Qumran as Scroll Storehouse in Times of Crisis? A Comparative Perspective on Judaean Desert Manuscript Collections1
In: Journal for the Study of JudaismSearch for other papers by Mladen Popović in
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Abstract
This article takes a material and comparative approach to the Qumran collection. Distinctive features set the Qumran manuscripts apart from other Judaean Desert collections, suggesting a scholarly, school-like collection of predominantly literary texts. The few literary texts from other Judaean Desert sites reflect the valuable copies owned by wealthy individuals or families and are illustrative of the spread of these texts within various strata of ancient Jewish society. The historical context of most manuscript depositions in the Judaean Desert is characterized by violence and conflict, and such a context probably also typified the deposition of the Qumran manuscripts. In contrast to at least some of the other Judaean Desert sites where refugees hid with their manuscripts, the deposition evidence at Qumran may suggest an anticipation of such violence. The movement behind the Dead Sea Scrolls can be characterized as a textual community, reflecting a milieu of Jewish intellectuals who were engaged on various levels with their ancestral traditions. The collection of texts attracted people and shaped their thinking, while at the same time people shaped the collection, producing and gathering more texts. In this sense, the site of Qumran and its surrounding caves functioned like a storehouse for scrolls.
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4)
See S. A. Reed, “Find-Sites of the Dead Sea Scrolls,” DSD 14 (2007): 199-221; H. Eshel, “Gleaning of Scrolls from the Judaean Desert,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Texts and Context (ed. C. Hempel; STDJ 90; Leiden: Brill, 2010), 49-87; E. Tov, Revised Lists of the Texts from the Judaean Desert (Leiden: Brill, 2010). This is not altered by the fact that the concept of “manuscript” in Dead Sea Scrolls studies is, to a certain degree, a scholarly construct. See E. Tigchelaar, “Constructing, Deconstructing and Reconstructing Fragmentary Manuscripts: Illustrated by a Study of 4Q184 (4QWiles of the Wicked Woman),” in Rediscovering the Dead Sea Scrolls: An Assessment of Old and New Approaches and Methods (ed. M. Grossman; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2010), 26-47.
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5)
Cf. also G. Woolf, “Approaching the Ancient Library,” in Ancient Libraries (ed. J. König, K. Oikonomopoulou, and G. Woolf; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013); M. C. Nicholls, “Galen and Libraries in the Peri Alupias,” JRS 101 (2011): 123-42, esp. 136. I am grateful to Greg Woolf for sending me his article prior to publication.
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6)
See G. W. Houston, “Papyrological Evidence for Book Collections and Libraries in the Roman Empire,” in Ancient Literacies: The Culture of Reading in Rome and Greece (ed. W. A. Johnson and H. N. Parker; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 233-67, esp. 247.
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7 )
See, e.g., P. W. Lapp, “Wâdi ed-Dâliyeh,” RB 72 (1965): 405-9; P. W. Lapp and N. L. Lapp, Discoveries in the Wâdi ed-Dâliyeh (Cambridge, Mass.: American Schools of Oriental Research, 1974); M. J. Winn Leith, Wadi Daliyeh I: The Wadi Daliyeh Seal Impressions (DJD 24; Oxford: Clarendon, 1997); D. M. Gropp, Wadi Daliyeh II: The Samaria Papyri from Wadi Daliyeh (DJD 28; Oxford: Clarendon, 2001), 3-116; J. Dušek, Les manuscrits araméens du Wadi Daliyeh et la Samarie vers 450-332 av. J.-C. (Culture and History of the Ancient Near East 30; Leiden: Brill, 2007), 447-53.
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8)
See H. Eshel and B. Zissu, “Jericho: Archaeological Introduction,” in Miscellaneous Texts from the Judaean Desert (DJD 38; Oxford: Clarendon, 2000), 3-20, esp. 3-6, 11-12.
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11)
See, e.g., Y. Aharoni, “Expedition B—The Cave of Horror,” IEJ 12 (1962): 186-99; Y. Yadin, The Finds from the Bar Kokhba Period in the Cave of the Letters (JDS 1; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1963); H. Eshel, “Naḥal Ḥever: Archaeology,” in Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 357-58; H. M. Cotton, “Naḥal Ḥever: Written Material,” ibid., 359-61.
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12)
See Eshel and Zissu, “Jericho: Archaeological Introduction,” 12-20.
