DSS.950117(=#01) Minutes, Dead Sea Scrolls Class, 17 January 1995 University of Pennsylvania, Religious Studies 225, Robert Kraft James Blankenship, recorder (edited RAK) On the first day of class, various administrative details necessarily occupied some of our attention. The initial assignment is for students to read through The Dead Sea Scrolls Today (by James VanderKam) and Responses to 101 Questions on the Dead Seas Scrolls (by Joseph A. Fitzmyer) as expeditiously as is practicable, then begin a critical (comparative) review of a third book from the list of works already circulated (and deposited on the class archive at the ccat gopher). Books not on that list may also be used with prior approval. The aim is to achieve a common level of knowledge about the Scrolls and their world before we begin to focus on reading them as such. Don't hesitate to ask questions about the material you read, using the email access. Four types of ancient literature will be most relevant to our discussion of the DSS (dated roughly from 2d BCE to 1 CE, found 1946-47). 1. *Biblical* works in a restricted sense come to be collected in the Jewish Scriptures (also known as the Hebrew Bible or TaNaKh, Protestant Christian "Old Testament") and are very important among the DSS for various reasons. Depending on who is dating, these works range from at least 7th BCE to as late as 2d BCE (some may argue that certain Psalms were added or supplemented even later). 2. The *Apocrypha* (sometimes also called "deuterocanonical" literature) refers to a collection of materials that came to be included in the "Old Testament" ("OT") of classical, pre-Protestant Christianity (Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox), but not in Jewish or Protestant Bibles. Most of the Apocrypha are entire books (e.g. Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, the Maccabees), but occasionally "additions" to the books of the Jewish Scriptures also are found among the Apocrypha (e.g. the stories of Susanna and "Bel and the Dragon" are included with Daniel). Depending on who is counting, the Apocrypha include approximately 14 books or portions of books usually dated from the 3d BCE through the period on which we will focus. The DSS also include fragments of some of these Jewish writings. 3. *Pseudepigrapha* ("falsely attributed writings") vary widely in date and content, and also are represented among the DSS remains. In general, pseudepigraphic works are written in the name of (or identified with) a respected ancient figure (Enoch, Moses, Jeremiah, etc.) which makes the work appear older and more worthy of respect. This is an open ended category, unlike the relatively fixed collections of Bible and Apocrypha described above. 4. If a writing found among the DSS doesn't comfortably fit into one of these three categories, and seems to reflect the ideas and practices of the DSS community itself, it may be labeled *Sectarian*. Such works are often thought to have originated within the community which kept the scrolls. (Writings that fall into none of the above categories are also possible, and we should be alert to the arbitrary nature of some of these classifications.) Additionally, in looking for materials that help us recreate the world that produced the DSS, we should be aware of certain works by Josephus and Philo, among others. Josephus (about 37 CE to after 100 CE) claims to have been a priest, as well as a general in the Jewish Rebellion against Rome which lasted from about 66 CE to 73 CE. (It was during this Rebellion, in 70 CE, that the Jewish "2d Temple" in Jerusalem was destroyed. 70 CE is therefore a very important, pivotal date used to determine the date of other events [e.g., "did _x_ occur before or after the destruction of the Temple?"].) Josephus spent his life after the rebellion in Rome under imperial sponsorship. Of Josephus' works, the following are especially important for us: 1. The Jewish War, written in the 80s CE. Josephus' most detailed effort to explain to his readers (Jewish and also Roman) how the rebellion of his people against Rome came about, and how he came to be a general for the Romans' opposition before he abandoned the Jewish military cause. 2. Antiquities (or, History) of the Jews, published around 100 CE. Josephus' effort to give a history from the beginning of the world down to his own time. The biblical period is covered in his account, and he provides information about Jewish history after that, for which we have few other sources. 3. Against Apion, also from about 100 CE. Josephus answers attacks made on Judaism by an opponent, and thus provides another perspective on Judaism and Jewish practices in the period from which the DSS come. At least twice, Josephus discusses Jewish subgroups ("sects" in a non-prejudicial sense); Pharisees, Sadduccees, Essenes, and at one point a "4th philosophy," usually identified with the "Zealots" (who may or may not be identical to the "Sicarii" that he also mentions). Josephus claims to have studied some of these groups as a youth, and in later life he claims to cultivate a Pharisaic orientation. The DSS are thought by many to have been produced and collected by Essenes. Philo was a native Greek speaker (unlike Josephus), and an Alexandrian Jew. The only firm contemporary date related by Philo in his voluminous writings is his account of his participation in an Embassy to Gaius (the Roman Emperor, Caligula) around 40 CE, in the wake of some anti-Jewish riots in Alexandria. Many conjecture that Philo lived from about 20 BCE - 45 CE. (Dr. Kraft is willing to let Philo live into the 60s CE.) Philo does not speak of the Pharisees or the Sadducees, but speaks very favorably of the Essenes, in terms similar to those in Josephus. The Essenes are also mentioned by Pliny the Elder, a non-Jewish Greek natural historian, geographer, and ethnographer who died in the aftermath of the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE. Historically and chronologically speaking, this course will most concern itself with the period from the time of the Jewish Hasmonean (Maccabean) Rebellion against the Greek Seleukids (in the 160's BCE) to the time of the Jewish Rebellion against Rome around 70 CE. Geographically, it will focus on the Syro-Palestinian corridor, but also with an eye on what was happening in Jewish circles throughout the eastern Mediterranean and the "fertile crescent." Next class will include a PBS Video on the DSS. //end dss.950117// DSS.950119(=#02) Minutes, Dead Sea Scrolls Class, 19 January 1995 University of Pennsylvania, Religious Studies 225, Robert Kraft Brad Kirkegaard, recorder (ed RAK) Preliminaries: Minutes of the first class session can be found in the class archive on the ccat gopher. Most class members can access it by typing "gopher ccat.sas.upenn.edu" from the unix command line. The menus are pretty self-explanatory thereafter. Note that the list of approved books for review has also been placed in a separate file. Sometime soon people should be choosing their books and notifying RAK, who will add appropriate notations to the file to avoid too much duplication. The reviews should consist of about two pages (500 words), and should reflect your knowledge gained from the required reading in VanderKam and Fitzmyer. These will be due before spring break (beginning of March). The general plan of attack is for everyone to get the introductory materials (VanderKam, Fitzmyer, your review book) under their belts quickly so we can plunge into the primary sources for ourselves, with some awareness of the issues and problems. Main translations of primary material (see also the Course Requirements): Garcia Martinez - represents the most complete translation. The appendix in the back will make some sense of the different naming systems that have been employed over the years for the documents (basic system lists cave, document and specific copy, when relevant; e.g. 1QIsa\a is from cave 1 at Qumran, the text of Isaiah, copy 1). Gaster - 2 main values. The first is both good and bad, he doesn't translate very literally, but with an eye to what he thinks the texts mean, in the framework of his extensive knowledge of early Judaism and the ancient world. The second major value of Gaster is that he has an appendix that is organized topically (e.g. laws, opponents, eschatology, etc.). Vermes (pronounced Vermesh) - attempts to be fairly literal and has achieved wide acceptance; most criticized for not providing line numbers (essential for working with photographs, etc.). An expanded version including many of the recently released fragments, and line numbers (thus comparable in scope and format to Garcia Martinez) is announced for release in May. Student Question: Any simple ways to get started in this material ("Reader's Digest version")? In addition to the secondary literature already mentioned, the Anchor Bible Dictionary provides a good basic overview as well as references to other sources (see John J. Collins, "Dead Sea Scrolls"; also J. Murphy-O'Connor, "Qumran"). The introductions for each of the aforementioned translations also provide a good starting place. Two other sources utilizing visual images as well include the film for today (see below; there are also other films on the subject) and the "Dead Sea Scrolls Revealed" CD-ROM. The CD-ROM should be available for use in MMETS (basement of Rittenhouse Lab) some time after Monday. One copy will also eventually be ready for use in the Van Pelt Library (reference section). And, fingers crossed, one copy will be up and running in our very own computer lab in 109-110 Duhring Wing in about two weeks. A brief bit of history on recent scholarship on the scrolls (for more details, see VanderKam ch.7 and Fitzmyer, passim [= "here and there"]): Up until about four years ago, before Hershel Shanks launched his campaign in the Biblical Archaeology Review magazine (about 1990, with increasing intensity), access to the material was somewhat limited for some researchers, largely based on connections and whether one was deemed a responsible scholar. Then the director of the Huntington library in southern California discovered that the library had photos of all of the scrolls and decided to fulfill his role of making information available by releasing them to the public. This doubtless influenced the newly formed committee in Jerusalem to hasten the release of the official photographic archive for public access, and to publish the photos officially in 1993. The film you are about to see was made in 1991, in the midst of these developments. Film - "Secrets of the Dead Sea Scrolls" (NOVA from the WGBH Collection, Boston: Films for the Humanities & Sciences, FFH 3000; 60 min., color) Throughout their history controversy has surrounded the scrolls. In 1946 three Bedouin shepherds were travelling through the area. The youngest in search of a stray found the first of the Qumran caves. (Brief description of the texts partly from RAK and partly from film: the texts date from around 250BCE to 70CE. The fragments of the book of Exodus from ca. 250BCE represent the oldest preserved biblical text. Most of the texts are of a somewhat more sectarian nature - who these people were remains an issue of debate. The texts are written mostly in Hebrew (some Aramaic and Greek), and mostly on leather, with some papyri and even one on copper.) Back to our film story... After finding the scrolls the Bedouin brought them to Bethlehem to sell to Kando, who was a cobbler (the Bedouin thought the leather would have some value for making straps for shoes, etc.) but also sometimes dealt in antiquities. Some of these documents were then purchased by the Metropolitan (a high church office) Samuel, who thought they might be very old documents in Syriac. Three more texts, still in Bethlehem, were bought by Sukenik, and Israeli scholar. Samuel, having realized something of the value of his property, took it to America where it received great acclaim. However, after 5 yrs. he was still unable to sell it for his asking price of 1 million dollars. He then advertised it in the Wall Street Journal, where it was seen and purchased through a complex string on negotiations by a visiting Israeli scholar, Yigael Yadin, for $250,000. The Shrine of the Book Museum was then built in Jerusalem to house the documents. In 1952 a second cave was found by the Bedouin. The archaeological community, partly not wanting to pay the Bedouin, and partly thinking they might hit pay dirt went on to dig some 275 caves - only one of which, cave 3, resulted in significant finds. The Bedouin, on the other hand, hit pay dirt again with cave 4. Their large number of fragmentary documents were then bought by the Jordanians for the Palestine Museum (subsequently renamed the Rockefeller Museum). The project of deciphering them was under Jordanian control, and no Jews were includeded on the team - the seeds for future conflicts. The story now jumps to John Strugnell and the scholars who painstakingly tried to reassemble the documents. The canonical texts were separated off and the fragments arranged. The non-canonical material, however, was not particularly easy to reassemble. This elaborate jigsaw puzzle was pieced together primarily by handwriting of the scribes, shapes of fragments, and and other physical characteristics of the different scraps. Qumran. This site, some 14(?) miles East of Jerusalem, was originally thought to be a Roman garrison. Popular opinion now sets it as the home of a sectarian Jewish community known as the Essenes (though scholarly opinion continues to have dissenting views). The Essenes were a monastic group who left Jerusalem in protest to establish a purified community and await the end times. They were destroyed in 68 CE by the Romans, in connection with the "first Jewish revolt" against Rome. Excavation at Qumran began in the early 1950s under the direction of the eccentric figure of Roland de Vaux. He was struck by parallels to a monastic community. More particularly he felt that the discoveries fit well with the type of community described in the scrolls (room where they might have been written - ink wells, etc., possible dining hall and pantry - large number of pots, grave site with majority of male remains.) [Time ran out: the Film will be concluded next class.] /end minutes dss.950119/ DSS.950124(=#03) Minutes, Dead Sea Scrolls class, 24 January 1995 University of Pennsylvania, Religious Studies 225, Robert Kraft Glen Aduana & Clare Bayard, recorders [PESHER by RAK = B*B] [Clarification requests to cbayard@sas.upenn.edu (firebrat)] [pre-PESHER: It is recorded on the heavenly tablets that the council of the gods (see Psalm 82.1) has often debated creaturely "free will" -- whether to permit the illusion or not. Beliar's excesses required suppression (note Genesis 6.1-4). Nevertheless, to promote a more congenial public image in contrast to that insinuated by the speakers of smooth things, the council has mandated occasional "lapses," especially to avoid damaging or dampening the inspired spirit of promising young children of light. Thus it happens that the following record has been inscribed by the finger of the most ancient, not as an example for emulation but as a monument to righteous instructive irreverence. It has been decreed to be the lot of the Watcher B*B(TM Microsoft) to oversee such matters in his role of earthly apocalyptic liaison.] PSUEDEPIGRAPHA FRAGMENT #225 (attributed to Pliny the Youngest and Esdras the Fourth) And so upon the 24th day of the first month of the one thousand, nine hundred and ninety-fifth year of our [tetragrammaton], Bob did call into existence the Dead Sea Scrolls Class #3 from random matter at one hour and thirty-one minutes past noon. And a tenth of those he summoned were lifted to the knife -- "Thou shalt not address questions to Me over the Net which thou couldst have solved thyself," He thundered, and the rivers and the High Rises ran red with blood. [PESHER: check the sources at your elbow before crying out for a hand.] Those saved through the covenant born from His mercy were spared, and assembled in the tiny cubicle, there to be educated by the Bob revealer Himself. Bob encouraged His children to suck from the Tree of Knowledge that is VanderKam and Fitzmyer. Bob spake kindly unto His children, saying "Get thee to the gopher, and there wilt thou find those tomes which are yet ripe for thy criticism, having not been claimed by other members of the community." [PESHER (poetic genre): Sign up for the required review, / one to a book or possibly two.] At 1:37 by the hourglass, Bob likened the labor of minute-taking to "The Dating Game," and proceeded to attempt pairing among his children. He took Chanan, whose name he had only just created, from Karen's rib, for she needed a companion for the sixteenth of February. [PESHER: The assignments for minute-taking were appropriately expanded; check the gopher.] He encouraged His children to glean knowledge from Fitzmyer's well-organized tome The Dead Sea Scrolls: Major Publications and Tools for Study</> (Scholars Press 1990). The children were shown a glossy panorama photographic print of a conference in bygone years portraying several handlers of the Scrolls, which for their continuing joy, Bob has scanned onto His Heavenly Homepage. As the minute of 1:42 became, Bob drew forth a discussion concerning the variously designated Damascus Document/Covenant/Rule, Zadokite Fragment(s), or simply CD or CDC (Cairo Damascus Covenant, or similarly) by reading from its opening lines. This Document, of which fragments have now appeared at Qumran, was first found nearly a century past, in a Cairo synagogue's forgotten geniza. A geniza, literally "treasury," is a sanctified collecting place for revered materials requiring special ritual disposal. This synagogue, built upon the site which its tradition claimed as the landing-place for the basket of baby Moses, had been a Karaite Jewish locale. Around the year 800 CE, Christian leaders reported the discovery of scrolls in a cave in the area of Jerusalem. The Karaites were emerging at this time, and may have had access to such cave discoveries as well. The recognition of older writings may have fueled their atavistic opposition to traditionalist rabbis. Bob, in His omniscience, drew a parallel between the Karaites and Christianity's Protestants with reference to the desire to recapture the pristine past. Karaites today survive in small number. One community is imagined in Los Angeles, in the 200s block of Sunset Boulevard, maybe others in Egypt and Turkey, and at least one in Jerusalem. It is rumored that Elvis is among them. The CDC document refers to its authors as the "sons of Zadok," hence the name "Zadokite Fragment(s)." The priesthood of Zadok was caught up in the internal struggles of Judaism over who holds legitimate authority. Much of the polemical tone that appears in many of the DSS is already found in the Damascus Document in the earliest recoverable phase of the history of that group, where the group is identified with "Damascus." Bob pronounced that insofar as claims of legitimacy for community leadership and related matters go, timing, support and location are often more important than presumed "legal" legitimacy. [PESHER: A bird in the hand finds it easier to fly. Might makes history. Possession is the better part of valor.] The Damascus Document assumes a division of outlook or activity. It refers to a group of people named Israel and a sanctuary. The people are punished for their unfaithfulness, but then God remembers the covenant, and a "remnant" of Israel is saved. The "prophetic" passage in Jeremiah 31.31-34 is recalled, although Sigrid suggested that Bob's children read the whole context. The idea of "the LORD" making a "new covenant" agreement is prevalent in the DSS. Bob warned the cowering RELS225ites that the modern notion of a prophet as predicter is simplistic; a prophet in ancient Israel is basically one who speaks forth, warns, cajoles, condemns, calls to repent. "The prophet is the conscience of the people!" saith Bob. The reference to "the LORD" in the Jeremiah passage became a burning thorn in the side of the collective class. The Hebrew text contains the "tetragrammaton" --"the four-letter word for God's special name." To avoid profaning the name, special devices were developed, such as substituting the general term "Lord" (Adonai) when the text contains the tetragrammaton. In some English Bible translations, "LORD" represents the tetragrammaton, as distinct from "Lord" for other terms that convey that meaning. Some moderns have attempted to represent the supposed pronunciation of the tetragrammaton (YHWH) by vocalizing the Hebrew as "Jehovah" (taking the vowels from Adonai/Edonai) or "Yahweh" (more common in scholarly circles). A Greek DSS fragment even represents the tetragrammaton with the Greek IAO (or JAO). In generations of copying the scripts, scribes have tried to preserve the sanctity of the tetragrammaton. Paleo-Hebrew has even been used in DSS "normal" Hebrew MSS (= manuscripts) to represent the sacred name. These practices all seem to be motivated by the commandment not to take the name "in vain" (Exodus 20.7 // Deuteronomy 5.11), especially by building a protective "fence" that prohibits speaking or profanely writing it. On the bathroom humor side (pardon us, B*B), some Greek scribes tackled the problem of pronouncing the name by transliterating the tetragrammaton as though it were Greek letters "pi-iota-pi-iota," or "pipi." Regarding the aquisition of general knowledge relevant to the course, Bob hurled a twin thunderbolt to the table around which His children were gathered. When this thunderbolt dissipated, remaining on the table were Bob's endorsement of two reference books on Judaism. These were the Jewish Encyclopedia, which is almost a century old, and was written with much involvement from reform Jewish scholars; and the Encyclopedia Judaica, written in the 1970s with participation from Israeli scholars clothed in leisure suits of sackcloth. Dating, not in relation to pairing students for minutes, but to estimating approximate ages of documents like the DSS and CDC, has been estimated especially through radiocarbon dating and paleography, or the study of ancient handwriting. Paleography has a margin of error of about three generations, and is extremely important for the DSS and like documents. The CDC material discovered in the Old Cairo synagogue is dated relatively late, paleographically, and thus must in fact be a copy of something earlier, since the DSS fragments are centuries earlier, although how many generations of copies it has gone through cannot be deduced. 4QMMT, or "Some of the Deeds of the Torah," may be close to being an original (if it is a foundation document of the DSS group) although the preserved fragments come from more than one copy. Many Egyptian papyri are non-literary original documents and thus are unique. As the Heavenly Clock reached 2:34, Bob ignited the television screen, and the supplicants viewed the remainder of the NOVA special on the DSS. The sad demise of Strugnell was chronicled, and the children wept. A new proposal was introduced with a Brooklyn accent from a black beard: perhaps the writers of the DSS were Sadducees, and not Essenes, and therefore from the mainstream of Judaism. The video continued with a challenge to the opinion that the buildings at Qumran had anything to do with the people who left the scrolls, and concluded with such Revelations as "Who wrote the DSS? The evidence is not conclusive." Six minutes before the hour, and thus four minutes overtime, Bob banished his children into the flurries commencing on the dirty street behind the Wingdom of Duhring. [post-PESHER: This is NOT a contest; no wagering allowed; do NOT attempt to do this in your homes! (Letterman ala B*B, with Fear and Trembling)] //end of dss.950124// DSS.950126(=#04) Minutes, Dead Sea Scrolls Class, 26 January 1995 University of Pennsylvania, Religious Studies 225, Robert Kraft Adam Schaffer, recorder, Allison Stewart, contributing correspondent PESHER: As much as I was tempted to follow Clare and Glen's lead and write the minutes as a haiku, a 100+ degree fever has stifled my creative impulses for the time being. My humblest apologies :-) Adam I. Administrivia A. Names - Name tags are passed out. YAY!. Now we are all one happy DSS family. Remember to bring your name tag to subsequent classes. - Allison Stewart is entitled to the front seat in the classroom because she has 2 l's in her first name. [Actually front left, where Gabriel would stand, or where the goats get separated off from the sheep?] B. Random stuff - Class examines pieces of papyrus, a plant cut into thin strips on which people wrote many scrolls including the DSS. Pieces are of modern manufacture. - Class examines some grains of sand which are allegedly from Qumran. The vial of sand comes with the CD-ROM on the DSS. (PESHER: watch for the upcoming Oliver Stone movie that reveals how vials like this are all part of a conspiracy by the US government to cover up secret military maneuvers in Israel during the Vietnam War). C. Announcements - Speaking of the CD-ROM, there are some problems with it at the moment. The sound is not working on the moving parts (the quick-time). It will be fixed shortly. Stay tuned for later developments. - The minutes list is now on the gopher. Class minutes will be provided individually, and as a compilation (for more convenient searching). - The film which the class saw 1/19 and 1/24 is now back at MMETS in DRL. It can be viewed there, but it cannot be checked out without special arrangements. - All books have been ordered and/or re-ordered (except the Vermes, the popular translation for the past fifteen years, which is currently in stock). - Remember, the Gaster book can be quite helpful because it is a more interpretative (rather than literal) translation. - If you don't see a book in the text department, check the trade section at the front of the bookstore (likely to be under religious studies, not Jewish studies), or check another bookstore. - Signups for book reviews are now on the gopher. - A course on the DSS is being taught at Clemson Universtity by Dr. Leonard Greenspoon. We may have a video conference with them and/or joint projects. - The IOUDAIOS list is out there for our e-mail enjoyment. It is an academic discussion group for people who are interested in Judaism from the Greco-Roman period. Right now, these people are quite interested in the DSS. Many of them will join us on our list, and they will be able to help us with questions that might not be appropriate for our list (i.e. questions about the Karaites). To join, send this message to listserv@lehigh.edu subscribe ioudaios-l [insert your name here]. - IRC (computer) questions, refer them to Dr. Bob. D. Kudos to Dan Werlin - He is the only one done with VanderKam - He was right about the etymology of the Hebrew word "Ganaz" (which in Hebrew