scholarly journals ‘Doing Justice’ (משפט בעושי) to the Dead Sea Scrolls: Reading 1QS 8:1–4 in literary and sectarian context

2016 ◽  
Vol 72 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Llewellyn Howes
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Historical Jesus ◽  
Future Expectations ◽  
The Future ◽  
Current Article ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Community Rule

Within the Community Rule, 1QS 8:1–4 has at times been used as an intertext to support claims pertaining to the future expectations of both early Jesus movements and the historical Jesus himself. In particular, the passage has functioned as an intertext to support the notion that Jesus and some of his earliest movements foresaw the future restoration and liberation of greater Israel in toto, including outsiders. Without getting involved in this larger New Testament debate, the current article wishes to address the appropriateness of using 1QS 8:1–4 as an intertext without taking its literary and sectarian contexts into consideration. Focusing throughout on the interrelationship between judgement and boundary demarcation, this article will unfold in a centripetal manner. Firstly, it will treat the commonalities among all the sectarian Dead Sea Scrolls. Secondly, the discussion will direct its focus specifically to the Community Rule. Finally, we will look at 1QS 8:1–4 in particular.

An Altar in the Desert?

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-135
Author(s):  
Alison Schofield
Keyword(s):  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Spatial Theory ◽  
Conceptual Spaces ◽  
Spatial Practices ◽  
Damascus Document ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Community Rule ◽  
Rule Out

Jodi Magness’ proposal that an altar existed at Qumran leaves some unanswered questions; nevertheless, her conclusions are worthy of consideration. This study examines her claim that the residents at Qumran had an altar, modeled off of the Wilderness Tabernacle, through the lens of critical spatial theory. The conceptual spaces of some of the Dead Sea Scrolls, such as The Damascus Document and The Community Rule, as well as the spatial practices of the site of Qumran do not rule out – and even support – the idea that Qumran itself was highly delimited and therefore its spaces hierarchized in such a way that it could have supported a central cultic site.

Jewish Law in the Gospels in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls

2021 ◽  
pp. 014610792110343
Author(s):  
Lawrence H. Schiffman
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
The Self ◽  
First Century ◽  
Jewish Law ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Dead ◽  
The Right

This study examines a number of specific examples of halakhic (Jewish legal) matters discussed in the New Testament that are also dealt with in the Dead Sea Scrolls. This paper compares and contrasts the rulings of these two traditions, as well as the Pharisaic views, showing that the Jewish legal views of the Gospels are for the most part lenient views to the left of those of the Pharisees, whereas those of the Dead Sea Scrolls represent a stricter view, to the right of the Pharisaic views. Ultimately, in the halakhic debate of the first century ce, the self-understanding of the earliest Christians was very different from that of the sect of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

scholarly journals The importance of the Dead Sea Scrolls for the study of the explicit quotations in Ad Hebraeos

2016 ◽  
Vol 72 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gert J. Steyn
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Critical Value ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Religious Background ◽  
New Testament Studies ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Book Of Hebrews

The important contribution that the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) hold for New Testament studies is probably most evident in Ad Hebraeos. This contribution seeks to present an overview of relevant extant DSS fragments available for an investigation of the Old Testament explicit quotations and motifs in the book of Hebrews. A large number of the explicit quotations in Hebrews were already alluded to, or even quoted, in some of the DSS. The DSS are of great importance for the study of the explicit quotations in Ad Hebraeos in at least four areas, namely in terms of its text-critical value, the hermeneutical methods employed in both the DSS and Hebrews, theological themes and motifs that surface in both works, and the socio-religious background in which these quotations are embedded. After these four areas are briefly explored, this contribution concludes, among others, that one can cautiously imagine a similar Jewish sectarian matrix from which certain Christian converts might have come – such as the author of Hebrews himself.

Traces of Gnosticism in the Dead Sea Scrolls?

1954 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-141
Author(s):  
Bo Reicke
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
The North ◽  
Hebrew Word ◽  
Western Shore ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Christian Century ◽  
North Western

The Hebrew scrolls newly discovered near Qumran at the north-western shore of the Dead Sea, which are attracting more and more the attention of New Testament students, are also very important for the evolution of Jewish Gnosticism. One may think especially of the fact that in some of these manuscripts the Hebrew word for ‘knowledge’ and related terms occur with a striking frequency, and that the dualistic cosmology of the new texts seems to be rather like certain fundamental ideas of Gnosticism. Since the archaeological evidence now proves that the Qumran manuscripts are pre-Christian, or were at least written in the first Christian century, one may very well state that new light can now be thrown upon the much debated question of a pre-Christian, Jewish Gnosticism.

Women, Children, and Celibate Men in theSerekhTexts

2011 ◽  
Vol 104 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-190
Author(s):  
Joan E. Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Important Study ◽  
Explicit Mention ◽  
Women And Children ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Community Rule

TheSerekhor “Community Rule” (in all its variant manuscript forms) is one of the most famous of all the Dead Sea scrolls. It is commonplace to see it as referring to a sect of celibate men; the assumption is that it “contains no allusions to the presence of women in the group which it regulates.”1However, in an important study, Eyal Regev has recently challenged the notion that celibate men are the focus of theSerekhtexts, or of any manuscript in the scrolls corpus, by stressing that there are no explicit statements that deal with the issue of sexual asceticism, unlike what is found in monastic rules, or among the Shakers. Rather, otheryaḥaddocuments (e.g., 4Q502 Ritual of Marriage or 1QSa Rule of the Congregation) refer to marriage, reproduction, and children.2If this is so, why assume that theSerekhcan only refer to a group of celibate men, even without explicit mention of women and children? Regev's view has essentially been the position of Lawrence Schiffman for many years, given the numerous references to issues of women and family in the halakhic texts of the scrolls corpus.3

scholarly journals Jubilee in the Bible

2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-6
Author(s):  
James A. Sanders
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Near East ◽  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Ancient Near East ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Dead

The concept of the Jubilee, or the collective forgiveness of all debts and debtor/slaves, had its origins in the Ancient Near East where it was a secular practice of kings. It came into the Bible originally also as a secular practice of kings but then became the province of priests and a calendar observance to be celebrated every 50 years. It was finally understood in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament to rest in the hands of God alone, an eschatological concept of the forgiveness of all debts/sins and the redemption of all human sins, or debts to God, that became the very basis of the theological history of Luke/Acts.

scholarly journals Die uitbouing van die Bybelse kanon in antieke Judaïsme en die vroeë Christendom

2015 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jörg Frey
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Ancient Judaism ◽  
Canonical Process ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Dead

The development of the biblical canon in ancient Judaism and early Christianity. A brief account of the process of the development of both the Jewish and the bipartite Christian canon is given. It is argued that due to insights gained from recent textual discoveries, especially the Dead Sea Scrolls (Qumran texts), earlier theories about the history of canonisation had to be reviewed. With the New Testament canon the authors focus on the influence of Marcion as well as the various other factors that played a role in the process of canonisation. It is shown that canonisation was the result of a complicated and variegated canonical process. But in spite of the problems of the criteria used and other factors involved, the biblical canon is theologically valuable and ‘well-chosen’.

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