scholarly journals The Covenant Renewal Ceremony as the Main Function of Qumran

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 578
Author(s):  
Daniel Vainstub
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
Main Function ◽  
Ancient Judaism ◽  
Entire Country

Unlike any other group or philosophy in ancient Judaism, the yaḥad sect obliged all members of the sect to leave their places of residence all over the country and gather in the sect’s central site to participate in a special annual ceremony of renewal of the covenant between God and each of the members. The increase of the communities that composed the sect and their spread over the entire country during the first century BCE required the development of the appropriate infrastructure for hosting this annual gathering at Qumran. Consequently, the hosting of the gathering became the main function of the site, and the southern esplanade with the buildings surrounding it became the epicenter of the site.

Beyond Judaisms: Metatron and the Divine Polymorphy of Ancient Judaism

2010 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 323-365 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Boyarin
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
Rabbinic Literature ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Scholarly Literature ◽  
Son Of Man ◽  
Ancient Judaism ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
Specific Project

AbstractMy specific project in this paper is to combine several related and notorious questions in the history of Judaism into one: What is the nexus among the semi-divine (or high angel) figure known in the Talmud as Metatron, the figure of the exalted Enoch in the Enoch books (1-3 Enoch!), "The One Like a Son of Man" of Daniel, Jesus, the Son of Man, and the rabbinically named heresy of "Two Powers/Sovereignties in Heaven?" I believe that in order to move towards some kind of an answer to this question, we need to develop a somewhat different approach to the study of ancient Judaism, as I hope to show here. I claim that late-ancient rabbinic literature when read in the context of all contemporary and earlier texts of Judaism—those defined as rabbinic as well as those defined as non-, para-, or even anti-rabbinic—affords us a fair amount of evidence for and information about a belief in (and perhaps cult of) a second divine person within, or very close to, so-called "orthodox" rabbinic circles long after the advent of Christianity. Part of the evidence for this very cult will come from efforts at its suppression on the part of rabbinic texts. I believe, moreover, that a reasonable chain of inference links this late cult figure back through the late-antique Book of 3 Enoch to the Enoch of the first-century Parables of Enoch—also known in the scholarly literature as the Similitudes of Enoch—and thus to the Son of Man of that text and further back to the One Like a Son of Man of Daniel 7.

The Twelve and the Phylarchs

1986 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 503-527 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Horbury
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
First Century ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Subsequent Growth ◽  
Ancient Judaism ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Christian Origins

Constitutional questions are posed in much recent study of Christian origins. What was the significance of the ministry of Jesus for the contemporary Jewish polity, and the subsequent growth of the Christian ecclesia? The differing emphases of the answers can be roughly labelled ecclesiastical, for example in B. F. Meyer, or national, for example in G. B. Caird and E. P. Sanders. Despite such differences, the twelve must needs be central in the subject-matter (as in B. F. Meyer, 134; Sanders, 326). Can one go further towards determining the constitutional significance of a body of twelve for a Jew of the first century A.D.?One possible model for the twelve, the group of tribal princes, seems to be relatively neglected. In what follows attention will be drawn to it, and an attempt will be made to characterize its interpretation in ancient Judaism. Finally, against this background, brief comment will be offered on the place of the twelve in early church order and in the ministry of Jesus.

Elephantine Revisited

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Karel van der Toorn
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Community ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Time Frame ◽  
First Century ◽  
Secondary Literature ◽  
Ancient Judaism ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Number Of Publications ◽  
Full Century ◽  
Sheer Number

This chapter revisits the scholarship regarding the discovery of the Elephantine Jews. A full century has passed since Eduard Sachau's edition of the Elephantine papyri in 1911. The Elephantine papyri promised direct and unbiased access to a Jewish community as it had been in real life. Furthermore, the sheer number of publications on the papyri between 1905 and 1915 conveyed a sense of the excitement that characterized the early days of Elephantine studies. This chapter shows that Elephantine studies continue to flourish in the twenty-first century. Counting monographs only, the secondary literature is expanding by almost one book a year. An important impetus for the ongoing investigations is the time frame of Elephantine, which is crucial in the formation of ancient Judaism and warrants a reassessment of prevailing scholarship.

