Table Of ContentJUDAISM IN LATE ANTIQUITY
PART FIVE
THE JUDAISM OF QUMRAN:
A SYSTEMIC READING OF THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS
VOLUME ONE
HANDBOOK OF ORIENTAL STUDIES
HANDBUCH DER ORIENTALISTIK
SECTION ONE
THE NEAR AND MIDDLE EAST
EDITED BY
H. ALTENMULLER · B. HROUDA · B.A. LEVINE · R.S. O'FAHEY
K.R. VEENHOF · C.H.M. VERSTEEGH
VOLUME FIFTY-SIX
JUDAISM IN LATE ANTIQUITY
PART FIVE
THE JUDAISM OF QUMRAN:
A SYSTEMIC READING OF THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS
VOLUME ONE
JUDAISM
IN LATE ANTIQUITY
EDITED BY
ALAN]. AVERY-PECK, JACOB NEUSNER
AND
BRUCE D. CHILTON
PART FIVE
THE JUDAISM OF QUMRAN:
A SYSTEMIC READING OF
THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS
VOLUME ONE
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BRILL
LEIDEN · BOSTON · KOLN
2001
Die Deutsche Bibliothek-CIP-Einheitsaufuahme
Handbuch der Orientalistik. - Leiden ; Boston ; Ki:iln : Brill.
Teilw. hrsg. von H. Altenmiiller. - Teilw. hrsg. von B. Spuler. -
Literaturangaben
Teilw. mit Parallelt.; Handbook of oriental studies
Abt. 1. Der Nahe und Mittlere Osten = The Near and Middle East I
hrsg. von H. Altenmiiller ...
Teilw. hrsg. von B. Spuler
Bd. 56. Judaism in late antiquity
Pt. 5. The Judaism of Qumran. A Systemic Reading of the Dead Sea
Scrolls. Vol. 1. Theory oflsrael. 200 I
Judaism in late antiquity I ed. by Alan]. Avery-Peck, Jacob
Neusner and Bruce Chilton- Leiden ; Boston; Koln : Brill 2001
(Handbook of oriental studies : Abt. I, The Near and Middle East
Literaturangaben
Pt. 5. The Judaism of Qumran. A Systemic Reading of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Vol. 1. Theory oflsrael- 200 I
(Handbook of oriental studies : Abt. I, The Near and Middle East ;
Bd. 56)
ISBN 90-Q4-1200 I 7
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VII
INTRODUCTION
1. What is "a Judaism"?: Seeing the Dead Sea Library as the
Statement of a Coherent Judaic Religious System .............. 3
Jacob Neusner, Bard College
PART 1. THE ScROLLs' THEoRY oF THE JUDAIC
SociAL ORDER: THEORY oF "IsRAEL"
2. The Construction of Israel in the Sectarian Rule Books .... 25
J.
John Collins, Yale University
2.
PART WAY OF LIFE
3. The Archaeology of Everyday Life at Qumran................... 45
James F. Strange, University of South Florida
with James Riley Strange, Emory University
4. Jewish Law at Qumran......................................................... 75
Lawrence H. Schiffman, New York University
5. Purity at Qumran: Cultic and Domestic.............................. 91
Johann Maier, University of Cologne
6. Worship, Temple, and Prayer in the Dead Sea Scrolls...... 125
Eileen Schuller, McMaster University
7. The Calendar at Qumran..................................................... 145
Martin G. Abegg, Jr., Trinity Western University
8. Women in the Religious System of Qumran....................... 173
Mayer I. Gruber, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
PREFACE
These volumes ask of the documents of the Dead Sea Library found
at Qumran a simple question: how does each participate in a shared
Judaic religious system? We propose a systemic reading of the Scrolls
within the working hypothesis that all of them in one way or another
rest upon a cogent Judaism: a world view, way of life, theory of the
social entity, "Israel," that coheres in responding to a single urgent
question with a self-evidently valid answer. The opening chapter de
fines precisely what is meant by "a systemic reading," or an account
of "a Judaism." The analysis of the data of the Dead Sea Scrolls
within the now-defined categories of systemic analysis of a religious
system of the social order then asks how diverse writings hold to
gether to make a single coherent statement, to stand for a religious
system possessed of integrity and cogency.