is spelled Gimel, Nun, Zayin), It does indeed mean, "to hide," and hence our word "Genizah," for the place where things are hidden/stored. II. Serious (though rarely connected) matters A. Papyrus - Chiefly a product of Egypt (exported especially from Alexandria). - Relatively cheap and durable, thus widely used and a boon to "literacy" and to the preservation of records. - Comes in a variety of qualities. Some is rough and relatively thick, almost like tree bark, while most is smoothed and treated to be more appropriate for use in writing. - In many ways, use of papyrus was a revolution in ancient writing as a light and transportable alternative to other options such as leather, clay, or stone. - All graduate students receive their honorary piece of papyrus (as does Irv, who as a senior auditor is deemed to be an honorary graduate student). - The vial of Qumranian sand will be auctioned off as a prize for undergrads. Bidding begins at $1.00. B. Karaites - Because the Karaites wanted to cut through the rabbinic Judaism of the period in which they lived in order to get back to Biblical Judaism, they became very important critics on Biblical literature. - However, they don't get much credit for their work since their extreme minority status made it difficult for them to get recognition for their acheivements in later centuries. - As for the status of the Karaite synagogue in which the Cairo Genizah was found, Dr. Bob has not yet had the chance to fully investigate the matter beyond noting that there also seem to have been synagogues identified with Jerusalem and with Babylon in Old Cairo (Fustat). More later. C. Class dismissed -- OOPS! False alarm (Oh well). D. Canon, Bible, Scriptures - Preface: Because study of the scriptures is so important to the study of Judaism (and its Christian offshoot), it is especially important that you ask questions to clarify matters for yourselves. - Preface #2: Don't make assumptions about "the Bible" at Qumran based on what you think you know about the Bible today. It is important that we give the Qumranites the opportunity to tell (or show) us how they viewed their "scriptural" (authoritative) books, to the extent that is possible. - Term "Canon" comes from the Greek word meaning "measuring stick" (we also get our word "cane" from the same root). - Accordingly, the word has come to designate a set of authoritative books by which a people defines itself (or in terms of which it measures itself) -- it can also be used in other similar associations, such as "canon law." - Inherent in the term "canon" is the idea of authority. - Jewish communities in Qumranic times may not have had a single definitive canonical collection. The various scriptural collections doubtless had some common elements, but they don't seem to have been identical. E. The DSS, Scrolls, Canon, and Codices - Scrolls and codices were two ways of "packaging" written material. - A scroll is a long piece of writing material rolled horizontally (normally), with the writing in columns. - A codex (plural codices) is a book bound much like we know it today. Modern codices are composed of several "quires," each in itself a mini-codex of standard size, sewn or glued together on one edge. Writing, then, can be found consecutively on both sides of each page and access to any location in the codex is easy, compared to the situation with normal rolls. - Codices, however, did not really come into widespread use until around 100-200 CE, and the reasons for this technological development are not entirely clear (one theory is that Christians led the way). Large-scale codices capable of holding the entire Christian Bible are not known until the 4th century. - We do, however, have codices from as far back as the first century CE (though only small scale, single quire). - The first codices may have been derived from thin wooden tablets coated with wax, used in school exercises, for example. - The DSS, however, predate that time period (otherwise they'd be called the Dead Sea Codices :-) ). - In terms of dealing with canon, one must recognize that it is much more difficult to have a common biblical canon when one is using scrolls. The reason is that a scroll, by virtue of how cumbersome it was, could only have a limited amount of material on it. Accordingly, a canonical collection (like "the Bible") would have to be comprised of many separate scrolls, each of which contained "scriptural" (authoritative) material. What was included, or excluded, in one's "canon" would be determined by some external means such as a list of authoritative works or perhaps a cabinet with several compartments. - We do not know whether the DSS community were committed to one singular canon. We know, for example, that Josephus gave a list of books respected by *his* Jews, but who knows how many other communities were like Josephus'. It is clear that the DSS people were in conflict with some other Jewish group(s) of their time, although we cannot be sure that "canon" was an issue. - Large-scale codices allowed one compiler to collect under a single cover all the works considered canonical. This makes it much easier to think in terms of "the Bible" as a closed unit. III. Final random (and completely unconnected) babblings A. Qumran and the caves - Various hypotheses have been offered concerning the connection between the DSS caves and the Qumran community. The DeVaux hypothesis states that the two were definitely linked, although there is no incontrovertable evidence to back this up, such as scraps of scrolls found at the excavation site at Qumran (next to the ink wells). - There are good reasons to question the recent hypothesis by the Donceels that argues that the Qumran community was a villa of wealth/luxury (from the end of the video) -- Jodi Magness (a Penn PhD) reported on the dissimilarities between Qumran and other known villa sites at a recent scholarly conference. - We do know, however, that the DSS group liked to "check out" those who wanted to become members of the community. This "screening" was accomplished by means of strict rites of initiation, as described in the "sectarian" literature from the DSS. - On the whole, we cannot assume that everything found in the caves was considered authoritative, but we do know that those scrolls which contain commentary on (or quote "proofs" from) other writings are important not only because such scrolls contain writing from the Qumran era, but because they show us which sources were important to the Qumranian people (the logic being that a piece that merited commentary clearly had some authority and importance to the person writing the commentary). B. Other random thoughts (answers to questions, etc.) - The "King James version" of the Bible is a favorite translation for traditional Protestants and its OT is virtually identical to the traditional Jewish Bible, differing only in order and minor wording. The early Protestants, assuming that the Jewish Bible of their day was as close as they could come to the Bible used in the time of Jesus (as distinct from the Roman Catholic "Old Testament," with its added "Apocrypha"), accepted as canonical only the shorter collection. Thus from the time of Luther (ca. 1520 CE) onward, the Protestant OT has corresponded to the Jewish Bible. The same New Testament (NT) collection is present in all Christian Bibles of the main branches (Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Protestant). - Dr. Bob will use the term "scriptures" when referring to canonical literature (i.e. the "Jewish Scriptures" when referring to the Old Testament/Jewish Bible). He feels that such a term captures the spirit of the plurality of this anthology, among other things. - 4QMMT deals with Halakic issues -- "Halakic" means pertaining to "halakah," the Jewish law derived from the written and oral Torah in classical/rabbinic Judaism. The word "halakah" comes from the Hebrew verb "to walk," thus it concerns "the way in which one should walk" (i.e. in the way of God's law). - The writers of documents that dealt with halakah often felt that the people for (or about) whom they were writing were doing something wrong and needed written guidance to set them back on the right track (one must remember that the ideas of right and wrong were very much subject to the interpretation of the authors and/or their communities). C. Gnostic gospels (a less-connected question) - "Gnostics" refers to people who felt that they had a special connection to the true and ultimate God, who is different from the (Jewish) creator God. These people are condemned as "heretics" by emerging mainstream Christianity and accused of having strange initiation rites into their esoteric societies (sometimes compared to the DSS people), among other things. - Gnostics are usually described as "dualistic," dividing the world into two aspects: the physical or material (viewed as bad), and the mental/spiritual (which is good, and true reality); their outlook resembles that of Plato at this point. - The "gospels" produced by these people are writings that try to explain, for example, how Jesus is a redeemer sent from the ultimate God to awaken the imprisoned souls/spirits/minds. //enough! end dss.950126// DSS.950131(=#05) Minutes, Dead Sea Scrolls Class, 31 January 1995 University of Pennsylvania, Religious Studies 225, Robert Kraft David Slarskey, recorder; Nagin Kormi, quality control [Here's the minutes. No subliminal messages. No jokes. Nothing extraordinary. Just good old-fashioned notetaking. Don't look for anything to amuse you, because you ain't gonna find it in here. DS] I. Pre-Class stuff Dr. Kraft updated the class on the subjects of posting minutes, the Clemson thaang, a lecture on 9 Feb. at Lehigh by Sidnie White Crawford (whose name you will encounter in the bibliographies) on the Canon at Qumran, a new article in Bible Review (Feb '95) entitled "Tracing the Evolution of the Hebrew Bible; What the Dead Sea Scrolls Teach Us" written by some famous Dutch guy [Adam S. van der Woude], and responded to a question about the value of Norman Golb's new book (see the list of books for review). -Minutes will be posted to our class archive on the ccat.sas gopher both individually (class by class) and collectively (one growing file) to make it easy to find a particular date or search the entire body for a particular topic. -There's nothing new to report about the Clemson cooperation thing. -For articles in Bible Review (BR) or Biblical Archaeology Review (BAR) and similar new materials or materials of general interest (some by Dutch guys, some not), a shelf will be set up in the Religious Studies graduate student lounge on the 4th floor of Duhring Wing (414 Duhring). If the lounge is locked, request access from the main RelSt office (415). -Norman Golb's book will be especially valuable to those interested in the question of the connection of the scrolls to the Qumran ruins, and alternative theories and discussions, but Dr. B*B did not suggest that it be required (or necessarily even recommended) reading at this introductory stage of the course [see VanderKam pp.95f for a discussion of some of Golb's earlier ideas]. Though some have disagreed with de Vaux's theory that Qumran was a radical religious community that produced the scrolls, suggesting instead that it may have been a military post, resort area, or the first all-night Mini Mart, Dr. Kraft doesn't seem to want to get distracted by these problems at this point [they will be fair game at a later stage!]. Irv has some articles from the Jerusalem Post that also may be of some interest to those who are most interested in Golb's point of view. Lance Laughed. II. Class Stuff Here Dr. Kraft attempted to continue the discussion of the written "scriptural" materials important to the classical Jewish tradition, the different Jewish "sects," and the general question of "authority" in early Judaism, but he was [happily!] kept from his goal by numerous questions. Here goes. First, Dr. K. reminded us again that when studying the scriptures of the period to cast away [or "bracket"] our pre-conceived notions about "Bible." We should be careful not to read the "canonized" Bible that we have today, and associated ideas about its meaning and authority, back into the heads of the DSS authors/transcribers. They certainly attached authority to various "scriptural" writings, both individually, and in some relation to each other, but not necessarily as a concrete collective whole as we have come to do with our ideas of "the Bible." For those of you to follow, Dr. K. reminded us here Not to indent minutes [since it makes it very difficult to edit them]. There was a question here about why Dr. K. prefers to use the term "scriptures" instead of "Bible" in reference to the writings and attitudes of the period. Dr. K. graciously entertained the question, though it had been answered a bezillion times before in previous classes (no offense to whoever asked it, just my own personal bias). Basically, there was no formally "canonized Bible" in the later sense, so we refer to the scriptures as works which stand on their own merit, not the merit of that to which they belong. Before long, we were discussing the Pentateuch. The Pentateuch (also known as the Five Books of Moses, Torah, and the Greek Septuagint = LXX, strictly speaking) is comprised of the first five books of Jewish scriptures, Genesis-Deuteronomy. The name Septuagint comes from an old Greek tradition that 70 (thus "LXX" -- but actually 72 as Lance pointed out) translators translated (different stories came up) the Pentateuch into Greek for the library in Alexandria in the 3rd century BCE. For more information on the Septuagint, look it up in VanderKam (pp. 123ff). Plagarism was considered a miracle in ancient Greece [with reference to the tradition that all the translations produced by the segregated translators agreed]. Spell "septuagint" like this: s-e-p-t-u-a-g-i-n-t. *Note: when Dr. K. uses the term septuagint, he means the pentateuch. When he wishes to refer to the larger collection of Jewish Greek scriptures (including Prophets, Psalms, Apocrypha, etc.) he uses "LXX/OG" ("Old Greek" translations). More generally, be aware that the terms we choose to use are of basic importance for defining and discussing such things as the community or communities revealed in the scrolls, as evidenced by the different names even *they* gave themselves (i.e. sons of Zadok, brotherhood, community, remnant, etc.), but also what we decide to call them (e.g. "sectarians"!). Dr. K. here made the observation that there is a surprising lack of Pentateuch commentary (Pesher) from the Qumran fragments. (Pesher being the commentary format in which the author distinguishes the text from its meaning). It was pointed out (by Tal) that there are fragments of a Genesis pesher although for some reason Garcia Martinez has it in a separate section from the main grouping of "Pesharim." Here Dr. K. also described how we have "para-biblical" works, works which may be earlier than our accepted biblical versions or later than them, but in any case bear remarkable resemblence to the biblical text while telling the stories, etc., in noticeably different ways. One such example is the "Genesis Apocryphon" from cave 1. An explanation of the term "exegesis" followed in which Dr. K. distinguished between the idea of deriving meaning out of a text (exegesis) and reading things into a text (eisegesis). Both are common ways of interpreting text and depend on assumptions about how to determine "correct" meanings ("hermeneutics" is a fancy word for approaches to interpretation). It was asked if the Q. community had principles for exegesis, as the later Rabbinic Jews did, but Dr. K. was unaware of any firm evidence of such at Qumran, in the same sense as those formally associated later with Hillel (the "middot"). (Here there was a superfluous conversation about swimming and diving. Insert at own risk.) It was next asked why the Q.ites felt that they were the ones living in the "final days" (the question of eschatological orientation). After a long explanation and references to Habakkuk 1:5 in the Qumran pesher, it became clear that they presupposed the relevence of scriptures to their times, as many others before them had (any many did after, including Dr. K's mother). It doesn't matter that everyone else thought they were living in the final days, when the Q. scholars (or any scholars of the time period, this was not a unique belief to Q.) read the scriptures they believed that they were directly related to their own lives. (Here there was a bit of text criticism discussion, whether the "nations" of Hab 1.5 should be "traitors" or perhaps a piece of clothing. [Dr. K. said the class as a whole is not yet ready for such exercises!]) Dr. K. made allusion to the "Masoretic Text" (= MT; see VanderKam 123) which would later become formalized as the classical Jewish Bible. This represents the textual work of the Masoretes (many of which were Karaites) who were concerned with standardizing the texts in the "middle ages." (There were some interesting observations about the relationship of the collections of Josephus and Philo to the discussion of scriptures and of the DSS people.) Next question, asked with admittedly "ulterior motive" by our favorite swimmer, Hunter: "What was the New Covenant in the OT?" Dr. K. again referred to the passage in Jeremiah 31.31 which promises the "new covenant that *tetragrammaton* will make with his people in the final days." This is not a Christian idea -- the concept of a new covenant has firm roots in Judaism. III. Random Thoughts -Next time we will examine the designation "the Teacher of Righteousness" and its implications for understanding inner Jewish dynamics in the period. -Pay close attention to the characteristics of the Sadducees and the Pharisees in VanderKam, and the ancient sources for such information. It will be important next class. -"Kittim" (see pesher Habakkuk) seems to refer to the Romans. -"Targum" (literally "interpretation/translation") usually refers to an Aramaic translation of Hebrew scripture (often obviously interpretive in the translation). There are Targums on Leviticus and Job from Qumran. The LXX is sometimes called a "Greek Targum." -The Temple Scroll contains halakic material about the Temple. -Next Class: early Jewish groups and authority structures. //end dss.950131// DSS.950202(=#06) Minutes, Dead Sea Scrolls Class, 2 February 1995 Lisa Bronowitz, recorder; Cara Weinstein, editorial consultant. The class began with a statement of a problem with the sending of the minutes to the final editor (RAK): if the minutes are forwarded between the partners and then to RAK, every line might be preceded by symbols that impede further editing (e.g. a greater-than sign and an indentation). Several suggestions were put forward on how to cope with the situation: (1) save the minutes to a file (e.g. dss.min6) and import them from the file to a mail message; (2) type f to forward the minutes within ELM, and then to edit them before sending them; (3) change ELM options accordingly. After people reinstalled their name tags, someone asked how to print e-mail. You can upload from the net to your own disk. You can also go to the unix prompt and type "cat [filename]", and you can download using modem software and ascii format. On some systems, printing directly from the incoming mail file (or printing the screen) is also possible. The 1984 Allegro book, DEAD SEA SCROLLS AND THE CHRISTIAN MYTH, is usable for the purpose of the book evaluation. Be sure to get your bid in SOON for a review book. The reviews are due before spring break. If you're ambitious, perhaps the most thorough introduction to the Dead Sea Scrolls was written by Miller Burrows, a Yale professor, in two volumes (1955 and 1957). It is very long, and has lots of discussion of various theories proposed when the DSS first came to light, and there is very little which you won't find in there. If you look for it in the Penn library, remember that since you are looking for a book from the fifties, you should check the card catalog if it isn't on the computer (the electronic catalogue is not complete for pre-1970 materials). One of the best-kept secrets in Van Pelt Library is in the back of the card catalog section. The Yarnall card catalog is a small but high quality collection which had to be left in Philadelphia when the Episcopalian Seminary here merged with the seminary in Cambridge MA. They had to leave part of their library, so the university agreed to house it. It includes many texts and translations, and these resources are able to circulate. An admonition: As you work your way into this subject matter, make a distinction between the Dead Sea scrolls people (writers, copyists, readers) and the Qumran (near Ain Feshka) site. The former concerns the evidence from the caves and the latter is the evidence from the ruins. They may not necessarily correspond at all (or any) points -- this is an issue for discussion. Important Jewish groups of the general era and area (see especially Josephus War 2.8 and Antiquities 18.1, for the first four): Sadducees (p. 93 of Vanderkam in the context of who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls); Pharisees (see VanderKam and Fitzmyer indices, esp. Fitzmyer 93ff); Essenes (we will discuss them ad nauseum); Zealots and/or Sicarii (a debated category); Nazarenes [Christians, Messianists] (you will see different spellings); Therapeutae: A "monastic" order described by Philo. They lived in Egypt by the Mariotic lake, which is located southwest of Alexandria. Since Philo's description of this group coincided with his idea of an ideal community, there is some debate as to whether or not the group was his fictitious invention. Also, some scholars argue that the Therapeutae were a Greek-speaking sister community to the Semitic Essenes. Samaritans: Described by Josephus, but not as a subgroup of the Jews; Elephantine: The remains of a Jewish temple at this site were found on an island in the Nile. These remains date from the sixth to fifth century BCE. We know about the site because archaeologists found papyrii there written in a Semitic dialect and addressing Jewish affairs. The Dead Sea Scroll People (if not identical with Essenes); Boethians: Were mentioned in the New Testament. We also discussed Heliopolis (also called Leontopolis, perhaps wrongly), a place in the northeast area of modern Cairo. The City of the Sun figures in the Moses and Joseph stories. Joseph is said to have married the daughter of the priest of Heliopolis. Josephus wrote about this site in 168 or 165 BCE. This was the time of the Hasmonean or Maccabean revolt. Antiochus IV (Antiochus Epiphanes) was the Seleucid ruler at the time. He wanted unity in his realm, but there were spots of resistance, including Jerusalem. Antiochus intended to use the Temple as a place of worship of "the" god which was called by different names by different peoples. In this way, the Temple would be a site of acquiescence to his rule and a source of good "P.R." for his power. Antiochus tried to negotiate with Jewish leaders (especially the priestly elite), but not all of them would cooperate. Onias IV, a Jewish leader of the line of the high priest, took some followers and went into Egypt to get permission from the Ptolemaic king to build a temple in exile in Heliopolis. The temple existed and functioned until it was closed by the Romans in the wake of the First Jewish Revolt (see Josephus War 7.10). "Syncretism" -- the gathering of elements and ideas from other cultures/religions and using them as part of your group's ideology/identity. Almost all religions or cultural groupings, including Judaism, are syncretistic in some sense -- "pure" Judaism, for example, can't be found historically, since it has been incorporating aspects of other cultures from the very first. A caveat about terminology: The "Temple" (Jewish) normally refers to the priestly temple in Jerusalem; other Jewish gatherings and gathering places are usually called "synagogues", from the Greek term meaning meeting of people. The moral: To cut down on confusion, be specific. The characteristic that makes a temple a temple is the presence of the priestly rites ("cult"). Notes about historical characters: Onias III and IV were of the highest priestly line (also the line of Jason, who built a gymnasium in Jerusalem for education in the Greek style, and his rival Menelaus -- see 2 Maccabees 4). Zadok, sons thereof -- some think that the Sadducees took their name from the Zadokites; note the importance of this name in the Damascus Document. Samaritans: Were they looked down upon? They lived to the north of Jerusalem, in Samaria. The Samaritans had a temple on a hilly area, which was called Gerizim in ancient times. They were an offshoot of the outlook of "Ancient Israel" that forms the backdrop of what we have come to call "Judaism." From some perspectives (e.g. Romans living in Rome), the Samaritans were were similar enough to the Jews that they were probably lumped together (Josephus even suggests that on occasion, Samaritans called themselves Jews). The two ancient kingdoms behind this all: In 931-921 BCE (in the wake of King Solomon's death), there was a rebellion amongst his heirs and successors. The country was split into two kingdoms: Israel in the north and Judah in the south. The designation "Jew" derives from the southern kingdom of "Judah," with Jerusalem as its capital. //end dss.950202// DSS.950207(=#07) Minutes, Dead Sea Scrolls Class, 7 February 1995 University of Pennsylvania, Religious Studies 225, Robert Kraft Allison Stewart, ultimately responsible; Adam Schaffer, shadow I. Preliminary Rhetoric (Miscellaneous): A. The DSS Revealed CD-ROM - The CD-ROM on the Dead Sea Scrolls is now up and working in room 413 of the Duhring Wing. This room can be accessed by request only. Send all money to Dr. Robert Kraft, room 409, Duhring Wing, please, no IOUs. - The CD includes a large glossary of terms and names, and there are a few typos and such. This is probably due to the fact that the CD was put together quite hastily so as to get on the market as soon as possible. The CD was put together in Great Britain and was sanctioned by the Israel Antiquities Authority. - This CD is also at MMETS (DRL basement), but the sound track on the video clips is not working there yet; otherwise, for the main bodies of material the MMETS setup is fine. There is also a copy at Van Pelt (but no adequate computer). The idea of circulating the CDs was brought up so that those who possess computers capable of running the CDs (having double speed CD-ROM drives and sound cards) could outshine the rest of us. B. Etc. - Dr. Kraft (the almighty) circulated a new catalogue from Dove Booksellers which conveniently lists recent books and resources on the Dead Sea Scrolls. - The Garcia-Martinez book is still not in the bookstore, but the bookstore hasn't given up yet. - There is a possibility