits of a magnificent international collaboration of the highest order. Everyone involved in making the project and this publication possible deserves our gratitude.

쿰란의 유대이즘과 헬레니즘

이 연구는 제2차 성전 시대의 팔레스타인, 특히 쿰란에서의 유대이즘과 헬레니즘의 만남에 관한 것이다. 헹엘이 “쿰란과 헬레니즘”이라는 주제를 “불과 물”로 표현한 것처럼, 쿰란 사람들은 일반적으로 헬레니즘의 가장 강력한 반대자로 간주되어왔다.<BR> 역사적 고찰과 문헌적 고찰에 따르면, 에세네파의 선구자는 마카베오 항쟁 시기의 사건들에 참여한 유대인 그룹 하시딤이다. 에세네파의 이 역사적 기원은 쿰란 사람들이 헬레니즘에 대하여 근본적으로 반대하였다는 것을 시사한다. 많은 학자들은 쿰란에 대한 헬레니즘의 직, 간접적인 영향을 살펴보기 위해 그리스어, 점성술과 골상학, 사후 생명, 쿰란 공동체와 동시대 그리스 단체들 사이의 유사점 등을 연구하였다.<BR> 쿰란에서의 유대이즘과 헬레니즘 사이의 여러 유사점들이 언급되었다고 해서 이 유사점들이 둘 사이의 직접적인 영향으로 이해될 필요는 없다. 왜냐하면 유사한 현상이 아무런 사회적 맥락과 무관하게 독립적으로 발전할 수 있기 때문이다.<BR> 쿰란 사본은 그것의 필사자들이 자신들을 헬레니즘 문화로부터 거리를 둘 수 있었다는 것을 보여 주고 있다. 쿰란 공동체는 팔레스타인 유대이즘 안에서 그리스의 생활과 사고방식에 대한 가장 격렬한 반대자로 나타난다. 쿰란 사람들에 의하면 헬레니즘 문화의 특정한 측면들은 전통적인 유대 생활 방식과 양립할 수 없었다. 쿰란 공동체는 명백하게 가장 보수적인 유대 전통을 대표한다.

Beyond the Qumran Community: Social Organization in the Dead Sea Scrolls

AbstractThe Dead Sea Scrolls refer to different kinds of communities. The Damascus Document speaks of people who live “in camps” throughout the land, and marry and have children. The Rule of the Community, in contrast, does not speak of women or children at all. It does, however, speak of small communities with a quorum of ten, as part of the yahad. The Rule of the Community also speaks enigmatically of twelve men and three priests, who are supposed to go into the wilderness to prepare the way of the Lord. It is possible but not certain that these were the founders of the Qumran settlement. Qumran was surely a sectarian settlement in Roman times. It is possible, but not proven, that it was a Hasmonean fort before the Romans came. It was never more than one of many sectarian settlements. The yahad should not be equated with “the Qumran community.”

Zwischen Sensationalismus und Wissenschaft: der Fall von Kirbeth Qumran und den Schriftrollen vom Toten Meer

The amount of research concerning the Dead Sea scrolls and the archaeological site at Qumran has increased enormously over the last sixty years. Following decades in which De Vaux’s standard hypothesis appeared to find consensus among international scholars, new archaeological discoveries and more recent and accurate studies of the scrolls themselves make it necessary to reconsider this proposal. The connection between Khirbet Qumran and the scrolls, however, does not seem to have been seriously challenged. A priestly community, in contrast with the official priesthood of the Jerusalem Temple, lived at Qumran and probably composed part of the recovered scrolls.

The Dead Sea Scrolls and Violence: Sectarian Formation and Eschatological Imagination

AbstractThis article analyzes two interconnected narratives of violence in the Dead Sea Scrolls by drawing upon some recent treatments of religious violence employing social-scientific approaches—in particular, the "scarce resources" theory—and more general sociological approaches to sectarianism. The first narrative of violence revolves around the origins of the community's violent worldview as embodied in its debates with its opponents. Early sectarian literature represents sectarian debates and polemics in terms of an exclusive understanding of the meaning of Scripture, the application of ritual and cultic law, and the identity of God's elect. These aspects become focal points of ideological debate as the community attempted to convince the "outsiders" of the correctness of the sectarian way. By tracing the development of these debates in sectarian literature, however, I reveal how they are transformed from innocuous elements of disagreement into focal points for the emergence of violence as a central preoccupation of the Qumran community. The "scarce resources" theory explains why these specific points of disagreement become infused with violence. The second narrative of violence involves the continued appearance of these debates within the community's eschatological literature as a rhetorical device to legitimize its violent expectations. Unlike related groups in Second Temple Judaism (e.g., the Zealots), for the Qumran community, violence outside of the framework of the eschatological battle is not legitimized and presumably did not exist. By delaying all punishment until the eschaton, the community simultaneously defused its own violent worldview. The simultaneous infusion and defusion of violence is explained in the context of the sectarian structure of the community.

