================================================================== @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@@@ Bayard and @ @ @ @ Cohen on @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ Spring Wilson @ @ @ @ 1995 [2 reviews] @ @ @ @ @@@@@@ @@@@@@ @@@@@@ ================================================================== 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 Wilson, The Scrolls from the Dead Sea. New York: Oxford University Press, 1955. Reviewed by Clare Bayard cbayard@sas.upenn.edu <0.0> Edmund Wilson, who was an accomplished journalist and interested observer of the Dead Sea Scrolls drama rather than a scholar involved with the work, wrote about the scrolls soon after their discovery. This book is rather dated, as the copper scrolls had not even been translated at the time of its writing. Wilson was primarily concerned with the information that the scrolls held relating to the outgrowth of the Christian sect from Judaism. This book is an unoriginal but informative background guide to the beginnings of the DSS fervor. <1.0> Wilson begins with a brief overview of the discovery of the scrolls and their passage through the antique markets. He talks about the Essenes, through the works of Josephus and Pliny. He relates their accounts of the Essenes to modern-day Zionist and Israeli communities, and then talks about the resemblance of ancient Essenes to modern-day Christians. <1.2> Wilson had traveled to the Dead Sea area, and describes the region as well as the remains of the architecture which Wilson assumes to be a monastery. He reviews the features of the building and his conversation with Pere de Vaux, and his conclusions about the remains. He discusses the use of the coins found in the area for dating. <1.3> The Dead Sea Scrolls themselves, rather than the area, the voyage of the scrolls, or the scholarly controversies, are Wilson's real fascination. He talks about the Zadokite fragments, and their ties to the New Testament. The connection between the DSS and Christian literature interests Wilson greatly, as expressed in his notion of apocryphal literature as representing a transitionary period between Judaism and Christianity. He touches upon the Karaites, and their possible inspiration by the writings of the Essenes. <1.4> Next he examines the questions of identity: who were the Teacher of Righteousness, the Man of Untruth, the Wicked Priest, the Sons of Light and Dark, etc. He presents options from literature, but the only concrete slot he fills is that of the Children of Darkness, whom he casts as being the Romans. Wilson describes a way of looking at the Light/Good vs. Dark/Evil debate as put in context by his explanation of the world scene at the time, including oppression of the Jews by the Romans, and Christianity's competitor, Manichaeism. By bringing in information contemporary to the time, Wilson provides a historical context which gives color to the Qumran community, and makes clearer the perspective from which the scrolls were written. <1.5> After his presentation of the background and contents of the scrolls, which is rather cursory in comparison to VanderKam or Fitzmyer, Wilson moves on to speak about the tensions which surrounded the scrolls in 1955. He sprinkles recollections of conversations with scholars like Pere de Vaux and David Fussel with anecdotes. He talks about Christian interpolations of Jewish literature, and the ambiguities surrounding the common translation of the Greek Christos to Christ. He discusses the relationships of several important Christian figures, like Jesus and John the Baptist, to the Qumran community; John may have been adopted into the community, and Jesus, according to Wilson, may have even been a member of the sect in his mostly unknown earlier years. Wilson begins the work which was continued by several scholars of putting Jesus into context with the literature of the period. He also notes a rather important misgiving about the work being done on the scrolls -- the bias of the scholars involved. The implications being unraveled portend positively and also negatively for both Christianity and Judaism. As more of the blanks in the evolution of Christianity are filled in, Judaism is faced with a clearer picture of Christianity's birth from its side as a sect. Christianity, Wilson predicted, will have to accept a lessening of Jesus' spiritual mystery, and a re-evaluation from Messiah to prophet. This proved to be one of Wilson's most on-target assessments of the DSS web. <2.1> Wilson is quite willing to make assumptions for the sake of his perspective. Perhaps this is easier for him, because as he is not a scholar with a reputation at stake, he can afford to pick a side. This is handy for him, because it is hard to move into complex detail when admitting the ambiguities which many scholars of the scrolls need to do. Wilson is perfectly happy to declare the Qumran community Essenes residing in a monastery. This gives him a solid base from which to continue. <3.1> Wilson makes raw conclusions from limited evidence, or at least does not present it. He appears to make large leaps of logic; for example, he says on p. 26: the building has the look of a monastery, and a convergence of evidence seems not merely to suggest but almost beyond question to establish that it was one of the habitations -- if not, actually, the headquarters -- of what has previously been known as the Essene sect. The evidence which Wilson goes on to present is minimal and certainly does not establish that the building is necessarily even a monastery. His logic is similarly shaky when on p. 55 he says that "the original writings themselves must derive from the same source, and hence date from the same period, as those at the Dead Sea monastery." He relies on saying that "this seems obvious," and does not present sufficient concrete evidence to make any of the arguments which he attempts sufficiently solid. Because of this, Wilson seems to be writing for an unsophisticated audience, one which will accept his promise that what he's saying is true. This is very annoying, especially in comparison to the extensive detail which VanderKam goes into in order to lay a foundation of understanding for his conclusions. Many of Wilson's assumptions, such as his identification on p. 64 of the Kittim as Romans, are so close to being arbitrary that it is insulting to be asked to accept them as fact. <3.2> It is tempting to detract from Wilson's credibility on the grounds that he is not a scholar and does not provide any original