The Use of Scripture in the Damascus Document 1-8, 19-20


Book Description

The series Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft (BZAW) covers all areas of research into the Old Testament, focusing on the Hebrew Bible, its early and later forms in Ancient Judaism, as well as its branching into many neighboring cultures of the Ancient Near East and the Greco-Roman world.




Beihefte Zur Zeitschrift FÃ1/4r Die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft


Book Description

The series Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft (BZAW) covers all areas of research into the Old Testament, focusing on the Hebrew Bible, its early and later forms in Ancient Judaism, as well as its branching into many neighboring cultures of the Ancient Near East and the Greco-Roman world.




The New Damascus Document


Book Description

This composite edition of the Damascus Document and scrolls from Khirbet Qumran (with translation and commentary) presents a new understanding of the relationship of these texts, time and purpose; shedding additional light on the Dead Sea Scrolls.




The Damascus Document


Book Description

The Damascus Document is an ancient Hebrew text that is one of the longest, oldest, & most important of the ancient scrolls usually referred to collectively as the Dead Sea Scrolls. Its oldest parts originate in the mid- to late 2nd century BCE. While the earliest discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls occurred in 1947, the Qumran Damascus Document fragments were discovered in 1952 (but not published in full until 1996), mainly in what is designated as Qumran Cave Four. However, it is unique in that two manuscripts (MS A & MS B) containing parts & variations of the same text were discovered much earlier, in 1896, among the discarded texts of the Cairo Geniza, the latter being written in the 10th-11th centuries CE. Together, the manuscripts of the Damascus Document, both ancient & medieval, are an invaluable source for understanding many aspects of ancient Jewish (& before that Israelite) history, theology, and much more.




Women in the Damascus Document


Book Description




The Scrolls and the Scriptures


Book Description

This collection of papers from the Roehampton conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible is the first jubilee volume published to celebrate the discovery of the Scrolls fifty years ago. Experts on the Scrolls, Hebrew language, biblical studies, ancient Judaism and modern literary theory cover a range of perspectives-as well as important issues of method and the perennial problems of the identity of the inhabitants of Khirbet Qumran and the relationship between the site and the discoveries in the nearby caves. Contributors include the well-known experts, Philip Davies, George Brooke, Al Wolters and J.D.G. Dunn.




Reading for History in the Damascus Document


Book Description

Scholars tend to view the Damascus Document as a historical source, but a reading of the text in light of contemporary (audience-oriented) literary criticism finds its emphasis in the ideological construction of history and communal identity, rather than in the preservation of a historical record. An introduction to contemporary literary criticism is followed by a series of thematic readings, focusing on historical narrative, priestly imagery, and gender in the covenant community. Each theme is examined in terms of its potential for multiple (sometimes contradictory) interpretations and for its place in the larger sectarian discourse. This study offers an alternative approach to the historiography of ancient Jewish sectarianism, acknowledging the presence of competing claims to shared traditions and the potential for changes in textual interpretation over time or among diverse communities.




The Scrolls and Biblical Traditions


Book Description

What do the Dead Sea Scrolls tell us about the forms, transmission, canonization, and interpretation of authoritative scriptures.




The Hebrew Bible in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls


Book Description

Until recently, most non-biblical manuscripts attested in the Qumran library were regarded as copies of texts that were composed after the books of the Hebrew Bible were written. Students of the Hebrew Bible found the Dead Sea Scrolls therefore mostly of interest for the textual and interpretative histories of these books. The present collection confirms the importance of the Dead Sea Scrolls for both areas, by showing that they have revolutionized our understanding of how the text of the biblical books developed and how they were interpreted. Beyond the textual and interpretative histories, though, many texts attested in the Qumran library illuminate the time in which the later books of the Hebrew Bible were composed and reworked as well as Jewish life and law in the time when the canon of the Hebrew Bible developed. This volume gives important examples as to how the early texts attested in the Dead Sea Scrolls help to better understand individual biblical books and as to how the later texts among them illustrate Jewish life and law when the canon of the Hebrew Bible evolved. In order to find an adequate expertise for the seminar »The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Hebrew Bible«, the editors invited both junior and senior specialists in the fields of Hebrew Bible, Second Temple Judaism, Dead Sea Scrolls and Rabbinics to Rome.




Judaism in Late Antiquity


Book Description

This collection of systematic Auseinandersetzungen articulates difference and spells out what is at issue. Learning atrophies when political consensus substitutes for criticism, and when other than broadly-accepted viewpoints, approaches, and readings find a hearing only with difficulty, if at all. The editors therefore have invited colleagues systematically to outline their views in an Auseinandersetzung with contrary ones. The several participants explain how, in broad and sweeping terms, they see the state of learning in their areas of special interest. The editors invited leading players in the USA, Europe, and the State of Israel, in the study of ancient Judaism, both in Second Temple Times and after 70 C.E. The work commences with a thoroughly fresh perspective of a theoretical question: what, in a religion so concerned with social norms and public policy, can we possibly mean by "law" when we speak of law in Judaism. It then proceeds with two chapters on Second Temple Judaism, and two on the special subject of the Dead Sea library. The two papers in the present part provide an overview of matters and a systematic, critical account of the fading consensus, respectively. The next set of papers ought to stand as the definitive account of the diverse viewpoints on a basic question of method. Because of the willingness of contending parties to meet one another in a single frame of discourse, the work is able to portray with considerable breadth the presently-contending viewpoints concerning the use of Rabbinic literature for historical purposes. Then proceed a number of other accounts of how matters look from the perspective of major participants in scholarly debate. At the same time as the requirements of historical-critical reading of the Rabbinic literature precipitated sustained and vigorous debate, other problems have attracted attention. Among these a critical issue emerges in the hermeneutics to govern the reading of the documents for the purposes of other-than-historical study, feminist interests, for example.