Showing papers on "Dead Sea Scrolls published in 1990"

A 'Groningen'Hypothesis of Qumran Origins and Early History

Abstract: This chapter develops some of the assumptions underlying "Groningen hypothesis" about the Origins and Early History of the Qumran community, and makes clear the historical consequences that follow from their acceptance. Therefore, it deals with the composition and character of the library from Qumran. It then discusses the hypothesis of Norman Golb who postulates that the scrolls come from different libraries of Jerusalem and that they represent the literature of the whole of the Judaism of the time. After summarizing the contents of the "Groningen hypothesis," the chapter spells out some of the consequences that can be deduced in order to obtain a historical reconstruction of the early history of the community. Keywords: Groningen hypothesis; Jerusalem; Judaism; Norman Golb; Qumran community

The Eschatological Vision of the Temple Scroll

Abstract: THE Temple Scroll' (hereafter TS) from Cave 11 of Qumran is among the most challenging and perplexing of the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS), a fact attested by the voluminous and rapidly expanding body of secondary literature to which it has given rise in the decade since its publication.2 It is a very difficult text to characterize. Scholars have not yet reached a consensus even on the basic question of the text's purpose.3 Is it then legitimate to consider it in the context of a colloquium on "Qumran and Apocalyptic"? The inherent difficulty of the TS is compounded in such a setting by the difficulty of deciding just what we mean by apocalyptic-a question which has itself generated no little controversy.4 Since it is not my purpose here to attempt to thrash out a definition of apocalyptic, however, perhaps it is permissible to cite a recent definition and then to show that the phenomena of the TS are largely compatible with it. Accordingly, apocalyptic is "a genre of revelatory literature with a narrative framework, in which a revelation is mediated by an otherworldly being to a human recipient, disclosing a transcendent reality which is both temporal, insofar as it envisages eschatological salvation, and spatial insofar as it involves another, supernatural world."' I hope to show that the TS lacks only one element of this definition-the narrative framework. Modeled on the legal portions of Deuteronomy, ipso facto it has no narrative. If it is true that the scroll does not burn with the white heat of some apocalyptic works, enough of that heat is reflected here and there to say that the scroll derives from an apocalyptic milieu. In this respect, as in certain others, the TS is comparable with the Book of Jubilees.6

Josephus' Description of the Essenes Illustrated by the Dead Sea Scrolls

Abstract: Preface 1. Introduction 2. Text and translation of Josephus' Essene passages 3. Commentary on Josephus' major Essene passages 4. Conclusion Appendix Notes Bibliography Index of passages Index of authors Subject index.