================================================================== @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@@@ Aduana @ @ @ @ on @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ Golb @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@@ @@@@@@ @@@@@@ ================================================================== R E V I E W S ================================================================== Dead Sea Scroll Book Reviews, for Religious Studies 225 University of Pennsylvania, Robert Kraft, Spring Term 1995 Copyright by the respective authors; reproduction with appropriate credits is permitted. [[NOTE: The assignment was to summarize the reviewed book and to compare it especially with the textbooks used in the course, by James VanderKam The Dead Sea Scrolls Today (Eerdmans/SPCK 1994) and Joseph Fitzmyer Responses to 101 Questions on the Dead Sea Scrolls (Paulist Press 1992). As with this note, any comments by the course instructor are enclosed in double brackets below.]] ----- Norman Golb, Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?. New York: Scribner, 1995. Pp. xvi + 385. Reviewed by Glen Aduana gaduana@mail.sas.upenn.edu <0.1> Not only did the Essenes probably not live at Khirbet Qumran [=KQ], not only is the connection between KQ (designed more as a fortress than as a sectarian settlement) and the manuscripts discovered in nearby caves nonexistent, not only were the scrolls' content so varied that they indicated authorship by a variety of peoples rather than a sectarian populace in KQ, but damn it, almost no one, except for Norman "non-conformist" Golb, will admit it! Even the Israeli Antiquities Authority seems in on the conspiracy! <0.2> Once profiled as a flea on the cover of the Biblical Archaeology Review [=BAR], Norman Golb lives up to his gadfly-ish ways with this book. His theory for the origin of the scrolls, that they originated from Jerusalem, being hidden in the caves around Khirbet Qumran by a variety of Jewish peoples who sought to preserve their library from the Roman onslaught, continues to be a very powerful alternative viewpoint from the main line of scholarship. In the process of its development, he brings up several points that traditional Qumranologists would be hard pressed to explain. Indeed, with the exception of Rengstorf (Hirbet Qumran and the Problem of the Dead Sea Caves (Leiden, 1963)), he was one of the first scholars to bring a strong alternative view of the Scrolls' origins. VanderKam describes the traditional viewpoint succintly, as does Dupont-Sommer in The DSS: A Preliminary Survey (Blackwell 1952), Wilson, The DSS 1947-1969 (Oxford 1969), and Yadin, The Message of the Scrolls (Grosset & Dunlap 1962; repr Crossroad 1992). Golb has written extensively on his hypothesis as well; see: "The Problem of Origin and Identification of the Dead Sea Scrolls" (Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 124 [1980] 1-24) and "The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Perspective" (The American Scholar 58 [1989] 177-207). <1.1> Chapter 1, The Qumran Plateau. G describes Khirbet Qumran, alluding to the scrolls occasionally. He points out from the start that it was "exceptionally well suited for a fortress." The main points he makes are that Khirbet Qumran's physical features resemble more a fortress than a monastic dwelling. The large and extensive water supply that was "enough to serve the basic needs of over seven hundred and fifty people during eight months" points more to being of use during a siege, as the closet spring [[Ain Feshka?]] was a few kilometers to the south and inaccessible in times of war. He also notes the discovery of the cemetary nearby the settlement, which include graves of women and children, which would seem to argue against the celibate Essenes having lived there. Moreover, he points out that the close proximity of the graves to the settlement (about 35 meters) would be loathsome to the purity loving brethren who wrote the Manual of Discipline, or indeed, any other such purity group. The overall conclusion of this chapter is that Khirbet Qumran possessed defense capabilities and was of such a separate nature from the scrolls discovered in the caves west [[?? also south and north]] of the ruins that it is impossible to conclude that the scrolls belonged to the "military troop" inhabiting Qumran without doing violence to the evidence. <1.2> Chapter 2, The Manuscripts of the Jews. Here Golb focuses upon the basics of manuscript evidence. He points out two questions which must be asked of any texts to be examined: "a) whether the leaf was documentary or literary in character, and b) whether it was an autograph original or a copy made by a scribe of an original record written earlier on." He mentions as examples the documentary texts of the Cairo Genizah and the Bar Kokhba texts. He offers these as a contrast to the Dead Sea Scrolls, which had a "complete absence of documentary autographs attesting to any activities of Essenic sectarians." However, he mentions in both a parenthetical statement and later that "In 1982, however, tiny fragments of what appear