The common phrase “writing on the wall” comes from the biblical story of Daniel and the Babylonian king Belshazzar (Daniel 5) in which a mysterious inscription predicts the king’s impending doom.

In the Book of Daniel, the Babylonian king Belshazzar throws a party for some 1,000 of his noble guests at which he decides to drink from cups that his predecessor, Nebuchadnezzar, had taken from the Jerusalem Temple. Suddenly, a mysterious hand appears, writing on the plaster wall an inscription that nobody seems able to decipher. Then comes Daniel (also called Belteshazzar), who during his exile in Babylon was made the chief of the Babylonian magicians, having explained previously the dream of King Nebuchadnezzar about a tree (Daniel 4). He reads the writing on the wall as mene, mene, teqel, uparsin, translating it as “numbered, numbered, weighed, and divided.”

Paradoxically, the Book of Daniel is one of only two biblical books written mostly in Aramaic. Sixth-century Babylonians would have been able to understand the language, so it is confusing that King Belshazzar and his wise men cannot read the sentence. It could be due to some kind of cryptography, or perhaps they simply do not understand what they are reading. Nevertheless, Daniel interprets the supernatural inscription as a divine judgment against Belshazzar, explaining that God has “numbered” the king’s days, that the king has been “weighed” and found wanting, and that his kingdom has been “divided” and given to the Medes and Persians. Although modern scholars continue to wrestle with the sentence’s grammar, Daniel’s interpretation uses the double meaning of each word’s root letters: mnh meaning both “to count” and “to finish”; tql meaning “to weigh” and “to be wanting”; and prs meaning “to divide” and “Persia.”

In modern usage, the inscription on the plaster wall in Belshazzar’s palace at Babylon signifies something apparently ominous. Sometimes referred to with the shorthand expression menetekel, the phrase “writing on the wall” is synonymous with a clear warning sign heralding someone’s doom or an inevitable catastrophe.

PHOTO © HEINI SCHNEEBELI / BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

Locusts are a type of grasshopper that can swarm. Since there is no taxonomic difference between grasshoppers and locusts, they are impossible to distinguish in artistic representations. Of approximately 12,000 grasshopper species, which all belong to the family Acrididae, only 19 can swarm and are considered locusts. Two species have lived in the lands of the Bible: the desert locust (Schistocerca gregaria) and the migratory locust (Locusta migratoria).

Although grasshoppers are solitary winged insects inhabiting grasslands and semi-arid regions of all continents except Antarctica, locusts persist in hot and dry areas, including the Sahara Desert. When conditions are right, locusts change color and transition into the migratory gregarious phase; they then form groups and eventually take to the skies. Riding the winds and consuming their own weight in food every day, locusts can travel great distances devastating crops and pastureland. During such outbreaks, swarms consisting of billions of ravenous insects can cover hundreds of square miles. To this day, locust plagues cause famines and trigger human migrations.

Unsurprisingly, the Hebrew Bible, which uses ten different words to signify the insect or its different stages, portrays locusts as terrible pests (2 Chronicles 7:13; Psalm 105:34–35; Joel 1–2), most famously in the Egyptian plagues narrative (Exodus 10:3–19). In Judges 6:5 and Jeremiah 46:23, enemy armies are compared to swarms of locusts, a common literary theme across the ancient Near East. Although the Torah prohibits eating most insects, it permits eating certain types of grasshoppers and locusts (Leviticus 11:22). Indeed, grasshoppers are highly nutritious and have been consumed in different cultures for millennia. In the Gospels, John the Baptist is reported to have lived on “locusts and wild honey” during his wilderness ministry (Matthew 3:4; Mark 1:6).

Among the rare artistic representations of grasshoppers is this small amulet, now in a private collection. Less then 2 inches long, it is made of lapis lazuli and likely comes from Roman-era Egypt. Other ancient illustrations come from Egyptian wall paintings as well as Assyrian reliefs showing servants bringing locusts to a royal feast.

