Separation from the Temple<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That such ritual debates did indeed cause the sectarians to separate from worship in the Jerusalem temple is claimed by the Zadokite Fragments. This text, originally known only in the two partial copies preserved in the Cairo Genizah, can now be examined in the Qumran copies published by J. M. Baumgarten. It is most probable that the Zadokite Fragments are to be dated to ca. 120 B.C.E., soon after the separation of the sectarians, both spiritually and physically, from the Jerusalem establishment. This document sets off three cardinal areas of transgression in which the opponents of the sect are said to have engaged. These opponents are termed \u201cbuilders of the wall,\u201d clearly a sobriquet for the Pharisees. In particular, we encounter there the transgression of rendering the temple impure (CD 4:17\u201318). This, in turn, is explained as not making the proper distinctions according to the Torah, violating laws pertaining to impurity of women as a result of blood flows, and also marrying one\u2019s niece (5:6\u20138). The latter practice is known to have been accepted among the Pharisees and the Tannaim. Later on, in a list of transgressions of which the opponents of the sect are presumably guilty, we again find reference to failure to make proper distinctions between that which is impure and that which is pure (6:17). There as well, we find reference to improper observance of the Sabbath and festivals (6:18). The latter may be a reference to failure to observe the holidays according to the sectarian calendar. All these transgressions of proper temple practice are blamed on the sect\u2019s opponents, the Hasmonean high priests, those Sadducees who continue to cooperate with them, and the Pharisees whose views dominated the temple.
\nThus, the Zadokite Fragments prohibit members of the sect from entering the Jerusalem temple to offer sacrifice there (6:11\u201312). Temple sacrifice according to the prevailing norms was considered explicitly by this text to be null and void. This strong judgment was, no doubt, based on the many halakhic disagreements between the sectarians and the priestly establishment.
\nThere can be no question, therefore, that the sectarians decided in the aftermath of their initial conflicts with the Jerusalem establishment to remove themselves from participation in the Jerusalem temple. It should be noted that the Essenes, as described by Josephus, had special arrangements in the temple whereby they were able to send votive offerings without entering the temple, thus maintaining their own standards of purity. In this respect, their practice contrasts with that described in the Zadokite Fragments, which expects absolute abstention from temple sacrifice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Sect and Its Rituals as a Substitute for the Temple<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Numerous passages in sectarian literature indicate that once the sectarians had decided to refrain from temple rituals, two basic strategies were adopted: seeing the sect as a substitute for the temple and using prayer as a substitute for sacrifice. It must be emphasized that the sectarians did not offer sacrifices at Qumran, despite claims to the contrary by some scholars. There is absolutely no archaeological evidence that would indicate the presence of a cult site or temple at Qumran. Further, the animal bones that were buried around some of the buildings at Qumran cannot be taken as indicative of the performance of sacrificial rituals since no requirement to bury bones is known from any system of Jewish sacrificial practice.
\nA number of passages speak of the sect itself as a \u201choly house\u201d (\u05d1\u05d9\u05ea \u05e7\u05d5\u05d3\u05e9), clearly a metaphorical designation for the temple. Whereas Israelite religion assumed that God could best be approached through the sacrificial system in the temple, it was the view of the sectarians that, in light of the impure state of temple worship, life in the sect, following its principles and its laws, would best bring humans into close contact with God. This notion is of sufficient importance that an entire section of the Rule of the Community is based on this motif. There we find that the council of the community is described as \u201can Everlasting Plantation, a House of Holiness for Israel, and an Assembly of Supreme Holiness for Aaron\u201d (1QS 8:5\u20136). The text continues in a similar vein, speaking of<\/p>\n\n\n\n
a most holy dwelling for Aaron with everlasting knowledge of the covenant of justice, and they shall offer up sweet fragrance. It shall be a house of perfection and truth in Israel that they may establish a covenant according to the everlasting precepts. And they shall be an agreeable offering, atoning for the Land and determining the judgment of wickedness, and there shall be no more iniquity. (8:8\u201310)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here we see the sect itself serving as a substitute for the temple in which the sons of Aaron would normally serve. This \u201choly house\u201d is a place through which to gain atonement. Still further on we find similar motifs in which the sectarian group is described as atoning for guilt and transgression. The text specifically describes gaining acceptance through sacrifice of animals and prayer in terms of \u201cthe gift of the lips\u201d and \u201clike a sweet-smelling offering for righteousness\u201d (9:4\u20135). These expressions describe the perfect way of life that is like \u201ca voluntary meal offering for acceptance\u201d (9:3\u20135). In these passages and others the sacrifices appear only figuratively. Rather, it is the life of the sectarian within the context of the group that provides the opportunity for atonement, just as would have been the function of the various sacrifices had the sectarians participated in temple rituals in Jerusalem.
\nIn order to create the appropriate atmosphere within the sect to accomplish these goals, temple purity laws were transferred to the lives of the sectarians, a phenomenon especially apparent in the Rule of the Congregation. Here, in describing the community of the end of days, the text basically creates a mirror image for the messianic era of present-day, nonmessianic practice. For this reason, practices that were part of the everyday life of the sect appear in this document in the form in which they would be observed in the messianic era. Those laws that, according to the book of Leviticus, disqualified priests from service in the temple (Lev 21:16\u201324) and those that disqualified sacrificial animals (Lev 22:17\u201325) were all brought to bear on participants in the eschatological community (1QSa 2:3\u201311). Those who were not fit for the roles of priest and\/or sacrifice were disqualified from participation in the community. We should assume, therefore, in light of the Zadokite Fragments as well, that such laws were observed by the sectarians in their present, premessianic environment. Accordingly, the life of the sect was conducted as if the community were a virtual temple.
\nOther elements of this same approach may be observed in the purity laws that served as the basis for entry into the sect. Those who went through the novitiate and sought full status in the sectarian group became increasingly eligible to come in contact with pure food as they rose through the ranks. Initially, after passing two examinations, they were permitted to come in contact only with solid food that had a lesser susceptibility to impurity than drinks. After a third examination a year later, they were permitted to come in contact with liquid food that was of much greater susceptibility. One who violated sectarian regulations could be temporarily demoted, being permitted to come in contact with solid food but forbidden to come in contact with liquid food. For a more serious transgression, one could be demoted even to the level of losing the privilege of touching the pure solid food of the sect. This system can only be understood if the sect itself was regarded as a temple and, therefore, it was obligatory to maintain temple purity laws within the context of the life of the group.
\nLike the rabbinic Jews later on, the Qumran sectarians and other similar groups were in the process of shifting from temple worship to prayer even before the destruction of the temple in 70 C.E. The destruction simply hastened a long, ongoing process taking place in Judean society throughout the Second Temple period. The significance of prayer as a mode of experiencing God was on the increase. It is no surprise, then, that the Qumran sectarians included in their library prayer texts which they or others recited. These texts were no doubt intended to substitute for participation in the temple that was made impossible either for reasons of distance or, as was the case with the Qumran sect, because of ideology. In many ways, it can be said that the Qumran sect, deprived of participation in temple worship by its separatism, traveled the same road that the Pharisees would eventually travel, only much earlier. Long before the Pharisaic-rabbinic Jews were forcibly separated from their temple, the Qumran sectarians had eschewed sacrifice in Jerusalem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Study of the Laws of Sacrifice<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Dead Sea sectarians, according to the Rule of the Community, devoted one-third of each night to studying the Torah. We have little specific information about what this study entailed, except insofar as the results of study sessions of the sect were assembled into collections of laws that became the building blocks of the various communal rules. It does seem, however, that laws pertaining to temple sacrifices were studied and discussed by members of the sect. Evidence for this may be cited from the Zadokite Fragments that include various laws pertaining to qualifications of the priesthood and purity and impurity. But it might be argued that, because this text does not contain specific laws regarding the nature of the temple or the sacrificial system, these subjects were not part of the regular study program of the Qumran sect.
\nSeveral works of substantial size, however, indicate that some sectarians studied texts that discuss the temple and sacrifices. These texts seem for the most part to stem from groups that existed even before the Qumran sect was formed. This is certainly the case regarding the book of Jubilees that contains in it numerous references to sacrifices for various occasions as well as to specific procedures required for sacrificial offerings. The same kind of expertise seems to have been in evidence in the composition of the Aramaic Levi Document.
\nThe most extensive collection of sacrificial laws available to the sectarians, in addition to the biblical codes of Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and Ezekiel, are the no-longer-extant sources used by the author\/redactor of the Temple Scroll writing early in the Hasmonean period. While the Temple Scroll was no doubt put into its complete form at a period close to that in which the Zadokite Fragments were assembled, the sources are certainly pre-Maccabean and may reach back even into the third century. Laws in these no-longer-preserved sources concerned sacrificial procedure, ritual purity and impurity, and the ritual calendar. In addition, similar texts apparently served as sources for related documents such as 4Q365a, part of an expanded Torah scroll with additional material parallel to certain passages in the Temple Scroll. Documents like this, as well as the final or redacted Temple Scroll, must have been studied extensively by the sectarians since teachings found in them are also enshrined in the Zadokite Fragments.
\nWe shall call attention here to one particular law that exemplifies the existence of sources of sacrificial law that predate the extant Qumran documents. The Pharisaic-rabbinic tradition ruled that the fourth-year produce, about which the Bible said that it was to be given \u201cto the Lord\u201d (Lev 19:24), was to be brought by the owners to Jerusalem where they would eat it. Already in 4QMMT, the point was made that in the sectarian interpretation of this law, no doubt representing the Sadducean trend, the fourth-year produce, like the so-called second tithe, was to be presented at the Jerusalem temple and given to the priests. This law was to find its way as well into the Temple Scroll and Zadokite Fragments. Certainly, both of these texts derive this law and its scriptural basis from sources such as those that served the redactor of the Temple Scroll. Such interpretations and the laws that emerge from them must have been part of traditions of Torah study that took place among members of the sect and related groups. Thus, as expected, we find that, even while remaining separated from the temple ritual, members of the Qumran sect continued to study and cherish laws and interpretations of the Torah that pertained to the correct procedures for temple worship and related regulations of purity and impurity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Control of the Temple<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It seems clear that the sectarians expected that at some point in the future they would come to control the Jerusalem temple and to be able to operate it according to their legal rulings and sacrificial procedures. Most likely, they believed that this would take place as part of the unfolding of the divine plan that would lead to the eschaton. The War Scroll describes a series of battles in which the sectarians would emerge victorious after destroying all the forces of evil within the Jewish people and in the nations surrounding the land of Israel. While the end of this text is not preserved, it is probable that the final sheet would have dealt with prayers and songs recited by the sectarians upon their return from the battlefield to Jerusalem, most probably prayers of thanksgiving, and sacrifices would have been offered in the Jerusalem temple.
\nThe notion that the sectarians would at some point come to control the temple is implicit in a number of Qumran texts, among them 4QFlorilegium, which makes clear that the future temple will be conducted only for those of appropriate Israelite lineage. Clearly the assumption of these passages is that the illegitimate priesthood currently in control of the temple will be replaced in the end of days by the Zadokite priests of the sect who will maintain the proper standards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Architecture of the Temple<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During the Babylonian exile, the author of the last chapters of Ezekiel dreamt of an expanded temple precinct that would take its place as part of a utopian plan for the city of Jerusalem and the land of Israel. Apparently, such utopian plans were not unique to this author alone. Writing sometime most probably in the third century B.C.E., the author of an Aramaic text entitled New Jerusalem wrote of a city of gargantuan proportions that would include an enlarged temple complex. Unfortunately, the details of this temple plan are not extant in the preserved portions of the text. These examples demonstrate the tendency in this period for a variety of Jewish groups to plan larger and improved temple complexes. These very same tendencies would eventually lead Herod the Great to execute the building of his temple structure from 18 B.C.E. on.
\nIt is apparent from the existence of several copies of the New Jerusalem text in various caves at Qumran that this composition was widely read by members of the sectarian group. To be sure, they would have derived from it, among other things, the dream of an enlarged and refurbished temple that would accord with their specific ritual requirements. But much more information on the very same subject was contained in the prose temple plan that was included in the Temple Scroll by its author\/redactor. This temple plan has been found to share certain architectural details with that of the New Jerusalem, no doubt because both of these visionary temples were designed in the Hellenistic period.
\nThis plan set forth the architect\u2019s greatly enlarged temple that would be built according to architectural principles embodying very different religious ideas from those attributed to King Solomon or evident in the temple of Herod the Great. Specifically, this temple was to include an additional courtyard, approximately 1500 cubits square, that would serve to distance the temple from ritual impurity. The middle court occupied essentially the same function as that of the outer court\u2014the women\u2019s court\u2014of the other temple plans. In the middle, of course, was the temple surrounded by the inner court.
\nThis temple plan was based on the assumption that the courtyards would be arranged concentrically, with the temple building itself in the middle. By contrast, in Solomon\u2019s temple as well as that of Herod, the courtyards were arranged sequentially such that the worshipper entered further and further into the temple precincts. Each area was of ascending holiness, each essentially behind the other.
\nThese two architectural approaches bespeak different theological approaches. The Solomonic and Herodian approaches indicate that the temple was regarded as a sanctum into which people might penetrate to differing extents depending on their state of ritual purity or impurity and their status as priests, Levites, or Israelites. The concentric approach of the Temple Scroll, however, is based on the similar plan of the Israelite camp in the wilderness according to Numbers 10. Here the concept was rather of an inner sanctum from which holiness radiated to all areas of the temple, the city of Jerusalem, and the surrounding land of Israel. Those who read the Temple Scroll, and certainly its author\/redactor, would have prayed for and expected a temple of this kind. The ultimate purpose of this new temple structure, which, of course, was never actually built, was to insure the greater sanctity of the temple and its sacrificial worship.
\nWhat interests us here is that apparently this alternative, utopian temple plan was studied by members of the Qumran sect both before its redaction into the Temple Scroll and after. But it is important to emphasize that according to the Temple Scroll itself the plan put forward was expected to be built in the present age, before the messianic era; it was not a messianic temple. It would allow the fulfillment of the specific halakhic views of the group even before the coming of the messianic era. Even if in the present they had withdrawn from temple worship, they continued to study its laws in preparation for the day when they would return to worship once again at the mountain of the Lord.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sectarian Law and the Sacrificial System<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The sectarians clearly expected that the temple that they would control at the end of days would function according to law as they understood it. In order to facilitate this development, it was expected that an eschatological high priest would be designated. According to one particular scheme, rather widely distributed in the sectarian scrolls, one of two messiahs would be of Aaronide descent. This messiah would be superior to the temporal messiah who would be known as the messiah of Israel. An alternative view expected only one messiah who would be Davidic. In this case, a separate high priestly figure would be appointed. The role of the messianic high priest in the end of days was one of great prominence, as it was expected that sacrificial worship would occupy a major role in the life of the nation. It is possible that this eschatological priest is to be identified with the interpreter of the law who is expected to reappear in the end of days according to sectarian ideology (CD 6:7\u20138). This interpreter of the law was expected to provide accurate legal rulings on all subjects, no doubt including matters of sacrifice and temple.
\nClearly, the halakhic basis for the conduct of temple worship, in the view of the sectarians, was that of Sadducean law. Rulings such as those contained in 4QMMT, the Temple Scroll, the Zadokite Fragments, and the various minor halakhic tracts found among the scrolls were expected to be put into effect in the future temple. The sectarians\u2019 calendar with its expanded list of festivals would be adhered to. The omer count (Lev 23:9\u201322) would commence on the first Sunday after the last day of Passover such that the festival of Shavuot would always be celebrated on Sunday. Other important principles would include the observance of the Sadducean view that sunset was required at the end of purification periods and that in cases in which the Torah required seven-day purification periods, ablutions would also be required on the first day. Many other examples of such principles of sectarian law could be cited as laws expected by the sectarians to be observed in the temple of the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Final Temple<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Several texts from Qumran, paralleled also by some rabbinic texts, testify to the notion that in the messianic era a new temple, actually constructed by God, would descend from the heavens to replace the temple that had previously been built by humans. In the Temple Scroll it is stated that its laws and temple plan would be in effect until such time as there would come a day of blessing\u2014or the day of creation, according to another reading of the text. At that time God would cause his temple to dwell among his people. Such ideas are also found in some apocryphal works of the Second Temple period.
\nThis concept is much more prominent, however, in 4QFlorilegium (also known as 4QMidrash on Eschatology) in which there is a direct allusion to a temple that God will build in the end of days in accord with Exod 15:17. In the interim, God had allowed a temple to be built by humans. This temple probably refers not to the temple of the present day that the sectarians regarded as impure but rather to the sect that could be said to be a virtual temple in which sanctity and holiness were attained by living a life according to sectarian principles. But the text makes clear that in the end of days a true temple will be built by God for his people. So the sectarians expected that the present-day temple from which they abstained because of ritual disagreements would eventually be replaced by a perfect structure of divine creation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Conclusion<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Qumran sect played out in advance an important aspect of Second Temple-period Jewish history. Whereas it was the destruction of the temple in 70 C.E. that forced most of the Jewish community to adapt itself and emphasize alternative modes of piety to sacrifice, namely prayer and study of Torah, the Qumran sectarians, like the Jews of the Diaspora, had to face the absence of a temple much earlier. Diaspora Jews were separated from the temple by physical distance, but the Jews of the Qumran sect were separated because of their disapproval of the manner in which the Jerusalem priesthood conducted temple worship. Further, if the sectarian calendar was indeed practiced, it would have served as an additional factor distancing the Dead Sea sectarians from the Jerusalem temple.
\nDespite some claims to the contrary, the sectarians did not practice sacrificial rites at Qumran. They believed, on the one hand, that sacrifice was only permitted in Jerusalem, the place that God had chosen, and on the other hand, that the rituals and priesthood of the Jerusalem temple of their own day were illegitimate. The sectarians saw their group as a virtual temple in which, through purity regulations, prayer, and, apparently, through study of God\u2019s law it was possible to achieve the spiritual connection with the divine that had been vouchsafed to Israel in God\u2019s central sanctuary according to the Bible.
\nAt the same time, numerous works discovered at Qumran indicate that the sectarians continued to treasure and study pre-Hasmonean texts that featured sacrificial laws and regulations, like Jubilees, the Aramaic Levi Document, and the sources of the Temple Scroll. Sectarian documents, like 4QMMT, the Zadokite Fragments, the redacted Temple Scroll, and the War Scroll, testify to the continued devotion of the Qumran sectarians to the ideal of sacrificial worship and to their belief that in the end of days they would once again be restored to leadership of Israel\u2019s sacrificial worship in the Jerusalem temple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
CHAPTER 5<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Political Leadership and Organization in the Dead Sea Scrolls Community<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The corpus of some eight hundred scrolls or, mainly, fragments of scrolls that emerged from the Qumran caves can generally be classified into three groups: (1) Hebrew Bible, (2) apocryphal compositions, including many previously unknown texts, and (3) the literature of the Qumran sect, considered by many scholars to be identical with the Essenes described by Philo, Josephus, and a number of Greek authors. This study will concentrate primarily on the last group of texts, those that tell us of the teachings, beliefs, and way of life of the Qumran sect.
\nIn a variety of ways, these texts exhibit a sense of the separation of powers that the sectarians believed was required by biblical law. We will examine the manner in which the separation of powers affected a number of areas of sectarian thought: the division of king and priest, the division of executive and legislative functions, and the interrelationship of religious and temporal power (what we term \u201cchurch and state\u201d) in the ideal Jewish polity. During the period in which the Qumran sect flourished, we can also discern a shift in political power and leadership from an elite group of Zadokite priests to a broader-based constituency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kings and Priests<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We will begin with a text that lies somewhere on the borderline between the sectarian corpus and the literature that preexisted it. Among the most enigmatic of the Qumran documents is the well-preserved Temple Scroll, a kind of rewritten and reedited Torah. Its author\/redactor rewrote the sacrificial and legal sections of the Pentateuch in order to express his own particular views on the nature of the temple and its sacrifices, the political system of Hasmonean times, and Jewish law on a variety of topics. The text was compiled some time in the latter half of the reign of the Hasmonean king John Hyrcanus (134\u2013104 B.C.E.) or early in the reign of Alexander Janneus (103\u201376 B.C.E.).
\nThis document was initially thought to reflect the teachings of the Qumran sect. Nevertheless, numerous differences between the approach of this document and those of the Qumran sectarian texts were immediately recognized after it was published. When the existence of 4QMMT, also known as the Halakhic Letter, a foundation document of the Qumran sect, became known in 1984, the true nature of the Temple Scroll became clear. It turned out that, despite the date of its completion sometime in the Hasmonean period, this scroll was actually composed of a variety of sources that were earlier than the complete scroll. These sources were most probably Sadducean in nature and provenance. Among the latest of the sources of the Temple Scroll, reflecting Hasmonean times in a variety of its polemics, is that known as the \u201cLaw of the King.\u201d
\nThis section of the scroll, actually a rewriting and expansion of the Law of the King of Deuteronomy (Deut 17:14\u201320), puts forward a demand for a thoroughgoing reform of the existing political order in the Hasmonean period. Following Deuteronomy, the text requires that, upon assuming office, the monarch must have a Torah scroll written for him that he is to have with him at all times. Here the text is calling for restoration of a constitution based on the Torah that the author sees as violated by the Hasmoneans. We must remember that by this time, the descendants of the Maccabees who had fought so valiantly against Hellenism and foreign influence were already conducting themselves in a Hellenistic manner.
\nAmong the clearest demands of this scroll is that the position of king be separated from that of high priest. Indeed, this text demands that there be a royal council, the supreme legislative and judicial body, to consist of twelve priests, twelve Levites, and twelve Israelites. All decisions of the king are to be subject to ratification by this body. In this way, the power of the king is severely limited by the proposed \u201cconstitutional monarchy.\u201d Further, the document makes clear that the king is forbidden to conduct an offensive war without the approval of the high priest and consultation of the Urim and Thummim, the oracle that the high priest wore on his breastplate.
\nAll this is clearly a reflection of the severe objection of the circles that produced this document to the system of Hasmonean kingship in which those actually of priestly lineage were for all intents and purposes functioning as kings. In fact, in later Hasmonean times, the priestly rulers even styled themselves kings on their coins. The authors of the Law of the King of the Temple Scroll, no doubt followed by the members of the Qumran sect, saw this usurpation as a violation of biblical constitutional law. What was at stake here was the separation of temporal and religious powers, and the authors objected to their confluence in the hands of the Maccabean priest-kings. At the same time, according to this scroll, the king, who was forbidden to be a priest, had to answer to a mostly Levitical council, and the high priest was in some matters the king\u2019s superior. Even this separation of powers bordered to some extent on a kind of constitutional theocracy, if we may coin such a phrase.
\nThose who produced this text, and the Qumran sectarians who read and preserved it, were not the only ones to object to the Hasmonean arrogation of both priestly and royal powers. The MMT document itself, in our view, testifies to unhappiness on the part of Sadducean priests with the Hasmoneans having taken control of the high priesthood. The Hasmoneans had originally been rural members of the lower clergy, not descended from the Zadokite high-priestly family. But for the most part, this document indicates specific objections to the legal rulings that guided the Hasmonean temple.
