Studies in Qumran Law and Thought (Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah, 138) 9004504583, 9789004504585

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Studies in Qumran Law and Thought

Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah Edited by George J. Brooke Associate Editors Eibert J.C. Tigchelaar Jonathan Ben-Dov Alison Schofield

Volume 138

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/stdj

Studies in Qumran Law and Thought By

Joseph M. Baumgarten Edited by

Ruth A. Clements and Daniel R. Schwartz With an introductory essay by

Lawrence H. Schiffman

LEIDEN | BOSTON

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Baumgarten, Joseph M., author. | Clements, Ruth A., editor. | Schwartz,  Daniel R., editor. Title: Studies in Qumran law and thought / by Joseph M. Baumgarten ; edited  by Ruth A. Clements and Daniel R. Schwartz ; with an introductory essay  by Lawrence H. Schiffman. Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2022. | Series: Studies on the texts  of the desert of Judah, 0169–9962 ; volume 138 | Includes index. |  Summary: “The study of the laws of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the light of  ancient rabbinic law, and vice versa, by a master of both corpora, sheds  light on their interpretation, their history, and the spiritual stances  they bespeak. The thirty-two studies united in this volume, a selection  of Joseph M. Baumgarten’s work in the three decades that followed the  appearance of his Studies in Qumran Law (Brill, 1977), focus on legal  concerns, both general and detailed, shared by the Qumran sectarians and  the ancient rabbis—concerns that elicited responses that were sometimes  similar, sometimes different, even to the extent of arousing polemics.  An introductory essay by Lawrence H. Schiffman contextualizes the  studies and points out the broader themes to which they relate.”—  Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2021059499 (print) | LCCN 2021059500 (ebook) | ISBN  9789004504585 (hardback) | ISBN 9789004505087 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Dead Sea scrolls. | Qumran community. | Jewish law. Classification: LCC BM487 .B38 2022 (print) | LCC BM487 (ebook) | DDC  296.1/55—dc23/eng/20211223 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021059499 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021059500 Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. ISSN 0169-9962 ISBN 978-90-04-50458-5 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-50508-7 (e-book) Copyright 2022 by Joseph M. Baumgarten, Ruth A. Clements, and Daniel R. Schwartz. Published by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Hotei, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau and V&R unipress. Koninklijke Brill NV reserves the right to protect this publication against unauthorized use. Requests for re-use and/or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke Brill NV via brill.com or copyright.com. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Contents Editors’ Foreword xi Ruth A. Clements and Daniel R. Schwartz Abbreviations xiii Publications of Joseph M. Baumgarten xvi

Introduction: The Contribution of Joseph M. Baumgarten to the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Ancient Judaism 1 Lawrence H. Schiffman

Part 1 General Essays on Qumran Law 1

The Religious Law of the Qumran Community 31 English original of: “La loi religieuse de la communauté de Qoumrân,” Annales: Histoire, Sciences Sociales 51 (1996): 1005–25

2

Recent Qumran Discoveries and Halakhah in the Hellenistic–Roman Period 53 Jewish Civilization in the Hellenistic–Roman Period (ed. S. Talmon; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991), 147–58

Part 2 Rabbinic Literature and Qumran Law 3

The Relevance of Rabbinic Sources to the Study of Qumran Law 67 Proceedings of the Twelfth World Congress of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem, July 29–August 5, 1997, Division A: The Bible and Its World (Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1999), 73–78

4

The Laws of the Damascus Document—Between Bible and Mishnah 74 The Damascus Document: A Centennial of Discovery (ed. J.M. Baumgarten and E.G. Chazon; Leiden: Brill, 2000), 17–26

vi 5

Contents

Tannaitic Halakhah and Qumran—A Re-Evaluation 84 Rabbinic Perspectives: Rabbinic Literature and the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. S.D. Fraade, A. Shemesh, and R.A. Clements; Leiden: Brill, 2006), 1–11

Part 3 Pharisees and Sadducees, Essenes, and Qumran 6

4Q502: Marriage or Golden Age Ritual? 97 JJS 34 (1983): 125–35

7

The Qumran–Essene Restraints on Marriage 109 Archaeology and History in the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. L.H. Schiffman; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1990), 13–24

8

The Pharisaic–Sadducean Controversies about Purity and the Qumran Texts 120 JJS 31 (1980): 157–70

9

Immunity to Impurity and the Menorah 137 JSIJ 5 (2006): 141–45

10

Sadducean Elements in Qumran Law 142 The Community of the Renewed Covenant (ed. E. Ulrich and J. VanderKam; Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), 27–36

11

The Heavenly Tribunal and the Personification of Ṣedeq in Jewish Apocalyptic 152 ANRW 2.19.1 (ed. W. Haase; Berlin: De Gruyter, 1979), 219–39

12

The “Sons of Dawn” in CD 13:14–15 and the Ban on Commerce among the Essenes 175 IEJ 33 (1983): 81–85

Contents

vii

13

The Disqualifications of Priests in 4Q Fragments of the Damascus Document: A Specimen of the Recovery of Pre-Rabbinic Halakhah 180 The Madrid Qumran Congress: Proceedings of the International Congress on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Madrid 18–21 March 1991 (ed. J. Trebolle Barrera and L. Vegas Montaner; 2 vols.; Leiden: Brill; Madrid: Complutense, 1992), 2:503–13

14

Halakhic Polemics in New Fragments from Qumran Cave 4 192 Biblical Archaeology Today: Proceedings of the International Congress on Biblical Archaeology, Jerusalem, April 1984 (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1985), 390–99

Part 4 Halakhic Topics 15

On the Non-Literal Use of Maʿăśēr/Dekatē 205 JBL 103 (1984): 245–51

16

The First and Second Tithes in the Temple Scroll 213 Biblical and Related Studies Presented to Samuel Iwry (ed. A. Kort and S. Morschauser; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1985), 5–15

17

The Laws of ʿOrlah and First Fruits in the Light of Jubilees, the Qumran Writings, and Targum Ps.-Jonathan 224 JJS 38 (1987): 195–202

18

The Use of ‫ מי נדה‬for General Purification 234 The Dead Sea Scrolls Fifty Years after Their Discovery (ed. L.H. Schiffman; E. Tov, and J.C. VanderKam; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2000), 481–85

19

Yom Kippur in the Qumran Scrolls and Second Temple Sources 241 DSD 6 (1999): 184–91

20 Exclusions from the Temple: Proselytes and Agrippa I 250 JJS 33 (1982): 215–25

viii

Contents

21

Hanging and Treason in Qumran and Roman Law 261 Eretz-Israel 16 (1982): 7*–16*

22

The Avoidance of the Death Penalty in Qumran Law 277 Reworking the Bible: Apocryphal and Related Texts at Qumran (ed. E.G. Chazon, D. Dimant, and R.A. Clements; Leiden: Brill, 2005), 31–38

23

Qumran and the Halakhah in the Aramaic Targumim 284 Proceedings of the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies: Panel Sessions—Bible Studies and Ancient Near East (Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1985), 45–60

24 Some “Qumranic” Observations on the Aramaic Levi Document 297 Sefer Moshe: The Moshe Weinfeld Jubilee Volume: Studies in the Bible and the Ancient Near East, Qumran, and Post-Biblical Judaism (ed. C. Cohen, A. Hurvitz, and S.M. Paul; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2004), 393–401

Part 5 Theology and Apocalypticism 25 Theological Elements in the Formulation of Qumran Law 307 Emanuel: Studies in Hebrew Bible, Septuagint, and Dead Sea Scrolls in Honor of Emanuel Tov (ed. S.M. Paul et al.; Leiden: Brill, 2003), 33–41 26 Some Theological Aspects of Second Temple Shabbat Practice 317 Sabbath: Idea, History, Reality (ed. G.J. Blidstein; Beer-Sheva: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Press, 2004), 35–41 27

The Purification Liturgies 323 The Dead Sea Scrolls after Fifty Years: A Comprehensive Assessment (ed. P.W. Flint and J.C. VanderKam; Leiden: Brill, 1999), 200–212

28 The Law and Spirit of Purity at Qumran 330 The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls, 2: The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Qumran Community (ed. J.H. Charlesworth; Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2006), 93–105

Contents

ix

29 On the Nature of the Seductress in 4Q184 344 RevQ 15 (1991–1992): 133–43 30 The Book of Elkesai and Merkabah Mysticism 355 JSJ 17 (1986): 212–23 31

The Qumran Sabbath Shirot and Rabbinic Merkabah Traditions 367 RevQ 13 (1988): 199–213

32 Messianic Forgiveness of Sin in CD 14:19 (4Q266 10 i 12–13) 383 The Provo International Conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. D.W. Parry and E. Ulrich; Leiden: Brill, 1999), 537–44 Index of Modern Authors 391 Index of Ancient Sources 395

Editors’ Foreword The author of the studies presented in this volume, Joseph M. Baumgarten (1928–2008), was a humble man, a servant of God who devoted his scholarly life to examining—bit by bit, detail by detail, ‫—זעיר שם זעיר שם‬the relics of the religious law and teachings of Jews of the late Second Temple period. Apart from his doctoral dissertation, which remained unpublished, he never wrote anything approaching a monograph; short articles were his métier, and he was content to leave them as such, scattered in numerous scholarly journals and collective volumes. Although the late Jacob Neusner managed to persuade him to publish a small volume of fourteen such studies in 1977 (Studies in Qumran Law), a note found among Baumgarten’s papers, relating to the possibility of another such collection, sums up his diffidence by citing Genesis 29:7: ‫לא עת האסף המקנה‬. So it happens that the present volume, which includes thirty-two studies originally published between 1979 and 2006, appears only posthumously. Indeed, this volume appears, to our regret, much later than we imagined when we undertook to produce it not long after Baumgarten’s death. “Life happened”; delays and competing obligations were followed by other delays and other competing obligations. It is, therefore, with mixed feelings—with sorrow at the delay, with satisfaction at nevertheless completing the project, and with sweet memories of a great scholar and teacher, gentleman and friend—that we present this collection to the scholarly world. While much has moved forward in Qumran and cognate scholarship in the years since these articles appeared, we believe they retain their value—and not only as evidence for an earlier stage of Qumran scholarship. They also retain their value as detailed contributions to the elucidation and contextualization of the texts and laws they discuss; as examples of the fruitful results of integration of the study of rabbinic literature into the study of the Scrolls; and as models of research that is painstakingly thorough, careful, honest, and calm, corresponding both to the belief that “God is in the details” and to Isaiah’s promise, and admonition, that Baumgarten took as something of a motto: “by stillness and quiet shall you be saved; your heroism—in calm and confidence” (Isa 30:15; see p. 151). In preparing these papers for publication, we did not attempt to update them systematically. We corrected errors (and hopefully did not add many of our own); filled in allusions to texts or then forthcoming publications; added various cross-references among the studies; and strove—but without undue insistence—to introduce a measure of consistency concerning citations,

xii

Clements and Schwartz

transliterations, and the like; sometimes this entailed changes in the numbering of footnotes. In one case, we eliminated part of an article because it was basically identical with text in another. Throughout, apart from trivialities, we have used square brackets to indicate our interventions. For abbreviations of ancient sources and of bibliography, we depended, for the most part, on the lists in the Society of Biblical Literature’s Handbook of Style. We are grateful to many who helped bring this project to fruition—to the Baumgarten family, particularly Meir Neuberger, for their support and assistance; to Prof. Lawrence Schiffman (New York), who undertook to write the introductory essay characterizing Baumgarten and his oeuvre; to Prof. Francis Schmidt (Paris), who located the original English file of the first article in the collection; and to the publishing houses that generously agreed to allow the republication of the essays included in the volume. Here at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, generous financial assistance was afforded by the Mandel Institute of Jewish Studies’ Joseph J. and Diana H. Schwartz Fund and by the Herbst Family Chair of Judaic Studies; two students, Yifah Eisenmann and Chananya Rothner, did yeoman service, respectively, in retyping the original articles and in proofreading and indexing. The Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Hebrew University is an institution that Baumgarten supported by his friendly counsel and encouragement, as well as by his scholarly contributions to its international symposia and publications, through the first ten years of its existence; we thank the Center for the use of its resources in the preparation of the volume. Finally, we want to express our appreciation to Prof. George J. Brooke (Manchester, UK), who agreed to accept this collection as a volume in the STDJ series, and to our friends at Brill, especially Marjolein van Zuylen and Dirk Bakker, who, as always, have been both efficient and friendly, a pleasure to work with. Ruth A. Clements and Daniel R. Schwartz The Hebrew University of Jerusalem July 2021

Abbreviations ABD

Anchor Bible Dictionary. Edited by D.N. Freedman. 6 vols. New York, 1992 AfO Archiv für Orientforschung ANET Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament. Edited by J.B. Pritchard. 3rd ed. Princeton, 1969 ANRW Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt: Geschichte und Kultur Roms im Spiegel der neueren Forschung. Part 2, Principat. Edited by H. Temporini and W. Haase. Berlin, 1972– BA Biblical Archaeologist BASOR Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research Baumgarten, Baumgarten, J.M. Studies in Qumran Law. Leiden, 1977  Studies BHM Bet Ha-Midrasch. Ed. A. Jellinek. 6 vols. 2nd edition. Jerusalem, 1967 (in Hebrew) Bib Biblica BRev Bible Review CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly CRAI Comptes rendus de l’Académie des inscriptions et belles lettres DACL Dictionnaire d’archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie. Edited by F. Cabrol. 15 vols. Paris, 1907–1953 DJD Discoveries in the Judaean Desert DSD Dead Sea Discoveries EDSS Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Edited by L.H. Schiffman and J.C. VanderKam. 2 vols. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2000 Early Judaism and Its Literature EJL EncJud Encyclopaedia Judaica. 16 vols. Jerusalem, 1971–1972 ERE Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics. Edited by J. Hastings. 13 vols. New York, 1908–1927. Reprint, 7 vols., 1951 EstEcl Estudios eclesiásticos ExpTim Expository Times GCS Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten Jahrhunderte HTR Harvard Theological Review Hebrew Union College Annual HUCA IEJ Israel Exploration Journal IOS Israel Oriental Studies JAOS Journal of the American Oriental Society

xiv

Abbreviations

JBC

Jerome Biblical Commentary. Edited by R.E. Brown et al. Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1968 Journal of Biblical Literature The Jewish Encyclopedia. Edited by I. Singer. 12 vols. New York, 1901–1905 Journal of Jewish Studies Jewish Quarterly Review Jewish Studies—An Internet Journal Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman Periods Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series Loeb Classical Library Monatschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2 New Testament Studies Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. Edited by J.H. Charlesworth. 2 vols. New York, 1983, 1985 Oudtestamentische Studiën Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research Palestine Exploration Quarterly Patrologia Latina [= Patrologiae Cursus Completus: Series Latina]. Edited by J.-P. Migne. 217 vols. Paris, 1844–1864 Princeton Theological Seminary Dead Sea Scrolls Project Pauly, A.F. Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft. New edition: G. Wissowa. 68 vols. Munich, 1980 Supplement to PW Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum. Edited by T. Kluser et al. Stuttgart, 1950– Revue archéologique Revue biblique Revue des études juives Revue de Qumrân Revue d’histoire et de philosophie religieuses Reallexikon der Assyriologie. Edited by E. Ebeling et al. Berlin, 1928–2018 Sources chrétiennes. Paris: Cerf, 1943– Studies in Judaism in Late Antiquity Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah

JBL JE JJS JQR JSIJ JSJ JSOT JSOTSup LCL MGWJ NPNF2 NTS OTP OtSt PAAJR PEQ PL PTSDSSP PW PWSup RAC RAr RB REJ RevQ RHPR RlA SC SJLA STDJ

Abbreviations TDNT

ThWAT

TLZ VT VTSup ZDMG ZPE

Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. Edited by G. Kittel and G. Friedrich. Translated by G.W. Bromiley. 10 vols. Grand Rapids, 1964–1976 Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Alten Testament. Edited by G.J. Botterweck, H. Ringgren, and H.-J. Fabry. 10 vols. Stuttgart, 1973–2015 Theologische Literaturzeitung Vetus Testamentum Supplements to Vetus Testamentum Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik

xv

Publications of Joseph M. Baumgarten The first part of this list, down to 1996, is based on that prepared by Florentino García Martínez and published in Legal Texts and Legal Issues: Proceedings of the Second Meeting of the International Organization for Qumran Studies, Cambridge, 1995, Published in Honour of Joseph M. Baumgarten (STDJ 23; ed. M. Bernstein, F. García Martínez, and J. Kampen; Leiden: Brill, 1997), xix–xxv. The editors thank Prof. García Martínez for his permission to include the list here as well. The continuation was prepared by Ruth Clements, Nadav Sharon, and Chananya Rothner with the help of the Online Bibliography of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Studies marked with a single asterisk were included in Baumgarten’s Studies in Qumran Law (1977); studies marked with two asterisks are included in the present volume. We have striven to list all of Baumgarten’s contributions to scholarship, but have not attempted to locate and list publications from the context of his work as an active congregational rabbi.

1953

– “Sacrifice and Worship among the Jewish Sectarians of the Dead Sea (Qumrân) Scrolls.” HTR 46 (1953): 141–59.*

1954

– “The Covenant Sect and the Essenes.” PhD dissertation, Johns Hopkins University, 1954.

1955

– “The Dead Sea Scrolls.” Orthodox Jewish Life 22/5 (May–June 1955): 7–14. – “Studies in the New Hodayot (Thanksgiving Hymns) I.” JBL 74 (1955): 115–24. – “Studies in the New Hodayot (Thanksgiving Hymns) II.” JBL 74 (1955): 188–95.

Publications of Joseph M. Baumgarten



xvii

1956

– “Studies in the New Hodayot (Thanksgiving Hymns) III.” JBL 75 (1956): 107–13.

1957

– “On the Testimony of Women in 1QSA .” JBL 76 (1957): 266–69.*

1958

– “1QSa 1.11—Age of Testimony or Responsibility?” JQR 49 (1958/59): 157–60. – “The Beginning of the Day in the Calendar of Jubilees.” JBL 77 (1958): 355– 60,* with “Reply,” ibid. 78 (1959): 157. – Review of Chaim Rabin, Qumran Studies. JBL 77 (1958): 249–57.* – Review of Jacob Liver, ed., Iyyunim bi-megillot midbar Yehudah [Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls]. JBL 77 (1958): 284–85.

1959

– “The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Threat to Halakhah?” Tradition 1 (1958/59): 209–21; along with “Communication,” Tradition 2 (1959/60): 188.

1962

– “The Talmud in Anglo-Saxon Garb.” Review of The Soncino Talmud, Tractate Berakhot, trans. and ed. Maurice Simon. Tradition 4 (1961/62): 293–98.

1963

– “The Calendar of the Book of Jubilees and the Bible.” Tarbiz 32 (1962/63): 317–28 (in Hebrew). An English translation appeared in the author’s Studies (1977).*

xviii

Publications of Joseph M. Baumgarten

1964

– Review of Meir Ben-Horin et al., eds., Studies and Essays in Honor of Abraham A. Neuman. Tradition 6 (1963/64): 159–60.

1966

– “The Counting of the Sabbath in Ancient Sources.” VT 16 (1966): 277–86.*

1967

– “The Essene Avoidance of Oil and the Laws of Purity.” RevQ 6 (1967–1969): 183–92.* – “The Meaning of 1Q Serek III, 2–3.” RevQ 6 (1967–1969): 287–88.

1968

– “Some Notes on the Ben Sira Scroll from Masada.” JQR 58 (1967/68): 323–27.*

1970

– “Art in the Synagogue: Some Talmudic Views.” Judaism 19 (1970): 196–206. Reprinted as: Pages 79–89 in The Synagogue: Studies in Origins, Archaeology and Architecture, selected with a prolegomenon by Joseph Gutmann. New York: Ktav, 1975.

1972

– “Does TLH in the Temple Scroll Refer to Crucifixion?” JBL 91 (1972): 472–81.* – “The Exclusion of ‘Netinim’ and Proselytes in 4QFlorilegium.” RevQ 8 (1972– 1975): 87–96.* – “The Unwritten Law in the Pre-Rabbinic Period.” JSJ 3 (1972): 7–29.*

Publications of Joseph M. Baumgarten



xix

1974

– “Form Criticism and the Oral Law.” JSJ 5 (1974): 34–40.

1976

– “4QHalakaha 5, the Law of Ḥadash, and the Pentecontad Calendar.” JJS 27 (1976): 36–46.* “The Duodecimal Courts of Qumran, Revelation, and the Sanhedrin.” JBL 95 (1976): 59–78.*

1977

– “The Essenes and the Temple: A Reappraisal.” Pages 57–74 in Joseph M. Baumgarten, Studies in Qumran Law. SJLA 24. Leiden: Brill, 1977.* (Initial publication.) – Studies in Qumran Law. SJLA 24. Leiden: Brill, 1977.

1978

– “Perek Shirah, an Early Response to Psalm 151.” RevQ 9 (1977–1978): 575–78. – Review of Yigael Yadin, ‫מגילת המקדש‬. JBL 97 (1978): 584–89.

1979

– “The Heavenly Tribunal and the Personification of Ṣedeq in Jewish Apocalyptic.” Pages 219–39 in ANRW 2.19.1. Edited by Hildegard Temporini and Wolfgang Haase. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1979.**

1980

– “The Pharisaic–Sadducean Controversies about Purity and the Qumran Texts.” JJS 31 (1980): 157–70.**

xx

Publications of Joseph M. Baumgarten

1982

– “The Book of Elkesai and Merkabah Mysticism.” Pages 13–18 in Proceedings of the Eighth World Congress of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem, August 16–21, 1981, Division C: Talmud and Midrash, Philosophy and Mysticism, Hebrew and Yiddish Literature. Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1982. – “Exclusions from the Temple: Proselytes and Agrippa I.” JJS 33 (Essays in Honour of Yigael Yadin) (1982): 215–25.** – “Hanging and Treason in Qumran and Roman Law.” Eretz-Israel 16 (Harry M. Orlinsky Volume) (1982): 7*–16*.** – “Some Problems of the Jubilees Calendar in Current Research.” VT 32 (1982): 485–89.

1983

– “4Q502, Marriage or Golden Age Ritual?” JJS 34 (1983): 125–35.** – “The ‘Sons of Dawn’ in CDC 13:14–15 and the Ban on Commerce among the Essenes.” IEJ 33 (1983): 81–85.**

1984

– “On the Non-Literal Use of Maʿăśēr/Dekatē.” JBL 103 (1984): 245–51.** – Review of Lawrence H. Schiffman, Sectarian Law in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Courts, Testimony and the Penal Code. JQR 74 (1984): 434–35.

1985

– “The First and Second Tithes in the Temple Scroll.” Pages 5–15 in Biblical and Related Studies Presented to Samuel Iwry. Edited by Ann Kort and Stuart Morschauser. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1985.** – “Halakhic Polemics in New Fragments from Qumran Cave 4.” Pages 390– 99 in Biblical Archaeology Today: Proceedings of the International Congress on Biblical Archaeology, Jerusalem April 1984. Israel Exploration Society/ The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, in cooperation with the American Schools of Oriental Research. Jerusalem, 1985.**

Publications of Joseph M. Baumgarten



xxi

1986

– “4Q503 (Daily Prayers) and the Lunar Calendar.” RevQ 12 (1986–1987): 399–407. – “The Book of Elkesai and Merkabah Mysticism.” JSJ 17 (1986): 212–23.** – “The Qumran Songs against Demons.” Tarbiz 55 (1985/86): 442–45 (in Hebrew). – Review of David Weiss Halivni, Midrash, Mishnah, and Gemara: The Jewish Predilection for Justified Law. JQR 77 (1986/87): 59–64. – Review of Gerard P. Luttikhuizen, The Revelation of Elchasai. JSJ 17 (1986): 257–59. – Review of Yigael Yadin, The Temple Scroll. BASOR 264 (1986): 91–92.

1987

– “The Calendars of the Book of Jubilees and the Temple Scroll.” VT 37 (1987): 71–77. – “The Laws of ʿOrlah and First Fruits in the Light of Jubilees, the Qumran Writings, and Targum Ps. Jonathan.” JJS 38 (1987): 195–202.** – “The Sabbath Trumpets in 4Q493 Mc.” RevQ 12 (1986–1987): 555–59.

1988

– “Qumran and the Halakha in the Aramaic Targumim.” Pages 45–60 in Proceedings of the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies: Panel Sessions— Bible Studies and Ancient Near East. Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1988.** – “The Qumran Sabbath Shirot and Rabbinic Merkabah Traditions.” RevQ 13 (1988): 199–213.** – Review of Eileen M. Schuller, Non-Canonical Psalms from Qumran: A Pseudepigraphic Collection. JBL 107 (1988): 748–50.

1989

– “4Q500 and the Ancient Conception of the Lord’s Vineyard.” JJS 40 (1989): 1–6.

xxii

Publications of Joseph M. Baumgarten

1990

– “The 4QZadokite Fragments on Skin Disease.” JJS 41 (1990): 153–65. – “The Qumran–Essene Restraints on Marriage.” Pages 13–24 in Archaeology and History in the Dead Sea Scrolls: The New York University Conference in Memory of Yigael Yadin. Edited by Lawrence H. Schiffman. JSOTSup 8; JSOT/ ASOR Monographs 2. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1990.**

1991

– “On the Nature of the Seductress in 4Q184.” RevQ 15 (1991–1992): 133–43.** – “Recent Qumran Discoveries and Halakhah in the Hellenistic–Roman Period.” Pages 147–58 in Jewish Civilization in the Hellenistic–Roman Period. Edited by Shemaryahu Talmon. Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1991.** – “Some Remarks on the Qumran Law and the Identification of the Community.” Pages 115–17 in Qumran Cave IV and MMT: Special Report. Edited by Zdzisław J. Kapera. Kraków: Enigma, 1991.

1992

– “The Cave 4 Versions of the Qumran Penal Code.” JJS 43 (1992): 268–76. – “The Disqualifications of Priests in 4Q Fragments of the ‘Damascus Document,’ a Specimen of the Recovery of Pre-Rabbinic Halakha.” Pages 503–13 in vol. 2 of The Madrid Qumran Congress: Proceedings of the International Congress on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Madrid 18–21 March 1991. Edited by Julio Trebolle Barrera and Luis Vegas Montaner. 2 vols. Leiden: Brill; Madrid: Complutense, 1992.** – “The Laws of the Damascus Document.” Pages 51–62 in The Damascus Document Reconsidered. Edited by Magen Broshi. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1992. – “A New Qumran Substitute for the Divine Name and Mishnah Sukkah 4.5.” JQR 83 (1992/93): 1–5. – “The Purification Rituals in DJD 7.” Pages 199–209 in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Forty Years of Research. STDJ 10. Edited by Devorah Dimant and Uriel

Publications of Joseph M. Baumgarten

xxiii

Rappaport. Leiden: Brill; Jerusalem: The Hebrew University Magnes Press and Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi, 1992. – “A ‘Scriptural’ Citation in 4Q Fragments of the Damascus Document.” JJS 43 (1992): 95–98. – Review of Iain Ruairidh Mac Mhanainn Bóid, Principles of Samaritan Halachah. JQR 82 (1991/92): 496–97.

1993

– “The Qumran Cave 4 Fragments of the Damascus Document.” Pages 391–97 in Biblical Archaeology Today, 1990: Proceedings of the Second International Congress on Biblical Archaeology, Jerusalem, June–July 1990. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society and Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1993. – Review of E.P. Sanders, Jewish Law from Jesus to the Mishnah. JQR 83 (1992/93): 405–7.

1994

– “Liquids and Susceptibility to Defilement in 4Q Fragments.” Pages 193–97 in Proceedings of the Eleventh World Congress of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem, June 22–29, 1993, Division A: The Bible and Its World. Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1994. – “Liquids and Susceptibility to Defilement in New 4Q Texts.” JQR 85 (1994/95): 91–101. – “Purification after Childbirth and the Sacred Garden in 4Q265 and Jubilees.” Pages 3–10 in New Qumran Texts and Studies: Proceedings of the First Meeting of the International Organization for Qumran Studies, Paris 1992. Edited by George J. Brooke with Florentino García Martínez. STDJ 15. Leiden: Brill, 1994. – “Sadducean Elements in Qumran Law.” Pages 27–36 in The Community of the Renewed Covenant: The Notre Dame Symposium on the Dead Sea Scrolls. Edited by Eugene Ulrich and James VanderKam. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994.** – “Zab Impurity in Qumran and Rabbinic Law.” JJS 45 (1994): 273–77. – “‫את הו הכול—אונ הו הכול‬, A Reply to M. Kister.” JQR 84 (1993/94): 485–87.

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Publications of Joseph M. Baumgarten

1995

– “A Fragment on Fetal Life and Pregnancy in 4Q270.” Pages 445–48 in Pomegranates and Golden Bells. Studies in Biblical, Jewish, and Near Eastern Ritual, Law, and Literature in Honor of Jacob Milgrom. Edited by David Wright, et al. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns 1995. – “The Laws about Fluxes in 4QTohoraa (4Q274).” Pages 1–8 in Time to Prepare the Way in the Wilderness: Papers on the Qumran Scrolls. Edited by Devorah Dimant and Lawrence H. Schiffman. STDJ 16. Leiden: Brill, 1995. – “A Qumran Text with Agrarian Halakhah.” JQR 86 (1995/96): 1–8. – “The Red Cow Purification Rites in Qumran Texts.” JJS 46 (1995): 112–19. – With Daniel R. Schwartz. “The Damascus Document (CD).” Pages 4–57 in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek Texts with English Translations, Vol. 2: Damascus Document, War Scroll, and Related Documents. Edited by James H. Charlesworth. PTSDSSP 2. Tübingen: Mohr (Siebeck); Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995. – With Michael T. Davies. “Cave IV, V, VI Fragments Related to the Damascus Document.” Pages 59–79 in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek Texts with English Translations, Vol. 2: Damascus Document, War Scroll, and Related Documents. Edited by James H. Charlesworth. PTSDSSP 2. Tübingen: Mohr (Siebeck); Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995. – Review of Florentino García Martínez, The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated: The Qumran Texts in English. DSD 2 (1995): 357–59. – Review of James C. VanderKam, The Dead Sea Scrolls Today. JAOS 115 (1995): 551–52. – Review of Lawrence H. Schiffman, Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls. Jewish Action (Fall 1995): 82–94.

1996

– “The ‘Halakha’ in Miqṣat Maʿaśe Ha-Torah (MMT).” (Review of Elisha Qimron and John Strugnell, eds., Qumran Cave 4.V: Miqṣat Maʿaśe ha-Torah [DJD 10]). JAOS 116 (1996): 512–16. – “La loi religieuse de la communauté de Qoumrân.” Annales 51 (1996): 1005– 25. The unpublished English original, “The Religious Law of the Qumran Community,” appears in the present volume.**

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xxv

– Qumran Cave 4.XIII: The Damascus Document (4Q266–273). Edited by Joseph M. Baumgarten on the basis of transcriptions by Jozef T. Milik, with contributions by Stephen Pfann and Ada Yardeni. DJD 18. Oxford: Clarendon, 1996.

1997

– “The Religious Law of the Qumran Community.” Qadmoniot 30 (1997): 97–100 (in Hebrew). – “Some Notes on 4Q408.” RevQ 18 (1997–1998): 143–44.

1998

– “Scripture and Law in 4Q265.” Pages 25–33 in Biblical Perspectives: Early Use and Interpretation of the Bible in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Proceedings of the First International Symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, 12–14 May 1996. Edited by Michael E. Stone and Esther G. Chazon. STDJ 28. Leiden: Brill, 1998. – “The Purification Liturgies.” Pages 200–212 in vol. 2 of The Dead Sea Scrolls after Fifty Years: A Comprehensive Assessment. Edited by Peter W. Flint and James C. VanderKam. 2 vols. Leiden: Brill, 1998–1999.** – Review of Florentino García Martínez and Julio Trebolle Barrera, The People of the Dead Sea Scrolls. JAOS 118 (1998): 143–44.

1999

– “264a. 4QHalakha B,” “265. 4QMiscellaneous Rules,” “274–278. 4QTohorot A-C: Introduction,” “274. 4QTohorot A,” “276. 4QTohorot Ba,” “277. 4QTohorot Bb,” “278. 4QTohorot C,” “284. 4QPurification Liturgy,” “284a. 4QHarvesting.” Pages 53–56, 57–78, 79–97, 99–109, 111–13, 115–19, 121–22, 123–29, 131–33 in Qumran Cave 4.XXV: Halakhic Texts. Edited by Joseph M. Baumgarten et al. DJD 35. Oxford: Clarendon, 1999. – “Corrigenda to the 4Q MSS of the Damascus Document.” RevQ 19 (1999– 2000): 217–25.

xxvi

Publications of Joseph M. Baumgarten

– “The Damascus Document Reconsidered,” and “A Response to the Discussion of DJD XVIII.” Pages 149–50, 199–201 in The Dead Sea Scrolls at Fifty: Proceedings of the 1997 Society of Biblical Literature Qumran Section Meetings. Edited by Robert A. Kugler and Eileen M. Schuller. EJL 15. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999. – “Messianic Forgiveness of Sin in CD 14:19 (4Q266 10 i 12–13).” Pages 537–44 in The Provo International Conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls: Technological Innovations, New Texts, and Reformulated Issues. Edited by Donald W. Parry and Eugene C. Ulrich. STDJ 30. Leiden: Brill, 1999.** – “The Relevance of Rabbinic Sources to the Study of Qumran Law.” Pages 73–78 in Proceedings of the Twelfth World Congress of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem, July 29–August 5, 1997, Division A: The Bible and Its World. Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1999.** – “Yom Kippur in the Qumran Scrolls and Second Temple Sources.” DSD 6 (1999): 184–91.** – Qumran Cave 4.XXV: Halakhic Texts. Edited by Joseph M. Baumgarten, Torleif Elgvin, Esther Eshel, Erik Larson, Manfred R. Lehmann, Stephen Pfann, and Lawrence H. Schiffman. DJD 35. Oxford: Clarendon, 1999.

2000

– “Celibacy,” “Damascus Document,” “Gentiles,” “Judicial Procedures,” “Proselytes,” “Tithing.” Pages 1–2, 122–25, 166–70, 304–6, 455–60, 700–701, 947–48 in Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Edited by Lawrence H. Schiffman and James C. VanderKam. 2 vols. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. – “The Laws of the Damascus Document—Between Bible and Mishnah.” Pages 17–26 in The Damascus Document: A Centennial of Discovery. Proceedings of the Third International Symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, 4–8 February 1998. Edited by Joseph M. Baumgarten, Esther G. Chazon, and Avital Pinnick. STDJ 34. Leiden: Brill, 2000.** – “The Use of ‫ מי נדה‬for General Purification.” Pages 481–85 in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Fifty Years after Their Discovery. Proceedings of the Jerusalem Congress, July 20–25, 1997. Edited by Lawrence H. Schiffman, Emanuel Tov, and James C. VanderKam. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society in Cooperation with the Shrine of the Book, Israel Museum, 2000.** – The Damascus Document: A Centennial of Discovery. Proceedings of the Third International Symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the

Publications of Joseph M. Baumgarten

xxvii

Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, 4–8 February 1998. Edited by Joseph M. Baumgarten, Esther G. Chazon, and Avital Pinnick. STDJ 34. Leiden: Brill, 2000.

2001

– “The Seductress of Qumran.” BRev 17 (2001): 21–23, 42.

2003

– “Some Astrological and Qumranic Terms in 4QInstruction (Mûsār Lĕ Mēvîn).” Tarbiz 72 (2002/3): 321–28 (in Hebrew). – “Theological Elements in the Formulation of Qumran Law.” Pages 33–41 in Emanuel: Studies in Hebrew Bible, Septuagint, and Dead Sea Scrolls in Honor of Emanuel Tov. Edited by Shalom M. Paul, Robert A. Kraft, Lawrence H. Schiffman, and Weston W. Fields, with the assistance of Eva Ben-David. VTSup 94. Leiden: Brill, 2003.** – Review of Shemaryahu Talmon, Jonathan Ben-Dov, and Uri Glessmer, eds., Qumran Cave 4.XVI: Calendrical Texts (DJD 21). AJS Review 27 (2003): 316–19.

2004

– “Some ‘Qumranic’ Observations on the Aramaic Levi Document.” Pages 393– 401 in Sefer Moshe: The Moshe Weinfeld Jubilee Volume. Studies in the Bible and the Ancient Near East, Qumran, and Post-Biblical Judaism. Edited by Chaim Cohen, Avi Hurvitz, and Shalom M. Paul. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2004.** – “Some Theological Aspects of Second Temple Shabbat Practice.” Pages 35–41 in Sabbath: Idea, History, Reality. Edited by Gerald J. Blidstein. Beer-Sheva: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Press, 2004.**

2005

– “The Avoidance of the Death Penalty in Qumran Law.” Pages 31–38 in Reworking the Bible: Apocryphal and Related Texts at Qumran. Proceedings of a Joint Symposium by the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature and the Hebrew University Institute for

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Publications of Joseph M. Baumgarten

Advanced Studies Research Group on Qumran, 15–17 January, 2002. Edited by Esther G. Chazon, Devorah Dimant, and Ruth A. Clements. STDJ 58. Leiden: Brill, 2005.**

2006

– With James H. Charlesworth, Lidija Novakovic, and Henry W.M. Rietz. “Damascus Document.” Pages 1–185 in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek Texts with English Translations. Vol. 3: Damascus Document II, Some Works of the Torah, and Related Documents. Edited by James H. Charlesworth and Henry W.M. Rietz. PTSDSSP 3. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2006. – “Immunity to Impurity and the Menorah.” JSIJ 5 (2006): 141–45.** – “The Law and Spirit of Purity at Qumran.” Pages 93–105 in The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Vol. 2: The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Qumran Community. Edited by James H. Charlesworth. The Second Princeton Symposium on Judaism and Christian Origins. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2006.** – “Tannaitic Halakhah and Qumran—A Re-Evaluation.” Pages 1–11 in Rabbinic Perspectives: Rabbinic Literature and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Proceedings of the Eighth International Symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, 7–9 January, 2003. Edited by Steven D. Fraade, Aharon Shemesh, and Ruth A. Clements. STDJ 62. Leiden: Brill, 2006.** – With Lidija Novakovic. “Miscellaneous Rules (4Q265).” Pages 253–69 in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek Texts with English Translations. Vol. 3: Damascus Document II, Some Works of the Torah, and Related Documents. Edited by James H. Charlesworth and Henry W.M. Rietz. PTSDSSP 3. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2006.

2009

– “A Proposed Re-Interpretation of Qumran Shabbat Regulations.” Pages 9*–13* in Zaphenath-Paneah: Linguistic Studies Presented to Elisha Qimron on the Occasion of His Sixty-Fifth Birthday. Edited by Daniel Sivan, David Talshir and Chaim Cohen. Beer-Sheva: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Press, 2009. – “‫[ מסורות ‘הלכתיות’ קדומות במגילות ים המלח‬Common Legal Exegesis in the Scrolls and Tannaitic Sources.]” Pages 649–65 in vol. 2 of The Qumran Scrolls and Their World. Edited by Menahem Kister. 2 vols. Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi, 2009 (in Hebrew).

Introduction

The Contribution of Joseph M. Baumgarten to the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Ancient Judaism Lawrence H. Schiffman Professor Joseph M. Baumgarten (1928–2008) was a major scholar who specialized in the study of Jewish law (halakhah) in the Dead Sea Scrolls as well as other aspects of Scrolls research. His contributions were pioneering and central to the development of the field of Qumran studies as we know it today. With the reorganization of the international editorial team, he took a leading role in the publication process, editing and publishing the Qumran Cave 4 manuscripts of the Damascus Document and other halakhic texts. His impact on the field was enormous, as this volume will clearly demonstrate by presenting a significant part of the research he completed between 1979 and 2008. 1

From Vienna to Qumran

Joseph Baumgarten came to the United States as a result of the rise of Nazi Germany and the Anschluss, Germany’s annexation of his home country, Austria. His mother and father had moved to Vienna, where he was born on September 7, 1928. They were East European Jews who sought a better future in the modern, German-speaking, cosmopolitan Vienna. The entry of the Germans on March 12, 1938 spelled the end of most of Austria’s Jewish community, and propelled the Baumgarten family to immigrate to the United States in March, 1939, with the assistance of the American Joint Distribution Committee. They settled in New York City. Joe, as he was called, received his elementary education at Yeshivah Torath Chaim through 1942 and then studied at the Hebrew Parochial High School, from which he graduated in 1945. He studied in Mesivta Torah Vodaath, a prominent Brooklyn yeshiva, from 1942 to 1950, and was ordained a rabbi in 1950.1 It was at Torah Vodaath that he first established his relationship with Jonas Greenfield, who eventually became a prominent Semitics scholar at the 1 J.M. Baumgarten, “The Covenant Sect and the Essenes,” (PhD diss., The Johns Hopkins University, 1954), 139.

© LAWRENCE H. SCHIFFMAN, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004505087_002

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Hebrew University. Greenfield contributed much to bring about the reorganization of the Dead Sea Scrolls publication project and was involved in the publication of the Judean Desert documents. In 1953, Baumgarten married Naomi Rosenberg, who had been born in Yonkers, New York in 1933. The two were inseparable until her death in 2007. Her understanding of the significance of his work and her willingness to sacrifice for it were clearly major factors in his success. She earned a doctorate in psychology and worked throughout her life as a clinical psychologist. From 1945 to 1950 Baumgarten attended Brooklyn College, where he majored in mathematics. He graduated on June 11, 1950, receiving his BA summa cum laude, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. It was a natural, therefore, for him to continue his study of mathematics, and so he came to Baltimore, intending to continue his rabbinical studies at Ner Israel Rabbinical College while studying mathematics at Johns Hopkins. As Joe later related the story, upon arrival at Hopkins he decided to visit the great Semitic scholar, William Foxwell Albright. At this initial interview, Albright took a few photos of Dead Sea Scrolls out of his drawer and asked Baumgarten what he thought of them. Before he knew it, his plans had changed and he had enrolled in Semitic Studies. He remained at Hopkins from 1952 to 1957, where he was the William S. Raynor Fellow in Semitic Languages. He taught Aramaic during those years, and he was awarded his PhD in 1954. His dissertation was entitled “The Covenant Sect and the Essenes.” In those years he also worked extensively on the Thanksgiving Hymns (Hodayot). Beginning in 1953, he taught at the Baltimore Hebrew College, initially as an instructor in the high school division. From 1955 on he served as Professor of Post-Biblical and Rabbinic Literature at the College (later University), and was Baltimore’s senior expert in these fields. At the same time, he served as a congregational rabbi, from 1959 on leading the Bnai Jacob Congregation. In maintaining his dual commitment to academic scholarship and the congregational rabbinate, he was continuing his modus operandi as a student—combining continuing rabbinical studies with his progress at the university. Baumgarten was one of the last American rabbis to succeed in maintaining both roles at the highest of levels, a challenge that he met naturally and with ease. Throughout his life he was a member of the Rabbinical Council of America, a major organization of Orthodox rabbis. He served as visiting professor at Towson State College, the University of Maryland, and the University of the Negev (now Ben-Gurion University of the Negev) in Israel.2 He was in residence at the Institute for Advanced Studies 2 “Baumgarten, Joseph M.,” in The Arts, Sciences, and Literature, vol. 2 of International Biographical Dictionary of Central European Emigrés, Part 1: A–K (ed. H.A. Strauss and

The Contribution of Joseph M. Baumgarten

3

of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (now the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies) in 1990, and in 1992/93 he was a fellow at the Annenberg Institute (now the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania) in Philadelphia. In Jerusalem and in Philadelphia, he was part of research teams dealing with the Dead Sea Scrolls and distinguished himself not only for his own research but also for the help he provided other scholars while he was preparing important Dead Sea Scrolls texts for publication. Baumgarten published articles on the Dead Sea Scrolls from 1953 through 2006.3 In 1977, he brought together his early work in Studies in Qumran Law.4 The collection of these materials established Baumgarten as a Dead Sea Scrolls scholar of the highest level in an era in which serious research was not done by many outside the official publication team. A glance at this research will show that Baumgarten sought to follow in the footsteps of important Jewish scholars of the Dead Sea Scrolls, including those who had worked on the Damascus Document even before the study of the Qumran scrolls, most notably Solomon Schechter and Louis Ginzberg.5 His approach combined his thorough familiarity with the published Scrolls with the important discoveries and developments in the field of Second Temple Judaism and talmudic studies that had taken place in the first half of the twentieth century. Already in these initial essays, collected in his 1977 volume, Baumgarten staked out his primary field as the study of Qumran halakhah. Although he wrote some articles regarding other aspects of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and although he was totally familiar with the entire range of Qumran texts, a glance at his list of articles shows that halakhah constituted the central foundation of his research agenda.6 The struggle to properly publish the entire Qumran corpus had begun in the mid-80s. In 1989–1990, a research group of Dead Sea Scrolls scholars assembled at the Institute for Advanced Studies of the Hebrew University. Here Baumgarten was in residence for a semester. During this period, there

3 4 5

6

W. Röder; Munich, 1983), 63. This reference was called to my attention by Daniel R. Schwartz of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. I also thank Meir Baumgarten, a grandson, for providing me with some information. Two additional articles were published posthumously in 2009. A complete list of his scholarly publications is included in this volume. J.M. Baumgarten, Studies in Qumran Law (Leiden, 1977). A.P. Jassen, “American Scholarship on the Jewish Law in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls in Scholarly Perspective: A History of Research (ed. D. Dimant with the assistance of I. Kottsieper; STDJ 99; Leiden, 2012), 101–54 (102–23); and Jassen, “The Early Study of Jewish Law in the Damascus Document: Solomon Schechter and Louis Ginzberg in Conversation and Conflict,” in From Scrolls to Traditions: A Festschrift Honoring Lawrence H. Schiffman (ed. S.S. Miller, M.D. Swartz, S. Fine, N. Grunhaus, and A.P. Jassen; Leiden, 2020), 164–218. Jassen, “American Scholarship,” 132–35.

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was ongoing discussion of the problem of the failure of the International Team to publish the Scrolls. While the final reorganization of the publication process was not completed until 1991, already in 1990 certain progress was made. Accordingly, the Israel Antiquities Authority established a committee consisting of three scholars—Magen Broshi, Jonas Greenfield, and Shemaryahu Talmon—to oversee the International Team, then under the leadership of John Strugnell. It was quickly concluded by this committee that Baumgarten should take an important role—indeed the leading role—in publishing the legal texts. As a result, then editor-in-chief John Strugnell, with the cooperation of Józef T. Milik, to whom these manuscripts had been previously assigned, handed over the Cave 4 fragments of the Damascus Document to Baumgarten along with the leadership role regarding the other halakhic texts. As soon as he received his assignments, Baumgarten set for himself the goal of speeding publication, and so quickly produced not only the fine editions that he prepared but also excellent studies, many of which are presented in this volume.7 This series of articles, which started to appear in 1992, constituted the spadework for an entire volume of the series Discoveries in the Judaean Desert, containing the long-awaited Qumran fragments of the Damascus Document (Zadokite Fragments).8 He also played a leading role in the publication of another volume of halakhic texts,9 and his articles concerned some of these texts as well. Indeed, his efforts to publish these texts and the many studies that he wrote about them began even before the reconstitution of the editorial team and the appointment of Emanuel Tov as editor-in-chief in 1991. At the same time, Baumgarten (with Daniel R. Schwartz) published an edition of and commentary on the Damascus Document in the series edited by James H. Charlesworth.10 While he continued to publish on related areas of 7 8 9 10

Cf. Jassen, “American Scholarship,” 147–48. J.M. Baumgarten, Qumran Cave 4.XIII: The Damascus Document (4Q266–273) (DJD 18; Oxford, 1996). J.M. Baumgarten et al., Qumran Cave 4.XXV: Halakhic Texts (DJD 35; Oxford, 1999). J.M. Baumgarten and D.R. Schwartz, “Damascus Document (CD),” in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek Texts with English Translations. Vol. 2: Damascus Document, War Scroll, and Related Documents (ed. J.H. Charlesworth et al. PTSDSSP 2; Tübingen and Louisville, 1995), 4–57. See also ibid., 59–79 (J.M. Baumgarten with M.T. Davis, “Cave IV, V, VI Fragments Related to the Damascus Document”); and J.M. Baumgarten, with J.H. Charlesworth, L. Novakovic, and H.W.M. Rietz, “Damascus Document: 4Q266– 273 (4QDa–h),” in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek Texts with English Translations. Vol. 3: Damascus Document II, Some Works of the Torah, and Related Documents (ed. J.H. Charlesworth and H.W.M. Rietz; PTSDSSP 3; Tübingen and Louisville, 2006), 1–185.

The Contribution of Joseph M. Baumgarten

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Qumran studies as well, these new halakhic texts from Cave 4 and their exposition became his major focus. Indeed, he served as one of the editors of a volume of studies on the Damascus Document published by the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature of the Hebrew University.11 The large number of articles he wrote, especially on difficult, technical Qumran legal texts, testifies to an amazing amount of energy that he was able to bring to bear on his work even while occupying a position as a synagogue rabbi. His unbelievable enthusiasm for the significance of the Qumran texts and his strong intellectual curiosity clearly propelled him to overcome a difficult teaching schedule that for many would have been an excuse to minimize research. In this respect, Baumgarten serves as a shining example in leaving behind so significant a record of publication. To recognize his immense contribution, it was decided to dedicate the proceedings of the Second Meeting of the International Organization for Qumran Studies (IOQS) as a “volume in honour of Joseph M. Baumgarten, one of the scholars who has contributed the most to the publication and analysis of the legal texts and issues found in or related to the Dead Sea Scrolls.”12 The editors noted that “Joe helped define this whole significant area of research….” They further noted that “what makes his achievement so remarkable, in retrospect, is the fact that, like so many other aspects of Qumran studies, it had to be created in something of a vacuum.”13 Those who encountered Joseph Baumgarten in the academic world knew that he was a great scholar and a person of utmost integrity. Those who encountered him in the context of the Jewish community knew him as a person of deep religious commitment and expertise in traditional talmudic scholarship. Those who encountered him in both contexts had the opportunity to experience a seamless combination of the two forms of scholarship that, in his person, were unified as one. He was universally loved and respected throughout his career. Academically, Baumgarten set the example for those of us who apply talmudic material and methodology to the Scrolls, a method and a skill that had 11 12 13

J.M. Baumgarten, E.G. Chazon, and A. Pinnick, eds., The Damascus Document: A Centennial of Discovery. Proceedings of the Third International Symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, 4–8 February 1998 (Leiden, 1999). M.J. Bernstein, F. García Martínez, and J. Kampen, eds., Legal Texts and Legal Issues: Proceedings of the Second Meeting of the International Organization for Qumran Studies, Cambridge, 1995, Published in Honour of Joseph M. Baumgarten (Leiden, 1997), vii. Ibid. This volume includes a beautiful tribute (xv–xviii), “Joseph M. Baumgarten: An Appreciation,” by Daniel R. Schwartz, who studied with him at the Baltimore Hebrew College.

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virtually gone into disuse in the earlier years of Scrolls research. His work exemplified the judiciousness and the depths of talmudic learning that were necessary for such research to be of true value. His work on the Damascus Document not only brought its manuscripts to publication, but provided the basis for understanding the new fragments within the framework of the history of Judaism. He lived to participate in conferences in which days of papers were given following the methods he had espoused, and it is to a great extent due to the example of his scholarship that this field has developed as well as it has.14 2

Early Scholarship

To properly appreciate the scholarship that is gathered in this volume, we must first appreciate Baumgarten’s earlier work and its great significance. His important contributions to scholarship on the Dead Sea Scrolls began even before he received his doctorate. His initial publication in 1953, “Sacrifice and Worship among the Jewish Sectarians of the Dead Sea (Qumran) Scrolls,”15 essentially announced the direction in which his research would for the most part proceed, namely, in the study of aspects of the Dead Sea Scrolls that related to Jewish practice and belief that could be illuminated through comparison with rabbinic literature. His dissertation, entitled “The Covenant Sect and the Essenes,” was completed under the supervision of the legendary archaeologist and biblical scholar, William Foxwell Albright, at Johns Hopkins University in 14

15

When I began studying the halakhah of the Dead Sea Scrolls, he was the only person in the field. I knew his name but had not yet met him. Very early in my career, it must have been in the mid-seventies, I attended a meeting of the Society for Biblical Literature to present what was then my first paper. As I was talking, I noticed a fellow standing near the door who had entered just before I began. He was holding his proverbial tan, lined raincoat and the hound’s-tooth checked hat that he usually wore. I do not even remember what the subject of my presentation was, but I do remember meeting him. Right after the session ended, he came up to me. He introduced himself as “Joe” Baumgarten, welcomed me into the small circle of students of Qumran halakhah, and immediately dispelled any fear I might have that he would see me as an unwelcome competitor. Within fifteen minutes I was meeting his beloved wife, Naomi, who somehow or other was waiting for him in the hall. This was the beginning of years of friendship and collegiality. It was not long before my wife, Marlene, met the Baumgartens and, as our children grew older, she started to join me at various meetings and spent a considerable amount of time with Naomi while Joe and I were busy with our sessions. We even were neighbors when we lived on the same street in Jerusalem while we were both at the Institute for Advanced Studies of the Hebrew University. Reprinted in Studies in Qumran Law, 39–56.

The Contribution of Joseph M. Baumgarten

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1954. It was truly a pioneering work in the field of Dead Sea Scrolls studies. Unfortunately, however, it did not have a major influence, except in launching Baumgarten’s career, because in those days dissertations were not published and were difficult to access. The work was a full force argument for the identification of the Dead Sea Scrolls sect with the Essenes, a view that he held throughout his career and that remains today the mainstream view. The dissertation is a detailed examination, primarily of the sectarian mater­ ial available in the Damascus Document and the Rule of the Community (then known as the Manual of Discipline), carefully compared, issue by issue, topic by topic, with the accounts of Philo, Josephus and Pliny regarding the sect of the Essenes. Occasional use was also made of the Habakkuk Pesher, which was already available. While the table of contents of the work reads no differently from the topics explored in the general volumes that had been published at that time arguing for the Essene identification, what distinguishes it is the attention to detail. This is even more true of the footnotes. We should also observe here that, although this work was not based in large measure on comparisons with rabbinic literature, here and there rabbinic references in the text of the footnotes can now be seen, in retrospect, to point in the direction in which Baumgarten’s research on the Scrolls would soon move. Yet before truly embarking on this path, he co-authored several articles regarding the Thanksgiving (Hodayot) Scroll, which had only recently been published by E.L. Sukenik. Written together by Baumgarten and his fellow graduate student Menahem Mansoor, they are among the earliest philological treatments of this important poetic text.16 The articles appeared in the prestigious Journal of Biblical Literature, and may be looked upon as a sort of announcement of the high quality of research that was going to come from this young scholar. Apparently, the decision of Baumgarten to abandon this work, and to allow Mansoor to use it as the basis for his doctoral dissertation, indicated a recognition of the direction in which Baumgarten’s own research would move.

16

J.M. Baumgarten and M. Mansoor, “Studies in the New Hodayot (Thanksgiving Hymns), I, II, and III,” JBL 74 (1955): 115–24, 188–95 and 75 (1956): 107–13. Mansoor would go on to write his dissertation on this text, although Baumgarten did not continue to work in this area. This work was published as M. Mansoor, The Thanksgiving Hymns: Translated and Annotated with an Introduction (Grand Rapids, 1961). On Baumgarten’s contributions, see Mansoor, Thanksgiving Hymns, xvii.

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Establishing His Approach

Following completion of his doctorate, Baumgarten published a series of articles that would eventually be collected in his volume, Studies in Qumran Law. From the point of view of Baumgarten’s research, this volume stands as an important boundary. Baumgarten’s volume appeared soon after my first monograph17 and shortly before the publication of the Hebrew edition of the Temple Scroll by Yigael Yadin.18 Taken together, these three publications greatly stimulated interest in halakhic materials in the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Baumgarten participated fully in this discussion. Furthermore, not long after, Discoveries in the Judaean Desert 7 appeared,19 including various liturgical texts; in 1994 followed DJD 10, Miqṣat Maʿaśe ha-Torah,20 which led to a tremendous widening of interest in the work in which Baumgarten had been engaged for so many years. An examination of Baumgarten’s volume of collected studies allows us to see the overall orientation of his work during this early period and the manner in which he laid the foundation for his later scholarship.21 The book contains four sections: Rabbinic Methodology and Qumran, Purity and the Temple, The Calendar, and Jurisprudence. In this volume, Baumgarten essentially set forth a methodology for the study of Jewish law in the Dead Sea Scrolls. While he built on the work of some of his predecessors, especially Solomon Schechter and Louis Ginzberg, Baumgarten brought to bear a much more sophisticated methodology as well as a much better understanding of the varieties of Judaism that existed in the Second Temple period. Furthermore, he was essentially the only scholar dedicating his main efforts to these aspects of the Dead Sea Scrolls while he was composing most of these articles. Only later did increased research on the legal texts become a trend in Qumran studies. In this volume, Baumgarten also argued strongly for the need to compare Qumran materials, especially in the area of Jewish law, with rabbinic literature. Overall, he emphasized this method but always stressed the need not only for comparison of similarities but also for contrast. He saw rabbinic literature as a framework that could greatly enhance the understanding of Qumran texts, even when these newly published materials espoused views very different from 17 18 19 20 21

L.H. Schiffman, The Halakhah at Qumran (Leiden, 1975). Y. Yadin, Megillat ha-Miqdash, 3 vols. (Jerusalem, 1977 [in Hebrew]). M. Baillet, Qumrân Grotte 4.III (4Q482–4Q520) (DJD 7; Oxford, 1982). E. Qimron, and J. Strugnell, Qumran Cave 4.V: Miqṣat Maʿaśe ha-Torah (DJD 10; Oxford, 1994). Our discussion of this volume follows the account of Jassen, “American Scholarship,” 132–35.

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those of the early rabbis. This methodology appeared very strange to many of the scholars then dealing with Dead Sea Scrolls materials, since they assumed that the core issues that separated Second Temple Jewish groups were theological, not halakhic. However, Baumgarten persisted, and the strength of his scholarship, combined with his personal comportment, meant that his work could not be ignored. Furthermore, Baumgarten’s thorough competence in Second Temple literature greatly enhanced the work collected in this volume and the respect in which he was held. Extremely important for Baumgarten’s work was his argument that the identification of the sectarians as Pharisaic could not be accepted; in so doing, he argued against the work of Chaim Rabin.22 This is the same view that Baumgarten had already enunciated in his dissertation, where he argued that the Essene hypothesis was the only possible approach to the identification of the sect.23 In his article, “The Unwritten Law in the Pre-Rabbinic Period,” Baumgarten took a firm stand against the approach of Jacob Neusner, who negated the role of unwritten law in the Pharisaic system. Indeed, the publication of this article led to a strong exchange between the two, but it is fair to say that Baumgarten was correct, since his opponent, in his wide-ranging studies of ancient Judaism, virtually ignored Second Temple literature, including the Scrolls.24 Throughout this volume, Baumgarten touched on many of the major issues that would concern the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls for years ahead. One issue is the question of the attitude of the Essenes to sacrifice and the question of whether they might have sacrificed at Qumran: after initially arguing in the negative, in a second chapter he argued that the answer might very well be yes, a view that has recently been revived.25 One of his classic papers is his argument for a particular parallel between the Essenes, as described by Josephus, and the Dead Sea Scrolls regarding the avoidance of oil as a source of impurity. His studies on the calendar revolved around the parallel with the calendar of Jubilees, an area that has occupied Qumran scholarship

22 23 24 25

C. Rabin, Qumran Studies (Oxford, 1957); Baumgarten’s reaction to Rabin was first published in 1958 (JBL 77), “Qumran Studies,” reprinted in Studies in Qumran Law, 3–12. “Covenant Sect,” 90–94. Jassen, “American Scholarship,” 142. It is also fair to note, however, that it was in the wake of this exchange that Neusner invited Baumgarten to publish his collected volume in a series edited by Neusner. J. Magness, “Were Sacrifices Offered at Qumran? The Animal Bone Deposits Reconsidered,” JAJ 7 (2016): 5–34; but see the objections in L.H. Schiffman, “Qumran Temple? The Literary Evidence,” JAJ 7 (2016): 71–85.

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throughout its development. In the area of jurisprudence, he drew parallels between the courts of twelve posited in the Dead Sea Scrolls and some other ancient sources. He also explored the question of whether or not crucifixion was envisaged in the Temple Scroll, his first study of this new document to which he would return in later years. He argued, correctly I think, although many disagree, that the testimony of women was not accepted in the law of the Dead Sea Scrolls sect. 4

Later Research

The papers in the present volume stem from two periods in Baumgarten’s research. The first is the period between the publication of the Temple Scroll in 1977 and the release of the entire Scrolls corpus in 1991. The second period begins with the release of the corpus, in which Baumgarten participated by publishing many halakhic texts, and ends with the posthumous publication of his last articles in 2009. While we will be turning soon to a detailed discussion of the papers included in this volume, one point should be emphasized at the outset. Baumgarten’s paper on Pharisaic–Sadducean controversies was the first to set forth the existence of a variety of important parallels between Sadducean views and those in the halakhic texts from the Scrolls.26 Indeed, he was the first to suggest that such laws existed in the text of 4QMiqṣat Maʿaśe haTorah (MMT), when only several lines were available and no one really knew what the text was. Unfortunately, others have often been given credit for this discovery. Despite having written this paper, Baumgarten argued that such parallels were limited to a small number, and that the Essene hypothesis need not be modified as a result of the Sadducean connection. Rather, he argued that Essene and Sadducean purity laws were similar simply because both groups advocated rigorous observance of purity laws, and that the practices of the Qumran sectarians/Essenes, in fact, reflected aspects of the shared religious law of the Second Temple period.27 When Baumgarten himself published an article arguing against the celibacy of at least some Dead Sea sectarians, he explained that the text on which he focused (Damascus Document 6:11–7:6) confirmed Josephus’s view regarding marrying and non marrying Essenes.28 He definitely saw rabbinic literature as essential for understanding these various disputes. Furthermore, he saw the existence of these disputes in the Second 26 27 28

Jassen, “American Scholarship,” 141–42. Jassen, “American Scholarship,” 150–51. Cf. Jassen, “American Scholarship,” 145–46.

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Temple period as disproving the views of Jacob Neusner. Unfortunately, some rabbinic scholars continue to write as if there were no Second Temple literature, an approach against which Baumgarten argued strongly. The second period of Qumran scholarship in which Baumgarten continued to be a major participant was the period in which the Scrolls were fully released and published. In these years, Baumgarten’s work revolved almost completely around the publication and explication of the Damascus Document, including publication and study of the Qumran manuscripts of this text and other previously unpublished Qumran halakhic texts. One may also say that these efforts, to a great extent demonstrated in this volume, place his work at the very center of subsequent discussions of Jewish law in the Qumran scrolls. In what follows, we review the studies gathered in this volume in order to show the importance of Baumgarten’s contributions to many areas of Dead Sea Scrolls research. 5

On Qumran Law in General

The present volume begins with two papers that set out Baumgarten’s overall view of Jewish legal texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls and introduce his conceptual framework. A close look at these two articles will show that they set out virtually all the major conclusions that have emerged from the study of Qumran halakhic texts. In “The Religious Law of the Qumran Community,” Baumgarten argues for the centrality of law at Qumran and delineates the forms of Qumran law: One form is biblical in its literary character, such as that of the Temple Scroll. The other form is typified by the Damascus Document, where one finds (a) laws based on the exegesis of passages from the Torah, as well as (b) rules set forth apodictically, without scriptural support.29 He correctly concluded that Qumran evidence shows that both midrashic and apodictic forms of legal teaching were in general use among Jews by the latter part of the Second Temple period. He identified a process, understood by the sectarians to be progressive revelation, that provides supplements to, or modifications of, canonical texts through inspired exegesis of Scripture. The law of the Covenanters, he notes, is anonymous and primarily written, as the sectarians had no concept of an Oral Law. Further, he noted that the law of the sectarians is generally stricter than that of the Pharisees, although numerous common elements can be cited, such 29

We are here using the term “apodictic” in the sense of laws set forth without exegetical justification, as is commonly the case in the Mishnah.

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as liturgy, tefillin and mezuzot. The 364-day sectarian calendar, based on solar months, however, is seen by him as a major distinction between the Qumran sectarians and the Pharisees. As mentioned, he was the first to explore the commonalities between the law of the Scrolls and that of the Sadducees, although he saw these agreements as limited. Indeed, he emphasized that the Qumran sectarians and the Sadducees differed regarding theological matters. He saw the organization of the Qumran group as most like that of the Essenes, as he had already argued in his dissertation, and concluded that “as a working hypothesis, the Essene theory has only been strengthened by the expanding knowledge of Qumran religious law.” Every one of these conclusions in which Baumgarten pioneered is at the foundation of the study of Qumran halakhah, and the Essene hypo­ thesis still remains dominant. A second overview article, “Recent Qumran Discoveries and Halakhah in the Hellenistic–Roman Period,” takes as its starting point his 1957 assertion “that the religious laws and practices in the Qumran documents will be more decisive in determining the position of the sect within the spectrum of preChristian Jewish movements than any of its theological and messianic speculations.” Here also he argues strongly for the importance of tannaitic literature for understanding the Second Temple period and its Jewish practices. The positions put forward in these articles, taken together with some of his earlier contributions, have generally become part and parcel of the field of Dead Sea Scrolls studies. A look at recent research in this area will show that his understanding of the issues and his agenda still dominate, even after the entry by a later generation of scholars into this area of research. However, his most important achievement was making the study and discussion of Qumran halakhic material a pillar of Dead Sea Scrolls research. 6

Rabbinic Literature and Qumran Law

Several studies that follow in the present volume deal with rabbinic literature and its relationship to Qumran law, and strengthen the arguments put forward in the first two articles. Indeed, the difficulty in establishing his approach was that it had to overcome resistance from two separate audiences. One was the assumption that the scrolls represented a kind of proto-Christianity. Halakhah was therefore deemphasized. At the same time, an emerging school of rabbinic scholars was arguing for substantial discontinuity between Pharisaic and tannaitic legal traditions. The following essays essentially argued against both of these points of view based on the evidence of the Qumran corpus.

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In “The Relevance of Rabbinic Sources to the Study of Qumran Law,” Baumgarten demonstrated that the academic study of rabbinic literature can serve as an essential tool for understanding Qumran religious law and that the Scrolls can illuminate the historic background of Pharisaic halakhah. He explained that tannaitic halakhah is indispensable for understanding what the Qumran legists were teaching and with whom they were contending. Baumgarten’s general approach is well illustrated in “The Laws of the Damascus Document—Between Bible and Mishnah,” prepared during his years editing the Qumran fragments of the Damascus Document. Indeed, many of the articles collected in the present volume are rooted in that research and serve as commentary to those manuscripts. He begins with a discussion of the Catalogue of Transgressors (Code of Punishments), showing that it draws heavily on Leviticus 17–22. To these were appended some offenses against sectarian halakhah that may also have been considered to be profanations of holiness. He then turns to those aspects that link Qumran law to early rabbinic halakhah, dealing with Sabbath laws not preserved in the Genizah manuscripts of the Damascus Document, but that were preserved in the Qumran manuscripts that he was editing. He also notes the parallel with tannaitic methodology in the collection and organization of rules under subject rubrics, similar to that found in the earliest strata of the Mishnah. He noted that the laws of the Sabbath in the Damascus Document, much like those in Jubilees, offer parallels to rules which in talmudic halakhah would be classified as shevut, rabbinic prohibitions designed to make the Sabbath a day of rest, in the category of “fences about the Torah” (m. ʾAbot 1:1). Yet, in the Qumran corpus, these laws are not distinguished from biblical prohibitions nor treated with greater leniency, even when life may be threatened. Despite the parallels, he observed that the Qumran Sabbath laws lacked the kind of conceptual analysis and generalized principles that are familiar from the Mishnah. The foregoing methodological observations, in Baumgarten’s view, seem compatible with the chronological placement of the Qumran texts between Bible and Mishnah. In “Tannaitic Halakhah and Qumran—A Re-Evaluation,” he returned to this question after the complete publication of the known halakhic Qumran fragments. He argued that with all the Qumran legal materials available, scholarly attention might be expected to focus on the broader contribution of the Scrolls to the study of early rabbinic law. Despite the many disagreements, he pointed to the numerous agreements between Qumran and tannaitic law. He showed that both sides agreed that the maintenance of purity by laymen and the eating of nonsacral food in a state of Temple purity were praiseworthy. Secondly, he noted that in regard to capital punishment, the two legal systems both

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sought avoidance of the death penalty. For Baumgarten, this did not obscure controversies such as that concerning the lunar versus the solar calendar, which he explained as resulting from the lunar system’s delegating authority to the discretion of the court to declare new moons and leap years, while the sect believed in fixed times ordained in the heavenly tablets. Here again, Baumgarten took a balanced view in observing that despite different methods of transmitting their teachings, there was a body of Jewish common law shared by the Essenes of Qumran and the Pharisees. These agreements reflect common Jewish traditions of the Second Temple period. Many scholars have termed this phenomenon “common Judaism.” One of the most important reasons for the success of Baumgarten’s use of rabbinic material to understand the Scrolls resulted from his thorough understanding of the two axes along which comparisons must be made. On the one hand, the material of the Dead Sea Scrolls needs to be compared with other material from the Second Temple period. On the other hand, he skillfully uses biblical and rabbinic materials to reconstruct the place of the Qumran materials in the overall history of Judaism. 7

Pharisees and Sadducees, Essenes, and Qumran

From the very beginnings of research into the sect of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the issue of the identification of this group of sectarians was at the center of much of the discussion. As mentioned, Baumgarten’s dissertation argued strongly for the Essene hypothesis. In various articles he returned to this issue, in later years needing to deal with arguments pertaining to the Sadducean connection to Dead Sea Scrolls halakhah, a connection to a great extent discovered as a result of his own research. Baumgarten took up the issue of marriage in “4Q502: Marriage or Golden Age Ritual?” Here, references are found to the assemblage of men and women, but they are emphatically described as the elderly of the community. Youths and maidens are mentioned, but, as among the Therapeutae as described by Philo, we may presume them to have been in a position of respectful subservience to their seniors. Even the allusions to individual couples focus on the blessings of peaceful old age and prolonged days “in the midst of an eternal people.” Baumgarten concluded that this text should not be seen as a marriage ritual, but rather as a celebration of older members, male and female, and their place in the community. While his analysis cannot determine whether this text referred to marrying or nonmarrying Essenes, it emerges, interestingly,

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that Baumgarten seems to have conceived the possibility of females within the group, even if they were not connected through marriage to male members. Reflecting back on issues raised already in his doctoral dissertation, Baumgarten returned to a defense of the Essene hypothesis in his study on “The Qumran–Essene Restraints on Marriage.” He observed that the Damascus Document and the Temple Scroll highlight sectarian rules concerning marriage, and in the Messianic Rule (Rule of the Community) matrimony is assumed to be a normal milepost in the maturation of a young man in the community of Israel. He noted that the approach of the Scrolls required full maturity on the part of the husband and that the Scrolls denounced polygamy, even forbidding remarriage after divorce if both spouses were alive. He understood these sources as attesting to the bifurcation in the practice of celibacy among the Essenes described by Josephus. Josephus had spoken of both marrying and celibate Essenes (Ant. 18.21; J.W. 2.160–161). The Damascus Document refers to sectarians who followed the normal way of life, marrying and having children, but Josephus knew also of those who never married or at a late stage in life renounced the continuation of marital relations because they aspired to the “perfection of holiness.” So Baumgarten argued that celibacy for the Essenes was never a universal norm. While Baumgarten’s position is widely accepted, the Dead Sea Scrolls offer no explicit advocacy of celibacy. However, the main cemetery of Qumran certainly indicates that very few women and children were present at Qumran. Further, it is often pointed out that the Rule of the Community contains no mention of women, children, or marriage. An extremely important article is, “The Pharisaic–Sadducean Controversies about Purity and the Qumran Texts,” since here Baumgarten, basing himself on a short quotation, was the first to point to the Sadducean character of a law in what later came to be known as Miqṣat Maʿaśe ha-Torah (4QMMT). This Sadducean connection he pointed out in 1980, although the text of MMT came to light only in 1984. He explained that in Second Temple Judaism there were two competing tendencies with regard to the applicability of the laws of ritual purity: (1) the approach that limited ritual purity primarily to the sphere of the Temple and the priesthood, taken as characteristic of the Sadducees; and (2) the pervasive concept of purity, applicable to the laity as well as the priesthood and embracing all facets of life, espoused by the Essenes. Baumgarten showed that in three out of four disputes between Pharisees and Sadducees concerning ritual purity that he studied, the Qumran view was likely to have agreed with the stricter view of the Sadducees. In the fourth dispute, however, the Sadducees are described as ridiculing the Pharisees for

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requiring purification of the menorah. Baumgarten appears to conclude here that there is no Qumran parallel to this Sadducean halakhic view, which he discusses in greater detail in “Immunity to Impurity and the Menorah.” Despite the similarity of name, he saw the Sadducees, and Essenes, the latter termed “Sons of Zadok” in Baumgarten’s view, as separate groups agreeing on only a few legal matters. It is interesting that after first discovering the existence of some halakhic affinities between the Dead Sea sectarians and the Sadducees, he continued to argue for a minimalist position on this matter, even after the later publication of the text of 4QMMT, as we will see below. In “Immunity to Impurity and the Menorah,” Baumgarten sought to clarify the nature of Sadducean disagreement with the Pharisaic purification of the menorah. The biblical principle that the ground and whatever was attached to it are not subject to defilement seems to have been followed in common by both the Qumran sectarians and the Tannaim. By analogy, since the Menorah was symbolic of the heavens, which are beyond the reach of humans, it seems to have been deemed by the Sadducees to be immune to any contamination. However, rabbinic sources relate that the Pharisees once opted to immerse the Menorah as a precaution. Baumgarten explained the Sadducean position as resulting not from leniency regarding ritual purity, but rather from a priestly tradition regarding the purifying power of the sun’s radiance. Baumgarten also devoted a full study to the discussion of “Sadducean Elements in Qumran Law.” While he was a long-time proponent of the Essene hypothesis, he still accepted that in a limited number of cases, the Essenes agreed with the Sadducees. Here he reviewed those issues that he had discussed in his earlier paper and then treated the relation of the sect’s ideology to the Oral Law concept of the rabbis, which he saw as rooted in the Pharisaic tradition. He observed that in the Qumran corpus of laws there is never any mention of authoritative tradents from the past. This lack of esteem for tradition may also have been characteristic of the Sadducees. He understood the Sadducean and Qumran exegetes to agree on stringent purity laws but to hold diametrically opposite theological views, socioeconomic orientations, and calendars. Even in the sphere of halakhah, the congruities in his view were confined to the areas of purity and ritual. These congruities, he maintained. did not suffice to establish Sadducean origins for the Essene sect, since substantial areas of religious practice were commonly shared by most Jews of the Second Temple period, regardless of their ideological affiliations. A related article, in that it deals with priesthood, is “The Heavenly Tribunal and the Personification of Ṣedeq in Jewish Apocalyptic.” Here Baumgarten focuses on a text entitled 11QMelchizedek that describes the celestial assembly

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of the holy ones at the final judgment. He showed that the heavenly tribunal or assembly in Jewish apocalyptic literature represents one of the most ancient elements in biblical imagery found in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. Ṣedeq as a divine name is found in Amorite, Ugaritic, Phoenician, and Sabaean sources. Ṣedeq as righteousness personified in the heavenly hierarchy was closely associated with the role of the angel Michael in the War Scroll. The Hebrew Testament of Naphtali describes Michael as the head of the heavenly tribunal of seventy angels, a role comparable to that of Melchizedek at Qumran. Despite the fact that the expression “Sons of Zadok” is used more frequently in the Qumran writings than any other source, in Baumgarten’s view, the connotation and significance of this title remain largely obscure. The Sons of Aaron, just like the Sons of Zadok, are called “upholders of the covenant,” and we can only assume that these were alternative designations for all priests of the community. Perhaps the name Ṣadok was preferred because of its association with Ṣedeq. They called themselves not only Sons of Ṣedeq but Sons of Ṣadoq, the latter term capable of embracing even the lay members of the community. The link between a term for the sect and a restriction of contact with outsiders is taken up in “The ‘Sons of Dawn’ in CD 13:14–15 and the Ban on Commerce among the Essenes.” Here Baumgarten explained that the designation “Sons of Dawn” (following this original reading, as opposed to the emendation “sons of the pit”) is a term for the members of the sectarian community. He interpreted this text as banning commercialism among the members of the sect, and this prohibition as deriving ultimately from the Qumran conception of justice. Any activity that smacked of exploitation for profit was viewed as a threat to the inherent harmony that united all Sons of Dawn, the members of the sect. “The Disqualification of Priests in 4Q Fragments of the Damascus Docu­ ment: A Specimen of the Recovery of Pre-Rabbinic Halakhah” sets forth a number of parallels between the newly available fragments that Baumgarten was editing and what is known about the Essenes from Philo and Josephus. He noted the congruence of the Scrolls texts with the descriptions of the Essenes who avoided anointing themselves with oil. As we now know from the proper reading of Damascus Document 12:16, and as confirmed by 11QTemple 49:11 and 4Q513 (Ordinancesb), oil, a readily adhering liquid, was regarded by the Qumranites as a potent transmitter of impurity. He also discussed the Essene loincloth that was worn by men to guard their modesty during ritual immersion ( J.W. 2.161), as is likewise specified in 4Q512 (Ritual of Purification B). Further, spitting in the midst of an assembly was considered offensive according to Rule of the Community 7:13 as well as J.W. 2.147. Essene strictness with regard

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to the Sabbath is illustrated by Josephus with two specific rules: the requirement that all food be prepared beforehand, and the prohibition of moving any vessel ( J.W. 2.147). Both restrictions are included in the Sabbath Code of the Damascus Document (10:22 and 11:17). The marrying Essenes prohibited intercourse during pregnancy ( J.W. 2.161). In a catalogue of sexual transgressions found in a Cave 4 manuscript of the Damascus Document, reference is made to a pregnant woman. The context strongly suggests that this refers to the same prohibition. Essenes who were expelled from the order often faced death from starvation because they were still bound by their oaths not to partake of the food of outsiders ( J.W. 2.143). This extreme concern with the literal fulfillment of sacrosanct oaths, even to the point of death, is explicitly indicated in Damascus Document 16:7–8. Regarding the Essene prohibition on buying or selling for profit among members ( J.W. 2.127), Baumgarten explained that, because of a faulty transcription of the Genizah manuscript, it was until recently not realized that (as shown in his “The ‘Sons of Dawn’”) this rule is also explicated in Damascus Document 13:14–15. However, Baumgarten noted as well that the Sadducees and Essenes, despite the social and theological distance between them, did share a common deference for the privileges of the priesthood. Disqualification of a priest could have resulted from foreign captivity (after which they were forbidden to minister in the sanctuary or to partake of offerings), and priests who migrated into pagan lands or became apostates were likewise excluded. He further observed that there was a significant body of halakhah that was not limited to any of the groups, but represented the common traditional law of the Second Temple period. This paper again aimed to uphold the Essene identification while not denying what Baumgarten saw as limited parallels between the sectarians of Qumran and the Sadducees. “Halakhic Polemics in New Fragments from Qumran Cave 4,” takes up Scrolls passages that seem to argue against specific rulings of other Jewish groups. 4Q513 (Ordinancesb) requires specific measures to be used to separate the priestly tĕrûmâ, which had to be scrupulously protected from any source of ritual defilement. Baumgarten explained that that sectarian demand apparently followed closely the admonition in Ezek 45:13 to avoid approximate estimates and to separate one-sixtieth of the grain and one-hundredth of the oil. Since the use of utensils for measuring tĕrûmâ was thus mandatory, it was appropriate to warn the user about their being a potential source of ritual impurity. The susceptibility of liquids to impurity is likewise indicated in this text. In fact, the text as a whole concerns sources of impurity—keeping the meat of the sin- and guilt-offerings that is reserved for the priests separated from the lay people, and other such issues. For Baumgarten, Ordinancesb puts into

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sharper focus a number of disputed halakhic matters that were of concern to the Qumran exegetes. He noted that the Mishnah, in specific cases, preserved authentic historical records of efforts to counteract sectarian criticism of Pharisaic teachings. 8

Halakhic Topics

Already before accepting the responsibility to edit the Cave 4 fragments of the Damascus Document, Baumgarten was writing articles on various halakhic topics raised in the Scrolls. With the publication of the Temple Scroll, he turned to a few subjects in that scroll. Once he was assigned to work on the Damascus Document, virtually all his articles concerned issues of Jewish law and interpretation raised by those fragments. The articles that follow here are primarily from the years before he took on that important role. Several of Baumgarten’s studies concerned references to tithing in the Scrolls. This area of Jewish law seems to have raised a variety of controversies in the Second Temple period. A foundational study is his terminological article entitled, “On the Non-Literal Use of Maʿăśēr/Dekatē.” He noted that the term maʿăśēr (“tithe”), employed to designate contributions other than those fixed at the rate of one-tenth, can be documented in the Temple Scroll. Maʿăśēr can function as a general term for any tax payable to the Temple or the clergy, as was characteristic of both Hebrew and Greek sources from the Second Temple period, including De virtutibus 95 of Philo. Tobit distinguishes between dekatē in the extended sense of a priestly donation such as the tĕrûmâ and its literal use for the Levitical tithe. Josephus also terms the priestly dues, including tĕrûmâ, “tithes.” Rabbinic sources, too, reflect the broad usage of maʿăśēr for both tithes and tĕrûmâ. In Temple Scroll 60:4–10, maʿăśēr may designate any hieratic tax applicable to booty, fowl, beasts, fish, honey, and doves. Some were subject to a tax of one-hundredth, and others, one-fiftieth. Baumgarten proved that the literal meaning of “a tenth” is not necessarily the actual rate. His article, “The First and Second Tithes in the Temple Scroll,” concerns the two major tithes mentioned in the Pentateuch: the Levitical tithe (Numbers 18, what the rabbis called the “first tithe”) and the so-called “Deuteronomic tithe” (Deuteronomy 14, rabbinic “second tithe”). The Temple Scroll assigns the “first” tithe exclusively to the Levites. After tracing the tithes through the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple literature, Baumgarten explained that it is possible to see the Temple Scroll’s rule either as a reaction to the preemption of the tithe by the priests or as resulting from the tendency of Chronicles and other sources from the early Second Temple period to elevate the Levites.

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The “second tithe” is not mentioned in the extant portions of the Temple Scroll, but comparison with Jub. 32:9–10 indicates that it is this tithe that is the subject of the rules elaborated in the Temple Scroll (43:2–17). Here, there is a one-year time limit on the consumption of the tithe from each category of harvest, unparalleled in rabbinic halakhah, but likewise found in Jubilees. This requirement derives from the tithe’s holy status: tithes “become sacred” after the following harvest festival. The requirement to eat the tithe only on holy days is not found elsewhere. The Temple Scroll is in sharp dissent with the tannaitic system of redemption of the second tithe (m. Maʿaś. Š. 3:3). Redemption with the one-fifth surcharge, the author may have reasoned, was appropriate only where the sanctified object was to be conveyed to a recipient other than the original owner. The Deuteronomic tithe, however, was to be consumed by the owner himself; hence, no redemption was indicated. In “The Laws of ʿOrlah and First Fruits in the Light of Jubilees, the Qumran Writings, and Targum Ps.-Jonathan,” Baumgarten addressed a certain discrepancy between the Temple Scroll (11QTemple 60:3–4) and Jubilees. The Temple Scroll lists the sacred emoluments due to the priesthood, such as the firstborn of animals and the tĕrûmâ. It also assigns the fourth-year produce to the priests, in agreement with Targum Pseudo-Jonathan. Jubilees, by contrast, is emphatic in forbidding the fruit of the fourth year to be eaten by anyone. The text further specifies that these first fruits are to be brought “in the juice,” in the form of wine and oil. We now have multiple and decisive evidence from Qumran that wine and oil were indeed regarded as mandatory forms of first fruits. Baumgarten related this to the sequence of first-fruit festivals in the Temple Scroll, which includes the Festival of the New Wine on the third day of the fifth month, and the Festival of the Oil on the 22nd of the sixth month. He saw these as First-Fruits celebrations. After surveying other sources on this issue, he concluded that the spectrum of halakhic interpretation in the Second Temple period was wider and more complex than previously supposed, including both Essene–Qumran exegesis and interpretations that ultimately became normative in rabbinic law. Again, in this study, he demonstrated that rabbinic evidence may indeed document views held in the Second Temple period. A very specific study is “The Use of ‫ מי נדה‬for General Purification.” Baumgarten calls attention to the extension of the use of sprinkled water (mei niddah) to purify from impurities other than those stemming from contact with the dead—a practice that appears to be reflected also in 4Q512 (Ritual of Purification B). He also included a detailed study of the terms for waters of purification in this text and terms for impurity, showing that they would much

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better suit defilement originating in sexual activity than in contact with death. He noted that 4Q284 (Purification Liturgy), which he edited, suggests the effectiveness of sprinkling for sexual defilement. He found indications of such a view also in Ezekiel, Philo, and rabbinic literature, and concluded that this transference of the purification for impurity of the dead to other impurities would explain why the liturgy accompanying the purification with sprinkling water has such a distinctly penitential tone. One of the sharp clashes between the Qumran community and the Temple priesthood was the confrontation between the Wicked Priest and the Righteous Teacher that took place on Yom Kippur. Baumgarten accordingly examined the theme of “Yom Kippur in the Qumran Scrolls and Second Temple Sources.” The term “the day of the fast” for Yom Kippur is unique and unparalleled outside sectarian literature. The liturgical fragments from Cave 4 identify Yom Kippur as the “appointed time of affliction.” Baumgarten suggests that the clash between the Righteous Teacher and the Wicked Priest on Yom Kippur was occasioned not only by their different calendars. At issue was also the nature of the fast. For the Qumranites, Yom Kippur was a crucial phase of their struggle with the demonic hosts of Belial. The voluntary acceptance of physical mortification during the prescribed fast served to atone for sinful guilt and to serve as protection against the threat of eternal destruction. Yom Kippur was thus a day of grief and remorse, the outcome of which depended ultimately on divine mercy. Baumgarten observed the tension between the sectarian concept of Yom Kippur as a day of mourning and affliction, and the more popular Pharisaic–rabbinic concept of a fast mitigated by the joy of moral purification. In a study relating to the Temple, Baumgarten took up “Exclusions from the Temple: Proselytes and Agrippa I.” Here he explained that one of the interesting aspects of Temple ideology is the coexistence of universalist and exclusivist aspirations. Envisioned as a house of prayer for all the nations (Isa 56:7), the Temple served as the object of pilgrimage and veneration not only for Jews but for countless non-Jewish visitors and admirers. Yet the very structure of the sanctuary and its courtyards embodied strict limitations on the right of access granted to Gentiles as well as other categories of the populace. Thus, we read, with regard to the sanctuary portrayed in 4QFlorilegium, of a limitation on the entry of proselytes for several generations. Rabbinic halakhah did not place any restrictions on the entrance of proselytes into the Temple. Agrippa I (ruled 41–44 CE) himself was a fourth-generation descendant of the Idumean ancestors of Herod who were converted to Judaism. Upon assuming the throne, a change seemed to have come upon Agrippa. From then on, it seemed that he was seriously striving, at least while in Judaea, to assume the character of a Jewish ruler. Thus, it would appear that the Qumran rulings that

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essayed to keep converts and their descendants out of the sanctuary belonged to the realm of ideal regulations not realized in contemporary Temple practice. When some scholars attempted to claim that the Temple Scroll considered crucifixion to be a legitimate form of Jewish punishment, Baumgarten responded first with his “Does TLH in the Temple Scroll Refer to Crucifixion” (JBL 1972 and included in his Studies), and then with his seminal article, “Hanging and Treason in Qumran and Roman Law,” included in the present volume. 11QTemple 64:6–13 ordains that one who delivers his people to a foreign power is to be hanged on a tree to die, a penalty that Yigael Yadin believed to be identical to that inflicted by Alexander Jannaeus upon his enemies. Baumgarten, however, distinguished between “hanging” a body after execution and crucifixion as a punishment, understanding the Temple Scroll to refer to the former. He called attention to the fact that the possibility of taking the root TLH in the sense of “crucifixion” is emphatically rejected in rabbinic sources regarding Deut 21:22–23. He observed that hanging appears in the earliest code of Roman law, carried out for various forms of treason. Similarly, the Temple Scroll includes a law about treason and a form of execution, hanging on a tree. Crucifixion was seen as an innovation of the Roman Empire in the Imperial Period, and “hanging people alive” as something unprecedented in Israel. Baumgarten concluded that crucifixion was viewed in Qumran texts as an act of brutality unsuitable even for the despised antagonists of the community. Essentially, Baumgarten provided the correct interpretation of the Temple Scroll passage while arguing implicitly against some who wanted to use this passage to implicate Jews in the death of Jesus. In “The Avoidance of the Death Penalty in Qumran Law,” Baumgarten observed that capital offenses according to biblical law are mentioned in Qumran legal texts. However, he pointed out that the Scrolls texts in several cases followed procedures designed to avoid such punishment. A prenuptial examination of a possible bride at Qumran prevents any possible defamation of the woman, and eliminates the basis for a capital indictment. Damascus Document 12:3–4 limits the death penalty in the case of violations of the Sabbath. Qumran law treats the sinner with leniency and limits human intervention to an extended period of supervised parole, after which the offender may return to the community. Presumably, if he fails to reform his behavior during this period, he is to be expelled from the congregation. Damascus Document 9:16–21, concerning the combination of the testimony of discrete witnesses in capital cases, allows for three repeated violations before a capital indictment. Most probably, this means that this transgressor, too, would suffer expulsion. A theological consideration would likewise favor expulsion as the ultimate human penalty. To be expelled from the community—in

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Qumran terminology, “to be cut off from the midst of all the children of light” (1QS 2:16)—was conceptually tantamount to death. In this respect the perspective of Qumran may not have been far from that of the rabbis, who viewed karet as akin to “death at the hands of heaven.” As part of Baumgarten’s wide-ranging study of the relevance of rabbinic literature to the Scrolls, he discussed the relationship of “Qumran and the Halakhah in the Aramaic Targumim.” He explained that the genre of targum is now known to stem from the Second Temple period, since Aramaic translations have been found at Qumran. The interpretations of the later rabbinic targumim can relate in different ways to legal material in the Scrolls: He found some examples that agree with rabbinic views and Qumran texts. Others agree with the rabbis but disagree with Qumran texts. Some targumic exegesis conflicts with both rabbinic sources and Qumran texts. Some examples contradict rabbinic sources, but are paralleled at Qumran. This category is deserving of special attention since it can potentially have a direct bearing on the much-debated question of the antiquity of targumic materials. Baumgarten suggested that perhaps the editors of the targumim had access to sources of ancient sectarian interpretations, but did not identify them as such and were therefore willing to use them eclectically when they appeared to approximate the meaning of the biblical text better than the available rabbinic traditions. This article makes an important contribution to the wider discussion of the survival of sectarian ideas and interpretations, and even texts, on the fringes of rabbinic tradition. In “Some ‘Qumranic’ Observations on the Aramaic Levi Document,” Baumgarten sought to determine whether purification practices associated with prayer and priestly halakhah preserved at Qumran might throw light on some aspects of the substantially earlier Aramaic Levi Document (ALD), wherein ritual purity was a prerequisite for recital of prayer. From the Cave 4 purity texts, it seems probable that after sexual defilement, the recitation of prayer would have been restricted at Qumran, at least until after an initial lustration. After lustration, Levi’s next action is depicted by the clause “and I made all my paths upright,” an early illustration of the nexus between physical purification and moral cleansing that was to become one of the salient characteristics of Qumran theology. Baumgarten suggested that Levi’s plea that he might exclusively follow “the paths of righteousness” (line 6) and not stray from his divinely assigned path (line 10) may be in emulation of one of the physical characteristics ascribed to the angels. In Qumran theology this uprightness in direction was granted to chosen mortals by the spirit of light: “to make straight before him all the paths of righteousness” (1QS 4:2). The formalized steps taken by the worshiper as he approaches for prayer in this text may parallel, in his view, the talmudic

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requirement of keeping one’s feet aligned during the standing prayer (Amidah). The article concludes with some specific textual notes. Indeed, one of the most important conclusions to emerge from the study of Qumran halakhah is exactly the point made early in the discussion by Baumgarten. Halakhic polemics in the Scrolls, as we have seen in this section, often prove that various laws first represented in tannaitic compositions actually date to the Second Temple period. This observation has been a major contribution of the study of Qumran legal texts to the history of Jewish law as a whole. Looking in general at the articles collected in this section, one can clearly see the depth and breadth of Baumgarten’s contribution to the study of virtually every area of Jewish law that appears in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Probably more important, however, is the range of sources—Hebrew Bible, Second Temple literature, Greek and Latin texts, New Testament, and the complete corpus of rabbinic literature—that he utilized in interpreting Dead Sea Scrolls texts and providing his analyses. In doing so, he set a firm methodological basis for the careful study of this material. 9

Theology and Apocalypticism

Baumgarten brought much of his work together in “Theological Elements in the Formulation of Qumran Law.” He observed that in the early stages of Qumran research, scholarly interest in religious law (halakhah) was markedly limited. Even when it was recognized that the manuscripts of the Damascus Document from the Cairo Genizah stemmed originally from the Qumran community, doubts were expressed as to whether this held also for the law code that constitutes a considerable part of the medieval text. After the discovery of the Scrolls, the major focus of interest was on the theological tenets set forth in the Rule of the Community (1QS). This work does contain rules of discipline, but hardly any Torah-based halakhah. The admonition which precedes the law code in the Damascus Document was of interest to modern scholars mainly for its allusions to biblical and sectarian history, not for its critique of prevalent violations of religious law. Baumgarten examined five formulations of Qumran halakhah that contain theological allusions of significance. He pointed to the links between the formulation of rules by the legists of the Qumran community and their theological tenets. While tenets are sometimes expressive of the particular beliefs of the sectarian community, they may also reflect beliefs held in common with other Jews in the Second Temple period.

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This theme is also taken up in “Some Theological Aspects of Second Temple Shabbat Practice,” where he explored the providentially protective aspect of the Sabbath as found in some prerabbinic sources. In postrabbinic sources the Sabbath was thought of as inherently protective from harm. The hymn for the Sabbath, Psalm 92, is at Qumran a song of thanksgiving for the security and divine protection experienced by the righteous person, especially on the Sabbath. The Damascus Document lists various secular activities that are banned as violations of the sacred character of the day. The paper traced the ideal of Sabbath peace as it emerged in Second Temple sources. In his article, “The Purification Liturgies,” Baumgarten notes that there is no specified prayer for immersion in other ancient Jewish sources, so that the Cave 4 purification blessings are particularly valuable. These texts deal with the occasions on which purity was demanded—before Sabbaths and festivals, Rosh Hodesh (new moons), and other days of the year, and for priests before their cultic service. Here we find blessings recited before and after sprinkling on the third day after corpse defilement, purification from seminal flow, and occasions of individual or communal purification. A technical aspect of the purification rituals is the timing of the recitation of the benediction. It appears to have been recited after immersion while the purified person was standing in the water. The specification that the blessing after purification is to be recited in the water is likewise indicated elsewhere in 4Q512 (Ritual of Purification B). The requirement that the person cover himself or herself with a garment, clearly in order to guard modesty, brings to mind the loincloth used by Essene men and the dresses worn by women while bathing, as reported by Josephus ( J.W. 2.161). A closely related topic is “The Law and Spirit of Purity at Qumran.” After surveying and arguing against some scholarly views that see speculation about the eschaton as leading unequivocally toward the abrogation of the law, Baumgarten explained that for some, such speculation may evoke the opposite, a conscientious search for greater rigor in complying fully with the standards of purity thought to be implicit in the Law. Which direction was the one that predominated at Qumran? The sectarians expected that their hypernomistic interpretation of the Law of Moses would ultimately be recognized as truth, and they certainly expected the Law to be in effect in the End of Days. This, of course, does not mean that the laws were thought of as totally unaffected by the progress of time. It was recognized early on by Scrolls scholars that Qumran teaching involved a concept of progressive revelation. 4Q277 (Tohorot Bb) elaborates on the red cow procedure (Numbers 19), adding the controversial Qumran stringencies that those who perform the ritual must wait for sundown after bathing, and that the one who sprinkles the water

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must be a priest of mature age. It further states that the sprinkling water effectively accomplishes purification not only from corpse impurity but from any other source of uncleanness, when coordinated with inner receptivity for the divine holy spirit. Further, in the Qumran view all transgressors of God’s word are impure and need to undergo the rites of purification. As far as Qumran is concerned, the link between purity of body and spirit is salient throughout the literature. 4Q284 (Purification Liturgy) alludes to communal cleansing in preparation for Sabbaths and festivals. But individuals, too, who bathed themselves to remove the different categories of uncleanliness or in order to be admitted to a higher level of purity in the community, were made conscious of the indispensability of penitence to make them worthy of renewed sanctification. In his study “On the Nature of the Seductress in 4Q184,” Baumgarten investigated demonological elements in a number of Qumran texts. He suggested on this basis that 4Q184 (Wiles of the Wicked Woman), in describing a seductress, does not refer to sexual promiscuity but rather to demonic forces. There is emphasis on the seductress’s association with the netherworld. Description of this woman in possession of bird-like wings was, in Near Eastern mythology, conventional for residents of the underworld. Female demons fly at night; they are associated with darkness, as he argued was the case also in 4Q184. He also investigated the relevance of “The Book of Elkesai and Merkabah Mysticism” for understanding Qumran texts. It appears that the Elkesaites carried even further the obsession with ritual purity that had characterized the Qumran community. Their daily baptisms recall those of the Essenes and the “morning bathers” described by the rabbis, though there is no apparent Jewish precedent for their immersion of vegetables and other foods. The Jewish character of their practices is clear for circumcision, marriage, Sabbath observance, and prayer in the direction of Jerusalem. Baumgarten pointed out Elkesai’s familiarity with Jewish esotericism and parallels to Jewish texts. While there are links to Gnosticism and Christianity, in terms of halakhah, Elkesai was still substantially within the framework of Jewish practice. However, in his theological stance he evinced a readiness for accommodation with a variety of prevalent beliefs. In rabbinic terms, he may perhaps be characterized as one who entered the Pardes, cut down its plants, and attempted to root them in other orchards. In studying “The Qumran Sabbath Shirot and Rabbinic Merkabah Traditions,” Baumgarten called attention to the importance of the Angelic Liturgy from Qumran for the history of Jewish mysticism. He demonstrated that certain aspects of Merkabah exegesis preserved in rabbinic sources serve as indispensable guidelines for the proper understanding of the Qumran Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice. The human worshipers were transported progressively from

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the vestibules of the Hekhal, the Temple chamber, through the wondrously embroidered veil of the sanctuary, to the base of the divine throne, and finally to the vision of the Merkabah. The Sabbath sacrifice served as the climax of this progression. The conception of images engraved on the divine throne is in rabbinic literature, but they are neither cherubs nor angels; rather, they are images of patriarchs. Here he emphasized once again that this analysis is illustrative of how rabbinic traditions, despite the late date of the edited collections in which they appear, can be helpful, either by comparison or contrast, in gaining a better perspective on themes found in the Qumran writings. However, he also illustrated the converse, namely, Scrolls texts that may throw valuable light on rabbinic aggadot that are of central significance in the ongoing debate concerning Hekhalot mysticism in the talmudic period. This approach has become even more important with the full publication of the Angelic Liturgy. As part of his editing of the Qumran manuscripts of the Damascus Document, Baumgarten studied the “Messianic Forgiveness of Sin in CD 14:19 (4Q266 10 i 12–13).” He observed that two Qumran works display a distinct proclivity to attribute the divine roles of judgment and forgiveness to mediating figures. The first, 11QMelchizedek, describes Melchizedek as the archangel presiding in judgment over the divine assembly described in Psalm 82. Melchizedek is to proclaim liberty for all the Sons of Light by releasing them from the burden of their sins. The second, 4Q541 (apocrLevib?ar), a fragmentary Aramaic text, concerns the eschatological priest also known from Testament of Levi 18, where he atones for all the children of his generation. Neither Melchizedek nor the eschatological priest is designated as a messiah. The Community Rule looks forward to the time when the yaḥad, the community of the Scrolls, will be established as a House of Holiness for Aaron and a Communal House for Israel, “to atone for iniquitous guilt and for sinful unfaithfulness and as good will for the earth, better than the flesh of burntofferings and the fat of sacrifices” (1QS 9:4), Both texts envision a time when the perfection of priestly and lay institutions will become a source of atonement that will be available without the need for ritual sacrifice. In Damascus Document 18:19, restored with 4Q266 (Damascus Documenta), it is the Messiah of Aaron and Israel, standing at the head of the total community, both priestly and lay, whose mandate will include providing atonement. He will do so not through any prescribed ritual, but as the divinely anointed redeemer through whom forgiveness of sin will be granted. Hence, the receptivity in Qumran eschatology for agents of divine salvation, whether angelic or human, removes the basis for scholarly reluctance to read the now more fully available text of CD 18:19 in anything other than its literal sense, implying that the Messiah of Aaron and Israel can bring about forgiveness.

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These studies clearly show that issues of Jewish law are intimately linked to the theology of the Dead Sea sectarians and other groups of Second Temple Jews. For Baumgarten, no area of Dead Sea Scrolls literature could be understood without giving proper consideration and attention to this crucial link. 10

Conclusion

With the perspective of time, Joseph M. Baumgarten’s distinguished career in the field of Dead Sea Scrolls studies can be seen as an example of someone who successfully swam upstream against the current and won the race. From the beginning of his research, he not only emphasized the place of the Qumran Scrolls and associated literature at the center of the study of the history of Judaism, but also, in particular, devoted himself to an area that many scholars were not yet even convinced was relevant. Despite the role of Jewish law in the early study of the Damascus Document (then called the Zadokite Fragments), when Baumgarten entered the field of Dead Sea Scrolls scholarship, he was a lone voice. Over time, as a result of the consistency of his work and the dignity and friendliness that he exhibited to all, he lived to see his work, and indeed himself, at the center of Dead Sea Scrolls studies. Baumgarten began as the only scholar working on this aspect of the Qumran Scrolls. He was later joined by this writer, whose appreciation for his kindness and friendship remains tremendous. With time, he was joined by an even larger group of Israeli, American, and European scholars who have continued and greatly expanded the discussion of Jewish legal teachings in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Indeed, he never stopped encouraging younger scholars to take up the areas in which he worked. It is fair to say that without his having laid the groundwork, and without his numerous contributions and his publications of Qumran manuscripts, recognition of the role of Jewish law in the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Second Temple literature would still be an uphill battle. When one looks at Baumgarten’s contributions, one sees that beyond the core of halakhah and the relationship of rabbinic literature to the Qumran corpus, his contributions extended to virtually every aspect of Qumran studies. Beginning with his dissertation, continuing with the articles collected in his earlier volume, then with his publication and explication of the manuscripts of the Damascus Document and other halakhic texts in the series Discoveries in the Judaean Desert, and in the articles in this volume, his massive contribution to the study of the Scrolls and their place in the Jewish tradition cannot be overestimated. May his memory and his scholarship be a blessing to us all!

Part 1 General Essays on Qumran Law

⸪

Chapter 1

The Religious Law of the Qumran Community 1

The Centrality of Law at Qumran

Although* the Qumran community is often characterized as an apocalyptic sect with expectations of the imminent end of days, this by no means implies a lesser concern with the observance of religious law.1 The rabbinic term halakhah for traditional law does not appear in their writings, but it is saliently clear from them that the delineation of proper halakhic norms was one of the major preoccupations of the Qumranites. Thus, the Community Rule (= 1QS), which consists mostly of rules governing the discipline of the order, ordains that the congregation shall be perpetually engaged in the study of Torah and the exposition of law (1QS 6:7). The Damascus Document (= CD) traces the genesis of the community to the realization that “they were guilty men” (CD 1:9) because they and all Israel had violated “hidden aspects” of the Torah, which God had now revealed to them (CD 3:12–14). Among these was, for example, the prohibition of polygamy and uncle–niece marriages, practices which they attributed to the “nets of Belial” (CD 5:1–10). The Damascus Document embraces an elaborate corpus of laws, now greatly expanded by the additional fragments from Cave 4.2 While there may have been some scholars who once entertained doubts as to whether this corpus was originally part of CD, it now appears contrariwise, that the preceding admonitions served essentially as a prologue to the laws. About the Temple Scroll, the largest of the scrolls found at

* This article was originally published in French translation, by Christophe Batsch, as J.M. Baumgarten, “La loi religieuse de la communauté de Qoumrân,” Annales: Histoire, Sciences Sociales 51 (1996): 1005–25. The editors of the present volume are grateful to Prof. Francis Schmidt, who located and supplied us with the computer file of this original English version, and to Éditions de l’École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris, which kindly allowed us to publish it. 1 The author wishes to acknowledge the initiatives of Professor Devorah Dimant in recommending the preparation of this survey and in offering suggestions for its improvement. 2 See J.M. Baumgarten, “The Laws of the Damascus Document in Current Research,” in The Damascus Document Reconsidered (ed. M. Broshi; Jerusalem, 1992), 51–62. On the fragments from Cave 4, see also A. Caquot, “Nouveaux fragments de l’Écrit de Damas,” RHPR 74 (1994): 369–94 [and J.M. Baumgarten, Qumran Cave 4.XIII: The Damascus Document (4Q266–273) (DJD 18; Oxford, 1996).]

© Joseph M. Baumgarten, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004505087_003

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Qumran, though not necessarily composed there, there never were any doubts; its contents consist almost entirely of elaborations of pentateuchal law.3 2

The Forms of Qumran Law

Since Qumran law is predominantly based on the Hebrew Bible, it is natural to begin by comparing its forms with those found in its biblical antecedents, particularly the legal corpora of the Pentateuch. Indeed, in the case of the Temple Scroll (11QTemple), we have an example of laws which are consciously formulated as elaborations and supplements to pentateuchal law and attributed to the same divine author.4 It is therefore to be expected that these supplements will be similar in literary form to their biblical prototypes. However, the laws in the Damascus Document and the sources listed above are not pseudepigraphical in form. They embrace communal regulations as well as amplifications of a variety of biblical laws. We may classify them as falling broadly into two categories: (a) laws based on the exegesis of passages from the Torah; (b) rules set forth apodictically without scriptural support.5 2.1 Exegetically-Based Laws The scriptural citation formula “that which he said” is used frequently in the Damascus Document for the derivation of laws. Thus, the practice of inaugurating the Sabbath rest before the setting of the sun on Fridays is supported by the citation of Deut. 5:12: “for this is what He said: ‘observe the sabbath day to sanctify it.’”6 The rule against using sanctification of one’s food as a device to prevent others from eating it is derived from Mic 7:2: “for this is what He said, ‘They ensnare each other with a ban.’” Similar is the use of the formula “for thus it is written” in CD 11:18 to validate the restriction of extraneous offerings 3 See the appended list of halakhic fragments from Qumran, of which several are still unpublished. [The appendix, “List of Halakhic Sources from Qumran,” with bibliographical references, is not included in this volume.] 4 This is also true of Jubilees, which is presented as a book written by Moses through divine command, either directly or mediated by the angel of the presence. This methodology is likewise illustrated in 4Q365a, a pentateuchal manuscript which, according to E. Tov, interlaces the biblical text with exegetical comments; see E. Tov, “The Textual Status of 4Q364–367,” in The Madrid Qumran Congress: Proceedings of the International Congress on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Madrid 18–21 March 1991 (ed. J. Trebolle Barrera and L. Vegas Montaner; 2 vols.; Leiden, 1992), 1:43–82. 5 We are here using the term “apodictic” in the sense of laws set forth without exegetical justification, as is commonly the case in the Mishnah. 6 Cf. 4Q270 6 v 1–2.