HERITAGE IMAGE PARTNERSHIP LTD / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Attempts to define the biblical prophets often start with the etymology most scholars accept for the Hebrew word for “prophet”: nabi (a male prophet) and nebi’a (a female prophet) are both passive participles of the Hebrew root nb’, “to call.” A prophet, then, is “one who is called” or, by inference, “one who is called by God,” more specifically, “one who is called by God to deliver God’s message.” Sometimes, these prophets deliver God’s message through dramatic acts: In Jeremiah 19, for example, God commands the prophet to break a pottery vessel into pieces in order to symbolize that God intends to “break” the people of Jerusalem—which is to say, God intends to unleash divine wrath upon the people as punishment for the evil things they have done in God’s eyes. More typically, though, prophets deliver God’s word orally, often by proclaiming, “Thus said Yahweh,” and then giving voice to God’s pronouncements.

The Bible’s women prophets can conform to this definition. An excellent example is Hulda. According to her story, recounted in 2 Kings 22, she is a prophet living in Jerusalem in the 18th year of the reign of King Josiah of Judah (622 BCE).^a At the king’s command, his secretary, Shaphan, along with several others, seeks her out to “inquire of Yahweh” regarding the credibility of the book of the law that had recently been found in the Jerusalem Temple (2 Kings 22:8). Hulda responds by speaking in the name of Yahweh concerning the book, which most scholars typically identify as some version of the Book of Deuteronomy, reporting that its statutes do indeed reflect God’s will and that Judah, having failed to live up to them, will be punished for its transgressions.

Deborah, identified as a prophet in Judges 4, also performs the prophetic function of receiving messages from the deity and then communicating those messages on God’s behalf. Thus, according to Judges 4:6, Deborah summons a man named Barak and delivers to him God’s command: He is to raise an army and do battle against the Canaanite general Sisera. Deborah further decrees the outcome of the battle: “I [Deborah speaks here for God] will give him [Sisera] into your [Barak’s] hand” (Judges 4:7). There are hiccups, however, as Barak refuses to act according to the deity’s command unless Deborah accompanies him to the battlefield. Deborah agrees but warns that Barak’s reticence will redound negatively upon him: “I will surely go with you,” she tells him, “but glory will not come to you via the path you are following, for Yahweh will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman” (Judges 4:9). And so it comes to pass: Deborah goes to the battlefield with Barak, and Sisera’s army is defeated by the Israelite troops, but Sisera himself is killed by a woman named Jael after he flees from the fighting and takes refuge in her tent. ^b

Another woman prophet, Miriam, is similarly understood as able to fulfill the prophetic role of conveying messages on God’s behalf. In Numbers 12:2, she, along with her brother Aaron, challenges the seemingly sole authority of Moses, God’s ultimate representative (and their other sibling), by asking (rhetorically), “Has he [God] not also spoken through us?”^c However, in the biblical text in which Miriam is specifically identified as a prophet (Exodus 15:20–21), the words to which she gives voice are not an oracle she delivers on God’s behalf but a hymn she sings in praise of the deity after the Israelites’ miraculous escape at the Reed (traditionally, “Red”) Sea. Deborah, too, is remembered for singing the hymn found in Judges 5, lauding God for leading the Israelites to victory over Sisera. Our definition of the Bible’s women prophets, therefore, may need to expand to include the roles they had as musicians.

We may also need to expand our definition to include these women’s work as medico-magical authorities who specialize in providing care to Israelite women. In an enigmatic text found in Ezekiel 13:17–23, Ezekiel condemns a cadre of “daughters of your people who prophesy” for, among other things, their use of wrist bands and some kind of head drapes. According to many, these “daughters” are necromancers, who tie snares of some sort to their arms to capture dead spirits.¹ However, some other scholars propose that the “daughters who prophesy” sew bands of cloth onto other women’s wrists and put head drapes on other women’s heads as medico-magical acts. Similar traditions are known from Mesopotamia, whereby bands and knotted strings were tied around the heads, necks, torsos, and limbs of childbearing women to address difficulties they were facing during their pregnancies.²

Overall, there is no simple definition that can capture the many roles the Bible’s women prophets seemingly assume. Rather, like women today, ancient Israel’s women prophets were the ultimate multitaskers, undertaking a variety of activities on God’s behalf.