ideas. While the broad scope of his presentation is useful as general background, his reluctance to dive into anything at all because of a lack of individual inspiration is frustrating. Wilson feels safer standing at a distance and criticizing other people's work, such as saying that Dupont-Sommer has "overplayed his hand" on p. 87. <3.3> Wilson has nothing terribly original or thought-provoking to say, but this may be an overly harsh judgment from several years later. Perhaps in 1955 his ideas were still fairly new. But he acknowledges in his own work the amount he draws on other people's work; and there are so few ideas which he did not synthesize from someone else's work. Scrolls from the Dead Sea is an easy-reading, didactic background book. He has no products of scholarly work or researched conclusions to give us, but it's a well-presented overview. Clare Bayard ----- Edmund Wilson, The Dead Sea Scrolls: 1947-1969. Oxford University Press: New York, 1969. Reviewed by Asaf Cohen acohen1@sas.upenn.edu <1.0> In this book, The Dead Sea Scrolls: 1947-1969, Edmund Wilson attempts a two fold process. Wilson describes the finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the saga of them coming into scholarly hands in much detail. Wilson also attempts to explain the Dead Sea Scrolls and the messages that they contain. Wilson gives a personal account whenever he can about conversations with scholars. Wilson tries to refrain from exposing his own personal opinion. He does, however, offer his personal opinion in a section titled, "General Reflections." Wilson structured his book in chronological order and he explains to the reader the meaning of the scrolls and their saga at the same time. <1.1> When trying to explain the saga of the finding and publication of the scrolls, Wilson not only presents the facts. Wilson offers a personal account of his trips to Israel and he describes vividly the situation at the times when he was present. Like VanderKam, Wilson explains the story of the Bedouin founders and the events that followed which included the Metropolitan Samuel, Yigael Yadin, etc. Wilson brings in new light when he describes the political situation that swept the land of Israel throughout the years which he is describing. Wilson visited Israel in May of 1967 and he describes in detail the Shrine of the Book,the divided Jerusalem, and the anxious situation prior to the Six-Day War. An interesting addition is when David Flusser [[professor of early Judaism and early Christianity at the Hebrew University]], in an interview with Wilson, compares the current political situation in 1967 to the one which the Essenes were facing with the Romans. <1.2> Aside from the political situation, Wilson also gives a detailed account of the scrolls that were found and what they seem to reveal. Wilson describes all of the documents that had been found when he was writing the book. Since he writes his book in 1969, several books are missing. The Copper Scroll, as an example, was not opened by 1969, and Wilson describes two hypothesis to what it contains. It seems that the correct hypothesis about treasured locations was formulated by reading the Copper Scroll backwards from the outside. <1.3> Unlike VanderKam, Wilson does not address the issue of the Qumran community and its link to the Essenes. Furthermore, Wilson does not address the idea that the people who wrote the scrolls might not be Essenes. In terms of the significance of the scrolls, Wilson formulates a theory that Jesus used the ideas of the Essenes in his formulation of his philosophy. Wilson describes the doctrine of human brotherhood of the Essenes that calls for forgiveness, the ritual washings which resemble baptism, and the communal practices of the Essenes which resemble the early communal Christian communities, to link Jesus with the Essenes. Wilson suggests that John the Baptist must have had some contact with the Essenes. He suggests further that Jesus [[??]] might have met the Essenes while in Damascus between the two periods of settlements in Qumran. Wilson uses this evidence to conclude that the last supper, for example, was not a Passover meal, but was rather an Essene-like ritual meal. <1.4> Wilson engages in discussions with Yadin and Flusser that concern the preaching of non-violence by Jesus. Since the Teacher of Righteousness in the scrolls apparently did hate his enemy, the Wicked Prophet, his philosophy differs from that of a Jesus who did not hate anyone. If this is true then the link between the Essenes and Jesus becomes weaker. Yadin argues that Jesus did preach violence at times and he offers quotes from the gospels to prove this. Flusser, on the other hand, agrees that there is a discrepancy in the preaching of Jesus and the Teacher of Righteousness. Flusser explains that this difference is due to the fact that Jesus developed the Essene way of life and that he did not necessarily use the philosophy entirely. In any case, both men seem to agree that Jesus borrowed much of his preaching from the Essene philosophy. Flusser in his conversation with Wilson, points out that Jesus's philosophy has a natural progression from that of the Teacher of Righteousness. <1.5> After presenting the above information in a scholarly way in which Wilson presents many opinions to an argument, Wilson offers his own, "General reflections." In this section Wilson tries to explain how people can make a person appear as a messiah over time. Wilson offer the Mormons as a prime example how a charlatan can deceive followers and make them believe that he is a messiah. Apparently Wilson is not a strong believer in Jesus. Because he offers this section as his own opinion, this does not detract from his former scholarly approach. <3.0> I feel that Wilson manages to give the reader a good understanding of the history and meaning of the scrolls. Wilson uses a personable approach in which he gives descriptions of colleagues and personal accounts of his journeys. The few drawbacks are that Wilson does not present any discussion that would counter the Essene hypothesis, and he furthermore does not discuss any argument that disproves that link between Qumran and the scrolls. Wilson's personal thoughts were interesting. If one looks hard one can find times where Wilson's belief that there is no son of God creeps into his book, but for the most part, Wilson offers a refreshing and non-partial view of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Asaf Cohen 4042 Walnut St. Philadephpia, PA. 19104 email: acohen1@mail.sas.upenn.edu.