Ever since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Community Rule has been at the forefront of the scholarly imagination and is often considered a direct channel to life at Khirbet Qumran - an ancient version of 'reality TV'. Over the course of the last fifteen years - the Cave 4 era - scholars have increasingly come to recognize the significance of the Scrolls as a rich text world from a period when texts, traditions, and interpretation laid the foundations of Western civilisation. The studies by Charlotte Hempel gathered in this volume deal with several core Rule texts from Qumran, especially with the Community Rule (S), the Rule of the Congregation (1QSa), the Damascus Document (D), and 4Q265 (Miscellaneous Rules). The author uncovers a complex network of literary and more murkily preserved social relationships. She further investigates the Rule literature within the context of wisdom, law, and the scribal milieu behind the emerging scriptures.

The Sixteenth Orion Symposium celebrated seventy years of Dead Sea Scrolls research under the theme, “Clear a path in the wilderness!” (Isaiah 40:3). Papers use the wilderness rubric to address the self-identification of the Qumran group; dimensions of religious experience reflected in the Dead Sea writings; biblical interpretation as shaper and conveyor of that experience; the significance of the Qumran texts for critical biblical scholarship; points of contact with the early Jesus movement; and new developments in understanding the archaeology of the Qumran caves. The volume both honors past insights and charts new paths for the future of Qumran studies.

In this volume, Charlotte Hempel offers the first comprehensive commentary on all twelve ancient manuscripts of the Rules of the Community, works which contain the most important descriptions of the organisation and values ascribed to the movement associated with the Dead Sea Scrolls. The best preserved copy of this work (1QS) was one of the first scrolls to be published and has long dominated the scholarly assessment of the Rules. The approach adopted in this commentary is to capture the distinctive nature of each of the manuscripts based on a synoptic translation that presents all the manuscripts at a glance. Textual notes and Commentary deal with the picture derived from all preserved manuscripts. The publication of the Cave 4 manuscripts in 1998 can be likened to a volcanic eruption that challenged prevalent notions of the Community Rules that were founded on the quasi-archetypal status of the Cave 1 copy published in 1951. Since then the smoke has lifted and, as the pieces have begun to settle, we see green shoots emerging in the scholarly debate.. This commentary embraces the post-volcanic landscape of the Community Rules, which is carefully sifted for clues to establish a fresh reading of the material in conversation with the latest research on the Scrolls. The evidence suggests that some of the practices described as the beating heart of the movement's organization reflect the aspirations of a privileged sub-elite from the late Second Temple Period.

These essays reflect the lively debate about the sectarian movement of the Scrolls. They debate the degree to which the movement was separated from the rest of Judaism, and whether there was one or several watershed moments in the separation. Notable contributions include a cluster of essays on the Teacher of Righteousness and a thorough survey of the archaeology of Qumran. The texts are problematic in historical research because they rely on biblical stereotypes. Nonetheless, possible interpretations can be compared and degrees of probability debated. The debate is significant not only for the sect but for the nature of ancient Judaism.

The Dead Sea Scrolls are one of the most important archaeological discoveries of the last century. They have great historical, religious, and linguistic significance, not least in relation to the transmission of many of the books which came to be included in the Hebrew Bible. This companion comprises over 70 articles, exploring the entire body of the key texts and documents labelled as Dead Sea Scrolls. Beginning with a section on the complex methods used in discovering, archiving and analysing the Scrolls, the focus moves to consideration of the Scrolls in their various contexts: political, religious, cultural, economic and historical. The genres ascribed to groups of texts within the Scrolls- including exegesis and interpretation, poetry and hymns, and liturgical texts - are then examined, with due attention given to both past and present scholarship. The main body of the Companion concludes with crucial issues and topics discussed by leading scholars. Complemented by extensive appendices and indexes, this Companion provides the ideal resource for those seriously engaging with the Dead Sea Scrolls.