of our class having another guest lecturer. Dr. Kraft would very much like Dr. Ross Kraemer to come to lecture us on the Therapeutae, a subject that she dealt with in her doctoral thesis and has continued to pursue in more recent publications. [16 February] II. Relevant Rhetoric: - In our last class, we began the discussion of sects of Judaism pertinent to our discussion of the Dead Sea Scrolls. This included tangents covering the group at Elephantine and at Heliopolis (Leontopolis). In today's class, we again turned our attention to groups relevant to our discussion of the scrolls, specifically to groups with some sort of eschatological bent or high eschatological expectations, in contrast to "common knowledge" about the Sadducees. A. Eschatology - The term eschatology refers to "a branch of theology concerned with the final events in the history of the world or mankind" (Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, Massachusetts, 1986). Eschatology implies a type of time-line in which the involved participants are positioned somewhere in close relation to the last-days (or end-times). - Eschatology is not applied only to religions of the past, but lives on today, especially in the "Abrahamic" traditions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam). For example, current Christian "fundamentalism" includes eschatological perspectives and expectations (as our own Dr. Kraft will attest from his backrgound). Eschatological views like the interpretation of Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia prior to WW II, or WW II itself, as evidence of the nearness of the last days, are echoed in the pesharim found among the DSS. There is a constant updating involved in eschatology, and persons with such an outlook always feel themselves to be living in "the last days." - Some of the earliest instances of developed eschatological thought in Judaism occur in the Greco-Roman period (approximately 330 BCE onwards) with works such as Daniel, Enoch/Watchers, and Jubilees. - Apocalyptic eschatology is a subset of eschatology, the key to which is revelation, or more explicity, the belief that God reveals certain detailed things about the end-time. It includes a strong focus on symbolism. Apocalyptic eschatology was a very graphic subset of eschatology and we will see some very interesting examples of it in the Dead Sea Scrolls. - The people who left the DSS and other such groups at that time were preparing for the final crisis in the world, and were waiting for God to correct all the problems. They used value laden terms such as "Teacher of Righteousness" and "wicked people," and intervention expectations such as "Messiah" (anointed agent) in their eschatological vocabulary. - In the scrolls, there is not much attention paid to the idea of "resurrection," though it may be simply that resurrection was a concept taken for granted and therefore not explicitly noted. The absence of any resurrection references would be especially significant insofar as resurrection is usually a concept associated with eschatology (compare, e.g. Daniel 12.2). However, the failure to find clear resurrection references does not in itself confirm or deny anything. - Eschatological texts found among the DSS fall into two broad categories: "sectarian" -- those that seem to have been written by the scroll people for their own use (for example, the War Scroll); and adopted or appropriated -- documents that were written by others but which the scroll people copied and used for their own purposes (for example, the presumably scriptural works such as the Enoch materials, Jubilees, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel). Even if you look at sectarian texts in the strictest sense of the word, meaning that there seems to be no way that the particular text could have been imported from outside the group (the Manual of Discipline, for example), you still find evidence of eschatology. Eschatology was definitely an important aspect of life for the DSS people. B. Circumcision (tangent) - Another curious omission in the Dead Sea Scrolls concerns circumcision. There seems to be no mention of circumcision in the Scrolls. This again does not confirm anything since this concept may have been so obvious to the scroll people that they thought it went without saying. - The DSS community had specified purity rituals, such as the required pre-meal bath, which make the omission of mention of circumcision even more curious. - In the class discussion, it was suggested that if the theory that the DSS community was celibate were true, that could account for the lack of mention of circumcision (if there were no children and only Jewish converts, everyone was already circumcised before they joined the group). - At this point, Dr. Kraft (blessed be he) pointed out the existence of an article in the latest BA (Biblical Archaeologist) which presents the evidence for the presence of women at Qumran by providing statistics from the excavated graveyards as well as looking at some texts. C. Eschatological Groups - From the time period in which we are interested, several groups with significantly "eschatological" interests are known, in contrast to the Sadducees: e.g. the Pharisees, Essenes (and/or DSS people, according to one's view of their relationship), Zealots (and/or Sicarii?), and Nazarenes (an early designation for "Christian" Jews). - Eschatology was associated with the Pharisees as the major way of differentiating them from the Sadducees. This differentiation was mainly attested by early Christian authors while Jewish authors tended to emphasize halakhic issues. - In the New Testament, several texts point out the differing opinions held by the Pharisees and the Sadducees on resurrection. The Pharisees were said to believe in life after death and resurrection, while the Sadducees were said not to believe in resurrection (though not necessarily throwing away all hope of a belief in the hereafter). - Josephus provides us with some of the earliest information on these groups. In his "Antiquities" (13.288ff; see also 13.171ff), Josephus refers to the Pharisees and Sadducees during his account of the Maccabean rule of John Hyrcanus (135-104 BCE). This was during the height of the Maccabean (Hasmonean) power, and it was during this time that the Sadducees and Pharisees are depicted as disputing for power. Thus we are introduced to the names of these two groups, as well as to what they disputed. [For further detailed discussion of these matters, see Steve Mason, Flavius Josephus on the Pharisees (Brill 1991).] Whether and to what extent one can assume that the same characteristics found generations later among the groups that bear these same names, such as at the time of the first revolt against Rome (66-73 CE), were present in the earlier period (and vice versa), is problematic. Continuity of name does not guarantee continuity of outlook. - Josephus gives us further information on these groups, including the Essenes (see War 2.119ff, Antiquities 13.171ff, 18.1ff). He says the Pharisees focus on the explication of laws (halakha) and allow much power to fate and God, with some small amount of free will. He talks about transmigration of souls (only good ones) which may also imply that the Pharisees believed in resurrection. Josephus says the Pharisees are friendly to one another and have a regard for the public. - The Sadducees, according to Josephus, believed in free will entirely, without mediation by God. They also disregarded immortality of the soul. The Sadducees were also described by Josephus as bizarre in their relationships with each other. - Josephus aligns himself with the Pharisees later in his life when he pictures them as relatively more flexible and popular, and the Sadducees as "aloof" and presumably interested in preserving the "status quo." - The "Zealots" (whose name paradoxically comes from the Greek "enthusiasts" or "fanatics") were militaristic about their Judaism. This is one reason they are often believed to be identical to the radical "Sicarii" (which means people who carry daggers) described by Josephus -- Josephus associates these groups without calling them identical in War 7.252-274. Josephus traces the lineage of the Sicarii to Judas the Galilean (e.g. War 7.253), whom he also identifies with the unnamed Jewish "Fourth Philosophy" (Antiq 18.9, 23). At the very least, these two movements are related in terms of conduct, for Josephus. - Josephus, after his relocation to Rome following his surrender to the Romans in the Jewish revolt (approximately 66-73 CE), wanted a scapegoat for the war. Josephus knew where his bread was buttered and wanted to make the Romans feel better and Judaism in general not look so bad, so he blamed the Sicarii-Zealots for the wars with the Romans in the literature that provides us with all the information on these presumably eschatological groups (see his "Jewish War," book 7, chapter 9 and 10 for more information). - Josephus also says that the "Fourth Philosophy" has similar views to those of the Pharisees, which perhaps justifies their inclusion in a grouping of eschatological sects (Antiq 18.23). - The Essenes are a major focus in Josephus' description of the Jewish groups in War 2, and they "live with a severer discipline." We will discuss this group more extensively later. Josephus also mentions these groups in Antiquities 18.9ff (written around 100 CE). When speaking of the Pharisees in this later text, the reference to resurrection is much stronger. - Josephus generally avoids talk of eschatology in his works, perhaps because (among other things) the eschatological views of his time depicted the those nasty Romans (= the "Kittim"), Josephus' benefactors, as the ungodly endtime adversary. Note how he avoids the subject in his treatment of the book of Daniel. //end dss.950207// DSS.950209(=#08) Minutes, Dead Sea Scrolls Class, 9 February 1995 University of Pennsylvania, Religious Studies 225, Robert Kraft Asaf Cohen, recorder; Mark Berman, shadow 1. Administrative: Everyone must sign up for the next round of minutes taking [each student is to be a "primary" reviewer once, and a "shadow" once]. Everyone must decide on a book to review -- these review are due by spring break (begins 3 March). The review should be between 500-700 typed words in length, and submitted in electronic form for distribution to the group. Using VanderKam (and Fitzmyer) as point of comparison, the review should provide a brief summary of the book, then critically evaluate the work as it compares with the aforementioned "standard" presentation(s). If one has a personal opinion, then he or she should include it in the review, with supporting evidence as appropriate. On Tuesday 2/14/95 Devora Dimant (Tel Aviv University), a member of the DSS Team, will guest lecture. You have been sent a brief bibliography of some of her work so that you will be aware of the sorts of things that have interested her and can ask relevant questions. On Thursday Ross Kraemer will focus on Philo's account of the Theraputae (which is very similar to his account of the Essenes) and the question of the extent of the involvement of women in such ancient "religious" groups, including Qumran and the DSS. Review what the textbooks say about Philo's treatment of these groups. 2. Examination of 4Q180-181 "Ages of Creation" fragments (xeroxed from pp. 211ff of Gracia Martinez). Dr. Kraft handed out xerox copies of 4Q180 and 4Q181. (Devorah Dimant published on these eschatologically relevant fragments in 1979.) There are 6 fragments of 4Q180. Fragments 2-6 are very fragmentary and there are many bracketed sections, [...], indicating missing words. Many of these blanks were not filled because of uncertanity as to what belongs there. Some brackets are filled in such as (frg 1, line 7) the words "penetrated the daughters of man." The editors were able to guess at this phraseology because it is used in other places and because it fit well with the subject matter in the preserved sections. There is not much information from fragments 5-6. This is a good example of what the scholars have to work with and why it is taking such a long time. Often it is not possible to be cetain as to how much text is between the different fragment clusters -- e.g. whether unjoined fragments come from the same column, or adjacent columns, etc. Fragement 1 -- This fragment is unusual for beginning at what seems to be the actual beginning of a sentence or section. The reference to various "ages" shows that the ancient author(s) thought of consecutive periods of time on a timeline. The word [heavenly] before "tablets" is a reasonable reconstruction because the phrase "heavenly tablets" is found elsewhere in the DSS and related literature. The concept of a timeline is extremely important because apocalyptic predictions are often associated with a timeline that God describes, such as the "70 weeks of years" spoken of in the biblical book of Daniel (e.g. 9.24) and associated with the arrival of "an anointed one" (a "messiah"). Note the reference to the 70th week in 4Q181 frg 2. The italicized word "blank" in the translated fragements indicates a space left blank in the written line by its scribe or author. Most writing in DSS Hebrew has small divisions between words (most ancient Greek writing has no word divisions at all!). This larger, 3-4 letter wide "blank" space might suggest something like a sentence or paragraph indicator. The small raised "c" at the start of "Azaz'el" indicates that the letter "A" represents a Hebrew ayin, rather than an alef which sometimes also will be represented by the English letter "a" (but preceded by ' -- in the name `Azaz'el, the letter "'e" is an alef). From the phrase, "sired giants by them," we know that a nearby lacuna (a missing section, between brackets) should mention women. Fragment 2 -- We know that fragment 2 relates to fragment 1 (although not necessarily in this order), because the handwriting and context are similar and both fragments are in the pesher format. There is a "(?)" by the word "Lot," and this is probably due to uncertainty about whether is is a personal name or not. We see the eschatological orientation in the mention of such items as angels and sinfulness and judgment. 4Q181 fragment 2 -- This story of the procreation of giants is very similar to the tradition found in the biblical book of Genesis (6.1-4) concerning the "sons of God" and the "Nephilim." We are doing frament 2 before fragment 1 because once these fragments were studied, the scholars realized that what had already been labelled as fragment 2 probably comes before fragment 1. The kinds of words in fragment 2 such as, "knowing, knowlege" show that there is a vibrant interest in knowledge. This sets us up for the sorts of revelation and awareness that permeate "apocalyptic" literature including many of the DSS. Fragment 1-- Just because the fragment mentions "the community," it does not necesseraly mean that it is a "secterian" writing of the DSS community in the sense that the "Manual of Discipline" is called sectarian (presumably originating in the DSS community). But regardless of whether 4Q180-181 originated with the DSS community, it became part of that "library" and tells us something about what they read and copied. As a side comment on God and gendered language: God is always mentioned as a "he." However, when the documents and traditions speak of certain key aspects of God's activity, such as his spirit or wisdom, a feminine noun is used. The use of the phrase, "the end," makes it clear that we are in the world of eschatological thought. One must not be thrown off by the phrase, "[community of] the gods." Such references to a divine group are also found in the bible and apparently were not seen to compromise "monotheism" as they understood it. "Holy ones," can mean angels, "watchers," and similar extra-human agents. 3. The similar traditions in Genesis 6.1-4 and "1 Enoch." Dr. Kraft then read this passage from the Genesis version. Different English translations of the Bible may render the Hebrew "sons of God" in different ways, such as "divine beings." Always try to use two or more different translations if you are unable to read the original language being translated! Heavenly Beings are a main theme in the "Book of the Watchers," which is the first 36 chapters of "1 Enoch," itself a collection of at least five works that have clear divisions or "seams" between them. This material probably originated in Hebrew because our oldest fragments are from the DSS, in Hebrew. Before the DSS discoveries the oldest complete copy was written over a 1000 years later, in Ethiopic. "1 Enoch" is usually included among the "pseudipigrapha," and in the past there has been a tendency to refer to bible-like material in such works as "rewritten Bible," but Dr. Kraft prefers to categorize it as "parabiblical" (see also Garcia Martinez). The category "para-biblical" does not insinuate which work, for example Genesis or the Book of the Watchers, was written first or has some sort of "priority." Dr. Kraft then read from 1 Enoch 12. In the ancient Israelite traditions, Enoch is one of the decendants of Seth, who is the third son of Adam and Eve. In 1 Enoch (Watchers) 12, he is described as being hidden. In the biblical narrative, Enoch is the 7th generation from Adam, and is described as not dying (Gen 5.24); thus he comes to play a special role in various traditions. Enoch predates the flood. Enoch becomes the scribe of righteousness and meets the "Watchers." He is sent by God to tell the Watchers who abandoned the high heaven that they have sinned and will not be forgiven. He tells Azaz'el that he will not have peace because he is among those who sinned. This provides an alternate explanation for the origin of evil among humans, in comparison to to the Eden story. Chapter 6ff of 1 Enoch (Watchers), contains a similar story of the fall of the Watchers. In this version, Shemyaz, the leader of the Watchers does not consent to lead them down to earth until they all agree to make an oath to commit the act together and not back out. Then, they descend to Mount Hermon. They find human-born women who give birth to giants (known also as Nephilim, 450 feet tall, etc.). These giants commit sinful acts against birds, beasts, and reptiles. They also drink blood. Azaz'el is mentioned here for teaching the men how to make weapons. //end of dss.950209// DSS.950214(=#09) Minutes, Dead Sea Scrolls Class, 14 February 1995 University of Pennsylvania, Religious Studies 225, Robert Kraft 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 Nehemiah. 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// DSS.950216(=#10) Minutes, Dead Sea Scrolls Class, 16 February 1995 University of Pennsylvania, Religious Studies 225, Robert Kraft Recorded by Karen Farji and Chanan Tigay Guest speaker Ross S. Kraemer, who did her PhD dissertation at Princeton on <t>Ecstatics and Ascetics: Studies in the Functions of Religious Activities for Women in the Greco-Roman World</> (1976) including attention to Philo's Therapeutae; Author of <t>Maenads, Martyrs, Matrons, Monastics: a Sourcebook on Women's Religions in the Greco-Roman World</> (Fortress 1988), and more recently <t>Her Share of the Blessings: Women's Religions Among Pagans, Jews, and Christians in the Greco-Roman World</> (Oxford 1992). Foci of dicussion: -- The article in <tp>Biblical Archeology</> 57/4 (December 1994) by Linda B. Elder, "The Women Question and Female Aesthetics Among the Essenes" (a copy can be found in the ReligSt graduate lounge, 414 Duhring), addresses the issue of women (and children) at Qumran and more broadly in the other Jewish communities of the period. -- This introduces the question of attitudes to gender not only among the Essenes but in the ancient writers like Philo of Alexandria and Josephus who describe the Essenes and the similar "Therapeutae," a monastic Jewish community that provides the only surviving piece of detailed evidence about the participation of women in such a community. Observations on the ancient accounts of Essenes: The DSS seem to derive from a community of men. Part of this perception comes from the texts themselves -- i.e. the laws and regulations which are directed specifically at men. Other sources which lead to this perception are what writers in antiquity such as Josephus have written about the Essenes. This theory implies that the people in Qumram were in fact the Essenes; most scholars today accept this view. Josephus in the "Jewish War" 2.118-122 describes 3 forms of Jewish "philosophy": the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes. He writes the following about the Essenes: "marriage they disdain, but they adopt other men's children while yet pliable and docile" -- children implying sons. In general, it was common in antiquity to abandon unwanted children (although it is uncertain whether or to what extent this was true of Jews), thus providing an ample source for adoptions. According to Josephus, the Essenes did not think there was anything inherently wrong with marriage, but thought they could not trust women and therefore did not marry. A question worth asking is whether Josephus was recording the facts as they were or if he was adding his own comment. Yet, Josephus mentions one order of Essenes who did marry (War 2.160-161) because "they think that those who decline to marry cut out the chief function of life...the propagation of the race". They give their wives a 3 year probation and only marry after the woman's potential fertility is proved. Furthermore, they do not have intercourse with them during pregnancy to show that their real motive is the propagation of the race. Other ancient writers confirm Josephus' statement that the Essenes do not marry, in particular Philo who says that "no Essene takes wife" -- an indication of the male make-up of the community -- "because a wife is a selfish creature, excessively jealous and an adept at beguiling the morals of her husband and seducung him by her continuous impostures" (Hypothetica 11.14; Kraemer is inclined to believe that this passage is about Philo's own views on women). While Josephus says Essenes worry about women seducing other men, Philo's description of their concern is about women seducing their own husbands away from spiritual matters. He mentions nothing of the order of Essenes who do marry; neither do any of the other ancient writers. The Dead Sea Scrolls evidence Nothing in the scrolls as currently available makes it clear that there were women living in the DSS community; quite to the contrary, much of the content of the scrolls is specifically oriented toward a male community. The evidence of the Qumran graves (see the Biblical Archeology article) The excavations of the Qumran burial sites have lead some scholars to question the theory of an exclusive male membership. A main cemetery holding about 1000 graves has been found at Qumran along with two secondary ones. A total of 1200 graves is estimated. The problem lies in that only about 50 graves have been opened (in the 1950's and '60's) and the rest are unlikely to be opened because of resistance in some Jewish sectors in Israel to the desecration of Jewish graves. Of the graves excavated, 9 contained women (one with a child), 36 men and 6 children (gender not specified). Only 3 women were found in the main cemetery, the rest were in adjacent areas and cemeteries. Because of this, some scholars have argued that these women were not members of the community, but perhaps travelers who died on their journey (or some other type of non member). The fact that the alignment of the women's tombs was often different from the majority may support this theory (if the alignment of graves was a significant part of their religious system). The problem with prooving this is that we usually don't have information about everyday practices such as burials because the ancient people were so familiar with such practices that writers don't find it necessary to write about them. Both Josephus and Philo estimated the total number of Essenes at 4000. This does not explain why there are only 1200 graves (especially if they lived there for more than 100 years). A possible explanation is that many people in antiquity, and Jews in particular, practiced secondary burial where bones were desiccated and put into a box (an "ossuary") to be buried later elsewhere, such as in a family grave. Yet no evidence of secondary burial has been found so far at Qumran. Only if the remaining graves are explored will we have more answers. The DSS texts: The mention of women in the DSS texts presents an interpretative problem: it is found within the context of legal discussions that may be either THEORETICAL or ESCHATOLOGICAL and thus would not necessarily suggest the actual presence of women. The texts are directly drawn out of the law codes of the scriptures and furthermore, an eschatological community would not have been concerned with having offspring. Based on the text 4Q502 -which Garcia Martinez includes under "4Q Ritual of Marriage," some argue that the presence of women was not simply hypothetical or eschatological. Based mainly on Fragments 19 and 24, Joseph Baumgarten [Journal of Jewish Studies 34 (1983) 125-35] has argued that this is not a marriage ritual, but a ritual of old age. He says these two fragments are indicative of the whole fragment. The ritual would then be an honoring of elders in the community (both men and women). Philo on the Therapeutae: Philo describes a monastic community called the Therapeutae in his essay "On the Contemplative Life". He contrasts this community, whose members lead a "contemplative life," with the Essenes that he described in the sister tractate "Every Good Man is Free," who he claims lead an "active life" (they farmed, engaged in commerce, etc.). The Therapeutae ate only bread and water (therefore, they must have had money since they apparently didn't make the bread, so they must have bought it with money they had brought with them). Philo claims that such people lived in many places throughout the world, but their main center was on the shores of the Mareotic Lake (and the Mediterranean) just west of Alexandria. At least since the time of Eusebius (early 4th century CE), Philo's description was thought to be of an early Christian monastic community. Only since the late 19th century has it been proven otherwise. There is also some debate about whether Philo has imaginatively created this community, because nobody else mentions it (nor do any texts survive from the community itself) and it could have been the embodiment of his ideal community (he shows great admiration for them). Kraemer believes it was more likely a real community. Philo mentions both men and women Therapeutae. They study philosophy, allegorical texts and scriptures in individual cells during the week and come together in a common sanctuary on the Sabbath (seventh) day. The whole ceremony is described as a model of mystical experience, drawing upon Greek ideas of mystical encounters in the cult of Dionysus. An important point is the mention of these women as "aged virgins". Kraemer believes that "aged" in this case refers to post-menopausal women. This is significant because Philo suggests elsewhere that women who do not menstruate are no longer considered women. In Philo's philosophical system, becoming MALE is an essential part of his belief. Just as the soul's (feminine word in Greek) ultimate goal is to become male and virgin, the women can become male now that they are no longer menstruating. And since such women aren't really women any longer, they can do all the things men do (except perhaps sit together with men in this common sanctuary; Philo does say that the genders are separated). If Baumgarten is right and there are women among the DSS Essenes, the idea of having "aged women" would not contradict the need for purity in the community (according to Philo's theory that women become men after menopause) -- a major concern among the DSS people. One theory holds that they are there in the wilderness because they want to separate themselves from an impure community in Jerusalem. These men could have been worried that menstruating women would render them impure. They felt that ritual purity would place them in a special relationship with God. Dr. Ross S. Kraemer concluded by saying that it is very easy to forget about women in antiquity because almost everything that we know or are taught is oriented toward the experiences of men. Let the reader beware! //end dss.950216// DSS.950221(=#11) Minutes, Dead Sea Scrolls Class, 21 February 1995 University of Pennsylvania, Religious Studies 225, Robert Kraft Primary recorder: Reuben Wetherbee; person to see if he screwed up: Jacob Jaffe Usual Begining Clean-up Stuff: 1> Book Reviews due on Friday March 3. Try to have it in on time. Length should be about 2 type written pages. Submit electronically to RAK. 2> The weekly swim-team comment and repartee with Hunter by RAK. 3> The video of Ross Kraemer' class presentation and the audio tape of Devorah Dimant's are available. Ask RAK if interested. 