to be four or five documentary texts from the caves were published. Thereafter, small portions of fifteen documents were included among the photographs of the unpublished texts that appeared in 1991....They reflect the private ownership of goods and property, a fact basically inconsistent with the principles of communal ownership laid down in the Manual of Discipline. Thus, as of this book's writing, no evidence of communal, Essenic records, nor any genre of literary autographs such as might support the idea of creative writing activity at Khirbet Qumran, has come to light. Moreover, no geographic terminology has been found in any of the extant parchment and papyrus texts that might indicate a connection with places of habitation in the Judaean Wilderness." <1.3> Chapter 3, 1947: The First Scroll Discoveries. Golb describes the Manual of Discipline, the War Scroll, the Hodayot, and the Pesher Habakkuk. He notes the connections between the Manual, the Pesher Habakkuk, and the Hodayot with the Damascus Covenant. He then argues against earlier scholarship which claimed that the "Damascus" mentioned in the Damascus document in fact really was just a metaphor for Qumran. While the seven scrolls discovered in 1947 held enough similarity to warrant seemingly reasonable generalizations about them, "The many new texts discovered in the following decades, however, offered solid ground for questioning this unitarian vision." <1.4> The next three chapters, Chapter 4, The Qumran-Essene Theory: A Paradigm Reconsidered; Chapter 5, The Copper Scroll, the Masada Manuscripts, and the Siege of Jerusalem; and Chapter 6: Scroll Origins: Rengstorf's Theory and Edmund Wilson's Response, then develop Golb's strong attack against the Essene hypothesis, and simultaneously argue for his interpretation. He points out the following contradictions: *The Peace-loving Essenes guarded a military site and fought as warriors there. *Celibate Essenes lived at or near Khirbet Qumran even though no general endorsement of celibacy was to be found anywhere in the Qumran manuscripts. *The members of the "sect," living all together in their isolated desert location, wore phylacteries while not yet sharing a consensus as to the actual wording of the Pentateuchal texts contained in them--even though the Manual of Discpline provided for authoritative and decisive leadership of the claimed sect by priests. *Even though skeletons of women and children were found in the Khirbet Qumran cemetary, the site was nevertheless that of the Essenes of Pliny, who describes them as celibate. *Two types of Essenes, marrying and nonmarrying, both inhabited areas in or near the Khirbet Qumran site at the same time, and Pliny simply mentioned only the celibate ones. *The four thousand Essenes described by Josephus and Philo were in reality a much more important sect [[than those numbers suggest]], being the authors of at least more [[??some]] of the apocalyptic literature of the Jews. *In the Qumran fortress, there was a manuscript-writing room where Essene monks composed and copied texts, although no autograph manuscripts that might attest to this literary creativity have ever been found, and although (in contrast with the findings at Masada) neither the so-called scriptorium nor any other Khirbet Qumran locus contained a single scrap of parchment when excavated. *The Qumran settlement was surely a "laura" or "motherhouse" of the Essene movement, even though no legal deeds, letters, or other bona fide documentary evidence attesting to this claim have ever been discovered. *The purity loving "sectarians of Qumran," with their priests at their head, established a cemetery within the short distance of thirty-five yards of the settlement even though there was much more available space for a cemetery at considerably greater distances from the place of habitation. *The mention of "Damascus" in a manuscript describing the migration of an ancient sect to that city was really an allusion to Khirbet Qumran, and descriptions of the discovery of manuscripts near Jericho during the first millenium A.D. were likewise allusions to such discoveries in earlier times precisely in the caves near Khirbet Qumran. The single Qumran scroll inscribed on copper and describing, in straightforward bookkeeping fashion, the burial of great treasures and scrolls in the Judaean Wilderness, was either a mendacious or an irrelevant document and did not originate in Jerusalem; or else it wsa an authentic document that showed the Essenes were far wealthier than classical sources portrayed them as being. *Although Pliny speaks of a single settlement of Essenes above En Gedi, there were really many such settlements in the area, since graves resembling those in the Khirbet Qumran cemetery have been found in widely scattered parts of that region. *One or more key scrolls found at Masada did not come from Jerusalem, but rather originated at Qumran itself, having been brought there by those very "Essenes of Qumran" who were seeking refuge from the Roman onslaught. His alternative is that the Dead Sea Scrolls were part of yet larger collections of scrolls