The recent publication of the fragmentary Testament of Kohath from Qumran Cave 4 (4QTQahat) is a welcome addition to the small but growing body of Jewish Aramaic texts from the Second Temple period. Emile Puech’s preliminary edition1 says all that can or need be said about the dimensions of the manuscript, the shape of the […]
The publication of parts of the Dead Sea Genesis Apocryphon from 1 Qumran (1) brings to us an example of Biblical text treatment much closer to traditional Jewish literature than was hitherto known from Qumran. The Biblical commentaries of the Pesher-type do not represent Jewish tradition which survived elsewhere, probably in the main because their […]
The Dead Sea Scrolls JUBILEES, BOOK OF. Jubilees presents itself as the account of a revelation which was disclosed to Moses on Mt. Sinai. After a prefatory chapter in which the Lord tells Moses in advance about Israel’s apostasies and eventual repentance, the book takes the form of a first-person narrative recited by an “angel […]
The Dead Sea Scrolls We next look at a set of wisdom texts that had a somewhat different history. Known only through the Qumran collection, these texts seem to have been more closely related to the sectarian texts and to have had an influence upon their vocabulary and ideas. In the cache of texts that […]
The Dead Sea Scrolls Among the vital contributions that ancient Near Eastern culture made to the history of Judaism was the tradition of wisdom thought and literature. Virtually every ancient Near Eastern civilization participated in a common tradition based in what modern scholars call wisdom schools, many apparently for the training of scribes. The schools […]
The Dead Sea Scrolls One of the earliest examples of such Bible-related literature can be found in the Enochic traditions preserved in Aramaic fragments found at Qumran, in Greek fragments discovered in Egypt, and more fully in the Ethiopic translation of the Book of I Enoch that was brought to Europe in the eighteenth century. […]
The Dead Sea Scrolls The Book of Tobit, known previously only in Greek and various secondary translations, has been discovered at Qumran in four fragmentary manuscripts of what was apparently the Aramaic original, and in one Hebrew adaptation. Because the book is part of the Apocrypha, it has been preserved in the Septuagint Greek Bibles. […]
The Dead Sea Scrolls Chief among the Second Temple period wisdom texts before the discovery of the Qumran scrolls was the Book of Ben Sira. This work was preserved in Greek as part of the Apocrypha of the Septuagint—the Greek Bible. Ben Sira is also known as Ecclesiasticus, not to be confused with the biblical […]
The Dead Sea Scrolls Common in Second Temple literature is a genre usually termed testaments. These are essentially the last words of famous personages, in the form of discourses delivered before death. The classic examples begin with a frame narrative declaring that what follows is the testament of the relevant character. Often, these texts, like […]
Overview Overview- Apocryphal Literature Primary sources 1 Enoch 106- Fragment of the Book Noah 1 Enoch 93- Enoch’s Vision of the Future 1 Enoch, Book of Watchers- Enoch’s Vision 1 Enoch 14-19-25 2 Enoch 22-1-4 2 Enoch 39- 1-6 Book of Ben Sira 1-24- The Wisdom of a Sage Ben Sira 50- The Glory of […]