Welcome to the electronic world of Religious Studies 225, THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS, for spring term 1999 at the University of Pennsylvania (Robert Kraft, coordinator) The course is intended as primarily seminar-discussion type. There are no prerequisites, so discussion will focus on the English translations, with an attempt to be selfconscious about the necessary smattering of Hebrew words (titles, technical terms). The course will include a significant electronic component, with messages distributed through the class list that brings you this message -- rels225-401-99a@lists. Attention will also be given to discussions taking place on the international ORION discussion list, from the Orion Center for Dead Sea Scrolls Studies in Jerusalem. If you wish to join that list individually (it is not required), contact listserv@mscc.huji.ac.il with the message (no subject line) subscribe orion [your name]. Non registrants who wish to be included on the class list must send me their electronic addresses so that I can add them. My private address is kraft@ccat.sas.upenn.edu Similarly, people may leave the list by requesting that I unenroll them. Requirements.-- You are all automatically members of the class list, and are responsible for checking your email regularly and reading the messages. Each registered member of the class will contribute at least the following items for circulation on the class list: 1. A set of minutes for one week of class sessions (see below). 2. A critical review of one approved book dealing with the DSS, or an approved substitute project. 3. A prospectus of your research paper for the course. There are 14 weeks of class sessions. For each week, one student will prepare minutes (no more than 500 words = 2 traditional pages) and a partner student will review the minutes for accuracy, coverage, etc., prior to releasing them to the list. Minutes are expected to be posted to the list by the Monday after each week (e.g. by 9 pm on Monday, for the previous week's sessions). You will be held accountable (graded) for the quality (not necessarily the length!) of your class minutes. Pre-approved books for reviewing will be found in the bibliographical list on the class home page. The review should not exceed 1000 words (5 traditional pages) and should include both descriptive information (what the author has attempted to do) and critical observations (how well the author succeeds; neglected subjects, accuracy, consistency, etc.). The format of the review should imitate that used by IOUDAIOS-REVIEW, which may be found on the ccat.sas gopher. Reviews will be due before midterm break on 5 March. In some instances it may be possible to begin with a review prepared for an earlier edition of this course, and to expand or strengthen it. Newer books may also be reviewed, with the instructor's approval. Each registered student will prepare a research paper, due at the final class meeting on 22 April. Topics need to be approved by 16 March, right after spring break. The paper should not exceed 16 traditional pages in length (about 4000 words), plus any notes, appendices, etc. A paper proposal, about 250 words or less (one traditional page), must be submitted for distribution on the class list immediately after spring break. In certain situations, the instructor may schedule a half-hour oral followup to the paper, to explore further the topic of the paper and its relationship to the rest of the course. Resources for Study.-- The course is intended to have two main foci: (1) information about the discovery and impact of the DSS in modern scholarship (and imagination) -- what could be called "introduction to the DSS," and (2) extensive exposure to the texts and fragments themselves, in English translation. To achieve these ends, the following books have been ordered in the University bookstore to supply a common core of information with reference to which other items can be assessed: James VanderKam (University of Notre Dame), The Dead Sea Scrolls Today (Eerdmans 1994) -- VanderKam is one of the "younger" scholars to become involved in the study of the scrolls in recent years. He has worked extensively on Jewish "pseudepigrapha" such as the book of Jubilees, fragments of which appear among the DSS. Joseph A. Fitzmyer (Catholic University of America, emeritus), Responses to 101 Questions on the Dead Sea Scrolls (Paulist Press 1992) -- as a young scholar, Fitzmyer became part of the team organized to study the scrolls when they were first discovered and thus provides a long-range and well informed view of the situation. For English translations, three are now available which provide extensive coverage: probably the most complete collection at present is that by Florentino Garcia Martinez, The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated (Leiden: Brill, 1996\2). It contains most of what is sufficiently well preserved to be translated and is organized in an uncomplicated manner according to subject matter, for the most part, with useful supplementary information and relatively brief introductions. Similar to Garcia Martinez in scope and organization, but with more introductory material, is the latest edition by Geza Vermes, with its new title The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (London/NY: Penguin 1997). Vermes published his first English edition in 1962, and successive editions since then as more materials became available. The third extensive translation is organized differently (following the sequence of DSS caves and assigned numbers to the items) and is often more daring in its interpretational decisions -- Michael Wise, Martin Abegg, and Edward Cook, The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation (San Francisco: Harper Collins 1996). Several controversial translations appear here, with accompanying comments. When working from translations, it can be very dangerous to rely on only one rendering. The aforementioned translations tend to follow a relatively "literal" approach to the task. Significantly different is the older effort of Theodore Gaster, The Dead Sea Scriptures in English Translation (Doubleday-Anchor 1956\1, 1964\2, 1976\3), which is a very "free" rendering (and thus valuable for suggesting other possible nuances) and has extremely useful appendices and indices to which we will pay some attention. In addition, an electronic resource will be made available at various computer labs on campus (MMETS in DRL, Library, Logan), a CD-ROM from LOGOS Research Systems entitled The Dead Sea Scrolls Revealed. This is a goldmine of relevant material including color photographs of many scrolls and video clips of various aspects of the study of the scrolls. There are some minor "bugs" and inconveniences in accessing this material, but hopefully we can find ways to work around them. Also accessible electronically, through the World Wide Web (WWW), are various materials including those from the DSS Exhibit that toured this country a few years ago. You can access them from the ORION home page -- http://orion.mscc.huji.ac.il -- or also through the link on RAK's home page. There are also several video tapes dealing with the discovery and investigation of the DSS, the most recent of which having appeared on TV last fall. They will also be included in our study. //end//