Oxford Handbook of the Dead Sea Scrolls

Forthcoming from Oxford University Press - The Oxford Handbook of the Dead Sea Scrolls edited by Timothy Lim and John Collins. With a Dec 2010 publishing date, it should come out just in time for a late Christmas present for myself. I've been looking forward to this volume since first hearing about it from one of the contributors a couple of years ago. I'm impressed by the wide variety of perspectives represented by the 30 contributors. Most of the chapters address issues of Dead Sea Scrolls research that have long interested me such as the origins of the movement, the fascination with a solar calendar, and shared exegetical trajectories pointing toward rabbinic and early Christian literature.

The purpose behind the volume is described as follows.

It seeks to probe the main disputed issues in the study of the Scrolls. Lively debate continues over the archaeology and history of the site, the nature and identity of the sect, and its relation to the broader world of Second Temple Judaism and to later Jewish and Christian tradition. It is the Handbook's intention here to reflect on diverse opinions and viewpoints, highlight the points of disagreement, and point to promising directions for future research.

The Full Table of Contents can be found on OUP's website.

Now, where to find $150.00 for one book?

HT: Agade

Dilettante Access to the Dead Sea Scrolls

In a move that has DSS dilettantes everywhere bursting with excitement, the Israel Antiquities Authority has announced a partnership with Google to bring their archive of DSS fragments online in high resolution images.

The contents and origin of the DSS have been the source of decades of speculation for conspiracy theorists (and scholars) who just really really really wanted to know what the Scrolls said. Despite the fact that virtually everything has finally been officially published, a few dedicated crackpots continue to comb through the contents for clues to support their crazy theories linking Christianity to the DSS sect.

Now those crazy crackpots can go ahead and learn ancient Hebrew and decipher the scrolls for themselves once the collection is put online for everyone to see. It is indeed a great day for dilettante Qumran specialists.

But seriously, this is part of a larger effort by the IAA to preserve the scrolls which are becoming increasingly difficult to read due to decades of handling, light exposure, and poor preservation techniques. Transparency of the contents and free access are side benefits of the greater goal - making such high quality images that the image can take the place of the original for scholarly access. Well done, IAA. Keep up the good work!

"This is the ultimate image of the scroll you can get get," explained IAA project manager Pnina Shor, as she showed reporters an example of the imaging. "It presents an authentic copy of the scroll, that once online, there is no need to expose the scrolls anymore."

...

"We have succeeded in recruiting the best minds and technological means to preserve this unrivalled cultural heritage treasure, which belongs to all of us, so that the public, with a click of the mouse, will be able to access history in its fullest glamour," [IAA General Director Shuka] Dorfman said. (Via CNN)

HT: Agade mailing list w/ link to ABC News.

Michael Wise Interview - Minnesota DSS Exhibit

Michael Wise

Michael Wise, master of ancient languages and my first Hebrew and Latin teacher, was interviewed by The Catholic Spirit about the Minnesota Dead Sea Scrolls Exhibit (reviewed here). If you haven't yet had a chance to see the exhibit, I highly recommend it, and this interview is a good introduction on what you can expect to get out of it. Here are a few quotes:

What would you recommend that visitors take more time viewing?

There’s a portion of the exhibit given over to explaining how scribal processes work. I think it’s important for people to spend more time looking at that.

We just don’t understand how differently book culture worked in the ancient world compared to how it works today.    . . . We don’t understand how texts got made and how they got passed on. It’s well explained in the exhibit. . . .

[...]

What do you think the scrolls prove about Christianity?

My own view of Christianity is that it can’t be proven or disproved by archaeology. Every artifact we uncover . . . always requires interpretation. It’s at the sifting level that people of faith or people who want to argue against faith can always find some kind of grist for their mill. . . . The texts can’t prove Chris tia nity. Can they prove that the things we’re told about Christianity and Judaism in the Bible really were being said 2,000 years ago? Yes, they can prove that. . . .

Before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, we couldn’t prove, in a scientific sense of having tangible evidence, that the Bible was any older than about 1,000 or 1,200 AD. . . . Today, we can say these texts show us that the Bible is as old as the time of Jesus and more . . . there is evidence, scientifically.

Photo via The Catholic Spirit

HT: Jim Davila

Understatement of the Day

The understatement of the day comes from National Geographic News in an article about their upcoming documentary on the Dead Sea Scrolls. It sums up almost all research ever on the DSS.

"I have a feeling it's going to be very disputed," said Lawrence Schiffman, a professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University (NYU).

The article places this quote in response to Bob Cargill's comments:

"Jews wrote the Scrolls, but it may not have been just one specific group. It could have been groups of different Jews," said Robert Cargill, an archaeologist who appears in the documentary Writing the Dead Sea Scrolls, which airs Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET/PT on the National Geographic Channel.

I agree with Bob and I think the new consensus is moving more in this direction in regard to the origins of the scrolls. Of course, almost everything's been disputed in Qumran research. I wish I got cable so I could watch the documentary. Oh well . . .

Beyond the Qumran Community

John J. Collins
Beyond the Qumran Community: The Sectarian Movement of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2010

A few months ago, I was convinced that the Essenes had no clear connection to the Dead Sea Scrolls and that the site of Qumran was most likely not a religious sectarian settlement. (Background here.) Now I’m not totally recanting my earlier skepticism, but after reading John Collins’s latest book, I’ve realized my hard-line denial of the possibility was clouding my objectivity and hindering my understanding of consensus arguments. Yes, many of the consensus positions require a speculative leap at some point to bring evidence and theory together, but the connections are not as completely implausible as I’d thought. Since I value going where the evidence leads more than defending a particular point of view, I have to admit that Collins has done a fine job in presenting the most nuanced and balanced account of the Qumran sect that I have ever read.