4> The Garcia Martinez translations still have not been recieved in the Book Store. Coming in from the Netherlands. [Update 2/23 -- they have arrived!] 5> CD-ROM -- only place you can find a fully functioning set up is in During Wing. We will use this material more after the spring break. Note on differing traslations of scrolls (with particular reference to the translations provided by the CD-ROM): When looking at scrolls, it would be good to check more than one translation. For instance, the translation of the copper plaque/scroll by Garcia Martinez is quite different from John Allegro's (on the CD-ROM). In general, the translations in Garcia Martinez could be somewhat flawed at times since they basically have been translated into English from the original Spanish edition (1992), itself made from the Hebrew and Aramaic. As we have noted before, Gaster's translation avoids being woodenly literal in an attempt to render the meaning as Gaster understood it -- this can be very useful, especially when used in conjunction with a more literal approach. ?Why is the Schiffman Hypothesis of Sadducean origins of the scrolls not more popular? [see VanderKam 93ff for details] The Sadducean hypothesis is relatively recent, appearing in force only in the past decade or so. The hypothesis primarily depends on the 4QMMT document which has aquired various titles such as "Some Things from the Torah." The official edition was published quite recently, and it was first made widely available in a privately distributed version from a DSS conference in Poland a few years ago. 4QMMT appears to be a "halakhic letter" in which the author discusses some ways in which he feels the scriptural laws should be interpreted. About 5 of these disputed laws are identifiable as points of contention between Sadducees and Pharisees which were also mentioned in rabbinic literature. Possibly that the name "Sadducees" itself is derived from the ancient priestly family of Zadok or Zaddukim. The scroll people also speak of themselves as "sons of Zadok." Whether this suffices to identify the groups is problematic. Some have argued that the apocryphal work "The Wisdom of Ben Sirach" (also called "Ecclesiasticus") was written by a Sadducee since there is no mention of eschatological issues, which according to other sources were not a Sadducean concern. One problem with the Sadducean hypothesis is that it doesn't match up with the evident eschatological nature of the authors of the DSS. RAK supposes that Schiffman probably thinks the community was rooted in an older Sadducean tradition, but could not be termed strictly Sadducean in the sense found in Josephus and other such sources. [See further VanderKam 94f.] Sources Referring to Sadducees: Never mentioned in Philo and Pliny. Josephus treats them briefly in his accounts of the Jewish "sects." New Testament and rabbinic writings mention them in various connections. Most accounts don't portray Sadducees in a good light. ?Do we know that all the documents originated in the same community? At one level, clearly not. The biblical texts, for example, did not originate with the DSS people, although they may have been copied by those people. Emanuel Tov has attempted to ascertain if there are physical characteristics shared by some of the texts that would indicate common origin of those texts as copies -- how the tetragrammaton is handled, spacing between words, etc. (scribal habits; see Fitzmyer 11b for details). Others have looked for characteristic vocabulary and themes. The category "sectarian texts" attempts to identify those materials most probably generated by the group (not just copied by them). It is still to early to tell if even the "sectarian texts" represent the perspectives of a single, unified group, or whether we can reconstruct the ideas and practices of such a group from the texts. It is also possible that just because they had these texts in their library does not mean they agreed with or followed the teachings contained in the texts, or for that matter, that they interpreted the texts in the way we would expect them to. (Modern examples abound.) Roughly half of the DSS material was previously known (e.g. biblical or apocryphal or pseudepigraphic). The remainder is not necessarily entirely homogeneous or "sectarian." A good starting point for discussing "sectarian compositions" is the Manual of Discipline (1QS), the Damascus Document (CD) and other "initiation" texts that deal with the background and the running of a community. But it is not impossible or unthinkable that even such texts might have been "imported" to the community. ?How did Devorah Dimant classify the documents? According to an article read by Hunter for his review project, she views the scrolls as a library with some sort of classification in terms of the subject treated. Sort of like an ancient Dewey Decimal system? RAK suggested that her interest in "para biblical" materials, for example, and in the Aramaic apocalyptic grouping, may contribute to this impression. Primary Theme of the Day: Three Primary Authors concerning Essenes 1. Philo Philo lived in the first half of the first century. The year of his death is uncertain. General belief is that he died soon after 40 CE because that is the last we hear from him. RAK suspects that he was still around (and writing) in 67-68 and described a crisis that occured in Alexandria around that time. He would have been in his 80's, probably. Two accounts in Philo: 1."Every Good Man is Free" (EGMF) -- perhaps written pre 40. Philo is usually called a "philosopher" but his main interest seems to be concerned with inner states -- what we might call "psychology." He describes the Essenes as an example of true human freedom and virtue. 2. "Hypothetica" (or "Apology for the Jews") -- not known directly but from quotations by the early Christian writer Eusebius (4th century). Possibly this account of the Essenes was written earlier than the other. Some characteristics of Essenes claimed in both works: the name denotes their piety (Greek, hosios); they are older men, without children, not holding property or slaves, pooling resources, engaged in agriculture and crafts, common meals, care for their sick, with a structured community for resource distributation. Both accounts end with stating that even the worst tyranical rulers held esteem for the Essenes. Of special interest in Hypothetica: Live in many cities and villages of Judea. Even clothing is shared. Occupations include herds and bee keeping. Of special interest in EGMF: They live only in villages, not in cities, in Syro-Palestine; about 4000 in number; they don't sacrifice living animals; they manufacture some products, but not weapons; nature is their parent; they meet every 7 days in synagogues (note Philo's usually does not use the term synagogue but does so for Essenes) to read and interpret scriptures; they refuse to take oaths. Something to think about: No weapons used but apparently some medicine. The "Fallen Angels" in some traditions taught people how to use herbs and how to make weapons. Is this significant? Let's watch for how weapons are treated in the War Scroll (1QM). Also, one of the ancient sources mentions that some Essenes travel armed, for protection. Note also that Philo does not place the Essenes in only one location (community). 2. Josephus Two main sources 1. Jewish War - written probably in the late 70s ce. 2. Antiquities - written around 100 c.e. Wants reader to believe that he writes about such things from personal experience. Claims in "Vita" (autobiographical defense) that he had tried out all three major sects as a youth. Even went to live in the wilderness with someone named Banus. Even before the DSS were discovered, J. Thomas (in French) argued that there were various "baptizing movements" in Syro-palesting at this time, of which Banus might have been an example. War 2.120-161: Describes all three sects (Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes) and in the process glorifies Essenes and trashes the Sadducees. Also says there is a subset of Essenes that marry. Never claims the Essenes are only in one place, but mentions that they reside in many cities. Antiquities 13.172: Distinguishes the "sects" in terms of their views of fate. Antiquities 18.18ff: Sketches life of Essenes: God in charge of destiny, soul is immortal, have disputes with temple in Jerusalem, engage in agriculture, pool resources, have own priests, no wives, own no slaves, number about 4,000 (Philo also mentions this, a common source is possible). In mentioning relationship with the temple he does not mention that the temple has already been destroyed -- perhaps he is referring to an earlier standard account from before 70 ce. 3. Pliny Source: "Natural History" -- written about 77 ce (see Vanderkam 72). "Natural History" kind of like a travel guide for Palestine and other areas. Essenes described as: No women, no money, just palm trees. Pick up refugees and people who are tired of life and looking for something different. Locates the Essene community on the west of the Dead Sea, with Engedi lying "below" it. Dispute as to whether this means "to the south of" or "down the hill from" (or something else). Sequence from Essenes to En-gedi to Masada suggest it is "to the south of," which would be consistent with the location of Qumran. Note that, unlike Philo and Josephus, Pliny places Essenes strictly in one place. Connection of Essenes to Philo's Theraputae: As we saw last class, the Theraputae are described by Philo in "On The Contemplative Life". He himself makes connection between his account of the Essenes in EGMF and his account of the Theraputae. States that Essenes are in the "service" of God and interprets "Theraputae" to mean "servants (of God)" or also "healers (of souls)." He claims that both groups are found in many places but he describes one main location, near Alexandria, for the Therapeutae. His descriptions of Essenes and Theraputae show many features in common. Thus is is possible to argue that the Therapeutae are of the same "type" as the Essenes, and the evidence they provide can also be used, with caution. //end dss.950221// DSS.950223(=#12) Minutes, Dead Sea Scrolls Class, 23 February 1995 University of Pennsylvania, Religious Studies 225, Robert Kraft Recorders: Kathleen Hoffman with Christine Boulos 1. Administrative Stuff --The Garcia Martinez translation textbooks (red books) are finally in the Bookstore. It is important for members of the class to obtain these $30 texts because the remainder of the course will focus heavily on reading the original source materials in English. --Dr.Bob is going to create an index of the CD-ROM material so that the class will be able to access specific texts and other information easily. --Dr.Bob is toying with the suggestion of inviting Larry Schiffman, esteemed DSS scholar and local cult hero, to visit the class. --A reminder that book reviews are due, if possible, before Spring break (March 3). Conceptually, a review should include two types of information: (1) a balanced summary of what the reviewed book attempts to do, and (2) an evaluation of the results, especially in comparison to other sources we have used, specifically Fitzmyer and VanderKam. These aspects may be intertwined, or kept separate, as suits the reviewer. The book review need not exceed 800 words (about 4-5 screens of information) and should be emailed to Dr.Bob. Hard copy is undesirable; we can save a tree! Finished reviews will go to the electronic distribution list, and the gopher. --Another reminder. Sign up for a second session of minute taking, or you will be assigned some unnamed substitute task by Dr.Bob. This could entail anything [within reason, of course!]. 2. Questions from the class --How is the "Masoretic Text" related to the Pentateuch and other biblical texts extant at the time of the DSS? The "Masoretic Text" (MT) is the most widely read and disseminated version of the Jewish Bible. It was standardized from the Hebrew tradition around 800-1000 CE by the "Masoretes" in Palestine/Israel (especially Tiberias) and in Babylonia. "Masoretes" is not a sect name, but rather refers to an "activity" concerned with recording "tradition" (masorah) associated with the biblical text. It is likely that Karaites were active among the Masoretes. Prior to the emergence of the vocalized MT, the extant texts were "unpointed" or "consonantal," meaning that they lacked vowels except occasionally as placeholders ("matres lectiones"). The MT tried to eliminate vowel ambiguity in the written form by recording the tradition of the words' pronunciation. This was done by marking the consonants by one of two systems, the Tiberian and the Babylonian. The cadence and stress were marked along with the vowels, facilitating reading the text aloud. The MT also recorded traditional differences between groups/regions, by noting where the oral reading ("qere") differed from what was written ("katav" or "katab"). The special case of the tetragrammaton is an example of this; the MT would indicate that "Adonai" was to be spoken although "YHWH" was written. Here, the question arises as to how we know how the Hebrew text was pronounced at the time. Obviously, the written symbols could easily represent different sounds to modern readers. One clue comes from the Hexapla, a 6-columned work by the Christian scholar Origen, issued early in the 3rd century CE. The first column contained the Hebrew/Aramaic text in semitic characters, the second gave the same text in Greek transliteration (thus giving some idea of pronunciation), and the other 4 provided various Greek translations, including some text critical markings to indicate where the Hebrew and Greek versions differ. Additionally, proper names and place names that are transliterated into various languages may help indicate the Hebrew pronunciation. Finally, there exist specific descriptions of the articulatory characteristics of sounds (and their representations) from the time of the Masoretes. However, Hebrew did have some dialectical differences which could have affected pronunciation of the texts. Jewish communities flourished in the Persian Gulf area (Babylon) as well as in Palestine/Israel, for example, widely distant from each other. These similar but distinct "local" traditions are reflected in the two extant versions of the Talmud -- the Babylonian Talmud, which is what one normally thinks of as the classical rabbinic version, and the Palestinian (or "Jerusalem") Talmud. The DSS provide evidence of the situation with the earlier unpointed consonantal texts. Indeed, they have pushed our knowledge of the Jewish scriptures back 1000 years, through layers and layers of copies. One reason why the unwritten tradition of the texts could be preserved for centuries without recorded standardization was that in antiquity texts were generally read aloud, and thus pronounced. Even in silent reading, the lips were generally moving. --What is the significance of the Murabba'at caves? The Murabba'at caves are located south of Qumran on the west coast of the Dead Sea. The DSS discoveries of the 1940's encouraged the Bedouin and scholars to search among the Dead Sea cliffs for other valuable remains. Findings from other sites of discoveries in the Judean desert are generally included under the broad heading of DSS, although they may not be related to the Qumran group at all. These sites include: --Khirbet Mird --Wadi Murabba'at (a wadi is a dry riverbed, in case you were wondering) --Nahal Hever --Nahal Mishmar --Nahal Se'elim --Masada (site of the fortress that was the last outpost of the 1st revolt) --Wadi ed-Daliyah -- its inclusion in this group is questionable. The site is in the Samaritan area, NW of the Dead Sea [Fitzmyer p.1 is in error on the location] and most of the material found there dates much earlier than the DSS and is not related to it. For specific information about these sites and their materials, you need to consult a source such as the <t>Anchor Bible Dictionary</> in addition to the Fitzmyer (e.g. p.26) and VanderKam texts. Some important remnants from the "second revolt" (by Bar Kokhba/Cochba) have been recovered from the Murabba'at and Nahal Hever caves. 3. Calendars and the DSS Pliny, Philo and Josephus never mention the calendar of the Essenes as a distinctive feature, aside from their use of the typical Jewish 7-day week concluding with the "sabbath" rest day. However, Philo suggested that the Theraputae had some unusual calendar-related practices (On the Contemplative Life 64ff). He said they placed special importance on a cycle consisting of a "week of weeks," or 7 weeks of 7 days apiece = 49 days, followed by a festive 50th day. It is not clear whether he means to suggest cycles of 50 days throughout the year, or a specific yearly festival in accord with the traditional Jewish holiday of Shavuot (from which the Christian celebration of Pentecost derives). Various unusual calendric emphases are found in the DSS texts. Even prior to the DSS discoveries, the "pseudepigraphic" books of Jubilees and "1 Enoch" (Astronomical Book) provided glimpses of a calendar different from what became traditional in rabbinic Judaism. Jubilees gets its name from its arrangement of the history of Israel from the Garden of Eden until Moses' reception of the Law on Mt. Sinai in terms of "Jubilees" -- 49 year periods (see Leviticus 25.8ff). The presence of these texts, and others similar to them, among the DSS is striking. Note that in the middle ages, some Islamic and Jewish authors also refer to an ancient Jewish group that followed a "different" calendar, and called them "cave dwellers" (Magharians). These reports may have been influenced by discoveries of DSS in the 8th century or even earlier. References are found in the DSS to the celebration of the following festivals otherwise not known to classical Judaism (see VanderKam p. 115): --New Wine Festival --Wood Festival --New Oil Festival (Jake cleverly pointed out the incongruence of an oil festival with a culture that considered oil a means of spreading impurity) Notably absent are the "newer" (non-biblical) holidays of Rosh Hashanah (civil new year) and Hannukah (Hasmonean/Maccabean revolt). Rosh Hashanah was probably not observed because it was developed to mark the beginning of the civil year in the fall (in distinction to the more traditional "religious" new year, in the spring), and was presumably not accepted by the DSS people as legitimate or appropriate, if they even knew about such an observance. Hannukah, of course, is the celebration of the recovery of the Temple by the Jews in the Hasmonean Revolt. This occured in 165 BCE, roughly contemporaneous with the founding of the DSS community, but the DSS people were not supporters of the Maccabees. In fact, they may have founded their outpost in the desert partly because of the upheaval connected with the revolt, and in reaction to its results. The traditional Jewish rabbinic calendar, commonly referred to as luni-solar, consists of 354 days per year (thus 11 1/4 days short of a solar year), with an extra month added every 3rd year to bring it back into sycronization with the agricultural seasons it reflects. The Muslim calendar is strictly lunar consisting of 354 days without adjustment to the solar cycles. Thus a solar century is approximately equal to 103 lunar years. The DSS people followed a solar calendar consisting of 12 months of 30 days each = 360 days, plus 4 extra days inserted between each 90 day (3 month) season = 364 days, which divides neatly into 52 weeks of 7 days. This calendar is consistenly symmetrical and predictable. Each annual festival always is held on the same day(s) of the week, year in and year out. It is likely that they somehow adjusted for the 1 1/4 days per year not accounted for, although we do not know how. Perhaps they invoked a mini-jubilee at appropriate intervals (an extra month would be needed every 24 years, which is about half a jubilee). The fact that early Jewish communities had such differing calendars, has been used to explain a curious inconsistency in the Christian traditions about Jesus' last days. The Gospel of John reports that Jesus was crucified when the passover lamb was being slaughtered, whereas the synoptic gospels place that event prior to the crucifixion. Some commentators suggest that Jesus and his followers used the solar calendar for their celebration of Passover, as reported in the synoptics, while the Gospel of John reflects the luni-solar reckoning which was used by most Jews (including Jesus' main enemies). This is a clever solution, although it does not solve all the problems of the discrepant accounts. //end dss.950223// DSS.950228(=#13) Minutes, Dead Sea Scrolls Class, 28 February 1995 University of Pennsylvania, Religious Studies 225, Robert Kraft Recorded by Lance "Sleeper" Allred and Hunter "Swimmer" Powell Administrative and Preliminary Matters The Garcia Martinez book has arrived (the red cover book of English translations). If you want to be a overachiever you should read ahead during spring break. Start at the start with the major sectarian texts (Manual of Discipline = 1QS, Damascus Document = CD), after which we will move on to escatalogical material (War Scroll = 1QM), and the "para-biblical" materials. Dr. Kraft had a brief show-and-tell period in which he showed off his small "souvenir type" replica of the Manual of Discipline and it's storage jar. He also put in a small plug by passing around the recent "Discoveries in the Judean Desert" volume on the Greek Minor Prophets scroll by Emanuel Tov, with collaboration by RAK. We were also reminded of the correct spelling of VanderKam and Fitzmyer, for reporting purposes. Some "cleanup" questions ensued, as usual. An attempt was made, again, to clarify some archeological aspects of the Qumran site and the caves. Kraft reminded us that there are many caves in the Qumran area, but only eleven had written material included in the designation "DSS." The caves could have been used for a variety of things, including habitation in some. Kraft talked about the use of Carbon-14 dating of the scrolls, and reminded us that this method can tell us when the tested organic material (linen, leather, papyrus) began to be produced, but it cannot necessarily tell us when the document was written (e.g. leather hides collected decades earlier might be used at a later date). The possibilities of DNA testing set the class off onto a rampant discussion as to the chances of finding the ancient location and even the modern descendants of animals that were used for the leather of the DSS (including non inscribed leather such as straps, sandals, etc.), or at least identifying fragments that came from the hide of the same animal. The class remained on this topic for a good twenty minutes, with such random comments as "we could open another Jurassic Park!" Kraft reminded us that although he might hesitate to identify the DSS composers/users as "Essenes," he does recognize that the scrolls evidence certain "Essene" characteristics similar to those described by Josephus and Philo. The producers of the DSS don't call themsevles Essenes, although they have various other self-designations including (as Sigrid has just informed Lance and Hunter) The Ya{.h}ad (the community). It is possible that "Essene" was a designation used mainly by outsiders to describe a type of outlook characteristic of various similar groups in the area. The Main Topic: Controversies In the first decade of the DSS discoveries, many controversies already surrounded the scrolls, as discussed especially by Millar Burrows (<t>The DSS</> [1955] and <t>More Light on the DSS</> [1957]). Solomom Zeitlin wrote many articles claiming that the DSS were at best, medieval hoaxes, to be understood in relation to movements such as the Karaites. His student, J. Teicher, acknowledged that the scrolls were older than that, but interpreted them as products of early "Jewish Christian" concerns and developments (see, more recently, Robert Eisenman). John Allegro, in his rise to noteriety, even suggested that the "teacher of righteousness" had been crucified and was expected to be resurrected, as a sort of prefigurement of what would later be claimed for Jesus (see also J. Dupont-Sommer). A special sidelight also associated with Allegro is "the Shapira Affair": A Russian Jew by the name of W. M. Shapira moved to Jeruselem around 1856 and opened an antiquities shop. He was selling things as "Moabite" artifacts and a French scholar said that they were fake. Some years later, in the 1870s, Shapira obtained 15 leather strips from a Bedouin, who claimed to have found them near the shore of the Dead Sea, containing what Shapira determined to be Hebrew text of the book of Deuteronomy. He took these stips to London where