Our account of the world view of the Judaism adumbrated by the
Qumran library covers principal questions addressed to any Judaic
religious system: doctrine of God, Torah (including the issue of Scrip
ture and the interpretation of Scripture), matters of history, wisdom,
and mysticism. When it comes to the way of life, we include first of
all the evidence of the material culture of the community-and here,
whatever the status of the library writings, we do deal with a well
attested community-and then tum to practical matters of religious
conduct. How the community's world view comes to realization is
suggested by its treatment of the calendar, by its provision of laws
that concern women, by questions of cultic and secular purity, by its
piety and forms of worship and views of Temple and sacrifice, and
the like. Finally, with the community's definition of "Israel" and of
itself in relationship to "Israel" (or of itself as constituting "Israel"
tout court!), inclusive of Israelites excluded from this "Israel," we gain
an account of the theory of who and what is Israel that animates the
particular Judaism represented in these writings.
All systemic description, analysis, and interpretation requires an
exercise of comparison, e.g., between and among Judaic religious
systems or Judaisms. For that purpose, we include the comparison of
the systems of Paul and Qumran, on the one side, and John and
Qumran, on the other. The comparison of the Rabbinic system rep
resented by the Mishnah and related writings with the Qumran sys-
Vlll PREFACE
tern-even at the level of comparing structures of category-forma
tions-is at a primitive level, though the comparison of details of the
Halakhah of Qumran with the Halakhah of the Mishnah and related
writings has made commendable progress. The conclusion then
points to some of the principal results of systemic study of a well
attested Judaism in antiquity and suggests where we now stand.
We therefore undertake a systemic description of the Judaic reli
gious system that (as a matter of hypothesis here) animates the library
found by the Dead Sea. What we have done is to synthesize knowl
edge within a structure meant to hold together diverse doctrines and
patterns of action within a single construct, as a cogent, working
system: the social culture of a particular community. We have se
lected evidence of a single venue for that purpose and attempted to
read the evidence whole and within the hypothesis that this reading
is legitimated by the social setting in which the evidence is preserved.
We then realize one approach to the study of Judaism, namely, the
systemic one, which insists that we define Judaism as a set of religious
systems not as a single, unitary, harmonious body of doctrine and
practice, continuous with Scripture and encompassing nearly every
body within a large and capacious frame.
But what about the opposite view, the analytical one? Do we not
also insist upon differentiating evidence into its distinct components,
each representing a Judaic system in its own terms? Indeed, we do,
and in the previous volume within this series, Part Four, Death, A.fier
lift, Resurrection, and the World to Come in the Judaisms if Late Antiquity, we
did just that. So that other, analytical approach also has served in this
account ofJ udaism in late antiquity. How did the analysis go forward
among the diverse writings, all of them classified as Judaic? What we
did was to ask one and the same question to the greater part of the
bodies of data produced by Judaisms in antiquity.
We inquired as follows for the case that we chose: since opinion on
life-after-death occurs in most writings attributed to Judaic origin in
ancient times, do all the sources concur on some few points, which
we may call 'judaism" and its doctrine on the matter at hand? Or do
the diverse sources represent only the communities that produced
and preserved them, not 'judaism" all together and all at once?
Accordingly, the method of this volume forms a mirror-image of its
predecessor. In Death, Lift-rifler-Death, Resurrection, and the World-to-Come
in the ]udaisms ifL ate Antiquity, we contrasted accounts of a single topic
put forth by diverse bodies of Judaic writing in ancient times. With
PREFACE IX
an account of Scripture's diverse pictures in hand, we reviewed how
Judaic writings of various classes present their ideas on the same
topic. We divided by language or venue or type of writing: Jewish
writings in Greek-apocalyptic literature, apocrypha and non-apoca
lyptic pseudepigrapha, Philo andJosephus; the picture set forth in the
Dead Sea Scrolls viewed as a coherent statement; the account of the
matter in the Gospels, providing the perspective of Jewish followers
of Jesus; the evidence of inscriptions and of the Targums to the
Pentateuch, and the perspectives of the two principal phases of Rab
binic Judaism, Mishnah, then Talmudic and Midrashic.
