================================================================== @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@@@ @ @ @ @ Weinstein on @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ Spring Sutcliffe @ @ @ @ 1995 @ @ @ @ @@@@@@ @@@@@@ @@@@@@ ================================================================== 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.]] ----- Edmund F. Sutcliffe, S.J. The Monks of Qumran. Westminster MD: Newman Press, 1960. Reviewed by Cara Weinstein cbweinst@sas.upenn.edu The central purpose of Edmund Sutcliffe's book is to identify the Qumran community and to describe its makeup, way of life, and theology. Sutcliffe begins his book with a history of the discoveries of the caves and an enumeration of the works found therein. After a discussion of the Qumran area and the buildings found at the site, Sutcliffe begins his description of Qumran history with "The Economic Life of the Community." He then identifies the historical period of the community. In this section, Sutcliffe briefly discusses paleography and carbon-14 dating, but the bulk of his discussion centers around internal clues as to the date of the Qumran community. He notes various references in the Qumran writings to the "Wicked Priest" and the "Kittim," whom he identifies as the high priest Jonathan and the Romans, respectively. Next, Sutcliffe uses similar text analysis to describe the career and possible identity of the "Teacher of Righteousness." The second half of the book is devoted to a description and discussion of Qumran thought and ideology. Sutcliffe begins by enumerating the Qumran community's main collective beliefs: a strong, even fundamentalist belief in the Torah (the Five Books of Moses) and in the importance of studying it assiduously, the Qumran community's view of predeterminism, belief in the existence and function of angels, thoughts about man's nature and the two forces in the universe (good and evil), and eschatological beliefs. Next, Sutcliffe gives an account of the daily life of the community, including its institutions of poverty, celibacy, and obedience, the government and judicial systems of the Community, and the admittance process for new members. Sutcliffe ends this section by describing the solar calendar used by the Qumran community, and its relation to other calendars used at the time, particularly the luni-solar calendar used by the priests at the Temple in Jerusalem. The last section of the book is devoted to a discussion of the Qumran community and its relation to Christianity. Sutcliffe refutes the suggestion that Christianity originated in the ideology and lifestyle of the Qumran community. Instead, he enumerates several similarities and differences between Qumran ideology and that of Christianity. As a whole, The Monks of Qumran is a well-organized book. Sutcliffe informs the reader of the history of the Qumran discoveries, enumerates and describes what was found in the Qumran library, and describes the ruins before leading into an analysis of the Qumran community. This sequence of organization is logical and easy to follow. More generally, the inclusion of this information is meritorious, as it provides a background and context for the reader, thereby rendering meaningful the following analyses of the nature of the Qumran community. As for these analyses, Sutcliffe gives generally the same sources as does VanderKam for his dating and identification of the community: He uses internal clues as well as the works of Josephus to identify the group as Essenes (the same identification ultimately given by VanderKam). Sutcliffe also uses these methods to identify the Kittim as the Romans and the Wicked Priest as Jonathan (the Maccabee), as does VanderKam. Lastly, Sutcliffe employs this textual analysis to describe the character and role of the Teacher of Righteousness. One interesting thing to note is that Sutcliffe identifies Alexander Jannaeus and Jonathan as two different people, noting that Jonathan ruled from 160-142 b.c.e. and that Alexander Jannaeus ruled from 103- 76 b.c.e. Fitzmyer's dates for these reigns agree with Sutcliffe's. In contrast, VanderKam identifies these two figures as the same person: "The only 'Jonathan the king' in Jewish history was Alexander Jannaeus, whose Hebrew name, stamped on his coins, is Jonathan" (VanderKam 20). Furthermore, VanderKam's index lists Jonathan and Alexander Jannaeus as the same person. [[Partly at issue here, although not made clear by either VanderKam or Fitzmyer, is whether Jonathan the Maccabee was ever officially titled "king'? He is said to have "usurped" the high priesthood around 152 bce, and he was certainly de facto ruler of the emerging new regieme, but the title "king" might not have been adopted by the Maccabean rebels until Simon succeeded Jonathan in 142 bce. Tough call.]] Another interesting inclusion in Sutcliffe's book is the mention of the book of HAGY, a title which appears in the scrolls themselves with no accompanying explanation. Sutcliffe states only that this text is a "book of rules." My only stylistic complaint with Sutcliffe is that he occasionally lapses into a verbal vomit of detail that is not clearly relevant or important. The most salient example of this is in Chapter II ("The Site of the Qumran Monastery"), in which he enumerates for the reader the temperatures measured at different times of the day in the Qumran valley. These measurements, made on various dates between the years 1904 and 1912, were presumably included in order to help describe the Qumran area and suggest its possible functional limitations with regard to the stifling weather. However, this inclusion and its list- style presentation serve more to distract the reader than to illustrate the physical characteristics of the Qumran area. The only other thing that I found off-putting about Sutcliffe's text was his last chapter, "Qumran and Christianity." While the information about Christian origins and the analyses of similarities and differences between Christianity and the Essenes were interesting, Sutcliffe's tone seemed polemical and often condescending toward Judaism. For instance, Sutcliffe constistently refers to Jesus Christ as "Our Lord," a tactic that is exclusionary to scholars of the Scrolls who profess other religions. Furthermore, in a paragraph on the Sabbath, Sutcliffe writes that "The sectaries...turned a law designed for the relief of man from toil into an oppressive system that must have made the joyful observance of the day impossible" (116). In contrast, Sutcliffe writes, "Jesus Christ based His practice and teaching on the principle that 'the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath'" (116). This apparent value judgment seems starkly out of place in a historical, scholarly work, especially one in which the high scholarly care and quality of previous chapters is noticeable. Cara Weinstein cbweinst@sas.upenn.edu //end//