they were authenticated and put on display in the British Museum. Once on display, the same Frenchman came along and declared them to be fakes; the exibit was taken down and the artifacts were sold very cheaply. Shapira, disgraced, committed suicide. Allegro asks if perhaps these were authentic "DSS" type materials, in his book on the subject. The current whereabouts of these Shapira materials is unknown, if they have survived at all. (to be continued) //end dss.950228// DSS.950302(=#14) Minutes, Dead Sea Scrolls Class, 2 March 1995 University of Pennsylvania, Religious Studies 225, Robert A. Kraft Recorder: Jarid Lukin (solo) Reminder: Book reviews are preferably due before Spring Break. Format should follow that of IOUDAIOS Reviews (IOUD-REV). A sheet of guidelines for these type of reviews was handed out at the beginning of class today. These guidelines do not have to be held to strictly, but you should have some sort of idea as to what the tags mean. Miscellaneous Information ========================= The Garcia Martinez translation textbook (the big red one) also contains a useful introduction to the Dead Sea Scrolls, but it presupposes the sort of basic knowledge available in such treatments as VanderKam and Fitzmyer. Dr. Kraft feels that the class is ready and should be able to profit from this introduction. It offers a good summary of the history of the finds and discusses other topics such as what has been found in the caves that might link them to the site at Qumran (i.e. pottery), and what other "Judean Desert" caves have been found in addition to those near Qumran. Read it. The March/April Issue of the Biblical Archaeological Review (BAR) is out. It has reviews of some books that some members of the class have been reading and will be of more general interest: Norman Golb, <t>Who Wrote The Dead Sea Scrolls</>; Neil Asher Silberman, <t>The Hidden Scrolls: Christianity, Judaism, and the War for the Dead Sea Scrolls</>; Lawrence Schiffman, <t>Reclaiming The Dead Sea Scrolls</>. A Historical Time Line To Help Put Things In Perspective ======================================================== For the continued discussion and understanding of various debates over the scrolls, a broader picture of the historical context of the scrolls, and of Judaism and early Christianity, is important: 2000 bce Abraham and "the Patriarchs" 1500 Moses and Joshua 1000 David Solomon (builds Jerusalem Temple) "The Divided Kingdom (North and South)" Fall of the Northern Kingdom to Assyria, around 721 Fall of Southern Kingdom (Judah) to Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia in 587/586, with destruction of the Temple (Persian Empire; "Second Temple" established around 520) 500 / \ | 330 Alexander the Great, Greek World Empire | 165 Hasmonean/Maccabean Revolt (against Greek Seleukids) unrest -- "Hasidim," DSS group, etc. | 63 (End of Hasmonean/Maccabean Independence) | 2nd Temple Period (about 520 bce - 70 ce) [0 bce/ce] | 30 Joshua/Jesus and the beginnings of "Christianity" Philo | \ / 70 Fall of Jerusalem ("First Revolt"), Qumran and Masada Josephus 135 Bar Kokhba and the "Second Revolt" (Murabba'at) 325 Eusebius Constantine -- Greco-Roman Emperor Emergence of Classical Judaism Emergence of Classical Christianity (no longer unrecognized by the Romans as a distinct religion) 500 ce How one views the DSS group in relation to their "biblical" and "post-biblical" past, and in relation to the development of "classical (rabbinic) Judaism" as well as early Christianity, has a great influence on the debates over who they were and what their significance may be. Especially controversial are the perceived or imagined lines between the varieties of Judaism in the "second Temple period" and what emerges as "classical Judaism," on the one hand, and what develops into "early Christianity" on the other. As noted last class, the term "Essene" may or may not be a general category imposed by outsiders on a certain group. There is no first hand record of a community calling themselves Essenes. The term Essene might come from a word meaning "pious" and therefore, might be used to classify a certain type of piety by an outsider. It is possible that there was no "official" definition (however that would be determined!) for being classified as an "Essene." "Sadducee" does not seem to be such a nebulous designation. It is applied to a specific class, an elite class closely associated with the Jewish priesthood ("Zadokites" ?). It is presented as a limited term unlike "Essene." The name Sadducee is first introduced by Josephus in connection with the rule of John Hyrkanus (135-104 bce). But Josephus wasn't alive and present at that time. So, at best, he provides second hand evidence. The same holds for Josephus' description of the emergence of the "Pharisees" in the same period. There are also other names of "Jewish groups" reported in ancient sources (especially by early Christian writers) that lack any useful description [see, for an introductory treatment, Marcel Simon, <t>Jewish Sects at the Time of Jesus</> (Fortress 1967)] -- e.g. Hemerobaptists, Masbothei, Genistae, Meristae, Galileans. In antiquity, only two people from whom we have writings refer to themselves as associated with "Pharisees": Paul and Josephus. You cannot make a whole lot out of a religious grouping term (i.e. Essene, perhaps even Pharisee) in and of itself. The classifications were probably to some extent arbitrary distinctions made by the authors, much as we use similar labels even today -- ponder the various ways in which terms such as "conservative/Conservative" function for us. At this point, Irv questioned why it would be considered problematic to draw a direct line back from "classical Judaism" to the Pharisees. His point was that if we have a more or less clear picture of classical Judaism, that sort of Judaism is not likely to have emerged without connection to the same sorts of ideas in its past. Dr. Kraft did not deny that the connection might be direct (by way of intentional transmission, as well as by way of later perception), but argued that there is not enough evidence from the generations that fall between these two time periods to give us sufficient detail regarding the exact relationship of early Pharisaic to later classical/rabbinic Judaism. The dynamics of historical development are unclear. Some Discussion on Recent DSS Controveries ========================================== Barbara Thiering's <t>Jesus and the Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls</> (Harper-Collins 1992) is a book that identifies John the Baptist as the Teacher of Righteousness and Jesus as the Wicked Priest of the Qumran texts. She claims that scrolls were written by very early, selfconsciously Christian authors who have coded their writings. Thiering also claims that she has broken this alleged code. Dr. Kraft feels that the class should now have enough background information to read this book intelligently and objectively. [For a readable summary and review, see Hershel Shanks in BAR 18.5 (Sept/Oct 1992) 69f.] Another recent controversial book may be even more seductive than Thiering's. It is written by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh and is entitled <t>The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception</> (Summit 1991). In the first part of the book, a lot of interesting and valuable information is given. However, as the title suggests, the book then goes off and ventures into some eccentric arguments and theories that have little or no evidential support. //end dss.950302// DSS.950314(=#15) Minutes, Dead Sea Scrolls Class, 14 March 1995 University of Pennsylvania, Religious Studies 225, Robert A. Kraft Cara Weinstein, recorder; Lisa Bronowitz, editor Business: We discussed a few basic features of the CD-ROM as a source for particular types of material and pieces of information: 1. Files are identified as such: ".txt" == text file ".pct" == picture file ".qt" == movie file (stands for "quick time") Each file type is accessed by a different type of software -- text by almost any wordprocessing or text display program, "*.pct" by graphics displayers that handle PICT files, "*.qt" by software that can show motion clips. (See the instructions sent with the first installment of the index.) 2. Sample file name: d:\text\a000[0]040.txt (brackets mine) The number in brackets denotes the type of visual that will appear: 0 = informational text, 1 = picture (various sorts), 3 = picture of (portion of) a scroll, 4 = English translation of "3" More business: Those who have not yet submitted their reviews should do so. Book Store report: The Book Store claims to have copies of Gaster, Vermes, and Garcia Martinez. Also, RAK has reordered VanderKam and Fitzmyer through the Book Store. For reference: RAK will refer to Garcia Martinez in the future as GM. Assignment: For next class, read the "Rule of the Community" = "Manual of Discipline" from cave 1 (1QS), and after that look at the fragments from caves 4 and 5 (which come next in GM). Note that GM does not attempt to synthesize the various fragments into one text, but does provide some cross-referencing to assist the reader. After 1QS (etc.), we will move on to the Damascus Document (CDC or CD). We passed around pictures of some of the scrolls, including the Habbakuk commentary and the Manual of Disciple. A few interesting things can be noted in the pictures: Inter-linear corrections can be seen in some of the photos -- most likely comments and interpretations (the copiers and/or users of some of the scrolls apparently took the liberty to make such corrections/comments after the scrolls were written). Also, stitch marks can be seen joining some of the columns. This is logical, as an animal of normal size would be hard pressed (no pun intended) to provide a sufficiently lengthy continuous piece of hide on which to write. Lastly, a couple of (to us) mysterious symbols, which one contemporary investigator would have us believe may be "Chinese" (a theory not widely embraced) are found in the margins of 1QS. Discussion of the comparison of the cave 4 fragments of the Manual to the more complete copy from cave 1: Dating based on handwriting analysis (paleography) suggests that at least some of the cave 4 fragments of the "Manual" are from the "Herodian period" (refers to Herod and his successors, in the last third of the first century BCE into the first century CE). This would place them within the last century or so in which Qumran was occupied. In contrast, the cave 1 manuscript has been dated to the "Hasmonean period," prior to about 63 BCE. Thus it may be possible to catch a glimpse of some adjustments and modifications taking place among the users of the much copied "Manual" materials. Parallelism, which is typical of early Israelite poetry, is apparent in the language of much of the poetry at the end of 1QS -- ideas/constructions are repeated or echoed in contiguous or nearby lines, such as: "I shall bless his name / I shall extol him." Some themes that appear frequently in 1QS include relationship to God's "covenant," ideals and requirements for daily living, eschatological world view, and the struggle with satanic forces ("Belial"). After this background discussion, we read aloud the first 15 lines of the the Manual, a section called "Introduction" by Fitzmyer. Notice the particular terms used for the attributes of the people of the Community: "righteous," etc. RAK noted out that in examination of the scrolls, interpreters viewing things from traditional Jewish perspectives have tended to have their attention drawn initially to the concrete terminology denoting law and/or obedience, whereas those operating from traditionally Christian perspectives tend to notice more quickly the more abstract ideals such as "justice" and "grace." Both aspects seem clearly present. To keep in mind: the first thing to do is to try to get an overview of the entire text. What does it seem to be trying to accomplish? What is the literary "form" chosen for the task? (Note that poetic "form" does not necessarily manifest itself in an obvious pattern of writing -- the lines can be run together in the same manner as narrative, and the poetic qualities only become apparent by analysis of the contents; this can be seen at the end of 1QS.) //end minutes dss.950314// DSS.950316(=#16) Minutes, Dead Sea Scrolls Class, 16 March 1995 University of Pennsylvania, Religious Studies 225, Robert A. Kraft Recorded by Arthur Cho and Tal Golob (born 3/21!) Pre-Class: <t>The Treasure of the Copper Scroll</> by John Marco Allegro is an interesting book on these unique, metallic plaques. Dr. Kraft has a copy for those who are interested in looking at it. Also, an article from the Feb. 19 Philadelphia Inquirer on DNA tests on the DSS was introduced and Kraft has a copy of this also. Finally, for the undergrads and graduates who are need of financial support, a directory of scholarships from inside and outside the University is available from the General Honors office. Class itself: Dr. Kraft immediately began to delve into the Manual of Discipline (Rule of the Community; 1QS) of the DSS translation. The thirty day punishment for giggling caused a titter among the classmembers and a brief, sarcastic discussion. Kraft brought us to order by asking the question, "Who is this document (the Manual of Discipline) about?" Common names used in the text for the main participants included "the Many," "the Community," "the sons of Zadok" and "the sons of Aaron." The relative importance and relationship of such designations raises question how the actual addressees of the "Manual" saw themselves and the authority structures around them. Did they see themselves actually as "the sons of Zadok" (with the priestly historical connections of such terminology), for example, or was the phrase used in a more symbolic manner, detoured from its historical roots. Kraft stressed that awareness of this sort of distinction is important, even when no clear answer can be found. Discussion continued about who "the sons of Zadok" and "the sons of Aaron" might be, in this context, whether one or both terms refer to the community as a whole or rather to specific members (subgroups) of the community. Kraft noted that the name "Zadok" is historically connected to an important priestly leader alongside the famous political leader, King David, around the year 1000 BCE. The possible conflict between the Hasmoneon priest/kings, who apparently could not literally claim "Zadokite" priestly lineage, and the DSS community was reiterated. After reading from the translation, col. 5 line 2, the context points to the priests of the community to be "the sons of Zadok," as distinct from the "the many." "The sons of Aaron," are described similarly, and the class decided these names were not used to describe the entire DSS community but only (some of?) the priestly leaders. It was further discussed how the use of the name, "sons of Zadok," may reflect the DSS people's view of Jerusalem and the Temple cultus. This topic was returned to later in the class. Discussion of the "Levites" was postponed for the present. The question of the flow and organization of 1QS led to a detailed discussion of the possible significance of the blanks and other possible "pointers" left in the texts. These blanks are indicated in the GM translation with the italicized word "blank." Kraft clarified (again showing the photofacsimiles) that these blanks are regions where the scribe did not write, leaving blank spaces in the text, rather than referring to portions of the text that are mutilated or missing. Kraft pointed to an interesting place where blanks were used right after the famous reference to the two messiahs, "of Aaron and Israel" (9.11) -- does the presence of an apparent break in the text at this point have any special significance? More about the special markings in GM: Blanks are indicated by "blank"(in italics), holes or gaps in the text by [...], superscript writing is enclosed between /.../, and erasures within pointed brackets thus {...}. Discussion of erasures, regions of the text where something was written but later erased and are now unreadable for translation purposes, ensued. The sheer number of times erasures appear in the text is interesting in itself and raises the question of the extent to which changes in the community's perception and application of its rules could be traced in these materials. Discussion continued about the mysterious "Chinese" symbol noted in the previous class, in the margin between 8.3 and 9.3 (see also a similarly elaborate symbol between the last lines of cols 6 and 7). (The significance of other, more simple marginal symbols was also discussed.) Someone suggested that it might be a signature by the scribe while others postulated that it might be "doodling," or a mistake, or just blots of ink. Kraft pointed out that clear strokes, some of which resemble other simple marginal marks, are distinguishable. As noted in the earlier minutes, a recent claim that the symbol is "Chinese" (representing "God") has not found wide acceptance among experts. Also, the use of **** in the text (at 8.14) to represent the tetragrammaton was briefly commented on -- the scroll itself actually has four dots here. The question of the attitude to the Jerusalem Temple cultus was revived. Column 9 of the text (1QS) portrays the scroll community as non-sacrificing -- instead opting for offerings "of the lips," presumably prayer and praise, and correct conduct. (An aside to this was raised regarding GM's use of the literalistic translation "holy of holies" vs. Vermes' "house of holiness" -- see 9.6 and 8.5-6. Kraft pointed out that the cultic specifity of the term may also lend insight into how the scroll people viewed themselves in relation to the Jerusalem Temple cultus and to ideals of "purity" and "holiness"; the community is or becomes the true "holy of holies.") Tangent: The resonance of biblical phrases (e.g. plantation of Israel) can be traced by using a biblical concordance. Some implications of this resonance will be further discussed when we read para-biblical texts. Even more tangental: The question was raised about the use of formulas such as "as it is written. . .," in ancient texts without the quotation it refers to being identifiable today. Kraft commented that this can happen in the DSS as in other early literature (e.g. the Christian Gospel of Matthew 2.23) where references may be made to texts that no longer exist. We will even encounter references to books that can not be identified -- 1QS 6.7 might be a case in point, while 1QSa (=1Q28a) 1.7 almost certainly is. Discussion of the focus on a perfected, everlasting "covenant" in 1QS 8.10 and elsewhere in the "Manual" led to comments on the possible connections with the "new covenant" expectations in Jeremiah 31.31 and 32.40 ("everlasting covenant"). Some early Christian interpreters also found these texts to be congenial, and the Christian idea of a "new testament" began as an attempt to apply the "new covenant" prediction to themselves (later it came to designate the Christian scriptural collection). //end minutes dss.950316// DSS.950321(=#17) Minutes, Dead Sea Scrolls Class, 21 March 1995 University of Pennsylvania, Religious Studies 225, Robert Kraft Syri Jo Koelfgen, Inscriber; Vincent Liu, Examiner And the Instructor (RAK: triagrammaton!) on this day of the Spring Equinox called upon the Many to do what is good and just in his presence (Manual of Discipline Column 1 line 2 = 1.2), i.e. remember to put the proper heading at the top when writing class minutes! It gives [triagrammaton] a headache to have to perform this evil, which is not good. Quasi-codices of Religious Studies course offerings for Fall Term 1995 were distributed to the Community, and the Instructor conveyed the truth in all his knowledge that more will be available at a later time in revised form. A thin book by F.F. Bruce, the Instructor's first Overseer, was passed around to the Many. Title: Biblical Exegesis in the Qumran Texts (Tyndale Press, 1959). It exemplefies earlier studies on this much discussed subject -- see the bibliography given on pp. 160f by Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The DSS: Major Publications and Tools for Study (SBL Resources for Biblical Study 20; Scholars Press, revised ed. 1990). There will be a lecture on "Implications of the Dead Sea Scrolls: an Update" by Prof. Edwin Yamauchi (Miami of Ohio University) on Wednesday April 5th beginning at 1:00 in the faculty club. Ask Jim or Brad (our ever-esteemed graduate companions) for more details. Assignment for next class session: those who bravely enter into the covenant on 23 March are to have read the Damascus Document, and also to have examined the poetry fragment circulated by RAK, comparing it to the hymn at the end of the Community Rule and asking if it might itself be a product of a similar outlook. The Rule, The Rule of the Community, The Manual of Discipline (1QS): Sources to review: 1) Fitzmyer - Question 28. What is the Manual of Discipline? 2) VanderKam - pp. 57-58 b. Manual of Discipline -- see also: Rule of Blessings, Rule of the Congregation; 3) Garcia Martinez - The Rule of the Community pp. 3-32. The Instructor reminded the Many that there can be errors in textbooks (just as he is always making bloopers, and we as his humble students in admiration of his knowledge mimic these mistakes). An obvious "haplography" (writing only part of similarly worded sections -- "half-written") appears in GM on p.6, where 1QS 3.19 is completely omitted! The following was supplied as adapted from the early translation by Millar Burrows: [19] In the abode of light are the origins of truth, and from the source of darkness are the origins of error. Less obvious but nonetheless confusing is the claim in Fitzmyer that Wadi ed-Daliyeh, the site of the discovery of some ancient "Samaritan" papyri, is "in Transjordan to the northeast of the Dead Sea" (p.1), although cartographers seem to place it north and slightly northwest of Jericho, not across the Jordan. There also seems to be an error, or at least a misleading claim, in VanderKam's section on the "Manual" (p.58), which states: "The full manuscript from Cave 1 has two additional compositions ON it." Not!! Or maybe, Not quite! It should say that the full manuscript from Cave 1 has two additional compositions ASSOCIATED WITH it. These two (1QSa and 1QSb) seem to have been associated by scholars with 1QS on the basis of content and probably format (and/or perhaps in terms of handwriting as well). None of the other copies of "The Rule of the Community" (1QS) include these works (they don't seem to have left traces in the 11 or 12 other fragmentary manuscripts of the Manual of Discipline from Caves 4 and 5). "The Rule of the Congregation" (1QSa, which is also designated 1Q28a in the List of the Manuscripts from Qumran - page 469 of GM) has an eschatological focus. "The Rule of the Blessings" (1QSb or 1Q28b) contains blessings for some of the community leaders. In his organization of the materials, GM separates the appendix 1QSa (1Q28a) even farther from The Manual, in a section on "literature with eschatological content" (126ff) because it consists of regulations for the end times. The appendix 1QSb = 1Q28b appears near the end GM's translation with other hymnic materials (432f). It is not impossible that all three "Rules" originally occupied the same leather roll, but that conclusion does not seem obvious. If it is the case, translators such as GM do a disservice by separating the pieces so radically! After the Instructor introduced 1QSa and 1QSb to the Many, an Initiant inquired, with all of his heart and with all of his soul, after the true meaning of the distinction (in titles) between superscripts and small letters. The Instructor therewith answered by taking an example into account. Look at page 20 in Garcia Martinez: 4QRule of the Community\a/ (=4Q255[4Qpaps\a/]) and 4QRule of the Community\b/ (=4Q256[4QS\b/]) have the respective superscripts \a/ and \b/. The superscripts indicate that the handwriting on different fragments is not the same, so the fragments come from different copies of the same document (copy superscript a, copy superscript b, copy superscript c, etc). The small adjoined letters (as with 1QSa) indicate that on the basis of content and/or perhaps format/handwriting it has been judged that the respective fragments are related in some consecutive way (thus the idea of 1QSa and 1QSb as "appendices"). It also should be noted that, among the 4QS materials, 4QpapS\a/ (also known as 4Q255) was given a coded designation to indicate that these fragments are on pap(yrus) not on the usual leather writing material. (See the description on GM 491 where upper case "S" is correctly used, in contrast to lower case "s" on p. 20, but "pap" does not appear!) Designations have changed over the years, but don't be confused: 4QpapS\a/ is identical to 4Q255, which is identical to "4QRule of the Community\a/." During the previous class session we noticed various group terms used in the Manual: the Community, the Many, the Levites, the sons of Aaron, the sons of Zadok, etc., but we did not yet talk about micro- organization, with reference to particular individuals (in the structure of the community). Some examples are: Examiner (6.12) [Hebrew <hb>mevaqqer</>] Inspector (6.20) [Hebrew <hb>mevaqqer</>!] Interpreter (8.12) Instructor (9.12) (note also twelve men and three priests in 8.1) The class Instructor/Inspector then reminded the classroom Community that in analysis of the micro-organization used in the Manual, the student Examiner should ponder, "What are the tasks of these individuals? How do they function in relation to each other and to the larger group(s)?" It should be further taken into consideration that these micro-organized individuals were in some ways authority figures, and the student should attempt to determine what aspects of their roles as defined in the Manual gave them this power. Distinct examples and specific references were then explored: Examiner (6.12) or Inspector (DD 13.7ff) [Gaster has "Overseer"; Hebrew <hb>mebaqqer/mevaqqer</>] Beginning in 6.11 with "And in the session of the Many no-one should utter anything without the consent of the Many. And if the [6.12] Examiner of the Many prevents someone having something to say to the Many...." It can be suspected here that the Examiner is examining FOR the Many (rather than examining the Many itself); that is, he is exercising authority on their behalf by not allowing (or also allowing?) someone to speak. The Many in this case seems distinct from and inclusive of the "council." The whole community is being spoken of -- probably all initiated members. It should be kept in mind when looking at such passages that the same term (e.g. "Israel," and perhaps even "the Many") can sometimes be used in reference to two distinguishable groups, so any such term without