================================================================== @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@@@ Noble @ @ @ @ on @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ Milik @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@@ @@@@@@ @@@@@@ ================================================================== 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.]] ----- Milik, J.T. Ten Years in the Wilderness of Judaea. Naperville, IL: Alec R. Allenson, 1959. Reviewed by Kimberly G. Noble knoble@sas.upenn.edu J.T. Milik was a Roman Catholic priest and a refugee from Warsaw who fleed when the Communists took over Poland. He studied in Rome at the Biblical Institute, and then settled in Jersualem. He later became a part of de Vaux's original team that excavated Caves 4, 5, Khirbet Qumran, and Murabba'at. He has published extensively, including the text of 1 Enoch written in Aramaic found in Cave 4, some fragments of Cave 1, and the collection of fragments found in Cave 5. In addition, Milik was the official editor and original publisher of the Copper Scroll. He was involved in much of the paleography used to date the scrolls. In Ten Years of Discovery in the Wilderness of Judaea, J.T. Milik presents a history of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the knowledge that was subsequently acquired, due to their discovery, through 1959, when his work was published. Though his presentation is detailed and clearly organized, Milik often makes assumptions and speaks of hypotheses as facts. Milik commences the work with the story of the scrolls' discoveries. He reconstructs the story of the shepherd Muhammad ehd-Dhib throwing a stone into a cave, hearing a peculiar sound, and thereby making the discovery of Cave 1. His account is very similar to the ones relayed in both VanderKam's The Dead Sea Scrolls Today and Fitzmyer's Responses to 101 Questions on the Dead Sea Scrolls. However, Fitzmyer notes that the account is a "matter of hearsay" (4). (For a fuller treatment of the various stories, see the volumes by Millar Burrows, one of the first chroniclers of the situation.) While this is a comparatively minor incident, Milik repeatedly deals with such conjectures as fact. In a particularly notable example, he states that "the inhabitants of Qumran [were] the Essenes, and such hypotheses that they were the Sadducees, Pharisees, disciples of St. John the Baptist, Qaraites, etc. are being set aside" (14). While the Qumranites do appear to resemble most closely the Essenes in both organization and dogma, it is nonetheless unfair to unequivocally dismiss all other possibilities. Schiffman's "Qumranites as Sadducees" hypothesis especially seems to merit consideration at the very least. Of course, it should be noted that in 1959, the evidence on which Schiffman builds his hypothesis, 4QMMT, had not yet been assembled in its present form, although Milik may have seen some of the individual fragments that were later put together. Milik then moves on to deal with the caves and their respective contents. He states that Cave 4 was eventually the main library of the site. This hypothesis was supported by Devorah Dimant in her visit to our class. However, he further states that the remains of pottery found in the cave reveals that it once served as habitation for a hermit (20), while Dimant used this evidence to link the Caves to the Qumran community. He describes Caves 1 and 3 as storage places of individual hermits, and the other caves as individual hermit dwellings. He supports this idea by citing such evidence as the domestic utensils which were found in Cave 5, and the antechamber which was particularly suited for living quarters in Cave 11. Milik's treatment of the biblical writings, apocrypha, and pseudepigrapha found in the caves closely resembles those of VanderKam and Fitzmyer. However, his treatment of certain pieces of the sectarian literature, notably the War Scroll and the Damascus Document, merit special attention. He states that due to the similarities between the organization of the apocolyptic army of the scrolls and that of Herod's army, the War Scroll was heavily based on a Herodian military manual. He therefore dates the War Scroll as post-Herodian. The same argument can be found in Fitzmyer who credits it to Y. Yadin (31). Milik's treatment of the Damascus Document is especially notable. He states that due to the religious persecution of the Pharisees by John Hyrcanus I, there was an influx of new members into the sect (88). After this large increase in membership, a relatively large group left the Qumran site and settled in the region of Damascus. It is this group for whom the Damascus Document provides a set of rules. The Pharisaic tendencies of the Damascus group are evident in the "prescriptions concerning family life, the sabbath rest and ritual purity" found in the Damascus Document (91). Fitzmyer conjectures that the word "Damascus" may be a sort of code word describing Babylon, where the community may have come from. However he deems it more likely that the document refers specifically to "the situation in Judea itself" (30). VanderKam mentions the possibility that the document was intended for people who lived in villages throughout Palestine and adopted similar practices to the Qumran community (57). However, he states that such a Pharisaic influx as proposed by Milik is unlikely, as the Essenes ridiculed the Pharisees for their failure to practice the law strictly (107). He further questions whether such persecution of the Pharisees would have seriously offended the Qumranites (107). As neither VanderKam nor Fitzmyer supports the theory that a group of Essenes specifically withdrew to Damascus, it seems rather presumptuous of Milik to state such a claim as fact, although it should also be noted that the text of the Damascus Document certainly can be read that way. Milik then moves on to a history of the Essenes. It is worthwhile to compare this history with that of Roland de Vaux, which is presented in VanderKam (99-108). Milik first states that twenty years prior to exile to Qumran, a pious, nationalistic group called the Asidaeans or Hasideans broke with the Maccabees. From this group, the Essenes emerged and withdrew to Qumran. The first phase, which encompasses de Vaux's Phase Ia and part of Ib, was a period of strict isolation, and traces of habitation at Qumran are "exceedingly sparse" (83). Phase two was the most flourishing of the periods, as agriculture and a water supply system were developed (88). It was during this period that the Pharisaic influx occurred, and due to this relative "dilution," fervor somewhat subsided. The start of the third phase is marked by a fire and earthquake. Though what happened during this period is somewhat unclear, Milik rejects de Vaux's hypothesis that there was a several-decade abandonment of the site since, although only five coins from this era (Herod's reign) were found, only four were found from the reign of Hyrcanus II, when the site was certainly occupied (93). Finally, Milik's phase four commences with the death of Herod in 4 bce. Many changes occur in the Qumran way of life, including the admittance of married people (96). The community is finally destroyed by the Romans in 68 ce, but not before they could hide their libraries in the caves (97). Milik concludes his work by comparing Essenism to early Christianity. He states that institutional parallels exist in the organization of the early Christian community and the Essene sect (142). In addition, he mentions the parallels in ideas about eschatology and the struggle between good and evil (142). Though Milik presents some very interesting, thought-provoking ideas, he would be much more effective if he presented them to be viewed for consideration, rather than to be taken as fact. He would then appear much more credible, and would be less likely to be dismissed when other authors present alternative hypotheses to his views. Reviewed by Kim Noble knoble@sas.upenn.edu