Traveling Scrolls Debate Touches Down in Washington

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In conjunction with the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit at the Library of Congress (see “The Scrolls Are Here!”), the Library and Baltimore Hebrew University on April 21st and 22nd sponsored a symposium on the current state of scroll research. Ten leading scholars, representing a cross-section of opinion, delivered papers.

The tremendous public interest in the scrolls was very evident on the symposium’s first day. Television crews and newspaper reporters were busy interviewing scholars. Who could have predicted a few years ago that the specialists in the small and arcane world of Dead Sea Scroll studies would be so sought after by journalists? And who would have thought that some of the specialists would be so adept at honing their scholarly opinions into the brief sound-bites so dear to the media?

Joseph Baumgarten, of Baltimore Hebrew University and an editor of scroll texts, wondered in his welcoming remarks how the authors of the scrolls would have reacted if they had prophetically foreseen today’s keen interest in their work. “Would they have been pleased,” Baumgarten asked, “or would they have wished that they did a better job of hiding them in the caves?”

Baumgarten then posed the central question in scroll studies: Do we have in the scrolls the ideas of a fringe group or a broad religious spectrum typical of Second Temple Judaism?

Geza Vermes, director of the Forum for Qumran Research at the Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies, followed with the keynote address, in which he reviewed the history of the scrolls’ discovery and their sad fate as many of the fragments languished for decades without publication and inaccessible to all but a tight circle of insular scholars. It is a story that Vermes is particularly qualified to tell, having been excluded for many years from the official publication team.

That situation has now of course changed, as Vermes was quick to point out. “Before 1991 the issue was how to ensure for the many access … in 1993, the main problem is how to coordinate peacefully and sensibly the efforts of a large number of scholars toward the common goal of editing and evaluating what is thought to be the greatest Hebrew manuscript discovery of all times,” Vermes said.

Vermes moved on to summarize the current state of Dead Sea Scroll research. The archaeological, literary, historical and paleographical evidence has led, Vermes said, to a persuasive consensus view: The scrolls date from the second century B.C.E. to the first century C.E., with the bulk of the texts written between 150 B.C.E. and the start of the Christian era. Further, the texts are linked to the settlement at Qumran, which lies very near the caves where the scrolls were discovered, and the texts—and hence the settlement—are Essene. “I remain unrepentant,” Vermes said, in proclaiming the Essene hypothesis as the soundest today.

Eugene Ulrich, of Notre Dame, followed with “The Bible at Qumran.” He stressed that we should not think of a Bible as we know it in the first century B.C.E. or first century C.E. Collections of sacred scriptures varied, and our distinction today between Biblical texts and pseudepigrapha (texts said to have been written by ancient worthies such as Moses or Noah) was not as clear when the Dead Sea Scrolls were being composed.

In the centuries at the turn of the era, Ulrich said, most Jews accepted the Five Books of Moses and the prophetic books as sacred. But some groups, such as the Sadducees and the Samaritans, accepted only the Five Books of Moses, and even among those who accepted the prophetic books there was disagreement over which books should be 070included. Nor was there a fixed order to the accepted books. Books that we now consider apocryphal and pseudepigraphical were being quoted at Qumran, some of them apparently as canonical.

Ulrich noted that of the 800 manuscripts found in the 11 caves near Qumran, a quarter—about 200—were scriptural. Of these, the most represented are Psalms, Deuteronomy and Isaiah, with 39, 32 and 22 manuscripts respectively—nearly half the total of Biblical documents. Psalms, Deuteronomy and Isaiah, Ulrich added, are also the books most frequently quoted in the New Testament.

The scrolls make it clear that Biblical books at the time contained multiple literary additions. The books were creatively reshaped to meet the needs of the times. Ulrich likened the formation of ancient Biblical texts to the flaky Middle Eastern pastry baklava—the texts contained many layers of tradition.