context can be especially ambiguous (as in a fragmentary text). The Examiner appears to be some sort of arbitrator (in a quasi-democratic situation?) who determines who should speak in certain conditions. [As we shall see, the Damascus Document provides more details on the functions of the Examiner/Inspector (13.7-19, 14.8-12; note GM translates "Inspector" here!), if we can assume a close relationship and consistent terminology between it and 1QS.] It should be noted that there may be circular antecedents of pronouns in these texts -- one "he" may refer to one nearby antecedent, while another "he" may mean another (there is always the possibility of a switch in subjects). In 6.12, for example, it is confusing whether the person in question is attempting to address the council or the whole group. In 6.13 "the Many" could mean the council as representing the entirety, or could be a reference to the whole community. "Israel" in 6.13 almost certainly signifies a larger population than "the Many." But the student cannot at this point be completely sure how the subdivisions of the community are designated and related. The "Council" can be designated as one subgroup, and a bigger subdivision is the "Community" (which probably constitutes the initiated members). In 6.13 it is emphasized that there is voluntary association with this Community (people are not forced into being in it) -- a theme found also elsewhere in 1QS. However, the idea of volunteering is somewhat paradoxical in the context of the strong belief also present in the DSS in the idea of predestination, that each person fulfils his "lot." Instructor (6.14) [Hebrew <hb>paqid</>] Begin with 6.13: "And to any in Israel who freely volunteers [6.14] to enrol in the council of the Community, the Instructor who is at the head of the Many shall test him with regard to his insight and his deeds." "Insight" here may mean how the person volunteering handles interpretation of scripture, and "deeds" most probably refers to the conduct of the volunteer (i.e. does he sleep in class?). When considering the word "Instructor" one should bear in mind the extent to which the actual meaning of a word can, or cannot, be determined from its etymological meaning -- here <hb>paqid</> means something like apointee, but with exactly what function(s) is problematic. Vermes here renders it "guardian" and Gaster, "superintendent." Fitzmyer (78f) has "deputy," and wants to equate this person with the previously mentioned "overseer" (= examiner/inspector). Very confusing. Professor Kraft continued story-time with 6.14: "If he [the volunteer?] suits the discipline he [the Instructor?] shall introduce him [6.15] into the covenant so that he can revert to the truth and shun all sin...." This apparently alludes to the joining of the community where a re-establishment of the ideal state is possible. After this explanation was presented, one of the initiants thereupon asked, "When it says 'revert to truth' is it talking about being caught in sin?" Kraft then began to explain the story of Adam and Eve: When God created Adam, he said, "I can do better," and thus Eve, woman, was produced. Adam and Eve were created perfect, or at least innocent, and the text may be a reference to the need to relate back to the ideal state from which humankind has fallen. This desire to "revert to truth" -- and to turn from the corruption of sin -- is the community program as presented in 6.15. Inspector/Examiner (6.20) [again, Hebrew <hb>mevaqqer</>] Begin 6.18: "When he has completed a year within the Community, the Many will be questioned about his duties, concerning his insight and his deeds in connection with the law. And if the lot results in him [6.19] joining the foundations of the Community according to the priests and the majority of the men of the covenant, his wealth and his belongings will also be included at the hands of the [6.20] Inspector of the belongings of the Many." Here there is a repetition of the "insight" and "deeds" mentioned in 6.14. Here in 6.18, "he" refers to (6.13) "any in Israel who freely volunteers [6.14] to enrol in the council of the Community." There is mention of a "lot" whereby the Many decide if he can stay in the Community. This "lot" could be directly associated with the idea of one's predestined status being revealed (see the detailed "horoscope" texts from the DSS), or may simply refer to an act of drawing straws or throwing dice or even voting (the results of which could, of course, be interpreted as predestined). The lot was basically a judgment of inclusion or exclusion. The Inspector can be seen here functioning as the "treasurer" of the Community, although not necessarily only in the monetary sense -- he seems to be the one in charge of possessions, the collector of goods, and/or the distributor. Is the the same person as mentioned with this title in 6.12? Interpreter (8.12) [Gaster, "Expositor"; Hebrew <hb>doresh</>] In 8.4 "When these things exist in Israel [8.5] the Community council shall be founded on truth..." -- it is introduced here that the larger context is "in Israel." Now begin 8.10: "When these have been established in the foundation of the Community for two full years /in/ perfect behaviour [8.11] /they will be segregated/ (like) holy ones in the midst of the council of the men of the Community. And every matter hidden from Israel but which has been found out by [8.12] the Interpreter, he should not keep hidden from them for fear of a spirit of desertion." The Interpreter should not keep the things he has found out hidden from the segregated ones -- or perhaps from Israel -- lest a "spirit of desertion" overcome them and distance them from the truth the community offers. Continuing in 8.12: "And when these exist /as a community/ in Israel [8.13] /in compliance with these arrangements/ they are to be segregated from within the dwelling of the men of sin to walk to the desert in order to open there His path. [8.14] As it is written [Isa 40.3]: 'In the desert, prepare the way of ****, straighten in the steppe a roadway for our God.'" The idea is to rescue these from the "men of sin." The Interpreter probably interprets what the community considers to be "scriptural" works, such as the passage here from Isaiah. The Interpreter possibly was supposed to produce "pesherim" (commentaries, of a sort) and publicly distribute (publish) this material to bring those who seek perfection into the righteous community of God -- "the path of the desert." Is the reference to desert a reference to actual desolation (wilderness) or is it symbolic as a contrast between truth and falsity, good and evil, apples and oranges, etc.? In 8.16, it should be kept in mind that the word "prophets" can be a misleading term. Josephus uses the word "prophet" not only to describe the prophets of old, but also to describe more recent persons such as John Hyrcanus, and indeed, in a sense, himself. Josephus viewed Hyrcanus as a king, a priest, and a prophet. This and similar evidence from that period indicates that there can be some ambiguity to the use of the term "prophet," and we need to avoid jumping to conclusions before all the evidence can be viewed. After having discussed these titles/roles, our leader embarked to page 126 of Garcia Martinez to look more closely at 1Q28a = 1QSa, The Rule of the Congregation in the last times. It talks about the rules of the community of Israel in the final days. Note: the title the "sons of Zadok" is almost always followed by "the priests" in the texts we have examined so far, and thus probably "the sons of Zadok, the priests" (1.2) is the fuller standard designation. This passage tells of the (1.2) "men of the covenant who have turn[ed away from the pa]th [1.3] of the people." This "path" represents evil, whereas the "covenant" represents righteousness. The idea is that the "congregation" has been kept away from serving in sinful/wicked ways and walks in moral/righteous ways. In 1.6 "armies of the congregation" are introduced, which could allude to what we will encounter in the War Scroll. It is unknown as to what the book of HAGY (HAGU) in 1.7 refers [we will encounter it again in the Damascus Document]. 1Q28a then refers to the responsibilities and restrictions associated with different ages in the community -- e.g. a boy may not (1.9) "[approach] [1.10] a woman to know her through carnal intercourse until he is fully twenty years old." In 1.11 it states "Then she shall be received to give witness against him..." Who is she? The woman? The book HAGY? Both Vermes and Gaster translate this "she" as "he." Hmmmm. Kinda makes you wonder. The Interpreter in all of his glory then commanded the Many to read the rest of 1QSa for next time, in addition to reading the Damascus Document. Amen, Amen. //end minutes dss.950321// DSS.950323(=#18) Minutes, Dead Sea Scrolls Class, 28 March 1995 University of Pennsylvania, Religious Studies 225, Robert Kraft [[missing]] //end minutes dss.950323// DSS.950328(=#19) Minutes, Dead Sea Scrolls Class, 28 March 1995 University of Pennsylvania, Religious Studies 225, Robert Kraft Recorder: Matt Gerber, checked by David N. Slarskey 1. Pre-Class Class began with an article from that day's NY Times "Science Times" being passed around. The article dealt with the use of DNA testing at Birmingham Young University to help reconstruct Dead Sea Scrolls fragments. It is able to do this by determining whether the different fragments are from the same animal hide. Following this there was a brief discussion of the DSS CD-ROMs (yes, they're still in MMETS, but the Library copy can be borrowed). 2. Cleanup Questions Q: When are paper topics due? A: E-mail Dr. Kraft as soon as you have an idea what you want to do. Q: When are finished papers due? A: The last day of class, ideally. Q: How is the instructor coming along with the reviews? A: They're still "in process"; But fear not, all will be released for public consumption at some point! 3. The Damascus Document (abbreviated as "DD") As we have already seen with the "Manual," there is good evidence that there was a great deal of revising done to some of the more popular scrolls (those for which we have many copies). Since this indicates that at least some of the scrolls evolved into their currently preserved forms, we must always be aware of the difficulty of knowing what the original (or even the earliest recoverable) version said and why subsequent copies may have been modified? In most instances we don't yet have enough information to be able to answer this question, and probably never will have enough. What we can be fairly sure of is that what we have now is not necessarily what was originally written. So far, the Damascus Document has only been found in two places -- the DSS and the Cairo geniza. It would not be surprising, however, if it were to be found to be quoted or referred to in Syriac or Arabic or other ancient or "medieval" sources. This is because there is so much material out there that just hasn't been looked at yet from the perspective of DSS scholarship, partly because there aren't enough trained scholars or financial support for such undertakings. The Cairo geniza fragments of DD overlap with each other (Cairo A, column 8 parallels Cairo B, "column 19") and show some variations in the material that they have in common. When the ten DSS fragmentary manuscripts and their overlaps with themselves are compared with the much more recent Cairo materials (10th and 12th centuries ce), the following general reconstruction of "the larger DD tradition" emerges: -Hitherto unknown material preceding the start of Cairo fragment A; -Cairo A columns 1-8, with overlap at the end from Cairo B; -Cairo B ("columns 19-20"); -Some hitherto unknown material from the DSS fragments; -Cairo A columns 15-16 (somehow out of order in the fragment?); -Cairo A columns 9-14 (again, misordered in the fragment?); -Hiterto unknown material after the end of the Cairo fragments. One key to understanding both the Damascus Document and the Manual of Discipline is addressing the question "How did these people/authors see the world they were living in, their role in it, the forces acting on them, and their history (which included both their interpretation of their past and whether or not they saw a future)?". In other words, we need to recreate the self-identity of the two documents to determine the context(s) in which they were written, and the authors' friends, foes, and goals. One such area of self-identification involves the relationship to the Jerusalem Temple, its leadership, rituals, and significance. DD has many more explicit references to these matters than does the Manual of Discipline, which makes only passing and general allusions to the Temple. Some have argued that the DD advocates stripping religion down to its basics & getting rid of the ruling Temple regieme. Others counter, however, that the author(s) of DD aim to substitute a different order of their own, as a purified Temple. How is this alternate leadership construed? In DD 14.3ff the insiders are described as priests, levites, children of Israel ("the Many"?), and "the proselyte." A learned priest heads the community (and/or each "camp"), and an "Inspector" (mevaqqer) is very important as well (see also DD 13.2ff for similar structures). The community has its "judges" (DD 10.4ff), also associated with priests and levites, and its halakic rites and rituals. By definition in the ancient world, a priest was someone who was a functionary in a temple. This raises the question: "What were the roles of the priests for these Temple-less communities?" Keep this question in mind as you read more of the preserved materials. At the end of class, we took a quick look at DD 3.12 - 4.4. Here, the author(s) of the DD maintain that God has revealed secrets to those who hold the truth (thus suggesting an "apocalyptic" perspective). This section also introduces an example of self- referencing interpretation of scripture (in this instance, also using Temple language drawn from Ezek 44.15) which is so basic to much of the DD and takes on its own literary form in the DSS "pesharim" (commentaries) fragments. 4. Assignment For next class, be prepared to discuss the DD attitudes to the Temple and its functions and read the War Scroll and the Temple Scroll. //end minutes dss.950328// DSS.950330(=#20) Minutes, Dead Sea Scrolls Class, 30 March 1995 University of Pennsylvania, Religious Studies 225, Robert Kraft Recorded by Christine Boulos and Syri Koelfgen 1. Administrative and Preliminary Matters (1) According to Jim B., Oh Esteemed Grad Student, there will be a lecture open to all interested on April 5 by Professor Edwin Yamauchi of Miami University (Ohio) at 1 pm in the Faculty Club. The lunch preceding the lecture is only open to grad students and faculty. Yamauchi will discuss the significance of the scrolls in relation to early Christianity. (2) Negotiations are underway to arrange a lecture by "cult hero" Lawrence Schiffman, possibly in the second week of April. 2. Damascus Document (DD) Continued: Questions for the Class (1) In what ways is the community described? Note that the term "Israel" is used to refer to the special community (e.g. DD 3.13, 12.8; see also 1.4-5, 12.8) and also to the larger body out of which that remnant "converts" (e.g. DD 1.3, 2.9, 3.14, 7.12-18; see also 3.19, 4.2-4, 8.16). Even within the community, "Israel" can refer to a subset (DD 10.5, distinguished from those of Levi and Aaron; see also 14.4) of the pure and righteous, who keep the covenant correctly. Other general titles used include "the Many" (e.g. DD 14.7, 14.12, 14.17; not as frequent as in the Manual!), and reference is made to organization by "camps" (e.g. DD 7.6, 12.20- 14.12). Various titles are given to leaders, which sometimes may refer to an individual priest (e.g. DD 13.2), or a righteous teacher (e.g. DD 1.11, 6.11, 20.1-32), or a messiah (e.g. DD 19.10f, 20.1), or to groups of "judges" (DD 10.4ff) including priests and levites, or to a general council (e.g. DD 20.24f; compare Manual 8.1, with 12 men and 3 priests!). (2) Of what sort of socio-political climate is the author aware? "Damascus" is a location (geographically north of Jerusalem) that is connected to the community's perceived history (e.g. DD 6.5). It is also part of the exegetical self-referential language drawn from the author's scriptures (Amos 5.26f in DD 7.14ff). It is where the righteous "converts" entered the "new covenant" (DD 6.19, 7.21=19.14), although not all remained faithful (DD 19.14). Whether there is any intention of connecting literally to "Damascus" is unclear, but the ideas of separating from "Judah" and moving "north" reflect the history of ancient Israel and are clearly in the author's consciousness (see DD 7.10-8.21, etc.) with reference to the larger world around him, and the roots of his community. In DD, "Judah" often has a negative significance, and the contrast between Judah and Israel, south and north, is part of the scriptural heritage with which our author works. With regard to the larger world, on the fringes of the main focus of "Israelite" traditions, our author alludes to "kings of the peoples" and the "kings of Greece" (DD 8.10f), and knows of "proselytes" (outsiders who join; DD 14.4, although it is not clear that they would necessarily be non-Jews), and apparently of "gentiles" with whom community members might come into contact (DD 12.6). But at this point, these are fairly incidental references. DIGRESSION -- An interesting example of how the author sometimes cleverly plays on the ambiguity of certain words and passages is the reference to "Sikkut" and "Sukkat" in DD 7.14-16. The unpointed Hebrew text is identical for these two terms, but the editor has supplied different vowels. Why? "Sikkut" is found in the Amos 5.26 passage quoted in DD, while "Sukkat" is found in the Amos 9.11 passage, also quoted. Thus he brings these two passages together, through the ambiguous word, and applies them to his situation: Sikkut/Sukkat refers to the laws that have "fallen" from use and need to be restored by the righteous assembly. The community affirms that the law is the center of their lives, placed on a plinth (or platform, identified with "the books of the prophets" from which the quotations are taken!). Kraft reminded the class that the original text of the scrolls does not contain quotation marks (or for that matter, punctuation or distinctions between upper and lower case letters), but they are added in the translation so that readers can distinguish between quoted materials and normal text. (3) To further understand how these people saw themselves we began with 8.8-12 where two bothersome biblical varmints (serpent, asp) are interpreted as two sets of unfriendly kings. A question arose about who Seth was (DD 7.21 "all the sons of Seth" are to be destroyed; note that the overlapping section in DD 19.12 lacks this reference, but it is found in the 4Q267 parallel section). Kraft began answering the question at the beginning, with the garden of Eden tradition, by defining the names Adam and Eve. Adam can be a personal name (Adam Schaffer) or a term for "humanity," while Eve means life-giver or agent of life. Together, Adam and Eve had two children, Cain and Abel. As a result of the jealousy Cain felt toward his brother, he killed Abel and was ostracized and marked evil by God. Now, since Abel, who was to be the progenitor of the godly line, was dead, Seth was born (Gen 4.25, 5.3) to continue that good line. The notorious passage in Genesis 6.1-4 when the "sons of God" shack up with earthly women and giants are born has sometimes been taken as a reference to the "sons of Seth" (as God's children). In early Christianity, there were even some groups that were called "Sethians," and who apparently held Seth in high esteem. But in DD 7.21 the reference to the sons of Seth seems to be to wicked people, whom the "prince of the congregation" will destroy, presumably to Israelites who do not "convert" to the truth, or perhaps to the fallen "Watchers" mentioned in DD 2.17-21, who are deserving of judgment. In any event, the Seth passage seems to allude back to the earlier judgment reported in DD 7.13, where the renegades (in the separation of "the two houses of Israel," Ephraim and Judah) are delivered to the sword (presumably in the historical events of 721 bce). The question arises regarding who is being delivered and who remains to escape. The renegades delivered to the sword may be Judah, as explained in the section that follows in DD. (Note that the overlapping section of the second Cairo manuscript of DD is very different throughout this difficult passage; see DD 19.) (4) More on how the term "Judah" is used and an explanation of the association between the Temple and Jerusalem: In DD 8.2ff, "the princes of Judah" clearly has a negative connotation -- God will vent his rage on them as wicked and traitors. It should be kept in mind that the Damascus Document was copied and preserved during the time of the Karaites when the internal Jewish struggles between Karaites (rebellious "readers" of scripture) and Rabbinates (the main stream at the time, defenders of living tradition) were underway. Therefore, the copyist may have made changes in the original to fit the polemic ideas of that later time. The fragments of this passage from 4Q267 (GM p.51b) do not seem to include the "princes of Judah" passage, which is in both DD 8.2ff and DD 19.15ff, but in slightly different forms. Jerusalem is the location of "the Temple" for most Jews in the DSS period, and the body of overlapping terms such as Zion, the sanctuary, the holy of holies, etc., needs to be kept in view. There are other temples associated with Jews and Jewish history, but they would normally be specified as such (e.g. Elephantine, Heliopolis, Gerizim). We found some passing Temple references in the Manual of Discipline, with the community taking the place of the holy of holies (1QS 8.5f, 9.6) and sacrifice depicted as "an offering of the lips" rather than a literal act of burnt flesh. In the Damascus Document, the many references to the sanctuary, to the priestly rituals, and to the Temple as such may be intended as a preview of an idealistic state that is not yet in existence (the purfied Temple) or it may be based on the references to the historical Temple of the past as found in the scriptures and/or traditions (before it became corrupted?). Another possibility is that the references in the Damascus Document may be of an ambivalent nature, where the community felt it could still have something to do with the present Temple and its rites. This illustrates how the attitudes towards the Temple may differ from document to document. Always test your assumptions! (5) Explanations for the origins of evil vary early Jewish sources: -The passage in DD 2.17ff about the fallen "Watchers" reflects the traditions found in the Enoch corpus (compare Gen 6.1-4), where the origins of sinfulness are associated with those activites of the "angels." -The Testaments of the 12 Patriarchs also build on the fallen "Watchers" tradition, and we have fragments of this work among the DSS, attesting the widespread availability of this explanation. -The traditional biblical story of Adam, Eve, and the Serpent in the garden provides another explanation of the origin of human sin. Watch for any references to this tradition in the DSS. 3. Closing Remarks and Directives: In order to investigate the range of non-human agents, such as Belial, in the DSS, it may be convenient to refer to Gaster's analytical index, Section F in the revised edition, under "Angelology" (including the DD 20.8 "Holy Ones" and the Manual 3.20 [DD 5.18] "Prince of Lights" and DD 16.5 "Mastema"). Also look under Belial and his forces in Gaster's section D.1, p. 557. //end minutes dss.950330// DSS.950404(=#21) Minutes, Dead Sea Scrolls Class, 4 April 1995 University of Pennsylvania, Religious Studies 225, Robert Kraft Jake Jaffe, Inscriber; Reuben Wetherbee, Examiner 1. Announcements and Preliminaries: The Yamauchi lecture is on Wed April 5 at 1:00 PM in the Faculty Club. If someone will take notes, we can post a summary. RAK passed around a copy of Larry Schiffman's new book, <t>Reclaiming the DSS</> (Jewish Publication Society 1994) which is weighty (in content and bulk) and in addition to its many valuable features has "many good pictures." 1.1 Handouts: RAK passed out Fitzmyer's outlines for the Temple and the War scrolls for all to have, except that he accidently didn't make enough copies, so he made all his grad students donate theirs so that the undergradutate thirst for knowledge could be sated. Jake was caught hoarding outlines and forced to turn his extra copy over. 1.2 Schedule for remainder of course: For the immediate future, we will concern ourselves with the War Scroll (GM 95-125), the Temple Scroll (GM 154-184), and the Hodayot (Hymns, Thanksgiving Praises; GM 317-370). *NEW* For the remainder of the term, the assignments are: 11 April -- "other eschatological" works (GM 126-138) 13 April -- "exegetical" texts (GM 185-216) 18 April -- "para-biblical" materials (GM 219-237, 260-296) 20 April -- "halakhic" items, including 4QMMT (GM 77-92) [24 April, probably, Schiffman visit] 25 April -- "poetic" materials (GM 371-403) 27 April (the last day!) -- "liturgical, calendric," etc. (GM 407-463) You will, of course, have worked through these materials for your papers, which are technically due at the end of the "reading days" -- at the very least, send in a page with your title and preliminary observations by 4 May. Electronic submissions are requested (which means that you need to think about how to produce appropriate "text only" electronoscripts). The best studies will be circulated on the DSS electronic list. 1.3 Preliminary Question: "Why were Cave 1 materials so well preserved compared to other cave materials?" Possible factors include: -Cave 1 scrolls had been wrapped in linen and placed in jars in antiquity, and were not simply "loose" as seems to have been the situation in caves 4 and 11, for example. The relatively less protected materials were all the more subject to all sorts of "natural" processes of decay and degeneration (including layers of bat dung) from which the relatively protected materials in cave 1 were shielded. [ADDED NOTE: By the time cave 1 was discovered, some of the jars probably had been broken by various means (earthquake, animals, etc.); here is a relevant paragraph from Millar Burrows' 1955 account in <t>The DSS</> (Viking Press) -- "Whenever and however the discovery came about, the cave, when first entered, contained several jars, most of them broken, with pieces of many others. Protruding from the broken jars were scrolls of leather wrapped in linen cloth. They were very brittle and rather badly decomposed, especially at the ends, but it was possible to see that they were inscribed in a strange writing" (p.5, apparently based on the accounts of the bedouin discoverers). A comparable account of caves 4 and 11 would be instructive.] -This raises the interesting question whether the functions of the caves might have been different in antiquity: might cave 4 have been a genizah-like resting place for already damaged scrolls, for example, especially in view of the multiplicity of different documents and copies evidenced there (several hundred!). -A related issue is the extent to which the bedouin discoverers contributed to the damage and loss; we hear horror tales of how other discoveries of papyrus ended in some of the material being used as fuel or incense (note that the earliest DSS discoveries were taken to Kando since it was thought that the leather might be of value to his trade in leather goods!); the problem of how much care was exercised in the removal of the DSS materials from relatively inaccessible locations by the untrained discoverers may also have been a significant factor. 