—–

Do you recognize this portion of a painting of a famous biblical story?

1. Noli me tangere by Fra Angelico
2. The Last Judgment by Jan van Eyck
3. The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch
4. The Creation of the World and the Expulsion from Paradise by Giovanni di Paolo
5. The Archangel Michael by Dosso Dossi

PUBLIC DOMAIN VIA THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART / CC0 1.0 UNIVERSAL

Answer: (2) The Last Judgment by Jan van Eyck

This oil-on-panel painting, completed between 1436 and 1438, depicts the final judgment of Jesus Christ at the end of time. At the top is Jesus himself, flanked by angels and seated at the head of a great council of saints, apostles, virgins, clergy, and nobility. This scene represents heaven. Just below, the archangel in the center of the image calls forth the dead from land and sea. Below is a grim hellscape into which are cast those not admitted into heaven.

The work is paired with another of Van Eyck’s paintings depicting the Crucifixion (not shown). Together, the two panels form a diptych, that is, a single work consisting of two parts; however, modern research has revealed that they originally served as the two side panels of a triptych or the doors of a tabernacle or reliquary shrine.

Like its counterpart, The Last Judgment measures less than 2 feet in height, showcasing Van Eyck’s extraordinary skill at achieving exquisite detail on a miniature scale. In addition to the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin inscriptions within the painting itself, the wood frame also bears inscriptions of biblical texts in both Latin and Middle Dutch.

THE PICTURE ART GALLERY /
ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

What is a “pesher”?

1. A type of grinding tool
2. A biblical song or hymn
3. A type of biblical commentary
4. Part of a camel’s harness
5. An ancient list of tribes or cities

Answer: (3) A type of biblical commentary

A pesher (plural: pesharim) is a distinctive style of biblical commentary known most famously from the Dead Sea Scrolls. It is essentially a line-by-line walkthrough of a biblical text, with each line or section followed by an interpretation—a pesher—that purports to illuminate or explain the biblical passage.

A number of pesharim are attested among the Dead Sea Scrolls, but the most famous is known as Pesher Habakkuk (the first columns of which are pictured here). This scroll was one of the initial seven to be discovered, and it continues to shape scholarship on the scrolls and the Qumran community. A sample from this document provides a clear example of the pesher style, with the text of the Book of Habakkuk interspersed with comments every few lines:

“Dread and fearsome are they; their justice and dignity proceed from themselves.” (Habakkuk 1:7)

Its pesher (interpretation) concerns the Kittim (Romans), the fear and dread of whom are on all the nations; all their thoughts are premeditated to do evil, and with cunning and treachery they behave toward all the peoples.

Most notable in this example, as throughout the Qumran pesharim, is the inclination to read the biblical text as bearing directly on the time and circumstances of the pesher’s authorship. Thus here, whereas in the biblical context the verse from Habakkuk is part of a lengthy pronouncement about the Babylonians, the author of the pesher reads it instead as a reference to the Romans—the empire in control of the southern Levant when the commentary was written.

IANDAGNALL COMPUTING / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

According to the Book of Genesis, after the great flood receded, Noah’s three sons disembarked from the ark, and “from them the whole world branched out” (9:19). Genesis 10 then provides a detailed account of where Noah’s descendants settled. It presents a genealogical list of names known as the Table of Nations, with each name representing a different group of people.¹ For instance, Javan signifies the Ionians or Greek groups in the northwest, Madai indicates the Medes in the northeast, and Hazarmaveth represents the people of Hadramaut, located in the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula, among many others spanning a vast geographic expanse.

