Scrolls before the Sect(s): the Aramaic and the Sapiential Texts in the Dead Sea Scrolls Corpus.

Until recently, the corpus of Dead Sea Scrolls has been divided into biblical and nonbiblical texts, and the latter into sectarian and non-sectarian ones. Whereas the supposed sectarian texts were used to reconstruct the social, religious, and ideological world of a sectarian group that was thought to have lived at Qumran (with inconclusive disputes as to whether they were the so-called "Essenes"), the non-sectarian texts were mainly examined with respect to their relation to the sectarian ones, and only rarely as evidence of other strains of Judaism. Scholars are currently investigating whether the so-called sectarian texts might reflect not one but several related Jewish sects or groups. This project goes further and aims at analyzing first of all correlations among texts within the corpus of Dead Sea Scrolls, and at regrouping the texts, before one eventually can describe the forms of Judaism that are recognizable in specific groups of texts. Ultimately, this should contribute to a new description of late third- to early first - century B.C.E. Judaims, form the perspective of the Dead Sea Scrolls evidence. The research thus dismisses the hermeneutically central role of so-called sectarian texts for understanding the social contexts of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and instead aims at the identification and analysis of multiple core texts in the corpus that may reflect distinct strains of Judaism. As such, the research project is double-edged: it questions the current scholarly categories, and seeks to reintegrate the scrolls in Early Judaism; but also, secondarily, it aims at discerning variations within the scrolls, which may represent different social streams. In an exploratory phase six potential core texts are being analyzed. The project focuses specifically on two groups of texts in the Dead Sea Scrolls corpus, the Aramaic and the sapiential texts. These are of special interest for the research, since they have been characterized as non-sectarian, but have received relatively little attention. Both groups of texts form important test cases for the new approach to the corpus, because (1) one can begin with relatively well-preserved core texts (such as the Book of Watchers; the Aramaic Levi Document; 4QInstruction); (2) the correlations between these core texts and the groups of Aramaic and sapiential texts have scarcely been examined; (3) in both groups there are texts (e.g. Testament of Qahat; Beatitudes) that actually seem to have closer connections to other core texts, so that the entire categorization of texts on the basis of language and genre should be revisited; (4) we need to investigate current hypotheses that some of these core texts really represent distinct forms of Judaism.

Keywords:Dead Sea Scrolls, Judaism, Sapiential texts, Aramaic texts, Sectarianism

Disciplines:Theology and religious studies