What does it look like to read the texts we now call the gospels like first- and second-century readers? There is no evidence of anyone regarding the gospel as a book published by an author until the end of the second century. So, put differently, what does it mean to read the gospels "before the book"? For centuries, the ways people discuss the gospels have been shaped by later ideas that have more to do with the printing press and modern notions of the author than ancient writing and reading practices. In Gospels before the Book, Matthew D. C. Larsen challenges several subtle yet problematic assumptions about authors, books, and publication at work in early Christian studies. He then explores a host of under-appreciated elements of ancient textual culture such as unfinished texts, accidental publication, post-publication revision, and the existence of multiple authorized versions of the same work. Turning to the gospels, he argues that the earliest readers and users of the text we now call the Gospel according to Mark treated it not as a book published by an author, but as an unfinished, open, and fluid collection of notes (hypomnmata). In such a scenario, the Gospel according to Matthew would not be regarded as a separate book published by a different author, but as a continuation of the same unfinished gospel tradition. Similarly it is not the case that, of the five different endings in the textual tradition we now call the Gospel according to Mark, one is "right" and the others are "wrong." Rather each represents its own effort to fill a perceived deficiency in the gospel. Larsen offers a new methodological framework for future scholarship on early Christian gospels.

Early Christian claims to the Holy Spirit arose in a vibrant cultural matrix that included Stoicism, Jewish mysticism, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Greco-Roman medicine, and the perspectives of Plutarch. In a range of articles, this multidisciplinary volume discovers in these texts rich cultural connections related to inspiration and the Holy Spirit. Essential reading for scholars of Judaism and the New Testament, as well as classicists and theologians.

We understand the world around us in terms of built spaces. Such spaces are shaped by human activity, and in turn, affect how people live. Through an analysis of archaeological and textual evidence from the beginnings of Hasmonean influence in Galilee, until the outbreak of the First Jewish War against Rome, this book explores how Judaism was socially expressed: bodily, communally, and regionally. Within each expression, certain aspects of Jewish identity operate, these being purity conceptions, communal gatherings, and Galilee's relationship with the Hasmoneans, Jerusalem, and the Temple in its final days.

This volume is a festschrift in honor of Steven Fraade, the Mark Taper Professor of the History of Judaism at Yale University. The contributions to the volume, written by colleagues and former students of Professor Fraade, reflect many of his scholarly interests. The scholarly credentials of the contributors are exceedingly high. The volume is divided into three sections, one on Second Temple literature and its afterlife, a second on rabbinic literature and rabbinic history, and a third on prayer and the ancient synagogue. Contributors are Alan Applebaum, Joshua Burns , Elizabeth Shanks Alexander , Chaya Halberstam , John J. Collins, Marc Bregman, Aharon Shemesh, Ishay Rosen-Zvi, Vered Noam, Robert Brody, Albert Baumgarten, Marc Hirshman, Moshe Bar-Asher, Aaron Amit, Yose Yahalom, Lee Levine, Jan Joosten, Daniel Boyarin, Charlotte Hempel, David Stern, Beth Berkowitz, Azzan Yadin, Joshua Levinson, Elitzur Bar-Asher Siegal, Michal Bar-Asher Siegal, Tzvi Novick, Devora Diamant, Richard Kalmin, Carol Bakhos, Judith Hauptman, Jeff Rubenstein, Martha Himmelfarb, Stuart Miller, Esther Chazon, James Kugel, Chaim Milikowsky, Maren Niehoff, Peter Schaefer, and Adiel Schremer.

Scholars working with ancient scrolls seek ways to extract maximum information from the multitude of fragments. Various methods were applied to that end on the Dead Sea Scrolls as well as on other ancient texts. The present book augments these methods to a full-scale protocol, while adapting them to a new computerized environment. Fundamental methodological issues are illuminated as part of the discussion, and the potential margin of error is provided on an empirical basis, as practiced in the sciences. The method is then exemplified with regard to the scroll 4Q418a, a copy of a wisdom composition from Qumran.