The Son of Man in First-Century Judaism

1992 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 448-466 ◽  
Author(s):  
John J. Collins
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
Precise Nature ◽  
Son Of Man ◽  
Ancient Judaism

For much of this century the notion of aMenschensohn, or Son of Man figure, loomed large in scholarly reconstructions of Jewish eschatological expectations in the time of Jesus. The primary Jewish attestation of this figure was found, of course, in Dan 7.13, with complementary appearances in theSimilitudes of Enochand 4 Ezra 13. There was considerable diversity of opinion about the origin and precise nature of this figure. More imaginative scholars, like Sigmund Mowinckel, held that ‘Conceptions of a more or less divine Primordial Man were widespread in the ancient east. Apparently there is a historical connexion between the varying figures of this type, which seem to be derived, directly or indirectly, from Iranian or Indo-Iranian myths.’1The Jewish conception of ‘the Son of Man’ was ‘a Jewish variant of this oriental, cosmological, eschatological myth of Anthropos’,2influenced by a syncretistic fusion of Iranian and Mesopotamian concepts. At the least, the phrase ‘Son of Man’ was thought to be a well-known, readily recognizable title for a messiah of a heavenly type, in contrast to the national, earthly, Davidic messiah. As recently as 1974 Norman Perrin could claim that all the recent studies of the ‘Son of Man Problem’ he had reviewed agreed on one point: ‘there existed in ancient Judaism a defined concept of the apocalyptic Son of Man, the concept of a heavenly redeemer figure whose coming to earth as judge would be a feature of the drama of the End time.’

A librarian’s take on the future of learning

2014 ◽  
pp. 67-69
Author(s):  
Senga White
Keyword(s):  
Information Seeking ◽  
Parallel Evolution ◽  
First Century ◽  
Main Function ◽  
Old World ◽  
Educational Environments ◽  
New Learning ◽  
Approach To Teaching ◽  
Exciting Time ◽  
The Right

Now is an exciting time to be involved in educating our next generation. The way we think about education and our approach to teaching is continually evolving, and our libraries are also undertaking a parallel evolution. They are no longer dusty, silent spaces where the main function is to store and catalogue books. Today’s libraries are becoming vibrant spaces for information seeking, sharing, creating, and communicating new learning. They encompass the best traditions of our old-world libraries while embracing multiple pathways to supporting, connecting and collaborating in our new educational environments. Twenty-first century librarians like me are still there with the right book for the right reader at the right time, but we are also enthusiastic mavens, passionate knowledge-seekers, and committed communicators in this burgeoning landscape.

scholarly journals Reading, Writing, and Memorizing Together: Reading Culture in Ancient Judaism and the Dead Sea Scrolls in a Mediterranean Context

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 447-470 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mladen Popović
Keyword(s):  
Social Activity ◽  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
First Century ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
Philo Of Alexandria ◽  
Ancient Judaism ◽  
Textual Community ◽  
Reading Culture ◽  
The Dead

Abstract This article focuses on reading culture as an aspect of the Dead Sea Scrolls textual community in its ancient Mediterranean context. On the basis of comparative evidence, the article approaches reading in ancient Judaism as a multi-dimensional and deeply social activity by taking reading aloud, writing, and memorizing as intertwined practices occurring in group reading events. The evidence discussed, such as from Philo of Alexandria, the first-century ce Theodotus inscription from Jerusalem, and 1QS 6:6–8, reflects certain aspects of reading cultures shared between different Jewish communities in the ancient Mediterranean during the Hellenistic and early Roman periods. In addition, it is argued that features such as scribal marks in manuscripts, evidence such as the writing of excerpts, manuscripts such as 4Q159 and 4Q265, or note-taking in 4Q175 and other such manuscripts should be considered within the context of the ancient procedure of reading by intellectual or scholarly readers. Moreover, the article suggests that the Genesis Apocryphon actually preserves a glimpse of the scrolls’ elite reading culture described in a text from Hellenistic-period Judaea.

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