The material is organized in 5 chapters:

1. The New Covenant. The community described in the Damascus Document (CD) is discussed in depth. The laws and the distinctive elements about sectarian life are compared with evidence from other sectarian documents like 4QMMT and other Jewish literature from the period such as Enoch and Jubilees.

2. The Yaḥad. The sectarian community described in the Community Rule (1QS) is compared with that in the Damascus Document. The surprising conclusion (that seems obvious once it has been presented) is that they do NOT describe the same group. This is important because most scholarship on the DSS sect takes all sectarian texts together as describing a single sect that dwelled at Qumran.

3. The Historical Context. Here Collins reviews the evidence for the historical setting of the sectarian movement. Consensus had previously placed the origins of the sect in the early 2nd century BCE (i.e., Jonathan Maccabee was the Wicked Priest). I have long found the arguments for a 1st century BCE setting compelling especially as laid out by M.O. Wise (“Dating the Teacher of Righteousness and the Floruit of His Movement,” JBL 122 (2003):53-87). Collins points out how the pillars that had supported a 2nd century dating have eroded as a result of recent research.

4. The Essenes. Much scholarship on Qumran and the sect described in the DSS ignores or minimizes the contributions from scholars such as N. Golb. The fact that Collins will at least mention Golb and cite him when appropriate is surely a sign of his respect for hearing all sides in the debate. The Essene hypothesis identifying the sect described in the scrolls with the Essenes described by Josephus and other ancient writers has been one of the most controversial issues in DSS scholarship. Collins treats all sides fairly and accurately represents the strengths and weaknesses of each argument. His chapter lays out the problem and the possible solutions clearly without overtly favoring one side until all the options and evidence have been discussed. It is typical of Collins in this book to avoid coloring the reader’s perceptions of the issue by giving away his preferred interpretation up front.

5. The Site of Qumran. In this final chapter, Collins discusses the archaeology of Qumran and the possible connection between the site and the scrolls. He gives a full account of the major interpretations of the site and concludes that at least in the final period of settlement before the First Revolt in 66-68 CE, the site likely housed a sectarian settlement. However, he believes the group at Qumran was small and one of many settlements of the sect described in the scrolls. This theory explains the data much better than claiming a single large sect lived at or near Qumran and composed all the scrolls. It allows for many of the scrolls to be brought from elsewhere during the upheaval of the First Revolt. It also explains the multiplicity of sectarian documents such as different copies of the Community Rule that differ slightly. Other theories such as Golb’s idea that the collection of scrolls came from a Jerusalem Temple archive hidden in the area have trouble with the fact that the library lacks the diversity often attributed to Second Temple Judaism. Where are the Sadducean texts if this was a temple archive? Where are the scrolls written by the Pharisees?  The theory that these scrolls were brought together by members of one larger group makes better sense. It explains the fact that most of the sectarian literature has an overarching unity (i.e., calendrical and purity issues) that fits with the larger parent group and a diversity (i.e., celibate or married) that can be explained by the subgroups.

I am still not convinced that the scrolls found in 11 caves near the Dead Sea are necessarily connected to anyone who inhabited Qumran or to the Essenes. However, Collins has convinced me that the consensus is not totally implausible. The straightforward way that he engages and deconstructs consensus and non-consensus scholars alike shows me that he is more concerned with giving an honest interpretation of the evidence than defending any theory in particular. His careful method of debunking mistaken assumptions and conclusions on all sides is a quality I admire, not least because I felt that I would have approached the problem in much the same way.

The book is well worth reading and quite affordable at $25 paperback. If/when I teach an introductory class on the Dead Sea Scrolls, this will be required reading. The bibliography is substantial and Collins’s familiarity with the immense secondary literature on the DSS is a model of good scholarship.

To close, as required in book review posts now, I must disclose that I have NO material connection to the publisher. Yes, that’s right. I did not receive a free review copy for saying nice things about the book. I actually bought this book for myself and found his treatment of the issues so compelling that I was compelled to recommend the book to all of you.

The Minnesota Dead Sea Scrolls Exhibit

I had the opportunity a couple of weeks ago to see the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit at the Science Museum of Minnesota in St. Paul. Last week, I viewed the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible exhibit at the Milwaukee Public Museum. Counting my trip to the San Diego exhibit in 2007, I have now had the “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity to see the scrolls three times. The Minnesota exhibit’s advertising urges you to:

Experience a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to witness one of the greatest archaeological finds of the 20th century—the Dead Sea Scrolls, which include the earliest known Biblical writings.

I will comment on the Milwaukee exhibit in a separate post. For a much more thorough review than I intend to do, see John’s post here.