1.4 Roman Numerals are the work of Belial (another typo in GM): The header at the top of page 104 in GM Is printed: 1QM X 12-10 Should read: 1QM XI 2-10 1.5 Other Clean-up Matters: The word <hb>mevaqaar</> has been multiply translated by GM as both the "Examiner" and the "Inspector" (1QS 6.12 and 6.20). The debate still rages whether these are two separate people or just the duties of a single person. Gaster complicates things by translating it several ways, including <i>examiner, guardian, and overseer</i> while rendering the Hebrew word <hb>paqid</> as inspector. Both words may have a relation to the greek word <gk>episkopos</> (=overseer, bishop), as this is offered as a translation for both Hebrew terms in ancient translations of Jewish scriptures (LXX/OG = Septuagint/Old Greek translations). Some commentators have seen here a possible link between the writers of the scrolls and early Christianity. Comparison of use of "locators" in English translations: -Vermes provides column #s but no line #s, and his own paragraphing; -Gaster gives col.line indicators for his major "thought groupings"; -Garcia Martinez is the most complete and careful to date, with columns and lines noted along with other replicated features of the originals (such as blank spaces or lines, corrections, etc.), but even GM is still missing some significant fragments, including 4Q225 (4QpsJub\a/) with its reference to the wicked angel Mastema (see DD 16.5). 2. Discussion focus: THE WAR SCROLL 2.1 Preliminaries: Note on a Spanish to English typo: "Sion" is the Spanish spelling of Zion and the conversion of the "S" to a "Z" seems to have been missed at least in War 12.13 (compare 19.5!) in the translation of GM's Spanish version into the English edition. The poor vs. the Poor (<hb>evionim/ebionim</>; another example of the effect of editorial choices): Does this frequently used term refer to impoverished people or is it (at least sometimes) a term of selfidentification in the community (similar to "the Many")? GM repeatedly translates it with a lowercase "p," which might suggest that he believes that it is used in a general sense (although GM is not always consistent in such matters), but its repeated use in standard phraseology suggests it may have a more technical meaning (see e.g. War Scroll 11.9, 11.13, 13.14; see also pesher Habakkuk 12.3-10, and pesher Psalm37 2.10, 3.10). Note that an early Christian Jewish group was called the "Ebionites," reflecting the same Hebrew term. GM's Presentation of the War Scroll: 1. Main copy from cave 1 2. Fragments from cave 4 3. Other "texts connected with the War Scroll" (pp. 123-125) -- It should be noted that the fragment at the bottom of p. 123 is parallel to the fragment at the bottom of p. 124, although GM does not note this in his presentation of the materials. Similarly, the presence of "4QWords of Michael" (4Q529) in this section is questionable. How is it connected with the War Scroll? 2.2 Some similarities of Terminology between the War Scroll and the other texts we have read: -"Sons of Light" vs. Sons of Darkness has echoes in DD 13.12-14 (inductees must be worthy of "the lot of life" and avoid contact with "the sons of the pit") and is more clearly present in the Manual (e.g. 1.9, 3.13, 3.24 -- see further, Gaster's index, p. 550). -The priests and the levites appear frequently in their leading roles in the DD and Manual as well. -The larger eschatological and otherworldly context, with extrahuman allies and adversaries, good and bad angels, heavenly hosts, spirits, Belial, and the like, is well attested in also in the DD and the Manual. (Whether these people would distinguish it as "otherworldly" is worth investigation and discussion.) 2.3 Some Notable Differences -- Geographical Concerns: The War scroll definitely centers itself in Jerusalem, which was the site of the Temple and the hub of both the "united kingdom" of David and Solomon and the later "southern kingdom" of Judah. However, Jerusalem may have its main value as a symbolic ideal for our writer, and it is a common focus in other eschatological writings as well. The apparent enmity between "Israel" (as the northern kingdom) and Judah found in the DD is not evident here, and the War scroll states that the "final" battle force will be drawn from ALL the twelve tribes of Israel (as in descendants of the sons of Jacob, not solely from the northern or the southern kingdoms; see 3.14). David's kingdom of Israel was created around 1000 bce, and was politically and geographically united until about 921 bce, when it split into the northern "Israel" (aka Ephraim, Joseph, or Jacob) and the southern "Judah," from which the terms Jew and Judaism derive. By the time the DSS look back on this history, the Samaritans were also part of the mix, as survivors from ancient Israel, located just north of Jerusalem in Samaria (their temple was on mount Gerizim). Be on the lookout for possible references to this group in the DSS. Jerusalem was the capital of the united Jewish kingdom, and then served as the capital of Judah after the split, continuing the dynasty of David until the Temple fell in 587-586 bce. The influence of the Davidic tradition (either its presence or its absence) is another thing to be alert to in studying the DSS. Damascus was never part of the Israelite kingdoms, and is located approximately 88 miles NNE if Jerusalem. The Damascus Document, however, connects its community's history to the split of the "two houses of Israel" (7.11-13 in Cairo A, but not in Cairo B). The Manual of Discipline does not contain such a reference. At this point in the class, the debate of who the "renegades" were in DD 7.13ff (Cairo A) was rehashed (see last minutes for a full overview), and the main points that came out of it were: -the "fallen Sukkat of David" is interpreted as the "books of the law," although a broader polemical tone might also be inferred; -the "princes of Judah" were a negative entity in the DD; -The previous point fits the evidence that the DSS community did not look too favorably on the contemporary Temple establishment in Jerusalem (4QMMT and other texts may prove relevant here). The War Scroll has a much more positive outlook on the Kingdom of Judah than that suggested in DD. Perhaps this refers to some ideal, unified state stemming from a restoration of God's plan. The CD-ROM claims that even all the Essenes together could not manage to wage a war of the proportion described in the War Scroll in support of their ideals (note the large numbers given in War descriptions). Additionally, Philo stated that the Essenes themselves had nothing to do with making weapons, but perhaps the conditions described in the War Scroll are some special eschatalogical conditions in which the Essenes would take up arms under divine instructions. 2.4 RAK's Suggestions for studying such "alien" materials: -try to find analogies from your own experience or history to help to understand these situations that are presented in the DSS; -Do not get trapped into trying to create consistency in the DSS. They may not have been consistent, even if they came from the same community! Conduct an inductive investigation, especially citing inconsistencies if you find them! Is it possible that the DSS Community did not write the War Scroll? RAK says: of course, almost anything is possible; they may have obtained the Scroll from elsewhere for some reason, just as they had biblical and other texts not of their own direct composition. We can only make educated guesses, for this as for any of the DSS materials. More Suggestions from RAK: Try to envision the transmitters of the DSS as a living community involved with many practical as well as theoretical concerns. How do they perceive themselves in the actual world in which they must eat and drink, survive hardships and illness, relate to each other, etc., as well as how they have developed their own special practices or beliefs and the lifestyle associated with them? Imagine yourself as part of their world. To what extent would the self-perception of correctness mitigate other factors such as isolation and minority status? Is there anything more important than being right? 2.5 The War Scroll and issues of fate/determinism/destiny: -The references to "lots" (e.g. the lot of Belial, the lot of God's people) continue to abound in the War Scroll, as in the Manual and DD. E.g. War 1.1-5 refers to the general framework of conflicting "lots"; 1.12-14 is more specific, and describes the 7 "lots" (destined campaigns?) of the war where each side is triumphant 3 times, and then God steps in and lifts the sons of light to victory the 7th time. 16.10ff Belial steps in to help the sons of darkness, perhaps in the final "lot" period, and some of the "good guys" die in accord with God's "mysteries." The priests and a "High Priest" rally the troops for this encounter with the "crucible" of God to determine their fate and ultimately God's victory, which is accomplished with aid from the angel Michael on behalf of the "sons of the covenant" (War 16.10- 17.9). The "crucible of God" imagery points to a final crisis time of testing that will involve suffering on the part of the righteous; it is described as one of the divine "mysteries," expected from ancient times (see especially War 16.15-17.9; compare DD 20.3, which seems to focus more on the individual judgment). What the relationship is to the concept of the "messianic woes" or the "birthpangs of messiah" known from other eschatological sources remains to be seen. 17.16 refers to the third lot (of Belial? the text is broken here), apparently followed by the final confrontation, and the victory of the forces of God, who thereby has kept his covenant (18.7-8). //end minutes dss.950404// DSS.950406(=#22) Minutes, Dead Sea Scrolls Class, 6 April 1995 University of Pennsylvania, Religious Studies 225, Robert Kraft Kim Noble, Primary Recorder; Matt Dworkin, Editor Dr. James VanderKam, Professor of Hebrew Scriptures at Notre Dame University, part of the expanded DSS team as of 1989, and author of our text, <t>The Dead Sea Scrolls Today</> visited class today. Dr. VanderKam wrote his dissertation on Jubilees at Harvard under John Strugnell, and has also worked a great deal on apocalyptic literature prior to his DSS days. Class was conducted in an interview format, where students had the opportunity to ask Dr. VanderKam any and all burning (or smoldering) questions regarding the scrolls. The chronology of the War Scroll. In Column 2 of the War Scroll (1QM) the length of the anticipated war is discussed (GM 96). The mathematics here are not at all clear, as VanderKam (the book, 66) notes, but probably should be read in light of the focus on "seven" found throughout these materials, and especially the calendrical emphases attested in many of the DSS texts, especially the Book of Jubilees, which divides history into fourty-nine year cycles (seven "weeks" of years constitute a "jubilee" -- see Leviticus 25.8ff) and at the end of time apparently a fifty-year cycle (see Lev 25.10). VanderKam feels that despite the ambiguities of the War Scroll text, the war was expected to be roughly forty years, a number stated explicitly in the commentary to Psalm 37 (GM 203) and in the Damascus Document 20.15 (GM 46) -- compare the eschatological "seven weeks of years" mentioned in Daniel 9.25 and the figure 400 years found in the pseudepigrapical 4 Ezra (also called 2 Esdras) 7.28; Jubilees 50.4 might also be relevant here. In line 6 of 1QM it states, "They shall arrange all /these/ during the appointed time of the year of release. During the remaining thirty-three years of war..." Clearly, the war lasted for more than thirty-three years. In line 8, the text refers to the "years" of release, as opposed to the singular "year" above. This is a period of rest from the war, a "sabbath of rest for Israel." The first number problem occurs in line 9, when it mentions the "thirty-five years of service." The subsequent math is consistent as it goes on to state that the war will be prepared for six years and fought during the remaining twenty- nine (29+6=35). However, these figures are inconsistent with the above mentioned thirty-three. The thirty-five year figure is more consistent with the jubilee mini-cycle of seven years, as thirty-five is divisible by seven. VanderKam followed Yadin in assuming that fourty was probably the total figure in view (see above); lacking evidence that this was achieved by adding seven to the aforementioned "33," he looked more closely at the details of the "35." He then pointed out that, if we assume six years of war took place followed by one year of sabbatical, it is inconsistent with the bottom of the column, where there appear to be at least nine consecutive "years" of specific battles listed. In addition, is this series intended to be sequential, or distributed? It was pointed out that, since it states that there were thirty-five years of "service," it is possible that the ninth year refers not to the ninth consecutive year, but the ninth year of explicit service. Dr. Kraft pointed out that since 7x6=42, if we eliminated the first year and the last period of rest (or the final two years, which would include the last period of rest), we can get the forty-year period we'd like which would include 35 years of service (i.e. fighting) and 5 years of rest. Unfortunately, we would have expected to find a total forty-nine year period to fit in with the jubilee cycle (and with Daniel 9.25?). While the number thirty-three could be obtained by subtracting a seven-year period from forty, and twenty-nine can be obtained by subtracting a six-year period from thirty-five, it seems impossible to reconcile the two sets of numbers. In addition, there are three different Hebrew words which were translated to mean "preparation," none of which actually implies a sense of "previousness." We are left at this point with many question marks! The number seven and the idea of a "jubilee" year. The Book of Jubilees organizes its historical account in forty- nine year units or "jubilees." The normal "biblical" understanding based on Lev 25.10-12 is that the fiftieth year after every cycle of seven sevens is called a jubilee year, when slaves were to be released, and property returned to its original owner -- a year of liberation and restoration. (Whether such a system was ever actually observed is questionable.) However, in Jubilees there seems to be another understanding that designates the forty-nine year unit as a "jubilee" (presumably focusing on its final year of rest in a special way) until fifty such cycles have passed. After the fiftieth jubilee, a jubilee year is proclaimed when the Israelite slaves are released, and the land is returned to its owners, etc. Thus, what is expected to happen on a micro level in a regular jubilee cycle based on Leviticus is reflected only on a macro level in the fiftieth unit of the Book of Jubilees (see 50.1-7). What is the evidence that Jubilees (GM 238) was/was not authored in the Qumran community? (See VanderKam 39f.) It has been argued that it wasn't authored in the DSS community because its author appears to still be operating in connection with Israel as a whole, as opposed to representing a cut-off, segregated community. However, just because he doesn't explicitly mention a separate community doesn't mean he was not a part of one. The first copy of Jubilees found in Cave 4 (4Q216) preserves material from the first two chapters of the book. This was dated by VanderKam to about 125 BCE, although Milik gave it the earlier date of 150 BCE. In either case, it is almost certain that Jubilees is older than this fragmentary copy, which means that the book would be dated prior to the founding of the DSS community. Although the "sectarians" probably didn't write it, it is evident that the community admired the text greatly, since with some fifteen copies found in caves 1,2,3,4 and 11, there are more copies of Jubilees than of any other biblical books except Psalms and Isaiah. Some argue that the similarities in outlook, such as the solar calendar of 364 days, give evidence for possible sectarian authorship. However, while Jubilees argues that you may never use the moon in calculations of time, because that is what the gentiles do, and because God structured the universe in cycles of 364 days, which is divisible by seven, some DSS calendars appear to have used lunar calculations. Do we really have evidence of the New Testament in Cave 7? (See VanderKam 166.) According to O'Callahan, 7Q5 preserves parts of Mark 6. To make his case, he needs to have two textual variations from the normal texts of Mark in this sequence of twenty-eight letters, which makes the idea of a match rather "chancy." However, part of this sequence occurs nowhere else in Greek literature except in Mark and in the Qumran fragment. Thus, while the argument is not very strong, it is not entirely dismissible either. A more reasonable approach to studying the New Testament would be to study the parallels in eschatological ideology found in the texts of the Qumran community and in those of early Christianity. Did the books of Enoch originate with the DSS community? (See VanderKam 37ff.) Possibly, but parts of "Enoch" were probably written too early to have originated with the sectarians. The oldest DSS fragment of the Astronomical Book (1 Enoch 72-82) was dated by Milik to about 200 BCE, which would clearly make it pre-Qumran. The Book of Watchers (Enoch 1-36) has been dated to around the second century BCE and the Book of Dreams (83-90) and the Epistle of Enoch (91-107) probably soon after. Aramaic fragments of all of these sections of the Enoch library appear among the DSS. How do the sectarians relate to other contemporary Jewish groups? The DSS people present themselves as traditionalists -- it was everyone else who went astray -- although they appear to us as a rift in the fabric of ancient Judaism. However, the Maccabees were also a rift who became the establishment. Clearly, the interpretation is very dependent on the historical results. The Maccabean rift is analogous to that of the DSS sectarians; however, the Qumranites disappeared while the Maccabees flourished. Our friend Larry Schiffman has made the point that the scrolls contain a Sadducean approach to law. This shows that, in their legal teachings, the DSS have some relationship to one of the major streams of legal interpretation in the final centuries BCE. It becomes confusing to call the scrolls "Sadducean" in terms of the NT evidence about that group, although from a legal point of view, it may be a valid identification. Dr. VanderKam didn't want to venture into attempting to identity the "Book of HAGY"; however, he did comment that Schiffman believes it might be the Torah and Yadin thought it could be the Temple Scroll. Footnote to the "Scrolls Controversy." When the controversy regarding the scrolls blew up in the BAR, VanderKam became a spokesperson of the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL), which drew up a statement regarding a policy on what should happen if new finds were discovered. It encouraged the discovering authorities to make their texts readily available to anyone who wanted to study them. However, the American School of Oriental Research (ASOR) thought that, given how much money it takes to organize a dig, it seemed unfair that the finder wouldn't have the first opportunity to examine (and publish) his work. Finally a policy was enacted that gave rights to the excavators, although they were encouraged to be open with their findings. The class expressed its warm appreciation for this stimulating and largely fortuitous visit. A good time was had by all. //end minutes dss.950406// DSS.950411(=#23) Minutes, Dead Sea Scrolls Class, 11 April 1995 University of Pennsylvania, Religious Studies 225, Robert Kraft [[missing]] //end minutes dss.950411// DSS.950413(=#24) Minutes, Dead Sea Scrolls Class, 13 April 1995 University of Pennsylvania, Religious Studies 225, Robert Kraft Glen Aduana and Clare Bayard [[There are two ways: the dull and the lively. And it is a mystery as to which works best for whom. In what follows, you first have the straightforward, unimaginative record of class #24. After that, you have the same material as the recorders wanted to communicate it to their classmates. But you had to have been there. And even then, who knows??! RAK]] Cleanup Matters: If possible, include author info in book review revisions. Lawrence Schiffman will visit on Monday 24 April, 6:30, Room TBA. Clemson class, currently in discussion stage, may have to be conducted in MMETS, for technical reasons. Leonard Greenspoon to discuss DSS biblical material. The "Pesharim" or Commentaries Discussed: five ways of referring to "scriptural" texts -- Explicit quotes (formulaic -- "it says") Implicit quotes (verbatim text without introductory formula) "Targumic" treatments (two degrees removed from complete explicitness; "targum" means "translation/interpretation" and becomes a technical term for translations of Hebrew texts to Aramaic; here it refers to a close interpretative rendering) Paraphrases (obviously related though not on a word by word basis) Allusions Fragments are sometimes classified by supposed content, as they lack an appropriately comprehensive context. The genre of the commentary involves a conscious attempt to explain a given text. The DSS provided the first concrete evidence of pre-Christian Semitic Judaic antecedents to the early Christian practice of Commentary writing. Many types of commentaries were discovered and received various designations, including: 4QFlorilegium (Lat: bouquet, a flower-culling) provides a collection of excerpts from presumably authoritative literature, each followed by explicit interpretations in commentary format. 4QTestimonia, a collection of explicit quotations without intervening comments, presumably chosen to "testify" to a particular matter. 4QCatena (Lat: chain, fetter; see GM 209ff), a "chain" of quotes with extensive interpretation, similar to 4QFlorilegium. The "pesharim" (from <hb>pesher</>, "it means") ---(Reminder about GM coding; see p. xxvi)--- [...] indicates a lacuna (gap, hole) in the MS ]...[ indicates the MS is preserved but illegible (text)...(text) indicates an illegible portion in the preserved materials Also, GM's convention regarding the various attempts to avoid using the tetragrammaton: Paleo Hebrew form is rendered as YHWH, dotted form as **** Normal Hebrew text is rendered as LORD The Hebrew word <hb>EL</> is translated as God --- The Habbakuk Commentary, discovered in Cave 1, is the best preserved commentary. It is especially useful since it gives us an idea of the continuity of text. The genre of commentary can be subdivided into those that deal with consecutive text and those that are selective (as with the Isaiah commentary). Commentary indicators can also be formulaic: the word <hb>pesher</> is used sometimes by itself, sometimes in combination with other constructions to introduce the interpretation -- e.g. 1) "Interpretation of the Word," 2) "It's interpretation," 3) "The interpretation concerns." We also find simply "It says." It is conceivable that these formulaic statements may be characteristic of particular commentators, although the evidence is too fragmentary at present to decide. Supporting evidence might be the prevalence of phrases such as "easy interpretations" in the commentary on Nahum. Dr. Kraft notes that it is important to attempt to determine the intent of the author, as indicated by the commentary's explicit references, which can sometimes be tied into our hitorical knowledge. He then went on to point out various examples of allusions to persons or events from the history of Israel, such as the reference to David's son Absalom. Final Comments Dr. Kraft informed us of the news report from Arizona that 18 more scroll fragments have been analyzed there with C14 dating methods, and that the Habbakkuk Commentary was written on leather from an animal that died between 150 to 5 BCE. The next assignment: 18 April -- "para-biblical" materials (GM 219-237, 260-296) //end minutes dss.950413 #1// ----- [[Version #2; hold your hats!]] DSS.950413(=#24) Minutes, Dead Sea Scrolls Class, 13 April 1995 University of Pennsylvania, Religious Studies 225, Robert Kraft Glen "Lovecraft" Aduana and Clare "Summoned into the Beyond" Bayard, scribas Minutes after the style of H.P. Lovecraft. * A series of unexplained disappearances -- my partner Clare, for one...vanished. Unexplained noises (was that really a fire engine outside today, or was it... ...Belial?) An evil that defies description... and only B*B and his faithful Religious Studies 255 class of the University of Pennsylvania stands between it and WORLD DOMINATION! B*B versus <syriac>CHTHULU</>! * It was just another ordinary class...or was it? B*B, the ever vigilant scholar, reminded us that if we should find some information about the author (such as research interests, or previously published work), to include it in our revisions of the book reviews. To prepare us for the climactic final battle, B*B reminded us that: The pesher concerning the arrival of Belial's arch lieutenant Dagon was that Lawrence Schiffman will visit on Monday 24 April, 6:30, Room TBA. and that the union between the Elder ones across the Mountains of Madness is to be interpreted as our Clemson co-class, although not yet fully planned, would possibly be conducted in MMETS via satellite transmission; Leonard Greenspoon will discuss the Qumran biblical material. And as the skies grew black, and the air chilled with the force of the Old One's arrival, B*B drew out that mystic text, The Necronomicon, written by the mad Manichaean, Abdul al-Hazred shortly before he was torn limb from limb by invisible forces beyond his control. But B*B was clever, and disguised his copy as Garcia Martinez' translation of the Dead Sea Scrolls. With the book in hand, he began reciting the mystic spells to banish Chthulu from this world forever. The mystic phrases fell into five categories: Explicit quotes, which are definitely formulaic; implicit quotes; so called "Targumic" quotes which are still definitely quotes, although two degrees removed from complete explicitness, and not a paraphrase (targum is actually a technical term for translations of Hebrew texts to Aramaic; it means "interpret" or "translate"); paraphrases, which are obviously connected, though not on a word by word basis; and allusions (illusions crafted by the Prince of Darkness? No -- *a*llusions. oh.) It is sometimes the case that fragments are classified by convention, as they lack an appropriate comprehensive context. The phrases seemed to have little effect upon the evil force present (well, perhaps it was just an allusion to an evil force, but present nonetheless, I assure you) and to ease his students' worries, B*B instructed us about the proper interpretation of the phrases. Indeed, his discourse fell into the genre of the Commentary, being a conscious inquiry into a given text. Examples of these would be: The Florilegium (Lat: bouquet, a flower-culling) which are collections and excerpts of previously known literature. It was this which was the first concrete evidence of a Judaic precedent to the early Christian practice of Commentary writing. However, many many more commentaries were discovered in time. The 4QTestimonia, really a mishmash (Lat: farrago) of quotes. and the 4QCatena (Lat: chain, fetter), a "chain" of quotes. The Habbakkuk Commentary, discovered in Cave 1, was the first of the Pesharim discoveries at Qumran, and is the best preserved commentary. It aids us by giving us an idea of the continuity of text. <hb>Pesher</> by the way, is not a euphemism for His Followers from Beyond. It literally means "interpretation". The genre of Commentary can be subdivided into Consecutive and Selective (as with the Isaiah commentary) genres. Commentaries are also formulaic: the word <hb>Pesher</> is used sometimes by itself, other times there are three or four ways in which Pesher is used to introduce interpretation. 