Recently discovered materials for writing the history of christian Nubia

1975 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 19-30
Author(s):  
William Frend
Keyword(s):  
Gospel Of Mark ◽  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Nag Hammadi ◽  
Clement Of Alexandria ◽  
History Of ◽  
Beliefs And Attitudes

Chance discoveries have been among the ‘uncovenanted blessings’ that have fallen to the study of new testament times and the early church. The finding of the Isaiah scroll by a shepherd boy in the judaean desert in 1947 led to the greatest discovery in biblical studies of all time, that of the Dead Sea scrolls and the essene monastery of Kharbet Q’mran. Similarly, the recovery of the gnostic library of 48 separate books from a Christian cemetery at Nag-Hammadi, not far from Luxor, in 1946, has thrown a wholly unexpected light on the complex of beliefs and attitudes of orthodox Christianity’s great rival during the second and early third centuries, gnosticism. Recently, professor Morton Smith has made the boldest claims on behalf of a ‘secret Gospel of Mark’ used apparently in Alexandria in the second century AD. An extract from this gospel he found in the library of the monastery of Mar Saba near Jerusalem, quoted in a letter which may be attributed correctly to Clement of Alexandria circa 190 AD.

The Damascus Document

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven D. Fraade
Keyword(s):  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Hebrew Text ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Ancient Text ◽  
Cairo Geniza ◽  
Damascus Document ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Dead

The Damascus Document is an ancient Hebrew text that is one of the longest, oldest, and most important of the ancient scrolls found near Khirbet (ruins of) Qumran, usually referred to collectively as the Dead Sea Scrolls for the proximity of the Qumran settlement and eleven nearby caves to the Dead Sea. Its oldest parts originate in the mid- to late second 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 (some ten manuscripts altogether). However, it is unique in that two manuscripts (MS A and MS B) containing parts and variations of the same text were discovered much earlier, in 1896 (and published in 1910), among the discarded texts of the Cairo Geniza, the latter being written in the tenth-eleventh centuries CE. Together, the manuscripts of the Damascus Document, both ancient and medieval, are an invaluable source for understanding many aspects of ancient Jewish (and before that Israelite) history, theology, sectarian ideology, eschatology, liturgy, law, communal leadership, canon formation, and practice. Central to the structure of the overall text, is the intersection of law, both what we would call “biblical” (or biblically derived) and “communal,” and narrative/historical admonitions, perhaps modeled after a similar division the biblical book of Deuteronomy. A suitable characterization of the Damascus Document, to which we will repeatedly return, could be “bringing the Messiah through law.” Because of the longevity of its discovery, translation, publication, and debated interpretation, there is a long history of modern scholarship devoted to this ancient text.

Recent Scholarship on the Book of Jubilees

2008 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 405-431 ◽  
Author(s):  
James C. Vanderkam
Keyword(s):  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Textual Evidence ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Genesis 1 ◽  
History Of ◽  
Hebrew Version ◽  
History Of Composition

The essay provides a survey of recent studies on the book of Jubilees, a second-century BCE Hebrew work that retells the stories from Genesis 1 through Exodus 24 and whose teachings are closely related to those found in the sectarian Dead Sea Scrolls. The principal topics covered are the new textual evidence for the original Hebrew version of Jubilees and its implications, the literary nature of the work and its history of composition, and four major themes in the book: the author's views about purity/impurity, women, the annual calendar of 364 days, and eschatology. There is also a summary of academic textual resources for the study of the text of Jubilees.

Writings in the Dead Sea Scrolls

2018 ◽  
pp. 324-341
Author(s):  
Lawrence H. Schiffman
Keyword(s):  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Second Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Textual Evidence ◽  
Masoretic Text ◽  
Hebrew Word ◽  
The Dead

This chapter argues that the Writings was an evolving collection of scripture used in a wide variety of ways by the Dead Sea Scrolls community at Qumran (second century bce to first century ce). Though the Hebrew word Ketuvim (Writings) does not occur in the Scroll material, all but one (Esther) of the books contained therein are found. The plentiful and varied textual evidence at Qumran, and occasionally other Judean desert sites, is presented with special attention to the number of biblical and other manuscripts and place found; textual comparisons with the biblical Masoretic text and others (e.g., Septuagint); citations; and other interpretive uses in sectarian documents. The importance of the books in the Writings for the life of the late postexilic community of Qumran and the nature of the Dead Sea Scrolls biblical collection are, together, a constant focus of the study.

scholarly journals Inspiration and the Texts of the Bible

1997 ◽  
Vol 53 (1/2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk Buchner
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Early Church ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Masoretic Text ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Book Of Hebrews ◽  
Textual Research

This article seeks to explore what the inspired text of the Old Testament was as it existed for the New Testament authors, particularly for the author of the book of Hebrews. A quick look at the facts makes. it clear that there was, at the time, more than one 'inspired' text, among these were the Septuagint and the Masoretic Text 'to name but two'. The latter eventually gained ascendancy which is why it forms the basis of our translated Old Testament today. Yet we have to ask: what do we make of that other text that was the inspired Bible to the early Church, especially to the writer of the book of Hebrews, who ignored the Masoretic text? This article will take a brief look at some suggestions for a doctrine of inspiration that keeps up with the facts of Scripture. Allied to this, the article is something of a bibliographical study of recent developments in textual research following the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls.

‘For Children in Yeeres and Children in Understanding‘: The Emergence of the English Catechism under Elizabeth and the Early Stuarts

1986 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 397-425 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Green
Keyword(s):  
Religious Education ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Characteristic Form ◽  
Religious Instruction ◽  
Full Account ◽  
Clement Of Alexandria ◽  
History Of

When Immanuel Bourne published his larger catechism in 1646, he prefaced it with an unusually full account of the history of catechising. He was not the first author of the period to trace the practice back to the examples of religious instruction in both Old and New Testaments, or to cite the works of Pantaenus, Clement of Alexandria and Origen as proof of the existence of religious education in the early Church. Nor was he alone in praising the efforts of those continental reformers of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries who thought they had revived the characteristic form of instruction of the early Church after centuries of neglect, though it may be added that Bourne's list of contemporary European catechists was longer and more cosmopolitan than others'.

The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Early Church

1963 ◽  
Vol 83 (1) ◽  
pp. 165
Author(s):  
J. B. P. ◽  
Lucetta Mowry
Keyword(s):  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Early Church ◽  
The Dead
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