Robert Kraft                  

Religious Studies 225.  Dead Sea Scrolls.   
TR 10:30-12:00 Kraft
(no prerequisites)

With an eye towards the recent eruption of renewed interest in 
these materials, we will explore the issues relating to the 
identification and history of the people who produced and used 
the "Dead Sea Scrolls" as well as the claims made about the 
inhabitants of the Qumran site near the caves in which the 
scrolls were discovered. We will focus on what can be known about 
the community depicted by some of the scrolls, its institutions 
and religious life, in relation to other known Jewish groups at 
that time (the beginning of the common era). This will involve us 
in detailed description and analysis of the writings found in the 
caves -- sectarian writings, "apocrypha" and "pseudepigrapha," 
biblical texts and interpretations. 

  
Robert Kraft earned his BA (Philosophy) and MA (Biblical 
Literature: New Testament) from Wheaton College in Illinois, and 
his PhD (Christian Origins) from Harvard (1961). He taught 
briefly at the University of Manchester (England) before coming 
to Penn in 1963. The primary focus of his scholarly career has 
been on the interfaces between early Christianity and its Jewish 
ancestry, in the framework of the study of religion more 
generally. He is a member of the Dead Sea Scrolls Foundation 
advisory board, and has been involved in editing some of the 
Greek Dead Sea fragments, including the use of computers to 
assist with such tasks. 
  
Distribution Sector II

Schedule (25 classes, 5 Sep - 10 Oct, 17 Oct - 26 Nov, 3 - 5 Dec)
(The topics are suggestive, not necessarily taken in this order)
 
Why study the scrolls?
  unfiltered primary sources for ancient investigation
The discoveries: how? (history of)
  : what? (physical; text fragments)
  : where? (archaeology, caves, Qumran)
  : from when? (paleography, archaeology, dating) 
  : who and why? (the historical mysteries)
The investigation team and process
Classification of Materials (overview)
Identification of Characteristic Perspectives (overview)
Searching for Context
  : Josephus' Evidence
  : Philo & Pliny
  : Nazarenes -- the Joshua/Jesus movements
  : lost communities -- caves & their contents
  : "baptizing groups" in antiquity

Sectarian (focus on the community)
  : Manual of Discipline
  : Damascus Document (Cairo Geniza tangent)
Respected Traditional Works (pre-sectarian)
  : pre-Moses -- Enoch, Melchizedek, Abraham, Patriarchs
  : Moses & the Law & the Priesthood (& Temple)
  : post-Moses -- Joshua, David, Isaiah, Daniel, etc.
Commentary & Contemporeity
  : Pesharim
  : Hodayot
  : War Scroll
Current Debates
  the community site and the scroll sites
  unity of the scroll writers' orientation?
  identity of the scroll writers' community?    
  relation of scroll evidence to knowledge of Judaism
    to knowledge of Christianity
Prospects

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