The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls: The ... - josephprestonkirk

JÖRG FREY 439
give rules for married persons. 118 From such observations scholars had
to conclude that those roles were not obligatory for all members and not
at all times, but that we must take into consideration different audiences
and diachronic developments. 119 The increasing number of documents
published since 1991 has demonstrated the great diversity within the
Qumran library, which contained texts of quite different language, literary
genre, 120 and theological position. In view of such a variety, scholarship
has discovered significant differences and developed criteria for the
identification of Essene (sectarian) authorship. 121
Now it is widely accepted that a large number of the nonbiblical texts
from the Qumran library were not composed by the group that inhabited
Qumran and hid the scrolls in the caves. This is obvious regarding the
biblical texts and the well-known Pseudepigrapha such as 1 Enoch or
Jubilees. But many of the remaining nonbiblical documents even lack the
peculiar reference to the community and in particular the community terminology
that is so characteristic, for example, in the Thanksgiving Hymns,
the Habakkuk Pesher, or the Rule of the Community. 122 Many of these documents
take a pan-Israelite, not a particularist and “sectarian” position.
Hence, we have to take into consideration that they were composed by
authors who did not belong to the Essene Yah[ad but to other Jewish
118. 118. Cf. Hermann Stegemann, “The Qumran Essenes,” 126–34, and most
recently Annette Steudel, “Ehelosigkeit bei den Essenern,” in Qumran kontrovers:
Beiträge zu den Textfunden vom Toten Meer (ed. J. Frey and H. Stegemann; Einblicke 6;
Paderborn: Bonifatius, 2003), 115–24, who concludes that there were married and
unmarried Essenes.
119. On the 4QS material, cf. the pioneering study by Sarianna Metso, The Textual
Development of the Qumran Community Rule (STDJ 21; Leiden: Brill, 1997).
120. Cf. Armin Lange with Ulrike Mittmann-Richert, “Annotated List of the Texts
from the Judaean Desert Classified by Content and Genre,” in The Text from the
Judaean Desert: Indices and an Introduction to the Discoveries in the Judaean Desert
Series (ed. E. Tov et al.; DJD 39; Oxford: Clarendon, 2002), 115–64, distinguishing
among texts parabiblical, exegetical, on religious law, calendrical, poetic and liturgical,
sapiential, historical and with tales, apocalyptic and eschatological, magical and
on divination, documentary, with a treasure list (the Copper Scroll), letters, and/or
scribal exercises.
121. Cf. Lange and Lichtenberger, “Qumran,” 45–46; Armin Lange, Weisheit und
Prädestination: Weisheitliche Urordnung und Prädestination in den Textfunden von Qumran (STDJ
18; Leiden: Brill, 1995), 6–20; idem, “Kriterien essenischer Texte,” in Qumran kontrovers:
Beiträge zu den Textfunden vom Toten Meer (ed. J. Frey and H. Stegemann; Einblicke
6; Paderborn: Bonifatius, 2003), 59–69; Hempel, “Kriterien zur Bestimmung,” 71–85.
122. On the community terminology, see Devorah Dimant, “The Qumran Manuscripts:
Contents and Significance,” in Time to Prepare the Way in the Wilderness: Papers on
the Qumran Scrolls by Fellows of the Institute of Advances Studies of the Hebrew University,
Jerusalem, 1989–1990 (ed. D. Dimant and L. H. Schiffman; STDJ 16; Leiden: Brill,
1995), 23–58; cf. also discussions in the studies mentioned in n121 (above).