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on the Sabbath. In these instances the law is set forth first and it is then supported by exegesis.7 More common is the introduction of a scriptural quotation with the formula “and concerning that which He said,” which is then explicated with a particular rule. This is, for example, done in introducing the binding power of oaths by citing Deut 23:24: “And concerning that which He said, ‘The utterance of your lips take heed to fulfill’: any binding oath by which a man takes upon himself to do a thing (sanctioned) by the Law, (even) unto the price of death let him not redeem it” (CD 16:7–9). The right of a husband to veto his wife’s oath, deriving from Num 30:11, is cited with the topical rubric “concerning” followed by “of which He said”: “Concerning the oath of a woman, of which He said that her husband may annul her oath”;8 the Qumran legist goes on to limit this right only to instances where the husband is aware of the nature of the oath and is able to evaluate it (CD 16:10–11).9 The same citation formula is interestingly used to introduce a passage not found in Scripture: “Concerning the oath, of which He said, ‘Let not thy hand help thee.’” This is applied to ban the imposition of oaths without judicial sanction (CD 9:9–10). Commentators have speculated that the quotation may come from an unknown sectarian work.10 More likely this prohibition was derived exegetically from 1 Sam 25:26, which uses the phrase “seeking redress with your own hand” for an act of violence. In the eyes of the interpreter, an oath pronounced without the sanction of the court, and presumably involving the raising of one’s hand (Gen 14:22), was tantamount to an act of violence.11 The most elaborate examples of exegetically-derived laws may be found in the Damascus Document in connection with the abovementioned “nets of Belial.” The first of these “nets” is fornication (ZNWT), comprising two kinds of marital sins found in contemporary society: polygamy and uncle–niece 7 8 9

10 11

Cf. also 4Q274 1 i 3, where the isolation of one suffering from a genital flux is derived from that of the “leper.” The quotation of Num 30:11 is not verbatim, but refers to the substance of the passage. Cf. D. Dimant, “The Hebrew Bible in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Torah Quotations in the Damascus Covenant,” in “Shaʿarei Talmon”: Studies in the Bible, Qumran, and the Ancient Near East Presented to Shemaryahu Talmon (ed. M. Fishbane, E. Tov, and W.W. Fields; Winona Lake, 1992), 113*–22* (in Hebrew), who suggests that the exegetical passages in CD which place the citation before the interpretation involve the application of Torah laws to sectarian life. In view of the broad scope of “halakhah” now reflected in the 4Q versions of CD, I am not inclined to limit such exegetical forms only to laws intended for the life of the community. Cf. C. Rabin, The Zadokite Documents (Oxford, 1954), 47. For other instances of citations not found in Scripture, cf. J. Baumgarten, “A ‘Scriptural’ Citation in 4Q Fragments of the Damascus Document,” JJS 43 (1992): 95–98.

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marriages. In order to demonstrate that polygamy is contrary to the “order of creation,” the exegete cites Gen 1:27; Gen 7:9; and Deut 17:17. How he viewed the protasis of Deut 21:15 (“If a man has two wives”) is not known; presumably he would have taken it as reflecting a marginally legal, but not ideal circumstance.12 There are other illustrations of such a two-tiered concept of the ideal and the pragmatic law.13 As to uncle–niece marriages, which the rabbis considered not only permissible but meritorious,14 the Qumran legists based their ban on the broad principle that the laws of incest must apply equally to men and women. Since Lev 18:13 forbids a nephew to marry his aunt, it follows that a niece may not marry her uncle. Such extensions of the laws of incest were also made by some of the later Karaites.15 The foregoing expositions of Qumran law are found in a polemical context, that is, they are part of a critique of contemporary sins. We now have, in Cave 4 texts, other illustrations of such halakhic critiques. Thus, there is a small fragment which alludes to the ʿOmer offering and cites the phrase “apart from the Sabbaths” (Lev 23:38), which is also found in CD 11:18 in support of the ban on extraneous offerings on the Sabbath. In addition it contains the clearly polemical phrases “error of blindness” and “not from the Law of Moses.” We have elsewhere demonstrated that this fragment is attacking the Pharisaic–rabbinic sanction to harvest the ʿOmer on the Sabbath, when the latter coincides with the [second] day of Passover, which falls on the sixteenth of the month of Nisan. For the Qumranites, who always reaped the ʿOmer on a Sunday (thus interpreting the biblical specification: “the morrow of the Sabbath,” Lev 23:15), this was both an “error of blindness” with regard to the ʿOmer and a grave violation of the Sabbath. The Pharisees, in turn, made a point of performing the ʿOmer ceremony on such occasions with great fanfare to underline the validity of their interpretation of Lev 23:15.16 2.2 Apodictic Laws Apodictic style is characteristic of most of the rules found in the Damascus Document. Thus, the first of the laws preserved in the legal corpus of the 12 13 14 15 16

Cf. the view of divorce in Matt 19:8 and Mark 10:5 as due to “hardness of heart.” Note the different standards of purity appropriate for “the pure man” vs. those incumbent upon “anyone of Israel” in 11QTemple 49:8–9. T. Qidd. 1:4, b. Yebam. 62b, b. Sanh. 76b. See L. Nemoy, Karaite Anthology (New Haven, 1952), 123–32. See m. Menaḥ. 10:3, and J.M. Baumgarten, “Halakhic Polemics in New Fragments from Qumran Cave 4,” Biblical Archaeology Today (Jerusalem, 1985), 390–99 [included in this volume].

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Damascus Document ordains that “Any man who destroys a man (among men) by the laws of the Gentiles is to be put to death” (9:1). M. Fishbane properly characterizes this as an apodictic rule about judicial execution which is neither justified nor explicated.17 This does not mean that the law lacked any basis in Scripture; it was apparently based on Lev 27:29 and Mic 7:2.18 However, the formulation of the law is nonexegetical, in this respect resembling that of the biblical codes and the Mishnah. Among other examples of positive apodictic laws: “Any guilt restitution which has no owner, the one making restitution shall confess to the priest, to whom everything shall belong, besides the ram brought as a guilt offering” (9:13–14). Negative laws are regularly formulated with “Let not” (ʾal), a verb in the imperfect, and “a man,” as abundantly illustrated in the Sabbath code, e.g. CD 10:20 “Let no man walk in the field to do his workaday business.” This apodictic prohibition apparently derives from Exod 16:29: “Let no man go out of his place on the seventh day”; see also Exod 16:19. In 4QOrdinances [4Q159] 2–4 two biblical rules with “no” (loʾ) have been reformulated with ʾal. Mishnaic prohibitions, by contrast, are formulated with loʾ rather than ʾal (m. Šabb. 6:2), or most commonly with ʾeyn (“it is not to …”) and a plural participle (m. Šabb. 6:4). Whether these stylistic differences are due to a conscious avoidance of contemporary Pharisaic terminology by Qumran legists is difficult to prove, given the much later date of the rabbinic sources.19 Of special significance are the topical rubrics used in the Damascus Document to introduce laws on particular subjects: “Concerning one who is purifying himself in water” (10:10); “Concerning the Sabbath” (10:14); “Concerning the oath of a woman” (16:10).20 Here we have the first postbiblical evidence for the collection of legal rulings by subject rubrics. In Pharisaic–rabbinic tradition this process later culminated in the six major orders of R. Judah’s Mishnah, with the orders subdivided into particular tractates. However, the determination of the time when the first nuclei of mishnaic tractates emerged has been the subject of diverse scholarly speculation.21 Recently D. Halivni has restated the 17 18 19 20 21

M. Fishbane, “Use, Authority and Interpretation of Mikra at Qumran,” in Mikra: Text, Translation and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity (ed. M.J. Mulder; Assen, 1990), 339–76 (354). Note the rendering of Mic 7:2 in Tg. Ps.-J., “Each man delivers his brother to destruction.” See S. Iwry, “Linguistic Militancy in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” Eretz-Israel 16 (1982): 159–62 (in Hebrew). Note also 4Q159 1 ii 6: “Concerning (ʿal) the money of valuation.” See S. Safrai, “Halakha,” in The Literature of the Sages (ed. S. Safrai et al.; 2 vols.; Assen, 1987– 2006), 1:121–209 (146–63); and see the survey of opinions in H.L. Strack and G. Stemberger, Einleitung in Talmud und Midrasch (Munich, 1982), 129–36.

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position of those who maintain that the change from midrashic-exegetical to mishnaic form did not take place before the end of the Second Temple period.22 The fact that both forms are found in the Damascus Document is not, in his opinion, indicative for Pharisaic methodology, since the Qumranites, unlike the Pharisees, believed themselves to be recipients of revelation and could therefore allow themselves to set forth their laws in apodictic fashion, without scriptural vindication. The repeated use of the formula “we say” in setting forth halakhic rulings in 4QMMT23 could perhaps be used to bolster this argument. However, the fact remains that the Qumran legists also sporadically resorted to exegesis, while the earliest Pharisaic testimonies have been preserved in apodictic form.24 In principle, mishnaic form is not at all incompatible with the Pharisaic belief (Ant. 13.297) in the authority of rules (nomima) based on “ancestral tradition” (ex paterôn diadochês). Hence, we consider it prudent to assume on the basis of the Qumran evidence that both midrashic and apodictic forms were in general use by the latter part of the Second Temple period. 3

Revelation as a Source for Qumran Law

Beyond the variety of forms in which the laws are presented in Qumran writings is the question as to how their origin was viewed by the sect. According to CD 16:2 “everything is specified” in the Law of Moses, but the immediately following text goes on to include the revelations in the Book of Jubilees as a source for the elaboration of the ordained epochs. In his study of Qumran halakhic terminology, L. Schiffman maintains that the sect derived its laws exclusively from the exegesis of Scripture. The term “revealed” (NGLH) is understood by him as referring to “nothing more than Scripture,” while ‘hidden’ (NSTR) refers to the “sectarian interpretation of it.”25 This narrow understanding of NGLH may be appropriate for some contexts, such as the passage in which the “men of iniquity” are depicted as not only ignorant of the “hidden things” but also flagrantly violating the “revealed” precepts of the Torah (1QS 5:12).26 It does not, however, adequately reflect the belief in periodic revelations granted to 22 23 24 25 26

D. Halivni, Midrash, Mishnah, and Gemara: The Jewish Predilection for Justified Law (Cambridge, Mass., 1986), 38–47. [See the publications by Strugnell and Qimron cited below, in nn. 42 and 48.] M. ʿEd. 8:4; t. Makš. 3:3–4. See J.N. Epstein, Introduction to Tannaitic Literature (Jerusalem, 1957), 505–6 (in Hebrew). L.H. Schiffman, The Halakhah at Qumran (Leiden, 1975), 22–32. More difficult to accept is Schiffman’s rendering (ibid., 30) of nigleh as a substantive synonym for Torah in CD 5:5: “the nigleh (i.e., the Torah) was hidden.”

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the sect’s teachers, who are even juxtaposed with the biblical prophets: “It (the highway of Isa 40:3) is the interpretation of the Torah which He commanded through Moses to do according to everything which is revealed from time to time and as the prophets have revealed by his holy spirit” (1QS 8:15–16; cf. 1QS 9:18–20). These progressive revelations may take the form of inspired exegesis of Scripture, but they may also be supplements to or modifications of canonical texts, as for example illustrated by the nonscriptural harvest festivals and the supererogatory rules of purity. Such revelations, when “found” by an expounder of the community, were kept as secrets (“hidden things”) to be shared only within the confines of the sect (1QS 8:11; 9:17). Thus, as Fishbane puts it, “the cumulative impression of the Qumran scrolls, then, is that its primary text, Mikra, is the product of divine revelation; and that its own texts, which extend and develop the teachings of God, in various legal-sectarian collections and in various pesherite commentaries, are also the product of divine revelation.”27 4

The Anonymity of the Laws

When the Qumran laws are viewed from the perspective of Pharisaic–rabbinic tradition, another characteristic stands out saliently: the absence of named authorities. Yose ben Yoʿezer, Yehoshua ben Perachyah, Shimʿon ben Shetach, to whom rabbinic sources attribute important early Pharisaic rulings, have apparently no Qumran counterparts. The Righteous Teacher is a contemporary figure to whom have been revealed “hidden things” unknown to Israel, and his followers continue to search the Scriptures in the hope that “from time to time” they, too, may be granted revealed, though nontraditional, illuminations. In MMT their legal interpretations are characteristically introduced with the formula “We say.” This contrasts markedly with the extended chains of named tradents which often precede halakhic traditions in the Talmud. We have elsewhere proposed an explanation for this difference.28 The Damascus Document, still the central source for the sect’s concept of the historical context of its covenant, is emphatically negative about the contemporary generation and that of its predecessors. The covenanters saw themselves as a remnant living in a “period of wrath” which began with the destruction 27 28

Fishbane, “Use, Authority,” 362 (original emphasis). J.M. Baumgarten, “Sadducean Elements in Qumran Law,” in The Community of the Renewed Covenant (ed. E. Ulrich and J. VanderKam; Notre Dame, 1993), 27–36 [included in this volume].

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of the Temple, when God “hid his face from Israel” and which lasted down to their very own days.29 During this period “all Israel had gone astray”; they were “guilty men” because they lacked the proper understanding of the sabbaths, the holidays, and other “hidden things” of the Law. Thus repentance for the Covenanters could hardly take the form of a return to the “tradition of the fathers.” Even David did not fully know the Torah, because it had been hidden since the days of Joshua and the elders (CD 5:2–3). It is thus not accidental that in the Qumran corpus of laws, now augmented by Cave 4 materials, there is never any mention of authoritative tradents from the past. It thus appears that the Covenanters had an extensive library, but they did not accept or rely upon a “tradition” (MSWRT; Greek paradosis). 5

Written Halakhah

What should further be considered is the bearing of the Qumran “halakhic” literature on the question of the Pharisaic avoidance of writing down the Oral Law. Here opinions differ.30 Clearly the Qumranites had no concept of an Oral Law, while the Pharisees accorded authority to nonbiblical ancestral tradition. The question is whether there was a conscious Pharisaic tendency to keep this tradition unwritten. This writer has maintained that unwritten form is implied in Josephus’s characterization of Pharisaic regulations as ouk anagegrammena (“not written down” in the laws of Moses” [Ant. 13.297]) in contrast with the Sadducean laws which were gegrammena (“written down”).31 I take this to indicate a difference about the manner in which regulations were transmitted, not just their source. The Sadducees, too, as argued by E.E. Urbach, must have had nonpentateuchal laws, but they considered them binding only if they were, like their reputed “Book of Decrees,” “written and deposited.”32 Yadin has moreover called attention to the way in which Deut 17:10 (“and you shall do in accordance with the word which they tell you”) is paraphrased in 11QTemple 56:3–4: “And you shall do in accordance with the Torah which they shall tell 29

30 31 32

See, however, D. Dimant, “New Light from Qumran on the Jewish Pseudepigrapha—4Q390,” in Trebolle Barrera and Vegas Montaner, The Madrid Qumran Congress, 2:405–47 (418), where “the first to come up from the land of their captivity in order to build the temple” are excepted from the historical sequence of evildoers. Cf. Strack and Stemberger, Einleitung, 42–44. See Josephus, Ant. 13.297 and J.M. Baumgarten, “The Unwritten Law in the Pre-Rabbinic Period,” JSJ 3 (1972): 7–29 [also in Baumgarten, Studies, 13–35]. E.E. Urbach, “The Derasha as a Basis of the Halakha and the Problem of the Soferim,” Tarbiz 27 (1957/58): 166–82 (181) (in Hebrew).

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you, and according to the word which they shall say to you from the Book of the Torah, and tell you in truth” [emphasis added]. “There is virtually no doubt,” wrote Yadin, “that these changes were designed to prohibit the fixing of any law according to oral tradition.”33 While rabbinic tradition strove to keep the oral traditions apart from the written text by assigning to each a distinct form of transmission, the evidence from Qumran indicates that the sect, like the Sadducees, maintained no such dichotomy. 6

The Scope of Qumran Law

In assessing the scope of Qumran law we must distinguish between organizational rules applicable within the framework of the communal yaḥad and general halakhah rooted in biblical sources. The Community Rule (1QS) belongs entirely to the first category, while the Damascus Document, as we now know it from Cave 4, contains extensive elaborations of biblical law in addition to communal regulations. We are here primarily concerned with general halakhah. Since the extant material represents only a fraction of what was in the original works, it would be fruitless to give an exhaustive listing of subjects treated. From the brief description of the halakhic sources presented above, it is already clear that the range of topics goes well beyond the likely parameters of the community’s own experience. It appears rather to be coextensive with the scope of biblical legislation, including such subjects as the goring ox, the ordeal for the wife suspected of adultery, and the red cow sacrifice. Study of such matters is quite appropriate for a community in which the lection of Torah, and the interpretation of law, were mandated to be perpetual activities (1QS 6:7). It is also noteworthy that the laws include extrabiblical topics reflecting concern with the welfare and security of the nation, such as the laws of the king (11QTemple 56:12 f.) and the punishment of treason.34 Were there areas of religious law which were emphasized at Qumran more than others? In addition to MMT, two enumerations found in the Damascus 33 34

Y. Yadin, The Temple Scroll (3 vols.; Jerusalem, 1983), 2:251; cf. also M. Fishbane, “Use, Authority,” 362–63, who likewise believes that the Pharisees did not permit the writing down of halakhah. The passing of state secrets to a foreign power is referred to in 4Q270 2 ii 13 and 4Q524, as well as 11QTemple 64:7. The phraseology of the latter derives from Lev 19:16, which was apparently taken to refer to slander of the nation, rather than individuals. [Please note: The French version of this essay reflected the old numbering of the 4Q270 fragments. We have changed them as necessary to reflect the numbering in Baumgarten’s edition of 4Q270 in DJD 18.]

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Document may perhaps be indicative. One is the list of positive duties incumbent upon adherents of the community (CD 6:17–7:2): 1. “to distinguish [between the pure and the impure]”; 2. “to observe the Sabbath … and the holidays,” presumably in accordance with the sectarian calendar; 3. “to offer up the holy things in accordance with their detailed requirements”; 4. “to love each man his brother as himself and to support the poor”; 5. “to stay away from unchastity.” The other is a fragmentary list of transgressors (4Q270 2 i). The following sinners can be identified: 1. one who inquires of ghosts and familiar spirits; 2. one who marries a wife who had a bad reputation in her maidenhood; 3. one who fails to give the priests their due portions; 4. one afflicted with skin disease or gonorrhea; 5. “one who reveals a secret of his people to the Gentiles”; 6. “one who slaughters a pregnant animal or beast”—a practice also banned in MMT; 7. a man who has intercourse with a pregnant woman or with another male. From the end of the list it appears that the foregoing, as well as the “three nets of Belial,” were regarded as transgressions characteristic of the “period of iniquity.” Using the six major subject categories which later became the basis for the Mishnah, one finds that they are all, though to different degrees, represented in the extant Qumran sources.35 1. Zeraʿim (Seeds): laws pertaining to gleanings left for the poor; tithes; tĕrûmâ; ḥallah (the priestly portion of bread); ʿorlah (the fruit of newly planted trees); and bikkurim (first-fruits) [are all discussed]. 2. Moʿed (Festivals): laws of the Sabbath constitute a major section of the law corpus in CD, but the concept of archetypal forms of prohibited work (m. Šabb. 7:1) is absent. Tables of the festivals according to the Jubilees calendar are included in the mishmarot texts. 3. Nashim (Women): laws about incest figure saliently in Qumran writings. Verification of the virginity of a bride; the penalty for defaming her; women’s vows; soṭah (a woman suspected of adultery) are among other laws represented. 4. Neziqin (Damages): theft; fraud in buying and selling (as well as in arranging marriages); disposition of lost articles; usury; and the make-up of the courts are mentioned. There is, however, no trace of the systemic classification of the four archetypes of damages (m. B. Qam. 1:1). 5. Qodashim (Laws about the Sanctuary and sacrifices): [such laws are] mainly concentrated in the Temple Scroll, but occur also in CD. 6. Ṭeharot (Purities): [this is] a major subject elaborated in great detail in the Qumran halakhic literature.

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[For a fuller presentation of this, see J.M. Baumgarten, “Common Legal Exegesis in the Scrolls and Tannaitic Sources,” The Qumran Scrolls and Their World (ed. M. Kister; 2 vols.; Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi, 2009), 2:649–65 (in Hebrew).]

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Thus, the scope of Qumran law appears by and large to be coextensive with that of the Pentateuch, touching also on a good many of the subject categories found later in the Mishnah and the Tosefta. 7

Qumran Halakhah and the Major Jewish Sects

7.1 Pharisaic–Rabbinic Halakhah A renowned modern rabbinic scholar, Louis Ginzberg, concluded from his detailed analysis of the law corpus in Schechter’s Fragments of a Zadokite Work [1910] that the authors should be identified as Pharisees.36 Although this hypothesis is no longer tenable in the light of the now available Qumran writings, it remains as eloquent testimony to the common elements between the Qumran community and its Pharisaic contemporaries.37 Among these elements the common core of pentateuchal law is immediately evident. But we cannot fail to note that the meticulous observance of the law at Qumran includes many practices which, from a rabbinic perspective, would be categorized as stemming from tradition, that which later came to be called Oral Law. Thus, the cessation from work on the eve of the Sabbath begins well before sundown (CD 10:14–16), thereby extending its sacred span.38 The traditional limit of two thousand cubits was applied to pasturing animals beyond the city, although a shorter limit of one thousand cubits for walking was apparently based on Num 35:4.39 The ban on handling working implements on the Sabbath was strictly followed even when a human life was endangered (CD 11:16–17). Here, however, the rabbinic principle would mandate that the saving of life overrides all Sabbath restrictions. The purity laws were, as m. Ḥag. 2:7 informs us, observed with varying degrees of rigor by different Pharisaic groups. The Qumran interpretation appears consistently to have been on the severer side of the spectrum.40 This is especially noticeable with regard to the insistence on waiting for sundown 36 37 38 39 40

L. Ginzberg, “Eine unbekannte jüdische Sekte,” MGWJ 55–59 (1911–1915). [Also appeared separately as a volume with that title (1922) and in English translation as An Unknown Jewish Sect (New York, 1976).] Cf. C. Rabin, Qumran Studies (Oxford, 1957) and this writer’s review: “Qumran Studies,” JBL 77 (1958): 249–57 [also in Baumgarten, Studies, 3–12]. Cf. b. Yoma 81a–b. The presence of this practice at Qumran proves, incidentally, that the day was reckoned there, as among the rabbis, from the preceding evening. CD 10:21; 11:5–6; cf. 1QM 7:7. This also holds for the ruling that a dead fetus in the womb is like a corpse (11QTemple 50:10–11). With regard to bones detached from a living person, however, which the rabbis included as a source of corpse impurity, Yadin (Temple Scroll, 1:334–35) has inferred from

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after immersion before a person is considered eligible for contact with sancta.41 The Pharisees allowed a person who had bathed during the day to prepare the ashes of the red cow, without waiting for sundown. This leniency is specifically repudiated in MMT. Further, the Pharisees held that a pure vessel from which a liquid is poured into an impure receptacle is not contaminated by the connecting stream (NṢWQ); again, MMT is opposed, insisting that the connecting stream makes the upper vessel impure.42 Such differences, although ostensibly pertaining only to technical details, no doubt contributed to the pejorative epithet, “interpreters of smooth things,” which is applied to the Pharisees in Qumran writings. Yet, ironically, the purity laws of the Qumran sect are understandable only against the background of the system of purity found in rabbinic sources. As far as the liturgy is concerned, the Qumran texts provide the earliest attestations of forms and practices standardized in rabbinic sources. The berakha formula, “Blessed art Thou,” with direct address of the Deity, is found with various substitutions for the divine name.43 The blessings before partaking of food, as well as the grace after meals, are referred to in 1QS 10:15.44 The oldest phylacteries (tefillin), both the containers and the miniature scrolls, are among the Qumran finds.45 Aside from other halakhic issues, what set the Qumran community most decisively apart from the contemporary Pharisees was the sectarian calendar. Ginzberg was aware of the chronological allusion to the Book of Jubilees in CD 16:3, but he dismissed it as a later gloss. Had he known, as we do now,46 that it was original, it would have sufficed to eliminate his identification of the sect as Pharisaic. It was the calendar with its deviant dates for the holidays

41 42

43 44 45 46

11QTemple 50:4–6 that this was rejected by Qumran interpreters. [The original version of the present study referred here to the list appended at its conclusion.] With regard to ordinary food, Qumran law does allow an unclean person to eat immediately after bathing (4Q274 and 4Q514). See E. Qimron and J. Strugnell, “An Unpublished Halakhic Letter from Qumran,” in Biblical Archaeology Today: Proceedings of the International Congress on Biblical Archaeology, Jerusalem, April 1984 (Jerusalem, 1985), 400–407. Cf. J.M. Baumgarten, “The Pharisaic– Sadducean Controversies about Purity and the Qumran Texts,” JJS 31 (1980): 157–70 [included in this volume]; and the discussion of these matters by L. Finkelstein, The Pharisees: The Sociological Background of Their Faith (3rd ed.; 2 vols.; Philadelphia, 1962), 2:661–92. Cf. J. Baumgarten, “A New Qumran Substitute for the Divine Name and Mishnah Sukkah 4.5,” JQR 83 (1992/93): 1–5. Cf. M. Weinfeld, “Prayer and Liturgical Practice in the Qumran Sect,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Forty Years of Research (ed. D. Dimant and U. Rappaport; Jerusalem, 1992), 241–58. Y. Yadin, Tefillin from Qumran (Jerusalem, 1969). [See 4Q270 6 ii 17—Baumgarten, DJD 18.156.]

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that occasioned the effort by the Temple priesthood to suppress the schismatic observance of Yom Kippur by the sect (1QpHab 11:8). Conversely, the calendar was no doubt a major factor in the Qumran opposition to the Temple administration. 7.2 Sadducean Elements in Qumran Law The abovementioned positions of the Qumran legists on the impurity of “a person who has bathed during the day” and “the connecting stream” are identified in the Mishnah with the Sadducees.47 They appear to have been key issues in the controversies between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, as evidenced by the Pharisaic effort to perform the red cow ritual in defiance of Sadducean opinion. The fact that the Sadducean views have now been found to be affirmed in MMT has led some scholars to theorize that the Qumranites were actually Sadducees.48 This hypothesis, however, raises formidable theological and sociological problems, such as the belief in resurrection now attested at Qumran and the decidedly anti-establishment posture found in Qumran writings, while the Sadducees were seemingly identified with the priestly aristocracy. It also fails to account for the salient organizational similarities between the Qumran and Essenes communities (on Essene halakhah see below). Proponents of the theory respond by positing a radicalization which took place within a Sadducean splinter group. This writer, among the first to note the convergence of the Sadducean and Qumran positions on purity, prefers to attribute it to the intersection of two different approaches, one which limited purity primarily to the Temple and its rituals, and the other which applied it within the isolated sphere of a separatist community. Both the Sadducees and the Qumranites were therefore unconcerned about the difficulties of maintaining their rigorous standards.49 As far as the methodology of transmitting the laws is concerned, we have already noted that the Qumranites had this in common with the Sadducees, 47 48

49

M. Parah 3:7 and m. Yad. 4:7; see Baumgarten, “Pharisaic–Sadducean Controversies,” 157–64. See L.H. Schiffman, “The New Halakhic Letter (4QMMT) and the Origins of the Dead Sea Sect,” BA 53 (1990): 64–73; and Y. Sussmann, “The History of Halakha and the Dead Sea Scrolls: Preliminary Observations on Miqṣat Maʿaśe Ha-Torah (4QMMT),” Tarbiz 59 (1989/90): 11–76 (36[–74]) (in Hebrew). See also Sussmann’s “Appendix 1: The History of the Halakha and the Dead Sea Scrolls: Preliminary Talmudic Observations on Miqṣat Maʿaśe Ha-Torah (4QMMT) in Qumran Cave 4.V: Miqṣat Maʿaśe Ha-Torah (ed. E. Qimron and J. Strugnell; DJD 10; Oxford 1994), 179–200. On the alternative hypothesis, that the Ṣadduqîm of the Mishnah were not Sadducees, but the bnei Ṣadoq (“Sons of Zadok”) of the Scrolls, cf. Baumgarten, “Pharisaic–Sadducean Controversies.” See Baumgarten, “Sadducean Elements.”

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that their legal corpora were in written form, and neither group accepted the authority of oral tradition. 7.3 The Qumran and Essene Laws It seems superfluous, within the confines of this article, to recapitulate the common organizational features, such as the same koinonia, the similar stages of initiation, and the common focus on purity, which gave rise to the Essene identification proposed by many scholars from the beginning of Scrolls research.50 The Essene hypothesis has, in this writer’s opinion, lost little of its cogency, despite the admitted existence of lacunae and minor discrepancies in the information derivable from the description of the Essenes in Greek sources and the extant Qumran writings.51 Moreover, our recognition of “Sadducean” elements in the Qumran laws of purity should by no means lead us to overlook the remarkable congruities in detail between the halakhah found in the Scrolls and what Josephus records about Essene practice: 1. “Oil they consider defiling, and anyone who accidentally comes in contact with it scours his body, for they make a point of keeping a dry skin” ( J.W. 2.123). As we now know from the proper reading of CD 12:16, this was due to the fact that oil, a readily adhering liquid, was regarded as a potent transmitter of impurity. Any object or person anointed with oil was susceptible to contamination by contact with a carrier of impurity.52 This is further confirmed in 4Q513 1–2 i 13 and 11QTemple 49:11. 2. “In the bath the women wear a dress, the men—a loincloth” ( J.W. 2.161). This concern for modesty during purification is likewise specified in 4Q512 11 x 4: “he shall cover himself with his garments.”53 3. Spitting in the midst of an assembly is listed as an infraction in 1QS 7:13, as well as J.W. 2.147. 4. Essene strictness with regard to the Sabbath is illustrated by Josephus with two specific rules ( J.W. 2.147–148): “they prepare their food on the

50 51 52 53

See inter alia A. Dupont-Sommer, Aperçus préliminaires sur les manuscrits de la mer Morte (Paris, 1950). W.H. Brownlee, “A Comparison of the Covenanters of the Dead Sea Scrolls with Pre-Christian Jewish Sects,” BA 13 (1950): 50–72. For an evaluation of the celibacy practiced by some of the Essenes see J. Baumgarten, “The Qumran–Essene Restraints on Marriage,” in Archaeology and History in the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. L. Schiffman; Sheffield, 1990), 13–24 [included in this volume]. See J. Baumgarten, “The Essene Avoidance of Oil and the Laws of Purity,” RevQ 6 (1967– 1969): 183–92 [also in Baumgarten, Studies, 88–97, with addendum] and “Halakhic Polemics” 391. Cf. 4Q512 54 where “cover” (YKS) was emended to “wash” (YKBS).

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day before,” and “they do not venture to remove any vessel.” Both restrictions are included in the CD Sabbath code (10:22 and 11:17). 5. Of the Essenes who practiced marriage, in order not to cut off the chief function of life, Josephus reports: “They have no intercourse with them during pregnancy, thus showing that their motive in marrying is not selfindulgence but the procreation of children” ( J.W. 2.161). In a list of sexual transgressions found in 4Q270 2 ii 16 reference is made to a “pregnant woman.” Although the text is fragmentary, it seems very likely that it pertains to the same restriction.54 6. “Those who are convicted of serious crimes they expel from the order; and the ejected individual often comes to a most miserable end. For being bound by their oaths and usages, he is not at liberty to partake of other men’s food, and so falls to eating grass and wastes away and dies of starvation” ( J.W. 2.143–144). Such extreme insistence on the literal fulfillment of sacrosanct oaths “even to the point of death” is explicitly indicated in CD 16:7–8. 7. “There is no buying or selling among themselves, but each gives what he has to any in need and receives from him in exchange something useful to himself” ( J.W. 2.127). Due to a faulty transcription of the Genizah manuscript, it was until recently not noticed that this practice is also explicated in CD 13:14–15: “None of those who enter the covenant of God shall buy from and sell to the Sons of Dawn, but rather (exchange) from hand to hand.” “Sons of Dawn” is now known to be an epithet for the Covenanters, which had mistakenly been emended by editors to “Sons of Perdition.”55 It will be seen that the above parallels between Qumran and Essene rules deal with specific details, not the kind of general similarities which one might expect between all Bible-oriented groups stemming from the same period. True, we do not have parallels for all the data found in the descriptions of the Essenes, and discrepancies remain, but as a working hypothesis, the Essene

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The penal code (4Q270 7 i 13) includes the following provision: “And he who approaches to fornicate with his wife in violation of the law, shall depart and return no more.” M. Kister (“Notes on Some New Texts from Qumran,” JJS 44 [1993]: 281) suggests that this rule may allude to marital relations without the intention of procreation (“e.g.: to a barren woman; to a woman who had lost her fertility due to old age; to a pregnant woman; and so forth”). Although the suggestion is one among several possibilities, this passage is decidedly more vague than the one to which we have referred. J. Baumgarten, “The ‘Sons of Dawn’ in CDC 13:14–15 and the Ban on Commerce among the Essenes,” IEJ 33 (1983): 81–85 [included in this volume].

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theory has only been strengthened by the expanding knowledge of Qumran religious law. 8

Mutability and Immutability in Sectarian Law

The belief in progressive revelation, delineated earlier, introduces an element of mutability in the Qumran concept of law. Since the law of Moses was not fully known in the past and its “hidden aspects” are only revealed from time to time, it is possible to view the laws as contingent upon historical development. Thus we have the distinction between the “earlier laws” followed by the men of the community, and the “later” laws (CD 20:8, 31). Notably, however, the earlier laws are not seen as superseded or abrogated by the later ones.56 Those “who uphold the laws” are expected to “be disciplined” by both, and he who spurns them has “no portion in the house of Torah” (20:10). The process is thus one of a progressive unfolding of the true meaning of the law according to the divinely ordained periods. The present duty of the adherents is to do in accordance with the elaboration of the Law for the “period of wickedness,” a term which is repeatedly used in connection with the laws. In two passages it appears in a pre-messianic context: 1) CD 12:22–13:1 introduces some communal rules with the heading: “And this is the order for the dwelling of the camps, who follow these ⟨rules⟩ in the period of wickedness until the rising of the messiah of Aaron and Israel.” Some might be inclined to take this to mean that after the arrival of the messiah/messiahs, the rules would no longer hold because the Law would then be abrogated. This, however, is flatly contradicted by the Messianic Rule (1QSa), which specifies the rules for the “latter days” and the statutes to be followed at the assembly headed by the messiahs of Aaron and Israel. It is also contrary to the conclusion of MMT, where the writer underlines his appeal for repentance and the proper observance of the laws by his judgment that the “latter days” have arrived.57 One should, therefore, infer from here no more than that the period of wickedness would end with the rising of the messiah(s) and that the present rules might then be modified in an appropriate manner. 56

57

The Damascus Document, as now represented by 4Q manuscripts, concludes with the designation of the preceding laws as being in accordance with the midrash hatorah ha‌ʾaḥaron. Prof. H. Stegemann suggests that this was meant to be the final interpretation of the laws; cf. now his Die Essener, Qumran, Johannes der Täufer und Jesus (Freiburg, 1993), 165. I believe that it more likely means “the latest” or “the latter” interpretation, in a process of continuous inspired clarification. 4QMMT C 13–32, in Qimron and Strugnell, DJD 10.58–61.

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2) CD 14:18–19 has a similar heading, which has plausibly been restored to read: “And this is the elaboration of the laws [by which they shall be governed during the period of wickedness until the rise of the mes]siah of Aaron and Israel, and he will pardon their iniquity [ ].” Here the messianic period is associated with the atonement of sin; presumably this would occasion some clarification or innovation of the laws. The passage may be compared with CD 6:9–11, where the statutes of the lawgiver are to be followed during the entire period of wickedness, for “without them they will not grasp [the meaning of the Law] until he who teaches righteousness will arise in the latter days.” Thus, the function of the eschatological teacher is not to abrogate the Law, but to reveal its fuller meaning. The periodization of the laws at Qumran may serve to illuminate an interesting aspect of the laws in the Book of Jubilees. In a number of places the author concludes his account of the primordial origins of biblical laws by emphasizing that these laws are eternal and have no chronological limits. The Sabbath, according to Jub. 2:30, was kept by the angels in heaven before it was made known to any human. It is to be kept by the children of Israel “as an eternal law for their generations” (2:33). The law of purification after childbirth “is written for Israel so that they might keep it always” (3:14). The law of circumcision is “for all the eternal generations … because it is an eternal ordinance ordained and written in the heavenly tablets” (15:25); the angels, too, were created circumcised (15:27). Here the author adds the prediction that there will in the future be Jews, presumably the hellenizers, who will not properly circumcise their sons (15:33). In three places, Jubilees underlines the permanence of biblical laws by declaring them not to have any “limit of days.” The Feast of Booths, ordained in the heavenly tablets, has “no limit of days because it is ordained forever concerning Israel” (16:30). The law of the second tithe, likewise decreed in the heavenly tablets, “has no limit of days” forever (32:10). The laws of incest, written and ordered in the heavenly tablets, also have no “consummation of days” (33:16). One might suppose that the author of Jubilees, who in his narrations regularly attributes the observance of biblical laws to the patriarchs, wished to justify this anachronism by presenting the aforementioned laws as pre-existent in heaven and therefore having no retrospective “limit of days.” This, however, fails to apply to the law of incest, which was violated by Reuben (Gen 35:22). As the author explains “the law had not been revealed till then (as) completed for everyone” (33:16); but in the days of Moses it became “an eternal law for everlasting generations.” One wonders, therefore, whether this emphasis on the eternity of the laws may perhaps be directed against the notion that they

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were bound only to particular periods, and that they might be abrogated in the “consummation of days.” Was such a notion known among Jews in the preChristian period? A view which expected the abrogation of the Law in the final days has been inferred by some from 1 Macc 14:41, where Simon was accepted by the people to “be their leader and high priest forever, until a trustworthy prophet should arise”; but the role of the future prophet here is merely to confirm or reject the installation of a new priestly dynasty.58 More pertinent is 1 Macc 4:46, which postpones the halakhic decision of what to do with the stones of the defiled altar “until there should come a prophet to tell what to do with them.” Yet, this hardly means that the prophet was expected to abrogate the Law; he was expected to clarify it. This is substantially similar to the role of Elijah in rabbinic tradition.59 Thus, the documentation of the idea of a “messianic” end (QṢ = “end”) for the Law in pre-Christian Judaism remains elusive. Jubilees, in any case, rejects any notion of assigning limits to the permanence of certain pentateuchal statutes and on this the Qumran interpreters would only have concurred. We have elsewhere noted the difference between the use made of Isa 40:3 (“Clear the way of the Lord”) in the Gospels as a call to baptism, and its application at Qumran “to the study of the Torah which he commanded to Moses to do in accordance with that which is revealed from time to time” (1QS 8:14–15).60 The Qumran view of the imminence of the “latter days” led, not to what W.D. Davies has termed a “straining at the leash of the Law,”61 but to the search for a more rigorous fulfillment of its requirements.

58

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60 61

Cf. 4QPatriarchal Blessings I [= 4Q252 6 v 3–4; published as “252. 4QCommentary on Genesis A,” ed. G.J. Brooke, Qumran Cave 4.XVII: Parabiblical Texts, Part 3 (ed. G. Brooke et al.; DJD 22; Oxford, 1996), 185–207], which affirms the continuity of the royal line of David “until the coming of the legitimate messiah, the shoot of David.” Cf. m. ʿEd. 8:7; t. ʿEd. 3:4; and E.E. Urbach, The Sages (Jerusalem, 1969), 264–86 (in Hebrew [in the English translation (1975), 1:297–326]), who concludes that the idea of a messianic abrogation or renewal of the Torah does not emerge in rabbinic sources before the Amoraic period. Baumgarten, Studies, 31–32 n. 77. W.D. Davies, “Paul and the Dead Sea Scrolls: Flesh and Spirit,” in The Scrolls and the New Testament (ed. K. Stendahl; New York, 1957), 157–82 (182 n. 86). [See also J.M. Baumgarten, “The Law and Spirit of Purity at Qumran,” in The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls, 2: The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Qumran Community (ed. J.H. Charlesworth; Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2006), 93–105 (included in this volume).]

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Theories about the Origins of Qumran Law

The study of the history of the Qumran community is still in its developing stages, but two different approaches pertaining to the genesis of its religious laws can be broadly discerned. 1) One view tends to look for the origin of the Qumran schism in some radical innovations introduced by contemporary Jews which were unacceptable to the community. The priestly teachers of the sect are seen as essentially conservative in their religious outlook, committed to the Law and the established traditions of the past. This view is thus somewhat reminiscent of the approach of A. Geiger a century ago, who portrayed the Sadducees as guardians of the “old halakhah,” while the Pharisees were progressive and receptive to innovations in the law.62 What religious innovations might have precipitated the formation of the Qumran sect? The theory that opposition to the usurpation of the high-priesthood by the “non-Zadokite” Hasmoneans was a major factor in their schism has been widely espoused. It emerged early on as part of the Essene theory, but it has also been adopted by those who would now identify the Sons of Zadok with the Sadducees.63 It is curious, however, that the lack of Zadokite legitimacy nowhere figures in the Qumran polemics against the Jerusalem priesthood. Some proponents of the Essene identification have suggested that the Essenes had their beginnings among the Hasidean pietists of the early Maccabean period. Among these pietists, devotion to the Sabbath, to take one aspect of the Law, was so intense that they remained passive in the face of military attacks on that day (1 Macc 2:31–38). Mattathias’s plea that this would inevitably lead to their destruction appears to have had more influence upon the Pharisees and later rabbinic teaching than upon the author of Jubilees, who still forbade all warfare on the Sabbath (50:12). However, there is no evidence that the Sabbath was a critical factor in the Qumran schism.64 More pertinent is the premise that the calendar played a major role in isolating the sect from contemporary Jewry. As Milik wrote: In the Essenes’ texts we find a vehement insistence on the authority of their cultic calendar; in default of another cause of schism we could infer, unfortunately without any clear evidence in other sources, that one 62 63 64

A. Geiger, Urschrift und Übersetzungen der Bibel (Breslau, 1857). Cf. Schiffman, “New Halakhic Letter,” 69. CD 11:15–17 implies that violation of the Sabbath to save human lives may be sanctioned, but not by the use of implements such as a ladder or a rope.

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of the early Hasmoneans opposed the Teacher by making, or failing to make, some drastic reforms in the official calendar. The alternatives as to the source of the calendar reforms are here nuanced with exemplary caution.65 Some scholars have maintained that the Jubilees– Qumran solar calendar was already employed in the chronology of the priestly sources of the Hebrew Bible, but the evidence for this has proven inconclusive.66 Moreover, the claim for the antiquity of the sectarian calendar is now considerably weakened by the emendation of the chronology of the Flood found in 4Q252. According to Gen 8:3–4 the Flood endured 150 days, from the seventeenth of the second month to the seventeenth of the seventh month. The writer of 4Q252, however, realized that in the Qumran solar calendar the interval really has 152 days. He therefore interpolated two days between the end of the flood waters and the resting of the ark. Evidence such as this, as well as the lunar calculations found in the Words of the Luminaries [4Q504], which is the earliest source for the solar calendar, and in 4Q503 (Daily Prayers), not only casts doubt on the antilunar polemics of Jubilees,67 but favors the hypothesis that the reform of the festival calendar at Qumran on the basis of the schematic solar calendar was itself a radical innovation. The question to be asked should accordingly be what might have motivated a group of intensely religious Jews to introduce halakhic reforms before or during the beginning of the Hasmonean period? We may look to Qumran eschatology for a possible answer. 2) In his efforts to characterize the sociology of the Qumran community, S. Talmon commendably focuses on the account of their own beginnings.68 Three hundred and ninety years after the Babylonian conquest, at the end of the period of wrath whose duration derives from a prophecy of Ezekiel [4:5], a small remnant sprung up in Israel (CD 1:5–11). The first Covenanters, Talmon believes, had an anarchistic anti-establishment stance characteristic of millenarian movements. They were not, however, antinomistic. In expectation of 65 66 67 68

J.T. Milik, Ten Years of Discovery in the Wilderness of Judaea (Naperville, IL, 1959), 83. [As the translator noted in the French version of this article, Milik was less cautious (“plus affirmatif”) in the 1957 French version of his volume.] See this writer’s review of A. Jaubert, La date de la Cène (Paris, 1957) in Baumgarten, Studies, 101–14. Cf. J. Baumgarten, “4Q503 (Daily Prayers) and the Lunar Calendar,” RevQ 12 (1985–1987): 399–407. S. Talmon, “The Internal Diversification of Judaism in the Early Second Temple Period,” in Jewish Civilization in the Hellenistic–Roman Period (ed. S. Talmon: Sheffield, 1991), 15–43 (36–39).

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the final age, they “recognized that they were guilty men” and began “groping for the way”; that is, searching for the proper interpretation of the Law. Here it is appropriate to take note of E. Urbach’s observation concerning the characteristically destabilizing effect of interpreters independent of the established institutions.69 The Qumran interpreters tended toward a hypernomism which was generally more stringent than that of their contemporaries. After twenty years, the Righteous Teacher became their guide, by clearing the way through the spiritual wilderness created by the facile teachings of their antagonists, among them “those who seek smooth things,” that is, the contemporary Pharisees. The latter approach, which posits an anarchistic, innovative impulse in the emergence of sectarian religious law has, in my opinion, certain advantages: (1) It takes account of the Covenanters’ own portrayal of their early history, although, like most religious reformers, they would very likely have preferred to present their movement as merely a return to the original meaning of the laws of Moses. (2) It assumes that the millenarian–messianic ideology of the community was not without its effect on the halakhah espoused by its legists. This can now be illustrated from MMT, where the enumeration of their legal opinions is underlined by their firm belief that they were living in the Consummation of Days. (3) It accounts for the reaction of contemporary antagonists, who viewed the nontraditional stringencies advocated by the sect as incorrect (CD 5:12), constituting what the Tosefta later termed “another way,” a heterodox approach.70 However, regardless of which approach different scholars may prefer, it is becoming increasingly clear that Qumran religious law cannot be fully understood without consulting the repositories of Pharisaic tradition preserved in rabbinic sources. The significance of this observation may be brought out by taking cognizance, by way of illustration, of the contrary opinion of a legal historian who views rabbinic literature as largely irrelevant to the historical realities of the Second Temple period: Rabbinic sources … do not usually purport to describe Second Commonwealth conditions. The discussion of those areas of the law which most contemporary opinion takes to have ceased to operate with the destruction of the state—parts of the ritual law which depended upon the existence of the temple, and parts of the criminal law—may be academic…. 69 70

Urbach, “Derasha as a Basis,” 166–82. See S. Lieberman, “The Discipline in the So-called Dead Sea Manual of Discipline,” JBL 71 (1952): 199–206.

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All too often in the past any common denominators found in either Philo or Josephus or Qumran and some rabbinic source, often anonymously transmitted, have been taken to represent “early halakhah”…. Such argumentation only begins to approach credibility if it is assumed either that there was a single second commonwealth tradition of halakhah, or that the particular second commonwealth source stems from the same tradition as the forerunners of the rabbis. Neither assumption is justified.71 Our survey of Qumran halakhah does not purport to establish that there was only one Second Commonwealth tradition of halakhah, although there was indeed a large core of customary religious practice shared by all groups. The significant finding, rather, is that the conflicting traditions and polemics of these groups show an awareness of each other’s existence. Thus, we can be fairly confident that in such areas of religious law as purity and sacrifices, tannaitic halakhah was substantially similar to that of the Pharisees, whom the Qumran legists criticized. This substantiates the sound judgment of modern historians who have included rabbinic halakhic texts among the sources for Second Commonwealth religious history. 71

B.S. Jackson, Essays in Jewish and Comparative Legal History (Leiden, 1975), 4–5.

Chapter 2

Recent Qumran Discoveries and Halakhah in the Hellenistic–Roman Period

I

The* study of the halakhah of the Qumran community is presently in a state of unprecedented ferment and expectation. The turning point in this development was, without doubt, the publication by Yigael Yadin of the Temple Scroll.1 This scroll, the largest of the Qumran texts, confirmed the antiquity of the halakhic corpus found in the Zadokite Document, which Solomon Schechter2 and Louis Ginzberg3 had already shown to have a close affinity with rabbinic halakhah. The Temple Scroll has considerably broadened the base of comparison between rabbinic halakhah and the exegesis of biblical law which prevailed in the Qumran community. Now further relevant material has come to the attention of scholars with the publication of discoveries from Cave 4. Among the fragments are texts which should be of intense interest to all scholars concerned with ancient halakhah. Suffice it to mention the initial description by Strugnell and Qimron of the text which they entitled Miqṣat Maʿaśe ha-Torah (4QMMT), an anthology of halakhic matters in which the Qumran sect differed from the contemporary traditions of the Pharisees.4 Once a definitive edition becomes available, this text will open up new avenues of inquiry into prerabbinic halakhah.5 A good model was provided by the late Professor Saul Lieberman, who as early as 1952 noted the structural similarities between the Qumran yaḥad and the Pharisaic ḥaburah. He also found possible echoes of Qumran practices in the Tosefta, where certain heterodox halakhic stringencies are labeled * Original publication: “Recent Qumran Discoveries and Halakhah in the Hellenistic–Roman Period,” in Jewish Civilization in the Hellenistic–Roman Period (ed. S. Talmon; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991), 147–58. Republished with the kind permission of the original publisher. 1 [Y. Yadin, Megillat ha-Miqdash (3 vols.; Jerusalem, 1977 [in Hebrew]); English translation: The Temple Scroll (3 vols.; Jerusalem, 1977–1983).] 2 S. Schechter, Fragments of a Zadokite Work (Cambridge, 1910). 3 L. Ginzberg, An Unknown Jewish Sect (rev. ed.; New York, 1976), 70–71. 4 E. Qimron and J. Strugnell, “An Unpublished Halakhic Letter from Qumran,” in Biblical Archaeology Today (ed. J. Amitai; Jerusalem, 1985), 400–407. 5 [The critical edition was subsequently published: Qumran Cave 4 V: Miqṣat Maʿaśe Ha-Torah (ed. E. Qimron and J. Strugnell; DJD 10; Oxford, 1994).]

© Joseph M. Baumgarten, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004505087_004

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derekh aḥeret. Current developments in the study of the sect’s halakhah appear to bear out a statement made in my extensive review of C. Rabin’s Qumran Studies, published in 1957. I wrote then, with what now appears as the impetuosity of youth: In the end, it may well be that the religious laws and practices in the Qumran documents will be more decisive in determining the position of the sect within the spectrum of pre-Christian Jewish movements than any of its theological and messianic speculations.6 The rest of this paper will be an attempt to show why this may after all have been a true prophecy, and to draw from it certain methodological lessons. I will confine my remarks to a discussion of already published materials, particularly to a few illustrations from sources which are not only significant in themselves, but may serve as testing grounds for the methodologies used in this area of research by modern historians of religion. In 1982, there appeared in volume 7 of Discoveries in the Judaean Desert a small fragment edited by Maurice Baillet. It contains only nine words spread over four lines, which may be translated as follows: the waving of the ʿOmer apart from the Sabbaths error of blindness not from the Law of Moses7 The editor noted that this text must have something to do with the ancient controversy concerning the date of the ʿOmer offering, but did not pursue the matter to gauge its full implications.8 It is known that the rabbis interpreted the expression, “on the morrow of the Sabbath,” which in Leviticus 23 marks the time of the beginning of the ʿOmer ritual, to refer to the day following the first day of the Passover festival. The same interpretation underlies the Septuagint translation. Thus, the barley required for the ʿOmer meal offering was always to be harvested on the evening which followed the first day of the festival. But what was to be done if that 6 “Qumran Studies,” JBL 77 (1958): 249–57 (257) [= Studies, 12]. 7 See “513. Ordonnances (ii),” in Qumrân Grotte 4.III (4Q482–4Q520) (ed. M. Baillet; DJD 7; Oxford, 1982), 287–95; frag. 4 (289–90). [For the Hebrew text, see “The Relevance of Rabbinic Sources to the Study of Qumran Law,” p. 70 in this volume.] 8 Baillet, “Ordonnances (ii),” 290.

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evening happened to be the eve of the Sabbath when all work is forbidden? Against a minority tannaitic opinion (b. Menaḥ. 72b), the majority decision established that the ʿOmer overrides the Sabbath. This is dramatically indicated in m. Menaḥ. 10:3: How did they use to do it (the ʿOmer)? Officials of the court would go out on the eve of the holiday and bind it (the barley) into sheaves while attached to the ground so that it would be easy to harvest. All the villages nearby would gather there so that it might be harvested with much pomp. When it was dark, he would say to them: Has the sun set? They would say Yes … This scythe? They would say Yes … On the Sabbath he would say to them: On this Sabbath? They would say Yes: (On this Sabbath? They would say: Yes …) Three times for each thing, and they say to him: Yes, Yes, Yes. And why to such an extent? Because of the Boethusians, who maintained that the harvesting of the ʿOmer was not to be done on the night after the holiday. The opposition of the Boethusians stemmed from the premise that the phrase “on the morrow of the Sabbath” in Leviticus 23 was to be taken in its literal sense of the seventh day of the week, so that the ʿOmer was always to be cut on Sunday. This was likewise the view of the Qumranites. They had adopted a solar calendar of 364 days per year, in which the first month began on a Wednesday, automatically precluding the possibility of any biblical holiday coinciding with the Sabbath.9 In the Zadokite Document and the Cave 4 fragment cited above, this is reflected in the allusion to Lev 23:38: “These are the holidays of the Lord which you shall proclaim as holy … apart from your Sabbaths.” It now emerges from the new Cave 4 fragment that, in the eyes of the sectarian exegetes, the ruling of the Pharisaic sages that the harvesting of the ʿOmer overrides the Sabbath was an “error of blindness” and was “not in accordance with the Law of Moses.” The mishnah in Menaḥot, quoted above, shows that in reaction to this polemic, the Pharisees emphasized their position by directing that the ʿOmer be cut on the Sabbath eve with a maximum of public participation and fanfare. Viewed in conjunction with the Qumran fragment, the account in the Mishnah provides us with a rare opportunity to observe an ancient halakhic controversy from both sides of the barrier which divided mainstream Judaism from dissident groups in the Second Temple period. 9 The issue is discussed in full in S. Talmon, “The Calendar Reckoning of the Sect from the Judean Desert,” in Aspects of the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. C. Rabin and Y. Yadin; Jerusalem, 1958), 162–99.

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One cannot ignore the fact that some scholars have expressed reservations regarding the historical reliability of the mishnah in Menaḥot. Yitzhak Baer, for example, doubted the accuracy of that mishnah, based on the premise that the foundations of mishnaic law and the rituals of the Temple were already established as universal Jewish traditions before the Hasmonean age, when we first learn about the emergence of the Sadducees and the related group of the Boethusians. He therefore suspected that the reference to the Boethusians in m. Menaḥ. 10:3 was a later interpolation.10 By contrast, a school of scholarship in the United States claims that the Mishnah is altogether unacceptable as a source for the historical realities of the Second Temple period, and rather is to be considered a literary product of the post-Destruction academies of Yabneh and Usha. Therefore, one should not accept as reliable any tannaitic tradition or the attribution of a tradition to earlier teachers, unless it can be supported by external evidence or through an internal form-critical analysis. It is of interest to note that Jacob Neusner, in a work which attempts to offer a new approach to the historical analysis of rabbinic literature, does not refer to m. Menaḥ. 10:3 at all.11 This, despite the fact that this source claims to relate actions of the sages of the Second Temple period that were intended to neutralize the Boethusian resistance to the Pharisaic tradition about the ʿOmer. Since then, a series of Neusner’s studies of the mishnaic order of Qodashim, including the tractate Menaḥot, has appeared.12 However, the reader is offered only a translation and a division of the text into literary units, without any evaluation of its historicity. Let us consider another example. One excerpt from the aforementioned Miqṣat Maʿaśe ha-Torah was cited by coincidence by Milik;13 it reads as follows: And also concerning the streams (MWṢQWT) of liquid we say that they are not pure, for the wetness of the streams and the receptacle which receives them is one.

10

11 12 13

Y. Baer, “The Historical Foundations of the Halakhah,” Zion 27 (1961/62): 117–55 (125, n. 17c) (in Hebrew). In the latter part of his career, Baer, a leading historian of the mediaeval period, applied his vast erudition in classical as well as Jewish sources to a fresh appraisal of the Second Temple period. The early Hellenistic age was, in his opinion, the formative period in the history of the halakhah and Jewish civilization. See J. Neusner, The Rabbinic Traditions about the Pharisees before 70 (3 vols.; Leiden, 1971). See J. Neusner, A History of the Mishnaic Law of Holy Things (6 vols.; Leiden, 1978–1980). J.T. Milik, “Le rouleau de cuivre provenant de la grotte 3Q (3Q15),” in Les ‘petites grottes’ de Qumrân (ed. M. Baillet, J.T. Milik, and R. de Vaux; 2 vols.; DJD 3; Oxford, 1962), 1:201–302 (225).

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The word MWṢQ, in mishnaic Hebrew niṣṣoq, designates the stream of a liquid which is poured from one vessel to another. The question is whether the stream constitutes a connecting link that would transfer impurity from the (impure) receptacle to the source. The teachers of the sect asserted, and we note the polemical tone of “we say,” that the stream is indeed a connecting link, which contaminates the vessel from which it originates. It is remarkable that this is precisely the subject of a controversy between the Pharisees and the Sadducees which is recorded in m. Yad. 4:7: The Sadducees say, “We protest against you, O Pharisees, for you declare the niṣṣoq clean.” The Pharisees say, “We protest against you, O Sadducees, for you declare clean a channel of water that flows from a burial ground.” It is amusing to ponder in retrospect the ingenious efforts of Abraham Geiger a century ago to find some symbolic political meaning in this dialogue about the niṣṣoq.14 The simple interpretation offered by the classical commentaries to this mishnah, that this was a technical term from the elaborate semantic field of the laws of purity, failed to satisfy the proclivities of some modern historians who would not believe that such trivial questions were worthy to be disputed by Jewish groups in the Hellenistic period. Julius Wellhausen, who did not understand the mishnah, referred to it as “eine solche Lappalie.”15 Neusner made an important contribution when he directed attention to the centrality of purity in the religious life of the ancient world. Yet in his volume on the tractate Yadayim, he translates the mishnah and describes its literary form, but does not evaluate its significance as a historical source for the Second Temple period. Yitzhak Baer was doubtless aware of the rabbis’ pejorative characterization of certain priestly groups in that period, “for whom the purity of utensils was of greater concern than bloodshed” (b. Yoma 23a). Yet he had difficulty in comprehending the Sadducean complaints about the Pharisaic leniencies in terms of purity. Referring to the mishnah in Yadayim, he wrote, “These things may be interpreted as pertaining to the Christians, who nullified the laws of purity altogether. One suspects that perhaps in the transmitted texts they wrote ṣeduqim in place of minim (Christians).”16 This suggestion is as 14 15 16

A. Geiger, Urschrift und Übersetzungen der Bibel (Breslau, 1857), 147. J. Wellhausen, Die Pharisäer und die Sadducäer: Eine Untersuchung zur inneren jüdischen Geschichte (Greifswald, 1874), 64 [The Pharisees and the Sadducees: An Examination of Internal Jewish History (trans. M.E. Biddle; Macon, Ga., 2001), 56.] Y. Baer, “Some Aspects of Judaism as Presented in the Synoptic Gospels,” Zion 31 (1965/66): 117–152 (127) (in Hebrew).

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incredible as his notion that the Qumran Manual of Discipline stemmed from Christian sources.17 It should nevertheless be noted that now there are reasons for reexamining the identity of the ṣeduqim mentioned in the Mishnah. It seems odd that the Sadducees, whom we are accustomed to portray as self-indulgent aristocrats, should be presented in this text as being more meticulous about religious matters, and more stringent than the Pharisees concerning purity. It therefore seems possible that the Qumranites are another sort of ṣeduqim. They call themselves BNY ṢDWQ, or alternatively BNY ṢDQ, in my view probably because they were followers of the MWRH HṢDQ, whose name, as some presume, may also have been ṢDWQ. These Zadokites were decidedly stringent in halakhah, especially with regard to purity, as we know both from their scrolls and from Josephus’s reports on the Essenes. The possibility that in rabbinic sources the name ṣeduqim served as an epithet not only for the aristocratic Sadducees, but also for the adherents of the Qumran sect, is indeed worthy of serious consideration. We may further illustrate the controversy about purity laws by citing the peculiar procedure which the Pharisaic sages mandated in the ritual of the red cow, as described in m. Parah 3:7: They used to defile the priest who burned the cow, because of the Sadducees, that they may not say that it must be done by those who had waited for sunset. That is to say, the Pharisees deliberately made the priest ritually unclean and then directed him to bathe before burning the cow, in order to demonstrate that one who had bathed but had not waited for sundown (called ṭebul yom) was still considered pure for performing rituals outside the Temple. I had occasion to suggest in a paper which appeared in 198018 that the emphasis in the Temple Scroll on the requirement of waiting for sunset to achieve purity was directed against the Pharisaic treatment of the ritual of the red cow. It has since been reported by Strugnell and Qimron that the requirement that all who participate in the red cow ritual wait for sundown after purification is stated explicitly in Miqṣat Maʿaśe ha-Torah.19 Also in this instance, the form-critical 17 18 19

[See Y. Baer, “The Manual of Discipline: A Jewish–Christian Document of the Second Century C.E. (Including a Discussion of the Damascus Document),” Zion 29 (1963/64): 1–60 (in Hebrew).] J. Baumgarten, “The Pharisaic–Sadducean Controversies about Purity and the Qumran Texts,” JJS 31 (1980): 157–70 [included in this volume]. Qimron and Strugnell, “Unpublished Halakhic Letter,” 403.

Recent Qumran Discoveries and Halakhah

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school had characterized the account in m. Parah as an anachronistic myth created by the rabbis in the second century.20 It can now be established that, on the contrary, the mishnah reflects most reliably the essence of the sectarian controversy in the time of the Second Temple.

II

I have so far offered three illustrations of specific halakhot about which, as the Mishnah informs us, there were disputes with the Sadducees or the Boethusians. This fact is now confirmed in sources from the Hasmonean period. My final example touches on a question of wider import—the unwritten transmission of the law. In b. Qidd. 66a there is the well-known story about the alienation of Alexander Jannaeus from the Pharisees. A baraita records the following dialogue between Jannaeus and Elazar b. Poʿirah, who represents the Sadducees: Jannaeus: What should I do? Elazar: Listen to my advice and stamp them out. Jannaeus: And what will become of the Torah? Elazar: Behold, it is written and placed in a corner. Whoever wishes to learn let him come and learn. R. Naḥman b. Yitzhak comments thereupon: “[This shows that] he [Jannaeus] was already affected by heresy, for he should have responded, This is good and well for the Written Law, but what of the Oral Law?” It goes without saying that this rabbinic aggadah need not be taken as a record of the ipsissima verba of the figures involved. As Urbach has argued,21 we should understand the words attributed to Elazar as an expression of the Sadducean position that only laws which are “written and deposited,” that is, recorded in some official codex, are considered authoritative, and not those orally transmitted by the sages. This, in effect, is how R. Naḥman b. Yitzhak understood the above discussion: namely, as a repudiation of the method of

20 21

J. Neusner, History of the Mishnaic Law of Purities (22 vols.; Leiden, 1974–1977), 22:224–50; cf. ibid., 10:223 (Parah; Leiden, 1976). E.E. Urbach, The Halakhah: Its Sources and its Development (Tel Aviv, 1984 [in Hebrew]), 77 (English translation: The Halakhah: Its Sources and Development [Tel Aviv, 1986], 107); cf. J.M. Baumgarten, “The Unwritten Law in the Pre-Rabbinic Period,” in idem, Studies, 13–35.

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transmission of the Oral Law. Yet, there are scholars who would dismiss as irrelevant this opinion of a talmudic teacher of the fourth generation. Fortunately, in this case a parallel to the talmudic account is offered by Josephus. In Ant. 13.296 we find essentially the same story, although the names and some details vary. We are told that, reacting to an insult, John Hyrcanus “abandoned the Pharisaic party and nullified the ordinances which they had established for the people and punished those who observed them.” Josephus notes parenthetically: Now I wish to state that the Pharisees had passed on to the people certain ordinances handed down by the fathers and not written in the Laws of Moses, for which reason they are rejected by the sect of the Sadducees, who hold that only those ordinances should be considered valid which were written down, [while] those which had been handed down by the fathers need not be observed. Ant. 13.297

Some scholars have tried to blunt the edge of this statement by construing it to say merely that the Sadducees accepted only the authority of the Pentateuch, while the Pharisees also accepted that of tradition. However, the plain sense of the text points to a contrast in the form of the laws, between those which were written (ta gegrammena) and those which came from ancestral tradition and were not written (ouk anagegraptai). The latter were rejected by the Sadducees because, not having been “written and deposited,” they were only part of that orally transmitted tradition known as paradosis tōn presbyterōn. It is significant in this connection to note how the Temple Scroll paraphrases a pivotal verse in Deuteronomy, which serves as the basis for the authority of future teachers to interpret the laws of the Torah. The biblical text reads: And you shall do in accordance with the thing which they shall tell you from that place which the Lord will choose, and you shall take heed to do according to everything which they teach you. Deut. 17:10

In the Temple Scroll 56:3–4, we read: And you shall do in accordance with the Torah which they shall tell you and in accordance with the thing which they shall say to you from the book of the Torah and tell you in truth.

Recent Qumran Discoveries and Halakhah

61

Instead of “in accordance with the thing,” the Temple Scroll emphasizes “in accordance with the Torah”; and in place of “which they shall tell you,” it explicates “which they shall say to you from the book of the Torah and tell you in truth.” That is to say, only that which is told to you on the basis of the book of the Law is acceptable as truth. As Yadin has already observed: “There is virtually no doubt that these changes were designed to prohibit the fixing of any law according to oral tradition, i.e., any law not written and interpreted in the Pentateuch.”22 Of course, in the eyes of the Qumranites, the Temple Scroll, and Jubilees as well, were considered to be Torah.

III

What are the methodological lessons to be learned from the current developments in the study of Qumran law? I have adduced four examples of rabbinic traditions about early halakhah which some scholars originally viewed with skepticism, and which are now seen to be authentic and historically reliable. The common denominator of our examples is the fact that they deal with matters that were disputed between the Pharisees and their ideological opponents. A priori, one would suppose that it is especially in such matters that we would confront the often discussed problematics of using rabbinic texts as historical sources—namely, their selectivity, tendentiousness, and the lack of concern on the part of the sages for questions which interest the modern historian. I do not propose to deny the existence of these problems. There can be little doubt that the rabbis were not given to writing history, even though Urbach has shown that they did not lack a sense of historical change.23 Their central concern was the study and the fulfillment of the laws of the Torah as far as possible, in accordance with the tradition received from earlier generations. In the sphere of halakhah, the rabbis were trustworthy preservers of tradition. Indeed, in the light of the sources now available, one cannot but be impressed with the Mishnah as a repository of reliable information about ancient halakhah. There is no longer any reason to doubt that the mishnaic orders of Qodashim and Ṭeharot reflect to a great extent the Pharisaic halakhah of the Temple period. 22 23

Y. Yadin, Temple Scroll, 2:251. E.E. Urbach, “Halakha and History,” in Jews, Greeks, and Christians: Essays in Honor of W.D. Davies (ed. R. Hamerton-Kelly and R. Scroggs; Leiden, 1976), 112–28 [reprinted in idem, Collected Writings in Jewish Studies (ed. R. Brody and M.D. Herr; Jerusalem, 1999), 39–55].

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In order to recognize the significance of these observations, we may consider, by contrast, the view of a legal historian: Rabbinic sources … do not usually purport to describe Second Commonwealth conditions. The discussion of those areas of law which most contemporary opinion takes to have ceased to operate with the destruction of the state—parts of the ritual law which depended upon the existence of the Temple, and parts of the criminal law—may be academic…. All too often in the past any common denominators found in either Philo or Josephus or Qumran and some rabbinic source, often anonymously transmitted, have been taken to represent “early halakhah.” … Such argumentation only begins to approach credibility if it is assumed either that there was a single second commonwealth tradition of halakhah, or that the particular second commonwealth source stems from the same tradition as the forerunners of the rabbis. Neither assumption is justified.24 The purpose of this essay is not to establish that there was only one Second Commonwealth tradition of halakhah, but rather that the conflicting traditions show an awareness of one another’s existence. That is to say, we can be sure that, in the areas of religious law which came under review, the normative halakhah of the Mishnah was essentially the same as that of the Pharisees, whom the Qumran teachers criticized. This means that the present perspective is markedly different from that of Abraham Geiger, who theorized that the early halakhah was displaced by the later halakhah of the Talmud. What emerges now, I believe, is the existence in the time of the Temple of a pattern of diverse halakhic traditions, including those of the Pharisees, which ultimately became normative in talmudic law; and alongside it, the heterodox exegesis displayed in the Scrolls which occasionally survives in certain targumim and peripheral rabbinic sources.25 Thus far we have been preoccupied with examples of halakhah. I should like to conclude with an illustration which belongs to the sphere of theology. We are accustomed to associate the concept of the community as a “temple” with Christian thought, as exemplified in Ephesians 2. However, in the pesher on 2 Samuel 7, commonly called 4QFlorilegium [4Q174], the deuteronomic prohibition of certain illegitimate classes from entering the community is 24 25

B.S. Jackson, Essays in Jewish and Comparative Legal History (Leiden, 1975), 4–5. Cf. J.M. Baumgarten, “Qumran and the Halakhah in the Aramaic Targumim,” in Proceedings of the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies: Panel Sessions—Bible Studies and Ancient Near East (Jerusalem, 1985), 45–60 [included in this volume].

Recent Qumran Discoveries and Halakhah

63

interpreted as an exclusion from the Temple. The Temple is there referred to as MQDŠ ʾDM. I have argued26 that this expression should be understood as a reference to a temple consisting of men, rather than a temple among men, as some Israeli scholars would have it. It is true that the Temple Scroll contains rules about the exclusion of converts from certain precincts of the Jerusalem sanctuary. Yet I believe we now have additional proof that an idea existed at Qumran of another sanctuary, not limited to the Temple precincts but rather consisting of holy men. In the Cave 4 texts entitled Songs of the Sage (4Q511 frag. 35), the primary purpose of which was the exorcism of evil spirits, we find the following passage: Among the seven-fold purified, God will sanctify unto himself a sanctuary of eternity and purity among those who are cleansed, and they shall be priests, his righteous people, his host, and ministering (with) the angels of his glory.27 One may detect here both an echo of the biblical concept of a kingdom of priests (Exod 19:6), and a precursor of the idea of the community as temple, demonstrating once again the remarkable continuity of religious concepts beyond the boundaries of time and confessional adherence.

IV

What bearing does all this have on the consideration of the sources for the academic teaching of Jewish civilization in the Hellenistic–Roman period? Clearly, what we have indicated would require us to include tannaitic literature among these sources. In saying this, I am hardly proposing anything very revolutionary. It merely confirms the sound judgment of Emil Schürer, who included a sampling of mishnaic halakhah in his Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi.28 Schürer’s limitations in handling halakhic texts, and his own rather skewed theological evaluation of such material, need not concern us here. Suffice it to say that he realized that das Leben unter dem Gesetz, as he called it, was an important aspect of the history of the 26 27 28

“The Exclusion of ‘Netinim’ and Proselytes in 4Q Florilegium,” in Baumgarten, Studies, 82–83. M. Baillet, “511. Cantiques du Sage (ii),” DJD 7.219–62 (237). Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi (3rd ed.; 3 vols.; Leipzig, 1898), 2:464–95.

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Hellenistic–Roman “intertestamental” period, and that there was no source other than rabbinic literature from which to learn anything systematic about it. In contemporary scholarship, a growing number of non-Jewish historians have come to the same realization, though there is still a certain understandable diversity in their appreciation of this literature—reflecting, to a degree, differing areas of interest. The existence of specialists in the apocryphal and pseudepigraphical writings, alongside scholars who feel more at home in the dialectics of Jewish law, need not cause any difficulties as long as both parties realize that such specialization was not characteristic of the ancient world. The visionaries of Qumran were as much concerned with the minutiae of the laws of purity as they were with eschatology. A somewhat similar statement pertains to the later devotees of Jewish mysticism and their orientation toward the halakhah. A more serious obstacle to the proper utilization of rabbinic halakhah for Second Temple history lies in the assumption that texts edited in a later period are of little value for illuminating phenomena of an earlier age. The burden of our examples has been to show that this is not necessarily the case. The same point was made by Ephraim Urbach in the introduction to his work on halakhah: When one speaks of a literature which had for a long period been transmitted orally, the time in which the source was edited or composed cannot serve as an absolute proof for the time of the subjects included in it. It is possible that a work edited in a later period may contain authentic ancient material, while a work edited earlier may contain primarily material from that approximate time.29 Of course, this does not mean that we should not make every effort to determine the provenance of particular norms and ideas. But we should bear in mind that in religious history one rarely finds phenomena that totally lack precedents. 29

Urbach, The Halakhah, 4 [author’s translation from the Hebrew].

Part 2 Rabbinic Literature and Qumran Law

⸪

Chapter 3

The Relevance of Rabbinic Sources to the Study of Qumran Law I* should like to thank Prof. [Moshe David] Herr and you for this opportunity to share with the participants of the World Congress for Jewish Studies a few words about the study of Qumran religious law within the framework of current research devoted to the Dead Sea Scrolls. Those of us who have tried our hand during the past fifty years in this—at first rather narrow but now perhaps more prominent—field have sometimes wondered about the constituency to whom we should report our findings. To borrow the phraseology of the prophet, ‫[ על מי אדברה ואעידה וישמעו‬Jer 6:10]. Among the considerable number of biblical scholars who have been attracted to Scrolls studies, those with a bent for matters of law have usually been a minority; those with some interest in postbiblical law a ‫מעוטא דמעוטא‬. It is natural that in ‫חו״ל‬, which may be read not only as an acrostic for ‫חוץ לארץ‬, but as descriptive of the secular world, the interest in sources pertaining to the history of Jewish religious law would be marginal. Not so in the land of Israel where there are thousands of people for whom the study of classical rabbinic texts which preserve precious elements of ancient halakhah is a daily occupation. And so, I hope you will not deem me undeserving of sympathy, when I tell you that some years ago, while I was in Jerusalem and particularly excited over the connections between laws found in Qumran texts and the controversial rulings of the ‫ צדוקים‬described in the Mishnah, I was driven by the urge to share these discoveries with students in Israel who were familiar with Talmud. ‫שפך‬ ‫[ על עולל בחוץ ועל סוד בחורים יחדיו‬Jer 6:11]. After more sober reflection I realized that some ‫ בחורי ישיבה‬might not be predisposed to appreciating the import of, or even reading texts reputed to have been written by, ‫צדוקים‬. So I thought I might fare better with a general group of Israeli readers who had an interest in cultural history. ‫[ אטה את ידי על יושבי הארץ‬Jer 6:12]. In fact, I wrote a letter describing the latest findings to the editor for cultural matters of Ha‌ʾaretz. This * Original publication: “The Relevance of Rabbinic Sources to the Study of Qumran Law,” in Proceedings of the Twelfth World Congress of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem, July 29–August 5, 1997, Division A: The Bible and Its World (Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1999), 73–78. [The text was published as a lecture; the editors have added a few references and footnotes.] Republished with the generous permission of the World Union of Jewish Studies.

© Joseph M. Baumgarten, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004505087_005

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letter was never published nor was it answered. If it was read, it must have been by someone who did not share my excitement and shrugged it off with a “what else is new?” Or perhaps it fell into the hands of an archaeology editor for whom discoveries are of interest only if they are nonliterary artifacts unearthed from the ground, not written fragments pertinent to obscure texts that have been studied devotionally for untold generations. But enough now of this digression, which is intended only to preface my effort to demonstrate that the academic study of rabbinic literature carried on at this great university and by scholars participating in this congress can serve as an essential tool for the understanding of Qumran religious law and that the Scrolls can illuminate the historic background of Pharisaic halakhah. Before we proceed we should note that this demonstration was actually initiated more than eighty years ago by one of the renowned scholars of the previous generation, Louis Ginzberg, in his brilliant analysis of the halakhah in Schechter’s Fragments of a Zadokite Work, now known as the Damascus Document.1 Ginzberg’s opinion that this work, of which extensive fragments from Qumran Cave 4 were recently published, was Pharisaic in nature is no longer tenable. Schechter, as we now realize, was closer to the mark, when he wrote: … whatever doubts may prevail as to the meaning of this or that passage, one thing is certain, that we have to deal here with a Sect decidedly hostile to the bulk of the Jews as represented by the Pharisees. It is a Sect equipped with additional sacred books of its own, a calendar of its own, and a set of laws of its own, bearing upon various commandments of the Scriptures.2 Ginzberg was not totally oblivious of the fact that this “unbekannte jüdische Sekte” had some more stringent “laws of its own,” but he thought that these were still compatible with the framework of rabbinic halakhah. To some extent he resorted to emendation, which in his day was considered to be a legitimate tool of the creative philologist. With regard to the calendar he was quite outspoken: If the reference in CD 16:3 to ‫—ספר מחלקות העתים ליובליהם‬that is, the Book of Jubilees and its sectarian calendar—were original, this would eliminate any possibility of the text being Pharisaic. Ginzberg did not consider the reference to Jubilees to be original, but took it to be a medieval gloss. It is, however, 1 [L. Ginzberg, Eine unbekannte jüdische Sekte (New York, 1922); English translation: An Unknown Jewish Sect (New York, 1976).] 2 [S. Schechter, Fragments of a Zadokite Work (Cambridge, 1910), xxviii.]

The Relevance of Rabbinic Sources

69

now found in one of the Cave 4 manuscripts,3 and the abundance of mishmarot texts based on the solar calendar testifies to the non-Pharisaic nature of the Qumran community. Yet, Ginzberg’s work retains great heuristic value as an indication of the extent and antiquity of the religious common law which was shared by the Zadokites of Qumran and the Pharisaic forerunners of the Tannaim, despite their sharp controversies in other areas. The volume of legal literature written or read at Qumran which is now available is vastly greater than that on which Ginzberg based his judgment. The law code of the Damascus Document itself is now greatly augmented; the Temple Scroll is essentially a work of law formulated as divine revelation; the 4QTohorot and halakhah texts have been provisionally described and will hopefully soon be published; and MMT sets forth, in the genre of an open letter, the positions of the Qumran legists on a number of “halakhic” issues. From this extensive material we should briefly like to list some illustrations of laws which in rabbinic terminology would be categorized as nonscriptural but stemming from tradition, of the sort that later came to be called ‫תורה שבעל פה‬. The existence of similar rulings at Qumran shows that these traditions were already widely established by the Hasmonean period. Thus, the cessation of work on the eve of the Sabbath begins when the sun is above the horizon by a distance equal to its diameter; this corresponds to what the rabbis called ‫תוספת מלאכה‬. The traditional ‫ תחום‬of two thousand cubits was applied to pasturing animals beyond the city, although a shorter limit of one thousand cubits for walking was derived from Num 35:4. The ban on handling working implements on the Sabbath, ‫מוקצה‬, was strictly applied even when someone was in danger of drowning. The fully developed rabbinic principle of ‫ פקוח נפש‬would, of course, mandate that the saving of life overrides all Sabbath restrictions. While the laws under the rubric ‫[ על השבת‬CD 10:14–11:18] are still the most extensive in the Damascus Document, we now have elaborations on other topics of biblical law. The Qumran exegetes, like the Tannaim, appear to have limited the ordeal of the soṭah, the wife suspected of adultery, to the case where a liaison between the wife and a suspect was observed by a witness. Moreover, both understood the biblical provision ‫[ והיא לא נתפשה‬Num 5:13] to mean that “she was not seized violently” rather than “she was not caught in the act,” thus exempting from the ordeal a wife who was a victim of rape.4

3 [4Q270 6 ii 17; see “270. 4QDamascus Documente,” in J.M. Baumgarten, Qumran Cave 4.XIII: The Damascus Document (4Q266–273) (DJD 18; Oxford, 1996), 137–68 (156).] 4 [See 4Q270 4 (Baumgarten, DJD 18.152–54).]

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The rabbinic concept of ‫אונאה‬, fraud in commerce, based on ‫ אל תונו‬in Lev 25:14, which pertains to the fair price for fields that revert to the seller at the Jubilee, was broadly extended to include all kinds of price-gouging, misrepresentation, and even harm inflicted through malicious remarks. This trend of exegesis is already discernible in the 4QD fragments, where ‫ אל תונו‬is used to require full disclosure in dealings involving ‫אדם ובהמה‬. It is further applied to the arrangement of marriages, requiring the father of the bride to disclose all her blemishes, lest he incur the curse for misleading the blind.5 These are but some illustrations of the many “rabbinic” extensions of biblical precepts now identifiable in the common Jewish law of the Hasmonean period. Yet, even more interesting are the areas in which the halakhah was not unanimously held, but was the subject of intense controversy between the Qumran legists and their opponents. In DJD 7 there appears a small fragment in which nine words spread over four lines are extant:6 ‫הנף העומר‬ ‫מלבד שבתותיכם‬ ‫תעות עורון‬ ‫לא מתורת משה‬

The editor surmised that this text had something to do with the ancient controversy concerning the date of the ʿOmer offering, but did not pursue the matter further. As we know, the rabbis and the Septuagint interpreted the expression ‫ממחרת השבת‬, which in Leviticus 23 marks the date of the ʿOmer offering, to refer to the day following the first day of Passover. But what was to be done if that day happened to be Friday? Would the ʿOmer still be harvested after sundown which ushers in the Sabbath? M. Menaḥot 10:3 affirms this dramatically by having officials of the Bet Din respond, “Yes,” three times before a public gathering. The repetition, we are told, was directed against the Boethusians, who held that the ʿOmer was always to be harvested on Sunday, this being their understanding of ‫ממחרת השבת‬. This was likewise the view of the Qumranites, who denounced the Pharisaic sanction of violating the Sabbath in order to bring the ʿOmer as an error of blindness lacking sanction in ‫תורת משה‬. Thanks

5 [See 4Q271 3; “271. 4QDamascus Documentf,” in Baumgarten, DJD 18.169–83 (175–77).] 6 [See “513. Ordonnances (ii),” in Qumrân Grotte 4.III (4Q482–4Q520) (ed. M. Baillet; DJD 7; Oxford, 1982), 287–95 (289–90). The text given there differs slightly. For the English translation, see “Recent Qumran Discoveries,” p. 54 above.]

The Relevance of Rabbinic Sources

71

to the Mishnah and the Cave 4 fragment we are now able to follow the polemics on both sides of this ancient halakhic issue. The laws of ‫ טהרה‬were prominent among the contentious disputes which set the Qumranites apart from their contemporaries. In one of the well-preserved passages of MMT we read: ‫ואף המוצקות אינם מבדילות בין הטמא לטהור כי לחת המוצקות והמקבל מהמה‬ ‫כהם לחה אחת‬

And streams do not separate between the impure and the pure, for the liquid of streams and that which receives them constitute a single liquid.7 The word ‫מוצק‬, in mishnaic Hebrew ‫נצוק‬, designates the stream of a liquid which in this case is poured from a pure vessel into an impure receptacle. MMT asserts—we note the polemical introduction ‫—אנחנו אומרים‬that the stream is a connecting link which contaminates the upper vessel. It is remarkable that this is precisely the subject of a controversy between the ‫ פרושים‬and the ‫צדוקים‬, recorded in m. Yadayim 4:7: ‫אומרין צדוקין קובלין אנו עליכם פרושים שאתם מטהרים את הנצוק‬

It is difficult in retrospect not to be amused by the efforts of religious historians of the last century to fathom the significance of this controversy. Wellhausen, who did not understand this mishnah, referred to it as “eine solche Lappalie.” Schürer concluded that the attacks of the Sadducees on the Pharisees in matters of purity were not to be taken seriously, they were only intended “als Spott.” Geiger tried valiantly to find some symbolic political meaning in the dialogue about the ‫נצוק‬.8 The interpretation offered by the classical commentaries to the mishnah that the issue concerned the technical role of liquids in the transmission of impurity was hardly given any consideration. However, we now have multiple references in the Qumran Tohorot texts to ‫לחה‬, the wetness of liquids, as a key factor in the proliferation of ‫טמאה‬.

7 [E. Qimron and J. Strugnell, Qumran Cave 4.V: Miqṣat Maʿaśe Ha-Torah (DJD 10; Oxford, 1994), 52.] 8 [J. Wellhausen, Die Pharisäer und die Sadducäer: Eine Untersuchung zur inneren jüdischen Geschichte (Greifswald, 1874), 64; E. Schürer, Die Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi (3 vols.; 3rd ed.; Leipzig, 1898–1901), 2:413 n. 32; A. Geiger, Urschrift und Übersetzungen der Bibel in ihrer Abhängigkeit von der innern Entwicklung des Judentums (2nd ed.; Frankfurt am Main, 1928), 147.]

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Another well-preserved passage in MMT confirms the inference, already supported by the Temple Scroll, that all who take part in the preparation of the ashes of the red cow must wait for sundown after their purification: ‫לכול אלה‬ ‫להעריב את השמש להיות טהורים‬.9 M. Parah 3:7 tells us that in order to counteract this Zadokite stringency the practice was instituted to defile the priest who was to burn the red cow, then have him bathe and perform the rites immediately without waiting for sundown: ‫מפני הצדוקים שלא יהיו אומרים במערבי שמש היתה‬ ‫נעשית‬. Here again the Qumran texts illuminate the substance and terminology of a peculiar practice recorded in the Mishnah and confirm its historicity. More recently we noted that in Cave 4 fragments, the sprinkling of the water containing the ashes of the ‫ פרה אדומה‬is characterized as a rite of ‫ כפרה‬which can only be performed by a mature ‫כהן‬, not by a minor who is below the age of majority.10 The significance of this ruling emerges only when we turn to the colorful account found in the Mishnah and Tosefta of Parah, which relates how young boys who had been born and nurtured near the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, in areas where there was no possibility of their ever having been defiled with corpse impurity, were used to mix the red cow ashes with water. The practice was known and interpreted christologically by the first-century writer of the Epistle of Barnabas [8:1]. The latter records that the boys were used to sprinkle the water upon those who needed purification, as also deduced by Rambam.11 This quaint procedure is a timely reminder to those who seek now to breed ‫ פרות אדומות‬that this by itself provides little assurance of purification, unless those who perform the rite are themselves pure. In any case the ‫בני צדוק‬ of Qumran repudiated the Pharisaic use of young boys for purification, which is authentically preserved in the Mishnah. The foregoing illustrations can serve to exemplify the nexus between Qumran religious law and tannaitic halakhah, both where they were in substantial proximity and where they clashed in polemical opposition. In his appendix to Elisha Qimron’s edition of MMT, Yaʿakov Sussmann wrote: The halakhic minutiae, concepts, and terms of the talmudic sages that we find in the Mishna of the later Tannaim and which occasionally appear to be the result of late, abstract rabbinic speculation, actually have their roots in [the Second Temple] period; they now come alive in front of our eyes as a concrete historical reality, in contemporary documents 9 10 11

[Qimron and Strugnell, DJD 10.48.] [See J.M. Baumgarten, “The Red Cow Purification Rites in Qumran Texts,” JJS 46 (1995): 112–19.] [Yad, Laws of the Red Cow 2:7–8; cf. m. Parah 3:4.]

The Relevance of Rabbinic Sources

73

stemming from Hasmonean times. The people toiled over the halakha and meditated upon it; they clashed over it and divided because of it.12 The ongoing work on the Cave 4 fragments emphatically confirms this appraisal. As is well known, there are those who consider the relatively late date of the editing of rabbinic texts as a sufficient justification for ignoring them in their portrayal of pre-Christian Jewish history. There are scholars who view the Mishnah largely as a theoretical construct of the sages of the post-Destruction period, with little or no basis in ancient reality. Others still follow A. Geiger’s theory that Pharisaic halakhah was a late innovation, while the Sadducees were the guardians of the old halakhah. These approaches are in need of substantial modification. Of course, one begins the exploration of Qumran law from within, utilizing the wider collections of biblical exegesis and serakhim which are now available. The occasional, approximately synchronic “halakhic” material found in extrabiblical Jewish literature can also be of value. Nevertheless, in the study of the D fragments [DJD 18] we have found the systematic tannaitic halakhah to be the indispensable tool for understanding what the Qumran legists were teaching and with whom they were contending. Thus, the judicious utilization of rabbinic literature promises to bring more light through the unique window on ancient Jewish life opened by the Scroll discoveries. 12

[Y. Sussmann, “The History of the Halakha and the Dead Sea Scrolls: Preliminary Talmudic Observations on Miqṣat Maʿaśe Ha-Torah (4QMMT),” in Qimron and Strugnell, DJD 10.179–200 (197).]

Chapter 4

The Laws of the Damascus Document—Between Bible and Mishnah In* this Jubilee year, when there have been multiple events marking fifty years since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the initiative of the Orion Center serves as a reminder that it is nearly a centennial since Solomon Schechter prepared his publication of the central foundational document of the Dead Sea Scrolls community, The Zadokite Fragments. It is true that for half a century the antiquity of the work in these Genizah manuscripts was still the subject of scholarly debate, but this fact only highlights the good judgment and courage of the editor, who held to his conviction that these were copies of a sectarian text stemming from the period of the Second Temple. Today this judgment is almost universally accepted, although with regard to the code of laws there has, until recently, been some reluctance among biblical scholars to recognize it as an integral part of what is now commonly called the Damascus Document. With the publication of the Cave 4 fragments this can be expected to change. I concluded the introduction to the Cave 4 D fragments with a paragraph entitled “The Relevance of Rabbinic Sources,”1 where I took issue with those scholars who consider the late editing of the rabbinic texts as sufficient justification for ignoring them in their portrayal of Second Temple religious history. Since the publication of Megillat Ha-Miqdash and Miqṣat Maʿaśe Ha-Torah,2 it is well known that Qumran religious law included rulings which the Mishnah ascribes to the ‫( צדוקים‬whatever sectarian entities this name might designate) in their debates with the ‫פרושים‬. Moreover, the polemics in Qumran writings * Original publication: “The Laws of the Damascus Document—Between Bible and Mishnah,” in The Damascus Document: A Centennial of Discovery. Proceedings of the Third International Symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, 4–8 February 1998 (ed. J.M. Baumgarten, E.G. Chazon, and A. Pinnick; STDJ 34; Leiden: Brill, 2000), 17–26. Republished with the kind permission of Brill Academic Publishers. 1 J.M. Baumgarten, Qumran Cave 4.XIII: The Damascus Document (4Q266–273) (DJD 18; Oxford, 1996), 21–22. 2 [See Y. Yadin, Megillat ha-Miqdash (3 vols.; Jerusalem, 1977 [in Hebrew]; English translation: The Temple Scroll (3 vols.; Jerusalem, 1977–1983); and E. Qimron and J. Strugnell, Qumran Cave 4.V: Miqṣat Maʿaśe Ha-Torah (DJD 10; Oxford, 1994). The citations of these two documents in this essay come from these two editions.]

© Joseph M. Baumgarten, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004505087_006

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75

against the Pharisees (‫ )דורשי חלקות‬have, as their target, practices considered normative in rabbinic sources. The Mishnah, as historians in Israel have recognized, is indispensable for understanding what the Qumran legists were teaching and with whom they were contending. Among the new laws of the Damascus Document are further illustrations of rulings directed against practices sanctioned in tannaitic sources. In the present paper, I should like to offer a few observations about the distinctive Qumran approach to the laws of the Sabbath and to appraise some nomenclature common to Qumran and to early rabbinic halakhah. Before I do so, however, it behooves me to justify the balanced description of this paper, “Between Bible and Mishnah.” I propose to do so by essaying to identify the biblical source of one of the more intriguing supplements to the Damascus Document, extant only in 4Q270, the so-called “Catalogue of Transgressors.” 1

The Catalogue of Transgressors

The list of about fourteen transgressors, with the repeated formula ‫ או אשר‬and a verb in the imperfect, is not fully extant, and its placement before the corpus of laws is not certain. At the end of the list, the transgressors are collectively denounced for provoking divine wrath. In DJD 18, I tentatively remarked that the genre of the list may be compared with the list of curses (‫ )ארור‬directed against various sinners in Deuteronomy 27.3 However, the curse formula [derived from Deuteronomy 27], which is reflected in 1QS 2:11, is not found in the D catalogue, and the nature of the transgressions is entirely different. More recently, I considered the hypothesis that the ‫ או אשר‬formula with the imperfect verb may derive from the ‫ איש אשר‬formulation with the imperfect which is used repeatedly to describe profanations of holiness in Leviticus 17–22. Closer examination of the contents of the Catalogue of Transgressors does indeed indicate a marked dependence upon sins listed in this biblical pericope, although a number of the transgressions in the D catalogue are clearly of a sectarian nature. The following tabulation may serve to provide an overview of the dependence:

3 [Ibid., 27.]

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PART 2: RABBINIC LITERATURE AND QUMRAN LAW

The Catalogue of Transgressors 4Q270 2 i–ii 1 ‫שע]ירים או ידרוש באוב ובידעונים‬

2 ‫או אשר יחלל את השם‬ 3 ‫שם רע ב]בתוליה בבית [אביה‬ 4 ‫אלמנה אשר] ישכב אחר עמה‬ 5 ‫או יק]רב אל אשתו ביום‬ 6 ? ‫אשר י]מחא להרים [את הקודשים‬ 7 ‫[ ] בשמותם לטמא את רוח קודשו‬ 8 ‫או ינוגע בנגע צרעת או זוב טמ]אה‬ 9 ‫אשר יגלה את רז עמו לגואים או יקלל‬ ‫א[ת עמו‬ 10 ‫ידבר] סרה על משיחי רוח הקדש‬ 11 ‫או ישחט בהמה וחיה עבר[ה‬ 12 ‫אשר ישכב עם] אשה הרה מקיץ דם‬ 13 ‫או יקרב א]ל בת [אחיו‬ 14 ‫או ישכב עם זכר] משכבי אשה‬

Leviticus 17–22 17:7 (‫ ;)שעירים‬19:31, 20:6, 27 (,‫ידעוני‬ ‫)אוב‬

20:3, 21:6, 22:2, 22:15 21:14 (‫)אשה בבתוליה‬

22:1–16 offered (‫ )ירימו‬to priests 22:4 (‫)והוא צרוע או זב‬ 19:16 ‫לא תלך רכיל בעמך‬ 22:28 ‫אתו ואת בנו לא תשחטו ביום אחד‬ 18:22 ‫ואת זכר לא תשכב משכבי אשה‬

Comments: Line 2. The fact that participants in the Moloch cult are said to profane the divine name (Lev 20:3) raises the possibility that this pagan abomination was mentioned in the missing context, but this cannot be proven. Lines 3–4. Lev 21:14 refers to the restricted marriages sanctioned for the high priest. The sinner here alluded to is apparently any layman who marries a maiden or widow of ill repute; cf. 4Q271 3 12–13. Line 5. The identification of the day on which marital relations were banned is missing. Jub. 50:8 suggests that it may have been the Sabbath. Line 6. The priestly emoluments listed here include: (a) the fruits of trees in the fourth year after their planting; (b) the tithe of cattle; (c) the redemption of the first-born of unclean animals and of humans; (d) the first shearing of sheep; (e) the assessment for the redemption of persons; (f) a guilt restitution which cannot be returned to its rightful owner. The assignment to the priests of (a), (b), (e), and (f) follows sectarian opinion (MMT B 62–64; 11QTemple 60; CD 9:13–14). Tĕrûmâ, the sacred portion of the harvest offered exclusively to the priests (Numbers 18), is not listed here. The requirement of ritual purity for its consumption is the major subject of Leviticus 22. Line 7. The extant text does not specify whose names, those of angels or perhaps those of communal authorities, were abused by the offender.

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77

Line 8. Lev 22:4–7 lists scale disease and gonorrhea among defilements which disqualify a priest from eating sacred food. The mention of these physical afflictions in this catalogue of transgressors may perhaps reflect the view that they were symptomatic of sin. Line 9. “One who reveals a secret of his people to the Gentiles, or curses [his people].” 11QTemple 64 likewise describes two kinds of treason: (a) informing against one’s people ‫( ;כי יהיה איש רכיל בעמו‬b) cursing one’s people by one who goes over to the side of the Gentiles ‫ויברח אל תוך הגואים ויקלל את עמו‬. The terminology used there for informing is clearly that of Lev 19:16 ‫לא תלך רכיל בעמיך‬, which was understood to refer to national betrayal rather than to malicious gossip. The phraseology of our text is markedly close to that found in the Ein Gedi inscription ‫מן דגלי רזה דקרתה לעממיה‬.4 Lines 11–12. The ban on slaughtering pregnant animals in 11QTemple 52:5–7 is juxtaposed with the biblical prohibition against killing the parent and young of oxen and sheep on the same day (Lev 22:28). Qumran law regarded the fetus as an independent creature.5 It is possible that the following law forbidding intercourse during pregnancy also involves concern about harming the fetus. Lines 13–14. The laws of incest in Leviticus 20 are consistently formulated with the ‫ איש אשר‬pattern, from which the ‫ או אשר‬formula of our text presumably derives. However, marriage with one’s niece was not biblically prohibited; it was exegetically derived from the ban on marrying one’s aunt (CD 5:8–11 [which derives it from Lev 18:13]). The foregoing survey of biblical sources for the Catalogue of Transgressors shows that it was primarily based on the ‫ קדושה‬laws found in Leviticus 17–22. To these were appended some offenses against sectarian “halakhah,” which may also have been deemed to be profanations of holiness. The connection with the Leviticus pericope is further supported by the conclusion which follows the enumeration of sinners: ‫ עוברי א[ת‬vac ] [ 17 ‫בח[רון אפו בק] ̇ץ‬ ̇ ‫ בם חקק אל להעביר‬18

4 [See L.I. Levine, “The Inscription in the ʿEn-Gedi Synagogue,” in Ancient Synagogues Revealed (ed. L.I. Levine; Jerusalem, 1981), 140–45.] 5 J.M. Baumgarten, “A Fragment on Fetal Life and Pregnancy in 4Q270,” in Pomegranates and Golden Bells: Studies in Honor of Jacob Milgrom (ed. D.P. Wright, D.N. Freedman, and A. Hurvitz; Winona Lake, 1995), 445–48.

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In the editio princeps6 I followed the suggestion that 6Q15 was a parallel to this text. Hence, I adopted [in my note ad loc.] the reading found there, ‫להבעיר‬ “to kindle” as preferable to ‫ להעביר‬with ‫“ חרון‬wrath”: 17 [ ] vac Those who transgress [ ] 18 Against them God has ordained, to cause his w[rath] to be kindled during the peri[od of iniquity ] I now believe that the original reading ‫“ להעביר‬to remove” should not be modified. Lev 18:24 admonishes Israelites not to defile themselves by imitating the sexual practices of Canaan, “for by all these, the nations I am casting out before you have defiled themselves.” The transgressors of moral limits, designated by the word ‫ עוברי‬in line 17, are subject to a divine curse, as indicated in the expulsion ritual at the end of the Damascus Document: ‫וגבולות הגבלתה לנו אשר‬ ‫“ את עובריהם ארותה‬You have set limits for us and cursed those who transgress them” (4Q266 11 12–13). Non-Israelites, too, were cursed when they transgressed these moral limits, ‫( אתה ארותה את עובריהם‬11 14), as demonstrated by the fate of the nations who were “vomited out” by the land (Lev 19:25–28). It is to this law of moral retribution that line 18 most likely alludes: ‫בח[רון‬ ̇ ‫בם חקק אל להעביר‬ ‫“ אפו‬Them did God ordain to remove through the wrath of his anger,” with an apparent wordplay between ‫ עוברי‬and ‫להעביר‬. 2

Qumran Law and the Mishnah

Having given due recognition to the fundamental biblical roots of Qumran law, we may now turn our attention to those aspects which link it with early rabbinic halakhah. These links were highlighted in the masterful study of Louis Ginzberg, which, based only on the Damascus Document and lacking the wealth of other Qumran writings at our disposal, identified the unbekannte jüdische Sekte as Pharisaic.7 Although this conclusion is no longer tenable, there is great heuristic value in reevaluating some of the considerations which led to it.

6 [See Baumgarten’s comment on l. 18 in DJD 18.146.] 7 [L. Ginzberg, Eine unbekannte jüdische Sekte (New York, 1922); English translation: An Unknown Jewish Sect (New York, 1976).]

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79

2.1 Laws of the Sabbath The laws of the Sabbath provide some of the closest approaches between Qumran exegesis and the Oral Law of the rabbis. Lawrence Schiffman’s dissertation contains a detailed discussion of these laws.8 Here I wish only to make some observations based on Cave 4 halakhic fragments which will, I hope, soon be published.9 2.1.1 ‫הוצאה‬ The biblical injunction, ‫“ אל יצא איש ממקמו ביום השביעי‬Let no man go out of his place on the seventh day” (Exod 16:29) was rendered in 4Q251 1 4 ‫אל יוצא‬ ‫“ איש ממקומו כל השבת‬Let no man bring forth from his place (during) the entire Sabbath.” ‫ יוצא‬is likewise employed in the rules, formulated on the basis of Exod 16:29, which prohibit carrying in and out on the Sabbath (CD 11:7 and 4Q265 6 4). Thus, this biblical passage served at Qumran, much as it did in talmudic halakhah (b. ʿErub. 17b, 51a) and in Targum Ps.-J. to Exod 16:29, as a source for both the limit on walking and the prohibition of carrying in and out of dwellings. Talmudic halakhah, however, analyzed the act of carrying into two elements: (a) the raising (‫ )עקירה‬of an object from its place and (b) its placement (‫)הנחה‬ in another locus. Only a person who performed both elements was culpable (m. Šabb. 1:1). The severe formulation in Jub. 50:8 shows no awareness of such conceptualization: “And whoever lifts up anything that he will carry to take out of his tent or from his house, let him die.” This implies that the very displacement of an object with the intent to carry it out constitutes a desecration.10 Such a view is akin to the practice cited by Josephus as an illustration of Essene stringency with regard to the Sabbath: “Not only do they prepare their food on the day before, to avoid kindling a fire on that one [the Sabbath], but they do not venture to remove (μετακινῆσαι) any vessel” ( J.W. 2.147). Moving a vessel not prepared for the Sabbath, even without carrying it outside, would for the 8 9

10

[L.H. Schiffman’s dissertation was published as The Halakhah at Qumran (Leiden, 1975).] After completing the following survey of the 4Q Sabbath fragments, I found that L. Doering has independently arrived at a number of similar results in his study, “New Aspects of Qumran Sabbath Law from Cave 4 Fragments,” in Legal Texts and Legal Issues: Proceedings of the Second Meeting of the International Organization for Qumran Studies, Cambridge, 1995, Published in Honour of Joseph M. Baumgarten (ed. M.J. Bernstein, F. García Martínez, and J. Kampen; Leiden, 1997), 251–74. The theory that the restriction on the moving (‫ )טלטול‬of objects was derived from the prohibition to carry them out (‫ )הוצאה‬is found in b. Šabb. 124b, as noted by Rabad in his stricture on Rambam, Yad, Laws of Shabbat 24:12. Rambam viewed the ‫ טלטול‬restrictions as independent rabbinic enactments to distinguish the Sabbath from the workaday routines of the week.

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PART 2: RABBINIC LITERATURE AND QUMRAN LAW

Essenes constitute a violation of Exod 16:5, which required that the manna for the Sabbath be prepared (‫ )והכינו‬on the sixth day. 2.1.2 ‫ מוקצה‬and ‫פקוח נפש‬ Talmudic sources preserve a theory which deemed objects not “prepared” for the Sabbath to be biblically restricted for use (‫)מוקצה‬. The prevailing talmudic view, however, attributed the ‫ מוקצה‬restrictions to rabbinic enactments which underwent an evolution, from strict application to virtually all vessels, to the later circumscribed ban of only specific implements.11 Qumran law retains the ancient stringency in accordance with which any implement not designated for Sabbath use could not be employed, even to save a human life. Thus, certain Jews who fled to the wilderness in the days of Mattathias did not defend themselves when attacked on Sabbath. They did not hurl any stone against their attackers nor block up their hiding places (1 Macc 2:36). The handling of rocks or soil was apparently forbidden on the Sabbath (cf. CD 11:11), and no allowance was made for the peril to life (‫פקוח‬ ‫)נפש‬: “Any human being who falls into a place of water … let no man bring him up with a ladder, a rope, or an implement” (CD 11:16–17).12 4Q265 6 confirms the ban on using an implement (‫)כלי‬, but permits one to cast a garment (‫)בגד‬ to a drowning man; the latter was permissible because, as an article of attire, it was prepared for use on the Sabbath.13 It is interesting that this ruling is followed by a reference to a situation involving an army (‫)צבא‬, which unfortunately is incomplete. We also lack the context of the allusion to war on the Sabbath in 4Q264 1 ii 8 ‫להלחם עמו‬.14 2.2 ‫ שבות‬and Priestly Activities The term ‫שבות‬, which is used in rabbinic sources for rabbinic restrictions intended to preserve the nonsecular character of the Sabbath, is not found 11 12

13

14

Contrast the discussions in b. Pesaḥ. 47b and b. Beṣah 2b with that in t. Šabb. 14:1, which depicts an evolutionary relaxation of ‫ מוקצה‬restrictions. The restriction on saving human life is specific and applies strictly to the use of utensils which may not be handled on the Sabbath; cf. Schiffman, The Halakhah at Qumran, 126; and L. Doering’s dissent in the abovementioned paper. In normative rabbinic halakhah, the primacy of ‫ פקוח נפש‬would override all restrictions. 4Q265 6 4 has the prohibition ]‫“ אל יו[צא אי]ש מאהלו כלי ומאכ[ל‬Let no man bring forth from his tent a vessel and food.” It is possible that the vessel intended here was a food vessel, taking ]‫ כלי ומאכ[ל‬as hendiadys; otherwise, its handling even within the tent would be restricted. For a historical study of the halakhah concerning war on the Sabbath, see M.D. Herr, “The Problem of War on the Sabbath in the Second Temple and the Talmudic Periods,” Tarbiz 30 (1960/61): 242–56, 341–56 (in Hebrew).

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81

in Qumran writings. It is, however, apparent that the Sabbath rules found in Jubilees and in the Damascus Document were not limited to those found in the Torah, but also embraced the ‫ שבות‬category of legal “fences” designed to enhance the sanctity of the Sabbath. 4Q264a (Halakha B) now provides a fragmentary collection of such rules: one concerns the one-thousand-cubit limit on walking outside one’s settlement, also found in CD 10:21. This is followed by a regrettably incomplete prohibition beginning with the phrase, “Let no man take,” which was extended to the priests and apparently applied also to “the burnt offerings and sacrifices.” Interestingly, the operative principle in talmudic halakhah was that ‫ שבות‬restrictions did not apply to the Temple, which some opinions extended even to tasks ancillary to sacrifice, such as bringing the paschal offering from beyond the Sabbath limit (m. Pesaḥ. 6:1; b. ʿErub. 103a). The next Sabbath restriction in 4Q264a seems to pertain to reading scrolls in order to check their texts, although one is allowed to read them in order to learn. Further, secular talk on the Sabbath was banned in accordance with Isa 58:13, but conversation about food was legitimate. M. Ḥagigah 1:8 characterizes the laws of the Sabbath as based on little Scripture and much oral halakhah, ‫“ כהררים התלוין בשערה‬like mountains suspended by a hair.” It is interesting that Qumran exegetes, who, as far as we know, had no concept of an authoritative Oral Law, nevertheless attached the observance of precautionary Sabbath restrictions to the scriptural command, ‫( שמור את יום השבת לקדשו‬CD 10:16–17). This was, according to our restoration of the text of 4Q274 2 i, the passage cited in support of the restriction on sprinkling water for purification [Numbers 19] on the Sabbath, just as it served in CD 10:16–17 as the basis for requiring the cessation of work on Friday well before sunset. Thus, Qumran law in effect carried out one of the principles attributed to the Men of the Great Assembly, ‫“ ועשו סיג לתורה‬And build a fence about the Torah” (m. ʾAbot 1:1). I am therefore inclined to doubt that the sobriquet ‫בוני החיץ‬, which stems from Ezek 13:10 and was applied in the Damascus Document to some opponents of the sect (CD 4:19; 8:12), was particularly directed at the protorabbinic “fences” which served to protect the Law.15 3

The Topical Nomenclature of Laws

The laws of the Sabbath are set forth in the Damascus Document under the rubric ‫( על השבת‬10:14). This is one of several such rubrics employed to introduce 15

Cf. L.H. Schiffman, Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: The History of Judaism, the Background of Christianity, the Lost Library of Qumran (Philadelphia, 1994), 250.