If you are in the Twin Cities any time between now and October 24th, I highly recommend you take a few hours to go see the exhibit at the Science Museum. Of the three exhibits I’ve seen, the scope of the MN exhibit is the most comprehensive in terms of background information related to the Scrolls and the site of Qumran. I’m more familiar than the average person with the various theories and debates related to the DSS, and the main thing that impressed me about the MN exhibit was how it laid out all the options related to the identity of the sect and the possible uses of the site without privileging any particular angle. The exhibit does not play up a simplistic either/or dichotomy of Jerusalem origins vs. Qumran Essene origin that might have been assumed from some of the media coverage. While past exhibits have mentioned the existence of multiple theories, this is the only one I’ve seen that incorporates the information on multiple theories throughout the exhibit and doesn’t “spin” the evidence in favor of any particular perspective. (Concerning the San Diego exhibit, Bob Cargill pointed out that his documentary at the exhibit laid out the options. While that may be so, I saw the exhibit but not the movie and the exhibit itself was very much oriented toward the “Standard Hypothesis” of Qumran Essene origin for the scrolls.)

Now I have a theory for why museums and other popular presentations of controversial issues like this present one theory as stronger and more certain than it really is. People like certainty and proof (just ask Scott). They’re uncomfortable with uncertainty, ambiguity, and tension between competing interpretations. They also don’t like to think for themselves. So while multiple theories and raw data might be presented, they’re usually told which one is the “right” answer. Not so at the MN exhibit. All the options are laid out and you’re left to decide for yourself who makes a stronger case. (In case you want someone to tell you what to think: The scrolls were not composed at Qumran by a monk-like group of Essenes. Pick any other theory and it makes more sense of the data.)

The flow of the exhibit works well and the free audio tour was a definite plus. (The Milwaukee exhibit charges an extra $6 for an audio tour which I did not purchase.) Most of your time at the exhibit won’t be spent in the Scrolls room. There are only 5 scrolls on display at a time at the Science Museum. But the Scrolls display is really just the climax to a very comprehensive exhibit of artifacts from Second Temple Judaism and the archaeology of the Dead Sea region. One of my favorite parts of the exhibit was on how Israel is working now to preserve the scroll fragments, contrasting current methods of preservation with the “what-were-they-thinking” techniques from the 1950s (involving scotch tape, plate glass, and cigarettes – you can see the plate glass and the tape still in use on the DSS fragments displayed in Milwaukee).

As an added bonus, 28 pages of the Saint John’s Bible are on display in an additional exhibit at the end of the DSS exhibit. The Saint John’s Bible is a hand-written illuminated Bible, the first of its kind since the invention of the printing press. Scribal culture is getting a mini-revival of sorts! The artwork and script is amazing and well worth seeing.

If you get the opportunity, the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit at the Science Museum of Minnesota is well worth the trip. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!

Filtering the Data

I’ve been catching up on episodes of the NT Pod over the past week or so. I have to say that I’ve really enjoyed Mark’s series on the Synoptic Problem, especially the more complete picture provided through the extended episodes. I’ve come to realize that I’m a Hebrew Bible person primarily because it’s the fountainhead for all later biblical interpretation, and what really interests me is the history of interpretation. To that end, I’m trying to be a well-rounded generalist in Second Temple Judaism, New Testament, and classical Judaism.

One thing struck me out of Mark’s discussion of the Synoptic Problem that I think is relevant for many many many issues in biblical studies. He talked about how most NT introductions never really present the student with the problem when they discuss the Synoptic Problem. They start with one of the solutions and filter all the pertinent data through the solution. (By the by, Mark, I’m not a NT expert but you’ve convinced me in your case against Q anyway.)

Filtering the data seems to be a common way for unexamined consensus positions to get passed on intact to the next generation of scholars. We all take away a certain perspective on the biblical data from our teachers. That perspective often works like a filter preventing us from seeing the data in a fresh way. I try to be as aware as possible of my own filters, or rather, I try to be aware of when a particular perspective or presupposition is coloring how I interpret the data. It’s hard to do, but it might be a good exercise for us all to think through how we might be filtering the data when we read the Bible or study any particular problem in biblical studies.

I can think of two perspectives that I’ve gained from my teachers that color how I approach my scholarship. First, in Qumran studies, I first learned about the Dead Sea Scrolls from a non-consensus scholar, so it would probably take nothing short of an angel from heaven revealing to me that Essenes did, in fact, live at Qumran and compose the sectarian scrolls there for me to accept the validity of that consensus. Second, in biblical studies, I learned to keep theological conclusions about the truth claims of the text from overrunning what the text itself actually says. That is, I learned to identify it when I or any other interpreter has come to the text peering through a particular theological lens. The result is that I am not a fan of unexamined consensus positions, and I draw a hard line between apologetics and critical scholarship.

Well, have you thought about it? What are your filters that affect how you read the Bible? Do you think of them as strengths or weaknesses?

Biblia Hebraica: Top 5 Threads from 2009

My two year blog anniversary came and went a month ago. In recognition of that event, I’m posting links to some favorite posts from 2009. These are either my favorites, popular posts with good reader feedback, or big topics in biblioblogdom from last year. I had 164 posts, so this is just a small sampling.

1. Genesis Rabbah

Thoughts on Intertextuality

Creation in Rabbinic Literature

The Pre-Existent Torah

First Things First

Identifying Insertions in Rabbinic Texts

Which Came First?

2. Apologetics and Critical Scholarship

Apologetics, Logic, and Critical Bible Scholarship

Faith & Intellectual Honesty

Apologists & Bible Scholars

What Does It Mean to be “Critical”?

