When History Repeats Itself: The Theological Significance of the Abrahamic Covenant in Early Jewish Writings

2017 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-142
Author(s):  
Ari Mermelstein
Keyword(s):  
Identity Politics ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
The Past ◽  
Damascus Document ◽  
Abrahamic Covenant

Alongside ‘Mosaic discourse’, Second Temple period authors increasingly looked to Abraham as a source of instruction and authority. This article focuses on the growing importance of the Abrahamic covenant through the lens of five re-tellings of Israel's history that link the past with the present: the Damascus Document, the Apocalypse of Weeks, 4 Ezra, Nehemiah 9, and Galatians. This article argues that various authors placed themselves within a historical narrative that spotlighted the Abrahamic covenant in order to identify themselves as the elect and demarcate the boundaries separating them from the non-elect. The ideological orientation of each text can account for why the Abrahamic covenant, rather than the later Mosaic pact, became the basis for identity politics.

On Appeals to an Imperfect past in a Present Future: Remembering the Israelite Wilderness Generation in the Late Second Temple Period

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-142
Author(s):  
Daniel L. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Second Temple ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
The Past ◽  
Damascus Document ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Communal Organization

The Damascus Document explicitly remembers the Israelite wilderness period as a time of disobedience and rebellion, with dire consequences that endured for generations. At the same time, the same text calls for a communal organization that mimics that of the Israelites during their wilderness period (Exod. 18.25; Deut. 1.15). This appeal to an imperfect past in a document that faces an imminent or even present eschaton finds close parallels among other texts from the latter half of the Second Temple period. This article argues that these similar strategies of remembering and re-deploying the past shed light on possible motivations for the Damascus Document's seemingly incoherent approach to Israel's past.

Archaeology of the Postexilic Period and the Writings

2018 ◽  
pp. 48-64
Author(s):  
Benjamin D. Gordon
Keyword(s):  
Identity Politics ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Local Economy ◽  
Background Information ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
Local Identity ◽  
Domestic Sphere ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
Local Literatures ◽  
International Status

This chapter provides an overview of archaeological discoveries relevant to ancient Judean life in the postexilic or Second Temple period (late sixth century bce–70 ce). It seeks to provide background information on the main cultural developments that would have impacted the authors and audience of the Writings, both in Judea and Samaria. One such development is Persian provincialization, which had only modest impact on the local economy and culture. Another consists of processes of acculturation to foreign customs in the Hellenistic period, which would remain slow and largely limited to elite circles. Jerusalem’s rise to international status as a Jewish pilgrimage center under Herodian auspices likely impacted the dissemination of local literatures and sacred texts, the Writings among them. Contemporaneous architecture and artifacts from the domestic sphere can speak to religious diversity and local identity politics as the region began to shift its orientation to the West and the economy grew.

Present Affliction Affects the Representation of the Past: An Alternative Dating of the Levitical Prayer in Nehemiah 9

2013 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 605-626 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gili Kugler
Keyword(s):  
Historical Review ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
The Past ◽  
The People ◽  
Second Temple Literature ◽  
Babylonian Exile

Abstract This article examines a group of confessional prayers found in Second Temple literature uttered by known/identifiable figures that are characterized by an admission of guilt on the part of the speaker and a request for divine deliverance and redemption. In Nehemiah 9, these elements are very obscure, the passage also demonstrating linguistic and historical signs that suggest it does not belong to this group or the same date. On the basis of the disparity between the prayer and its introduction, an analysis of its content, linguistic elements, and the features stressed in the historical review, this paper proposes that the prayer belongs not to the Second Temple period but to the days prior to the Babylonian exile, when the people were under bondage to foreign kings in their own land.

Jeremiah at Qumran

2021 ◽  
pp. 503-519
Author(s):  
Devorah Dimant
Keyword(s):  
Second Temple ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
Damascus Document

The eminent status of Jeremiah’s prophecies is well reflected in late biblical books of the Second Temple era, focused as they are on the Jeremianic prophecy forecasting seventy years of Israel’s servitude to Babylon (Jer 25:11–12; 29:10). They proposed various interpretations (see Zach 1:12; 7:5; 2 Chr 36:20–21; Dan 9) and the interest in this prediction continued well into the last centuries of the Second Temple period (e.g., 1 En 10–12; 89:59–90; 93:1–10; 91:11–17). The owners of the Qumran library shared this interest. Beside five copies of Jeremiah prophetic compositions, surfaced among the Scrolls, the Qumran texts contain various allusions and quotations from Jeremiah's biblical prophecies, including some concealed pesharim. This chapter surveys them in its first section. In its second part the chapter reviews and analyzes the references to the prophet’s personality and life, elaborated in the Damascus Document 8:20 and in the Apocryphon of Jeremiah C.