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topical groupings of laws: ‫“ על הטהר במים‬concerning one who purifies himself in water” (10:10); ‫“ על השבועה‬concerning oaths” (9:8); ‫“ על משפט הנדבות‬concerning the law of donations” (16:13).16 Note also the nomenclature for the class of prohibited sexual unions, ‫( משפט העריות‬5:9), which is paralleled by the topical heading ‫ על העריות‬in 4Q251 17 1.17 Here we have the first postbiblical evidence for the identification of classes of laws by subject categories. It is noteworthy that the aforementioned m. Ḥag. 1:8, which characterizes the laws of the Sabbath as lacking scriptural support, lists ‫הטהרות והטמאות‬ ‫ ועריות‬among categories of laws which by contrast have abundant scriptural support. ‫הטהרות והטמאות‬, counted as one in the Tosefta (t. Ḥag. 1:9), corresponds to the rubric ‫על הטהר‬, concerning purification from impurity. ‫עריות‬, the laws of prohibited marriages, are here designated in plural form just as at Qumran. The Tosefta has supplements to the mishnaic list of halakhot with good scriptural support, among which appear ‫ הערכין‬and ‫ההקדשות‬. The former also appears at Qumran in plural form in the designation ‫“ כסף הערכים‬valuation money” (4Q159), while ‫ ההקדשות‬corresponds in content to the rules listed in the Damascus Document under the rubric of ‫( הנדבות‬16:13), which employ the verb ‫ קדש‬for sanctified donations. In his definitive study of early strata of tannaitic literature, Jacob Epstein demonstrated that m. Ḥag. 1:8, which describes the abovementioned categories of halakhot, stems at the latest from the Herodian period.18 This is shown by the fact that Abba Yose b. Ḥanan, a contemporary of the late Second Temple period, already refers to the enumeration of the laws in the Mishnah as “major bodies of halakhah” (t. Ḥag. 1:9). Epstein’s conclusion is, I believe, in harmony with the similarities in the topical terminology between Qumran and the Mishnah, which we have noted. The rudimentary grouping of laws under subject headings at Qumran, although manifested here in a non-Pharisaic context, tends also to add cogency to Epstein’s theory concerning the early formation of the nuclei of the tractates of the Mishnah.

16 17 18

We do not include instances where the ‫ על‬formulation introduces single laws, such as ‫על‬ ‫( שבועת האשה‬CD 16:10) and the repeated use of this formula for particular legal assertions in MMT. [Formerly numbered as fragment 12. For this text, see E. Larson, M.R. Lehmann, and L. Schiffman, “251. 4Q Halakha A,” in Qumran Cave 4.XXV: Halakhic Texts (ed. J. Baumgarten et al.; DJD 35; Oxford, 1999), 25–51 (45).] J.N. Epstein, Meboʾot le-Sifrut ha-Tannaim (Jerusalem, 1957), 46–47 (in Hebrew).

THE LAWS OF THE DAMASCUS DOCUMENT

4

83

Conclusion

The identification of Leviticus 17–22 as the source of the Catalogue of Transgressors can be taken as an illustration of the pentateuchal roots of Qumran law. As CD 16:2 affirms, “in it (the law of Moses) everything is specified (‫)מדוקדק‬.” However, this apparently limiting principle has to be appraised in the light of such pentateuchal supplements as the Book of Jubilees, in which chronological things are ‫( מדוקדק‬CD 16:3), and the Temple Scroll, which contains multiple pentateuchal elaborations. We have further to reckon with the genre of Reworked Pentateuch found at Qumran, in which, for example, the feasts of oil and wood were inserted into the sequence of festivals of Leviticus 23 [4Q365 23]. Thus, the scriptural basis of Qumran law, which, unlike talmudic halakhah, also included the Prophets, was, to begin with, less rigidly defined. Witness the sporadic use of the citation formula ‫ אשר אמר‬for things not found anywhere in Scripture, but in the sectarian interpretation thereof.19 One significant Qumran development in the direction of tannaitic methodology was the rudimentary collection of rules under subject rubrics introduced by the preposition ‫על‬. Another is the use of nomenclature to identify various areas of halakhah similar to that found in the earliest strata of the Mishnah. The laws of the Sabbath in the Damascus Document, much like those in Jubilees, offer parallels to rules which in talmudic halakhah would be classified as ‫שבות‬, or functionally, as fences about the Torah. Yet, they are not distinguished from biblical prohibitions or treated with greater leniency, even when life may be threatened. Moreover, we do not yet find in the Qumran Sabbath laws the kind of conceptual analysis and generalized principles which are familiar from the Mishnah. The foregoing methodological observations seem by and large to be compatible with the chronological placement of the Qumran literature between Bible and Mishnah. 19

See J.M. Baumgarten, “A ‘Scriptural’ Citation in 4Q Fragments of the Damascus Document,” JJS 43 (1992): 95–98.

Chapter 5

Tannaitic Halakhah and Qumran—A Re-Evaluation With* the publication of the known “halakhic” Qumran fragments now complete, scholarly attention may be expected to focus on the broader contribution of the Scrolls to the study of early rabbinic law. Some of the controversies between the Qumran legists and the contemporary Pharisaic sages, designated ‫ דורשי חלקות‬in the sectarian literature, are already well known. The corresponding references in the Mishnah to debates between ‫ פרושים‬and ‫צדוקים‬ (perhaps a rabbinic designation for the Qumran ‫ )בני צדוק‬have been identified. These findings provide significant illustrations of the antiquity of rabbinic halakhot pertaining to purity and the Temple. However, it is in my view important to explore not only the confrontations between Qumran ritual law and prerabbinic halakhah, but also the areas of congruence in the elaboration of biblical antecedents. In another context I offered an initial sampling of more than twenty instances of substantive agreement in the interpretation of religious laws not apparent from biblical sources.1 For convenience, I arranged them according to the six orders of the Mishnah. In this paper I would first like to direct attention to common elements in the elaboration of ‫( טהרות‬the laws of purity), notwithstanding the polemics on particular issues found in the Scrolls. Secondly, an evaluation of the approach to ‫( דיני נפשות‬capital penalties) in the two legal complexes is appropriate. Finally, the fundamental controversy concerning the lunar versus the solar calendar requires new evaluation in the light of more recent publications. Before proceeding with these issues, it is appropriate to say a word about the significance of the now available “halakhic” fragments for the hypothesis that identifies the Qumran community with the Essenes. In 1991 I listed seven

* Original publication: “Tannaitic Halakhah and Qumran—A Re-Evaluation,” in Rabbinic Perspectives: Rabbinic Literature and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Proceedings of the Eighth International Symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, 7–9 January, 2003 (ed. S.D. Fraade, A. Shemesh, R.A. Clements; STDJ 62; Leiden: Brill, 2007), 1–11. Republished with the kind permission of Brill Academic Publishers. 1 [See the author’s essay, “Common Legal Exegesis in the Scrolls and Tannaitic Sources,” in The Qumran Scrolls and Their World (ed. M. Kister; 2 vols.; Jerusalem, 2009), 2:649–65 (in Hebrew).]

© Joseph M. Baumgarten, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004505087_007

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details of Essene practice described by Josephus which were also documented at Qumran:2 1. The Essene avoidance of anointing with oil ( J.W. 2.123) is now known to stem from the role of liquids as potent transmitters of impurity (CD 12:16; 11QTemple 49:11). 2. The Essene loin cloth worn during ritual immersion ( J.W. 2.161) is specified in 4Q512 [11 x 4]: ‫וכסה את בגדיו‬. 3. The ban on spitting in public assemblies ( J.W. 2.147) is mentioned in 1QS 7:13. 4. Essene Sabbath strictness is exemplified by the requirement that all food be prepared beforehand and by the prohibition against moving any utensil ( J.W. 2.147; cf. CD 10:22 and 11:17). 5. Married Essenes avoided intercourse during pregnancy ( J.W. 2.161; cf. 4Q270 2). 6. The Essenes insisted on fulfilling their binding oaths even in the face of death ( J.W. 2.161). This is likewise the teaching of CD 16:7–8 ‫עד מחיר מות‬ ‫אל יפדהו‬. 7. The Essenes banned commercial transactions between members of the order, who were expected to supply each other’s needs without payment ( J.W. 2.127). The same rule is applied to the Qumran sectarians, perhaps neophytes, designated Sons of Dawn, in CD 13:14–15: ‫איש מכל באי ברית אל‬ ‫אל ישא ואל יתן לבני השחר כי אם כף לכף‬.3 The identification of the Qumran covenanters with the Essenes emerged as a persuasive hypothesis based on multiple organizational parallels at the very beginning of Scrolls research. However, some literary students of Josephus and proponents of the Sadducean connection prefer to remain agnostic, or even deny the validity of the Essene hypothesis. Pointing to Qumranic data which Josephus did not share with his Greek readers, they dismiss the salient communal and theological similarities derived from the ‫ סרך היחד‬as too general for any conclusion. In this regard, we should consider that the foregoing halakhic congruities are well-documented details, which can hardly be ignored by the historian. Moreover, to our list of Essene peculiarities found at Qumran, we may now add their scruples about covering excrement using the hatchet 2 See J.M. Baumgarten, “The Disqualifications of Priests in 4Q Fragments of the ‘Damascus Document,’ a Specimen of the Recovery of Pre-Rabbinic Halakha,” in The Madrid Qumran Congress: Proceedings of the International Congress on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Madrid, 18–21 March, 1991 (ed. J. Trebolle Barrera and L. Vegas Montaner; 2 vols.; Leiden, 1992), 2:503–13 (503–5) [included in this volume]. 3 [See also J.M. Baumgarten, “The ‘Sons of Dawn’ in CDC 13:14–15 and the Ban on Commerce among the Essenes,” IEJ 33 (1983): 81–85 (included in this volume).]

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given to all members. 4QHalakha C is a small fragment with a somewhat faded text that the editor read ‫למכסי צו‬.4 The editor observes that the reading ‫צו‬ is certain, but the previously proposed translation “as a cover for the commandment” is hardly intelligible. ‫ צו‬is the short form for ‫ צואה‬as in Ugaritic and Akkadian, and the phrase ‫ למכסי צו‬refers to the Essene care to cover excrement. It is also likely that ‫ שליש‬in the following line refers to the utensil used for digging the trench mentioned by Josephus. So much for details, not significant in themselves, but crucial in the aggregate for positive identification. Before leaving the Essene hypothesis, we may note a general link characterizing the Essene library and that found at Qumran. I am not sure whether, in the abundant scholarly literature on Josephus and the Scrolls, attention has focused on the fact that the Essenes were versed not only in “holy books” and the writings of the prophets ( J.W. 2.159), but had their own ancestral prayers ( J.W. 2.128) and sectarian books ( J.W. 2.142). This would likewise be an appropriate description of the library found at Qumran. As far as we know, such a library contrasts with the unwritten Pharisaic transmission of their ancestral teachings. Having reaffirmed the continuing adherence to the Essene hypothesis which I advocated in my 1954 dissertation,5 I now turn to the exploration of common elements in Qumran and prerabbinic halakhah. Some may question whether these two enterprises are compatible. Suffice it to say at this point that, despite different methods of transmitting their teachings, the existence of a body of Jewish common law shared by the Essenes of Qumran as well as the Pharisees should not a priori be left out of consideration. Let us weigh the evidence. 1

Tohorot

As we learn from the “halakhic” Scrolls and the Mishnah, the Qumran legists were in dispute with prerabbinic authorities over a number of purity issues, including the eligibility of a ‫ טבול יום‬to burn the red cow and sprinkle the water containing its ashes.6 The Pharisees apparently wished to use this central purification rite as a way of publicizing their teaching that immersion alone 4 T. Elgvin, “472a. 4QHalakha C,” in Qumran Cave 4.XXV: Halakhic Texts (ed. J. Baumgarten et al.; DJD 35; Oxford, 1999), 155–56. 5 J.M. Baumgarten, “The Covenant Sect and the Essenes” (PhD diss., The Johns Hopkins University, 1954). 6 M. Parah 3:7; 5:4; and Sifre Num. on Num 19:9 (Sifre ʿal Sefer Ba-Midbar ve-Sifre Zuṭa [ed. H.S. Horovitz; Jerusalem, 1992], 157).

Tannaitic Halakhah and Qumran

87

without waiting for sundown was effective for purification outside the sphere of the Temple.7 The ‫ בני צדוק‬of Qumran, perhaps called ‫ צדוקים‬in m. Yad. 4:6–7, insisted that the priest performing this rite must wait for sundown after his immersion. Yet they, too, agreed that immersion by itself was effective after contamination to allow a person to eat nonsacred food.8 As Milgrom suggests, the initial cleansing removed a layer of impurity, but further purification was needed for sacred purposes.9 The rabbis, on their part, agreed that the ‫טבול‬ ‫ יום‬could not enter the Temple precincts (m. Kelim 1:8). Thus the parameters of this dispute, despite its intensity, were rather limited. Both sides agreed that the maintenance of purity by laymen and the eating of nonsacred food ‫ על טהרת הקודש‬were praiseworthy. Tannaitic sources describe the rules governing ḥaberim who pledged to follow higher standards of purity. Prof. Lieberman early on noted similarities between the terminology in the tannaitic sources describing the ḥaberim and the Serekh ha-Yaḥad.10 One of the substantive similarities was the greater restriction of access to liquid as compared to solid foods, as explicated in the Community Rule and m. Demai 2:3. This was due to the fact that liquids were more potent transmitters of impurity, as noted above with regard to the avoidance of oil by the Essenes. The standards of purity obligatory for different individuals were not uniform. This is well illustrated by the Temple Scroll’s elaboration of the biblical law concerning vessels found in a tent with a corpse. According to Num 19:15 “any open vessel with no lid fastened down” becomes impure, from which one may deduce that a covered vessel and its contents are not susceptible. The Temple Scroll, however, limits the protective function of the cover to ordinary Jews, ‫לכול אדם מישראל‬. For those emulating more stringent purity, ‫לכול איש‬ ‫טהור‬, any covered earthen vessel and its contents were considered contaminated (11QTemple 49:8–10). Interestingly, a somewhat similar stringency was advocated by the school of Shammai with regard to utensils within the earthen vessel, even if the latter was covered by a lid (m. ʿEd. 1:14).11 These departures 7 8 9 10 11

See the discussion in Baumgarten, “274–278. 4QTohorot A–C: Introduction,” in Baumgarten et al., DJD 35.81–83. See 4Q514 1 i: “514. Ordonnances (iii?),” in M. Baillet, Qumrân grotte 4.III (4Q482–4Q520) (DJD 7; Oxford, 1982), 295–98. J. Milgrom, “First Day Ablutions in Qumran,” in Trebolle Barrera and Vegas Montaner, The Madrid Qumran Congress, 2:561–70. S. Lieberman, “The Discipline in the So-called Dead Sea Manual of Discipline,” JBL 71 (1952): 199–206. The reason given for the stringency is that the unclean vessel of an am ha-aretz cannot protect its contents; but Maimonides (Yad, Laws of Death Impurity 23:1) extends the rule to the vessels of learned people as well.

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from the literal implication of Num 19:15 may reflect the more stringent concern with ritual purity among pietists in the Second Temple period.12 Both Second Temple literature and rabbinic sources indicate that purification before prayer was widely practiced. This likewise emerges from the description of the prayer of Levi in the Aramaic Levi Document and accords with Cave 4 fragments from Qumran. I have summarized the evidence elsewhere.13 As to the forms of purification, one of the innovative aspects of Second Temple practice was the use of pools, ‫מקוואות‬, for immersion. It was not obligatory to go to the sea or to rivers, ‫ימים ונהרות‬, but, as the Community Rule adds in its enumeration of means of lustration, one may have recourse to ‫מי רחץ‬ (1QS 3:4–5), stationary pools of channeled rainwater such as those discovered at Qumran. The water must be sufficient to cover a man who immerses in it (CD 10:11). This requirement was likewise the basis for the tannaitic minimum measure of forty seʾah for a miqweh.14 The archaeological features of six Qumran miqwa‌ʾot have been found by Ronny Reich to resemble those of the standard Jerusalem type, though the former are considerably larger.15 This is another significant congruity in the practice of purity. 2

Avoidance of Capital Penalties

In view of the general tendency of Qumran law toward greater rigor one might have expected that the sect would also be more severe in carrying out capital punishment. Indeed, A. Shemesh has noted the multiple additions to the list of biblical capital offenses in Jubilees and to some degree in the Temple Scroll.16 However, in order to assess the place of capital punishment in a legal system one must evaluate the procedural rules as well as the penal code. In rabbinic law the requirement of ‫התראה‬, warning the offender, through two witnesses, of the consequences of his contemplated crime, is recognized as a factor leading to the practical elimination of the biblical death penalty. The source of this 12 13

14 15 16

‫( בוא וראה עד היכן פרצה טהרה‬t. Šabb. 1:7). “Some ‘Qumranic’ Observations on the Aramaic Levi Document,” in Sefer Moshe: The Moshe Weinfeld Jubilee Volume: Studies in the Bible and the Ancient Near East, Qumran, and Post-Biblical Judaism (ed. C. Cohen, A. Hurvitz, and S.M. Paul; Winona Lake, 2004), 393–401 [included in this volume]. See the sources cited by C. Albeck, Shisha Sidre Mishnah, Seder Tohorot (Jerusalem, 1959), 337. R. Reich, “Miqva‌ʾot,” EDSS 1:560–63. A. Shemesh, “The Dispute between the Pharisees and the Sadducees on the Death Penalty,” Tarbiz 70 (2000/1): 17–33 (22–29) (in Hebrew).

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89

requirement may be, as suggested by Shemesh, the meaning of the term ‫עדים‬ in Deut 19:6 (“by the mouth of two or three witnesses”), the verb ‫ העד‬having both the sense of “to testify” and “to warn.” This is likewise in accord with the Qumran rule in CD 9:16–20: Any trespass committed by a man against the Torah, which is witnessed by his neighbor—he being but one—if it is a capital matter, he shall report it before his eyes with reproof to the Examiner. And the Examiner shall write it down with his hand until he does it again before one who again reports it to the Examiner. If he is again caught in the presence of one, his judgment is complete. Most of the scholarly discussion of this requirement of three witnesses has concerned the problem of how to reconcile the requirement of three with the biblical rule, confirmed in the Temple Scroll, that two witnesses to a single crime suffice to establish a capital indictment. I am inclined to believe that the Qumran legists would have concurred that two simultaneous witnesses were sufficient with regard to capital crimes, such as murder, adultery, and treason, involving other persons. Our passage, however, deals with religious sins,17 ‫אשר‬ ‫ימעל איש בתורה‬, “that a man desecrates the Torah”; here, three repeated violations were required by Qumran exegetes for a capital indictment. The nominal basis for this leniency was Deut 19:15, ‫על פי שני עדים או על פי שלשה עדים יקום דבר‬, where “two” and “three” were taken to refer, not to the number of witnesses seeing one offense, but to the number of times the offense was repeated. This tendentious interpretation hardly fits the literal sense of the passage, but, in my view, reflects a desire to minimize the scope of capital punishment. In support of the foregoing thesis, I have called attention to a fragmentary, but very interesting Qumran text that explicates the avoidance of the death penalty as a juridical principle.18 4Q275 contains a fragment which requires the participants in the annual covenant renewal ceremony to be admonished 17

18

‫ מעל‬is used for wronging another person in Lev 5:20, but in Qumran usage it regularly denotes violations of the divine covenant; cf. CD 1:3; 15:12–13; 20:23, and 1QH 12:34. The fact that ‫ דבר מות‬in this context does not refer to criminal assault is further evident from the requirement that the witness who observes it must not report it to the authorities without first chastising the perpetrator in the presence of the supervisor (CD 9:2–6). Such a concern for proper procedure would hardly be appropriate where the safety of a victim is threatened. J. Baumgarten, “The Avoidance of the Death Penalty in Qumran Law,” in Reworking the Bible: Apocryphal and Related Texts at Qumran. Proceedings of a Joint Symposium by the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature and the Hebrew University Institute for Advanced Studies Research Group on Qumran, 15–17 January, 2002

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prior to the ‫[יו]ם המשפט‬, in the [seventh] week (]‫)והתיסרו עד השבוע [השביעי‬.19 On this ‫[יו]ם המשפט‬, transgressors within the community were to be judged, by a general assembly of the ‫רבים‬. The ‫ רבים‬were particularly admonished to be conscious of the value of human life. Lest they incline toward excessive harshness in punishment, they were made to “solemnly vow not to put any man to death,” ‫[ונ]דרו לא להמית איש‬. As it stands, this vow appears to be an unqualified rejection of any death penalty regardless of the guilt of the accused.20 Whatever its scope, 4Q275 witnesses both to a judicial principle and to an aspect of judicial process that, like rabbinic ‫התראה‬, intervene to establish a practical limitation to the application of capital punishment. 3

Solar–Lunar Calendar Reckoning at Qumran

Since the publication of the first Qumran scrolls more than half a century ago, the schematic 364-day solar year of Jubilees has been posited as a major factor in the schism between the Qumran community and mainstream Judaism.21 This is best illustrated by the Yom Kippur confrontation with the Wicked Priest, who came to suppress the sect’s observance of the fast on a date in conflict with the prevalent lunar calendar. The thesis of S. Talmon, a pioneer in the study of the Qumran calendar, is that the sect, like Jubilees, viewed the observation of the moon as leading to corruption of the ideal 364-day calendar in which the holidays and all dates were perpetually fixed to particular days of the week.22 Whether and how the sect made corrections for the annual deficit

19

20 21 22

(ed. E.G. Chazon, D. Dimant, and R.A. Clements; Leiden, 2005), 31–38 (36–37) [included in this volume]. P.S. Alexander and G. Vermes, “275. 4QCommunal Ceremony,” in eidem, Qumran Cave 4.XIX: Serekh Ha-Yaḥad and Two Related Texts (DJD 26; Oxford, 1998), 209–16. The admonishment of the ‫ רבים‬here before a capital trial may be compared with the admonition (‫ )איום‬given to the witnesses about the unique value of human life in m. Sanh. 4:5. The extant text breaks off after ‫ איש‬and it may conceivably have been followed by some qualifier that would limit the scope of the vow, such as ‫ נקי‬or ‫צדיק‬, which are found in Exod 23:7: “An innocent and righteous man you shall not kill.” See, very early on, S. Talmon, “Yom Hakippurim in the Habakkuk Scroll,” Bib 32 (1951): 549–63; idem, “The Calendar Reckoning of the Sect from the Judean Desert,” in Aspects of the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. C. Rabin and Y. Yadin; Jerusalem, 1958), 162–99. Concisely put in S. Talmon, “Calendar Controversy in Ancient Judaism: The Case of the ‘Community of the Renewed Covenant,’” in The Provo International Conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls: Technological Innovations, New Texts, and Reformulated Issues (ed. D.W. Parry and E. Ulrich; Leiden, 1999), 379–95 (385–91).

Tannaitic Halakhah and Qumran

91

of one-and-one-quarter days is not known, but it is presumed by Talmon they had only disdain for the arbitrary methods of lunar intercalation. With the publication of Qumran calendrical texts now complete, it is natural to ask how this thesis holds up in the light of new Cave 4 fragments. In his general introduction to Qumran Cave 4.XVI: Calendrical Texts, Talmon surveys this assortment of texts that testify to the centrality of the 364-day calendar in community life and to the practical aspects of its implementation.23 The Damascus Document, one of the foundational works of the community, does indeed make reference to the chronological system of the Book of Jubilees, and, as Talmon demonstrated long ago, the mishmarot lists of annual festivals on fixed days of the week presuppose the schematic 364-day solar calendar. However, as illustrated by the early astronomical portion of the Book of Enoch, not all proponents of the 364-day year were oblivious to the need for synchronization with the lunar calendar. In fact, in that new volume, Talmon publishes 4Q320, which, as he puts it “is intended to achieve a concordance of the divergent 354-day lunar year with this ‘ideal’ ephemeris.”24 4Q320 and 321 together designate two days in each solar month, one around the middle of the lunar month with the obscure designation ‫דוקה‬, and the other not named (Talmon designates it X) around the end of the month. The nature of these two days is still the subject of much conjecture among scholars. M. Wise deduces from another Qumran text that duqah refers to the full moon, while the X day was probably the last day of its visibility.25 Talmon and I. Knohl have suggested that duqah was the night after the full moon when it begins to wane, while X was the last day of the lunar month.26 In their opinion, the purpose of recording these days inclining toward lunar darkness was to warn the members of the sect about the sinister influence of the moon. This “baleful” lunar hypothesis contrasts sharply with 4Q503, a Qumran liturgical text which sets forth prayers to be recited daily in accordance with the varying portions of light and darkness in the moon, a method of measuring lunation also described in 1 Enoch.27 As I have had occasion to point out, 4Q503 23 24 25 26

27

In Qumran Cave 4.XVI: Calendrical Texts (ed. S. Talmon, J. Ben-Dov, U. Glessmer; DJD 21; Oxford, 2001), 1–36. [Ibid., 33.] M.O. Wise, “Second Thoughts on ‫ דוק‬and the Qumran Synchronistic Calendars,” in Pursuing the Text: Studies in Honor of Ben Zion Wacholder on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday (ed. J.C. Reeves and J. Kampen; Sheffield, 1994), 98–120. S. Talmon and I. Knohl, “A Calendrical Scroll from a Qumran Cave, 4Q321,” in Pomegranates and Golden Bells: Studies in Biblical, Jewish, and Near Eastern Ritual, Law, and Literature in Honor of Jacob Milgrom (ed. D.P. Wright, D.N. Freedman, and A. Hurvitz; Winona Lake, 1995), 267–301. [See M. Baillet, “503. Prières quotidiennes,” DJD 7.105–36.]

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shows that lunar calculation was used for liturgical purposes at Qumran, despite the anti-lunar polemics of Jubilees.28 In his learned but noncommittal evaluation of the evidence, U. Glessmer maintained that the moon and the “lots of darkness” occur only in passages reconstructed by the editor.29 This is not quite accurate, as one can verify by looking at the phrase ‫ גורלות חושך‬visible on plate XLI frag. 39 of M. Baillet’s edition. Furthermore, in 4Q503, as well as elsewhere in the sectarian literature, the day begins with the evening as in the traditional lunar-solar Jewish calendar. Thus, with regard to 4Q320/321, it seems more plausible to suppose that the two days designated each month were intended for synchronization with the lunar calendar rather than as a warning against it. This option appears to be recognized by Talmon as at least a possibility once a comprehensive study of the entire Qumran calendrical corpus is completed.30 It is clear that much work on the use of the solar and lunar calendars at Qumran remains to be done. At present the evidence points to the continuation of the efforts already found in 1 Enoch to synchronize the schematic 364-day calendar with the schematic reckoning of light and darkness in the lunar cycle. What sets these solar-lunar calculations apart from the rabbinic calendar is that the latter delegates authority to the discretion of the court to declare new moons and leap years, while the sect believed in fixed times ordained in the heavenly tablets. This view of the calendar is intrinsically harmonious with the deterministic character of Qumran Essene theology.31 4

Summation

This paper explores substantive links between Qumran and early rabbinic halakhah in three areas: purity, capital penalties, and the calendar. We have elsewhere identified a considerable number of other congruities in the elaboration of halakhah beyond what is implicit in pentateuchal law. Two of the subjects treated here, purity and the calendar, are known to have involved particular 28 29 30 31

J. Baumgarten, “4Q503 (Daily Prayers) and the Lunar Calendar,” RevQ 12 (1985–1987): 399–407. U. Glessmer, “Calendars in the Qumran Scrolls,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls after Fifty Years: A Comprehensive Assessment (ed. P.W. Flint and J.C. VanderKam; 2 vols.; Leiden, 1998–1999), 2:213–278 (252–55). Talmon, Ben-Dov, and Glessmer, DJD 21.36. The Essene reputation for foretelling the future [ J.W. 2.159; Ant. 13.311; 15.373; 17.346] and the concern of Qumran wisdom with determining the horoscope (‫ )מולד‬of individuals are other manifestations of a predestinarian orientation.

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controversies between Qumran and Pharisaic teachings. For this very reason it is important to delineate agreements which may hypothetically reflect common Jewish traditions of the Second Temple period. I prefaced this presentation with a list of recent findings which tend to strengthen the premise identifying the Qumran community with the Essenes. It is worth noting in this connection that the two ancient authors to whom we owe most of our external knowledge of the Essenes both depict them in a decidedly favorable fashion. Philo, a leading spokesman for Alexandrian Jewry, named the Essenes “athletes of virtue,” without any critique of their unique lifestyle. We do not know how much Philo knew about the differences between the Jewish groupings in the Land of Israel in his time. Wolfson has argued persuasively that Philo was not unaware of the Pharisaic concept of the authority of the “unwritten law,” albeit this term originated in Greek sources as a designation for the law of nature.32 In any case, the Qumran Essenes appear to have ascribed authority to written sources only, but this did not prevent Philo from praising them lavishly. Josephus likewise admired the Essenes greatly as “men of the highest character” (Ant. 18.19) although he himself accepted the rules of the Pharisees when he was nineteen years old (Life 12). The polemics against the “interpreters of smooth things” in the Scrolls reflect some of the Qumran conflicts with the Pharisees. The Yom Kippur confrontation apparently resulted from the efforts of Temple authorities to suppress the dissident sectarian calendar. Yet, this should not lead us to suppose that these disputants had nothing in common. It is a well-known historical phenomenon that the intensity of conflict between religious groups is proportional to the proximity of their ideologies.33 This paper tries to identify a core of substantive agreement in three areas of religious practice. 32 33

H.A. Wolfson, Philo (2 vols.; Cambridge, 1947), 1:189–94. [See A.I. Baumgarten, “The Rule of the Martian as Applied to Qumran,” IOS 14 (1994): 121–42.]

Part 3 Pharisees and Sadducees, Essenes, and Qumran

⸪

Chapter 6

4Q502: Marriage or Golden Age Ritual? For* those accustomed to regard the Qumran–Essene community as the archetype of celibate monasticism, the publication of a new Qumran text entitled Rituel de mariage is bound to arouse interest.1 It is true that references to marriage and family life are found in some of the previously known Qumran writings, but these are capable of being viewed as reflecting the manner of life of those adherents of the sect living within the outer world, or the practices of Israel in the eschatological age.2 The present text, which includes an excerpt from the Community Rule, cannot so readily be divorced from the discipline which governed the lives of the residents of the so-called monastery of Qumran. Maurice Baillet, the editor of Qumrân Grotte 4, in which the new text appears, takes note of the suborder of Essenes who practiced marriage.3 Yet one wonders whether Josephus’s proffered reason for their doing so, i.e., in order not to cut off the propagation of the race ( J.W. 2.160), is adequate to explain the spirit of joyous celebration which seems to animate the described ritual. Rituel de mariage (4Q502) consists of 344 fragments of a papyrus regrettably in an extremely poor state of preservation. Paleographically, the manuscript is judged to come from the beginning of the first century BCE. Despite painstaking efforts, including the analysis of the fibers, it has in most cases not been possible to reconstitute the sequence of the small scraps of papyrus, many of which have no more than two or three preserved letters. There are, however, several larger fragments, including one with the concluding part of each of seventeen lines of text, on which a premise concerning the nature of the text can reasonably be based. Of these we reproduce below [in the appendix at the end of this study] the editor’s reading of two larger combinations classified under Group I, and three fragments (16, 19, 24) from Group II. In support of his designation of this text as a marriage ritual the editor prefaces the following considerations: * Original publication: “4Q502: Marriage or Golden Age Ritual?” JJS 34 (1983): 125–35. Republished with the permission of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. 1 See “502. Rituel de mariage,” in Qumrân Grotte 4.III (4Q482–4Q520) (ed. M. Baillet; DJD 7; Oxford: Clarendon, 1982), 81–105. 2 Cf. J. Coppens, “Le célibat essénien,” Qumrân: Sa piété, sa théologie et son milieu (ed. M. Delcor; Paris, 1978), 295–303. 3 [DJD 7.81.]

© Joseph M. Baumgarten, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004505087_008

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1. The text consists primarily of blessings or expressions of praise addressed to God in the course of a ceremony. The repeated occurrence of the verb śamaḥ and the substantive śimḥah indicate that the occasion was a joyous one. Baillet is reminded of a certain Sefer ha-śemaḥot which contains prayers for engagements, marriages, circumcisions and confirmations. The only work we were able to find fitting this description is a Samaritan manual, Sefer ha-śimḥah, of relatively recent vintage.4 It goes without saying that the term śamaḥ is not necessarily confined to rejoicing at weddings, and this can easily be verified by examining its use in other Qumran writings. The editor has several times restored the reading śimḥat yaḥad.5 Granting the possibility of such a designation, we are nevertheless mindful of the usual connotations of yaḥad at Qumran as pertaining to gatherings of the community. If the occasion of rejoicing were a wedding, one wonders why the celebration is described as having a prescribed time. Fragment 9, line 3 reads: Q]Ṣ ŚMḤH LHLL ŠMW, “a fixed time of joy to praise His name.” Line 8 has M] WʿD LŚMḤTNW, “a season for our joy.” Were weddings at Qumran confined to particular days or seasons of the year? 2. The editor points to the themes reflected in some of the fragments as best suitable for the occasion of a marriage. Fragment 1 alludes to “[Adam] and his wife,” a reference to the first couple similar to that in the prayer of Tobias on his wedding night (Tob 8:6). The pairing of male and female is further indicated by RʿYYTW (frag. 1, line 7), “his [female] companion” and combinations such as ʾŠYŠYM WNŠYM (frag. 34) “mature men and women” and ZQNYM WZQNWT (frags. 19, 24 etc.), “old men and women.” Yet, are we to assume that it was these aged pairs who were coming to be joined in the bond of matrimony? The phrase LʿŚWT ZRʿ, “to produce seed” (frag. 1, line 4), has its close parallel in the expression PRWT ZRʿ “fruition of seed,” used in a decidedly figurative fashion in the “Instruction concerning the Two Ways,” in 1QS 4:6–7.6 Part of this instruction is excerpted in our text (frag. 16) and it is therefore pertinent to cite the context in which it is found:

4 The Harvard University Library Catalogue of Hebrew Books lists an edition by Abraham and Raṣon Sadaqah, Sefer ha-Simḥah (Ḥolon, 1964). 5 Frags. 4, 22, 105, 106. 6 See P. Wernberg-Møller, The Manual of Discipline (Leiden, 1957), 79 n. 23; cf. the evaluation of H. Hübner, “Zölibat in Qumran?” NTS 17 (1971): 153–67 (158–61). For the spiritualized connotation of reproduction see Wis 3:13 (cited below) and I. Heinemann, Philons griechische und jüdische Bildung (Breslau, 1932), 242, who observes “daß die Zeugung fur Philon sehr häufig das Symbol geistiger Befruchtung ist.”

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These are the counsels of the spirit for the sons of truth in this world. And the visitation of all who walk in it shall be healing, great peace in a long life, and fruition of seed along with everlasting blessing and eternal joy in life without end, a crown of glory and a garment of majesty in unending light. 1QS 4:6–87

The epithet “Sons of Truth” is the male counterpart of the term BT ʾMT “Daughter of Truth,” found in fragment 2, line 3 of our text. If this is descriptive of the female partner to the marriage it would seem that she is portrayed as a mature person possessing the spiritual qualities considered vital for participation in the religious life of the community. Among these are listed “intelligence and understanding in the midst …” (line 4). The title ʾŠYŠY ṢDQ, “mature men of righteousness” (frag. 9, line 9; frag. 12), likewise denotes the moral and guiding role of the elders of the community. We note further that among the rewards associated with the way of truth is the gift of long life. The theme of longevity is found throughout our text, which refers repeatedly to elderly men and women. Baillet has properly pointed out that the word ʾashishim can be assumed to have the meaning “men mature in age,”8 but he has not raised the question as to what role these as well as the older zeqenim might be playing in a marriage ritual. In frag. 9, ʾashishim occurs four times: once counterposed to neʿarim (line 4); once in the epithet ʾashishe ṣedeq (line 9); once in ʾashishe qodesh qodashim (line 13) and once in association with ʾaḥim, “brothers” (line 11). The female counterpart to the latter is apparently ʾaḥayot (frag. 96). Paired with ʾashishim we have nashim (frag. 34). The juxtaposition of zeqenim and zeqenot appears several times. Fragment 24 has an alternation of blessings. First a man, called ʾish ha-hodot, “the man giving thanks,” extends a blessing to a woman for “long life amidst an eternal people.” Then the woman invokes a similar blessing for longevity upon the man. Baillet surmises that this is part of an exchange of vows between the bridegroom and his bride. If so, why does it take place “in the council of elderly men and women” (line 4)? In fragment 19, the elderly are joined by young men and maidens, evoking an image of the totality of the people as in Ps 148:12. Apparently, this assemblage is termed zeraʿ berakha, “seed of blessing.” In fragments 8 and 9, old and young together offer thanksgiving for the fruitfulness of the land and the flocks. It 7 Cf. G. Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls in English (Middlesex, 1975), 76. 8 DJD 7.84; cf. his initial report, “Débris de textes sur papyrus de la grotte 4 de Qumrân,” RB 71 (1964): 353–71 (354–55), where the word was taken to mean “cakes.”

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is in this context that we find the term teʿudat hah[odot. Baillet is inclined to take teʿudah as “une terme astronomique,” but this is hardly appropriate here. Rather, it is to be understood as in 1QSa 1:25, where it designates a general gathering of the congregation for deliberative purposes or in time of war. In our text, the people are gathered for the purpose of thanksgiving; hence the role of the ʾish ha-hodot. Summing up the available clues concerning the nature of the ritual described in our text: 1. It is held at a fixed time, which is a joyous occasion of thanksgiving for the fecundity of the land and the people. 2. It gives special prominence to the elderly. 3. It involves the participation of both men and women. The first two elements bring to mind the popular Sukkot celebration known as śimḥat bet ha-shoʾebah. Held during the night following the first day of Sukkot in the Temple courtyards, this joyous celebration at the end of the harvest season was marked by the lighting of torches, singing, and dancing. The tone of the festivities was set by men known for their pious deeds, who were clearly well on in years, as indicated in t. Sukkah 4:2: What did they say (in their songs)? “Happy is he who has not sinned, and whoever has sinned may he be forgiven.” Some said, “How fortunate that my youth has not put to shame my old age”; these were men of (good) deeds. Others said, “Fortunate are you, my old age, in that you atone for my youth”; these were the penitent. We gather from the special barrier erected in the Temple courtyard to prevent excessive levity that women were present at the celebration. Whether they took an active part in the festivities is not indicated. Since the bet ha-shoʾebah festival had a popular rather than biblical background, it is not surprising that it is not mentioned in the available Qumran writings. Nor do we have any other illustration of the active participation of women in any Qumran communal rites. 1QSa 1:4 refers to an assembly of the entire congregation of Israel, including women and children as in Deut 31:10– 12, to listen to a reading of the laws of the covenant. This assembly is, however, envisioned for the “latter days” and its character is one of admonition rather than rejoicing. The same text outlines the stages in the career of a young man brought up in the community, including his eligibility for marriage at the age of twenty. At that age, 1QSa 1:11 states: TQBL LHʿYD ʿLYW MŠPṬWT HTWRʾ [sic] WLHTYṢB

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BMŠMʿ MŠPṬYM. The original editor took this as qualifying the wife to testify about, and to supervise, the behavior of her husband: “Et alors (sa femme) sera qualifiée pour porter témoignage contre lui à propos des Commandements de la Loi, et pour assister à la promulgation des décisions.”9 However, we pointed out the implausibility of such an interpretation in the context of the passage and in view of the legal status of women in the Hellenistic age.10 Most subsequent translators have read the rule as pertaining to the married man rather than to his wife.11 The most interesting illustration of the participation of both women and the elderly in a joyous religious feast comes, significantly, from an offshoot of the Essene community described by Philo, the Therapeutae. On the eve of their major celebration, held “after seven sets of seven days,” the white-robed Therapeutae assembled for prayer in an atmosphere of cheerfulness. “The feast is shared by women also, most of them aged virgins” (Contempl. 68). Deference towards the aged (presbyteroi) is likewise displayed by the men in the order of reclining. As with the Essenes, seniority is measured by the years of adherence to the fraternal order. At the banquet, noted for its simplicity, men sit by themselves on the right and women on the left. After a discourse, the meal is served by young men who “give their services gladly like sons to their real fathers and mothers” (72). Then begins the sacred vigil (hiera pannychis). The men and women rise and form themselves into two choirs, each with its leader, singing hymns and dancing, in the manner of the Israelites after the crossing of the Red Sea. “Then when each choir has separately done its own part in the feast, having drunk as in the Bacchic rites of the strong wine of God’s love, they mix and both together become a single choir” (85). This mingling of the sexes is surprising in view of the strict separation observed by the Therapeutae at their Sabbath services. According to Philo, the joining of the choirs had its precedent in the days of Moses and Miriam when, “filled with ecstasy both men and women … sang hymns of thanksgiving to God their Savior.” Thus they continued till dawn. “When they see the sun rising they stretch their hands up to heaven and pray for bright days and knowledge of the truth” (89). There is some uncertainty with regard to the date of the Theraputae’s celebration. The fact that it followed “seven sets of seven days” led scholars to 9 10 11

D. Barthélemy, “28a. Règle de la Congrégation (1QSa),” in Qumran Cave I (ed. D. Barthélemy and J.T. Milik; DJD 1; Oxford, 1955), 108–18 (112). J.M. Baumgarten, “On the Testimony of Women in 1QSa,” JBL 76 (1957): 266–69 (also in Baumgarten, Studies, 183–86). So Vermes, Dead Sea Scrolls, 119.

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think of Pentecost, but we now know that the pentecontad calendar, which was familiar in Alexandria, embodied at least three sequences of fifty-day periods joining specific festivals of the summer harvest.12 There are indications that the pentecontad sequence was capable of being extended beyond the harvest season through the entire year.13 Fragment 9 of 4Q502 contains an allusion to “our land and all its produce” (line 6), but this does not suffice to determine the season of the celebration. Another hint is the repeated use of the word śimḥah, which one readily associates with Sukkot, the most joyous of the biblical festivals. The description of the occasion as Q]Ṣ ŚMḤH LHLL ŠMW derives from Ps 113:1 (HLLW ʾT ŠM YHWH), the opening of the Hallel pericope which was recited on each day of the Sukkot festival (m. Sukkah 4:8). Psalm 118, which concludes the Hallel, highlights the theme of thanksgiving (HWDW LYHWH) which provides the basis for the designation of the celebration as TʿWDT HH[WDWT, “thanksgiving gathering.” It is, moreover, noteworthy, that in frag. 99 the editor restores the word LWLBY[M, the standard mishnaic designation for the palm branches used on Sukkot. We have already referred to the role of the elders in the bet ha-shoʾebah festivities held during Sukkot in the Temple at Jerusalem.14 Despite the lack of evidence that the Qumran śimḥah was held on the same date as the feast of the Therapeutae, there is a salient affinity in the social settings of the two celebrations. Of prime significance is the participation of women. The Therapeutae women are described as “aged virgins” who avoided marriage and children because of “their ardent yearning for wisdom.” Their dedication to the contemplative life illustrates a sublimation of sexual desire which is analogous to that of the man whose romance with wisdom is portrayed in 11QPsa 21:11–17. Philo describes their asceticism as follows: Eager to have wisdom for their life-mate they have spurned the pleasures of the body and desire no mortal offspring but those immortal children which only the soul that is dear to God can bring to birth unaided because the Father has sown in her spiritual rays enabling her to behold the verities of wisdom. Contempl. 68

12 13 14

Y. Yadin, Megillat ha-Miqdash (3 vols.; Jerusalem, 1977 [in Hebrew]), 1:81–109. See the writer’s paper, “4QHalakah A 5, the Law of Ḥadash, and the Pentecontad Calendar,” JJS 27 (1976): 36–46 (also in his Studies, 131–42). M. Sukkah 4:4 records that the elderly, in order to avoid the crush of the crowds, used to deposit their palm branches in a chamber of the Temple when the first day of Sukkot coincided with the Sabbath. 11QTemple 42:13–14 refers to special sukkot erected in the outer Temple courtyard for the use of the elders and other dignitaries.

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The erotic metaphor is tinged with the solar mysticism found among the Essenes and in the Qumran writings.15 It reached its climactic expression at the moment of sunrise following the night vigil.16 That the glorification of celibacy and asceticism was not without its effects on Jewish women is known also from another Alexandrian source, the Wisdom of Solomon: For blessed is the barren woman who is undefiled, who has not entered into a sinful union; she will have fruit when God examines souls. Wis 3:13

The figurative use of “fruit” and the spiritualized conception of progeny need not be confined to Alexandria. We referred above to the nonliteral use of PRWT ZRʿ “fruition of seed” in 1QS 4:6–7. Even the expression PRY BṬN, “fruit of the womb,” found three times in our text, 4Q502, was taken figuratively as a designation for the disciples of the Teacher of Righteousness in a pesher on Ps 127:3.17 We know, moreover, that women who had never married belonged to the Qumran communities who dwelled in “camps.”18 Although the latter accepted family life “according to the order of the earth” (CD 7:6),19 they included among the categories deserving communal support “the old and infirm” as well as the “virgins without a protector” (CD 14:14–16). Solicitude for unattached women was also characteristic of the early Christian community. 1 Timothy 5:1–3 juxtaposes the treatment of women with that of elders: Do not rebuke an elder, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, older women (presbyterai) as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity. 15 16 17 18 19

For solar symbolism in the Qumran texts see my study, “The Heavenly Tribunal and the Personification of Ṣedeq in Jewish Apocalyptic,” ANRW 19.1 (1979): 219–39 [included in this volume]; cf. M. Smith, “Helios in Palestine,” Eretz-Israel 16 (1982): 199*–214*. It should be noted that the abovementioned śimḥat bet ha-shoʾebah also reached its climax at the moment of sunrise (m. Sukkah 5:4), but with a demonstrative disavowal of sun worship. This may point to a further link between this festival and that of the Therapeutae. “173. Commentary on Psalms (B),” in J.M. Allegro, Qumrân Cave 4.I (4Q158–4Q186) (DJD 5; Oxford, 1968), 51–53 (52). For the burials of women in the cemetery at Qumran, see R. de Vaux, Archaeology and the Dead Sea Scrolls (London, 1973), 47–48, 128–29. [Cf. R. Kugler and E. Chazon, “Women at Qumran: Introducing the Essays,” DSD 11 (2004): 167–73 (168–70).] [See, “Qumran–Essene Restraints on Marriage,” included in this volume.]

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The same source (1 Tim 5:9–15) provides evidence for a constituted order of widows. The integration of elders within the Christian community as if they were one’s parents is remarkably similar to Philo’s description of the Essenes: The elderly (presbytai), too, even if they are childless, are treated as parents of a not merely numerous but very filial family and regularly close their life with an exceedingly prosperous and comfortable old age, so many are those who give them precedence and honor as their due. Hypoth. 11.13

On the basis of 4Q502, we discern the striking resemblance in Essene and Christian social nomenclature. 1 Timothy speaks of two age categories, presbyteroi, “elders,” and neoteroi, “younger men,” corresponding to the zeqenim and ʾashishim of 4Q502. The stage of life of the ʾashishim is well defined by Philo when he declares: Thus no Essene is a mere child nor even a stripling or newly bearded, since the characters of such are unstable with a waywardness corresponding to the immaturity of their age, but full grown and already verging on old age. Hypoth. 11.320

In fragment 9, line 11 the ʾashishim are called ʾaḥim, equivalent to the term adelphoi in 1 Tim 5:1. We also have ʾaḥayot (frag. 96) corresponding to the female counterpart adelphai (1 Tim 5:2). The extant fragments of 4Q502 do not provide sufficient information about the status of these Qumran ʾaḥayot. But it would not be warranted to take their presence as necessarily incompatible with a celibate order. The history of Christian monasticism demonstrates that some women, no less than their male counterparts, were strongly affected by the idealization of virginity.21 Of Anthony, one of the most famous of the early monks, it is 20

21

Josephus, too, characterizes the Essenes as living to a great old age (makrobioi) because of the simplicity of their mode of life ( J.W. 2.151). The disabilities of old age are referred to in the Qumran texts. 1QSa 2:7 excludes the “old and tottering man unable to stand firm” from participation in the communal assemblies. CD 10:10 establishes for judges a retirement age of sixty in order to avoid the problems of senility. These provisions are, however, not indicative of a lack of respect for old age. See H. Leclercq, “Cénobitisme,” DACL 2:3047–3248 (3053–56); “Monasticism,” Encyclopædia Britannica 15:687–89; and C.F. Parvey, “The Theology and Leadership of Women in the New Testament,” and R.R. Ruether, “Misogynism and Virginal Feminism in the Fathers of the Church,” in Religion and Sexism: Images of Woman in the Jewish and Christian Traditions (ed. R.R. Ruether; New York, 1974), 117–49 and 150–83.

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related that when he embraced the ascetic life in the third century, he placed his sister in a nunnery.22 Curiously, the sister of each of the great cenobitical founders, Pachomius, Basil, and Benedict, was a nun and ruled a community of nuns according to an adaptation of her brother’s rule for monks. In these communities the sexes lived separated from one another, but there were also “spiritual marriages” in which female ascetics lived together with men, although both parties had taken the vow of continence.23 Many exegetes see such a form of syneisaktism reflected in the admonitions of Paul to the Corinthians (1 Cor 7:[36–38]). Among the Therapeutae, the aged virgins lived in the same community as the men, but there is no indication of any personal relationship between individual men and women. Two fragments of 4Q502 seem however, to allude to individual couples. Fragment 1 contains the words ʾishto, “his wife,” and raʿyato, “his companion,” which, as Baillet suggests, may be part of an allusion to Adam and Eve. Fragment 24 has an exchange of blessings for long life between a man and a woman. The editor takes this as part of a marriage ritual. However, the woman is described as standing “in the assembly of old men and old women,” and the blessings are likewise for long life “in the midst of the elders” and BTWK ʿM ʿWLMY[M, “in the midst of an eternal people.” The latter phrase is interestingly reminiscent of that found in Pliny’s characterization of the celibacy of the Essenes: Ita per saeculorum milia—incredibile dictum—gens aeterna est, in qua nemo nascitur. Nat. 5.73

In this way this people has lasted—incredibly—for thousands of generations, though no one is born within it. Pliny attributes the durability of the Essenes primarily to the influx of people “who were wearied of life.” Among these were presumably married couples who may, or may not, have had children.24 By entering a celibate community, such men and women accepted the ideals of asceticism without necessarily dissolving their marriages. Henceforth their personal relationship would be subordinated to the greater spiritual unity of the yaḥad. Other Essenes were unwilling to leave the continuity (diadochē) of their community to the uncertainties of recruitment from the outside. Procreation 22 23 24

Athanasius, Vita Antonii, 3 (NPNF2 4:196). H. Achelis, “Agapētæ,” ERE 1:177–80. That some of the Essene elders had previously had children is implied by Philo’s phraseology (cited above), κἂν εἰ τύχοιεν ἄκτεκνοι, “even if they happen to be childless” (Hypoth. 11.13).

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was for them, as for the majority of Jews, a prime function of life. They chose their wives on the basis of their likely fecundity. After describing these marrying Essenes, Josephus adds, “In the bath the women wear a dress, the men a loin cloth” ( J.W. 2.161), which we take as indicative of the participation of women in the maintenance of ritual purity. 1

Conclusion

In their announcement for DJD 7, the publishers refer to 4Q502 as a ritual “for the marriage of Essenes living outside the community.” Our examination of the extant fragments of this text does not bear out this description. References are found to an assemblage of men and women, but they are emphatically described as the elderly of the community. Youths and maidens are mentioned, but as among the Therapeutae, we may presume them to have been in a position of respectful subservience to their seniors. Even the allusions to individual couples focus on the blessings of peaceful old age and prolonged days, “in the midst of an eternal people.” These couples may have come from the ranks of the marrying Essenes or they may have been married before they joined the sect. In either case, what was celebrated was not their marriage, nor the offspring they may have had, but their place of honor as brothers and sisters of the community. In his judicious appraisal of the affinities between the Essenes and the Therapeutae, G. Vermes takes cognizance of some characteristics of the latter which appear to be without parallel.25 Among these he notes that “no mention is to be found in the Essene notices of women in the same celibate establishment.” Yet “the presence of male and female but unmarried Therapeutae does not strictly militate against the statement that the Essenes, apart from one of their branches, renounced marriage.” 4Q502 cannot decisively be attributed to either the celibate or the marrying Essenes. It does contain allusions to “man” and his “companion,” but these may refer to the primal couple or to marital ties existing before entrance into the celibate order. What is certain is the presence of aged women within the Qumran establishment. Just as the elderly virgins of the Therapeutae took part in the community’s religious life, so the Essenes had a female order of aged ʾaḥayot, the distaff counterpart of the mature ʾaḥim. In view of this new text, it appears unlikely that the history of Christian monasticism will in the future be studied without attention to these interesting Qumran antecedents. 25

E. Schürer, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (ed. G. Vermes et al.; 3 vols. in 4; Edinburgh, 1973–1987), 2:593–97.

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‫ ‬

‫‪Appendix‬‬

‫‪Text of some fragments of 4Q502, from DJD 7 (ed. M. Baillet, 1982), as reproduced‬‬ ‫‪in The Dead Sea Scrolls Reader, Part 5: Poetic and Liturgical Texts (ed. D.W. Parry and‬‬ ‫‪E. Tov; Leiden, 2005), 318–24.‬‬

‫‪Frag. 1‬‬

‫?‪top margin‬‬ ‫‪1‬‬ ‫‪2‬‬ ‫‪3‬‬ ‫‪4‬‬ ‫‪5‬‬ ‫‪6‬‬ ‫‪7‬‬ ‫‪8‬‬ ‫‪9‬‬ ‫‪10‬‬ ‫‪11‬‬

‫‪Group I‬‬ ‫‪Frag. 2‬‬

‫א[דם מכיר]‬ ‫[ ִם חוק אל]‬ ‫האדם [וִאשתו ל]‬ ‫[‪ֵ °[ ]°°‬א ֵלה ]‬ ‫[ ֵלעשות זרע]‬ ‫קו[דשים מודה ִל ִא ֵל]‬ ‫אשר חש]‬ ‫[‪ °‬א] [ ֵ‬ ‫[ ֵת לו בת אמת ומתהל]כת‬ ‫מהיֵות קוד]ש‬ ‫[לו ֵ‬ ‫[ רעייתו אש]ר־־־־־־־־־־־[לה שכל ובינה בתוך]‬ ‫י[חד להיות ִל]‬ ‫[רא אב‪]°[ ]°‬‬ ‫ומכפר]‬ ‫ִ‬ ‫[אל‬ ‫[‪ °‬עונת ש‪]°‬‬ ‫הזה ‪]°‬‬ ‫[ב ֵיוֵם ִ‬ ‫צד]ק‬ ‫[ם לבני ִ‬ ‫א[הרון ]‬ ‫[ל]‬

‫‪Frag. 3‬‬

‫ֵסיפ]כם‬ ‫[ ֵכהו ֵ‬ ‫[לחסר]‬ ‫[ ִתכי ֵנו ִֵה]‬

‫‪Frags. 6–10‬‬ ‫‪0a‬‬ ‫‪0b‬‬ ‫‪1‬‬ ‫‪2‬‬ ‫‪3‬‬ ‫‪4‬‬ ‫‪5‬‬ ‫‪6‬‬ ‫‪7‬‬ ‫‪8‬‬ ‫‪9‬‬ ‫‪10‬‬ ‫‪11‬‬ ‫‪12‬‬ ‫‪13‬‬ ‫‪14‬‬ ‫‪15‬‬ ‫‪16‬‬ ‫‪17‬‬ ‫‪18‬‬

‫[יֵש]ראל‬ ‫[הוד]ו‬ ‫[‪°‬ת יחד ]‬

‫[שים]‬ ‫וא]מר‬ ‫וענה ֵ‬ ‫ֵ‬ ‫יברך את [ ֵאל ישראל‬ ‫ק[ ֵץ שמחה להלל שמו‬ ‫]ברוך אל ישראל אשר‬ ‫[ אשישיהם ונערים‬ ‫[‪]°‬‬ ‫[‪°‬ה במקנינו ומרמש‬ ‫ותם ]כ[ ֵבשים וע]זים‬ ‫[‪ִ °‬‬ ‫[ ש ה]‬ ‫והעוף] המעופף בשמי[נֵו ואדמתנו וכול יבולה‬ ‫ֵ‬ ‫[שבות]־־־־־־־־־רו[ ֵמש ֵב ֵצלתנו‬ ‫[ ֵעם ומי תהומיה כולנִ וִ‬ ‫וכו[ל פרי עצה ומימינ ֵו]‬ ‫[יֵהם ]‬ ‫]מברכי[ם שם אל ישראל ֵא]שר נתן לנו מ[וֵעד לשמחתנו וגם‬ ‫[ בתוך אשישי צדק‬ ‫[‪[ ]°‬ש תעודת הה]ודות‬ ‫[‪°‬ה מודה לאל ומשתבח‬ ‫[‪ °‬בשלום ל‪]°‬‬ ‫[נֵים אחים לי אשישים‬ ‫מב[רכים בתוכנו‬ ‫[ ִאשישי ]קו[דש קודשים‬ ‫[קודש ]‬ ‫מברך [את אל ישראל ] [ה‬ ‫ה[יום אני ]‬ ‫[לם‬ ‫א[שישי ד]עת־־־־־־־־־־־־־־[וֵדו כב]‬ ‫להיות‬ ‫ֵ‬ ‫[‬ ‫שמ[ ֵחנו בתע]ודת‬ ‫[וֵא‪]°‬‬ ‫[ים‬ ‫[ ֵמ ֵפ ֵנ ֵי] [ ֵל]‬ ‫[ ֵא‪°‬ל‬

‫‪PART 3: PHARISEES AND SADDUCEES, ESSENES, AND QUMRAN‬‬

‫‪1‬‬ ‫‪2‬‬ ‫‪3‬‬ ‫‪4‬‬

‫‪108‬‬

‫‪Frag. 16‬‬ ‫‪Parallel: 1QS IV 4–6‬‬

‫‪4‬‬ ‫[מעשה ]‬ ‫‪5‬‬ ‫[חסדים ע]ל‬ ‫‪6‬‬ ‫בער ִמת ]‬ ‫ִ‬ ‫לכת‬ ‫והצנ[ע ִ‬ ‫ֵל]‬ ‫תב[ ֵל] ופקו[ ֵד ֵת ֵכו ֵ‬

‫‪B. LITURGICAL TEXTS‬‬

‫‪Frag. 19‬‬ ‫‪1‬‬

‫וישב עמ ֵו בסוד ֵק]דושים‬ ‫ֵ‬ ‫זרע ֵב ֵרכה זקנים וזק]נות‬ ‫ִובתולות נערים ונע]רות‬ ‫עם כול ֵנ ֵו יחד ואני ִת]רנן לשוני‬ ‫ואח]ר [ידברו אנשי ]‬ ‫ֵאמרו ברוך] א[ל] ישראל אשר‬ ‫]וענו [ו ֵ‬ ‫] ע[וֵונתם ֵי]‬ ‫[‪]°°‬‬ ‫]‬

‫‪1‬‬

‫מועד ֵי]‬ ‫ֵ‬ ‫[‪ֵ [ ]°°[ ]°‬כול‬ ‫[ ֵהאיֵשה הו ִִדות‬ ‫עזר]‬ ‫[ברוך אל ישראל אשר ֵ‬ ‫הר[ ֵבוֵת חיי ֵֵך בתוך עם עולמי]ם‬ ‫ֵק ֵנ ֵו]ת‬ ‫עמדה בסוד זקנ ִי]ם[ ז ֵ‬ ‫ו[ ִ‬ ‫ימיכה בשלום ֵו]‬ ‫ִ‬ ‫[‬ ‫ב[ ֵתו ֵֵך זק]נים‬

‫‪2‬‬ ‫‪3‬‬ ‫‪4‬‬ ‫‪5‬‬ ‫‪6‬‬ ‫‪7‬‬ ‫‪8‬‬

‫[‬ ‫בחורים[‬ ‫[‬ ‫[‬ ‫[‬ ‫[‬ ‫[‬ ‫[‬ ‫‪Frag. 24‬‬

‫‪2‬‬ ‫‪3‬‬ ‫‪4‬‬ ‫‪5‬‬ ‫‪6‬‬

Chapter 7

The Qumran–Essene Restraints on Marriage The* fact that papers on celibacy1 continue to find their place on the agenda of Qumran colloquia is, I think, not only a reflection of the inherent interest in a social phenomenon widely held to be alien to mainstream Judaism, but also of the continuing uncertainty as to whether celibacy was in fact practiced at Qumran. Even for those scholars who deem the identification of the Qumran community with the Essenes to be a well-founded historical premise, the lack of congruity on the subject of marriage still poses a problem. Ancient writers are unanimous in depicting the rejection of marriage as one of the salient characteristics of Essene society, although, as Josephus informs us, there was a subgroup of Essenes who were unwilling to give up the propagation of the race as the “chief function of life” ( J.W. 2.160). In the Qumran writings, by contrast, no such bifurcation on this fundamental issue has so far been detected. The Damascus Document (CD) as well as the Temple Scroll (11QTemple) highlight sectarian rules concerning marriage, and in the Messianic Rule (1QSa [1:10]) matrimony is assumed to be a normal milepost in the maturation of a young man in the community of Israel. If anyone were inclined to lend credence to the misogyny attributed by Philo and Josephus to the Essenes, we now have a Cave 4 text (4Q502) which lauds women possessing the qualities of “intelligence and understanding” as

* Original publication: “The Qumran–Essene Restraints on Marriage,” in Archaeology and History in the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. L.H. Schiffman; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1990), 13–24. Republished with the kind permission of the original publisher. 1 H. Braun, Spätjüdisch-häretischer und frühchristlicher Radikalismus: Jesus von Nazareth und die essenische Qumransekte (2 vols.; Tübingen, 1957), 1:40; idem, Qumran und das Neue Testament (2 vols.; Tübingen, 1966), 1:40–41, 192–93; A. Isaksson, Marriage and Ministry in the New Temple (Lund, 1965), 45–65; H. Hübner, “Zölibat in Qumran?” NTS 17 (1970/71): 153–67; A. Guillaumont, “A propos du célibat des Esséniens,” in Hommages à André Dupont-Sommer (Paris, 1971), 395–404; G. Vermes, “The Impact of the Dead Sea Scrolls on the Study of the New Testament,” JJS 27 (1976): 107–16; J. Coppens, “Le célibat essénien,” in Qumrân: Sa piété, sa théologie et son milieu (ed. M. Delcor; Paris, Leuven, 1978), 295–303; N. Golb, “The Problem of the Origin and Identification of the Dead Sea Scrolls,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 124 (1980): 1–21; R.T. Beckwith, “The Earliest Enoch Literature and its Calendar,” RevQ 10 (1979–1981): 365–403 (391–93); L.H. Schiffman, Sectarian Law in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Courts, Testimony, and the Penal Code (Chico, Calif., 1983), 13, 214–15; P.R. Davies, Behind the Essenes (Atlanta, 1987), 73–85.

© Joseph M. Baumgarten, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004505087_009

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PART 3: PHARISEES AND SADDUCEES, ESSENES, AND QUMRAN

“daughters of truth” and “sisters” within the yaḥad.2 Although we have elsewhere questioned the editor’s designation of the joyous celebration in this text as a “Rituel de mariage,”3 it does demonstrate that women had an integral role in the communal life of the Qumran sect. There is thus no longer any need to offer forced explanations for the burials of women and children in the Qumran cemetery. Moreover, since 4Q502 alludes positively to ʾDM WʾŠTW, “a man and his wife,” and expresses thankfulness for the “seed of blessing” seen in the joining of young and old of both sexes, we may infer that Qumran ideology had a great deal more tolerance for the affirmation of family life characteristic of rabbinic Judaism than was previously thought. Yet the ultimate emergence of Essene celibacy can hardly be dismissed. Nor can one ignore the multiple affinities both in organizational structure and in details of religious practice between the Essenes and the Qumranites.4 These affinities are becoming increasingly evident as the study of the Qumran literature progresses. Various scholars have already offered a spectrum of theological hypotheses, not all equally persuasive, to account for the emergence of celibacy from the perspectives of sectarian thought. We shall limit ourselves here to two circumscribed objectives. We should determine first, whether Qumran laws regarding marriage may have contributed to a tendency toward sexual abstinence, and, second, whether there is any textual evidence that celibacy was actually practiced by any part of the Qumran community. We note first that Qumran writings reflect a markedly idealistic view of the marital relationship. It required full maturity on the part of the husband, “when he knows good and evil” (1QSa 1:11). While rabbinic tradition viewed the age of twenty as a terminus ante quem for marriage, the sect took it to be the minimum requirement.5 We do not know whether there were corresponding age requirements for the wife, but in the light of 4Q502 we may assume that a certain level of moral maturity was considered essential. 2 See “502. Rituel de mariage,” in Qumrân Grotte 4.III (4Q482–4Q520) (ed. M. Baillet; DJD 7; Oxford, 1982), 81–105. 3 See J.M. Baumgarten, “4Q502, Marriage or Golden Age Ritual?” JJS 34 (1983): 125–35 [included in this volume]. 4 Note, for example, the similar avoidance of oil as a medium for ritual defilement (see on this, J.M. Baumgarten, “The Essene Avoidance of Oil and the Laws of Purity,” RevQ 6 [1967–1969]: 183–92); the similar ban on commercial transactions among brethren of the order (see on this, J.M. Baumgarten, “The ‘Sons of Dawn’ in CDC 13:14–15 and the Ban on Commerce among the Essenes,” IEJ 33 [1983]: 81–85 [included in this volume]); the similar rules about spitting (Josephus, J.W. 2.147, 1QS 7:13); and the exclusion of latrines from the city of Jerusalem (Y. Yadin, The Temple Scroll [3 vols.; Jerusalem, 1977–1983], 1:398–400). [See also the discussion in “Tannaitic Halakhah and Qumran,” above, p. 85.] 5 Cf. b. Qidd 29b with 1QSa 1:10–11.

The Qumran–Essene Restraints on Marriage

111

There has been a great deal of scholarly debate about the denunciation of polygamy found in CD 4:20–21, “they take two women in their lifetime,” which can be taken to apply to remarriage after divorce as well.6 One of the questions which should have been posed but has not, to my knowledge, is how such restrictions would have been reconciled by the Qumran exegetes with Pentateuchal laws which explicitly condone both polygamy and divorce. The whole subject of Qumran marriage halakhah must now be reassessed in the light of the Temple Scroll. The author of the Temple Scroll was fully aware of the Torah’s view of the legality of polygamy and remarriage after divorce. This can be inferred from the reference in 11QTemple 54:4 to the “vow of a widow or a divorced woman” (Num 30:10), and the beginning of 11QTemple 64 which, though only partially preserved, cites the provisions in Deut 21:15 concerning a man who has two wives. Yet in elaborating the law of the king, the Temple Scroll provides that “he shall not take in addition to her [his first wife] another wife, for she alone shall be with him all the days of her life; and if she dies, he shall take for himself another from his father’s house” (11QTemple 57:17–19). The only logical way to account for this discrepancy is to assume that the king as a role model for moral behavior was subject to supererogatory restrictions limiting him to one wife during her lifetime; divorcing her would not free him, as it would a commoner, to marry another. This two-tiered approach to halakhah is manifested elsewhere in the Temple Scroll in the sphere of ritual purity; here a distinction is made between ordinary men and those who aspire to a higher level of purity.7 What we have noted is, of course, directly pertinent to the proper understanding of the marriage restrictions in the Damascus Document. Here the ban on polygamy and by extension the prohibition of remarriage after divorce applicable to the king (nasiʾ) is held up as a model of the higher moral standard in marriage. According to this standard, marriage is an exclusive covenant between one man and one woman “in their lifetime.” It is called the “foundation of creation,” derived from the words in Gen 1:27, “male and female He created them.” The further consequence drawn in the Gospels, that what God has

6 For an evaluation of earlier literature, see J.A. Fitzmyer, S.J., “Divorce among First-Century Palestinian Jews,” Eretz Israel 14 (1978): 103*–10*; who, however, does not take into account the implied legality of divorce in 11QTemple 54:4. 7 See 11QTemple 49:7–10: “and (covered) earthen vessels shall be unclean, and all that is in them shall be unclean for every clean man, and the open (vessels) shall be unclean for every man of Israel,” and Yadin’s discussion, Temple Scroll, 1:327.

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joined together cannot by man be put asunder,8 is not explicitly stated in the Damascus Document, but we may infer from the Temple Scroll that the king as well as any morally scrupulous adherent of the sect could not remarry while his first spouse was still living. Needless to say, this lends a dimension of fateful finality to the one and only choice of a partner in matrimony. It is worth noting in connection with this that the very similar views attributed to Jesus in the Gospels are followed by the inference of the disciples that “if such be the case of a man with his wife, it is not expedient to marry” (Matt 19:10).9 Prudence would dictate the avoidance of commitments which, once entered into, were incapable of being broken. Could it not well be that this consideration already led some Qumranites to weigh their desire for posterity against the fateful consequences of an inauspicious union? Certainly, in the case of the marrying Essenes, scruples such as these appear to have played a major role. Although they saw propagation as the chief function of life, Josephus ( J.W. 2.161) reports: They give their wives, however, a three years’ probation, and only marry them after they have by three periods of purification given proof of fecundity. They have no intercourse with them during pregnancy, thus showing that their motive in marrying is not self-indulgence but the procreation of children. The three periods of purification, that is, three menstrual cycles, seem to have a fairly clear and defined purpose: to demonstrate the regularity of the menses. Without such regularity the mandatory separation during the period of impurity would make marital life, as well as procreation, difficult, if not impossible.10 8

9

10

Matt 19:6; Mk 10:9; cf. 1 Cor 7:10. As in CD, the stress in the NT is not so much on the illegality of divorce as on the sin of remarriage, which is seen as tantamount to adultery. In Matt 19:9 the validity of divorce is explicitly recognized by the insertion of the exception, “unless it be for fornication.” The inference regarding the inexpediency of marriage is found only in Matthew, which allows the exception of divorce on the grounds of fornication. It would, however, seem to follow a fortiori from the absolute rejection of divorce in Mark. Its place in Matthew derives perhaps from the link with the word aitia, “cause,” used in the question posed to Jesus: “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any aitia?” (Matt 19:3). From this, it is inferred that if fornication is the only valid aitia for divorce, it is not prudent to marry. Prof. M. Smith, however, has privately suggested that the disciples’ question concerning the inexpediency of marriage in Matthew is intended to bring out the moderating conclusion that this teaching is not for all men (Matt 19:11). Philo, by contrast, was inclined to be lenient with those who persisted in a marriage which had proven to be unfruitful: “Those who marry maidens in ignorance at the time of their

The Qumran–Essene Restraints on Marriage

113

This may be illustrated by the ruling of Rabbi Meir that a woman who has no regular period is forbidden to her husband.11 But what was the nature of the three years’ premarital probation?12 The most plausible premise is that here we are dealing not with anything physical, but with a demonstration of character. The three-year probation may be presumed to be analogous to the probationary period of a novice before his full admission into the Essene order. This is indicated not only by the same time interval, but by the identical verb dokimazō employed by Josephus to denote the demonstration of character compatible with the discipline of the order.13 We now know from 4Q502 that women, too, were evaluated with regard to the moral traits required for participation in the religious life of the yaḥad. Moreover, while men who were found unsuitable could be expelled from the community, what was to be done with a wife found similarly incompatible, given the aforementioned limitations on divorce and remarriage? The need for careful and prudent investigation of their wives on the part of the marrying Essenes thus becomes readily understandable in the light of Qumran matrimonial law. We saw above that procreation was held by the Essenes to be the only legitimate justification for marital life. Josephus illustrates this by alluding to their avoidance of intercourse during pregnancy. J.H. Charlesworth has drawn attention, moreover, to Syriac accounts in which the Essenes are said to have separated from their wives permanently once they became pregnant.14 It is difficult to know whether these accounts derive from reliable independent sources. However, in principle the restriction of marital relations during pregnancy should apply with equal force to men and women past their childbearing years. This would be directly pertinent to the stage of life characteristic of most Essenes.

11 12

13 14

capacity or incapacity for successful motherhood, and later refuse to dismiss them, when prolonged childlessness shows them to be barren, deserve our pardon” (Special Laws 3.35; cf. b. Yebam. 64a). B. Nid. 12b. Rabbinic halakhah likewise took threefold recurrence of the menses after a fixed interval as valid indication of regularity (weset). The hypothesis that this was a kind of trial marriage seems remote in the light of the trend of Qumran morality. The existence of trial marriages even in Ptolemaic Egypt is considered doubtful (see L. Mitteis and U. Wilcken, Grundzüge und Chrestomathie der Papyruskunde [2 vols.; Leipzig, 1912], 2:200–203). μετὰ γὰρ τὴν τῆς καρτερίας ἐπίδειξιν δυσὶν ἄλλοις ἔτεσιν τὸ ἦθος δοκιμάζεται, “after this exhibition of endurance, his character is tested for two years more” ( J.W. 2.138). J.H. Charlesworth, “The Origin and Subsequent History of the Authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Four Transitional Phases among the Qumran Essenes,” RevQ 10 (1979–1981): 213–33 (216–17), who cites S.P. Brock’s study of the account by Dionysios Bar Salibi.

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PART 3: PHARISEES AND SADDUCEES, ESSENES, AND QUMRAN

Both Philo and Josephus ( J.W. 2.151) underline the advanced years of the Essenes. The former declares (Hypoth. 11.3): No Essene is a mere child nor even a stripling or newly bearded, since the characters of such are unstable with a waywardness corresponding to the immaturity of their age, but full grown and already verging on old age. We have recently noted the confirmation of this in 4Q502, where the men and women of the yaḥad are repeatedly referred to as zeqenim and zeqenot or alternatively ʾashishim and nashim.15 One fragment preserves an intriguing exchange of blessings between a man and a woman in the presence of an assemblage of zeqenim and zeqenot. The man wishes the woman “long life amidst an eternal people” (ʿam ʿolamim), while she prays that he may be blessed likewise with peaceful longevity. The editor took this to be an exchange of vows between a bridegroom and his bride. However, the setting and the nature of the blessings suggest rather an already married couple of golden age contemplating their future within the Qumran yaḥad. One might in fact surmise that at a certain stage in their lives the mature men and women of Qumran, who may or may not have had children, publicly announced their resolve to henceforth live in celibacy, subordinating their personal relationship to the greater unity of the community. It is of such Essene elders that Philo wrote (Hypoth. 11.13): The elderly, too, even if they happen to be childless, are treated as parents of a not merely numerous but very filial family and regularly close their life with an exceedingly prosperous and comfortable old age, so many are those who give them precedence and honour as their due. The abovementioned blessing for long life “in the midst of an eternal people” is an eloquent expression of the Qumran desire for permanence and continuity. This theme is not confined to 4Q502; it is echoed in the concern about endurance and posterity articulated in other Qumran writings. A 4Q pesher applies the promise of Ps 37:18 that the inheritance of the temimim will endure forever, “to the penitents of the desert who shall live for a thousand generations … to them shall belong all the inheritance of Adam and to their seed forever.”16 Closely parallel to this is the assurance in the Hodayot, “that they 15 16

Baumgarten, “4Q502, Marriage or Golden Age Ritual?” 4Q171 1, 3–4 iii 1–2; see “171. Commentary on Psalms (A),” in Qumrân Cave 4.I (4Q158–4Q186) (ed. J.M. Allegro; DJD 5; Oxford, 1968), 42–50 (44).

The Qumran–Essene Restraints on Marriage

115

may serve Thee faithfully and that their seed may be before Thee forever…. Thou wilt cause them to inherit all the glory of Adam and abundance of days” (1QH 17:3–15). The term “seed” is capable of being taken concretely to refer to an abundance of offspring, though it is used in a decidedly figurative fashion17 in the catechism concerning the two ways in 1QS 4:6–8: These are the counsels of the spirit for the sons of truth in this world. And the visitation of all who walk in it shall be healing, great peace in a long life, and fruitfulness of seed (PRWT ZRʿ), along with everlasting blessing and eternal joy in life without end, a crown of glory and a garment of majesty in unending light. There is, moreover, one highly significant passage in the Damascus Document in which the assurance of continuity appears counterposed to the normal pattern of family life. CD 6:11–7:6 contains an extended list of duties incumbent upon adherents of the sect, identified as “they that walk in these in the perfection of holiness.” They are given the promise that “the covenant of God shall stand faithfully with them to keep them alive for thousands of generations” (7:6; 19:20). This is immediately followed by the provision “And if they dwell in camps according to the order (serekh) of the land and take wives and beget children, they shall walk according to the Law” (7:6–7). Students of the literary structure of the Damascus Document have not succeeded in elucidating the transition from the promise to the provision which follows it. Denis raises the question of whether both are addressed to the same group, but provides no answer.18 Maier observes, “Der kurze Absatz ist ohne Zusammenhang.”19 Murphy-O’Connor describes it as “a floating fragment” which drifted into the text because of vague verbal association.20 Cothenet notes the contrast 17

18 19

20

For the spiritualized connotation of “fruit” see Wis 3:13; and I. Heinemann, Philons griechische und judische Bildung (Breslau, 1932), 242, who observes “daß die Zeugung für Philon sehr häufig das Symbol geistiger Befruchtung ist.” Even the expression PRY BṬN, “fruit of the womb,” is taken figuratively for the influence of the Teacher of Righteousness in the pesher on Ps 127:3; see “173. Commentary on Psalms (B),” in J.M. Allegro, Qumrân Cave 4.I (4Q158–4Q186) (DJD 5; Oxford, 1968), 51–53 (52). A.M. Denis, Les thèmes de connaissance dans le Document de Damas (Louvain, 1967), 137. J. Maier, Die Texte vom Toten Meer (2 vols.; Munich, 1960), 2:52. It is noteworthy that Maier considered the possibility that the provision was intended as a polemic against celibacy. He preferred, however, to take it as simply stressing observance of the Law. We would add that the injunction, “they shall walk according to the Law,” refers not only to the men, but to their wives and children. J. Murphy-O’Connor, “A Literary Analysis of Damascus Document VI,2–VIII,3,” RB 78 (1971): 210–32 (222).

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between the apodictic form of the preceding prescriptions and the conditional formulation of the clause about those who marry and beget children, but concludes that the latter must be displaced.21 The place of this clause is, however, confirmed by both manuscripts A and B of the text. The only valid conclusion to be drawn from all this is that the editor of CD placed this provision quite deliberately. Its adversative formulation,22 beginning with the conditional “and if,” indicates that the previously mentioned aspirants to perfect holiness23 did not dwell in scattered dwelling places in the conventional manner of the land, did not take wives, and did not beget children. Instead they resolved “to keep apart from the Children of the Pit” and to live in close association with other brethren. Yet they too were given the assurance “that they shall live for thousands of generations,” for God “keeps the covenant [i.e. the covenant of the community] and the grace to those who love him” (Deut 7:9). The posterity of the celibates within the yaḥad was vouchsafed through the continuity of the ʿam ʿolamim, the eternal community. 21

É. Cothenet, “Le Document de Damas,” in Les textes de Qumrân (ed. J. Carmignac et al.; 2 vols.; Paris, 1961–1963), 2:131–204 (171 n. 8). 22 On the adversative use of we-ʾim, cf. CD 9:20; 13:3; and see T. Thorion-Vardi, “Die adversativen Konjunktionen in der Qumran-Literatur,” RevQ 11 (1982–1984): 571–77 (576–77). 23 The fraternal duties of the Men of Perfect Holiness toward each other are underlined by a number of precepts derived from the Holiness Code in Leviticus 17–26: “Let each man love his brother as himself” (1QS 6:20; Lev 19:18); “Let each man reprove his brother according to the commandment, and let no one bear a grudge from one day to the next” (1QS 7:2–3; Lev 19:17–18); cf. Murphy-O’Connor, “A Literary Analysis,” 210–16. The precept, “Let no one sin against his flesh-kin, by refraining from lust according to the statute” (7:1–2) derives from the same sense of “brotherliness” and is most likely directed against homosexual tendencies which may manifest themselves in a celibate order (cf. the penalties for indecent exposure in 1QS 7:12–14). Some commentators have erroneously taken the precept to refer to incestuous marriages; but comparison with CD 8:6: WSNʾ ʾYŠ ʾT RʿHW WYTʿLMW ʾYŠ BŠʾR BSRW, “hating each man his neighbor and despising each man the kin of his flesh,” shows clearly the metaphorical use of ŠʾR BSRW to describe the presence or absence of a sense of fraternity. The congregation of the Men of Perfect Holiness is further described in CD 20:2–8. Its more rigorous rules of discipline were the same as those specified for the Men of Perfect Holiness in 1QS 8:20–27, as exemplified by permanent expulsion for transgressions of Torah laws (cf. Schiffman, Sectarian Law, 170–71). That those who followed the “perfection of way” (TMYM DRK) constituted an elite element within the community is likewise indicated in 1QS 8:10: “When these have been established in the foundation of the community for two years in perfection of way with no blemish, they shall be set apart as holy within the council of the men of the community.” It may be noted that the amomoi (= temimim) are described in Rev 14:5 as “they who have not defiled themselves with women, for they are virgins.” The disparagement of family life reached its extreme in Christian Gnosticism which held the abandonment of “filthy intercourse” to be necessary in order to become “holy temples” (Acts of Thomas 8).

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It is remarkable to find this promise echoed not only in substance but also verbally in the dramatic words of Pliny (Nat. Hist. 5.17), as he marveled at the endurance of the Essene celibates: Ita per saeculorum milia—incredibile dictu—gens aeterna est, in qua nemo nascitur. Tam fecunda illis aliorum vita paenitentia est. In this way this people24 has lasted—incredibly—for thousands of generations, though no one is born within it. So fruitful for them is the penitence for life which others feel. We note the striking verbal parallels: saeculorum milia25 = ʾLP DWR gens aeterna = ʿM ʿWLMYM The word fecunda may be compared with PRWT ZRʿ, “fruitfulness of seed,” also used metaphorically in 1QS 4:6–7, while paenentia brings to mind the frequently used sectarian epithet ŠBY PŠʿ. Could Pliny, who used a multitude of written and oral sources for the geographical portions of his Natural History, have had access to Essene writings? We leave it to others to explore this question further. Returning to the abovementioned passage in the Damascus Document, if our interpretation is valid, we have here an important attestation in a Qumran source of the bifurcation in the practice of celibacy among the Essenes. The writer refers to sectarians who followed the normal way of life, residing in various camps, marrying and having children; but he also knew of those who never married or at a late stage in life renounced the continuation of marital relations because they aspired to the “perfection of holiness.”

24

25

It is noteworthy that Pliny refers to the Essenes as a gens, a “clan” or “people.” This usage is quite possibly also the one intended by Josephus when he ascribes to the marrying Essenes the concern that those who fail to do so would cause the disappearance of their genos: ἐκλιπεῖν ἂν τὸ γένος τάχιστα ( J.W. 2.160). This threat to their own posterity (diadochē) would have been of more immediate concern to them than the fear that the “whole race would very quickly die out.” As far as we could determine, this phrase is used only once by Pliny and is not common in classical Latin.

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The conflict between marital life and the ideal of holiness has already been explored by many scholars.26 Aside from the tendency toward a dualistic ethic which contrasts spirit and flesh,27 the most salient element is the Qumran concern with ritual purity. Here the Temple Scroll has helped to confirm and systematize the halakhic rules scattered in other Qumran texts. The ban on sexual relations in the “city of the Sanctuary” was clearly intended for all of Jerusalem.28 While pentateuchal law (Lev 15:18) limits the period of defilement after intercourse to one day, 11QTemple 45 extends it to three days. The model for such severe restriction was found in the preparations for the revelation at Sinai.29 However, while other exegetes viewed this as a singular non normative requirement, the Qumranites adopted it as their standard. We may suppose that this had something to do with their belief in the revelation of new insights into the law as an ongoing process,30 thus requiring a perpetual state of purity. In an illuminating study of Essene celibacy, Antoine Guillaumont31 has directed attention to the tradition, already found in Philo, that Moses renounced all conjugal relations from the time that he began to prophesy and act as God’s messenger. This theme is echoed in the targumim (Num 12:1–2) and is also found in Midrash Rabbah (Exod 34:1). Interestingly, this Jewish tradition was cited by Aphraates, the Syrian homilist of the fourth century, in his defense against Jewish critics of the Christian celibates, called “sons of the covenant,” who dedicated themselves to the attainment of qaddishuta‌ʾ, “holiness.”32 One wonders if Aphraates had any knowledge of the Qumran Covenanters, who centuries earlier were similarly designated ʾaneshe tĕmim qodesh and apparently took the same paradigm of the prophet as a model for permanent sexual abstinence. The foregoing discussion suggests that celibacy at Qumran was never made into a universal norm.33 It was confined to those who emulated a “perfection of holiness” requiring uninterrupted purity, and even for them perhaps only in the later stages of their lives. This would account for the fact that the Messianic 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

The conflict between marriage and the requirements of full koinōnia was already stressed by Philo, Hypothetica 11.14. Cf. 1QHa 1:21–22; 3:21; 4:29–31; and D. Flusser, “The Dead Sea Sect and Pre-Pauline Christianity,” in Aspects of the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. C. Rabin and Y. Yadin; Jerusalem, 1958), 215–66 (252–63). Cf. CD 12:1–2 and Yadin, Temple Scroll, 1:288–89. Exod 19:15 and Yadin, Temple Scroll, 1:289. Cf. J.M. Baumgarten, Studies, 13–35. A. Guillaumont, “A propos du célibat des Esséniens.” Ibid., 396. In this respect there is a similarity to the circumscribed view of celibacy in Matt 19:11.

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Rule, in describing the practices of Israel at large, assumes that marriage would continue to be the “order of the land” [see 1QSa 1:4, 10]. It was only among the Therapeutae, the contemplative offshoot of the Essene brotherhood, that the renunciation of sexual life was turned into a philosophical ideal.34 Thus, Philo describes their aged virgins (Contempl. 68): Eager to have wisdom for their life-mate, they have spurned the pleasures of the body and desire no mortal offspring but those immortal children which only the soul that is dear to God can bring to birth unaided, because the Father has sown in her spiritual rays enabling her to behold the verities of wisdom. 34

Cf. Baumgarten, “4Q502, Marriage or Golden Age Ritual?” 130–33 [see above, 101–3].

Chapter 8

The Pharisaic–Sadducean Controversies about Purity and the Qumran Texts In* his recent publication of the Temple Scroll (11QTemple), Y. Yadin cites G. Alon’s discernment in rabbinic sources of two conflicting tendencies with regard to the applicability of the laws of ritual purity: (1) the approach which limited ritual purity primarily to the sphere of the Temple and the priesthood, taken as characteristic of the Sadducees; (2) the pervasive concept of purity as applicable to the laity as well as the priesthood and embracing all facets of life, espoused by the Essenes.1 The Qumran literature, which a considerable body of scholarly opinion ascribes to the Essenes, offers ample illustrations of the centrality of ritual purity in the life of the sect, despite the religious conflicts which separated it from the Jerusalem temple. This fact is further underlined by 11QTemple, which broadens the restrictions applicable to the sanctuary to include the entire “city of the sanctuary” and ordains elaborate purity rules for all of Israel. Nevertheless, while the Essenes may be viewed as antithetical to the Sadducees with regard to the scope of ritual purity, this need not necessarily hold true for their interpretation of the laws governing it. Our knowledge of the Qumran law of ṭohorah, till now limited to the legislative section of the Damascus Document and hampered by the unavailability of the related texts from Cave 4,2 has been considerably augmented by 11QTemple. We should particularly like to inquire whether it may now be possible to determine the position of the sect on those halakhic aspects of purity concerning which controversies between Pharisees and Sadducees are recorded in tannaitic sources.

* Original publication: “The Pharisaic–Sadducean Controversies about Purity and the Qumran Texts,” JJS 31 (1980): 157–70. Republished with the permission of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. 1 Y. Yadin, The Temple Scroll (3 vols.; Jerusalem, 1977, 1:215 [in Hebrew]); G. Alon, Meḥqarim betoledot yisra‌ʾel (2 vols.; Tel Aviv, 1967), 1:148–76. 2 J.T. Milik, Ten Years of Discovery in the Wilderness of Judaea (Naperville, 1959), 151–52; idem., “Milki-ṣedeq et Milki-rešaʿ dans les anciens écrits juifs et chrétiens,” JJS 23 (1972): 95–144 (129).

© Joseph M. Baumgarten, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004505087_010

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Ṭebul Yom

One of the most elaborate rites of purification found in Scripture was that involving the ashes of the red heifer (Numbers 19). Since these ashes were essential for the waters used to cleanse those defiled by contact with the dead, extreme care was taken to assure the purity of all who took part in their preparation. The Sadducees, according to Mishnah and Tosefta Parah, required for the priest performing these rites a waiting period until sundown following any immersion to remove possible impurity. The Pharisees held that for the purposes of this sacrifice, performed outside the precincts of the Temple, a Ṭebul Yom, one who had bathed but had not waited until evening, was considered pure. To counteract the Sadducean view, the Pharisees, presumably when they had control of the Temple, were wont to deliberately defile the High Priest, then have him bathe and prepare the ashes without waiting for sundown.3 The significance of this apparently perverse manipulation of one of the central rites of purification has been effectively presented by Finkelstein in his study on the Pharisees.4 Although levitical law repeatedly insists on sundown as a necessary sequel to immersion,5 the Pharisees maintained that this was requisite only for the consumption of sacrifices or tĕrûmâ.6 The general standard of purity maintained by Ḥaberim at their meals and by those who handled the abundant tithes in Jerusalem merely required immersion after any contamination. Without this leniency, defined by the rabbinic category of Ṭebul Yom, the widespread observance of purity and the maintenance of normal marital life would have been utterly irreconcilable. Moreover, aside from the desired democratization of ritual purity, the Pharisees could point to passages such as Lev 14:8, 15:13, and 16:28, which refer to immersion without mentioning sundown. What was the Essene–Qumran view on the status of the Ṭebul Yom? In his description of the daily regimen of the Essenes, Josephus refers to their purification about the fifth hour of the day, after which they were considered pure (καθαροί) and entered the refectory for their first communal meal.7 Since they were not required to wait for sundown, one would suppose that those who bathed were in a ritual state equivalent to that of Ṭebul Yom, yet the Essenes 3 M. Parah 3:7; t. Parah 3:8; similarly, the utensils containing the water were deliberately made impure and immersed (m. Parah 5:4). 4 See L. Finkelstein, The Pharisees: The Sociological Background of Their Faith (3rd ed.; 2 vols.; Philadelphia, 1962), 2:661–92; see also the addendum at end of this article. 5 Lev 11:24, 27, 28, 39, 40; 15:5–7, 18, 20, 27, 32. 6 M. Kelim 1:5; t. Parah 3:6; Sifra Shemini 8 (ed. Weiss 53c). 7 Jewish War 2.8.5 (§129).

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considered them as pure. This inference may, however, be questioned. It is quite possible that the communal meals were patterned after the rites of the Temple, which were always preceded by purification. Exod 30:17–21 specifies that the priests must wash their hands and feet before approaching the altar. Testament of Levi 9:118 adds the injunction to bathe “before entering the holy place,” which accords with the mishnaic rule: “No one may enter the Temple courtyard for the service, even if he be clean, unless he takes a bath” (m. Yoma 3:3). When Ben Zoma was queried concerning the nature of this bath, he explained that all who cross over from the profane to the sacred require immersion.9 This principle could readily have been applied by the Essenes to the transition from their mundane labors to the refectory which was for them “like a sacred shrine.” It need not imply that immersion alone, without waiting for sundown, would suffice to restore purity after a known defilement. Moreover, Josephus’ statement must be evaluated in the light of the purity rules now available in 11QTemple. With regard to defilement by a creeping animal the Scroll specifies: “He shall wash his garments and bathe in water; when the sun goes down, afterwards he will be clean” (51:4–5). This may perhaps be taken as only a more emphatic paraphrase of Lev 11:39–40 (“he shall be unclean until evening”), but the rigorous consistency of the Scroll is demonstrated by the similar rule with regard to corpse defilement, which required sprinkling with the water containing the ashes of the red heifer on the third and seventh days: “And on the seventh day they shall be sprinkled a second time, bathe and wash their garments and their utensils; in the evening they will be purified from the corpse, allowing them to touch any of their purities and a man who was not defiled” (49:19–21). Yadin justly infers that 11QTemple does not recognize the rabbinic halakhah which allowed the Ṭebul Yom to come in contact with pure foods and pure men outside the Temple.10 Furthermore, the major benefit resulting from the rabbinic category of Ṭebul Yom accrued to married men who, after immersion, were immediately permitted access to the nonsacrificial purities abounding in Jerusalem. 11QTemple, however, not only requires waiting until sundown after any seminal effusion, but extends the exclusion from the city of the sanctuary after intercourse to three days: “If a man has carnal relations with his wife, he may not enter the entire city of the sanctuary,11 upon which I will cause my 8 9 10 11

Cf. Jub. 21:16. B. Yoma 30a; t. Yoma 1:14. Yadin, Temple Scroll, 1:262. B. Levine, “The Temple Scroll,” BASOR 232 (Dec. 1978): 5–23, disputes Yadin’s assumption that ʿîr hammiqdash in the Scroll refers to the entire city of Jerusalem. He argues that the purity restrictions in cols. 45–46, excluding men after intercourse or a seminal effusion

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name to dwell, for three days” (45:11–12). Immersion was required on the first day and on the third day, but he was not permitted to return until sundown following the third (45:7–8). The question may be asked, what purpose was served by the immersion on the first day? This problem has been the subject of an illuminating inquiry by J. Milgrom.12 The first-day ablution, he suggests, serves to remove a layer (or degree) of impurity and would suffice to re-establish nonsacred contacts with persons and objects outside the city of the sanctuary. This suggestion may very well be confirmed by the as yet unpublished text 4QOrdC, described by M. Baillet.13 According to the provisional description, this text deals with the problem of food for a man who requires seven days for his purification. Since he must eat, it is permissible for him to partake of pure foods, provided he has terminated his impureté première by undergoing initial ablution. However, even if we may assume that the initial ablution qualifies one for non sacred contacts outside the city of the sanctuary, this is not tantamount to acceptance of the Pharisaic position vis-à-vis the Ṭebul Yom. What the Pharisees sought to establish by their demonstrative defilement and immersion of the High Priest before the sacrifice of the red heifer was their claim that a Ṭebul Yom qualified as ʾish ṭahor (Num 19:9), “a clean man.”14 Yet we have seen that 11QTemple looks upon the Ṭebul Yom as still unclean until sundown and does not permit him to be in contact with clean men and pure foods, except what may be necessary for his individual consumption. The term ʾish ṭahor is used in 11QTemple 49:8–9 to designate a man scrupulous with regard to purity and superior to the norm prevalent in Israel. It would be incongruous if the same term in Num 19:9 were taken exegetically to apply to one held to be still defiled and disqualified for purities.

12 13 14

from the city of the sanctuary, applied only to the temple complex in the immediate vicinity of the sanctuary. This interpretation would be less difficult to maintain were it not for the fact that 11QTemple lumps these categories of impurity together with “lepers” (ṣaruaʿ) and diseased individuals (45:17–18). The latter were certainly quarantined outside the cities in accordance with biblical rules (Lev 13:46; cf. Josephus, Ant. 3.11; 2.261–264) and 11QTemple 48:14–15. We may therefore assume that other unclean persons were likewise excluded from the entire city. In fact, 11QTemple 46:16–18 is quite explicit: “And thou shalt make thee three places to the east of the city, separate from each other, to which shall come the ‘lepers,’ those with a flux, and men who have had a seminal effusion.” These places were clearly to be outside Jerusalem. J. Milgrom, “Studies in the Temple Scroll,” JBL 97 (1978): 512–18. M. Baillet, “Le volume VII de ‘Discoveries in the Judaean Desert,’” in Qumrân: Sa piété, sa théologie et son milieu (ed. M. Delcor; Paris, 1978), 75–89 (86). Cf. Sifre Numbers 124 (ed. Horovitz, 157).

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Moreover, it could hardly have escaped the notice of the Qumran as well as the Sadducean exegetes that in the very chapter which describes the rites of the red heifer, there are three references to men who require purification as a result of their participation in these rites (Num 19:7, 8, 10). In each case the law specifies that the washing must be followed by waiting until evening. Interestingly, Targum Ps.-Jonathan inserts in these three verses the phrase qadam ṭibuleh, “before his immersion” preceding ʿad ramsha, “until evening”; that is to say, the man is unclean until evening before he has undergone immersion, but if the immersion takes place before evening, he is reckoned as clean immediately. This is apparently an effort to harmonize the text with the rabbinic view on the purity of the Ṭebul Yom. By contrast, we may assume that for the Qumranites the term ʾish ṭahor in connection with the Parah rites meant one who had completed the entire process of purification including the culmination with sundown. There has been some speculation as to whether the Qumran sect perhaps sacrificed its own red heifer in order to obtain fit ashes for purification.15 This cannot be confirmed, although both 1QS and 11QTemple make reference to mê niddah, the sprinkling water containing the ashes.16 The available sources do not specify how the ashes were to be prepared. Nevertheless, judging from the emphasis on sundown in 11QTemple, it seems highly unlikely that those prepared by a Ṭebul Yom, in accordance with the Pharisaic view, would have been judged acceptable.

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16

J. Bowman, “Did the Qumran Sect Burn the Red Heifer?” RevQ l (1958–1959): 73–84, pointed out that the Samaritans continued up to the fourteenth century CE to perform this ritual. The Qumran sectarians, unlike the Samaritans, apparently believed in the exclusivity of Jerusalem as the site of the sanctuary. However, the red heifer, though called ḥaṭṭa‌ʾt, may not have been reckoned by them as a sacrifice, since its locale was outside the camp; with only its blood having to be sprinkled “toward the front of the Tent of Meeting” (Num 19:4). Bowman considered it possible that they prepared the ashes in accordance with their own standards of levitical purity. By contrast, V. Eppstein, “When and How the Sadducees were Excommunicated,” JBL 85 (1966): 213–24, has theorized that the insistence of the Pharisees that the red heifer be prepared by a Ṭebul Yom was a deliberate stratagem to make the ashes useless in the eyes of the Sadducees and thereby to deny them the purification necessary for access to the Temple. The possibility that the Sadducees might have thereupon made their own ashes is not brought into consideration. Eppstein further assumed that any ashes remaining from earlier red heifers would have been defiled and made useless for the Sadducees by being intermingled with those prepared according to the Pharisaic instructions. However, m. Parah 3:1, 5 relates that the ashes of the seven red heifers said to have been made since the days of Ezra were carefully kept separate in order to provide alternate means of purification. Num 19:13, 20, 21; 1QS 3:4, 9; 4:21–22; 11QTemple 49:18.

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Bones of Animals

It is apparent from biblical sources that with regard to defilement emanating from a human corpse, bones no less than flesh were held to be unclean.17 This is not, however, explicitly indicated with regard to the defilement of animal remains. Rabbinic halakhah indeed excluded bones, nails, horns, and hides from the uncleanliness associated with carrion.18 Similarly, the bones, sinews, and nails of eight species of creeping animals were ruled not to be defiling. The principle apparently was that defilement was associated only with fleshy tissue subject to decomposition. The Temple Scroll would indicate that this halakhic distinction was not universally shared in the period of the Second Temple. Referring to the uncleanliness of creeping animals, 11QTemple states unequivocally: And whoever carries of their bones and of their carcasses hide, flesh, or nail shall wash his garments and bathe in water; when the sun goes down, afterwards he will be clean. 51:4–519

Yadin notes that the emphatic expansion of Lev 11:39 is no doubt indicative of a polemical purpose.20 He further calls attention to, but does not elaborate on, 17

18 19

20

Num 19:16, 18; 2 Kgs 23:16, 20. It is noteworthy that in its paraphrase of Num 19:16, 11QTemple 50:4–5 stresses that only bones of a dead man are defiling, by contrast with the Palestinian Targum which explicitly adds “or the bone of a living man which separated from him.” The latter reflects the view prevailing in rabbinic sources, as noted by Yadin (Temple Scroll, 1:258). However, m. ʿEd. 8:4 records an old permissive ruling of Yose b. Yoʿezer: DYQRB BMYTʾ MSTʾB “he who touches a corpse is defiled.” The intent of this ruling is obscure and was already the subject of far-fetched interpretations in the Talmud and by the commentators. Could it be that the intent of Yose was to stress, in consonance with our text, that only contact with a corpse, rather than bones amputated from the living, was defiling? For this and two other lenient rulings Yose was called “the permitter.” The exemption of bones of the living from impurity is one of the rare cases where the Temple Scroll departs from rabbinic halakhah in the direction of leniency. M. Ḥul. 9:1; b. Ḥul. 47b; Sifra Shemini 10 (ed. Weiss, 55b). The link between the purity status of the flesh and the hide is also reflected in the regulation which bans hides of animals slaughtered outside the city of the sanctuary from entrance into it, “for the purity of the skins is in accordance with the purity of the flesh” (47:15). This principle was also recognized in the decree of Antiochus III banning the skins of “animals forbidden to the Jews” from Jerusalem (Ant. 12.146). We should further note that in Yadin’s transcription of 11QTemple 47:14–15: WLW TṬHRW ʿYR MTWK ʿRYKMH LʿYRY, the word ʿYR should be ʿWR, as evidenced by the facsimile and required by the context: “You shall not deem skin from your cities as pure for my city.” Temple Scroll, 1:262.

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a possible link between this ruling and the controversy between the Pharisees and Sadducees in recorded m. Yad. 4:6. Since there is some obscurity with regard to the Sadducean position in this dispute, we must set forth the text for clarification: The Sadducees say, “We protest against you, O Pharisees, for you say, The Sacred Scriptures render the hands unclean but the books of Hameras do not render the hands unclean.” Rabbi Yoḥanan ben Zakkai said, “Have we not against the Pharisees other causes of complaint save only this? Behold they say, The bones of an ass are clean, but the bones of Yoḥanan the High Priest are unclean.” They said to him (ʾamru lo), “As our love for them so is their uncleanliness, so that no man may make spoons of the bones of his father and his mother.” He said to them (ʾamar lahem), “Even so the Sacred Scriptures, in proportion to the love for them so is their uncleanliness, while the books of Hameras which are not beloved do not render the hands unclean.” We need not enter here into the question of the background of this rationale for the defilement associated with canonical writings, nor the identity of Hameras.21 What is pertinent to our inquiry is the digressive complaint against the Pharisees introduced by R. Yoḥanan in order to neutralize the Sadducean complaint: Why are the bones of an ass clean, while the bones of a human being are unclean? That this was indeed the Pharisaic view is corroborated by the tannaitic sources which exempt bones from the uncleanliness associated with carrion. But what was the position of the Sadducees? Most commentators have assumed that R. Yoḥanan’s rejoinder would be effective only if the Sadducees were in agreement with the Pharisaic view which held animal bones to be clean.22 They have further assumed that the rationale, according to which uncleanliness is in proportion to the esteem of the object, was offered by the Sadducees. This interpretation is, however, fraught with difficulties. If the view which exempts animal bones from uncleanliness were shared by the Sadducees, why was R. Yoḥanan’s complaint addressed to the Pharisees? Rather we should then expect the form of counter-complaint found in the 21

22

Cf. N. Brüll, “On the Basis and Development of the Laws of Hand-Purity,” Beth Talmud 2 (1882): 315–20, [325–33, 368–74] (in Hebrew); S. Lieberman, Hellenism in Jewish Palestine (New York, 1962), 106–7; A. Guttman, Rabbinic Judaism in the Making (Detroit, 1970), 151– 52; S.Z. Leiman, The Canonization of Hebrew Scripture: The Rabbinic Evidence (Hamden, 1976), 107–20. See the classic commentaries ad locum and C. Albeck, Mishnah Seder Ṭohorot (Jerusalem, 1959), 485, 608.

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following controversies (m. Yad. 4:7–8): We protest against you, O Sadducees! Moreover, why should the Sadducees offer a rationale in response to a complaint directed at their opponents? Geiger already noted these difficulties and suggested that a later editor had wrongly attributed the Pharisaic rationale to the Sadducees.23 Actually the text as it stands need not be read as a continuous dialogue between R. Yoḥanan and the Sadducees. It would appear that R. Yoḥanan had rhetorically assumed the role of devil’s advocate in order to elicit from the Pharisees a rationale which he could use to counter the Sadducean complaint. The citation introduced by ʾamru lo may therefore be attributed to the Pharisees, while ʾamar lahem pertains to R. Yoḥanan’s response to the Sadducees. There is accordingly no warrant for the assumption that the statement “the bones of an ass are clean” represents a ruling also accepted by the Sadducees. Indeed it is highly probable that the opposite was the case; for the Sadducees, bones, both human and animal, were as defiled as flesh. We have already noted that 11QTemple takes a similar position, and we may therefore take this as another instance of convergence between the Qumran and Sadducean interpretation of the laws of ritual purity. 3

Niṣṣoq

In the same mishnaic context as that of the foregoing controversy there is recorded another dispute about purity between the Pharisees and the Sadducees: The Sadducees say, “We protest against you, O Pharisees, for you declare clean the niṣṣoq.” The Pharisees say, “We protest against you, O Sadducees, for you declare clean a channel of water that flows from a burial ground.” M. Yadayim 4:7

The word niṣṣoq has been variously rendered by modern scholars24 but, as we note in what follows, the Qumran use of a cognate indicates that there is no warrant in this case for departing from the traditional interpretation according to which niṣṣoq is an unbroken stream of liquid.

23

24

“On Some Disputes between the Sadducees and Those Who Joined Them and the Pharisees and the Distinction between Early and Late Halakhah,” He-ḥaluṣ 6 (1861): 13–30 (18–25) (in Hebrew) [reprinted in his Kvuṣat Ma‌ʾamarim = Abraham Geiger’s Gesammelte Abhandlungen in hebräischer Sprache (ed. S. Poznański; Warschau, 1910), 60–91 (70–82)]. The references to the various views may be found in Guttman, Rabbinic Judaism, 153–54.

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Mishnaic halakhah specifies that when liquids are poured from a clean into an unclean vessel the former does not become contaminated, unless the liquid is one of unusually high viscosity: Any niṣṣoq is clean, except a stream of thick honey or batter. The School of Shammai say: Also one of porridge made from grits or beans, since it shrinks backwards. m. Makš. 5:9

According to the Sadducees the stream of any poured liquid acts as a connective causing the impurity of the receptacle to contaminate the upper vessel. The Pharisaic reply seeks to demonstrate that streams do not always serve as a medium for the transfer of defilement, witness the purity of water issuing from a cemetery. In his linguistic commentary on the Copper Scroll,25 Milik cites, without elucidating the context or the meaning, the following passage from a Cave 4 text, designated 4QMishna: ‫ואף על המוצקות אנחנו אומרםים (שהם) שאין בהמה טהרה כי לחת המוצקות וה�מ‬ ‫קבל מהמה כהם לחה אחת‬

The word MWṢQ (from YṢQ “to pour”) in biblical usage designates molten materials.26 Here, however, HMWṢQWT is followed by WHMQBL MHMH. QBL is employed as a terminus technicus for receiving poured liquids in a container. The following may be offered as a tentative translation of the passage: And also concerning liquid streams we say that there is no purity27 in them, for the moisture of liquid streams and that which acts as a receptacle for them is considered like one. 25

26 27

J.T. Milik, “Le rouleau de cuivre provenant de la grotte 3Q (3Q15),” in M. Baillet, J.T. Milik and R. de Vaux, Les “petites grottes” de Qumran (DJD 3; Oxford, 1962), 199–302 (225). Attention to this passage and its possible connection with the controversy in Yadayim was drawn by Yadin, Temple Scroll, 2:150. [This passage was subsequently published by J. Strugnell and E. Qimron as part of 4QMMT (4Q394 8 iv 5–8). See E. Qimron and J. Strugnell, Qumran Cave 4.V: Miqṣat Maʿaśe Ha-Torah (DJD 10; Oxford, 1994), 12; and see the composite text, 52–53. See also Baumgarten’s discussions of this passage in subsequent publications, e.g., “Recent Qumran Discoveries and Halakhah in the Hellenistic–Roman Period”; and “The Relevance of Rabbinic Sources for Qumran Law” (both included in this volume).] 1 Kgs 7:23; Job 38:38. In rabbinic and Qumran usage ṬHRH may also refer to the act of purification or immersion (11QTemple 49:15; cf. m. Kelim 2:1 et al.). According to m. Ṭehar. 8:9 the niṣṣoq is not

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The expression ʾNḤNW ʾWMRYM, “we say,” has a distinct polemical nuance. It seems quite possible that the ruling may pertain to the very situation envisaged in m. Yad. 4:7, a clean liquid being poured into or upon an unclean receptacle. If so, the Qumran ruling would be an explicit affirmation of the Sadducean position. 4

Immersion of the Menorah

We have so far found indications that in three of the four disputes between Pharisees and Sadducees concerning ritual purity, the Qumran view was likely to have been in harmony with that of the Sadducees. It should also be noted that in all three of the foregoing cases the Sadducees held the position of greater stringency. This contrasts sharply with the fourth dispute in which the Sadducees are described as ridiculing a purification procedure mandated by the Pharisees: It once happened that they immersed the candelabrum on a festival; whereupon the Sadducees said: “Come and observe the Pharisees who immerse the orb of the moon.”28 The sources do not in this case explicate the halakhic issue involved in this dispute. The hypotheses offered by the commentators to explain why the Sadducees deemed the immersion of the Menorah to be superfluous are not much better than conjectures. Yet we may briefly review them to ascertain whether there are grounds for supposing that on this issue, too, the Qumran view would have coincided with that of the Sadducees. 1. Some modern scholars have made the not implausible suggestion that the clash concerning the Menorah was but a reflex of differences surrounding

28

considered a connective for either defilement or purification (ṬHRH). Thus, a stream would not qualify for immersion even when connected to a pool with the required measure of forty seʾah. This brings to mind the rule in CD 10:10 ff. concerning immersion in waters not sufficient to cover a person. One might consider the possibility that the passage from 4QMishna pertains to a restriction of immersion in MWṢQWT as shallow streams. This, however, does not appear compatible with the stated reason, that is, the unity of the MWṢQWT and the MQBL. A definitive translation must, of course, await the full publication of the text [see now Qimron and Strugnell, DJD 10.52–53]. T. Ḥag. 3:35 (and see S. Lieberman, Tosefta Ki-fshuṭah: A Comprehensive Commentary on the Tosefta [10 vols.; New York, 1955–1988], 5.1336); the Erfurt, London, and Genizah manuscripts omit BYWM TWB, as does the parallel in y. Ḥag. 79d; the latter reads “orb of the sun.”

