the-bible-and-the-dead-sea-scrolls

26 WHAT’S INACALENDAR?
THE COVENANTERS’ CALENDAR IN CONTEXT
The completion of the publication of all scrolls and scroll fragments found
at Qumran is an appropiate point d’appui for a review of the essential
aspects of the world of ideas of the yah[ad and its particular place in the
Jewish society at the turn of the era. However, we should bear in mind
that many, possibly most Qumran manuscripts, such as the copies of biblical
books, prayer compilations and wisdom writings, are not marked by
the Covenanters’ idiosyncratic concepts, but rather represent what may
be considered the literary Gemeingut of Judaism at the height of the Second
Temple period. The prerequisite building stones for tracing the yah[ad ’s
peculiar socioreligious profile “from within” can only be won from “Foundation
Documents” which directly address the membership of the yah[ad,
and detail the main tenets of its theology and communal structure. These
documents were mostly found in Cave 1, painstakingly secured in covered
jars, with additional fragments recovered from Cave 4: the Rule
of the Community (1QS) and the Rule of the Congregation (1Q28a) and the
Messianic Rule (or Blessings —1Q28b), 2 in conjunction with fragments of the
Damascus Document (CD); 3 the Pesher Habakkuk (1QpHab); the War Scroll
(1QM) and to some extent the Thanksgiving Hymns—formerly called Hôda4yôt
(1QH). To these extensive manuscripts must be added the Temple Scroll
(4Q524, 11Q19-20 [= 11QT]), the numerous fragments of calendrical
documents, 4 and occasional calendar-related references in other works,
which will be brought under scrutiny in the present paper.
What were the Covenanters’ societal and religious aims, and how can
one define the specificity of their community in relation to other socioreligious
groups and streams in Second Temple Judaism, foremost to
Pharisaism in statu nascendi? I have endeavored to answer some of these
questions by identifying the Covenanters’ “biblical ethos” as the focus of
their conceptual universe and as the causa causans of their segregation
from the mainstream community. The existential significance of this pronounced
characteristic becomes manifest, inter alia, in their conception of
the yah[ad as the youngest link in the generation chain of ancient Israel
that had snapped in 587 B.C.E. in the wake of the Babylonians’ conquest
2. See: Philip S. Alexander and Geza Vermes, Qumran Cave 4.XIX: 4QSerekh Ha-
Yah[ad (DJD 26; Oxford: Clarendon, 1998).
3. Joseph M. Baumgarten, Qumran Cave 4.XIII: The Damascus Document (4Q266-273)
(DJD 18; Oxford: Clarendon, 1996).
4. Shemaryahu Talmon, with the assistance of Jonathan Ben-Dov, “Calendrical Texts,”
Qumran Cave 4.XVI, (ed. S. Talmon, J. Ben-Dov, and U. Glessmer; DJD 21; Oxford:
Clarendon, 2001); Shemaryahu Talmon, “Calendars and Mishmarot,” EDSS 1:108–17.