Beyond the Qumran Community: Social Organization in the Dead Sea Scrolls

2009 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 351-369 ◽  
Author(s):  
John J. Collins
Keyword(s):  
Social Organization ◽  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Small Communities ◽  
Damascus Document ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Qumran Community ◽  
The Way

AbstractThe Dead Sea Scrolls refer to different kinds of communities. The Damascus Document speaks of people who live “in camps” throughout the land, and marry and have children. The Rule of the Community, in contrast, does not speak of women or children at all. It does, however, speak of small communities with a quorum of ten, as part of the yahad. The Rule of the Community also speaks enigmatically of twelve men and three priests, who are supposed to go into the wilderness to prepare the way of the Lord. It is possible but not certain that these were the founders of the Qumran settlement. Qumran was surely a sectarian settlement in Roman times. It is possible, but not proven, that it was a Hasmonean fort before the Romans came. It was never more than one of many sectarian settlements. The yahad should not be equated with “the Qumran community.”

9. The communities of the Dead Sea Scrolls

2017 ◽  
pp. 89-106
Author(s):  
Timothy H. Lim
Keyword(s):  
Urban Community ◽  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Penal Code ◽  
Viable Alternative ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
The Social ◽  
Damascus Document ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Qumran Community

‘The communities of the Dead Sea Scrolls’ assesses what we know about the social structure and daily lives of the Qumran community. Early estimates of the community’s size suggested thousands of members, but it was more likely dozens. Vermes describes a monastic brotherhood living in the desert with a strict penal code and stratified hierarchy. A parallel urban community lived nearer to Jerusalem. This group shared many beliefs with the brotherhood but attended Temple and raised families. Debates rage about the communities’ origin. The Damascus Document suggests they predate the Maccabaean period, but this does not tally with our knowledge of their adversaries. The Groningen Hypothesis is a viable alternative.

An Altar in the Desert?

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-135
Author(s):  
Alison Schofield
Keyword(s):  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Spatial Theory ◽  
Conceptual Spaces ◽  
Spatial Practices ◽  
Damascus Document ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Community Rule ◽  
Rule Out

Jodi Magness’ proposal that an altar existed at Qumran leaves some unanswered questions; nevertheless, her conclusions are worthy of consideration. This study examines her claim that the residents at Qumran had an altar, modeled off of the Wilderness Tabernacle, through the lens of critical spatial theory. The conceptual spaces of some of the Dead Sea Scrolls, such as The Damascus Document and The Community Rule, as well as the spatial practices of the site of Qumran do not rule out – and even support – the idea that Qumran itself was highly delimited and therefore its spaces hierarchized in such a way that it could have supported a central cultic site.

On the Education of Children in the Dead Sea Scrolls

2012 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 350-363 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cecilia Wassen
Keyword(s):  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Reading And Writing ◽  
Level Of Education ◽  
Children's Education ◽  
Jewish Society ◽  
Damascus Document ◽  
Unknown Composition ◽  
The Dead ◽  
High Level

This article examines three passages from the Rule of the Congregation and the Damascus Document that pertain to the topic of children’s education. The education of children was considered important within the Qumran movement, which is evident in the curriculum in 1QSa and the fact that such a high-level official as the Examiner had a supervisory role over the teaching. In contrast to the level of education of children in Jewish society in general at the turn of the era, which appears to have been quite rudimentary and consisting mainly of memorization, it appears that children within the movement received a thorough education in both reading and writing. The content of the teaching focused on the laws of the Torah and the Book of Hagu, which is an unknown composition. It is likely that both boys and girls received some education. Cet article examine trois passages de la Règle de la Congrégation et le Document de Damas qui se rapportent au thème de l’éducation des enfants. L’éducation des enfants était considérée comme importante au sein du mouvement de Qumrân, importance qui est évidente dans le programme de 1QSa et le fait qu’un tel fonctionnaire de haut niveau que l’examinateur a eu un rôle de supervision sur l’enseignement. Contrairement au niveau de l’éducation des enfants dans la société juive en général au début de l’époque, qui semble avoir été assez rudimentaire et composé principalement de mémorisation, il semble que les enfants au sein du mouvement ont reçu une éducation complète en lecture et en écrit. Le contenu de l’enseignement a été axé sur les lois de la Torah et le Livre d’Hagu, qui est une composition inconnue. Il est probable que les garçons et les filles ont reçu une certaine éducation.

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.

Classifications of the Collection of Dead Sea Scrolls and the Case of Apocryphon of Jeremiah C

2012 ◽  
Vol 43 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 519-550 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eibert Tigchelaar
Keyword(s):  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Damascus Document ◽  
The Dead

Abstract This paper discusses the different approaches of Devorah Dimant and Florentino García Martínez towards categorisation and classification of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and applies their views to Apocryphon of Jeremiah C, a text constructed and edited by Dimant which she found difficult to classify, and which she related to Jubilees, the Animal Apocalypse, and the Damascus Document.

Barcosiba and Qumrân

1957 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-71
Author(s):  
L. E. Toombs
Keyword(s):  
Popular Religion ◽  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
First Century ◽  
Common Belief ◽  
Small Company ◽  
Widespread Phenomenon ◽  
The Dead ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Qumran Community

The vigorous discussion to which the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls has given rise has usually proceeded on the assumption that documents such as the Manual of Discipline and the War Scroll represent specific nd distinctive teachings of the Qumrân Community. If this is so, we are in possession of an important witness to the life and thought of one relatively small segment of first-century Judaism. But is the horizon of the scrolls necessarily so limited? There are at least two alternatives. (a) Assuming that the Qumrân Community were Essenes, Essenism may still be regarded, even after Qumrân, as a widespread phenomenon with many varied modes of expression, of which the Community at Qumrân was but one. Its library then lets us look at an Essenism which did not come into existence when the buildings at Qumrân were erected, nor perish with their destruction. (b) Even though the documents themselves are sectarian and Essene, many of the ideas contained in them may well have been the objects of common belief outside the sect and outside the wider areas of Essenism. If the type of thought which the Dead Sea Scrolls represent was widely diffused among the general population, we have in these parchments an entry, not into the mind of a small company of recluses alone, but into an important phase of religious thought in the Judaism of the Graeco-Roman period. Should this prove to be true, we shall be able with more confidence to get behind the transforming effect of two unsuccessful revolts against Roman rule, and to see more clearly the true features of popular religion before the wars.

The Dead Sea Scrolls, Pseudepigrapha, and Expansions of Scripture

2020 ◽  
pp. 164-174
Author(s):  
John A. Jillions
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Community ◽  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Community Life ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
Sibylline Oracles ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Qumran Community ◽  
Divine Guidance

The sources presented here reflect voices from various creative strands of Jewish community life between 700 BCE and 135 CE. All of them in varying ways approach divine guidance through communal rereading, reinterpretation, and expansion of scripture. The Qumran community (which produced the Dead Sea Scrolls) took a hierarchical view of guidance, placing discernment largely in the hands of the elders. Pseudepigrapha and expansions of scripture, like the Prayer of Manasseh, used the name of a biblical figure to expand on what the biblical text itself may have mentioned only in passing. Jubilees elaborates on Abram’s crucial but brief encounter with God in Genesis 12 and depicts it as a response to Abram’s request for divine guidance. The Sibylline Oracles (as distinct from the Roman Sibylline Books) attribute Jewish oracles to the pagan Sibyl. 3 Maccabees weaves together human initiative with divine guidance to the Jewish community in Alexandria.

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