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the exclusive status of the priesthood.29 While it was necessary to purify those utensils which might have been touched by the throngs of pilgrims who frequented the Temple precincts during festivals, this, in the opinion of the Sadducees, did not apply to the Menorah, which was placed in the Hekhal and was accessible only to the priests. The latter could surely be relied upon to avoid any possible contamination. We note, however, that such a premise, placing the purity of officiating priests beyond any possible doubt, was apparently not shared by the author of 11QTemple. The latter ordains that the chambers of the Temple court were to be systematically purified with each change of priestly courses (45:5–6). Moreover, strict precautions were taken to avoid contact between the entering and the departing courses: “And when [ the] second shall come from the left [ while] the first shall go out on the right; and let them not mingle with each other and their utensils” (45:3–5). Apparently there was concern lest the entering priests and their utensils, just purified, become defiled by contact with the departing priests. It would thus appear that the Qumran teachers would have had no reason to object, on the grounds of priestly immunity, to the mishnaic ruling which required all Temple utensils, except for the altars, to be immersed after festivals (m. Ḥag. 3:8). 2. According to another theory, the Sadducees held metallic utensils to be insusceptible to defilement, since they did not accept the decree imposing such defilement which was attributed to Shimon ben Shetaḥ.30 This may be characterized as obscurum per obscurius. What need was there for Shimon’s decree, when the impurity of metallic vessels is already indicated in Num 31:22–23?31 Certainly the available Qumran texts seem to take it for granted that metalware was subject to defilement,32 and there is no apparent reason why this would not apply to the Menorah.33 29 30 31 32 33

S. Zeitlin, The Sadducees and the Pharisees (New York, 1936), 16 (in Hebrew); and idem, The Rise and Fall of the Judaean State (3 vols.; Philadelphia, 1968), 1:181. Finkelstein, The Pharisees, 1:128–30; 2:693–94. Cf. L. Ginzberg, On Jewish Law and Lore (Philadelphia, 1955), 83, who speculated without evidence that Shimon’s decree may have been directed against imported metalware such as bronze and gilded objects. CD 12:17–18; cf. 11QTemple 49:15, where iron and copper utensils are listed among objects susceptible to defilement by a corpse. In his commentary on t. Ḥag. 3:35, R. David Pardo (d. 1792) suggested that the Menorah had in this case only been defiled by liquids (cf. y. Ḥag. 79d) which, according to the Sadducean view, were incapable of contaminating vessels. This interpretation has recently been echoed by H.D. Mantel, “The Sadducees and the Pharisees,” in Society and Religion in the Second Temple Period (ed. M. Avi-Yonah and Z. Baras; Jerusalem, 1977), 99–123 (109). Again, we doubt whether such a lenient view would be applicable to the

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3. The candelabrum, others suggest, was not held by the Sadducees to be a vessel subject to contamination, since its function was to provide light, not to hold edibles.34 In CD 12:17, however, nails and pegs in a wall are listed as subject to uncleanliness along with working implements. This would indicate that the definition of what constitutes a vessel was, if anything, more inclusive at Qumran. 4. Finally, there are scholars who infer from the Menorah incident that the Sadducees were simply apathetic to the observance of ritual purity.35 Needless to say, such a judgment can hardly be made about the men of Qumran, whose writings bespeak a pervasive concern with purity. Moreover, how is one to account for the anomalous fact that in three of the above-mentioned controversies the Sadducees are said to have insisted on more rigorous standards of ṭohorah? 5

Ṣadduqîm and Benê Ṣadoq

One conceivable explanation, which deserves to be mentioned, may lie in the possibility that the name Ṣadduqîm was employed in rabbinic sources for more than a single category of sectarian deviation. It is well known that due to censorship this name was often substituted for mînîm. Thus, the following sectarian complaint, directed at the Pharisees, is likewise recorded in m. Yadayim: A Galilean Ṣadduqî said: “I protest against you, O Pharisees, for you write (the name of) the ruler in a writ of divorce together with (the name of) Moses” (4:8). This brings to mind the testimony of Josephus that the Essenes held the name of the lawgiver most in awe after God.36 However, the correct reading

34 35

36

Qumran exegetes who held liquids to be an especially potent medium for contamination. 11QTemple 49:11–12 goes so far as to require the removal of oil, wine, and water stains from the walls of a house in which there had been a corpse (cf. CD 12:16 and our Studies in Qumran Law (Leiden, 1977), 88–97. Guttman, Rabbinic Judaism, 154. Sifra Shemini 6 (Weiss 52d) lists candelabra among implements insusceptible to defilement, but this pertains to wooden rather than metal utensils. F. Rosenthal, Vier apocryphische Bücher (Leipzig, 1885); D. Flusser, “The Jewish Religion in the Second Temple Period,” in Avi-Yonah and Baras, Society and Religion, 3–40 (7) describes the Sadducees as “the only group known to us from Second Temple times not based on cleanness.” Jewish War 2.8.6 (§145).

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preserved in manuscripts is mîn gelîlî, and Lieberman has therefore identified these sectarians with the Galilaioi, listed by the Church fathers as distinct from the Essenes.37 It is also probable that the ṭobelê shaḥarîn referred to at the end of Tosefta Yadayim are to be identified with the Hemerobaptistai, although the Essenes apparently used the epithet Benê shaḥar and were markedly sensitive to the symbolism of dawn.38 The ṭobelê shaḥarîn also directed their complaint at the Pharisees: “We protest against you, O Pharisees, for you utter the divine name in the morning without immersion.”39 Josephus does not mention any Essene immersion before their sunrise prayers. It is thus apparent that the “complaint” form was used in tannaitic literature to depict a variety of sectarian deviations and was not limited to controversies involving the Sadducees. The reading Ṣadduqîm in m. Parah 3:7 and m. Yadayim 4:6–7 is well established, yet this does not preclude the possibility that this name might have been applied to the Benê Ṣadoq of Qumran. In Qumran writings the name Benê Ṣadoq is used for the lay adherents as well as the priests of the sect, with Benê Ṣedeq as an alternate designation. There is a possibility that the Teacher of Righteousness was himself called Ṣadoq.40 Could it be that the Ṣadduqîm who are portrayed in the Mishnah as complaining about Pharisaic laxities in the sphere of purity were not the aristocratic Sadducees but heterodox rigorists of the “Zadokite” type? G.R. Driver, whose efforts to link the Benê Ṣadoq of Qumran with Judah and Ṣadoq, the founders of the Fourth Philosophy, have found but little acceptance among students of the Scrolls, has maintained that some of the Church fathers knew of “Sadduceans” not identical with the Sadducees.41 The third century writer, Pseudo-Clement, refers in his Recognitiones to a group called Sadducaei which is said to have arisen in the time of John the Baptist and “as more righteous than others, began to separate themselves from the assembly of the 37 38

39 40 41

Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. 4.22.7; S. Lieberman, “Light on the Cave Scrolls from Rabbinic Sources,” PAAJR 20 (1951): 395–404 (401). A Cave 4 fragment, partly written in a cryptic alphabet, begins with the words DBRY? MŚKYL ʾŠR DBR LKWL BNY ŠHR, according to J.T. Milik, “Le travail d’édition des fragments manuscrits de Qumrân,” RB 63 (1956): 49–67 (61) [see now “298. 4Qcrypt A Words of the Maskil to All Sons of Dawn,” ed. S.J. Pfann and M. Kister, in Qumran Cave 4.XV: Sapiential Texts, Part 1 (ed. T. Elgvin et al.; DJD 20; Oxford, 1997), 1–30.] Cf. the present writer’s study, “The Heavenly Tribunal and the Personification of Ṣedeq in Jewish Apocalyptic,” in ANRW 2.19.1 (Berlin, 1979), 219–39 [see also his “The ‘Sons of Dawn’ in CDC 13:14–15 and the Ban on Commerce among the Essenes,” IEJ 33 (1983): 81–85; both articles are included in this volume]. T. Yad. at end; Lieberman, “Light on the Cave Scrolls,” 401. See J. Liver, “The Sons of Zadok the Priests in the Dead Sea Sect,” RevQ 6 (1967–1969): 3–30 and “The Heavenly Tribunal,” 234–36. G.R. Driver, The Judaean Scrolls (New York, 1965), 259–66.

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133

people and to deny the resurrection of the dead.”42 The statement is echoed a century later by Ephraem the Syrian.43 While the denial of the resurrection was characteristic of the Sadducees, one could hardly suppose that they arose as late as the time of John the Baptist. However, it is, in our view, likely that these chronologically confused reports stem from the rabbinic tradition linking the Sadducees with Ṣadoq and Boethus, the disciples of Antigonus, as indicated by the teaching attributed to the Sadducaei by Ps.-Clement: Non esse dignum ut quasi sub mercede proposita colatur deus. This may be compared with the dictum of Antigonus in m. ʾAbot 1:3: “Be not like servants who serve the master for the sake of receiving a reward.” Driver further maintained that Jerome, in his commentary on Matthew, referred to Sadducaei who believed in the spirit, in angels, and in the resurrection and are hence to be distinguished from the Sadducees. The passage in question reads as follows; Duae haereses erant in Judaeis: una Pharisaeorum, altera Sadducaeorum. Pharisaei traditionum et observationum, quas illi δευτερώσεις vocant, justitiam praeferebant; unde et divisi vocabantur a populo. Sadducaei autem, qui interpretantur justi, et ipsi vindicabant sibi quod non erant: prioribus et corporis at animae resurrectionem credentibus, confitentibusque, et angelos, et spiritum; sequentes (juxta Acta apostolorum) omnia denegabant.44 Driver apparently took the affirmation of angels and resurrection to apply to the Sadducaei, but prioribus must be translated “the former,” and in the context clearly refers to the first-mentioned Pharisees, while sequentes, “the latter,” i.e. the Sadducees, denied these beliefs. Thus, the claim that the Church fathers knew of Sadducaeans distinct from the Sadducees, and possibly to be identified with the Zadokites of the Scrolls, turns out to be unsubstantiated.

42

43 44

Recognitiones 1.54 [ed. Rehm and Strecker (GCS 51), 39]: Erat ergo primum schisma eorum, qui dicebantur Sadducaei, initio Johannis iam paene temporibus sumpto. hique ut ceteris iustiores segregare se coepere a populi coetu et mortuorum resurrectionem negare idque argumento infidelitatis adserere, dicentes non esse dignum ut quasi sub mercede proposita colatur deus. J.B. Aucher and G. Moesinger, Evangelii concordantis expositio facta a Sancto Ephraemo (Venice, 1876), 287–88, cited by Driver, Judaean Scrolls, 260. Jerome, Commentarii in Evangelium Matthaei 3.22.179 (PL 26:163).

134 6

PART 3: PHARISEES AND SADDUCEES, ESSENES, AND QUMRAN

Conclusion

Returning to the Ṣadduqîm in tannaitic texts, we have found their complaints about Pharisaic laxities in the sphere of purity to be consistent with the laws found in the Temple Scroll and other Qumran writings. The Sadducean repudiation of the Pharisaic immersion of the Menorah remains obscure and is not supported by the tendency to rigor reflected in these writings. However, it would, in our opinion, be simplistic to resolve this discrepancy by assuming that the “complaining” Ṣadduqîm were not Sadducees and that the latter were not concerned with purity. According to a tannaitic story, R. Johanan b. Zakkai once disqualified a Sadducean High Priest who had insisted on waiting until sundown after his purification preparatory to burning the red heifer. Even the High Priest Ishmael b. Phiabi II, who is mentioned favourably in talmudic sources, is said to have prepared one red heifer in accordance with Sadducean requirements.45 This would indicate that, at least as far as the Temple was concerned, the Sadducees favored a strict construction of biblical purity laws. Despite the affinity in names, heretofore, the only specific convergence between the Qumran Benê Ṣadoq and the Sadducees in the area of halakhah has been their common insistence that the ʿOmer offering be brought on a Sunday (“on the morrow of the Sabbath”).46 On the basis of this initial inquiry, it may now be possible to add their rejection of Ṭebul Yom, their ruling that animal bones are impure, and their views on Niṣṣoq, as three additional points of agreement in opposition to Pharisaic teaching. Addendum to n. 4 (in this addendum, text within square brackets is by the author) Finkelstein47 takes note of the discrepancy between m. Ḥag. 2:6–7, where ḥaṭṭa‌ʾt is rated as the highest level of purity, superior to that of sacred offerings and tĕrûmâ, and m. Parah 3:7 which requires the ashes to be prepared by a Ṭebul Yom, though the latter could eat neither offerings nor tĕrûmâ. The Tosafists (b. Zebaḥ. 17b, s.v. śerafah) observed cogently that the Pharisees defiled the High Priest, about to burn the Parah, by having the elders place their hands upon him (m. Parah 3:8). Since this was not one of the biblical sources of defilement, the subsequent immersion would have sufficed to qualify the High Priest for all 6.1

45 46

47

T. Parah 3:6, 8. M. Menaḥ. 10:3, where this is said to have been the view of the Boethusians; however, according to b. Menaḥ. 66a, the Boethusians took the Sabbath in question to be the one which falls in the Passover week, while the Qumranites set the ʿOmer offering on the morrow of the Sabbath following the Passover week. Finkelstein, The Pharisees, 2:690–91.

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135

sacred functions. Finkelstein posits an evolution in the Pharisaic conception of Ṭebul Yom. The earlier halakhah permitted priests in this state to eat tĕrûmâ and to touch, though not to eat, sacrifices. Later the school of R. Akiba arrived at a more stringent view, which no longer viewed the Ṭebul Yom as qualified for ritual functions other than the red heifer. The resulting discrepancies are still reflected in rabbinic sources and occasioned diverse theories among medieval authorities. Whether or not one follows Finkelstein in all facets of his analysis, we believe that he has convincingly depicted the Pharisaic version of the Parah ritual as a demonstrative affirmation of the efficacy of immersion as a means for maintaining purity outside the sphere of the Temple. In his History of the Mishnaic Law of Purities,48 J. Neusner rejects the historicity of the entire Pharisaic–Sadducean dispute about the red heifer. He asserts that the mishnaic story about this rite being carried out by a priest who was Ṭebul Yom stems from a period no earlier than that of Usha. [In m. Parah 5:4, however, the parallel principle of defiling and immersing the utensils used in the rite in order to render them Ṭebul Yom is already espoused by R. Yehoshua, a Yavnean.] The Ushans, Neusner suggests, made up a “historical” account which served to illustrate their legal theory.49 For the development of this theory Neusner discerns four stages: (1) The scriptural priestly legislation, according to which the rules of purity do not apply at all to the rites of the cow, since the latter takes place outside the camp in an unclean place. “It follows that people who are going to participate in the rite, slaughtering the cow, collecting its ashes, and the like are not clean.”50 [See, however, Num 19:9: “And a man who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer, and lay them up without the camp in a clean place.”] (2) The pre-Yavnean stratum (before 70 ce), which introduced the supposition that the rite is performed in conditions of cleanliness along with the notion that a static immersion pool can serve as a means of purification.51 [We should note that the size of the immersion pool already figures in Qumran legislation such as CD 10:10–14.] (3) The Yavnean (70–140 ce) view that the red heifer rite requires the highest degree of purity, thus excluding Ṭebul Yom. [We have noted above that the Mishnah attributes the insistence on Ṭebul Yom to R. Yehoshua, a Yavnean. The Tosefta traditions take us back even further with stories which tell of the Parah being prepared by a Ṭebul Yom in the time of Ishmael b. Phiabi II and R. Yoḥanan b. Zakkai.] (4) The view at Usha (140–170 ce) which represents an “amazing shift in 48 49 50 51

J. Neusner, History of the Mishnaic Law of Purities, Part XXII (Leiden, 1977). Ibid., 244. Neusner, History of the Mishnaic Law of Purities, Part X, Parah (Leiden, 1976), 223. Neusner, History, Part XXII, 131–33.

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thinking” from Yavneh.52 Instead of requiring stringent measures to maintain maximum purity, the rite is now seen as analogous, not to sacrifices brought in the Temple, but to those done outside the Temple, such as the Passover, and consequently not requiring a state of cleanliness.53 [Yet, the paschal lamb was unanimously viewed by the rabbis as a Temple sacrifice in accordance with Deut 16:5 (m. Pesaḥ. 5:5, Jewish War 6.9.3 [§426] et al.); it also required a state of purity (Num 9:9, 2 Chr 30:15–19, Ezra 6:19–22), except when the majority of the community or the priests were unclean (m. Pesaḥ. 7:4–6; 9:1–4). While some leniencies were allowed, the Ṭebul Yom, specifically, was not held eligible to eat of the Passover (b. Pesaḥ. 90a–b).] This reversal of perspective, a rapprochement to the original position of the biblical legislation, led not only to the acceptance of the Ṭebul Yom, but to the creation of the mythical account (m. Parah 3:7–8) of a deliberate defilement and immersion of the High Priest in opposition to an alleged Sadducean requirement to wait until sundown. [It is curious that the position thus attributed to the Sadducees is essentially identical with that said to have been held at Yavneh—indeed, a remarkable shift in thinking!] While the complex problem of Ṭebul Yom and the degrees of purity distinguished in rabbinic sources is susceptible to varying approaches, we do not consider it justifiable to relegate the Pharisaic–Sadducean controversy concerning the red heifer to the realm of myth. On the contrary, the evidence from 11QTemple strongly indicates that the requirement of sundown as an indispensable sequel to immersion was an issue of polemical importance to at least one “Zadokite” group in the Second Temple period. 52 53

Ibid., 248. Ibid., 249–50.

Chapter 9

Immunity to Impurity and the Menorah

I

After* listing eight varieties of unclean “swarming” creatures, Lev 11:32 states that their impurity defiles by contact any wooden vessel or garment or article of leather or sackcloth, “any such article that can be used for work.” This implies that impurity is transferable to any article of natural materials for human use. However, primary materials of the earth are not susceptible to contamination. Regarding water it is specified, “a spring or cistern in which water is collected shall be clean” (11:36). Rashi comments that these waters are connected to the ground, which is not subject to impurity. In tannaitic halakhah the immunity of ground waters was also extended to objects immersed in them (m. Makš. 4:6),1 and it appears that this principle was also accepted in Qumran law.2 Moreover, structures built on the ground are considered as part of the earth. However, there were different views with regard to objects embedded in building walls. According to the Damascus Document (12:17–18), nails or pegs in the wall of a house containing a corpse become impure like working implements, while the halakhah limits this to nails independently used as tools (m. Kelim 12:3–4). Utensils fashioned from stone, earth, and dung are immune to contamination according to mishnaic halakhah (m. Kelim 10:1), presumably because they were viewed like the ground. According to R. Eliezer, the copper and golden altars of the Temple did not require purification after the festivals, ‫מפני שהן‬ ‫“( כקרקע‬because they were like the ground”; m. Ḥag. 3:8). This represents a nominal extension from the biblical description of the ancient altar as made of earth, ‫( מזבח אדמה‬Exod 20:21), which was then also extended to metallic altars.

* Original publication: “Immunity to Impurity and the Menorah,” Jewish Studies—An Internet Journal 5 (2006): 141–45. Republished with the generous permission of Bar-Ilan University’s Faculty of Jewish Studies. 1 See there the comment of Obadiah of Bartenura that ground waters not detached from the ground do not make objects immersed in them susceptible. Cf. Sifra Shemini 8 (ed. Weiss, 54d). 2 4Q274 3 ii; and see my comments in “274. 4QTohorot A,” in Qumran Cave 4.XXV: Halakhic Texts (ed. J. Baumgarten et al.; DJD 35; Oxford, 1999), 99–109 (108–9).

© Joseph M. Baumgarten, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004505087_011

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II

Tosefta Ḥagigah 3:35 relates that the Pharisees once immersed the Menorah of the Temple on a pilgrimage festival. The Sadducees ridiculed this purification: ‫מעשה והטבילו את המנורה ביום טוב והיו צדוקין אומ׳ בואו וראו פרושין שמטבילין‬ ‫מאור הלבנה‬

It once happened that they immersed the candelabrum on a festival; and the Sadducees said: “Come and observe the Pharisees, who immerse the light of the moon.” Rabbinic scholars have offered various speculative theories concerning Sadducean leniency with regard to the purification of the Menorah. In an earlier paper I surveyed these theories from the perspective of the now available Qumran legal writings, but in view of the general Qumran rigor in matters of purity I could not find any ready explanation for the Sadducean leniency.3 Yaʿakov Sussmann has more recently proposed that the Sadducean position should be viewed against the background of Pharisaic liberalism, which allowed the public free contact with the Temple and its holy articles. Rather than mocking the purification of the Menorah, the Sadducees were expressing their critique of Pharisaic leniency. They blamed the shocking contamination of the Menorah on the excessive Pharisaic tolerance of pilgrims’ contact with the sacred vessels.4 This rather innovative interpretation is intended to harmonize with the otherwise strict Sadducean approach to the purity of the Temple, but it is hardly supported by the straightforward implication of the Tosefta as understood by earlier commentators. The Sadducean critique targets the superfluous immersion of the Menorah, not the circumstances that may have occasioned it. In his commentary Tosefta ki-fshuṭah,5 Saul Lieberman accepted this general understanding. He cited the suggestion of R. David Pardo that the Sadducees viewed the immersion of the Menorah as unnecessary because it was supposedly only contaminated by contact with a liquid, which in their opinion 3 J. Baumgarten, “The Pharisaic–Sadducean Controversies about Purity and the Qumran Texts,” JJS 31 (1980): 157–70 (165–66) [included in this volume; see pp. 129–31]. 4 Y. Sussmann, “The History of the Halakha and the Dead Sea Scrolls,” appendix to Qumrân Cave 4.V: Miqṣat Maʿaśe ha-Torah (ed. E. Qimron and J. Strugnell; DJD 10; Oxford, 1994), 179– 200 (199). 5 S. Lieberman, Tosefta Ki-fshuṭah: A Comprehensive Commentary on the Tosefta (10 vols.; New York, 1955–1988), 5:1336 (in Hebrew).

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was incapable of defiling vessels. The difficulty with this approach is the lack of any basis for attributing leniency to the Sadducees with regard to contamination from liquids. At Qumran, liquids were held to be more potent transmitters of impurity than solids.6 Moreover, the Tosefta makes no mention of liquids as the source of the Menorah’s contamination. The Talmud Yerushalmi (y. Ḥag. 3:5, 79d) refers to the possibility of liquids having been involved in other incidents of contamination, but not that of the Menorah. Thus, the Sadducean leniency regarding the Menorah indicates that they deemed it to be unsusceptible to contamination regardless of its source. Another commentator on the Tosefta, R. Samuel Avigdor, also mentioned the questionable premise that the source of the Menorah’s contamination was only a liquid. However, he went on to supply a more general rationale for the Sadducees’ deeming the Menorah immune to defilement: ‫כלומר שמטבילין‬ ‫“( המנורה שלא נעשה אלא כדי להאיר ואינה מקבלת טומאה‬That is to say, they immerse the Menorah, which is made only for illumination and is unsusceptible to defilement”). Again, the thesis that according to the Sadducees all lamps made for illumination were incapable of defilement lacks support. However, it may have validity with regard to the Temple Menorah, because of its symbolic nature. We note that in their caustic critique of the Pharisaic cleansing of the Menorah, the Sadducees refer to the Menorah as the “orb of the moon,” or according to the Yerushalmi reading, “orb of the sun.” This symbolic depiction of the Menorah is reflected in late rabbinic midrashim: 7‫ שבעת נרותיה כנגד ז׳ כוכבים המשמשין את העולם‬,‫מנורה כנגד חמה ולבנה‬ The Menorah represents the sun and the moon. Its seven lights represent the seven planets which serve the world. Moreover, there is evidence that this symbolism was already current in the Second Temple period. The concept was first elaborated by Philo:

6 [See J.M. Baumgarten, “Liquids and Susceptibility to Defilement in New 4Q Texts,” JQR 85 (1994/95): 91–101.] 7 Yalqut Shimoni, Pequdei 40, §418 (ed. D. Heyman and Y. Shiloni; Jerusalem, 1980, p. 790); cf. Midrash Tadshe 11 (BHM 3:175); A. Epstein, “Le livre des Jubilés, Philon, et le Midrasch Tadsché,” REJ 21 (1890): 80–97 (88).

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The master-craftsman, wishing that we should possess a copy of the archetypal celestial sphere with its seven lights, commanded this splendid work, the candlestick, to be wrought. Quis rerum divinarum heres 225

The candlestick he placed at the south, figuring thereby the movements of the luminaries above; for the sun and the moon and the others run their courses in the south. De vita Mosis 2.102

Josephus, less given to allegorical interpretations than Philo, echoes the same idea. He relates the seven portions of the candelabrum to the planets with the sun (Ant. 3.146). It is very likely that the cosmological symbolism of the seven-branched Menorah in the Hellenistic period derives from Zech 4:10, where these branches are envisioned as “the eyes of the Lord ranging over the whole earth.” It is, moreover, noteworthy that Zechariah depicts the purification of Joshua, the High Priest, by placing a “pure diadem,” ‫צניף טהור‬, on his head (3:5). In addition, an engraved stone “with seven eyes” serves to remove guilt (3:9). This suggests that the Menorah functioned somewhat similarly to the frontlet (,‫מצנפת‬ ‫ )ציץ‬of the High Priest to ward off any possible ritual contamination.8 We referred above to the mishnaic ruling that the altars did not require immersion after the festivals. R. Eliezer explained ‫“( מפני שהן כקרקע‬because the altars were like the ground”). The biblical principle that the ground and water attached to it were not subject to defilement seems to have been followed in common by both the Qumranites and the Tannaim. By analogy, since the Menorah was symbolic of the heavens, which are beyond the reach of man, it might very well have been deemed by the Sadducees to be immune to any contamination. However, the Pharisees once opted to immerse the Menorah as a precaution.9 It is true that our knowledge of Sadducean Temple law is limited to the oblique references in rabbinic sources and we do not know whether the Sadducees were receptive to the allegorical interpretations current in the Hellenistic period. However, the Menorah was depicted as a source of celestial illumination both in the Tosefta and in contemporary cosmological descriptions. This 8 See Exod 28:38 and the dispute in the baraita in b. Yoma 7b as to whether the ‫ ציץ‬is efficacious in atoning for ritual uncleanness even when the High Priest is not wearing it. 9 Cf. the reading “take care that you not touch the table and the Menorah and defile it” in m. Ḥag. 3:8, [as] emended in the Bavli [b. Ḥag. 26b].

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141

can hardly be regarded as a coincidental glorification of the focal light of the Temple. In sum, I should like to propose for the consideration of scholars that in asserting the immunity of the Menorah to contamination the Sadducees were not negating their otherwise strict stance in matters of purity, but basing themselves on a priestly tradition concerning the purifying power of its radiance.

Chapter 10

Sadducean Elements in Qumran Law It* has become an almost universal scholarly convention to begin discussions about the Sadducees by bemoaning the fact that we do not have any of their writings. All we know about them comes from their opponents: Josephus, who relates that at the age of nineteen he began to govern his life by the rules of the Pharisees;1 the New Testament writers and the church fathers, who had little sympathy for those who denied the belief in resurrection; and the rabbis, who had this and many other reasons for not wishing to preserve Sadducean literature. The Pharisees, it seems, fared better, for although, with minor exceptions,2 we do not have any of their writings either, this may have been by their own choice, the result of their predilection for employing oral tradition (παράδοσις τῶν πρεσβυτέρων) as their characteristic medium for disseminating their doctrines. Besides, they were succeeded by the rabbis of the Talmud, who ultimately ended up writing down a good deal of what they had received from the Pharisees. The Sadducees, alas, had no ideological posterity, unless with Abraham Geiger we consider the medieval Karaites as a kind of Sadducean reincarnation. The accuracy of this sad picture of Sadducean fortunes can no longer be taken for granted. The first glimmer of a possible exception to the nonsurvival of Sadducean writings came at the beginning of this century from the dusty folios of Jewish sectaries which Solomon Schechter brought to light in the Cairo Genizah. It is ironic that nowadays one needs reminders to recall that two of the most important manuscripts of the Genizah were published by Schechter under the title Fragments of a Zadokite Work. Within a few years after this epochal publication in 1910 of what we today recognize as a key composition of the Dead Sea Scrolls community, the work was born again and renamed the Damascus Document (CD). The meaning of “Damascus,” whether geographical or symbolic, is still much debated, while the Zadokite character of the laws and ideology of the Sons of Zadok appears now to be relatively secure. Suffice it to observe that Schechter’s term Zadokite was based on the * Original publication: “Sadducean Elements in Qumran Law,” in The Community of the Renewed Covenant: The Notre Dame Symposium on the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. E. Ulrich and J. VanderKam; Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), 27–36. Republished with the generous permission of Notre Dame University Press. 1 Josephus, Life 12. 2 See for example Megillat Taʿanit.

© Joseph M. Baumgarten, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004505087_012

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prominence in the Fragments of Zadok as the rediscoverer of the Law, and the designation of those who followed the true interpretation of the laws as Sons of Zadok. Schechter also took note of Qirqisani’s [tenth]-century description of the Zadokites, in which there are a number of approximations of laws found in the Fragments; among these are the prohibition of uncle–niece marriages and of remarriage after divorce, and the use of a calendar with months of thirty days. In a way, Schechter himself contributed to the obfuscation of the term Zadokite, for although he was aware that “the term Zadokites naturally suggests the Sadducees,” he felt that “the present state of knowledge of the latter’s doctrines and practices does not offer enough points of resemblance to justify the identification of them with our Sect.”3 Instead he sought to identify the sect with the Dositheans, a Samaritan sect whose history is largely obscure, but whose origin the chronicler Abu’l-Fath pushes back as far as the time of Alexander the Great. The Dosithean identification has not, to my knowledge, found any substantial support and was in any case overshadowed by other theories about the laws found in CD. Louis Ginzberg’s erudite evaluation of the laws in CD from the perspective of rabbinic halakhah, although entitled Eine unbekannte jüdische Sekte, led him to the conclusion that the sect should be identified as Pharisaic.4 However, in order to maintain this thesis, he resorted to a good deal of textual emendation and particularly was constrained to excise the references to the calendar of Jubilees (CD 16:3), as well as the ban on uncle–niece marriages, as later interpolations. Chaim Rabin ventured in 1957 to revive Ginzberg’s identification with the Pharisees by elaborating the parallels between the rules of the yaḥad and the ḥaburah, first noted by Saul Lieberman; but again this identification can no longer be maintained.5 Despite their differing identifications, Schechter and Ginzberg at least agreed that CD must be considered a product of the Second Temple period, but this premise was soon rejected by A. Büchler and other critics who maintained that the work stemmed from the Karaites of the Middle Ages. The links with Karaite literature were cited by Solomon Zeitlin in his quixotic crusade in the 1950s and 1960s against the antiquity of the scrolls, although in fairness we should recognize that Zeitlin served a valuable purpose by drawing attention 3 S. Schechter, “Introduction,” in Fragments of a Zadokite Work (Cambridge, 1910), xxi. 4 L. Ginzberg, Eine unbekannte jüdische Sekte (New York, 1922; English translation: An Unknown Jewish Sect [New York, 1976]). 5 C. Rabin, Qumran Studies (Oxford, 1957). Cf. this writer’s review article, “Qumran Studies,” JBL 77 (1958): 249–57 [= Baumgarten, Studies, 3–12].

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to the likelihood that the medieval Karaites indeed had access to and were influenced by ancient Qumran writings.6 The Sadducean theory in its current form had its origin after Yadin’s publication of the Temple Scroll; and, as a long-time proponent of the Essene hypothesis,7 I must confess that I had something to do with lending it impetus. In a 1980 paper, I pointed out that in three cases in which the Mishnah reports controversies concerning purity between Pharisees and ‫צדוקים‬, the positions taken in the Qumran texts coincide with those of the ‫צדוקים‬.8 Two of these are found in the Temple Scroll, which insists (1) that purification for ritual purposes cannot be accomplished by immersion alone without waiting for sundown (in m. Parah 3:7 we are told that the Pharisees deliberately used to defile the priest before he burned the red cow and then had him immerse, to counter the ‫ צדוקים‬who insisted that the ritual could be performed only by one whose purification was followed by sundown); and (2) that the bones, hides, and nails of the carcasses of unclean animals are as defiling as their flesh. The third such halakhah is found in a citation from the letter now known as MMT, already reported by Milik in 1962,9 in which the writer insists that when liquids are poured from a pure source into an impure receptacle the source is contaminated by the connecting stream (‫ ;)מוצקות‬in m. Yad. 4:7, that stream is called ‫נצוק‬. In that mishnah, the ‫ צדוקים‬say: “We protest against you, O Pharisees, for you declare the ‫ נצוק‬clean.” These parallels, now confirmed by the description of the text of MMT provided by its editors, Elisha Qimron and John Strugnell,10 led me in the aforementioned paper to consider the possibility “that the ‫צדוקים‬, who are portrayed 6

7 8 9

10

Cf. N. Wieder, The Judean Scrolls and Karaism (London, 1962); Y. Erder, “When did the Karaites First Encounter Apocryphic Literature Akin to the Dead Sea Scrolls?,” Cathedra 42 (1987): 54–68 (in Hebrew); H. Ben Shammai, “Some Methodological Notes Concerning the Relationship between the Karaites and Ancient Jewish Sects,” ibid., 69–84 (in Hebrew); [and Erder, “Response,” ibid. 85–86 (in Hebrew)]. Cf. J.M. Baumgarten, “The Covenant Sect and the Essenes” (PhD diss., Johns Hopkins University, 1954). J.M. Baumgarten, “The Pharisaic–Sadducean Controversies about Purity and the Qumran Texts,” JJS 31 (1980): 157–70 [included in this volume]. [See J.T. Milik, in Les ‘petites grottes’ de Qumrân (ed. M. Baillet, J.T. Milik and R. de Vaux,; 2 vols.; DJD 3; Oxford, 1962), 1:225. Milik refers to the text as “Écrit pseudépigraphique mishnique et Mišmarot de 4Q”; among other characteristic passages he cites excerpts from the ruling on ‫מוצקות‬.] E. Qimron and J. Strugnell, “An Unpublished Halakhic Letter from Qumran,” in Biblical Archaeology Today: Proceedings of the International Congress on Biblical Archaeology, Jerusalem April 1984 (ed. J. Amitai; Jerusalem, 1985), 400–407. [The critical edition of MMT was subsequently published as Qumran Cave 4.V: Miqṣat Maʿaśe ha-Torah (ed. E. Qimron and J. Strugnell, in consultation with Y. Sussmann; DJD 10; Oxford, 1994).]

Sadducean Elements in Qumran Law

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in the Mishnah as complaining about Pharisaic laxities in the sphere of purity, were not the aristocratic Sadducees but heterodox rigorists of the ‘Zadokite’ type.”11 However, I noted that according to tannaitic sources, Sadducean high priests did in fact perform the red cow ritual in accordance with the purity standards set forth in Qumran texts. I therefore concluded rather conservatively that the Sadducees and the Qumran exegetes, though distinct, followed similar and more stringent approaches in the area of purity.12 In the wake of the description of the halakhic contents of MMT, some scholars are now inclined to go much farther. One hypothesis, distancing itself from the long-held Essene identification, seeks to prove that “the earliest members of the sect must have been Sadducees … who protested the following of Pharisaic views in the Jerusalem Temple under the Hasmonean priests.”13 When their efforts to “win over the Hasmoneans and the remaining Jerusalem Sadducees” failed, the Qumran Zadokites developed over time a more radicalized sectarian mentality. This approach raises some historical questions: (1) How reliable is the evidence that the early Hasmoneans were specifically committed to Pharisaic traditions? (2) Since the Hasmoneans under John Hyrcanus, and more so during the reign of Alexander Jannaeus, did abandon the Pharisaic regulations (νόμιμα) and align themselves with the Sadducees (Ant. 13.293–298), would this not have inclined the Zadokites toward rapprochement with the establishment rather than radicalized isolation? Moreover, in the sphere of theology, the deterministic doctrines set forth in the Serekh ha-Yaḥad and the Hodayot appear diametrically opposite to what Josephus tells us about the Sadducees: The Sadducees … do away with Fate (εἱμαρμένη) altogether … They maintain that man has the free choice of good or evil, and that it rests with each man’s will whether he follows the one or the other. As for the persistence of the soul after death, penalties in the underworld, and rewards, they will have none of them. J.W. 2.164–165 [tr. Thackeray, LCL]

11 12

13

Baumgarten, “Pharisaic–Sadducean Controversies,” 167. Cf. now the evaluation of Albert Baumgarten, who prefers the supposition that the rabbis were no longer aware of the distinction between the Qumran Zadokites and the Sadducees. See his “Qumran and Jewish Sectarianism during the Second Temple Period,” in The Scrolls of the Judaean Desert: Forty Years of Research (ed. M. Broshi, S. Japhet, D. Schwartz, and S. Talmon; Jerusalem, 1992), 139–51 (in Hebrew). L. Schiffman, “The New Halakhic Letter (4QMMT) and the Origins of the Dead Sea Sect,” BA 53 (1990): 64–73 (69).

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By contrast, there is now a Cave 4 text, 4Q521, which catalogues God’s providential actions14 and reads in part: … ‫כי יכבד את חסידים על כסא מלכות עד‬ ‫ופר[י מעש]ה טוב לאיש לוא יתאחר … כי ירפא חללים ומתים יחיה‬ For he will grant honor to the pious on the throne of eternal royalty … and the fruit of a man’s good action shall not be delayed … for he will heal the pierced and resurrect the dead. Allowing for the possibility that this text may come from a Pharisaic source which happened to be preserved in the Qumran library, it would still be a formidable task to reconcile the Epicurean outlook of the Sadducees with the abundant allusions to eschatological retribution in the Qumran literature. Moreover, the developed angelology and receptivity to apocalyptic writings at Qumran seem out of character for conservative “establishment” Sadducees. Professor Sussmann, who has provided us with a most valuable assessment of MMT from the perspective of the history of halakhah, is inclined to discount the importance of theology as a determinant of sectarian identity: What distinguishes them [the sect] and what concerns them in the intersectarian polemics are matters of halakhah, not beliefs and opinions, not theology, and not national or political questions. Certainly there were also controversies in these areas, but the tangible subject about which the writer [of MMT] is concerned and turns to his opponents, “that it may be good with you and your people, so that you may rejoice at the end of time,” is the halakhah.15 This is a welcome corrective to the neglect of halakhah in much of the contemporary scholarship on the scrolls,16 but it should not lead us to belittle the significance of religious doctrines as components of the character of the major Second Temple movements. Even in rabbinic sources the doctrinal aspects of 14 15

16

É. Puech, “Une apocalypse messianique (4Q521),” RevQ 15 (1991–1992): 475–522 (485). Y. Sussmann, “The History of Halakha and the Dead Sea Scrolls: Preliminary Observations on Miqṣat Maʿaśe Ha-Torah (4QMMT),” Tarbiz 59 (1989/90): 11–76 (36) (in Hebrew [cf. an English version of Sussmann’s essay, “The History of the Halakha and the Dead Sea Scrolls: Preliminary Talmudic Observations on Miqṣat Maʿaśe ha-Torah (4QMMT),” in Qimron and Strugnell, DJD 10.179–200, at p. 191]). See my evaluation in “The Laws of the Damascus Document in Current Research,” in The Damascus Document Reconsidered (ed. M. Broshi; Jerusalem, 1992), 51–62.

Sadducean Elements in Qumran Law

147

Sadducean teaching are not overlooked, such as the denial of resurrection and the sarcastic depiction of the Pharisees who “afflict themselves in this world and have nothing in the world to come.”17 Interestingly, Sussmann is of the opinion that there is no tangible evidence in early rabbinic sources for any controversy between the sects concerning the fundamental question of the validity of the Oral Law.18 He has perhaps legitimate doubts about the originality of the interpretation found in the Scholion to Megillat Taʿanit, which alludes to the opposition of the sages to the Sadducean Book of Decrees, which was “written and deposited.”19 But it is not clear why he would dismiss the ideological implications of the ancient baraita (b. Qidd. 66a) which depicts a Sadducean plotter telling King Yannai to kill the sages and not worry about the fate of the Torah, for it is “wrapped up and deposited” for anyone to read. This response was seen by Urbach as reflecting the Sadducean rejection of oral tradition as the vital element in the continuity of Torah,20 and here Josephus provides significant corroboration: The Pharisees had passed on to the people certain ordinances handed down by the fathers and not written in the Laws of Moses; for which reason they are rejected by the sect of Sadducees, who hold that only those ordinances should be considered valid which were written down, and those which had been handed down by the fathers need not be observed. Ant. 13.297

We have elsewhere argued that there is implied here a Pharisaic avoidance of writing down ordinances, although some have taken issue with this inference.21 However, there can hardly be any doubt that, at the very least, we have here a fundamental Pharisaic–Sadducean dispute about the authority of ordinances which derived from transmitted traditions, ἐκ πατέρων διαδοχῆς, rather than

17 18 19

20 21

B. Sanh. 90b and ʾAbot R. Nat. [A] 5. Sussmann, “History of Halakha,” 57. Cf. J.N. Epstein, Introduction to Tannaitic Literature (Jerusalem, 1957), 695 (in Hebrew); E.E. Urbach, “The Derasha as a Basis of Halakhah,” Tarbiz 27 (1957/58): 166–82 (181) (in Hebrew); and S. Lieberman, Greek and Hellenism in the Land of Israel (Jerusalem, 1962), 215 (in Hebrew) [originally: idem, Hellenism in Jewish Palestine [New York, 1950], 86]. [Urbach, “Derasha,” 181.] J.M. Baumgarten, “The Unwritten Law in the Pre-Rabbinic Period,” JSJ 3 (1972): 7–29 [reprinted in idem, Studies, 13–35]. Cf. S. Schwartz, Josephus and Judaean Politics (Leiden, 1990), and S. Mason, Flavius Josephus on the Pharisees: A Composition-Historical Study (Leiden, 1991) [esp. 240–43].

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canonical texts.22 We should therefore pose the question as to where the Qumranites stood on this crucial issue. Let us try to provide a tentative answer. The Damascus Document, still the central source for the sect’s concept of the historical context of their covenant, is emphatically negative about the contemporary generation and that of its predecessors. The covenanters saw themselves as a remnant living in a “period of wrath” which began with the destruction of the Temple when God “hid his face from Israel” and which lasted down to their very own days.23 During this period “all Israel had gone astray”; they were “guilty men” because they lacked the proper understanding of the Sabbaths, the holidays, and other “hidden things” of the Law. Thus repentance for the covenanters could hardly take the form of a return to the “tradition of the fathers.” Even David did not fully know the Torah, because it had been hidden since the days of Joshua and the elders (CD 5:2–3). It is hardly accidental that in the Qumran corpus of laws, now augmented by Cave 4 materials, there is never any mention of authoritative tradents from the past. Yose ben Yoʿezer, Yehoshua ben Peraḥyah, Shimʿon ben Shetaḥ, to whom rabbinic sources attribute important early Pharisaic rulings, have no Qumran counterparts. The righteous teacher is a contemporary figure to whom have been revealed “hidden things” unknown to Israel, and his followers continue to search the Scriptures in the hope that “from time to time” they, too, may be granted revealed, though nontraditional, illuminations. In MMT their legal interpretations are characteristically introduced with the formula ‫אנחנו אומרים‬, “We say.” This contrasts markedly with the extended chains of named tradents which often precede halakhic traditions in the Talmud. In short, the covenanters had a rich library, but they did not accept a ‫מסורת‬, they did not rely on παράδοσις. This lack of esteem for tradition may also have been characteristic of the Sadducees. “The Sadducees,” Josephus says, “own no observance of any sort apart from the laws; in fact, they reckon it a virtue to dispute with the teachers of the path of wisdom that they pursue” (Ant. 18.16 [tr. Feldman, LCL]). M. Kister takes this to be the result of their reliance on their own exegesis of the Bible, which invariably entails innovation, without taking any human authority or tradition into account.24 22 23

24

Cf. A. Baumgarten, “The Pharisaic Paradosis,” HTR 80 (1987): 63–77. See now D. Dimant, “New Light from Qumran on the Jewish Pseudepigrapha—4Q390,” in The Madrid Qumran Congress: Proceedings of the International Congress on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Madrid 18–21 March, 1991 (ed. J. Trebolle Barrera and L. Vegas Montaner; 2 vols.; Leiden, 1992), 2:405–48. M. Kister, “Some Aspects of Qumranic Halakhah,” in Trebolle Barrera and Vegas Montaner, The Madrid Qumran Congress, 2:571–88.

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149

Does this congruity between the Sadducee and Qumran exegetes and their agreements on the rigorous interpretation of the laws of purity suffice to establish their common origin? We do not believe so. We have already noted the diametrically opposite theological views, and their different socioeconomic orientations are well known. Even in the sphere of halakhah, the congruities which we have found are confined to the areas of purity and ritual. Sussmann’s enumeration of halakhic controversies with Sadducees and Boethusians found in tannaitic sources includes twelve subjects other than those three questions of purity concerning which we pointed out agreements with Qumran.25 On these twelve we lack any evidence of agreement between Qumran and the Sadducees. This lack of congruity applies likewise to the significant sphere of the calendar. The Sadducees did agree with Qumran and other sectarian exegetes in taking “on the morrow of the Sabbath” (Lev 23:11, 15) to mean Sunday, but according to the Talmud, they set the ʿOmer offering on the Sunday following the Sabbath which occurred during the week of Passover, not the Sabbath (the twenty-fifth of the first month) that came after Passover.26 Moreover, there is no substantial evidence that the Sadducees followed the schematic solar calendar found in Jubilees and the Qumran writings.27 Parenthetically, the theory that the Jubilees–Qumran calendar preserves the ancient priestly biblical chronology is now considerably weakened by the emendation of the chronology of the Flood found in 4Q252.28 According to Gen 8:3–4 the Flood lasted 150 days, from the 17th of the second month to the 17th of the seventh month. The writer of 4Q252, however, realized that in the Qumran solar calendar the interval really has 152 days. He therefore introduced two days between the end of the mighty waters and the resting of the ark. Abraham Geiger often maintained that the Sadducees were the guardians of the “old halakhah,” while the Pharisees were more progressive and introduced innovations found in rabbinic law.29 In principle, this view may be valid with regard to the Pharisaic ordinances referred to by Josephus, which may perhaps 25 26 27 28 29

Sussmann, “History of Halakha” (Hebrew version—above, n. 15), 44 n. 147. B. Menaḥ 66a reads: ‫ממחרת השבת שבתוך הפסח‬. Sussmann (“History of Halakha,” 30–31 n. 81a) prefers the reading found in manuscripts of the Sifra, ‫ממחרת שבת הפסח‬, but even the latter can hardly signify the Sabbath after Passover. Cf., however, Sussmann, “History of Halakha,” 30–31. See T.H. Lim, “The Chronology of the Flood Story in a Qumran Text (4Q252),” JJS 43 (1992): 288–98. [Cf. Baumgarten, “The Calendar of the Book of Jubilees and the Bible,” in Studies, 101–114.] See one of his later formulations in his Kvuṣat Ma‌ʾamarim = Abraham Geiger’s Gesammelte Abhandlungen in hebräischer Sprache (ed. S. Poznański; Warschau, 1910), 116–26 (in Hebrew).

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be identified with rabbinic enactments (taqqanot). However, MMT now shows that the rabbinic interpretation of Temple and purity laws was already known and well enough established to become the target of sectarian polemics in the Hasmonean period. This is a remarkable illustration of the relevance of rabbinic sources, despite their later editing, for the religious history of the Second Temple period. We trust that the demonstration of the antiquity of such rabbinic traditions will lead to a change in the rather negative stance of some scholars on the importance of the Talmud for the understanding of pre-Christian literature.30 On the other hand, it should not lead us to discount the information concerning religious practice which may be gleaned from such earlier sources as Philo, Josephus, and the New Testament. We have noted elsewhere that seven details of Essene halakhah which Josephus thought worthy of notice are now explicitly confirmed in Qumran texts.31 Sussmann has recently revived the hypothesis, first proposed by Azariah dei Rossi in the sixteenth century, that the Essenes may be identified with the Boethusians, who appear in rabbinic sources in conjunction with the Sadducees.32 This remains a complex literary and historical question.33 In sum, we have not yet found compelling reasons to go beyond our rather conservative 1980 assessment of the similarities between Sadducean and Qumran rigorous interpretations of the laws of purity. One may speculate that they are perhaps the result of the convergence of two different approaches: the Sadducean approach, which limited the application of purity to the Temple and its rituals; and the Qumran approach, which applied purity within the isolated sphere of a community which separated itself from the multitude of the people and was therefore unconcerned about the difficulties of maintaining its rigid standards. But we must not forget that substantial areas of religious practice were commonly shared by most Jews of the Second Temple period, regardless of their ideological affiliations. Such inconclusive assessments are not likely to satisfy those who expect scholarship to produce immediate and decisive identifications for all the 30 31 32 33

See for example J.A. Fitzmyer, S.J., Responses to 101 Questions on the Dead Sea Scrolls (New York, 1992), 46–47. J. Baumgarten, “The Disqualifications of Priests in 4Q Fragments of the ‘Damascus Document,’ a Specimen of the Recovery of Pre-Rabbinic Halakhah,” in Trebolle Barrera and Vegas Montaner, The Madrid Qumran Congress, 2:503–13 [included in this volume]. Sussmann, “History of Halakha,” 48–56. [See A. de’ Rossi, The Light of the Eyes (trans. J. Weinberg; New Haven, 2001), 102–10.] [Cf. A. Schremer, “The Name of the Boethusians: A Reconsideration of Suggested Explanations and Another One,” JJS 48 (1997): 290–99.]

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literary remnants of the past. For those who would rather ride upon the swift steeds of unproven theory, we cite Isaiah 30:15: ‫בשובה ונחת תושעון בהשקט‬ ‫ובבטחה תהיה גבורתכם‬, “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength” [NRSV].34 34

[A verse Baumgarten liked to cite; see his, “The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Threat to Halakhah?” Tradition 1/2 (1959): 209–21 (221).]

Chapter 11

The Heavenly Tribunal and the Personification of Ṣedeq in Jewish Apocalyptic 1

Introduction

The* heavenly tribunal in Jewish apocalyptic literature was not a new conception but a perpetuation of one of the most ancient elements of biblical imagery. Already in 1 Kgs 22:19, God is described as sitting on his throne of judgment surrounded by the host of heaven standing to his right and left. In Ps 82:1, the celestial assembly is called ʿDT ʾL, a term which has been compared to its Ugaritic cognate ʿDT ʾLM.1 However, while the latter was literally an assembly of deities, the biblical tribunal was conceived as consisting of angels representing the nations: ‫ועדת לאמים תסובבך ועליה למרום שובה‬

Let the assembly of peoples surround you and over it preside on high. Ps 7:8

It is from this conception of the heavenly court as a cosmic international tribunal that we may derive its quorum of seventy, the traditional number of the elders of Moses and the quorum of the Great Sanhedrin.2 This is reflected not only in later Jewish apocalyptic, but in the LXX and Qumran versions of Deut 32:8: ‫בהנחל עליון גוים בהפרידו בני אדם יצב גבלת עמים למספר בני אלהים‬

* Original publication: “The Heavenly Tribunal and the Personification of Ṣedeq in Jewish Apocalyptic,” Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt 2.19.1 (ed. W. Haase; Berlin: De Gruyter, 1979), 219–39. Republished with the permission of Walter de Gruyter GmbH. 1 J.H. Patton, Canaanite Parallels to the Book of Psalms (Baltimore, 1944), 24; and F.M. Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel (Cambridge, Mass., 1973), 86–90, 345–46. 2 For the variant tradition of a quorum of seventy-two and detailed bibliography see Baumgarten, Studies, 145–71 [“The Duodecimal Courts of Qumran, Revelation, and the Sanhedrin”].

© Joseph M. Baumgarten, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004505087_013

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When the Most High gave nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of men, he fixed the bounds of the peoples according to the number of angels. Since the number of nations which were “separated” (NPRDW, Gen 10:5) from the sons of Noah was seventy, we may deduce that the heavenly court was correspondingly thought of as comprising seventy angels. This ancient image has left its imprint not only in Jewish apocalyptic but in the New Testament. While the dominant nt tradition centered around the apostolate of the twelve, Lk 10:1 preserves an alternate view according to which the number of disciples was seventy, equal to the quorum of the heavenly tribunal. The apostles were in fact portrayed as future members of the celestial Sanhedrin, where they would judge the world as co-assessors with the Son of Man (Matt 19:28; Lk 22:30). A voluminous literature has been devoted to the theological interpretation of the title Son of Man.3 For our purposes, what is of primary interest are the forensic aspects of the portrayal of the heavenly court. When one compares the earlier biblical allusions to the presidency of the court with those found in apocalyptic literature, one is immediately struck by the emergence of surrogate figures. In 1 Kgs 22:19 as well as in Job 1:6 it is the Lord himself who presides over the angelic assembly. In Dan 7:9–14 the Ancient of Days is still present on his throne, but there are other thrones, and the One like a Son of Man is given “dominion, and glory, and kingship.” His elevation corresponds to the elevation of the saints of the Most High, to whom judgment (dîna‌ʾ) is given (7:22). It is implied, though not explicitly stated, that the role of the One like a Son of Man includes that of judgment. In the Similitudes of the Ethiopic Enoch, the Son of Man, alternatively called the Elect, is seated on a throne of glory and is given the primary role in the eschatological judgment (55:4; 62:2–13; 69:27, 29 et al.). The image of Jesus as president over the heavenly Sanhedrin has already been mentioned. While one nt tradition, based on Ps 110:1, placed the Son of Man “on the right hand of the power of God” (Lk 22:69; Mk 14:62), others put him in the central position—which was reserved, according to rabbinic sources, for the Nasîʾ.4 This makes intelligible the request made by two of the disciples to sit “one on your right hand and the other on your left hand in your glory” (Matt 20:20–21; Mk 10:35–45).

3 C. Colpe, “ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου,” TDNT 8:400–477 (400–401: bibliography); J.J. Collins, “The Son of Man and the Saints of the Most High in the Book of Daniel,” JBL 93 (1974): 50–66. 4 T. Sanh. 8:1; b. Sanh. 19b; b.ʿErub. 54b; cf. Baumgarten, Studies, 159–60.

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During much of the period of development of Jewish apocalyptic, the Sanhedrin was a functioning judicial institution. Despite some obscurities which surround the nature and history of this body, it is a fair assumption that there was a close relationship between the conceptions of the heavenly court and its earthly counterpart. We have seen that this was the case with regard to the quorum. As to the presidency of the court, it may be noted that although this was originally a royal prerogative,5 it was now largely delegated to a surrogate figure. Thus, in the Chronicler’s description of Jehoshapat’s central tribunal in Jerusalem (2 Chr 19:8–11), which must be regarded as a prototype of the Great Sanhedrin, a ruler (nagîd) of the House of Judah was designated as presiding head of the court “for all royal matters.” The chief priest was to act in this capacity for all religious matters. A duality of leadership, though not along political and religious lines, is likewise reflected in rabbinic sources which speak of the court as presided over by the Nasîʾ and the ʾAb bêt dîn (Father of the Court).6 The latter is generally portrayed as subordinate to the Nasîʾ and seated on his right, though his specific function remains obscure.7 By contrast, in some midrashim God is referred to as the ʾAb bêt dîn of the eschatological Sanhedrin.8 The term ʾAb would seem to be appropriate for a senior figure,9 and we can only speculate as to whether there has not been a reversal of the original role of the Nasîʾ as the acting surrogate of the more distant ʾAb bêt dîn. The Qumran literature provides another interesting example of hypostatization in the portrayal of the heavenly court. 11QMelchizedek describes the venerable king of Shalem and priest of the Most High (Gen 14:18) as a heavenly redeemer,10 who presides over the ʿDT ʾL, the celestial assembly of the 5

6 7 8 9 10

The statement in m. Sanh. 2:2 that the king “neither judges nor is judged” reflects the circumstances of the post-Hasmonean period, not the ideal image of the Davidic monarch (b. Sanh. 19a). It is noteworthy that in Herod’s trial before the Sanhedrin, the president was Hyrcanus II, in his capacity as king, rather than high priest, as clearly stated by Josephus (Ant. 14.167–179). Compare 11QTemple 57:11–15, where the king presides over the thirty-six-member judicial council which has functions similar to the Great Sanhedrin. M. Ḥag. 2:2 and the sources cited in n. 4. See H. Mantel, Studies in the History of the Sanhedrin (Tel Aviv, 1969), 122–51 (in Hebrew; [in English, Studies in the History of the Sanhedrin (Cambridge, Mass., 1965), 102–39]). Tanḥuma, Exodus 29; Qohelet Rabbah 1:11 [and Exodus Rabbah 5:12 (ed. Shinan, 165). The editors thank Marc Hirschman for his help with this note.] Note the term ʾB ŠNM “father of years” found as a predicate of El in the Ugaritic texts; see J. Gray, The Legacy of Canaan: The Ras Shamra Texts and Their Relevance to the Old Testament (Leiden, 1965), 155–56. A.S. van der Woude, “Melchisedek als himmlische Erlösergestalt in den neugefundenen eschatologischen Midraschim aus Qumran Höhle XI,” OtSt 14 (1965): 354–73. Additional fragments and a restoration of the text are offered by J.T. Milik, “Milkî-ṣedeq et Milkî-rešaʿ dans les anciens écrits juifs et chrétiens,” JJS 23 (1972): 95–144.

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holy ones at the final judgment.11 He is seen as the head of the ʾLY HṢDQ, the angels of Righteousness. His chief antagonist is appropriately called MLKY RŠʿ, apparently identical with Belial, viewed as a kind of universal “rebellious elder.”12 Among the curses directed against the latter, one reads ʾRWR HRŠʿ, Reshaʿ being equivalent to Malki-reshaʿ.13 Similarly Ṣedeq could serve as a hypocoristic name for Malki-ṣedeq. The latter was very likely taken to mean “my king is Ṣedeq.”14 The affinity between Ṣedeq and Melchizedek is also evident from their common setting in contemporary eschatology. According to Dan 9:24 “seventy weeks were determined … to atone for iniquity and to bring in eternal Righteousness (Ṣedeq ʿolamîm).”15 This is quite similar to the chronology of 11QMelchizedek, where the atoning judgment by Melchizedek is to take place in 11

12

13 14 15

The view of Melchizedek as a heavenly judge very likely influenced the Qumran interpretation of the forensic elements in Psalm 110. Verse 2 invites the royal figure addressed to sit at God’s right hand, a position of primary dignity at the judgment (Matt 20:20–21 and Mark 10:34–45). Verse 6 refers to a judgment of the nations. D. Flusser has plausibly suggested that at Qumran, Psalm 110 was understood as addressed to Melchizedek, himself (“The Son of Man: Jesus in the Context of History,” in The Crucible of Christianity: Judaism, Hellenism, and the Historic Background to the Christian Faith [ed. A. Toynbee; New York, 1969], 215–234 [229–30]). If so, ʿal dibratî in verse 4 cannot be taken with LXX and Vulgate in the sense of secundum (ordinem Melchisedech). It is noteworthy that dibrah appears in a forensic context in Job 5:8: WʿL ʾLHYM ʾSYM DBRTY, before God I “lay my cause”; [see E. Dhorme, A Commentary on the Book of Job (trans. H. Knight; Nashville, 1967), 65]. The verb DBR likewise has a judicial connotation in Ps 58:2: HʾMNM ʾLM ṢDQ TDBRWN, MYŠRYM TŠPṬW BNY ʾDM, “Do ye, divine beings, pronounce righteousness? Do ye judge with equity the sons of man?” This suggests the possibility that in verse 4, dibratî may refer to God’s pronouncement concerning Melchizedek’s eternal priesthood. See 11QMelchizedek line 12: “This is to be interpreted concerning Belial and the spirits of his lot who (were the) rebellious ones ([H]MMRYM)”; and 4QOrdinances B [4Q513] 2–4, line 5: WʾŠR YMRH [ ] YWMT “and whoever defies [ ] shall be put to death.” For the halakhah concerning the rebellious elder (zaqen mamreh) (‫)זקן ממרה‬, compare m. Sanh. 11:2–4 et passim. The identification of Belial as Malki-reshaʿ is paralleled in Ascension of Isaiah 4:2: “Belial, the great ruler, shall descend in the form of a man of the king of unrighteousness” (βασιλέως ἀνόμου). 4Q280b (Curses (olim Berf)) 10 ii 5; Milik, “Milkî-ṣedeq,” 130; compare 4Q280 2 2 (ibid. 127). See J.A. Fitzmyer, S.J., Essays on the Semitic Background of the New Testament (London, 1971), 229–30, who refers to the unlikely view of Noth that the yod is only a vestigial case-ending. Compare Apostrophe to Zion (11Q5 22: 13) [published in The Psalms Scroll of Qumran Cave 11 (ed. J.A. Sanders; DJD 4; Oxford, 1965), 85–89]: ṢDQ ʿWLMYM TŚYGY, “mayst thou attain eternal righteousness.” For the equivalent Aramaic term see 4QEng 1 iv 12–13 (1 En. 93:10): [WʿM SWPH Y]TBḤRWN B[ḤYRY]N LŚHDY QŠṬ MN N[ṢBT] QŠṬ ʿL[M]ʾ, “and with its end there be chosen the elect for witnesses to Righteousness, from the plant of eternal Righteousness.” J.T. Milik, The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments of Qumrân Cave 4 (Oxford, 1976), 266, translates “from the eternal plant of righteousness” and overlooks the aforementioned parallels.

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the tenth jubilee. As Milik has indicated, the reckoning of sacred history both in weeks and in jubilees is found in the Enoch literature from Qumran.16 In view of the lofty position of Melchizedek among the celestial hosts, it is noteworthy that in the Qumran Angelic Liturgy, several categories of angels are associated with Ṣedeq: malʾakê ṣedeq, ruḥot ṣedeq, and noʿadê ṣedeq.17 Like the ʾelê ha-ṣedeq these presumably comprise the heavenly counterpart of the ʾanšê goral malki ṣedeq, the men of Melchizedek’s lot, mentioned in 11QMelchizedek. The latter may in turn be identified with the adherents of the sect called Sons of Ṣedeq.18 The prominence of the root ṢDQ in Qumran writings has been noted by scholars, but the fact that it appears not only as an abstract moral quality, but as a personified divine attribute has not been adequately assessed. Biblical scholarship has devoted considerable attention to the mythopoeic representation of Righteousness in pre-Israelite cultures. It has been fairly well established that Ṣedeq as a divine name is found in Amorite, Ugaritic, Phoenician, and Sabaean sources.19 The ramifications for biblical studies have been focused largely around the controversial Jebusite hypothesis, which posits a cult and priesthood of Ṣedeq in Jerusalem supposedly perpetuated under the Davidic monarchy.20 The personification of Ṣedeq in later Judaism within an indubitably monotheistic framework has received but little consideration. Yet it is from this perspective that some of the biblical allusions to ṣedeq may be illuminated. Moreover, the recognition of the role of Ṣedeq in postbiblical thought may have some bearing on questions concerning the Zadokite priesthood in the Second Temple period. The following study deals with the personification 16 17

18 19

20

Milik, Books of Enoch, 248–55. J. Strugnell, “The Angelic Liturgy at Qumrân: 4Q Serek Šȋrôt ʿÔlat Haššabāt,” in Congress Volume: Oxford 1959 (ed. G.W. Anderson et al.; Leiden, 1960), 318–45. MLʾKY ṢDQ (‫מלאכי‬ ‫ )צדק‬are also mentioned in a hymnic fragment [6Q18] published as M. Baillet, “18. Composition hymnique,” in Les ‘petites Grottes’ de Qumran (ed. M. Baillet, J.T. Milik and R. de Vaux; DJD 3; Oxford, 1961), 133–136 (134). 1QS 3:20, 22; 1QM 13:10. Compare 1 En. 93:2 and Jub. 10:6. W.W. Baudissin, Studien zur semitischen Religionsgeschichte (Leipzig, 1876), 15; idem, Kyrios als Gottesname im Judentum und seine Stelle in der Religionsgeschichte (4 vols.; Gießen, 1929), 3:407–17; A. Lods, Israël, des origines au milieu du VIlle siècle (Paris, 1930), 149–50; R.A. Rosenberg, “The God Ṣedeq,” HUCA 36 (1965): 161–77; Fitzmyer, Essays, 229– 30; Cross, Canaanite Myth, 209. The efforts of C.F. Burney, The Book of Judges (London, 1920), 41–43, and M. Noth, Die israelitischen Personennamen (Stuttgart, 1928), 161–62, to limit ṢDQ in compound names to the predicate meaning no longer seem cogent. H.H. Rowley, “Zadok and Neḥushtan,” JBL 58 (1939): 113–41; Rosenberg, “The God Ṣedeq”; R. De Vaux, Ancient Israel (New York, 1961), 372–74. For recent criticism of the Jebusite hypothesis see Cross, Canaanite Myth, 195–215 and S. Loewenstamm, “Ṣadoq,” Encyclopaedia Biblica (9 vols.; Jerusalem, 1950–1988), 6:673–78 (in Hebrew).

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157

of Ṣedeq in Qumran and related writings as a convenient vantage point from which earlier and later manifestations may be viewed. 2

Ṣedeq and Michael

From the War Scroll, we have evidence that the position of Ṣedeq in the heavenly hierarchy was closely associated with that of Michael: He will send eternal help to the lot of his redemption through the power of an angel. He has magnified the princedom of Michael with eternal light to light up the children of Israel with joy … to exalt the princedom of Michael among the angels, and the dominion of Israel among all flesh. Ṣedeq shall rejoice on high and all the children of his truth shall jubilate in eternal knowledge. 1QM 17:6–8

The exaltation of Michael and the rejoicing of Ṣedeq above are here paralleled by that of Israel below. This is very similar to the coordination between the rising of Michael and the star-like splendor of the wise and the just in Dan 12:1–3. The Hebrew Testament of Naftali describes Michael as the head of the heavenly tribunal of seventy angels, a role comparable to that of Melchizedek at Qumran.21 In 1 Enoch 10 his function is that of destroying iniquity (ʿawlah) as a prelude to the appearance of the Plant of Righteousness. A later Greek apocalyptic source refers to Michael as the Archangel of Righteousness, who opens the gates for the righteous.22 In Jewish mysticism, Michael is very similarly the guardian of the Gates of Righteousness of the heavenly Jerusalem and is identified with Melchizedek.23 The latter’s biblical title, King of Shalem, is the basis for the statement found in 21 22

23

R.H. Charles, The Greek Versions of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (Oxford, 1908), 242 [“Appendix II: Late Hebrew Testament of Naphtali”]. See the passage from “The Rest of the Words of Baruch” (Codex Barocc. 240) cited by M. Delcor, Le Testament d’Abraham (Leiden, 1973), 55, where Michael is designated ὁ ἀρχάγγελος τῆς δικαιοσύνης (ὁ ἀνοίγων τὰς πύλας τοῖς δικαίοις) ἕως ἄν εἰσενέγκῃ τοὺς δικαίους (compare Ps 118:19). In Testament of Abraham, ch. 13 (Recension A) Michael is called Archistrategos [Delcor, ibid., 141; ed. James, 91], but is not identified with the angel of righteousness. See Midrash ha-Neʿelam (Lekh lekah 25): umalki ṣedeq zehu mika‌ʾel roʾsh shomre(y) shaʿare(y) ṣedeq, melek shalem zo yerushalayim shel maʿlah (‫ומלכי צדק זהו מיכאל ראש שומרי שערי‬ ‫ מלך שלם זו ירושלים של מעלה‬,‫)צדק‬, “Melchizedek, that is Michael, chief of the guardians of the gates of righteousness; King of Shalem, that is heavenly Jerusalem.” In 2 Enoch 23

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the Zohar that Melchizedek becomes “perfect king” on Yom Kippur, “when all countenances are luminous.”24 It is interesting to observe that this is precisely the day specified for his judgment of the world in 11QMelchizedek.25 Milik has proposed a restoration of a fragmentary passage in 1QM 13:10 in accordance with which Melchizedek is to be identified with Michael and the Prince of Light. Although this restoration must be viewed with caution (only the qof of ṣedeq is preserved), there can be little doubt about the close association of ṣedeq with light in Qumran imagery. 3

The Solar Representation of Ṣedeq

As is well known, the contrast of light and darkness is a salient element of Qumran dualism. It should be noted that in the following passages the illumination is particularly depicted as resulting from the triumph of Righteousness over evil:26 Wickedness shall be banished by Righteousness as darkness is banished by light. As smoke clears and is no more, so shall wickedness cease forever and Righteousness be revealed as the sun is established for the world. 1QMyst 5–6

24 25 26

Melchizedek is distinct from Michael, who is sent to save him. Some manuscripts, however, substitute Gabriel for Michael; see A. Vaillant, Le livre des secrets d’Hénoch (Paris, 1952), 83. Zohar 1:87a: ʾYMTY ʾYHW MLK ŠLM BYWMʾ DKPWRY DKL ʾNPYN NHYRYN (‫אימתי‬ ‫)איהו מלך שלם ביומא דכפורי דכל אנפין נהירין‬, “When is he (Melchizedek) perfect king? On the Day of Atonement, when all countenances are luminous.” “Milkî-ṣedeq,” 142. The Aramaic Enoch texts from Cave 4 now confirm the prominent place of Righteousness (QŠWṬ) and light in the ten-week salvational scheme of 1 Enoch 91. The eighth week is designated as that of Righteousness. In the ninth week “Righteousness and the judgment of Righteousness will be revealed for all the children of the whole earth.” In the tenth week “a new heaven shall appear, and all the powers of heaven shall rise for all eternity with sevenfold brightness” (Milik, Books of Enoch, 266–67). The same blending of the imagery of Righteousness and light is found in the Parables of Enoch in connection with the Son of Man or the Elect: 38:2: “And when Righteousness shall appear … and light shall appear to the righteous” (compare 39:6); 46:3: “This is the Son of Man who has Righteousness, with whom dwells Righteousness” (see also 62:2 and 71:14); 58:3–5: “And the righteous shall be in the light of the sun … and they shall seek the light and find Righteousness with the Lord of Spirits.” The prominence of this Qumran theme in the Parables cannot but cast further doubt on Milik’s contention that the Parables are of late Christian origin.

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[Right]eousness shall shine over all the ends of the earth, growing ever brighter until all the seasons of darkness are brought to an end. 1QM 1:8

The receding darkness indicates that the light of Ṣedeq was conceived as appearing at dawn. The Psalms Scroll from Cave 11 contains a composition which Gaster aptly entitles the Morning Hymn.27 It contains the following lines: Great and holy is the Lord … Lovingkindness and Truth are round about His presence; Justice and Righteousness are the mainstay of His throne; Who has parted light from darkness and by the knowledge of His heart He established (the) dawn: When all his angels saw it they sang for joy, for what He showed them was a thing they had not known erst. 11QPsa 26:9–12

The imagery of Justice and Righteousness as foundations of the divine throne is found in Psalms 89 and 97. The Morning Hymn dwells on dawn as symbolic of the mystic knowledge of God’s heart, a theme reflected in Jub. 2:2.28 The singing of the angels at dawn alludes to Job 38:7, where the morning stars are personified as divine beings. As we know from a 4QPesher on Isaiah,29 the Qumran visionaries were particularly conscious of the light of dawn as

27 28

29

T.H. Gaster, The Dead Sea Scriptures (3rd rev. ed.; New York, 1976), 227. [The translation is based on that of Gaster with modifications. The hymn was published as “Hymn to the Creator,” in Sanders, DJD 4.89–91.] See P.W. Skehan, “Jubilees and the Qumran Psalter,” CBQ 37 (1975): 343–47; compare M. Weinfeld, “Traces of Kedushat Yoẕer and Pesukey De-Zimra in the Qumran Literature and in Ben-Sira,” Tarbiz 45 (1975/76): 15–26 (in Hebrew). Note also Testament of Levi 18:3, which says of the “new priest”: “And his star shall arise in heaven as of a king, lighting up the light of knowledge as the sun the day” (trans. Charles). Even if we follow M. De Jonge (Studies on the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: Text and Interpretation [Leiden, 1975], 217–18) who takes this passage as Christian, there remains the strong likelihood that the stellar messianism of Christianity was influenced by the light-knowledge imagery found in earlier Jewish apocalyptic. The phrase “light of knowledge” appears in the LXX reading of Hos 10:12, a passage of central importance at Qumran. See 4QpIsad [4Q164] 1 6 and my discussion of the text in Studies, 146–50.

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symbolic of Jerusalem, the focal point of divine revelation.30 This symbolism is already found in Zeph 3:5: The Lord is righteous in her midst … Every morning He produces his justice as a never-failing light. It is noteworthy that Jupiter, a morning star of intense brightness,31 is known in rabbinic sources by the name Ṣedeq.32 Moreover, some Amoraim of the fourth century held this name to be already reflected in Isa 41:2: ‫ חי העולמים שהיה מאיר לו בכל מקום שהיה‬,‫מי העיר ממזרח צדק יקראהו לרגלו‬ ‫ אמר ר׳ ראובן צדקה היתה צוחת ואומרת‬.‫הולך אמר ר׳ ברכיה מזל צדק היה מאיר לו‬ ].[‫אם אין אברהם עושה אותי אין מי שיעשה אותי‬

“Who has raised up Ṣedeq from the east, calling him to his feet?” The Life of All Worlds, who illumined his path wherever he went. R. Berekiah said: The planet Ṣedeq illumined his path. R. Reuben said: Ṣedeq cried out and said: “If Abraham will not perform me, none will perform me.” Gen. Rab. 43:3

30

31

32

The persistent association of Jerusalem with Ṣedeq has been noted by medieval as well as modern scholars (compare Naḥmanides on Gen 14:18). Aside from Malki-ṣedeq, Adoni-ṣedeq, neweh ṣedeq (Jer 31:23), zibḥe(i) ṣedeq (Ps 51:21), it is particularly noteworthy that the Jerusalem title ʿir ha-ṣedeq (Isa 1:26) was apparently applied to Heliopolis (ʿir ha-ḥeres, “city of the sun”) in Isa 19:18, as evidenced by the transcription in the Septuagint Πόλις ασεδεκ. G.B. Gray (A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Isaiah 1–39 [New York, 1912], [335]) took this to signify that one of the five cities “will be the Egyptian Jerusalem.” We should add that this identification would be most plausible in the case of Heliopolis, the city of the sun-god Re-Atum who was regarded as the champion of righteousness (J.H. Breasted, Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt [New York, 1912], 170). The similar solar symbolism surrounding ṣedeq in the Bible (note particularly Mal 3:20: “sun of righteousness”) would aptly serve to underline the universalist point of the prophecy. In Sumerian, Jupiter is designated mulu babbar, “the bright, sun-like star” (F. ThureauDangin, Rituels accadiens [Paris, 1921], 138, one among several references kindly pointed out to me by Mrs. Adele Berlin); compare the Greek epithet for Jupiter, φαέθων “the radiant.” S. Langdon suggested that “Helel son of Shaḥar” in Isa 14:12 was the planet Jupiter, the name stemming from the Babylonian title of Marduk = Jupiter, elil, “the shining one” (The Mythology of All Races, 5: Semitic [Boston, 1931], [144–145]); compare H.G. May, “The Departure of the Glory of Yahweh,” JBL 56 (1937): 309–21 (312–13). B. Šabb. 156a.

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All of these comments derive from the tradition that the one alluded to in Isa 41:2 is Abraham, who came from the east. The first and second play on the verb heʿir reading it as heʾir, but while the first takes ṣedeq as equivalent to ṣaddiq, R. Berekiah would have the planet Jupiter as the source of Abraham’s illumination. R. Reuben supplies the actual words of personified Ṣedeq. Although modern exegetes seem to be agreed in taking Isa 41:2 as an allusion to Cyrus, the syntax of the verse is diversely rendered. While some follow LXX and Vulgate, which took ṣedeq as the object of the verb heʿir,33 others would read it with the following phrase, as does the Revised Standard Version: “Who stirred up one from the east, whom victory meets at every step.” However, aside from its syntactical difficulties, this translation is excluded by the reading in 1QIsaa where a copulative waw is inserted before yiqra‌ʾehu. Thus at Qumran the verse was taken to mean: “Who has awakened Ṣedeq from the east and summoned him to his feet.” This personifying figure of the awakening of Ṣedeq is comparable to the poetic awakening of Shaḥar in Psalms 57 and 108. Very similar imagery is found in Isa 58:8: “Then shall thy light break forth as Shaḥar … and thy Ṣedeq shall go before thee.” In Isa 62:1 the Ṣedeq of Jerusalem goes forth like the morning-star Venus.34 One of the interesting examples of the astral personification of Ṣedeq is found in Ps 85:1, where Ṣedeq and Shalom are envisioned as kissing each other. ŠLM appears in Ugaritic literature as one of the offspring of El, its twin being ŠḤR. It has been suggested that Shalem, the eponymous stellar deity of Jerusalem, was associated with the evening, while ŠḤR personifies dawn.35 The pairing of Ṣedeq with Shalom, also illustrated by the Ugaritic name ṢDQŠLM, would thus be an early manifestation of the dawn symbolism linked with Ṣedeq. 33 34

35

C.C. Torrey, The Second Isaiah (New York, 1928); and J.L. McKenzie, Second Isaiah (New York, 1968), ad locum. We are here primarily concerned with the illuminational aspects of the personification of ṣedeq. However, the biblical depiction of ṣedeq is hardly of one mold, but reflects a rich variety of imagery. Thus ṣedaqah is identified with God’s right hand (Isa 41:10; 59:16); it is seen as the garment of the Divine Warrior (Isa 61:10 and Ps 132:9); it is one of the foundations of the heavenly throne (Pss 89:15; 97:2) and is likened to rain which drips from the heavens (Isa 45:8). From a human perspective God, himself, may be termed man’s ṣedeq in the sense of “advocate.” By contrast, ṣedaqah may also serve as man’s accuser, as in Gen 30:33: “And my ṣedaqah shall testify against me,” which brings to mind the Egyptian ka, a man’s god or patron saint conceived as standing outside him. M.H. Pope, El in the Ugaritic Texts (Leiden, 1955), 39; H. Ringgren, Word and Wisdom: Studies in the Hypostatization of Divine Qualities and Functions in the Near East (Lund, 1947), 79; J. Gray, The Legacy of Canaan, 14 and idem, A History of Jerusalem (New York, 1969), 66–67; M.H. Pope, “Šaḥr und Šalim,” in Wörterbuch der Mythologie, I: Götter und Mythen im vorderen Orient (ed. H.W. Haussig; Stuttgart, 1965), 306–7.

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This solar imagery has widespread roots in the ancient Near East. Babylonian texts refer to kakkab kittu u meshar, the stars of Justice and Uprightness personified as the children of Shamash.36 The divine names Sydyk and Misor preserved by Philo of Byblos indicate that similar deities were found among the Canaanites.37 The extent of solar influences in Israelite religion, once greatly exaggerated by some writers,38 is now viewed with greater reserve.39 Aalen maintains that the figurative use of the sun to designate God or his saving intervention is conspicuously rare. At the same time, he notes that theophany and the coming of salvation are closely associated with the light of dawn. He suggests that the custom of holding court trials and of giving the righteous the efficacious help of the law in the morning may have contributed to this.40 Keeping in mind this judicious appraisal of the biblical data, we may nevertheless take note of 36 37

38

39

40

E. Weidner, Der babylonische Fixsternhimmel: Beiträge zur ältesten Geschichte der Sternbilder (Leipzig, 1915), 29, l. 18 and Baudissin, Kyrios, 3:400–401. Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica 1.10.13; Baudissin, Kyrios, 3:411–17. Note the name ṢDQMŠR found in a god-list at Ugarit ([C. Virolleaud, “Les nouveaux textes mythologiques et liturgiques de Ras Shamra [XXIVe Campagne, 1961],” Ugaritica V (1968): 545–606 [585], line A14, and Y. Avishur, “Word Pairs Common to Phoenician and Biblical Hebrew,” Ugarit-Forschungen 7 [1975]: 13–47 (28–29). F.J. Hollis, “The Sun-Cult and the Temple at Jerusalem,” in Myth and Ritual (ed. S.H. Hooke; London, 1933), 87–110; H.G. May, “Some Aspects of Solar Worship at Jerusalem,” ZAW 55 (1937): 269–81; R.A. Rosenberg, “The God Ṣedeq.” The latter is a useful survey of materials bearing on the portrayal of ṣedeq in Near-Eastern and biblical sources. It is, however, difficult to accept Rosenberg’s unilinear approach, which views the personification of ṣedeq in biblical sources as simply a perpetuation of the Jebusite solar cult. The hypostasis of Ṣedeq at Qumran, noted by Rosenberg, as well as the significance attached to the eastern orientation of the Temple in rabbinic sources, illustrate the fact that solar symbolism may be perpetuated within an indubitably monotheistic framework. Th. A. Busink, Der Tempel von Jerusalem von Salomo bis Herodes: Eine archäologischhistorische Studie unter Berücksichtigung des westsemitischen Tempelbaus (2 vols.; Leiden, 1970, 1980), 1:651–56, finds J. Morgenstern’s efforts to demonstrate the existence of a national solar cult in Israel totally unconvincing. Yet Morgenstern (“The Gates of Righteousness,” HUCA 6 [1929]: 1–37) did draw valuable attention to certain rabbinic traditions which preserve allusions to the solar symbolism of the eastern gate of the Temple. According to y. ʿErub. 22c the “early prophets” planned the location of the eastern gate in such a fashion that the sun would shine directly through it on the days of the two solstices (Morgenstern’s correction of “equinoxes” instead of “solstices” does not take account of Tanḥuma Shoftim 9, where the solstitial points are designated for the location of the throne of glory). One of the seven names recorded for this gate is shaʿar ḥarisit, “sun-gate.” Morgenstern surmised that it was to be identified with the shaʿare(y) ṣedeq of Ps 118:19, but provided no conclusive proof. The fact that the latter are called by the Targum “gates of the city of Ṣedeq” would indicate that tradition associated them with Jerusalem. S. Aalen, “ʾOR,” ThWAT 1:160–82.

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the process of hypostatization of divine attributes, through which new vitality is given to ancient symbols.41 Apocalyptic tradition was an especially effective medium for the revival of mythopoeic forms. Certainly the Qumran sect was markedly conscious of the light of dawn as a symbol of theophany. A 4Q fragment, partly written in a cryptic alphabet, begins with the words [DBRY?] MSKYL ʾŠR DBR LKWL BNY ŠḤR,42 where BNY ŠḤR is an apparent variant for the common epithets for the followers of the community, BNY ʾWR and BNY ṢDQ. The Essenes, too, attached mystic significance to daybreak as is evident from their morning prayers, which were recited before the sun was up “as though entreating him to rise.”43 Ps. 110:3 has a very difficult phrase MRḤM MŠḤR LK ṬL YLDTK (‫מרחם‬ ‫ )משחר לך טל ילדתך‬which LXX renders ἐκ γαστρὸς πρὸ ἑωσφόρου ἐξεγέννησά σε, “from the womb before the morning star I have begotten thee.” Flusser has made the persuasive suggestion that Psalm 110 was understood as being addressed by God to Melchizedek.44 We may add that since Melchizedek was thought of at Qumran not only as a celestial priest, but as the embodiment of Ṣedeq, his birth by God “before the morning star” would be most appropriate in the eyes of the Sons of Dawn.45 4

Solar Symbolism and the Priesthood

The application of solar imagery in glorifying the role of the priests was a salient theme at Qumran. In a 4QPesher on Isaiah the judgments of the priesthood are 41 42

43 44 45

For a useful discussion of hypostatization in the Near East, see Ringgren, Word and Wisdom, 78–87, 150–57. J.T. Milik, “Le Travail d’édition des manuscrits de Qumrân,” RB 63 (1956): 49–67 (61). [The text has since been published as 4Q298; see S.J. Pfann and M. Kister, “298. 4QcryptA Words of the Maskil to all Sons of Dawn,” in Qumran Cave 4.XV: Sapiential Texts, Part 1 (ed. T. Elgvin et al., DJD 20; Oxford, 1997), 1–30.] J.W. 2.128; see also 2.148: “that they may not offend the rays of the deity.” Flusser, “The Son of Man,” 229. It is against this biblical background that the stellar messianism of the New Testament ought in the first place to be appraised. The story of the “star in the East” seen by the Magi (Matthew 2) may have been affected by the Persian notion of fravashi, the personified spirits of great men in stellar form (S.E. Johnson, “Matthew,” IB 7:257), but one can hardly ignore the star coming from Jacob in Num 24:17, which already served as a messianic symbol at Qumran, nor the awakening of Ṣedeq from the East, in Isa 41:2 (see above). In view of the association of Melchizedek with dawn, it is not surprising to find Jesus identified as a bright morning star: ὁ ἀστήρ ὁ λαμπρὸς ὁ πρωϊνός (Rev 22:16; compare 2:28); see also Apocalypse of Abraham 17: “Thou, O Light, shinest before the light of the morning upon thy creatures” (G.H. Box, The Apocalypse of Abraham [London, 1919], 58–61).

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likened to the sun in all its radiance.46 Milik gives the following translation of a 4Q Aramaic fragment of Test. Levi 14:3–4: [… the sun], the moon and the stars [… shine] up [on the earth. Are you not similar to the sun and] the moon? [If] you be darkened [by iniquity, what will all] the [nations do]?47 It is hardly accidental that we find at Qumran, corresponding to the mt Deut 33:10 YWRW MŠPṬYK, the reading WYʾYRW MŠPṬYK, “they shall illuminate Thy statutes,” pertaining to the function of Levi.48 The Qumran priests were the authoritative teachers of the Law as well as the mediators of divine illumination. The blend of the symbolism of the Urim and Thummim, referred to in 4QpIsad, with light imagery gave rise to the term ʾWRTWM, used in the Hodayot to describe God’s manifestation: WKŠḤR NKWN LʾWR TWM HWPʿT LY, “as dawn established, Thou appearest as perfect light to me” (1QH 4:6).49 Although the use of solar metaphors to glorify the priesthood was not limited to Qumran,50 it is particularly there that we find them within the wider setting of the illuminative aspects of Ṣedeq. 5

The Moreh ha-Ṣedeq

The continuing discussion as to whether moreh ha-ṣedeq is a genitivus qualitatis in the sense of “righteous teacher” or genitivus objectivus, “teacher of righteousness,”51 is a good indication that the connotation of Ṣedeq needs to 46 47 48 49

50 51

4QpIsad line 6; see n. 29. J.T. Milik, “Problèmes de la littérature Hénochique à la lumière des fragments Araméens de Qumrân,” HTR 64 (1971): 333–78 (345). [The English translation given here is, apparently, Baumgarten’s translation of Milik’s French.] Qumrân Cave 4 (ed. J.M. Allegro; DJD 5; Oxford, 1968), 58. Compare 1QH 7:24: WHWPʿTY Bʾ[WR] ŠBʿTYM B[ʾWR ʾŠR HKY]NWTH LKBWDKH, “And I shall shine with a seven-fold light, with [the light which thou hast est]ablished for Thy glory.” The “seven-fold light” alludes to the seven-fold magnification of the light of the sun, like the light of the seven days (Isa 30:26) which, according to rabbinic tradition (Gen. Rab. 3:6), was reserved for the righteous in the world to come. Ben Sira 50:6–7 likens the radiance of the high-priest Simon to the “morning star among the clouds” and “the sun shining upon the Temple of the Most High.” F.M. Cross, The Ancient Library of Qumran and Modern Biblical Studies (New York, 1960), 113; R. Meyer, “Melchisedek von Jerusalem und Moresedek von Qumran,” Volume du Congrès International pour l’étude de l’Ancien Testament, Genève 1966 (Leiden, 1966), 228–39.

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be further explored. This much is fairly certain, that the title was derived from Hos 10:12: Sow for yourselves for righteousness, reap according to mercy. Break up your fallow ground; for it is time to seek the Lord, ʿad yaboʾ weyoreh ṣedeq lakem (‫)עד יבוא ויורה צדק לכם‬. The latter phrase in its literal sense no doubt pertains to rain, as shown by Joel 2:23 (ha-moreh liṣedaqah).52 In the Talmud, however, it serves as an allusion to the coming of an eschatological figure who would clarify religious questions. Rashi takes this figure to be Elijah, while R. Gershom holds that it is the Messiah.53 Both agree that syntactically ṣedeq should be taken as the subject of the preceding verbs. This appears also to have been the understanding of the Septuagint. LXX, which inserts φωτίσατε ἑαυτοῖς φῶς γνώσεως, “light up for yourselves the light of knowledge,” has for the conclusion of the verse ἕως τοῦ ἐλθεῖν γενήματα δικαιοσύνης ὑμῖν, “until the fruit of righteousness come unto you.” γενήματα δικαιοσύνης is a soteriological epithet which may be compared with Plant of Righteousness (NṢBT QWŠṬ) found in 1 Enoch.54 According to 1 En. 93:10 52 53

54

Note, however, the Targum’s rendering of ha-moreh liṣedaqah in Joel 2:23 by “your teacher in righteousness” and Vulgate: qui dedit vobis doctorem iustitiae; see G.R. Driver, The Judaean Scrolls: The Problem and a Solution (New York, 1965), 256. B. Bek. 24a and the commentaries of Rashi and R. Gershom. L. Ginzberg (Eine unbekannte jüdische Sekte [New York, 1922], 303–4) noted that in rabbinic exegesis the subject of the phrase ʿad yaboʾ weyoreh ṣedeq lakem was not God. He did not, however, give consideration to the possibility that the subject of the verbs was Ṣedeq. The use of Ṣedeq in a messianic context is illustrated by Jer 23:5–6, where the Davidic sprout is called YHWH ṢDQNW. 4QpIsaa refers to him as MSYH HṢDQ. The priestly messianic connotations of Ṣedeq are preserved in an interesting piyyuṭ of Abraham ben Isaac ha-Kohen (eleventh century), still recited as part of the grace following the circumcision feast: “May the Merciful One send us Kohen Ṣedeq, who was taken into concealment until his throne, bright as the sun and radiant as a diamond, shall be prepared for him. He covered his face with his mantle and was wrapped therein; with him is my covenant of life and peace.” [S. Singer, Authorised Daily Prayer Book (9th ed.; London 1912), 307]. The Kohen Ṣedeq here is clearly Elijah and the description of the sun-like throne derives from that of David in Ps 89:37. We have noted that similar metaphors were applied in Qumran literature and in the Testaments to the priesthood. Kohen Ṣedeq appears as a variant for Malkiṣedeq in rabbinic eschatology (b. Sukkah 52b and Shir ha-Shirim Rabbah 2:13.4, where he is listed as one of the craftsmen of Zech 2:3). Thus, the opinion of R. Gershom, that Ṣedeq in b. Bek. 24a refers to a messianic figure, seems entirely plausible. Milik, Books of Enoch, 263–65. For other botanical figures associated with ṢDQ, compare pardes qushṭa‌ʾ “garden of Righteousness” in 1 En. 32:3 and 77:3 (Milik, Books of Enoch, 232, 289) and Isa 61:11, where ṣedaqah grows like seeds in a garden; compare also 61:3.

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the Plant of Eternal Righteousness will appear unto the elect at the end of the seventh week of sacred history. This is followed by the sequel: And thereafter the ninth week, in which Right[eousness and the judgment of Righteousness] will be revealed for all the children of the whole earth; and all the workers [of evil] shall entirely pass away from the whole earth … [and all men shall see] the way of eternal Righteousness. 1 En. 91:14

The chronological framework for the appearance of Ṣedeq here is similar to that of 11QMelchizedek, except that its span is ten weeks rather than ten jubilees. We have already noted that in Daniel “eternal Righteousness” is to come after seventy weeks. The expectation of the coming of Ṣedeq, we believe, also provides the most natural explanation for Josephus’s statement concerning Essene belief: περιμάχητον ἡγούμενοι τοῦ δικαίου τὴν πρόσοδον (Ant. 18.18). Strugnell and Feldman have already pointed out that πρόσοδον must be taken in the sense of “approach” rather than “rewards,” which usually requires the plural.55 Feldman translates: “(They) believe that they ought to strive especially to draw near to righteousness,” taking δίκαιον as equivalent to δικαιοσύνη. However, “to draw near” would be better with πρὸς τὸ δίκαιον, rather than the genitive. In view of the personification of Righteousness at Qumran, we would suggest the translation: “(They) believe that the approach of Righteousness is highly to be prized.” This eschatological credo fits very well into the context following Josephus’ reference to the Essene belief in immortality. Another possibility has already been noted by Feldman: that dikaios (ṣaddîq) may be an allusion to the Moreh ha-Ṣedeq. Indeed at Qumran the term ṣaddîq was applied particularly to the Teacher of Righteousness (1QpH 1:12; 5:8–9) and one may find support for a belief in his return in the latter days in CD 6:10–11. This passage refers to the groping of the faithful for proper direction ʿad ʿamod yoreh ha-ṣedeq beʾaḥarît ha-yamîm (‫)עד עמד יורה הצדק באחרית הימים‬.56 The ṣaddîq also appears as the Lord’s servant in Isa 53:11, a passage which undoubtedly was of prime significance at Qumran,57 as indicated by the reading found in 1QIsaa: MʿML NPŠWH YRʾH ʾWR WYSBʿ WBDʿTW YṢDYQ 55 56 57

J. Strugnell, “Flavius Josephus and the Essenes: Antiquities XVIII. 18–22,” JBL 77 (1958): 106–15 (109); L.H. Feldman, Josephus: Jewish Antiquities, Books XVIII–XX (Cambridge, Mass., 1965), 15–16. Compare Ezra 2:63 and Neh 7:65: ʿad ʿamod kohen leʾurîm uletummîm. I.L. Seeligmann, “ΔΕΙΞΑΙ ΑΥΤΩΙ ΦΩΣ,” Tarbiz 27 (1957/58): [127]–41 (in Hebrew).

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ṢDYQ ʿBDY LRBYM (‫)מעמל נפשוה יראה אור וישבע ובדעתו יצדיק צדיק עבדי לרבים‬, “out of the travail of his soul he sees light and he is satisfied, and by his knowledge the Righteous One, my servant, provides right guidance for the Many.” Rabbîm is the common term for members of the Qumran community. The luminous description of the ṣaddîq seems most appropriate for the Teacher who led the priests in “illuminating God’s statutes unto Jacob” [see above, at n. 48]. However, he was not alone; as H.L. Ginsberg pointed out,58 this verse is reflected in Dan 12:3, where the figure of the servant is given a corporate interpretation: “The wise (maśkîlîm) shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn the Many to righteousness (maṣdîqê(y) ha-rabbîm) (‫ )ומצדיקי הרבים‬as the stars for ever and ever.” Maśkîl is used as a designation for the recipients of Qumran teaching, while maṣdîqê(y) ha-rabbîm would be an appropriate term for the priestly Sons of Zadok who, as we have seen, were likened to the stars. It is, moreover, noteworthy that the shining of the maṣdîqê(y) ha-rabbîm is coordinated in Dan 12:1–3 with the rise of Michael depicted in later sources as a priest ministering before the heavenly altar (b. Ḥag. 12b et al.) Apocalyptic symbolism is by its nature not given to precise ordering, but we must be sensitive to the multiple nuances associated with the root ṢDQ. The title Moreh ha-Ṣedeq can be fathomed only if we take account of the role of personified Ṣedeq in Qumran thought. 6

The Zadokite Priesthood

In our discussion we have tried to explore the ramifications of Ṣedeq as a heavenly personification and its reflection in the characterization of the hierarchy at Qumran. It remains now to inquire whether this conception may have some bearing upon a problem germane to the history of the Qumran community: the nature of its so-called Zadokite priesthood. Considering the ubiquity of allusions in scholarly literature to conflicts between Zadokite and non-Zadokite priests in the period of the Second Temple, it is worthwhile to remind ourselves that there are, all told, only three sources that refer to priests as Sons of Zadok: certain passages in the Book of Ezekiel, a hymn appended to the Hebrew version of Ben Sira,59 and the Qumran writings. Josephus, himself a priest, never refers to Zadokite ancestry as a significant element of priestly genealogy; neither do the apocryphal works, nor rabbinic sources. The focal point of Zadokite pretensions could only have 58 59

H.L. Ginsberg, “The Oldest Interpretation of the Suffering Servant,” VT 3 (1953): 400–404. Ezek 40:46, 43:19, 44:15, 48:11; Ben Sira 51:12.

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been the high-priestly office, which according to 1 Chronicles 5 was traditionally held by descendants of Zadok. However, none of the three sources that employ the term “Sons of Zadok” refers specifically to the high priesthood. The Levitical code accords legitimacy to all sons of Aaron, not only Eleazar, through whom Zadok’s descent was traced. As far as the “Zadokite stratum” in Ezekiel is concerned, it is widely held that the passages stressing the exclusivity of the Sons of Zadok were directed chiefly against the priests who had served at high places outside of Jerusalem.60 This suggests that Sons of Zadok may be a designation for the Jerusalem priesthood rather than a genealogical category. The praise of the Sons of Zadok in Ben Sira 51 likewise occurs in the context of the glorification of Jerusalem and the house of David. The Qumran writers were sharply critical of the contemporary priests of Jerusalem, but never is this said to have been on the grounds of their non-Zadokite descent. Despite the fact that the expression Sons of Zadok is used more frequently in the Qumran writings than any other source, the connotation and significance of this title remains largely obscure. Jacob Liver has devoted a significant study to this subject and it suffices for our purposes to offer an evaluation of some of his findings.61 Some scholars have expressed the belief that the Qumran sect originated from a schism led by priests of Zadokite ancestry, opposed to the assumption of the high priesthood by the Hasmoneans.62 Liver, however, noted that in all the polemic directed at the Wicked Priest, the issue of genealogy is never mentioned. He justly dismissed as groundless Milik’s characterization of the Hasmoneans as “non-Aaronite.” According to 1 Chronicles 24 all priests were Aaronites. Moreover, in 1 Macc 2:54, Mattathias refers to Phinehas, through whom the Zadokites traced their descent, as “our father.”63 Liver suggested 60

61 62 63

See J. Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Israel (New York, 1957), 122–27, and R. De Vaux, Ancient Israel, 364, who took Sons of Zadok as equivalent to the Jerusalem priesthood, by contrast with the Levites of the provincial sanctuaries. In their view the Zadokites began to claim Aaron as their ancestor only in the postexilic period. Compare, however, F.M. Cross, Canaanite Myth, 195–215, who vigorously defends the historicity of this claim and sees Zadok as the scion of the Aaronid house of Hebron; see also the recent appraisal of the problem by J.D. Levenson, Theology of the Program of Restoration of Ezekiel 40–48 (Harvard, 1976), 129–51. J. Liver, “The Sons of Zadok the Priests in the Dead Sea Sect,” RevQ 6 (1967–1969): 3–30. J.T. Milik, Ten Years of Discovery in the Wilderness of Judaea (Naperville, 1959), 82–83; G. Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls in English (2nd edition; Hammondsworth, 1975), 63; Cross, Ancient Library, 129–35. Compare Sifre Bamidbar 131 (ed. Horovitz, p. 173) where eighty high priests of the Second Temple are referred to as descendants of Phinehas. In Midrash ha-Gadol on Num 25:13 they are said to have been of the lineage of Eleazar. It is likewise noteworthy that in

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that Jehoiarib, the priestly course to which the Hasmoneans belonged, may have been a branch of the family of Jedaiah, which had Zadokite connections. To be sure, the high priesthood had long been looked upon as the hereditary prerogative of the Oniads, but, as Liver observed, there is in the sectarian references to the Sons of Zadok, “a decided lack of any controversial stand against other priestly categories.”64 Even the Wicked Priest is said to have been “called by the name of truth at the beginning of his coming.”65 He was corrupted by his deeds, not his lineage. Sons of Zadok was not the only priestly title used at Qumran; we also find the name Sons of Aaron. Liver took the latter to be priests of non-Zadokite lineage and tried to find distinctions in their status vis-à-vis the Zadokites. This part of his presentation is, however, decidedly unconvincing. The Sons of Aaron, just as the Sons of Zadok are called “upholders of the covenant.”66 There is no discernible distinction in their authority, and we can only assume that these were alternative designations for all priests of the community. We are similarly unable to follow Licht’s efforts to find in the Serekh ha-berakot a separate blessing for non-Zadokite priests.67 1QM 17:2–3 specifically recognizes both Eleazar and Ithamar as sharing the priestly covenant for eternity. The question which therefore presents itself is: Why do the Qumran writers show such a decided preference for the term Bene Ṣadoq? Did this title have conceptual connotations befitting the role of the priests within the community? Although he took it to be genealogical, Liver noted that Bene Ṣadoq is used in connection with the didactic rather than the cultic functions of the priests: “It is to be regarded as the distinctive connotation of a priestly hierarchy determining the sect’s spiritual image, formulating its ordinances, and elucidating its corpus juris.”68 In the light of what we have found concerning the place of Ṣedeq in Qumran apocalyptic and the illuminational role of the moreh ha-ṣedeq, it is highly plausible to assume that the name Ṣadoq was preferred because of its association with Ṣedeq. In a recent critique of the Jebusite theory which seeks to link Zadok with Melchizedek and a pre-Israelite cult of the god Ṣedeq in Jerusalem, Frank Cross maintains that the two names are morphologically unrelated. The element ṣadoq (from ṣaduq) he takes as a hypocoristicon of the type in which a divine

64 65 66 67 68

his panegyric to Simon, the high priest, Ben Sira 50:24 refers only to his descent from Phinehas, not from Zadok. Liver, Sons of Zadok, 28. 1QpHab 8:8. 1QS 5:9, 21–22. J. Licht, Megillat ha-Serakhim (Jerusalem, 1965), 275 [in Hebrew]. Sons of Zadok, 6.

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name is followed by the adjective ṣaduq, describing the god as righteous. Melchizedek, on the other hand, belongs to the type in which ṣedeq or ṣidqu is the name of a deity.69 The absoluteness of this distinction is, however, open to question. Julius Lewy70 pointed out that the Amorite name Ammi-ṣaduqa was translated in the Babylonian King List as Kimtum-kittum, “Amm is the Justice,” ṣaduqa being understood as the status emphaticus of the noun ṣaduq meaning “justice.” Meisler71 likewise took ṣadoq as an alternative for ṣedeq. Moreover, whatever one may conclude concerning the original morphology, it is unlikely that there was in the minds of the people at Qumran any dichotomy between the two forms. Hence, they called themselves not only Sons of Ṣedeq but Sons of Ṣadoq, the latter term capable of embracing even the lay members of the community. This affinity is supported by textual evidence. We note the interesting reading found in 1QS 9:14, BNY HṢDWQ (‫)בני הצדוק‬, while a parallel Cave 4 fragment has BNY HṢDQ (‫)בני הצדק‬. Even if this is a scribal error, it illustrates the close association of the two names in the Qumran mind.72 CD 5:2–5 exonerates David’s polygamy on the grounds that the Law was not fully revealed “until the rising of Zadok” (ʿad ʿamod Ṣadoq, ‫)עד עמוד צדוק‬. Which Zadok is meant here?73 Is it the priest of David’s time? Nothing is known of him as a revealer of laws, nor would a revelation contemporary with David serve to exonerate his trespass. The wording is strikingly similar to that used in CD 6:10–11 concerning the return of the Teacher: ʿad ʿamod yoreh ha-ṣedeq (‫)עד עמד יורה הצדק‬. It has been suggested that Zadok may have been the name of the Teacher of Righteousness.74 The possibility of such a fortuitous coincidence cannot be 69 70 71 72

73 74

F.M. Cross, Canaanite Myth, 209. J. Lewy, “The Old West-Semitic Sun-God Ḥammu,” HUCA 18 (1943/44): 429–88 (435); compare R. Rosenberg, “The God Ṣedeq,” 167–68. B. Meisler, “Adoniṣedeq,” Encyclopaedia Biblica 1:114 (in Hebrew). Another example may be found in J. Strugnell’s reading (“Notes en marge du Volume V des ‘Discoveries in the Judaean Desert of Jordan,’” RevQ 7 [1969–1971]: 163–276 (222) of a damaged line in 4QFlorilegium [4Q174] 1–2 1.17: HMH BNY ṢDWQ Wʾ[N]ŠY ʿṢT[M]H RWD[PY Ṣ]DQ, “they are the Sons of Zadok and the men of their counsel, those who pursue Righteousness.” G.R. Driver, Judaean Scrolls, 254–55 has rightly called attention to the deliberate double entendre between “Sons of Ṣadoq” and “Sons of Ṣedeq” in the Qumran writings. He further suggested that the name ʿir ha-ṣedeq in Isa 19:18 (LXX) was applied to Leontopolis because of the temple founded there by Onias, the Zadokite (ibid., 228). See, however, our simpler explanation in note 30. L. Ginzberg’s effort (Eine unbekannte jüdische Sekte, 28) to identify this Zadok with Hilkiah, Zadok’s grandson, is hardly convincing. Liver, The Sons of Zadok, 12. The Genizah text published by I. Lévi [“Document relatif à la ‘Communaute des fils de Sadoc,’”] (REJ 65 [1913]: 24–31) refers to a group called ʿDT BNY ṢDWQ. The Karaite Al-Qirqisani attributed three halakhic teachings, now

THE HEAVENLY TRIBUNAL AND THE PERSONIFICATION OF ṢEDEQ

171

excluded, but it is much more likely that the conceptual affinity played a role in the use of Ṣadoq as an alternative to the title moreh ha-ṣedeq. Similarly, the preference for Bene Ṣadoq as an epithet for the priests may derive, not from claims for superior pedigree, but from the appropriateness of this designation for the primarily judicial and instructional function of the Qumran priesthood. 7

The Sadducees

In evaluating the hypothesis that the “Zadokite” ideology of the Qumran sect may have a conceptual rather than a genealogical basis, one cannot ignore the still unresolved problems concerning the origin and nature of the contemporary Ṣadduqîm. The obscurities in this case are even more formidable, for we have no original Sadducean writings and must depend wholly on sources stemming from their opponents. Without pretending to offer any new solutions to long-standing questions, suffice it here to indicate some lines of inquiry which might prove fruitful. Ever since Geiger,75 it is almost universally held that the Sadducees derived their name from Zadok, the ruling priest under David, and on the basis of their hereditary claims to this office constituted a priestly aristocracy. The rabbinic tradition linking them with Zadok, a disciple of Antigonus of Sokho,76 is generally disregarded together with the view of the Church fathers that the name stems from ṣaddiqîm. Yet Geiger, himself, did not entirely dismiss the latter hypothesis. He believed that because of the similarity in sound and etymology, the priestly Ṣadduqîm were called by their supporters ṣaddiqîm.77 Geiger’s attempts to find allusions to such Zadokite ṣaddiqîm in the Psalms seem remote. Yet we do know of at least one high priest of Zadokite ancestry, Simon II, who was called “the Righteous.” According to Josephus,78 he was given this honorific title “because of both his piety toward God and his benevolence to

75

76 77 78

specifically found in the Scrolls, to an opponent of the Rabbanites called Zadok (L. Nemoy, “Al-Qirqisānī’s Account of the Jewish Sects and Christianity,” HUCA 7 [1930]: 317–97 (326); compare Driver, Judaean Scrolls, 260–61). A. Geiger, Urschrift und Übersetzungen der Bibel (Breslau, 1857) 26–31. For current bibliography see R. Meyer’s article “Saddoukaios,” TDNT 7:35–54. Y. Kaufman, Toledot ha-ʾEmunah ha-Yisra‌ʾelit (4 vols.; Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, 1975/76), 3:572–74 n. 94, characterized Geiger’s theory that the Sadducees derived their name from the Zadokite priesthood as “a most dubious hypothesis.” ʾAbot R. Nat. (ed. Schechter), 26. Geiger, Urschrift, 26–27. Ant. 12.43.