\nYet the strongest opposition to the Hasmoneans came from the Pharisees, the forerunners of the talmudic sages, as described in a baraita preserved in the Babylonian Talmud. This source informs us that the Pharisees were willing to tolerate Hasmonean kingship, even though this Aaronide priestly family was not of the house of David, as required for a true Jewish king. However, they disputed the rights of this family to serve as high priests, asserting that the mother (or grandmother) of Alexander Janneus (John Hyrcanus in the account preserved in Josephus) had been a captive and, hence, that her descendants were disqualified from the high priesthood. The Pharisaic objection to the Hasmoneans as high priests eventually led to civil strife and later to war and devastation in Judea, but that is a story beyond the scope of this study.
\nThe opposition of the Temple Scroll and other such documents to the Hasmonean house resulted from the fact that the Hasmoneans served as kings. They were regarded as having violated the age-old separation of royal and priestly powers that the Bible had required. A similar separation was carried over into the complex organizational structure of the Dead Sea sectarians as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Priests and Laymen<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Qumran sect came into being as a discrete group in the aftermath of the Maccabean revolt when the Hasmonean high priests decided to ally themselves with the Pharisees against the hellenizing priests, many of whom had been Sadducees. A group of pious Sadducees left the temple and protested to no avail the abandonment of Sadducean priestly practice for the halakhic rulings of the Pharisees. This group, after failing to sway their colleagues and the Hasmonean leaders by means of the Halakhic Letter (4QMMT), eventually relocated to Qumran, where they lived lives of piety and holiness, preparing for the end of days.
\nThe sectarian group that eventually came into being, certainly by the sect\u2019s heyday after ca. 134 B.C.E., saw itself as a corporate group. This is clear from the various names of the sect. It is often called \u05d9\u05d7\u05d3 (ya\u1e25ad), \u201ccommunity,\u201d a nominal use of an adverb usually meaning \u201ctogether,\u201d and this term may occur in a construct together with other terms. This is the case with \u05e2\u05e6\u05ea \u05d4\u05d9\u05d7\u05d3, \u201ccouncil of the community,\u201d probably identical with the assembly to be discussed below, and \u05d1\u05e8\u05d9\u05ea \u05d4\u05d9\u05d7\u05d3, \u201ccovenant of the community,\u201d a term indicating that the sectarians saw themselves as banding together to observe the \u201crenewed covenant\u201d of God with his chosen ones, the members of the sect. Further, we should note that the term \u05e2\u05d3\u05d4, \u201ccongregation,\u201d designates the community of the end of days, to which we will return below.
\nThe corporate nature of the group is further indicated by the archaeological remains of Qumran, which apparently functioned as a sectarian center for those who left their scrolls in the nearby caves. Here we can observe facilities for the meals that the sectarians sometimes ate communally as well as for the various occupations such as pottery making, husbandry, and small farming pursued by members. While the actual sleeping quarters cannot be identified, it seems that the members of the group lived either in the nearby caves or tent shelters.
\nThe initial leadership of the sect was made up of Sadducean priests, termed the Sons of Zadok over and over in the scrolls. This family descended from Zadok, high priest at the time of Solomon, whose descendants had virtually uninterruptedly held the high priesthood in First and Second Temple times. For this reason they felt that they were entitled to continue in office, even after the Maccabean victory and the appointment of Jonathan, the brother of Judah the Maccabee, as ruler in 152 B.C.E.
\nThe Zadokite priests who started the sect were apparently soon sharing power with laymen as part of the general tendency toward lay power and democratization in Judaism during the Second Temple period. This general trend abetted the transfer of leadership from the priesthood to lay sages also in Pharisaic-rabbinic Judaism, laying the groundwork for the institution of the rabbinate. Evidence for this transition in the scrolls is found in the requirement of the Rule of the Community that decisions be made according to the rulings of the Sons of Zadok and the majority of the men of their covenant. Apparently, at a later stage in the history of this group, this formula and the political reality behind it were replaced by the rabbim, the \u201cmany,\u201d an assembly of members of the sect. All those who had completed the stages of the initiation process into the sect, attaining ascending levels of ritual purity and knowledge of the sect\u2019s teachings, could participate in the assembly. Besides its legislative functions, which were linked to its ability to properly interpret Scripture under divine inspiration, the rabbim also served as the supreme judicial body, and it appears to have been predominantly lay.
\nWe cannot see this assembly as truly a democratic institution because it did not grant rights beyond a small circle. Only full-fledged members of the sect were permitted to join and, of course, women could take no role in this body. This form of \u201cdemocracy for the minority\u201d was typical of the so-called democracies of ancient Greece and the Hellenistic cities, in which voting rights were extended only to a minority who had attained the required status.
\nWe have some indication of how this assembly functioned. Each person who wanted to speak had to get the permission of the presiding mevaqqer (\u201cexaminer\u201d), and it was forbidden to speak out of turn. Generally, members spoke in order from highest to lowest status. Anyone who fell asleep during sessions was penalized with a reduction of his food ration. According to most interpretations, decisions were made by voting, following majority rule, a principle thought by the rabbis to have been enshrined in the Bible (Exod 23:2).
\nWhile it is not possible to trace the exact historical development of the increase in lay power, it seems that the Zadokite priestly leadership was increasingly eclipsed as the sect developed, even if to some extent they retained formalistic symbols of their earlier oligarchic\u2014or better hieroarchic\u2014prerogatives. By some time in the Roman period (after 63 B.C.E.), what we might term legislative power had shifted almost entirely from priestly hands to those of the lay members of the sect. Even so, it seems that a priest continued to preside over the meetings of the assembly.
\nWhen it came to the everyday functioning of the group, however, members were not all equal. There was a roster that listed members from those of highest to lowest status, and those lower on the list had to follow the directives of those above in regard to matters of sectarian law or the conduct of the sect\u2019s affairs.
\nThe courts of the sect are described in the Zadokite Fragments, also known as the Damascus Document. This text was first discovered in two manuscripts in the Cairo Genizah, and later ten manuscripts emerged from the caves of Qumran. The composition of the sectarian courts as prescribed here provides for a balanced grouping. The basic sectarian courts were of ten judges, probably patterned on the court of ten that appears in the book of Ruth (4:2). The ten were to consist of four of the tribe of Aaron and six from Israel. It has been rightly concluded that the four Levitical members represented the Aaronide priests and the three families of Levites\u2014Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. Accordingly, the basic court consisted of one priest, three Levites and six Israelites, not an unfair distribution of clerical and lay power for an ancient Jewish court. Indeed, the rabbis required the presence of all three classes\u2014priests, Levites, and Israelites\u2014in the Great Sanhedrin, the high court.
\nThese various elements indicate that the Qumran sect sought to create a balance between the power of the priesthood with its God-given prerogatives and aristocratic connections and the common Israelites who, after all, were the vast majority of Jews. Even in this biblicizing, conservative group, the forces of democratization were at work long before the destruction of the temple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Courts and the Rights of the Accused<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although we have concentrated so far on the issue of separation of powers in Qumran sectarian literature, some remarks about the rights of members of the sect before the courts will also be of interest. Just as in the Pharisaic-rabbinic system enshrined in talmudic literature, in the legal system of the Dead Sea Scrolls there were specific requirements for witnesses to ensure that only reliable individuals could testify. While some have suggested that women were permitted to testify, this view is based on a corrupt passage, and it must be admitted that the Qumran sect disqualified the testimony of women. To be sure, women could not serve as judges or sectarian leaders either, although the texts flatly contradict the suggestion of some scholars that the sect was celibate. Witnesses had to be at least twenty-year-old males and full members of the group, thus guaranteeing that they were truly observant Jews who would testify honestly. Age requirements also existed to guarantee that judges would be experienced enough for the job yet at the same time to exclude those who had become senile.
\nAncient Jewish law was concerned to guarantee that the accused had been fully cognizant that his actions violated the law and that he knew of the punishment for his crime before committing the forbidden action. Otherwise, he could not be considered a purposeful violator and could not be punished. To deal with this problem, the sectarians required that the offender be reproved for a previous commission of the same offense before he or she could be punished for the infraction. For the same reason, the rabbis instituted the requirement of hatra\u2019ah, \u201cwarning,\u201d by which the witnesses had to warn the offender and apprise him of the punishment for his act before the commission of the crime.
\nAs in all Jewish legal systems, circumstantial evidence, hearsay, and evidence not based on testimony (forensic evidence) were excluded. All these regulations tipped the scales way in favor of the accused and guaranteed a fair trial to the greatest extent possible. The Temple Scroll (11QTemple 51:11\u201318) prohibits judicial corruption and commands the death penalty for corrupt judges who take bribes. Further, it prohibits the king from taking the property of his subjects by the use of trumped-up legal procedures (11QTemple 57:19\u201321).
\nWhile human rights as we know them were not a subject of discussion in ancient Israel, it is clear that in continuing the system of biblical jurisprudence and expanding on it the sectarians continued to guarantee a fair trial and an equitable system of justice. Accordingly, some form of due process was provided by sectarian law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sectarian Leadership<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In discussing the issue of separation and balance of powers, it is important to note the nature of the sectarian leadership. The Teacher of Righteousness was the leader who led the group from its initial opposition to the manner in which temple worship was being conducted in the early Hasmonean period to the sect\u2019s full-fledged incorporation as a sectarian body with distinct ideology and organization. The Teacher must have functioned in the early years of the Hasmonean dynasty, in the days of Jonathan (152\u2013143 B.C.E.) or Simon (142\u2013134), one of whom was regarded by the sect as the Wicked Priest, the sworn opponent of the Teacher. The Teacher of Righteousness was clearly a priest as we know from direct evidence in Pesher Habakkuk. Part of his duties included that of legislator. He showed his followers how to put the Torah into effect by revealing to them the divinely-inspired nistar, the hidden or secret interpretation that was known only to the sect and revealed to them by the Teacher. Therefore, his teachings had as much validity as the Torah itself. The sect always believed that it would be rewarded for its steadfast adherence to the Teacher\u2019s authority.
\nThough it is difficult to be specific on this matter, it seems that the sect suffered a crisis with the death of its first leader. It had expected that the messianic era was soon to dawn and that no successor to the Teacher of Righteousness would be needed. Nonetheless, the sect weathered this crisis and was able to replace its leader with various officers who later managed its affairs.
\nThe duties of the Teacher of Righteousness were apparently carried out after his passing by two officials of the sect, the mevaqqer and the paqid. The mevaqqer, \u201cexaminer,\u201d may very well have been a priest, although there is no direct evidence of his status. The mevaqqer was a teacher and guide to his followers, responsible for their spiritual and physical welfare. He tested new members and had to approve their entrance into the community. He supervised all members\u2019 business transactions, was responsible for approving marriages and divorces, and he was required to treat his people with love and kindness. The examiner had to be between thirty and fifty years of age. He organized the members in the order of their ranks, from the senior to the most junior, that determined the order in which they spoke at the sectarian assembly and their mustering for the annual covenant renewal ceremony.
\nThe paqid (lit., \u201cappointed one\u201d) was a priest as well. He is known from the Rule of the Community as the official who administered the initial test of those wishing to join the sect. The Zadokite Fragments call him \u201cthe priest who musters at the head of the community\u201d and say that he must be between thirty and sixty years old. This detail confirms that he must be a different person from the mevaqqer, although scant information is available about him.
\nThe sect also had various lay leaders known as maskilim, who are described in the Rule of the Community. This name derives from the verb meaning \u201cto enlighten or instruct.\u201d The maskil was to enlighten the sectarians about the nature of the Sons of Light, those who follow the sectarian ways, and the Sons of Darkness, the rest of the peoples of the world, both Jewish and non-Jewish. Presumably, the maskil was responsible for conveying the ideology and theology of the Qumran community to other members of the group. The maskil was also expected to be a master of the sectarian legal tradition. He also led the recitation of blessings found in the Rule of Benedictions that apply to those who fear the Lord, the Zadokite priests, and the Prince of the Congregation. The maskilim were a class of scholars but not priests, and although they shared their knowledge with their fellow sectarians and were perhaps role models for them, they do not seem to have been assigned any specific administrative functions; the mevaqqer and paqid filled this role.
\nAll in all, in regard to the conduct of the affairs of the group and its decisions concerning Jewish law, a process of laicization and, hence, democratization was going on throughout the sect\u2019s history\u2014from Hasmonean times through the destruction of the temple in 70 C.E.\u2014similar to that in evidence in the Pharisaic-rabbinic context as well. Further, it is interesting that the sect seemed to tend toward a division of executive, judicial, and legislative powers. Yet this division was limited in that the assembly, which was primarily legislative in function, served also as the highest court. Indeed, the same was the situation in the rabbinic legal system described in the Mishnah and Talmud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Royal and Priestly Messiahs<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An entirely different arena in which to look at these questions is that of the sect\u2019s dreams for the messianic future. This is especially the case since we know that the sect modeled its life in the present premessianic age on its eschatological aspirations. It sought to create in the present the experience of purity and holiness that it expected would finally commence with the dawn of the end of days.
\nEqually important to the sectarians was the immediacy of the end of days. They anticipated that the old order would soon die and the messianic era would be established in their lifetimes. The sect lived on the verge of the end of days, with one foot, as it were, in the present age and one foot in the future.
\nTwo separate messianic ideologies coexisted in the sectarian documents. One, like that of rabbinic Judaism, speaks of an individual messiah who is to be a \u201cbranch of David,\u201d that is, a Davidic scion. A totally different approach speaks of an Aaronide priestly messiah, who is effectively an eschatological high priest, and a temporal messiah of Israel, who is to rule over political matters. Both messiahs would preside over the eschatological banquet. Described in the Rule of the Congregation, it would usher in the new age that would include worship at the eschatological temple. Sacrificial worship would be conducted according to sectarian law.
\nThis messianic paradigm of two leaders, based on the Moses\/Aaron and Joshua\/Zerubbabel model, would later be applied to Bar Kokhba and the high priest Eleazar in the Bar Kokhba revolt (132\u2013135 C.E.). To the sect, the coming of the messiahs of Israel and Aaron and the eschatological prophet augured the restoration of the old order.
\nThese restorative tendencies are based on biblical prophetic visions, but the Qumran sect went much further. Reflecting the apocalyptic trend, it anticipated that the advent of the messianic age would be heralded by the great cataclysmic battle described in the War Scroll and radical changes in the world order resulting in the victory of the forces of good over those of evil, in heaven above and on earth below. After forty years the period of wickedness would come to an end; then the elect would attain glory. In essence, Jews in the messianic age would surpass their current level of purity and perfection in observing Jewish law. Here in the sphere of Jewish law we again find the utopian trend. Only in the future age will it be possible properly to observe the Torah as interpreted by the sect.
\nIn addition to the dual messiahs of Aaron and Israel and the single messiah of the House of David, the Qumran texts also mention other eschatological figures who will appear in the end of days. The Teacher of Righteousness is expected to arise to interpret the law, and the Prince of the Congregation (\u05e0\u05e9\u05d9\u05d0 \u05d4\u05e2\u05d3\u05d4) will serve as the sect\u2019s military leader in the eschatological battle described in the War Scroll. It is also possible that \u201cprince\u201d simply is an alternate name for the king who will rule in the messianic era. Some texts also speak about an eschatological prophet who will announce the coming of the messiah, a figure similar to Elijah in the rabbinic tradition.
\nThe concept of the dual messiahs certainly envisages a division of powers between the religious and temporal, but, as we noticed before in our discussion of the Temple Scroll, the priest holds the superior status of the pair. This is reflected when he is commanded to enter first in the description of the messianic communal meal in the Rule of the Congregation, an eschatological appendix to the Rule of the Community. So again we have the expectation of constitutional theocracy.
\nEven when a Davidic messiah is indicated in Qumran texts, it is expected that there will also be a messianic high priest. But in these texts there is no sense of the superiority of the priest as there is in those Qumran sectarian texts that expect two messiahs. Just as the sectarians demanded a balance of power in the present between priestly and temporal power, they looked forward to the same in the end of days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Messianic Assembly<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to the Rule of the Congregation (1QSa 1:25\u201327), in the end of days there will also be an assembly, which will have specifically-defined powers. This group will also serve as the highest court; it will also be the legislative assembly, but in addition, it will have the power to declare war.
\nIn this regulation, we again see that the king is limited in his powers, so that he may not commit the nation to war without the approval of the assembly. This may very well be a further polemic against, or better, reaction to, the Hasmonean rulers who attacked neighboring territory simply to expand their empire. A similar regulation in the Zadokite Fragments, for the present age, requires that offensive war only be undertaken with the approval of a council or gerousia, the \u05d7\u05d1\u05e8 \u05d9\u05e9\u05e8\u05d0\u05dc.
\nThe community of the end of days would reflect all the sect\u2019s aspirations and dreams. The assembly, therefore, would govern the sect under the leadership of the messianic leaders, expanding the functions and procedures of the assembly of the present and allowing all sectarians to participate in the shaping of the society of the end of days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Conclusion<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The authors of the Qumran sectarian documents and related texts dealt with a variety of issues pertaining to the organization of the Jewish people as a whole as well as of their own sectarian community in the present age and the future. They saw their community as the ideal Israel, structured and organized politically and religiously in a way that mirrored their utopian views of the ideal world of the end of days.
\nThe sectarians knew all too well from their own understanding of the Hasmonean dynasty that the concentration of temporal and religious power in the hands of the same people was unjust. Accordingly, they hoped for the day when the two powers would be separated as they understood the Torah to require. They further distinguished the powers of the executive from the legislative, expecting different individuals to be involved in each.
\nOver time, greater democratization of the sect can be observed, such that lay members attained greater power while that of the priests was reduced. The sectarians balanced priestly and lay members in the courts and in the king\u2019s council, protected the rights of the accused to a trial before honest and competent judges, and called for the death penalty for judicial corruption. Only the most reliable witnesses could be employed to convict an offender. In the end of days they expected similar regulations to be in force and, therefore, expected a division of power between priestly and lay messiahs.
\nIn enacting all these various regulations, the Dead Sea sectarians were following their interpretation of the Hebrew biblical tradition, which to them constituted a guide for life in the present age and in the utopian era of the end of days. They earnestly sought a society following the biblical ideal in which powers would be balanced and separated, as a means to the attainment of the perfect holiness of the end of days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
CHAPTER 6<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The New Halakhic Letter (4QMMT) and the Origins of the Dead Sea Sect<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the years since the initial announcement of the Qumran text entitled 4QMiq\u1e63at Ma\u2018a\u015be ha-Torah (4QMMT), it has become clear that this text is very significant for our understanding of the history of Jewish law and, in particular, for unraveling the difficult question of the provenance of the Temple Scroll and its relationship to the Qumran sectarian corpus.
\nYet the text is important for another issue, namely, the origins of the sect and the early history of the community. This document purports to be a letter from the leaders of the nascent sect to the leaders of the (probably priestly) establishment in Jerusalem. The text sets out some twenty laws on which the writers disagree with the Jerusalem authorities regarding matters of sacrificial law, priestly gifts, ritual purity, and other matters. Stated in polemical manner, these laws clearly represent the views of the founders of the sect, as opposed to those of their opponents, whom they call upon to accept their view. The laws are set within a framework that may allow us to learn much about the ideology of those who authored the text. Such conclusions, together with those that are being gathered from the study of the main body of the document dealing with matters of Jewish law, allow us to draw important conclusions regarding the significance of this text for the question of the origins of the Qumran group.
\nAbove, we were careful to note that this document, preserved in six manuscripts, purports to be a letter. It still remains to be determined if it is an actual letter, dating to the earliest days of the Qumran group, or if it is an \u201capocryphal\u201d text, written some years, or even decades, later to express the fundamental reasons for the break or schism with the Jerusalem establishment. In any case, as indicated by the number of copies that have survived, this letter was undoubtedly significant in the life of the sect.
\nThis study will discuss the substance of the introductory sentence and the concluding paragraphs of the document in order to analyze its stated ideology. Taking into consideration the halakhic content of the text, some general observations on the historical significance of 4QMMT will be offered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Structure and Content of the Text<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To best understand the matters we will discuss, some sense of the overall structure of the text is necessary. The text can be divided into three sections: an introductory sentence setting out the nature of the letter (B 1\u20133); a section listing the halakhic disagreements that the founders of the group claim to have had with the Jerusalem authorities (B 3\u201382); and a concluding section that raises several issues related to the group\u2019s separation (C 1\u201332).
\nIn at least one of the manuscripts in which this section is extant (4Q394), the text proper is copied immediately after a 364-day soli-solar calendar of the type known from some of the Qumran scrolls, Enoch, and Jubilees. Immediately after this calendar, the MMT text proper begins. Before it lists the halakhic disagreements that the founders of the group claim to have had with the Jerusalem authorities, it has an opening sentence that sets out the nature of the \u201cletter.\u201d This initial introductory sentence states that what follows are some of \u201cour words\u201d (note the plural usage by the senders), which are legal rulings (\u05de\u05e2\u05e9\u05d9\u05dd, as in its use in later Palestinian Hebrew). These are rulings \u201cwe hold to\u201d (restored: \u05d0\u05e0\u05d7\u05e0\u05d5 \u05d7\u05d5\u05e9\u05d1\u05d9\u05dd). Further, the text tells us that these rulings concern only two topics, one in the lacuna and laws of purity (better: rituals of purification). The lacuna must have contained a term like \u05de\u05ea\u05e0\u05d5\u05ea (gifts to the temple and priests) or \u05e7\u05e8\u05d1\u05e0\u05d5\u05ea (sacrifices). Such a term would fit the list of laws which then follows.
\nFrom this sentence alone, one can grasp the fundamental point of the text. Yet the more significant aspects for our study come at the end of the \u201cletter,\u201d when the authors have completed the accounting of the twenty or so matters of Jewish law that in their view resulted in the schism and the formation of the sect. Presently, we will examine the concluding passage in detail. Yet we must first emphasize the importance of the halakhic disagreements.
\nThe key point made in this section is that the fundamental disagreements that led the group of dissatisfied priests to withdraw from participation in the ritual of the Jerusalem temple pertained to matters of Jewish law. Indeed, the major conflicts of Second Temple Judaism resulted not from the many disagreements about messianism and other such theological matters, but rather from issues of Jewish law.
\nThis does not mean that there may not have been mixed motives. Rather, we speak now of the self-image of the founders of the Qumran sect who saw Jewish legal matters and interpretation of the Torah\u2019s prescriptions as the cause of the schism. Indeed, the entire sectarian corpus testifies to such reasons for the split, and this text is in perfect accord with the picture presented by the Zadokite Fragments, for example.
\nThe opening of the \u201cletter\u201d contains no designation for the document. The authors use the expression \u05db\u05ea\u05d1\u05e0\u05d5, \u201cwe have written\u201d (twice, once restored), which does indicate a written text. Normally this text uses \u05db\u05ea\u05d5\u05d1 as a rubric for quotation of the Hebrew Bible. Alongside the word \u05ea\u05d5\u05e8\u05d4 for the Pentateuch, the Torah is referred to as \u05e1\u05e4\u05e8 \u05de\u05d5\u05e9\u05d4, \u201cthe Book of Moses,\u201d or (\u05d4)\u05e1\u05e4\u05e8, \u201cthe Book\u201d (i.e., Bible in the literal sense\u2014Greek to biblion). But there is actually no formal term used to characterize MMT as a whole. The name of the text, Miq\u1e63at Ma\u2018a\u015be ha-Torah, was given by the editors of MMT based on the description of its contents at the end of the text, but is not intended by the authors as a title.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Concluding Section<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After the final law, the text turns to the concluding section that raises a number of general issues. We first provide a detailed outline of this section of the text.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nature of the Addressee<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of the interesting features of MMT is the manner in which the number (in the grammatical sense) of the addressee shifts. In the hortatory section, the letter is addressed to an individual (\u05d0\u05dc\u05d9\u05da), but in the list of laws, the dispute of the authors is with a group (\u05d5\u05d0\u05ea\u05dd, \u201cyou,\u201d plural). When the list of laws is concluded, and the text returns to its main argument, the singular is used.
