DSS.950126 Minutes, Dead Sea Scrolls Class, 26 January 1995 University of Pennsylvania, Religious Studies 225, Robert Kraft Adam Schaffer, recorder, Allison Stewart, contributing correspondent PESHER: As much as I was tempted to follow Clare and Glen's lead and write the minutes as a haiku, a 100+ degree fever has stifled my creative impulses for the time being. My humblest apologies :-) Adam I. Administrivia A. Names - Name tags are passed out. YAY!. Now we are all one happy DSS family. Remember to bring your name tag to subsequent classes. - Allison Stewart is entitled to the front seat in the classroom because she has 2 l's in her first name. [Actually front left, where Gabriel would stand, or where the goats get separated off from the sheep?] B. Random stuff - Class examines pieces of papyrus, a plant cut into thin strips on which people wrote many scrolls including the DSS. Pieces are of modern manufacture. - Class examines some grains of sand which are allegedly from Qumran. The vial of sand comes with the CD-ROM on the DSS. (PESHER: watch for the upcoming Oliver Stone movie that reveals how vials like this are all part of a conspiracy by the US government to cover up secret military maneuvers in Israel during the Vietnam War). C. Announcements - Speaking of the CD-ROM, there are some problems with it at the moment. The sound is not working on the moving parts (the quick-time). It will be fixed shortly. Stay tuned for later developments. - The minutes list is now on the gopher. Class minutes will be provided individually, and as a compilation (for more convenient searching). - The film which the class saw 1/19 and 1/24 is now back at MMETS in DRL. It can be viewed there, but it cannot be checked out without special arrangements. - All books have been ordered and/or re-ordered (except the Vermes, the popular translation for the past fifteen years, which is currently in stock). - Remember, the Gaster book can be quite helpful because it is a more interpretative (rather than literal) translation. - If you don't see a book in the text department, check the trade section at the front of the bookstore (likely to be under religious studies, not Jewish studies), or check another bookstore. - Signups for book reviews are now on the gopher. - A course on the DSS is being taught at Clemson Universtity by Dr. Leonard Greenspoon. We may have a video conference with them and/or joint projects. - The IOUDAIOS list is out there for our e-mail enjoyment. It is an academic discussion group for people who are interested in Judaism from the Greco-Roman period. Right now, these people are quite interested in the DSS. Many of them will join us on our list, and they will be able to help us with questions that might not be appropriate for our list (i.e. questions about the Karaites). To join, send this message to listserv@lehigh.edu subscribe ioudaios-l [insert your name here]. - IRC (computer) questions, refer them to Dr. Bob. D. Kudos to Dan Werlin - He is the only one done with VanderKam - He was right about the etymology of the Hebrew word "Ganaz" (which in Hebrew is spelled Gimel, Nun, Zayin), It does indeed mean, "to hide," and hence our word "Genizah," for the place where things are hidden/stored. II. Serious (though rarely connected) matters A. Papyrus - Chiefly a product of Egypt (exported especially from Alexandria). - Relatively cheap and durable, thus widely used and a boon to "literacy" and to the preservation of records. - Comes in a variety of qualities. Some is rough and relatively thick, almost like tree bark, while most is smoothed and treated to be more appropriate for use in writing. - In many ways, use of papyrus was a revolution in ancient writing as a light and transportable alternative to other options such as leather, clay, or stone. - All graduate students receive their honorary piece of papyrus (as does Irv, who as a senior auditor is deemed to be an honorary graduate student). - The vial of Qumranian sand will be auctioned off as a prize for undergrads. Bidding begins at $1.00. B. Karaites - Because the Karaites wanted to cut through the rabbinic Judaism of the period in which they lived in order to get back to Biblical Judaism, they became very important critics on Biblical literature. - However, they don't get much credit for their work since their extreme minority status made it difficult for them to get recognition for their acheivements in later centuries. - As for the status of the Karaite synagogue in which the Cairo Genizah was found, Dr. Bob has not yet had the chance to fully investigate the matter beyond noting that there also seem to have been synagogues identified with Jerusalem and with Babylon in Old Cairo (Fustat). More later. C. Class dismissed -- OOPS! False alarm (Oh well). D. Canon, Bible, Scriptures - Preface: Because study of the scriptures is so important to the study of Judaism (and its Christian offshoot), it is especially important that you ask questions to clarify matters for yourselves. - Preface #2: Don't make assumptions about "the Bible" at Qumran based on what you think you know about the Bible today. It is important that we give the Qumranites the opportunity to tell (or show) us how they viewed their "scriptural" (authoritative) books, to the extent that is possible. - Term "Canon" comes from the Greek word meaning "measuring stick" (we also get our word "cane" from the same root). - Accordingly, the word has come to designate a set of authoritative books by which a people defines itself (or in terms of which it measures itself) -- it can also be used in other similar associations, such as "canon law." - Inherent in the term "canon" is the idea of authority. - Jewish communities in Qumranic times may not have had a single definitive canonical collection. The various scriptural collections doubtless had some common elements, but they don't seem to have been identical. E. The DSS, Scrolls, Canon, and Codices - Scrolls and codices were two ways of "packaging" written material. - A scroll is a long piece of writing material rolled horizontally (normally), with the writing in columns. - A codex (plural codices) is a book bound