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his kinsmen (ὁμόφυλοι).”79 Did Josephus have in mind the double-entendre ṣaddîq and scion of the Zadokite dynasty? A clearer allusion is found in the Assumption of Moses 7:3, where a writer hostile to the Sadducees described them as scornful and impious men who “say that they are just” (homines pestilentiosi et impii docentes se esse iustos).80 This indicates that the Sadducees were pleased to have their name associated with the ethical connotation of ṣedeq. It is quite reasonable to suggest that they were also sensitive to another aspect of ṣedeq: its ancient historical association with Jerusalem. One of the important elements of Sadducean ideology was the emphasis on the centrality of the Temple and Jerusalem in the life of the nation. As one scholar puts it,81 “to have the mind of the Zadokite or Sadducee is to be sustained by the concept of a particularist temple state which along the lines of traditional eschatological hopes is the seed for … the restoration of the idealised kingdom of Israel as David once reigned over it.” We note in this connection the intimate biblical nexus of Jerusalem with ṣedeq. The city, itself, was called ʿîr ha-ṣedeq and its holy mountain neweh ṣedeq.82 Jewish exegesis of Deut 33:19, exemplified by Targum Onqelos, identified the mountain on which zibeḥê(y) ṣedeq were offered with the site of the Jerusalem temple.83 The assurance that God “would not forsake his inheritance” led to the hope ki ʿad ṣedeq yashub mishpaṭ (Ps 94:14–15) which is best translated in the locative sense, “for justice shall return unto Ṣedeq (Jerusalem).” Jerusalem’s monarchical tradition extends from Melchizedek through Canaanite Adoni-ṣedeq to the throne-name of its last Judaean king, Zedekiah. It culminates with the coming of mashiaḥ ha-ṣedeq, in whose days Jerusalem is to be called YHWH ṢDQNW (Jer 33:16). The city’s priestly tradition likewise begins with Melchizedek who, according to Josephus, was “the first to build the Temple” and to give the city its name [War 6.438]. It continues with Zadok and his dynasty through Jehoṣadaq, and culminates with the coming of eternal Ṣedeq. 79

80 81 82 83

M. Stern, “Aspects of Jewish Society: The Priesthood and Other Classes,” in The Jewish People in the First Century (ed. S. Safrai and M. Stern; 2 vols.; Philadelphia, 1974–76), 2:561– 630 (593) calls attention to the fact that Josephus sometimes used the term phylē (tribe) in the sense of “division of priests”; see, for example, J.W. 4.155. Compare Jerome (PL 26:163–64 [179]): Sadducaei … qui interpretantur iusti et ipsi vindicant sibi quod non erant; the passage is quoted by Driver, Judaean Scrolls, 260. Meyer, TDNT 7:44. See n. 20 above; a 4Q text cited by Milik (“Milkî-ṣedeq,” 119) identifies the neweh ṣedeq of Jer 31:22 with Mount Zion. Compare Ps 4:6, Ben Sira 7:33, and 1QS 9:5, where prayer is likened to NYḤWḤ ṢDQ. The term ZBḤ HṢD[Q] also appears on a fragment of a 4Q pesher on Deuteronomy 33:19 (Allegro, DJD 5.56). [Note also] Josephus, War 6.438.

THE HEAVENLY TRIBUNAL AND THE PERSONIFICATION OF ṢEDEQ

173

The name Ṣadduqîm is indeed patterned after Ṣadoq, but that by no means implies that the ideology of the Sadducees is to be reduced merely to a concern with priestly genealogy. Were this the case, we would be hard put to explain the anomalous fact that the Sadducees ultimately became the main supporters of the non-Zadokite Hasmonean dynasty.84 Some hard-core Zadokites were willing to sacrifice the uniqueness of Jerusalem for the hereditary claims of Onias IV to the high priesthood. The latter built his own temple in Egypt. However, the vigorous insistence of the Hasmoneans on the primacy of Jerusalem ultimately prevailed even among Egyptian Jewry. The Ṣadduqîm, representing the aristocracy which took pride in its long association with the city of Ṣedeq, likewise realized that their basic interests converged with those of the ruling Hasmoneans. This political alliance was very likely facilitated by the priestly nomenclature adopted by the Maccabeans. Historians of the Second Temple period have, it seems, not given sufficient attention to the title used by Hasmonean high priests, kohen leʾel ʿelyon (‫כהן לאל‬ ‫)עליון‬, “Priest of the Supreme God.” Their use of this title is thoroughly attested in the sources, including Josephus, the Assumption of Moses, and the Talmud.85 Although ʾel ʿelyon was a frequently used divine name in this period, its combination with kohen was an unmistakable allusion to the first kohen leʾel ʿelyon, Melchizedek. It is difficult to imagine any high priest assuming such a scriptural title without associating himself with its first bearer. Moreover, for the Hasmoneans such association served as a most significant precedent for their assumption of both royal and priestly prerogatives. It also blunted the edge of the allegation that, not being of the Oniad family, they lacked the Zadokite pedigree essential for the high priesthood.86 Their office, they avowed, was not obtained through hereditary succession, but derived from Melchizedek, the archetype of the Jerusalem priesthood. The tacit recognition of this claim may be implied by the admission of the Qumran commentators that the Wicked Priest was called “by the name of truth at the beginning of his rise,” though he was later corrupted. It is also noteworthy 84 85 86

Compare S. Zeitlin, The Rise and Fall of the Judaean State (3 vols.; Philadelphia, 1968), 1:171. Ant. 16.163: ἐπὶ Ὑρκανοῦ ἀρχιερέως θεοῦ ὑψίστου; Assumption of Moses 6:1: et in sacerdotes summi Dei vocabuntur; b. Roš Haš. 18b: “In year such and such of Joḥanan, high priest of the Most High God.” A. Schalit (The Hellenistic Age [World History of the Jewish People; New Brunswick, 1972], 273) notes the significance of John Hyrcanus’s emphatic wish “to be righteous,” εἶναι δίκαιον (Ant. 13.289, 291), which he believes was in response to the slurs against his priestly legitimacy and the link between “righteousness” and the priesthood in Ps 132:9. He then adds in a note (p. 340): “Does this view have its origin in, or is it at least influenced by the fact that the High Priests were the Sons of Zadok (ẓedeq-righteousness)?” This study may serve to supply the basis for a positive answer to Schalit’s question.

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that the title kohen leʾel ʿelyon used by the Hasmoneans is applied to Levi in the Aramaic Testament of Levi and in Jubilees, both with close Qumran affinities.87 Between the unworldly Bene Ṣadoq of Qumran and the aristocratic Ṣadduqîm there does not seem to be much in common, aside from the affinity of their names. They did have similar views on at least one aspect of the calendar and shared the unwillingness to accept the authority of the Pharisaic oral tradition.88 Insistence on Zadokite priestly genealogy does not appear to have been a cardinal principle with either group and was not a sufficient basis for a coalition of anti-Hasmonean interests. From a conceptual perspective, one may view these two parties as espousing the fulfillment of different perceptions of ṣedeq. One considered righteousness as inherent in the Temple, its priestly establishment, and the ruling aristocracy of Jerusalem. The other was acutely conscious of the blemishes in the present order. It charged the Jerusalem priesthood with corruption and defilement of the Temple. Led by the Teacher of Righteousness it turned away from the saeculum to the vision of a new Jerusalem illuminated by the dawning light of Ṣedeq. 87 88

Charles, Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, 247 [“Appendix III: Aramaic and Greek Fragments”]; Jub. 32:1. Compare Baumgarten, Studies, 111–12. The recently published Temple Scroll may, however, provide further points of contact between Qumran and Sadducean halakhah. [See Baumgarten’s “Sadducean Elements in Qumran Law,” included in this volume.]

Chapter 12

The “Sons of Dawn” in CD 13:14–15 and the Ban on Commerce among the Essenes Since* the publication of the first Qumran texts, it has been common knowledge that one of the aspects of the economic order of the community was the restriction of contacts with outsiders. In the Serekh ha-Yaḥad (1QS) this restriction is clothed in terms of ritual purity. A sectarian rule forbade the receiving of any food or articles from apostates unless they were paid for: ‫ואשר לוא יוכל מהונם כול ולוא ישתה ולוא יקח מידם כול מאומה אשר לוא במחיר‬

And that one may neither eat nor drink of that which is theirs, nor take anything at all from them except for a price. 1QS 5:16–17

The knowledge of this rule has had a decisive influence upon the current exegesis of what appears to be a similar regulation in the Cairo Damascus Covenant (CD) 13:14–15. We shall cite the text and its translation as found, for example, in the widely used edition of Rabin:1 ‫ואיש מכל באי ברית אל אל ישא ואל יתן לבני השחת כי אם כף לכף‬

And let no man of all the members of the covenant of God trade with the Children of the Pit except for cash. Substantially similar translations are found in other editions of the Qumran texts.2 However, while the 1QS rule apparently bans gifts or loans from outsiders, * Original publication: “The ‘Sons of Dawn’ in CDC 13:14–15 and the Ban on Commerce among the Essenes,” IEJ 33 (1983): 81–85. Republished with the generous permission of the Israel Exploration Society. 1 C. Rabin, The Zadokite Documents (2nd ed.; Oxford, 1958), 66. 2 T.H. Gaster, The Dead Sea Scriptures (3rd rev. ed.; New York, 1976), 87; J. Maier, Die Texte vom Toten Meer (2 vols.; Munich, 1960), 1:63; E. Lohse, Die Texte aus Qumran (2nd ed.; Munich, 1971), 95; cf. J. Licht, Megillat ha-Serakhim (Jerusalem, 1965), 133 (in Hebrew). The emendation ‫ השחת‬is also adopted by J.A. Fitzmyer, S.J., “Prolegomenon,” in S. Schechter, Documents of Jewish Sectaries (New York, 1970), 22.

© Joseph M. Baumgarten, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004505087_014

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the CD regulation pertains to ‫משא ומתן‬, “buying and selling.” Since trade with outsiders was permitted, the application of the latter would be limited to the extension of credit by the buyer to the seller. The expression ‫כף לכף‬, it is suggested, is equivalent to mishnaic Hebrew ‫מיד ליד‬, which supposedly has the sense of a cash payment.3 However, this sense lacks documentation from elsewhere.4 Apart from the problems of translation, there is cause for serious misgivings about the reading of the word ‫ השחת‬in the Hebrew text. While such a reading may appear as possibly compatible with the rather hazy facsimile provided by Zeitlin, examination of a new photograph provided by the University Library, Cambridge, indicates without doubt that the word must be read ‫השחר‬.5 This was the original reading—unfortunately later emended—of Schechter’s editio princeps.6 It was confirmed before the discovery of the Scrolls by two subsequent editors of CD who based themselves on the Genizah manuscript.7 It is primarily under the influence of 1QS and secondarily because of the occurrence of the epithet ‫ בני השחת‬in CD 6:15 that contemporary translators of the Qumran literature have adopted the reading ‫ לבני שחת‬in CD 13:14. Here, it turns out, is a case where the initial Qumran findings contributed to the misapprehension of a passage in CD. However, this need no longer be the case. The reason that Schechter felt compelled to abandon his original reading ‫בני‬ ‫ השחר‬is simply that he could find no sense in such a name. However, we now have evidence that the men of Qumran, who frequently identified themselves as ‫בני אור‬, also used the variant ‫בני שחר‬, Sons of Dawn. This emerges, first of all, from the salient symbolic significance attached to the phenomenon of sunrise at Qumran.8 To illustrate, a morning hymn found in the Psalms Scroll from Cave 11 proclaims: 3 Rabin, Zadokite Documents, 67. In a current Israeli lexicon (ʾOṣar ha-Lashon ha-ʿIvrit [ed. J. Kaufmann; 18 vols.; Jerusalem, 1960–1989], 7:2330), the expression ‫ כף לכף‬is taken to be an idiom meaning “a small amount.” The authority for this rendering is not given. 4 In m. Maʿaś. 4:5, ‫ מיד ליד‬denotes literally movement from one hand to the other, while in Exod. Rab. 42:8 it describes direct transmission. The use of ‫ כף אל כף‬in Ezek 21:19 is not pertinent. 5 S. Zeitlin, The Zadokite Fragments (Philadelphia, 1952). I am grateful to the Syndics of Cambridge University Library and to Dr S.C. Reif, Director of the Taylor-Schechter Geniza Research Unit, for permission to publish the photograph [published with this article as Pl. 9:A in IEJ 33 (1983), but not included in this volume]. 6 S. Schechter, Fragments of a Zadokite Work (Cambridge, 1910), liii n. 16: “Heb. 1. 14 ‫בני השחר‬ which gives no meaning, and which I emended ‫ב׳ הנכר‬.” 7 F. Hvidberg, Menighede af den nye Pagt i Damascus (Copenhagen, 1928), 49; L. Rost, Die Damaskusschrift (Berlin, 1933), 24. 8 I have discussed this and other aspects of the solar imagery of Qumran in “The Heavenly Tribunal and the Personification of Ṣedeq in Jewish Apocalyptic,” ANRW 19.1 (1979): 219–39 [included in this volume].

177

THE “ SONS OF DAWN ” IN CD 13:14–15

‫ אז ראו כול מלאכיו‬,‫ שחר הכין בדעת לבו‬,‫גדול וקדוש ה׳ … מבדיל אור מאפלה‬ ‫ כי הראם את אשר לוא ידעו‬,‫וירננו‬

Great and holy is the Lord … who has parted light from darkness and by the knowledge of His heart He established (the) dawn, When all His angels saw it they sang for joy, for what He showed them was a thing they had not known before. 11QPsa 26:9–129

The perception of dawn as a symbol for divine illumination is likewise found in the Hodayot 4:6: ‫וכשחר נכון לאו[רתו]ם הופעתה לי‬

As dawn established You appeared as perfect light to me. This, of course, brings to mind Josephus’ description of the Essene veneration of sunrise and their practice of reciting their morning prayers before dawn “as though entreating him (the sun) to rise” ( J.W. 2.128). In principle, therefore, ‫ בני השחר‬would be a most meaningful name for adherents of the Qumran community. Moreover, and this is decisive for our purposes, this designation is in fact reported to be found in an as yet unpublished fragment from Cave IV. According to J.T. Milik,10 the fragment begins with the words: ‫[דברי?] משכיל אשר דבר לכול בני שחר האזינו‬

[The words?] of the instructor which he spoke to all the Sons of Dawn: “Hearken …” It is safe to assume that the instruction was intended for the members of the community, who are here called Sons of Dawn. Returning to CD 13:14–15, there is no longer any reason for departing from the reading found in the MS:

9 10

[Translation adapted from Gaster, Dead Sea Scriptures, 227. The text was published by J. Sanders as “Hymn to the Creator” (11QPsa 26:9–15), in The Psalms Scroll of Qumrân Cave 11 (11QPsa) (DJD 4; Oxford: Clarendon, 1965), 89–91.] “Le travail d’édition des fragments manuscrits de Qumrân,” RB 63 (1956): (49–67) 61. [The text has since been published as 4Q298; see S.J. Pfann and M. Kister, “298. 4QcryptA Words of the Maskil to all Sons of Dawn,” in Qumran Cave 4.XV: Sapiential Texts, Part 1 (ed. T. Elgvin et al., DJD 20; Oxford, 1997), 1–30.]

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‫ואיש מכל באי ברית אל אל ישא ואל יתן לבני השחר כי אם כף לכף‬

And let no man of all who enter the covenant of God buy from or sell to the Sons of Dawn, but rather (give) hand to hand. This rule, it develops, concerns not avoidance of contacts with outsiders, but the internal economic relations among members of the community. These relations are to be predicated not on the commercial basis of buying and selling (‫)ישא … יתן‬, but the fraternal concept of mutual help and exchange of services (‫)כף לכף‬. This exclusion of commercialism within the order was also one of the distinguishing marks of the Essene koinōnia, as noted by Philo and Josephus: They have not the vaguest idea of commerce either wholesale or retail or marine, but pack the inducements to covetousness off in disgrace. Not a single slave is to be found among them, but all are free, exchanging services with each other. Philo, Quod omnis probus liber sit, 78

There is no buying or selling among themselves, but each gives what he has to any in need and receives from him in exchange something useful to himself. Josephus, J.W. 2.127; cf. Hippolytus, Refutatio omnium haeresium, 9.20.2

The need for a ban on trading under a system of communal ownership is not difficult to explain. Even in a pure communist order, goods of value end up in the hands of individuals who are liable to sell them for profit. The specification of financial penalties in 1QS 7:7 has been noted as presupposing some private resources. The CD has an even wider scope for private property, as exemplified by the laws about the return of lost articles (9:14–15), treatment of pagan slaves (11:12; 12:10–11), and contributions to charity (14:13–14). Despite these variations, the sensitivity to avarice (‫ )הון‬is common to CD as well as the other sectarian writings. To exploit the needs of a frater for profit was an unacceptable display of greed. Hence even where certain forms of enterprise for “buying and selling” (13:15–16) were tolerated, if sanctioned by the overseer, there was no legitimate place for trade among the Sons of Dawn themselves (13:14–15). The aversion to commerce among the Essenes is hardly an isolated phenomenon. It represents a widely shared social ideal of the Hellenistic world. The pursuit of commercial profit and the greed for gold and silver were viewed as corruptions of civilization. Philosophers envisioned utopian societies whose economic order was built on the basis of shared property and mutual service,

THE “ SONS OF DAWN ” IN CD 13:14–15

179

while geographers claimed to find living models among primitive tribes. Some of the sources most pertinent to the Essene order were already pointed out in 1924 by W. Bauer.11 Plato viewed farming as the most desirable occupation, while trading, by contrast, presented the greatest danger to man’s physical and spiritual welfare (Leg., 743d). Commerce should, as much as possible, be in the way of barter. Ephoros reported the virtuous way of life of the Scythians: “they are not money getters … and have all things in common” (Strabo 7.3.9). On the utopian island Panchaia, described by Euhemeros, there were no merchants, for “there is not a thing except a home and a garden which a man may possess for his own” (Diodorus 5.45). Notably the island is described as having a river called “Water of the Sun” and is situated by Pliny near the City of the Sun.12 The link between solar symbolism and utopian egalitarianism is even more pronounced in the Sun State of Iambalus. On the Isle of the Sun there is no private property; rather “they take turns ministering to the needs of one another … They do not marry but possess their children in common … There is no rivalry among them … they never cease placing the highest value upon internal harmony” (Diodorus 2.54–60). Attention has recently been drawn to the ample parallels between Hellenistic utopia and the Essenes, and the solar identification of Iambalus’s Children of the Sun was characterized as “a commonplace motif to denote equality and justice (everyone is equal before the sun).”13 This motif has been traced to the early Stoics, particularly Cleanthes’ exaltation of the sun and the heavenly bodies.14 The sun was the impartial guarantor of freedom and it is no accident that Aristonicus’s revolt in 133 BCE was supported by freedmen and others called Heliopolitai, “Citizens of the Sun.” At the same time, it is gratifying to note the awareness of the earlier Near Eastern ramifications of the association between righteousness and the sun.15 We had occasion in a separate study to examine the solar representation of personified Ṣedeq in the ideology of the ‫ בני צדק‬of Qumran.16 The light of Ṣedeq was there conceived as banishing the receding dominion of darkness at dawn. The foregoing considerations provide suggestive avenues for explaining why the relatively rare title is used in the context of our passage in CD 13:14–15. The ban on commercialism within the community derives ultimately from the Qumran conception of justice. Any activity which smacked of exploitation for profit was viewed as a threat to the inherent harmony which united all Children of Dawn. 11 12 13 14 15 16

“Essener,” PWSup 4: 386–430 (410–15). J. Ferguson, Utopias of the Classical World (Ithaca, 1975), 110. D. Mendels, “Hellenistic Utopias and the Essenes,” HTR 72 (1979): 207–22 (218). Ferguson, Utopias, 115–17. Ibid., 138–45. “The Heavenly Tribunal.”

Chapter 13

The Disqualifications of Priests in 4Q Fragments of the Damascus Document: A Specimen of the Recovery of Pre-Rabbinic Halakhah It* was originally my intent to devote this paper to a broad survey of the state of studies concerned with Qumran law and the identification of the community. However, upon further reflection, I thought it might be appropriate to employ this occasion for the description of a halakhic fragment from Cave 4, which seems to me to be intrinsically important and which may perhaps also have significance for the discussion of wider issues. The ferment of interest in Qumran law which followed the publication of the Temple Scroll and the description of MMT is now widely manifested by an eagerness to test out new hypotheses and to move away from long-standing premises. A salient illustration may be found in the theory which seeks to identify the Qumranites with the Sadducees. In 1980, I contributed something to the initiation of this theory by noting that in a number of Pharisaic–Sadducean disputes concerning ritual purity recorded in tannaitic sources, the position reflected in Qumran writings coincides with that of the Sadducees.1 Yet, my habitual caution or timidity restrained me from simply inferring that the Qumran sect was Sadducean. After all, there were social and ideological contrasts to be accounted for. Josephus’ Sadducees were aristocratic Epicureans who totally rejected divine destiny as the controlling influence on human affairs—a far cry from the ascetic ʾebyonim of Qumran who viewed the course of events as largely determined above. So I ended up suggesting that either there nevertheless was an affinity in the halakhic orientation of the two groups in the area of purity, or that the term ‫ צדוקים‬in rabbinic sources was elastic enough to also be applied to the Sons of Zadok of Qumran. Some of my colleagues have been much more courageous. Not only have they, on the basis of the similar purity laws, unhesitatingly proclaimed * Original publication: “The Disqualifications of Priests in 4Q Fragments of the ‘Damascus Document,’ a Specimen of the Recovery of Pre-Rabbinic Halakha,” in The Madrid Qumran Congress: Proceedings of the International Congress on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Madrid 18–21 March 1991 (ed. J.T. Barrera and L.V. Montaner; 2 vols.; Leiden: Brill; Madrid: Complutense, 1992), 2:503–13. Republished with the kind permission of Brill Academic Publishers. 1 J. Baumgarten, “The Pharisaic–Sadducean Controversies about Purity and the Qumran Texts,” JJS 31 (1980): 157–70 [included in this volume].

© Joseph M. Baumgarten, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004505087_015

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181

the Qumranites to be Sadducees, but they seem intent on using this halakhic datum as the basis for rejecting the hitherto prevalent Essene theory.2 Here I am still inclined to be much more conservative. Without reviewing the well-known organizational similarities between the Qumran community and the Essenes, which from the very beginning of Scroll research led scholars to posit their identification, I should like to point out that even as far as halakhah is concerned we now have specific parallels with Essene practices, which are no less remarkable because they derive from the accounts of Philo and Josephus rather than the Mishnah. Let me itemize the characteristics of Essene halakhah which Josephus thought worthy of notice: 1. The Essenes avoided anointing themselves with oil. As we now know from the proper reading of CD 12:16, and as confirmed by 11QTemple 49:11, and 4Q513, this was due to the fact that oil, a readily adhering liquid, was regarded by the Qumranites as a potent transmitter of impurity.3 2. The Essene loincloth was worn by men to guard modesty during ritual immersion ( J.W. 2.161), as is likewise specified in 4Q512 [11 x 4]: ‫וכסה את‬ ‫בגדיו‬.4 3. Spitting in the midst of an assembly was considered offensive according to 1QS 7:13 as well as J.W. 2.147. Talmudic restrictions refer only to times of prayer (y. Ber. 3:5 [6d]). 4. Essene strictness with regard to the Sabbath is illustrated by Josephus with two specific rules: a. the requirement that all food be prepared the day before; b. the prohibition to move any vessel ( J.W. 2.147). Both restrictions are included in the Sabbath code of the Damascus Document (10:22 and 11:17). 2 See L. Schiffman, “The New Halakhic Letter (4QMMT) and the Origins of the Dead Sea Sect,” BA 53 (1990): 64–73; and “The Significance of the Scrolls,” BRev 6 (1990): 18–27, 52. Both of these popular papers deal, to be sure, with the origins of the Qumran sect rather than its later development, but the latter is accompanied by the editor’s introductory declaration: “Doubts about the Essene hypothesis have been expressed for years by some scholars, and now a soon-to-be-published Qumran text known as MMT indicates that the sect may not have been Essene. According to author Schiffman, who has studied the text, MMT seems to be the foundation text for the Qumran sect, and its contents conform more nearly to our current understanding of the Sadducees rather than the Essenes.” Schiffman himself, however, allows for a possible redefinition of the Essene movement. 3 See J.M. Baumgarten, “The Essene Avoidance of Oil and the Laws of Purity,” RevQ 6 (1967– 1969): 183–93; and “Halakhic Polemics in New Fragments from Qumran Cave 4,” in Biblical Archaeology Today: Proceedings of the International Congress on Biblical Archaeology, Jerusalem, April 1984 (Jerusalem, 1985), 390–99 [the latter is included in this volume]. 4 See J. Baumgarten, “The Purification Rituals in DJD 7,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Forty Years of Research (ed. D. Dimant and U. Rappaport; Leiden, 1992), 199–209.

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5.

The Essenes who practiced marriage prohibited intercourse during pregnancy ( J.W. 2.161). In a catalogue of sexual transgressions found in a 4Q manuscript of the Damascus Document, reference is made to ‫אשה הרה‬.5 The context strongly suggests that this refers to the same prohibition. 6. Essenes who were expelled from the order often faced death from starvation because they were still bound by the oaths not to partake of the food of outsiders ( J.W. 2.143). This extreme concern with the literal fulfillment of sacrosanct oaths even to the point of death is explicitly indicated in CD 16:7–8, where oaths to do something sanctioned by the Law must be fulfilled even ‫עד מחיר מות‬. 7. The Essenes did not allow buying or selling for profit among themselves ( J.W. 2.127). Due to a faulty transcription of the Genizah manuscript, it was until recently not noted that this rule is also explicated in CD 13:14–15: 6‫ואיש מכל באי ברית אל אל ישא ואל יתן לבני השחר כי אם כף לכף‬ It will be seen that the seven congruities with Essene halakhah which we have listed are quite specific and thus can hardly be ignored in weighing the implications of the parallels between Qumran and Sadducean interpretations of the laws of purity. Actually, there would be no need to choose between these alternatives if we assumed, as recently again suggested by Yaʿakov Sussman, that the Essenes are to be identified with the Boethusians, depicted in rabbinic sources as a subgroup of the Sadducees.7 This identification was already suggested by Azariah dei Rossi in the sixteenth century.8 However this may be, it can safely be observed that the Sadducees and the Essenes, despite the social and theological distance between them, did share a common deference for the privileges of the priesthood. For the Sadducees this 5 An initial description of the 4Q fragments of CD was published as J.M. Baumgarten, “The Qumran Cave 4 Fragments of the Damascus Document,” in Biblical Archaeology Today: Proceedings of the Second International Congress on Biblical Archaeology, Jerusalem, June– July 1990 (Jerusalem, 1993), 391–97. [See Baumgarten’s publication of 4Q270 2 ii 16: Qumran Cave 4.XIII: The Damascus Document (4Q266–273) (DJD 18; Oxford, 1996), 144.] 6 J. Baumgarten, “The ‘Sons of Dawn’ in CDC 13:14–15 and the Ban on Commerce among the Essenes,” IEJ 33 (1983): 81–85 [included in this volume]. 7 Y. Sussmann, “The History of Halakha and the Dead Sea Scrolls: Preliminary Observations on Miqṣat Maʿaśe Ha-Torah (4QMMT)” Tarbiz 59 (1989/90): 11–76 [48–60] (in Hebrew). [For an English version of this argument, see idem, “The History of the Halakha and the Dead Sea Scrolls: Preliminary Talmudic Observations on Miqṣat Maʿaśe ha-Torah (4QMMT),” in Qumran Cave 4.V: Miqṣat Maʿaśe ha-Torah (ed. E. Qimron and J. Strugnell; DJD 10; Oxford, 1994), 179–200 (192–96).] 8 [A. de’ Rossi, The Light of the Eyes (trans. J. Weinberg; New Haven, 2001), 102–110.]

The Disqualifications of Priests in 4Q Fragments

183

may be found in their very name which, according to a widely held premise, derives from Zadok, the High Priest (cf. Acts 5:17).9 The Essenes, as well as the Qumran community, delegated organizational authority as well as responsibility for their pure meals to the priests (Ant. 18.22). Of course, the Teacher was identified as a priest. Some scholars argue that opposition to the ascendancy of non-Zadokite high priests was the major cause for the separation of the sect. It should therefore be of interest to cite a text which deals particularly with rules pertaining to the disqualification of priests. The following excerpt derives from J.T. Milik’s transcription of 4Q266, the oldest and largest of the so-called Damascus Document manuscripts from Cave 4. Dr Milik graciously made his transcription available to me together with the facsimiles.10 The excerpt constitutes the second of two adjoining columns which may provisionally be placed near the beginning of the corpus of laws. Of col. 1 only fragmentary phrases from the middle of twelve lines are extant. One of these lines mentions the Sons of Zadok, the priests. The following line refers to ‫[מדרש ה]תורה האחרון‬, followed by an introductory heading which Milik restored as follows: ]‫ואלה החו[ק]ים למ[שכיל‬. For the second column, transcribed below, we have part of the upper margin as well as the right hand intercolumnar margin extending over twelve lines. The first three lines are partially restored on the basis of parallel fragments found in two other manuscripts of CD, 4Q269 and 4Q273. 1

4QDa (4Q266) Priestly Disqualifications

Text: ]‫טרוד דבר‬ ‫ן וכול א[שר נקל ב‬. 1 ]‫ [לא] פצל דבריו להשמיע [קולו לא יקרא בספר‬2 ] [ ‫ [התורה] למה ישיג בדבר מות‬3 ]‫איש‬ [ ‫אחו הכהנים בעבודה‬ 4 ] [ ‫ מבני אהרון אשר ישבה לגואים‬5 9 10

This hypothesis of A. Geiger is, for example, adopted by K. Kohler, “Sadducees,” JE 10:630– 633 (630). [Milik’s transcription is now in the library of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, to which it was donated by the Baumgarten family. The text as given below is Baumgarten’s copy of Milik’s text; there are some improvements in his own version of the text in DJD 18.49–50.]

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PART 3: PHARISEES AND SADDUCEES, ESSENES, AND QUMRAN

] ‫ לחללה בטמאתם אל יגש לעבודת [הקודש‬6 ] ‫מבית לפרוכת ואל יוכל את קודש ה[קדשים‬ 7 ] ‫איש מבני אהרון אשר ינדד לעב[וד את‬ 8 ]‫איש מבני‬ [ .‫מ‬. }‫ עמו בישוד עם וגם לבגו{ד‬9 ] [‫ אהרון אשר הופ⟨י⟨ל שמו מן האמות ו‬10 ] [ ‫ בשרירות לבו לאכול מן הקודש‬11 ] [ ‫מ‬. ‫מישראל את עצת בני אהרון‬ 1 2 ] [ ‫ את האוכל ו⟨חבי⟩ וחב בדם‬13 ] [ ‫ ביחש⟨י⟩ם וזה סרך מושב‬14 ] [‫ הקודש [במחני]הם [ו]עריהם בכ‬15 ‫שב‬ 16 Translation: 1 [And anyone who speaks too softly(?) or with a shrill voice, / not] 2 dividing his words so that his voice may be heard, [shall not read 3 from the Book of the / Torah], lest he cause error in a capital 4 matter? … / his brothers, the priests in the service … [Any man] 5 / of the Sons of Aaron who was in captivity among the Gentiles … 6 to profane it with their uncleanliness. He may not approach the 7 [holy] service … / within the curtain and may not eat the most 8 holy [offerings] … / Any man of the Sons of Aaron who migrates to 9 serve … / with him in the council of the people and also to betray … 10 [Any man of the Sons] / of Aaron who caused his name to fall from the truth, 11 walking] / in the stubbornness of his heart to eat of the sacred … 12–13 / from Israel the counsel of the Sons of Aaron … / the one who eats shall 14 incur guilt for the blood … / in genealogy. And this is the 15 order for the session of … / of holiness in their cam[ps] and their towns in a[ll] … Textual Notes: L. 1 ‫נקל‬, restored on the basis of a parallel fragment, presumably refers to a voice which is not loud enough. ‫ טרוד‬is used in 1QM 8 to describe a shrill staccato sound. L. 3. For ‫[ ישוג‬so Baumgarten reads in DJD 18.50] cf. 1QSa 1:5: ‫פן ישגו‬ ]‫“ במ[שוגותיהמה‬lest they stray in their errors”; the context there likewise pertains to the public reading of the Law. L. 4 The defective spelling of ‫ אחו‬looks like a scribal error.

The Disqualifications of Priests in 4Q Fragments

185

L. 6 ‫ לחללה‬requires a feminine antecedent, perhaps ‫עבודה‬, although the same word follows. L. 7 For ‫ ינדד‬see Hos 9:17: ‫ויהיו נדדים בגוים‬. L. 8 ‫אישי‬, applied to the priesthood, is found as an honorific title in m. Yoma 1:3; ‫איש‬, however, is standard in the formulation of laws in CD. ]‫ לעב[וד‬may alternatively be restored ]‫ לעב[ור‬or ]‫לעב[ר‬. L. 9 The scribe wrote ‫לבגו‬, with what Milik takes to be a corrective dot over the waw. If ⟩‫ לבג⟨ד‬is correct it may be intended as the substantive ‫“ בגד‬treason,” possibly in construct with ]‫[ע]מ[ו‬. L. 10 Orig.: ‫ ;הפיל שמו מן האמת‬corrected to: ‫הופל שמו מן האמות‬. The meaning of the corrected reading is obscure; “his name was cast down by the nations”? L. 12 The nota accusativi before ‫ עצה‬suggests the possible restoration: ‫[אל‬ ‫ ;ישאל איש] מישראל את עצת בני אהרון‬cf. 1QS 6:12: ‫האיש השואל את עצת היחד‬. Commentary: L. 2 “Not dividing his words.” Cf. Neh 8:8 where the reading of the Law under Ezra is described as done ‫“ מפרש‬distinctly” (RSV); ‫“ פרש‬to separate” is close in meaning to ‫פצל‬. Our text apparently considers the reading of the Torah to be a priestly function. This accords with Josephus, Ant. 4.209, which assigns the septennial reading (Deut 31:10) to the High Priest. 1QSa1:2–5 refers to a reading in the “latter days” before the entire congregation, modelled on the assemblage of Deuteronomy 31, but the readers are not specified. Since the “Sons of Zadok, the priests” are named as the leaders in the preceding context it is possible that they were also intended to be the readers. M. Soṭah 7:8 describes Agrippa, the king, reading the Torah at the Hakhel assembly, while the reading on the Day of Atonement was reserved for the High Priest (m. Yoma 7:1). L. 3 ‫ דבר מות‬is the term used in CD 9:6 and 17 for a capital matter. Misapprehension of capital laws due to faulty reading must be avoided. L. 4 The restoration of the word (with about four spaces) at the beginning of the line is difficult, especially since we lack the end of 1. 3. [‫ ]ושרת‬comes to mind on the premise that a priest with pronunciation difficulties would still be eligible to participate with his brethren in the service, but this is no more than conjecture. L. 5–6 For another reference to captivity among the Gentiles see CD 14:15: ‫ולאשר ישבה לגוי נכר‬. It is clear from the extant text that the rule excluded priests who had returned from captivity from being ministrants in the sacrificial service, because they were held to be defiled. See the discussion below. L. 7 ‫ מבית לפרכת‬is the Levitical term (Exodus 26 and Leviticus 16 passim) for the inner sanctuary, to which access was forbidden for captive priests. The

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second disqualification pertains to the right to partake of sacred offerings. According to Ezra 2:63, this was also denied to the priests who were unable to produce their genealogical records: ‫אשר לא יאכלו מקדש הקדשים עד עמד כהן‬ ‫לאורים ולתמים‬. L. 8 ‫“( נדד‬to wander”) derives from Hos 9:17 ‫ויהיו נדדים בגוים‬, and presumably refers to a voluntary migration outside the boundaries of the Holy Land. L. 9 The connotation of ‫ יסוד עם‬derives from Ezek 13:9 where the retribution against the false prophets involves their exclusion from “council of my people,” ‫סוד עמי‬, and the land of Israel. In CD 19:35 the same punishment is applied to the men who betrayed (‫ )ויבגדו‬the covenant: ‫לא יחשבו בסוד עם ובכתבם לא‬ ‫יכתבו‬. Milik’s suggestion that our text alludes here to hellenizing priests seems quite plausible. See below for the references in 2 Maccabees to Menelaus and Alcimus. L. 10 Based on the scribe’s first reading, the text refers to a priest who “caused his name to fall from the truth.” This recalls the description of the Wicked Priest in 1QpHab 8–10: “who was called by the name of truth when he first arose,” but later betrayed (‫ )ויבגוד‬the precepts. The terminology used here for the apostasy of a priest is also closely echoed in the penal code (1QS 7:19), which refers to the apostasy and expulsion of a member of the yaḥad: ‫והאיש אשר תזוע רוחו מיסוד היחד לבגוד באמת וללכת בשרירות לבו‬

Here the ‫ יסוד היחד‬is substituted for the ‫ ישוד עם‬in our text. L. 11 The “stubbornness of the heart” apparently refers to a priest who ignores the aforementioned prohibition to eat of the offerings. L. 12 The mention of “Israel” suggests that here the text alludes to the relationship of the apostate priest with the laity; for a possible restoration see the textual note above. L. 13 For blood-guilt in connection with a ritual trespass cf. Lev 17:4: ‫דם יחשב‬ ‫לאיש ההוא‬. L. 14 ‫ ביחש⟨י⟩ם‬very likely derives from Ezra 2:62 (= Neh 7:64) where the priests who were unable to produce their genealogical records [‫כתבם‬ ‫ ]המתיחשים‬were suspended from the Temple service. ‫ וזה סרך‬introduces a new section of communal regulations. 2

Discussion

The extant portion of our text pertains to three rules affecting the qualification of priests:

The Disqualifications of Priests in 4Q Fragments

187

A. Priestly Torah readers were required to have distinct pronunciation. B. Priests who were in foreign captivity could not minister in the sanctuary nor partake of the offerings. C. Priests who migrated into pagan lands, as well as apostates, were regarded as no longer belonging to the “council of the people” and were thus likewise excluded from partaking of the offerings. Rule A is indicative of a priestly function, public reading of the Law, only sporadically mentioned in other sources, but is readily understandable on pragmatic grounds. We should like to dwell on rules B and C, which contain provisions at first sight not familiar from the traditions concerning the priesthood preserved in rabbinic halakhah. Thus, it is well established that women who had been in captivity were, because of the possibility of sexual abuse, ineligible for marriage to priests, unless there was testimony available to certify that they had remained inviolate (m. Ketub. 2:9 et al. [including Josephus, Ant. 3.276, 13.292]). As to priests who were themselves in captivity, no restrictions appear to have survived in talmudic law. We say “appear to have” advisedly, because there are indeed some textual variants in m. Ketub. 2:7 which, in the light of our text, may turn out to be quite significant. M. Ketub. 2:6, which deals with the question as to whether two women who were in captivity together may testify for each other, begins with the casuistic formulation: ‫ וזאת אומרת נשביתי וטהורה אני‬,‫ זאת אומרת נשביתי וטהורה אני‬,‫שתי נשים שנשבו‬

M. Ketub. 2:7 follows with a parallel case: ‫ וזה אומר כהן אני‬,‫ זה אומר כהן אני‬,‫וכן שני אנשים‬

In the standard printed editions of the Mishnah no reference is made in this case to any captivity. This accords with Rashi’s emendation: ‫לא גרסינן שנשבו‬. In Alfasi’s and Meiri’s Mishnah texts, however, we still find the reading ‫וכן שני‬ ‫אנשים שנשבו‬, and this is supported by the reading of the first printed edition of the parallel Tosefta text.11 We suspect that this reading reflects an early halakhah according to which priests who had been in captivity were suspended from exercising their priestly privileges. The reasons for such a suspension are nowhere explicitly indicated, but it may be helpful to cite some incidental clues found in prerabbinic sources. 11

See S. Lieberman, Tosefta Ki-fshuṭah (10 vols.; New York, 1955–1988), 6:214–15.

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In his autobiography Josephus relates that two years before the war he traveled to Rome in order to obtain the release of certain priests who had been imprisoned there under the procurator Felix. He observes: “I was anxious to discover some means of delivering these men, more especially as I learnt that, even in affliction, they had not forgotten the pious practices of religion, and supported themselves on figs and nuts” (Life, 14). Josephus succeeded in liberating these priests, but we are not told what their status was after their return. His observation concerning their scrupulous keeping of the dietary laws suggests that their failure to do so would, at the very least, have made their liberation less urgent and perhaps also affected their subsequent status. In Ant. 3.279, after enumerating the special laws concerning the priesthood, he adds: “Nor is it only during the sacred ministrations that their purity is essential: they must see to it also that their private life (δίαιτα) be beyond reproach.” The premise that a priest’s violation of the dietary laws might, in the days of the Temple, have been considered sufficient to disqualify him may be further supported by 2 Macc 5:27 where Judas and his companions are described as living on what grew wild, “so that they might not share in the defilement.” Of course, dietary laws were also incumbent upon the laity, but the special prohibition in Ezek 44:31, ‫כל נבלה וטרפה … לא יאכלו הכהנים‬, may well have been taken to imply that priests who ate non kosher food would thereby be profaned (‫)חלל‬. This could be one aspect of the ‫ טמאה‬attributed in our text to priests returning from foreign captivity. Another even more serious question would be the maintenance of sexual purity. A few years ago I called attention to a fragment of 4Q513 which, in my view, refers to the impropriety of giving tĕrûmâ to a priest whose daughters had “consorted with aliens” (‫)בעלות לבני הנכר‬. I noted that a fortiori a priest who was himself suspected of an illicit union would certainly be disqualified to fulfill priestly functions.12 This may already be inferred from Mal 2:11–12 where the man who “consorts with the daughter of a strange god” will have cut off from him “any to present an offering to the Lord of hosts” [that is, will not have children who officiate in the cult]. The suspicion of such defilement and transgressions of the Law would provide a plausible rationale for Josephus’s statement in Contra Apion 1.34–35 that after wars the surviving priests would be required to produce new validating records: 12

[See “Halakhic Polemics.”]

The Disqualifications of Priests in 4Q Fragments

189

In the not infrequent event of war, for instance when our country was invaded by Antiochus Epiphanes, by Pompey the Great, by Quintilius Varus, and above all in our own times, the surviving priests compile fresh records from the archives; they also pass scrutiny upon the remaining women, and disallow marriage with any who have been taken captive, suspecting them of having had frequent intercourse with foreigners. trans. Thackeray, LCL

The first part of this report recalls the disqualification, in the postexilic period, of priests who were not able to find their genealogical records [Ezra 2:59–63]. The records to which Josephus alludes were presumably required not just to certify their priestly descent but in order to validate the legitimacy of their marriages and perhaps also their lawful behavior. This would provide a general background against which the provision of rule B in our text may be evaluated. We must however note that while both Josephus and early tannaitic halakhah allow for procedures whereby the status of a priest who had been in captivity might be validated, the extant portion of our text contains no such provision. It flatly excludes any priest who had been held by the Gentiles from performing ritual functions in the Temple. We may now turn to rule C. Here the sojourn among the Gentiles did not result from the priest’s capture, but appears to have been voluntary. In fact the terminology suggests an abandonment of the truth and even an element of betrayal. To appreciate this, we should first of all be mindful of the biblical rules intended to guard the ritual sanctity of the priesthood. The High Priest was to be strictly guarded from any source of impurity, as expressed in the rule prohibiting him from participating even in the funeral of relatives, “He must not go out of the sanctuary” (Lev 21:12). Foreign territory, the ‫ארץ העמים‬, was regarded as intrinsically impure. According to a baraita, a decree declaring foreign lands as ritually defiled was already formulated in the second century BCE in the days of the first of the Pairs (b. Šabb. 14b); it is said to have been revived in the Roman period. Thus, there were severe sanctions against priests leaving the land of Israel. A late rabbinic source still records the following rule: A High Priest who defiles himself by entering the dwelling place of aliens, or the territory of the Gentiles, or a burial field, or who went outside the Land, is subject to punitive flogging. Sem. 4:22–23

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At the time that this late tractate was edited the rule was only a theoretical echo of the past. Current practice was now markedly more lenient with regard to priests who had to depart from the land of Israel for various purposes. In the days of the Temple, however, the consequences of a priest’s departure from the Holy Land were most serious. When Alcimus, the renegade priest, presented himself before Demetrius I, he declared, “I have laid aside my ancestral glory—I mean the high priesthood—and have now come here” (2 Macc 14:7). He is said to have “willfully defiled himself in the times of separation, realizing that there was no way for him to be safe or to have access again to the holy altar” (2 Macc 14:3). The latter defilement probably refers to compromises during the hellenistic persecution, but his departure from Israel was a significant confirmation of his apostasy. Rule C may thus be viewed as deriving both from the laws of purity and from the concept of treason against the “council of the people.” A priest who migrated into the lands of the Gentiles automatically became ritually unclean. Purification from uncleanliness was possible, but it would hardly be effective for one who, like the hellenizing priests, had resolved to compromise the religious and national values of his people. The reference in the rule to those who betray the “council of the people” by going over to the Gentiles reflects a high degree of national consciousness. It may be compared to the law about treason found in another Damascus Document manuscript from Cave 4: ‫[ אשר יגלה את רז עמו לגואים‬4Q270 2 ii 13], for which we also have a parallel in the Temple Scroll [col. 64]. We began this paper with some observations concerning current efforts to re-evaluate the identification of the Qumran community on the basis of its halakhah. However, the fragment we have cited illustrates one of the recurring problems inherent in such efforts. The information which Josephus provides concerning the laws followed by Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes is extremely limited. The little that he does tell us about the Essenes, as we have noted, is substantially congruent with what is now known from Qumran writings. Moreover, tannaitic sources turn out to have preserved remarkably accurate information on halakhic issues which divided Pharisees from Sadducees, even if we cannot definitively specify whom they included under the latter designation. This accuracy is hardly what some contemporary literary critics of the Mishnah would have led us to expect. Yet, there is a large, very significant body of halakhah which apparently was not limited to any of the three groups, but represents the common traditional law of the Second Temple period. Our text seems to belong to this category. The problem of the disqualification of priests who were in foreign captivity

The Disqualifications of Priests in 4Q Fragments

191

is reflected in the writings of Josephus. It has also left traces in the readings preserved in manuscripts of the Mishnah and Tosefta. It may be that on this matter, as on other questions of purity, the Qumran Zadokites adopted a more stringent position. But their position was not outside the parameters of customary law.13 13

“Halakhic Polemics,” 392–93.

Chapter 14

Halakhic Polemics in New Fragments from Qumran Cave 4 In* the eyes of modern students, the epithet ‫בוני החיץ‬, “builders of the wall,” which the Qumran sect applied to its opponents, seems a most fitting description of its own ideological posture vis-à-vis contemporary halakhah. The geographic isolation of the Qumran settlement goes hand in hand with its social isolation and the avoidance of religious dialogue with those on the outside. In what has been regarded as a manifesto of the Teacher of Righteousness, the Maskil is admonished not to “rebuke the men of the Pit nor dispute with them.” While it is his duty to instruct the men of the Yaḥad in all that is revealed from time to time, he must “conceal the teaching of the Law from men of falsehood” (1QS 9:16–17). This detachment from controversy may well be taken to have been characteristic of the formative stages of the sect, but it could hardly be expected to have been maintained throughout its history. We know this from the sectarian literature. Prof. Yadin has called attention to the reference in 4Q177 to a “second book of the Torah,” quite possibly identical with the Temple Scroll, which was despised by certain antagonists who “spoke disdainfully about it.”1 A fragment of a pesher on Psalm 37 may also refer to this Torah “which he sent to him,” the recipient being perhaps none other than the Wicked Priest.2 A priest, even if wicked, may be expected to be somewhat conditioned by historical precedent to the discovery of hidden scrolls, and if in addition he has Sadducean learnings, he may even have an inherent respect for laws which are “written and deposited.”3 No such illusions could be entertained about the Pharisaic reaction to purported supplements to the Mosaic * Original publication: “Halakhic Polemics in New Fragments from Qumran Cave Four,” in Biblical Archaeology Today: Proceedings of the International Congress on Biblical Archaeology, Jerusalem, April 1984 (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society and Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1985), 390–99. Republished with the generous permission of the Israel Exploration Society. 1 See J.M. Allegro, “177. Catena (A),” in Qumrân Cave 4.I (4Q158–4Q186) (ed. J.M. Allegro; DJD 5; Oxford 1968), 67–74 (68); The Temple Scroll (ed. Y. Yadin; 3 vols.; Jerusalem, 1977), 1:303 [in Hebrew]. 2 See J.M. Allegro “171. Commentary on Psalms (A),” DJD 5.42–50 (45); the text is fragmentary and its restoration by no means certain. 3 B. Qidd. 66a; cf. S. Lieberman, Greek and Hellenism in Jewish Palestine (Jerusalem, 1962), 215 (in Hebrew); Baumgarten, Studies, 21–22.

© Joseph M. Baumgarten, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004505087_016

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193

Law. It is therefore not at all surprising to note that the Damascus Document, in its effort to soften the resistance of the “builders of the wall” to its halakhic novella, does not resort to citing the Temple Scroll. Rather it attempts to support its rules by exegesis from the Torah of Moses, “for in it everything is specified” (CD 16:1). This approach, too, was hardly a total success, as we surmise from the charge that “they have opened their mouth against the ordinances of the covenant of God with a blasphemous tongue saying, They are not correct; abomination they speak against them” (CD 5:11–13). Our knowledge of the issues involved in such polemics has been significantly broadened by the recent publication of Qumrân Grotte 4.III. We should like to deal here with one text, 4Q513, which, though quite fragmentary, has halakhic ramifications not fully appreciated by the editor.4 Maurice Baillet has observed correctly that there is a salient concern in this text with ritual purity. This is quite evident in fragments 1 and 2 where, according to the editor’s restorations, the phrase ‫ מהמה הטמאה‬occurs three times. What is not evident is how this phrase relates to the subject of the fragments, which is the same as that of 4Q159 (Ordinances)—the proper standardization of weights and measures, particularly the equalization of the ‫ בת‬for liquids with the ‫ איפה‬for grain, in conformance with Ezek 45:11.5 The suggestion that this phrase merely metaphorically expresses disapproval of deviations from the standardized measures6 lacks cogency. The first step toward understanding the intent of the text is to note that both here and in Ezekiel the measures are used to separate the priestly tĕrûmâ,7 which had to be scrupulously protected from any source of ritual defilement. Measuring vessels, because of their constant use for all kinds of transactions, constitute a ready source of contamination. This is especially so in the case of liquid measures, because if they are used to pour liquids into an impure receptacle, the measuring vessels themselves become ritually unclean. In rabbinic halakhah, this problem was alleviated by the tannaitic ruling that the ‫נצוק‬, the liquid stream, does not constitute a link for defilement.8 This ruling, however, was repudiated by the Zadokites,

4 See “513. Ordonnances (ii),” in Qumrân Grotte 4 III (ed. M. Baillet; DJD 7; Oxford, 1982), 287– 95. [The original article referred here to a reproduction of Baillet’s publications of the fragments, which appeared at the end of the article. We have not reproduced these excerpts; we refer the reader to DJD 7.] 5 See J.M. Allegro, “159. Ordinances,” Col. II, line 13; DJD 5.7. 6 Baillet, DJD 7.288. 7 Allegro, DJD 5.6: 4Q159 Col. II, line 3; Ezek 45:13. 8 M. Makš. 5:9 and m. Yad. 4:7.

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as indicated in m. Yadayim and corroborated by a Cave 4 text cited by Milik.9 A further difference was that mishnaic halakhah did not require the tĕrûmâ, whose rate is not fixed in the Torah, to be set aside by measurement. In fact, one ruling forbids the use of weights, measures and counting.10 Sectarian interpretation apparently followed closely the admonition in Ezek 45:13 to avoid loose estimates and to separate 1/60 of the grain and 1/100 of the oil. Since the use of utensils for measuring tĕrûmâ was thus mandatory, it was appropriate to warn the user about their being a potential source of ritual impurity. The susceptibility of liquids to impurity is likewise indicated in fragment 13, where the words ‫ שמן‬and ‫ משקה‬are found in a context dealing with ‫טמאה‬. We pointed out some years ago that the Essene avoidance of oil derived from its role as a transmitter of defilement, as stated in CD 12:16 and now confirmed by 11QTemple 49:11, where it is stated that the floor and walls of a house in which a corpse had been must be scraped to remove stains of “oil, wine, and damp spots of water.”11 Since the subject of fragment 13 is ritual purity, we can hardly accept the editor’s reading of the first line ‫ומערות איבא‬, “et la nudité du père de,” assumed to be an allusion to some form of incest. What remains of the first letter of the second word may be taken to be part of a gimel, thus giving us ‫גבא‬, “rock-pool.” According to CD 10:12–13, the waters of a ‫גבא‬, a pool in a rock not sufficient to cover a person, are unfit for immersion. Instead, the waters themselves are rendered unclean by the man in need of purification. In mishnaic Hebrew ‫גבא‬ occasionally appears together with ‫מערות‬, both denoting natural pools lacking the minimal size of a ‫מקוה‬.12 That our fragment likewise deals with purification is confirmed by the words in the following line: ‫כפורי רצון‬, employed for

9

10 11 12

Les ‘Petites Grottes’ de Qumran (ed. M. Baillet, J.T. Milik, and R. de Vaux; DJD 3; Oxford 1962), 225. Attention was drawn to this text by Yadin, Temple Scroll, 2:150; cf. our discussion in “The Pharisaic–Sadducean Controversies about Purity and the Qumran Texts,” JJS 31 (1980): 157–70 [included in this volume; the text in question was subsequently published by J. Strugnell and E. Qimron as part of 4QMMT (4Q394 8 iv 5–8). See E. Qimron and J. Strugnell, Qumran Cave 4.V: Miqṣat Maʿaśe Ha-Torah (DJD 10; Oxford, 1994), 12]. M. Ter. 1:7; cf. m. Ter. 4:6 and m. ʾAbot 1:16, where measurement of the harvest as a whole and the tithes is encouraged. As to whether the tĕrûmâ of one-tenth of the Levitical tithe requires measurement, cf. b. Beṣah 13b and y. Ter. 42d. J.M. Baumgarten, “The Essene Avoidance of Oil and the Laws of Purity,” RevQ 6 (1967– 1969): 183–92, reprinted in Baumgarten, Studies, 88–97; see also [Baumgarten’s review of Yadin’s Hebrew edition of the Temple Scroll in] JBL 97 (1978): 584–589 (587). M. Miqw. 1:4; t. Miqw. 1:7.

Halakhic Polemics in New Fragments

195

cleansing rites in 1QS 3:11.13 We would therefore suggest that the intent was to prohibit the use of water of shallow rock pools for purification. According to Josephus, it was due to such differences over the proper form of purification that the Essenes kept themselves apart even when they sent offerings to the Temple. Thus we read in Ant. 18.19, according to the preferred text (without οὐκ) preserved in the MSS: They send votive gifts to the Temple, but complete their sacrifices employing different ritual of purification. For this reason they are prevented from using those precincts of the Temple that are frequented by the common people and complete their sacrifices by themselves.14 It is interesting in this connection to note that fragment 10 of our text preserves the words ‫ בני ישראל‬followed in the next line by the prohibition ‫ואין‬ ◦‫לערב במ‬, “one must not intermingle with them,” as well as in successive lines the words ‫בטהרה‬, “in purity,” and ‫המקדש‬, “the Sanctuary.” One is tempted to restore the sense of the text in accordance with Josephus, as pertaining to the intermingling of the sect with other Jews; but a word of caution is in order. Line 8 refers to ]‫מבני אה[רון‬, “the sons of Aaron,” the priests. Ezek 46:20–24 is concerned with keeping the meat of the sin and guilt offerings, reserved for the priests, separated from the lay people. A similar concern is now found in 11QTemple 35:12, employing the verb ‫לערב‬, “to mingle,” as in 4Q513. This and the use in fragment 11 of the strong expression ‫זמה‬, “depravity,” following ‫בני ישראל‬ and the phrase “if they eat of them,” would seem to favor the assumption that it is the intermingling of priestly and lay sacrifices which is the object of criticism in the text. The critical position of the sect vis-à-vis the Temple priesthood has till now been known to us primarily from the pesher on Habakkuk, which alludes to the hostile activities of the Wicked Priest. As to specific transgressions attributed to the priests, the pesher mentions their lust for riches (9:4–5), and their uncleanliness (8:13; 12:8), two of the three nets of Belial known to us from the Damascus Document (4:14–5:11). Fragment 2, Col. II of our text now completes 13

14

Cf. 1QS 3:4 ‫לוא יזכה בכפורים ולוא יטהר במי נדה‬. The fact that ‫ כפורים‬appears in parallel with ‫מי נדה‬, the sprinkling waters used for purification with the ashes of the red heifer (Num 19:13, 20, 21), suggests the possibility that fragment 13 may be particularly concerned with the substitution of the water from rock pools for the “living waters” (Num 19:17), required for sprinkling; cf. m. Parah 6:5: ‫ המפנה את המעין … לתוך הגבים פסולים‬and the metaphorical use in y. Ber. 7d: “Your waters are waters of rock pools (‫ )מי מערה‬and your ashes are wood ashes.” For a reappraisal of this passage, see Baumgarten, Studies, 57–74.

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the accusation with its reference to ‫זנות‬, “fornication,” charged against the priesthood, because of which they are deemed unworthy to eat tĕrûmâ and to touch the sacred purities.15 The nature of this “fornication” is not explicated. In the Damascus Document the term ‫ זנות‬is applied to polygamy and niece marriages. The Aramaic Testament of Levi calls upon Levi, as the archetypal priest, to take a wife from his own family, and not to profane his seed with “harlots.”16 The main Greek text of the Testament of Levi is not quite as restrictive but applies the term “fornication” to marriage with non-Israelite wives (9:10): Beware of the spirit of fornication; for this shall continue and shall by thy seed pollute the holy place. Take, therefore, to thyself a wife without blemish or pollution, while thou art young, and not of the race of strange nations. The problem of intermarriage in priestly families had already emerged in the early postexilic period. A son of Jehoiada, the high priest, who had married the daughter of the Samaritan satrap, Sanballat, was driven out by Nehemiah (Neh 13:28). A century later Manasses, a brother of the high priest Jaddua, was disqualified by the elders because of his marriage to the daughter of another Sanballat. The elders feared that this union might become a stepping-stone toward widespread intermarriage and intercourse with foreigners (Ant. 11.307). We note that fragment 2 also alludes to illicit relations with foreigners: ‫בעלות‬ ‫( לבני הנכר‬1.2), echoing the phraseology of Mal 2:11: ‫בעל בת אל נכר‬, “consorting with aliens.” However, the word ‫ בעלות‬is feminine and we may presume that it refers to the female partners in such relations. One possibility is that it is descriptive of the promiscuity of the harlots involved in the fornication of the priests. Yet, a priest is forbidden to take a harlot regardless of whether she previously consorted with aliens or Israelites (Lev 21:7). It appears much more likely that the phrase refers to illicit marriages involving women who belonged to the households of the priests. According to Lev 21:9, the harlotry of the daughter of a priest is not only a capital offense, but is said to profane her father. Some rabbinic exegetes understood this loosely in the sense of his disgrace in the eyes of the public,17 but there are indications that the illicit relationship of a priest’s 15

16 17

Restoring at the beginning of line 3 ]‫רא[וי‬, cf. 11QTemple 66:9, and at the end of the line ]‫ תרומת הק[דשים‬derived from Lev 22:12: ‫ובת כהן כי תהיה לאיש זר הוא בתרומת הקדשים‬ ‫ לא תאכל‬The last extant letter on the line is qof, of which the right vertical stroke is visible. R.H. Charles, The Greek Versions of the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs (Oxford, 1908), 247, col. b, lines 16–20. B. Sanh. 52a.

Halakhic Polemics in New Fragments

197

daughter with a heathen was regarded as sufficient cause for the suspension of her family’s priestly privileges. One striking example involved the priestly house of Bilgah, which was permanently deprived of certain accommodations in the Temple because Miriam, the daughter of Bilgah, had defiantly married a Greek officer.18 This anomalous application of collective guilt is explained in the Talmud as reflecting popular attitudes. Another illustration, closer to the milieu of the sectarian writings, may be found in the lessons drawn from the story of Dinah and Shechem in Jubilees 30. The author of Jubilees uses the ravishing of Dinah as a springboard for the most severe denunciation of intermarriage in general, but it is evident that he was particularly concerned about marriages between women from priestly families and the heathen. Thus he says: “They shall burn the woman with fire because she has profaned the name of the house of her father” (30:7); both the penalty and the phraseology are derived from the law about harlotry of the daughter of a priest, in Lev 21:9. Of those who give their daughters to Gentiles he declares: “There will be no respect of persons and no receiving at his hands of fruits and offerings and burnt-offerings and fat nor the fragrance of sweet savour so as to accept it” (30:16). One can infer that the author is alluding to members of the priestly aristocracy. Recently, Roger Beckwith has directed attention to a priestly marriage in the middle of the third century BCE which is likely to have been viewed with misgivings in proto-Essene circles.19 A sister of the high priest Onias II was married to Tobias, who can be identified as a descendant of Tobiah the Ammonite in the days of Nehemiah (Neh 2:19). It was from this union that Joseph and the Hellenist Tobiads originated. Although Josephus does not record any protest against this marriage, Beckwith notes that it was in violation of the law forbidding Ammonites to come into the congregation of the Lord. The passage (Deut 23:3–4) in which this law occurs is cited in 4QFlorilegium.20 Moreover, we wonder whether in likening the marriage of one’s daughter or his sister to a Gentile, to giving one’s seed to Molech, the author of Jubilees may have been alluding to the identity of the latter as the “abomination of the Ammonites” (1 Kgs 11:7).

18 19 20

M. Sukkah 5:8; t. Sukkah 4:28; b. Sukkah 56b. R.T. Beckwith, “The Pre-history and Relationships of the Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes: A Tentative Reconstruction,” RevQ 11 (1982–1984): 3–46 (20–30). The application of Deut 23:3–4 in 4QFlorilegium is for exclusion from the sanctuary rather than intermarriage; cf. Baumgarten, “The Exclusion of ‘Netinim’ and Proselytes in 4QFlorilegium,” RevQ 8 (1972–1975): 87–96 [reprinted with a substantial addendum in Baumgarten, Studies, 75–87].

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However this may be, the term “fornication” employed in our fragment was capable of being used to denote any variety of priestly intermarriage. Where the illicit union involved the priests themselves, they were of course regarded as unclean and unfit to touch the priestly portions, a restriction which can be paralleled from rabbinic sources.21 Even where the marriage involved their daughters who had “consorted with aliens,” such priestly houses were no longer qualified to eat the sacred tĕrûmâ, and whoever delivered it to them was viewed as an accomplice to the profanation. So much for matters of purity. We come now to a small but very significant fragment pertaining to the calendar. That fragment 4 has some bearing on the controversy concerning the date of the ʿOmer offering was recognized by the editor.22 This is apparent from the mention of ‫ הנף עמר‬and the denunciatory phrases ‫תעות עורון‬, “error of blindness” and ‫“ לא מתורת משה‬not from the Law of Moses.” The accusation that Israel has been blind to the true implications of the Law of Moses is found likewise in CD 16:1–2.23 In the phraseology of the sect it means that they are not only ignorant of the ‫נסתרות‬, the esoteric aspects of sectarian religious law, but “they defiantly violate the ‫( ”נגלות‬1QS 5:12), the obvious and open meaning of the Torah. Baillet, while noting that the sect set the ʿOmer on Sunday, the twenty-sixth of the first month, does not find it possible to follow the argument implicit in our fragment. Concerning the words ‫ מלבד שבתות‬in line 3, he merely observes that they derive from Lev 23:38, and are also found in CD 11:18. The latter passage, however, provides the key for discerning the halakhic issue involved in the polemics (CD 11:17–18): Let no man offer upon the altar on the Sabbath [anything] except the burnt-offering of the Sabbath; for thus it is written: “apart from your Sabbaths.” The point at issue there is the profanation of the Sabbath occasioned by the offering of extraneous sacrifices. It can be taken for granted that the sacrifices intended were not voluntary offerings of individuals, which by universal consensus could not be brought on the Sabbath. Rather we must assume that they 21 22

23

See b. Yebam. 99b, where a priest who married a wife “not fit for him” was excluded from receiving tĕrûmâ in the granaries; cf. the Targum on Mal 2:12 ‫ואם כהין הוא לא יהי ליה‬ ‫מקריב קורבנא בבית מקדשא‬. [Baumgarten subsequently discussed this fragment in a number of places. For the English text and discussion, see “Recent Qumran Discoveries and Halakhah in the Hellenistic– Roman Period,” (1991), included in this volume; for the Hebrew text and discussion, see his “The Relevance of Rabbinic Sources to the Study of Qumran Law,” (1999), also included in this volume.] Cf. 1 En. 89:54: “They went astray in everything and their eyes were blinded.”

Halakhic Polemics in New Fragments

199

were communal sacrifices ordained for certain festival occasions.24 But what occasions? Since the structure of the idealized solar calendar of Jubilees and Qumran is now known, it has been noted that its salient feature is the elimination of any possible coincidence of the dates of any of the biblical festivals with the Sabbath.25 The only exceptions are the two seven-day festivals, Passover and Sukkot, whose fourth day coincides with the Sabbath. It is conceivable that the law in the Damascus Document pertains to this Sabbath of the intermediate days, on which no additional (Musaf) sacrifice was to be brought,26 although this would leave the biblical quota of seven days of burnt offerings (Lev 23:8, 37) unfulfilled.27 However, this approach, based on the premise that sectarian halakhic pronouncements necessarily presuppose the sect’s own calendar, must now be reevaluated in the light of fragment 4. This fragment is clearly concerned with the grave violation of the Sabbath resulting from the occurrence of the ʿOmer ceremony on that day, but this could never happen according to the Qumran calendar. The twenty-sixth of the first month is always a Sunday. Neither is this possible according to any school of exegesis which takes the crucial words ‫ ממחרת השבת‬in Lev 23:15 as designating the day following the weekly Sabbath. The ones accused of the “error of blindness” must necessarily be the precursors of the rabbis who, like the Septuagint translator, took these words to mean the day following the first day of Passover, which in the lunar-solar calendar may indeed fall on Friday. When this happened, the harvesting of the sheaves of barley, otherwise biblically prohibited on the Sabbath (Exod 34:21), was ostentatiously conducted on Friday after sundown. The procedure is familiar to us from the graphic account in m. Menaḥ. 10:3: 24

25

26 27

Cf. L. Schiffman, The Halakhah at Qumran (Leiden, 1975), 128–31, who believes that the law in CD was directed against the permission to offer the regular daily burnt offerings on the Sabbath. However, as he recognizes, this would contradict both Num 28:10 and Jub. 50:10. Cf. Yadin, Temple Scroll, 1:105; and B.Z. Wacholder, The Dawn of Qumran (Cincinnati, 1983), 49–50, where the attribution to Yadin of the view that the sect did not permit the tamid on the Sabbath must be corrected. K.G. Kuhn, “Der gegenwärtige Stand der Erforschung der in Palästina neu gefundenen hebräischen Handschriften,” TLZ 85 (1960): 649–658; cf. Baumgarten, Studies, 10, 114, and R.T. Beckwith, “The Earliest Enoch Literature and Its Calendar,” RevQ 10 (1979–1981): 365– 403 (379–81). Wacholder, The Dawn of Qumran, 50. Yadin, Temple Scroll, 1:105–6, believes that the sect excluded the Sabbath from the reckoning of the seven-day holidays, as reported by Al-Qirqisani concerning the Zadokites. Conceivably, they took the eighth day of ʿAṣeret (Lev 23:36) as a model for the completion of the missing day, although no such supplement is found in the Torah in the case of Passover. A comprehensive survey of the different schools of exegesis is provided by D. Hoffmann, Das Buch Leviticus (Berlin, 1906), 159–215.

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When it grew dark, he [the reaper] said to them [the messengers of the court] “Is the sun set?” and they answered “Yes!” … three times for every matter … Wherefore was all this? Because of the ‫ ביתוסים‬who used to say: The ʿOmer is not to be reaped at the close of the Festival-day.28 The point of contention here is not merely the question of the proper date for the ʿOmer offering, but the public desecration of the Sabbath involved in reaping the barley. It is this practice which evoked the sharp rebuke found in fragment 4.29 According to the author of this text, the Sabbath must never be violated for the sake of any holiday ritual since the holidays were ordained to be ‫מלבד שבתותיכם‬, apart and distinct from your Sabbaths. This principle is applied in the Damascus Document to the question of extraneous festival sacrifices, although the Sabbath and tamid burnt-offerings were sanctioned by the Torah. A fortiori, was it applicable to reaping, a form of labor never allowed elsewhere on the Sabbath, and whose permissibility for the ʿOmer was not unanimously approved even by rabbinic opinion?30 The sectarian calendar, which sets the ʿOmer on the twenty-sixth of the first month, of course eliminates this entire problem. It has been pointed out in this connection by S. Leiman31 that the flat statement attributed in the Mishnah to the ‫ביתוסים‬, that the ʿOmer is never to be reaped at the close of the first day of Passover, would not be accurate according to those who understood the Sabbath in Lev 23:15 to be that which falls during the week of Passover. Thus, if the first day of Passover happened to be a Sabbath, the ʿOmer would indeed be cut “at the close of the Festival-day.” However, according to the Qumran calendar, the connection between the ʿOmer and Passover is entirely severed,32 and the statement in the Mishnah becomes completely accurate. 28 29

30 31 32

See also t. Menaḥ. 10:23 (Zuckermandel 434); cf. m. Ḥag. 2:4. Fragment 3, detached from and textually separated from the sequel in fragment 4, also mentions the Sabbath day. Baillet notes the word ‫זכרון‬, which he takes as most likely derived from Lev 23:24: ‫זכרון תרועה‬. It is interesting that this phrase was used in talmudic exegesis to apply to the omission of the sounding of the Shofar when Rosh Hashanah coincided with the Sabbath; when this occurred, there was to be only the “remembrance of the blasts” of the Shofar (m. Roš Haš. 4:1; y. Roš Haš. 59b; b. Roš Haš. 29b). Unfortunately, the preserved portion of fragment 3 does not suffice to determine the context in which ‫ זכרון‬is used. According to b. Menaḥ. 72b, Rabbi (Judah ha-Nasi) did not concur with the sanction to cut the ʿOmer on the Sabbath. See also the comments of the Tosafists, b. Menaḥ. 72a, s.v. ‫מנין‬. This observation was part of an as yet unpublished paper presented before the Society of Biblical Literature. No satisfactory rationale for the Qumran designation of the Sunday following the maṣṣot festival for the ʿOmer ritual has, to my knowledge, been offered. Unless we are to suppose that this was merely the incidental by-product of a desire to date Pentecost on the 15th of the third month, we would suggest that it reflects the same principle as that involved

Halakhic Polemics in New Fragments

201

This and the contents of fragment 4, which supply the sectarian counterpart to the demonstrative affirmation of the Pharisaic practice in the Mishnah, would make desirable a reevaluation of the possible identification of the ‫ ביתוסים‬in m. Menaḥot with the Essenes, proposed some years ago by Y.M. Grintz.33 We have elsewhere assessed the grounds for a similar evaluation of the possible identification of the ‫ צדוקים‬in m. Yadayim, who complained about Pharisaic leniencies in the sphere of ritual purity, with the ‫ בני צדוק‬of Qumran.34 Both questions are admittedly complicated by the widespread confusion of Boethusians and Sadducees found in rabbinic sources, as pointed out by M.D. Herr,35 but are ripe for further investigation. In conclusion, 4Q513, despite its very fragmentary state of preservation, serves to put into sharper focus a number of disputed halakhic matters which were of concern to the Qumran exegetes. The fragment dealing with the ʿOmer provides one of those rare opportunities to follow the polemics from both sides of the ‫ חיץ‬which separated the sect from its Pharisaic antagonists; m. Menaḥot, m. Parah, and m. Yadayim, it turns out, have preserved authentic historical records of efforts to counteract sectarian criticism of Pharisaic teachings. In view of the lingering tendency in a good deal of contemporary scholarship to question the relevance of tannaitic literature for the religious history of the Second Temple period,36 it may not be superfluous to observe that we have consistently found rabbinic sources to be the most indispensable frame of reference for the investigation of Qumran literature.

33 34 35

36

in the avoidance of the coincidence of the Sabbath with the holidays, that is, no festival must overlap with any other festival; hence, the ʿOmer ritual is not to be held on Sunday (19/I) which falls during the week of maṣṣot. Y.M. Grintz, “The Men of the Yaḥad, Essenes, Bet-Sin,” Sinai 32 (1952/53): 11–43 (in Hebrew), renewing the suggested identification of the Boethusians and the Esssenes first proposed by Azariah dei Rossi in 1575 [see p. 150 n. 32 above]. Baumgarten, “The Pharisaic–Sadducean Controversies,” 166–68. M.D. Herr, “Who Were the Boethusians?” in Proceedings of the Seventh World Congress of jewish Studies, Talmud, Halacha and Midrash (Jerusalem, 1981), 1–20 (in Hebrew). The indication that fragment 4 of 4Q513 is part of a protest against the Sabbath violation involved in the Pharisaic version of the ʿOmer ritual, although the latter was not in accord with the Qumran calendar, considerably mitigates the calendric objections to Grintz’s proposed identification. It harmonizes quite well with the story in t. Sukkah 3:1, about the Boethusians placing rocks on the willow branches before the Sabbath “because they did not accept the ruling that the beating of the willows supercedes the Sabbath.” There are moreover indications that the Essene separation from the Temple was, at least in later times, not as absolute as has hitherto been supposed; cf. Baumgarten, Studies in Qumran Law, 57–74. See, for example, a recent review of A. Oppenheimer, The Am Ha-aretz, in JBL 97 (1978): 596–97, in which the author is taken to task for his “rabbinocentric bias” and “his readiness to accept rabbinic dicta as reliable historical sources even for the Hasmonean period.”

Part 4 Halakhic Topics

⸪

Chapter 15

On the Non-Literal Use of Maʿăśēr/Dekatē That* etymology is not always a reliable guide to meaning is a truism which, for the biblical philologist, hardly requires iteration. In this paper I should like to show how this applies to certain uses of the term maʿăśēr (“tithe”) to designate contributions other than those fixed at the rate of one-tenth, and particularly one such use in the recently published Temple Scroll.1 We may begin by taking cognizance of the observations made by scholars with regard to the Babylonian ešru/ešrētu (“tithe”). In his survey of Neo-Babylonian tithes, M.A. Dandamajew raised the question, “whether the tithe actually corresponded to a tenth of the harvest, the increase, and other forms of income, or had another character.”2 The data he collected indicate that, while the tithes from the general populace approximated ten percent, there was considerable variation below and above this norm. By way of illustration, it is recorded that one tenant farmer gave nine percent of his date harvest to the temple, while another gave 8.6 percent of his grain. An ešru of 13.3 percent from the wool shearings is mentioned. A tithe of barley was divided, with 11.1 percent going to the temple of Nabū and 5.5 percent to that of Nergal.3 With regard to the “tithe” given by the king and his relatives it is quite evident that it did not approach even remotely one-tenth of their ample emoluments. It is further noted that the value of the tithes of particular individuals in various years showed no significant variation, which indicates that it was not reckoned as a tenth of each year’s harvest but depended, rather, on the station of the individual. E. Salonen, whose survey includes Sumerian as well as old Babylonian materials, observed: “Der zu gebende Zehnte war also von der Höhe der Stellung der jeweiligen Personen abhängig.”4

* Original publication: “On the Non-Literal Use of Maʿăśēr/Dekatē,” JBL 103 (1984): 245–51. Republished with the kind permission of the Society of Biblical Literature. 1 [Y. Yadin, Megillat ha-Miqdash (3 vols.; Jerusalem, 1977 [in Hebrew]); English edition: The Temple Scroll (3 vols; Jerusalem, 1977–1983).] 2 M.A. Dandamajew, “Der Tempelzehnte in Babylonien während des 6.–4. Jh. v. u. Z.,” Beiträge zur Alten Geschichte und deren Nachleben: Festschrift für Franz Altheim zum 6.10.1968 (ed. R. Stiehl and H.E. Stier; 2 vols.; Berlin, 1969–1970), 1:82–90 [author’s translation from p. 85]. 3 Ibid., 85. 4 E. Salonen, Über den Zehnten im alten Mesopotamien: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Besteuerung (Helsinki, 1972), 43.

© Joseph M. Baumgarten, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004505087_017

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With reference to the biblical maʿăśēr, H. Jagersma, taking note of the Babylonian data, has recently posed the question whether it may occasionally represent a certain kind of tax or contribution, not necessarily a real tenth.5 He notes that in 1 Sam 8:11–17, where the king’s levy imposed on the people is described as burdensome, we can surmise that the royal “tithe” was fixed at a percentage considerably above one-tenth. Yet Jagersma does not find in the Bible a conclusive answer to this question. It is, in our opinion, possible to demonstrate that the use of maʿăśēr, not only in its literal sense of a ten-percent impost but also as a general term for any tax payable to the Temple or the clergy, was characteristic of both Hebrew and Greek sources stemming from the period of the Second Temple. Two biblical illustrations may first be cited: 1) Malachi 3:8 charges the people with “robbing God” by withholding tithes and offerings (‫ )המעשר והתרומה‬This is followed by the positive exhortation (3:10): “Bring the full tithes (‫ )כל המעשר‬into the storehouse.” Biblia Hebraica suggested the insertion of ‫ ואת התרומה‬in v. 10,6 but this emendation was prudently rejected by W. Rudolph: “Der Zehnte steht hier für die ganzen Abgaben an Naturalien; es ist nicht notwendig, die Hebe hinzufügen.”7 We may add that since ‫ תרומה‬is used synonymously for ‫ מעׂשר בני יׂשראל‬in Num 18:24, it is not at all anomalous to find the converse here. 2) Itemizing the donations of the people, 2 Chr 31:12 distinguishes three categories: ‫התרומה והמעׂשר והקדׁשים‬. The term maʿăśēr embraces the tithe of the flocks (31:6) as well as a tithe from other income, ‫( מעׂשר הכל‬31:5). However, in the same context is mentioned an enigmatic ‫מעׂשר קדׁשים‬ ‫( המקדׁשים‬31:6). Commentators, both medieval and modern, have struggled with the notion of a tithe levied on sacred gifts. Rashi suggested that the tithe was that given by the Levites to the priests from their tithes. Rudolph, here resorting to emendation, inserts ‫ כל תבואת ׂשדה‬after ‫מעׂשר‬.8 If, however, maʿăśēr is capable of being used in the generalized sense of any hieratical gift, one wonders whether ‫מעׂשר קדׁשים המקדׁשים‬ should not be taken to mean “the tribute of dedicated things consecrated to the Lord.”

5 6 7 8

H. Jagersma, “The Tithes in the Old Testament,” OtSt 21 (1981): 116–28. Biblia Hebraica (ed. R. Kittel; 15th ed.; Stuttgart, 1968). W. Rudolph, Haggai – Sacharja 1–8 – Sacharja 9–14 – Maleachi (Gütersloh, 1976), 284 n. 7. W. Rudolph, Chronikbücher (Tübingen, 1955), 304.

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207

We are understandably reluctant to assume the use of maʿăśēr with both literal and generalized meanings in the same context, but precisely this phenomenon is attested for δεκάτη in Greek writings from the Second Temple period. In De virtutibus 95, Philo summarized the donations given to the priests as follows: “The laws bid us give as first-fruits to the officiating priests tithes (dekatai) of corn and wine and oil and domestic animals and wool.”9 B. Ritter has already noted that dekatai is used here in the broad sense of sacerdotal gifts, since Philo explicitly assigned the regular tithes to the Levites:10 “After bestowing these great sources of revenue on the priests, he did not ignore those of second rank either … All these have the tithes appointed as their wages” (Spec. 1.156). That the dekatai for the priests in the first passage are not literally tithes is further shown by Philo’s failure to mention the priestly tĕrûmâ (Num 18:11–12),11 which he subsumed under dekatai, and by his reference to the wool shearings, for which there was likewise no fixed rate (Deut 18:4). This generalized connotation of dekatai appears likewise to be indicated in lxx 1 Sam 1:21, which refers to Elkanah’s bringing “all the ‘tithes’ of his land.”12 Another illustration of this usage is found in the book of Tobit. Tobit is said to have gone to Jerusalem “with the first-fruits and the tithes (τὰς δεκάτας) of the increase and the first shearings of the sheep,” which he gave to the priests, the sons of Aaron (1:6–7, BA recensions).13 Yet immediately afterward, he states that he gave the tithe (τὴν δεκάτην) to the sons of Levi, who ministered in Jerusalem (1:7). The ambiguity results from the use of dekatē first in the extended sense of a priestly donation such as the tĕrûmâ and then literally for the Levitical tithe.

9 10 11

12 13

[Here and below, translations from Philo are by F.H. Colson (LCL).] B. Ritter, Philo und die Halacha (Breslau, 1879), 117. J. Jeremias (Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus [Philadelphia, 1969], 107) is led to the dubious conclusion that Philo did not know of the tĕrûmâ and “that this priestly tithe of Philo’s can only be the second tithe.” The fact that the second tithe was consumed by the landowner rather than the priests seems indeed to have troubled Jeremias, but it was not sufficient to dissuade him. Cf. I. Heinemann, Philons griechische und jüdische Bildung: Kulturvergleichende Untersuchungen zu Philons Darstellung der jüdischen Gesetze (Breslau, 1932), 36–37. C. Albeck (Shisha Sidrei Mishnah: Seder Zeraim [Jerusalem, 1958], 219) dismisses the problem with the assertion that in De virt. 95 Philo says “priests” but means “Levites.” See Albeck, Mishnah Zeraim, 217. Codex Sinaiticus reads tas dekatas tōn ktēnōn (“the tithes of the cattle”) instead of tas dekatas tōn genēmatōn (“the tithes of the increase”), as in BA. The preference of scholars for the former reading is largely due to the supposed contradiction in BA with regard to the disposition of the tithes; cf. Jeremias, Jerusalem, 135.

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The fluidity of the terminology14 calls for a reexamination of some of the sources scholars have taken to reflect the arrogation by the Second Temple priests of the Levitical tithe.15 Judith 11:13 says of the besieged Jews: They have decided to consume the first-fruits of the grain and the tithes of the wine and oil, which they had consecrated and set aside for the priests who minister in the presence of our God at Jerusalem—although it is not lawful for any of the people so much as to touch these things with their hands. The prevalent explanation of the author’s assignment of the tithes to the priests rather than to the Levites is either that he was not concerned with the distinction or that the practice in his day already allowed the Levitical tithe to be given to priests.16 The latter practice, however, lacks reliable documentation in contemporary sources.17 Moreover, if it was the Levitical tithe 14

The loose use of dekatē may be found with reference not only to the biblical tithes but also to other forms of Hellenistic taxes. In the proclamation of Demetrius I, granting privileges to the Jews, we read: “Let Jerusalem and her borders, her tithes and taxes (hai dekatai kai ta telē), be holy and exempt” (1 Macc 10:31). The nature of these tithes and taxes is obscure. E.J. Bi(c)kerman suggested that they were tolls levied on merchandise by the Seleucids. In this connection he observed: “Notons à ce propos que le terme ‘dîme’ n’implique pas nécessairement que les merchandises acquittaient 10% de l’estimation de leur valeur. Le mot indique souvent, non le pourcentage précis, mais le mode de prélèvement fiscal ad valorem” (Institutions des Séleucides [Paris, 1938], 116–17). See also J.A Goldstein, 1 Maccabees (Garden City, New York, 1976), 408. 15 See most recently A. Oppenheimer, The ʿAm Ha-Aretz: A Study in the Social History of the Jewish People in the Hellenistic–Roman Period (Leiden, 1977), 29–49, who provides a comprehensive survey of the sources and bibliography; cf. Jeremias, Jerusalem, 105–8. 16 Albeck, Zeraim, 218–19; Y.M. Grintz, Sefer Yehudith (The Book of Judith) (Jerusalem, 1957), 191–92. 17 The Chronicler assigns to the Levites a position of marked importance, including ritual functions in the sanctuary (see R. de Vaux, Ancient Israel [New York, 1961], 390–94). Nehemiah took measures to counteract the neglect of the tithes legitimately due to the Levites (Neh 10:38; 13:10). There is, to be sure, a talmudic tradition that attributes to Ezra the diversion of the Levitical tithe to the priests; he is said to have penalized the Levites for their failure to take part in the migration to Jerusalem (b. Yebam. 86b, b. B. Bat. 81b, b. Ketub. 26a, b. Ḥul. 131b). However, the books of Ezra and Nehemiah show no trace of a punitive attitude vis-à-vis the Levites; rather, they underline the role of the Levites as teachers and participants in the cult (Ezra 3:8, 10; 6:20; 8:20; Neh 8:7–11). The implication of Ezra 8:15 that the Levites were conspicuous by their absence from Ezra’s caravan is largely neutralized by 1 Esdr 8:42, where both priests and Levites are said to have been absent. The book of Jubilees gives prominence to Levi as the ancestor of both priests and Levites and the recipient of tithes (32:1–8). The ordinance in Jub. 13:25 assigning “a tenth

On the Non-Literal Use of Maʿăśēr/Dekatē

209

that was intended, there would be no basis for any prohibition for people to touch it. The first tithe was permitted to be touched as well as consumed by non priests.18 The most cogent explanation is that dekatai refers not to the Levitical tithes but to the tĕrûmâ, restricted to the priesthood.19 This makes understandable the reference to the dekatai in the same context with the firstfruits, which were similarly restricted. The writings of Josephus are another source that is frequently cited as reflecting the diversion of the Levitical tithes to the priests. In Antiquities 20 Josephus refers to high priests who sent their slaves to the threshing floors to receive “the tithes that were due to the priests.”20 Himself a priest, he claims to have relinquished his right to take “the tithes which were due me as a priest,” while in command of Galilee.21 The implication that priests were entitled to of the first-fruits” to the priests is no more indicative of an intent to deprive the Levites than is the story of the “tithe of everything” given by Abraham to Melchizedek (Gen 14:20), from which it derives. The Levitical rights are now further bolstered by the Temple Scroll, which bears extremely close affinities with Jubilees and assigns to the Levites not only the first tithe but also other perquisites generally associated with the priesthood (J. Milgrom, “Studies in the Temple Scroll,” JBL 97 [1978]: 501–23). While the diversion of the Levitical tithe to the priests is not reflected in the sources from the early Second Temple period, it may more plausibly be connected with Hasmonean innovations, specifically the enactments of John Hyrcanus I. A tannaitic tradition records that “Joḥanan, the high priest, abolished the confession that the tithe had been given” (m. Soṭah 9:10). This was explained as the result of the diversion of the tithe to the priests: “Because people were not presenting it as prescribed. For the Divine Law states that it is to be given to the Levites, whereas we give it to the priests” (b. Soṭah 47b and parallels). The question remains, if Joḥanan was concerned with the rights of the Levites, why did he abolish the confession rather than reform the prevailing practice? I am, therefore, inclined to the view that Hasmonean policy was directed toward the centralization of tithe collection and the assertion of priestly prerogatives at the expense of those of the Levites. The abrogation of the confession may stem from Pharisaic opposition to this departure from precedent (See C. Tchernowitz, “Demai,” in Jewish Studies in Memory of George A. Kohut [ed. S.W. Baron and A. Marx; New York, 1935], 46–58 [in Hebrew]; and Oppenheimer, ʿAm Ha-Aretz, 29–49). 18 B. Yebam. 85b–86a; cf. the formulation of Maimonides, Laws of Maʿăśēr 1:2: “The first tithe may be eaten by Israelites and in a state of impurity, for it has no sanctity whatsoever.” It should be noted, however, that the minority opinion of R. Meir prohibited the tithe to non-Levites (b. Yebam. 86a); and a similar view may be reflected in 11QTemple 60:6–7, as I have suggested in “The First and Second Tithes in the Temple Scroll,” in Biblical and Related Studies Presented to Samuel Iwry (ed. A. Kort and S. Morschauser; Winona Lake, 1985), 5–15 [included in this volume]. 19 Lev 22:10; Num 18:25–32; m. Ter. 6:1. For the prohibition of touching first-fruits and tĕrûmâ with unwashed hands, see m. Zabim 5:12; b. Šabb. 13b; and Philo, Spec. 1.120; cf. Grintz, Sefer Yehudith, 193. 20 Ant. 20.81, cf. 20.206. 21 Vita 80; cf. 63.

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the Levitical tithe is, however, contradicted by Josephus’s earlier statements that assign the first tithe to the Levites in accordance with Pentateuchal law.22 Elsewhere he speaks of tithes for both priests and Levites.23 To attribute these contradictions to the confusion between the law and the prevalent practice is hardly a satisfactory solution,24 since Josephus portrays the tithes as “due to the priests” by right.25 In view of what we have previously found, it seems entirely possible that here, too, the priestly dues, including tĕrûmâ, were called “tithes.” Similarly, in his paraphrase of Deut 26:12 (“when you have finished setting aside all the tithe of your produce”), Josephus indicates that he understood this phrase to include the first-fruits, mentioned in the preceding paragraph (Deut 26:1–11): “And when any man, after having done all this and having offered tithes of all, along with those for the Levites and for the banquets and the first-fruits, … let him render thanks to God” (Ant. 4.242).26 We may conclude this survey with the observation that rabbinic sources, too, reflect the broad usage of maʿăśēr for both tithes and tĕrûmâ, as already noted by R. Yom-Tob Heller (seventeenth century).27 Thus, in m. Demai 6:3, “R. Eliezer says, the ‘tithes’ belong to them,” means that tĕrûmâ belongs to the priest and the Levitical tithe to the Levite. Similarly, the Palestinian Talmud refers collectively to the tĕrûmâ and the two tithes as ‫“( זיקת ׁשלׁש מעׂשרות‬the obligation of three tithes”).28 Let us turn now to the Temple Scroll, where the term maʿăśēr is used in a passage particularly fraught with textual and hermeneutic difficulties. We shall first cite the text (60:4–10) and translate it in accordance with the editor’s interpretation:29 22 23 24 25

26 27 28 29

Ant. 4.240. Ant. 4.68, 205. See Oppenheimer, ʿAm Ha-Aretz, 38–42. This is also implied in Heb 7:5: “And they of the sons of Levi who receive the office of the priesthood have a commandment to take tithes of the people according to the law.” The right of the priests to “a tithe of the revenue” is already mentioned by Hecataeus (Josephus, Ag. Ap. 1.188). M. Stern, Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism (3 vols.; Jerusalem, 1974–1984), 1:41–42 cites the opinions of some scholars who would associate the diversion of the Levitical tithe to the priests with Hasmonean innovations, but he is inclined to date the change earlier, in the fourth century. However, our findings with regard to the fluid use of dekatē seem to require a new determination concerning whether any such change in priestly prerogatives is at all indicated in the sources. Cf. m. Bik. 2:2 and y. Maʿaś. Š. 56c, where the “removal” of Deut 26:13 is held to apply to the first-fruits as well. See Tosefot Yom Tob on m. Dem. 7:6; m. Maʿaś. 2:4; and m. ʾAbot 1:16; 5:8; cf. Albeck, Zeraim, 217. Y. Maʿaś. 2:4, 49d. Y. Yadin, Megillat ha-Miqdash, 2:191–92.

On the Non-Literal Use of Maʿăśēr/Dekatē

211

‫ומכס תרומתמה לעוף ולחיה ולדגים אחד מאלף‬ 4 ] [ ‫ אשר יצודו וכול אשר יחרימו ומכס הׁשלל והבז‬5 ‫וללויים מעׂשר הדגן והתירוׁש והיצהר אׁשר‬ 6 ‫הקדיׁשו לי לראיׁשונה והׁשכם מאת זובחי הזבח והמכס מן‬ 7 ‫הׁשלל ומן הבז ומן הציד לעוף ולחיה ולדגים אחד מן המאה‬ 8 ‫ומבני היונה ומעׂשר מן הדבׁש אחדי מן החמׁשים ולכוהנים‬ 9 ‫ אחד מן המאה מן בני היונה‬10

and the tax, their (the priests’) offering from fowl, beasts, and fish is one from a thousand 5 of what they hunt and everything which they devote, and the tax of the spoils and the booty [  ] 6 And for the Levites the tithe of corn, wine, and oil which 7 they sanctified unto me first, and the shoulder from those who offer a sacrifice, and the tax from 8 the spoils and the booty, and the catch of fowl, beasts, and fish is one from a hundred, 9 and from the doves {and one-tenth of the honey} one from fifty; and for the priests 10 one from a hundred from the doves. 4

The phrase bracketed in line 9 (“and one-tenth of the honey”) is considered by Yadin to be misplaced since it interrupts the instructions about doves. It belongs properly at the end of line 10 but was included here with products of the chase. As for the doves, the levy on them is 1/100 for the priests and 1/50 for the Levites. This differs sharply from the percentages from the chase, which are 1/1000 for the priests and 1/100 for the Levites. “One explanation for this,” suggests Yadin, “might be that young pigeons were not considered to be completely wild, and that the author therefore fixed their tribute in accordance with the Levitical portion of half the booty” (Num 31:30).30 That the Levitical tax at the rate of “one from fifty” was derived from Numbers seems entirely plausible, assuming that, unlike the portion from the booty, it was levied on the whole, rather than on the half apportioned to the Israelites. Yet the rationale for distinguishing between doves and other fowl because of their domestication should apply with equal force to beehives, whose honey would thus be subject to a similar tax of one from fifty. There is consequently no reason for regarding the phrase ‫ ומעׂשר מן הדבׁש‬in line 9 as out 30

Yadin, The Temple Scroll, 1:167.

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PART 4: HALAKHIC TOPICS

of place, except for the assumption that maʿăśēr invariably signifies one-tenth; but we have already noted that this is not the case. The recognition that maʿăśēr may designate any hieratic tax spares us the need to leave the phrase “and the ‘tithe’ from honey” dangling disconnectedly, and it points to two possible interpretations: (1) If doves and bees were held to be in the same category, we may translate lines 9–10 as follows: “9And as to doves and the ‘tithe’ from honey it is one from fifty; and for the priests 10one from a hundred.” The redundant words ‫ מן בני היונה‬in line 10 are readily recognizable as a scribal error of homoioteleuton after ‫ אחד מן המאה‬as in line 9. (2) If doves were classified with other fowl, the opening words in line 9 may be read as appended to the preceding enumeration. Having listed booty, fowl, beasts, and fish as subject to a tax of 1/100, the author adds that the same rate is applicable to doves. In either case, the “tithe” on honey was not subsumed under the first tithe given to the Levites from corn, wine, and oil. Its scriptural source was most likely 2 Chr 31:5, where a maʿăśēr of honey is mentioned, though rabbinic exegesis took this to be date honey.31 In the Temple Scroll the rate of 1/50 for the Levites was modeled on their portion from the Israelite share of the booty, while the priestly share of 1/100 was presumably based on what the author held to be the proper rate for tĕrûmâ, “a tenth of a tenth” (Num 18:26).32 The Temple Scroll thus provides a further illustration of what no longer should be regarded as an isolated phenomenon: the use of maʿăśēr not only literally for the ten-percent tithe but also in the extended sense of any hieratic impost, regardless of its rate.33 31 32

33

See y. Bik. 63d: “Is honey subject to tithes?[!] Rather, these are dates, from which tithes are obligatory.” Cf. Neh 10:39 and y. Ter. 42d, where an Amoraic opinion is cited that the biblical rate for tĕrûmâ was 1/100, like that of the priestly portion from the Levitical tithe. Another view, derived from Num 31:47, set the rate at 1/50, while the prevalent opinion was that there was no fixed rate. J. Milgrom, “Studies in the Temple Scroll,” 519, calls attention to the MʿŚRWT that appear in 11QTemple 37:10 in a list of priestly portions to be eaten in assigned places in the inner Temple court. Noting the plural, he suggests that these tithes were the tithe of animals and the tithe of the Levitical tithe. The latter, however, which consists of produce, does not fit well into the context, which deals with sacrifices (“for their offerings, the first-born, the tithes, and their peace-offerings”). I would, therefore, prefer to take “tithes” there as tithes of cattle, which, it may be noted, are also listed together with first-born and peaceofferings under the category of “lesser holy offerings” in m. Zebaḥ. 5:7–8. On the other hand, the inscription maʿăśēr kohen, reported by Y. Yadin (Masada [New York, 1966], 96) to have been found on vessels at Masada, is likely to have designated the priestly portion of the Levitical tithe.

Chapter 16

The First and Second Tithes in the Temple Scroll Among* the religious criteria which served, according to rabbinic sources, to distinguish the Ḥaber from the ʿAm ha-ʾAretz there were two of primary importance: (1) the observance of ritual purity; and (2) the scrupulous separation of the tithes.1 With regard to the prerabbinic Essene–Qumran community, we have a fair picture of the role of purity in their daily regimen from Josephus’s description as well as the pertinent Qumran texts.2 However, the hitherto available sources do not give us any information about the manner in which the laws of maʿasrot were interpreted and observed outside the sphere of Pharisaic tradition. The lack is now to some extent filled by the recently published Temple Scroll (11QTemple).3 This supplement to the Torah, presented as the direct word of God, contains rules about the various perquisites of the priests and the Levites, such as their portions from the booty and the hunt, as well as a “tithe” of two percent from wild honey.4 In this paper we shall be primarily concerned with the Scroll’s elaboration of the two major tithes found in the Pentateuch, the Levitical tithe in Numbers 18 and the so-called “Deuteronomic tithe” of Deuteronomy 14. We should note at the outset that contrary to modern exegetes, who view the tithes in the priestly legislation and that of Deuteronomy as alternative interpretations or revisions of a single tithe, the sources available from the Second Temple period are in agreement with rabbinic halakhah in requiring the separation of two distinct tithes. This is already evident from the Book of * ‫מוקדש בהוקרה לידידי שמואל שכל שבילי הספרות נהירין ליה‬. [Original publication: “The First and Second Tithes in the Temple Scroll,” in Biblical and Related Studies Presented to Samuel Iwry (ed. A. Kort and S. Morschauser; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1985), 5–15.] Republished with the generous permission of Penn State University Press (University Park, PA), publisher of the Eisenbrauns imprint. 1 B. Ber. 47b and parallels. For a recent study of the sources, see A. Oppenheimer, The ʿAm Ha-aretz: A Study in the Social History of the Jewish People in the Hellenistic–Roman Period (Leiden, 1977). 2 For a preliminary evaluation of the bearing of the Temple Scroll on this subject, see the writer’s article, “The Pharisaic–Sadducean Controversies about Purity and the Qumran Texts,” JJS 31 (1980): 157–70 [included in this volume]. 3 Megillat ha-Miqdash (ed. Y. Yadin; 3 vols; Jerusalem, 1977 [in Hebrew]). [English edition: The Temple Scroll (Jerusalem, 1977–1983)]. 4 This is discussed in the writer’s paper, “On the Non-Literal Use of Maʿăśer/Dekatē,” JBL 103 (1984): 245–51 [included in this volume].

© Joseph M. Baumgarten, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004505087_018

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Jubilees, which refers to the “second tithe” to be “fulfilled from year to year” by eating it before the Lord (32:11). 11QTemple, likewise, has two distinct pericopes dealing with the Levitical tithe (60:6–7) and the Deuteronomic one (43:2–17), respectively. Moreover, as we shall see, 11QTemple throws valuable light on a related exegetical problem which has exercised commentators both ancient and modern, the nature of the enigmatic tithe of Lev 27:30–31: All tithes from the land, whether seed from the ground or fruit from the tree, are the Lord’s; they are holy to the Lord. If a man wishes to redeem any of his tithes, he must add one fifth to them. Rabbinic tradition identified the tithe in this passage with the “second tithe” of Deuteronomy,5 while modern scholars tend to connect it with the Levitical tithe. Since the tithe here is spoken of as belonging to the Lord, which is presumed to mean to the priests of the sanctuary rather than the Levites as in Numbers 18, Kaufmann and Weinfeld point to a bifurcation of views concerning the tithe within the Priestly literature: “According to the stratum embodied in Leviticus 27 […] the tithe is considered the property of the Sanctuary and the priesthood. According to the later stratum (Num 18:21ff.), the tithe is given to the Levites, who were the non officiating class of the Temple personnel.”6 The idea of pentateuchal strata was, of course, alien to the conceptual framework of the author of 11QTemple. Yet, it is interesting to observe that he, too, was impelled by the aforementioned exegetical problem to the assumption that there were “stages” in the history of the allocation of the tithe. This emerges from the brief, but significant pericope concerning the Levitical tithe in 11QTemple 60:6–7. 1

The Levitical Tithe And to the Levites belongs the tithe of grain, wine, and oil which they formerly consecrated unto me. 11QTemple 60:6–7

5 See Sifra ad locum (ed. Weiss, 115a), and D. Hoffmann, Das Buch Deuteronomium (Berlin, 1913), 144. 6 M. Weinfeld, “Tithe,” in EncJud 15:1156–62 (1159); cf. Y. Kaufmann, Toledot ha-ʾEmunah ha-Yisra‌ʾelit (4 vols.; Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, 1975/76), 1:148–54; and M. Haran, “Maʿăśēr,” Encyclopaedia Biblica (9 vols.; Jerusalem, 1950–1988), 5:204–12 (in Hebrew).

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Yadin has properly pointed out that the phrase ‫ הקדישו לי‬must be derived from Lev 27:30 where the tithes are termed ‫קדש לה׳‬.7 The transposition to the first person is in accord with the general format of the Scroll as the direct word of God. Less convincing is his suggestion that the word ‫ לראישונה‬echoes the term ‫מעשר ראשון‬, used as a designation for the Levitical tithe in rabbinic literature. ‫ לראישונה‬occurs elsewhere in 11QTemple in the sequential sense of something done before something else. Here its most plausible connotation is that of something done in former times, but now modified, as in Gen 28:19 and Judg 18:29.8 Formerly, the tithes were consecrated to the Lord (Lev 27:30), but henceforth they are to belong to the Levites. Since the Levites in the author’s view were chosen “to stand in my presence and to minister” (60:11), they were entitled to the emoluments properly belonging to the Sanctuary. We may further surmise that this was the author’s understanding of Num 18:21: “And to the Levites I hereby give all the tithes in Israel as their share in return for the services that they perform.” The original priestly claim to the tithes is nevertheless recognized in the ‘tithe of the tithe’ which the Levites are required to set aside “as a gift to the Lord” (Num 18:25). The former practice of dedicating tithes to God or to the priesthood is further illustrated in the narratives of Genesis. Thus, Abraham gave “a tithe of everything” to Melchizedek, the priest of the Most High God (Gen 14:20). In Jub. 13:25, this incident serves as a precedent for the ordinance to give the title “to the priests who served before Him.” Some have taken this to mean that according to Jubilees the tithe is still to be given to the priests, rather than the Levites as prescribed in Numbers 18.9 Yet, in Jub. 32:2–9, Jacob is described as giving the tithe which he had vowed to Levi. Although Levi was a “priest” there (32:9), he was recognized as the ancestor of both priests and Levites, who together minister before the Lord (30:18). The ambiguity is most likely to be resolved in the manner indicated in 11QTemple. The tithes were originally consecrated to the Lord and were therefore assigned to the priesthood. When the Levites were chosen to minister in God’s presence, they became the exclusive recipients of the Levitical tithe. The “historical” theory adumbrated in 11QTemple is in striking contrast with what is generally supposed to have been the history of the disposition of the Levitical tithe in the Second Temple period. Despite the provisions in Numbers 18 assigning the tithe to the Levites, scholars have noted apparent 7 Temple Scroll, 1:126; cf. J. Milgrom, “Studies in the Temple Scroll,” JBL 97 (1978): 501–23 (519). 8 Cf. ‫ בראשונה‬in mishnaic Hebrew, e.g., m. Ned. 11:12; m. Roš. Haš. 2:2, 5. 9 See Y.M. Grintz, Sefer Yehudith (Jerusalem, 1957), 191 (in Hebrew); cf. the more judicious evaluation of Oppenheimer, The ʿAm Ha-aretz, 39–40.

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indications of the diversion of the tithe to the priests according to the prevailing practice.10 J. Milgrom, who has effectively demonstrated the higher status of the Levites in the ritual law of 11QTemple, suggests that the emphatic assignment of the tithe to the Levites is in reaction to its usurpation by the contemporary priests.11 But when did this usurpation occur? We have recently had occasion to review the evidence and it does not appear to be as early nor as unequivocal as some have supposed. In the Book of Nehemiah the Levites, rather than the priests, are regarded as the legitimate recipients of the tithe, whose collection had fallen into neglect.12 There is a talmudic tradition which attributes to Ezra the diversion of the tithes from Levites to priests; Ezra is said to have penalized the Levites for their failure to take part in the migration to Jerusalem.13 However, the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, as well as Chronicles, show no trace of a punitive attitude toward the Levites; on the contrary, they underline their ritual function in the Temple, and their role as teachers.14 The implication of Ezra 8:15 that the Levites were conspicuous by their absence from Ezra’s caravan is largely neutralized by l Esdr 8:42, where both priests and Levites are said to have been lacking. Judith 11:13 describes the besieged Jews as consuming the first-fruits “and the tithes of the wine and oil, which they had consecrated and set aside for the priests, who minister in the presence of our God.” The prevalent explanation of the author’s assignment of the tithes to the priests, rather than the Levites, is either that he was not concerned with the distinction, or that the practice in his day already allowed the Levitical tithe to be given to the priests. However, in a recent paper we pointed out that the word maʿăśēr was frequently used in the generalized sense of any priestly gift, including the tĕrûmâ.15 This would explain the statement in Jdt 11:13 that “it is not lawful for any of the people so much as to touch these things with their hands.” In normative rabbinic halakhah, no such restriction was applied to the Levitical tithe.16 The possibility, nevertheless, must be kept in mind that prerabbinic sources, including, as we shall see, 11QTemple, may have held stricter views on this matter. The use of dekatē, not only for the tithe, but as a general term for the priestly portions from the harvest may likewise serve to explain the ambiguity found in the Book of Tobit. Tobit went to Jerusalem “with the first-fruits and the tithes 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Cf. J. Jeremias, Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus (Philadelphia, 1969), 106–8. Milgrom, “Studies in the Temple Scroll,” 503. Neh 10:38; 13:10. B. Yebam. 86b; b. B. Bat. 81b; b. Ketub. 26a; b. Ḥul. 131b. Ezra 3:8, 10; 6:20; 8:30; Neh 8:7–11. See above, n. 4. Cf. m. Ṭ. Yom 4:1.

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(tas dekatas) of the increase and the first shearings of the sheep,” which he gave to the priests, the sons of Aaron (1:6–7, BA recensions). Yet, immediately afterward he is said to have given the tithe (tēn dekatēn) to the sons of Levi, who ministered in Jerusalem (1:7). The premise put forth by some scholars that this contradiction reflects the tension between the law in Numbers and the contemporary encroachment of the priests on the Levitical tithe does not seem convincing. We have no substantial evidence for such encroachment from the early Second Temple period. More plausible is the possible connection between the assertion of priestly claims to the tithe and Hasmonean innovations. A. Schalit17 has described the policy of the Hasmonean kings to take control of the tithes and to use them for their own purposes. A. Oppenheimer more recently has surveyed the relevant rabbinic sources.18 Of specific interest is the ordinance attributed by tannaitic tradition to John Hyrcanus I: “Joḥanan the high priest abolished the confession that the tithe had been given … and in his days one had no need to inquire concerning demai” (m. Soṭah 9:10). The abolition of the confession was apparently connected with the diversion of the tithe to the priests: “Because people were not presenting it as prescribed. For the divine law states that it is to be given to the Levites, whereas we give it to the priests” (b. Soṭah 47b). However, if Joḥanan were concerned with preserving the rights of the Levites, why did he abolish the confession rather than reform the prevailing practice? The confession, it has been inferred, became obsolete as a result of the new and more stringent methods of collecting the tithe instituted in the days of John Hyrcanus, which also removed any doubts about whether the obligatory separation had been performed.19 “Pairs” were appointed to supervise the collection of the tithe and presumably priests were now recognized as legitimate recipients under the aegis of the “treasury.”20 11QTemple, as we have noted, assigns the tithe exclusively to the Levites. It is possible to see this as a reaction to the preemption of the tithe by the priests. Since no conclusive evidence for such preemption is available before the Hasmonean period, one might be inclined to view this as corroborating the hypothesis of a Hasmonean date for the Scroll.21 However, it is equally possible to relate the pro-Levitical posture of the Temple Scroll to the similar tendency found in Chronicles and other sources from the early Second Temple period. 17 18 19 20 21

A. Schalit, König Herodes (Berlin, 1969), 262–71. Oppenheimer, The ʿAm-Ha-aretz, 29–42. Ibid., 34. Y. Maʿaś. Š. 56d and y. Soṭah 24a. Yadin, Megillat ha-Miqdash, 1:298; cf. J. Milgrom, “The Temple Scroll,” BA 41 (1978): 105–20 (119).