The Social Role of Liturgy in the Religion of the Qumran Community

The Social Role of Liturgy in the Religion of the Qumran Community

Inclusivism at Qumran

AbstractWithin Early Judaism the Qumran Community is widely perceived as a strictly exclusivist group. A thorough analysis of Qumran texts, however, reveals, apart from the dominant strand of exclusivism, remarkably clear inclusivist tendencies. In Qumran literature inclusivist tendencies can be seen both in eschatological texts and in materials dealing with the self-understanding of the Qumran Community in historical time. The legal texts discussed basically confirm this pattern: the Community is to separate from Gentiles and from members of those Jewish groups with whom it earlier entertained close relations. At the same time it is to support the poor and the proselytes. Strictly legal statements prohibiting contacts with non-Essene Judaism as such are missing. In the literature discussed inclusivist and exclusivist tendencies have diff erent weight. A pan-Israelite, e.g. inclusivist, perspective can be seen in 4QpNah, 4QFlor, 4QSM and especially in 4QMMT, 1QSa, and CD/4QD whereas in 1QS exclusivist tendencies predominate.

The Social Role of Liturgy in the Religion of the Qumran Community

The Social Role of Liturgy in the Religion of the Qumran Community

Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple: Symbolism and Supersessionism in the Study of Ancient Judaism (review)

Reviewed by: Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple: Symbolism and Supersessionism in the Study of Ancient Judaism Shani Berrin Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple: Symbolism and Supersessionism in the Study of Ancient Judaism, by Jonathan Klawans. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. 372 pp. $74.00. This thorough and stimulating survey of purity, sacrifice, and the Temple follows upon the author’s highly acclaimed Impurity and Sin (Oxford University Press, 2000), and it maintains the same high standard of style, comprehensiveness, methodological rigor, and originality. In his introduction (p. 3), Klawans states that “the thesis of this book is the claim that scholarly understandings of Jewish cultic matters have been unduly influenced by various contemporary biases, religious and cultural.” Klawans sets out to correct this “undue influence” and with his trademark historiographical acumen proceeds to survey and critique academic interpretations of “purity and sacrifice in the Hebrew Bible” (part I) and of “ancient Jewish views of the temple cult in Jerusalem” (Part II). In part I, Klawans contrasts the sophistication of biblical scholarship on purity with that on sacrifice, particularly in regard to acknowledgment of symbolism. The title and sub-titles of the book indicate his proposed corrective for [End Page 170] this error, which is (1) to treat purity and sacrifice as inter-related phenomena, as does the Hebrew Bible itself and (2) to introduce the significance of symbolism as a means to understanding biblical sacrifice. In this manner, Klawans aims to divert an entrenched academic tendency to denigrate biblical sacrifice and to initiate an alternative trend that aims to explain sacrifice on its own terms. He demonstrates conclusively that prevalent evolutionist debates over theoretical origins of sacrifice have obstructed and overshadowed the search for the meaning of the practice in its biblical context. Following his review of theoretical approaches to sacrifice in chapter 1, Klawans addresses the rituals themselves in chapter 2. His model places two key “organizing principles” at the center of the sacrificial system, the symbolic value of Imitatio Dei and the functional concern for “attracting and maintaining the Divine presence” in the sanctuary. These innovative suggestions are well-argued, but they are rather preliminary. I suspect that the author, as well as this reviewer, awaits interaction from other scholars so that this model can be further developed and modified. In chapter 3, Klawans discusses prophetic critiques of the Temple and cult. He argues effectively that prophetic objections to improper cultic activity should not be equated with rejection of sacrifice. This chapter prepares the reader to recognize how these texts were later used to fuel an anti-sacrificial bias that is not found in the texts themselves. In part II, Klawans surveys attitudes to purity, sacrifice, and Temple in key post-biblical corpora. This part of the book begins in chapter 4 with a general discussion of these concepts in ancient Judaism, continuing the integrated treatment of purity and sacrifice from part I, and interweaving the Temple into this analysis. Specifically, Klawans addresses ancient Jewish descriptions of the Temple as a “representation of the cosmos” or an earthly analog of a “heavenly Temple.” He argues that these beliefs do not reflect negative assessments of the Temple, as others have claimed (positing “desacralization of the Temple” or “spiritualization of the cult”), but are rather extensions of the earlier symbolisms that he posited with respect to sacrifice in the Bible: Imitatio Dei and the attraction of the Divine presence. Chapter 5 explores criticism and rejection of the Temple in the Dead Sea Scrolls, arguing that the Community opposed the Jerusalem establishment, but maintained a belief in the value of the Temple cult itself, and anticipated the restoration of proper service. The interesting question of the possibility of animal sacrifice at Qumran receives balanced treatment, as does the question of the extent to which the Community viewed itself as a substitution for the Temple. Klawans acknowledges the potential methodological objections to treating the Qumran scrolls as a single unified corpus. Despite his attempt [End Page 171] at pre-emptive justification, he is likely to receive further challenge on this, particularly for his use of the Temple Scroll as a reflection of the beliefs of the Qumran community. In chapter 6, Klawans...