1) "Interpretation of the Word", 2) "It is interpreted", 3) "This interpretation concerns", 4) "Interpretation:" It is conceivable that these formulaic statements may be characteristic of particular commentators, although the evidence is too fragmentary to decide yet. An example of this would be the prevalence of "easy interpretations" in the commentary on Nahum. Before we can examine these texts, B*B said, we must determine the intent of the author, and the closest method of determination lies in the Commentary's explicit references, which can then be tied into our historical knowledge. And as he said this, <proto-indo-european>Chthulu</>, whose maw is the font of orphan's tears; <c++>Chthulu</> the Old One pent on a throne of ice; <Gallifreyan>Chthulu</>, pulled out his copy of Wimsatt and Beardsley's article "The Intentional Fallacy," hoping to dissuade B*B's students from the stance of a determinable authorial intent. Unfazed, for it is rumored that the blood of the Elder Ones flows in his veins, B*B informed us that there is a newsline from Arizona that the 18 scroll fragments to be analyzed there with C14 dating have been so analyzed, and that the Habbakkuk Commentary was written on leather from a goat which died from 150 to 105 BCE. He then went on to point out various examples of allusions on pages 198-9. The allusion to Absalom, for example. And he drew out his ultimate weapon, that fiery brand which both student and demonic-forces-from-Beyond fear -- the next assignment: 18 April -- "para-biblical" materials (GM 219-237, 260-296) With that, <coptic-sumero-akkadian>Chthulu</>, his power spent, withdrew into the abyss from whence he came. THE END? //end minutes dss.950413(2)// DSS.950418(=#25) Minutes, Dead Sea Scrolls Class, 18 April 1995 University of Pennsylvania, Religious Studies 225, Robert Kraft [[missing]] //end minutes dss.950418// DSS.950420(=#26) Minutes, Dead Sea Scrolls Class, 20 April 1995 University of Pennsylvania, Religious Studies 225, Robert Kraft Recorded by Chanan Tigay and Kathleen Hoffman On the Book Reviews: Dr. Kraft suggested a number of different headings available or possible for our electronically published reviews including DSS (as on Kim Noble's review), Delta Sigma Sigma (created by Glen Aduana, for his review), DeltaCC (using the "lunate Sigma" form), Dalet Samech Samech (phonetic Hebrew equivalent), and Mem Yud Mem (abbreviated Hebrew translation). Choose what you want! On DSS Halakha, in Preparation for Dr. Schiffman's Visit: Dr. Kraft mentioned a few notable articles regarding the Halakhic materials in the DSS including the recent BAR selection (20/6, Nov/Dec 1994): "MMT as the Maltese Falcon," "Paul, Works of the Law and MMT" (by Martin Abegg), "For This You Waited 35 Years" (by Herschel Shanks); this led to comments on the computerized concordance developed by Martin Abegg and Ben-Zion Wacholder which was a catalyst to recent developments in opening up the study of the DSS. A concordance lists each word in a particular text or group of texts (e.g. the Bible) and shows every occurrence of that word in the entire text, usually with some surrounding context. Thus it is possible to reconstruct the full text from the contextual snippets. Dr. Kraft then commented on the legal battles between Shanks and Elisha Qimron regarding the publication of the 4QMMT material. Shanks published a "bootlet" copy of this text and Qimron sued and won the legal rights to the text in an Israeli court. An appeal (or counter suit) may be in the offing. In passing, Kraft referred to Shanks as the Howard Cosell of biblical studies, since both have legal backgrounds, are flamboyant and claim to "tell it like it is." The text of the official publication with the reconstruction of 4QMMT by Qimron and John Strugnell was excerpted in a useful format in BAR and Dr. Kraft read it aloud to the class. The first quarter of a page doesn't appear in the "composite text" in Garcia-Martinez (77-79; but see 4Q394 on 79-81)); it deals with calendric themes and reads as follows (see BAR): <quote> [The sixteenth day of the second month is a sabbath]. The twenty- third of it is a sabbath. The thirtieth [of it is a sabbath. The seventh of the third month is a sabbath. The fourteenth of it is a sabbath. The fifteenth of it is the Festival of Weeks. The twenty-fi]rst of it is a sabbath. The twenty-eighth of it is a sabbath. After it, the first and the second, [a third is to be added. And the season terminates -- ninety-one days. The first of the fourth month is a remembrance [i.e. a Memorial Day]. The fourth] of it [is a sabbath]. The el[eventh] of it is a sabbath. The eighteenth of it is a sabbath. The twenty-fifth of it is a sabbath. The second of the fif[th is a sabbath. The third of it is the Festival of New Wine.... The ninth of it is a sabbath]. The sixteenth of it is a sabbath. The twenty-third of it is a sabbath. The thirtieth [of it is a sabbath....] The twenty-second of it (the sixth month) is the Festival of New Oil, on the day af[ter the sab]bath. Af[ter it] is [the Wood] Offer[ing.... And the year is complete -- three hundred and [sixty-four] days. </quote> As we have noted in other connections, each month is 30 days long. Every three months one day is added. The wood offering is mentioned in MMT but it is uncertain on which day it is to be observed because the document is very fragmentary. In Garcia-Martinez line 5 of 4QMMT/4Q394 is translated: "The precepts we [are examining...]" Qimron-Strugnell reconstruct the same line as "the precepts (of the Torah) in accordance with [our opinion....]" Dr. Kraft believes that this sort of assumption (i.e. that the precepts referred to those in the Torah) can be quite misleading. The respective translations differ in a number of other instances as well. In GM line eight the word "temple" is found where Q-S have "sanctuary." In GM line twelve Q-S translate: "...like (a woman) who whored with him," while GM has: "[...] which he is pulling towards it." The word "pulling" apparently can be a sexual reference. In GM line 96 Q-S have "the book (of Moses)" while GM has simply "the book." Dr. Kraft disagrees with the Q-S rendering since it prejudices the discussion of what authoritative texts were used among those represented in this document. The language of MMT is temple and sacrificial language. However, while some DSS texts speak without comment or footnote about temple sacrifices others do footnote and comment (e.g. equating sacrifice with prayer). Why this apparent discrepancy? Perhaps because the texts are so fragmentary, leaving us with an incomplete version of the original text, making the author's intentions difficult to judge. In line eleven we have "V'al," translated as "And concerning." This is similar to the phrase "V'af al," translated as "And also concerning." These seem to be formulas to introduce new subjects; they may indicate formal divisions in the text. In line 21, the text, itself written on animal hides, discusses some use of leather and the tanning of hides. The text, however, is too fragmentary to understand fully what this discussion actually means. Among the rites and rituals of the DSS community there is a high consciousness about not mixing that which should not be mixed (i.e. purity involves isolating items, people, etc.). Some things which create impurity are: menstruation, masturbation, nocturnal emissions, and dead bodies. Line 96 seems to begin an eschatological section of the document and offers an eschatological framework for the remaining discussion. The text refers specifically to Belial (GM line 115) and the end of time. Line 99f resembles the "blessings and curses" section in Deutoronomy 27. Line 105 mentions Zedekiah, the last legitimate ruling king in the Davidic Dynasty. The author is clearly situating himself within the line of David. At the end of the document the author is essentially saying to the person addressed in the letter: "I've got it right. You're wrong. You'd better change or else...." The person to whom the author speaks in this text seems to have some sort of leadership role. //end minutes dss.950420// DSS.950425(=#27) Minutes, Dead Sea Scrolls Class, 25 April 1995 University of Pennsylvania, Religious Studies 225, Robert Kraft Recorded by Mark P. Berman, with Asaf Cohen 1. Poetic Texts Before diving into this material one must realize that any grouping such as this is not set in stone. As Garcia Martinez explains in the introduction to this section (p. 302), works can be grouped in different ways. Some documents from the Dead Sea Scrolls contain a variety of literary styles and thus it is hard to classify them as psalms or liturgies or whatever. The DSS scribes also sometimes pieced shorter documents together into a longer work, and thus one may not be able simply to classify a documents as a homogeneous unit if in fact it contains a collection of disparate works. A good example of this is the psalms. The Hebrew biblical book of Psalms contains 150 poems of various sorts. The Greek translation has 151. The Qumran archives include a Hebrew form of the Greek Psalm 151 and offer additional psalms and also sometimes present the biblical psalms in a different order from what has become traditional. A. Apocryphal Psalms Page 309, Column 27. Here we have a non-poetic intrusion into its surrounding poetic context. Although the DSS do not normally present poetry in separate lines (as GM prints it, unless it is very fragmentary), it is usually relatively easy to identify Hebrew poetry due to its characteristic "parallelism" (repetition of ideas in adjacent poetic "lines"). This prose passage discusses David and his poetic works. David is described here as wise, learned, knowledgeable, and perfect before God, inspired by the spirit of prophecy. He is said to have written 3600 "psalms," which are distinguished from 364 liturgical "songs" (one for each day of the DSS solar year), and 52 other songs (one for each week), and 30 other songs for special occasions of various sorts, and yet 4 more songs "to be sung over the possessed" (for exorcisms?), making a grand total of 4,050! The reference to David's "perfect" ways must imagine a time either before the Bat-Sheva (Bathsheba) incident, or after David had repented for that incident. (David had sex with a woman named Bat-Sheva, and when she became pregnant, David tried to cover his sin and finally sent her husband off to die in battle -- see 2 Samuel 11.) P. 310: column 28 (Psalm 151) This psalm was not canonized in the Hebrew biblical collection, and thus is absent from traditional Protestant Bibles. However, it was included in the Greek and Latin collections, and thus is in the Roman Catholic Bible. This and other psalms that are not found in the Hebrew Bible bring up the question of the exact relationship of the DSS community to the pslams and to the traditional Hebrew biblical canon. Some psalms appear to have sectarian characteristics (e.g. GM 304 col. 10) and thus could have been written by the DSS community. In passing, it was noted that the practice of collecting pslams in antiquity was not limited to the biblical collection(s) or the DSS Hymns. A collection of "Odes" drawn from other hymnic material found in both the Christian Testaments became part of the Greek Christian scriptures, alongside the book of Psalms. This includes an Ode from the book of Habakkuk and the Nativity Hymns of Mary and Elizabeth, among others. 2. Wisdom Literature Much of the ancient Jewish poetic material such as the acrostic hymn found also in Ben Sira 51.13-19 (GM 306, col. 21) is called wisdom literature. Wisdom in Hebrew is "hokma," in Greek it is "sophia," and in Latin it is "sapientia." Thus when one encounters these words in a title (as in GM 380ff), one will be able to tell that it is considered a "wisdom" poem. Wisdom is personified as a female in many of the works. Thus one must not be confused when sudden switches to female pronouns are found, as in GM 305, col. 18.12ff, or GM 395, frg. 2.2.2f. Personified wisdom is a key being next to God in the creation and manintenance of the world (see especially Proverbs 8.22-31). Page 379, Wiles of the Wicked Woman (4Q184), offers a good example of "extra biblical" wisdom literature, reflecting themes similar to those in the biblical book of Proverbs and also in the "apocryphal" book of Sirach (Ben Sira). In line three the seductive woman is noted for having eyes defiled with evil which might mean that she wears eye make-up. This is a symbol of evil and sin because it was learned from the fallen angels who appear in the Book of the Watchers (1 Enoch 1-36). The pit too is a symbol of death. In class, only the first five sentences were read to get the general idea that she (as the opposite of the Wise Woman, Wisdom!) was to be avoided. GM 383, Sapential Work A (4Q416), might be called "The Mystery of Existence" for its emphasis on that sort of terminlogy. The mystery of existance is a theme used here to glue together the many teachings which discuss aspects of life and how to cope with them. This also contains the concept of the "just man," which in the DSS (as in other early Jewish and Christian literature) can refer to someone who is just a good man, or it can refer to a special person, perhaps a Messiah, or a Righteous Teacher. On page 384, frg. 2.2.6, the phrase "do not embitter your holy spirit" appears. This is an example of the many ideas about spirits (of humans, of God, of Belial) offered in these works; in the "horoscope" texts, people are described in terms of the proportion of appropriate "spirit" they possess (GM 456). The poetic DSS also contain allusions to economic matters or terminology, such as poverty, riches, and inheritance. In such a phrase as "you are poor," the reference could either be to the collective community ("the Poor"), or to an individual. Nonetheless, the author states that one who is poor must live with that condition. Part of the mystery of existence is that whatever one's lot is has been established by God and should not (cannot?) keep a person from what God provides. //end minutes dss.950425// DSS.950427(=#28) Minutes, Dead Sea Scrolls Class, 27 April 1995 University of Pennsylvania, Religious Studies 225, Robert Kraft Recorded by Vincent Liu, checked by Arthur Cho. ##General (Burning) Questions about the DSS## **In what directions is DSS research going today? Schiffman, who recently spoke to our class, is overplaying a position by reading the DSS primarily through the eyes of classical Judaism. Because the DSS people broke off from the stream that produced the ancestors of classical Judaism, and because this rift apparently led to a dead-end in Judaism (or at best to the Karaites), it is difficult to do justice to the DSS evidence in terms of mainstream Judaism alone. An example of this is the identification of the DSS community as the Sadducees, about whom we know so little. Identifying "Sadducees" at the roots of the DSS community does not necessarily produce an understanding of the Sadducees presented to us by Josephus or the classical Jewish sources, and vice versa, since the respective "Sadducee" movements have not necessarily developed in the same ways since the "split." The DSS Zadokites appear to be preoccupied with eschatological, messianic, predestinarian perspectives that find no eleucidation in the more traditional sources of information about Sadducees. Thus they can legitimately be "reclaimed" for Jewish history, but part of the response to that move will be a similar reclaiming of early "Christianity" for Jewish history, which will deepen the appreciation for the complexity of "Judaism" in this period, and for the relevance of the DSS for understanding Christian origins. As Arthur Darby Nock, that renown student of the hellenistic world, liked to say, scholarship is like a drunken person progressing down an alleyway, lurching from side to side. The early emphasis on Christian reflections in the DSS is now being countered with more classicly Jewish understandings. This will probably produce another opposite lurch, in a progressively narrowing alleyway. **What are the "Christian" connections? The DSS attest attitudes, expressions, approaches, and even practices that throw light both indirectly and sometimes even directly on the early development of the Jewish "Jesus movements," and this evidence is extremely important both for what Judaism was and became, and for how Christianity came about and developed. In many ways, the "reclaiming" of the DSS for understanding early Judaism goes hand in hand with reclaiming earliest Christianity for that purpose as well. **What is the most important next step in DSS research? A step that has not yet been completed is the mechanical piecing together and comparing of all of the various fragments to determine which are physically related and unrelated. Eventually, the fragments and documents will all be cross referenced and disparities in different copies will be noted and studied. Another step is to continue to study the various genres of material, such as the exegetical or the parabiblical or the poetic, and decide where the various types and styles belong in relation to other known documents. Areas of investigation would include literary studies of poetic structure, and studies of repetitive terminology embedded in these Jewish writings. **Who wrote the documents? Are they related to Qumran/Essenes? This question still remains and will not be resolved until we find or convincingly create more evidence. The assorted documents from the Qumran DSS discoveries are not transparently homogenous. If we only had documents from cave 1 we might be able to find more homogeneity in the documents, but with the numbers of fragments found elsewhere, especially in cave 4, the lines become extremely blurred. The most important step in answering this question is to begin by developing a system of careful definitions and controls, and deciding which pieces of evidence can be used as firm foundations. For example, if we could agree to trust the Carbon-14 dating of the various documents (not to mention whatever DNA tests develop), this would provide a starting point around which we could begin to assess the relationships between documents. Another question is how much we can trust our basic ancient secondary sources, like Josephus, since we don't know how his biases or the biases of his sources may have influenced his writing about various groups. If one were to follow Schiffman's reconstruction, for example, it would be important to find an explanation for how these Sadducees who care so much about Halakha could also become embroiled in apocalyptic and eschatological concerns, despite the claims of some of the ancient secondary witnesses about "the Sadducees." **Who wrote the Damascus Document? The time it seems to have been written is probably too early for the supposed emergence onto the historical scene of the Essenes, Pharisees, and Sadducees, according to Josephus. It is tempting, however, to link it with the ancient Jewish "Hasidim" (meaning those loyal to the covenant; pious ones) who are said to have been among the first to become restless and confrontational with respect to the threat of "hellenization" in the prelude to the Maccabean/Hasmonean rebellion. The writers of the document identify themselves as the sons of Zadok, although it is possible, and even probable, that at least some of their opponents also identified themselves similarly -- tensions within the priestly house of Zadok may well be indicated. The authors of the document may well have been the founders of what modern scholars so simplistically style "the Qumran community," or the document may have been written by some other early group, now otherwise lost to us, but later it served to rally dissidents who eventually developed into the people who collected and deposited the DSS in the Qumran caves. **Who are the Kittim? It seems probable that "Kittim" is not used to refer to a specific group that is always the same, in historico-political terms, but has been generated by scriptural usages for the main enemy at any given time (see, e.g. Numbers 24.24, Daniel 11.30, 1 Maccabees 1.1). For example, during the Maccabean rebellion the Kittim might have been the Greek Seleucids, while during the later first century bce and onward, it probably referred to the Romans. ##Oddities in the DSS## (specifically in the Astronomical Texts, Calenders, and Horiscopes): **Coded -- Backwards, and mixed up writing. In the description on GM 444, it is noted that some fragments are "copied in code." Not only is the writing in 4Q186 (GM456) backwards but it also contains various letters of different alphabets mixed together. **Magical -- Brontologion (GM 452, frg. 2, 2.6). Brontos means thunder. This is a genre of literature (in Latin and Greek) that predicts the future (especially political) through clues of nature, specifically by the timing between thunder. It was commonly used in the Greco-Roman world. It is suprising to some interpreters to find "magic" (astrology) throughout various Jewish documents, since in classical Judaism it apparently was considered bad and evil and similar activities are discouraged in certain scriptural passages (e.g. Deuteronomy 18.10ff). Interestingly, Zodiac signs have been found on the floors of early Jewish synagogues in Palestine labelled in Greek or with the names transliterated (even translated) into Hebrew. For classical Judaism, this type of overt activity seems to have been both forbidden and condemned. Still, there exist many "magical" processes that have been incorporated even into classical Judaism (as with most religions), such as mechanical devices intended to influence the spiritual world. **Funny Math? -- Sabbaths. On GM 422 (line 30), reference is made to the song of the sacrifice of "the seventh sabbath of the seventeenth of the month." If one were to chart all of the sabbaths in the predictable DSS 364 day solar calender (as, e.g. 4Q327 = GM 455), the seventh sabbath would fall on the sixteenth day of the second month, not the seventeenth. Note that on GM 425, frg. 3, the sixteenth of the month is given, although the first part of the word "sixteenth" is contained in brackets meaning that GM wasn't completely sure that this was the correct reading. Whether or not this is a problem (on GM 422) that arose during translation or transcription is not clear. It might be a typo. **Long lists of numbers and odd names -- In some places the naming system associated with certain periods in the months is rather different from what is expected based on the other DSS: for example the fragments on GM 452ff (see also GM 27ff, in one of the 4Q Rule fragments). As VanderKam notes (114f), these refer to the 24 priestly shifts or watches (see 1 Chronicles 24.7-18), which are charted in terms of the more normal sequences of sabbaths and months. Sometimes the lunar calculations are also included, alongside the solar. **The beginning of festivals -- sunset, sunrise, or midnight. There is evidence that the festivals mentioned in the DSS documents began at sundown, such as GM 41 = DD 10.15. Discovering when the festivals commenced in the DSS community could aid in placing them in a specific time period and with particular associations in the evolution of Judaism (see Schiffman's arguments regarding Sadducean halakha in 4QMMT). **Titles on the inside and outside of rolled up documents -- The document found on GM 414-417 (4Q504) is of special interest because it contains a "title" written on the reverse of fragment 8 (presumably the final portion), implying that when the scroll was rolled up, one could identify the document from the outside, without having to unroll it. Whether it also had a title on the reverse of the starting column is not known, or whether the text began with a title such as the one preserved at the end. **ShirShabb -- (pg. 420, frag. 4) As with parts of Ben Sira, the "Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice" materials are found at both Qumran and Masada. This is especially interesting because this document includes some belligerent language. **Debir -- GM 423, etc. What is it? **Angelization -- GM 433 = 1Q28\b 4.24ff and 5.20ff This may be an example of a leader of the community being "divinized" by the community. This presents a potentially interesting precursor to the common practice of raising leaders to "sainthood" in classical Christianity, and the "power" language even has some resemblance the depiction of Christ in Revelation 1. **Melki-resha -- (GM 434 = 4Q280, line 3). This literally is the opposite of Melchi-zedek (see GM 139 = 11Q13), and means "king of evil." **Body Parts -- (GM 437 = 4Q436, line 5). "You sharpen my kidneys so that I do not forget your laws." This "psychological/physiological" idiom was found in another place earlier and provides our Dead Sea Scrolls class with a sense of closure for the year! //end minutes dss.950427//