Running down the Biblical books as we now know them, Ulrich compared our traditional texts to the evidence gleaned from Qumran. The Qumran text of Genesis is basically the same as our traditional text. Exodus, however, seems to have existed in at least two editions, with the one that is not familiar to us being an expanded version that harmonizes parts of Exodus and Deuteronomy. The text of Leviticus, like that of Genesis, seems to have stabilized early and does not significantly differ from our version. Numbers, like Exodus, had two editions, while Deuteronomy seems to have had several editions, none of them exactly matching our text, the Septuagint or the Samaritan Bible.

Ulrich concluded by stating that the scriptures, indeed Judaism and Christianity, were pluriform until at least 70 C.E. (the year of the Roman destruction of Jerusalem) and possibly to 135 C.E. (the year of the Roman defeat of Bar-Kokhba) and perhaps even beyond. Getting back to the “original text” of the Bible may not be the point, Ulrich suggested. Certain books were canonical but particular versions of it were not.

Michael Stone, of Hebrew University, followed with “The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Pseudepigrapha,” a talk so filled with detail regarding texts and their often confusing designations that non-specialists were hard pressed to keep up with him. While Stone’s presentation was of interest only to specialists, he peppered it with numerous witicisms, as when he described the Book of Luminaries at Qumran as even longer and more boring than the previously known Ethiopic version.

The second day of the symposium began with Magen Broshi, curator of the Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem, speaking on “Qumran: The Archaeological Evidence.” Broshi believes the settlement at Qumran contained at any one time about 120 to 150 people. The site’s most striking feature is its many cisterns, most of which were mikvaot (ritual baths). Seventeen percent of the area was devoted to non-utilitarian cisterns. The mikvaot at Qumran resemble those found in Jerusalem, only larger. Broshi noted that the site had one kitchen, one flourmill, one bakery, one laundry and a large room that he takes to be a dining hall. “Life was absolutely communal,” Broshi said.

Broshi, like the majority of scholars, links the Qumran settlement with the nearby caves in which the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. The caves, Broshi said, contained pottery very similar to that at Qumran, and both were very distinct from pottery elsewhere in ancient Israel.

Broshi next turned to the main cemetery at Qumran, located 50 yards from the settlement and which held 1,100 graves (two smaller cemeteries contained 100 additional graves). Of the 43 excavated graves, only four contained women and three contained children. In a normal settlement, Broshi noted, one would expect 70 percent of the graves to contain women and children.

Broshi’s talk was clearly meant to counter the claims put forward by Robert Donceel and Pauline Donceel-Voûte, on the one hand, and Norman Golb, on the other. The Donceels have described Qumran as a luxury resort for wealthy Jerusalemites, while Golb believes it was a military fortress.^a Contra the Donceels, Broshi stated, “Nobody in his right mind, except a religious fanatic, would want to live in such a harsh environment” as Qumran. Contra Golb, Broshi pointed to a slide showing the 2-feet-thick walls around the site and said that no fortress in the world has walls so thin. (Golb defended his view later that day; see below.)

Broshi concluded by citing Pliny the Elder, who described the Essenes as a group living on the shore of the Dead Sea, having renounced sexuality and wealth. The area has been investigated by the best archaeologists and, Broshi added in a wry aside, by the best Bedouin. “Qumran is the only candidate for the place described by Pliny,” Broshi stated.

The talks by the three speakers who followed—P. Kyle McCarter, of Johns Hopkins University; Lawrence Schiffman, of New York University; and James VanderKam, of the University of Notre Dame—put forward ideas that they have presented in our sister publication, Bible Review. McCarter described the enigmatic 072Copper Scroll, a laundry-list inventory of seemingly vast amounts of treasure buried in 64 locations.^b McCarter believes the scroll to be a genuine listing of treasure, but treasure deriving from Jerusalem, not from any ascetic group that may have lived at Qumran. Crediting the contribution of scholar Manfred Lehmann, McCarter said the Copper Scroll may describe treasure from the Jerusalem Temple hidden before its destruction by the Romans in 70 A.D. or contributions destined for the Temple but which never reached it. The most vexing problem regarding the Copper Scroll, McCarter noted, is that the amounts of the treasures and the depths to which they are said to be buried are unrealistically large.