Religion and Biblical Exegesis

Go Where the Evidence Leads

3. Bizarre Bible Stories

Judges 17-18: Micah the Levite, His Shrine, and the Tribe of Dan

Judges 19-21: The Levite and His Concubine and Its Aftermath

Exodus 4:24-26: YHWH Shows Up to Kill Moses

2 Kings 2:23-24: Elisha and the Bears

4. Essenes, Qumran, and the Dead Sea Scrolls

Curiouser and Curiouser … No Essenes?

Challenging the Essene Hypothesis

Shockwaves Blast Qumran Consensus

Bringing the DSS to Life in MN

5. Book Reviews

Legal Revision and Religious Renewal in Ancient Israel

Alter: Book of Psalms

NLT Mosaic

Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?

The current issue of the Smithsonian magazine (Jan 2010) has a long article about the Dead Sea Scrolls and the archaeology of Qumran. Despite the title, most of the article is devoted to surveying the many different interpretations of the archaeological data of Qumran itself. It is a remarkable article for the simple fact that it is  about Qumran and yet well-balanced, giving equal time to multiple minority views about the site. Personally, I share the skepticism of Yuval Peleg concerning the site as a settlement of a religious community:

But hearing the dramatic recitation, Peleg, 40, rolls his eyes. “There is no connection to the Essenes at this site,” he tells me as a hawk circles above in the warming air. He says the scrolls had nothing to do with the settlement. Evidence for a religious community here, he says, is unconvincing. He believes, rather, that Jews fleeing the Roman rampage hurriedly stuffed the documents into the Qumran caves for safekeeping. After digging at the site for ten years, he also believes that Qumran was originally a fort designed to protect a growing Jewish population from threats to the east.

I agree with Peleg, so I'm not quite sure what Jodi Magness is getting at when she's quoted as saying:

But Peleg’s view has won few adherents. “It’s more interpretation than data,” says Jodi Magness, an archaeologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who shares de Vaux’s view that the site was a religious community. She says that some archaeologists—by refusing to acknowledge evidence that residents of Qumran hid the scrolls—are inclined to leap to conclusions since their research relies solely on the ambiguous, physical remains at the site.

"More interpretation than data"?! The data are all meaningless without interpretation. By evidence that residents of Qumran hid the scrolls, I assume she means the similar pottery found in the caves and at the site. Is there more than that? All that proves is that local pottery was used to hide scrolls. It says nothing about who was doing the hiding.

I recommend the article for anyone interested in an overview of current research related to Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

HT: Robert Cargill

Bringing the Dead Sea Scrolls to Life in MN

My first Hebrew professor and undergraduate mentor, Michael Wise, is profiled in the current issue of Northwestern College's Pilot.

You might expect to find the preeminent scholar on the Dead Sea Scrolls cloistered in the sunless basement of a museum, surrounded by ancient artifacts and sheaves of dusty papers. 

But on a warm afternoon in early September, Michael Wise, Ph.D., internationally celebrated for his knowledge in ancient languages, history and the scrolls, is in his well-lit office at Northwestern College.
The scholar-in-residence and professor of Hebrew Bible & ancient languages jumps up amiably to meet with a student seeking advisory help. Wise, the highly regarded author of The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation, has published innumerable scholarly papers, presented professional papers and lectures and has been featured in Time, The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune. But he is relaxed and at home in his third-floor office in Nazareth Hall. 

...

A self-professed “language guy,” Wise reads Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, Latin, Syriac, Middle Egyptian, Coptic, Arabic and Akkadian (an extinct language spoken in ancient Mesopotamia). For him, learning the intricacies of ancient languages is as addictive as "eating peanuts." His
achievements put him into an elite group of academics, both secular and religious.

"There aren’t too many of us," he admitted. 'We talk about languages with a certain glee." [read the rest here]

The most exciting news I learned from this issue is that there will be an exhibit of the Dead Sea Scrolls in St. Paul this spring.

The Science Museum of Minnesota plans to exhibit three sets of five of the actual scrolls discovered in caves along the shore of the Dead Sea between 1947 and 1956. This collection of important writings includes biblical manuscripts, commentary and rules for community life and details of religious rituals. Fragments of the earliest known texts of the Old Testament, dating back 2,000 years, will be displayed. The exhibit opens March 12, 2010.

I expect that the MN exhibit with Wise's involvement will reflect the broad spectrum of scholarship on the DSS more than the exhibit I saw in San Diego, for example.

For those of us in central WI, the exhibit opening Jan. 22, 2010 at the Milwaukee Public Museum is a little closer to home. For my part, I'll be trying to get to both so I can criticize them online anonymously  . . . (sorry, inside joke. well, not really a joke, a tragically sad and bizarre story).

Questioning Consensus

Biblical scholarship now operates with a few defining consensuses. Questioning the consensus can be okay. Overturning the consensus is nearly impossible. Sometimes the consensus position is solid and does not need to be overturned. There are several high-profile consensus positions, however, that are less than solid, yet questioning them is highly controversial. The consensus also differs depending on which side of the liberal/conservative spectrum one is on.

But those weak consensus positions should be questioned and overturned. Why do we love consensus so much? Consensus leads to a speculation being considered a fact which can be safely assumed as the starting point for further speculation. Think of how silly it sounds when you read books from the 1960s on the Deuteronomistic History that assume Noth's amphictyony. This was accepted as historical fact despite the lack of evidence for it. Eventually, it was abandoned.

Here's my list of the top 3 consensus positions that should be tossed out (or at least debated with an open mind to the evidence).

