Purity and Impurity in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Masculinity, Embodiment and the Everyday as Methodological Tools

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Purity And Impurity

scholarly journals The material variance of the Dead Sea Scrolls: On texts and artefacts

2016 ◽  
Vol 72 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eibert Tigchelaar
Keyword(s):  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Sacred Text ◽  
Religious Texts ◽  
Religious Text ◽  
Religious Books ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
The Dead ◽  
The Many ◽  
Small Parts

What does a sacred text look like? Are religious books materially different from other books? Does materiality matter? This article deals with three different aspects of material variance attested amongst the Dead Sea Scrolls, Ancient Jewish religious text fragments, of which were found in the Judean Desert. I suggest that the substitution of the ancient Hebrew script by the everyday Aramaic script, also for Torah and other religious texts, was intentional and programmatic: it enabled the broader diffusion of scriptures in Hellenistic and Roman Judea. The preponderant use of parchment for religious texts rather than papyrus may be a marker of identity. The many small scrolls which contained only small parts of specific religious books (Genesis, Psalms) may have been produced as religious artefacts which express identity in the period when Judaism developed into a religion of the book. Keywords: Dead Sea Scrolls; Judaism; Manuscripts

The Body in Qumran Literature: Flesh and Spirit, Purity and Impurity in the Dead Sea Scrolls

2016 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-182
Author(s):  
Alexandria Frisch ◽  
Lawrence H. Schiffman
Keyword(s):  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
The Body ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Corporate Entity ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Purity And Impurity

This article examines the concept of the body within a wide range of Qumran literature. In a comparison with the biblical tradition, which does not evince a consistent and systematic idea of the body, this article demonstrates that the sectarians developed their own somatic model. The sectarian model, as revealed through a close reading of such texts as Hodayot, 1QS, 1QSa, CD and 1QM, is one that repeatedly emphasized the body as a corporate entity comprised jointly of flesh and spirit. This article then reexamines the same Qumran texts to show that this concept of the body explains the extreme focus on purity at Qumran, particularly the sectarian conflation of moral and ritual purification. A final comparison with Philo, who espoused a dualistic model of the body, underscores just how truly unique the sectarian view of the body and purity was among early Jews.

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.

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