In recent years, scholars have pondered how the biblical writers, who represented an inland population and who typically focused on internal Israelite affairs, gained access to such extensive geographical knowledge. They have proposed various sources of inspiration or information. One potentially fruitful avenue is to examine Mesopotamian literature, considering the Table of Nations’ association with the Flood narrative (which originated in Mesopotamia) and the broader influence of Mesopotamian culture on Israelite literary models. Mesopotamian literature features several instances of geographical and encyclopedic texts, such as the Babylonian Map of the World and works detailing the extent of Sargon II’s empire, such as the Sargon Geography.² Both texts demonstrate substantial geographical knowledge and literary prowess. However, scholars acknowledge that Mesopotamian geographical compositions differ from the biblical Table of Nations in terms of content, genre, and extent of geographical focus. Unlike the Table of Nations, which primarily serves as a genealogical lineage listing the eponymous descendants of the protagonist of the Flood story, these Mesopotamian works primarily emphasize geographical details. Thus, while the two bodies of literature may share common elements, the biblical Table of Nations stands apart in its distinct focus and purpose.

Furthermore, although the biblical Flood story has its origins in Mesopotamia, none of its Mesopotamian precursors depicts the protagonist or his sons as the fathers of the world’s nations, nor do they emphasize the genealogies of these eponymous fathers. Figures such as Ziusudra, the Sumerian flood hero, and Utnapishtim in the Epic of Gilgamesh attain eternal life but are subsequently removed from the human sphere, with their descendants left unmentioned.

Many years ago, Umberto Cassuto briefly proposed an alternative way of understanding the origins of the Table of Nations. He noticed the similarities between it and the lamentation for Tyre in Ezekiel 27, both of which demonstrate a comprehensive knowledge of geography.³ In this lamentation, Ezekiel vividly portrays Tyre as a grand and opulent ship, constructed from the finest materials sourced from various regions across the ancient world (Ezekiel 27:3–7). Nations from far and wide participated in the operation of this ship: “The inhabitants of Sidon and Arvad were your rowers … The elders of Byblos and its artisans were within you … Paras and Lud and Put were in your army,” and so forth (27:8–10). Drawing a parallel between Ezekiel’s prophecy concerning Tyre and the Table of Nations in Genesis 10, Cassuto proposed that both lists of peoples might be rooted in geographical traditions acquired by Phoenician traders and settlers through their extensive connections with surrounding lands.

Unfortunately, only a few literary works have survived from the ancient Phoenician world that might strengthen Cassuto’s hypothesis, largely due to the prevalent practice in the Levant of writing on perishable materials. Nonetheless, there is some late fragmentary evidence suggesting that Phoenician literary traditions did include lists of eponymous names. The use of geographical or ethnic names in genealogies in the style of Genesis 10 can be found, for example, in the second-century CE writings of Philo of Byblos (as preserved by Eusebius), who apparently drew upon earlier Phoenician traditions; for example, he offers a description of an old generation of peoples bearing the names of mountains or mountain ranges, including Casius (Mt. Zaphon), Lebanon, and Anti-Lebanon (Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel 1.9–10). The next generation saw the birth of two brothers whose parentage is not specified: Samemroumos, also called High-in-Heaven (Hypsouranios), who founded Tyre, and his brother Ousoos who quarreled with him. The first brother represents šmm rmm, a district within the ancient city of Tyre, while the second represents Ushu, the name of mainland Tyre.

