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

217 Pages·2001·9.91 MB·English

by  Avital Pinnick, Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated lite, Daniel R. Sc

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES:
FROM THE HASMONEANS TO BAR KOKHBA
IN LIGHT OF THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS
STUDIES ON THE TEXTS
OF THE DESERT OF JUDAH
EDITED BY
F. GARCIA MARTINEZ
A. S. VAN DER WOUDE
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
P.W. FLINT
VOLUME XXXVII
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES:
FROM THE HASMONEANS
TO BAR KOKHBA IN LIGHT OF
THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS
Proceedings of the Fourth International Symposium
of the Orion Centerf or the Study of the Dead Sea
Scrolls and Associated Literature, 27-31 January, 1999
EDITED BY
DAVID GOODBLATT
AVITAL PINNICK
&
DANIEL R. SCHWARTZ
BRILL
LEIDEN • BOSTON • KOLN
2001
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Die Deutsche Bibliothek — CIP-Einheitsaufnahme
Historical perspectives: from the Hasmoneans to Bar Kokhba in light of
the Dead Sea Scrolls : 27 - 31 January, 1999 / ed. by David Goodblatt
.... - Leiden ; Boston ; Koln : Brill, 2000
(Proceedings of the Fourth International Symposium of the Orion Center for
the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature ; 4)
(Studies on the texts of the desert of judah ; Vol. 37)
ISBN 90-04-12007-6
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is also available.
ISSN 0169-9962
ISBN 90 04 12007 6
© Copyright 2001 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
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PRINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS
CONTENTS
Preface vi
Abreviations ix
HISTORY OF THE JEWS AND JUDAISM
Judean Nationalism in the Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls . 3
DAVID GOODBLATT
The Kitim in the War Scrol and in the Pesharim 29
HANAN ESHEL
Antiochus IV Epiphanes in Jerusalem 45
DANIEL R. SCHWARTZ
Shelamzion in Qumran: New Insights 57
TAL ILAN
Descriptions of the Jerusalem Temple in Josephus and
the Temple Scrol 69
LAWRENCE H. SCHIFFMAN
COMMUNITY AND COVENANT
The Concept of the Covenant in Qumran Literature 85
BlLHAH NlTZAN
"[T]he[y] Did Not Read in the Sealed Book": Qumran
Halakhic Revolution and the Emergence of Torah Study
in Second Temple Judaism 105
ADIEL SCHREMER
Communal Fasts in the Judean Desert Scrols 127
NOAH HACHAM
V1 CONTENTS
The Community of Goods among the First Christians
and among the Esenes 147
JUSTIN TAYLOR
NATURAL SCIENCES AND THE SCROLLS
The Genetic Signature of the Dead Sea Scrols 165
GILA KAHILA BAR-GAL, CHARLES GREENBLATT,
SCOTT R. WOODWARD, MAGEN BROSHI, AND PATRICIA SMITH
Analysis of Microscopic Material and the Stitching of the
Dead Sea Scrols: A Preliminary Study 173
AZRIEL GORSKI
How Neutron Activation Analysis Can Assist Research
into the Provenance of the Pottery at Qumran 179
JAN GUNNEWEG AND MARTA BALLA
Index of Modern Authors 187
Index of Ancient Sources 191
PREFACE
After the first three Orion conferences were dedicated to more ethe-
real topics of Qumran scholarship (biblical interpretation, the pseude-
pigrapha, and the Damascus Document), the topic of the fourth annual
symposium, "Jewish History from the Maccabees to Bar Kochba,"
was meant as a gesture to the real world, an attempt to move to
more tangible things. This plan was seconded by the decision to
include in the conference, and hence in this volume of proceedings,
some studies of the most tangible elements that have come out of
Qumran: animal skins, the threads used to sew them into scrolls,
and pottery.
In practice, however, it turned out that the attempt to distinguish
between flesh and spirit was not successful, and that no one was dis-
appointed by that failure. Things of the spirit do have their real his-
tory, and Qumran texts do not talk history without the spirit. Thus,
one way or another, people kept leading us back to texts and ideas,
