Recovering Jewish History
Publisher’s Weekly has written about the forthcoming Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture. Here’s an excerpt:
Now his decades of knowledge–combined with those of his co-editors Louis H. Feldman and James L. Kugel—are on display in Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture (Jewish Publication Society/Univ. of Nebraska Press, Dec.), an imposing three-volume set coming in at more than 3,300 pages (see “The Quest for Paul,” PW, Oct. 7, 2013). The volume, supported by two research grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, includes Schiffman’s own new translation of the Temple Scroll, “which presents a plan for a new Temple and its sacrifices,” Schiffman says.
Choosing the more than 70 contributors ended up being less difficult than anticipated, says Schiffman: “Amazingly, we were always able to find good scholars in whom we had confidence.” The editors divided texts according to their major interests, with a few exceptions where particular texts required the attention of “one or a number of us because of our relationships to individual authors.”
Read the full article – Recovering Jewish History: Lawrence H. Schiffman
See also: The Significance of Outside the Bible
Body and Soul, Purity and Impurity: Sin the Dead Sea Scrolls
We have already observed that his view of the Dead Sea Scrolls sect, transgression is affected by both the body and the soul, designated by the terms “flesh” and “spirit.” We have also seen the imperfections in the “flesh,” that is, the body, are understood to be a sign of transgression. Further, we observe the close link between sin and impurity, repentance and purification. For this reason, it will be worthwhile to review the concept of sin found in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The concept of sin in the Dead Sea Scrolls seems to have proceeded beyond the definition of sin employed in the Hebrew Bible. In the Bible God is the source of holiness, and sin is antithetical to His nature. Therefore, sin is an obstruction to the relationship between God and man and very often incurs God’s wrath and punishment. Sin can be defined as ignoring or violating the commandments of God or failing to fulfill one’s obligations.
After the close of the Bible, sin became a more abstract concept. Rather than good and evil being construed as two types of people, they seem to assume the cloak of two powers reigning in the world. Sin is a… Continue reading
Body and Soul, Purity and Impurity: Bodily Imperfection in Ritual and Law
War Scroll
Closely connected with the negative view that the Qumran sect held regarding the human body and the physical aspects of life is a set of legal rulings pertaining to exclusion of those with physical deformities from the assembly of the sect at the end of days. These laws are primarily based upon laws of exclusion of such people from priestly service in the Temple (the tabernacle in biblical descriptions of the desert wandering period). The ultimate basis for these rulings is the assumption that physical form as indicator of imperfection or transgression. In this case, however, no approach of ritual purification can restore the status of the afflicted individual, except in the case of the skin diseases which course ritual impurity. Rather, these exclusions are permanent. For our purposes, they tell us how the sectarians store bodily imperfections and how the body was seen as a symbol of righteousness and purity or the reverse.
Since according to Leviticus 21:16-24, a priest may not serve in the sanctuary if he exhibits any deformity or blemish, the sectarians concluded that the same wholeness of body must be exhibited by those who are privileged to sit in a sectarian assembly… Continue reading
