Religious Experience and Divinization in the Sectarian Dead Sea Scrolls

Living in the Liminal

Series: 

For members of the sectarian Dead Sea Scrolls movement, participation in the group would have granted an individual special privileges, including present, unmediated access to otherworldly realities. This understanding of the present as a type of liminal space is rooted in the group’s constructions of time and space. Drawing on theories of liminality and anthropological research on religious consciousness, this study seeks to demonstrate how sectarian identity and ritual and liturgical practice might have cultivated an experience of present communion with divine beings that was also aspirational and aimed to achieve the human worshiper’s permanent incorporation into the heavenly realm.
Copyright Year:
2026
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24 Nov 2025
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20 Nov 2025
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Rebecca L. Harris (PhD, Rice University) is Associate Professor of Biblical Studies at Messiah University. Her publications include articles on 2 Baruch and 4 Maccabees, contributions to The Westminster Study Bible, and an encyclopedia entry on Passover in early Judaism.
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Translations
Key to Symbols

1 Introduction
 1.1 Accessing Religious Experience in Antiquity
 1.2 Religious Experience and the Dead Sea Scrolls: a Brief Survey of Scholarship
 1.3 Tanya Luhrmann and the Dead Sea Scrolls
 1.4 The Horizons and Limits of Liminality
 1.5 (Re)Constructing a Sectarian Paracosm: Terms and Considerations
 1.6 An Outline of the Study

Part 1: Constructing a Liminal Present


 Introduction to Part 1

2 The Last Days
 2.1 Introduction
 2.2 Rethinking the Two-Age Scheme
 2.3 Locating the Last Days Period
 2.4 The Nature of the Last Days
 2.5 Beyond the Limit
 2.6 Conclusion

3 Sacred Time
 3.1 Introduction
 3.2 Synchronizing Sacred Times
 3.3 Sacralizing the Mundane
 3.4 Conclusion

Part 2: Social, Geographical, and Transcendent Spaces


 Introduction to Part 2

4 Becoming Eternal (Social Space)
 4.1 Introduction
 4.2 The Formation and Development of a Sectarian Paracosm
 4.3 Training Devotion
 4.4 Those Who Know
 4.5 Conclusion

5 The Pure Life (Physical and Geographical Space)
 5.1 Introduction
 5.2 Embodied Space
 5.3 Geographical Space: Khirbet Qumran as a Sacred Site
 5.4 Conceptual Geographical Space: the Wilderness and Damascus
 5.5 Conclusion

6 Limitless (Transcendent Space)
 6.1 Introduction
 6.2 On Earth as It Is in Heaven
 6.3 Living as a Sacrifice
 6.4 Destined to an Eternal Lot
 6.5 Conclusion

Part 3: Transformative Liturgies: Liturgies That Do Things


 Introduction to Part 3

7 Divinization: a Participatory Approach to 1QHa
 7.1 Introduction
 7.2 Performing the Hodayot as a Liturgical Progression
 7.3 The Spirit You Placed in Me
 7.4 Liminality
 7.5 Divinization
 7.6 Conclusion

8 Joining the Angels
 8.1 Introduction
 8.2 Converging Communions: Lifting Limits Liturgically
 8.3 Waging War Liturgically
 8.4 Joining the Angels: Liturgical Progression in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice
 8.5 Conclusion

9 Conclusions
 9.1 Summary
 9.2 Limitations and Outlook
Bibliography
Index
This book would be of interest to Dead Sea Scrolls scholars and graduate students working on the DSS, as well as scholars of early Judaism and Christianity.
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Publisher:
Brill
Language:
English
Pages:
xiv, 262 pp.
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004748040

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