Top 3 Weak Consensus Positions (both secular and theological):

1. Q existed and was a source for Matthew and Luke. (Very questionable but Goodacre's fighting an uphill battle.)

2. Essenes are responsible for the Dead Sea Scrolls, and they lived at Qumran. (Admittedly, Golb's association with the alternative colors any chances of questioning this at present. However, all attempts to prove an archaeological or textual connection between Kh. Qumran and the DSS have been less than compelling. It's all speculation.)

3. The 1978 Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy is the final word on the inerrancy debate. Scripture is always fully in agreement with itself. (Defending a doctrine of Scripture against Scripture itself. If the Bible says this is the Book of Isaiah, then, by Jove, that means Isaiah wrote it.)

I'm sure there are more, but these are the three that immediately came to mind. Any debate on the relative weakness (or strength if you see it that way) of these positions? Any others that I should add to the list?

Another Must-Have Book: Concise Dictionary of Classical Hebrew

I admit that I'm not really a fan of the full 8 volume Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, but this new abridgement looks genuinely useful. The full DCH is less useful because 1) their theoretical foundation in modern linguistics was not so modern, 2) their entries are overloaded with useless syntactic data, especially now that we have computers to search for that sort of thing, and 3) it's taking FOREVER for them to complete it (largely due to #2 and the choice to include DSS and Sirach, I'm guessing). Of course, I haven't looked at the latest volume. Maybe they've changed some things. I found the book reviews from when vol. 1 came out to be very entertaining (Muraoka's and Andersen's were the best, as I recall).

Despite all of that, the need was there for a Hebrew dictionary that included the Dead Sea Scrolls and other extra-biblical ancient Hebrew texts. The DCH project fills that need, and this Concise Dictionary of Classical Hebrew is exactly the sort of handbook that I'm more likely to use than an 8 volume dictionary. It's easier on the budget, too, since the full version sells for $200-300 per volume. Dove lists the paperback of CDCH at $39.99 at the moment. They expect the book to be released 11/10/09, just in time for SBL and the other related academic conferences in New Orleans this month. Here's the new book announcement that I received last week from Dove.

This is an abridgment of the 8-volume Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (of which Volumes 7 and 8 will soon be published). Like it (and unlike all previous Hebrew dictionaries) all the literature of classical Hebrew is covered, including not only the Hebrew Bible but also the Dead Sea Scrolls, Ben Sira and the ancient Hebrew inscriptions.

The CDCH thus contains not only the c. 8400 Hebrew words found in the standard dictionaries, but also a further 3340+ words (540 from the Dead Sea Scrolls, 680 from other ancient Hebrew literature, and 2120+ proposed words for the Hebrew Bible not previously recognized by dictionaries). All the words in the full Dictionary of Classical Hebrew are to be found in the CDCH.

The CDCH has been designed to be as user-friendly as possible. The Hebrew words are arranged strictly in alphabetical order, so it is not necessary to know the root of a word to look it up in the Dictionary. All the Hebrew words and phrases quoted are accompanied by an English translation. At the end of each entry on verbs is a list of the nouns derived from that verb; and at the end of each entry on nouns a reference to the verb from which it is derived (when known). For every word the numbers of its occurrences in the four main kinds of classical Hebrew (the Bible, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Ben Sira, and the ancient inscriptions) are noted. All the proper names in classical Hebrew texts are included, with their correct spellings in English.

Previous dictionaries have generally been revisions and adaptations of earlier dictionaries; DCH and CDCH result from a completely fresh re-examination of the texts and an independent analysis of the meanings of Hebrew words. Rich in examples and citations, this edition will be of immense value to students at all levels, as well as to working scholars who will not always be in a position to refer to the complete DCH.

West Semitic Research in the News

The West Semitic Research project headed by Bruce Zuckerman at the University of Southern California has received a nice write-up in the LA Times. One of these days, I'll try to figure out why my log-in to Inscriptifact doesn't work because they really do have some high quality COOL pictures of ancient inscriptions. I made their photo of the Tel Dan inscription the wallpaper on my laptop.

Over the last three decades, the USC project has produced thousands of crisp images of inscriptions and other artifacts from biblical Israel and other Near Eastern locales, making the pictures available to the public in an online archive, InscriptiFact.com.

Among the items shown in the online collection is a Dead Sea Scroll dating to the 1st century that describes finding a buried treasure in modern-day Israel. (It's impossible to pinpoint the precise location because landmarks mentioned in the text no longer exist.)

The database also features an Aramaic inscription on a sheet of papyrus written by a group of Jews in Egypt five centuries before the birth of Jesus. In the text -- whose image is so sharp it reveals the grain of the papyrus -- Jews petition distant Persian rulers for permission to rebuild a temple.

"A picture is worth a thousand words," said Bruce Zuckerman, a USC religion professor who founded the research project in the early 1980s. "Sometimes big issues in history can turn on the interpretation of a single letter."

Zuckerman's foray into the world of photography and ancient texts grew out of his frustration over the poor quality of archaeological photos.

Museum photographers, he recalled, often missed important details because they lacked scholarly expertise.

Biblical researchers, meanwhile, typically did not have enough experience with photography to produce compelling images.

Zuckerman wanted to bridge the gap. He turned to his older brother, Ken, a self-taught photographer and former Caltech engineer.

Together, the Zuckermans began taking -- and distributing -- pictures of ancient inscriptions.