\nThe addressee is admonished to take care lest he go the way of the kings of First Temple times. Here, the text is clearly addressing a figure who would find it possible, because of his own station in life, to identify with the ancient kings of biblical Israel.
\nIt appears that this letter was written to the head of the Jerusalem establishment, known to us as the high priest. The comparisons with the kings of Judah and Israel must have been particularly appropriate to one who saw himself as an almost royal figure. True royal trappings were only later to be taken on by the members of the Hasmonean house who already styled themselves kings on their coins. Yet the transition must have been a gradual one. What we must have here is a letter either actually written or purporting to have been written to a Hasmonean high priest.
\nThere is a significant parallel between this text and the Temple Scroll. Both texts include sections in which Pentateuchal materials referring to the people of Israel are taken to refer to the king himself. In MMT, Deut 31:29 and 30:1\u20132 appear referring exclusively to the king (as can be seen from the text that follows). Deut 31:29 is in the plural and seems (if the restorations are correct) to have been adapted to the singular. In this way it was brought into agreement with Deut 30:1\u20132, which are in the singular but which in their original context clearly refer to the people of Israel. It may be that the authors of this document actually understood the singular use of Deuteronomy to refer to the king, but the context makes this unlikely. Most probably, we are dealing with the adaptation of passages dealing with the people of Israel to their ruler. The same phenomenon is observable in 11QTemple 59:16\u201321, in which the biblical rebuke passages directed in Scripture against the people as a whole are modified so as to make them refer to the king. In any case, this usage strengthens our assertion that MMT in its concluding paragraphs is addressing the ruler of the nation.
\nThere is no mention in MMT of the Teacher of Righteousness or any other leader known from the sectarian documents. The official history of the sect presented in the Zadokite Fragments claims that the sectarians\u2019 initial separation from the main body of Israel took place some twenty years before the coming of the Teacher (CD 1:9\u201310). It seems most likely, therefore, that the halakhic letter, MMT, was written by the collective leadership of the sect in those initial years. Hence the Teacher does not appear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Possible Qumran Allusions<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Two tantalizing allusions in Qumran scrolls might be understood as referring to this letter. Most important is a passage in Pesher on Psalmsa, to Ps 37:32\u201333. As restored by Yigael Yadin, this passage refers to a \u201cTorah\u201d that the Teacher of Righteousness sent to the Wicked Priest. Yadin suggested that this might be a reference to the Temple Scroll. It has been suggested that this Torah was instead the text of MMT.
\nThe latter suggestion seems to us most unlikely. This text of MMT explicitly uses the term Torah and various synonyms several times, and yet never refers to itself by that name. Unlike the author of the Temple Scroll, who sees his text as a complete Torah scroll, these authors are fully aware of the distinction between the \u201ccanonical\u201d text of the Mosaic Torah and the letter they are writing. Second, if indeed this halakhic letter is a foundation document, or if it purports to be such, it would refer to a time before the Teacher of Righteousness began to take a leading role in the affairs of the sect. The reference in Pesher on Psalms and all other accounts that seem to point to events in the life and career of this sectarian leader would have to have taken place after MMT purports to have been penned.
\nIn view of these strictures, any attempt to relate the \u201csecond book of the Torah\u201d of 4QCatena, also mentioned by Yadin, must be discounted. We have to reckon with the possibility that MMT is not alluded to in other sectarian compositions, just as the major Qumran documents do not quote one another. MMT cannot be identified with a previously known text.
\nNonetheless, the reference to the \u201cTorah\u201d sent by the Teacher does indicate that such epistles were not out of the question within the chronological and cultural context in which the sectarian scrolls were authored. That a letter such as MMT might have been sent is not beyond the realm of possibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Historical Ramifications<\/p>\n\n\n\n
4QMiq\u1e63at Ma\u2018a\u015be ha-Torah has wide ramifications for the history of Judaism in the Hasmonean period. In the twenty or so disputes listed in this text, the opponents of the emerging sect usually agree with the Pharisees or the Tannaim as their views are related in rabbinic literature. In those cases where tannaitic texts preserve the corresponding Pharisee-Sadducee conflicts regarding the same matters discussed in MMT, the view the writers of this document espouse is that of the Sadducees. Only one possible explanation can be offered for this phenomenon. The earliest members of the sect must have been Sadducees who were unwilling to accept the situation that developed in the aftermath of the Maccabean revolt. The Maccabees replaced the Zadokite high priesthood with their own, and the Zadokites were reduced to a subsidiary position for as long as Hasmonean rule lasted. It had long been theorized that some disaffected Zadokites separated themselves from their brethren in Jerusalem and formed the Qumran sect. This origin would explain why the sect so often refers to itself or its leaders as \u201cthe Sons of Zadok.\u201d If this is true, our text makes clear that Sons of Zadok is to be taken at face value. The founders of the Qumran sect were Sadducees who protested the following of Pharisaic views in the temple under the Hasmonean priests.
\nThis theory would also explain why the writers of MMT constantly assert that their views are known to be correct by the addressees. Their halakhic polemics (addressed to a plural opponent) were aimed at their Sadducean brethren who stayed in the temple and accepted the new reality. It was they who now followed views known to us from Pharisaic-rabbinic sources and who, in the view of the authors of the letter, knew very well that the old Sadducean practices were otherwise.
\nThis theory has been challenged to explain the more sectarian or radical tendencies, including the animated polemic and the hatred for outsiders, so often found in the later sectarian texts. The radicalism of these later texts is a result of the schism. After attempts like the Halakhic Letter (MMT) to reconcile and win over the Hasmoneans and the remaining Jerusalem Sadducees to their system of temple practice, the Qumran Zadokites developed over time the sectarian mentality of the despised, rejected, and abandoned. Subsequently, they began to look upon themselves as the true Israel and to condemn and despise all others. All history, ancient and contemporary, now came to be interpreted as figuring and prefiguring this history.
\nPut another way, the MMT text is a sectarian document from the earliest stage in the development of the sect, when its members still looked for a return to participation in temple worship. It is not even certain that this text postdates the physical self-imposed exile of the sect. MMT represents the halakhic disagreements that led to the formation of the sect. It was later that the Teacher of Righteousness and other leaders, most probably priestly, developed the sect into what we encounter in the corpus of sectarian texts as a whole.
\nIt is for this reason that many of the agreements between MMT and the Temple Scroll exist. We must bear in mind that disagreements, certainly in detail, do exist. These two texts cannot be regarded as linearly related in any way. Yet at the same time, the similarities do point to the notion that the sources of the Temple Scroll also lie in the Sadducean tradition. If so, Qumran is now providing us with insight into this tradition never before available.
\nFurthermore, MMT leads to a reevaluation of some of the older theories regarding the scrolls. A few of these ramifications will be sketched out here.
\nIt is apparent that the theories which seek to link the sect and its origins with the Hasidim must be abandoned. This designation, which actually described not a sect but a loose agglomeration of people, must be discounted as a solution to the problem of sectarian origins. The attempt of some to see the sect as emerging from some subgroup of the Pharisees is certainly to be rejected now. The dominant Essene hypothesis, if it is to be maintained, would require radical reorientation. It would be necessary to assume that the term Essene came to designate the originally Sadducean sectarians who had gone through a process of radicalization and were now a distinct sect. The notion that the collection of scrolls at Qumran in no way is representative of a sect but must be seen as fairly representing the Judaism of the time must also be rejected. There is no question that the community that collected these scrolls originated in sectarian conflict, and that this conflict sustained it throughout its existence. MMT preserves evidence that this conflict was with those in control of the temple in Hasmonean Jerusalem. Further, the nature of the collection, even if it contains many texts not explicitly sectarian that might have been acceptable to all Jews in Second Temple times, is still that of a subgroup of society with definite opposition to the political and religious authorities of the times.
\nThere can be little question that the publication of 4QMiq\u1e63at Ma\u2019a\u015be ha-Torah has necessitated the reevaluation of many aspects of Qumran studies. Among these is certainly the question of Qumran origins and early history. Henceforth, any theory of sectarian origins must place the earliest, pre-Teacher stage in the offshoots of intrapriestly contention and must reckon with the Sadducean halakhic views of those who formed the sect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
CHAPTER 7<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Place of 4QMMT in the Corpus of Qumran Manuscripts<\/p>\n\n\n\n
4QMiq\u1e63at Ma\u2018a\u015be ha-Torah (MMT, or the Halakhic Letter) is a composite of six fragmentary manuscripts that have been arranged into one text by Elisha Qimron, based on the work he and John Strugnell did together on this text. The reconstruction of this text is, as Qimron asserts, a matter of scholarly judgment. Nevertheless, the overall structure of the document, as suggested by their research, seems to be clear and will be taken as the starting point for this discussion.
\nThe composite text may be divided into three parts: (A) the calendar at the beginning, (B) the list of laws, and (C) the homiletical conclusion. The suggestion that MMT is originally two documents rather than one we find unacceptable, since two manuscripts (MS d and e) definitely contain elements of both the legal and homiletical sections of the text. Each of the three sections that make up MMT can be studied with regard to its links with other elements of the Qumran corpus. This analysis will better enable us to understand the document as a whole and its evidence for the history of the Qumran sect and the Judaism of the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Calendar<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From the earliest discussions of 4QMMT, after its announcement (or better: debut) at the 1984 conference on biblical archaeology in Jerusalem, it was already clear that the relationship of the calendar to the text that followed was a matter of question from a literary point of view. The calendar\u2019s conclusion is found in MS a (4Q394 3\u20137 i), which is immediately followed, on the same fragment, by the introductory sentence to the list of laws and then by the laws themselves. The editors, in the series Discoveries in the Judaean Desert, placed another fragment (4Q394 1\u20132 i\u2013v) above it and restored much of the calendar from parallel Qumran calendrical texts, on which we will have more to say below. This fragment, however, seems out of place since it sets out the calendar in five columns, while the concluding section, that found in the fragment containing the beginning of the legal section, is written in the normal way across the entire column. For this and other reasons, it has recently been suggested that this five-columned fragment should be detached from MMT and that the text be restored in such a way that it would be written across the page. In any case, we would have to reckon with the presence of the very same calendar text.
\nThat the calendar is indeed to be restored above the legal section, and that the calendar to be restored is indeed the so-called sectarian calendar, can be shown from the final words of this section:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
[\u2026 The twenty-eighth day of it (i.e., the twelfth month)] is a Sabbath. To it (the twelfth month), after [the] Sab[bath, Sunday, and Monday, a day is to be ad]ded. And the year is complete\u2014three hundred and si[xty-four] days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 364-day calendar is, of course, the calendar known from various Qumran texts, such as the so-called Mishmarot detailing the priestly courses and the Temple Scroll, as well as previously known pseudepigrapha also found at Qumran\u2014Jubilees and Enoch. Regardless of whether 4Q394 1\u20132 i\u2013v is to be joined to the beginning of MMT or which restorations are to be accepted, such a calendar certainly was copied at the beginning of MMT.
\nIn the Qimron-Strugnell reconstruction, the calendar mentions, in addition to the solar months, the specific extra day added after three months of thirty days at the equinoxes and solstices, as well as the ninety-one-day quarter that is the basic division of the year. Further, it also mentions the wine festival on the third day of the fifth month and the oil festival on the twenty-second of the sixth month, as well as the festival of the wood offering starting on the twenty-third of the same month. All these are among the extra festivals associated with the solar calendar in the Temple Scroll.
\nFrom the beginning there has been a question as to whether this calendar is to be considered integral to the text of MMT or not. It ends in MS a (4Q394 3\u20137 i line 3 = composite text A 21) after the first word of the line, and the rest of the line is blank. The text begins the halakhic section on the next line with the incipit, \u201cThese are some of our rulings\u201d (\u05d0\u05dc\u05d4 \u05de\u05e7\u05e6\u05ea \u05d3\u05d1\u05e8\u05d9\u05e0\u05d5 \u2026 [line 4 = composite text B 1]), and the laws follow. Since the substance of this incipit returns towards the end of the homiletical section (C 26\u201327) that contains similar wording (\u05d5\u05d0\u05e3 \u05d0\u05e0\u05d7\u05e0\u05d5 \u05db\u05ea\u05d1\u05e0\u05d5 \u05d0\u05dc\u05d9\u05da \u05de\u05e7\u05e6\u05ea \u05de\u05e2\u05e9\u05d9 \u05d4\u05ea\u05d5\u05e8\u05d4), it seems certain that the legal and homiletical section are to be considered as one unit. But it appears to us most likely that the calendar at the beginning of MMT was placed there by a scribe who copied (as far as can be known only in one MS) the sectarian calendar immediately before the so-called halakhic letter or treatise.
\nThis assumption is strengthened by the fact that this calendar is clearly a separate literary unit that, even if it were part of the MMT text, must have been imported whole cloth into the text. The very same calendar lies behind a text termed 4QCalendrical Document\/Mishmarot A (4Q320). Since this calendar existed separately, and since a calendar was also attached to one of the manuscripts of the Rule of the Community from Cave 4 (4QSe), it is apparent that this calendrical list was not composed by the author of the MMT text. This calendar must therefore be considered extraneous to the original composition.
\nThis view is supported by an examination of the legal and homiletical sections (B and C) of MMT. Surprisingly, calendar issues are never referred to in either of these sections, and none of the additional festivals or characteristics of the Qumran calendrical system are mentioned at all in the preserved text of MMT proper. One would certainly have expected these to be mentioned in a document giving the legal reasons for the foundation of the sect, and that, in our view, is the purpose of MMT. Indeed, it may very well be that the scribe copied the calendar before MMT precisely because calendrical issues were to him determinative and he could not imagine that they were not a factor in the initial schism. But in so doing, he actually added an issue to the document that had never been discussed in the original treatise.
\nThe decision of this scribe to integrate the calendar into MMT was not all that unreasonable in light of the situation in the Temple Scroll. Like MMT, this scroll reflects the Sadducean trend in Jewish law. In our view the Temple Scroll was constructed from Sadducean sources, yet redacted by someone who was either a member of, or close to, the Qumran sect. In rewriting the Torah so as to include his opinions on Jewish law, the author\/redactor incorporated a preexistent source known to scholars as the Festival Calendar. This source recapitulated the festival calendar of Numbers 28\u201329 while at the same time integrating material from Leviticus 23 and other sources. In the process, the author of this source wove in elements of the calendar known to us as the sectarian calendar, including the special festivals outlined in that text in detail\u2014the same as those mentioned in MMT. While it was possible to deny that this was indeed the sectarian calendar previous to the availability of all the calendrical scrolls, such a claim is no longer likely, and we must view the calendar of the Temple Scroll as identical to that prefaced to MMT by the scribe of MS a or some previous compiler.
\nSince the legal regulations of MMT are similar in some cases to those of the Temple Scroll, there is little reason to be surprised that a scribe would similarly assume that the calendar of the sectarians was to be associated with MMT as it was with the Temple Scroll. Hence, he copied it above his copy of MMT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Legal Section<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Temple Scroll<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a previous paper we investigated in detail those laws in MMT that were paralleled in the Temple Scroll. In order to clarify this important aspect of the relationship of MMT to the Qumran corpus, we summarize these parallels here.
\nThe Temple Scroll (11QTemple 20:11\u201313) requires that shelamim sacrifices (gift-offerings) be eaten by sunset on the very same day that they are offered. This law is paralleled by MMT B 9\u201313, where it is stated that the meal offering of the shelamim is to be offered on the very same day. The opponents of the group are said to have left it over to the next day. We can assume that the meal offerings and the actual meat of the sacrifices had the very same time restrictions. This MMT passage is clearly a reference to the same view as that of the Temple Scroll, that the offering be eaten by sunset, as opposed to the Pharisaic-rabbinic view that allowed it to be eaten until dawn, with the proviso of the Tannaim that it be eaten if possible by midnight. In any case, these two texts share the requirement that it be eaten before sunset.
\nBoth texts, in a variety of laws, reject the policy of the Pharisees and later Tannaim to allow the \u1e6devul yom, one who has immersed but not yet completed the sunset of his last day of purification, to eat pure food. The Sadducees, as known from elsewhere, followed by MMT and the Temple Scroll in a variety of passages, rejected this possibility, insisting on waiting for sunset. The Temple Scroll expresses this view in 11QTemple 45:9\u201310 regarding immersion of one impure from seminal emission who must complete the entire third day through sunset before being permitted to eat of pure food. Regarding purification from the impurity of the dead, 11QTemple 49:19\u201329 insists on completion of the last day of the seven-day purification period. In 11QTemple 51:2\u20135 those who come into contact with the impure creeping things (\u05e9\u05e8\u05e6\u05d9\u05dd) are also impure until after sunset.
\nThe same view is expressed in MMT B 13\u201317 in regard to those who are involved in the offering of the red heifer who must be entirely pure after completing their period of purification at the setting of the sun. As hinted in the polemic of MMT, the Pharisaic-rabbinic tradition disagreed radically. The \u201celders of Israel\u201d supposedly went so far as to purposely render the priest who would burn the offering impure so as to make him a \u1e6devul yom. The view of MMT is identified explicitly in the Mishnah as Sadducean. We will see below that the Zadokite Fragments also agree with MMT and the Temple Scroll in this regard.
\n11QTemple 47:7\u201315 prohibits bringing hides of animals slaughtered outside the temple precincts into the temenos. Only the skins of animals slaughtered in temple rituals may be used to store food in the temple. This law is paralleled by MMT B 18\u201323, which prohibits bringing into the temple containers made of hides of animals slaughtered outside. The Temple Scroll includes in this prohibition also bones (and hooves as well), and this is made explicit in MMT B 21\u201323 (according to an almost certain restoration), which also prohibits bringing bone vessels into the sanctuary.
\n11QTemple 52:5\u20137 prohibits the slaughter of pregnant animals, making use of the language of Deut 22:6\u20137 to make clear that it is considered like taking the mother and its young at the same time. MMT B 36\u201338 shares the same prohibition, but instead derives the law from Lev 22:28. The polemical language shows that this was contrary to the Pharisaic-rabbinic view, which, as we know from later sources, permitted the slaughter of pregnant animals. It took the prohibition on slaughtering an animal and its child, stated in the masculine in Lev 22:28, as referring only to the slaughter of a mother and its young on the same day, not to the prohibition on slaughtering pregnant animals.
\nThe Temple Scroll (11QTemple 60:2\u20134) indicates that various offerings are to be allotted to the priests. These include wave offerings, firstborn, tithe animals, all sacred donations, and \u201cfruit offerings of praise,\u201d that is, fourth-year produce. Some of these elements, namely the fourth-year produce and the cattle and sheep tithes, are also assigned to the priests by MMT B 57\u201359. In this case the Temple Scroll and MMT are in agreement. But we must remember that there are more elements in the Temple Scroll list than in that of MMT, indicating that these passages are not literarily dependent on one another, but rather are related only in terms of representing the same halakhic tradition.
\nThe final area we will mention is the use of the term \u201ccamps\u201d to denote the various levels of sanctity of Jerusalem and the temple complex. The Torah contains various regulations regarding the \u201ccamp\u201d of the Israelites in the wilderness. The Temple Scroll made use of these passages to derive the levels of sanctity of the three courts of the temple city\u2014the inner court, containing the temple, the middle, and outer courts. In this respect the scroll followed the same scheme as is found in tannaitic sources that interpreted the biblical passages as referring to the camp of the divine presence, containing the tabernacle; the camp of the Levites, including the residence of Moses and the priests; and the camp of Israel in which the rest of the people dwelled. For the Temple Scroll, this set of camps, concentrically arranged, constituted the temple complex, which a visionary architect designed in imitation of the tabernacle and desert camp that it represented.
\nMMT seems to take a somewhat different attitude, although some interpreters have sought to harmonize the two texts. MMT alludes to the camps twice. As restored by Strugnell and Qimron, MMT B 29\u201331 states polemically that the authors think that the sanctuary is equivalent to the tabernacle of the desert period, and that the camp is Jerusalem, and outside that camp is the camp of the cities. This means that the text accepts a three camp notion, with the entire temple as the inner camp, the city of Jerusalem as the middle camp, and the entire settled area of the cities as the camp of Israel. Such a pattern is indeed similar to the three camps of the wilderness, but differs in some respects from the view of the Temple Scroll. In B 60\u201362 we hear that Jerusalem is the most important of the camps of Israel and it is termed the camp of holiness. This clearly refers to the same concept, describing the middle camp that the text of MMT already asserted was Jerusalem.
\nHere again we see commonality between MMT and the Temple Scroll, but the same basic concept is found in tannaitic thought. At the same time, MMT and the Temple Scroll differ in significant respects in the way this concept is applied. Indeed, this difference may result from the utopian character of the Temple Scroll as opposed to MMT, which deals with the halakhic system of the author\u2019s own day, expressing the views of the Sadducean-Zadokite priests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Zadokite Fragments<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The links between MMT and the Zadokite Fragments are also close. The Zadokite Fragments, initially discovered by Solomon Schechter in the Cairo Genizah, were found subsequently in ten Qumran manuscripts. It is certainly the case that the halakhic tradition behind the Zadokite Fragments is the same as that of the Qumran sect, even if they represent the members of the sect living in scattered groups (\u201ccamps\u201d) throughout the country. Here also we see some examples of agreement with MMT.
\n4Q266 (4QDa) 9 ii 1\u20134 provides that a woman who is impure from a nonmenstrual flow of blood must wait \u201cuntil sunset on the eighth day\u201d to be considered pure. This law, based on Lev 15:25\u201330, presumes the rejection of the concept of \u1e6devul yom, which we consider to be a \u201csmoking gun\u201d indication of the Sadducean approach to Jewish law.
\nIt is most probable that the fragmentary reference in 4Q266 (4QDa) 13 4\u20135, mentioning planting in the third year and sanctification in some other year, originally paralleled the requirement of MMT B 62\u201363 that the fruit of the fourth year be given to the priests like terumah, as opposed to the Pharisaic-rabbinic view that it should be eaten by the owner in the precincts of Jerusalem. This same prescription, as already mentioned, is found also in the Temple Scroll.
\nAs part of a list of those forbidden from entering \u201cinto the midst of the congregation,\u201d CD 15:15\u201317 = 4Q266 (4QDa) 17 i 6\u20139 = 4Q270 (4QDe) 10 ii 7\u20139 (restored) includes \u201cone who is weak of the eyes so that he cannot see\u201d as well as one who is deaf. This passage may be compared with the prohibition in MMT of the blind and deaf from contact with the \u201cthe sacred food\u201d or from entering the temple precincts, depending on how the passage is interpreted. We should also note that the Temple Scroll (11QTemple 45:12\u201314) prohibits the blind from entering the temple city, in our view equivalent to the temenos, the temple precincts.
\nWhile MMT and the Zadokite Fragments do have in common the inclusion of these two categories, the blind and deaf, we need to recognize that each occurs in a long list of disqualified individuals of which the other categories are not equivalent. If these laws were truly identical, we would expect the lists to be the same in their entirety. When we bear in mind that the Temple Scroll excludes only the blind and the Rule of the Congregation excludes an entirely different, though overlapping list from the community of the end of days (1QSa 2:3\u201311), we recognize that these texts share a trend of interpretation, but that they are not identical in their approach.