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Before leaving the provisions in 11QTemple concerning the Levitical tithe, we must consider a halakhic question which arises from the wording of the text. The tithe is described as that “which they formerly consecrated unto me.” We have noted that the phraseology derives from Lev 27:30 where the tithes are termed “holy to the Lord,” requiring a surcharge of one-fifth for redemption, as for other sacred dedications. Does this mean that the tithe was considered as sacred and forbidden for consumption by non-Levites? Rabbinic tradition, as was mentioned, did not apply Leviticus 27 to the “first tithe.” Moreover, the halakhah ultimately accepted as normative specifically denies any sacred character of the Levitical tithe and regards its consumption by Israelites as merely a matter of misappropriation.22 Yet, there were opinions which forbade the tithe to any but Levites.23 11QTemple, which describes the tithe as “consecrated,” is most probably to be understood in this sense, though the word is used in the context of what was done “formerly.” The implied change is most likely to be taken as affecting the recipients of the tithe, i.e., Levites rather than priests, but not its sacred status.24 The tithe would thus be consecrated exclusively to the Levites in the same manner that the tĕrûmâ was restricted to the priesthood. Finally, we may infer that the collection of the tithe was to be centralized at the Sanctuary. This is indicated by the juxtaposition of the tithe with the shoulder portion of the sacrifices, which is likewise assigned to the Levites, in recognition of their ministering at the Temple. According to rabbinic halakhah, it was permissible to give the tithe to any Levite wheresoever one wished. However, it has already been pointed out by several scholars, that during most of the Second Temple period the practice was to bring the tithe to Jerusalem for central distribution.25 2

The Second Tithe

Although the term “second tithe” is not found in the extant portions of 11QTemple, comparison with Jub. 32:9–10 indicates that it is this tithe which is the subject of the rules elaborated in 11QTemple 43:2–17: 22 23 24 25

B. Yebam. 85b–86a; cf. the formulation of Maimonides, Yad, Laws of Maʿăśēr 1:2: “The first tithe may be eaten by Israelites and in a state of impurity, for it has no sanctity whatsoever.” According to R. Meir, the Levitical tithe was prohibited to non-Levites (b. Yebam. 86a); cf. Z. Karl, “The Tithe and the Terumah,” Tarbiz 16 (1944/45): 11–17 (in Hebrew). Milgrom, “Studies in the Temple Scroll,” 519, suggests that the author of the Temple Scroll might also have derived the sanctity of the first tithe from Deut 26:13, where the tithes which accumulated in the third year of the cycle are called “holy.” See Oppenheimer, The ʿAm ha-Aretz, 30–38.

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2 ]on the Sabbath days and the days[ ]and on the days of first fruits for grain, for w[ine 3 and for oil] 4 [and on the appointed day for the w]ood offering; On these days shall it be eaten. And they shall not allow it to re[main] 5 [from one] year to another. For thus shall they eat it: 6 From the first fruit festival for wheat grain let them eat the grain 7 until the following year, until the day of the first fruit festival; as for wine, from the day 8 appointed for wine until the following year, up to the appointed day 9 for wine; as for oil, from its appointed day until the following year 10 up to the appointed day for the offering of new oil on the altar. And whatever 11 remains from their appointed times shall be sacred; it must be burned in fire, and may no longer be eaten 12 for it has become sacred. And those who dwell at a distance from the sanctuary of three 13 days journey, whatever they are able to bring, let them bring; if they are not able 14 to carry it, let them sell it for money. They shall bring the money and buy with it corn 15 wine, oil, cattle, and sheep. And they shall eat it on the appointed days, and not 16 eat of it on workdays in their uncleanliness, for it is holy. 17 On the holy days let it be eaten, it may not be eaten on workdays. This expansion of Deut 14:22–26 is found in the Scroll after the description of the booths constructed in the outer court of the Temple for the celebration of Sukkot. Similarly, Jub. 32:10–11 elaborates on the second tithe in the context of the account of Jacob’s celebration of Sukkot. Since Sukkot was the festival of ingathering and concluded the harvest season, it served as a terminal point for the separation of the tithe. The one-year time limits on the consumption of the tithe from each category of harvest, unparalleled in rabbinic halakhah, is likewise found in Jubilees.26 However, the requirement to eat the tithe only on holy days is not found elsewhere. The exclusion of workdays derives from considerations of purity, as indicated by the term ‫לאונמה‬. The word ‫און‬, originally referring to mourning for the dead, appears in Deut 26:14 in parallel with ‫ טמא‬as a typical example of 26

Yadin, Megillat ha-Miqdash, 1:81–98; cf. this writer’s paper, “4QHalakaha 5, the Law of Ḥadash, and the Pentecontad Calendar,” JJS 27 (1976): 36–46.

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ritual defilement which renders one ineligible to eat the sacred tithes.27 Our text implies that ritual uncleanliness was associated with all workdays. What is the nature of this uncleanliness? A clue may perhaps be found in Josephus’s description of the daily routines of the Essenes ( J.W. 2.128–130). Before their morning prayers, we are told, the Essenes utter no word on mundane matters (tōn bebēlōn). They then go off to their various occupations until the fifth hour. The communal meal in the refectory must be preceded by a bath for purification. Such purification, it appears, was not for the purpose of removing uncleanliness stemming from corpses, carrion, creeping animals, or other biblical categories of defilement. If that were the case, a minimal waiting period after the bath until sundown would have been required.28 Rather the uncleanliness stems from the secular activities themselves. Just as the priests in the Temple, even when clean, were required to undergo immersion before performing their rites, so the Essenes’ ablutions served as a ritual demarcation between their secular occupations and the sacred meals. It is this concept of workdays as inherently “defiling” because of their mundane nature29 which may serve to explain the rule in 11QTemple excluding the consumption of the tithe on such days. The other time restriction which 11QTemple applies to the second tithe, the one-year limit for each category of harvest, likewise derives from its holy status. Just as sacrificial food has a prescribed period for its consumption after which it becomes unfit (Exod 29:34; Lev 7:17, 8:32, 19:6), so does the tithe “become sacred” after the following harvest festival. Although rabbinic halakhah

27 28 29

Cf. Hos 9:4 where ‫( לחם אונים‬Tg. ‫לחם מרחק‬, “defiled bread”) makes unclean those who eat it. 11QTemple 51:4–5; cf. 49:19–21 and Baumgarten, “The Pharisaic–Sadducean Controversies,” 158–59 [above, pp. 121–24]. The idea of ritual impurity associated with the workdays may perhaps serve to explain the practice of bathing on the eve of the Sabbath, of which mention is made in various sources. 2 Macc 12:38 says of Judah and his men: “And as the following day was the seventh, they purified themselves according to custom (κατὰ τὸν ἐθισμόν) and celebrated the Sabbath there.” It does not appear that this was done only because of the preceding battle. In CD 10:10 the laws of purification, under the rubric ‫ על הטהר במים‬are placed immediately before those of the Sabbath. Among the latter we find a rule forbidding the wearing of unwashed garments (CD 11:3–4). G. Alon (Studies in Jewish History [2 vols.; Tel-Aviv, 1967], 1:306 [in Hebrew]) pointed out the interesting reference in Barn. 15:1 to sanctifying the Sabbath “with pure hands and a pure heart.” A vestigial remnant of this practice may be found in the hot baths which R. Judah used to take on the eve of the Sabbaths (b. Šabb. 25b). Cf. the recent discussion in L. Schiffman, The Halakhah at Qumran (Leiden, 1975), 107.

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considered the second tithe as “holy to the Lord” (Lev 27:30), it rejected the imposition of such restrictions.30 3

The Redemption of the Second Tithe

Let us now turn to the provision for the redemption of the tithe. Comparison of the phraseology in 11QTemple with its source, Deut 14:25–26, reveals some interesting changes: Deuteronomy 14

‫ ונתת בכסף‬ ‫ ונתת הכסף‬

11QTemple

‫ימכרהו בכסף‬ ‫ולקחו בו‬

We note that 11QTemple has replaced the rather vague wording ‫ונתת בכסף‬, “and you may convert (the tithe) into money,” with the more precise directive, “let him sell it for money.” This contrasts sharply with the mishnaic ruling found at the beginning of the tractate m. Maʿaś. Š.: ‫“ אין מוכרין מעשר שני‬The second tithe may not be sold.” The type of sale in question is illustrated in t. Maʿaś. Š. 1:1: He may not say to him (the buyer), “Take two hundred (zuzim) and give me one hundred.” Since the tithe is subject to the restriction of being consumed only in Jerusalem, it is assumed that no one would be willing to buy it at par value. The ruling, however, excludes any sale because it constitutes a disgrace of a sacred commodity.31 The only conversion sanctioned would be redemption of the tithe, in accordance with Lev 27:31. This is likewise indicated by the rendering of Deut 14:25 in the Targumim Ps.-Jonathan (‫ )ותחלל‬and Neofiti (‫)ותפרקון‬. 11QTemple, which prescribes selling rather than redeeming the tithe, thus presents us with an interesting polarization of exegesis. We note that both methods of converting consecrated objects are mentioned in Leviticus 27. Thus, non offerable animals which were devoted to the sanctuary were either assessed for their salable value by the priest (v. 12) or redeemed with a one-fifth surcharge by the donor (v. 13); similarly for real property (vv. 14–20). Offerable animals and anything devoted as ḥerem could “neither be sold nor redeemed” (v. 28). To an intermediate status belongs the “tithe of the land,” for which redemption is possible (v. 31), while disposal by

30 31

See b. Tem. 21b where the rule that “(second) tithe is not disqualified from one year to the next” is taken for granted. Cf. S. Lieberman, Tosefta Ki-fshutah (10 vols.; New York, 1955–1988), 2:712.

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sale is not indicated. The identification of this tithe, described as “holy to God,” as we have noted, has been an ancient crux interpretum. Rabbinic exegesis, proceeding from the premise that the Levitical tithe, once the priestly tĕrûmâ has been deducted from it, could not be termed “holy,” arrived at the conclusion that the tithe of Lev 27:30–31 was the “second tithe.”32 They therefore identified the conversion procedure of Deut 14:25 (‫ )ונתת בכסף‬with redemption. Ordinary sale was deemed inappropriate for the second tithe. At the same time, tannaitic halakhah extended the procedure for redemption from the owner of the tithe, who was subject to the one-fifth surcharge (Lev 27:31), to others who were exempt.33 This opened the door to certain evasions with considerable economic consequences. In a marginal economy burdened with taxation and already subject to the Levitical tithe, the additional imposition of a second tithe whose consumption was restricted to Jerusalem no doubt constituted a serious problem. It is therefore interesting to read in the Mishnah: If someone had (second-tithe) money in Jerusalem and he had need for it (for other than food) and his fellow had produce, he may say to his fellow, “Let this money be rendered free for common use by (exchange with) your produce.” The result will be that this one will eat his produce in cleanliness (as second tithe) and the other may do what he will with his money. m. Maʿaś. Š. 3:3

Here the tithe money is ostensibly exchanged for unconsecrated produce which now becomes subject to the restrictions applicable to the second tithe. However, neither the produce nor the money really change hands. They are regarded as gifts from the seller to the buyer and vice versa. The original owner of the produce must now eat it with proper regard for ritual purity, a burden which he was willing to assume, perhaps in return for a service fee. Moreover, an analogous procedure was extended to the situation where the money was in the province while the fruit was in Jerusalem (m. Maʿaś. Š. 3:4), thus sparing the owner of the second tithe the trouble of making the pilgrimage altogether. In effect, such a procedure would allow residents of Jerusalem to become surrogates for their brethren in the provinces in the consumption of the second tithe. Our sources do not indicate how widely this particular evasion was 32 33

See Sifra (ed. Weiss), 115a. M. Maʿaś. Š. 4:3.

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used, but when one considers that Jerusalem had approximately one-tenth of the population of Judea (Nah 11:1), the economic practicality of such an arrangement for disposing of the tithe becomes apparent. Its legality, however, depends ultimately on the identification of the redeemable “tithe of the land” in Lev 27:30–31 with the second tithe. 11QTemple, however, indicates its sharp dissent with such exegesis. The second tithe may be converted to money, but only through a bona fide sale, not by redemption. Redemption with the one-fifth surcharge, the author may have reasoned, was appropriate only where the sanctified object was to be conveyed to a recipient other than the original owner, as in the case of dedications of property (Leviticus 27) or the inadvertent consumption of tĕrûmâ by a nonpriest (Lev 22:14). The Deuteronomic tithe, however, was to be consumed by the owner himself; hence, no redemption was indicated. The “tithe of the land” which according to Lev 27:31 was redeemable could thus only be the Levitical tithe. This tithe was to be delivered to the Levites, and unlike the rabbis, Qumran exegesis held it to be sacred. The aforementioned evasions of the second tithe are further eliminated by the manner in which the bringing of this tithe is elaborated in 11QTemple. First, the duty of bringing either the fruit or the proceeds from its sale to the sanctuary is taken quite literally. Second, by restricting its consumption to holidays and imposing a one-year limit for each species of crop, the quantity of tithe which could be consumed in Jerusalem was sharply reduced. The economic consequences of such restrictions were probably of little concern to the authors of the Temple Scroll and the Book of Jubilees. What mattered was that the rules were believed to be in accord with what was inscribed on the Tablets of Heaven.

Chapter 17

The Laws of ʿOrlah and First Fruits in the Light of Jubilees, the Qumran Writings, and Targum Ps.-Jonathan The* publication of the Temple Scroll in 1977 marks a watershed in our knowledge of prerabbinic religious law.1 The broad range of topics of halakhah touched upon in this, the largest of the Qumran scrolls, has already made possible a fresh evaluation of the relevance of rabbinic sources to the history of Jewish sectarianism in the Second Temple period.2 In the specific area of the priestly and Levitical donations from the harvest, I have elsewhere had occasion to evaluate the Qumran interpretation of the first and second tithes by comparison with that of rabbinic law.3 I noted, among other things, that while the rabbis appear to have alleviated the burden of the second tithe by allowing a flexible system of redemption through which the inhabitants of Jerusalem could in effect act as surrogates for those who dwelt elsewhere in the land of Israel, the Temple Scroll insists on the bona fide sale of second tithe produce and subjects it, in concert with the book of Jubilees, to rigid time intervals for each category of harvest, as well as to the restriction of being consumed in Jerusalem only on festive days. In this paper I should like to examine the Qumran–Jubilees interpretation of the law of ʿOrlah pertaining to the fruits of newly planted trees. The biblical source is Lev 19:23–25, according to which it is forbidden to eat the fruit of the first three years, while that of the fourth year is to be set aside as ‫קדש הלולים לה׳‬, “holy as a praise-offering unto the Lord.” The produce of * This paper was read at the Institute for Advanced Studies of the Hebrew University on April 7, 1986. [Original publication: “The Laws of ʿOrlah and First Fruits in the Light of Jubilees, the Qumran Writings, and Targum Ps.-Jonathan,” JJS 38 (1987): 195–202]. Republished with the permission of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. 1 The Temple Scroll (ed. Y. Yadin; 3 vols.; Jerusalem, 1977; in Hebrew). 2 “Rabbinic Sources and the Study of Qumran Halakhah” (forthcoming). [We have not found a study with this title, but see Baumgarten’s “The Relevance of Rabbinic Sources to the Study of Qumran Law,” in Proceedings of the Twelfth World Congress of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem, July 29–August 5, 1997, Division A: The Bible and Its World (Jerusalem, 1999), 73–78 (included in this volume)]. 3 “The First and Second Tithes in the Temple Scroll,” in Biblical and Related Studies Presented to Samuel Iwry (ed. A. Kort and S. Morschauer; Winona Lake, 1985), 5–15 [included in this volume].

© Joseph M. Baumgarten, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004505087_019

THE LAWS OF ʿ ORLAH AND FIRST FRUITS

225

the fifth year is available for unrestricted use. What was the halakhic meaning of ‫ ?קדש הלולים לה׳‬The normative rabbinic interpretation was that the produce of the fourth year was in the same category as the second tithe; that is, it belonged to the land owner, but was to be consumed only in Jerusalem. If the fruit itself could not be brought there, it was to be redeemed and its equivalent value spent for food upon making a pilgrimage to the holy city (Deut 14:22– 26). In support of this understanding of ‫קדש לה׳‬, rabbinic exegetes could cite Lev 27:30, where this phrase is used to describe the “tithe of the land,” which they presumed to mean the second tithe.4 However, there already are hints in rabbinic sources of an alternative interpretation of ‫קדש הלולים לה׳‬, one which assigns the fruit of the fourth year not to the owner, but to the priesthood. Thus we read in Sifre Bamidbar 6:5 ‫ למה נאמר לפי שהוא אומר ובשנה הרביעית יהיה כל פריו‬,‫ואיש את קדשיו לו יהיו‬ ‫קדש הלולים לה׳ קודש לבעלים או קודש לכהנים ת״ל ואיש את קדשיו לו יהיו בנטע‬ ‫רבעי הכתוב מדבר שיהא לבעלים דברי ר׳ מאיר‬

“A man’s holy offerings belong to him” [Num 5:10]. Why is this said? Because (Scripture) says, “In the fourth year all its fruit shall be a holy praise-offering to the Lord” [Lev 19:24]; (does this mean) holy and belonging to its owners, or holy and belonging to the priests? The teaching therefore comes to say, “A man’s holy offerings belong to him.” Scripture refers here to the fourth-year planting, which belongs to the owners. This is the view of R. Meir. R. Ishmael has a somewhat different exegesis, but he, too, is concerned with disproving the view which would assign the fourth-year fruits to the priests. Interestingly, it is the latter view which is consistently followed by Targum Ps.-Jonathan: ‫ובשתא רביעתא יהי כל אינביה קודשי תושבחן קדם ה׳ מתפרק מן כהנא‬

And in the fourth year let all its fruit be a holy praise-offering before the Lord, redeemable from the priest. Lev 19:24

4 M. Maʿas. Š. 4:3, b. Qidd. 52b–54b, b. Baba Qamma 69b. 5 [ed. Horovitz, p. 9.]

226

PART 4: HALAKHIC TOPICS

‫ומן גברא דינצב כרמא ולא פרקיה מן כהנא ואחליה יהך ויתוב לביתיה דילמא יגרום‬ ‫ליה חובא דלא פרקיה ויתקטל בקרבא וגבר חורן יחליניה‬

And who is the man who has planted a vineyard and has not redeemed it from the priest and desacralized it? Let him go and return to his home, lest his guilt in not redeeming it cause him to be killed in battle, and another man desacralize it. Deut 20:6

Abraham Geiger theorized a century ago that the procedure reflected in Ps.-Jonathan, requiring the fruit of the fourth year to be redeemed from the priest, represented the more ancient halakhah and was based on the Samaritan reading in Lev 19:24 of ‫ קדש חלולים‬instead of ‫קדש הלולים‬. This led him to dismiss the word ‫ תושבחן‬in Ps.-Jonathan as a “mit Onkelos übereinstimmende Glosse.”6 Geiger’s inherently dubious approach to the text must now be abandoned in the light of the Temple Scroll. 11QTemple 60:3–4 lists the sacred emoluments belonging to the priesthood, such as the first-born of animals and the tĕrûmâ. It also specifies )‫כול קוד(ש‬ ‫הילוליהמה‬, “all their holy offerings of praise.” This would seem to harmonize with Ps.-Jonathan in assigning the fruit of the fourth year to the priests, but it clearly derives from the Masoretic reading ‫הלולים‬. Moreover, the apparent harmony between the Targum and the scroll needs to be critically evaluated in light of the much more ample elaboration of the law of ʿOrlah in the Book of Jubilees. The author of Jubilees employs the story of Noah’s vineyard as his paradigm for the law of newly planted trees. The vineyard produced fruit in the seventh month of the fourth year, at which time Noah made his wine, but he guarded it until the fifth year. On the first day of the first month of the fifth year he made a feast and offered a series of animal sacrifices and also sprinkled wine upon the altar. Afterwards he indulged, or rather overindulged, in partaking of the vintage. The story concludes with the following testament of Noah to his sons: And behold, you will go and build for yourselves cities, and you will plant in them every plant which is upon the earth and every tree, moreover, which bears fruit. For three years its fruit will not be gathered from everything which may be eaten, but in the fourth year its fruit will be gathered. And let one offer up the first fruits which are acceptable before the Lord Most High, who made heaven and earth and everything, so that they 6 A. Geiger, Urschrift und Übersetzungen der Bibel (Breslau, 1857), 181–84.

THE LAWS OF ʿ ORLAH AND FIRST FRUITS

227

might offer up in the juice the first of the wine and the oil and first fruits upon the altar of the Lord, who will accept it. And that which is left the servants of the house of the Lord will eat before the altar which receives (it). And in the [fifth] year make its release so that you might release it in righteousness and uprightness. Jub. 7:35–37, trans O.S. Wintermute

In order to grasp the halakhic implications of this passage one must examine it closely. We may begin with the last sentence, which refers to a “release” in the fifth year. A number of modern translators and scholars have been misled by the connotation of this term which they have assumed to pertain to the sabbatical year. Thus, the latest translator of Jubilees, O.S. Wintermute, in Charlesworth’s Pseudepigrapha, notes forthrightly: “Against the unanimous witness of all the Eth. MSS known to me, I have emended the ‘fifth year’ to read ‘seventh year’. The year of release mentioned in Deut 15:1 is the seventh year.”7 Solomon Zeitlin once employed this passage as support for his view that the author of Jubilees lived early enough to feel free to contradict the law of Moses.8 However, it becomes apparent from the context that “release,” Eth. ḫedqat,9 is used here to denote release in the fifth year from all restrictions which applied to the fruit of previous years. This is the author’s paraphrase of Lev 19:25: “And in the fifth year you may eat its fruit, to add its produce unto you.” According to the standard rabbinic interpretation, this verse means that the produce of the fifth year is added to that of the fourth year, which is also deemed to belong to the owner.10 Jubilees, by contrast, is emphatic in forbidding the fruit of the fourth year to be eaten by anyone. It is only in the fifth year, after the first-fruit offering has been completed, that the priests may partake of the remnants. As to the laity, it would appear from the example of Noah’s sons that they, too, were permitted to partake of the fourth-year vintage after the priests had had their portion. Alternatively, we may regard Noah and his sons as representing the priesthood of his generation, while nonpriests would thus be permitted to enjoy only the fruits of the fifth year.11 7 8 9 10 11

The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (ed. J.H. Charlesworth; 2 vols.; New York, 1985), 2:70. S. Zeitlin, “The Book of Jubilees: Its Character and Its Significance,” JQR 30 (1939/40): 1–31 (3–4). Professor Stephen A. Kaufman was kind enough to assist me with the Ethiopic text of this passage. Sifra, Qedoshim 3:9 [ed. Weiss, p. 90a]. C. Albeck, Das Buch der Jubiläen und die Halacha (Berlin, 1930), 32–33, has noted the discrepancy between Jub. 7:35–7, which appears to allow the priests to bring their offering and to consume its remnants in the fourth year, and the story of Noah’s waiting until

228

PART 4: HALAKHIC TOPICS

However this may be, there does not appear to be any place in the Jubilees scheme for the redemption of the fourth-year fruits which is specified in Ps.-Jonathan. The latter apparently modelled his treatment of the fourth year produce upon that of the first-born of humans and animals, who are subject to redemption from the priest. This represents a kind of mediating exegesis between ‫ קדש‬in Lev 19:24, implying that the fourth-year produce is sacred, and ‫ חללו‬in Deut 20:6, implying that the owner has an option of redemption. Neither the Temple Scroll nor the Book of Jubilees have any provision for redeeming the fourth-year fruits from the priests. The desacralization of the vineyard is rather accomplished through the first-fruit offering upon the altar and the consumption of the remnants by the priests. We are thus led to infer that the interpretation of Ps.-Jonathan, while differing from that of normative rabbinic halakhah, cannot be identified with the earliest recognizable nonrabbinic exegesis found in ancient sources. The Genesis Apocryphon, likewise, echoes the same version of the story of Noah’s vineyard as that found in Jubilees. We read there: ‫ולשנין ארבע עבד לי חמר … ושרית למשתיה ביום חד לשתא חמישיתא‬

And in the fourth year it [the vineyard] produced wine for me … and I began to drink it on the first day of the fifth year. 12:13–1512

Thus it is only in the fifth year that the fruit of new trees may be used. Philo of Alexandria also seems to be in substantial agreement with the timetable of Jubilees. In his elaboration of the biblical law for new trees he writes: “But in this fourth year he commands them not to pluck the fruit for their own

12

the fifth year to bring his offering. He suggested that Noah waited because his sons, who did not have the status of priests, were not permitted to partake of the fruit till the fifth year. I have preferred to interpret Jub. 7:35–7 in line with the narrative (also found in the Genesis Apocryphon) to signify that not even the priests could partake of the fourth-year vintage until the beginning of the fifth year. Menachem Kister of the Hebrew University has suggested in a private discussion that the discrepancy may indicate the priority of the narrative to its legislative application. J.A. Fitzmyer, S.J., The Genesis Apocryphon (Rome, 1971), 48 and 101. M. Kister has, however, called my attention to the additional text (lines 16–17) read by N. Avigad and Y. Yadin, A Genesis Apocryphon (Jerusalem, 1956), 21: “I called my sons, my grandsons, and the wives and their daughters, all of them, and we gathered together and prayed to the master of heaven, the supreme God, the great Holy One, who saved us from destruction.” A definitive edition of the text is greatly to be desired. [See now D.A. Machiela, The Dead Sea Genesis Apocryphon (Leiden, 2009)].

THE LAWS OF ʿ ORLAH AND FIRST FRUITS

229

enjoyment, but to dedicate the whole of it as a first fruit to God.”13 This, too, implies that it is only the produce of the fifth year which is available for secular use. We have elsewhere noted other congruities between Philo’s interpretation of the laws of ḥadash and that found in Qumran writings.14 It is, moreover, pertinent to note the existence also in rabbinic literature of interpretations which, while based on the normative principle of redeeming the fourth-year fruits like those of the second tithe, seem to harmonize with Jubilees in its postponement of the permission to eat them until the fifth year. In the compendium of laws from the Gaonic period known as Halakhot Gedolot, at the end of the chapter on ʿOrlah we read: ‫ופרי דשנת ארבעי בתר דפריק להו אסיר למיכל מניה עד דנפקא רביעית ואתיא‬ ‫חמישית‬

The fruits of the fourth year, even after he redeems them, may not be eaten until the fourth year ends and the fifth year comes.15 Maimonides, in his code, rejects this Gaonic ruling.16 He attributes it to a false inference from Lev 19:25 which grants permission to eat of the fruit “in the fifth year.” The Tosafists likewise reject any delay in partaking of the redeemed produce of the fourth year.17 Another intriguing pericope on the fourth vs. fifth year issue is found in the Palestinian Talmud (y. Soṭah 8:5[2], [22d]):

13 14

15 16 17

De virtutibus 159; cf. Albeck, Jubiläen, 32. See “4Q Halakaha 5, the Law of Ḥadash, and the Pentecontad Calendar,” JJS 27 (1976): 36–46, reprinted in Baumgarten, Studies, 131–42. [In this article, Baumgarten analyzed a transcription offered by J.T. Milik, in “Addenda à 3Q15,” in M. Baillet, J.T. Milik and R. de Vaux, Les ‘Petites Grottes’ de Qumrân (2 vols.; DJD 3; Oxford, 1962), 1:300. That transcription, with Baumgarten’s restorations, is reprinted and analyzed below, at n. 23. The official edition of the text subsequently appeared as “251. 4QHalakha A,” ed. E. Larson. M.L. Lehman, and L. Schiffman, in Qumran Cave 4.XXV: Halakhic Texts (ed. J. Baumgarten et al.; DJD 35; Oxford, 1999), 25–51 (34–36), with this text renumbered as Frag. 9; the editors make use of Baumgarten’s 1976 article.] Sefer Halakhot Gedolot (ed. A.S. Traub; Warsaw, 1875), 32. Yad, Laws of the Second Tithe and Fourth-Year Fruits, 9:12: ‫וראיתי לגאונים דברים בחשבון ערלה ורבעי אין ראוי להאריך ולהשיב עליהן ובודאי טעות‬ ‫סופרים הם והאמת כבר ביארנו דרכה‬ B. Rosh ha-Shanah 10a, s.v. ‫ופירות‬.

230

PART 4: HALAKHIC TOPICS

‫אימתי הוא מחללו ברביעית ובחמישית מסתברא בחמישית אבל ברביעית דמים הוא‬ ‫חייב לו ורבנן דקיסרין אמרין לא מסתברא אלא ברביעית דכתיב ובשנה הרביעית‬ ‫יהיה כל פריו קודש הלולים לה׳‬

When does he redeem (it)? In the fourth or the fifth (year)? It seems more likely in the fifth year, for in the fourth year he is obligated for its value. The sages of Caesarea say: [“This is not likely; rather, he redeems it in the fourth year, as it is written:] ‘And in the fourth year all its fruit shall be a holy praise-offering unto God.’”18 Geiger attempted to interpret the first opinion in accord with the view of Ps.-Jonathan which provides for redeeming the fruit of the fourth year from the priesthood. This would account for the statement ‫דמים הוא חייב לו‬, “he owes him [i.e. the priest] money.” Yet he also posited that it was the fifth-year produce which the owner was required to consume in a sacred meal.19 However, the latter assumption lacks both supporting evidence and plausibility; for according to the Targum, once the fourth-year fruits have been redeemed from the priests, there is no further need for any sacral procedure. The pericope in the Jerusalem Talmud has long been noted as difficult.20 In its halakhic context it centers around the question of when the redemption (‫ )חלול‬of a newly planted vineyard can be said to be accomplished. Does it occur in the fourth year when the owner redeems the fruit, or the fifth year when he is no longer under any obligation regarding the disposal of the harvest or its value? The question was practically relevant to the exemption from military service [cf. Deut 20:6]. Geiger’s effort to introduce here the idea of a fifth-year sacramental meal free from the obligation to redeem it from the priesthood is hardly helpful in removing the obscurity. Returning now to the first part of the passage in Jubilees, we note that it refers to the produce of the fourth year as “first fruits,” ‫בכורים‬. This designation puts the fruits in the category of priestly gifts, which are sharply distinguished from the second tithe, which belongs to the owner. The passage further specifies that these first fruits are to be brought “in the juice,” in the form of wine and oil. This immediately raises a halakhic issue which is elaborated in tannaitic sources. According to the Mishnah the general rule is ‫אין מביאין בכורים‬ ‫משקין‬, “One may not bring first fruits in the form of liquids” (m. Terumot 2:3). 18 19 20

The reading ‫מחללו‬, rather than ‫מחלל‬, is found both in the Venice edition and in a Genizah fragment (L. Ginzberg, Seridei ha-Yerushalmi [New York, 1909], 215). Urschrift, 182–83; Albeck, Jubiläen, 58 n. 221, rejects Geiger’s interpretation; cf. C. Tchernowitz, Toledoth Ha-Halakhah (4 vols.; New York, 1950), 4:379–80 (in Hebrew). See ‫ פני משה‬and ‫ קרבן העדה‬ad locum.

THE LAWS OF ʿ ORLAH AND FIRST FRUITS

231

Whether this rule also applied to wine and oil is variously indicated. The aforementioned mishnah exempts them from this rule, but according to m. Ḥallah 4:11 the wine and oil brought as first fruits by a certain priest, Joseph, were rejected. In a halakhic midrash both wine and oil are explicitly excluded: 21‫פרי אתה מביא ביכורים ואי אתה מביא יין ושמן ביכורים‬ It was already noted by Albeck that this appears to conflict with Testament of Levi 9:14: “And of all thy first fruits and of wine offer the first as a sacrifice to the Lord.” He tried to harmonize this with the halakhah, by suggesting that the intent was for an offering of wine upon the altar, rather than first fruits.22 However, we now have multiple and decisive evidence from Qumran that wine and oil were indeed regarded as mandatory forms of first fruits. One need only mention the sequence of first-fruit festivals in the Temple Scroll, which includes the ‫ מועד התירוש‬on the third day of the fifth month, and the ‫ מועד היצהר‬on the twenty-second of the sixth month. We likewise had occasion in 1976 to point out the implications of a related text, 4QHalakaha5, cited but not adequately published by Milik.23 The following is its wording, with our suggested restorations, which are, however, not crucial to the present discussion: )‫(אל יאכל איש דגן ותיר)וש ויצהר כי אם (הניף הכוהן‬ )‫ראשיתם הבכורים והמלאה אל יאחר איש כי (תירוש‬ )‫הואה ראשית המלאה (ו)דגן הואה הדמע (… ולחם‬ )‫בכורים הוא חלות החמץ אשר יביאו ב(י)ום ה(בכורים‬ … ‫בכורים הם אל יאכל א(י)ש חטים חדשים‬ … ‫עד יום בא לחם הבכורים אל‬ (Let no one consume grain, wi)ne, and oil until (the priest has waved) their choice part, the first fruits. And let no one put off (the skimming of) the flow, for (wine) is the choice part of the flow (and) grain is the best part (… the bread) of first fruits are the leavened loaves which they are to bring on the day of (the first fruits). The foregoing are first fruits. Let no one eat new wheat … until the day of offering the bread of first fruits to …

21 22 23

[Sifre Deut. 297 (ed. Finkelstein, p. 317)]. C. Albeck, Shisha Sidrei Mishnah: Seder Zeraʿim (Jerusalem, 1958), 411 (in Hebrew). See the reference above in n. 14.

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PART 4: HALAKHIC TOPICS

The text refers to three categories of ‫בכורים‬: grain, wine, and oil. Moreover, it cites Exod 22:28, ‫מלאתך ודמעך לא תאחר‬, as a source for the injunction not to delay the first fruits of wine and grain. In doing so, it interprets ‫מלאה‬, the “fullness,” to refer to the flow of wine from the vat. This interpretation can be supported by reference to Num 18:27, ‫וכמלאה מן היקב‬. Some medieval commentators have suggested that the word ‫דמע‬, “tear,” might be a suitable designation for liquids produced by pressing,24 but this Qumran text clearly identifies ‫דמע‬ with grain. However this may be, it is apparent that the writer derived from Exod 22:28 not only that it was proper to bring first-fruits in the form of wine and oil, but that there was a specific time for doing so. Similar inferences may be drawn from Targum Ps.-Jonathan, which renders Exod 22:28 as follows: ‫בכורי פירך ובכורי חמר נעווך לא תשהי‬

The first of your fruits and the first of the wine of your vat shalt thou not delay. Comparison with the comment of the Mekhilta of R. Ishmael upon this verse, ‫מלאתך אלו בכורים ודמעך זו תרומה‬, shows the contrasting interpretation of ‫דמע‬, which the midrash applies to the priestly heave-offering, while Ps.-Jonathan applies it to the ‫ בכורים‬of new wine. In the Qumran text, the latter is derived from ‫מלאתך‬, but the Targum is at one with Qumran in alluding to a set time for bringing the ‫ בכורים‬of wine. When was this time? We have noted that the Temple Scroll sets the time for the festival of ‫ יין חדש‬on the third day of the fifth month. Remarkably, Jubilees makes no mention of this date in its account of Noah’s vineyard. Rather it has Noah harvesting his grapes in the seventh month and offering his wine on the first day of the first month. I have recently suggested that the author of Jubilees may have had some misgivings about the pentecontad system, as is witnessed by his failure to mention the fifty-day ʿOmer period culminating in Pentecost.25 However, his primary purpose in recounting the story of Noah’s vineyard was to create a precedent for the law of ʿOrlah, which, we have seen, culminates with a first-fruit offering at the beginning of the fifth year. In conclusion, how does this survey of the law of ʿOrlah pertain to Geiger’s well known thesis about the early and the later halakhah? Geiger, it appears, was right in calling attention to Ps.-Jonathan’s assignment of the fourth-year 24 25

Cf. Nachmanides and Ibn Ezra in their commentaries to Exod 22:28. “The Calendars of the Book of Jubilees and the Temple Scroll,” VT 37 (1987): 71–78.

THE LAWS OF ʿ ORLAH AND FIRST FRUITS

233

fruits to the priests as an important variation from normative rabbinic halakhah. Actually, one might have already inferred the existence of this variance from Midrash Sifre. However, he erred in assuming that redemption from the priesthood was the universal interpretation of the law in the prerabbinic period. Jubilees, as we have seen, knows nothing about it. As for the rabbinic interpretation equating the fruit of the fourth year with the second tithe belonging to the owner, we have not found any evidence to categorize it as either early or late. However, we are now learning from new Cave 4 texts that the exegetes of the Qumran community were well aware of, and strenuously opposed to, a number of halakhic interpretations hitherto known to us only from tannaitic sources.26 I have elsewhere discussed the insistence that the red heifer be prepared by a priest who had just immersed himself (‫)טבול יום‬, the ruling that a liquid stream (‫ )נצוק‬does not constitute a connecting link for defilement, as well as the sanction to harvest the ʿOmer on the Sabbath, all of which are opposed in Qumran writings.27 It would therefore seem imprudent, to say the least, to dismiss the rabbinic interpretation of ʿOrlah as just the concoction of the later halakhah. Rather we would infer that the spectrum of halakhic interpretation in the Second Temple period was wider and more complex than previously supposed, including both the Essene–Qumran exegesis and the interpretations which ultimately became normative in rabbinic law. 26 27

J. Strugnell and E. Qimron, “An Unpublished Halakhic Letter from Qumran,” in Biblical Archaeology Today (Jerusalem, 1985), 400–407. “The Pharisaic–Sadducean Disputes about Purity and the Qumran Texts,” JJS 31 (1980): 157–70; “Halakhic Polemics in New Fragments from Qumran Cave 4,” in: Biblical Archaeology Today (Jerusalem, 1985), 390–99. [Both are included in this volume.]

Chapter 18

The Use of ‫ מי נדה‬for General Purification Among* the Qumran fragments concerned with religious law, those which deal with Tohorah, ritual purity, are salient both because of their relative abundance and because of the importance of purity in the life of the community. Since I have previously explored other aspects of Tohorah, I should like to utilize the presence of this learned forum to present a new hypothesis concerning purification by means of sprinkling water in Qumran texts. The classical biblical locus for the use of ‫מי נדה‬, water for lustration, is Numbers 19, where water containing the ashes of the ‫פרה אדומה‬, the red cow, is sprinkled upon those who have become impure by contact with a corpse, on the third and seventh days after their defilement. 4Q277 1 ii elaborates on the procedure, adding the controversial Qumran stringencies that the one who gathers the ashes must be free of ‫טמאת ערב‬, impurity which requires waiting for sundown; and that he who sprinkles the water must be a priest of mature age. I have discussed elsewhere these requirements, which were in conflict with pre-tannaitic Pharisaic halakhah.1 The text, as I have restored it, further states that those upon whom the water is to be sprinkled must first bathe, so that when the priest sprinkles the ‫ מי נדה‬upon them, they will be cleansed not only of corpse impurity (‫)טמאת הנפש‬, but any other impurity ([‫]מכל טמאה‬ ‫)אחרת‬. The requirement of a bath before the sprinkling is confirmed by other Qumran texts and may be paralleled in talmudic halakhah.2 However, the text as formulated implies that the bath is not by itself effective in removing other impurities, just as it is incapable of removing corpse impurity; it is the sprinkling of ‫ מי נדה‬by the priest that completes the purification from both corpse impurity and “any other impurity,” ‫טמאה אחרת‬. What kind of impurity the latter term might designate is not explicated; it is, however, noteworthy that at this point, in lines 10–13, there is an abrupt transition to rules pertaining to the ‫זב‬, one afflicted with a gonorrheal discharge. Moreover, the introduction

* Original publication: “The Use of ‫ מי נדה‬for General Purification,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls Fifty Years after Their Discovery: Proceedings of the Jerusalem Congress, July 20–25, 1997 (ed. L.H. Schiffman, E. Tov, and J.C. VanderKam; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society in cooperation with the Shrine of the Book, Israel Museum 2000), 481–85. Republished with the generous permission of the Israel Exploration Society. 1 See Baumgarten, “The Red Cow Purification Rites in Qumran Texts,” JJS 46 (1995): 112–19. 2 B. Yebam. 46b and b. Ker. 9a: ‫אין הזאה בלא טבילה‬.

© Joseph M. Baumgarten, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004505087_020

THE USE OF ‫ מי נדה‬FOR GENERAL PURIFICATION

235

of the word ‫ בשר‬may well indicate that impurity of a sexual nature was also capable of being cleansed by the sprinkling water. Such an extension of the use of sprinkling water for impurities other than those stemming from contact with the dead appears to be reflected also in 4Q512, a text published by Maurice Baillet in DJD 7.3 Here the sprinkling water is designated as both ‫ מי דוכי‬and ‫מימי הזיה‬, and the ashes they contain as ‫אפר קודש‬. Again, the sprinkling is preceded by bathing in ‫מי רחץ‬. However, the application of these lustrations is said to be for the purification of ‫טמאי‬ ‫ע]תים‬, those whose impurity extends over time; or, affirmatively, for ‫טהרת עתים‬ (line 5), purification which requires extended time. These generic time-related designations would, it seems, be just as appropriate for the seven-day impurity resulting from genital fluxes as that of corpse impurity. In fact, the contrite tone of the accompanying baptismal liturgy reflected in expressions such as ‫נדות טמאה‬, ‫נגע נדה‬, and ‫ אשמה‬would much better suit defilement originating in sexual activity than in contact with death. 4Q284 is another text which preserves fragments of blessings to be recited at various calendric times for purification.4 The original editors entitled it ‫ סרך הנדות‬on the basis of a phrase in frag. 1, but the nun is not visible in the photographs, although there is some space after the heh. In any case, the reading ‫מי נדה להתקדש‬, “sprinkling water for purification,” is clearly preserved and it is followed in the next line by a reference to semen, ‫שוכבת הזרע‬. Here again the juxtaposition suggests the effectiveness of sprinkling for sexual defilement. Finally, we may refer to a passage in the Rule of the Community 3:4–5, concerning the uncleanness of one who spurns the covenant of the community: ‫לוא יזכה בכפורים ולוא יטהר במי נדה ולוא יתקדש בימים ונהרות ולוא יטהר בכול‬ ‫מי רחץ‬

He cannot be purified by purgation, nor cleansed by sprinkling water, nor sanctified in seas and rivers, nor cleansed in any waters of ablution. What we have here is an enumeration of various forms of ablution. ‫ כפורים‬and ‫ מי נדה‬are the terms specifically used for the sprinkling water which removes corpse impurity. According to the viewpoint of the sect, impurity adheres to all who transgress divine law (‫כיא טמא בכול עוברי דברו‬, 1QS 5:14), but is it the 3 4Q512 1–6 xii. See M. Baillet, “512. Rituel de Purification,” in Qumrân Grotte 4.III (4Q482–4Q520) (DJD 7; Oxford, 1982), 262–86 (esp. 272–74). 4 See J.M. Baumgarten, “284. Purification Liturgy,” in Qumran Cave 4.XXV: Halakhic Texts (ed. J. Baumgarten et al.; DJD 35; Oxford, 1999), 123–29.

236

PART 4: HALAKHIC TOPICS

impurity of the dead, which requires sprinkling for its removal, or the general impurity inherent in sin? The latter seems to be the more cogent hypothesis. Moreover, this understanding is supported by the description of the lustration required for the atonement of sin: It is by the holy spirit uniting him to his truth that he can be cleansed from all his iniquities…. It is by humbling his soul to all God’s statutes that his flesh can be cleansed by sprinkling with waters of purification and by sanctifying himself with waters of purity (‫יטהר בשרו להזות במי נדה‬ ‫ ;ולהתקדש במי דוכי‬1QS 3:7–9). This passage describes the purification characteristic of the Qumran community in which external ablutions, in this case sprinkling with water for lustration, are effective only when coordinated with inner receptivity to the divine holy spirit.5 At this point we should like to explore further the notion that sprinkling water, which in normative halakhah is confined to purification from corpse impurity, was capable of being extended to other kinds of impurity, ‫טמאה‬ ‫אחרת‬. Such an extension at first seems anomalous. However, it is possible to identify scriptural passages which may have facilitated such a notion and to point out later Jewish sources in which it re-emerged. Numbers 8:7 describes the purification of the Levites as requiring the sprinkling of ‫מי חטאת‬. Medieval and modern commentators have identified this sprinkling water with the ‫ מי נדה‬of Numbers 19.6 Rashi, in fact, took its purpose to be the purification of the Levites from possible corpse impurity. Yet this is not stated in the text. It was quite plausible for other exegetes to suppose that this sprinkling water was intended for general cleansing from any possible source of impurity. Such an approach is indeed reflected in Sifre Zuṭa 7:1:7 ‫הלויים נתקדשו בהזייה … ישראל נתקדשו בפרת חטאת שנאמר דבר אל בני ישראל‬ ‫ויקחו אליך פרה אדומה‬

5 I discuss the similarity of this concept with that of John the Baptist in “The Purification Liturgies,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls after Fifty Years (ed. P.W. Flint and J.C. VanderKam; Leiden, 1999), 200–212 [included in this volume]. 6 For a recent discussion of this question see B.A. Levine, Numbers 1–20 (New York, 1993), 274–75. 7 H.S. Horovitz, Siphre d’be Rab, I: Siphre ad Numeros adjecto Siphre zutta (Jerusalem, 1966), 251.

THE USE OF ‫ מי נדה‬FOR GENERAL PURIFICATION

237

[The Levites were sanctified by sprinkling … Israel was sanctified by the cow of sin-offering, as it is written: “Speak unto the children of Israel, that they should bring you a red cow” (Num 19:2)] Here the red cow is designated as the means by which Israel was sanctified. Gedalyahu Alon understood this to mean that the covenant at Sinai, like the inauguration of the Levites, was preceded by sprinkling.8 A similar inference may have been drawn from Ezek 36:25: ‫וזרקתי עליכם מים טהורים וטהרתם מכל טמאותיכם‬

I shall sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be purified from all your uncleanliness. Here, too, Rashi took the reference to purification as an allusion to cleansing from corpse impurity. Although others were more inclined to consider the prophecy as metaphorical,9 Qumran legists may well have reasoned that it had a basis in the use of sprinkling, not only for corpse impurity but for general purification. Psalm 51:9 has the prayer ‫תחטאני באזוב ואטהר‬, “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean.” Hyssop was used for sprinkling upon those defiled by a corpse (Num 19:17). It aroused the query in the Midrash on Psalms, “Did David actually fall into uncleanness? No, but into an iniquity whereby his soul was wounded unto death, as he said: ‘My heart is wounded unto death (‫ )חלל‬within me’” (Ps 109:22). The midrash infers from this “that every man who commits a transgression is as unclean as though he had touched a dead body and must be purified with hyssop.”10 This inference harmonizes with the Qumran view that all transgressors of God’s word are impure, except that at Qumran [that impurity] appears to have been more than a metaphor. Additional support for the extended use of sprinkling for purification may be found in the writings of Philo. In Special Laws 3.63 he states that after marital intercourse, husband and wife “are not allowed, when they leave their bed, to touch anything until they have made their ablutions and sprinklings” (λουτροῖς 8 9 10

G. Alon, Studies in Jewish History (2 vols.; Tel Aviv, 1967), 1:139 (in Hebrew). See there J. Epstein’s editorial note questioning whether this midrash is an integral part of Sifre Zuṭa. At the end of the laws of purity in his code (Yad, Laws of Miqwa‌ʾot 11:12), Maimonides cites this passage is support of the symbolic significance of immersion as a paradigm for the spiritual cleansing of the soul. The Midrash on Psalms (trans. W.G. Braude; 2 vols.; New Haven, 1959), 1:472.

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καὶ περιρραντηρίοις χρῆσθαι). He uses the same terminology in describing the purification of the people before Sinai (Decalogue 45) and the preparations for entering the Temple (Special Laws 1.261). In the latter passage he stresses that the law of corpse defilement “purifies it (the body) with ablutions and sprinklings (λουτροῖς καὶ περιρραντηρίοις) and does not allow the person to be sprinkled and washed once for all and then pass straightway within the sacred precincts, but bids him stay outside for seven days and be twice sprinkled on the third and seventh day.” There appears to be an allusion here to the use of sprinkling for the general removal of impurities in a way consonant with the scriptural passages cited above and the indications now found in the Qumran fragments. Moreover, this generalized use of sprinkling is not without parallel in later sources stemming from the periphery of rabbinic stringency in matters of sexual purity. Baraita de Maseket Niddah is an apocryphal compendium of supererogatory practices and precautions concerning menstrual impurity apparently stemming from the early post-talmudic period. Among excerpts cited by Saul Lieberman is a passage attributed to R. Ḥiyya in which he bemoans the lack of purification for a zabah after the destruction of the Temple, when “the sacrifices of zabim and parturients have ceased, and there is no red cow to atone nor a priest to sprinkle.”11 Lieberman noted the perplexing mention of the red cow as required to atone for zabim, when Scripture only mandates the water containing its ashes in connection with corpse impurity. Sprinkling for a zab is also alluded to in Sifre Zuṭa: ‫לרבות שהוזה ושנה וטבל והעריב שמשו ולא הביא כפרתו‬, “To add one who was sprinkled and repeated (the sprinkling) [and immersed] and waited for sundown, but did not bring his atonement offering.”12 Lieberman noted that according to normative halakhah this passage is contradictory, for one who is sprinkled requires no offering while one who requires an offering is not sprinkled. Only the halakhically deviant premise that the zab was also sprinkled would resolve the difficulty.13 This premise is, as we have seen, supported by the indications in the Cave 4 Tohorah texts.

11 12 13

‫ ואין כאן פרה אדומה לכפר ולא כהן להזות‬in Tosphata [sic] ʿAtiqata (ed. C.M. Horowitz; 5 parts; Frankfurt am Main, 1889/90), 5:14–15; see S. Lieberman’s note in Methiboth (ed. B.M. Lewin; Jerusalem, 1933), 115–18 (in Hebrew). Sifre d’be Rab (ed. Horovitz), 228. Cf. the parallel in Sifre Zuṭa, ibid., 309. Note also the comment of Sifre Zuṭa on Num 19:19: ‫כל הטמאין מקבלין הזייה כגון זבים וזבות‬ ‫( נדות ויולדות‬ed. Horovitz, 314) which has been taken to refer to the corpse impure, who are cleansed by the sprinkling water even if they have other impurities. It is quite possible that the intent of the midrash was simply to extend the use of the sprinkling water to impurities resulting from genital discharges.

THE USE OF ‫ מי נדה‬FOR GENERAL PURIFICATION

239

Was the extension of purification by sprinkling water to bodily effusions merely the product of exegetical extrapolation, or did it derive from some intrinsic analogy? One of the early Karaite authorities, Benjamin al-Nahawandi, who flourished in the ninth century, maintained in his Book of Rules that originally, before the exile, the purification of menstruants was completed by means of the sprinkling water of the red cow.14 Louis Ginzberg suggested that he derived this premise from the biblical term ‫ מי נדה‬which he took to signify “water which purifies the niddah.”15 The wide use of ‫ נדה‬in the Qumran Tohorah texts reflects a broader understanding of this term, meaning both “impurity” and purification through “sprinkling.” However, there may be a more fundamental conceptual association, which could perhaps explain the extension of sprinkling from corpse impurity to that stemming from genital discharges. In their efforts to find a rationale for the impurity from bodily discharges, biblical scholars have hypothesized that the loss of blood and semen was viewed as a loss of vital force akin to death.16 In Qumran writings the association between scale disease and death is articulated in the Cave 4 versions of the Damascus Document which attribute the “dead” skin or hair to the blockage of the blood which carries the “spirit of life.”17 There are indications that zab impurity was also associated with death. 4Q274 1 i 7–9 restricts one who is counting the seven days of purification, from contact with those who have a flux, such as a zab, a menstruant, or one who emitted sperm. Should such contact occur, “he may not eat, just as if he were defiled by a human corpse” ]‫[א]ל יוכל כאשר יטמא לנפ[ש האדם‬. Touching the bed of a zab is further compared to corpse impurity in 4Q278. Corpse impurity is likewise juxtaposed with zab and other impurities in 4Q277. The association between bodily discharges and death may thus have provided a conceptual basis for applying sprinkling with ‫ מי נדה‬to genital uncleanliness. It would also explain why the

14

15 16

17

‫לפיכך טמאה וטהרה שנאמרו בימי נדה על אותו זמן נאמרו שיהיה מי נדה ויכשר לעשות‬ ‫מי נדה כמו יולדת שתעלה טהרתה בקרבן‬, “Therefore, defilement and purification said to be by means of sprinkling water, were said for that time when sprinkling water was (available) and sprinkling water could be made, just like the parturient whose purification was accomplished by means of a sacrifice” (cited in A. Harkavy, Zur Geschichte des Karaismus und der Karäischen Literatur [Likkute Kadmoniot 2/1 = Zikaron la-Rishonim 8; St. Petersburg, 1903], 182 [in Hebrew]). L. Ginzberg, Genizah Studies (3 vols.; New York, 1929), 2:493 (in Hebrew). For a recent discussion of this thesis, see J. Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16 (New York, 1991), 766– 68, 1000–1002. Josephus already speculated that the purification required after marital relations was due to the “partition of the soul,” which “suffers both when being implanted in bodies, and again when severed from them by death” (Ag. Ap. 2:203). See J.M. Baumgarten, “The 4Q Zadokite Fragments on Skin Disease,” JJS 41 (1990): 153–65.

240

PART 4: HALAKHIC TOPICS

liturgy accompanying the purification with sprinkling water has such a distinctly penitential tone. If the hypothesis here presented appears persuasive, it may serve not only as another example of Qumran stringency in matters of purity, but as an illustration of how such exegetical deviations from what ultimately became normative halakhah survived on the periphery of rabbinic Judaism.

Chapter 19

Yom Kippur in the Qumran Scrolls and Second Temple Sources One* of the sharp clashes between the Qumran community and the Temple priesthood was the confrontation between the Wicked Priest and the Righteous Teacher on Yom Kippur: Woe to him who causes his neighbors to drink, who pours out his venom to make them drunk that he may gaze on their feasts (Hab 2:15). This concerns the Wicked Priest who pursued the Righteous Teacher to overwhelm him in the fury of his wrath at his house of exile. And at the time appointed for rest, on the Day of Atonement, he made his appearance before them to overwhelm them and to cause them to stumble on the fast day, the sabbath of their rest. 1QpHab 11:4–8

As scholars have noted, this confrontation occurred on the day when the followers of the Teacher were observing the solemn fast of Yom Kippur according to their schematic solar calendar. It apparently was not the day when the Wicked Priest, presumably a high priest, was himself occupied with the performance of the Yom Kippur rites in the Temple. The description of this incident thus served as one of the early clues about the calendar schism that separated the sect from contemporary Jewry.1 As a result of this schism, all of the biblical festivals were regularly observed by the Qumran community on days that differed from those kept by contemporary Jews. The phraseology of the Habakkuk lemma, ‫למען הבט אל מועדיהם‬ “in order to gaze at their feasts,” would therefore lend itself to being applied to any or all of the holidays affected by this schism. Yet, the clash described in the pesher occurred particularly on the sect’s Yom Kippur. It is reasonable to suppose that this may have had something to do with the central place of Yom * Original publication: “Yom Kippur in the Qumran Scrolls and Second Temple Sources,” DSD 6 (1999): 184–91. Republished with the kind permission of Brill Academic Publishers. 1 See S. Talmon, “Yom HaKippurim in the Habakkuk Scroll,” Bib 32 (1951): 549–63. [Talmon notes there that the variant ‫מועדיהם‬, “their feasts,” in place of the MT’s ‫מעוריהם‬, “their nakedness,” is not part of the transmission history of the text, and “constitutes an ‘improvement’ which facilitated [the sectarian author’s] commentary” (p. 554 n. 1).]

© Joseph M. Baumgarten, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004505087_021

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PART 4: HALAKHIC TOPICS

Kippur in contemporary Judaism, but the pesher, aside from stressing the mandated fast and rest on Yom Kippur, does not provide any further elaboration. Fortunately, we have in the Hodayot a hymn, possibly attributable to the Teacher, that contains an allusion to the confrontation described in the pesher: I thank you, O Lord, for you have illuminated my face through your covenant…. They [the opponents] mislead your people by smoothing them with words. Preachers of deceit cause them to stray so that they grope without understanding, their deeds are in folly (‫ )בהולל‬and despicable … for they have driven me from my land as a bird from its nest … they plot wickedly against me to exchange your Torah which you inculcated in my heart for smooth things (to deceive) your people. They withhold the drink of knowledge from the thirsty, but cause the thirsty to drink vinegar in order to gaze at their error2 (‫)למען הבט אל תעותם‬, to deport themselves foolishly on their festivals (‫ )להתהולל במועדיהם‬and to be caught in their snares. 1QH 12:5–12

The author of the hymn describes himself as an exile driven from his land, just as the pesher refers to the Teacher as being in his “house of exile.” His opponents are accused of giving the thirsty vinegar to drink in order to gaze upon them as they deport themselves in an unseemly way at the time of the festivals. This is an almost verbatim paraphrase of Hab 2:15, the lemma on which the pesher’s account of the Yom Kippur incident is based: “Woe to him who causes his neighbor to drink; who pours out his venom to make them drunk, that he may gaze on their feasts.” The references in the hymn to “smoothing” and “smooth things” point to the identification of the Teacher’s opponents with the “seekers of smooth things” (‫)חלקות‬, the epithet used in the pesharim for the Pharisees. The latter are apparently charged with misleading the people by encouraging them to desecrate the somber spirit of penitence of Yom Kippur with their folly (‫)הולל‬. The paradoxical aspect of Yom Kippur as a day of fasting and purging of sin as well as a day of joyous renewal has its roots in biblical antiquity. It was on Yom Kippur that the shofar proclaiming the liberation of the jubilee year was to be sounded (Lev 25:10).3 The eschatological jubilee was described in 2 The “error” alluded to is most probably the celebration of the holiday at the wrong time; for this connotation of ‫תעות‬, cf. 4Q513 3–4 4. [See “513. Ordonnances (ii),” in Qumrân Grotte 4.III (4Q482–4Q520) (ed. M. Baillet; DJD 7; Oxford, 1982), 287–95 (290).] 3 See J. Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16 (New York, 1991), 1066.

Yom Kippur in the Qumran Scrolls

243

11QMelchizedek as a “year of grace” in which Melchizedek would bring judgment upon the forces of evil and atonement for the Sons of Light on Yom Kippur. In the Second Temple period, the polar tension inherent in Yom Kippur as a day of contrition as well as salvation found expression in a broad range of sources. The author of Jubilees clearly viewed Yom Kippur as a day of mourning and self-affliction. This is evident from his chronological scheme, which has the brothers of Joseph bring his bloodied garment to their father, who then mourns and weeps for him, on the tenth of the seventh month: “And this day is decreed so that they might mourn on it on account of their sins and on account of all their transgressions” (Jub. 34:19). The Covenanters of the Damascus Document likewise had a particular concept about the nature of Yom Kippur. This emerges from the list of duties incumbent upon their adherents, which includes the following specifications concerning sacred days: “to guard the Sabbath day according to its interpretation, and the festivals and the Day of Affliction (‫ )יום התענית‬as revealed to (lit. ‘found by’) those who entered the new covenant in the land of Damascus” (CD 6:18–19). The term ‫ יום התענית‬for Yom Kippur is, as noted by N. Wieder,4 unique and unparalleled outside of the sectarian literature.5 It presumably derives from the biblical injunction ‫“ תענו את נפשתיכם‬you shall afflict yourselves” (Lev 16:29), which was generally taken to refer to fasting, but was extended by tradition to additional forms of self-denial, such as abstention from sex, bathing, and anointing.6 What it signified for the Qumran community is not explicated in the Damascus Document, but we now have Yom Kippur liturgical fragments from Cave 4 which may throw more light upon the Qumran concept of ‫תענית‬. 4Q508 2 2–4:7 [‫כפורי]ם זכורה אדוני מועד ̇רחמיך ועת ̇שוב‬ ̊ ‫ תפלה ליום‬ 2 ‫הו‬ ‫ ] ותקימם עלינו מועד תענית חוק עו̊ [לם‬ ‫  ל‬ ‫ ל‬ 3 ‫נסתרות ו̊ ̊הנ̊ ̊גל[ות‬ ̊ ‫ ]ו̊ ̊אתה ידעתה ̊ה‬ 4

4 N. Wieder, The Judean Scrolls and Karaism (London, 1962), 163–66. 5 With regard to τῇ τῆς νηστείας ἡμέρᾳ in Ant. 14.66, the chronological context precludes this phrase being a reference to Yom Kippur. 6 Cf. L.H. Schiffman, “The Case of the Day of Atonement Ritual,” in Biblical Perspectives: Early Use and Interpretation of the Bible in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Proceedings of the First International Symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, 12–14 May, 1996 (ed. M.E. Stone and E.G. Chazon; Leiden, 1998), 181–88 (183–84). 7 [See Baillet, “508. Prières pour les fêtes (ii),” DJD 7.177–184 (178–79).]

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PART 4: HALAKHIC TOPICS

2 [Prayer for the Day of Atonemen]t. Remember, O Lord, the feast of your mercy and the time for repentance 3 [ ] and you established them for us [as] an appointed time of affliction, an eter[nal] statute 4 [ ] and you know the hidden and revea[led] things The identification of this fragment as a Yom Kippur prayer is supported not only by the restored title in the first line, but by the phraseology of line 4, “You know the hidden and revealed things,” which survives to this day in the traditional Yom Kippur liturgy.8 The characterization of Yom Kippur as a time for repentance and divine mercy seems conventional, but its identification as ‫מועד‬ ‫“ תענית‬appointed time of affliction” invites examination of other liturgical fragments in which the term ‫ תענית‬appears. 4Q509 16 iv 2–4:9 ‫עצב[יהם‬ ̊ ‫ ]בכול‬2 ‫על ̇תעניתם‬ ̇ ‫ ] ̊רחמהם‬3 ‫כבד[ינו‬ ̊ ̊‫ ]י̊ גון זקנינו ו̊ נ‬4

2] in all [their] tribulation 3] have pity upon them in their affliction 4] the grief of our elders and [our] notables Here divine mercy is invoked as a response to the fasting and affliction of the community, including its leaders and elders (cf. Jonah 3:5–7). The spirit of the ‫ תענית‬is one of grief and mourning, which echoes the description of Yom Kippur in Jubilees. 4Q510 1 5 enumerates several categories of demons that threaten to entice the unwary toward evil. The Sage (‫ )משכיל‬employs songs of divine praise as exorcistic means of driving the demons away, but this does not necessarily guarantee complete immunity. Thus, the “appointed times of affliction” of the Sons of Light are required to purge their guilt for any sinful lapses:10 ‫ולב[הל‬ ̇ ‫… [ ] ואני משכיל משמיע הוד תפארתו לפחד‬ ‫כול רוחי מלאכי חבל ורוחות ממזרים שד אים לילית אחים ו[ציים‬ ‫והפוגעים פתע פתאום לתעות רוח בינה ולהשם לבבם ונ̊ ••תם בקץ ממשל[ת‬

8 9 10

4 5 6

The Complete Art Scroll Machzor: Yom Kippur (ed. N. Scherman et al.; New York, 1986), 132. [See Baillet, “509. Prières pour les fêtes (iii),” DJD 7.184–215 (191).] [See idem, “510. Cantiques du Sage (i),” DJD 7.215–219 (216).]

Yom Kippur in the Qumran Scrolls ]‫נגוע[י‬

‫רשעה ותעודות תעניות בני או[ר] באשמת קצי עוונות ולוא לכלת עולם‬ ] [ ‫כי א]ם לקץ תעניות פשע‬

245 7 8

4 … And I, as Sage, proclaim the majesty of his beauty, to terrify and confo[und] 5 all the spirits of destroying angels and bastard spirits, demons, Lilith, howling creatures (?) and [jackals ?] 6 and those that strike suddenly to confuse the spirit of understanding and to paralyze their heart and [ ] in the period of the rule 7 of wickedness and the fixed times of affliction of the Sons of Light, due to the guilt of (being) at times plagued by sin, but not for eternal destruction, 8 [but only] for the time of affliction for iniquity [ ] The self-affliction of the Sons of Light on Yom Kippur was apparently viewed at Qumran as an atonement for their errors, committed under the influence of demonic powers. The implicit hope was that by willingly accepting this appointed time of affliction they might stave off the threat of “eternal destruction” (‫)כלת עולמים‬. The expression ‫ כלת עולמים‬is found in curse formulas directed against complacent sinners (1QS 2:15; 5:13); the Gentile nations (1QM 4:12); and all who belong to the lot of Belial (1QM 1:5). The acceptance of the appointed time of affliction is likewise referred to in the pesher on Psalm 37:11 4Q171 1–2 ii 8–11: ‫… וענוים ירשו ארץ והתענגו על רוב שלום פשרו על‬ ‫עדת האביונים אשר יקבלו את מועד התענית ונצלו מכול פחי‬ ‫בליעל ואחר יתענגו כול ̊ב[ ]י הארץ והתדשנו בכול תענ̇ ̊וג‬ ‫בשר‬

8 9 10 11

8 [ ] … And the meek will inherit the land and will delight in the abundance of peace. Interpreted, concerning 9 the congregation of the poor, who accept the appointed time of affliction, and they will be saved from all the traps of 10 Belial. But afterwards they will delight (in) all [ ] of the land and grow fat in all delight 11 of flesh

11

[“171. Commentary on Psalms (A),” in Qumrân Cave 4.I (4Q158–4Q186) (ed. J.M. Allegro; DJD 5; Oxford, 1968), 42–50 (43).]

246

PART 4: HALAKHIC TOPICS

Here again the self-affliction of the congregation serves as a defense against the sinister traps of Belial. This struggle with the demonic forces may perhaps be a reflex of the ancient scapegoat ritual in which the burden of sin was symbolically carried off to Azazel in the wilderness. For the Qumran community, the threat of destruction (‫ )כלה‬posed by the sinister powers was very real, as we may gather from the multiple exorcistic fragments now available. Yom Kippur was for them not only a day of self-affliction to purge the guilt inherited from the past, as it was in Jubilees. The fast was also a weapon in the struggle with the malevolent spirits threatening now to lead them astray.12 Yet, this fateful struggle was not without a brighter prospect. The foregoing pesher offers the poor who afflict themselves the hope of being saved from the traps of Belial and surviving to enjoy earthly delights: “But afterwards they will delight (in) all [ ] of the land and grow fat in all delight of flesh.” It is likely that this promise was to be realized fully only in the eschaton.13 However, it may perhaps also be taken as a reflection of the sense of relief that followed the conclusion of Yom Kippur, the appointed yearly time of affliction. Nevertheless, such “delight” could only begin “afterwards,” that is, after the fast. The Qumran view of the “period of affliction” may be contrasted with two interesting accounts of rejoicing on Yom Kippur preserved in the Mishnah. One concerns the celebration of the high priest and his friends when he emerged unscathed after completing the prescribed rites in the Holy of Holies (m. Yoma 7:4): ‫ויום טוב היה עושה לאוהביו בשעה שיצא בשלום מן הקדש‬

And he made a festive celebration for his friends when he came out safely from the sanctuary. This celebration, apparently on the fast day itself,14 must have puzzled some later tradents of the account. They could not see how such festivity could be 12

13 14

The benefits of fasting in the struggle with demons were highlighted in the Apocalypse of Elijah 1:20–21: “But a pure fast is what I created, with a pure heart and pure hands. It releases sin. It heals diseases. It casts out demons,” tr. O.S. Wintermute, OTP 1:738. Wintermute notes the significant variant reading in Mark 9:29, which adds fasting to prayer as a means for the exorcism of unclean spirits. Cf. 1QM 13:12–13 where the rejoicing of the saved comes after the destruction of all the hosts of darkness. The encomium on Simon, the high priest, in Sir 50:5 dwells on his glorious radiance “as he came out of the house of the curtain.” This most likely refers to his exit from the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur, as suggested by M. Segal [See M.H. Segal, Sefer Ben Sira haShalem (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1953), ad loc. Cf. now D. Stökl Ben Ezra, The Impact of

Yom Kippur in the Qumran Scrolls

247

reconciled with the solemn fast. Consequently, several textual witnesses of the Mishnah omit the word ‫ בשעה‬and read ‫“ בשלום על שיצא‬because he had come out safely.” They presumed that this celebration must have been held after Yom Kippur. Philo, however, seems to be in harmony with the original Pharisaic–mishnaic perspective when he points out that Yom Kippur embodies both atonement through fasting and festive celebration: For all stand in awe, overcome by the sanctity of the day, and for the moment the worse vie with the better in self-denial and virtue. The high dignity of this day has two aspects, one as a festival, the other as a time of purification and escape from sins. Spec. 1.186–187

In early tannaitic tradition the surprisingly joyous aspect is preserved in the folkloristic account of dancing and matchmaking on Yom Kippur found in m. Taʿan. 4:8: R. Simeon b. Gamliʾel said: There were no more festive days (‫)ימים טובים‬ for Israel than the fifteenth of Ab and Yom Kippur; for on them the daughters of Jerusalem would go out … and dance in the vineyards. And what would they say? Young man, raise your eyes and see what you choose for yourself. Direct not your eyes at beauty, but at family. “Grace is deceitful and beauty is vain; but a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised.” Prov 31:30

The appropriateness of such merry matchmaking on a solemn fast has long perplexed scholars. One modern historian even suggested that the reading ‫כיום‬ ‫ הכפורים‬should be emended to ‫“ יום כפורים‬a day like Purim.”15 Yet, the authenticity of the tradition associating Yom Kippur with the theme of marriage seems to be supported by the rabbinic practice of reading Leviticus 18 as one of the lections for the fast. Rabbinic chronology, by contrast with that of Jubilees, associated Yom Kippur with the receiving of the second tablets of the Ten Commandments. The rejoicing on Yom Kippur was viewed by the talmudic

15

Yom Kippur on Early Christianity (Tübingen, 2003), 32 n. 81.] The dramatic impact of this moment was preserved in the liturgical poem ‫מראה כהן‬, which is still part of the additional service for Yom Kippur. S. Zeitlin, The Rise and Fall of the Judaean State (3 vols.; Philadelphia, 1968), 1:487 n. 129.

248

PART 4: HALAKHIC TOPICS

sages as a legitimate expression of the fervent hope for divine forgiveness.16 At the end of Yoma, the mishnaic tractate dealing with the Day of Atonement, there is appended a haggadic homily, not found in all the manuscripts, which is attributed to R. Akiba: “Fortunate are you Israel! Before whom do you purify yourselves, and who purifies you? Your Father who is in heaven” (m. Yoma 8:9). Wieder pointed out that among the Karaites various forms of selfmortification, such as abstention from sleep, protracted standing, donning of sackcloth, and strewing of ashes, characteristic expressions of grief on other fasts, were practiced on Yom Kippur.17 He maintained that this bespoke a concept of Yom Kippur as a day of mourning akin to that of Jubilees. He further suggested that in this respect, it would “occasion no surprise if the Qumranites followed Jubilees not only in fixing the date of Yom Kippur but also in the manner of its observance.”18 The foregoing survey of Qumran texts now available adds cogency to Wieder’s hypothesis. We do not know if the particular forms of self-affliction mentioned above were practiced at Qumran. However, we have indications that the clash between the Righteous Teacher and the Wicked Priest on Yom Kippur was occasioned not only by their different calendars. At issue was also the nature of the fast. For the Qumranites, Yom Kippur was a crucial phase of their struggle with the demonic hosts of Belial. In order to ward off the influence of these forces, the Sons of Light resorted to singing liturgical hymns, but the primary defense lay in fasting and self-affliction. The voluntary acceptance of physical mortification during the prescribed fast served to atone for sinful guilt and as protection against the threat of eternal destruction. Yom Kippur was thus a day of grief and remorse, whose outcome depended ultimately on divine mercy. The so-called Wicked Priest who appeared at the exilic abode of the Teacher was not on that day occupied with the fast and the multiple offerings prescribed for the Day of Atonement. No doubt these offerings, including the incense which he was wont to bring into the Holy of Holies only on that day, were in his eyes the central element in obtaining divine atonement. To the congregation of the Teacher, he appeared as a hostile observer who had come “in order to gaze at their holy days” and to disturb their “period of affliction.” Moreover, they saw him as a sympathizer with the “preachers of smooth

16 17 18

Some later rabbinic sources, however, rejected the notion that a fast day could also be a ‫יום טוב‬. See the post-talmudic tractate Soferim 19:6. Wieder, Judean Scrolls and Karaism, 167–73. Ibid., 173.

Yom Kippur in the Qumran Scrolls

249

things,” the Pharisaic teachers who allowed the somber spirit of Yom Kippur to be desecrated by popular rejoicing, ‫להתהולל במועדיהם‬. That the Pharisees were receptive to practices which popular tradition associated with the biblical holidays can be inferred from Josephus as well as tannaitic sources. After stating that the Sadducees “own no observance of any sort apart from the laws,” Josephus adds: They accomplish practically nothing, however. For whenever they assume some office … they submit to the formulas of the Pharisees, since otherwise the masses would not tolerate them. Ant. 18.18

The rejoicing at the water libation ceremony, described in superlative terms in m. Suk. 5:1–4, offers an apt illustration of a practice that lacked biblical authority and was the subject of controversy. The beating of the willow branches, which the Boethusians tried to ban, at least on the Sabbath, was another.19 With regard to Yom Kippur, a technical dispute with the Sadducees, who insisted that the high priest should light the incense before he enters the inner sanctum, is recorded in a baraita (b. Yoma 19b, 53a). On the basis of the foregoing survey, we believe that the broader hypothesis concerning the tension between the sectarian concept of Yom Kippur as a day of mourning and affliction, and the more popular Pharisaic–rabbinic concept of a fast mitigated by the joy of moral purification, is deserving of renewed consideration. 19

See m. Suk. 4:9; t. Suk. 3:1, 16; cf. the discussion in E.E. Urbach, The Halakhah—Its Sources and Development (Ramat Gan, 1984), 29 (in Hebrew) [in English translation (1986), 33–35].

Chapter 20

Exclusions from the Temple: Proselytes and Agrippa I One* of the interesting aspects of Temple ideology is the coexistence of universalist and exclusivist aspirations. Envisioned as a house of prayer for all the nations (Isa 56:7), the Temple served as the object of pilgrimage and veneration not only for Jews but for countless non-Jewish visitors and admirers.1 Yet the very structure of the sanctuary and its courtyards embodied strict limitations on the right of access granted to strangers as well as other categories of the populace. The Chronicler apparently thought of entrance to the Temple as permitted only for priests and Levites, while the lay people could come no further than the courtyards (2 Chr 23:6).2 In the Mishnah, the restrictions are elaborated in accordance with an ascending order of holiness: The Temple Mount is still more holy (than Jerusalem), for no man or woman that has a flux, no menstruant, and no woman after childbirth may enter therein. The rampart (ḥêl) is still more holy, for no Gentiles and none that have contracted uncleanliness from a corpse may enter therein … The Holy of Holies is still more holy, for none may enter therein save only the High Priest on the Day of Atonement at the time of the service. m. Kelim 1:8–9, trans. Danby3

The gradations are here defined in accordance with the level of ritual purity required for each. One may infer that the exclusion of Gentiles from the precincts beyond the rampart was likewise based on requirements of ritual * Original publication: “Exclusions from the Temple: Proselytes and Agrippa I,” JJS 33 (1982 = Essays in Honour of Yigael Yadin): 215–25. Republished with the permission of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. 1 1 Kgs 8:41–43; S. Safrai, Pilgrimage at the Time of the Second Temple (Tel Aviv, 1965), 92–95 (in Hebrew). 2 W. Rudolph, Chronikbücher (Tübingen, 1955), 271; M. Weinfeld, “‘Temple Scroll’ or ‘King’s Law,’” Shnaton: An Annual for Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies 3 (1978/79): 214–37 (228) (in Hebrew). 3 [H. Danby, The Mishnah: Translated from the Hebrew with Introduction and Brief Explanatory Notes (Oxford, 1933), ad loc.] Cf. Num. Rab. 7:8.

© Joseph M. Baumgarten, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004505087_022

Exclusions from the Temple

251

cleanliness.4 In fact this is the context in which the exclusion of foreigners from the Temple is placed in the proclamation of Antiochus III: It is unlawful for any foreigner (άλλόφυλος) to enter the enclosure of the Temple which is forbidden to the Jews, except to those of them who are accustomed to enter after purifying themselves in accordance with the laws of the country. Ant. 12.145

The juxtaposition of non-Jews with the religiously unclean is not to be attributed to the apologetic motives of Josephus, but derives from the intimate relationship between ritual purity and the demarcation of the sacred areas of the sanctuary.5 This relationship is well exemplified in the Qumran Temple Scroll.6 Here the Temple is to be surrounded by three concentric courtyards distinguished by an ascending order of exclusiveness analogous to that of the Mishnah. The outer courtyard is accessible to Israelite men, women, and children in a state of cleanliness (40:5–6). The middle courtyard is limited to men over the age of twenty (39:7–10). In the inner courtyard the area around the altar and the Hekhal is permissible only to priests wearing their vestments (35:5–9). Gentiles are not mentioned in connection with the Temple, but the location of the ḥêl outside the entire sanctuary implies that they were denied access to any of the courtyards.7 Of special interest is the mention of gerim, proselytes. 11QTa 40:6 reads: ‫לבנותיהמה ולגרים אשר נולד[ו‬. The context pertains to the outer courtyard to which, as we indicated, women were admitted. Proselytes, too, were to be admitted but with the additional provision ‫אשר נולדו‬, that they were born as children of converts. Yadin would go further, restoring ‫אשר נולד[ו להמה דור‬ ]‫שלישי‬, “who were born [as the third generation].” This restoration is proposed on the basis of the fragmentary text found on column 39:5–6, where he reads: ‫םה דור רבי[עי] בן ישראל‬..] Here the context concerns the middle courtyard, admittance to which supposedly required an additional generation. It must be noted that the text here is rather uncertain. Moreover, Deuteronomy 23, which 4 G. Alon, Jews, Judaism, and the Classical World (Jerusalem, 1977), 146–89. [Cf. C. Hayes, Gentile Impurities and Jewish Identities: Intermarriage and Conversion from the Bible to the Talmud (Oxford, 2002).] 5 See Isa 52:1 (ʿarel weṭameʾ) and Josephus, J.W. 6.427. 6 Megillat ha-Miqdash (ed. Y. Yadin; 3 vols.; Jerusalem, 1977); for the description of the courtyards see 1:137–214. [In English: The Temple Scroll (3 vols.; Jerusalem, 1977–1983), 1:177–276.] 7 Megillat ha-Miqdash, 1:213.

252

PART 4: HALAKHIC TOPICS

lists various aliens disqualified from entering “the congregation of the Lord,” contains no reference to the fourth generation. Ammonites and Moabites are banned forever, even after the tenth generation (23:3), while Edomites and Egyptians, each for specific reasons, were eligible after the third generation (23:9). Did the author of the Temple Scroll add another generation for proselytes from all other peoples?8 Despite these questions, it is fairly certain that Qumran exegesis placed impediments on the entrance of gerîm into the Temple precincts. Thus we read of the sanctuary portrayed in 4QFlorilegium: This is the house where shall not enter [ ] forever, and an Ammonite and a Moabite and a bastard and an alien and a proselyte forever. This writer has previously expressed himself in favor of the view that the sanctuary envisioned in 4QFlorilegium was the purified community of the latter days, rather than the Temple, from which proselytes were not known to be excluded.9 In the light of 11QTa, however, I now believe that we must allow for the coordination of Qumran communal ideology with actual Temple regulations.10 Rabbinic halakhah, although it did not grant total equality to proselytes in all respects and even included the opinion that gerim, not being part of the qahal of Deuteronomy 23, were permitted to marry illegitimates,11 did not place any restrictions on the entrance of proselytes into the Temple.12 Thus we read in m. Bik. 1:4: The proselyte brings (first-fruits) but does not recite, for he is unable to say, “(the land) which the Lord swore to our forefathers to give unto us” (Deut 26:3). If, however, his mother was Israelite, he brings and recites.

8

9 10 11 12

It may be of interest to compare Aristotle’s definition of citizenship: “In practice, a citizen is defined to be one of whom both parents are citizens. Others maintain that his ancestors to the second or third preceding generation, or even further, must be citizens” (Politics 3.2.1275b); cf. H.A. Wolfson, Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (2 vols.; Cambridge, Mass., 1947), 2:353. J. Baumgarten, “The Exclusion of ‘Netinim’ and Proselytes in 4Q Florilegium,” in idem, Studies, 82–84 (originally in RevQ 8 [1972–1975]: 87–96 [94–96]). Allusions to the barrier which separated Jews from Gentiles in the Temple, along with the concept of the community of the faithful as a symbolic temple, are also found in Ephesians 2, for which see below. M. Qidd. 4:1; t. Qidd. 5:1; Sifre Deut. 247 (ed. Finkelstein, p. 276). Cf. G. Blidstein, “4QFlorilegium and Rabbinic Sources on Bastard and Proselyte,” RevQ 8 (1972–1975): 431–35.

Exclusions from the Temple

253

A proselyte whose mother was Jewish would be a second-generation convert on the paternal side, which may be compared with the distinction in 11QTa 40:6. The latter, however, refers to entrance into the Temple courtyard, which according to the rabbis was necessary for all who brought first-fruits (m. Bik. 3:4), including first-generation gerim. Although there were apparently no halakhic restrictions on the entrance of proselytes into the Temple, it may well be that a midrashic source has preserved a reaction against discriminatory rules of the kind found in the Temple Scroll. Proceeding from Isa 56:3, which dissuades the alien convert from feeling that “the Lord has verily separated me from His people,” an anonymous homily in Exodus Rabbah 19:4 cites Job 31:32, “The stranger (ger) shall not lodge outside,” and expounds: For the Holy One Blessed be He does not disqualify any creature, but receives all. The gates are opened all the time and whoever wishes to enter may enter. Therefore it says, “The proselyte shall not lodge outside.” The entrance into the gates here is not likely to be simply a figurative description of conversion, since the passage refers to one who is already a ger. Rather it would appear that the gates are those of the Temple, from which some purists were minded to exclude the proselyte. This seems further to be substantiated by the sequel cited in the name of R. Berekhiah (fourth century):13 Concerning whom does it say, “The proselyte shall not lodge outside”? Proselytes are destined in the future to become priests ministering in the Temple, as it is said, “And the stranger (ger) shall be joined with them and become attached to the House of Jacob (Isa 14:1).” Since normative halakhah does not provide for any possibility of gerim becoming priests, the dictum has been interpreted to refer to their descendants through intermarriage. However, its eschatological nuance brings to mind Paul’s claim in Ephesians 2 that the dividing barrier14 between Jews and Gentiles had now been broken. Gentiles were no longer to be “strangers and 13 14

E.E. Urbach, The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs (Cambridge, Mass., 1987), 550–52 interprets R. Berekhiah’s dictum as a response to the statement of R. Ḥelbo, likewise based on Isa 14:1: “Proselytes are as difficult for Israel as a scab (sappaḥat).” Mesotoichon tou phragmou; scholars have noted the similarity to Josephus’s term for the Temple partition, periphragmenon ( J.W. 5.195), as indicated by D.R. Schwartz, [“On Two Aspects of a Priestly View of Descent at Qumran,” Archaeology and History in the Dead Sea

254

PART 4: HALAKHIC TOPICS

sojourners” but part of a holy Temple in the Lord. R. Berekhiah, by contrast, points to conversion as the legitimate way of overcoming the barrier. Echoing the promise made to the ben nekhar in Isaiah 56, he envisions a time when even the priestly function would not be withheld from the ger. But what of the days when the Temple stood in Jerusalem? Were proselytes ever excluded from sacred areas accessible to other Israelites, as the Qumran texts would have it? Two sources, outside the rabbinic literature, seem pertinent to the elucidation of this question. The first is the famous Temple warning inscription, originally published by Clermont-Ganneau,15 in which the word allogenēs is used for non-Jews: No alien may enter within the balustrade around the sanctuary and the enclosure. In a valuable paper D. Schwartz has recently suggested the possibility that the term allogenēs was intended to exclude all persons of alien descent, including converts.16 Josephus modified this by substituting allophylon, which means a person not Jewish by either birth or conversion.17 The inscription, it is suggested, was authored by priestly authorities who may have derived the term allogenēs from its use in the Septuagint for zar, one who is excluded from Temple functions because he is not of priestly descent.18 The hypothesis that allogenēs denotes alien genealogy as something unchangeable regardless of religious affiliation is, in our view, complicated by the following considerations: (1) If taken in its literal sense, the term would in effect exclude all descendants of proselytes, including those of the fourth generation to whom even the rigorist author of the Temple Scroll granted the right to enter the middle courtyard. (2) If the connotation of allogenēs in the inscription derives from the Septuagint, then it must be noted that this term is also used there for ben

15 16 17 18

Scrolls: The New York University Conference in Memory of Yigael Yadin (ed. L.H. Schiffman; Sheffield, 1990), 157–179 (178–79 n. 55]. C. Clermont-Ganneau, “Une stèle du Temple de Jérusalem,” RAr n.s. 28 (1872): 214–34 (232); cf. E. Schürer, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (ed. G. Vermes, F. Millar, and M. Black; 3 vols.; Edinburgh, 1973–1987), 2:222 n. 83. See below, end of n. 22. For a different view, tracing allogenēs to the terminology of Greek sacramental cults, see E.J. Bickerman, “The Warning Inscription of Herod’s Temple,” JQR 37 (1946/47): 387–405 (393). J.W. 5.194. Num 1:51; 3:10, 38; 18:7.

Exclusions from the Temple

255

nekhar even where the ger is specifically not included, viz., with regard to the eating of the paschal lamb in Exod 12:43 (cf. 12:48). One might also ask whether lxx Joel 3(4):17 (allogenēs for zarim) must be construed to exclude proselytes from the entire future city of Jerusalem.19 In Psalms of Solomon 17:28, where such a messianic hope is expressed, the term allogenēs clearly does not include the ger, who is designated paroikos. (3) Josephus’s substitution of allophylon for allogenēs ( J.W. 5.194) does not necessarily stem from his knowledge that the latter term included proselytes, since Josephus himself earlier used allogenēs in the general sense of pagans ( J.W. 2.417; cf. also Ant. 12.331 [MSS FV]). He may well have wanted to avoid the misapprehension of allogenēs in the sense of alienigena, one born in a foreign country.20 The latter word appears in the Latin text of Ag. Ap. 2.103, where Josephus describes the area of the Temple accessible to non-Jews. Thus, with regard to proselytes, the text of the Temple inscription yields at best only a non liquet. The second source which we should like to consider in connection with the status of proselytes in the Temple is Josephus’s account of an enigmatic incident during the reign of Agrippa I. After contrasting the benevolent character of this Herodian ruler with that of his grandfather, Josephus relates that Agrippa nevertheless became the object of denunciation on the part of a pietist named Simon. While the king was away in Caesarea, Simon publicly attacked him as unworthy and “asserted that the king ought properly to be excluded from the Temple, since the right of entrance was restricted to those who were natives (tois eggenesin).” Simon was thereupon summoned by Agrippa while the latter was sitting in the theater. When asked what was unlawful about what was going on there, he apologized and became reconciled to the king.21 There has been a good deal of scholarly discussion concerning the obscurities in this account, particularly the legal basis of Simon’s accusation and the rationale for its withdrawal after the confrontation in the theatre.22 According 19

20 21 22

The exclusion of mamzerim from Jerusalem (cf. Blidstein, “Rabbinic Sources on Bastard and Proselyte,” 431–35) seems to be implied in Zech 9:6, where the lxx likewise has allogenēs. For the view that mamzer referred originally to the offspring of mixed marriages, see A. Geiger, Urschrift (Breslau, 1857), 52–55. Isidorus Etymol. 10.15: “alienigena, quod alienae regionis sit, et non eius ubi est [for this reading and others, see the apparatus in ad locum in Isidori Hispalensis Episcopi Etymologiarum sive Originum Libri XX (ed. W.M. Lindsay; 2 vols. Oxford, 1911). Ant. 19.332–334. G. Alon, Jews, Judaism, 140; L.H. Feldman, Josephus: Jewish Antiquities, Books XVIII–XX (London, 1965), 370–1; J. Jeremias, Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus (Philadelphia, 1969), 332;

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to the readings found in the MSS (W: eggenesin; AM: eugenesi), Agrippa was charged with being ineligible to enter the Temple because of his alien ancestry. What perplexed scholars was the general assumption that such restrictions applied only to non-Jews, while Agrippa stemmed from proselyte forebears. It is this consideration which impelled Niese to emend the text to read tois euagesin, “to those who are pure.”23 Based on this emendation, Feldman presumes that Agrippa was suspected of having contracted some form of ritual impurity on the way to or from the theater. He allayed this suspicion by demonstrating that he had taken proper precautions to avoid contamination. The artificial nature of this interpretation is apparent. More plausible is Alon’s explanation, likewise based on Niese’s emendation, that Agrippa’s very attendance at the Caesarean theatre, presumably associated with paganism, was enough to exclude him from the Temple as a transgressor. He countered this charge by showing that no idolatry was practiced there. The crux, however, remains the emendation of the text, generally hazardous, and in this case indefensible. The word euagēs proposed by Niese is, according to the concordance,24 never once used by Josephus. Returning, as we must, to the readings found in the MSS, the possibility that Agrippa was viewed by some as ineligible to enter the Temple despite his proselyte ancestry must now be reevaluated. 4QFlorilegium, as we have seen, envisions a sanctuary unpolluted by the presence of any ger. If, hypothetically, Simon, who is described as a man “with a reputation for religious scrupulousness,”25 may be presumed to have reflected attitudes akin to those held at Qumran, then his opposition would have some rationale. Yet the question remains why his accusation was not leveled at any time before Agrippa’s departure for Caesarea, and why he withdrew it after his visit to the theater. Moreover, we must bear in mind that Agrippa was not himself a convert, but at least a fourth-generation descendant of the Idumean ancestors of Herod who were converted to Judaism.26 If the validity of this conversion were not

23 24 25 26

A. Schalit, König Herodes (Berlin, 1969), 693; D.R. Schwartz, [Reading the First Century: On Reading Josephus and Studying Jewish History of the First Century (Tübingen, 2013), 50–57]. B. Niese (ed.), Flavii Iosephi Opera (7 vols.; Berlin, 1885–1895), 4:267. K.H. Rengstorf (ed.), A Complete Concordance to Flavius Josephus (4 vols.; Leiden, 1973– 1983), 2:225. Ant. 19.332. The fact that this phrase is similar to those used to describe the Pharisees has led some scholars to assume that Simon must have belonged to them. See Schürer, History, 1.447, and [Alon, Jews, Judaism, 42 and 142]. Ant. 15.255. In view of inaccurate statements found in the literature to the effect that Agrippa was “of Jewish ancestry on his mother’s side” (V. Aptowitzer, “Spuren des Matriarchats im jüdischen Schrifttum,” HUCA 4 [1927]: 207–40 [222]) and “descended on his mother’s side from the Hasmoneans” (Alon, Jews, Judaism, 41), it might be helpful to [note that Agrippa’s mother, Berenice, was the daughter of Salome and Costobar

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257

challenged, then even by the standards of the Temple Scroll he could not have been excluded from the sanctuary on the ground of his being a ger, nor would his Edomite origin any longer be an obstacle (Deut 23:9). This, however, was in our view the heart of the issue. Were the Herodians really legitimate converts? Or to broaden the question, how was the forcible Judaization of the Idumeans viewed in pietist circles? That the Idumeans saw themselves as entitled to recognition as Jews is beyond doubt. Thus we find them complaining bitterly at the time of the Roman war that the gates of Jerusalem, open to all foreigners, were closed to them ( J.W. 4.[275]). Within the Herodian family, the refusal to permit marriages with foreign nobles without prior conversion may be taken as a token of formal Jewish identity.27 Yet, the effort of Nicolaus of Damascus, Herod’s court apologist, to concoct for him a fictional Jewish pedigree betrays the uneasiness with his Idumean ancestry and his vulnerability to the slurs of his enemies.28 Antigonus sarcastically referred to Herod as a hēmiioudaios (Ant. 14.403). We have only limited information about the formalities of conversion in the Second Temple period.29 From the perspective of rabbinic halakhah, the Jewish identity of the Herodian converts appears highly dubious. There is, first, the question of motive.30 The fact that the conversion of the Idumeans was involuntary means that their status could hardly be better than that of the Samaritans, whom one school of opinion dubbed gerê ʿarayot, “lion converts”

27 28

29

30

(Ant. 18.133); the former was Herod’s sister and the latter “was of Idumean birth … and his ancestors had served as priests of Koze” (Ant. 15.253).] Schalit, König Herodes, 693, accurately describes Berenice, as a Vollblutidumäerin. [In the original version of this article, Baumgarten reproduced the genealogical table of the Herodian family found in Schürer, History, 1.614.] Salome was not permitted to marry Syllaeus because he refused to embrace Judaism (Ant. 16.225); [see also the similar case] of Agrippa’s daughter, Drusilla, and her proposed match with Epiphanes (Ant. 20.139). Ant. 14.9; the suspicion of Hölscher (“Josephus,” PW 9:1934–2000 (1971–73) that Nicolaus’s account was falsified by a Jewish polemicist has little plausibility. See also b. B. Bat. 3b, where Herod is said to have killed all the sages who expounded Deut 17:15 (“from the midst of thy brethren shalt thou set up a king”). B.J. Bamberger, Proselytism in the Talmudic Period (New York, 1939); E. Urbach, “ger” Encyclopaedia Hebraica (35 vols.; Tel Aviv, 1949–1979), 11:172–86; K.G. Kuhn and H. Stegemann, “Proselyten,” PWSup 9:1248–83; U. Rapaport [sic, i.e., Rappaport], “Jewish Religious Propaganda and Proselytism in the Period of the Second Commonwealth” (PhD dissertation, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1965 [in Hebrew]). B. Yebam. 24b. The sincerity of the motive for conversion is likewise stressed by Josephus: “Our Law holds out no seductive bait of sensual pleasure” (Ag. Ap. 2.284, tr. Thackeray). Rapaport, “Jewish Religious Propaganda,” 90–91, also cites T. Jos. 4:5–6, where, in response to the offer of Potiphar’s wife to abandon idolatry if Joseph will but yield to her, the latter responds that the Lord desires only “those who draw near to him with purity of heart.”

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[i.e., people who converted merely out of fear of lions—2 Kings 17].31 The rampant ambitions of Antipater and his sons for political dominance would put them in the category of converts “for the sake of a royal table” (b. Yebam. 24b). Secondly, aside from circumcision and the disputed question of proselyte baptism, conversion was contingent on the adoption of a Jewish manner of life.32 Unlike the later rabbinic conception which focused this into an initial declaration of intent to observe the commandments,33 there are indications that in an earlier period the behavior of the convert was subject to protracted scrutiny. Of Achior, the Ammonite, we are told that he believed, was circumcised, “and was joined to the House of Israel, remaining so to this very day” (Judith 14:10). Josephus represents the biblical lawgiver as welcoming those who desire to live under the same laws with us but not ready to admit casual visitors (ek parergou prosiontes).34 He testifies to the existence of proselytes who did not persist in their commitment to the laws and reverted to paganism.35 An illustration of impermanent conversion may be found in Agrippa’s own family. His daughter, Berenice, was married to Polemo, king of Cilicia, after he had consented to be circumcised, but when she deserted him not long afterwards, Polemo “was relieved (apēllakto) simultaneously of his marriage and of 31

32

33 34 35

B. Qidd. 75b, b. B. Qam. 38b, b. Ḥul. 3b. On the status of the Idumeans, see V. Aptowitzer, Parteipolitik der Hasmonäerzeit (Vienna, 1927), 47, who went so far as to suggest that the prayer for the righteous proselytes in the Amidah was originally a protest against the conversion of the Edomites. For Strabo’s reference to the Idumeans joining the Judeans voluntarily, cf. M. Stern, Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism (3 vols.; Jerusalem, 1974–1984), 1:304. According to Ant. 13.208, the conversion of the Edomites involved circumcision and the adoption of a manner of life like that of the Jews. In the story of Izates of Adiabene, the role of circumcision is somewhat equivocal. The insistence of Eleazar that Izates be circumcised (Ant. 20.43–47) does not necessarily mean that this was a sine qua non of conversion, for in that case, Izates, as a non-Jew, could not be criticized for not doing what he read in the Law. It may rather, as Bamberger suggested, reflect the view that as a convert he was obliged to observe all the commandments of the Torah, including circumcision. An interesting parallel to the story of Izates is found in b. ʿAbod. Zar. 65a, where a ger toshab, a resident alien, who after twelve months was still not circumcised, is termed a “heretic among the nations.” S. Bialoblocki cites this passage as indicative of ger toshab as a transitory stage leading toward full conversion; see his Die Beziehung des Judentums zu Proselyten und Proselytentum (Berlin, 1930), 9–10. B. Yebam. 47a–b; it is, however, noteworthy that Maimonides twice refers to a period of probation during which the behavior of a proselyte with dubious motives, or one who was converted by an unqualified court, may be scrutinized (Yad, ʾIssurê Biʾah 13:15, 18). Ag. Ap. 2.210. Ag. Ap. 2.123: for rabbinic references to inconstancy among proselytes, see b. B. Meṣiʿa 59b and b. ʿAbod. Zar. 3b; Seder Eliyahu Rabbah 27 (ed. Ish-Shalom, 146); and Pesikta Rabbati 22:5: “Believe not in a convert until twenty-four generations” [see n. 32 in ed. Ish-Shalom, 111b–112a].

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259

further adherence to the Jewish way of life” (Ant. 20.146). The question may be asked how such a renunciation was accomplished in terms of Jewish law. The law has provisions for terminating a marriage, but how does one terminate his adherence to Judaism? As far as Polemo was concerned, the question was presumably no longer of concern to him. Josephus’s flat statement may indicate that his reversion to paganism was likewise accepted as decisive by Jews. Even with regard to native-born apostates, opinions are expressed in Gaonic literature that their status as Jews was capable of suspension. It was only later that the originally aggadic dictum, “An Israelite, even though he sinned, is still an Israelite,” was applied to stress the indissolubility of Jewish identity.36 Thus it seems likely that Polemo’s discontinuation of Jewish practices was accepted as evidence that his original conversion was only pro forma and lacked substance. This judgment, we may further suggest, was not too different from that made about the Jewish character of the Herodian family in general. Although clever enough to make some concessions to Jewish sensibilities, Herod was viewed by Jews, as he was in Rome, as socius et amicus populi Romani. There is good reason to believe that it is Herod who is spoken of in Psalms of Solomon 17:7 as “a man that was alien to our race” (allotrion genous hēmōn).37 The reference to “everything which he wrought in Jerusalem like the nations in the cities of their gods” (17:14) is an apt description of the Herodian theater and amphitheater, which were visible proof of the intrusion of pagan culture. The behavior of other members of the Herodian family served only to reinforce this judgment. Costobar, Agrippa’s grandfather, expressed his resentment at the subjection of the Idumeans to Jewish dominance and at the constraints put upon them to follow the customs of the Jews (Ant. 15.255). Salome, Agrippa’s grandmother, displayed her lack of regard for Jewish law (ton eggenē nomon) by divorcing Costobar with the equivalent of a Roman repudium (Ant. 15.259–260). Thus, the Jewish identity of Berenice, Agrippa’s mother, and hence his own, must have been extremely fragile. Agrippa’s formative years were spent fully immersed in the maelstrom of Roman society and culture. It was only upon assuming the throne that a change seemed to come upon the former wastrel. From then on, it seemed that he was seriously striving, at least while in Judaea, to assume the character of a Jewish ruler. His general success in winning the affection of the people need 36 37

J. Katz, “‘Though he sinned, he remains an Israelite,’” Tarbiz 27 (1957/58): 203–17 (in Hebrew). C. Tchernowitz, Toledoth ha-Halakah (4 vols.; New York, 1934–1950), 4:132 (in Hebrew); O. Eissfeldt, Einleitung in das Alte Testament (3rd ed.; Tübingen, 1964), 829–30 = The Old Testament: An Introduction (Oxford, 1965), 612; J. Schüpphaus, Die Psalmen Salomos (Leiden, 1977), 6; [and B. Eckhardt, “PsSal 17, die Hasmonäer und der Herodompeius,” JSJ 40 (2009): 465–92].

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not be attributed only to the fraction of Hasmonean blood which came to him through his paternal grandmother.38 It stemmed also from his public behavior, which projected the image of a sincere convert. Yet even he was not spared murmurings of criticism. The well-known rabbinic story which describes the tears shed by the monarch as he read the Deuteronomic passage [17:15] forbidding a king who is not “thy brother,” and the consoling shouts of the populace acclaiming him as their brother,39 is accompanied by the dissonant repudiation of such flattery.40 Here are preserved sentiments akin to those voiced by Simon during the king’s stay in Caesarea. Agrippa’s attendance at the theater in Caesarea was, as Alon has maintained, incongruous with the ways of Jewish piety, which the king had previously espoused. It was hauntingly reminiscent of the theater and spectacles which Herod had introduced along with the suspect trophies (Ant. 15.272–279). However, this was not, as Alon thought, merely a question of behavior unbecoming to the righteous (euagēs). In the eyes of Simon, such flagrant disregard for Jewish law cast doubts on Agrippa’s status as a proselyte. It proved that he was only too ready to revert to the ways of his grandfather and the heathen life-style to which he had become accustomed while in Rome. Consequently he should be denied the privilege of entering the Temple granted only to Jews (tois eggenesin). Agrippa’s defense was a technical one; it consisted of the demonstration that nothing directly against the law was being done in the theater, a plea quite similar to the one put forward by Herod in the case of the trophies. For practical reasons, Simon accepted this explanation and made his peace with Agrippa. In sum, none of the sources we have considered provides decisive evidence that proselytes were actually excluded from the Jerusalem Temple. Rabbinic texts preserve halakhot which presuppose the entrance of gerim into the Temple courtyard. The Temple inscription, despite the possibility of taking allogenēs literally, was not applied to proselytes. The murmurings against Agrippa reflected misgivings about the Jewishness of the Herodian clan, rather than his rights as a proselyte. Thus, it would appear that the Qumran rulings which essayed to keep converts out of the sanctuary belonged to the realm of puristic desiderata not realized in contemporary Temple practice. 38 39 40

Schalit, König Herodes, 693. M. Soṭah 7:8; J. Jeremias, Jerusalem, 334 notes aptly the ambiguity of “brother,” which may allude to the recognition of Edomites as brothers in Deut 23:8. T. Soṭah 7:16 and b. Soṭah 41b (in the name of R. Nathan). But note also R. Simeon b. Ḥalafta’s reference to ʾegrophah šel ḥanuppah “the fist of flattery,” a sarcastic play on the name Agrippa; cf. y. Soṭah 22a where the criticism is recorded in the name of R. Ḥaninah b. Gamliel.

Chapter 21

Hanging and Treason in Qumran and Roman Law In* the historical assessment of the Qumran writings, Pesher Naḥum continues to occupy a place of unique importance. It is the first published text which contains the names of known historical figures and which, according to a widely shared consensus, refers specifically to the events that transpired during the civil war in the latter days of Alexander Jannaeus. The tragic climax of these events was Jannaeus’s crucifixion of about eight hundred of the rebels, alluded to in the following passage of 4QpNah:1 ‫) [ ]מות בדורשי החלקות‬7( ‫וימלא טרף חורה ומעונתו טרפה פשרו על כפיר החרון‬ ‫) [   ] בישראל מלפנים כי לתלוי חי על העץ [יק]רא‬8( ‫אשר יתלה אנשים חיים‬ ]‫הוה צבאות‬-‫) נא[ום י‬9( ]‫הנני אלי[כה‬

There is general agreement that ‫כפיר החרון‬, “lion of wrath,” is an epithet of Jannaeus, while ‫דורשי החלקות‬, “seekers of smooth things,” refers to his opponents, most likely the Pharisees.2 ‫אשר יתלה אנשים חיים‬, “who hangs men alive,” is the writer’s way of describing the manner in which Jannaeus put his enemies to death. Until the publication of the Temple Scroll (11QTemple) it was also generally held that this brutal act of vengeance was condemned as something unprecedented in Israel; consequently restoring in line 8: ‫[אשר לא יעשה] בישראל‬ ‫מלפנים‬. However, in 1971 Y. Yadin initiated a reconsideration of this interpretation and proposed instead a restoration expressing approval of Jannaeus’s action as a justifiable reaction to the treasonable conduct of his opponents.3 * To Professor Harry Orlinsky, whose house of learning has ever been ‫פתוח לרווחה‬. [Original publication: “Hanging and Treason in Qumran and Roman Law,” Eretz-Israel 16 (1982 [Harry M. Orlinsky Volume]): 7*–16*]. Republished with the generous permission of the Israel Exploration Society. 1 4Q169, frags. 3–4, col. i in Qumrân Cave 4.I (4Q158–4Q186) (ed. J. Allegro; DJD 5; Oxford, 1968), 37–42 (38). 2 This consensus has recently been challenged by I. Rabinowitz, “The Meaning of the Key (‘Demetrius’)—Passage of the Qumran Nahum–Pesher,” JAOS 98 (1978): 394–99. Rabinowitz identifies the Demetrius of the pesher as Demetrius I and the Seekers-after-Smooth-Things as the Hellenizers, but does not specify any identification for the Lion of Wrath, nor does he point to any historical setting for the crucifixions alluded to in the text. 3 Y. Yadin, “Pesher Nahum (4QpNahum) Reconsidered,” IEJ 21 (1971): 1–12. Yadin’s thesis is restated in his publication of 11QTemple: Megillat ha-Miqdash (3 vols.; Jerusalem, 1977). Cf. my review in JBL 97 (1978): 584–89. © Joseph M. Baumgarten, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004505087_023

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This reappraisal was primarily based on the law in 11QTemple 64:6–13, which ordains that one who delivers his people to a foreign power is to be hanged on a tree to die, a penalty which Yadin believed to be identifiable with that inflicted by Jannaeus upon his enemies. The present writer questioned this identification and set forth considerations indicative of a distinction between hanging (‫תלה‬, a form of ‫ )חנק‬and crucifixion (‫)תלה חי‬.4 A number of scholars have since expressed their opinions on the bearing of 11QTemple upon the question of crucifixion as a form of execution in the preChristian period.5 One saw it as confirming the historicity of the Gospels and Acts, and of Paul’s placing of the death of Jesus within the context of Jewish law.6 This approach was criticized by J.A. Fitzmyer for failure to take account of the redaction of the New Testament passages involved and not allowing for their Tendenz.7 Yet he too sees 11QTemple as relevant to the New Testament insofar as it (1) shows that Jews, not only Romans, made use of crucifixion as a legal mode of execution, and (2) provides a Jewish background for the New Testament tradition which connects the crucifixion of Jesus with Deut 21:23 and characterizes it as a hanging on a tree. The earliest and most explicit illustration of this tradition is offered by Paul in Gal 3:13: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law being made a curse for us: for it is written, ‘Cursed be everyone who hangs on a tree.’” In our estimation this Pauline midrash is indeed significant evidence that, as Dillon and Fitzmyer have said elsewhere, “Deut. 21:23 belonged to the early Christian homiletic treasury.”8 Homilies, however, hardly suffice to prove that in the legal exegesis of the time, Deut 21:22–23 was understood to refer to crucifixion. The need to distinguish between haggadah and halakhah may be seen from the parable of R. Meir:

4 “Does TLH in the Temple Scroll Refer to Crucifixion?” JBL 91 (1972): 472–81; reprinted in Baumgarten, Studies, 172–82. 5 A. Dupont-Sommer, “Observations nouvelles sur l’expression ‘suspendu vivant sur le bois’ dans le Commentaire de Nahum (4QpNah ii 8) à la lumière du Rouleau du Temple,” CRAI 116 (1972): 709–20; L. Díez Merino, “La crucifixión en la antigua literatura judía,” EstEcl 51 (1976): 5–27; M. Hengel, Crucifixion in the Ancient World and the Folly of the Message of the Cross (Philadelphia, 1977), 84; M. Wilcox, “‘Upon the Tree’—Deut 21:22–23 in the New Testament,” JBL 96 (1977): 85–99; H. Maccoby, “Scrolls and Crucifixion,” London Jewish Chronicle, January 13, 1978. 6 J.M. Ford, “‘Crucify Him, Crucify Him’ and the Temple Scroll,” ExpTim 87 (1975/76): 275–78. 7 J.A. Fitzmyer, S.J., “Crucifixion in Ancient Palestine, Qumran Literature, and the New Testament,” CBQ 40 (1978): 493–513. 8 See their commentary on Acts 5:30 in JBC 181.