Schiffman took issue with the Essene hypothesis, suggesting instead that the people who produced the scrolls are an unknown Jewish sect. Most of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Schiffman added, were not produced by the Qumran group; the majority of the texts would have been common to all Jewish groups of the time. The document known as MMT, Schiffman said, shows the Qumran sect taking positions on religious and ritual matters that agree with views held by the Sadducees; the opposing group in MMT holds views that agree with known Pharisee positions.

The Qumran group, Schiffman argued, had its roots among Sadducee priests who had had a falling out with the ruling Hasmoneans. But the group, led by the Teacher of Righteousness, evolved away from the Sadducees. The scrolls, in addition to the information they provide on the Qumran sect, are casting light on the heretofore little-known Pharisees. Schiffman sees the evidence of the scrolls—which mention the Pharisees in order to disparage them—as showing that the Pharisees were the dominant group during the Hasmonean period and that Rabbinic Judaism, which portrayed itself as the successor to the Pharisees, did not arise de novo after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple but had its roots in the pre-destruction era.^c

VanderKam covered “Messianism in the Scrolls and in Early Christianity.”^d References to a messiah occur in 15 scrolls—a very small percentage of the total. VanderKam enumerated three messianic titles in the scrolls: Messiah, Branch of David (who is seen as a royal figure) and Prince of the Congregation (a military leader). The New Testament, VanderKam said, uses one and a half of these titles in describing Jesus. Most common, of course, is Christos, Greek for messiah (the Gospel of John twice tranliterates the Hebrew original—moshiach). Branch of David does not appear explicitly, but related terminology from Isaiah 11, the source of the phrase, is used by Paul and in Revelation. Prince of the Congregation does not appear at all.

The New Testament, VanderKam noted, ascribed many more titles than these three to Jesus—Lamb of God, and so on VanderKam also referred to Qumran texts that foresee two messiahs, a priestly figure—the messiah of Aaron—and a royal figure—the messiah of David. The New Testament focus, VanderKam said, is on a single messianic figure who carries out some priestly and some royal functions and others as well (notably saving and dying).

Devorah Dimant, of the University of Haifa, described Cave 4 as the central library of the Qumran community. All the minor documents found in the other caves were also present—and in multiple copies—in Cave 4. Dimant also noted that all the caves contained Biblical, apocryphal and sectarian texts. The Dead Sea Scrolls, in Dimant’s view, are a homogenous collection, with its most unique manuscripts concerned with priestly matters.

Dimant next noted that in addition to the Biblical materials, fully a third of all the texts (240 manuscripts) were works not specific to the Qumran community. Among these are apocalyptic works, which Dimant believes originated outside the community. She pointed out that those documents that are unique to Qumran are all in Hebrew; the apocalyptic literature, on the other hand, is in Aramaic. Nor were the community’s texts pseudepigraphical. Dimant said the texts that came from outside the Qumran community seem to have been carefully selected and were perhaps written by a group out of which the Qumran sect emerged.

Norman Golb, too, was concerned with the nature of the Qumran manuscripts. The University of Chicago professor does not believe that the scrolls are related to the settlement at Qumran but rather originated among various Jewish groups during the late Second Temple period. Golb attacked the Essene hypothesis, which states that the scrolls were produced at Qumran by the ascetic Essene sect, on two fronts. First, he argued that Qumran was not the home of a pious band of religious devotees but a fortress. It enjoys a strategic location, in Golb’s view, and had served as one of several fortresses in a defensive ring around Jerusalem. He sees the site as well built, with a reinforced tower and an extensive water system that could have supplied its inhabitants with water during the site’s annual eight dry months. Golb added that Roland de Vaux, the site’s excavator, found signs of a violent destruction at the hands of the Romans, with walls having been undermined and ash remains indicating a fire. After the Romans had conquered Qumran, Golb added, they occupied the site as a fortress.^e

To further weaken the Essene connection to Qumran, Golb quoted the Roman historian Pliny, whose description of a celibate sect on the shores of the Dead Sea is a major pillar of the Essene hypothesis. Pliny, Golb said, described the Essenes as living near Ein Gedi, which, like Jerusalem, now lay in ruins (Pliny was writing in 77 A.D.). Pliny could not have been referring to Qumran, Golb said, because Qumran was not in ruins at the time—it was inhabited by Roman soldiers.