much like we know it today. Modern codices are composed of several "quires," each in itself a mini-codex of standard size, sewn or glued together on one edge. Writing, then, can be found consecutively on both sides of each page and access to any location in the codex is easy, compared to the situation with normal rolls. - Codices, however, did not really come into widespread use until around 100-200 CE, and the reasons for this technological development are not entirely clear (one theory is that Christians led the way). Large-scale codices capable of holding the entire Christian Bible are not known until the 4th century. - We do, however, have codices from as far back as the first century CE (though only small scale, single quire). - The first codices may have been derived from thin wooden tablets coated with wax, used in school exercises, for example. - The DSS, however, predate that time period (otherwise they'd be called the Dead Sea Codices :-) ). - In terms of dealing with canon, one must recognize that it is much more difficult to have a common biblical canon when one is using scrolls. The reason is that a scroll, by virtue of how cumbersome it was, could only have a limited amount of material on it. Accordingly, a canonical collection (like "the Bible") would have to be comprised of many separate scrolls, each of which contained "scriptural" (authoritative) material. What was included, or excluded, in one's "canon" would be determined by some external means such as a list of authoritative works or perhaps a cabinet with several compartments. - We do not know whether the DSS community were committed to one singular canon. We know, for example, that Josephus gave a list of books respected by *his* Jews, but who knows how many other communities were like Josephus'. It is clear that the DSS people were in conflict with some other Jewish group(s) of their time, although we cannot be sure that "canon" was an issue. - Large-scale codices allowed one compiler to collect under a single cover all the works considered canonical. This makes it much easier to think in terms of "the Bible" as a closed unit. III. Final random (and completely unconnected) babblings A. Qumran and the caves - Various hypotheses have been offered concerning the connection between the DSS caves and the Qumran community. The DeVaux hypothesis states that the two were definitely linked, although there is no incontrovertable evidence to back this up, such as scraps of scrolls found at the excavation site at Qumran (next to the ink wells). - There are good reasons to question the recent hypothesis by the Donceels that argues that the Qumran community was a villa of wealth/luxury (from the end of the video) -- Jodi Magness (a Penn PhD) reported on the dissimilarities between Qumran and other known villa sites at a recent scholarly conference. - We do know, however, that the DSS group liked to "check out" those who wanted to become members of the community. This "screening" was accomplished by means of strict rites of initiation, as described in the "sectarian" literature from the DSS. - On the whole, we cannot assume that everything found in the caves was considered authoritative, but we do know that those scrolls which contain commentary on (or quote "proofs" from) other writings are important not only because such scrolls contain writing from the Qumran era, but because they show us which sources were important to the Qumranian people (the logic being that a piece that merited commentary clearly had some authority and importance to the person writing the commentary). B. Other random thoughts (answers to questions, etc.) - The "King James version" of the Bible is a favorite translation for traditional Protestants and its OT is virtually identical to the traditional Jewish Bible, differing only in order and minor wording. The early Protestants, assuming that the Jewish Bible of their day was as close as they could come to the Bible used in the time of Jesus (as distinct from the Roman Catholic "Old Testament," with its added "Apocrypha"), accepted as canonical only the shorter collection. Thus from the time of Luther (ca. 1520 CE) onward, the Protestant OT has corresponded to the Jewish Bible. The same New Testament (NT) collection is present in all Christian Bibles of the main branches (Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Protestant). - Dr. Bob will use the term "scriptures" when referring to canonical literature (i.e. the "Jewish Scriptures" when referring to the Old Testament/Jewish Bible). He feels that such a term captures the spirit of the plurality of this anthology, among other things. - 4QMMT deals with Halakic issues -- "Halakic" means pertaining to "halakah," the Jewish law derived from the written and oral Torah in classical/rabbinic Judaism. The word "halakah" comes from the Hebrew verb "to walk," thus it concerns "the way in which one should walk" (i.e. in the way of God's law). - The writers of documents that dealt with halakah often felt that the people for (or about) whom they were writing were doing something wrong and needed written guidance to set them back on the right track (one must remember that the ideas of right and wrong were very much subject to the interpretation of the authors and/or their communities). C. Gnostic gospels (a less-connected question) - "Gnostics" refers to people who felt that they had a special connection to the true and ultimate God, who is different from the (Jewish) creator God. These people are condemned as "heretics" by emerging mainstream Christianity and accused of having strange initiation rites into their esoteric societies (sometimes compared to the DSS people), among other things. - Gnostics are usually described as "dualistic," dividing the world into two aspects: the physical or material (viewed as bad), and the mental/spiritual (which is good, and true reality); their outlook resembles that of Plato at this point. - The "gospels" produced by these people are writings that try to explain, for example, how Jesus is a redeemer sent from the ultimate God to awaken the imprisoned souls/spirits/minds. //enough! end dss.950126//