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14)
See J. Patrich, “Inscriptions araméennes juives dans les grottes d’el-Aleiliyât, Wadi Suweinit (Naḥal Michmas),” RB 92 (1985): 265-73; idem, “Naḥal Michmas,” in Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 548-49.
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19)
Milik, DJD 2:93-100; F. M. Cross, “Epigraphic Notes on Hebrew Documents of the Eighth-Sixth Centuries B.C.: II. The Murabbaʿât Papyrus and the Letter Found near Yabneh-yam,” in Leaves from an Epigrapher’s Notebook: Collected Papers in Hebrew and West Semitic Palaeography and Epigraphy (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2003), 116-24; repr. from 1962.
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21)
See, e.g., G. R. H. Wright, “The Archaeological Remains at el Mird in the Wilderness of Judaea,” Bib 42 (1961): 1-21; J. Patrich, “Khirbet Mird,” in Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 563-66; Tov, Revised Lists, 84-89.
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22)
De Vaux, DJD 3:3-25; J. Patrich, “Khirbet Qumran in Light of New Archaeological Explorations in the Qumran Caves,” in Methods of Investigation of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Khirbet Qumran Site: Present Realities and Future Prospects (ed. M. O. Wise et al.; New York: The New York Academy of Sciences, 1994), 73-95; M. Broshi and H. Eshel, “Residential Caves at Qumran,” DSD 6 (1999): 328-48.
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23)
Cf., e.g., D. Stökl Ben Ezra, “Old Caves and Young Caves: A Statistical Reevaluation of a Qumran Consensus,” DSD 14 (2007): 313-33, esp. 322-23; F. García Martínez, “Cave 11 in Context,” in Hempel, The Dead Sea Scrolls: Texts and Context, 199-209, esp. 206-8; D. Stökl Ben Ezra, “Further Reflections on Caves 1 and 11: A Response to Florentino García Martínez,” ibid., 211-23, esp. 220; J. E. Taylor, “Buried Manuscripts and Empty Tombs: The Qumran Genizah Theory Revisited,” in ‘Go Out and Study the Land’ (Judges 18:2): Archaeological, Historical and Textual Studies in Honor of Hanan Eshel (ed. A. M. Maeir, J. Magness, and L. H. Schiffman; JSJSup 148; Leiden: Brill, 2012), 269-315, esp. 277. In addition, some of the natural caves in the limestone cliffs that did not yield manuscript finds were deemed to have been habitable during the period that the Qumran settlement was in use at the end of the Second Temple period; see, e.g., Caves 10, 31, 32, 37, 39 and 40 (de Vaux, DJD 3:8, 11, 12). It is apparently not always evident whether a cave formed due to natural circumstances or due to human hands; cf. Broshi and Eshel, “Residential Caves at Qumran”; J. Patrich, “Did Extra-Mural Dwelling Quarters Exist at Qumran?” in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Fifty Years After their Discovery (ed. L. H. Schiffman, E. Tov, and J. C. VanderKam; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2000), 720-27, esp. 726.
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24)
See G. Lankester Harding, “Introductory. The Dicovery, the Excavation, Minor Finds,” in Qumran Cave 1 (DJD 1; Oxford: Clarendon, 1953), 3-7 and R. de Vaux, “La Poterie,” ibid., 8-17; de Vaux, DJD 3:3-36; idem, “Archéologie,” in Qumran Cave 4 II (DJD 6; Oxford: Clarendon, 1977), 3-22.
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30)
See also N. Lewis, The Documents from the Bar Kokhba Period in the Cave of the Letters: Greek Papyri (JDS 2; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1989), 5.
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35)
Houston, “Papyrological Evidence for Book Collections,” 248-51.
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36)
See B. Webster, “Chronological Index of the Texts from the Judaean Desert,” in The Texts from the Judaean Desert (ed. E. Tov; DJD 39; Oxford: Clarendon, 2002), 351-446, esp. 378-434.
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37)
See E. Tigchelaar, “Notes on the Ezekiel Scroll from Masada (MasEzek),” RevQ 22/86 (2005): 269-75.
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38)
S. Talmon and Y. Yadin, Masada VI: The Yigael Yadin Excavations 1963-1965 Final Reports: Hebrew Fragments from Masada and the Ben Sira Scroll from Masada (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1999).