The second of Golb’s two arguments against the Qumran source for the scrolls springs from the documents themselves. Five hundred different scribes were responsible for the texts found near Qumran. Only Jerusalem could have produced documents by so many hands, not an isolated settlement of celibates. As the Romans approached Jerusalem to quell the Jewish Revolt, the inhabitants hid their valuables and their manuscripts in the nearby Dead Sea area. The scrolls, Golb said, should not be pressed into “a single sectarian bed.” He added, “I don’t find any unity of doctrine in the texts.” The scrolls were not produced by any particular sect, Golb concluded, but should be ascribed to the entire Jewish people of the time.

The final talk, by Shemaryahu Talmon, of Hebrew University, was subtitled “How Should Qumran Studies Proceed?” but was, instead, more a summary of a long career’s worth of insights into the people of the scrolls. To touch on only a few: Talmon called for “a cleansing of terminology,” urging that the phrases Essene, monastery and celibacy be dropped from discussions of Qumran. Talmon prefers the group’s self designation, “The Community of the Renewed Covenant.” As for the group having been celibate and ascetic, Talmon pointed out that the laws in the scrolls applied to women and children as much as to men, and that the manuscripts often refer to riches. (Talmon also described his view that the members of the community were celibate only during a portion of their lives, during which they performed communal service.)

Talmon, who is completing publication of Yigael Yadin’s inscriptional finds from Masada, described those manuscripts as mirroring those at Qumran: approximately equally divided among Biblical, apocryphal and sectarian documents. Like the Qumran 073material, they are written in the square Hebrew alphabet on leather. Talmon, therefore, sees the Qumran scrolls not as a systematic collection but as an accumulation of material brought by refugees.

The views contained in the scrolls, Talmon said, are those of far more than a sect. They are the outlook of a major stream of Judaism that lasted from about 500 B.C.E. to the middle of the first century C.E. Talmon credits the community at Qumran with two towering innovations. The first is messianism, which Talmon says came about when the Jerusalem Temple failed to be restored 390 years after its destruction by the Babylonians (the community did not view the Second Temple, built after the return from Babylon, as legitimate; the figure of 390 years derives from Ezekiel 4:5). To cope with that failure, the community came to be believe in a future restoration by two anointed figures (Talmon wants to avoid the term messiah).

The community’s second achievement was to institutionalize prayer. Adhering to its own calendar, the community was unable to participate in the Temple service; prayer became their alternative. But the community’s prayers, Talmon added, did not include the reading of Biblical passages. That did not become common in Judaism until later, a development that spurred the standardization of the Bible, because when Biblical readings are part of a prayer service, Talmon said, variations become intolerable.

The symposium was rich in insights and intellectual ferment. Although Qumran studies are a 45-year-old field, they seem still to be in their infancy (in good part because of the long monopoly enjoyed by a small number of scholars). Consider the question of who inhabited Qumran: Surveying only four symposium participants, Magen Broshi thinks they were Essenes and celibate, Norman Golb thinks they were not Essenes and not celibate, Lawrence Schiffman thinks they were a sect but not celibate and Shemaryahu Talmon thinks they were far more than a sect and celibate some of the time.

The only consensus in Dead Sea Scroll studies is that there is no consensus.

In conjunction with the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit at the Library of Congress (see “The Scrolls Are Here!”), the Library and Baltimore Hebrew University on April 21st and 22nd sponsored a symposium on the current state of scroll research. Ten leading scholars, representing a cross-section of opinion, delivered papers. The tremendous public interest in the scrolls was very evident on the symposium’s first day. Television crews and newspaper reporters were busy interviewing scholars. Who could have predicted a few years ago that the specialists in the small and arcane world of Dead Sea Scroll studies would be so sought […]