Sectarian Marital Practice: Rethinking the Role of Sexuality in the Dead Sea Scrolls

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 339-361
Author(s):  
Maxine L. Grossman
Keyword(s):  
Social Norm ◽  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Damascus Document ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Sociological Approaches ◽  
Community Rule ◽  
Shed Light

AbstractDead Sea Scrolls scholarship has historically emphasized a binary between the celibate yaḥad of the Community Rule and the marrying edah of the Damascus Document and Rule of the Congregation. An early focus on celibacy has given way in recent years to arguments for the near ubiquity of marriage in the scrolls movement. In place of dichotomies of marriage and celibacy, the complexities of sexuality in the scrolls are best understood in terms of a sexually-limiting sectarian marital practice. This marital practice is grounded in a theology of perfection and is best understood in light of sociological approaches to the evidence in the scrolls. In addition to better explaining the evidence for sexuality in the scrolls, a reading from this perspective may, potentially, shed light on the perennial question of whether the movement began with marriage or celibacy as its prevailing social norm.

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.

5. The canon, authoritative scriptures, and the scrolls

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy H. Lim
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Biblical Texts ◽  
Shed Light

The Dead Sea Scrolls have shed light on the canonization of the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible in the Second Temple period. They provide us with exemplars of their biblical texts and how they used them in an authoritative manner. ‘The canon, authoritative scriptures, and the scrolls’ explains that the sectarian concept of authoritative scriptures seemed to reflect a dual pattern of authority by which the traditional biblical texts served as the source of the sectarian interpretation that in turn was defined by it. The authority was graded, beginning with the biblical books and extending to other books that were not eventually included in the canon.

Women, Children, and Celibate Men in theSerekhTexts

2011 ◽  
Vol 104 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-190
Author(s):  
Joan E. Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Important Study ◽  
Explicit Mention ◽  
Women And Children ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Community Rule

TheSerekhor “Community Rule” (in all its variant manuscript forms) is one of the most famous of all the Dead Sea scrolls. It is commonplace to see it as referring to a sect of celibate men; the assumption is that it “contains no allusions to the presence of women in the group which it regulates.”1However, in an important study, Eyal Regev has recently challenged the notion that celibate men are the focus of theSerekhtexts, or of any manuscript in the scrolls corpus, by stressing that there are no explicit statements that deal with the issue of sexual asceticism, unlike what is found in monastic rules, or among the Shakers. Rather, otheryaḥaddocuments (e.g., 4Q502 Ritual of Marriage or 1QSa Rule of the Congregation) refer to marriage, reproduction, and children.2If this is so, why assume that theSerekhcan only refer to a group of celibate men, even without explicit mention of women and children? Regev's view has essentially been the position of Lawrence Schiffman for many years, given the numerous references to issues of women and family in the halakhic texts of the scrolls corpus.3

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.

Why Biblical Scholars Should Study Aramaic Bowl Spells

2015 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter T. Lanfer
Keyword(s):  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Hebrew Text ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Social Location ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Formal Features

This study analyses the unique contributions of Jewish incantation texts and categorically examines the bowl spells according to three types of biblical citation: words of power, contextual citations and thematic citations. The bowl spells represent some of the earliest attestations of biblical passages not found in the Dead Sea Scrolls and display formal features useful for reconstructing linguistic and manuscript developments in pre-Islamic Judaism. Furthermore, the biblical citations in these texts shed light on the social location of biblical knowledge and attendant beliefs in the power of the Hebrew text to bring about practical ends.

scholarly journals ‘Doing Justice’ (משפט בעושי) to the Dead Sea Scrolls: Reading 1QS 8:1–4 in literary and sectarian context

2016 ◽  
Vol 72 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Llewellyn Howes
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Historical Jesus ◽  
Future Expectations ◽  
The Future ◽  
Current Article ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Community Rule

Within the Community Rule, 1QS 8:1–4 has at times been used as an intertext to support claims pertaining to the future expectations of both early Jesus movements and the historical Jesus himself. In particular, the passage has functioned as an intertext to support the notion that Jesus and some of his earliest movements foresaw the future restoration and liberation of greater Israel in toto, including outsiders. Without getting involved in this larger New Testament debate, the current article wishes to address the appropriateness of using 1QS 8:1–4 as an intertext without taking its literary and sectarian contexts into consideration. Focusing throughout on the interrelationship between judgement and boundary demarcation, this article will unfold in a centripetal manner. Firstly, it will treat the commonalities among all the sectarian Dead Sea Scrolls. Secondly, the discussion will direct its focus specifically to the Community Rule. Finally, we will look at 1QS 8:1–4 in particular.

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