Each precis limited itself to one body of evidence. That allowed us
to see the diversity of opinion on a single topic set forth by various
writings, each representing the religious system of its writers and of
the community that valued those writings and preserved them. The
volume then formed an experiment to test the proposition that a
single Judaism is to be discerned within, behind, and among the
conflicting writings of various persons, representative of diverse
groups. No harmony of opinion can be identified, and if there is a
single common Judaism, what it can have held on so central a ques
tion as life-after-death, beyond an exceedingly low common denomi
nator of conviction, is not readily defined.
In this volume we have done the opposite. We concentrate on a
single corpus of evidence, the writings found in the library of Qum
ran, and ask specialists in the study of that library to contribute to
generalizations about the system as a whole. Each was invited to
describe the part of the matter on which he or she specializes. The
essays then coalesce thematically, all dealing with the same commu
nity. They come together to form a systematic account of the reli
gious system that animates those diverse writings. We defined the
assignments so as to produce a coherent picture of the way of life, the
world view, and the theory of the social entity, "Israel," that all
together emerge from the library of Qumran. Our working hypoth
esis is that these writings can be asked to speak of a common Judaic
religious system, to attest to parts of a single whole, a Judaism. That
is why we read the documents all together and all at once and com
bine the evidence yielded by distinct scrolls. That is only to test the
working hypothesis at hand. Others may wish to differentiate and
analyze where we have synthesized, to challenge the notion that
governs here, a reading in quest of a single coherent world view, a
cogent picture of a way of life, and a theory of who and what is Israel
X PREFACE
that pervades all the documents. With the editors and authors of this
volume they will get no argument. Each reading has its merits, and
both are absolutely necessary for the religious study of the Dead Sea
Library, which here becomes systematic and encompassing.
What we think we have proved in the five parts of this work is that
the study of Judaism in late antiquity forms a principal part of the
academic study of the history of religion. Because of the methodo
logical problems that inhere in the pertinent evidence-problems of
the religious study of religion, not only the philological, linguistic,
archaeological, anthropological, political, cultural, theological, or so
ciological study of religious data for the purposes of philology, linguis
tics, archaeology, anthropology, political science, culture, theology,
or sociology-Judaism claims a position in the very forefront of sub
jects that reward systematic academic inquiry. But philology, linguis
tics, archaeology, and the rest are not religion and do not represent
the study of religion. Each field of learning has its distinctive contri
bution to make; each selects its data and interprets it in response to
methods and issues particular to its own epistemic logic. And so is the
case for the religious study ofJ udaism, that is, the study ofJ udaism in
the comparison of religions and for the history of religion.
Not only so, but the position that it demands for itself is defined
autonomously, not only or mainly in comparison and contrast
(whether religious or theological) with earliest Christianity. And it is
to be defined in terms of the study of religion, the complex of reli
gious systems we call 'judaism"-that, and not the history of the
Jews or their ethnic culture, whether then, whether now. Indeed,
whether the study of the Jews' ethnic culture and history in ancient
times yields important results for the study of culture and history in
antiquity is not for us to say, since we do not work in that field.
Recent results strike us as limited in their academic value and inter
est, but great historical work on the Jews as a historical entity has
been done and, in some subdivisions of ancient history, continues to
go forward. Nonetheless, much is lost to the comparative study of
religion and the history of religion, when the comparative study of
religion leaves in the hands of ethnic inquiry the matter ofJ udaism,
the religion. Then by 'judaism" people mean "the history of the
Jews" or aspects of their ethnic affairs (some of them indeed bearing
on matters of interest to the study of the religion, Judaism, many of
them not). They do not mean what people mean when they study
Christianity or Graeco-Roman paganism, Zoroastrianism or Islam,
