historical perspectives: from the hasmoneans to bar kokhba in light ...

JUDEAN NATIONALISM 23
the removal of the copies for private consultation was not allowed
and the performers were not even allowed to read the documents
at the archive. Instead the texts were read out loud to them by a
secretary. 45 The characterization of many ancient manuscripts as performance
texts is supported by the limited extent of literacy in ancient
society, including Judea during Second Temple times. 46 It against
this background also that we should assess the Qumran manuscripts.
I would argue that many of the scrolls found near Qumran functioned
as performance texts. 47 If this is the case, then the number
of manuscripts multiplied by the effect of public reading attests the
kind of mass medium necessary for the social construction of a Judean
national consciousness. To a certain extent my argument is independent
of the question of the origins of the scrolls. In the unlikely
event that Golb is right and what we have found are the remains
of several libraries from Jerusalem, we still must explain the distribution
of titles. Why do we have so many copies of certain books
and so few of others? Concerning the commonly held view that the
manuscript finds were the library of the settlement at Khirbet Qumran
we must answer the same question, as well as why a small settlement
needed so many copies of certain books.
An attempt to address these questions was made by Stegemann,
who also modifies the consensus view on the nature of the library. He
argues that the Essenes constituted a large, countrywide movement,
and that Qumran was the movement's center for book production.
Thus the Qumran library was a sort of reference library for the
movement and its publishing arm. 48 Stegemann goes on to explain
45 Thomas, Oral Text and Written Record, 48-49.
46 On the limited extent of literacy in general see W. V. Harris, Ancient Literacy
(Cambridge, Mass., and London: Harvard University Press, 1989), with 281-82 on
Judea. For more on the Judeans, with results compatible with those of Harris, see
M. Bar-Ilan, "Scribes and Books in the Late Second Commonwealth and Rabbinic
Period," in Mikra, 33-34, and M. Bar-Ilan, "Illiteracy in the Land of Israel in the
First Centuries C.E.," in Essays in the Social Scientific Study of Judaism and Jewish Society,
vol. 2, ed. S. Fishbane and S. Schoenfeld with A. Goldschlager (Hoboken, N.J.:
Ktav, 1992), 54-55 [non vidi]. See further the comments of Baumgarten, The Flourishing
of Jewish Sects in the Maccabean Era, 48-49, 121-22, 129-33. The latter sees an expansion
of literacy during the Hasmonean era. This claim seems to me to need further
documentation.
47 On performance texts at Qumran see H. G. Snyder, "Naughts and Crosses:
Pesher Manuscripts and Their Significance for Reading Practices at Qumran," DSD
1 (2000): 26-48.
48 For a convenient summary see P. R. Davies, Scribes and Schools, 166-68, and
the literature cited there. For rebuttals of Golb see, for example, VanderKam, Dead