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41)
See Houston, “Papyrological Evidence for Book Collections,” 248-51; Nicholls, “Galen and Libraries,” 132, 134, 137. Of course, individual scrolls may have worn out earlier, due to the intensity of use, manner of storage or production, but this does not alter the basic data from concentrations of papyri found together in Egypt and Herculaneum. J. T. Milik, The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments of Qumrân Cave 4 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1976), 139 suggested that 4QEna (4Q201) was withdrawn from use, perhaps a century after the copy was made (4QGenealogical List? [4Q338] was written on its verso; see below in section 8). However, there is no evidence in favour of this suggestion, see E. Tov, DJD 38:290.
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42)
Contra K. van der Toorn, Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007), 148-49. This evidence may challenge a linear perspective on scribal interventions in (“biblical”) texts. Furthermore, the evidence for a manuscript’s useful life demonstrates that the age of a manuscript is in itself not a reliable basis for dating its archaeological deposition context, contra W. C. Bouzard, “The Date of the Psalms Scroll from the Cave of the Letters (5/6ḤevPs) Reconsidered,” DSD 10 (2003): 319-37.
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52)
See Netzer, Masada III, 114, 119, 416-22, 445. See, however, Ben-Tor, Back to Masada, 189.
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55)
See Houston, “Papyrological Evidence for Book Collections,” 256-61.
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57)
See also Milik, DJD 2:69; M. O. Wise, “Accidents and Accidence: A Scribal View of Linguistic Dating of the Aramaic Scrolls from Qumran,” in Thunder in Gemini and Other Essays on the History, Language and Literature of Second Temple Palestine (JSPSup 15; Sheffield: JSOT, 1994), 103-51, esp. 142-43; Hezser, Jewish Literacy, 168.
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63)
See, e.g., de Vaux, Archaeology and the Dead Sea Scrolls, 105.
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64)
See, e.g., Magness, The Archaeology of Qumran, 70; Stökl Ben Ezra, “Old Caves and Young Caves,” 323; White Crawford, “Qumran: Caves, Scrolls, and Buildings,” 259-60, 265.
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66)
De Vaux, DJD 3:30; A. Lemaire, “Inscriptions du khirbeh, des grottes et de ‘Aïn Feshkha,” in Khirbet Qumrân et ‘Aïn Feshkha II: Études d’anthropologie, de physique et de chimie, Studies of Anthropology, Physics and Chemistry (ed. J.-B. Humbert and J. Gunneweg; Fribourg: Academic Press Fribourg, 2003), 341-88, esp. 375-76.
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67)
De Vaux, “Fouilles de Khirbet Qumrân,” 572; cf. Stökl Ben Ezra, “Wie viele Bibliotheken,” 331 n. 20.
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69)
Cf. e.g., Casson, Libraries in the Ancient World, 82; M. Nicholls, “Bibliotheca Latina Graecaque: On the Possible Division of Roman Public Libraries by Language,” in Neronia VIII: Bibliothèques, livres et culture écrite dans l’empire romain de César à Hadrien (ed. Y. Perrin; Brussels: Latomus, 2010), 11-21. See also Stökl Ben Ezra, “Old Caves and Young Caves,” 323.
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70)
See, e.g., Stökl Ben Ezra, “Old Caves and Young Caves,” 323; White Crawford, “Qumran: Caves, Scrolls, and Buildings,” 259, 165.
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73)
See, e.g., White Crawford, “Qumran: Caves, Scrolls, and Buildings,” 259.
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77)
Wise, “Accidents and Accidence,” 131-32; Stökl Ben Ezra, “Old Caves and Young Caves,” 323-24.
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78)
See Lemaire, “Inscriptions du khirbeh,” 374-75. This evidence is interesting in itself, since it seems doubtful that Cave 6 was used as a dwelling place (see de Vaux, DJD 3:10). If these two jars really originate from Cave 6, they might indicate temporary habitation (see below).
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85)
See P. van Minnen, “Boorish or Bookish? Literature in Egyptian Villages in the Fayum in the Graeco-Roman Period,” JJP 28 (1998): 99-184.
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92)
See, e.g., Lewis, JDS 2:22, 24; Hezser, Jewish Literacy, 159, 184.
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93)
See, e.g., Goodman, “Babatha’s Story,” 174; Hezser, Jewish Literacy, 183-84, 498-99; Greenfield in JDS 2:136-37.
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95)
Cf. also the discussion in Hezser, Jewish Literacy, 2-17; D. Goodblatt, Elements of Ancient Jewish Nationalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 33-48.
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97)
Tov, Scribal Practices, 82-104, 125-29. While evidence for a small writing block in Mas1l may be unclear (Tov, Scribal Practices, 92), there remains the evidence for XḤev/Se 6 (Tov, Scribal Practices, 85).