Further support for Cassuto’s hypothesis may come from early Greek genealogical compositions first put in writing in the late seventh or early sixth century BCE. Recent editions of Hesiod’s Catalogue of Women, a seminal Greek genealogical work,⁴ along with new studies of Greek mythographers in prose, offer a comprehensive approach to early Greek genealogical material and its parallels with the Pentateuch.⁵ Notably, similarities between Greek genealogical compositions and Genesis include the depiction of ethnic groups descending from a flood hero. Just as Noah begets Shem, Ham, and Japheth in the biblical narrative, the Greek flood hero Deucalion—son of Prometheus and grandson of the Titan Iapetus—holds a central role in Greek genealogical traditions. Deucalion begets Hellen, the forefather of the Greeks, whose three offspring become the progenitors of major Greek groups: Dorus, Aeolus, and Xuthus, the father of the Ionians and the Acheans (Hesiod, preserved in Plutarch, Table Talk 9.747f).

The parallels between biblical sources and Greek genealogical traditions are significant, particularly considering the absence of the dispersion of peoples following the flood in Mesopotamian accounts. While a direct link between biblical and Greek sources cannot be claimed, it is noteworthy that the Greek flood account is believed to have originated from the ancient Near East rather than being indigenous to Greece. The flood protagonist holds a prominent place in Greek genealogical traditions, although the flood story itself did not attain the same prominence in Greece as it did in the ancient Near East. Scholars suggest that the flood story reached the Greek world through contact with civilizations in the northern Levant or Syria during the Archaic period (c. eighth–fifth centuries BCE). It is plausible that this Syro-Levantine flood narrative included the genealogical pattern of placing the flood protagonist at the head of genealogical lists, along with other unique motifs.

If the Greek flood story indeed reflects Syro-Levantine traditions, then this may further support the claim that the biblical Table of Nations is based on geographical, mythological, and genealogical traditions that circulated in the eastern Mediterranean. Writers from this region described their history and delineated their ethnic identity in comparison to neighboring groups by drawing upon the Mesopotamian legacy and reworking these traditions and old notions in a new spirit. Thus, the genealogical-geographical lists in Genesis 10 are but examples of similar traditions prevalent in the eastern Mediterranean. Although the Mesopotamian geographical texts cannot serve as a close model to the biblical Table of Nations, the lament to Tyre in Ezekiel 27 and several Greek genealogical works preserve similar broad geographical traditions and may attest to interconnections and interrelations between civilizations of the pre-Hellenistic eastern Mediterranean.

How many chapters of the Biblical Archaeology Society were formed around the United States?

Answer: At least 14 chapters

In 1981, the Biblical Archaeology Society (BAS) launched its chapter program with the goal of connecting like-minded individuals who shared a passion for biblical archaeology. BAR founder Hershel Shanks gathered a group of friends and acquaintances from around the country who shared his vision and brought them all to Washington, D.C., for a planning meeting. It was decided that BAS’s home office in Washington would serve as the national headquarters, supporting the chapters by advertising their groups and programming in BAR and by providing one speaker a year. From this initial meeting, the chapters grew to at least 14 groups from Los Angeles to New York and everywhere in between.

In addition to hosting regular meetings in which top scholars and well-known BAR authors were invited to give lectures on their work, chapters also organized short courses on biblical archaeology, toured local museums, and represented BAS at conventions.

Although most of the local chapters eventually closed or disbanded, a few continue to exist in various forms, either as email or social media groups or as wholly independent organizations with their own lectures and events, most notably the Biblical Archaeology Society of Northern Virginia.

—–

Hebel = “morning vapor” or “vanity” or “enigma”

The etymology of some personal names in the Hebrew Bible points to a person’s nature or emphasizes themes connected with the narratives in which the person appears. The Semitic root hbl means literally “vapor that disappears quickly under the first rays of morning sun” or simply “air” or “breath.” Transcribed to English as Abel, it is the name of Adam’s second son, Hebel, in the Book of Genesis, chapter 4. His life is accordingly described as transient, with no lasting significance for future generations (because he died without heirs).

