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

RANDALL D. CHESNUTT 425
Jewish identity in a gentile environment was the peculiarly Jewish use of
these three staples that the entire life more judaico came to be expressed in
a formulaic triad or dyad that has been assumed—probably mistakenly
and certainly too readily—to refer to a special ritual meal.
Thus the significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls for interpreting Joseph
and Aseneth has been both exaggerated and underestimated. It is exaggerated
when the work is labeled Essene or Therapeutic or when its meal
formula is declared analogous to the sacred meal traditions of those communities.
It is underestimated when little-noticed aspects of Qumran
thought and practice are not seen in connection with similar traditions in
other Jewish circles and brought to bear on an otherwise enigmatic phenomenon
in Joseph and Aseneth. Perceptions of oil at Qumran and elsewhere
and the representative use of daily food, wine, and oil as identity
markers in various ancient Jewish sources shed more light on the triadic
formula in Joseph and Aseneth than do the various ritual meals with which
comparisons and connections have frequently been drawn.