Retrieving the World of Ancient Judaism

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Now that the full corpus of the Dead Sea Scrolls is available to everyone, we can appreciate as never before the richness and variety of Jewish literature at the turn of the era. Of the approximately one thousand manuscripts that were hidden in the caves near Qumran, only about 600 can be recovered in significant part. About one-third of these are biblical manuscripts. The great bulk of the remainder contain texts that had been lost for nearly two thousand years. Other Jewish writings of the period between the Maccabees (second century B.C.E.) and the Mishnah (200 C.E.) were also lost for centuries and have been recovered only in translations in such languages as Syriac, Ethiopic and Old Church Slavonic. These latter writings, which mainly fall in the category of Pseudepigrapha (writings attributed to famous ancient figures, such as Enoch), were preserved by Christians and often contain Christian interpolations that are difficult to disentangle from the Jewish originals. So the literature of a crucial period of human history, which saw the birth of Christianity and the formation of rabbinic Judaism, was lost for centuries and can now be recovered only with difficulty from fragmentary manuscripts and problematic translations.

In part, the loss of this literature was due to the hazards of history, and especially to the suppression of Judea by Rome. But the loss also reflected the theological priorities of religious leaders in the late first century C.E. A few decades after the settlement of Qumran was destroyed by the Romans in 68 C.E., Josephus wrote in his defense of Judaism: “We do not possess myriads of inconsistent books, conflicting with each other. Our books, those which are justly accredited, are but two and twenty, and contain the record of all time” (Against Apion 1.37–41).

A myriad of inconsistent books had indeed existed but had been greatly reduced, primarily it would seem, because of decisions among authorities as to what should be preserved. A contemporary apocalyptic writer reflects the same phenomenon from another perspective. In 2 Esdras 14, Ezra is inspired to dictate anew the scriptures that were lost because of the Babylonian conquest (which frequently serves in the literature of this period as a figurative way of commenting on the Roman conquest). Ezra dictates a total of 94 books. Then he is told: “Make public the twenty-four books that you wrote first that the worthy and the unworthy may read them; but keep the seventy that were written last in order to give them to the wise among your people. For in them is the spring of understanding, the fountain of wisdom and the river of knowledge.”

It is generally assumed that 4 Ezra’s 24 (biblical) books and Josephus’ 22 are the same books counted differently. Some later Christian authorities, such as Origen and Jerome, count Judges-Ruth and Jeremiah-Lamentations as one book each, for a total of 22, while 24 remains the standard number in talmudic sources. The quotations from Josephus and 4 Ezra reflect what may be called, somewhat anachronistically, the closing of the canon, which had taken place by the last decade of the first century C.E.—precisely when, we do not know. The so-called Council of Jamnia (c. 90 C.E.) has been discredited as the creator of the Jewish canon insofar as it implies a formal body like the later Church councils. It is possible that the specification of 24 books had already taken place in Pharisaic circles before the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple by the Romans in 70 C.E. Only in the period after 70, however, does this number become standard for Judaism.

Some of the texts in the Dead Sea Scrolls were abandoned because they were sectarian compositions whose ideology was unacceptable to the Pharisees. It has often been suggested that apocalyptic writings were abandoned because of the failure of the Jewish revolts against Rome. This last suggestion is very doubtful as many of the apocalypses are clearly quietistic. It is true, however, that the reduction of the number of scriptures coincided with the end of Jewish sectarianism. Having a small corpus of agreed-on scriptures did not guarantee unity, but it lessened somewhat the potential for sectarian division.

The end of sectarianism came at a price. By any reckoning, there were many noncanonical writings against which there could be no objection on theological or ideological grounds. The book of Ben Sira is a case in point. It is a repository of traditional Jewish wisdom that is in no way sectarian. Many of the abandoned writings match the canonical scriptures in the quality of their spirituality. The Hodayot (Thanksgiving Psalms) of Qumran compare well with the Psalter as an expression of the human condition before God, and 4 Ezra rivals Job in its plumbing of the problem of theodicy (accounting for evil in the world).

From the viewpoint of the historian of religion, the closing of the canon was an unmitigated disaster, as it led to the loss or 044suppression of a rich literature. The theologian may view it more positively, as it helped to focus the religious tradition. But even from that viewpoint, the loss was considerable, since the canonical scriptures were to a great extent deprived of their literary context. Happily, a large body of extracanonical literature has now been recovered. We should at least try to ensure that this literature is not lost again to posterity by a narrow emphasis on the canon.

Now that the full corpus of the Dead Sea Scrolls is available to everyone, we can appreciate as never before the richness and variety of Jewish literature at the turn of the era. Of the approximately one thousand manuscripts that were hidden in the caves near Qumran, only about 600 can be recovered in significant part. About one-third of these are biblical manuscripts. The great bulk of the remainder contain texts that had been lost for nearly two thousand years. Other Jewish writings of the period between the Maccabees (second century B.C.E.) and the Mishnah (200 C.E.) were also […]