\nIt appears that MMT and the Zadokite Fragments include the identical prescription regarding the comparison of some kind of illegal marriage with the laws of forbidden mixtures (\u05db\u05dc\u05d0\u05d9\u05dd). 4Q271 (4QDf) 1 i 9\u201311 = 4Q270 (4QDe) 5:15\u201316 = 4Q269 (4QDd) 9:2\u20133 prohibits giving a girl in marriage to one who is inappropriate (\u05dc\u05d0\u05e9\u05e8 \u05dc\u05d0 \u05d4\u05d5\u05db\u05df \u05dc\u05d4). Such a match is then compared to forbidden mixtures of either plowing animals or threads, in a passage making use of the language of Scripture (Deut 22:10\u201311). But here there is no specific information on the nature of the inappropriateness of the match. In MMT B 75\u201382 (the end of the preserved portion of the legal section), we find what must be the exact same law, although it remains difficult to understand. This passage begins by referring to \u201c\u05d6\u05d5\u05e0\u05d5\u05ea (sexual immorality) that is performed among the people\u201d and is compared to violation of the laws of forbidden mixtures (all varieties are listed here). From the continuation it seems clear that this is an offense of the priests about whom it is said that \u201cyou know that some of the priests and the people are mixing and they mingle and defile the holy seed.\u2026\u201d The editors take this statement to refer to priests marrying Israelites, which they claim this document prohibits. Another view that they cite suggests that it refers to marriage with non-Jews. Whatever the correct interpretation of this law, it is most probably the same prescription as that of the Zadokite Fragments, and the restoration of that passage will have to be attempted in light of this law in MMT.
\n4Q271 (4QDf) 1 ii 8 = 4Q269 (4QDd) 10:3\u20134 = 4Q270 (4QDe) 7:20 clearly refers to a prohibition on accepting sacrifices from non-Jews. The continuation also prohibits the reuse by Jews of metals from which non-Jews have made idols. The prohibition on acceptance of sacrifices from non-Jews is paralleled in MMT B 8\u20139, which castigates the sect\u2019s opponents for accepting such sacrifices. Indeed, it is well known that Pharisaic-rabbinic law does permit the acceptance of such offerings. This is certainly another example of a law common to MMT and the Zadokite Fragments.
\nThe continuation of this same passage (4Q271 [4QDf] 1 ii 8\u201311 = 4Q269 [4QDd] 10 4\u20136 = 4Q270 [4QDe] 7 20\u201321) refers to the prohibition of bringing to the temple hide, cloth, or any vessel that is susceptible to impurity, unless it has been purified appropriately. This passage may relate to issues raised as well in MMT, although we cannot be certain. MMT B 18\u201320 refers to the prohibition of bringing certain skins of animals or vessels made of them into the temple precincts. This law has been related to that of the Temple Scroll prohibiting skins slaughtered outside from being brought into the temple, as discussed above. If these passages relate to the same issues, then the Zadokite Fragments recognize the possibility of purification where MMT and the Temple Scroll do not, since for these latter texts the issue is the need for sacral slaughter, not ritual impurity. On the other hand, it is possible that the two laws are unrelated, one dealing with problems of impurity and the other dealing with problems of slaughtering and hides not slaughtered sacrificially.
\n4Q270 (4QDe) 9 ii 7\u20139 lists a variety of offerings that are to go to the priests. These include, among others, the tithe from the herd (cattle) and flock (sheep and goats). The tithe animals are specifically mentioned in a parallel law in MMT B 63\u201364 that states that they are to go to the priests, as is clear from line 6, despite the disconnected and fragmentary nature of the passage. The longer list of gifts is paralleled in the Temple Scroll (11QTemple 60:2\u20135), where numerous items are listed. But the Pharisaic-rabbinic tradition rules that these animals are to be offered in the temple, the blood sprinkled, and the meat eaten by the owners. The view of the Zadokite Fragments and MMT is also followed in some apocryphal texts as well. But we should note again that the various lists\u2014the Zadokite Fragments, MMT, and the Temple Scroll\u2014are sufficiently different in formulation that we cannot assert literary dependence, only that they belong to the same school of legal thought.
\nThe final example was also already encountered in our discussion of the Temple Scroll. 4Q270 (4QDe) 9 ii 14\u201315 refers to the prohibition of slaughtering a pregnant animal, whether a domestic animal (\u05d1\u05d4\u05de\u05d4) or beast (\u05d7\u05d9\u05d4). MMT B 36 contains the same prohibition, explained as a violation of the Torah\u2019s requirement that a mother and child not be slaughtered on the same day.
\nThe large number of parallels between MMT and the Zadokite Fragments leads one to conclude that there would have been a much larger number of parallels if the entire text of both documents had survived. In any case, the extant parallels can only be attributed to the common halakhic substratum of the Sadducean tradition, which was opposed in the cases we cited to the Pharisaic-rabbinic approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Florilegium<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Also to be compared to MMT is 4QFlorilegium 1:3\u20134. This text, a series of eschatological explanations of biblical verses, alludes to the prohibition on entrance into the temple in the end of days by an Ammonite, Moabite, mamzer, foreigner, or proselyte or their descendants forever. Here the phrase \u201cto enter the congregation\u201d in Deut 23:2\u20139 is taken as referring to entrance into the temple, whereas these prohibitions were understood as referring to marriage in the Pharisaic-rabbinic tradition. The Temple Scroll also takes this expression as referring to entrance into the temple, as noted above. In any case, MMT B 39\u201349 takes this as referring to both the entrance into the temple and marriage. Further, while the lists share the Ammonite, Moabite, and mamzer, the proselyte and foreigner are not mentioned in the MMT passage, and the two forms of genital injuries mentioned in Deuteronomy are not mentioned in the Florilegium, even though they appear in MMT. This indicates again that although we deal with a common halakhic trend, there is no literary dependence in the legal traditions we are evaluating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Homiletical Section<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the final section, the authors of MMT attempt to sway their opponents with arguments of a homiletical nature. This is the section that I have argued is addressed primarily to the ruler, the Hasmonean high priest. My view is conditioned by the shift in this section from the plural form for the addressee found in the halakhic section (although the text is usually restored), to the singular. My argument was that the plural addressee referred to the authors\u2019 erstwhile Sadducean colleagues who had remained in the temple, while the singular section at the end referred to the ruler who is compared with the kings of Israel in the First Temple period.
\nThis section, beginning with C 10, \u201cAnd we have written to you (singular),\u201d is essentially a Deuteronomic rebuke passage, aimed not at the people (a collective you plural), but at an individual. This section is introduced by the explicit reference to the tripartite canon (C 10\u201311). There follows a passage woven together out of Deut 31:29 and 30:1\u20133. There then follows the statement that some of these blessings and curses came true in First Temple times and that others are now coming to be in the time of the authors. The example of the First Temple kings is invoked to influence the ruler to follow the ways of the Torah, as understood by the writers, presumably referring to the twenty-two legal rulings they have presented above in the legal section.
\nWhat we have, then, is a kind of royal \u05ea\u05d5\u05db\u05d7\u05d4 (reproach), to which there is only one parallel I know of, at the end of the Law of the King of the Temple Scroll (11QTemple 59). The Law of the King is a separate document, one of the sources that make up the scroll. Its veiled allusion to the kidnap and murder of Jonathan the Hasmonean (11QTemple 57:9\u201311), as well as its sustained polemic against the order of the day in Hasmonean times, make it certain that this source was composed no earlier than the reign of John Hyrcanus (134\u2013104 B.C.E.).
\nAfter presenting various laws regarding the king and his conduct of the affairs of state and the military, 11QTemple 58:21 concludes with an allusion to the king\u2019s succeeding in all his ways if he will \u201cgo forth (to battle) according to the regulation which \u2026\u201d (and here the text breaks off). There then follows a lacuna of six lines. Some excerpts from Deuteronomy 28, the underlying passage for what follows, must have stood in the text. It is most probable that the singular usage of the Deuteronomic chapter as a whole for the addressee led to the interpretation that it was directed at the ruler.
\nThe body of the preserved text of this passage is 11QTemple 59:2\u201321. The text picks up by describing the scattering of the people (presumably as a result of the king\u2019s transgressions) and their being disgraced, as well as their worship in exile of other gods, based primarily (and not in scriptural order) on Deut 28:36\u201337, 48, and 64. The text then describes the destruction of the cities based on Lev 26:31\u201332 and Jer 25:9. Thereafter, the text returns to Lev 26:32 to describe the astonishment of the enemies of Israel. The passage is also based on the content of Deut 31:17\u201318, but with language based on the Prophets.
\nThe notion of God\u2019s hiding his face from Israel is then introduced (also found in Deut 31:17\u201318). The violation of the covenant by the people\u2014presumably under the leadership of the king\u2014is then described based on Deut 31:16 and Lev 26:15. Following the Deuteronomic schema, the people then repent and God saves them and redeems them from among their enemies, so that he will be their God and they will be his people.
\nAt this point the text returns to the motif of the king. If the king turns away from following the law, he will not have a successor and his dynasty will come to an end. But if he follows the law, then his dynasty will be passed down to his descendants. Further, God will be with him and save him from his enemies and from those who seek to kill him, and he will rule over all his enemies.
\nThese themes are strikingly reminiscent of MMT. It is only by observing the laws of the Torah, as set forth in the Deuteronomic covenant, that the king will be saved from misfortune. The king can guarantee the welfare of the people by following these laws. Indeed, in MMT, at the very end, we find that the observance of the laws of the Torah is considered beneficial both for the king and the people of Israel. It is clearly implied in C 23\u201326 that obeying the group\u2019s interpretation of the law will lead to the ruler\u2019s being saved from trouble and misfortune.
\nIt thus emerges that the homiletical section of MMT is also parallel to a section of the Temple Scroll. Both the law and the theology of the scroll have much in common with MMT, because the two texts stem from the common legal and theological tradition of the Sadducees. Yet here also, while we find this commonality, there is no evidence of literary dependence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Conclusions<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our study has shown that the text of MMT has much in common with various documents of the Qumran corpus. As it now stands in one of the manuscripts, it has been combined with the sectarian calendar that its authors probably favored. One of the scribes who prepared the copies of MMT that have come down to us clearly wanted to emphasize that the authors of MMT accepted the 364-day sectarian calendar of solar months and solar years.
With the Temple Scroll it shares a variety of sacrificial laws. These parallels are no doubt to be traced to the common Sadducean legal substratum that they share. Yet no literary dependence of either text on the other can be shown.
Regarding the Zadokite Fragments, this is also the case for the legal section of MMT. In this context we should call attention to our view that the Admonition of the Zadokite Fragments actually refers to the early pre-Teacher of Righteousness days of the sect when the group came into existence in protest over the conduct of the Jerusalem temple and also because of disagreements regarding other matters of Jewish law and interpretation. This is the very same time when the MMT document would have been composed and sent to the Jerusalem establishment according to our understanding of the early history of the Qumran sect.
4QFlorilegium, most of which does not concern legal matters, included a similar law to that of MMT, but the extraneous details in each list of excluded persons led to the conclusion that again there was no literary dependence, only common legal rulings. We should recall that MMT exhibits no parallels with the Rule of the Community or other such documents that represent the teachings of the sect after it reached maturity.
These conclusions are consistent with the view that MMT reflects the formative period of the Qumran sect. It therefore shares legal rulings with the sources of the Temple Scroll and the early laws of the Zadokite Fragments. At the same time, it reflects the ideology of parts of the Temple Scroll. Yet while the earlier MMT and Temple Scroll (and its sources) lack the language of sectarian antagonism, this tone is found in the Zadokite Fragments, which was completed after the split was final and which reflects the sectarian animus that would characterize the later documents of the Qumran group.
With MMT we have clearly returned to the early days of sectarian law. The parallels with other legal texts from the Qumran corpus and with Sadducean views known from the later rabbinic corpus open before us the Sadducean heritage of the founders of the sect. These early Hasmonean-period Sadducees, from whom the founders of the sect emerged, were pious priests\u2014as distinct from their hellenized brethren described by Josephus. This pious group is the Sadducees with whom the Pharisees and sages argue according to talmudic sources. They strove to fulfill the words of the Torah as they understood them, seeking to find God in the meticulous performance of the sacrificial worship in his holy temple in Jerusalem and in the constant maintenance of the highest standards of ritual purity. It is this legal system that underlies the law of the Dead Sea Scrolls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Calendar<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From the earliest discussions of 4QMMT, after its announcement (or better: debut) at the 1984 conference on biblical archaeology in Jerusalem, it was already clear that the relationship of the calendar to the text that followed was a matter of question from a literary point of view. The calendar\u2019s conclusion is found in MS a (4Q394 3\u20137 i), which is immediately followed, on the same fragment, by the introductory sentence to the list of laws and then by the laws themselves. The editors, in the series Discoveries in the Judaean Desert, placed another fragment (4Q394 1\u20132 i\u2013v) above it and restored much of the calendar from parallel Qumran calendrical texts, on which we will have more to say below. This fragment, however, seems out of place since it sets out the calendar in five columns, while the concluding section, that found in the fragment containing the beginning of the legal section, is written in the normal way across the entire column. For this and other reasons, it has recently been suggested that this five-columned fragment should be detached from MMT and that the text be restored in such a way that it would be written across the page. In any case, we would have to reckon with the presence of the very same calendar text.
\nThat the calendar is indeed to be restored above the legal section, and that the calendar to be restored is indeed the so-called sectarian calendar, can be shown from the final words of this section:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
[\u2026 The twenty-eighth day of it (i.e., the twelfth month)] is a Sabbath. To it (the twelfth month), after [the] Sab[bath, Sunday, and Monday, a day is to be ad]ded. And the year is complete\u2014three hundred and si[xty-four] days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 364-day calendar is, of course, the calendar known from various Qumran texts, such as the so-called Mishmarot detailing the priestly courses and the Temple Scroll, as well as previously known pseudepigrapha also found at Qumran\u2014Jubilees and Enoch. Regardless of whether 4Q394 1\u20132 i\u2013v is to be joined to the beginning of MMT or which restorations are to be accepted, such a calendar certainly was copied at the beginning of MMT.
\nIn the Qimron-Strugnell reconstruction, the calendar mentions, in addition to the solar months, the specific extra day added after three months of thirty days at the equinoxes and solstices, as well as the ninety-one-day quarter that is the basic division of the year. Further, it also mentions the wine festival on the third day of the fifth month and the oil festival on the twenty-second of the sixth month, as well as the festival of the wood offering starting on the twenty-third of the same month. All these are among the extra festivals associated with the solar calendar in the Temple Scroll.
\nFrom the beginning there has been a question as to whether this calendar is to be considered integral to the text of MMT or not. It ends in MS a (4Q394 3\u20137 i line 3 = composite text A 21) after the first word of the line, and the rest of the line is blank. The text begins the halakhic section on the next line with the incipit, \u201cThese are some of our rulings\u201d (\u05d0\u05dc\u05d4 \u05de\u05e7\u05e6\u05ea \u05d3\u05d1\u05e8\u05d9\u05e0\u05d5 \u2026 [line 4 = composite text B 1]), and the laws follow. Since the substance of this incipit returns towards the end of the homiletical section (C 26\u201327) that contains similar wording (\u05d5\u05d0\u05e3 \u05d0\u05e0\u05d7\u05e0\u05d5 \u05db\u05ea\u05d1\u05e0\u05d5 \u05d0\u05dc\u05d9\u05da \u05de\u05e7\u05e6\u05ea \u05de\u05e2\u05e9\u05d9 \u05d4\u05ea\u05d5\u05e8\u05d4), it seems certain that the legal and homiletical section are to be considered as one unit. But it appears to us most likely that the calendar at the beginning of MMT was placed there by a scribe who copied (as far as can be known only in one MS) the sectarian calendar immediately before the so-called halakhic letter or treatise.
\nThis assumption is strengthened by the fact that this calendar is clearly a separate literary unit that, even if it were part of the MMT text, must have been imported whole cloth into the text. The very same calendar lies behind a text termed 4QCalendrical Document\/Mishmarot A (4Q320). Since this calendar existed separately, and since a calendar was also attached to one of the manuscripts of the Rule of the Community from Cave 4 (4QSe), it is apparent that this calendrical list was not composed by the author of the MMT text. This calendar must therefore be considered extraneous to the original composition.
\nThis view is supported by an examination of the legal and homiletical sections (B and C) of MMT. Surprisingly, calendar issues are never referred to in either of these sections, and none of the additional festivals or characteristics of the Qumran calendrical system are mentioned at all in the preserved text of MMT proper. One would certainly have expected these to be mentioned in a document giving the legal reasons for the foundation of the sect, and that, in our view, is the purpose of MMT. Indeed, it may very well be that the scribe copied the calendar before MMT precisely because calendrical issues were to him determinative and he could not imagine that they were not a factor in the initial schism. But in so doing, he actually added an issue to the document that had never been discussed in the original treatise.
\nThe decision of this scribe to integrate the calendar into MMT was not all that unreasonable in light of the situation in the Temple Scroll. Like MMT, this scroll reflects the Sadducean trend in Jewish law. In our view the Temple Scroll was constructed from Sadducean sources, yet redacted by someone who was either a member of, or close to, the Qumran sect. In rewriting the Torah so as to include his opinions on Jewish law, the author\/redactor incorporated a preexistent source known to scholars as the Festival Calendar. This source recapitulated the festival calendar of Numbers 28\u201329 while at the same time integrating material from Leviticus 23 and other sources. In the process, the author of this source wove in elements of the calendar known to us as the sectarian calendar, including the special festivals outlined in that text in detail\u2014the same as those mentioned in MMT. While it was possible to deny that this was indeed the sectarian calendar previous to the availability of all the calendrical scrolls, such a claim is no longer likely, and we must view the calendar of the Temple Scroll as identical to that prefaced to MMT by the scribe of MS a or some previous compiler.
\nSince the legal regulations of MMT are similar in some cases to those of the Temple Scroll, there is little reason to be surprised that a scribe would similarly assume that the calendar of the sectarians was to be associated with MMT as it was with the Temple Scroll. Hence, he copied it above his copy of MMT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Legal Section<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Temple Scroll<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a previous paper we investigated in detail those laws in MMT that were paralleled in the Temple Scroll. In order to clarify this important aspect of the relationship of MMT to the Qumran corpus, we summarize these parallels here.
\nThe Temple Scroll (11QTemple 20:11\u201313) requires that shelamim sacrifices (gift-offerings) be eaten by sunset on the very same day that they are offered. This law is paralleled by MMT B 9\u201313, where it is stated that the meal offering of the shelamim is to be offered on the very same day. The opponents of the group are said to have left it over to the next day. We can assume that the meal offerings and the actual meat of the sacrifices had the very same time restrictions. This MMT passage is clearly a reference to the same view as that of the Temple Scroll, that the offering be eaten by sunset, as opposed to the Pharisaic-rabbinic view that allowed it to be eaten until dawn, with the proviso of the Tannaim that it be eaten if possible by midnight. In any case, these two texts share the requirement that it be eaten before sunset.
\nBoth texts, in a variety of laws, reject the policy of the Pharisees and later Tannaim to allow the \u1e6devul yom, one who has immersed but not yet completed the sunset of his last day of purification, to eat pure food. The Sadducees, as known from elsewhere, followed by MMT and the Temple Scroll in a variety of passages, rejected this possibility, insisting on waiting for sunset. The Temple Scroll expresses this view in 11QTemple 45:9\u201310 regarding immersion of one impure from seminal emission who must complete the entire third day through sunset before being permitted to eat of pure food. Regarding purification from the impurity of the dead, 11QTemple 49:19\u201329 insists on completion of the last day of the seven-day purification period. In 11QTemple 51:2\u20135 those who come into contact with the impure creeping things (\u05e9\u05e8\u05e6\u05d9\u05dd) are also impure until after sunset.
\nThe same view is expressed in MMT B 13\u201317 in regard to those who are involved in the offering of the red heifer who must be entirely pure after completing their period of purification at the setting of the sun. As hinted in the polemic of MMT, the Pharisaic-rabbinic tradition disagreed radically. The \u201celders of Israel\u201d supposedly went so far as to purposely render the priest who would burn the offering impure so as to make him a \u1e6devul yom. The view of MMT is identified explicitly in the Mishnah as Sadducean. We will see below that the Zadokite Fragments also agree with MMT and the Temple Scroll in this regard.
\n11QTemple 47:7\u201315 prohibits bringing hides of animals slaughtered outside the temple precincts into the temenos. Only the skins of animals slaughtered in temple rituals may be used to store food in the temple. This law is paralleled by MMT B 18\u201323, which prohibits bringing into the temple containers made of hides of animals slaughtered outside. The Temple Scroll includes in this prohibition also bones (and hooves as well), and this is made explicit in MMT B 21\u201323 (according to an almost certain restoration), which also prohibits bringing bone vessels into the sanctuary.
\n11QTemple 52:5\u20137 prohibits the slaughter of pregnant animals, making use of the language of Deut 22:6\u20137 to make clear that it is considered like taking the mother and its young at the same time. MMT B 36\u201338 shares the same prohibition, but instead derives the law from Lev 22:28. The polemical language shows that this was contrary to the Pharisaic-rabbinic view, which, as we know from later sources, permitted the slaughter of pregnant animals. It took the prohibition on slaughtering an animal and its child, stated in the masculine in Lev 22:28, as referring only to the slaughter of a mother and its young on the same day, not to the prohibition on slaughtering pregnant animals.
\nThe Temple Scroll (11QTemple 60:2\u20134) indicates that various offerings are to be allotted to the priests. These include wave offerings, firstborn, tithe animals, all sacred donations, and \u201cfruit offerings of praise,\u201d that is, fourth-year produce. Some of these elements, namely the fourth-year produce and the cattle and sheep tithes, are also assigned to the priests by MMT B 57\u201359. In this case the Temple Scroll and MMT are in agreement. But we must remember that there are more elements in the Temple Scroll list than in that of MMT, indicating that these passages are not literarily dependent on one another, but rather are related only in terms of representing the same halakhic tradition.
\nThe final area we will mention is the use of the term \u201ccamps\u201d to denote the various levels of sanctity of Jerusalem and the temple complex. The Torah contains various regulations regarding the \u201ccamp\u201d of the Israelites in the wilderness. The Temple Scroll made use of these passages to derive the levels of sanctity of the three courts of the temple city\u2014the inner court, containing the temple, the middle, and outer courts. In this respect the scroll followed the same scheme as is found in tannaitic sources that interpreted the biblical passages as referring to the camp of the divine presence, containing the tabernacle; the camp of the Levites, including the residence of Moses and the priests; and the camp of Israel in which the rest of the people dwelled. For the Temple Scroll, this set of camps, concentrically arranged, constituted the temple complex, which a visionary architect designed in imitation of the tabernacle and desert camp that it represented.