The noun hebel appears 38 times in the Book of Ecclesiastes (Hebrew: Qoheleth), where it describes the earthly life and human toils as “vanity,” “futility,” or “fleeting.” Some recent translations of Ecclesiastes render hebel as “enigma,” thus allowing a hopeful view of the Qoheleth’s notorious pessimism and nihilism: Even though our mental capacities cannot grasp the nature of this transient life, one can find meaning and happiness through God.

Interestingly, the word hebel occurs nowhere else in the ancient world as a personal name. A rival etymology, however, points to the Akkadian word for “son,” aplu, which Abel could reflect in his name, him being one of the two first sons born to humanity, and given that scholars see a strong Mesopotamian background in the early chapters of the Book of Genesis. However, one would need to account for the shift from a b sound to a p sound. In the Assyrian realm, the word aplu features in names like Tiglath-Pileser (i.e., Tukultī-apil-Ešarra), which translates “my trust is (in) the son of Esharra.”

THE PICTURE ART COLLECTION / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947, the figure known as the Teacher of Righteousness has captivated both scholarly and popular imagination. On the basis of the limited evidence available, early scroll scholars created a portrait of the teacher as a religious and political figure who established the scroll community in the face of fierce opposition. Some even identified this individual with the high priest and Hasmonean leader John Hyrcanus or a historical figure known as Judah the Essene referenced by Josephus.^a

But how does the early assessment of the Teacher of Righteousness hold up after decades of additional discovery and study? How might we reimagine this figure, given what we now know about both the scrolls and the site of Qumran?

Among the more than 950 scrolls that have been discovered, the Teacher of Righteousness is explicitly mentioned in just two: the Damascus Document and the Commentary on Habakkuk. In addition, the Thanksgiving Hymns have long served as the third leg for historical understandings of the teacher.

The Damascus Document offers a chronology that, at least to early scholars, appeared to situate the Teacher of Righteousness in the mid-second century BCE. The Commentary on Habakkuk played a similar role in the historical identification of the teacher and his contemporaries. The latter’s references to the “Teacher of Righteousness,” the “Sons of Zadok,” and the “Man of the Lie” linked it early on to the Damascus Document. The Commentary is still considered to be the most important text for understanding the teacher, whom it presents in a dramatic rivalry with other figures who contended with him for authority. Some argued that it was necessary to identify these figures with known historical individuals, and proceeded to do so, generally in ways that accorded with a second-century chronology.

Scholarly assessments of the historical value of the Commentary have undergone significant change, however, moving from strong optimism to dark pessimism. For instance, the second-century dating derived from the Damascus Document and affirmed by once-established interpretations of the Commentary has been vigorously challenged by new understandings of Qumran. Jodi Magness’s examination of the site’s archaeology has posed a serious challenge to the long-standing view that Qumran was established in the second century, arguing instead for a first-century date.¹ Her compelling reexamination of the site, independent of the textual evidence, has forced scholars to reevaluate the second-century theories about the identification of the teacher and other “historical” figures.

In addition to the Damascus Document and the Commentary, early scholars turned to a third source for their understanding of the teacher: the Thanksgiving Hymns (Hodayot). Early on, Eliezar Sukenik proposed that certain hymns from this scroll were the autobiographical meditations of the teacher himself. Sukenik based this theory on his own readings of the vivid imagery and emotional character of these first-person hymns, specifically those found in columns 9–17 of the scroll, a subgroup that quickly became known as the Teacher Hymns. Similarly, in 1956, Frederick F. Bruce wrote that “many of [the hymns] strike a personal note which strongly suggests that they were first composed to express the experience and devotion of one man, and that one man could hardly have been anybody other than the Teacher of Righteousness.”² Such a view was largely driven by the strong voice of the speaker in these hymns and their supposed allusions to events detailed in other texts, such as the Commentary, especially passages that speak of the teacher’s rivals.