Prophets and Prophecy in the Qumran Community

It has long been axiomatic in the study of postbiblical Judaism that prophecy had become a dormant institution. For scholars studying Judaism in its many ancient manifestations, prophecy was a phenomenon closely related to the heritage of biblical Israel. It disappeared as biblical Israel gave way to Judaism in the aftermath of the Babylonian exile. This scholarly assumption has found support in several texts from ancient Judaism that indeed espouse such a position. In recent years, the dominance of this consensus has begun to wither away as scholars have become both more fully aware of the diverse forms of Judaism in the Second Temple and rabbinic periods and more sensitive to the multiple modes of religious piety in ancient Judaism. In this article, I would like to extend the contours of this conversation by mapping out some methodological rubrics for the study of prophecy in ancient Judaism and discuss one context for the application of this methodology—the Qumran community.

Teaching and Learning Guide for: Religion in the Dead Sea Scrolls

Teaching and Learning Guide for: Religion in the Dead Sea Scrolls

Opening the Sealed Book: Interpretations of the Book of Isaiah in Late Antiquity (review)

Opening Sealed Book: Interpretations of Book of Isaiah in Late Antiquity, by Joseph Blenkinsopp. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006. 315 pp. $25.00. In recent years, as debate has shifted question What did author mean? to How have readers understood what was written?, there has been renewed interest in history of interpretation of texts. In this volume, Professor Blenkinsopp concentrates on various ways in which Isaiah was interpreted in Late Antiquity, and since Isaiah was in fact used by various dissident groups to legitimize their movements, result is a study that makes a notable contribution to our understanding of development of sectarianism in late Second Temple Judaism. Blenkinsopp begins by discussing way in which oral material was brought together and points out that history of interpretation begins in itself. The earliest sayings were gathered together and combined with commentary and additions, exegete apparently claiming same authority to speak in name of God as original prophet. The metaphor of sealed book in 29:11-12 (an image picked up in Daniel) indicates a later generation's incomprehension of written message: what had been written could now be understood only by those who read it from an eschatologicalapocalyptic perspective (p. 26). After exploring different prophetic profiles of Isaiah - as a critic of establishment on one hand, and as a man of God on other - Blenkinsopp turns to role of sectarianism in final shaping of Isaiah. He argues that sectarianism first emerged in century following fall of Jerusalem in 586 BCE, and that this is reflected not only in Ezra-Nehemiah, but in final chapters of Isaiah. In Isaiah 65-6, for example, we see arguments of a minority group who believed themselves to be trueServants of Yahveh, but who were shunned by their fellow Jews. Blenkinsopp then turns to ways in which Isaiah was read by two Jewish sects. The importance of for group at Qumran is demonstrated by number of Isaiah scrolls found there. In addition, there are allusions to and citations Isaiah in non-biblical texts, indicating its role in Qumran sectarians' self-understanding. The pesharim offer direct evidence of way in which text was interpreted, and though these are unfortunately fragmentary, they nevertheless indicate that members of Qumran community believed that they were able to decode message which God had delivered to prophet, and that it applied to themselves. This assumption lies behind citation of Isa. 40:3 in Community Rule, since they found here biblical warranty for their withdrawal to Judean wilderness. The important role played by Isaiah in shaping identity of early Christians is demonstrated by large number of allusions and citations to that in New Testament. Concentrating on Gospel of Matthew, Blenkinsopp argues that Jesus is presented as the Servant of Isaiah 53 (p. 130), and that though various Servant texts were of particular importance, of Isaiah as a whole came to serve as a grid or cognitive map by means of which they could articulate their sense of . . . direction in which their destiny was leading them (p. 136). Although first Christians, like group at Quintan, interpret scripture as a sealed book whose meaning is now clear to group but hidden to outsiders - who, as Isaiah said, look without seeing and listen without heating (p. 147) - and although their own teaching is esoteric, and so incomprehensible to those to whom the mystery of Kingdom has not been given, this mystery is nevertheless not to be confined to group, but is available for all who will receive it. …

