Shopping cartDead Sea Discoveries
Volumes & issues:
-
Maskil, Community, and Religious Experience in the Songs of the Sage (4Q510–511) 1
- + Show Description - Hide Description
-
Abstract The present study seeks to illuminate how the recitation of the prophylactic magical hymns known as 4QSongs of the Sage engendered religious experience for worshipers. Previous research on this composition has focused on locating it within the broader streams of early Jewish magical and apocalyptic tradition, but little attention has been paid to the apotropaic function of the Songs within the larger religious experiential framework implied by the text. This study argues that despite the lack of concrete information pertaining to ritual praxis, the language of the Songs reveals that participation in the ritual was designed to bring worshipers to understand themselves as realizing essential Qumranite ideals such as perfect purity and supernal knowledge, and to experience communion with the angels in the image of “the eternal sanctuary.” It is suggested that the protection from the demons offered by the Songs is not so much the result of “magic” as it is a natural outcome of the perceived attainment of these ideals.
-
Expelling the Unclean from the Cities of Israel and the Uncleanness of Lepers and Men with a Discharge according to 4Q274 1 i
- + Show Description - Hide Description
-
Abstract 4Q274 1 i addresses the removal of impure individuals from inhabited areas and the repercussions of contact with various types of impure individuals. The text asserts that only lepers need to be excluded from the cities during their unclean period because they cause anything present in a tent with them to become unclean; other unclean individuals should be isolated within the cities. Likewise, 4Q274 1 i implies that the impurity—of those men with a discharge, of those women discharging blood, and of the menstruants during their periods of discharge—spreads when there is a real possibility of physical contact between the discharge and those people or objects to be defiled by it. In contrast, in rabbinic literature, both males and females impure due to discharge and menstruants are deemed impure because of their halakic categorization as unclean people, their impurity is not spread through their discharges.
-
The Polemic Regarding Skin Disease in 4QMMT 1
- + Show Description - Hide Description
-
Abstract This article deals with a polemic in 4QMMT pertaining to the skin disease described by the biblical term צרעת, typically (though not accurately) translated as “leprosy.” In particular, the authors of 4QMMT accuse their opponents of permitting “lepers” into the house, thereby defiling the pure food. This article identifies this lenient view, attacked by 4QMMT, with a rabbinic midrash of Lev 14:8 found in the Sifra. Instead of banning the “leper” from his tent during his purificatory period, as the simple reading of the biblical source would demand, this midrash forbids him from sexual relations. After evaluating the exegetical difficulties and historical implications of this understanding of the midrash, the article attempts to explain changing rabbinic attitudes towards this skin disease in the late tannaitic and early amoraitic periods.
-
“His Wisdom Will Reach All Peoples”: 4Q534–536, Q 17:26–27, 30, and 1 En. 65:1–67:3, 90 1
- + Show Description - Hide Description
-
Abstract The Qumran Aramaic texts represent a distinctive group within the larger Qumran corpus that is of considerable significance to the study of Jewish messianism and the New Testament. The identities of the figures in 4Q246 and 4Q534, in particular, have been the subject of ongoing debate. The Parables of Enoch, although not found at Qumran, also plays a role in the comparative study of the Enochic corpus and the New Testament. This discussion revolves, in part, around the identification of Jesus as “son of man,” a title used both in Q and the Parables. Using Q 17:26–27, 30 as a control text, this study focuses on the identity of the mysterious Elect of God figure in 4Q534 in order to explore whether 4Q534, like 4Q246, provides evidence of a confluence of apocalyptic traditions in Early Judaism and nascent Christianity.
-
Aramaica Qumranica: Proceedings of the Conference on the Aramaic Texts from Qumran in Aix-en-Provence, 30 June–2 July 2008. Edited by Katell Berthelot and Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra. STDJ 94. Leiden: Brill, 2010. Hardcover. Pp. xii + 624. € 180.00/US$ 255.00. ISBN 978-9004187863.
- + Show Description - Hide Description
-
back to top