Isn't it cool how whenever somebody mentions the Dead Sea Scrolls, they have to bring up the Copper Scroll?! At least this article admits it's impossible to actually find the "treasure." (Somebody should tell this guy. Oh wait, Bob Cargill did . . . repeatedly. I just realized that I'd failed to subcribe to Bob's blog. "For shame!" as Jim would say. Sorry about that. I like Bob's stuff. Maybe I'll get a chance to meet him at SBL.)

Via Agade

Random Verse: Zechariah 14:15

So far, I think only wisdom literature and Psalms are likely to be consistently relevant in single-verse random snippets. The Latter Prophets can definitely be counted on for obscure randomness.

Zechariah 14:15 (NRSV)

And a plague like this plague shall fall on the horses,

the mules, the camels, the donkeys,

and whatever animals may be in those camps.

And what is this plague like, you may ask? Well, for that you need context.

Zechariah 14:12 (NRSV)

This shall be the plague with which the LORD will strike

all the peoples that wage war against Jerusalem:

their flesh shall rot while they are still on their feet;

their eyes shall rot in their sockets,

and their tongues shall rot in their mouths.

That sounds unpleasant.

Let's try a little modern-day pesher interpretation.

It's interpretation concerns the oppressors of the Sacred Land who attacked in days of old with horse and camel and who in our time seek the destruction of the Sacred Land with the help of the Kittim who are stubborn as mules and stiff-necked as donkeys-yes, even they who take the donkey as their symbol of strength though they be stubborn and stupid.

In good pesher-like fashion, the interpretation itself requires interpretation.

Hard to call the point on this one, but it can be read as relevant as much obscure prophecy can.

Randomness 6, Relevance 2

I like being a generalist

Michael Bird and Craig Keener have an excellent article on the SBL forum about why we need "generalist" scholars in biblical studies. The topic resonated with me as I've been having a difficult time facing the prospect of specializing for the dissertation. My interests have always been broad and wide-ranging. I guess that's what happens when you're a history major studying everything that happened from the beginning of time up to the recent past.  Part of the attraction of studying Hebrew Bible was that it ties in with so many of my other interests.  Here's a list of my general interests in order of importance.  Because of the nature of my program, I'll have to specialize near the top of the list.

1.  Hebrew Bible: Pentateuch (esp. Genesis and Deuteronomy), Job, Isaiah, and Psalms.
2.  Early Biblical Interpretation: inner-biblical exegesis, Dead Sea Scrolls, rabbinic literature, New Testament, Targum, Peshitta, LXX
3.  Northwest Semitic epigraphy and paleography (Aramaic, Phoenician, Ugaritic)
4.  History of ancient Israel & the ancient Near East
5.  Israelite religions in the context of religions in the ANE
6.  Religious Studies (History of Religions, Sociology of Religions) - especially Judaism, Christianity, and Islam from origins through the Middle Ages.
7.  History of the Classical World: ancient Rome
8.  History of Biblical Interpretation: medieval Jewish and Christian interpretation, Reformation
9.  Bible Translation & Translation Studies
10.  Biblical Theology

And that's just the Bible-related list of interests. Now if only I could narrow things down enough to specialize for just a few years . . .

Other bloggers on this topic: Charles Halton; Nijay Gupta; Mark Goodacre; Pat McCullough

Shockwaves Blast Qumran Consensus

Anything related to the Dead Sea Scrolls seems to be an instant winner with the media. There is a high level of public interest in the topic coupled with an even higher level of public ignorance, perpetuated primarily by over-the-top media attention.
A brief sampling of quotes and headlines from the recent media explosion about Rachel Elior's theory on the Essenes illustrates the point.
London Times:

"Now a new theory challenging the broadly accepted history is sending shockwaves through the archaeological community"

Arutz Sheva:

"Scholar Blows Up Theory on Dead Sea Scrolls Authors."

Time Magazine:

Elior's claim "has shaken the bedrock of biblical scholarship"

Those very shockwaves, of course, have left all scholars interested in Qumran scrambling to reassess the evidence. Well, not really. Elior might be the first to claim the Essenes never really existed, but her argument about Sadducean origins for the scrolls has been around for a long long time. Solomon Schechter's publication of the Damascus Document from the Cairo Genizah was titled "Fragment of a Zadokite Work" in 1910, long before the rest of the sectarian scrolls were discovered.
John Hobbins has a short response to my earlier post, invoking the authority of Jodi Magness who consistently defends the consensus against all skeptics. The shockwaves will certainly leave her archaeological conclusions untouched. I have the utmost respect for her work. I have a copy of her book, The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls. (I also had the pleasure of hearing her presentation at SBL in Boston in the panel reviewing Hanan Eshel's The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Hasmonean State.)
However, I'm uncertain of archaeology's ability to disprove certain arguments since the conclusions of archaeology seem similarly open to question. Nothing is certain. The fact that pottery from the site of Qumran and pottery in the caves are "the same types of pottery" is not prima facie evidence for a connection between the site, the place of composition of the scrolls, and the physical residence of the sect. Also, the claim that "the alternative theories create more problems than they solve" seems to involve special pleading - that is, an appeal to abandon the discussion because it makes things more complicated.
John has also pointed out that the "scriptorium" idea has only been "called into question . . . but not disproven." Of course, that depends on whether one accepts a couple of inkwells and no parchment as evidence that writing might have been carried on there. For my part, I can't get around the paleographic evidence that the scrolls represent hundreds of different hands with only a couple of duplicates. (That is, each hand wrote one scroll. I believe there are 1-2 examples of the same hand writing two scrolls.)
Another one of the problems with DSS scholarship is that it requires scholars to dabble in secondary fields - archaeologists shouldn't be handling text any more than text scholars should be handling archaeology. The Dead Sea Scrolls also attract scholars from a wide range of peripheral fields. Rachel Elior, for example, is an expert on Jewish mysticism (requiring expertise primarily in medieval and early modern texts). Norman Golb is primarily an expert in the medieval Jewish manuscripts of the Cairo Genizah (albeit one with a deep and abiding interest in the DSS).
So, we have a problem. The experts on Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls are too close to the consensus to question it. They assume it and can't imagine the world without it. Some of the skeptics who challenge the consensus are often hampered by credibility issues, so others who would challenge the prevailing wisdom must be careful to distance themselves from their sensationalized critiques.
Once again, I feel compelled to point out that I use DSS scholarship from both sides of the "aisle" (so to speak). I have books by Collins, Vanderkam, Magness, Wise, Golb, and others. I just enjoy poking at consensus positions to see if I can find a few holes.
HT: AHP, Paleojudaica