Reforming History: The Hermeneutical Significance of the Books of Chronicles

2007 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louis Jonker
Keyword(s):  
Second Temple ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
The Past ◽  
God's People

AbstractDifferent views have been expressed in past scholarship about the nature of the Books of Chronicles. Some regard the Chronicler to be an exegete, others see the Chronicler as theologian, and still others see the Chronicler as a historian. The opinion expressed in this article is that Chronicles could be characterized as "reforming history". The ambiguity of this designation is intentional. The Books of Chronicles are an attempt to reformulate and sanitize the past. It is, however, simultaneously an attempt to reformulate the identity of God's people during the Second Temple period. Such a "reforming history" forms a unique bridge between past and present. The focus of this article is therefore on the hermeneutical significance of the Books of Chronicles.

scholarly journals Inscription on the Chalice of Solomon

Scrinium ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 170-198
Author(s):  
Basil Lourié
Keyword(s):  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
Damascus Document

A new analysis of the so-called Inscription on the Chalice of Solomon (known mostly from literary documents in Slavonic) is based on the totality of the available sources, including a recently published (2000) Greek recension and recently found (2013) but unpublished two Latin ones. It is argued that the text was written in Hebrew in the late Second Temple period, being therefore roughly contemporaneous to the Damascus Document and some other Dead Sea Scrolls and representing a similar but different liturgy and theology. The original liturgical setting of the chalice as a liturgical utensil is some kind of new wine festival.


Reproof in cd 9:2–8 and 1QS 5:24–6:1

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 301-306
Author(s):  
Kengo Akiyama
Keyword(s):  
Short Note ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
Legal Procedure ◽  
Damascus Document

Abstract The Damascus Document (cd 9:2–8) and the Serekh (1QS 5:24–6:1) amplify Leviticus 19:17–18 and carefully spell out the legal procedure for open reproof. In doing so, however, they both omit the key phrase of Leviticus 19:18b (ואהבת לרעך כמוך). This short note suggests that the omission is deliberate and results from a specific sectarian reading of Leviticus 19:17–18. The sectarians are construing this scriptural mandate as a legal command in contrast to the more mainstream reading as exhortation in the Second Temple period.

Other Secret Jewish Groups and Traditions

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael E. Stone
Keyword(s):  
Social Groups ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
The Other ◽  
Second Temple Judaism ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
Human Ability ◽  
Damascus Document ◽  
Ancient Texts

We look at some of the other secret groups in Second Temple Judaism: magicians, schools of magic and divination, priestly craft societies, and Hasideans. The possible connections of ultra-pietist groups mentioned in Rabbinic sources to the Essenes is noted, but regarded as unproven. Ḥāburôt and their possible Qumranite connections. The extreme concern with ritual purity is common to many groups. The possible debt of the Karaites to the Qumranite tradition is discussed and traditions about discovery of books in caves. The origin in such a discovery of the text transmitted WQQ by the Geniza copies of the Damascus Document is considered. The role of ritual purity in very many of known Second Temple period social groups is examined. Is it possible for human ability to comprehend the Divine? What mysteries, if any, did the ancient texts reveal? The differences and similarities among these texts are explored.

scholarly journals Forgiveness in the intertestamental period

2012 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sang-Mong Lee ◽  
Gerald T. Hughes ◽  
Francois P. Viljoen
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
Damascus Document ◽  
Intertestamental Literature

The article suggests answers to the following questions: what are the characteristics of God�s forgiveness in the intertestamental literature and what connection do these characteristics have with the Old Testament? Important passages in the late Second Temple period that expose the characteristics of God�s forgiveness, such as certain Qumran texts (1QH 12:35�37, 1QH 13:2 and the Damascus Document 14:18�19), the writings of Philo and Josephus, the Apocrypha and the Pseudepigrapha, are investigated for this purpose.

scholarly journals “Holiness, War, and Peace”: Ancient Jewish Traditions Concerning the Landscape and Ecology of Jerusalem and Its Environs in the Second Temple Period

Religions ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (8) ◽  
pp. 241 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abraham Shemesh
Keyword(s):  
Urban Landscape ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Natural Vegetation ◽  
Agricultural Crops ◽  
War And Peace ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
The City

The Second Temple period is considered both a pinnacle and a low point in the history of Jerusalem. One manifestation of the sharp fluctuations in Jerusalem’s status is its flora and ecology. The current study aims to address the historical events and the Talmudic traditions concerning the flora and landscape of Jerusalem. In the city’s zenith, the Jewish sages introduced special ecological regulations pertaining to its overall urban landscape. One of them was a prohibition against growing plants within the city in order to prevent undesirable odors or litter and thus maintain the city’s respectable image. The prohibition against growing plants within the city did not apply to rose gardens, maybe because of ecological reasons, i.e., their contribution to aesthetics and to improving bad odors in a crowded city. In the city’s decline, its agricultural crops and natural vegetation were destroyed when the beleaguered inhabitants were defeated by Titus’ army. One Talmudic tradition voices hope for the rehabilitation of the flora (“shitim”) around the city of Jerusalem. Haggadic-Talmudic tradition tries to endow Jerusalem with a metaphysical uniqueness by describing fantastic plants that allegedly grew in it in the past but disappeared as a result of its destruction.

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