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

CHAPTER SIX
THE LAW AND SPIRIT OF PURITY AT QUMRAN
Joseph M. Baumgarten
Half a century marks a prominent milepost in the saga of the Dead Sea
Scrolls, but for some of us, contemporaries of the generation of
Mohammed ed Dhib, it is also the natural time to evaluate what we have
accomplished and seriously consider the benefits of retirement. In fact
according to CD 10 our continued participation in deliberations on the
nature of the Qumran community may be downright illegal: bcyty l)w
hd(h t) +wp#l hl(mw hn# My## Nbm dw(. Those who are sixty
years old or older shall no longer stand to judge the congregation. The
reason given is rather blunt and lacking in polite deference to the dignities
of age: “For through the burning wrath of God against those who
dwell on earth he has decreed that their intelligence should depart before
they complete their days” (this would be an appropriate time to sit down).
If I nevertheless stand before you it is because the organizer of this symposium
could not find anyone foolhardy enough to hold forth on the fascinating
subject of ancient purity laws in an after-dinner setting at eight
o’clock in the evening. In a vain effort to add some excitement to the
topic, he suggested phrasing the title “The Threat of Purity.” I don’t know
precisely what “threat” he had in mind, but I would have none of it.
The word “threat” reminded me of a piece that I wrote many years ago
in response to a prominent rabbinic historian who depicted the Scrolls as a
threat to halakah. He was concerned about the deviations in the Scrolls
from normative rabbinic law and found solace in the stalwart view of
Solomon Zeitlin that the Scrolls were not ancient at all, but were the products
of obscure Jewish dissidents of the medieval period. I recall asking him
rhetorically whether he was equally concerned about the similar halakic
deviations found in the Book of Jubilees, which even Zeitlin deemed to be
ancient, though its Qumran Hebrew fragments were at that time as yet
unpublished. The question remained unanswered, but the episode serves
for me as a reminder that involvement in the study of Qumran law by erstwhile
Yeshiva students was in those days viewed as somewhat hazardous.
The views about Qumran legalism among some historians of religion
have up to the present remained equivocal. For a long time the only
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