Challenging the Essene Hypothesis

[N.B. This post contains links to all the blog posts that I have come across regarding Rachel Elior and the Essenes.]
Rachel Elior’s theory that Josephus invented the Essenes has lately been qualified and clarified. This was largely necessary due to the unfortunate (for her) evidence of Philo and Pliny writing about Essenes before Josephus.
Yet, it has stimulated much discussion around the blogosphere. The fact that Time picked up her story probably got her much more attention than Ha’aretz alone would have. Jim West has probably the most complete coverage. He brought the responses from Christopher Rollston and Hanan Eshel to my attention. Eshel’s remarks came from here. Eshel was quoted in the original Ha’aretz article, too. I agree with Jim West that his appeal to the authority of the consensus is odd. Jim Davila made a similar observation, stating:

The fact that there is a consensus position is not in itself an argument in favor of the consensus. A consensus is just the current state of the question, the place where we have to start if we want to advance the discussion.

Finally, John Hobbins has rushed to the defense of the Essene Hypothesis, summarizing the well-worn arguments for the position as articulated by J. Collins and J. Vanderkam.
While I have no vested interest in defending Elior, I enjoy questioning consensus positions whenever given the opportunity. The evidence from Collins and Vanderkam is circumstantial, at best. The argument boils down to: they resemble Essenes; they lived near where Essenes might have lived; therefore, they were likely Essenes unless proven otherwise. Then, the evidence brought forward to prove otherwise is discounted or explained away.
The argument only works if one accepts their assumptions that the community that produced the scrolls lived at Qumran, that the sectarian scrolls present a unified voice (reflecting only 1 group within Second Temple Judaism), and that the Essenes existed long before any of the sources we have about them.
John quotes Collins who wrote:

The correspondence of geographic location and the extensive similarity of community structure make overwhelmingly probable the identification of Qumran, and of the Rule of the Community, as “Essene.”

This is like arguing – I found these two bones lying next to each other. They must come from the same animal. To me, it’s a non sequitur. There’s no necessary relationship between the site and the scrolls. I believe the “scriptorium” idea has been disproved and the fact that over 900 hands produced the scrolls makes local production impossible. Plus the site of Qumran couldn’t have supported a very large community.
John also quotes Vanderkam:

The texts from QUMRAN, especially ones dealing with the organization and practices of the group (e.g., the Rule of the Community, the Damascus Covenant) . . . more nearly resemble [what Philo, Josephus, and Pliny the Elder tell us about] the Essenes than any other group identified in the ancient sources.

Another non sequitur? Hmm…they’re more like Essenes than any other Jewish group we know of, so they must have been Essenes. Not necessarily. I prefer just referring to them as the Qumran sect or the Yachad (one of their names for themselves) rather than applying a foreign label to the group.
The problem, in my view, is that the sectarian documents do not present a unified perspective on many issues. The Damascus Document and Community Rule are fairly consistent, but the calendrical scrolls reflect both the 364 day solar calendar predominantly preferred by the sect and the usual lunar calendar condemned by the sect as completely incorrect.
Furthermore, 4QMMT reflects halakhic positions more like Sadducees, than Essenes. The classic example is about the purity of streams of liquid (4QMMT, B, lines 55-58) where the sect’s interpretation matches that of the Sadducees as reported in Mishnah Yadaim 4.7.
The likelihood that the sectarian scrolls don’t reflect a single group helps explain texts that are difficult to reconcile with Essene beliefs such as the War Scroll (attributed to a peaceful non-violent sect?!).
For the record, I don’t fully subscribe to N. Golb’s theory of DSS origins either, though he raises a few good points. The chaos surrounding the First Revolt provides a good historical backdrop for concealing the scrolls and the occupation conveniently ends with a destruction at Qumran at the time of the revolt. (Yes, I know there’s no necessary connection with the site, but its possible occupation as a fortification during the revolt would make it a logical location for hiding the scrolls nearby.)
I found John Hobbins’s post to be insightful as always, especially the last paragraph. He is right to point out that Elior has not offered a serious challenge or credible alternative to the consensus.
I guess I haven’t offered a credible alternative, either, but I don’t think it’s necessary to connect the Qumran sect with any known Jewish group anyway. If nothing else, the Dead Sea Scrolls have taught us that diversity was the rule in Second Temple Judaism.
Update: I overlooked Dr. Claude Mariottini's post here. Also, Rachel Elior has responded to Hanan Eshel, reported here. I will comment on John's response to this post in a separate post.
HT: Jim West, Jim Davila, John Hobbins, Chris Brady

Curiouser and Curiouser . . . No Essenes?