\nMMT seems to take a somewhat different attitude, although some interpreters have sought to harmonize the two texts. MMT alludes to the camps twice. As restored by Strugnell and Qimron, MMT B 29\u201331 states polemically that the authors think that the sanctuary is equivalent to the tabernacle of the desert period, and that the camp is Jerusalem, and outside that camp is the camp of the cities. This means that the text accepts a three camp notion, with the entire temple as the inner camp, the city of Jerusalem as the middle camp, and the entire settled area of the cities as the camp of Israel. Such a pattern is indeed similar to the three camps of the wilderness, but differs in some respects from the view of the Temple Scroll. In B 60\u201362 we hear that Jerusalem is the most important of the camps of Israel and it is termed the camp of holiness. This clearly refers to the same concept, describing the middle camp that the text of MMT already asserted was Jerusalem.
\nHere again we see commonality between MMT and the Temple Scroll, but the same basic concept is found in tannaitic thought. At the same time, MMT and the Temple Scroll differ in significant respects in the way this concept is applied. Indeed, this difference may result from the utopian character of the Temple Scroll as opposed to MMT, which deals with the halakhic system of the author\u2019s own day, expressing the views of the Sadducean-Zadokite priests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Zadokite Fragments<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The links between MMT and the Zadokite Fragments are also close. The Zadokite Fragments, initially discovered by Solomon Schechter in the Cairo Genizah, were found subsequently in ten Qumran manuscripts. It is certainly the case that the halakhic tradition behind the Zadokite Fragments is the same as that of the Qumran sect, even if they represent the members of the sect living in scattered groups (\u201ccamps\u201d) throughout the country. Here also we see some examples of agreement with MMT.
\n4Q266 (4QDa) 9 ii 1\u20134 provides that a woman who is impure from a nonmenstrual flow of blood must wait \u201cuntil sunset on the eighth day\u201d to be considered pure. This law, based on Lev 15:25\u201330, presumes the rejection of the concept of \u1e6devul yom, which we consider to be a \u201csmoking gun\u201d indication of the Sadducean approach to Jewish law.
\nIt is most probable that the fragmentary reference in 4Q266 (4QDa) 13 4\u20135, mentioning planting in the third year and sanctification in some other year, originally paralleled the requirement of MMT B 62\u201363 that the fruit of the fourth year be given to the priests like terumah, as opposed to the Pharisaic-rabbinic view that it should be eaten by the owner in the precincts of Jerusalem. This same prescription, as already mentioned, is found also in the Temple Scroll.
\nAs part of a list of those forbidden from entering \u201cinto the midst of the congregation,\u201d CD 15:15\u201317 = 4Q266 (4QDa) 17 i 6\u20139 = 4Q270 (4QDe) 10 ii 7\u20139 (restored) includes \u201cone who is weak of the eyes so that he cannot see\u201d as well as one who is deaf. This passage may be compared with the prohibition in MMT of the blind and deaf from contact with the \u201cthe sacred food\u201d or from entering the temple precincts, depending on how the passage is interpreted. We should also note that the Temple Scroll (11QTemple 45:12\u201314) prohibits the blind from entering the temple city, in our view equivalent to the temenos, the temple precincts.
\nWhile MMT and the Zadokite Fragments do have in common the inclusion of these two categories, the blind and deaf, we need to recognize that each occurs in a long list of disqualified individuals of which the other categories are not equivalent. If these laws were truly identical, we would expect the lists to be the same in their entirety. When we bear in mind that the Temple Scroll excludes only the blind and the Rule of the Congregation excludes an entirely different, though overlapping list from the community of the end of days (1QSa 2:3\u201311), we recognize that these texts share a trend of interpretation, but that they are not identical in their approach.
\nIt appears that MMT and the Zadokite Fragments include the identical prescription regarding the comparison of some kind of illegal marriage with the laws of forbidden mixtures (\u05db\u05dc\u05d0\u05d9\u05dd). 4Q271 (4QDf) 1 i 9\u201311 = 4Q270 (4QDe) 5:15\u201316 = 4Q269 (4QDd) 9:2\u20133 prohibits giving a girl in marriage to one who is inappropriate (\u05dc\u05d0\u05e9\u05e8 \u05dc\u05d0 \u05d4\u05d5\u05db\u05df \u05dc\u05d4). Such a match is then compared to forbidden mixtures of either plowing animals or threads, in a passage making use of the language of Scripture (Deut 22:10\u201311). But here there is no specific information on the nature of the inappropriateness of the match. In MMT B 75\u201382 (the end of the preserved portion of the legal section), we find what must be the exact same law, although it remains difficult to understand. This passage begins by referring to \u201c\u05d6\u05d5\u05e0\u05d5\u05ea (sexual immorality) that is performed among the people\u201d and is compared to violation of the laws of forbidden mixtures (all varieties are listed here). From the continuation it seems clear that this is an offense of the priests about whom it is said that \u201cyou know that some of the priests and the people are mixing and they mingle and defile the holy seed.\u2026\u201d The editors take this statement to refer to priests marrying Israelites, which they claim this document prohibits. Another view that they cite suggests that it refers to marriage with non-Jews. Whatever the correct interpretation of this law, it is most probably the same prescription as that of the Zadokite Fragments, and the restoration of that passage will have to be attempted in light of this law in MMT.
\n4Q271 (4QDf) 1 ii 8 = 4Q269 (4QDd) 10:3\u20134 = 4Q270 (4QDe) 7:20 clearly refers to a prohibition on accepting sacrifices from non-Jews. The continuation also prohibits the reuse by Jews of metals from which non-Jews have made idols. The prohibition on acceptance of sacrifices from non-Jews is paralleled in MMT B 8\u20139, which castigates the sect\u2019s opponents for accepting such sacrifices. Indeed, it is well known that Pharisaic-rabbinic law does permit the acceptance of such offerings. This is certainly another example of a law common to MMT and the Zadokite Fragments.
\nThe continuation of this same passage (4Q271 [4QDf] 1 ii 8\u201311 = 4Q269 [4QDd] 10 4\u20136 = 4Q270 [4QDe] 7 20\u201321) refers to the prohibition of bringing to the temple hide, cloth, or any vessel that is susceptible to impurity, unless it has been purified appropriately. This passage may relate to issues raised as well in MMT, although we cannot be certain. MMT B 18\u201320 refers to the prohibition of bringing certain skins of animals or vessels made of them into the temple precincts. This law has been related to that of the Temple Scroll prohibiting skins slaughtered outside from being brought into the temple, as discussed above. If these passages relate to the same issues, then the Zadokite Fragments recognize the possibility of purification where MMT and the Temple Scroll do not, since for these latter texts the issue is the need for sacral slaughter, not ritual impurity. On the other hand, it is possible that the two laws are unrelated, one dealing with problems of impurity and the other dealing with problems of slaughtering and hides not slaughtered sacrificially.
\n4Q270 (4QDe) 9 ii 7\u20139 lists a variety of offerings that are to go to the priests. These include, among others, the tithe from the herd (cattle) and flock (sheep and goats). The tithe animals are specifically mentioned in a parallel law in MMT B 63\u201364 that states that they are to go to the priests, as is clear from line 6, despite the disconnected and fragmentary nature of the passage. The longer list of gifts is paralleled in the Temple Scroll (11QTemple 60:2\u20135), where numerous items are listed. But the Pharisaic-rabbinic tradition rules that these animals are to be offered in the temple, the blood sprinkled, and the meat eaten by the owners. The view of the Zadokite Fragments and MMT is also followed in some apocryphal texts as well. But we should note again that the various lists\u2014the Zadokite Fragments, MMT, and the Temple Scroll\u2014are sufficiently different in formulation that we cannot assert literary dependence, only that they belong to the same school of legal thought.
\nThe final example was also already encountered in our discussion of the Temple Scroll. 4Q270 (4QDe) 9 ii 14\u201315 refers to the prohibition of slaughtering a pregnant animal, whether a domestic animal (\u05d1\u05d4\u05de\u05d4) or beast (\u05d7\u05d9\u05d4). MMT B 36 contains the same prohibition, explained as a violation of the Torah\u2019s requirement that a mother and child not be slaughtered on the same day.
\nThe large number of parallels between MMT and the Zadokite Fragments leads one to conclude that there would have been a much larger number of parallels if the entire text of both documents had survived. In any case, the extant parallels can only be attributed to the common halakhic substratum of the Sadducean tradition, which was opposed in the cases we cited to the Pharisaic-rabbinic approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Florilegium<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Also to be compared to MMT is 4QFlorilegium 1:3\u20134. This text, a series of eschatological explanations of biblical verses, alludes to the prohibition on entrance into the temple in the end of days by an Ammonite, Moabite, mamzer, foreigner, or proselyte or their descendants forever. Here the phrase \u201cto enter the congregation\u201d in Deut 23:2\u20139 is taken as referring to entrance into the temple, whereas these prohibitions were understood as referring to marriage in the Pharisaic-rabbinic tradition. The Temple Scroll also takes this expression as referring to entrance into the temple, as noted above. In any case, MMT B 39\u201349 takes this as referring to both the entrance into the temple and marriage. Further, while the lists share the Ammonite, Moabite, and mamzer, the proselyte and foreigner are not mentioned in the MMT passage, and the two forms of genital injuries mentioned in Deuteronomy are not mentioned in the Florilegium, even though they appear in MMT. This indicates again that although we deal with a common halakhic trend, there is no literary dependence in the legal traditions we are evaluating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Homiletical Section<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the final section, the authors of MMT attempt to sway their opponents with arguments of a homiletical nature. This is the section that I have argued is addressed primarily to the ruler, the Hasmonean high priest. My view is conditioned by the shift in this section from the plural form for the addressee found in the halakhic section (although the text is usually restored), to the singular. My argument was that the plural addressee referred to the authors\u2019 erstwhile Sadducean colleagues who had remained in the temple, while the singular section at the end referred to the ruler who is compared with the kings of Israel in the First Temple period.
\nThis section, beginning with C 10, \u201cAnd we have written to you (singular),\u201d is essentially a Deuteronomic rebuke passage, aimed not at the people (a collective you plural), but at an individual. This section is introduced by the explicit reference to the tripartite canon (C 10\u201311). There follows a passage woven together out of Deut 31:29 and 30:1\u20133. There then follows the statement that some of these blessings and curses came true in First Temple times and that others are now coming to be in the time of the authors. The example of the First Temple kings is invoked to influence the ruler to follow the ways of the Torah, as understood by the writers, presumably referring to the twenty-two legal rulings they have presented above in the legal section.
\nWhat we have, then, is a kind of royal \u05ea\u05d5\u05db\u05d7\u05d4 (reproach), to which there is only one parallel I know of, at the end of the Law of the King of the Temple Scroll (11QTemple 59). The Law of the King is a separate document, one of the sources that make up the scroll. Its veiled allusion to the kidnap and murder of Jonathan the Hasmonean (11QTemple 57:9\u201311), as well as its sustained polemic against the order of the day in Hasmonean times, make it certain that this source was composed no earlier than the reign of John Hyrcanus (134\u2013104 B.C.E.).
\nAfter presenting various laws regarding the king and his conduct of the affairs of state and the military, 11QTemple 58:21 concludes with an allusion to the king\u2019s succeeding in all his ways if he will \u201cgo forth (to battle) according to the regulation which \u2026\u201d (and here the text breaks off). There then follows a lacuna of six lines. Some excerpts from Deuteronomy 28, the underlying passage for what follows, must have stood in the text. It is most probable that the singular usage of the Deuteronomic chapter as a whole for the addressee led to the interpretation that it was directed at the ruler.
\nThe body of the preserved text of this passage is 11QTemple 59:2\u201321. The text picks up by describing the scattering of the people (presumably as a result of the king\u2019s transgressions) and their being disgraced, as well as their worship in exile of other gods, based primarily (and not in scriptural order) on Deut 28:36\u201337, 48, and 64. The text then describes the destruction of the cities based on Lev 26:31\u201332 and Jer 25:9. Thereafter, the text returns to Lev 26:32 to describe the astonishment of the enemies of Israel. The passage is also based on the content of Deut 31:17\u201318, but with language based on the Prophets.
\nThe notion of God\u2019s hiding his face from Israel is then introduced (also found in Deut 31:17\u201318). The violation of the covenant by the people\u2014presumably under the leadership of the king\u2014is then described based on Deut 31:16 and Lev 26:15. Following the Deuteronomic schema, the people then repent and God saves them and redeems them from among their enemies, so that he will be their God and they will be his people.
\nAt this point the text returns to the motif of the king. If the king turns away from following the law, he will not have a successor and his dynasty will come to an end. But if he follows the law, then his dynasty will be passed down to his descendants. Further, God will be with him and save him from his enemies and from those who seek to kill him, and he will rule over all his enemies.
\nThese themes are strikingly reminiscent of MMT. It is only by observing the laws of the Torah, as set forth in the Deuteronomic covenant, that the king will be saved from misfortune. The king can guarantee the welfare of the people by following these laws. Indeed, in MMT, at the very end, we find that the observance of the laws of the Torah is considered beneficial both for the king and the people of Israel. It is clearly implied in C 23\u201326 that obeying the group\u2019s interpretation of the law will lead to the ruler\u2019s being saved from trouble and misfortune.
\nIt thus emerges that the homiletical section of MMT is also parallel to a section of the Temple Scroll. Both the law and the theology of the scroll have much in common with MMT, because the two texts stem from the common legal and theological tradition of the Sadducees. Yet here also, while we find this commonality, there is no evidence of literary dependence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Conclusions<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our study has shown that the text of MMT has much in common with various documents of the Qumran corpus. As it now stands in one of the manuscripts, it has been combined with the sectarian calendar that its authors probably favored. One of the scribes who prepared the copies of MMT that have come down to us clearly wanted to emphasize that the authors of MMT accepted the 364-day sectarian calendar of solar months and solar years.
\nWith the Temple Scroll it shares a variety of sacrificial laws. These parallels are no doubt to be traced to the common Sadducean legal substratum that they share. Yet no literary dependence of either text on the other can be shown.
\nRegarding the Zadokite Fragments, this is also the case for the legal section of MMT. In this context we should call attention to our view that the Admonition of the Zadokite Fragments actually refers to the early pre-Teacher of Righteousness days of the sect when the group came into existence in protest over the conduct of the Jerusalem temple and also because of disagreements regarding other matters of Jewish law and interpretation. This is the very same time when the MMT document would have been composed and sent to the Jerusalem establishment according to our understanding of the early history of the Qumran sect.
\n4QFlorilegium, most of which does not concern legal matters, included a similar law to that of MMT, but the extraneous details in each list of excluded persons led to the conclusion that again there was no literary dependence, only common legal rulings. We should recall that MMT exhibits no parallels with the Rule of the Community or other such documents that represent the teachings of the sect after it reached maturity.
\nThese conclusions are consistent with the view that MMT reflects the formative period of the Qumran sect. It therefore shares legal rulings with the sources of the Temple Scroll and the early laws of the Zadokite Fragments. At the same time, it reflects the ideology of parts of the Temple Scroll. Yet while the earlier MMT and Temple Scroll (and its sources) lack the language of sectarian antagonism, this tone is found in the Zadokite Fragments, which was completed after the split was final and which reflects the sectarian animus that would characterize the later documents of the Qumran group.
\nWith MMT we have clearly returned to the early days of sectarian law. The parallels with other legal texts from the Qumran corpus and with Sadducean views known from the later rabbinic corpus open before us the Sadducean heritage of the founders of the sect. These early Hasmonean-period Sadducees, from whom the founders of the sect emerged, were pious priests\u2014as distinct from their hellenized brethren described by Josephus. This pious group is the Sadducees with whom the Pharisees and sages argue according to talmudic sources. They strove to fulfill the words of the Torah as they understood them, seeking to find God in the meticulous performance of the sacrificial worship in his holy temple in Jerusalem and in the constant maintenance of the highest standards of ritual purity. It is this legal system that underlies the law of the Dead Sea Scrolls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
JEWISH LAW AT QUMRAN<\/p>\n\n\n\n
CHAPTER 8<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Legal Texts in the Dead Sea Scrolls<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The field of Dead Sea Scrolls studies actually began with the discovery of one of the core legal texts in the sectarian library, the Damascus Document (Zadokite Fragments). This text, discovered in the Cairo Genizah in 1896 and later in the Qumran caves, opened the debate over Qumran law in the early twentieth century. Additional Qumran legal texts were published much later, a result of both lack of interest and experience on the part of the Cave 4 publication team. The acquisition of the Temple Scroll during the 1967 Six-Day War led to a revival of interest in Qumran halakhah (to borrow the later rabbinic term), which has been greatly encouraged and enhanced by the full publication of the Cave 4 legal texts, including much previously unknown legal material, and the important scholarly research that followed.
\nWhereas earlier Qumran research, especially in the hands of Christian scholars, tended to emphasize aspects of the scrolls most relevant to early Christianity, renewed interest in legal texts, as well as in a variety of parabiblical texts, has shifted attention back to the Jewishness of the Qumran sect. Identified by most scholars as the Essenes, their legal materials, which we will survey here, have again become central to the debate over the significance of the scrolls and the Qumran sect in the wider context of the history of Judaism.
\nBecause the legal corpus of the scrolls is to a great extent poorly known, we will first survey the various texts, their structure and contents. Then in the next chapter, we will discuss these texts from the point of view of the history of codes and codification in Jewish law, paying attention to issues of literary history and the relationship of the texts.
\nThe legal materials in the Dead Sea Scrolls can be divided into major and minor works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Description of the Major Legal Texts<\/p>\n\n\n\n
CD\u2014Damascus Document (Zadokite Fragments)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
First discovered in two medieval Cambridge University manuscripts from the Cairo Genizah by Solomon Schechter in 1896, the Zadokite Fragments was later found in several manuscripts at Qumran, mostly in Cave 4. It is now considered to be part of the sectarian literature of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
\nSchechter\u2019s two medieval manuscripts are MS A (T-S. 10 K 6), dating to the tenth century C.E., preserved in sixteen pages (1\u201316), and MS B (T-S. 16 32), from the twelfth century, consisting of two long pages (numbered 19\u201320, skipping 17\u201318). Much of MS B is a somewhat expanded version of pages 7\u20138 of MS A, indicating that the work survived even into the Middle Ages in varying recensions. In addition, Qumran Caves 4, 5, and 6 have yielded a number of copies. Without question, these fragments confirm the intimate link between the Zadokite Fragments and the sectarian texts from Qumran, most notably the Rule of the Community (1QS). In general, the Qumran fragments agree with the recension in MS A. The Cave 4 material indicates that the text circulated in various recensions reflecting stages in the history of the Qumran community.
\nThe text as a whole, somewhat like the book of Deuteronomy, consists of two primary units: the Admonition (Exhortation) and the Laws. The Admonition, now believed to constitute some 25 percent of the original complete text, set forth the sectarians\u2019 self-image, tracing their history to biblical times and asserting their claim to be the authentic continuators of ancient Israel. The document further set out their fundamental disagreement with the main body of the Jewish people and, in particular, argued against their Pharisaic opponents. This admonition has been compared to the speeches of Moses at the beginning of Deuteronomy in which he lays down a basic conceptual and ideological framework before presenting the Deuteronomic legal and religious codes. Yet such hortatory introductions are not known from later Jewish texts, though we should note parallels in tone to some of the \u201cTestaments\u201d literature.
\nThe sect was constituted by those who perceived the iniquity of their generation, but lacked direction and leadership. The rise soon afterward of the Teacher of Righteousness (or \u201cCorrect Teacher\u201d) filled this gap. \u201cDamascus\u201d serves as a code word for the sectarian settlement at Qumran (CD 7:19), hence the designation \u201cDamascus Covenant\u201d or \u201cDamascus Document.\u201d The Admonition argues for predestination toward the paths of good and evil and condemns the evils of the rest of the Jewish community, alluding to the various groups of Jews existing in the Hasmonean period. The sins of the rest of Jewry are cataloged, and the sectarians are pictured as being the only ones who know the correct interpretation of the Torah, the \u201chidden\u201d laws, and who properly observe them. Scholars are divided as to whether the text expected one \u201cMessiah of Aaron and Israel\u201d or two separate messianic figures. Parts of the Admonition must have originated as arguments to join the sect, while other sections must have been designed to maintain the loyalty of members of the group in the face of political, religious, and eschatological disappointments.
\nThe Admonition quotes Jubilees (CD 16:3) and the Testament of Levi (CD 4:15) and alludes to older traditions of biblical exegesis and to various legends that were part of early Second Temple Judaism. Much of the text consists of pesherlike interpretations of various biblical texts that the members of the sect and their leaders saw as crucial to their self-definition.
\nThe second section is a compilation of laws arranged topically. These laws are composed of biblical phrases that indicate to modern scholars the exegesis that lay behind each legal ruling. Following Joseph A. Fitzmyer\u2019s outline, the following topics are covered: rules for entering the sect, laws pertaining to oaths, witnesses and judges, ritual purification, Sabbath laws, miscellaneous laws, relations with non-Jews, additional purity rules, communal organization, and the sectarian penal code. There is a reference in a broken context to what seems to be public scriptural reading on the Sabbath.
\nThe earliest manuscripts of the Damascus Document date to ca. 75\u201350 B.C.E. This date puts to rest earlier theories that, before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, sought to identify this text as medieval Karaite or early Christian. Since the earliest possible date for Qumran settlement in the Hellenistic period is the reign of John Hyrcanus (135\u2013104 B.C.E.), and since this text represents within it several stages of historical development, we would have to date its final composition to the latter years of John Hyrcanus or the reign of Alexander Jannaeus (103\u201376 B.C.E.).
\nBoth the Admonition and the Laws present a consistent view of Jewish law, the source of its authority, and the method of its derivation. The laws are of two types. Those laws clearly mentioned in Scripture are termed nigleh, \u201crevealed.\u201d These prescriptions are known to all of Israel, who nonetheless violate them. Known only to the members of the sect are the nistar, the \u201chidden\u201d laws, those that are not explicit in Scripture, and that the sect saw as derived through inspired biblical exegesis. All Israel is guilty of violating these prescriptions that pertain to virtually every area of Jewish law. In this way the sect accomplished the expansion of Jewish law beyond its biblical origins. For the sectarians, there had been a onetime revelation at Sinai, and all further laws, for each and every epoch of history, would be derived through their form of legal exegesis.
\nImmediately after the publication of the Rule of the Community from Qumran, the close affinity of the new material from the caves with the Damascus Document was clear. Indeed, the new scrolls confirmed the broad outlines of what Louis Ginzberg had described already by 1911 as \u201can unknown Jewish sect.\u201d Yet early studies tended to rely on circular methodology. It was assumed that the Damascus Document and the Rule of the Community described the very same community and that this was the Essene community also described by Philo and Josephus. Only with the advent of more scientific methodologies did scholars come to see these texts as describing a group of related and similar sects (or subsects) within the broad range of groups and approaches that constituted Second Temple Judaism.
\nWith these advances, the relationship of the Damascus Document to the Rule of the Community is now much clearer. The Rule prescribes the rules and regulations for those living and studying at the sectarian center at Qumran, whereas the Damascus Document legislates for those who join the sect but choose to remain in \u201ccamps,\u201d sectarian communities spread throughout the land of Israel. The Damascus Document provides only for the initial stages of the novitiate, but full entry into the sect, possible only at the Qumran settlement, is described in the Rule.
\nThe Damascus Document has also been found to have affinities with a variety of other Qumran documents, especially as regards use of the characteristic terminology of the sect, as well as the sharp animus toward outsiders. The relationship of the Damascus Document to the Temple Scroll (11QTemple) is a more difficult question. Yigael Yadin, the editor of the Temple Scroll, saw this text as being in substantial agreement with the Damascus Document whenever it dealt with similar issues. In fact, while this is sometimes the case, there are other points at which the two texts diverge or where there is substantial incongruity between them. This is because the provenance of the sources of the Temple Scroll is to be found in related and probably earlier circles, but not in the Dead Sea sect itself.