경건한 자의 찬양 : 1QH II, 31-39의 번역과 해설

초록·키워드 목차 오류제보하기 등록된 정보가 없습니다. 1. 들어가는 말2. 1QH에 관하여3. 본문과 번역4. 찬양시의 문맥, 구조와 내용5. 찬양시에 나타난 신학과 역사6. “가난한 자(??? ,?????)”에 관하여7. 나오는 말참고문헌초록Abstract

쿰란의 성서 시편들과 11QPsa의 배열 문제 및 그 정경적 함의

쿰란의 성서 시편들과 11QPsa의 배열 문제 및 그 정경적 함의

'Riddled' with Guilt: The Mysteries of Transgression, the Sealed Vision, and the Art of Interpretation in 4Q300 and Related Texts

AbstractThis essay investigates the language of 4Q300, one of the manuscripts of the 'Mysteries' composition from caves 1 and 4 (1Q27, 4Q299–300[1]), for the way in which it participates in the 'prophetic-sapiential' dynamic of Qumran apocalypticism. Though 4Q300 may not have been authored by a member of the Qumran community, it expresses ideas and assumes social categories very much at home within a sectarian context. It presumes a dualistic framework in which the in-group possesses knowledge of 'mysteries' that derives from having access to a 'vision.' This vision is sealed to the opponents, the 'magicians' whose failed interpretations render them 'guilty' of not understanding the true 'root of wisdom.' The essay argues that this 'vision' is best understood to be a written source that is considered by the author/audience of 4Q300 to have prophetic implications.

Qumran Self-Identity: "Israel" or "Judah"?

AbstractA careful analysis of the Qumran "sectarian" texts reveals a consistent preference for self-identification as "Israel" rather than "Judah." In fact, they contain no unambiguous identifications of the community as "Judah" or its members as "Judeans". Like most biblical texts and unlike Josephus and the authors of 1–2 Maccabees, the Qumran community does not equate Israelite with Judean. They regard themselves as the vanguard of the eschatological restoration of the twelve tribes; for them, the Judean state is not the sole heir of biblical Israel.

The Predestination of Qumran Community in 1QH and CD

The Predestination of Qumran Community in 1QH and CD

Scrolls, Scriptures and Early Christianity. By GEZA VERMES.

This collection of eight essays comprises the author's fourth volume of collected papers. Previously delivered and published between 1979 and 2003, the papers reappear here without substantial change: ‘The Present State of Dead Sea Scrolls Research’; ‘Access to the Dead Sea Scrolls. Fifty Years of Personal Experience’; ‘The Essenes and History’; ‘The Leadership of the Qumran Community: Sons of Zadok-Priests-Congregation’; ‘The Qumran Community, the Essenes, and Nascent Christianity’; ‘Bible Interpretation at Qumran’; ‘Biblical Proof-Texts in Qumran Literature’; and ‘Eschatological World View in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the New Testament’. The topics are familiar ones to those well acquainted with Geza Vermes's many, important contributions to the history of Dead Sea Scrolls research, the campaign to free access to the then unpublished fragments from Cave 4, the sectarian history of Second Temple Judaism, biblical interpretation, and the religious beliefs of Jews and Christians at the turn of the era. Although dated in some respects, the papers are conveniently gathered for the next generation of Qumran scholars. This is an elegant articulation of some of the problems and their potential solutions found in the Dead Sea Scrolls by one of the most significant pioneers of Qumran research.

Jesus and Qumran Community

Jesus and Qumran Community

Metaphorical Poverty in 'Musar leMevin'

This essay argues that the language of poverty should be understood on some occasions in Musar leMevin (4QInstruction) metaphorically in relation to angelic beings. Given how fragmentary the document is and how enigmatic its language, prudent caution needs to be exercised before concluding firmly on previous interpretive suggestions. Rather than conceiving of poverty in Musar leMevin as strictly reflecting a ‘this-worldly’ lacking, and thus the Sitz im Leben of the community behind the document, it may describe an aspect of human nature and, therefore, relate to ‘otherworldly’ imagery. It is understood that the addressee lacks wisdom, which he is urged to seek and obtain. Accordingly this deficiency of understanding is a part of human nature and, just as the one addressed is repeatedly urged to seek wisdom, so too is he reminded: ‘you are poor’. Furthermore, Musar leMevin is not ‘Essene’, and one should not presuppose that its so-called social situations reflect on the Qumran community.