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263

(It is comparable) to twin brothers resembling each other. One became king over the whole world, while one took to robbery. Some time later the one who took to robbery was seized and crucified on the cross.9 Everyone who passed by used to say: “It seems that the king is crucified!” Hence it says (Deut 21:23): “For the hanged is an affront to God.” (t. Sanh. 9:7) R. Meir’s parable refers to crucifixion as carried out in the Roman world. No one would venture to suggest that he or any rabbi of the second century held crucifixion to be halakhically sanctioned. Some scholars dismissed my doubts as to whether ‫ תלה‬in 11QTemple signifies crucifixion without responding to the arguments which I detailed.10 Aside from the imputation of apologetic motives, they manifested a hesitance about utilizing rabbinic sources as pertinent to the criminal law reflected in pre-Christian writings. Thus, there is a widely held premise that the mishnaic penalty of ḥeneq, strangulation either manual or by hanging, was a late form of execution. By contrast, the use of the root ṢLB in the targumim is cited as evidence of the earlier acceptance of crucifixion as a legal mode of execution. The late J. Heinemann was among the first scholars to point out the significance of the targum on Ruth 1:17, where ‫ צליבת קיסא‬is listed as one of the four forms of execution in place of ḥeneq.11 Contrary to subsequent writers who cite 9 10

11

‫ ;והיו צולבין אותו על הצלוב‬it is likely that ‫ צלוב‬here means “cross,” although ‫ צליבא‬can be a gibbet used for hanging, as in Tg. Neof. of Num 25:4, or for postmortem suspension (Tg. Onq. of Deut 21:23). The elementary question as to how the law requiring burial before sundown (Deut 21:23 and 11QTemple 64:11) can be combined with crucifixion, which, without a coup de grâce, may not result in death for several days (Josephus, Life 420; Mk 15:44), has not been addressed by the scholars who dissent from my view. The instances where compliance with this law is indicated consistently involve postmortem hanging: Deut 21:22–23; Josh 8:29 (that the king of Ai was already dead is, pace Yadin and Dupont-Sommer, evident from Josh 8:25–26), and Josh 10:26; for the targumim on Num 25:4 see below. I am obliged to Maccoby (n. 5) for stressing that I do not take TLH to mean “to hang” because I find crucifixion repugnant to Jewish law, but rather because crucifixion, in my view, does not harmonize with the indications of the Qumran texts and the other pertinent sources. Díez Merino failed to understand my thesis that TLH can refer to execution by hanging. Thus, he gratuitously imputes to me the interpretation of 11QTemple 64:8–10 “en sentido de una crucifixión post mortem” (“La crucifixión,” 15). J.M. Ford missed the point we derived from the story of Jaqim’s suicide, i.e. that hanging was looked upon by the Haggadist as a form of ḥeneq. Whether or not “the unfortunate man could … crucify himself” (“‘Crucify Him,’” 276) is irrelevant. J. Heinemann, “The Targum of Ex XXII, 4 and the Ancient Halakha,” Tarbiz 38 (1968/69): 294–96 (296) (in Hebrew); and, more recently, “Early Halakah in the Palestinian Targumim,” JJS 25 (1974): 114–22. Fitzmyer (“Crucifixion,” 506 n. 54) erroneously lists this article under the rubric of “other negative reactions to Baumgarten’s interpretation.” For

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this targum as an illustration of the legality of crucifixion, Heinemann was in agreement with my opinion that ‫ צליבת קיסא‬signifies death by hanging. ‫ צלב‬is the normal cognate in the targumim for Hebrew ‫ תלה‬in the context of a form of execution.12 D.J. Halperin13 notes that in Syriac, Mandaic, and Christian Palestinian Aramaic, ṢLB means “to crucify,” but in these writings the theological significance of the Crucifixion is dominant. The assertion that targumic usage points in the same direction is unsubstantiated. We have already noted that both Onqelos and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan (Deut 21:22) use ṢLB to denote the postmortem hanging which rabbinic exegesis emphatically distinguished from crucifixion in the Roman manner.14 The same usage is found in the targum on Josh 10:26. In the Samaritan Targum, as Halperin states, the root ṢLB “is used uniformly to translate talah” even where the verb does not pertain to execution. The questionable methodology used by those who take ṢLB to invariably mean “to crucify” is apparent from their treatment of the targumim on Num 25:4:

12

13 14

another positive reaction, see J.D. Amusin, “The Reflection of Historical Events of the First Century B.C. in Qumran Commentaries,” HUCA 48 (1977): 123–52 (134–36). Another Aramaic cognate of TLH is ZQP (Ass. zaqīpu) which likewise appears in contexts involving postmortem hanging (e.g. Peshitta on Josh 8:29 and 10:26), impalement (Ezra 6:1 and Tg. Esther 7:9), as well as the suspension of nonhuman objects (Tg. Job 26:7). The Peshitta to Deut 21:22 reads: wenezdʿqap ʿal qaysa‌ʾ wenettaqṭal, which corresponds to the inverted order of 11QTemple 64:8 ‫ ותליתמה‬followed by ‫וימת‬. Some scholars have cited the Peshitta as evidence of a midrashic tradition which tried to accommodate Deut 21:22–23 to crucifixion (e.g. Wilcox, “Upon the Tree,” 90). However, the range of meanings of the root ZQP provides no warrant for such a conclusion. L. Rosso, “Deuteronomio 21, 22: Contributo del Rotolo del Tempio alla valutazione di una variante medievale dei Settanta,” RevQ 9 (1977–1978): 231–36, has also called attention to some LXX manuscripts which have the inverted order κρεμάσηται … καὶ ἀποθάνη, similar to the Peshitta. The significance of this inversion must be evaluated in the light of the frequent changes in word order found in these manuscripts. The hypothesis of a Christianizing influence in the Peshitta is difficult to reconcile with the fact, pointed out by M.J. Bernstein in a forthcoming paper [“‫( כי קללת אלהים תלוי‬Deut 21:23): A Study in Early Jewish Exegesis,” JQR (1983/84): 21–45], that Deut 21:23 is rendered by the Peshitta in accordance with the rabbinic interpretation that applied this passage only to a blasphemer. D.J. Halperin, “Crucifixion, the Nahum Pesher, and the Rabbinic Penalty of Strangulation,” JJS 32 (1981): 32–46. This paper, forthcoming in JJS, was kindly made available to me by the author. Sifre, Deut 21:22 (ed. Finkelstein, p. 254): ‫יכול יהו תולים אותו חי כדרך שהמלכות עושה‬ ‫ ;תלמוד לומר והומת ותלית אותו על עץ‬cf. B. Sanh. 46a.

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MT: Take all the chiefs of the people, and hang (wehoqaʿ) them before the Lord in the sun, that the fierce anger of the Lord may turn away from Israel. Tg. Ps.-J.: Take all the chiefs of the people, and appoint them as judges to pronounce death sentences upon the people who strayed after Peor, wetiṣlob them before the Word of the Lord on a tree (qesa‌ʾ) under the sun in the morning, and at the setting of the sun you shall take them down and bury them. Frag. Tg.: … and set them up as a Sanhedrin before the Lord, and they shall ṣalebin whoever is sentenced to death … Neofiti: … and set them up as a Sanhedrin before the Lord, and let them become judges. Everyone who is sentenced to death yaṣlebun yateh ʿal ṣelibah, and bury their corpse with the setting of the sun. It is immediately evident that Pseudo-Jonathan and Neofiti interpret the passage in the light of Deut 21:22–23, which requires that the hanged be buried before sundown. The meaning of ṢLB in the targumim here is indubitably comparable to what it is in the targumim of the Deuteronomy passage, that is “to hang.” This is in full accord with the talmudic exegesis of Num 25:4 which took hoqiʿa as synonymous with talah. The possibility of taking talah in the sense of crucifixion is emphatically rejected in rabbinic sources and is also excluded by the targumim on Deut 21:22–23. That there is a similar congruence between the targumim and the rabbinic exegesis of Num 25:4 may be seen from the use of ṢLB in the midrashim: Sifre ad locum (ed. Horovitz, 172) and Midrash ha-Gadol ad locum: And hang them unto the Lord in the sun. He said to him: Set up the heads of the people as judges, and they shall hang (ṣolebim) the sinners in the sun. Halperin has properly noted the correspondence between the use of ṢLB in the targumim and in Sifre, but draws from it the inverted inference that both refer to crucifixion. How could these post-Mishnaic midrashim speak of crucifixion as a judicial penalty imposed by a Mosaic court when, according to Halperin, this form of execution was rejected and modified into strangulation by the “second half of the first century AD”?15 The only justifiable inference 15 [Halperin, “Crucifixion,” 46.]

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to be drawn is that ṢLB both in the targumic and midrashic interpretation of Num 25:4 signifies hanging. As a matter of fact, in rabbinic Hebrew this meaning was so natural and pervasive that later legists had difficulty in understanding the occasional passages where the same word is used to describe Roman crucifixion.16 Similarly inverted is Díez Merino’s appraisal of the targumim of Num 25:4.17 He attaches “extraordinaria importancia” to the fact that Neofiti and the Fragmentary Targum, unlike Pseudo-Jonathan, make mention of the Sanhedrin. This indicates that the former stem from the time when the Sanhedrin still had capital jurisdiction. Moreover, the specification of crucifixion as a legal penalty would not have been possible after the editing of the Mishnah: asimismo es prácticamente imposible que tal texto se hubiese escrito después de la Mišna en abierta contradicción con ella (la Mišna no reconoce la pena de la crucifixión); luego esta perícopa del N transmite una tradición anterior a la destrucción del templo. J.A. Fitzmyer is dubious about Díez Merino’s efforts to ascribe Neofiti to the inter­ testamental period.18 Yet, in the face of the latter’s valid assessment that crucifixion is in open contradiction with the Mishnah, Fitzmyer does not hesitate to translate yaṣlebun yateh ʿal ṣelibah with “they shall fix (him) to a cross” rather than “they shall hang him on a gibbet.”19 M. Hengel finds in the Fragmentary Targum, which likewise mentions the Sanhedrin and uses the term ṣalebin, evidence of an “ältere — vermutlich vorrömische — Auffassung … als die Juden vermutlich unter persisch-hellenistischem Einfluss selbst gewisse Verbrecher

16

17 18

19

See, for example, the commentary ‫ חלקת מחוקק‬of R. Moses Lima (d. 1658) on Shulḥan ʿArukh, ʾEben ha-ʿezer 17:31, concerning the expression ‫ ראוהו צלוב‬in m. Yebam. 16:3: ‫ראוהו‬ ‫צלוב היינו צלוב ממש משום דאפשר שיחתך החבל ויחיה ולא ידעתי למה הקיל הב״ח ומפ׳‬ ‫“ צלוב בידיו‬They saw him ‘hanged’ means literally hanged, since it is possible for the rope to be severed so that he will live. I do not know why Bayit Ḥadash (R. Joel Sirkes, d. 1640) interprets this leniently as referring ⟨only⟩ to one crucified by his hands.” Díez Merino, “La crucifixión,” 19–20. Fitzmyer, “Crucifixion,” 513 n. 71. Fitzmyer (505 n. 50) further cites, as evidence that crucifixion was practiced in Palestine, Josephus’ statement in J.W. 4.317, that “the Jews are so careful about funeral rites that even malefactors who have been sentenced to crucifixion (ἀνεσταυρωμένους) are taken down and buried before sunset.” The verb ἀνασταυρόω is used here for affixing the corpse of the executed criminal to the tree, as is clear from Josephus’ interpretation of Deut 21:23 in Ant. 4.264. Philo likewise refers to the “crucifixion” (ἀνασκολοπίζω) of the corpse (Special Laws 3.151–152). Fitzmyer, “Crucifixion,” 513 n. 71.

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267

kreuzigten oder pfahlten.”20 Presumably, Hengel is inclined to likewise assign Sifre Numbers to the Persian or Hellenistic period because it employs the word ṣolebim. Have these scholars considered that the very targumim they cite reflect standard rabbinic interpretations and provide conclusive evidence for my contention that ṣelibat qesa‌ʾ refers to hanging, not to crucifixion? Let us turn now to the premise, at times expressed, at times implicit, that hanging (strangulatio) was a late form of execution which should not anachronistically be ascribed to the pre-Christian period. The evidence to the contrary from Jewish sources was already surveyed in our earlier study.21 We should like to elaborate here on the Roman material, as evaluated by competent classical scholars. Unfortunately, some who suggest that crucifixion was borrowed by Jews from the Romans in the Second Temple period do not inform us as to what is actually known of Roman penal practice under the Republic. One theory would have us suppose that crucifixion was adapted to the halakhah by the Pharisees. After the destruction of the Temple this agonizing form of execution was modified into the relatively humane form of ḥeneq prescribed in the Mishnah.22 We may here leave aside such questions as concern the assumed physiological connection between crucifixion and strangulation and the odd transformation of Jewish death penalties just at the time when the power to carry them out was, at best, severely restricted. We must, however, inquire whether there are grounds for believing that crucifixion was already established as a penalty for Roman citizens in republican times, while hanging was only introduced during the Empire. The major authority for the latter view was Th. Mommsen. In his Römisches Strafrecht he characterized crucifixion as “die magistratische Hinrichtungsform des freien Bürgers ‘nach altem Herkommen’ (more maiorum) in den Legenden der Königszeit und den daran anknüpfenden geschichtlichen Vorgängen, wahrscheinlich auch in dem Zwölftafelgesetzbuch.”23 The historical procedures which recalled a mythical trial are recorded in Cicero’s rhetoric, which is, however, quite differently evaluated by subsequent students of Roman penal history. In his defense of Rabirius against the charge of perduellio, Cicero (Rab. Perd. [4.13]) denounced the prosecutor’s intent to erect a cross and to pronounce the death sentence with the dread formula: 20 21 22 23

M. Hengel, Nachfolge und Charisma (Tübingen, 1968), 64 n. 77. “TLH in the Temple Scroll,” 474–476 [= Studies, 173–177]. Halperin, “Crucifixion” (see n. 13). Hengel ascribes the Pharisaic use of crucifixion to “a counter-reaction against the Sanhedrin (sic!) after the death of Alexander Jannaeus” (Crucifixion, 85). Th. Mommsen, Römisches Strafrecht (Leipzig, 1899), 918.

268

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I, lictor, colliga manus … caput obnubito, arbori infelici suspendito. “Go, lictor, tie his hands … veil his head, hang him on a barren tree.” The ancient formula is also recorded by Livy (History of Rome 1.26.6) in his description of the legendary trial of Horatius on the charge of perduellio: infelici arbori reste suspendito, “Let him hang him with a rope to a barren tree.” Mommsen believed that the formula referred to crucifixion, but doubts about this opinion were already expressed by H.F. Hitzig:24 Dagegen spricht nicht nur die Behauptung des Livius (I 28) über die grosse Milde des altrömischen Strafensystems und der deutliche Protest des Cicero gegen die Anwendung dieser Strafe auf Bürger, sondern auch die Formel im Process des Horatius; sie weist auf Erhängung hin (arbori infelici reste suspendito); von letzterer unterscheidet sich die Kreuzigung aber dadurch, dass ihr das Moment das Andauerns der Todesqual wesentlich ist, Senec. ep. 101,14 perire membratim et … per stillicidia emittere animam; […]. Die zwölf Tafeln scheinen die Strafe noch nicht zu kennen … Hitzig’s doubts about crucifixion in the Twelve Tables refer to the penalty for grain theft, suspensumque Cereri necari (Pliny, Natural History 18.12). Suspendere, according to him, means “to hang” and is not, as Mommsen would have it, a “Schlagwort” for crucifixion. In the Twelve Tables the latter penalty, destined to become the servile supplicium, is not yet ordained even for slaves. K. Latte25 is firmly in agreement with Hitzig: Das Aufhängen an einem infelix arbor […] schließt meines Erachtens die Deutung Mommsens (Strafr. 918) als Kreuzigung aus; dazu war ein Pfahl geeigneter als ein Baum (zutreffend Hitzig [Schweizerische Zeitschrift für 24 25

H.F. Hitzig, “crux,” PW 4: 1728–31 (1728–29). K. Latte, “Todesstrafe,” PWSup 7: 1599–1619 (1614). Hengel (Crucifixion, 39–63) provides an exhaustive survey of clear and conjectural references to crucifixion in Roman sources, relying heavily on Mommsen. Among scholars differing with Mommsen he mentions only Latte, although the latter is in concurrence with Hitzig; M. Voigt (Die XII Tafeln [2 vols.; Leipzig, 1883], 1:488 [n. 4]; K. von Amira (Die germanischen Todesstrafen [München, 1922], 165); [I.] Pfaff (“laqueus,” PW 1.12.1:790–91; and “strangulatio,” PW 2.4A.1:170–71); see also A. Berger, “Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law,” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 43 (1953): 419, s.v. “crux.” One wonders whether Hengel’s survey of classical sources might have led to different results if it had not been focused on only one form of execution. For those inclined to view strangulatio and ḥeneq as innovations of the rabbinic period, it may be worthwhile to note that hanging by the neck is already mentioned as a mode of death penalty in Homer’s Odyssey [22.465–474].

Hanging and Treason in Qumran and Roman Law

269

Strafrecht 13 [1900]: 224]). Damit entfällt die Kreuzigungsstrafe für freie Römer in republikanischer Zeit, wozu stimmt, daß sie bei Cic[ero] Verr. VI 162 als ein unerhörter Übergriff des Statthalters erscheint. For the purposes of our inquiry it is of salient interest to note, not only that the penalty of hanging (arbori infelici suspendito) appears in the earliest code of Roman law, but that it pertains to the crime of perduellio. This term embraces various forms of treason, such as joining the enemy, rousing an enemy against the Roman state, delivering a Roman citizen to the enemy, and desertion on the battlefield.26 That the death penalty for treason was already in the Twelve Tables is evident from the statement of the jurist Marcianus: Lex duodecim tabularum iubet eum, qui hostem concitaverit quive civem hosti tradiderit, capite puniri (Digest 48.4.3). Voigt’s restoration of the text runs as follows: Qui hostem conciverit quive civem hosti tradiderit, si sciens dolo malo fecit, verberatus infelici arbori reste suspenditor.27 A very similar law obtained among the Germans, of whom Tacitus reports: Distinctio poenarum ex delicto: proditores et transfugas arboribus suspendunt (“the differentiation of penalties is according to the crime: traitors and deserters they hang upon trees”).28 We have previously called attention to the striking similarity, both in the delineation of the crimes and the form of execution, to the law about treason in the Temple Scroll. Can this similarity be attributed to chance, or is it the result of the pervasive influence of the Roman law of perduellio? For convenience we set forth the text of 11QTemple 64:6–13: ‫  כי‬ 6 ‫ יהיה איש רכיל בעמו ומשלים את עמו לגוי נכר ועושה רעה בעמו‬ 7 ‫ ותליתמה אותו על העץ וימת על פי שנים עדים ועל פי שלושה עדים‬ 8 ‫ יומת והמה יתלו אותו העץ  כי יהיה באיש חטא משפט מות ויברח אל‬ 9 ‫ תוך הגואים ויקלל את עמו ואת בני ישראל ותליתמה גם אותו על העץ‬ 10 ‫ וימות ולוא תלין נבלתמה על העץ כי קבור תקוברמה ביום ההוא כי‬ 11 ‫ מקוללי אלוהים ואנשים תלוי על העץ ולוא תטמא את האדמה אשר אנוכי‬ 12 ‫ נותן לכה נחלה‬ 13

26 27 28

Berger, “Encyclopedic Dictionary,” 626, s.v. perduellio. Die XII Tafeln, 1:728. Germania 12.

270

PART 4: HALAKHIC TOPICS

6 If 7 a man has informed against his people and has delivered his people up to a foreign nation and has done evil to his people, 8 you shall hang him on the tree and he shall die. On the evidence of two witnesses and on the evidence of three witnesses 9 he shall be put to death, and they shall hang him [on] the tree. If a man has committed a crime punishable by death and has run away to 10 the midst of the Gentiles and has cursed his people and the children of Israel, you shall hang him also on the tree 11 and he shall die; and you shall not leave their bodies upon the tree in the night but you shall bury them the same day, for 12 the hanged upon the tree are cursed by God and men; and you shall not defile the land which I 13 give you as an inheritance…. The first category of treason is described in phraseology (‫ )רכיל בעמו‬derived from Lev 19:16. In Jewish exegesis, however, this verse was generally taken to refer to slander against individuals.29 Hence our text amplifies ‫ומשלים את עמו‬ ‫לגוי נכר‬. The latter expression has no apparent source in the Bible. It corresponds very closely to the terminology of the Twelve Tables: Quive civem hosti tradiderit. For the description of the treachery, ‫ועושה רעה בעמו‬, we may compare the definition of perduellio offered by Ulpianus: Qui perduellionis reus est, hostili animo adversus rem publicam vel principem animatus (Digest 48.4.11). The traitor is presumed to have acted with dolus malus. The second category of treasonable crime is described by Yadin as “very strange.”30 A man guilty of a capital crime fled to the heathens and cursed his people. Does this mean that the culprit had already incurred the death penalty before his treacherous flight? Yadin prefers to take the escape as an explication of the foregoing “crime punishable by death.” Again, comparison with Roman sources may be illuminating. For the transfuga (or perfuga), one who flees from Roman jurisdiction, appears there in close association with the proditor. Thus, in the section of the Digest dealing with re militari we read: Proditores transfugae plerumque capite puniuntur (Digest 49.16.7), a statement which is 29

30

Yadin’s statement (“4QpNahum Reconsidered,” 6) that “the Targums, Pal. Tal. (Peʾah 16a ‫‘ דילטור‬delator’) and all the Jewish commentaries” took Lev 19:16 as applicable to a “spy” is not borne out by reference to these sources, as already noted by M.J. Bernstein, “Midrash Halakhah at Qumran? 11QTemple 64:6–13 and Deuteronomy 21:22–23,” Gesher 7 [1979]: 148. Megillat ha-Miqdash, 1:286.

Hanging and Treason in Qumran and Roman Law

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closely paralleled by the aforementioned report of Tacitus: proditores et transfugas arboribus suspendunt. The fact that 11QTemple refers to escape to the ‫גואים‬, rather than an enemy, accords with the definition of transfuga given by Paulus: Transfuga autem non is solus accipiendus est, qui aut ad hostes aut in bello transfugit, sed et qui per indutiarum tempus aut ad eos, cum quibus nulla amicitia est, fide suscepta transfugit (Digest 49.15.19.8). Such transfugae forfeited their claim to the restoration of their former rights upon return: Transfugae nullum postliminium est: nam qui malo consilio et proditoris animo patriam reliquit, hostium numero habendus est (ibid., 49.15.19.4). This concept, that the transfuga was no longer to be reckoned a Roman citizen, makes understandable the variety of punishments found in later sources, such as burning at the stake, casting to beasts, as well as crucifixion (Digest 48.19.38[.1] and 49.16.3[.10]). Scipio the Elder’s crucifixion of Roman deserters at the end of the Second Punic War is also viewed by Voigt31 as stemming from such a theory, but it did not sit well with later historians and remained extremely rare.32 It cannot serve as a basis for Mommsen’s contention that crucifixion, rather than hanging, had all along been the traditional form of execution for perduellio.33 With all due caution, the striking similarity in the delineation and punishment of treason in 11QTemple and Roman law may be indicative of direct influence. Moreover, the possible time for such influence would have to be in the period preceding the series of major conflicts between Judaea and Rome. During the early Hasmonean age, the political interests of Rome and the emerging Jewish state were largely in harmony. The image of republican institutions in Jewish eyes was a decidedly positive one, as is evident from the idealized description preceding the friendship treaty in 1 Maccabees 8. Also, it is during this period of re-emergent Jewish national consciousness that the need for elaborating the nature of treason, a crime which is hardly defined in biblical law, would most likely have been felt. Thus, Menelaus, who delivered the Temple and his priestly countrymen into the hands of Antiochus, is characterized in 2 Macc 5:15 as a traitor (προδότης) both to the laws and to his fatherland 31 32

33

Die XII Tafeln, 2:786 n. 7. Valerius Maximus 2.7.12 wrote: “I will not pursue this matter further, both because it concerns Scipio and because Roman blood should not be insulted by paying the slaves’ penalty, however deservedly”; this and other references to the servile supplicium are given in Hengel, Crucifixion, 51–63. Even P. Carnsey, Social Status and Legal Privilege in the Roman Empire (Oxford, 1970), 128– 29, who suspects that traitors may have been crucified because they were deemed to have forfeited their rights as citizens, is dubious about Mommsen’s assertion that crucifixion was the oldest form of magisterial execution for free citizens.

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(πατρίς). Similarly, during Judah’s campaign against the Idumeans, two officers were accused of accepting bribes and allowing some of the besieged to escape. Their punishment is described as follows: (2 Macc 10:21–22): When word of what had happened came to Maccabeus he gathered the leaders of the people, and accused these men of having sold their brethren for money by setting their enemies free to fight against them. Then he slew these men who had turned traitor (προδότας γενομένους). The charge of bribery is found here in the context of proditio which is, by itself, a capital offense. Yet, it may be noted parenthetically that judicial bribery is also held to be a capital crime according to 11QTemple 51:16–18. This stringency is not, as far as we know, paralleled in other Jewish sources. It is, however, in full agreement with the law of the Twelve Tables (IX, 5): Judex arbiterve iure datus, qui ob rem dicendam pecuniam accepisse convictus est, capite poenitur. Returning now to the forms of death penalty in early Roman law, we may cite Hitzig’s summary:34 Im Strafsystem der zwölf Tafeln findet sich neben Erhängen und Enthaupten noch der Feuertod und der Felssturz, beide wahrscheinlich älter als die zwölf Tafeln; […]. Noch der republikanischen Zeit zugehörend, aber jünger als die zwölf Tafeln, ist die nichtöffentliche Hinrichtung von Frauen und vornehmen Personen durch Erdrosseln im Kerker. — Erst in der Kaiserzeit werden in das Strafensystem aufgenommen und damit gegenüber dem freien Bürger anwendbar: Kreuzigung und bestiis objici. When one looks at this list in the light of rabbinic sources, one cannot help but note that it corresponds to the ‫ארבע מיתות‬, the four types of execution found in the Mishnah: stoning, burning, decapitation, and strangulation. Stoning, according to tannaitic interpretation, was always preceded by casting the condemned down from a height sufficient to cause death.35 The similarity to the Roman deicere e saxo Tarpeio is clear. Decapitation in Roman as well as Jewish law is said to have earlier been done with a hatchet; under the Empire this practice was modified by the substitution in military fashion of a sword. This innovation is appropriately described in m. Sanhedrin 7:3 as ‫כדרך‬ ‫שהמלכות עושה‬. The fact that the same description is given in rabbinic sources 34 35

H.F. Hitzig, in Zum ältesten Strafrecht der Kulturvölker (ed. T. Mommsen; Leipzig, 1905), 47. M. Sanh. 6:4.

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for crucifixion in the Roman manner,36 suggests that the latter, too, was correctly identified as an innovation of the Empire. With regard to strangulation, the notion that this was introduced by the rabbis as late as the second century CE is without any foundation. We have earlier pointed out that it is exemplified as a method of execution under the reign of Herod.37 The manual method as depicted in the Mishnah corresponds to an early type of stratigulatio[:] laqueo gulam fregere (Sallust, Cataline’s War 55.5). It is recorded in connection with the death of the supporters of Gracchus, the conspiracy of Catiline, and other instances of high treason and crimen maiestatis.38 As Hitzig notes, it was also preferred as a nonpublic mode of execution for women and noblemen.39 Moreover, in both Roman and Jewish penal practice hanging was classified as a variety of strangulation.40 Hanging, as we have seen, stems from the early stratum of Republican law, while crucifixion was not inflicted upon citizens until the Imperial era. This is precisely the opposite of what those scholars, who posit an early Jewish adoption and later modification of crucifixion, have supposed. Finally, Pesher Naḥum itself offers weighty evidence against the hypothesis that the Qumran writers viewed crucifixion as a legal form of execution. Fitzmyer, who favors this hypothesis, restores and translates the crucial lines 6–8 as follows:41 The interpretation of it concerns the Lion of Wrath 7[who has found a crime punishable by] death in the Seekers-after-Smooth-Things, whom he hangs as live men 8[on the tree, as it was thus done] in Israel from of old, for of one hanged alive on the tree (Scripture) re[ads]…. We must note that the restoration preceding ‫בישראל מלפנים‬, “in Israel from of old,” is hardly one to inspire confidence. This expression is used for archaic practices no longer familiar in the time of the writer,42 while here it supposedly serves to depict “hanging alive” as a well-established and appropriate penalty. Moreover, one wonders what possible motive the Qumran commentator could 36 37 38 39 40 41 42

B. Sanh. 46a and Sifre on Deut 21:22. Baumgarten, “TLH in the Temple Scroll,” 475 n. 13 [referring to Ant. 15.176]. W. Rein, “laqueus,” in Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft in alphabetischer Ordnung (ed. A.F. Pauly; 6 vols in 7; Stuttgart, 1837–1852), 4:771. See also Pfaff, “laqueus.” Berger, “Encyclopedic Dictionary,” 718 (s.v. “strangulare”) and 726 (s.v. “suspendere”); also Baumgarten, “TLH in the Temple Scroll,” 474–76 (= idem, Studies, 174–77). Fitzmyer, “Crucifixion,” 500. Cf. 1 Sam 9:9 and Ruth 4:7.

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have had to legitimize what was clearly an act of vengeance and present it as if it were a judicially sanctioned execution in accordance with due process of law. Did the writer sympathize with the Lion of Wrath because of his contempt for the Seekers-after-Smooth-Things? If so, we are puzzled by the sequel: Behold, I am against [you], (9) say[s YHWH of Hosts, and I will burn in smoke your abundance]; and the sword shall devour your young lions. And [I] will cut off [ from the land] its prey, (10) and no [longer] sh[all the voice of your messengers be heard. The inter]pretation of it: “Your abundance” means his warrior-bands wh[o are in Jerusal]em; and “his young lions” are (11) his nobles [ ] and “his prey” is the wealth which [the prie]sts of Jerusalem have amas[sed], which (12) they will give t[o In a recent study of the pesharim, completed with the guidance of Fitzmyer, M.P. Horgan notes quite correctly that the subject of the interpretation in lines 10–11 can only be the aforementioned Lion of Wrath.43 Thus, the pronouncement in the lemma, ‘Behold, I am against you,’ was directed at the Lion whose cruel fierceness was depicted in the preceding comment. Clearly, this is incompatible with the revised restorations proposed by Yadin and Fitzmyer, which suggest that [the text means that it was in accordance with recognize legal precedents that] Jannaeus crucified those who had plotted against him. We are, thus, unavoidably driven to the alternative restoration in line 8 which characterizes “hanging people alive” as something unprecedented in Israel. From this one can only conclude that crucifixion, far from being a standard form of death penalty, was viewed at Qumran as an act of brutality unsuitable even for the despised antagonists of the community. In conclusion, we should like to propose a new interpretation of the very difficult phrase in line 8, ‫כי לתלוי חי על העץ [יק]רא‬. Limitations of space will not allow us to review here all of the unsuccessful efforts, including an earlier one by this writer, to translate this crux.44 Suffice it to say that they fall into two groups: (1) Those which take ‫ [יק]רא‬to be the end of the preceding sentence. (2) Those which understand the whole phrase to be introductory to the next lemma ‫הנני אלי [כה] וגו׳‬. The translations under the first category share the premise that we have here some sort of allusion to Deut 21:23, but none has succeeded in integrating it into the context of the pesher. Indicative of despair 43

M.P. Horgan, Pesharim: Qumran Interpretations of Biblical Books (Washington, D.C., 1979), 181. 44 [See Horgan, ibid., 178–79; also Baumgarten, “TLH in the Temple Scroll,” 481; cf. idem, Studies, 182.]

Hanging and Treason in Qumran and Roman Law

275

is the suggestion that the words ‫ קללת אלהים‬were omitted for pietistic reasons,45 comparable to the omission by Paul in Gal 3:13, “for it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree” (ἐπικατάρατος, omitting ὑπὸ θεοῦ). Whether the latter was indeed a deliberate omission, in order to avoid speaking of Jesus as cursed by God, is discussed by New Testament scholars.46 Surely, such scruples cannot be imputed to the author of Pesher Naḥum if, as suggested, his intent was to justify the Lion’s crucifixion of the traitors. In 11QTemple [64:12] such traitors are quite explicitly labelled ‫מקוללי אלוהים ואנשים‬. The translations of the second category do not involve any assumed omission. Horgan has also found that the structure blending the commentary with the following lemma is not without parallel in the pesharim, and, therefore, translates as follows: “for regarding one hanged alive upon the tree [it] reads: Behold I am against you says Yahweh of hosts.”47 The problem is one of meaning. Against whom is the Lord’s opposition proclaimed? Is it against the “one hanged alive upon the tree”? Is it reasonable to further condemn the offender for the manner in which he was executed?48 Furthermore, as we have seen, the focal point of our pesher is the Lion of Wrath, and it is against him that we would expect the Lord’s opposition to be directed. We should, consequently, like to call attention to a grammatical phenomenon which may provide the key to the proper understanding of this passage. Quite frequently in Aramaic, and occasionally in Hebrew, the passive participle is used in an active sense. M.H. Segal49 provides abundant illustration for both transitive and intransitive verbs, e.g. ‫ רכוב‬,‫ שתוי יין‬,‫ כפוי טובה‬,‫נשוי שתי נשים‬. A rare biblical example is found in Song 3:8: ‫אחוזי חרב‬. Kutscher has noted a number of occurrences in 1QIsaa where what is a passive participle in the MT is represented by an active participle and vice versa.50 We would, therefore, propose the following translation of the phrase under discussion: “for regarding 45 46 47 48

49 50

This suggestion, made by F.M. Cross and D.N. Freedman, was adopted by J.M. Allegro in his preliminary publication, “Further Light on the History of the Qumran Sect,” JBL 75 (1956): 89–95 (91); cf. Horgan, Pesharim, 178. See Wilcox, “Upon the tree,” 87. Horgan, Pesharim, 163, 179. The LXX reading of Deut 21:23 is κεκατηραμένος ὑπὸ θεοῦ πᾶς κρεμάμενος ἐπὶ ξύλου, but one must concur with P. Craigie, The Book of Deuteronomy (Grand Rapids, 1976), 285: “The body was not accursed of God because it was hanging on a tree; it was hanging on a tree because it was accursed of God.” M.H. Segal, A Grammar of Mishnaic Hebrew (Oxford, 1927), 161; cf. A. Hurvitz, The Transition Period in Biblical Hebrew: A Study in Post-Exilic Hebrew and its Implications for the Dating of Psalms (Jerusalem, 1972), 119–20 (in Hebrew). E.Y. Kutscher, The Language and Linguistic Background of the Isaiah Scroll (1QIsaa) (Leiden, 1974), 349–50.

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one who hangs a living man upon a tree (Scripture) reads: Behold I am against you, says the Lord of hosts.” The use of ‫ תלוי‬in Pesher Naḥum was no doubt derived from Deut 21:23 ‫כי‬ ‫קללת אלהים תלוי‬. It is consequently pertinent to observe that there, too, there was at least one version which took ‫ תלוי‬in an active sense. Pseudo-Jonathan renders: ‫קילותא קדם אלהא למצלוב גבר‬, “it is a disgrace before God to hang a man.” The interpretation of ‫ קללת אלהים‬as an objective genitive is common to rabbinic exegesis.51 Yet, unlike some sages who took ‫ קללה‬to mean “curse” and applied the passage only to a blasphemer, Pseudo-Jonathan follows the view of R. Meir that ‫ קללת אלהים‬refers to the disgrace resulting from allowing any man made in the image of God to remain suspended.52 This interpretation fits much better into the context of v. 23, which prohibits the exposure of the corpse overnight. In its allusion to Deut 21:23, Pesher Naḥum inserts after ‫ תלוי‬the significant word ‫חי‬. This word, not found in any version and specifically excluded in tannaitic exegesis,53 serves only one purpose: to distinguish crucifixion from the hanging [mandated] in Deuteronomy. From the perspective of the man executed this insertion makes little sense. Is one “hanged alive” any more repudiated by God than one hanged after death? As a description of the act of the executioner, however, the implicit inference is valid: If the prolonged exposure of a corpse constitutes an affront to God, how much more so the hanging of a man alive? It is thus only as an elaboration of the preceding denunciation of crucifixion, as unprecedented brutality, that the obscure phrase ‫כי לתלוי חי על‬ ‫ העץ [יק]רא‬takes on meaning. 51 52 53

A very helpful survey of Jewish exegesis of Deut 21:22–23 is contained in a forthcoming study by M.J. Bernstein [cited in n. 12]. The Tg. Neofiti’s rendering ‫ ארום ליט קדם ה׳ כל דצליב‬is ambiguous, depending on whether we read ṣlîb (part. pass.) or ṣālêb (part. act.); for the scriptio plena of part. act. in Tg. Neofiti Deut, cf. ‫( יהיב‬21:23), ‫( דעביד‬21:5), and ‫( חכים‬22:2). Sifre on Deut 21:22 [ed. Finkelstein, 254].

Chapter 22

The Avoidance of the Death Penalty in Qumran Law The* general tendency of Qumran law towards greater rigor might lead one to suppose that this approach would also apply in the area of punishment, particularly the application of the biblical death penalties. A number of capital offenses according to biblical law are indeed mentioned in Qumran legal texts. Among these are necromancy (CD 12:3), the deliberate violation of the Sabbath (CD 12:3–4), and premarital promiscuity by a betrothed maiden (4Q159 2–4 8–9). Nonbiblical offenses also considered punishable by death by Qumran legists include seditious talk against the community (CD 12:3), entry into the Temple by a parturient in a state of uncleanness (4Q266 6 ii 9–10), delivering a man to his death by Gentile law (CD 9:1), and treasonably revealing national secrets to the Gentiles (4Q270 2 ii 13). I assume that this enumeration is not exhaustive, but that other capital crimes may in principle have been subsumed under the Qumran category of ‫דבר מות‬. The critical questions that I wish to explore are how the guilt of capital offenders was established and whether the death penalty was actually carried out within the community. 4Q159 is an anthological text that refers, among a variety of biblical laws, to the case of a bride accused by her husband of not being a virgin at the time of the consummation of the marriage:1 ‫כי יוצי איש שם רע על בתולת ישראל אם ב[עת] קחתו אותה יואמר ובקרוה נאמנות‬ ‫ואם לוא כחש עליה והומתה‬

If a man brings out an evil name against a maiden of Israel, if he does so when he takes her, she shall be examined by reliable (women) and if he did not lie about her she shall be put to death. Frag. 2–4 8–9

* Original publication: “The Avoidance of the Death Penalty in Qumran Law,” in Reworking the Bible: Apocryphal and Related Texts at Qumran. Proceedings of a Joint Symposium by the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature and the Hebrew University Institute for Advanced Studies Research Group on Qumran, 15–17 January, 2002 (ed. E.G. Chazon, D. Dimant, and R.A. Clements; STDJ 58; Leiden: Brill, 2005), 31–38. Republished with the kind permission of Brill Academic Publishers. 1 See J.M. Allegro, “159. Ordinances,” in Qumrân Cave 4.I (4Q158–4Q186) (DJD 5; Oxford, 1968), 6–9, p. 8; and for the corrected text, F. García Martínez and E.J.C. Tigchelaar, The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition (2 vols.; Leiden, 1997–1998), 1:310–11.

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As is known, the rabbinic elaboration of Deut 22:13–21, the biblical source for this law, limits the death penalty to the case where witnesses establish that the promiscuity of the woman occurred after her betrothal (b. Ketub. 46a, Sifre Deut. 235). The law in 4Q159 resorts to the expertise of female examiners to verify the husband’s charge that the bride was not a virgin; this was apparently viewed as sufficient for a capital indictment. Yet, in practice, the harshness of the biblical law was considerably mitigated by another formulation found in Cave 4 manuscripts. Here the husband is instructed not to betroth (… ‫אל יבא‬ ‫ )בברית הקודש‬a woman reputed to have had sexual experience. If her reputation is questionable, she is first to be examined by expert women authorized by the ‫מבקר‬. Only afterwards may the husband take her in wedlock: ]‫וכול[אשר עליה ש]ם רע בבתוליה בבית אביה אל יקחה איש כי אם [בראות נשים‬ ‫נאמנות וידעות ברורות ממאמר המבקר אשר על [הרבים ואח]ר יקחנה‬ And any woman who has a bad name in her maidenhood in her father’s home, let no man take her, except upon examination by trustworthy expert women chosen by command of the supervisor over the Many; afterward he may take her.2 Thus, the examination, emphatically said to be prenuptial, prevents any possible defamation of the woman, and eliminates the basis for a capital indictment. I now turn to a passage in CD 12:3–4 that limits the death penalty in the case of violations of the Sabbath: ‫כל אשר יתעה לחלל את השבת ואת המועדות לא יומת כי על בני האדם משמרו ואם‬ ‫ירפא ממנה ושמרוהו עד שבע שנים ואחר יבוא אל הקהל‬

And anyone who errs and profanes the Sabbath or the holidays shall not be put to death, but he is to be watched by men, and if he refrains from it, they shall watch him for seven more years; then he may come into the community. The nature of the “error” designated here by the verb ‫ תעה‬is clearly not that of a totally accidental act, for if it were, the suspension and the supervised parole for seven years would hardly be appropriate. A Cave 4 fragment (4Q513 2 ii 4) employs the term ‫“ תעות עורון‬error of blindness” for the Pharisaic practice of 2 4Q271 3 12–15. See J.M. Baumgarten, “271. 4QDamascus Documentf,” in Qumran Cave 4.XIII: The Damascus Document (4Q266–273) (DJD 18; Oxford, 1996), 169–83 (175–77).

The Avoidance of the Death Penalty in Qumran Law

279

allowing the ‫ עומר‬to be harvested on the Sabbath. Thus our passage, which describes the error of desecrating ‫ שבת‬and the festivals, may perhaps be alluding to some error involving the calendar or a violation committed by a person insufficiently scrupulous about the communal Sabbath rules. Such a conscious violation was theoretically punishable by death. Jubilees has an across-theboard death penalty for all Sabbath violations [Jub. 50:8–13]. However, Qumran law treats the sinner with leniency and limits the human (‫ )על בני האדם‬intervention to an extended period of supervised parole, after which the offender may return to the community. Presumably, if he fails to reform his behavior during this period, he is to be expelled from the congregation. This brings us to that much-discussed passage in Damascus Document 9:16– 21 concerning the combination of discrete witnesses in capital cases: ‫כל דבר אשר ימעל איש בתורה וראה רעיהו והוא אחד אם דבר מות הוא וידיעהו‬ ‫לעיניו בהוכיח למבקר והמבקר יכתבהו בידו עד עשותו עוד לפני אחד ושב והודיע‬ ‫למבקר אם ישוב וניתפש לפני אחד שלם משפטו‬

Any trespass committed by a man against the Torah, which is witnessed by his neighbor—he being but one—if it is a capital matter, he shall report it before his eyes with reproof to the Examiner. And the Examiner shall write it down with his hand until he does it again before one who again reports it to the Examiner. If he is again caught in the presence of one, his judgment is complete. Most of the scholarly discussion of this pericope has concerned the problem of how to reconcile it with the biblical rule, confirmed in the Temple Scroll, that two witnesses to a single crime suffice to establish a capital indictment. I am inclined to believe that the Qumran legists would have concurred that two simultaneous witnesses were sufficient with regard to capital crimes, such as murder,3 adultery, and treason, involving other persons. Our passage, however, deals with religious sins,4 ‫אשר ימעל איש בתורה‬, “that a man desecrates the 3 From 4Q251 18, it appears that Qumran exegesis viewed the sacrificial heifer, brought by the community near which a slain person had been found (Deut 21:1–9), as a substitute (‫)חליפה‬ for the life of the unknown murderer. This interpretation, which posits a surrogate offering of “life for life,” seems more persuasive than the premise that the sacrifice was understood as a substitute for the life of the victim. See E. Larson, M.R. Lehmann, and L.H. Schiffman, “251. 4QHalakha A,” in Qumran Cave 4.XXV: Halakhic Texts (ed. J.M. Baumgarten et al.; DJD 35; Oxford, 1999), 25–52, p. 47. 4 In Lev 5:20 ‫ מעל‬is used for wronging another person, but in Qumran usage it regularly denotes violations of the divine covenant, cf. CD 1:3, 15:12–13, 20:23 and 1QH 12:34. The fact

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PART 4: HALAKHIC TOPICS

Torah.” In such instances, three repeated violations were required by Qumran exegetes for a capital indictment. The nominal basis for this leniency was Deut 19:15: ‫על פי שני עדים או על פי שלשה עדים יקום דבר‬, where ‘two’ and ‘three’ were taken to refer, not to the number of witnesses seeing a particular offense, but to the number of times the offense was repeated. This tendentious interpretation hardly fits the literal sense of the passage, but, in my view, reflects a desire to minimize the scope of capital punishment. We may next inquire what would have been the consequences of three violations. Would the offender indeed have been executed by the authority of the community? Such finality, one might suppose, is implied by the phrase, ‫שלם‬ ‫משפטו‬, “his judgment is complete.” We must caution, however, that the same phrase is used in the expulsion ritual at the end of the Damascus Document. There it pertains to anyone who maintains contacts with a sinner who had previously been expelled from the community: ‫והאיש אשר יוכל מהונם ואשר ידרוש שלומו ואשר יאות עמו ונכתב דברו על פני‬ ‫המבקר כחרת ושלים משפטו‬

Anyone who eats from that which belongs to him,5 or who inquires about his welfare, or who derives benefit from him, shall have his action inscribed permanently by the overseer, and his judgment will be complete. 4Q266 11 14–16

It is clear that the expression ‫ ושלים משפטו‬in this context cannot signify a death sentence, which would be inordinately more severe than the expulsion meted out to the sinner with whom he associated. Most probably it means that he, too, would suffer expulsion. If this is the case, it is possible that expulsion may likewise have been the maximum penalty for the threefold violator of a capital prohibition.6 The fact that the latter is designated as ‫ דבר מות‬does not necessarily mean that that ‫ דבר מות‬in this context does not refer to a social crime is further evident from the requirement that the witness who observes it must not report it to the authorities without first chastising the perpetrator in the presence of the supervisor (CD 9:2–6). Such a concern for proper procedure would hardly be appropriate where the safety of the community is threatened. 5 Baumgarten, “266. 4QDamascus Documenta,” DJD 18.76–77. The plural suffix in ‫ מהונם‬is likely to derive from 1QS 5:16, from which the phraseology of the rule was borrowed. 6 For similar doubts about the literal nature of the death penalty in this context see C.M. Murphy, Wealth in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the Qumran Community (Leiden, 2002), 56.

The Avoidance of the Death Penalty in Qumran Law

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the offender was to be executed by the community. I note in this connection that the improper entrance of a parturient still in a state of impurity into the Temple precinct is termed ‫( משפט מות‬4Q266 6 ii 10), but biblical law limits the penalty for defiling the sanctuary to ‫כרת‬, being “cut off” from the congregation (Num 19:20), not execution by its authority. Moreover, for scrupulous exiles from the congregation there may have been a more literal link between expulsion and death. As Josephus observes with regard to expelled Essenes, they often come to “a most miserable end,” for they are still bound by their oaths not to partake of the food of outsiders and face death through starvation ( J.W. 2.143–144). The ban on eating outside food is, as we have seen, likewise documented at Qumran. However, Josephus adds that there was an Essene tendency toward leniency which “has led them in compassion to receive many back in the last stage of exhaustion, deeming that torments which have brought them to the verge of death are a sufficient penalty for their misdoings” (2.144). This particular leniency is so far not documented in Qumran writings. A theological consideration would likewise favor expulsion as the ultimate human penalty. To be expelled from the community, in Qumran terminology, “to be cut off from the midst of all the children of light” ‫ונכרת מתוך כל בני אור‬ (1QS 2:16), was conceptually tantamount to death.7 In this respect the perspective of Qumran may not have been far from that of the rabbis, who viewed ‫כרת‬ as akin to ‫מיתה בידי שמים‬.8 In support of the foregoing approach we note that the avoidance of the death penalty also harmonizes with the quietist fatalism of Qumran theology: ‫לוא אשיב לאיש גמול רע בטוב ארדף גבר כי את אל משפט כול חי‬

I will not requite a person with evil, but pursue man with goodness, for with God is the judgment of all life. 1QS 10:17–18

The firm belief in ultimate divine judgment could well have led the Qumranites, as it did the rabbis, to avoid as much as possible the taking of human life. This is a natural inference from the biblical injunction, “The innocent and the righteous thou shalt not kill, for I will not justify a wicked man” (Exod 23:7); that is, where there is any doubt about the culpability of the accused, the ethical 7 See also CD 20:1–3 where those who transgress the bounds of the law “will be cut off (‫)ויכרתו‬ from the midst of the camp,” when the divine glory becomes manifest. 8 See C. Albeck, Shisha Sidrei Mishnah: Seder Qodashim (Jerusalem, 1959), 243 (in Hebrew).

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option is to refrain from killing him, and rather to leave his fate in the hands of heaven. Another illustration of such ultimate reliance on divine justice may be found in the Qumran catalogue of transgressors (4Q270 2 i–ii).9 This catalogue includes a number of capital crimes, such as necromancy, blasphemy, sodomy, and treason, along with lesser violations of sectarian law. It concludes with the summation, ]‫בם חקק אל להעביר בח[רון אפו‬, “These (sinners) has God ordained to remove in his fie[rce wrath].” The implication is that transgressors, whatever their disposition, were destined ultimately to receive their punishment by divine decree. In support of the foregoing thesis, I would like to cite a fragmentary but very interesting text, which explicates the avoidance of the death penalty as a principle of Qumran jurisprudence. 4Q275 consists of three fragments of seven to eight lines recognized as pertaining to a communal ceremony.10 The first fragment dates the ceremony with the phrase, ‫בחודש השלישי‬, which has led the editor to posit correctly that it describes the order of service for the annual renewal of the covenant. Moreover, I believe we can identify the phrases ‫וענה‬ ‫ ואמר‬and ]‫ עמים וגוים באר[ץ‬with the phraseology of the expulsion ritual at the end of the Damascus Document. In that ritual the priest appointed over the ‫רבים‬ similarly describes Providence as establishing ‫[ עמים למשפחותיהם‬4Q266 11 10]. The second fragment requires the participants in the ceremony, i.e. the ‫רבים‬, to be admonished before the ‫יום המשפט‬, in the [seventh] week ‫והתיסרו‬ ]‫עד השבוע [השביעי‬.11 On this ‫יום המשפט‬, after the counting of seven weeks, the fate of transgressors within the community was to be decided at a general assembly of the ‫רבים‬. The latter were warned to be mindful of the qualities of truthfulness and objectivity required of those who sit in judgment. They must aspire to be ‫[אנש]י אמת ושונאי בצע‬. Moreover, they must be conscious of the value of human life.12 Lest they incline toward excessive harshness in punishment, they were made to “solemnly promise not to put any man to death,” ‫[ונ]דרו לא להמית איש‬. This is a remarkable promise. As it stands, it appears to be an unqualified rejection of any death penalty, regardless of the guilt of the accused. True, the 9 10 11 12

Baumgarten, “270. 4QDamascus Documente,” DJD 18.137–68 (142–46). “275. 4QCommunal Ceremony,” ed. P.S. Alexander and G. Vermes, in eidem, Qumran Cave 4.XIX: Serekh Ha-Yaḥad and Two Related Texts (DJD 26; Oxford, 1998), 209–16. The admonishment of the ‫ רבים‬here before a capital trial may be compared with the admonition (‫ )איום‬given the witnesses about the unique value of human life in m. Sanh. 4:5. The fact that the Qumranites did not fully accept the principle of ‫פקוח נפש‬, as evidenced by CD 11:16–17, does not reflect a lack of concern for human life, but rather their stringent regard for the sacredness of the Sabbath.

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extant text breaks off after ‫ איש‬and it may conceivably have been followed by some modifier, such as ‫ נקי‬or ‫צדיק‬, which are found in Exod 23:7. Yet, even if such were its original text, we have in 4Q275 a noteworthy affirmation of the judicial principle of presumed innocence and an emphatic limitation of capital punishment. Finally, the hypothesis that the death penalty was not imposed for violations of capital religious laws in the Qumran community may be compared with what Josephus reports of the Essenes. That capital punishment for biblical offenses was in principle accepted by the Essenes may be inferred from the example of blasphemy, which according to Josephus was punishable by death. The same penalty was indeed extended by the Essenes from blasphemy of the divine name to that of Moses ( J.W. 2.145). Yet, Josephus also reports, “those who are convicted of serious crimes they expel from the order” (2.143). Would not blasphemy be included in the category of “serious crimes,” or is one to assume that this was the only offense for which the death sentence was actually carried out? According to the Qumran penal code blasphemy was punishable by expulsion, just like other serious sins of apostasy (1QS 7:1–2). Josephus states further “they (the Essenes) are just and scrupulously careful in their trial of cases, never passing sentence in a court of less than a hundred members” (2.145). This unusually large quorum for a judicial body is most probably to be identified with the Qumran ‫מושב הרבים‬, which gathered once a year to renew the communal covenant. The ceremonies included a ritual for the expulsion of sinners, which appears to have been the most severe penalty imposed by the community. According to Josephus the sentences of the Essene court were irrevocable (2.145), which need hardly be said in the case of an actual execution. However, as noted above, when the one who was expelled was too close to starvation, his being “on the verge of death” was deemed to be a sufficient fulfillment of the sentence (2.144). Thus, the comparison of Qumran criminal law with that of the Essenes yields three common elements: a. Both groups accepted the biblical death penalties in principle, as illustrated by desecration of the Sabbath and blasphemy. Yet, they had moral scruples about taking a human life, ‫להמית איש‬. b. In practice the most severe penalty imposed by both groups for serious infractions appears to have been expulsion. c. The sentence of expulsion required the approval of a large gathering of the members of the community, and was described as irrevocable, in Qumran phraseology, ‫ולוא ישוב עוד‬. Yet, the Essenes often relented and allowed those facing death through starvation to come back. Here, again, the concern for the preservation of human life appears to have played an important role.

Chapter 23

Qumran and the Halakhah in the Aramaic Targumim As* one who lacks credentials in the field of targumic studies, I can only assume that the invitation extended to me to make a judgment on the subject of Qumran and the Aramaic Bible translations is in line with the procedure for determining the acceptability of an illegible letter in a ‫ספר תורה‬. One locates an unsophisticated child, neither ‫ טיפש‬nor ‫חכם‬, and having covered what precedes and what follows, one asks him to identify the questionable letter. There appears to be an abundance of unsettled questions in contemporary targumic research, a condition which should make a wandering Qumranite feel right at home. While such intensely debated issues as the antiquity of the extant ‫ תרגומי ארץ ישראל‬are not likely to be definitively settled on the basis of current developments in Qumran studies, I think it would be safe to say that the genre of Aramaic targum per se is now recognized to be of ‫ בית שני‬vintage. This pertains both to the literal type of translation exemplified by the targum fragments to Leviticus and Job and the radically expansive recasting of biblical narrative found in the Genesis Apocryphon. We may note in passing that the latter is thought by some to have embedded in it a literal targum whose phraseology bears comparison with the extant targumim of Genesis. For one whose concern has been especially with the ramifications of the Qumran sources in the sphere of halakhah, the targumim so far published have not yielded any material of major exegetical significance. However, we would venture to guess that just as there were preserved at Qumran interpretive paraphrases of pentateuchal laws in Hebrew—the Temple Scroll being one prominent example—so were there likely to have been Aramaic targumim with halakhic elaborations corresponding to the aggadic kind already known. Should this conjecture be confirmed, it may perhaps lead to the reevaluation of certain halakhic dicta which rabbinic tradition has preserved in Aramaic formulation. We have, for example, the three testimonies of Yose b. Yoʿezer, a sage of the second century BCE, recorded in m. ʿEduyyot 8:4: ‫העיד … על איל קמצא‬ * Original publication: “Qumran and the Halakha in the Aramaic Targumim,” in Proceedings of the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies, 1985, Panel Sessions—Bible Studies and Ancient Near East (Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1988), 45–60. Republished with the generous permission of the World Union of Jewish Studies.

© Joseph M. Baumgarten, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004505087_025

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‫ ודיקרב במיתא מסתאב‬,‫ ועל משקה בית מטבחיא דאנון דכין‬,‫“ דכי‬He testified that a certain type of grasshopper was kosher, and that the liquids coming from the [Temple] slaughter area were ritually clean, and that he who touches a corpse is defiled.” These are as far as I know the only ‫ עדויות‬preserved in Aramaic. Some of the terminology of the first two is found in the targumim, such as the terms ‫ קמצא‬and ‫בית מטבחיא‬. The third testimony about defilement through touching a corpse was already a crux in the talmudic period. It was supposedly, like the others, a lenient ruling which earned Yose the epithet, “the permissive one” [m. ʿEduyyot, ibid.], yet it merely restates the well-known rule about corpse defilement. We note that its phraseology conforms closely to that of Targum Neofiti to Num 19:11: ‫כל דיקרב במית … יהוי מסאב שבעה יומין‬. We suspect that the significance of this testimony lies in the word ‫מיתא‬. We have elsewhere suggested that the intent may have been to exclude limbs severed from a still living person from defilement, a view affirmed in the Temple Scroll.1 Yet, it is equally possible that the term comes to exclude ritual impurity before death has actually occurred, as long as there is still residual vitality in the limbs. This subject is elaborated in Sifre to this very passage, Num 19:11. In the light of the now-known existence of targumim from this period, it seems entirely possible that Yose’s testimony derives from the wording of a targum to this or a related passage. But enough of possibilities; let us now turn to what can be determined concerning the relationship of the known targumim to Qumran exegesis. The discovery of affinities between Qumran and targumic exegesis is an enterprise which began almost with the first scholarly awareness of the Scrolls. To recount it here in anything essaying completeness would be both tedious and unnecessary, ‫תנא כי רוכלא ליתני וליזיל‬. Moreover, it is our purpose to focus primarily on contacts in the sphere of halakhah. These can be conveniently divided into four categories: A. Targumic exegesis compatible with rabbinic halakhah and also found at Qumran. B. Targumic exegesis compatible with rabbinic halakhah, but contrasting with that at Qumran. C. Targumic exegesis conflicting with both rabbinic sources and Qumran. D. Targumic exegesis conflicting with rabbinic sources, but paralleled at Qumran.

1 [“The Pharisaic–Sadducean Controversies about Purity and the Qumran Texts,” JJS 31 (1980): 157–70 (161 n. 17) (included in this volume)].

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We may illustrate each of these categories, bearing in mind that at the present stage of publication of the Scrolls, no exhaustive inventory can as yet be undertaken. A. Concerning the first class, the fact that exegetical traditions found in the targumim as well as in rabbinic midrashim may have a history of development stretching back as far as the middle of the Second Temple period has been effectively demonstrated in the work of Geza Vermes.2 One need only recall, for example, his finding that the homiletic tradition identifying ‫ לבנון‬with the Temple can be traced from the Qumran writings to tannaitic and patristic homilies.3 We should like to cite some halakhic illustrations: 1. Targum Ps.-Jonathan (Tg. Ps.-J.) to Exod 16:29 interprets the injunction not to go out from one’s place on the Sabbath in the sense of not going beyond the ‫ תחום‬of 2,000 cubits. In the Damascus Document 11:6 this limit already appears, but along with a shorter limit of only 1,000 cubits (10:21). The ambiguity stems from the twofold indication concerning the extent of the open area surrounding the Levitical cities in Numbers 35 [vv. 4–5], the very source which for the rabbis, too, served as the basis for a ‫ גזרה שווה‬used to derive the Sabbath limit (b. ʿErub. 51a). 2. The targumim to Deut 21:12 present variant interpretations of the cosmetic instructions pertaining to the captive woman, ‫ועשתה את צפרניה‬. Targum Onkelos (TO) takes it to mean that she is to let her nails grow, in accordance with the view of R. Akiba in Sifre [ad loc.], while Tg. Ps.-J. and Targum Neofiti render ‫“ ותיצמי‬and you shall trim,” which accords not only with R. Eliezer, but, as Yadin has observed, with the second person formulation of 11QTemple 63:12: ‫ועשיתה את צפורניה‬, addressed to the husband. 3. The charge in Micah 7:2 ‫“ איש את אחיהו יצודו חרם‬each man hunts his fellow with a net” is rendered by Tg. Ps.-J. to mean that they deliver their brothers to destruction: ‫גבר ית אחוהי מסרין לגמירא‬. In the Damascus Document we find two applications of the passage. The first (CD 16:14–15), taking the word ‫ חרם‬in the sense of a votive offering, forbids the consecration of one’s food in a way which might cause others to inadvertently transgress. The second, like the Targum, takes ‫ חרם‬to mean destruction, and formulates the following rule pertaining to the informer: ‫“ כל אדם אשר יחרים אדם מאדם בחוקי הגוים להמית הוא‬Every man who vows another to destruction by the laws of the Gentiles shall himself be put to death” (CD 9:1). 2 G. Vermes, Scripture and Tradition in Judaism (Leiden, 1961). 3 [“Lebanon: The Historical Development of an Exegetical Tradition,” in ibid., 26–39.]

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287

4. The final illustration for this category is not halakhic but serves to show how two textual variants of ancient origin were preserved in the conflated interpretation of Tg. Ps.-J. Deuteronomy 32:8, according to the Masoretic text, tells of how the Lord “set the boundary of the nations” ‫—למספר בני ישראל‬ “according to the number of the children of Israel.” A Qumran fragment preserves the reading ‫למספר בני אלהים‬, likewise reflected in the lxx. Numerically the two readings come to the same thing, since both the original number of the children of Israel and the quorum of the angelic court representing the nations of the world was seventy.4 We thus find the combination of both the earthly and the heavenly models in the rendering of Tg. Ps.-J.: When the Most High gave the world as inheritance to the nations descended from the sons of Noah, when he set aside writings and languages for men in the generation of dispersion, at that time he cast lots with the seventy angels, the princes of the nations, with whom he revealed himself to view the city, and at that time he set up the boundaries of the nations in accordance with the sum of seventy souls of Israel who came down to Egypt. B. We turn now to the second category, targumic exegesis reflecting rabbinic teachings in contrast to those of Qumran. In view of the polemics in the Qumran writings against the ‫דורשי החלקות‬, that is, the contemporary Pharisaic teachers from whom rabbinic tradition derived, we can a priori be assured of an abundance of illustrations. Some characteristic examples will briefly be listed: 1. On the subject of monogamy, the Damascus Document cites, as one of its proof-texts, the injunction concerning the king, “He must not multiply wives unto himself” (Deut 17:17). Tg. Ps.-J., however, undermines this support by inserting the much more liberal mishnaic limit, “no more than eighteen” (m. Sanh. 2:4). 2. The ban on the illegitimates listed in Deuteronomy 23 who may not “enter the congregation of the Lord” was interpreted at Qumran literally to mean that bastards, Ammonites, Moabites, etc., must neither enter the Temple precincts nor be present at communal gatherings. Tg. Ps.-J., however, renders “to enter the congregation” with ‫“ למיסב איתא‬to take a wife,” which is the standard rabbinic interpretation. 4 J.M. Baumgarten, “The Duodecimal Courts of Qumran, Revelation, and the Sanhedrin,” JBL 95 (1976): 59–78 [= idem, Studies, 145–71].

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3. As far as the calendar is concerned, the targumim to Lev 23:15 affirm the Pharisaic interpretation setting the ʿOmer offering “after the first day of Passover.” The Qumran sect set it on the Sunday following the Sabbath after Passover. 4. The chronology of the Flood is based in Jubilees on the solar calendar beginning with the first month in the spring. Tg. Ps.-J., however, bases it on the lunar-solar system with the first month being Tishri (Gen 7:11 etc.). 5. According to the Temple Scroll, the eight days of the inauguration of the Tabernacle and the priesthood coincided with the first eight days of the first month (Nisan), which are thus given a permanent festive character. Tg. Ps.-J. reflects rabbinic chronology, which set the last of the inaugural days on the first of Nisan. The two following illustrations are of wider import: 6. The most frequently cited demonstration of ancient materials embedded in Tg. Ps.-J. is the malediction against the enemies of Joḥanan the High Priest inserted in Deut 33:11. We need not enter here into the question whether the Joḥanan intended by the Targum was John Hyrcanus I or the ancestor of Mattathias, who was portrayed in the rabbinic liturgy as the archetypal Hasmonean high priest. What is certain is that the survival of this bit of proHasmonean sentiment can hardly be attributed to any medium affiliated with the Qumran sect. For the latter, the Hasmonean high priests were corrupt usurpers. Rabbinic tradition, on the other hand, even when critical of some Hasmonean policies, retained throughout its reverence for the dynasty as an instrument of Providence. 7. Finally, let us turn to the interpretation of Deut 17:11: ‫על פי התורה אשר יורוך‬ ‫ועל המשפט אשר יאמרו לך‬, a passage central to the authority of the Oral Law. Tg. Ps.-J. offers such standard rabbinic terms as ‫ מימר אורייתא‬and ‫הילכת דינא‬. Targum Neofiti has ‫ גזירת אורייתא‬and ‫סדר דינא‬. In the Temple Scroll, however, we find the following paraphrase: ‫על פי התורה אשר יגידו לכה ועל פי הדבר אשר‬ ‫( יואמרו לכה מספר התורה ויגידו לכה באמת‬11QTemple 56:3–4). The insertion of ‫ מספר התורה‬sounds a polemical note, reminiscent of the Sadducean concept that only documents which were “written and deposited” were to be recognized as authoritative.5

5 B. Qidd. 66a as interpreted by S. Lieberman, Greek and Hellenism in Jewish Palestine (Jerusalem, 1962), 215 [in Hebrew; in English, see: idem, Hellenism in Jewish Palestine (New York, 1950), 85–86. See also Baumgarten’s more extensive discussion of this concept in “Sadducean Elements in Qumran Law,” in The Community of the Renewed Covenant (ed. E. Ulrich and J. VanderKam; Notre Dame, 1993), 27–36 (included in this volume)].

Qumran and the Halakhah in the Aramaic Targumim

289

So much for the contrasts between the rabbinic coloring of the targumim and the sectarian exegesis of Qumran. C. The identification of interpretations which are unique to the targumim is a relatively more difficult task. Given the vast dimensions of rabbinic literature, the assertion that something is not found there involves, even in this era of electronic erudition, something of a risk, and to a lesser extent this applies also to the expanding volume of Qumran sources. One can, however, feel more confident in instances where rabbinic and Qumran sources do point to a certain interpretation of a biblical passage, and this is found to be at variance with that of a targum. One halakhic illustration will have to suffice. Leviticus 7:16 sets a limit of two days for the consumption of the meat of votive offerings: ‫ביום הקריבו את‬ ‫זבחו יאכל וממחרת והנותר ממנו יאכל‬. In Sifra ad loc. and t. Zevaḥim [6:18, ed. Zuckermandel, 489] this is taken to mean that the remnants must be consumed before the evening of the third day. Jubilees 21:10 and 11QTemple 20:12–13 likewise stress that the sacrifices must be eaten before sunset. Tg. Ps.-J., however, renders ‫ והנותר ממנו יאכל‬as follows: ‫ומה דמשתייך מניה יתאכיל בפניא‬. This would seem to allow the consumption of the remnants in the evening, apparently in accord with a system in which night is reckoned with the preceding day. It is curious to note that ‫( מקצת מעשי התורה‬MMT), according to the initial description by Qimron and Strugnell, leans in the other direction, recommending that the priests consume their sacrificial portions by the end of the first day, rather than the second.6 It would thus appear that the interpretation of Lev 7:16 in Tg. Ps.-J. stands uniquely apart from both rabbinic and Qumran parallels. D. We come now to the fourth and final category, the instances where the targumim have preserved exegesis at variance with rabbinic norms but in agreement with Qumran. It will readily be seen that this category is deserving of special attention since it can potentially have a direct bearing on the much debated question of the antiquity of targumic materials. The position of one school of scholarship, going back to Geiger, advocated by Kahle, and represented in our day by the late J. Heinemann, may be summarized in the formula: contra-mishnaic means pre-tannaitic.7 The critics of this school, including 6 [See now E. Qimron and J. Strugnell, Qumran Cave 4, V: Miqṣat Maʿaśe Ha-Torah (DJD 10; Oxford, 1994), 46–47 (B11) and 150–52.] 7 [See J. Heinemann, “Early Halakhah in the Palestinian Targumim,” JJS 25 (1974): 114–22, with references to studies by Geiger, Kahle, Albeck, and other scholars. Note esp. ibid. 121 n. 46—a response to Baumgarten in re crucifixion in the Temple Scroll and the Targum to Ruth 1:17].

290

PART 4: HALAKHIC TOPICS

Hanoch Albeck, maintained that the tradition of peshat exegesis has always allowed a wide latitude of variation from the midrashim utilized by the sages. Deviations from halakhic norms sporadically found in the targumim are therefore no guarantee of antiquity. Without venturing ‫להכניס את ראשי בין ההרים‬, I should like to devote the rest of this paper to a brief discussion of some nonhalakhic interpretations found in the targumim that can be traced back to Qumran, and to a closer look at one pentateuchal chapter, Numbers 19, which is richly elaborated in Tg. Ps.-J. and for which new information is now available from Qumran. The fact that Targum Ruth [1:17] lists ‫“ צליבת קיסא‬hanging on a tree” in place of ‫ חנק‬as one of the four legal forms of execution has already been discussed at length in the scholarly literature. I have in two published papers advocated the view that this refers to hanging rather than crucifixion;8 the latter is repudiated both in rabbinic sources and in the Qumran Pesher Nahum. It is, however, indisputable that the introduction of hanging as a form of execution rather than as a postmortem display of the criminal’s corpse brings this targum into line with the Temple Scroll, where this mode of capital penalty is specified for traitors. In its paraphrase of Deut 21:22, ‫וכי יהיה באיש חטא משפט מות והומת‬ ‫ותלית אתו על עץ‬, the Temple Scroll obtrusively changes the sequence of death and hanging into hanging resulting in death. It has been noted that a similar change of order is found in the Peshitta and in some lxx manuscripts. The possibility that Targum Ruth reflects the ancient use of hanging as a form of execution is therefore not to be ignored. A significant departure of Tg. Ps.-J. from rabbinic halakhah with regard to ‫ערלה‬, the rules concerning the fruit of newly planted trees, has already been noted by Rabbi Menahem Kasher in vol. 35 of his monumental ‫תורה שלמה‬.9 According to Tg. Ps.-J. on Lev 19:24, the fruit of the fourth year requires redemption from the priests before it may be consumed by the owner. Such a ruling is mentioned, but rejected in Sifre on Numbers [5:10]. Both Jub. 7:36 and the Temple Scroll 60:3–4 assign the fourth-year fruit to the priests. Two other deviations concerning ritual purity have likewise been noted by Kasher.10 In its interpretation of Lev 11:36 (‫)אך מעין ובור מקוה מים יהיה טהור‬, Tg. Ps.-J. describes the waters found in the pool as ‫—מיין נבעין‬flowing waters. However, according to m. Miqwa‌ʾot 1:1, even ‫מי גבאים‬, that is waters in a pit 8 9 10

“Does TLH in the Temple Scroll Refer to Crucifixion?” JBL 91 (1972): 472–81 [= Baumgarten, Studies, 172–82]; “Hanging and Treason in Qumran and Roman Law,” Eretz-Israel 16 (1982): 7*–16* [included in this volume]. [M.M. Kasher, Torah Shelemah (New York, 1982), 35:81–84 (in Hebrew).] Kasher, ibid., 79–80.

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291

that lacks the minimal dimensions of a ‫מקוה‬, remain undefiled as long as they are not dipped out of the ground, regardless of whether they are flowing or stationary. Kasher was not able to find any rabbinic source for the discrepancy in the targum. It is therefore pertinent to cite the following rule found in the Damascus Document 10:12: ‫וכל גבא בסלע אשר אין בו די מרעיל איש(?) אשר נגע בו‬ ‫“ הטמא וטמא מימיו כמימי הכלי‬Any rock-pool too shallow to cover a man whose waters are touched by a source of defilement become as unclean as waters contained in a vessel.” According to this rule ‫ מי גבאים‬are susceptible to defilement even while still in the ground. This is also the position of Tg. Ps.-J. The only variation is that the Qumranites considered the size of the pool to be the decisive factor, while the targum took it to be the flowing of the water. We have other indications that Tg. Ps.-J. attached special ritual significance to the use of ‫( מים חיים‬Exod 29:4), “living,” i.e. flowing water. The other deviation from rabbinic norms in the area of purity concerns the principle of ‫הכשר טומאה‬, the role of liquids in making foods susceptible to defilement. Basic to the mishnaic treatment of ‫ מכשירין‬is the concept that, once they have been wetted by liquids, foods are vulnerable to contamination even if they have already dried by the time of contact with a contaminating source. The exegetical basis is in Lev 11:34, 38. The latter verse, however, is rendered in Tg. Ps.-J. as follows: ‫וארום אין מתיהיב מוי על בר זרעא ויפיל מנבילתהון‬ ‫“ עלוי ברוטביה מסאב הוא לכון‬If water is put upon seed and any part of their carcass fall on it while it is wet, it shall be unclean to you.” Again, Kasher has noted the discrepancy but has found no parallel. We now have elaborations in the Temple Scroll on the cleansing of a house from which a corpse has been removed. The Scroll [49:11–12] mandates the scraping of the walls to remove any blotches of oil, wine, or water whose ‫“( לחות‬wetness”) would perpetuate the contamination of the house. In the same context we find the following paraphrase of Lev 11:34: ‫וכול אוכל אשר יוצק עליו מים יטמא כול המושקה יטמא‬ [11QTemple 49:7–8]. Yadin translates: “And any foodstuff upon which water is poured shall be unclean; any ‫ מושקה‬shall be unclean.” He takes ‫ מושקה‬to refer to food which has been wetted by any liquid. Qimron prefers to take it to be a variant of ‫משקה‬, “liquid.”11 One nevertheless gains the impression from the context that this term as well as ‫ יוצק‬were intended to describe wetness still adhering to food or other objects. If so, we would have here a parallel to the ‫ ברוטביה‬inserted by the Targum in v. 38.

11

[In support of his position, Prof. Qimron kindly referred the editors to Z. Ben-Hayyim’s review of Yadin’s edition of the Temple Scroll in Leš 42 (1977/78): 279–80 (in Hebrew).]

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And now for a detailed look at the law of the red heifer as interpreted in Tg. Ps.-J. to Numbers 19.12 It is obvious throughout Tg. Ps.-J. that there is a close relationship, not only in the content of the halakhic comments in the Targum and in Sifre, but in their verbal formulation. The first line may serve as a typical illustration of the dependence: ‫ויסבון לך מאפשרות‬//‫ויקחו—מתרומת הלשכה‬ ‫לישכתא‬. Rabbi Kasher has ventured the opinion that the comments of Sifre are based upon Tg. Ps.-J., the core of which he took to be pre-tannaitic. While this hypothesis may be tenable in a few instances, it is most difficult to defend overall. When, for example, Tg. Ps.-J. [v. 3] requires the red heifer to be taken out ‫“ לחודה‬alone,” the intent of such a requirement becomes comprehensible only after we consult Sifre. Here we are told that it was not allowable to bring along an accompanying extraneous cow to induce the red one to come forth. The instruction in the Targum [v. 6] “to increase the fire in order to add ashes” presupposes the addition of bundles of hyssop specified in Sifre [on v. 5]. [Another case that has potential implications for the relationship of Tg. Ps.-J. to Sifre in this chapter concerns the] minimal age at which a stillbirth becomes a source of ritual defilement, but concerning this the Targum is contradictory. In Tg. Ps.-J. to v. 13, a pregnancy of nine months is specified, while in v. 11 the number before ‫ ירחין‬has fallen out, presumably because it was originally ‫תמניא‬ “eight,” and this was suppressed to harmonize with v. 13. Sifre [on v. 11] consistently includes even fetuses of only eight months. In short, it appears that the editor of Tg. Ps.-J. had before him the comments of Sifre substantially in their present form, though he did not feel bound to follow them in all cases. We should like in this connection to call attention to the illuminating study of Y. Maori on the relationship between Tg. Ps.-J. and the sources of the halakhah.13 Maori observes that there is a salient affinity between this targum and the Mekilta of R. Ishmael, leading him to posit that the targumist utilized the latter as a literary source. In view of the prevalent attribution of Sifre Numbers to the school of R. Ishmael it is not surprising to find a similar dependence of Tg. Ps.-J. to Numbers 19 upon Sifre. What is surprising is the fact that in a number of instances the targumist has departed not

12

13

[The original version of this paper included, in an appendix, a synoptic comparison of Tg. Ps.-J. with the Sifre on various verses in Numbers 19. For a new edition of the Sifre, see M.I. Kahana, Sifre on Numbers: An Annotated Edition (4 vols.; Jerusalem, 2011–2015 (in Hebrew).] Y. Maori, “The Relationship of Targum Pseudo-Jonathan to Halakhic Sources,” Teuda 3 (1983): 235–50 (in Hebrew).

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293

only from Sifre but from generally prevalent halakhic norms.14 In a few cases these deviations now turn out to have precedents at Qumran. In v. 9 Sifre alludes, using a typical formulation, to the possibility of requiring the gathering of the ashes to be performed by a priest rather than a layman ‫שומע אני אף אסיפת האפר תהיה בכהן‬. This is rejected both by Sifre and t. Parah 4:11 but appears in Tg. Ps.-J.: ‫“ ויכנוש גבר כהין דכי‬And let a clean priest gather it.” In this case, however, the position of the targumist is affirmed by 4QMMT, recently described by Strugnell and Qimron.15 The degree of cleanliness of those performing the rites of the red heifer was, as we know from the Mishnah, a bone of contention between the Pharisees and the Zadokites: “They used to defile the priest who burned the heifer because of the ‫צדוקים‬, so they would not say that it must be performed only by those who had waited for the setting of the sun” (m. Parah 3:7). In accord with this we note that Sifre defines the word ‫ טהור‬describing the one who gathers the ashes as ‫“ טמא לתרומה וטהור לחטאת‬impure for tĕrûmâ, but pure for the ritual of cleansing,” i.e. pure to the degree of ‫טבול יום‬. All this is conspicuously absent from Tg. Ps.-J., despite the editor’s undoubted awareness of the comments found in Sifre. But this is not all. As is well known, the red heifer had the paradoxical ability not only to purify the unclean, but also to defile the pure. Verses 7–10 ordain that the persons who sacrifice the heifer, burn it, and gather its ashes must all wash themselves and “remain unclean until evening.” In all three instances where this is indicated, Tg. Ps.-J. inserts the phrase ‫קדם טיבוליה עד רמשה‬, “before his immersion until evening.” What does the explication signify? Prof. A. Goldberg has called my attention to the likelihood that the priests regularly bathed before they ate the tĕrûmâ every evening (m. Ber. 1:1). But why did the targumist underline the timing of the immersion here? We suspect that it indicates the targumist’s uneasiness with the implication of the text that these persons undergo immersion, yet remain unclean. Did not the rabbis assert that the ‫טבול יום‬, who has merely immersed himself but has not yet waited for evening, is already termed ‫טהור‬, if not for tĕrûmâ, then at least as far as ‫ חטאת‬is concerned? The targumist’s way of circumventing this ambiguity about ‫ טבול יום‬was to avoid the subject altogether. By scheduling the immersions just before or at the time of evening 14

15

The Targum on v. 4 insists that the sevenfold sprinkling of the blood be done with one dipping. This is in direct contradiction not only to Sifre, but to m. Parah 3:9 as well: ‫על כל‬ ‫הזיה טבילה‬. I have not been able to locate any parallel, except to note that Sifre is aware of such an exegetical option: ‫שומע אני שבע הזיות וטבילה אחת‬, but consciously rejects it. See E. Qimron and J. Strugnell, “An Unpublished Halakhic Letter from Qumran,” in Biblical Archaeology Today: Proceedings of the International Congress on Biblical Archaeology, Jerusalem April 1984 (Jerusalem, 1985), 400–407 [and DJD 10.48–49 (B14), 153–54].

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(Num 19:13), the status of ‫ טבול יום‬was for all practical purposes eliminated.16 Thus the Tg. Ps.-J. describes the priests who performed the red heifer ritual as “unclean before (their) immersion until evening.” It remains to consider whether this studious avoidance of the controversial subject of ‫ טבול יום‬might be related to the views reflected in the Qumran writings. We have elsewhere had occasion to explore the implications of the salient emphasis on sunset as a requirement for purification in the Temple Scroll, which was already noted by Yigael Yadin.17 It has since then been confirmed that the subject is emphatically treated in the Cave 4 text, ‫מקצת מעשי‬ ‫התורה‬, whose author insists that all priests who take part in the red heifer ritual must await sundown after their purifications.18 It is evident that this sectarian requirement is not only more rigorous than the Pharisaic halakhah, but has the appearance of greater consistency in that it imposes one standard for all involved in the preparation of the red heifer. That it exercised its influence upon the targumist seems therefore a distinct possibility. And now for the third instance of Qumran type-exegesis in the Targum to Numbers 19. Verse 14 deals with the extent of defilement to objects found together with a corpse in a tent. Tg. Ps.-J. declares that not only vessels, but even the floor of the tent, its stones, and its wood become unclean. In Sifre such a ruling is proposed with the familiar ‫ שומע אני‬formula, only to be rejected. The Damascus Document, however, lists three of the materials mentioned in Sifre in the very same order and declares them to be susceptible to defilement: ‫וכל‬ ‫העצים והאבנים והעפר אשר יגואלו בטמאת האדם לגאולי שמן בהם כהם כפי טמאתם‬ ‫( יטמא הנוגע בם‬CD 12:15–16); “And all wood, stones, and earth defiled by human

uncleanliness while having stains of oil upon them, anyone touching them becomes unclean according to their uncleanliness.” We have elsewhere elucidated the role of the oil as a medium of defilement,19 and this has since been confirmed by the Temple Scroll. This scroll also confirms the Damascus Document by requiring [at 49:11–13] the scraping of the floor and the walls of a house in which a corpse had been. In rabbinic halakhah the ground and things attached to it were generally not held to be subject to defilement, though Louis Ginzberg pointed out the heterodox stringency found in Baraita de-Niddah.20 16 17 18 19 20

See B. Revel, The Karaite Halakha (Philadelphia, 1913), 34–35, and the observations of Y. Sussmann cited by Qimron and Strugnell, “An Unpublished Letter,” 404. “The Pharisaic–Sadducean Controversies about Purity,” 159. [See DJD 10.48–49 (B15) and 152–154.] J.M. Baumgarten, “The Essene Avoidance of Oil and the Laws of Purity,” RevQ 6 (1967– 1969): 183–192 [= idem, Studies, 88–97, with addendum]. L. Ginzberg, Eine unbekannte jüdische Sekte (New York, 1922), 115 [English: An Unknown Jewish Sect (New York, 1976), 81].

Qumran and the Halakhah in the Aramaic Targumim

295

Lest anyone be inclined to assume that Tg. Ps.-J. is invariably in accord with Qumran exegesis of Numbers 19, we must take note of its comment in v. 16 which specifically excludes an unborn dead fetus from becoming a source of defilement. In Sifre this opinion is recorded in the name of R. Ishmael, while R. Akiba follows a different line of exegesis. According to b. Ḥullin 72a, R. Akiva considered an unborn dead fetus to be defiling. This approximates the position of the Temple Scroll: ‫ואשה כי תהיה מלאה וימות ילדה במעיה כול הימים אשר הוא‬ ‫( בתוכה מת תטמא כקבר‬11QTemple 50:10–11). We thus find Tg. Ps.-J. in agreement with one tannaitic opinion, while another tannaitic opinion is closer to that followed at Qumran. These observations may serve as important guidelines in evaluating the departures from rabbinic exegesis in the targumim—which, as we have seen, appear in a number of cases to bear the markings of Qumran. We earlier referred to the school of scholarship which tends to view all deviations from mishnaic halakhah in the targumim as tell-tale marks of antiquity. It is inconceivable, these scholars urge, for a post-mishnaic targumist to have ignored the exegesis reflected in normative rabbinic tradition; only if the deviant interpretations were formulated before the crystallization of the halakhah could they have been preserved within the targumic compendia. Yet, we must note, this approach only shifts the problem. For it still leaves unanswered the question how the final editors of the targumim, who without any doubt flourished in the post-talmudic period, allowed heterodox interpretations to remain in their texts. In the specific instance of Tg. Ps.-J. to Numbers 19, it would seem that the editor of the Targum had before him the comments of Sifre, yet he consciously chose to depart from them in several instances, three of which appear to point in the direction of Qumran. The possibility of the survival of ancient sectarian exegesis into the medieval period does not in itself present any insurmountable historical difficulties. It has long been assumed that the emergence of the Karaite movement in the eighth century represents to some degree a revival of Sadducean ideology. Moreover, the modern discovery of the Scrolls has focused attention on earlier manuscript discoveries, echoes of which have been identified in medieval sources.21 However, the prior question which must be posed is whether the Qumrantype interpretations which we find in the targumim are really of a sectarian nature. We have seen with regard to the question of defilement by an unborn fetus that R. Akiba’s position approximates that of the Temple Scroll, while 21

[On both topics, see M. L Grossman, Reading for History in the Damascus Document: A Methodological Study (Leiden, 2002), 212–18).]

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R. Ishmael and Tg. Ps.-J. dispute it. It may be, as Rabbi Kasher has suggested, that there were other ancient disputes about exegetical matters which have not left their traces in the surviving rabbinic sources. The insistence that the gathering of the ashes of the ‫ פרה‬be done by a priest, although found at Qumran, is not a priori a matter of sectarian import. The subject of ‫טבול יום‬, on the other hand, was at the center of sectarian controversy, and was apparently avoided by Tg. Ps.-J. The susceptibility of the ground to defilement by the dead is a stringency which could readily have been entertained outside the sphere of Qumran. In sum, there exists a possibility that the targumim have preserved prerabbinic halakhic opinions which happen to coincide with Qumran exegesis, but were not necessarily exclusively sectarian in origin. This possibility has to be weighed against the alternative that the editors of the targumim had access to sources of ancient sectarian interpretations, but did not identify them as such and were therefore willing to use them eclectically when they appeared to approximate the ‫ פשט‬better than the available midrashim. If the foregoing presentation strikes some as overly noncommittal, I must conclude by pleading that it is the product of only an initial exploration of what is for me still largely unmapped territory. It is to be hoped that scholars in the field of targumic studies, and particularly the research group to be assembled next year in Jerusalem as a result of the initiative of Prof. Goshen-Gottstein,22 will make their contribution toward the better evaluation of the Qumran finds for the discipline of targum study. 22

[The reference is to the 1985/86 “Targum and Cognate Studies” research group at the Institute (now: Israel Institute) for Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.]

Chapter 24

Some “Qumranic” Observations on the Aramaic Levi Document Among* Professor Moshe Weinfeld’s multifarious contributions to Qumran research, his studies of the links between Qumran prayers and the later rabbinic liturgy are widely recognized to be of abiding value. It seems appropriate on the occasion of this Festschrift to look from the Qumran perspective in the other direction, in order to determine whether purification practices associated with prayer and priestly “halakhah” preserved at Qumran might throw light on some aspects of the substantially earlier Aramaic Levi Document (ALD). The prayer of Levi that is part of ALD has recently received a measure of scholarly attention, primarily as a result of the valuable restoration of its text by Michael Stone and the late Jonas C. Greenfield. This restoration was based on the Aramaic fragment 4QTLevia, estimated to come from the third century BCE, and the eleventh-century Greek MS Athos, which has the prayer interpolated in the Testament of Levi.1 For the purpose of the following phenomenological comments, which do not pertain to the unresolved literary issues concerning the placement of the prayer within the Testament of Levi, it will suffice to cite the first ten lines of Stone and Greenfield’s translation:2 1.

Then I laundered my garments, and having purified them with pure water,

* Original publication: “Some ‘Qumranic’ Observations on the Aramaic Levi Document,” in Sefer Moshe—The Moshe Weinfeld Jubilee Volume: Studies in the Bible and the Ancient Near East, Qumran and Post-Biblical Judaism (ed. C. Cohen, A. Hurvitz, and S.M. Paul; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2004), 393–401. Republished with the generous permission of Penn State University Press (University Park, PA), publisher of the Eisenbrauns imprint. 1 See J.C. Greenfield and M.E. Stone, “Two Notes on the Aramaic Levi Document,” in Of Scribes and Scrolls: Studies on the Hebrew Bible, Intertestamental Judaism, and Christian Origins, Presented to John Strugnell on the Occasion of His Sixtieth Birthday (ed. H.W. Attridge, J.J. Collins, and T.H. Tobin; Lanham, Maryland, 1991), 153–61; Stone and Greenfield, “The Prayer of Levi,” JBL 112 (1993): 247–66. 2 The reconstructed translation of 4QLevib ar was also attached to Stone and Greenfield’s publication of 4Q213a (“4Q213a. 4QLevib ar”) in Qumran Cave 4.XVII: Parabiblical Texts, Part 3 (ed. G.J. Brooke et al.; DJD 22; Oxford, 1996), 25–36 (31–32). Italics represent Aramaic wording preserved in 4QTLevia.

© Joseph M. Baumgarten, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004505087_026

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2.

I also [washed] my whole self in living water, and I made all my paths upright. 3. Then I lifted up my eyes and my countenance to heaven, and I opened my mouth and spoke. 4. And I stretched out the fingers of my hands and my hands [ ] for truth over against (towards) the holy ones, 5. And I prayed and said, O Lord, you know all hearts, And you alone understand all the thoughts of minds. 6. And now my children are with me, And grant me all the paths of truth. 7. Make far from me, O Lord, the unrighteous spirit, and evil thought and fornication, and turn pride away from me. 8. Let there be shown to me, O Lord, the holy spirit, and counsel, and wisdom and knowledge and grant me strength, 9. in order to do that which is pleasing to you and find favor before you, and to praise your words with me, O Lord…. And that which is pleasant and good before you. 10. And let not any satan have power over me, to make me stray from your path.

1

Immersion before Prayer

In the course of my effort to elucidate the Qumran purification liturgies and their implications for the spiritual aspect of ritual purity, my attention was drawn to the placement of the blessings recited at Qumran after immersion and the apparently similar placement of the prayer of Levi. The blessings are addressed to God, who prescribes true purity for his people, and express gratitude for his salvation of him who prays from the defilement of the flesh. The prayer, too, makes use of dualistic terminology. There is, however, an obvious distinction in function: the content of the blessings is directly concerned with the ritual of purification. The blessings follow rather than precede the immersion because, as I have suggested elsewhere, ritual purity was a prerequisite for their recital.3 The prayer of Levi, on the other hand, does not specifically concern purification, but is an inaugural priestly plea for divine favor.

3 J. Baumgarten, “The Purification Rituals in DJD 7,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Forty Years of Research (ed. D. Dimant and U. Rappaport; Leiden, 1992), 199–209. [Note also the author’s “The Purification Liturgies,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls after Fifty Years: A Comprehensive

SOME “ QUMRANIC ” OBSERVATIONS ON THE ARAMAIC LEVI DOCUMENT

299

Levi immersed himself in “living water.” Leviticus 15:13 requires this only for the purification of a zab after a genital discharge. However, we may infer that at Qumran other immersions also were performed in natural water, rather than pools. Note the listing of “sanctification in seas and rivers” in the Rule of the Community (1QS 3:4–5) among different forms of purification, including purgation, sprinkling water, and waters of ablution, all deemed to be of no value for those who spurn the communal covenant. Moreover, immersion in a flowing spring as a prelude to prayer is illustrated by Judith 12:7 and is likewise reflected in Sib. Or. 4:165, which calls upon penitents to wash their whole bodies “in perennial rivers” before stretching out their hands to heaven. The premise that sin and impurity were obstacles to the recitation of prayer is clearly articulated in the Life of Adam and Eve 6:2, where Eve is told, “Let no speech come out of your mouth, because we are unworthy to entreat the Lord since our lips are unclean from the illegal and forbidden tree.”4 I have consequently edited 4Q274 1 i 1, which in my opinion pertains to a zab, with the restoration of the negative, “[Let him not] begin to cast forth his prayer; in a bed of sorrow shall he lie and in a seat of sighing shall he sit.”5 This accords with the indications in 4Q512 that the unclean may recite blessings only after their purification. Further support for this premise is found in 4Q284 3 3, where the introductory formula for blessings, ‫וענה ואמר ברוך‬, follows immediately after the purification with sprinkling water.6 The Mishnah presents the requirement of immersion before prayer after a seminal effusion as a long-established practice. Some rabbis found biblical support for purification before Torah study in the preparations for the Sinaitic revelation (Exod 19:10, 14–15), while others attributed the requirement of prior washing to an enactment of Ezra. The requirement was later relaxed by rabbinic authorities who held that words of Torah were immune to defilement.7 The even more scrupulous practice of the ‫טובלי שחרית‬, who required routine daily immersion before their morning prayers, was already rejected by the Pharisees as a supererogatory practice (t. Yad. 2:20). From Josephus’s account

4 5 6 7

Assessment (ed. P.W. Flint and J.C. VanderKam; 2 vols.; Leiden, 1998–1999), 2:200–212, included in this volume.] M.D. Johnson’s translation in OTP 2:260. J. Baumgarten, “274. 4QTohorot A,” in Qumran Cave 4.XXV: Halakhic Texts (ed. J. Baumgarten et al.; DJD 35; Oxford, 1999), 99–109 (100–102). Idem, “274–278. 4QTohorot A–C” [Introduction],” DJD 35.79–97 (92–96). See also 4Q414 frags. 2, 11, and 13, edited by E. Eshel (“414. 4QRitual of Purification,” DJD 35.135–154 (141–47), where the blessings come after immersion. M. Ber. 3:4–5; b. Ber. 22a. For a survey of the rabbinic sources concerning purification before prayer and study, see G. Alon, Studies in Jewish History (2 vols.; Tel Aviv, 1967), 1.149–56 (in Hebrew) [English: idem, Jews, Judaism and the Classical World (Jerusalem, 1977), 191–203].

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of the Essenes, it appears that they recited their sunrise prayer without the immersion required before their daily meals ( J.W. 2.128–129), thus apparently also differing from the Hemerobaptists. However, this Essene leniency would not very likely have applied after a known seminal defilement, which according to Temple Scroll 45:7–12 resulted in a three-day exclusion from the city of the sanctuary. From the now available 4Q purity texts, it seems probable that after sexual defilement the recitation of prayer would have been restricted at Qumran, at least until after an initial lustration.8 In the light of the foregoing, it is appropriate to reevaluate the current scholarly opinions about the purpose of the immersion that precedes the prayer of Levi. Stone and Greenfield doubt whether the purification preceding Levi’s prayer in its present context was actually related to it. They prefer to believe that it may originally have been the end of some no longer extant priestly ceremony, such as that associated with the investiture of the Levites in Num 8:21. Aside from literary uncertainties about the placement of the prayer and the vision that follows it, they maintain that the laundering of garments and washing of the body, actions typical of levitical purity, do not occur anywhere else preceding a prayer or an apocalyptic vision. However, in view of the aforementioned purity texts from Qumran and the Second Temple sources, I doubt whether this general judgment can now be made with such finality. In fact, Stone and Greenfield already considered the possibility that there may have been a conceptual transfer of levitical purity to the context of prayer. Robert Kugler is convinced that the ablution and the prayer do belong together. His literary analysis leads him to hypothesize that this pericope belongs after the Shechem incident. Hence, the need for ablution would stem from corpse contamination after the slaughter of the Shechemites.9 However, Levi’s ablution in 4QTLevia consists of his immersion in living water. There is no mention of the sprinkling water, which according to Numbers 19 was essential for the removal of corpse contamination. Yet, Kugler’s cogent analysis of the prayer does illuminate its dualistic perspective and its emphasis on purity, which links it with the preceding purification. In a paper on heavenly ascents in the Dead Sea Scrolls, James Davila suggests that Levi’s immersion may have had another purpose. It may have been preparatory for the visionary experience that is alluded to in the fragmentary text that follows Levi’s prayer. He notes that ablutions before heavenly ascents 8 J. Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16 (New York, 1991), 927 interprets CD 11:21–22 as restricting prayer after a seminal emission without washing, but the identification of the “house of prostration” in CD as a synagogue is uncertain. 9 R. Kugler, From Patriarch to Priest: The Levi-Priestly Tradition from Aramaic Levi to Testament of Levi (Atlanta, 1996), 68–77.

SOME “ QUMRANIC ” OBSERVATIONS ON THE ARAMAIC LEVI DOCUMENT

301

are known from the medieval Hekhalot literature.10 This suggestion is complicated by the fact that in 4QTLevia the vision does not immediately follow the prayer. There is an intervening reference to Levi’s journey to the place of his father, Jacob, where he lay down and was then shown a vision. Thus, it seems more plausible to suppose that the purification was in anticipation of the prayer that followed it directly. Since Levi represented the archetypal priesthood, it is pertinent to point out that the priests were required to immerse before performing any Temple ritual, regardless of their pure status.11 This is indeed explicated in Isaac’s cultic instructions to Levi: “When you rise to enter the house of God, bathe in water and then put on the priestly vestments” (Aramaic Levi 18). Although there was as yet no Temple in the patriarchal period, it would be quite appropriate for Levi to purify himself before the prayer that focuses on the future sacerdotal role of his descendants. 2

Emulating the Posture of the Angels in Prayer

We note further that Levi’s immersion is described as the first of a series of actions preparatory for prayer. The following step is depicted by the clause, “and I made all my paths upright” καὶ πάσας τὰς ὁδούς μου ἐποίησα εὐθείας. One may suppose that “making his paths upright” denotes Levi’s effort to repent for all possible errors of the past, apparently in accord with the biblical usage of the verb ‫ ישר‬with ‫ ארח‬or ‫( דרך‬Prov 3:6; 9:15; 11:5). If so, we would have here an early illustration of the nexus between physical purification and moral cleansing that was to become one of the salient characteristics of Qumran theology. The fact that Levi’s penitence follows rather than precedes his immersion, as specified in the Qumran communal rule [1QS 2:26–3:9], would not, in my estimation, constitute a decisive objection. It seems odd, however, that the successful accomplishment of the weighty task of correcting all of one’s moral errors should be asserted by Levi with such confident self-assurance. Moreover, the straightening of his paths is described in the context of his assuming the posture for prayer, which leads us to propose an alternative hypothesis. In the sequel to the straightening of his paths, Levi lifts up his eyes and his countenance to heaven. He stretches out his fingers and his hands “over against (toward) the holy ones” κατέναντι τῶν ἁγίων. Aramaic Levi 18 commands Levi: ‫קריב אנת ל[אל] וקריב לכל קדישוהי‬. Stone and Greenfield note that τῶν ἁγίων 10 11

J.R. Davila, “Heavenly Ascents in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls after Fifty Years, 2:461–85 (466–69). See m. Yoma 3:3, ‫אין אדם נכנס לעזרה לעבודה אפילו טהור עד שיטבול‬.

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PART 4: HALAKHIC TOPICS

reflects a Semitic form like ‫ קדישין‬or ‫קודשין‬, but they conclude that the sense of “holy ones” remains enigmatic.12 I believe that Kugler is on safe ground in taking them to be angels.13 He observes that the setting is reminiscent of Zech 3:1–10, where the high priest Joshua stands in the company of the angels to be cleansed in order to fulfill his cultic role. Note further the plea that “no satan have power over me” (line 10), which brings to mind the rebuke of Satan in Zech 3:2–3. Levi’s service in the Temple is likened to that of “the angels and the holy ones” in Jub. 31:14 and in Pirqe R. El. 37.14 I would therefore suggest that Levi’s plea that he may exclusively follow “the paths of righteousness” [or “of truth,” as above] (line 6) and not stray from his divinely assigned path (line 10) may be in emulation of one of the physical characteristics ascribed to the angels. The angels, whose feet are straight, go forward in the direction assigned by the spirit; they do not turn as they walk (Ezek 1:7–12). In Qumran theology this uprightness in direction was granted to chosen mortals by the spirit of light: “to make straight before him all the paths of righteousness” ‫לישר לפניו כול דרכי צדק‬ (1QS 4:2). It seems plausible to suppose that such steadfastness can be symbolically represented by the posture and the steps assumed by the suppliant in prayer. As Levi is about to lift up his eyes and his hands toward heaven, he first straightens the steps of his feet, thereby simulating the unswerving paths of the holy angels. In support of this hypothesis, we note that such a practice may be discerned in biblical and rabbinic prayer. The formalized steps taken by the worshiper as he approaches for prayer are already adumbrated in biblical usage by the verb ‫נגש‬.15 The three steps preceding the standing Amidah prayer, first specified in early medieval sources, derive from this paradigm.16 Of further relevance to our hypothesis is the talmudic discussion in y. Ber. 1:1 of the reason for keeping one’s feet aligned during the standing prayer [Amidah]. One opinion holds that it is in imitation of the angels (Ezek 1:7); another says that it derives from the formal gait of the priests in the Temple. Either alternative would make plausible Levi’s “straightening of his paths” as a prelude to prayer.17 12 13 14 15 16 17

Stone and Greenfield, “The Prayer of Levi,” 261. Kugler, From Patriarch to Priest, 73. These passages, noted by James Kugel, are cited by A. Aschim, “Melchizedek and Levi,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls Fifty Years after Their Discovery: Proceedings of the Jerusalem Congress, July 20–25, 1997 (ed. L.H. Schiffman, E. Tov, and J.C. VanderKam; Jerusalem, 2000), 773–88. Gen 18:23; 1 Kgs 18:36; Isa 29:13. From this use of ‫ נגש‬derives the midrashic identification of ‫ גישה‬with ‫( תפלה‬Gen. Rab. 49:8 and parallels). See ‫ רוקח‬cited by R. Moses Isserles in Shulḥan ʿArukh, ʾOraḥ Ḥayyim 95:1. See the Eretz Yisrael compendium from the Genizah where the two opinions in the Yerushalmi are cited in support of the practice of directing one’s prayer straight forward toward the Temple. This is preceded by the reference to washing before prayer, for which

SOME “ QUMRANIC ” OBSERVATIONS ON THE ARAMAIC LEVI DOCUMENT

303

I would, therefore, propose to take both Levi’s immersion and the posture he assumed for prayer as devotional practices already associated with worship, whether terrestrial or celestial, in the Second Temple period. 3

4Q213a Fragments 3–4

The placement and context of this fragment is problematic. Yet there is enough text, as Kugler puts it, “to allow considerable speculation as to its original content.”18 The following is Greenfield and Stone’s translation of the portions of seven lines that are extant: 1.] 2.]he beswore us and[ ] [ ] men 3.]a wife and she desecrated her name and the name of her father 4.] with [ ] shame and every 5.] who profaned her name and the name of her ancestors, and shamed all her brothers. 6.] her father; and the name of the righteous will not be wiped out from all her people for ever. 7.] for all generations of eternity and [ ] the holy ones from the people 8.] holy tithe a sacrifice for teaching (?)19 The editors suggest that lines 1–5 deal with the Dinah story, which is a major topic in the Testament of Levi. However, the latter characterizes the defilement of Dinah as a violent crime for which the Shechemites deserved the vengeance wreaked upon them by her brothers (T. Levi 5:3–5). Jubilees 30:2 exonerates Dinah by depicting her as a little girl “snatched away” by Shechem. By contrast, this fragment puts the blame for desecrating the name of her father and her family solely upon the woman involved in some unspecified disgraceful act. The terminology used in line 3, ‫ותחלל שמה ושם אבוה‬, derives from Lev 21:9, which deals with the daughter of a priest who engages in harlotry. Her sin is not only a capital offense, but is said to profane her father, ‫את אביה היא מחללת‬. Some rabbinic interpreters understood this loosely in the sense of his disgrace in the eyes of the public. Qumran exegetes, as I have observed elsewhere in my comments on 4Q513 2 ii, regarded the daughter’s promiscuity as a permanent

18 19

purpose “basins with living water” were set up in the courtyards of synagogues. See M. Margaliot, Hilkhot ʾEretz Yisra‌ʾel min ha-Genizah (Jerusalem, 1973), 132. Kugler, From Patriarch to Priest, 83. Stone and Greenfield, “4QLevib,” DJD 22.34.

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stain on the family and a sufficient cause for the suspension of its priestly privileges.20 The priests of the family were no longer seen as fit to receive heave offerings, [‫( ל[הא]כילם מכול תרומת ה‬4Q513 2 ii 3). This, in my opinion, is likewise the central theme of frags. 3–4. The daughter of a priest who plays the harlot or consorts with foreigners not only profanes her father and her brothers, but stains the name of her family for all generations and makes its members ineligible to receive the priestly emoluments. Consequently, line 8, ] [‫מעשר קודש קרבן לאל‬, may be a reference to the levitical tithe to which the family is no longer entitled. With regard to line 6, the editors’ reading ‫ שם חסיה‬appears most likely to be correct. Yet I find it difficult to accept their proposed translation “name of the righteous.” The assumption that ‫חסיה‬, as a semantic equivalent of Hebrew ‫חסד‬, is to be understood in a positive sense involves an abrupt shift of subject from the profaned name of the harlot’s family to the abiding name of the righteous Levitical line. Kugler avoids this difficulty by reading ‫“ חסדה‬her revilement” (from ‫“ חסדא‬shame”),21 but the editors maintain that the extant traces support the reading ‫חסיה‬. An alternative possibility, that ‫חסיה‬, like Hebrew ‫חסד‬, had a negative as well as positive connotation, is deserving of consideration. Tg. Neof. and Tg. Ps.-J. to Gen 41:3 and 19 render ‫“ דקות‬scrawny” with ‫ ;חסיין‬compare Tg. Neof. to Gen 16:5, where ‫ מחוסי‬has the sense of “my insult.” A. Kohut’s Arukh Completum s.v. ‫חסא‬, and J. Levy’s Chaldäisches Wörterbuch über die Targumim und einen grossen Theil des rabbinischen Schriftthums s.v. ‫ חסא‬cite a variant text of the targum to 1 Sam 1:6, where ‫ ומחסא לה‬connotes “reviling her.”22 Accordingly, I would prefer to translate ‫ולא מתמחא שם חסיה מן כול עמהא‬ ‫ לעלם‬in the negative sense proposed by Kugler, “and her disgraced name will not be wiped off from all her people forever.” 20 21 22

J. Baumgarten, “Halakhic Polemics in New Fragments from Qumran Cave 4,” in Biblical Archaeology Today: Proceedings of the International Congress on Biblical Archaeology, Jerusalem April 1984 (Jerusalem, 1985), 390–99 [included in this volume]. Kugler, From Patriarch to Priest, 77–79. Cf. M. Jastrow, Dictionary of the Targumim … (2 vols.; New York, 1950), 1.487, s.v. ‫חסי‬. I am obliged to Prof. M. Sokoloff for reviewing the cited entries of the dictionaries, which, he cautions, may require critical review. [The editors are grateful to Prof. Sokoloff, who pointed out the current consensus that, in fact, ‫ חסדה‬should be read, as Kugler suggested. That supports Baumgarten’s interpretation of the text but makes the discussion of ‫ חסא‬superfluous. See E.M. Cook, Dictionary of Qumran Aramaic (Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 2015), 88, s.v. “‫חסד‬, n. m. reproach.”]

Part 5 Theology and Apocalypticism

⸪

Chapter 25

Theological Elements in the Formulation of Qumran Law In* the early stages of Qumran research, scholarly interest in religious law (“halakhah”) was markedly limited.1 Even when it was recognized that the socalled Damascus Document (CD) from the Genizah stemmed originally from the Qumran community, doubts were expressed whether this held also for the law code, which constitutes a considerable part of the medieval text published and commented on by Schechter and elaborately re-evaluated by Ginzberg. After the discovery of the Scrolls, the major focus of interest was on the theological tenets set forth in catechismal fashion in the Rule of the Community (1QS). This work does contain rules of discipline, but hardly any Torah-based “halakhah.” The admonition which precedes the law code in CD was of modern interest mainly for its allusions to biblical and sectarian history, not its critique of prevalent violations of religious law. In England some editions of the Damascus Document omitted the law code altogether.2 The fact that religious law is now granted to have been a major concern of the Qumran community can be attributed to the noteworthy sequence of nomistic texts that belatedly became available in the latter phases of Scrolls publication. We need only enumerate the parapentateuchal Temple Scroll, the remarkable epistle about purity law known as ‫( מקצת מעשי התורה‬MMT), and the Cave 4 “halakhic” texts, which include significant portions of the CD law code. The medieval Genizah manuscripts, it now turns out, preserve a substantially reliable text of some, but not all, of the laws advocated by the Qumran legists a millennium earlier.

