Historical Perspectives from the Hasmoneans to Bar Kokhba in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Proceedings of the Fourth International Symposium of the ... on the Texts of the Desert of Judah, 37)

The papers published in this volume were presented at the Fourth Orion International Symposium (Jerusalem, 1999), whose focus was Jewish history in light of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The first section, “History of the Jews and Judaism,” is devoted to specific topics in Jewish history, such as historical references in the Scrolls, comparative studies between the Scrolls and Josephus, and issues of Jewish nationalism. The second section, “Community and Covenant,” comprises studies of community, Jewish law, and the concept of covenant. The third section, “Natural Sciences and the Scrolls,” reports on examinations of DNA preserved in leather used for the Scrolls, of dust found in jars from Qumran, of the nature of the stitching of the Scrolls, and of the composition of the pottery found at Qumran. Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Table of Contents 8 Preface 10 List of Abbreviations 14 I. Methodology: Toward a Literary-Critical Historiography 16 Reading the Damascus Document 21 Contemporary literary criticism and the Damascus Document 27 Textual meaning, foundation documents and sectarian discourse 39 Toward a 'New Historiography' 52 II. Two Test Cases 57 Case one: querying gender in the Damascus Document 58 Reading for community in the text 67 Case two: history and communal identity in 4QMMT 72 MMT, text and content 76 Reading for history in MMT 80 MMT and the construction of communal history 88 MMT, Torah-truth, and sectarian readings 93 Contextualizing the MMT calendar 100 III. History and Time in the Damascus Document 103 Constructions of history and the second admonition 107 Scriptural parallels for primordial language 113 Concluding the second admonition 116 Narrative history and the first admonition 122 Narrative history in the third admonition 133 History and ideology in the Damascus Document 139 IV. Reading for History and Time in the Damascus Document 142 Focus on covenant formation 144 Sectarian schism as historical marker 147 Endtime expectations and textual development 151 Textual redaction and communal foundations 159 Beyond the first generations 168 Reading for history 175 V. Reading for Identity in the Damascus Document 177 Priestly imagery in the Damascus Document 182 Exile, return, and the status of the righteous remnant 192 Reading for Zadokite identity 200 History and Zadokite priestly identity 203 Foregrounding exilic origins 211 'Zadokite' status in later interpretations 216 Reading for identity 224 VI. Conclusions and Challenges 225 The challenge of the medieval manuscripts 227 History, origins, and covenant-formation 233 Zadokites , Sadducees, and priestly status 236 Endtimes expectations and messianic claims 238 Conclusions and challenges 240 Bibliography 244 Modern Authors 258 Index of Ancient Sources 261 Selected Subject Index 269 STUDIES ON THE TEXTS OF THE DESERT OF JUDAH 271 The papers in this volume cover topics such as: the historical references in the Dead Sea Scrolls, comparative studies between the Scrolls and Josephus, issues of Jewish nationalism, Jewish law, and reports on DNA preserved in leather used for the scrolls These symposium papers focus on various aspects of Jewish history in light of the Dead Sea Scrolls, including specific topics of Jewish history and the concepts of community and covenant. A section on natural sciences and the Scrolls completes the volume.