and texts and ideas kept leading us back to people. So, on the one
hand, David Goodblatt's study of Qumran evidence for ancient Jewish
nationalism turns out to be bound up, part and parcel, with the
importance of the Bible at Qumran, no less than Adiel Schremer's
contribution, which began with the status of books there. Similarly,
Hanan Eshel's study of the Kittim (were they Greeks? Romans?) and
Tal Ilan's search for Qumran allusions to Salome Alexandra result
in studies of how the Qumran community read the Bible. Even
Lawrence Schiffman's paper on the description of the Temple and
Daniel Schwartz's on Antiochus Epiphanes move back and forth
incessantly between "historical sources" and the Bible via Qumran eyes.
On the other hand, Bilhah Nitzan's study of the covenant at
Qumran and Noah Hacham's examination of communal fasts are
far from studies of timeless doctrines. They are bound up with the
fabric and realities of a flesh and blood religious community. The
same may be said of Justin Taylor's paper, which, on the face of it,
attempts to resolve textual and exegetical inconsistencies in the Book
of Acts, but in fact ends up by positing some real differences among
various communal groups.
The three remaining studies, whose citation style follows the format
viii PREFACE
customary in the natural sciences, derive from the work of the
Jerusalem Task Force for Science and the Scrolls, a group of schol-
ars (organized by the Orion Center and the Hebrew University/
Hadassah Medical School's Kuvin Center for Infectious and Tropical
Diseases) dedicated to the enrichment of Qumran studies by the
application to the Scrolls and related materials of methods of analy-
sis from the world of the natural sciences. While carbon 14 dating
of the Scrolls is more or less old hat, the studies presented here show
that the natural sciences have much more to offer us: such meth-
ods as neutron activation analysis of pottery (Jan Gunneweg and
Marta Balla), analysis of the DNA of the skins upon which the Scrolls
were written (Gila Kahila Bar-Gal et al.), and forensic techniques
(Azriel Gorski) can supply hard data concerning some of the para-
meters within which our research must focus. The Orion Center is
proud to play a role in the fostering of such fruitful cooperation
among the disciplines.
The Fourth Orion Symposium was made possible by the kind and
generous funding of the Orion Foundation and the Hebrew University
of Jerusalem. We sincerely thank them, as well as all the dedicated
collaborators of the Orion Center whose devoted work makes this
series a reality.
David Goodblatt
La folla, California
Avital Pinnick
Daniel R. Schwartz
Jerusalem
July 2000
ABBREVIATIONS
AB Anchor Bible
ANRW Aufstieg und Niedergang der Romischen Welt
BAR Biblical Archaeology Review
BETL Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium
BJS Brown Judaic Studies
CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly
CBQMS Catholic Biblical Quarterly Monograph Series
CRINT Compendium Rerum Iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum
DJD Discoveries in the Judaean Desert
DJDJ Discoveries in the Judaean Desert of Jordan
DSD Dead Sea Discoveries
EJ Encyclopaedia Judaica
HSS Harvard Semitic Studies
HTR Harvard Theological Review
HUCA Hebrew Union College Annual
ICC International Critical Commentary
IEJ Israel Exploration Journal
JBL Journal of Biblical Literature
JJS Journal of Jewish Studies
JQR Jewish Quarterly Review
JSJ Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic and
Roman Period
JSJSup Journal for the Study of Judaism Supplement Series
JSNT Journal for the Study of the New Testament
JSOT Journal for the Study of the Old Testament
JSOTSup Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement
Series
JSPSup Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha Supplement
Series
NTS New Testament Studies
NTSup Novum Testamentum Supplement Series
PAAJR Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research
PEQ Palestine Exploration Quarterly
RB Revue Biblique
REJ Revue des Etudes Juives