which were hidden away during the first century ce throughout the Judaean Wilderness, including Masada and the other places where manuscripts were found. This coincides with the concealment of treasures described by the Copper Scroll. He asserts that the hiding may have began after the fall of Galilee and the refugee movement to Jerusalem. This may have continued for a few months after the siege of Jerusalem. He notes that just before Titus built a siege wall around the city, the inhabitants would have had access to the territories outside the walls, and would have sought to hide their artifacts in areas not under Roman control. In the summer of 68 ce, the only areas available which fit that description were those areas lying to the east and south of the city, exactly where Hebrew scrolls (including the Dead Sea Scrolls) were found. <1.5> The remaining chapters of the book, with the exception of the Epilogue: Judaism, Christianity, and the Scrolls, all concern Golb's responses to his critics, and descriptions of academic politics. The Epilogue is a general introduction to the topic of Christian origins and intertestamental Judaism. <2.1> If you're simply interested in Golb's hypothesis and its development, assuming you've already read VanderKam and Fitzmyer, you should read Chapter 5, referring to specific sections of the book as they arise. Really, it is only the first half of the book that deals exclusively with Golb's ideas about the Scrolls' origins. Golb could have easily turned the second half of the book (Part II: Science, Politics, and the Dead Sea Scrolls) into a soap opera, or as an appendix to Great Conspiracies of the Twentieth Century. He goes on and on and on about academic and personality conflicts between himself and the Qumranic Academy. It seethes with frustration and anger against the establishment, which sought (seemingly as one united entity) to make the Eseene hypothesis gospel. The long diatribe makes it easy to see why nobody he describes seems to like him. Take Curator Broshi's quote that Golb was "a revolting argumentalist, a polemist, an opinionated trouble-maker" who had "filled the world with his filth....When will we be free of [him]?--When he dies" (Haaretz, 4 October 1991). The second half could easily be a separate work upon the nature of academic freedom, issues of scholastic ethics and personal responsibility, and copyright laws. At times, it seems that it isn't Golb who's talking, but the vengeful spirit of the Enlightenment: Voltaire, or Diderot rising up from the grave to spit at traditional Qumranologists; or even a poor man's John Stuart Mill to discuss free discourse. While the episodes he describes are saddening and shameful, it seems out of place to discuss that in a book about the Scrolls' origins; it may have been more appropriate to simply let his ideas stand on their own, for Golb is not the next Voltaire, Diderot, or Mill, and his descriptions tend to sound more like the frustrated ravings of someone convinced that there is a conspiracy surrounding the Dead Sea Scrolls. Then again, maybe he's not too far from the truth.... Still, while worth reading, I'd wait for the movie. <2.2> As for the book's content, his arguments against the Essene hypothesis are worthy of consideration, as VanderKam himself notes. His explanation of the documentary evidences found in the caves, that they could not be linked to the Essenes, isn't necessarily true. As VanderKam points out, "Qumran also had a place for some private control of property. The communities reflected in the Damascus Covenant, though they contributed a percentage of their monthly earnings to the communal treasury, also held private property" [[page ??]]. <2.3> Robert Alter criticizes Golb's hypothesis in "How Important are the Dead Sea Scrolls?" (Commentary, Feb. 1992, pp.34-41). Golb spends a chapter replying to him. VanderKam also discusses Golb's hypothesis, noting the features of Qumran which detract from its identification as a fort, such as the exposed aqueduct, and the possibility of more than a few actual autographs. Both Golb and VanderKam examine the same scrolls, but while Golb claims that they are more heterogenous, VanderKam sees more homogeneity, that is, more Essenic ideas. <00.1> While scholarly, the book is not entirely lucid, spending much of its time venting. The reader is left with the impression that the real reason scholars dug up the Scrolls was not to discover more about intertestamental Jewish culture and the environment surrounding early Christianity, but rather so that they could beat each other over the heads with them. Golb's ideas are forceful objections to the Essene hypothesis, although his own proferred alternatives need further discussion. Reviewed by: Glen Aduana University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA. USA 19104 gaduana@mail.sas.upenn.edu (c) 1995 Reproduction beyond fair use only on the conditions stated above. ----------------------------end review---------------------------- RV:Aduana, Glen AU:Golb, Norman YR:1995 BT:Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls? PL:New York PR:Scribner