While some scroll scholars were persuaded by the truth-telling quality of these supposedly autobiographical writings, I have argued that such works follow the predictable contours of fiction, with only the illusory effects of historical writing.³ So the assumption that historical facts can be recovered from first-person prayers is methodologically problematic. Based on studies of the abundant prayers from the scrolls, we know that the compositional techniques for such texts relied heavily on stereotypical phrases and biblical language, thus making it very difficult to extract reliable historical information.

Moreover, the unique characteristics and striking imagery of the hymns led to the problematic reasoning that there could have been only one such remarkable individual in the community. Such a claim clearly presumes a scrolls community that emerged at a single decisive moment, a view that was resoundingly refuted in recent decades with the work on the Community Rule.⁴

Now that all of the Dead Sea Scrolls have been published, scholars are acutely aware that no new textual evidence has emerged about the Teacher of Righteousness. As a result, new perspectives on the teacher require a revised assessment of the evidence we already have. In one such approach, Charlotte Hempel has described the primary driving force behind Qumran scholarship as one of historical reconstruction.⁵ Hempel illustrates a visible shift away from historical origins with two brilliant (albeit quite modern) analogies to represent the changing understandings of the Teacher of Righteousness: (1) John Wayne as he gallops onto the scene to rescue a community in distress and (2) the veiled and more obscure Wizard of Oz whose persona looms larger than his actual reality. As she and others have shown, one of the major areas of development in understanding the scrolls is the recognition that the texts do not reflect the unmediated concerns of one group, but instead should be appreciated as offering highly mediated understandings of multiple communities and experiences over time.

Meanwhile, scholars of religion have moved away from attempting to reconstruct historical origins and are now more interested in recovering how these texts reflect the lived experience of religion. They no longer read the texts about the teacher at face value, instead highlighting the possibility that the teacher was a conceptual or even mythical figure emerging from the exegesis of biblical prophetic texts.

Additionally, the key text associated with the teacher—the Commentary on Habakkuk—is highly dramatic and vivid, presenting the teacher within a supercharged conflict with his rivals. Such scenes prime readers’ sympathies, urging them to reexperience these foundational events (whether historical or mythical) and to respond emotionally to the conflict and the tragic experiences of betrayal and outrage over the behavior of wicked enemies. Such emotional responses can contribute in significant ways to the formation of group identity.⁶

Although early understandings of the Teacher of Righteousness were marked by an optimism concerning what can be reconstructed from this time period, scholars today are no longer convinced that it is possible to recover such a historical figure with certainty. Instead, their attention is redirected to questions about the religious beliefs, practices, and traditions of the Qumran community, insofar as they can be reconstructed from the writings that have survived.

HIP / ART RESOURCE, NY

These gilded and enameled copper plates, called armillae (sing. armilla), were affixed with cords or ribbons to the shoulders of ceremonial or liturgical vestments. Originating in Roman times, when they were given to soldiers as emblems of valor, armillae remained popular signs of status and prestige in Europe up through the Middle Ages. Vanishingly few medieval examples have survived, however, making this remarkably well-preserved set exceptionally significant.

This pair of armillae was likely given by Frederick Barbarossa, Holy Roman Emperor in the 12th century, as a gift to the Russian prince Andrey Bogolyubsky in c. 1170. The beautifully enameled scenes on each are highly detailed. One armilla shows the Crucifixion, complete with two angels, Mary, John, the spear-wielding Longinus, Stephaton offering the sponge soaked with vinegar, and Roman soldiers casting lots for Jesus’s garments. The other armilla shows the Resurrection, with two angels welcoming Jesus from his tomb and the sleeping Roman soldiers below.

© RMN-GRAND PALAIS / ART RESOURCE, NY

Over the centuries, this pair of armillae was split up; the one showing the Crucifixion found its way into the German National Museum, while its counterpart with the Resurrection ended up in the Louvre in Paris. Nevertheless, longstanding tradition holds that both pieces belonged to Bogolyubsky, although some recent scholarship has called into question the connection between the two.