DSS.950214 Class Minutes #9, 14 February 1955
RelS 225 Dead Sea Scrolls 
Recorded by Dan Werlin and Sally Carpenter

Today's very special guest speaker: Devorah Dimant of Haifa University 
[with RAK's apologies for previously misidentifying her home institution]
 
Dr. Dimant presented some of her personal items of research to the DSS
class today.  Her main focus was on her recently published collection of
articles edited with Larry Schiffman entitled <t>Time To Go Into the
Wilderness</> (Leiden: Brill, 1994).  These articles provide a more
complete picture of the entire DSS collection and its relation to Qumran. 
According to Dimant, all the reconstructions of the Qumran community
up to now were based mainly on the sectarian literature found in Cave One. 
This literature includes such works as The Rule of the Community (1QS),
The War Rule (1QM), and The Thanksgiving Scroll (1QH).  For the most part,
the major cave which held 70% of the recovered scrolls, Cave Four, has
been mostly unpublished and unpublicized.  Therefore, theories about the
communtiy were formed from only a part of the evidence.  We are now in a
better position to list what types of literature existed and to reclassify
the entire Qumran library as follows: 
  
1.  30% of the library consists of purely (Jewish) biblical literature.  
    The only books of the Hebrew Bible not found at Qumran were Esther and 
    Nehemia.

2.  25% of the library consists of texts explicitly related to the life and 
    ideas of the community ("sectarian" literature).

3.  30% of the library consists of texts _not_ explicitly related to the 
    community, including, but not limited to, apocalyptic works.

4.  15% of the library consists of unidentified fragments.
  
In describing the apocalyptic materials, Dimant noted that they are mostly
written in Aramaic, whereas the sectarian literature is all in Hebrew. 
She further claims that the influence of Persian/Babylonian culture can be
seen in the dualistic opposition of good and evil found in the
apocalypses. Dimant differentiated apocalyptic literature from sectarian
texts by noting that the apocalypses do not employ the characteristic
sectarian terminology and they could have been written (and used) by
others outside the DSS community. 
 
Dimant found that Cave 4 also contained sectarian wisdom literature (like
the biblical collection of Proverbs), a genre not found in Cave 1.  This
wisdom literature is full of previously unattested Hebrew words and
expressions -- a fact which she uses to bolster her claim that they are
<e>sectarian</> texts. 

Dimant also discussed her thoughts on the origin of the Qumran community. 
Apparently, when the first scrolls cave was found, no connection was made
with the Qumran site because the first cave was 2 km distant from the
site.  Only after other caves were found was a clear connection made.  The
pottery remains in the caves and at the Qumran site are identical.  Some
of the pottery forms are unique to this complex and not found elsewhere. 
Furthermore, some of the caves, including Cave 4, are man made and
inaccesible without passing through the Qumran site.  Since, in addition,
every one of the other scroll bearing caves contains 1 or 2 copies of
scrolls found also in Cave 4, Dimant thinks it a certainty that all these
caves and the Qumran site were connected. 
   
Dimant then discussed the function of the Qumran complex. She said that
Qumran could not have been a fortress, as others (e.g.  Norman Golb) have
hypothesized, since it is far too poorly fortified.  Furthermore, the 6
ritual baths would be quite unnecessary at a small military outpost, and
the 1000+ graves of men, women, and children, including people of advanced
years, would be most out of place in the military cemetary of a small
outpost. She responded forcefully to Golb's arguments to the contrary. 
  
Dimant also examined the possibilities of who the members of Qumran were.
Certainly, the Qumran community resembled Josephus' description of the
Essenes, who lived in such Judaean communities remarkably similar to
Qumran. However, Dimant also examined Larry Schiffman's belief in a
Sadducean Qumran, based on an analyisis of 4QMMT. This work is written in
letter form from a group writing in the 1st person plural (we) to the
leader of another group.  The letter is an enumeration of 22 halakic
disputes between the two parties.  Five of these disputes are known from
the Mishna (a compilation of rabbinic law codified c. 200 CE).  The
position taken by the writers of 4QMMT is the opposite of the position
taken by the Rabbis in the Mishna, but identical to the (rejected)
position attributed by the Mishna to the Sadducees.  This presents a
problem.  If the DSS people were Essenes, why did they follow Sadducean
law?  Schiffman claims that the DSS people <e>were</> Sadducees. 
Baumgarten, on the other hand, thinks the they were Essenes who followed a
few Sadducean practices.  The answer, Dimant says, is probably more
complex than either of these two positions. 
  
//end dss.950214//