\nThe Damascus Document occupies a unique place in the history of modern scholarship. Its publication a half century earlier than the Qumran finds opened the eyes of scholars to the existence of what we now know as the Qumran or Dead Sea sect. In this way it was possible for students of rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity to begin to take this sect into account in the early twentieth century. As a repository of written Jewish legal materials organized by subject, the Damascus Document quickly became a source for the study of the history of Jewish law and tradition. With the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, this text has illuminated various groups in the Second Temple period and has provided a firm basis for understanding the sect\u2019s image of itself and of its fellow Jews, as well as its relation to the heritage of Scripture that preceded it and to the Judaism that followed it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
4QMMT\u2014Miq\u1e63at Ma\u2018a\u015be ha-Torah (Halakhic Letter)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Miq\u1e63at Ma\u2018a\u015be ha-Torah (also known as the Halakhic Letter and by its abbreviation, 4QMMT or simply MMT) purports to be a document sent by the leaders of the Qumran sect to the leaders of the priestly establishment in Jerusalem. The title of this text, which may be translated as \u201cSome Precepts of the Torah\u201d or \u201cSome Rulings Pertaining to the Torah,\u201d was given to it by its editors as a description of its contents, based on phrases found at the beginning and the end of the text. As is the case with almost all the Qumran manuscripts, the text itself bears no title. This text, found in Cave 4 in six fragmentary manuscripts (4Q394\u20134Q399), sets out some twenty laws regarding sacrificial laws, priestly gifts, ritual purity, and other matters about which the writers disagree with the Jerusalem authorities. Stated in a polemical manner, these laws clearly represent the views of the founders of the sect as opposed to those of their opponents whom the sect calls upon to accept their views. The laws are set within a framework that may allow us to learn much about the ideology of those who authored the text and about the very origins of the Qumran sect itself.
\n4QMMT may be an actual document dating to the earliest days of the Qumran group, or it may have been written later to justify the sectarian schism with the Jerusalem establishment. The existence of six manuscripts of this composition testifies to the importance of this text to the sectarians. The earliest manuscripts are late Hasmonean to early Herodian, that is, from the second half of the first century B.C.E.
\nThe structure of the document can be divided into four parts: a 364-day solar calendar found in one manuscript, an introductory sentence setting out the nature of the letter, a section listing the halakhic disagreements between the sect and the Jerusalem authorities, and a hortatory conclusion.
\nCalendar. It is questionable if the calendar is really integral to the text of MMT or not, an issue that is connected with the physical reconstruction of the manuscript. It is apparent that this calendrical list was not composed by the authors of the MMT text but was imported as a unit into the manuscript. The calendar mentions, in addition to the solar months, the specific extra day added, after three months of thirty days, at the equinoxes and solstices, and is organized in 91-day quarters that constitute the basic division of the 364-day year. It also mentions some extra festivals such as the wine festival on the third day of the fifth month, the oil festival on the twenty-second of the sixth month, and the festival of the wood offering on the twenty-third of the same month. All these are among the festivals associated with the solar calendar in the Temple Scroll.
\nIntroduction. The initial introductory sentence states that what follows are some of \u201cour words\u201d that are legal rulings \u201cwe hold to.\u201d These rulings concern only two topics, only one of which is preserved, that is, the laws of ritual purity. The other topic, judging from the list of laws, appears to concern sacrificial offerings in the temple.
\nList of Laws. In this section, the authors list about twenty matters of Jewish law that, they insist, are being violated by the Jerusalem establishment and have caused them to withdraw from the Jerusalem temple and form their sect. This letter is a proof that the major conflicts of Second Temple Judaism did not arise from theological disagreements such as messianism, but from conflicts about the proper way to carry out Jewish law.
\nThe following halakhot or halakhic topics are mentioned in the extant fragments of MMT: the prohibition of Gentile offerings in the temple, purity regulations, slaughter of animals, forbidden sexual unions, the fruit of the fourth year and the cattle tithe to be given to the priests, purification rituals for the leper, and the prohibition of marriages between priests and Israelites.
\nThe views of the authors of MMT are representative of Sadducean halakhah. Some of the same laws are reported in the Mishnah (Tractate Yadayim) and the views of our text are there attributed to the Sadducees. These halakhot are usually stricter than those of the Pharisees and later rabbis, and the authors excoriate those who do not accept the sectarians\u2019 view.
\nHortatory Conclusion. Here the authors state that because of their strict observance of the previous laws according to their own opinion, they have separated themselves from the majority of the Jewish people and from their observances. The sectarians write the addressee in the singular form, asking him to investigate the words of the Torah and to realize that they must be observed according to the sectarian interpretation, for the biblical kings were blessed when they followed the word of God and cursed when they transgressed. The addressee is urged to repent and spare his nation misfortune.
\nTo whom is this letter addressed? The text alternates between the singular and the plural. When in the singular, the manuscript assumes that it is addressing a leader who can, by virtue of his position, identify with the kings of Israel. It appears that the head of the Jerusalem establishment with such status must be the high priest during Hasmonean times.
\nMiq\u1e63at Ma\u2018a\u015be ha-Torah has wide ramifications for the history of Judaism in the Hasmonean period. In the disputes mentioned in the letter, the opinions of the opponents of the sect are those attributed in rabbinic literature to the Pharisees or the Tannaim (mishnaic rabbis). When tannaitic texts preserve a Pharisee-Sadducee conflict mentioned in MMT, the view of the sectarians coincides with that of the Sadducees. For example, the specifics of the required state of purity of the one who prepared the ashes of the red cow according to our text (B 13\u201317) are mentioned in rabbinic sources as being the custom of the Sadducean priests in the temple (m. Parah 3:7; cf. t. Parah 3:7\u20138). This phenomenon can be explained by seeing the earliest members of the sect as Sadducees who were unwilling to accept the suppression of the Zadokite high priests in the aftermath of the Maccabean revolt (168\u2013164 B.C.E.). Some of the disaffected Zadokites separated from the high priests in Jerusalem and formed the sect. The sect often refers to itself as \u201cSons of Zadok.\u201d The polemics of the Halakhic Letter are addressed to their Sadducean brethren who stayed in the Jerusalem temple and accepted the new order, following the Pharisaic rulings, and no longer practiced the old Sadducean teachings. This document dates from the earliest stage of the development of the Qumran sect when the sectarians still hoped to reconcile with the Jerusalem priesthood. Later on, sectarian writings, having abandoned that hope, are filled with radical tendencies, animated polemics, and hatred for outsiders.
\nThere is no question that the origin of the community that collected the scrolls was in a sectarian conflict that sustained the community throughout its existence. From MMT we learn the reasons for the schism. Up to now we had no explicit evidence on this subject. Josephus gives the impression that the sects were primarily divided over theological questions, but his explanation was designed to appeal to Greek and Roman readers. Only matters of practice are mentioned in MMT. This list of halakhot proves how important were matters of Jewish law, particularly purity regulations, as sources of schism within Judaism of the period.
\nThe contribution of MMT to our knowledge of the history and character of the halakhah of the various groups in the Hasmonean period is of the highest importance. The text polemicizes strongly against a group that is the predecessor of the rabbis, probably the Pharisees. It helps to prove that some Pharisaic laws are older than once thought. This text allows us to date to the Second Temple period a number of practices known only from later rabbinic literature.
\nThe text of MMT has much in common with various documents of the Qumran corpus. Its appearance along with the 364-day sectarian calendar of solar months and solar years gives the impression that the authors of MMT accepted this calendar. MMT shares a variety of sacrificial laws and the same ritual calendar with the Temple Scroll. These parallels are no doubt to be traced to the common Sadducean legal substratum that they share, although these texts are not literarily interdependent. The Damascus Document also shares many common principles with the legal section of MMT. Here again, no literary relationship can be shown, only a relationship of content.
\n4QFlorilegium also preserves some common legal rulings with MMT although they are not literarily dependent on one another. MMT exhibits no parallels with the sectarian regulations of the Rule of the Community or other such documents that represent the teachings of the sect after it reached maturity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
1QS\u2014Rule of the Community (Manual of Discipline, Serekh ha-Ya\u1e25ad)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Rule of Community, named for its opening line in Hebrew, Serekh ha-Ya\u1e25ad, was discovered in 1947 in Cave 1 and was originally entitled by scholars the Manual of Discipline because of its ordinances governing sectarian life. Some have suggested that it had to be memorized as part of the entry ritual for candidates of the sect. The importance of this text is further emphasized by the identification of parts of ten more copies of it in Cave 4 (4Q255\u2013264), two fragments in Cave 5 (5Q11), and a reference to it in the Rule (5Q13). Of these, 1QRule of the Community is the best preserved copy, dating to between 100 and 75 B.C.E.
\nThe manuscript of 1QS also contains 1Q28a (Rule of the Congregation = 1QSa) and 1Q28b (Rule of Benedictions = 1QSb) that are independent compositions. Textual analysis and paleographical inspection have been applied in order to determine the possible components of the Rule of the Community, to date the sections to various stages in the history of the sect, and to arrange the various manuscripts and fragments in chronological order. Since the text of 1QRule of the Community is presumed to have been in existence by the early part of the first century B.C.E., it must have originated in the previous century. It is tempting to posit that it was composed by the Teacher of Righteousness because of its ideology about withdrawal to the desert (1QS 8:12\u201316), but the scroll nowhere gives any definitive support for that supposition and shows strong evidence of being of composite origin.
\nThe Rule of the Community evidences some similarities with the Damascus Document. Both have regulations that apply to the members of a specific group, but the Rule of the Community refers to the sect as the ya\u1e25ad, whereas the Damascus Document calls them the \u2018edah. Some say that the Rule of the Community, with its emphasis on wilderness ideology, is intended for Essenes who lived at Qumran, while the Damascus Document is directed at Essenes who lived scattered throughout the land of Israel. It is certain, however, that these are related communities with closely regulated lives. Like the Damascus Document, the Rule of the Community contains regulations for sectarian life in the present premessianic age, but the Rule of the Community emphasizes the ideology of the wilderness much more.
\nThere are six main divisions in the Rule of the Community as preserved in 1QS: (1) introduction, (2) rituals for entering the sect and other covenant ceremonies, (3) a statement of the belief in dualism of good and evil, (4) rules pertaining to the organizational administration of the sect, (5) a description of the council of the community, and (6) a concluding hymn of praise.
\nIntroduction: The Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness. This first section (1:1\u201315) emphasizes that the law of Moses is central, and those who observe it strictly, the sectarians, are the Sons of Light while those who pervert it, those outside the sect, are the Sons of Darkness. The introduction reminds the sectarians that they must observe all the festivals mandated by the Torah according to the sectarian calendar and share their property communally upon entry into the sect.
\nRituals: Entering the Sect and Other Covenant Ceremonies. The ceremony for entering the sect (1:16\u20133:12) includes a blessing for the Sons of Light to which all the sectarians respond, \u201cAmen, amen.\u201d The annual covenant renewal ceremony, which may have occurred on the Day of Atonement or on the Festival of Shavuot, blesses the Sons of Light with eternal knowledge and eternal peace. The Levites then curse the Sons of Darkness with anger, revenge and destruction, inability to repent or to be forgiven, and all reply, \u201cAmen, amen.\u201d Then follows a warning to those who would not complete their entrance into the sect and accept all God\u2019s statutes. They will be unable to atone and remain unpurified.
\nThe Doctrine of the Two Spirits. This section (3:13\u20134:26), often termed the Treatise of the Two Spirits, describes the spirit of light and the spirit of darkness that work in the world along with divine predestination. These two spirits battle over each individual. On the face of it, the text appears to argue that each individual is totally dominated by one or the other spirit. Yet some interpreters see the anthropology of this text as much more complex, so that each person is a composite of both tendencies. Among the Sons of Light, the spirit of light prevails, although occasionally, when they do wrong, it is under the influence of the Angel of Darkness. The Sons of Righteousness will attain peace, long life, and many children while the Sons of Darkness will be forever damned. These two forces will hate one another and fight for control of the world until, at the end of time, God will destroy the spirit of darkness forever.
\nRules for Entrance into the Community and the Penal Code. This section (5:1\u20137:25) outlines the rules for entrance into the Community: each member will turn away from deceit, follow the Zadokite priests who expound the law of Moses, separate himself from those who have not accepted the covenant, take an oath to observe the law of Moses, give due respect to those who outrank him, eat the communal meal where the priest blesses the food and partakes of the first portion, and advance to the status of complete purity when he becomes a full member with all rights. These rights include permission to touch the pure solid food of the sect, then the pure liquid food that is even more susceptible to ritual impurity.
\nThe rules also set out the penalties a sectarian would incur for backsliding. Infractions include lying, insulting a fellow sectarian, taking the law into one\u2019s own hand, exposing oneself, sleeping in the assembly, and leaving the assembly without permission. Minor penalties resulted in the reduction of food rations for a specified amount of time. More severe infractions resulted in removal from the pure food. The most severe punishment was permanent expulsion from the sect. Such a person may be reinstated by going through the ranks again in the same manner as a novice.
\nThe Council of the Community. Twelve laymen and three priests constitute the council of the community (8:1\u20139:26a). They must be blameless and uphold truth, righteousness, and justice. Any one of them who inadvertently commits a sin may be punished by removal from the pure food, but if he deliberately transgresses, he is removed from the council. The council itself is considered a holy body that serves as a substitute for the temple sacrifices, in which the sectarians did not participate, and an atonement for the land.
\nHymn of Praise. God is praised in this part (9:26b\u201311:22) as the creator and controller of the movements of the sun and moon, the determiner of seasons and festivals, the righteous and merciful judge of mankind, the One who rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked. The petitioner prays that God judge him with righteousness and cleanse his soul of sin. For humans remain in awe of God and cannot comprehend his glory or his mysteries, wonders, and power. One passage (1QS 10:9\u201317) alludes to the daily prayers and the recitation of the Shema morning and evening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
1QSa\u2014Rule of the Congregation (Serekh ha-\u2018Edah)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Rule of the Congregation (1QSa = 1Q28a), also known as the Messianic Rule or by its Hebrew name Serekh ha-\u2018Edah, is preserved only as an appendix copied on the same 1QS scroll after the Rule of the Community (Manual of Discipline, Serekh ha-Ya\u1e25ad), and followed by the Rule of Benedictions. The script is Hasmonean, dating to about 100\u201375 B.C.E. Despite appearing on the same scroll and being related in many ways, the Rule of the Community and the Rule of the Congregation are clearly two separate documents that need to be studied individually. The Rule of the Community and the Rule of the Congregation describe, respectively, the ideal world of the present and the ideal world of the messianic age. For this reason, the copyist decided to place them on the same scroll. There are also many parallels between the Rule of the Congregation and the War Scroll (1QM), involving some of the purity laws, ages of military service, and the concept that angels are among the sectarians, requiring the highest standards of ritual purity.
\nThe Rule of the Congregation was clearly considered to be a central text by the sectarians, or it would not have been copied immediately after the Rule of the Community. Its content is a description of the nature of the eschatological community as understood by the sectarians. This community would presumably come into being in the aftermath of the great war described in the War Scroll. Accordingly, this text was an essential part of the messianic worldview of the Qumran sectarians. When read in comparison with the Rule of the Community, it becomes clear that the Rule of the Congregation presents a messianic mirror image of the life of the sectarians in the present, premessianic age. One can conclude that life in the present sectarian community is seen as an enactment of what will be the order of the day at the end of days. At the same time, the life of the eschatological community reflects a transformation of the present order into the life of the end of days.
\nThe text is composed of several sections, each of which might have originally stood alone before redaction into the complete document as it is now preserved. The title of the text is derived from the opening sentence that specifically alludes to the eschatological character of what follows. The leadership of the sect, even in the end of days, is retained by the Sons of Zadok, the Zadokite priests. They and their followers have kept God\u2019s covenant when all others went astray. At the onset of the end of days, the priestly Sons of Zadok assemble with their wives and children and celebrate a covenant renewal ceremony, reading the law aloud. This text most certainly expects normal family life in the eschatological community.
\nThe text then outlines the stages of life of the sectarian, beginning with the earliest education and extending to old age. Twenty is the age of majority for men when marriage and sexual relations are to ensue. The text details various ages for different military roles. At twenty-five the male sectarian enters into full service, and at thirty he may take on a leadership role. At old age, the sectarian would be reassigned according to his abilities. Apparently age was seen as a disqualifying blemish. Mental incompetence disqualifies a man from any but the most subsidiary military duties.
\nThe scroll next specifies that the sect is to be led by members of the tribe of Levi, specifically by the Zadokite priesthood, together with the heads of the clans. The scroll attempts to mirror the ideal period of desert wandering, which is also reflected in the organization of tens, hundreds, and thousands mentioned below.
\nThe duties of the eschatological council of the community are specified as judgment, that is, serving as the highest court of the community and deciding matters of law such as formulating legislation and declaring war. The text assumes that all these activities will continue in the end of days.
\nThere follows a list of those excluded from the council because of ritual impurity or physical deformity, seen by the sectarians as a sign of some kind of moral deformity. They are forbidden to enter the assembly because of the presence of angels, a motif also employed to explain the need for purity in the military camp in the War Scroll.
\nThe high point of the text is the description of the expected messianic convocation. The eschatological high priest is to enter, followed by the rest of the members of the priesthood, all sitting before him in order of status. The messiah of Israel will enter followed by the chiefs of clans, according to their position in the march, patterned on the desert camp of biblical Israel. All the wise men of Israel are to sit before the two messiahs. Some scholars have seen this passage as alluding to the \u201cbegetting\u201d of the messiah (2:11\u201312), alluding to a Christian parallel. This reading should now be rejected, however, in light of new photographs and computer enhancement. While the birth of the messiah may be foretold in the Hebrew Bible (cf. Isa 7:14; 9:5), Jewish sources were unanimous in seeing the messiah (or messiahs) as normal mortals, even if in some views the messiah was expected to experience a miraculous birth.
\nFinally, the text describes the messianic banquet in which, as in the communal meals of the sect (1QS 6:3\u20135) in the present, premessianic era, the priest is to recite the blessing over the bread and then the wine and receive the first portion of bread. Then the messiah of Israel is to receive his portion, and then all those in attendance in the order of their status in the community. The text of the Rule of the Congregation (1QSa 2:22\u201323) concludes by stating that this pattern shall be maintained whenever there are at least ten males participating together in a communal meal.
\nThis text has been discussed extensively in an effort to find an early parallel to the Last Supper and the Christian Eucharist that commemorates it. The discussion has centered on the fact that here, as in the early Christian community, the focus of the meal is on bread and wine, and that it is clearly an eschatological experience. Such a parallel is natural, for bread and wine were the normal staples of life in ancient Palestine. Further, the ritual blessing of the food in the Qumran communal meal\u2014in the present and in the end of days\u2014was the required blessing that Jews practiced already in Second Temple times, praising God both before and after eating.
\nSome scholars have claimed that the practice of blessing the food indicates the sacral character of the meal described here and have suggested, therefore, a similarity to the Eucharist. Yet a sacred meal is one eaten in imitation of a sacrifice or as a replacement for it, in which the eater is somehow transformed by the experience. None of this is present here. The benedictions result only from the normal ritual obligations of the Jew, and the role of the priests here is only an honorary one, paralleled also in rabbinic requirements that priests be served their food first and be given the honor of reciting the grace. This meal should therefore be seen as eschatological rather than sacral.
\nThe text also has significance for the history of Jewish ideology and practice. The Rule of the Community describes a messianic banquet, a notion quite widespread in Second Temple Judaism and continued into rabbinic aggadic tradition. Further, the text attests to the practice of benedictions before food and to the honor given to the priest in non-Pharisaic context earlier than the rabbinic evidence previously known. The minimum of ten males, also found elsewhere in the scrolls (1QS 6:3, 6), indicates that the concept of the minyan, a quorum of ten for Jewish religious activity, was already common at this early date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
11QTemple\u2014Temple Scroll (Megillat ha-Miqdash)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Temple Scroll (11Q19 = 11QTemple) was purchased for the Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem in 1967. Although it was originally 8.75 meters long, it is missing part of its beginning and damaged from dampness in the upper edge. The scribal techniques and script are typical of the other Qumran manuscripts. While the language of the scroll has much in common with the dialect in which the sectarian compositions from Qumran are written, in certain linguistic features and in its legal terminology it exhibits more affinities to rabbinic Hebrew than do the other scrolls.
\nThe Temple Scroll is also known from two more manuscripts from Cave 11, 11Q20 and 11Q21, as well as a related text from Cave 4, 4Q365a. The latter two are very fragmentary and, although they share some similarity in contents with the Temple Scroll, they cannot be certainly identified as copies of this text. They may represent closely related compositions or remnants of the sources of the Temple Scroll. Another manuscript from Cave 4 (4Q524) is also fragmentary and might also be one of the sources that the Temple Scroll utilized, although it is more likely a recension of the scroll. Yadin identified the script of the two scribes of 11Q19 as Herodian, dating to around the turn of the Christian era, but the date of 4Q524 has been established as Hasmonean, making likely a Hasmonean date for the composition.
\nThe scroll presents itself as a rewritten Torah that begins with the renewal of the Sinaitic covenant in Exodus 34 and then turns to the building of the tabernacle in Exodus 35. From this point, the scroll continues in the order of the canonical Torah, covering the basic structures of the sanctuary and its courts, the sacrificial system, the various other temple rituals, laws of ritual purity and impurity, and finally a long series of Deuteronomic prescriptions, including a distinct section on the king, the government, and the army. The scroll concludes with the laws of consanguineous marriages.
\n11QTemple 29:2\u201310 indicates clearly that the purpose of the Temple Scroll was to provide a system of law for the premessianic temple. This temple, it was expected, would be replaced in the end of days with a divinely created sanctuary. Until then, the author\/redactor saw his scroll as representing the correct interpretation of the Torah.
\nThe scroll does not simply recapitulate the prescriptions of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Rather it collects the various pentateuchal (and sometimes prophetic) material relevant to the issue at hand and weaves together a unified, consistent text. In this respect it can be said that the text redacts the Torah, combining all materials on a single topic together. In many cases, statements in the canonical Torah referring to God in the third person are shifted into first person divine direct address. In this way the intermediacy of Moses is eliminated and the contents of the scroll are presented as the direct revelation of God to Israel at Mount Sinai.
\nYet the scroll goes further. It uses a distinct form of exegesis, in some ways similar to the midrash of the later rabbis, to reconcile the differences between the various pentateuchal texts, so as to create a unified and consistent whole. At times, it makes minor additions to clarify its legal stance. In a few places, extensive passages appear that are not based on our canonical Scriptures. In this way the scroll propounds its own views on the major issues of Jewish law relating to temple, cult, government, and sanctity. It is this exegetical and legal approach that makes the Temple Scroll so central for the history of Jewish law and midrashic exegesis, and for understanding the sects of the Second Temple period.