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98)
See E. Tigchelaar, “In Search of the Scribe of 1QS,” in Emanuel: Studies in Hebrew Bible, Septuagint, and Dead Sea Scrolls in Honor of Emanuel Tov (ed. S. M. Paul et al.; VTSup 94; Leiden: Brill, 2003), 439-52, at 451.
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99)
See, e.g., M. Popović, “Network Transmissions of Astronomical Knowledge Between Babylonian and Jewish Scholars in the First Millennium B.C.E.,” in Ancient Jewish Sciences and the History of Knowledge (ed. J. Ben-Dov and S. Sanders; New York: New York University Press, forthcoming); C. Hempel, “ ‘Haskalah’ at Qumran: The Eclectic Character of Qumran Cave 4,” in The Qumran Rule Texts in Context (C. Hempel; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, forthcoming). I am grateful to Charlotte Hempel for sending me her article prior to publication.
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101)
See, e.g., Shavit, “The ‘Qumran Library,’ ” 301; Talmon, “The Essential ‘Community of the Renewed Covenant,’ ” 328; T. Elgvin, “The Yaḥad Is More Than Qumran,” in Enoch and Qumran Origins: New Light on a Forgotten Connection (ed. G. Boccaccini; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2005), 273-79, esp. 275-76.
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106)
H. Stegemann, Die Essener, Qumran, Johannes der Täufer und Jesus: Ein Sachbuch (Freiburg: Herder, 1993). D. Dimant, “The Composite Character of the Qumran Sectarian Literature as an Indication of its Date and Provenance,” RevQ 22/88 (2006): 615-30 also understands 1QS, 1QM and 1QHa as models for these major sectarian compositions, although the manuscripts 1QM and 1QHa, due to their palaeographic date, must have been copies of earlier models already in existence. Her hypothesis seems in line with that of Stegemann; she nuances it by not taking the manuscripts of 1QM and 1QHa themselves as the actual model copies (see p. 630 n. 59).
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107)
See F. García Martínez, “Reconsidering the Cave 1 Texts Sixty Years after their Discovery: An Overview,” in Qumran Cave 1 Revisited (ed. D. K. Falk et al.; STDJ 91; Leiden: Brill, 2010), 1-13, esp. 5-6.
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108)
Cf. already de Vaux, Archaeology and the Dead Sea Scrolls, 104.
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110)
Cf. also Stökl Ben Ezra, “Further Reflections on Caves 1 and 11,” 220 n. 42; idem, “Wie viele Bibliotheken,” 342-45; White Crawford, “Qumran: Caves, Scrolls, and Buildings,” 267 n. 50.
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112)
J. Magness, “The Chronology of the Settlement at Qumran in the Herodian Period,” in Debating Qumran: Collected Essays on its Archaeology (Leuven: Peeters, 2004), 41-48; repr. from 1995.
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114)
See also García Martínez, “Reconsidering the Cave 1 Texts,” 8-10; idem, “Cave 11 in Context,” 205.
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115)
Stökl Ben Ezra, “Wie viele Bibliotheken,” 340-41. Cf. Stökl Ben Ezra, “Old Caves and Young Caves,” 327-28 and n. 54.
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116)
See Popović, “Roman Book Destruction in Qumran Cave 4,” 241-49.
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118)
For a different scenario, see H. Eshel, Qumran: Scrolls, Caves, History (Jerusalem: Carta, 2009), 114-15, 124-25.
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119)
Schofield, “Rereading S,” 117; eadem, From Qumran to the Yaḥad, 57, 59. See also J. R. Davila, “Enochians, Essenes, and Qumran Essenes,” in Enoch and Qumran Origins, 356-59, esp. 358; Collins, Beyond the Qumran Community, 3.
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124)
E. Sukenik, The Dead Sea Scrolls of the Hebrew University (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1955). See also G. Brooke, Qumran and the Jewish Jesus: Reading the New Testament in the Light of the Scrolls (Cambridge: Grove Books, 2005), 9.
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127)
See García Martínez, “Reconsidering the Cave 1 Texts,” 7-8. Cf. also White Crawford, “Qumran: Caves, Scrolls, and Buildings,” 270-71.
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129)
Y. Yadin, “The Synagogue at Masada,” in Ancient Synagogues Revealed (ed. L. I. Levine; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1981), 19-23, esp. 22.
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130)
Y. Aharoni, “Expedition B,” IEJ 11 (1961): 11-24, esp. 21-24.
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140)
Casson, Libraries in the Ancient World, 81-89. Cf. also Too, The Idea of the Library in the Ancient World, 222.