Two news stories came to my attention today dealing with the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Now I've always thought the connections between the Dead Sea Scrolls, the site of Qumran, and the Essene sect were tenuous (i.e., one big non sequitur), but it never occurred to me to claim that Josephus had just made it all up about the Essenes. He's usually considered fairly reliable when he's discussing the first century C.E.

At the same time, I've also considered the fringe handful of scholars who think the Dead Sea Scrolls have a connection to Christianity to be a bit off. Ha'aretz has an article about Norman Golb and the arrest of his son. To show that not all scholars hold to the consensus position that Golb battles against, the article appeals to Dr. Yaakov Tepler:

Dr. Yaakov Tepler, head of the history department of Beit Berl Academic College and a student of Christianity scholar Prof. Joshua Efron, hews neither to Golb's opinion nor to the mainstream. Rather, he believes some of the Dead Sea Scrolls were written by Christians and says they allude to Jesus.

"I wrote an huge M.A. thesis that was to have become a doctorate about the Teacher of Righteousness - a central figure in the scrolls. I built 300 pages of reasons why I think the allusion was to Jesus. But today no place in Israel will allow me to publish it. It's just impossible to get an article published, not to mention a book, that expresses an idea that deviates from orthodoxy."

Tepler says he thinks the scholarly establishment is silencing a connection between the scrolls and Christianity.

The problem, of course, with connecting the sectarian scrolls and the Teacher of Righteousness to Christianity is that those scrolls are usually dated to the second century or first century BCE.

On the other hand, certain pieces of the puzzle do seem to come together nicely if you connect Essenes and Christians. Even prominent scholars see a connection, not just crackpots.

Prof. James Charlesworth, a senior Bible scholar who also specializes in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Josephus and the Gospel of John, believes John the Baptist lived among the Essenes for at least a year and drew some of his central ideas from them.

Josephus, writing sometime after 70 CE, would probably have known about early Christianity. Did he call them Essenes? I'm sure someone somewhere has worked out all the fine differences between Essenes and Christians. Didn't Josephus claim to be an Essene himself?

I'd always taken it for granted that the Essenes existed because that's what we learn in Second Temple Period history because Josephus is our source. Was there really no other record of them in Jewish literature as Rachel Elior claims?

"There is no historical testimony in Hebrew or Aramaic of the Essenes. It is unthinkable that thousands of people lived abstemiously, contrary to Torah laws, and nobody wrote anything about it," she said.

It would seem odd if rabbinic literature didn't mention them, but I don't know it well enough to know. I know there are affinities between legal interpretations ascribed to Sadducees in the Mishnah and interpretations found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. That and the fact that the War Scroll talks of the "sons of Zadok" is enough to convince me that the Sadducean theory of DSS origins is worth investigating. Elior offers that as the alternative to the Essene hypothesis.

Elior says the Sadducees, a sect descending from the high priest Zadok, who anointed Solomon as king, are the true authors. The scrolls belonged to the Temple and were brought to the Dead Sea to protect them, she says.

"The scrolls speak in clear Hebrew of the priests, sons of Zadok. So why call them Essenes?" asked Elior. "That's a distortion of history. It's like saying that the State of Israel wasn't established by Mapai, but by the Greens."

The apocalyptic prophecy cited in the scrolls of a war between the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness is a war between Zadok's sons, who served as high priests until 175 BCE, when they were ousted by the Hasmoneans, the descendants of Matityahu, she said.

So, curiouser and curiouser . . . did the Essenes exist at all? If they really didn't exist before the first century CE, that seems to be a serious problem for the Essene hypothesis.

HT: Jim West, Jack Sasson

New Book to add to the DSS Reading List

[Via DoveNews: Hebrew Bible List]

Eshel, Hanan David Louvish, Aryeh Amihay (trans)

The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Hasmonean State

(Wm. B. Eerdmans, Published 2008)

Paperback List: $28.00 Dove Price: $17.99 Save $10.01 (36%)

The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Hasmonean State is the first book dedicated solely to the question of how we can learn political history from the Qumran scrolls. Hanan Eshel unpacks and summarizes the historical information contained in the scrolls. He then goes on to demonstrate that Josephus’s description of the political history of the Hasmonean period is reliable.

This version of Eshel's 2004 Hebrew publication has been expertly translated for an English-speaking audience. It has also been updated to reflect more recent scholarship and includes a totally new bibliography of English resources.

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And after reading the book, you can catch the panel discussion at SBL.

SBL24-147

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Panel Discussion of Hanan Eshel, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Hasmonean State (Eerdmans 2008)
11/24/2008 7:00 PM to 8:30 PM
Room: Republic A - SH

Bennie Reynolds, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Presiding
James VanderKam, University of Notre Dame, Panelist
Jodi Magness, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Panelist
Kenneth Atkinson, University of Northern Iowa, Panelist
Michael Wise, Northwestern College, Panelist
Hanan Eshel, Bar Ilan University, Panelist