\nThe laws of the scroll include a number of provisions of great interest. The architecture of the temple proposed here differs from biblical accounts, on which the author claims to base himself, as well as from descriptions of the Second Temple in Josephus and the Mishnah. Most interesting is the extension of the temenos (the \u201cTemple City\u201d) by the addition of a third courtyard, so large that it would have encompassed most of what was then Jerusalem. The courtyards and their gates represent the Israelite encampment in the wilderness. Unique approaches appear here for the construction of the temple furnishings. The sacrificial festival calendar includes a number of festivals not part of the biblical or rabbinic cycle. A second New Year festival is to be celebrated on the first of Nisan, in the spring, followed by annual celebration of the eight days of ordination. Besides the Omer festival for the barley harvest and the firstfruits of wheat (Shavuot), the scroll adds two more firstfruits festivals, each at fifty-day intervals, for oil and wine. The wood offering is also celebrated as an annual festival in the summer. Extensive laws deal with sacrificial procedures and ritual purity and impurity. Here we see a general tendency to provide additional ways to protect the sanctuary from impurity. This brief survey does not even begin to indicate the rich nature of the scroll\u2019s exegesis and the many details of Jewish law in which the text diverges from the views of other sectarian documents or rabbinic literature.
\nEven in its present form, it is not difficult to discern that the Temple Scroll has been redacted from a number of sources by an author\/redactor. His sources most certainly included the sacrificial festival calendar (11QTemple 13:9\u201329:1) and the law of the king and army (56:12\u201359:21). It has also been suggested that the description of the temple precincts and furnishings (2:1\u201347:18, passim) and the laws of purity (48:1\u201351:10) constituted separate sources. It was the author\/redactor who added the Deuteronomic paraphrase at the end (51:11\u201356:21, 60:1\u201366:17).
\nWhen we turn to the dating of the composition of the scroll, we can reason from several clues. First, all sources now included in the scroll presuppose the existence of a canonical Torah differing from MT only in minor details. Only a few legal rulings can be shown to derive from variant biblical texts. For this reason the scroll had to have been completed after the period of the return (ca. late 6th to mid-5th centuries B.C.E.). Second, the earliest of the manuscripts has been dated to the Hasmonean period.
\nTherefore, it is logical to seek a Sitz im Leben for the Temple Scroll in the Hasmonean period. Indeed, the law of the king, the largest sustained nonpentateuchal section, provides clear indications of the historical context of the scroll. For example, it emphasizes the separation of roles of the high priest and king and the need to constitute the gerousia so that it would consist of twelve each of priests, Levites, and Israelites. It argues against the use of mercenaries, employed extensively by John Hyrcanus. The Temple Scroll requires that the king have a special palace guard to protect him against being kidnapped. Here we have an allusion to the perfidious kidnapping and murder of Jonathan the Hasmonean in 143 B.C.E. The text further polemicizes against campaigns such as those of John Hyrcanus and Alexander Jannaeus when it prohibits wars with Egypt for the sake of accumulating wealth.
\nSince the law of the king is incorporated into the fully redacted scroll, it is therefore appropriate to date the scroll as a whole to no later than the second half of the reign of John Hyrcanus. At this time, the author\/redactor called for a thoroughgoing revision of the existing Hasmonean order, desiring to replace it with a temple, sacrificial system, and government that were in his view the embodiment of the legislation of the Torah. This dating is fully consistent with the paleographic data.
\nIn his initial study of the Temple Scroll, Yadin assumed that it, like the rest of the Qumran corpus, represented a text of Essene provenance. Accordingly, he interpreted the scroll to agree with the previously known Dead Sea sectarian texts and Philo and Josephus\u2019s descriptions of the Essenes. Many scholars have followed this lead. Others have pointed to the absence of the usual Qumran polemical language and distinctive terminology and the lack of some characteristic linguistic features in these texts. Further, this text has a different view of the origins, authority, and derivation of Jewish law. Whereas the sectarian texts from Qumran generally expect the law to be derived by inspired biblical exegesis from the canonical Torah, the Temple Scroll sees extrabiblical laws as stemming from the Sinaitic revelation as an actual Torah. Some recent scholarship now sees the Temple Scroll as emerging from a related group that was either contemporary with or earlier than the previously known Qumran sect.
\nThere is an even closer link between the Temple Scroll and the Miq\u1e63at Ma\u2018a\u015be ha-Torah (4QMMT). 4QMMT takes some positions equivalent to those of the Sadducees in rabbinic literature and ascribes to the Jerusalem priests views identified as Pharisaic. In many cases, this text\u2019s rulings agree with those of the Temple Scroll. This evidence suggests that the Temple Scroll stems from forerunners of the sect who shared Sadducean rulings on many matters.
\nThis scroll is the largest of the Dead Sea Scrolls and for this reason alone it vastly enriches the textual remains of Second Temple Judaism. This text shows that the exegesis of Scripture for the derivation of Jewish law, the activity that the later rabbis called midrash, was already a central part of the Judaism of some groups in the Hasmonean period. This exegesis served as the basis for highly developed legal teachings that are evidence that, among some groups of Second Temple Jews, strict adherence to a living and developing tradition of Jewish law was the norm. Further, some of these Jews objected strenuously to the conduct of the Hasmoneans in both the religious and political\/military spheres. These opponents were at the forefront of the movement represented by the Qumran sect. Among the texts they brought with them to Qumran were the sources of the Temple Scroll.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
4Q265\u2014Miscellaneous Rules (Serekh Damascus)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Miscellaneous Rules, formerly Serekh Damascus (4Q265 = SD), was named by the initial editors on the assumption that it represents a combination of the Serekh ha-Ya\u1e25ad (Rule of the Community) and Damascus Document. In truth, Miscellaneous Rules does include material that parallels some of these two well-known Qumran texts. Is it a composite or an independent redaction of the same building blocks (serakhim) as those of the Rule of the Community and Damascus Document? Whatever the case, Miscellaneous Rules can be considered in light of other Qumran texts that appear to be anthologies such as 4QOrdinances. This problem points to the complex literary history of the larger Dead Sea Scrolls. The manuscript is in Late Herodian script and should be dated to the first half of the first century C.E.
\nThe text, as it now survives, may be divided into the following sections: (1) frg. 3, lines 3\u20136, quotation of Isa 54:1\u20132, probably followed by pesher interpretation and other quotations and interpretations; (2) frg. 3, line 3: prohibition of youths and women from eating the paschal sacrifice; (3) frg. 4 i\u2013ii, line 2: Penal Code; (4) frg. 4 ii, lines 3\u20139: joining the sect; (5) frg. 5: regarding agriculture; (6) frg. 6\u20137, line 5: Sabbath Code; (7) frg. 7, lines 6\u201310: on the sect; (8) frg. 7, lines 11\u201317: purification rules. We will survey each of these sections.
\n(1) If the order proposed by the editor is correct, then the text may have had some hortatory beginning, such as in the Zadokite Fragments (Damascus Document). It may have included, as does that section, the quotation of various biblical verses with pesher exegesis provided, all of which would serve to introduce the laws that follow. 4QpIsad quotes Isa 54:11\u201312 in referring to the council of the community, which is alluded to below in frg. 7, lines 7\u201310.
\n(2) The text prohibits women and young men from eating of the paschal sacrifice. Such a law is also found in Jub. 49:17 and in the Temple Scroll (11QTemple 17:8\u20139) but is contrary to the actual practice of Second Temple Judaism (Josephus, J.W. 6.426; m. Pesa\u1e25. 8:1). Exod 12:3\u20134 seems to require everyone to eat of this offering. But for certain Jewish circles, perhaps the wider Sadducean trend in halakhah, biblical exegesis (\u05d0\u05d9\u05e9, Exod 12:4) and purity considerations led to the exclusion of women and young males from this rite.
\n(3) This section contains parts of a Penal Code which parallels one found in the medieval genizah manuscript of the Damascus Document (CD 14:18\u201322), and much more extensively in the Qumran manuscripts of this same document (4Q266 10 i 11\u2013ii 15; 4Q270 7 i 1\u201314), and in the Rule of the Community (1QS 6:24\u20137:27). These three recensions of the Penal Code of the sect share a variety of aspects, especially the means of punishment by banishment from pure liquid or solid food of the community, which is tantamount to exclusion from the communal meals, reduction of the food ration for specified periods, and even expulsion from the sect. Yet the various recensions have different punishments, and variant readings indicate such variation even within the same text. Apparently this was an ongoing issue in sectarian life, and the codes developed and were modified constantly in light of decisions and practices of the sect\u2019s assembly and its officials.
\n(4) The text describes the process for joining the sect. It closely parallels the version in the Rule of the Community (1QS 6:14\u201323). First, the novice is to be examined by a sectarian official. If he passes this aptitude test, he studies for one year and is then examined by the council. If he passes this test, he is then taught the sectarian legal provisions. He then may touch the solid food of the sectarians, but may not touch the liquid food, which is more easily susceptible to impurity and which may help to communicate it, for an additional year. After two years he surrenders his property for communal use and becomes a full member of the sect. This procedure appears to be the same one described in the Rule of the Community, and the two texts are most likely related to one another from the point of view of their literary history.
\n(5) The mention of \u201call that is sown in the earth\u201d and \u201cmakes bloom\u201d is all that can be read here. It may be that this section dealt with laws of agriculture, such as are dealt with in the Zadokite Fragments. It is also possible that this is a metaphoric reference to the Dead Sea sect.
\n(6) Several Sabbath prohibitions are mentioned here that for the most part parallel those in the Sabbath Code as preserved in both the medieval genizah version of the Damascus Document and the Qumran manuscripts. Included here are prohibitions on wearing dirty clothing, carrying out of the private domain (the tent) on the Sabbath, removing animals from a pit (contra Matt 12:11), allowing animals to walk beyond the Sabbath limit of two thousand cubits (three thousand feet), and a prohibition against Aaronide priests sprinkling waters of purification on the Sabbath. Extremely important is the law of saving a life on the Sabbath as it is formulated here. Based on the Sabbath Code of the Damascus Document (CD 11:16\u201317) there was room to argue whether the sectarians agreed with the Pharisaic-rabbinic tradition in setting aside all Sabbath prohibitions in cases of danger to life. Some scholars argued that the sectarians rejected this notion, but the view that the sectarians also agreed to save life on the Sabbath but sought to minimize Sabbath violation in the process was proven correct by this text\u2019s explicit instruction to use a garment, an item not otherwise prohibited for use on the Sabbath, to lift a person out of water.
\nAppended to this section is a prohibition on eating nonsacral meat in the vicinity of the temple. This regulation is paralleled also in the Temple Scroll (11QTemple 52:18\u201319).
\n(7) The sixth section parallels the Rule of the Community in requiring that there be a learned priest wherever there are ten sectarians (1QS 6:3\u20134; CD 13:2\u20133) and setting a minimum of fifteen for setting up a council of the community (1QS 8:1\u20132). Also parallel is the understanding of the sect itself as a pleasant aroma (1QS 8:9), that is, a substitute for the sacrificial ritual from which the sect abstained. Miscellaneous Rules sees the sect itself as serving as a sacrifice on behalf of the people of Israel in the period of wickedness, in which the sacrifices are not being conducted, in the view of the sect, according to the correct regulations.
\n(8) The final section is a statement of the laws of the parturient, the woman who has just given birth, following Lev 12:1\u20136 and Jub. 3:9\u201314. The text of Miscellaneous Rules tells us that Adam was brought into the garden of Eden after seven days, presumably so that he could be purified, and then Eve entered seven days later, making a total of fourteen days of purification. This notion is based on the concept of the garden of Eden as a sanctuary, allowing entry to it only by the ritually pure.
\nWhile little of this document has been preserved, it certainly shows, along with the minor legal texts from Qumran, that legal literature among the sectarians was much richer than what is preserved. Further, the ongoing process of editing and compiling that resulted in the larger works as we have them is illustrated by this important text.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Description of the Minor Legal Works<\/p>\n\n\n\n
4Q251\u20144Q Halakha A<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This document contains a series of laws, some of which overlap with laws known from the Damascus Document, Temple Scroll, and 4QMMT, and includes some prescriptions that are typical of the Sadducean-type legal system encountered in the sectarian materials. In general, the literary form of this text is much closer to that of rewritten Bible than to abstractly formulated law.
\nSome Sabbath laws (frgs. 1\u20132) overlap with prescriptions found in the Sabbath Code of the Damascus Document as well as in the Miscellaneous Rules. Most of the preserved text is a rewriting of various laws in Exodus 21\u201322. Also discussed here are laws of firstfruits and new grain, following a scheme similar to that in the Festival Calendar of the Temple Scroll (11QTemple 18\u201323). Other laws discuss the selling of ancestral lands (based on Lev 25:14\u201317), the giving of fourth-year produce to priests (as opposed to eating it in Jerusalem as the Pharisees ruled), a practice also mandated in the Temple Scroll (60:3\u20134) and 4QMMT (B 62\u20133). The text also prohibits eating an animal that did not live for seven days (Lev 22:27) and the slaughter of pregnant animals, again shared with the Temple Scroll (11QTemple 52:5) and 4QMMT (B 36) but permitted by Pharisaic-rabbinic halakhah. The text also includes a list of forbidden consanguineous marriages similar to that in the Temple Scroll (66:11\u201317). Among the laws here is the prohibition of intermarriage with non-Jews and of a priest\u2019s arranging for his daughter to marry a nonpriest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
4Q274\u2014Purification Rules (Tohorot) A<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This fragmentary text deals with the laws of impurity resulting, most probably, as from the disease \u05e6\u05e8\u05e2\u05ea, usually mistranslated as \u201cleprosy.\u201d As in the Temple Scroll (11QTemple 48:14\u201315), this text provides for special places for the quarantine of those with this disease. A difficult passage provides that they must remain at least twelve cubits from the pure food, to the northwest of each dwelling, probably meaning to the northwest of each town or village. Such people are forbidden to come in contact even with those already impure, as those with \u05e6\u05e8\u05e2\u05ea would require ritual cleansing after contact with other impurities. This indicates that impurity can be contracted in successively stronger layers, so that those with other impurities may not come in contact with those with this skin disease. The requirement of separation, even for the impure, indicates a consciousness also of the contagious nature of such diseases. In the same way, a woman with a nonmenstrual discharge of blood may not touch a gonorrheic or anything upon which he may have sat or with which he may have come in contact. If she does, she must undergo purification, even if she remains in her own original state of impurity. The text goes into several examples to make this general point.
\nAnother issue discussed in this text, also found in the Temple Scroll (e.g., 11QTemple 45:7\u201310), is the requirement that one who is to undergo a seven-day purification period, with sprinkling on the third and seventh days, must undergo ablutions as well on the first day to peel off the initial level of impurity and to allow him or her to begin the normal purification required by the Torah. Until this first-day ablution, he may not eat anything. Further, all sprinkling for purification is forbidden on the Sabbath. Also discussed here are the impurity of semen and reptiles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
4Q276\u20144QTohorot Ba and 4Q277\u20144QTohorot Bb<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These two texts, Tohorot Ba and Bb, deal with the ritual of the Red Cow as the means of purification from impurity of the dead as prescribed in Numbers 19. 4Q276 seems to refer at the beginning to the high priest who ministers at this ritual. The text describes the slaughter of the animal and the sprinkling of its blood, as well as other aspects of the ritual as prescribed in the Torah.
\n4Q277 also mentions the fact that the one who performs this ritual is rendered impure as a result, a paradox mentioned already in the Bible. As in 4QMMT (B 13\u201317), all participants in the ritual are explicitly mentioned, indicating that they are all rendered impure by their participation. Also hinted at here is the requirement, specified also in MMT, that the priest who officiates must be totally pure himself. In case he has just completed a purification ritual, the sun must have set on his last day of purification. The Pharisaic-rabbinic tradition would have allowed one still awaiting sunset on his last day of purification to perform the ritual. The Sadducees and those who followed their halakhic tradition disagreed. Further, the text lists a number of ways in which the impurity of the dead can be passed from one person to another, expanded to include categories that the Bible specifies for the gonorrheic (Lev 15:4\u201315).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
4Q284a\u2014Harvesting (Leqe\u1e6d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This text is extremely fragmentary and deals with the requirements for gleaning. According to Lev 19:9\u201310 and 23:22, grain left in the field may not be collected after the harvest is completed, but must be left for the poor. The Bible supplies no specific requirements for the gleaners, but this text requires that they be ritually pure. Little more can be derived from this text but it no doubt included specifics of this requirement and may have included other agricultural laws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
4Q477\u2014Rebukes by the Overseer<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This document clearly stems from the Qumran sectarian community, recording actual dockets of sectarian legal proceedings against those in violation of sectarian prescriptions. According to sectarian law, it was required that one reprove a fellow member of the sect in front of the overseer (mevaqqer) and in front of witnesses after he committed a transgression. Only if this procedure had taken place could a sectarian be punished for a later infraction of the same law. This fragmentary text lists by name specific individuals who had been rebuked as well as their transgressions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Conclusion<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This review of the major and minor legal texts in the Qumran collection serves to point out that there is much legal material here to be analyzed. Although the texts are written by a unique group of people living in a particular time and place, they are grounded, like biblical and rabbinic literature, in issues of Jewish law. The sectarian legal texts give us a window on the way that they read the Bible and determined their laws. They had their own way of deriving authority, their own legal system, their own calendar, ceremonies, and rituals and expressed their opposition to the Jerusalem establishment through the use of polemics. Nevertheless, their legal documents shed much light on Jewish law in Second Temple times amongst the groups that competed with the Qumran sectarians: the Sadducees, Pharisees, and later rabbinic law. Analysis of the Qumran method of codification of Jewish law will demonstrate the similarities and disparities between the sectarian concepts and those of the other groups. This analysis will be taken up in the next chapter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
CHAPTER 9<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Codification of Jewish Law in the Dead Sea Scrolls<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The rich contents of the Qumran materials related to Jewish law are preserved in texts of very different literary character. The literary structure of a number of documents of sectarian regulations or matters of Jewish law lends itself to comparison with biblical texts and later rabbinic literature. Here we will see a mixture of elements common with other Jewish texts and some unique to the various documents found at Qumran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Literary Structure of the Rules<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In order to analyze the Qumran materials, we will have to consider three basic questions: (1) the overall literary character of the collection of laws, (2) the manner of collection or redaction, and (3) the form of individual laws or regulations. These characteristics can then be evaluated as to adherence to biblical forms and compared with the language of rabbinic legal materials.
\nIt is well known that biblical law included both casuistic (if \u2026 then \u2026) statements and apodictic laws (thou shalt \u2026). Postbiblical law, however, is usually expressed in different forms. Fundamental to discussion of later Jewish legal documents is a basic distinction between independently formulated laws written in the language of their author (mishnah) and those presented as derived from biblical interpretation (midrash). This second type in the rabbinic corpus appears in the form of lemma followed by a commentary. Rabbinic beliefs regarding the sanctity of the written law required that the text and its interpretation be kept thoroughly separate. Among the Qumran documents we find evidence of a similar dichotomy, although differing approaches to the Bible and its text may have been the source for the particular features we find.
\nMishnaic laws are generally stated as participial clauses, with the negative indicated by the Hebrew \u2019en, but the Dead Sea laws are generally stated in biblical style similar to casuistic laws. Negatives are constructed with \u2019al followed by a verb in the imperfect. Laws of the penal code generally begin with \u2019im followed by a verb in the imperfect and then go on to specify the punishments in terms of demotion within the sectarian hierarchy or deprivation from a portion of one\u2019s food ration. We may generalize and state that Qumran legal materials and rules are composed in a style that is closer to that of biblical law than to the mishnaic legal corpus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Biblical and Rabbinic Models<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Whereas the biblical codes, like their ancient Near Eastern counterparts, intend to assemble a group of laws to be followed by all, Mishnaic literature and the later Jewish codes that flow from it, even up to the Shul\u1e25an \u2018Arukh, are rather codes of legal curricula. They do not intend to provide simple legal guidance, but rather record a set of opinions of varying authority. They may be used as the raw material for a codification in the normal sense, but as they stand, they provide the curriculum for either abstract study or for the rendering of decisions. For the most part, they do not record decisions. The only possible exception is the code of Maimonides, and even he often veers from this goal to mention variant views or customs.
\nCertainly, therefore, the term \u201ccode\u201d will play out differently when applied to the Dead Sea Scrolls, depending on whether the model is biblical or rabbinic. But things are even more complicated. As the Pentateuch was passed down to postbiblical Jews\u2014indeed already in the Persian period\u2014it was canonized Scripture. As such, what were, at least from a literary point of view, discrete, and one would assume self-consistent, codes now appeared in a collection\u2014a \u201csupercode,\u201d as it were. The supercode now contained varying and even contradicting treatments of the same subjects, now scattered within the literary domicile we recognize as the Torah. The interpretation, reconciliation, and homogenization of these passages is a necessary process before any postbiblical code can be produced. Needless to say, evidence of this process will be visible everywhere in the legal materials of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
\nIn the tannaitic corpus, much of this effort went on in a class of texts called tannaitic or halakhic midrashim (both terms are to some extent misnomers) that are generally not considered to be codes in the normal sense of the word. These texts compare, contrast, and interpret the Torah\u2019s codes. The results may be closely related to the Mishnah and the Tosefta, but the midrashim are literarily so different that they are not considered codes.
\nIf we attempt to compare the form of Jewish legal literature in the Dead Sea Scrolls with that of the rabbis, the midrashic materials will also be significant. A long-standing issue in rabbinic studies that also applies to the Qumran material is the classification of texts (or better the building blocks of texts) into midrash and mishnah. While rabbinic literature includes midrashic texts that probe the biblical legal codes in their canonical context, the corresponding approach in the scrolls is the genre of rewritten Bible. The scrolls also contain abstract legal rulings of the mishnaic type, organized by subject, although these tend to be more biblically based in formulation than their tannaitic counterparts. Whereas in the tannaitic corpus we deal with midrash, in the scrolls we deal with the Torah\u2019s codes at a much closer distance. This phenomenon is easy to understand in the wider context of the religious approaches of both corpora. The scrolls\u2019 authors, and the groups they represented, allowed biblical interpretation and adaptation, not to mention reconciliation and harmonization, to be displayed by invading the text itself and rewriting and even re-redacting it to express postbiblical teachings. To the rabbis, such an approach violated the sanctity of Scripture and the distinction between the written and oral laws, between what they saw as God\u2019s word and what they perceived as the product of a divine-human partnership. So often the same ideas can be expressed in the Qumran corpus as rewritten Bible, but in the rabbinic corpus as midrash, which clearly maintains the distinction between Bible and interpretation.
\nIt is therefore fair to say that Qumran documents bear witness already in the second century B.C.E. to the existence of what later were termed the mishnaic and midrashic modes for formulating postbiblical law. But partly for chronological and partly for ideological reasons, the Qumran documents hew much more closely to their biblical forerunners. Indeed, it has been correctly observed that the Qumran sectarians saw themselves as living in the biblical age itself, and compilation and editing of biblical materials continued to some extent in Qumran and related sectarian circles up to the turn of the era. It is therefore to be expected that the Qumran versions of these two genres of postbiblical law will be somewhat closer to the biblical forms than to those in rabbinic literature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Authority of the Codes<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This brings us to another contrast between the Qumran materials and those of the rabbis\u2014the question of source of authority. Any code will automatically have to make some claim to authority if it is to be followed. In the Qumran case, we see two approaches coexisting: (1) Qumran sectarian works, such as the legal sections of the Rule of the Community (Serekh ha-Ya\u1e25ad, 1QS), assume that God revealed the written Torah\u2014the nigleh, \u201crevealed\u201d\u2014at Sinai. Authoritative sectarian interpretation and the laws that derive from it constitute the nistar, \u201chidden.\u201d The latter was revealed in divinely-inspired, continuous revelation at sectarian sessions and was redacted into serakhim, lists of laws. This means that the sectarians accepted a onetime divine revelation at Sinai mediated by the process of authoritative, in their view inspired, biblical exegesis. (2) A onetime revelation is also espoused by the author\/redactor of the Temple Scroll, but he has rewritten the Torah to include his own interpretations, rulings, and even extrabiblical laws. His view is of a onetime revelation that includes what we would regard as canonical and extracanonical laws. Essentially, he believes in a onetime revelation in which God agrees with him!
