THIS WEEK'S TRIBUNE  THIS WEEK'S TRIBUNE Dead Sea Scrolls almost identical to Pentateuch, Haftorahs
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Dead Sea Scrolls almost identical to Pentateuch, Haftorahs |
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Written by Rick Kardonne
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Tuesday, 28 July 2009 |
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TORONTO – For the most part, the Torah and Jewish prophetic portions of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which can be seen at the Royal Ontario Museum, are identical to the traditional Pentateuch and Haftorahs. But their authorship remains a topic of scholarly debate.
So said Dr. Martin Abegg, Ben Zion Wacholder Professor of Dead Sea Scrolls Studies at the religious studies department at Trinity Western University in Langley, BC, and co-director of the Dead Sea Scrolls Institute.
Professor Abegg delivered an enthusiastic speech at the Royal Ontario Museum Signy and Cleophee Eaton theatre last Thursday as part of the Anne Tannenbaum Dead Sea Scrolls lecture series, which coincides with the ROM Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit.
While there are several caves, including Masada, at which scroll fragments from the period of the two great Jewish revolts against Roman rule have been discovered; most of the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered from 1947 to 1956 in 11 caves at Qumram, situated at the northwest corner of the Dead Sea. Of the 906 manuscripts, 706 scrolls were discovered in Cave 4, Professor Abegg said. When Qumram was under Jordanian rule, less than 10 international scholars were assigned to cover Cave 4, and their discoveries were, in Abegg’s words, “helter-skelter.”
There are 206 Biblical scrolls in total, written in a legible Hebrew, according to Prof. Abegg. In addition, there are 550 Hebrew non-Biblical scrolls and 133 in Aramaic, which was the street language of the day. But Hebrew was a much more prominent language among the Jews at the time than had been previously thought.
Some of the Biblical texts are remarkably complete. The Isaiah Scroll discovered in Cave 1 contains all 66 chapters of the Book of Isaiah. This scroll is on display in Jerusalem. The scroll of the Book of Genesis (whose fragments can be seen at the ROM) is similar to that of the Hebrew Bible. Whatever differences there might be between the scrolls and today’s Hebrew Torah, Book of Psalms, and Prophets are, according to Professor Abegg, mostly in spelling.
What might be the only substantive difference, according to Professor Abegg, is a passage in Psalm 122. The traditional Biblical command in Psalm 122 is that the tribes of Israel go up to Jerusalem under decree; while the scrolls indicate that the congregation of Israel do so and give thanks to the name of the Lord. A question from the audience stated that the scroll message implied a spirit of democracy among the congregation of Israel as opposed to a dictated decree. While Professor Abegg replied that this is just one possible interpretation, he did imply that this difference of interpretation between the scrolls and the traditional Hebrew Bible’s take on Psalm 122 is significant.
Most interesting is the Dead Sea Scrolls’ Book of War, which surmises how the world is to end. The scrolls do clearly state that a Jewish Messiah will come; that he will put the Kittim, the Roman imperialist rulers of Israel-Judea at the time, to death, and that there will be a Messianic age of blessing to follow. The Qumram texts imply that in this Messianic age the blind will see. This prophecy does not exist in the Hebrew Bible but it does in the Book of Matthew in the New Testament. What is included in the scrolls is Jeremiah’s Barkhi Nafshi (Jeremiah 20:13), which forecasts an era of social justice in the Messianic age to come.
Now for the ultimate question: Who actually wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?
The conventional theory is that the ascetic Jewish sect, the Essenes, withdrew from the big city life of Jerusalem, which they thought to be corrupt, to Qumram and wrote most of the scrolls there over several centuries.
The Jewish Tribune asked Professor Abegg what he thought of the recent theory of Hebrew University Professor Rachel Elior who believes that there was no such group as the Essenes and that the scrolls were actually written by the Tzadokim (known in that era as the Sadducees), the high priests and sages, who had a much wider Jewish following.
Professor Abegg replied: “Professor Elior is wrong. There were Essenes.” However, he cast doubt upon the Essenes definitely being the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
According to Professor Abegg, British archaeologists in 1922 mentioned an “unknown Jewish sect” who identified themselves as Qumramites. “There was probably a connection between this unknown Jewish sect and the Essenes but this connection cannot be proven.
“The Qumramite community was a confessional Jewish community. New members had to contribute their worldly possessions to the Qumramites, which included their scrolls. Thus, these scrolls were from a wider segment of the total Jewish population than what one would expect from a fringe ‘unknown Jewish sect.’”
This theory by Professor Abegg could explain why the Dead Sea Scrolls, although having been situated in a very inhospitable desert environment, represented mainstream Jewish thought, which persists today. |
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 05 August 2009 )
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