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145)
See the discussion in de Vaux, Archaeology and the Dead Sea Scrolls, 32-33.
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146)
See Too, The Idea of the Library in the Ancient World, 218, 225, 241-42; the quote is from Woolf, “Approaching the Ancient Library.” On Galen in Athenaeus’ Deipnosophistae see also Nicholls, “Galen and Libraries,” 129.
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147)
Cf., e.g., C. A. Newsom, The Self as Symbolic Space: Constructing Identity and Community at Qumran (STDJ 52; Leiden: Brill, 2004).
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149)
E. Tigchelaar, “The Dead Sea Scrolls,” in The Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism (ed. J. J. Collins and D. C. Harlow; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2010), 163-80.
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151)
See, e.g., M. Gigante, Philodemus in Italy: The Books from Herculaneum (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995); D. Obbink, “Craft, Cult, and Canon in the Books from Herculaneum,” in Philodemus and the New Testament World (ed. J. T. Fitzgerald, D. Obbink, and G. S. Holland; NTSup 111; Leiden: Brill, 2004), 73-84; D. Sider, The Library of the Villa dei Papyri at Herculaneum (Los Angeles: Getty, 2005); Houston, “Papyrological Evidence for Book Collections”; T. Dorandi, “Pratiques d’écriture et de copie dans la bibliothèque de Philodème à Herculanum,” in Perrin, Neronia VIII, 100-104; D. Sider, “The Books of the Villa of the Papyri,” in The Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum: Archaeology, Reception, and Digital Reconstruction (ed. M. Zarmakoupi; Berlin: De Gruyter, 2010), 115-27. Cf. also H. Lapin, “Dead Sea Scrolls and the Historiography of Ancient Judaism,” in Grossman, Rediscovering the Dead Sea Scrolls, 108-27, esp. 126. If, for a brief moment, we take a broad perspective on these two collections we may note with Woolf, “Approaching the Ancient Library,” that both collections were clearly worlds apart. Whatever community stood behind the Dead Sea Scrolls, it was a very different one from Philodemus’ Epicurean school at Herculaneum. Philodemus originated from Gadara, which was close by, in the first century B.C.E., when most of the manuscripts from Qumran were copied. Being different “reading communities” led to these parallel literatures being kept apart. For the notion of “reading community,” see Johnson, Readers and Reading Culture in the High Roman Empire.
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153)
See also S. Fraade, “Interpretive Authority in the Studying Community at Qumran,” JJS 44 (1993): 46-69.
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154)
B. Stock, The Implications of Literacy: Written Language and Models of Interpretation in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983). See also A. I. Baumgarten, The Flourishing of Jewish Sects in the Maccabean Era: An Interpretation (JSJSup 55; Leiden: Brill, 1997), 126-27.
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161)
See Popović, “Roman Book Destruction in Qumran Cave 4,” 274-91.
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162)
See Shavit, “The ‘Qumran Library,’ ” 307; Elgvin, “The Yaḥad Is More Than Qumran,” 275, 276.
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Qumran as Scroll Storehouse in Times of Crisis? A Comparative Perspective on Judaean Desert Manuscript Collections1
In: Journal for the Study of JudaismSearch for other papers by Mladen Popović in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Abstract
This article takes a material and comparative approach to the Qumran collection. Distinctive features set the Qumran manuscripts apart from other Judaean Desert collections, suggesting a scholarly, school-like collection of predominantly literary texts. The few literary texts from other Judaean Desert sites reflect the valuable copies owned by wealthy individuals or families and are illustrative of the spread of these texts within various strata of ancient Jewish society. The historical context of most manuscript depositions in the Judaean Desert is characterized by violence and conflict, and such a context probably also typified the deposition of the Qumran manuscripts. In contrast to at least some of the other Judaean Desert sites where refugees hid with their manuscripts, the deposition evidence at Qumran may suggest an anticipation of such violence. The movement behind the Dead Sea Scrolls can be characterized as a textual community, reflecting a milieu of Jewish intellectuals who were engaged on various levels with their ancestral traditions. The collection of texts attracted people and shaped their thinking, while at the same time people shaped the collection, producing and gathering more texts. In this sense, the site of Qumran and its surrounding caves functioned like a storehouse for scrolls.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 531 | 76 | 5 |
| Full Text Views | 187 | 10 | 1 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 190 | 25 | 3 |