\nThese views contrast with the Pharisaic assumption of extrabiblical legal \u201ctraditions of the fathers.\u201d Nor do they agree with the later rabbinic view that these laws and explanations had been given at Sinai in addition to the canonical Torah.
\nThere is one further issue to be clarified regarding codification. Normally, when we talk about Jewish legal codes, we deal with codes bringing together the usual topics of Jewish law, taking their cue from the Torah\u2019s laws as spun out by exegesis and\/or tradition, depending on the particular system of Judaism under discussion. In addition, there is a closely related category that is especially prominent in the scrolls corpus because of its sectarian, that is, \u201cin-group,\u201d character, namely, regulations for the conduct of the life of the sect that have no direct basis in the Torah. I say \u201cdirect\u201d since these organizational laws are often rooted in Torah prescriptions or halakhic categories, but they seek to create a group setting of holiness and sanctity, not to fulfill some specific commandment, positive or negative. These organizational, sectarian regulations have been compared by some to those of Hellenistic schools or guilds. However, these similarities concern only aspects typical of all such groups and especially those existing in a similar environment. In fact, the sectarian organizational regulations are better compared with Pharisaic\/rabbinic regulations for the guild of sages, or with those preserved in tannaitic literature for the \u1e25avurah of Second Temple times. It is well known that these sectarian regulations can be compared profitably with the descriptions of the Essenes and Therapeutae in Philo and Josephus. These regulations are compiled in the scrolls in lists (serakhim) similar to those used for the more usual halakhic subjects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Scripturally Based Codes<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We now turn to an analysis of the specific materials in the scrolls corpus that can be seen as legal codes. We will begin with those most scripturally based, or those that imitate biblical legal codes.
\nThe most significant material of this type is found in the Temple Scroll, which itself is a compilation of preexistent sources to which has been added a composition by the author\/redactor, known as the Deuteronomic paraphrase. The author sought to create a Torahlike text that would contain collections of \u201cbiblical\u201d laws stated in accord with his own interpretations and rulings, themselves derived from exegesis. He began his work with a number of distinct documents, each a sort of code on a given topic. He had a temple plan that one might perhaps exclude from this discussion despite its prescriptive character and its biblical basis. After all, it is essentially an architectural plan expressed in prose form. More codelike are the purity source (11QTemple 48:10\u201351:10), outlining the stringent Zadokite\/Sadducee views on ritual purity, and the festival calendar, laying out the specifics of how to harmonize Leviticus 23 and Numbers 28\u201329 (11QTemple 13:9\u201330:2). These sections appear in the guise of rewritten Torah. Boldest of all is the Law of the King (11QTemple 57\u201359), a distinct literary unit that set out the laws of king, government, and army, and it is in this \u201ccode\u201d that we encounter the greatest amount of free composition, yet in imitation of biblical style. The final piece is a Deuteronomic paraphrase (11QTemple 51:11\u201356:21; 60:12\u201366:12) that compiles laws from Deuteronomy, organizes them by subject to some extent, and interprets them in light of other sources in the Torah. This part was composed by the author\/redactor when he gathered the minicodes\u2014the sources\u2014into the entire scroll, an act analogous to recanonizing the Torah and, in effect, to creating a supercode. In the process of the author\u2019s putting forward his own views on matters of the structure of the temple, sacrifices, ritual purity, political organization, and family life, nothing is said of a sectarian group or its conduct.
\nIn terms of its method of codification, the Temple Scroll demonstrates several interesting features. The author of each source gives one view and claims divine authority. An editorial process utilizing harmonization, exegesis, and excision creates a straightforward set of laws with no duplication. Since the units represented subjects, the final text is a code arranged by subject, thus solving by re-redaction the overlaps and duplications in the codes of the Torah. So we might be more accurate in describing the Temple Scroll, as a whole, as a recodified Torah, rewritten not only to express the views of the author\/redactor and his Zadokite circle, but also to turn the Torah into a code on those topics covered. Due to the inherently polemical nature of this text, it did not need to bother with such laws as the Ten Commandments, and, therefore, it cannot have been intended as a stand-alone, all-inclusive, full-service Torah.
\nIf one makes a comparison to the categories of rabbinic literature, the legal collections in the Temple Scroll are closest in character to the halakhic midrashim, since they continue the organization of the curriculum of legal study in the order of the Bible. Yet a major difference is the fact that the Temple Scroll exhibits a further move toward subject organization\u2014what I term re-redaction\u2014of the preexisting biblical codes.
\nSome sections of the Zadokite Fragments also exhibit the character of rewritten Bible even though, as we will see, this is not the overall form of this text. 4Q251, Halakha A, containing a series of laws based on the Covenant Code of Exodus, adheres closely in wording to the biblical text. This small piece of evidence probably indicates that the Temple Scroll\u2014or, to be more precise, that the building blocks of the Temple Scroll\u2014was not the only such work representing what must have been more widespread steps toward codification by rewriting and re-redacting Scripture in Zadokite\/Sadducean circles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Abstract Codes<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A completely different type of codification is found in the Damascus Document (Zadokite Fragments) and MMT. Already with the discovery of the first Dead Sea Scroll, the Damascus Document, it was noted that the text presented a combination of elements involving the ideology of a sectarian group closely interwoven with its rules and material drawn from its version of Jewish law.
\nIn general terms we may observe that the laws of these documents are composed with only a few direct citations of scriptural proof texts. Rather, they consist of independently formulated language constructed by their authors. Whereas in the mishnaic material there is little remnant of biblical language, even for laws of clear biblical derivation, the laws of the Damascus Document and MMT, while formulated as if independent of biblical derivation, often betray the language of the biblical verses from which they have been constructed. Further, analysis of these laws and their biblical forebears allows us to reconstruct the hermeneutics and interpretations that underlie the legal rules presented by these texts. Thus, the legal material in the scrolls never fully sheds its scriptural garb in the manner in which mishnaic prescriptions do. To avoid confusion, we should emphasize that this observation does not apply to the sectarian procedural regulations since these laws do not depend on biblical authority for their formulation and validity. Further, even in those cases in which a sectarian regulation may be saturated with language borrowed from Scripture, the borrowing may often be literary and not relate to the derivation of the content.
\nThe sectarian law, nistar, was derived by the sectarians in study sessions that they saw as divinely inspired. These sessions produced legal rulings that in their formulation, as mentioned above, often betray the language of the biblical texts that underlie them. These laws are actually pastiches of biblical phrases drawn from the sources that were midrashically interpreted to produce the laws in question. Therein lies part of the explanation for the archaizing terminology of these texts. From the scroll texts we learn that the laws created in study sessions were redacted into serakhim, lists of laws, and these lists were, in turn, redacted into larger texts, along with other nonlegal materials. This literary history explains the short codes (minicodes = serakhim) that appear in the Damascus Document, as well as those of organizational character redacted into the Rule of the Community and its appendices, Rule of the Congregation and Rule of Benedictions, and some of the minor halakhic texts. Further, this model of redaction explains the varying recensions found in the manuscripts of these texts, as well as the existence of overlapping texts in various compositions and, finally, the existence of Miscellaneous Rules (4Q265), a text that redacts parts of the Damascus Document and Rule of the Community together into one composite document.
\nAlso to be considered here is MMT. In certain ways this text can be considered under the heading of rules and halakhic texts since the main body of the document consists of a list of rules of ritual purity and impurity and sacrificial laws pertaining to the temple in Jerusalem. Yet this text does not contain any laws pertaining to sectarian organization since MMT represents an early stage in the schism before the sectarian movement had congealed and established its own regulations. At the same time, this list of laws is almost entirely parallel in its concerns to its biblical antecedents and to later rabbinic rulings, although for the most part the Pharisaic-rabbinic texts disagree with the Sadducee-like laws found in MMT. Like the Damascus Document and the Rule of the Community, this text contains a theological section where the ideological underpinnings of legal observance are set forth. This time, however, the hortatory section comes not at the beginning of the text but at its conclusion. The authors argue that only observance in accord with their particular view of the law will yield continued rule of the high priest to whom it is addressed and that theirs is the true approach of Jewish tradition. Here again, since the schism has not reached its full proportions we do not encounter the specific ideas or terminology of the Qumran sect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sectarian Regulations<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Two of the documents copied together by a scribe in the so-called Rules Scroll are the Rule of the Community (1QS) and the eschatological Rule of the Congregation (1QSa). The Rule of the Community contains a theological introduction in which the sectarian concepts of good, evil, and predestination are set forth. Then follows a compilation of sets of rules for sectarian behavior. Here, as is the case in the Damascus Document, we have good reason to suspect that the conceptual texts in question originated as separate compositions that were inserted here as part of a process of redaction or of literary development. The process of combination of legal and procedural materials with conceptual treatises is highlighted by the presence in the text of the Treatise of the Two Spirits (1QS 3:13\u20134:1) and, at the end of the text, of a long poem, similar in style to the Hodayot, bringing the text to a formal close. The theological introduction and final poem constituted a framework for the sectarian regulations and fundamental principles that were intended to foster specific beliefs and a special worldview.
\nThe Rule of the Congregation differs substantially in the character of its specific content from the Damascus Document. The largest part of the nonhortatory section of the Damascus Document, often known as the \u201cLaws,\u201d covers the normal topics known to us from biblical and postbiblical Jewish law. Prominent among these are Sabbath laws, laws of purity and impurity, and civil law. Interspersed among these are a smaller number of regulations pertaining to the role of the sectarian officials, entrance into the community, and other such matters. It is most likely that the sectarian regulations of the Damascus Document concern the members of the sect living in scattered communities in the land of Israel. Yet in the Rule of the Community virtually the entire set of rules, apparently compiled from several previously existing collections, concerns matters of sectarian organization for the conduct of the sectarian center at Qumran. While it was the case that some of these regulations have at their root principles of Jewish law, especially regarding ritual purity and impurity, these regulations for the most part almost entirely concern sectarian procedures and do not mention the religious and legal issues that concern the Bible and rabbinic literature.
\nBoth the Damascus Document and the Rule of the Community share in presenting the sectarian penal code that is extant in several versions. This penal code deals with violations of a variety of sectarian procedural regulations. Punishments are meted out by demotion within the sectarian community, a penalty of one-fourth of the food ration, and in the worst case, expulsion from the group. Such punishments have absolutely no parallel in the earlier or later literature of Jewish law.
\nAnother text combines the sectarian ideology regarding the end of days with what can best be termed messianic halakhah. This is the Rule of the Congregation, which sets forth a variety of regulations for the eschatological council of the community and the messianic banquet. Expectations of halakhic perfection in that era stem not simply from the principles of Jewish law but rather from the sect\u2019s concept that the end of days would reflect an era of perfection in which the goals and aspirations of the sectarians, embodied in their life in the present age, would all be fulfilled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Subject Organization<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Aside from the process of their codification, the most stellar feature of these serakhim, the minicodes, especially as found in the Damascus Document from both the genizah and Qumran manuscripts, is the regularity of subject divisions. A cursory investigation of this material will show that these texts are the result of a redactional process whereby individual laws that were developed in sessions of the sectarian assembly were later collected into serakhim, lists of sectarian laws. These lists were later gathered together into legal collections. The redactors intended to organize them by subject, an approach familiar to us from the Mishnah. A similar phenomenon can be found in the book of Jubilees, in which laws on one subject were collected together as in the Sabbath laws (Jub. 2:17\u201333, 50:6\u201313) and the laws of Passover (Jubilees 49). But the Qumran collections differ in one important respect. Here we find not only laws pertaining to the usual subjects of Jewish law but also additional sectarian regulations.
\nIn fact, amazingly perhaps, these sections of laws, which can be likened to short tannaitic massekhtot (tractates), even have titles embedded in the text. For example, we find \u05e2\u05dc \u05d4\u05e9\u05d1\u05d5\u05e2\u05d4, \u201cregarding the oath\u201d (CD 9:8), or \u05e2\u05dc \u05d4\u05e9\u05d1\u05ea \u05dc\u05e9\u05de\u05e8\u05d4 \u05db\u05de\u05e9\u05e4\u05d8\u05d4, \u201cregarding the Sabbath, to observe it according to its (sectarian) regulations\u201d (CD 10:14), in the Damascus Document or \u05e2\u05dc \u05d4\u05e2\u05e8\u05d9\u05d5\u05ea, \u201cregarding forbidden consanguineous\/adulterous marriages,\u201d in the fragmentary 4QHalakha A (4Q251 12 1). What this means, mirabile dictu, is that long before the time when traditional historiography claims that Rabbi Akiva invented subject divisions for the Mishnah it was fully established as the norm in presenting Qumran laws that were unquestionably derived from halakhic midrash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Conclusions<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Qumran codes are, of course, based on their biblical predecessors. They seek not only to reorganize biblical materials by subject, in pseudobiblical form, as in the Temple Scroll, but also to present them in abstract form, as in the Damascus Document. Nevertheless, in both forms they adhere to biblical language, directly in the Temple Scroll and related rewritten Torah texts and indirectly in laws such as are found in the Zadokite Fragments. However, this is not simply a process of codification, even if only one view is being preserved. The authors\/redactors of these materials seek to formulate the laws so as to express their rulings or those of the school of law to which they belong. The same basic system of law and exegesis is common to both the biblically based type of law and the abstract, apodictic laws, just as it is in tannaitic literature for both midrash and mishnah. Yet in the Qumran scrolls, even the Mishnah-like statements are in biblical parlance that betrays the sources and even the process of exegesis. The entire system resembles the tannaitic approach in the existence of a more biblically-based type, on the one hand, and a more abstract type, on the other hand. But whereas in Mishnah and Talmud there are whole sections that are \u201clike mountains suspended by a hair\u201d (m. \u1e24ag. 1:8), such laws do not occur in Qumran texts, except in regard to sectarian organizational rules, since the Sadducee\/Zadokite approach is tied more closely to the biblical text.
\nConsidering the function of the codes, the Qumran material reflects the biblical model more than do the rabbinic texts that reflect a curriculum of study more than a set of unidimensional rulings that one would expect in a code. Yet when the canonized Torah as a whole is looked at, and this is how all Second Temple period Jews looked at it, it is the rabbinic corpus that most reflects the multivocal character of the Torah \u1e25atumah, the complete Torah. In this respect, the Qumran codes resemble more the well-organized minicodes of the Torah, and the rabbinic texts resemble the Torah more with its apparently disorganized and duplicating legal material and its still unresolved or unharmonized contradictions. For the scrolls sect, as for the minicodes of the Torah, only one view is correct, but for the rabbis, like the multitextured Torah, the various voices are to be debated and harmonized. For the scrolls sect the competing and disagreeing voices are to be silenced, but for the rabbis they are to be celebrated.
\nIf so, the purpose of the Qumran codes\u2014whether of the scriptural or abstract type\u2014is to put forward the authoritative ruling of the authors regarding Torah laws and sectarian regulations, organized by subject and reflecting the Zadokite\/Sadducean rulings and interpretations of the authors and redactors. In this respect, the legal texts preserved in the Dead Sea Scrolls are in many ways an example of pure codification, rather than organization of study curricula of traditional materials. Yet even when looked at in this way, the dual-genre approach of Qumran legal codes\u2014biblical and abstract\u2014and the use of subject organization clearly point forward in time to the later compositional and redactional activity of the Tannaim. Can it be merely coincidence? It seems not. Commonality of style and method can be detected even when there remain deep differences in legal rulings and in conceptions of authority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
CHAPTER 10<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pre-Maccabean Halakhah in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Biblical Tradition<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This study will investigate evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls for pre-Maccabean Jewish law and its relationship with the Hebrew Bible and the legal materials preserved there. To be discussed are issues of both content and form, showing how both midrashic and apodictic forms of law appear in both collections and how, in particular, the priestly tradition was continued beyond the last books of the Hebrew Bible. Along the way observations will be made about the state of Jewish legal materials in the early Second Temple period.
\nAny attempt to investigate the nature of pre-Maccabean halakhah must, by definition, be a complex, triangulated extrapolation. The extrapolation proceeds on two axes. One axis is that of chronology, in that certain differences that we observe between corpora written at different times can result from historical development. But other differences between corpora result from the existence of varying approaches to Jewish life and law in different, often competing, groups within the Jewish community. Because these two factors\u2014the issues of chronology and competing approaches, often termed sectarianism\u2014are operative simultaneously in the entire period we will be discussing, we are presented with one of the fundamental methodological challenges for our study. How do we determine if a specific difference between sources results from historical development or from differing halakhic trends, evidence for which happens to be sporadically represented? Closely related to this methodological problem is a paucity of sources. For this study, in particular, we are confronted immediately by the need for extrapolation in order to reach any conclusions at all.
\nFirst, however, we need to clarify the periodization of our study. \u201cPre-Maccabean\u201d designates the period between the end of the biblical story line, ca. 450 B.C.E., and the Maccabean revolt of 168\u2013164 B.C.E. We speak, then, about the end of the Persian period, the famous dark age of Jewish history for which we have only archaeological evidence, and the Hellenistic age of Alexander\u2019s conquest of the land of Israel through the Seleucid conquest in 198 B.C.E., up through the Hellenistic reform and the Maccabean revolt. If we propose to talk about the state of halakhah in this period with such limited source material, we have no choice but to extrapolate.
\nTo be precise, we face the problem of extrapolating forward from the early Second Temple-period biblical texts, through a variety of Persian period or early Hellenistic period Aramaic sources, mostly preserved in the Dead Sea Scrolls. We must also extrapolate back from the later Second Temple texts and early tannaitic traditions into the earlier period, but also factoring in some pre-Qumranian Hebrew texts from the second century B.C.E., most prominently Jubilees.
\nWhen this chronological, diachronic extrapolation is merged with the synchronic problem of the contemporaneous, competing approaches of Judaism, we arrive at what I have termed triangulation. Only in this way can we possibly construct, or better reconstruct, a halakhic history, or at least the outlines thereof, from the materials at hand. Accordingly, our first task will be to survey the nature of the materials at our disposal, and only then to overlay a framework for providing a general reconstruction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Biblical Materials<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The primary biblical sources for our study are various elements embodied in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. These books, thought by many to be authored by the Chronicler, contain material pertaining to numerous halakhic matters. I shall survey some of these in list format.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Aramaic Texts<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We generally date the pre-Qumranian texts preserved in Aramaic to the fourth-second centuries. Various areas of Jewish law are found in these texts. The Aramaic Levi Document (ALD), and to a lesser extent the New Jerusalem text, preserve sacrificial laws and regulations. The Aramaic Levi Document shows an interesting mix of Pharisaic-rabbinic rulings with Sadducean\/Zadokite views. We cannot explain historically why this text appears to combine both trends, but it may indicate a wider tendency in Second Temple Jewish law.
\nA variety of topics of halakhah are treated in the sacrificial section of this text. Specifically, the text is oriented towards the priesthood and its obligations. Priests are expected to remain pure of sexual immorality, to avoid impurity of the dead, and to marry Jews only. Before performing the rituals in the temple, they are required to undertake certain ablutions, which are specified here in detail. The text details the types of wood to be used in the sacrificial offerings and discusses various procedures for the sprinkling and covering of blood, offering the limbs of an animal and their salting. Great attention is given to the exact amounts of wood, salt, flour, oil, wine, and frankincense for various offerings.
\nFrom the point of view of its sacrificial halakhah, the Aramaic Levi Document does not fit well into the usual mold of legal materials known from Qumran. This is the case, notwithstanding the various points of agreement of this literature with the Aramaic Levi Document. The issues presented in those texts, usually in polemical contexts, are not the themes taken up here. Rather, as in rabbinic literature, the issues here are more oriented toward sacrificial procedure, toward filling the gaps in the biblical text in describing the manner in which rites are to be performed. Further, the details of the laws discussed here are as close to rabbinic laws as they are to sectarian ones, and this is true even despite the various parallels to the book of Jubilees that have been observed by scholars. Thus, this text helps to situate the debates over issues of sacrificial halakhah much earlier in the Second Temple period than previously realized. This text shows us the richness of the debate over sacrificial law even before the sectarian schism, and even before the Maccabean revolt.
\nClearly related is also the New Jerusalem material, especially that preserved in Caves 2 and 11. These fragments include a description of the temple, apparently from outside in, including the discussion of various utensils, the table for the showbread, sieves for sifting the flour of the Omer offering, cups, and cauldrons, as well as descriptions of the high priest\u2019s garments. There are also descriptions of the altar, the slaughtering of sacrificial animals, distribution of certain offerings, and festivals such as Passover. Indeed, certain ritual acts, including the distribution of the showbread, are described as if the narrator were present.
\nThese passages, in their present state of preservation, hardly disclose sufficient details as to indicate the rulings on matters of ritual law followed by the author or authors of the New Jerusalem. What is clear, however, is that the original text must have contained numerous such halakhic details indicating the well-developed nature of Jewish legal discourse by the date of its authorship. Although the manuscripts are Herodian, the text was most probably composed in the first half of the second century or, perhaps, as early as the late third century B.C.E.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Second-Century Pre-Qumranian Hebrew Texts<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Overall, the rulings of the book of Jubilees reflect, as we now know from comparison with the scrolls, the Sadducean\/Zadokite approach. Nevertheless, we should expect some differences with rulings resulting either from variety within this trend or from the particular stance of Jubilees regarding patriarchal observance of the commandments in their entirety, a claim made much later in rabbinic tradition as well. We will survey here just a few aspects of the halakhah of Jubilees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sources of MMT and the Temple Scroll<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The final group of materials to be considered here are the sources of MMT and the Temple Scroll. We begin with the issue of the Temple Scroll because here the discussion revolves largely around literary sources.
\nThe author of the Temple Scroll was actually a redactor, who had at his disposal a variety of sources. These included the purity source, the architectural plan of the temple, the Law of the King, and the Deuteronomic paraphrase at the end of the scroll, which he himself seems to have authored. Evidence greatly favors dating the completed scroll to ca. 120 B.C.E. at the latest. Because of many agreements between this scroll and MMT, it seems that the sources of the Temple Scroll, which in no way reflect the sectarian posture of the full-fledged sect of the Hasmonean period, represent the pre-Maccabean heritage of the Sadducean\/Zadokite trend, or of some subgroup within it. If so, we can mention a variety of topics which are part of this legal tradition and must be roughly contemporaneous with Jubilees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Historical Extrapolation<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Persian period was one in which we can speak of several fundamental issues in the history of Jewish law. We will consider a few of the wider historical issues related to our topic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Conclusion<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We have attempted to trace the extant sources regarding Jewish law in the pre-Maccabean period from the Persian period through the years leading up to the Maccabean revolt. We have also tried to reconstruct the outlines of a history of Jewish law in the same period. Several conclusions result from this reconstruction:<\/p>\n\n\n\n