* Original publication: “Theological Elements in the Formulation of Qumran Law,” in Emanuel: Studies in the Hebrew Bible, Septuagint and Dead Sea Scrolls in Honor of Emanuel Tov (ed. S.M. Paul et al.; VTSup 94; Leiden: Brill, 2003), 33–41. Reprinted with the kind permission of Brill Academic Publishers. 1 This paper is dedicated with sincere ‫ הכרת הטוב‬to Emanuel, whose balanced appreciation of both halakhah and theology has brought the publication of the Scrolls to fruition. An earlier form of this paper was presented on October 11, 2001, to the Qumran research group at the Institute of Advance Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. 2 [See, for example, P.R. Davies, The Damascus Covenant: An Interpretation of the “Damascus Document” (Sheffield, 1983).]

© Joseph M. Baumgarten, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004505087_027

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The unexpected abundance of halakhic fragments has led some scholars to the hypothesis that halakhic rather than theological issues were the decisive factors in the formation of Second Temple sectarian movements. I am inclined to a more moderate approach which seeks to explore both ideological and legal differences among Jewish movements of that period. This seems to me to be in accord with the portrayal of Josephus and the recollections preserved in rabbinic sources. I have maintained that the Damascus Document ought to be viewed as a legal text, a ‫פרוׁש המשפטים‬, as it is termed in its now available conclusion, introduced by a paraenetic view of biblical and sectarian history which supports the halakhic reforms advocated by the Qumran teachers. In this paper I propose to examine on the textual level five formulations of Qumran “halakhah” that contain theological allusions of significance. 1

4Q251 1–23

Frags. 1–2 (olim frag. 1) [ ‫ח] ̊משה‬ [ 1 [‫ [ ]ות כול‬2 ‫מבור‬ ̇ ‫מים‬ ̇ ‫◦לש[ ] בהמה ולמשוך‬ ̇ ] [ 3 ‫ [ ] המשיכה ש◦[אל] יוצא איש ממקומו כל ̇השבת‬4 ‫הה[וץ ]לו לדרוש ולקרא בספר ב[שב] ̊ת‬ ̊ ‫ [מן החוץ אל הבית]ו̊ מן הבית אל‬5 ‫ביום [ה] ̊שבת‬ ̇ ̊‫ [ ] החיל [ ] ̇מיא נדה בש[ר]ו‬6 ]‫ [ ] ̊בי̊ [ו] ̊ם ̇ה ̊ששי ̇בשר ער[וה‬7 This fragment concerns activities restricted on ‫שבת‬, such as drawing water from a well and carrying objects into and out of houses. Line 6 has the phrase ‫ מיא נדה‬which, differing from the editors,4 I am inclined to take as pertaining to sprinkling waters (‫)מי נדה‬, which may not be used for purification on Shabbat. This restriction appears twice in other 4Q texts.5

3 [“251. 4QHalakha A,” ed. E. Larson, M.R. Lehmann and L. Schiffman, in Qumran Cave 4.XXV: Halakhic Texts (ed. J. Baumgarten et al.; DJD 35; Oxford, 1999), 25–51 (28–30). 4 The first editors’ suggestion to restore the unknown hiph’il ‫ הט]מיא‬is in my opinion precluded by the context. [See also Baumgarten, “The Use of ‫ מי נדה‬for General Purification,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls Fifty Years after Their Discovery: Proceedings of the Jerusalem Congress, July 20–25, 1997 (ed. L.H. Schiffman, E. Tov, and J.C. VanderKam; Jerusalem, 2000), 481–85; included in this volume.] 5 [4Q265 7 3 and 4Q274 2 i 2; see Baumgarten, “265. 4QMiscellaneous Rules,” DJD 35.56–78 (69–72); and “274. 4QTohorot A,” DJD 35.99–109 (103–5).]

Theological Elements in the Formulation of Qumran Law

309

Line 7 insists that the cleansing of ‫ בשר ערוה‬should be accomplished on the sixth day, the eve of Shabbat. For our purposes, we should like to determine what is meant by ‫בשר ערוה‬. The editors took it as a designation for the male sexual organ, but such specifically localized cleansing would be rather anomalous. In the light of the Qumran purification liturgies, which were intended to be recited after bathing on the eve of Shabbat and other holidays, it seems to me that the expression ‫ בשר ערוה‬designates the human body as a whole. Thus, a liturgical fragment refers in the plural to ‫“ ערות בשרנו‬the shame of our flesh” (4Q512 36–38 iii 17). ‫ ערוה‬and ‫ בשר‬are the words used regularly for the dualistic portrayal of man’s corporal nature. The author of the Hodayot describes himself as a “creature of clay, fashioned with water, and a foundation of shame (‫סוד‬ ‫[ ”)הערוה‬1QHa 9:22]. The counterpart in 1QS 11:9 is ‫“ סוד בשר עול‬foundation of wicked flesh.”6 The scruples of the Essenes about exposure of the body and their use of a loincloth while bathing ( J.W. 2.129, 161) may now be compared with the instruction ‫( וכסה את בגדיו‬4Q512 11 x 4), which Baillet translated correctly, “il se couvrira de ses vêtements.”7 Not long ago I pointed out to the editor of 4Q472a that the phrase ‫ למכסי צו‬refers to the covering of excrement, ‫ צו‬being a short form of ‫צואה‬.8 Thus, two more specific Essene practices, the avoidance of nakedness and the scruples about leaving ordure exposed to the sun, may be added to the long list of parallels documented at Qumran.9 2

4Q269 8 ii 4–6 (= 4Q271 2)10 ‫ [ומן כול הכלי אשר יעשה מ]לאכה ב[הם אשר יטמאו ל]נ̊ פש אדם כיא אם‬4 ]‫כמ[שפט‬ ̊ ‫הוזו‬ ̊ ‫ [הטהרה במי הנדה ב] ̊קץ‬5 ‫הרש[ע איש טהור מ] ̊כול טו̊ ̊מ ̊א[ה] אשר יעריב‬ ]‫̇א[ת‬ ]‫ [שמשו וכול נער אשר לוא מלאו ימיו לעבור על הפקודים א] ̇ל [יזה‬6

6 7 8 9

10

This dualistic denigration of the body may be contrasted with the well-known story about Hillel, who taught that the bathing of the body; in which the soul resides, was a prime ‫( מצוה‬Lev. Rab. 34:3; ed. Margulies, 776). [“512. Rituel de purification,” in Qumrân grotte 4.III: 4Q482–4Q520 (ed. M. Baillet; DJD 7; Oxford, 1982), 262–86 (271).] [Baumgarten, “472a. 4QHalakha C,” DJD 35.155–56 (156).] [See in this volume, the section on “The Qumran and Essene Laws” in “The Religious Law of the Qumran Community”; see also Baumgarten’s, “Some Remarks on the Qumran Law and the Identification of the Community,” in Qumran Cave Four: Special Report: 4QMMT (ed. Z.J. Kapera; Krakow, 1991), 115–17.] [See J.M. Baumgarten, “269. 4QDamascus Documentd, in idem, Qumran Cave 4.XIII: The Damascus Document (4Q266–273) (DJD 18; Oxford, 1996), 123–36 (131–33).]

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This passage sets forth two Qumran requirements concerning the person who sprinkles the waters of purification on vessels contaminated with corpse impurity: (a) he must himself be purified and wait until sundown; (b). he must be a mature adult, at least twenty years old; minors were not qualified to perform the sprinkling. Both of these rules, as I elucidated in DJD 18,11 were directed against the presumably Pharisaic practices of allowing a ‫ טבול יום‬and even young boys to do the sprinkling. For the present purpose we take note of the fact that these rules are said here to be valid “in the period of evil,” ‫בקץ הרשע‬. The periodization of history into ‫ קצים‬is a well-known feature of Enochic and Qumranic theology; we now have an eschatological text (4Q416 1:13) which also refers to the future ‫קץ האמת‬. However, here the terminology appears in the midst of a “halakhic” text. One might suppose that purification from ‫ טומאה‬would only be needed in an epoch when evil exists, although the text here pertains to defilement from contact with the dead. Was corpse impurity, too, characteristic of the ‫?קץ הרשע‬ A less radical hypothesis would be that the need to affirm these rules, which were controversial, only obtained as long as there was evil. This premise needs to be examined in the light of the use of ‫ קץ הרשע‬elsewhere in the Damascus Document. CD 12:22–13:1 is an introductory heading for a group of organizational rules pertaining to those who dwell in camps: ‫וזה סרך מושב המחנות המתהלכים באלה‬ ‫בקץ הרשעה עד עמוד משיח אהרן וישראל‬. This ‫ סרך‬deals primarily with inner communal matters, such as the roles of the priests and the ‫מבקר‬, not controversial halakhic rulings. Yet these inner organizational concerns were also viewed as limited to the period of evil until the coming of the messiah/s. The coming of the messiah/s is likewise mentioned in a similarly worded12 and theologically pivotal passage in CD 14:18–19. This passage is now available from 4Q266:13 ‫וזה פרוש [המשפטים אשר יש]פטו בם עד עמוד משיח אהרון וישראל [ויכפר עונם‬ ‫ממנ]חה וחטת‬

And this is the explication of [the rules by which they shall be go]verned until the rise of the messiah of Aaron and Israel, [and he will atone their iniquity better than/through me]al- and sin-offerings. 11 12 13

[Ibid.] E. Qimron would restore the gap in CD 14:18–19 to include the phrase [‫וישפטו בהם בקץ‬ ‫]הרשעה‬, but 4Q266 10 i 12 clearly omits ‫בקץ הרשעה‬. [4Q266 10 i 11–13. See Baumgarten, “266. 4QDamascus Documenta,” DJD 18.23–93 (73).]

Theological Elements in the Formulation of Qumran Law

311

I have elsewhere14 argued for reading this passage in its literal, although theologically unexpected sense, attributing to the messiah/s the authority to forgive sins. Here, however, we may also inquire what the text implies about the status of the laws after the coming of the messiah/s. In my estimation, the very need for the forgiveness of sins suggests that the laws of the Torah would not be abrogated in the postmessianic age. This is further supported by the Messianic Rule (1QSa), which specifies rules for the ‫ אחרית הימים‬and the order to be followed at the assembly headed by the messiahs of Aaron and Israel. Likewise, the author of MMT underlines his appeal for repentance and the proper observance of the laws by his judgment that the ‫ אחרית הימים‬has already arrived.15 We would accordingly interpret the association of the laws with the ‫קץ‬ ‫ הרשע‬in line with the Qumran doctrine that the understanding of the laws was progressively revealed to the sect’s teachers. This process continues during the period of evil, but is to culminate with the coming of the messiah/s who would finalize the true meaning of the Torah. 3

4Q269 and Parallels

4Q269 Frag. 916 ]‫אל יבא איש אשה בברי] ̊ת קוד[ש] ̇אשר [ידעה‬ vacat [ 4 ‫אשר‬ ̊ ‫ [לעשות מעשה בדבר ואשר ידעה מעשה בבית אב]י̊ ה או אלמנה‬5 ]‫ [נשכבה מאשר התארמלה וכול אשה אשר עליה ש]ם רע בבתולי[ה‬6 4Q415 Frag. 2 ii17 [ ◦] [◦ ‫בדי‬ ̊ ‫כאב ̊כ‬

◦‫̊ע‬ [‫אל תמישי בלבבך וע‬ 14 15 16 17

1 2

J.M. Baumgarten, “Messianic Forgiveness of Sin in CD 14:19 (4Q266 10 I 12–13),” in The Provo International Conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. D.W. Parry and E. Ulrich; Leiden, 1999), 537–44 [included in this volume]. [See Qumran Cave 4.V: Miqṣat Maʿaśe Ha-Torah (ed. E. Qimron and J. Strugnell; DJD 10; Oxford, 1994), 58–60.] [See Baumgarten, “269. 4QDamascus Documentd,” DJD 18.132–133.] [See J. Strugnell and D.J. Harrington, “415. 4QInstructiona,” in Qumran Cave 4.XXIV: Sapiential Texts, Part 2: 4QInstruction (Mûsār Lĕ Mēvîn): 4Q415ff. (ed. J. Strugnell, D.J. Harrington and T. Elgvin; DJD 34; Oxford, 1999), 41–71 (47–49).]



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[‫בר‬ ̊ ‫כול היום ובחיקו‬ ‫פן תפרעי ברית קו̊ ̇ד[ש‬ [‫ואויבת לנפשך ו̊ ̊ב‬

3 4 5

The characterization of marriage as a “holy covenant” ‫ ברית קודש‬is now confirmed by 4Q415 2 ii, a wisdom instruction addressed in the feminine to a married woman. She is advised to honor her husband’s parents and in other ways to enhance marital harmony. This is motivated by the caution “lest you disturb the holy covenant,” ‫פן תפרעי ברית קודש‬. Marriage is termed a ‫ ברית‬in biblical prophecy (Ezek 16:8, Mal 2:14). ‫ קודש‬and its cognates are employed in 4Q502 in the context of a man’s relationship to his wife and companion, but the combination ‫ ברית קודש‬appears to emerge first in writings found at Qumran. The standard rabbinic term (‫ )לשנא דרבנן‬for betrothal is ‫קדושין‬, which is explained in the Talmud technically on the basis of the analogy to a sacred dedication (‫ הקדש‬b. Qidd. 2b). It is noteworthy that despite the misogynic reasons for Essene celibacy supplied by Philo and Josephus, Qumran texts portray the ideal wife as a person of understanding, apparently capable of admonishing her husband about the laws pertaining to their marital relationship.18 4

1QHa 12:5–12 and the Qumran Concept of ‫יום כפור‬

In a recent paper,19 I proposed to use another source, beside ‫פשר חבקוק‬, to throw light on the dramatic Yom Kippur confrontation between the Qumran sect and the Wicked Priest. It is one of the Hodayot hymns [1QH 12:5–12], attributable to the Teacher, which echoes Hab 2:15, the very lemma utilized in ‫פשר‬ ‫ חבקוק‬to describe the Yom Kippur incident. The lemma reads [in 1QpHab, col. 11]: ‫“ הוי משקה רעיהו מספח חמתו אף שכר למען הבט אל מועדיהם‬Woe to him who gives his neighbor drink, pouring out his wrath, making them drunk in order to gaze at their festivals.” The author of the Hodayot hymn applies this terminology to his opponents, the Pharisaic “preachers of smooth things,” who withhold the ‫ משקה‬of true knowledge from the thirsty; instead they give them vinegar to drink, ‫“ למען הבט אל תעותם להתהולל במועדיהם‬in order to gaze at their error and to deport themselves foolishly on their holidays.” The word ‫תעות‬, 18 19

See the description of the wife as a ‫בת אמת‬, possessing “intelligence and understanding” in 4Q502 Groupe I:2 [DJD 7.82]; and my reappraisal of 1QSa in DJD 18.165. J. Baumgarten, “Yom Kippur in the Qumran Scrolls and Second Temple Sources,” DSD 6 (1999): 184–91 [included in this volume].

Theological Elements in the Formulation of Qumran Law

313

I suggested, refers to the calendrical error of observing Yom Kippur and other holidays at the wrong time;20 ‫ להתהולל‬alludes to the desecration of the somber spirit of Yom Kippur by inappropriate celebrations on this sacred day. Such celebrations are recorded in the Mishnah, which mentions that the high priest made a ‫ יום טוב‬for his friends after emerging unscathed from the Holy of Holies (m. Yoma 7:4), and that Yom Kippur was popularly celebrated by dancing and matchmaking (m. Taʿan. 4:8). Philo seems to be aware of the dual nature of the fast-day, which embodies both atonement and festive celebration. In Jubilees, by contrast, Yom Kippur was viewed as a day of mourning and weeping; its date was typologically anticipated by Jacob’s grief when the brothers of Joseph brought his bloodied garment to their father (Jub. 34:19). At Qumran, too, the ‫ תענית‬of Yom Kippur was associated with “grief” ‫( יגון‬4Q509 16 iv 4), and the fast was referred to not only as a ‫צום‬, but as ‫“ יום התענית‬the day of self-affliction” or ‫( מועד תענית‬4Q508 2:2–4). In CD 6:19 the promise to keep the ‫“ יום התענית כמצאת באי הברית החדשה‬in accordance with what was revealed to the keepers of the new covenant” is listed as one of the duties incumbent upon the community. The centrality of Yom Kippur is further underlined by its designation as ‫יום גדול‬, a name which appears first at Qumran and is found later in talmudic and Samaritan sources. In its description of the intrusion of the Wicked Priest, ‫ פשר חבקוק‬depicts it as a grievous disturbance of the peaceful ‫ מנוחה‬appropriate to Yom Kippur as ‫שבת שבתון‬. The aspect of tranquility is twice underlined by the identification of the day as ‫ קץ מועד מנוחת יום הכפורים‬and ‫יום צום שבת מנוחתם‬. How did the Wicked Priest disturb the sabbath peace? The ‫ פשר‬indicates that he did so by intruding upon the congregation ‫“ בכעס חמתו‬with his wrathful anger.” The peaceful ‫ מנוחה‬which they were striving for on this great Shabbat was shattered by his angry intrusion. This description calls for further exploration of the meta-halakhic dimension of spiritual rest as an element of Shabbat. 5

Shabbat ‫ מנוחה‬and Tranquility21

When one looks at the CD Shabbat code, extensive portions of which are extant, one notices immediately that it is not structured around archetypal categories of ‫מלאכה‬. The forms of work explicitly prohibited in the Torah, such 20 21

For this connotation of ‫ תעות‬see 4Q513 44. [For more on this theme, see Baumgarten, “Some Theological Aspects of Second Temple Shabbat Practice,” Sabbath: Idea, History, Reality (ed. G.J. Blidstein; Beer-Sheva, 2004), 35–41 (included in this volume).]

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as plowing, harvesting, gathering wood, and kindling a fire are not mentioned, nor is there any trace of the thirty-nine categories of work enumerated in the Mishnah. After the initial rubric ‫[ על השבת לשמרה כמשפטה‬CD 10:14], there comes a precautionary rule forbidding ‫ מלאכה‬on the eve of Shabbat when the orb of the sun is still above the horizon by the distance of its diameter. This is followed by a series of restrictions, not of physical work, but of secular talk and planning and walking beyond the ‫תחום‬. The wording and the substance of these rules were based on Isa 58:13: ‫אם תשיב משבת רגלך עשות חפצך ביום קדשי‬ ‫וקראת לשבת ענג‬, “If you restrain your foot because of the Sabbath, from pursuing your business on my holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight”; the restriction on inappropriate talk derives from ‫[ ודבר דבר‬ibid.]. Interestingly, 4Q264a specifically sanctions talk about eating and drinking, which enhance the ‫ ענג‬of Shabbat, and approves of pronouncing blessings.22 Esther Chazon has observed that the Qumran liturgies which can be identified as intended for Shabbat are consistently doxological in character.23 They do not embrace any petitionary prayers, such as were recited on weekdays. One Shabbat prayer is entitled ‫הודות ביום השבת‬, which recalls ‫ טוב להודות לה׳‬in Psalm 92. Another liturgical fragment has the designation ‫מו[עד] מנוח ותענוג‬. The word ‫ענג‬, as we noted, already characterizes the Shabbat in Isa 58:13, and ‫ מנוח‬is twice juxtaposed with ‫קודש‬. The avoidance of extraneous petitions was a salient aspect of the Shabbat prayers which also survived in rabbinic practice. The talmudic principle ‫( שבת היא מלזעוק‬b. Šabb. 12a) derives from the concept that the spiritual tranquility of ‫ שבת‬must not be disturbed even by the urgency of human prayer. The CD prohibitions of secular talk include litigating monetary claims. Tannaitic halakhah took it for granted that courts cannot hold sessions on Shabbat, but the ostensible reason was that the proceedings could not be recorded [m. Beṣah 5:2 with b. Beṣah 37a]. In CD the context suggests that the legal contentions would disturb the Sabbath peace. For the same reason one must not make financial claims against another, ‫אל ישה ברעהו כל‬. The wording is taken from the ban on collecting debts which were canceled by the sabbatical year (‫אשר ישה ברעהו‬, Deut 15:2). The Shabbat code of CD does not deal with the question of waging war on Shabbat, but in Jubilees [50:12] this is flatly prohibited, without any distinction between offensive and defensive actions. A fragmentary 4Q text dealing with

22 23

[See J. Baumgarten, “264a. 4QHalakha B,” DJD 35.53–56 (54).] E.G. Chazon, “On the Special Character of Sabbath Prayer,” Journal of Jewish Music and Liturgy 15 (1992/93): 1–21.

Theological Elements in the Formulation of Qumran Law

315

Shabbat has the phrase ‫להלחם עמו‬, but unfortunately the context is missing.24 We may, however, presume that the Qumranites accepted the prohibition of Jubilees. This is supported by the exclusion of warfare in the sabbatical years in the apocalyptic War Scroll. The stated reason is ‫כיא שבת מנוח היאה‬ ‫( לישראל‬1QM 2:8–9), which is an apparent extension of a Shabbat rule to the ‫ שמיטה‬year. Two other rules found in the CD Shabbat code may be classified as disturbances of ‫מנוחה‬. One forbids the owner of an animal to strike it with his fist in order to make it go in a particular direction (CD 11:6); this would violate the biblical injunction to grant it rest. Slaves, too, must be allowed their ‫מנוחה‬, hence the prohibition ‫( אל ימר איש את עבדו ואת אמתו‬CD 11:12). In short, a significant portion of the Qumran Shabbat code reflects a conception of Shabbat as a day of peace and harmony free from the conflicts and confrontations which disturb the tranquility of life. This conception is compatible with later rabbinic thought, but it is substantially earlier. In rabbinic theology the ‫ מנוחה‬of Shabbat derives not only from creation but foreshadows the tranquility of ‫עולם הבא‬. Tannaitic exegesis characterized the world-to-come as ‫“ יום שכולו שבת ומנוחה לחיי העולמים‬a day which is all Shabbat and tranquility for life evermore” (m. Tamid 7:4). Yet, spiritual ‫ מנוחה‬may also be realized in the here and now with the arrival of Shabbat. R. Levi, a third generation Amora, commented on ‫( היום אם בקולו תשמעו‬Ps 95:7): “If the children of Israel kept but one ‫ שבת‬as it ought to be kept, they would be redeemed forthwith” (Midrash Tehillim on Ps 95:7; cf. y. Taʿan. ch. 1 [64a]). There is earlier evidence for the realization of ideal tranquility on Shabbat from the Second Temple period. We may cite a Christian source preceding the destruction of the Temple. The anonymous author of the Letter to the Hebrews wrote to a group of Christian believers who were apparently accustomed to practicing the biblical commandments and instructed them to maintain a form of sabbatical rest (Heb 4:1–11). Quoting Ps 95:7–8 (“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts”), he infers that a Shabbat rest still remains for the people of God: “Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest (κατάπαυσις), so that no one may fall through such disobedience as theirs” (the Israelites of Ps 95:11). The quite similar exegesis of Psalm 95, especially the word ‫היום‬, which both designates the sabbath and calls for its observance today, makes it probable that R. Levi’s association of keeping ‫ שבת‬with redemptive rest derives from a tradition already known in the Second Temple period. 24

[For 4Q264a 3 8, see Baumgarten, DJD 35.56.]

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PART 5: THEOLOGY AND APOCALYPTISM

In sum, the foregoing sampling of religious laws, no doubt capable of more comprehensive extension, was intended to illustrate the affinity between the formulation of rules by the legists of the Qumran community and their theological tenets. These tenets are sometimes expressive of the particular catechism of the community, but they may also reflect beliefs held in common with other Jews in the Second Temple period.

Chapter 26

Some Theological Aspects of Second Temple Shabbat Practice Some* years ago there appeared in a rabbinical journal published in the United States a responsum to an urgent question: In view of the growing number of holdups occurring in the streets, would it be permissible for the Shabbat-observant to carry some money with them in order to ward off the serious threat to life and limb from frustrated robbers? The response was negative and succinct; it cited only one source: ‫כבר אמרו חכמינו ז״ל יותר מששמרו‬ ‫ישראל את השבת שמרה השבת על ישראל‬, “It was already said by ‫חז״ל‬, our Sages of blessed memory: More than the children of Israel kept the Shabbat, the Shabbat has guarded the children of Israel.” When I wrote to the editor that, to my knowledge, this was not a saying of ‫חז״ל‬, but a maxim of Achad Ha-Am [Asher Ginsberg, a modern Hebrew essayist], he responded that this may be true, but in his estimation it would have been worthy to have been said by ‫חז״ל‬. One of the aims of this paper is to explore the providentially protective aspect of the Shabbat as adumbrated in prerabbinic sources. That this concept is reflected in postrabbinic sources is readily apparent. Note, for example, the omission of ‫ והוא רחום‬as a preface to Maʿariv after ‫קבלת שבת‬, which the Zohar explains as due to the already accomplished departure of the ‫ סטרא אחרא‬and its malevolent influence when Israel is adorned with the ‫( נשמה יתרה‬additional soul) of ‫( שבת‬Zohar 2:135 a–b). In the Maʿariv liturgy the blessing ‫שומר עמו‬ ‫ ישראל לעד‬is replaced on Shabbat by ‫הפורש סוכת שלום עלינו ועל כל עמו ישראל‬, “He who spreads a canopy of peace over us and over all his people Israel.” Although the expression “canopy of peace” was employed in the nightly prayer for divine protection (‫)השכיבנו‬, it appears that the Shabbat was thought of as inherently protective from harm.1 An early midrashic wordplay on the heading of Psalm 92, ‫מזמור שיר ליום‬ ‫השבת‬, identified ‫ שבת‬as ‫יום ששבתו המזיקין מן העולם‬, “the day on which the * Original publication: “Some Theological Aspects of Second Temple Shabbat Practice,” Sabbath: Idea, History, Reality (ed. G.J. Blidstein; Beer-Sheva: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Press, 2004), 35–41. Republished with the generous permission of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. 1 In the Siddur of Saadia Gaon the reference to ‫ סוכת שלום‬is followed by the citation of Isa 32:18 as a proof-text: ‫ ;כדבר שנא׳ וישב עמי‬the same verse was cited in Midrash Tehillim on Ps 92, the psalm for the Shabbat.

© Joseph M. Baumgarten, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004505087_028

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PART 5: THEOLOGY AND APOCALYPTISM

harmful spirits were banished from the world” (Midrash Tehillim ad locum); or as the version in Sifra puts it, on the Shabbat the harmful spirits are deactivated so that they can do no harm.2 The question may now be asked whether this apotropaic interpretation of the Shabbat psalm is only rabbinic midrash or, rather, has some basis in an earlier understanding of its scriptural text. We note firstly that Psalm 92 is positioned in the book of Tehillim, as well as at Qumran (4QPsb), right after Psalm 91. The latter depicts a whole series of perils and threatening afflictions, both physical and demonic, from which one who trusts in divine providence (‫ )יושב בסתר עליון‬is protected. The afflictions were termed ‫ פגעים‬and Psalm 91 became known in rabbinic sources as ‫שיר של פגעים‬. A Qumran text, 11QPsa, attributes to David the composition of four “songs to be played on behalf of the stricken” (‫)שיר לנגן על הפגועים‬, but they are not specifically identified. The Qumran findings have yielded two genres of apotropaic compositions. Some are exorcistic incantations addressed directly to demonic spirits. Others are hymns of divine praise, the singing of which was thought to be effective in warding off evil powers.3 The Qumran Songs of the Maskil belong to the latter category, as illustrated by 4Q510 1.4 This hymn contains “words of thanksgiving” (‫)דברי הודות‬, addressed to the King of Glory, who rules over all the forces. By the proclaimed majesty of his rule all sinister powers are “frightened and scattered” (‫)יבהלו ויתפזרו כול‬. The Maskil sings the glory of God in order to subdue the ‫ פוגעים‬and the demonic hosts. The hymn for Shabbat, Psalm 92, begins similarly with the proclamation ‫טוב‬ ‫להודות לה׳‬, “It is good to give thanks to the Lord,” but unlike Psalm 91, which precedes it, it does not refer to demonic afflictions. It describes evildoers, who appeared to flourish like the grass, but, because they were enemies of God, they were ‘scattered’ (‫ )יתפרדו‬and overwhelmed by divine justice. We note the similarity to the wording ‫ הודות‬and ‫ יתפזרו‬in the Qumran apotropaic hymn, but unlike the latter, Psalm 92 is not sung in order to ward off the present threat of demons. It is a song of thanksgiving for the security and divine protection experienced by the ‫ צדיק‬especially on Shabbat. The trust afforded by the Shabbat derives from the recognition of God’s supremacy. “Thou, Lord, art most high for evermore” (Ps 92:9).5 The kingdom of 2 Sifra, Beḥuqotai 1:2 (on Lev 26:6; ed. Weiss, 111a): ‫“( משביתן שלא יזיקו‬brings them to a standstill so they do no damage”). 3 B. Nitzan, Qumran Prayer and Religious Poetry (Leiden, 1994), 227–73; see my comments in “The Qumran Songs against Demons,” Tarbiz 55 (1985/86): 442–45 (in Hebrew). 4 Edited by M. Baillet, Qumran Grotte 4.III (DJD 7; Oxford, 1982), 216. 5 According to the interpretation of 2 Macc 1:7 by some scholars, Jason and the Hellenizers were portrayed as rebels against the divine kingdom; see A.M. Schwemer, “Gott als König

Some Theological Aspects of Second Temple Shabbat Practice

319

God is one of the central themes of the Qumran Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice.6 It is also the recurrent theme of Psalms 95–98, designated for the inauguration of Shabbat in the traditional Ashkenazic and the Yemenite liturgies. In Jubilees the Shabbat was the day of God’s kingdom, par excellence: “A day of the holy kingdom for all Israel is this day among their days forever” (50:9). This credo identifying the Shabbat with God’s kingdom is found in the midst of a list of violations, all of which are punishable by death. Of special historical interest is the absolute prohibition of making war, which makes no allowance at all for self-defense. As we know from 1 and 2 Maccabees, this was actually the principle followed by the Shabbat martyrs in the days of Mattathias. They and their families fled to the wilderness at the time of the persecution, where they were surrounded and ordered by the soldiers of Antiochus to give themselves up. They refused and were attacked on Shabbat. “They did not hurl a stone at them or block up their hiding places, for they said, ‘Let us all die in our innocence; heaven and earth testify for us that you are killing us unjustly.’ So they attacked them on the Sabbath, and they died, with their wives and children and cattle, to the number of a thousand persons” (1 Macc 2:36–38). Since we know that the handling of objects not prepared before Shabbat was strictly banned in early halakhah, as illustrated at Qumran, and that the principle of ‫ פיקוח נפש‬was not yet normative, one may hypothetically rationalize the passive behavior of the martyrs on the halakhic level. However, their protest to their pursuers against their murderous intent seems pathetically futile. The invocation of the testimony of “heaven and earth” to the injustice of their pursuers, I would suggest, was not expected to make them relent but to indict them as evildoers (‫[ פעלי און‬Ps 92:10]) in the eyes of God. Presumably, the martyrs hoped that their pursuers, the enemies of God, would be miraculously destroyed and their intended victims would be saved, as envisioned in the psalm of Shabbat. Alas, it was not to be. In support of this hypothesis, we note that the martyrs were depicted as going down to the wilderness “seeking justice and righteousness” (1 Macc 2:29). Jonathan Goldstein has suggested that this may be an allusion to the prophecy in Isa 32:16: ‫ושכן במדבר משפט‬ ‫וצדקה בכרמל תשב‬: “Then justice will dwell in the wilderness and righteousness abide in the fruitful field.”7 We would add that the sequel, ‫וישב עמי בנוה שלום‬, und Königsherrschaft in den Sabbatlieder aus Qumran,” in Königsherrschaft Gottes und himmlischer Kult im Judentum, Urchristentum und in der hellenistischen Welt (ed. M. Hengel and A.M. Schwemer; Tübingen, 1991), 45–118 (71). 6 See Anna Maria Schwemer’s illuminating study of the Sabbath Songs in her “Gott als König.” 7 J.A. Goldstein, 1 Maccabees (Garden City, N.Y., 1976), 235.

320

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“My people will abide in a peaceful habitation” (Isa 32:18), was cited in the midrash on Psalm 92 as a fitting description of Shabbat peace, accompanied by the cessation of all wars. The elimination of war is an eschatological ideal in biblical prophecy. Tannaitic exegesis characterized the world-to-come as ‫יום‬ ‫שכולו שבת ומנוחה לחיי העולמים‬, “a day which is all Shabbat and tranquility for life evermore.”8 Yet, spiritual ‫ מנוחה‬may also be realized in the here and now with the arrival of Shabbat. R. Levi, a third-generation Amora, commented on ‫היום אם בקולו‬ ‫( תשמעו‬Ps 95:7): “If the children of Israel kept but one Shabbat as it ought to be kept, they would be redeemed forthwith.”9 There is earlier evidence for the realization of ideal tranquility on Shabbat from the Second Temple period. We may first cite a source preceding the destruction of the Temple. The anonymous author of a letter to a group of Christians who were apparently accustomed to practicing the biblical commandments instructed them to maintain a form of Sabbath rest (Hebrews 4:1–11). Quoting Psalm 95:7–8 (“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts”), he infers that a Sabbath rest still remains for the people of God: “Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest (κατάπαυσις), so that no one may fall through such disobedience as theirs” (the Israelites of Ps 95:11).10 The quite similar exegesis of Psalm 95, especially the word ‫היום‬, which both designates the Shabbat and calls for its observance today, shows that R. Levi’s association of keeping Shabbat with redemptive rest derives from a tradition already known in the Second Temple period. The association of ‫ שבת‬with peaceful ‫ מנוחה‬likewise emerges from the Qumran legal texts. The Shabbat code (‫ )על השבת‬in the Damascus Document has a rudimentary form of topical organization, but unlike rabbinic halakhah, it is not structured around archetypal categories of work. Rather, it lists various secular activities which are banned as violations of the sacred character of the day. Among these we find a rule forbidding the owner of an animal to strike it with his fist (CD 11:6). As noted by Louis Ginzberg,11 the sequel, which restricts taking a wayward animal out of the house, shows that the intent was to ban forcing the animal to walk in a particular direction, which would violate 8 9 10

11

M. Tamid 7:4; cf. Mekhilta de R. Yishmael on Exod 31:13 [ed. Horovitz-Rabin, p. 341]. Midrash Tehillim on Ps 95:7; cf. y. Taʿan. ch. 1 [64a]. Among New Testament scholars who recognize the proleptic nature of the eschatological katapausis to which Hebrews alludes, we note S. Bacchiocchi, From Shabbat to Sunday (Rome, 1977), 63–68; and G.F. Hasel, “Shabbat,” ABD 5:855–56. O. Hofius, Katapausis: Die Vorstellung vom endzeitlichen Ruheort im Hebräerbrief (Tübingen, 1970), notes the rabbinic parallels but assumes that they, too, pertain only to the eschaton. [L. Ginzberg, An Unknown Jewish Sect (New York, 1976), 65.]

Some Theological Aspects of Second Temple Shabbat Practice

321

the biblical injunction to grant it rest. Slaves, too, must be allowed their ‫מנוחה‬. Hence, the prohibition to urge them on to labor: ‫אל ימר איש את עבדו ואת אמתו‬ (CD 11:12).12 The rule concerning collecting debts, ‫( אל ישה ברעהו כל‬CD 10:18), derives its wording from ‫( אשר ישה ברעהו‬Deut 15:2), the ban on collecting debts during the sabbatical year, which was the Shabbat of the land. Conversely, we note that the cessation of war during the sabbatical year is explicated in the War Scroll by it being a “Shabbat of rest”: ‫כיא שבת מנוח היאה לישראל‬ (1QM 2:8–9). This is an apparent projection from the ban on warfare on the Shabbat, preserved in Jubilees. The ideal Shabbat was envisioned as a day of peace and harmony free from the conflicts and confrontations which disturb the tranquility of human existence. Yom Kippur, too, although it was a fast-day, was designated by Scripture as ‫שבת שבתון‬, “a Shabbat of solemn rest.”13 Hence, the author of the Habakkuk Commentary denounced as particularly sacrilegious the attempt of the Wicked Priest to suppress the sect’s worship on the day which they regarded as “the Shabbat of their rest” ‫( ולכשילם ביום צום שבת מנוחתם‬1QpHab 11:8).14 It has properly been inferred that in the High Priest’s calendar the day of his intrusion upon the sect’s communal worship was not Yom Kippur. Thus, he and his contemporaries may well have shared the ideal of peaceful rest associated with Shabbat. Esther Chazon has observed that the Qumran liturgies which can be identified as intended for the Shabbat are consistently doxological in character. They do not embrace any petitional prayers, such as were recited on weekdays. One Shabbat prayer is entitled ‫הודות ביום השבת‬, which recalls ‫טוב להודות‬ ‫ לה׳‬in Psalm 92. Another liturgical fragment [4Q503, frags. 24–25] has the designation ‫מו(עד) מנוח ותענוג‬. The word ‫“ תענוג‬delight,” as I have elsewhere noted,15 already characterizes the Shabbat in Isa 58:13, and ‫“ מנוח‬rest” is twice juxtaposed with ‫קודש‬.16 In this fragment we also find the refrain ‫שלום עליכה‬ ‫ישראל‬, but this phrase was not confined only to the Shabbat. The avoidance 12 13

14

15 16

‫ימר‬, the jussive of ‫“ מרה‬to provoke,” is the spelling found in 4Q271 5 i. ‫יום טוב‬, too, is ‫ ;שבתון‬therefore, I don’t think it plausible to assume that the expulsion ceremony found at the end of the Damascus Document was intended to take place on Shabuʿot as held by many scholars. The cursing of transgressors, in my opinion, could take place in the third month, but not on the festival. Cf. also ‫( מנוחת יום הכפורים‬1QpHab 11:6–7). It is noteworthy that the eschatological Qumran 4QFlorilegium envisions a time when the Sons of Light will be granted “rest from all the sons of Belial who cause them to stumble,” ‫אשר יניח להמה מכול בני בליעל‬ ‫( המכשילים אותמה‬4Q174 frags. 1–2 i 7–8). J.M. Baumgarten, “4Q503 (Daily Prayers) and the Lunar Calendar,” RevQ 12 (1985–1987): 399–407 (402). [See Baillet, DJD 7:118–19: 4Q503, frags. 37–38 xii 15 and frags. 40–41 ii 5.]

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PART 5: THEOLOGY AND APOCALYPTISM

of extraneous petitions was a salient aspect of the Shabbat prayers which, as Chazon notes, also survived in rabbinic practice. The talmudic principle ‫שבת‬ ‫( היא מלזעוק‬b. Šabb. 12a) derives from the concept that the spiritual tranquility of ‫ שבת‬must not be disturbed even by the urgency of human prayer. 1

Conclusion

The ideal Shabbat peace is depicted in rabbinic liturgy as ‫מנוחת שלום ושלוה‬ ‫והשקט ובטח‬.17 We have been concerned in this paper with tracing the ideal of

Shabbat peace as it emerged in Second Temple sources. I have tried to explain how some pious souls, as yet unaware of the more realistic dialectics of the halakhah, innocently entrusted their lives to the apotropaic shelter of the Shabbat. The concept of Shabbat as a foretaste of the world-to-come, I would maintain, was already nascent among Jews in the pre-Christian period. The modern editor[s] of the Qumran Angelic Songs of the Shabbat Sacrifice ha[ve] come to the conclusion that their liturgical context “allows the humans who worship by reciting them to experience the present reality of God’s heavenly kingship as a sort of realized eschatological experience.”18 This mystical experience and the contemplation of the Merkabah were presumably among the most precious moments afforded by the peace of Shabbat. We may conclude, for phenomenological purposes only, with the description of the mystery of Shabbat, as depicted much later in the Zohar: When Shabbat arrives it (the Shekhinah) is unified and separated from the sinister side (‫ )סטרא אחרא‬and all harsh judgments are removed from her and she remains in the unity of the holy illumination and is crowned with multiple adornments for the Holy King. All wrathful powers and all who (seek harsh) judgment flee, so that there is no other dominion in all the worlds. Her countenance is illuminated from the light above and she is adorned by the holy nation below, who are themselves all adorned with new souls. Zohar 2:135b

17 18

S. Singer, Authorised Daily Prayer Book (9th ed.; London 1912), 175. J.H. Charlesworth and C.A. Newsom, The Dead Sea Scrolls: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek Texts with English Translations, Vol. 4B: Angelic Liturgy, Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice (Tübingen and Louisville, 1999), 6.

Chapter 27

The Purification Liturgies The* recitation of extended prayers at the time of immersion is not a practice familiar from biblical or rabbinic sources. Biblical ablution has been characterized as a wordless ceremony, unaccompanied by prayer.1 In rabbinic halakhah the person undergoing immersion recites a brief blessing ‫“( על הטבילה‬concerning immersion”) after his bath, but there is no mandatory liturgy which dwells on the symbolic aspects of this act.2 This applies as well to the immersion of proselytes, which was, however, accompanied by the recitation of commandments by the rabbinical teachers responsible for the instruction of the convert.3 The haggadic account in Pirqe de R. Eliezer 20, of Adam’s protracted immersion followed by his plea for forgiveness, derives from the one found in the Life of Adam and Eve 6–7. Interestingly enough, that apocalypse has Adam restrain his own and Eve’s prayer until their penance is complete: “Let no speech come out of your mouth, because we are unworthy to entreat the Lord since our lips are unclean.” This restriction on prayer during impurity is likewise found in 4Q274 1 i 1, where the negative ‫ אל‬is probably to be restored before the first line. The exhortation in Sib. Or. 4:165–68 calls for immersion in rivers followed by prayer for forgiveness, but no set liturgical form is prescribed. Thus the Cave 4 purification blessings, which provide fragments of an ancient Hebrew liturgy associated with ritual immersion, are particularly valuable.

* Original publication: “The Purification Liturgies,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls after Fifty Years: A Comprehensive Assessment (ed. P.W. Flint and J.C. VanderKam; 2 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 1998– 1999), 2:200–212. Republished with the kind permission of Brill Academic Publishers. 1 See J. Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16 (New York, 1991), 963. 2 B. Ber. 51a and b. Pesaḥ. 7b. The association of immersion with penitence and the confession of sins emerged only among Ashkenazic pietists of the fifteenth century. Maharil viewed the customary immersion on the eve of Yom Kippur as akin to that of proselytes; see the comments of Rema (Darkhe Moshe) to Ṭur ʾOraḥ Ḥayyim 606:3. 3 B. Yebam. 47b; Gerim 1:1. In second-century church practice, the renunciation of demons and the three-fold profession of faith by the catechumen accompanied baptism; see R.P. Refoulé’s introduction to Tertullien, Traité du baptême (SC; Paris [corrected ed., 2002]), 29–37.

© Joseph M. Baumgarten, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004505087_029

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PART 5: THEOLOGY AND APOCALYPTISM

Sources

Of the Qumran purification liturgies, the most substantial so far available are those published by M. Baillet as 4Q512 in DJD 7.4 This is a large, but poorly preserved, collection of over two hundred fragments written on the verso of the papyrus (4Q503) which contains the daily prayers. The editor estimated their Hasmonaean script to come from the beginning of the first century BCE.5 4Q512 contains instructions, formulated in the third person, for those undergoing purification. They specify the festive days before which lustrations were customary; the requirement to wait for sundown; and the sprinkling with water containing the ashes of the red cow. There are indications, which I elaborate in a forthcoming study,6 that this sprinkling was held to be effective for removing not only corpse impurity, but uncleanliness resulting from genital discharges and other forms of impurity. There are also instructions for the time when blessings are to be recited after purification. Multiple fragments of these blessings, formulated in the first person and addressed to God, are extant. An initial evaluation of their contents was offered by this writer in a paper read at the University of Haifa Dead Sea Scrolls symposium in 1988,7 but further observations are offered in the present paper. 4Q414 is a closely related but much smaller liturgical text, written in a Herodian script, of which one fragment has been provisionally published by Esther Eshel.8 Here, too, we have instructions and blessings addressed to God after purification.

4 M. Baillet, “512. Rituel de Purification,” in idem, Qumrân Grotte 4.III (4Q482–4Q520) (DJD 7; Oxford, 1982), 262–86. 5 Baillet, DJD 7.262. 6 In my introduction to the laws of Tohorah in the Cave 4 texts: J. Baumgarten et al., Qumran Cave 4.XXV: Halakhic Texts (DJD 35; Oxford, 1999), [83–87. See also the author’s “The Use of ‫ מי נדה‬for General Purification,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls Fifty Years after Their Discovery: Proceedings of the Jerusalem Congress, July 20–25, 1997 (ed. L.H. Schiffman, E. Tov, and J.C. VanderKam; Jerusalem, 2000), 481–85 (included in this volume)]. 7 J. Baumgarten, “The Purification Rituals in DJD 7,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Forty Years of Research (ed. D. Dimant and U. Rappaport; Leiden, 1992), 199–209. 8 E. Eshel, “4Q414 Fragment 2: Purification of a Corpse-Contaminated Person,” in Legal Texts and Legal Issues: Proceedings of the Second Meeting of the International Organization for Qumran Studies, Cambridge 1995. Published in Honour of Joseph M. Baumgarten (ed. M. Bernstein, F. García Martínez, and J. Kampen; Leiden, 1997), 3–10. [See also her publication of the full text, “414. 4QRitual of Purification A,” in DJD 35.135–54.]

The Purification Liturgies

325

4Q284, to be published fully in a forthcoming DJD volume,9 consists of seven liturgical fragments, which the original editors at the Rockefeller Museum entitled Serekh ha-niddot. The script dates to the Herodian period. A transcription of the first fragment follows: Frag. 1 Top margin ‫ש] ̊ב ̇ת [ ̊ל] ̊כול [שב]ו̊ עי‬ [ 1 ‫השנה ו]שנ̇ י̇ ם עשר ̇חודשיה‬ [ 2 ‫וארבעת מו] ̊עדי ̇השנה בימי‬ [ 3 ‫שרא ̇ל‬ ̇ ̊‫ [ ] סרך הדות לי‬4 ‫להת[קד] ̇ש‬ ̊ ‫ [ ] ̊מי̊ נדה‬5 ‫הזרע‬ ̊ ‫ [ ]שוכבת‬6 ◦◦ ‫ [ ] ̊תמ ◦ לו‬7 vacat ] [ 8 ‫שר‬ ̇ ‫ [ ]א ̊א‬9 1 [ s]abbath [of] each of the [wee]ks of 2 [ of the year and] its twelve new moons 3 [ the four sea]sons of the year on the days of 4 [ ] order of [thanksgiving10] for Israel 5 [ ]sprinkling waters to [clea]nse (themselves) 6 [ ]semen 7 [ ]tm . to him .. 8 [ ] vacat 9 [ ]ʾ which 1.1 Notes on the Readings L. 4 ‫הדות‬. The nun read by the first editors is not visible in the photographs, but there is a space between the he and the dalet and the surface above it has peeled. L. 6 ‫שוכבת‬. The waw was added above the kaph. 9 10

[See Baumgarten’s edition of this text: “284. 4QPurification Liturgy,” DJD 35.123–29. The text and translation of frag. 1 offered there, at pp. 124–25, is almost identical to the one presented here, but the line numbers there are higher by two.] [In the original version of this article: “order of purification for Israel.” But the discussion below, immediately after “Notes on the Readings,” assumes “order of thanksgiving for Israel,” and so does DJD 35.125.]

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PART 5: THEOLOGY AND APOCALYPTISM

The title ‫“( סרך הדות לישראל‬order of thanksgiving for Israel”) appears to designate occasions for communal purification, as reflected in the plural formulations, which are further discussed below. Fragment 3 characterizes the purity aspired to by the community as ‫טהרת אמת‬, which is comparable to the term ‫ טהרת צדק‬found in 4Q512.11 These designations have a distinct Qumranic flavor, with a hint of the differences which distinguished the community’s standards of purity from those of their contemporaries. The Qumranic character of the purification liturgy is likewise reflected in the phrase ‫“( ערו[ת] בשרנו‬the shame of our flesh,” 4Q512 36–38 [iii] 17). Baillet assumed this to refer to some case of sexual defilement, but such delimitation is hardly needed. ‫ ערוה‬and ‫ בשר‬are the words used regularly for the dualistic portrayal of man’s corporal nature. Thus the author of the Thanksgiving Hymns describes himself as a “creature of clay, fashioned with water, foundation of shame (‫( ”)סוד הערוה‬1QHa 9:22). The counterpart in 1QS 11:9 is “corrupt man and a foundation of wicked flesh ‫)סוד בשר עול‬.” A fragment of 4Q251 refers to the cleansing on Fridays of ]‫“( בשר ער[וה‬flesh of sha[me],” 1 i 7). Like the Essenes, who used their loincloths for modesty ( J.W. 2.161), those undergoing purification are bidden to cover themselves with their garments (4Q512 11 × 4, etc.). 2

Communal and Calendrical Aspects of Purification

The importance which the Qumran community attached to the laws of purity can be gauged from their prominence in the halakhic letter Miqṣat Maʿaśe Ha-Torah, as well as from the polemics concerning defilement of the sanctuary found in the Damascus Document and the Habakkuk Commentary.12 The sect believed its understanding of the laws would ultimately be recognized as true by all whose eyes were uncovered by God (4Q274 3 i 1). Moreover, we learn from their liturgy that the concept of purity was not limited to the immediate concerns of the individuals who were in need of cleansing. In my 1988 paper I noted that the literary forms employed in 4Q512 embrace instructions formulated in the third person for those undergoing purification, as well as blessings in the first person addressed to the Deity. The third-person instructions are formulated in the singular with the repeated formula ‫וענה‬ ‫“( ואמר‬and he shall respond and say”), which differs from the plural formula “and they shall respond and say” found in the Daily Prayers (4Q503). However,

11 12

4Q284 3 4; 4Q512 40–41. CD 4:18; 5:6; 12:1; 1QpHab 8:13; 12:8.

The Purification Liturgies

327

the blessings contain plural formulations in which the community of Israel is corporately depicted as the recipient of purification by divine grace.13 4Q512 36–38 iii 17 deals with the purification procedure of an individual but expresses gratitude for divine salvation which uplifts a person “from the shame of our flesh” (‫)ערו[ת] בשרנו‬. The largest of the fragment groups (1–6 xii) begins with the blessings recited before and after sprinkling on the third day after corpse defilement, but concludes with general allusions to the sanctification of Israel (‫ )ותקדשהו‬in contrast to the abominations (‫ )ותתעבם‬of the pagans from whom Israel must separate itself (‫)להבדל‬.14 The blessing formula throughout this text is ‫“( ברוך אתה אל ישראל‬Blessed are you, God of Israel”).15 4Q284 3 has the singular formulation, “and he shall respond and say,” but the blessing concludes with a reference to the God of Israel who has prescribed true purity for his people; frags. 5 and 7 echo the themes of Israel’s sanctification and separateness. The corporate character of the liturgy is also reflected in the title ‫“( סרך הדות לישראל‬order of thanksgiving for Israel”).16 One occasion for sprinkling would be following corpse defilement, which is alluded to in frag. 4 5 (‫ ;)לנפש אדם אשר ימות‬the seventh day, when the second sprinkling took place, is mentioned elsewhere.17 However, the sprinkling waters in frag. 1 7 appear to effect purification (‫ )להתקדש‬from other defilements as well, such as those stemming from semen (‫)שכבת הזרע‬. Moreover, the purification is related to the calendar, specifically the Sabbaths and festivals of the year. The occasions for purification extant here and in the parallel text, 4Q512 33 iv, are the Sabbaths and the first days of the month (‫)ראש חודש‬, with specific mention of those which marked the beginnings of the four seasons of the year.18 The complete list would very likely have included the biblical festivals. The editor of 4Q512 suggested that the purifications intended were those of the priests before their cultic service.19 However, the title ‫ סרך הדות לישראל‬would imply that the purifications were meant for the people at large in preparation for the sacred days of the year. 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

B. Nitzan, Qumran Prayer and Religious Poetry (Leiden, 1994), 12, classifies the blessings of purification as “individual ceremonies.” This classification may be formally correct, but does not describe the communal content of the liturgy. For the theme of separateness from the pagan nations in the 4Q manuscripts of the Damascus Document, see J.M. Baumgarten, Qumran Cave 4.III: The Damascus Document (4Q266–273) (DJD 18; Oxford, 1996), 10–11. This formula is also found in the Daily Prayers (4Q503) on the obverse side, but frequently ‫ אתה‬is omitted. See frag. 1 of 4Q284 discussed in section 1, above. See frags. 2 i 3; 2 ii 4; and 3 2. See 4Q512 33 iv 3: ‫מועד ק[צ]יר וקיץ‬. Baillet, DJD 7.264.

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That public purification was customary before the pilgrimage festivals may already be inferred from biblical sources, such as the account of Hezekiah’s Passover.20 The Mishnah indicates that even ordinary people (‫)עמי הארץ‬, who at other times were not scrupulous about purity, were considered trustworthy at the time of the festivals.21 As far as the Sabbath is concerned, the custom of purifying oneself in preparation for it is documented in 2 Macc 12:38. It is very likely also reflected in CD 10:10, where the rubric “concerning one who purifies himself in water” immediately precedes the one “concerning the Sabbath” (10:14). Sprinkling on the Sabbath itself was prohibited (4Q274 2 i 2). There are thus good grounds for taking the designation ‫ סרך הדות לישראל‬as pertaining to communal purification before the sacred days of the calendar year. 4Q414, available in E. Eshel’s preliminary publication,22 likewise makes mention of the ‫מועדי טוהר‬, the fixed times for purification (frag. 7 6), but is more explicit on the corporate and pneumatic aspects of purification. The communal phraseology in the blessings refers to the purity of Israel (‫טהרת‬ ‫—ישראל‬frag. 7 8) resulting from the aspiration ‫[“( [להיות] לכה לעם טה[ור‬to be] unto [Y]ou a pu[re] people,” frag. [7] 3). A technical aspect of the purification rituals is the timing of the berakhah. This appears to have been recited after washing while the cleansed person was standing in the water; see 4Q512 frags. 10–11 x 2–5,23 which deal with the seventh day of purification for a zab: ] ‫טה[רתו‬ ̊ ‫ [ובמילא] ̊ת לו שבעת ימי‬2 ]‫במ[ים ורחץ את בשרו במים‬ ̊ ‫ [ו]כבס את בגדיו‬3 ]‫ ו̊ כסה את בגדיו וברך ע[ל עומדו ואמר ברוך אתה‬4 ] [ ‫ישר[א]ל‬ ̊ ‫אל‬ 5 2 [And when] he [has complet]ed the seven days of [his purifi]cation [ ] 3 [then] he shall launder his garments in wa[ter and bathe his flesh in water] 4 and cover (himself with) his garments and bless wh[ere he stands saying, “Blessed are you] 5 God of Isra[el”] 20 21 22 23

See 2 Chr 30:17: ‫כי רבת בקהל אשר לא התקדשו‬. M. Šeqal. 8:1; m. Ḥag. 3:6; t. Ḥag. 3:24. E. Eshel, “4Q414 Fragment 2,” 3–10. [For the texts cited in the present paragraph, see eadem, DJD 35.143.] For the restorations [in which Baumgarten differs from Baillet in line 4], see Baumgarten, “Purification Rituals,” 201–2, where the parallel with 4Q512 27 viii 1–5 is indicated.

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329

The specification that the blessing after purification is to be recited in the water is likewise indicated elsewhere in 4Q512, where we read ‫וברך שם‬, “and he shall bless there” (29–32 vii 5 and 16 viii). The requirement that he cover himself with his garment, clearly in order to guard modesty, brings to mind the loincloth used by Essene men and the dresses worn by women while bathing as reported by Josephus ( J.W. 2.161). When we compare the Qumranic recitation of the blessing after the bath with rabbinic halakhah, we note that this is in accordance with the rule found in the following baraita: ‫טבל ועלה אומר בעלייתו ברוך אשר קדשנו במצותיו וצונו על הטבילה‬

When he has immersed himself and has come up, he says (after) his coming up, “Blessed be He who has sanctified us with his commandments and commanded us concerning immersion.”24 This is an exception to the general rule of reciting blessings before the action. In the case of proselyte baptism the rationale for postponing the blessing until after the bath which formalizes the conversion is obvious: liturgical recitations are not incumbent upon non-Jews. The principle was, however, extended by some Gaonic authorities to bathing after a seminal flow on the grounds that the person was fit for prayer only after purification.25 The Qumranic position on this matter appears to have been similar, except that they had those who were purified pronounce their prayer while still standing in the water.26 24 25 26

B. Ber. 51a and b. Pesaḥ. 7b. See the comments of R. Hananel in Tosafot to b. Pesaḥ. 7b (s.v. ‫ )על הטבילה‬and G. Alon, Studies in Jewish History (2 vols.; Tel-Aviv, 1967), 1:154 [in Hebrew; English: idem, Jews, Judaism and the Classical World (Jerusalem, 1977), 199]. [We have omitted section 3 and the Conclusion of this article, because the same text appears as the concluding pages of “The Law and Spirit of Purity at Qumran.”]

Chapter 28

The Law and Spirit of Purity at Qumran Half* a century marks a prominent milepost in the saga of the Dead Sea Scrolls, but for some of us, contemporaries of the generation of Mohammed ed Dhib, it is also the natural time to evaluate what we have accomplished and seriously consider the benefits of retirement. In fact according to CD 10 our continued participation in deliberation on the nature of the Qumran community may be downright illegal: ‫ואל יתיצב עוד מבן ששים שנה ומעלה לשפוט את‬ ‫העדה‬. “Those who are sixty years old or older shall no longer stand to judge the congregation.” The reason given is rather blunt and lacking in polite deference to the dignities of age: “For through the burning wrath of God against those who dwell on earth he has decreed that their intelligence should depart before they complete their days” (this would be an appropriate time to sit down). If I nevertheless stand before you it is because the organizer of this symposium could not find anyone [else] foolhardy enough to hold forth on the fascinating subject of ancient purity laws in an after-dinner setting at eight o’clock in the evening. In a vain effort to add some excitement to the topic, he suggested phrasing the title, “The Threat of Purity.” I don’t know precisely what “threat” he had in mind, but I would have none of it. The word “threat” reminded me of a piece that I wrote many years ago in response to a prominent rabbinic historian who depicted the Scrolls as a threat to halakhah. He was concerned about the deviations in the Scrolls from normative rabbinic law and found solace in the stalwart view of Solomon Zeitlin that the Scrolls were not ancient at all, but were the products of obscure Jewish dissidents of the medieval period. I recall asking him rhetorically whether he was equally concerned about the similar halakhic deviations found in the Book of Jubilees, which even Zeitlin deemed to be ancient, though its Qumran Hebrew fragments were at that time as yet unpublished. The question remained unanswered, but the episode serves for me as a reminder that involvement in the study of Qumran law by erstwhile yeshiva students was in those days viewed as somewhat hazardous.1 * Original publication: “The Law and Spirit of Purity at Qumran,” in The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. J.H. Charlesworth; 3 vols.; The Second Princeton Symposium on Judaism and Christian Origins [1997]; Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2006), 2:93–105. Republished with the generous permission of Baylor University Press. 1 [On this 1957–1959 exchange between Baumgarten and S.B. Hoenig, see D.R. Schwartz, “Rabbi Prof. Joseph M. Baumgarten (1928–2008): In Memoriam,” Meghillot 10 (2013): 3–5 (in

© Joseph M. Baumgarten, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004505087_030

The Law and Spirit of Purity at Qumran

331

The views about Qumran legalism among some historians of religion have up to the present remained equivocal. For a long time the only significant corpus of sectarian religious law was that embedded in the Damascus Document, and there are still scholars with lingering doubts as to whether it is original. Hopefully the recently published Cave 4 manuscripts2 will dispel these doubts and also put an end to the strange phenomenon of truncated editions of this foundational communal text from which the central core of laws is missing.3 Even those scholars who were aware of the extent and centrality of Qumran legal writings appear to have had difficulty with understanding how this fact could be reconciled with the spiritualistic fervor and eschatological tension characteristic of the community. The suggestion was made that the nomistic concerns with family life, the Sabbath, and purity may be attributed to the influx of newcomers with Pharisaic tendencies during the sect’s exile in Damascus. This reflects the rather dubious notion that the Essenes were not themselves concerned with the rigors of the Law. Another approach commences from the premise that intense eschatological expectation must inevitably lead toward the relaxation of law. This, it is claimed, is phenomenologically illustrated not only by the teachings of Paul but by certain dicta concerning halakhic innovations in the “future to come” found in late rabbinic sources. W.D. Davies in his Torah in the Messianic Age has drawn attention to these dicta and Gershom Scholem has explored their possible influence on radical Sabbatian messianism in the seventeenth century.4 Aside from the huge chronological gap which separates these dicta from the Second Temple period, their problematic and speculative nature may be illustrated by [a passage] found in Midrash Tehillim on Ps 146:7:5 The Lord loosens the bonds (‫)מתיר אסורים‬. What does the verse mean by the words “loosen the bonds”? Some say that every animal whose flesh it is forbidden to eat in this world, the Holy One, blessed be he, will declare in the time to come that the eating of its flesh is permitted…. Others say

2 3 4 5

Hebrew); and see Baumgarten’s 1958 article, “The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Threat to Halakhah?” Tradition 1 (1958/59): 209–21.] [See Qumran Cave 4.XIII: The Damascus Document (4Q266–273) (ed. J.M. Baumgarten; DJD 18; Oxford, 1996).] [See P.R. Davies, The Damascus Covenant: An Interpretation of the “Damascus Document” (Sheffield, 1983), 232–67 (omits cols. 9–16).] [See G. Scholem, The Messianic Idea in Judaism and Other Essays on Jewish Spirituality (New York, 1971), esp. 52–54, 115–16. Our thanks to Dr. Pawel Maciejko for his help with this point.] [The following translation is based on that of W.G. Braude, The Midrash on Psalms (2 vols.; New Haven, 1959), 2:365–66.]

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PART 5: THEOLOGY AND APOCALYPTISM

that, though nothing is more strongly forbidden than intercourse with a menstruant, … in the time-to-come, God will permit such intercourse…. Still others say that in the time-to-come, sexual intercourse will be entirely forbidden. You can see for yourself why it will be. On the day that the Holy One, blessed be he, revealed Himself on Mount Sinai to give the Torah to the children of Israel, He forbade intercourse for three days…. Now since God, when He revealed Himself for only one day, forbade intercourse for three days, in the time-to-come, when the presence of God dwells continuously in Israel’s midst, will not intercourse be entirely forbidden? Whether or not one finds this syllogism persuasive, the midrash clearly demonstrates that speculation about the eschaton does not lead unequivocally toward the abrogation of the law. For some it may evoke the opposite, a conscientious search for greater rigor in complying fully with the standards of purity thought to be implicit in the Law. Which direction was the one that predominated at Qumran? Rather than offering our own a priori theories we would be well advised to see what the Qumran texts themselves have to say about the eschatological status of the laws. 4QpIsab (= 4Q162) col. 2, Isaiah Pesher 2, about the end of days (‫אחרית‬ ‫)הימים‬, applies the prophet’s castigation of those who “rejected the law of the Lord” (Isa 5:24) to the congregation of “scoffers” of Jerusalem. Another pesher (4QpIsac [= 4Q163] 23 2), Isaiah Pesher 3, also pertaining to the end of days, identifies this congregation as that of the Seekers after Smooth Things, the well-known sobriquet for the Pharisees. Their lenient interpretation of the Torah was ostensibly viewed as corrupt even in the end of days, or more precisely, especially in the end of days. The latter view emerges emphatically from the conclusion of the halakhic letter known as MMT (Some Works of the Torah, 4QMMTa–f [= 4Q394–399]).6 The anonymous writer believed his generation to be that of the end of days ‫אחרית הימים‬, the Mosaic warnings about which had already been fulfilled: “And this is the end of days when they will repent in Israel for[ever].” He therefore appealed to his correspondent not to delay his acceptance of the true interpretation of the priestly laws of the Torah: ‫ונחשבה לך לצדקה בעשותך הישר והטוב‬ “and it shall be reckoned for you as righteousness when you do that which is upright and good” (MMT C 31). The editors of MMT did not deal with the 6 [See E. Qimron and J. Strugnell, Qumran Cave 4.V: Miqṣat Maʿaśe Ha-Torah (DJD 10; Oxford, 1994), 58–60.]

The Law and Spirit of Purity at Qumran

333

theological dimensions of the text, but they were certainly aware of the fact that the phraseology of this passage derives from Gen 15:6, “And [Abraham] believed in God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness” ‫ויחשבה לו צדקה‬. Interestingly, this locus classicus of later Pauline exegesis is here applied to the proper performance of deeds of the Law in the time of the eschaton. This, of course, does not mean that the laws were thought of as totally unaffected by the progress of time. It was recognized early on that Qumran teaching involved a concept of progressive revelation as the source for the unfolding knowledge of the Torah. As the Rule of the Community puts it, “It [the clearing of the highway in Isa 40:3] is the searching of the Torah (‫)מדרש התורה‬ which He commanded through Moses to do according to everything which is revealed from time to time (‫ )עת בעת‬and as the prophets have revealed by his holy spirit” (1QS 8:15–16). The searching, ‫מדרש התורה‬, was continuing in the life of the community, resulting in rules classified as ‫משפטים ראשונים ואחרונים‬, the “earlier” and “later” laws. This developmental concept has led some scholars to speak of the “relativization” of the Law, in which Moses is only the first of an ongoing series of inspired lawgivers. W.D. Davies observed some years ago that, “there are passages which imply that the Law under which the sect is living is not completely adequate,” in contrast with “the prevailing view in Judaism … that the Law given on Sinai was perfect and eternal.” He took this as a sign of a “Judaism at the boiling point” and “straining at the leash of the Law.”7 The projection of such antinomian misgivings upon the Qumran community lacks support from their writings. It is true that they believed in ongoing illumination of the true meaning of the Law, culminating with the coming of the messiahs of Aaron and Israel,8 when their previous misapprehensions of its hidden aspects would be forgiven (CD 12:22–13:1; 14:18–19). This, however, hardly means that they looked forward to the ultimate abrogation of the legal force of the Torah. On the contrary, they expected their hypernomistic interpretation of the Law of Moses to be ultimately recognized as truth. Some scholars have claimed to have found symptoms of theological conflict in the lack of references to religious laws in the lyrical hymns and moralistic Qumran works. Actually there is an appreciable number of references to the Law, but the scarcity of legal details in the Thanksgiving Hymns and prophetic commentaries reflects their genres, not any tension between legal tradition and perfectionist piety. What is noteworthy about the Qumran literature 7 W.D. Davies, “Paul and the Dead Sea Scrolls: Flesh and Spirit,” in The Scrolls and the New Testament (ed. K. Stendahl; New York, 1957), 157–82 (182 n. 86). 8 [On the use of plural here, see 1QS 9:11.]

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PART 5: THEOLOGY AND APOCALYPTISM

is the coexistence of these ostensibly contrasting genres as the creations of the same religious community. This would appear to call for a reconsideration of the conventional view, which assumes legal and pneumatic concerns to be irreconcilable. I should now like to illustrate how these considerations may apply to purity, a phase of religious law that emerged with unprecedented prominence in the Second Temple period. While the biblical rules of purity were primarily centered around the sacred sphere of the Temple, there was in Second Temple times a pious trend to extend their applicability beyond the priesthood and into the daily life of the home. This trend is likewise reflected in tannaitic sources, [consultation of] which is indispensable for the understanding of the supererogatory standards espoused by the legists of the Qumran community. We have been engaged in editing the Qumran Cave 4 fragments concerning purity and attempting to define their departures from Pharisaic halakhah.9 Much of this work involves technical aspects of purity and the effort to formulate the exegetical principles that were involved. However, this work should not be without interest for students of early Christianity. Allow me two brief illustrations. 1. The Epistle of Barnabas, a Christian theological tract thought to stem from about the end of the first century ce, contains the following interpretation of the red cow ritual: But what do you think it typifies, that the commandment has been given to Israel that the men in whom sin is complete offer a heifer and slay it and burn it, and that boys then take the ashes and put them into vessels and bind scarlet wool on sticks (see again the type of the Cross and the scarlet wool) and hyssop, and that the boys all sprinkle the people thus one by one in order that they all be purified from their sins?10 A comparison of the details of this description with the halakhah found in the Mishnah and Tosefta was already initiated by an historian of the rabbinic age, Gedalia Alon.11 The following is the perhaps somewhat embellished description of the procedure preserved in m. Parah 3:2: There were courtyards in Jerusalem built upon rock, with hollow space under them (thus avoiding the concern) for underground graves. They 9 10 11

Qumran Cave 4.XXV: Halakhic Texts (ed. J. Baumgarten et al.; DJD 35; Oxford, 1999), 35. Barn. 8:1, The Apostolic Fathers (tr. K. Lake; 2 vols.; Cambridge, Mass., 1959), 1:369. G. Alon, Studies in Jewish History (2 vols.; Tel Aviv, 1957), 1:296–302 (in Hebrew).

The Law and Spirit of Purity at Qumran

335

would bring pregnant women and they would give birth there and rear their sons there. They would bring oxen with doors upon their backs, and the children would sit upon them, with cups of stone in their hands. When they arrived at the Siloam, they descended and filled them. After they mixed ashes kept from previous red cow rites with the water, the children would sprinkle it upon the priest who was to perform the current rite (m. Parah 3:1). The ostensible aim of these precautions and the use of children reared in purity was to eliminate the possibility that those preparing the water and the ashes might themselves be carriers of corpse impurity. Interestingly, we now have Qumran texts which specifically reject this Pharisaic stratagem of using young boys to do the sprinkling.12 They insist that only a priest of mature age was qualified to accomplish the purgation by means of the sprinkling waters. Here we have another Qumran-Pharisaic dispute over purity, which at the same time serves to confirm the historicity of the account found in the Mishnah. 2. Our second illustration concerns the use of sprinkling water for general purification from any sort of ritual uncleanness. The classical biblical locus for the use of sprinkling water for lustration is Numbers 19, where water containing the ashes of a red cow is sprinkled upon those who have become impure through contact or being under the same roof with a corpse. 4Q277 elaborates on the procedure, adding the controversial Qumran stringencies that those who perform the ritual must wait for sundown after bathing and, as we just noted, that the one who sprinkles the water must be a priest of mature age. It further states that the sprinkling water effectively accomplishes purification not only from corpse impurity but from any other source of uncleanness [‫]מכל‬ ‫טמאה אחרת‬. Such an extension of the use of sprinkling water for impurities other than those stemming from contact with the dead appears to be reflected in a number of Qumran texts.13 We have found such allusions in passages pertaining to sexual impurity as well as the general impurity thought at Qumran to be inherent in all transgressors of the law (1QS 5:14). Thus, we have a description of the lustration required for the atonement of sin: 12 13

[See Baumgarten, “274–278. 4QTohorot A–C” [Introduction], in DJD 35.79–97 (82–83), on 4Q277 and related texts.] [On this topic, see also “The Use of ‫ מי נדה‬for General Purification,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls Fifty Years after Their Discovery: Proceedings of the Jerusalem Congress, July 20–25, 1997 (ed. L.H. Schiffman, E. Tov, and J.C. VanderKam; Jerusalem, 2000), 481–85; also included in this volume.]

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PART 5: THEOLOGY AND APOCALYPTISM

It is by the holy spirit uniting him to his truth that he can be cleansed from all his iniquities. It is by humbling his soul to all God’s statutes that his flesh can be cleansed by sprinkling with waters of purification and by sanctifying himself with waters of purity (‫יטהר בשר ו להזות במי נדה ולה�ת‬ ‫)קדש במי דוכי‬. 1QS 3:7–9

This passage describes the purification characteristic of the Qumran community in which external ablutions, in this case sprinkling with water for lustration, are effective only when coordinated with inner receptivity for the divine holy spirit. We shall return to this in what follows. The notion that the sprinkling of water, which in normative halakhah is confined to purification from corpse impurity, could be extended to other kinds of impurity, at first seems anomalous. However, it is possible to identify scriptural passages that would facilitate such a notion, and to point out later sources in which it reemerged. Psalm 51:9 has the prayer ‫תחטאני באזוב ואטהר‬, “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean.” The hyssop was used for sprinkling upon those defiled by a corpse (Num 19:17). It aroused the query in the Midrash on Psalms, “Did David actually fall into uncleanness? No, but into an iniquity whereby his soul was wounded unto death, as he said: My heart is wounded (‫ )חלל‬unto death within me (Ps 109:22).”14 The midrash infers from this “that every man who commits a transgression is as unclean as though he had touched a dead body and must be purified with hyssop.” This inference harmonizes quite well with the Qumran view that all transgressors of God’s word are impure, except that at Qumran it appears to have been more than a metaphor. In Num 8:7 the purification of the Levites is described as requiring the sprinkling of ‫מי חטאת‬. Mediaeval and modern commentators have identified this sprinkling water with the ‫ מי נדה‬of Numbers 19.15 Rashi, in fact, took its purpose to be the purification of the Levites from possible corpse impurity. Yet this is not stated in the text. It is quite plausible that other exegetes supposed this sprinkling water to be intended for general cleansing from any possible source of impurity. Such an approach is indeed reflected in Sifre Zuṭa:

14 15

[Midrash on Psalms (ad Ps 51), trans. Braude, 1:472.] For a recent discussion of this question see B.A. Levine, Numbers 1–20 (New York, 1993), 274–75.

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337

‫הלויים נתקדשו בהזייה … ישראל נתקדשו בפרת חטאת שנאמר דבר אל בני ישראל‬ 16‫ויקחו אליך פרה אדומה‬

[The Levites were sanctified by sprinkling … Israel was sanctified by the cow of sin-offering, as it is written: “Speak unto the children of Israel, that they should bring you a red cow” (Num 19:2)] Here the red cow is designated as the means by which Israel was sanctified. Gedalia Alon properly took this to mean that the covenant at Sinai, just as the inauguration of the Levites, was preceded by sprinkling.17 This inference may be supported by reference to Philo, who says that the people at Sinai “had cleansed themselves with ablutions and sprinklings” (λουτροι̑ς τε καὶ περιρραντηρίοις) (Decal. 45). New Testament scholars have observed that in Hebrews 9 the description of the sanctification associated with the “first covenant,” that is the one at Sinai, appears to conflate diverse purification rituals: For when every commandment had been told to all the people by Moses in accordance with the law, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the scroll itself and all the people, saying, “This is the blood of the covenant that God has ordained for you.” Heb 9:19

The sprinkling of the blood of oxen and the recitation accompanying it is found in Exodus 24[:6–8], but the water, the scarlet, and the hyssop derive from the ritual of the red cow, which is mentioned in Heb 9:13. However, in view of what we have found at Qumran, the association of purification by water containing the ashes with the covenant at Sinai no longer appears so remote, although the Jewish sources which we cited allude to it as preparatory to the covenant rather than its sequel. We must also leave to New Testament scholars the problematic mention of goats (in some textual witnesses) and of the sprinkling of water upon the scroll. Nevertheless, I hope this illustration may serve as another indication of how the details of purification may be relevant to the Christian exegesis of pentateuchal laws. 16 17

H.S. Horovitz, Siphre d’be Rab, I: Siphre ad Numeros adjecto Siphre zutta (Jerusalem, 1966), 251. Alon, Studies, 1:139. See there Jacob Epstein’s editorial note, which questions whether this midrash is an integral part of Sifre Zuṭa.

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We should now like to indicate what may be learned from Qumran about the moral-ethical dimension of purification. In modern scholarship on the Essenes one frequently encounters the notion that repeated immersion for ritual purity could not possibly have had any spiritual significance. The questionable validity of this assumption already emerges from the fact that the level of purity attained by senior Essenes was proportional to their standing in the spiritual ἄσκησις practiced by the order: They are divided, according to the duration of their discipline, into four grades; and so far are the junior members inferior to the seniors, that a senior if but touched by a junior, must take a bath, as after contact with an alien. J.W. 2.150

It is also noteworthy that “ritual” purification was held to be a prerequisite of prophecy by the Essenes, who were highly regarded for this pneumatic gift. For prophesying they not only utilized the books of the prophets, but, as Josephus reports, “various forms of purification” διαφόροις ἁγνείαις ( J.W. 2.159). As far as Qumran is concerned, the link between purity of body and spirit is salient throughout the literature. One of the primary duties of the covenanters was “to separate from all impurities according to their law, and to let no man defile his holy spirit” (CD 7:3–4). “Defiling their holy spirit” is juxtaposed with failure to separate from menstruants and with incest, among the cardinal sins attributed to their contemporaries (CD 5:7–11). [As we saw above, 1QS 3:7–9 emphatically insists that acceptance of the holy spirit (‫ )רוח קדושה‬precede “sprinkling with waters of purification.”]18 There is likewise an abundance of lustral metaphors applied to the divine spirit, which purifies man as water that is sprinkled or poured out upon those in need of cleansing. Jubilees 1:23 speaks of the Lord’s assurance of Israel’s penitence and return to him: “And I shall create for them a holy spirit, and I shall purify them.” In the Rule of the Community, 1QS 4:20–21, the divine purification of man is depicted as follows:

18

In his illuminating study, John the Baptizer and Prophet (Sheffield, 1991), 118–19, Robert L. Webb draws attention to the addition to T. Levi 2:3 in manuscript E, in which Levi’s ablution is followed by the prayer that the Lord make known to him the “spirit of holiness” (τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον). He finds it significant that in this addition, which has close parallels with the Aramaic Testament of Levi ar (4Q213) [ed. note: now designated the Aramaic Levi Document], an actual immersion is performed in running water, to symbolize cleansing from sin and conversion to God.

The Law and Spirit of Purity at Qumran

339

‫לטהרו ברוח קודש מכול עלילות רשעה ויז עליו רוח אמת כמי נדה‬

To purify him by the holy spirit from all works of wickedness and shed upon him the spirit of truth like sprinkling water. Here the purifying effect of the holy spirit, apparently synonymous with the spirit of truth, is juxtaposed with the sprinkling of water. The context of this passage is eschatological, and appears to echo Joel 3:1: “And it shall come to pass afterwards, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and daughters shall prophesy.” However, the biblical prophets were also depicted as speaking through the holy spirit (1QS 8:16), and the purifying function of the holy spirit was believed to continue in the present life of the community, as is clear from the Thanksgiving Hymns (1QH) 8:21 (‫)לטהרני ברוח קודשך‬, 1QS 3:7, and 4Q255 2:1. The use of the verb ‫“ יצק‬to pour” for the holy spirit (as in 4Q504 1–2 15, ‫)יצקתה את רוח קודשכה עלינו‬, shows how readily the spirit could be conceived as acting concomitantly with the rituals of lustration. In a significant passage (4Q414 [13] 7) God is described as the one who wills ]‫לטהר עמו במימי רוח[ץ‬, “to purify his people in cleansing water.”19 The collective formulation, “to purify his people,” again underlines the communal aspect of purification as ritually affecting all of Israel. The fact that purification was intimately associated with the holy spirit at Qumran is likely to raise new questions concerning the baptism of John as portrayed in the synoptic gospels and the book of Acts. According to these, John himself described his baptism of repentance as limited to water, while that of the “one who is coming” would be a baptism with the holy spirit.20 This raises the question of why John would have rejected or postponed to the future the pneumatic aspect of purification which had already emerged so saliently at Qumran. David Flusser has suggested that the original intent of John’s prophecy did not pertain to any baptism forthcoming after him, but to the eschatological outpouring of the spirit;21 but this does not seem to be the way it was interpreted in the Gospels and Acts. 19

20 21

The restoration of the word ]‫ רוח[ץ‬seems open to question, since ‫ רחץ‬is not spelled with a waw, and the restored phrase appears elsewhere in Qumran as ‫מי רחץ‬. I considered the possibility that the traces of the letter after ‫ רוח‬might be compatible with a qôp, thus suggesting the possible restoration ]‫“ לטהר עמו במימי רוח ק[דשו‬to purify his people with the water of his holy spirit.” However, Stephen Pfann, who graciously examined PAM 43.482, concludes that ]‫ רוח[ץ‬seems preferable. [Cf. E. Eshel, “414. 4QRitual of Purification,” DJD 35.147.] Mark 1:5–6 and par.; Acts 19:1–7. D. Flusser, “The Baptism of John and the Dead Sea Sect,” in Essays on the Dead Sea Scrolls in Memory of E.L. Sukenik (ed. C. Rabin and Y. Yadin; Jerusalem, 1961), 209–39, esp. 220–24 (in Hebrew).

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The close affinity between the baptism of John and that practiced at Qumran has been widely recognized. Especially noteworthy is Josephus’s emphatic description of John’s baptism “as a consecration of the body implying that the soul was already thoroughly cleansed by right behavior” (Ant. 18.117). This is precisely the point of Rule of the Community 3:8–9: “It is by submitting his soul to all God’s statutes, that his flesh can be cleansed, by sprinkling with waters of purification, and by sanctifying himself with waters of purity.” This statement forms the conclusion of the emphatic repudiation of all forms of ablution not preceded by repentance. It is further noteworthy that Josephus depicts John’s exhortation as a call “to join in baptism” (βαπτισμῷ συνιέναι). This may well be an allusion to a ritual immersion which involved not just individuals but groups of penitents. Feldman justly avoids the translation “to be united by baptism,” but his stated reason that “there is no indication that John championed group baptism” requires evaluation.22 The authors of the Gospels certainly wished to depict the response to his preaching as a group phenomenon: “And there went out to him all the country of Judea, and all the people of Jerusalem; and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins” (Mark 1:5). The daily ablutions of the Essenes were likewise performed as a group, “when they again assemble in one place and, after girding their loins with linen cloths, bathe their bodies in cold water” ( J.W. 2.129). Some scholars take pains to differentiate between the repeated baths of the Essenes and the purportedly one-time penitential purification performed by John. This distinction can with more validity be made between the immersions of the Essenes and Christian baptism.23 The Epistle to the Hebrews, as well as Tertullian, polemically proclaimed the impossibility of repeating Christian baptism. However, the claim that John’s immersion for repentance was likewise a once in a lifetime ceremony remains unsubstantiated. In his recent study, “John the Purifier,” Bruce D. Chilton observes: It is routinely claimed that John preached a “conversionary repentance” by baptism, an act once for all which was not repeatable nor to be repeated. That is a fine description of how baptism is portrayed in the Epistle to the Hebrews 6:1–8, and such a theology came to predominate 22 23

L.H. Feldman, Josephus: Jewish Antiquities, Books XVIII–XX (London, Cambridge, 1965), 82 n. a, on Ant. 18.118. “Semel ergo lavacrum inimus, semel delicta abluuntur quia ea iterari non oportet” (“Once only we enter the baptismal bath and once only are our sins washed away, for it behooves us not to repeat them”), Tertullian, Bapt. 15.3 (ed. R.P. Refoulé, SC).

The Law and Spirit of Purity at Qumran

341

within catholic Christianity. But ablutions in Judaism were characteristically repeatable, and Hebrews must argue against the proposition that one may be baptized afresh. Only the attribution to John of later, catholic theology of baptism can justify the characterization of his baptism as symbol of a definite “conversion.”24 In Jewish thought repentance tends to be viewed, like cleansing, as a perennial process.25 True, the rabbis took a very dim view of the sinner who declares a priori, “I will sin and repent, and do both again” (m. Yoma 8:9), but they were not oblivious to the fallibility of human nature. Can we assume that John, the prominent advocate of immersion for the sake of repentance, would have denied its value for one who had sincerely immersed himself in the past? The penitents of Qumran apparently did not. Another issue that has been raised with regard to the baptism of John is its administration by an authority figure, in contrast to the allegedly selfadministered immersions of Qumran. Yet, the presumption that immersions at Qumran were not subject to the control of any communal authority should by no means be taken for granted. True, the available sources do not specify that this was the function of any particular supervisor, but they do indicate that there were those to whom the privilege of immersion was denied. Concerning one who fails to obey the rules of the sect, the Rule of the Community 5:13 says, “He must not enter the water in order to touch the purity of the men of holiness.” From this one may plausibly infer, firstly, that immersion was one of the requirements for admission into the ‫ ;יחד‬and secondly, that it was subject to some form of communal control. This was clearly the case with the Essenes, where a neophyte who had successfully completed a one-year probation was “allowed to share the purer kind of water for purification” (τῶν πρὸς ἁγνείαν ὑδάτων) ( J.W. 2.138). The penitential tone of the 4Q512 purification liturgy is readily recognizable.26 It is illustrated by extant confessional phrases such as ‫ותטהרני מערות נדה ותכפר‬ 24

25 26

B.D. Chilton, Judaic Approaches to the Gospels (Atlanta, 1994), 26–27, cf. J.A.T. Robinson, “The Baptism of John and the Qumran Community,” in idem, Twelve New Testament Studies (Naperville, IL, 1962), 11–27 (17); L.F. Badia, The Qumran Baptism and John the Baptist’s Baptism (Lanham, Md., 1980), 49; and H. Stegemann, Die Essener, Qumran, Johannes der Täufer und Jesus (Freiburg, 1993), 306–7 [= idem, The Library of Qumran (Grand Rapids, 1998), 222] are among those who claim the one-time character of John’s purification. See Tertullian’s caricature of this fact: “Israël cotidie lavat quia cotidie inquinatur” (Bapt. 15.3), approvingly cited by E. Schürer, Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi (3rd ed.; 3 vols.; Leipzig, 1898), 3:131. See M. Baillet, “512. Rituel de Purification,” in idem, Qumrân Grotte 4.III (4Q482–4Q520) (DJD 7; Oxford, 1982), 262–86.

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PART 5: THEOLOGY AND APOCALYPTISM

“You have cleansed me from the turpitude of impurity and atoned” (frags. 29–32 vii 9);27 ‫“ מכל ערות בשרנו‬from all the turpitude of our flesh” (frags. 36–38 iii 17); ‫“ נסתרות אשמה‬hidden trespasses of guilt”; and ‫“ מנגע הנדה‬from the plague of impurity” (frag. 34 v). M. Baillet surmised that these were all allusions to sexual impurity. Interestingly, the phrase ‫“ ומנדות טמאה‬and from defiling impurity” and other uses of ‫ נדה‬in the sense of impurity are found in frags. 1–6 xii, a column which mentions the “holy ashes” and the sprinkling waters. This would lend support to the aforementioned premise that sprinkling was used also for the purification of defilements other than those stemming from corpses. 1

Conclusion

Although fragmentary, the purification liturgies add to our understanding of the purpose and spiritual dimension of the lustrations practiced at Qumran. Far from being merely external acts for the removal of ritual uncleanliness, the purifications were viewed as the means by which the holy spirit restores the corporate purity of Israel. 4Q284 alludes to communal cleansing in preparation for the Sabbaths and the festivals. But individuals, too, who bathed themselves to remove the different categories of uncleanliness or in order to be admitted to a higher level of purity in the community, were made conscious of the indispensability of penitence to make them worthy of renewed sanctification. The affinities between the views of purification at Qumran and those of John the Baptist, long recognized by scholars, appear to be enhanced by the liturgical texts. The hypothetical distinctions concerning the one-time nature of John’s baptism, its administration by an external authority, and its noninvolvement of the holy spirit are in need of reevaluation. The discovery of the Scrolls fifty years ago opened a window into an ancient Jewish world in which ritual and religious purity were intimately associated. That world, in which the sanctity of the Temple was to some extent extrapolated into the sphere of daily life, could not practically be preserved after its destruction. Henceforth the offerings required for purification could no longer be brought and the lack of sprinkling water left everyone in a permanent state of impurity. However, the use of miqwa‌ʾot, the ritual pools sufficient for bodily immersion, was continued by both men and women. Moreover, the miqweh served as a symbolic reminder of the nexus between inner and outer cleansing. Half a century after the destruction of the Temple, the illustrious Akiba dwelt 27

The phraseology of the purification liturgy found in 4Q414 likewise reflects the theme of atonement, ‫כפר‬.

The Law and Spirit of Purity at Qumran

343

on Jeremiah’s characterization of the Lord as the ‫מקוה‬, “the hope of Israel” (Jer 17:13). The Lord, he observed, serves also as the ‫מקוה‬, the ritual pool for Israel. “Just as the miqweh purifies the unclean, so the Holy One blessed be He purifies Israel” (m. Yoma 8:9). With this rabbinic observation even a Qumran survivor would very likely have concurred.

Chapter 29

On the Nature of the Seductress in 4Q184 In* view of the intense Essene concern with angelology and the familiar dualistic cast of Qumran theology, one need hardly be surprised to discover that the sect was also deeply involved in the realm of demonology. This is becoming increasingly evident both from recently published texts as well as the reappraisal of those previously known. The following brief inventory will essay to identify the demonological elements in a number of Qumran compositions, including two which have not, to my knowledge, previously been viewed from this perspective. 1. Damascus Document 12:2–3 rules that “anyone who is possessed by spirits of Belial and speaks apostasy is to be judged in accordance with the law of the necromancer and the familiar spirit.” 2. Among the poetic compositions which 11QPsalms 27 attributes to David there are listed “four songs to play for those stricken (by evil spirits),” ‫ושיר‬ ‫לנגן על הפגועים ארבעה‬.1 The term ‫ שיר של פגעים‬is applied in the Talmud to Psalm 91, which refers to protection from various kinds of demons.2 3. Included with the apocryphal psalms from Cave 11 (11QApPsa) published by van der Ploeg there is one with the following text:3 [◦] [◦‫] ̊ד‬ [ ◦◦ [‫]ו̊ פגוע‬ [ ‫אשר‬ ̊ [‫]אל שלמ‬ [‫נדביא‬ ̊ ‫]◦ עח‬ ‫הו[ה‬-‫]ש בשם י‬ ‫לדויד ̊על‬ ̊ ‫]י̊בוא אליך בלי̊ [לה וא] ̊מרתה אליו‬ [‫שפ‬ ̇ ‫אל ̊ר‬ ‫מי אתה [ותירא מ]אדם ומזרע הקו̇ [דש כ]י̊ פניך פני‬

1 2 3 4 5 6

* This paper was presented to the Tenth World Congress of Jewish Studies, which met in Jerusalem in August 1989. [Original publication: “On the Nature of the Seductress in 4Q184,” RevQ 15 (1991–1992): 133–43.] Republished with the generous permission of J. Gabalda et Cie. 1 J.A. Sanders, The Dead Sea Psalms Scroll (Ithaca, NY, 1967), 86 [idem, The Psalms Scroll of Qumran Cave 11 (DJD 4; Oxford, 1965), 48]. 2 B. Šebu. 15b. 3 J. van der Ploeg, “Un petit rouleau de psaumes apocryphes (11QApPsa),” in Tradition und Glaube: Das frühe Christentum in seiner Umwelt. Festgabe für Karl Georg Kuhn zum 65. Geburtstag (ed. G. Jeremias, H.-W. Kuhn, and H. Stegemann; Göttingen, 1971), 128–139 (135). [The text, with some different readings, was also published as “11. 11Qapocryphal Psalms” in F. García Martínez, E.J.C. Tigchelaar, and A.S. van der Woude, Qumran Cave 11.II: 11Q2–18, 11Q20–31 (DJD 23; Oxford, 1998), 181–205 (198).]

© Joseph M. Baumgarten, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004505087_031

On the Nature of the Seductress in 4Q184

‫]ך‬ ‫]א‬

‫תוה]ו̇ וקרנ̇ י̊ ̊ך קרני חל[ ] חושך ̊א ̊ת ̊ה ולוא אור‬ [ ‫הוה‬-‫]◦ר ה◦◦ה י‬ [ ‫עו]ל ולוא צדקה‬ [ ‫בשאו[ל תחתית [סגורה בדל]תי נחושת‬

345 7 8 9

The editor’s identification of the demon addressed as Resheph is disputed by E. Puech in his paper on 11QApPsa. Puech’s reading of line 5 would rather identify Belial as the sinister figure against whom the words are spoken.4 In any case a salient feature of this demonic figure are his horns. In the Talmud, too, demons are depicted as having horns.5 The words to be spoken to Resheph apparently identify him as one of the bastard offspring of the union of angels (‫ )זרע הקודש‬with humans. Like all demons he stems from the realm of darkness. The first four lines are poorly preserved but allude to David and Solomon using the divine name for exorcistic purposes. This is also known from Josephus (Ant. 8.45–46) and Pseudo-Philo (L.A.B. 60). The use of divine hymns for warding off evil spirits is now saliently illustrated in the Song for a Sage from Qumran (4Q510–511).6 4. The Song for a Sage, published by Baillet in DJD 7,7 appears at first to be merely another Qumran liturgical hymn, but its applied use for exorcism soon becomes evident: ‫ואני משכיל משמיע הוד תפארתו לפחד ולב[הל] כול רוחי מלאכי חבל ורוחות‬ ‫ממזרים שד אים לילית אחים ו … והפוגעים פתע פתאום לתעות רוח בינה ולהשם‬ ‫לבבם‬

And I, the Sage, sound the majesty of his beauty to terrify and confound all the spirits of destroying angels and the bastard spirits, the demons, Lilith, the ʾEḥim, the …, and those that strike suddenly, to lead astray the spirit of understanding, and to make desolate their heart.8 We have here a valuable roster of sinister creatures. Destroying angels, ‫מלאכי‬ ‫חבל‬, are known from other Qumran sources and are familiar in postbiblical 4 E. Puech, “11QApPsa: un rituel d’exorcismes. Essai de reconstruction,” RevQ 14 (1989–1990): 377–408. See also J.M. Baumgarten, “The Qumran Songs against Demons,” Tarbiz 55 (1985/86): 442–45 (in Hebrew). 5 Compare B. Pesaḥ. 111b. 6 See B. Nitzan, “Hymns from Qumran ‘]‫ ’לפחד ולב[הל‬Evil Ghosts,” Tarbiz 55 (1985/86): 19–46 (in Hebrew). Compare my paper referred to in n. 4 above. 7 [M. Baillet, Qumrân Grotte 4.III (4Q482–4Q520) (DJD 7; Oxford, 1982), 216.] 8 4Q510 1 lines 4–6 and 4Q511 10 lines 1–3; see Nitzan, “Hymns from Qumran,” 27–28.

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PART 5: THEOLOGY AND APOCALYPTISM

literature. Bastard spirits, ‫רוחות ממזרים‬, as was mentioned, are the offspring of the miscegenation of angels with the daughters of men. The converse role of the sexes is found later in a magic bowl text published by Montgomery which speaks of “your posterity which is begotten by demons and Liliths to the Sons of Light who go astray” ‫זרעיתכין דילדין שידי וליליתא לבני נורא סטין‬.9 Interestingly, this sixth-century text preserves the Qumran epithet, Sons of Light. The term also appears in a previously unrecognized exorcistic text from Cave 8 which we will describe below. ‫ שד(א)ים‬appear only twice in the Hebrew Bible (Deut 32:17 and Ps 106:37) as spirits to whom idolatrous sacrifices are offered. The term is cognate to Assyrian šēdu for benign demons, but is the standard word for demons of any kind in later sources. Lilit, the notorious female spirit, has one of the longest continuous histories in Near Eastern demonology. In Sumerian literature she appears as part of the Lilû, Lilītu, Ardat-lilî family. Ardat-lilî is described as a wild aggressive consort, incapable of normal sexuality, but exerting her baleful attraction upon young men. She clearly belongs to the succubus type of demoness found in the folklore of various cultures.10 The single biblical reference to Lilit in Isa 34:14 lacks descriptive detail, but locates her in places of desolation.11 In the Talmud Lilit is described as having human form with long hair and wings. Men sleeping alone are held vulnerable to her seductions.12 Lilit is frequently depicted as a threat to both men and married women in the incantations on the magic bowls.13 In mystical tradition her marriage with Samael, her relationship with Adam, and her role as a seductress are greatly elaborated.14 5. In 1962 there was published in DJD 3 a small text, consisting of two fragments from Cave 8, which the editor, M. Baillet, entitled “Passage hymnique.”15 The following is his transcription: 9 10

11 12 13 14 15

J.A. Montgomery, Aramaic Incantation Texts from Nippur (Philadelphia, 1913), 117. R.C. Thompson, The Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia (London, 1903), 26–36; I. Lévi, “Lilit et Lilin,” REJ 68 (1914): 15–21; R. Patai, The Hebrew Goddess (New York, 1967), 207–45; G. Scholem, “New Chapters in the Story of Ashmedai and Lilith,” Tarbiz 19 (1947/48): 160– 75 (in Hebrew) and idem, “Lilith,” EncJud 11:245–49; W. Farber, “Lilû, Lilītu, Ardat-lilî,” RlA, 7:23–24. Professor M. Weinfeld has called my attention to Job 18:15, where some have proposed to read TŠKWN BʾHLW LYLY. B. Šabb. 151b, b.ʿErub. 100b, and b. Nid. 24b. Montgomery, Incantation Texts; J. Naveh and S. Shaked, Amulets and Magic Bowls (Jerusalem, 1985), 159–214. Scholem, “Lilith.” M. Baillet, “5. Passage hymnique,” in M. Baillet, J.T. Milik, R. De Vaux, Les ‘petites grottes’ de Qumran (2 vols.; DJD 3; Oxford, 1962), 161–62 (161).

On the Nature of the Seductress in 4Q184

1 marge supérieure

347

[‫ומע‬ ̇ ‫] בשמכה[ג]בור אני מירא‬ [◦‫]◦ני האיש הזה אשר הוא מבני ה‬ [‫ ל‬. .][‫לה‬ ̇ ̊‫]הז̊ ה ומה תשבי̊ תו̊ אורו‬ ‫השמ[ים‬ ̊ ‫למ[ז]לו̊ ת‬ ̊ ]

The editor took ‫ האיש הזה‬to be an adversary of the believer belonging to some group, pejoratively described at the end of line 2. However, examination of the facsimile shows that the last letter preserved in line 2 is aleph rather than heh, so that the man was most likely described as one of the Sons of Light, ‫מבני‬ ]‫א[ור‬. This is supported by what follows in line 3, ‫“ ומה תשביתו אורו‬and why should you cause his light to cease?” As to the first line, we now know from 4Q511 that ‫ מירא‬is a technical term for exorcising evil spirits. Thus, the writer declares that he will drive out the demons using the power of the divine. A close parallel is 4Q511 35:6–7: ‫ואני מירא אל בקצי דורותי לרומם שם דבר[תו לפחד] בגבורתו כו[ל] רוחי ממזרים‬

And I instill the fear of God during the periods of my generation, to exalt the name of [his utterance, to frighten] with his power all the bastard spirits. It is thus evident that what we have in this 8Q text is an incantation intended to protect a believer from the harm of demonic powers.16 1

4Q184

We come now to a well-known text, whose demonological aspects have, as far as I know, not previously been assessed. We reproduce here the editor’s transcription:17 16

17

Another fragmentary “hymnic composition” published by Baillet, 6Q18 (DJD 3.133) also has the markings of an exorcistic application. The word LHKNYʿ “to subdue” in fragment 1, which the editor, assumes to derive from “un cadre guerrier,” probably refers to the control of evil spirits, as it does in 4Q511 35, line 7. Fragment 2 dwells on darkness, the realm of demons: [ʾL Ḥ]WŠK ʾTH WLWʾ ʾWR. In fragment 5 the “angels of righteousness” are mentioned in a context alluding to the support of the “spirit of knowledge.” Thus, the “cadre” of this composition is worthy of new evaluation. J.M. Allegro, Qumran Cave 4.I (4Q158–4Q186) (DJD 5; Oxford, 1968), 82.

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PART 5: THEOLOGY AND APOCALYPTISM

‫דברי̊ [ה‬ ̊ ‫הזונ]ה תוציא הבל וב[  ]א תועות תשחר תמי̇ ̊ד[ל]שנן‬ [‫מק‬ ̇ ‫תחל[י]ק ולהליץ יחד בש[וא] עול לבה יכין פחוז וכליותיה‬ ̊ ‫וקלס‬ ‫באשמות[פשע‬ ̊ ‫לה ̇רשיע ירדו וללכת‬ ̊ ‫רגליה‬ ̇ ‫נגעלי ̇הוה תמכו שוח‬ ̊ ‫בעול‬ [‫מוסדי חושך רוב פשעים בכנפיה [ ]ה תועפות לילה ומלבשיה‬ [‫שח ̊ת‬ ̊ ‫שחת ערשיה י̊ ̊צו̊ ̊עי̊ ̊ה יצועי‬ ̊ ‫נשף ועדיה נגועי‬ ̇ ‫מכסיה אפלות‬ ‫מעמקי בור מלונותיה משכבי חושך ובאישני ליל[ה ממ]שלותיה ממוסדי‬

‫אפ ̊לו̊ ̊ת‬ ̊ ‫ותשכון באהלי דומה בתוך מוקדי עולם ואין נחלתה בתוך בכו̊ ל‬ ̊ ‫תאהל שבת‬ ‫דרכי̊ עול הוי הוה לכול נוחליה ושדדה‬ ̊ ‫והיאה ראשית ̇כו̇ ל‬ ̊ ‫נוגה‬/// ‫מאזרי‬ ]‫לכ[ול‬ ‫תו̊ מכי בה כיא דרכיה דרכי מות ואורחותיה שבילי חטאת מעגלותיה משגות‬ ]‫שערי מות בפתח ביתה תצעד שאו̊ [לה‬ ̊ ‫עול ונתיבו[תי] ̊ה אשמות פשע ̊שעריה‬ ] [◦ ‫̊כ[ו] ̊ל[ ]ישובון וכול נוחליה ירדו שחת ̊וה[י] ̊א במסתרים תארוב‬ ]‫כו̊ ̊ל[  ] ̊ברחובות עיר תתעלף ובשערי̊ קריות תתיצב ואין להרג[יעה‬ ]‫מה[ ] ̊ת ̊ת◦◦◦[ ]עיניה הנה ̇והנה ישכילו ̊ועפעפיה בפחז תרים לראו[ת לא‬ ‫י̊ ̊ש‬ ̊ ‫צדיק ותשיגהו‬ ‫צדק‬ ̇ ‫ואיש[ע] ̇צום ותכשי̊ להו ישרים להטות דרך ולבחורי‬ ‫מנצור מצוה סמוכי ◦[ ]◦ להביל בפהז והולכי ישר להשנות ח[וק] להפשיע‬ ‫זד[ו]ן̇ ◦[ ] ̊במה בל ̊ערוכי[ם‬ ̊ ‫ענוים מאל ולהטות פעמיהם מדרכי צדק להביא‬ ‫יושר להשגות אנוש בדרכי שוחה ולפתות בחלקות בני איש‬ ̊ ‫במעגלי‬

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

In collections of Qumran literature, 4Q184 is generally identified as a description of the harlot. It portrays her seductive deportment causing men to succumb to sin, and echoes the warnings of the Book of Proverbs about the death and desolation which awaits her clients. The editor, John Allegro, contributed decisively to this perception when he restored in the first line of the extant text the word ‫[הזונ]ה‬. This was apprehended by some to be the title of the text. However, it subsequently emerged first, that the restoration was indefensible, and secondly, that the original composition did not begin at this point.18 All that can be inferred from the feminine verb and suffixes is that a female seductress is being described in a pejorative fashion. Among the restorations of the first line one may, for example, consider ‫[מפי]ה תוציא הבל‬. The widespread assumption that the female described was a common prostitute inevitably gave rise to some questions. Why would the Qumran sectarians, with their predilection for self-isolation in the wilderness, be concerned with the moral hazards posed by urban streetwalkers?19 In response a variety 18 19

J. Strugnell, “Notes en marge du volume V des ‘Discoveries in the Judaean Desert,’” RevQ 7 (1969–1971): 163–276 (264). T.H. Gaster, The Dead Sea Scriptures (New York, 1976), 495.

On the Nature of the Seductress in 4Q184

349

of allegorical explanations were offered: The harlot was a symbol for the false teachings of rival sects20 or, alternatively, she represented some individual antagonist or the evils of Rome.21 Others noted that 4Q184 was not necessarily a polemical work, but rather a wisdom composition, “an exercise in hamartiology.”22 In support of this approach one could point to the echoes in our text of the phraseology found in the Book of Proverbs in passages concerned with warnings about the strange woman. Especially noteworthy is the common theme of linking the evil woman with the netherworld: Prov 5:5: Line 10: Prov 2:18–19: Line 11:

‫רגליה ירדות מות שאול צעדיה יתמכו‬ ‫שעריה שערי מות בפתח ביתה תצעד שאול‬ ‫ה‬ ‫כי שחה אל מות ביתה ואל רפאים מעגלותיה‬ ‫כל באיה לא ישובון ולא ישיגו ארחות חיים‬ ‫כ[ו]ל [באיה לא] ישובון וכול נוחליה ירדו שחת‬

As we will note below, this terminology preserves the conventional depiction of the netherworld in ancient Babylonian literature. Yet, we observe that, despite the obvious parallels, the focus in 4Q184 is markedly different from that in Proverbs. The wisdom teacher in Proverbs is primarily concerned with warning his pupils about the dangers of sexual promiscuity. He uses the traditional imagery of the netherworld to portray the consequences of sin. The “strange woman” that he talks about is a real-life figure whose hapless clientele one may observe while looking down upon the streets from a window (Prov 7:6). 4Q184, by contrast, is devoted entirely to a detailed description of a malevolent woman and her baleful influence. The description moves progressively from her seductive speech, the corrupt nature of her heart and [innards], the evil done with her arms, legs, and wings, her clothing, her ornaments, her bed, and her abode. The description is readily divisible into three parts: 1. The portrayal of the seductress. 2. Introduced in line 8 by ‫והיאה‬, her effect on her victims. 3. Again with ‫ והיא‬in line 11, her stealthy movements in the streets. 20 21 22

J. Carmignac, “Poème allégorique sur la secte rivale,” RevQ 5 (1964–1966): 361–74; compare A.M. Gazov-Ginzberg, “Double-Meaning in a Qumran Work: The Wiles of the Wicked Woman,” RevQ 6 (1967–1969): 279–85. H. Burgmann, “The Wicked Woman: Der Makkabäer Simon?” RevQ 8 (1972–1975): 323–59; J.M. Allegro, “The Wiles of the Wicked Woman,” PEQ 96 (1964): 53–55. R.D. Moore, “Personification of the Seduction of Evil: The Wiles of the Wicked Woman,” RevQ 10 (1979–1981): 505–19.

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Most pronounced is the emphasis on her association with the netherworld. In Proverbs, as we have seen, this image was metaphorically employed to depict the evil of promiscuity. In our relatively short text, we find no less than eleven allusions to the underworld: Thus, ‫ שחת‬occurs three times; ‫שוחה‬/‫ שוח‬twice; ‫ מות‬twice; ‫מוקדי עולם‬, ‫בור‬, ‫דומה‬, ‫שאול‬, each once. Moreover, the female seductress is portrayed not merely as leading her victim to the netherworld, but as herself being a resident and creature of that dark realm. This is apparent from the details of her description. We may begin with the interesting reference to “her wings,” ‫רוב פשעים בכנפיה‬. Allegro’s rendering, “the sins in her skirts are many,” followed by all subsequent translators, is subject to serious doubts. ‫ כנף‬is elsewhere used with reference to the garments of men, not those of women. It may be used euphemistically for a woman’s lap,23 but not in the plural. Moreover, the description of the woman’s garments in our text can be presumed to have first been introduced by ‫ומלבשיה‬ at the end of line 4, not before that. On the other hand, the possession of bird-like wings was, in Near Eastern mythology, conventional for residents of the underworld. Thus in the Descent of Ishtar to the Nether World we read: To the dark house, the abode of Irkalla, To the house which none leave who have entered it, To the road from which there is no way back, To the house wherein the entrants are bereft of light, Where dust is their fare and clay their food, Where they see no light residing in darkness, Where they are clothed like birds, with wings for garments.24 A striking visual representation of a winged nether-world deity is found in the Burney Relief, which shows a beautiful woman with wings, a four-fold horned crown upon her head, and claws instead of human feet. Kraeling and Frankfort already proposed to identify this figure with Lilit.25 As a succubus who destroys the men she chooses as her lovers, Lilit could appropriately be depicted as

23 24

25

See b. Yebam. 49a on Deut 23:1. J.B. Pritchard (ed.), Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (2nd edition; Princeton, 1955), 107; compare the Neo-Assyrian version of Nergal and Ereshkigal column 3, lines 1–10, in J.B. Pritchard (ed.), The Ancient Near East: Supplementary Texts and Pictures Relating to the Old Testament (Princeton, 1969), 73. H. Frankfort, “The Burney Relief,” AfO 12 (1937–1939): 128–35; E.G. Kraeling, “A Unique Babylonian Relief,” BASOR 67 (1937): 16–18 (18).

On the Nature of the Seductress in 4Q184

351

belonging to the realm of the dead. We may add that in the Talmud, too, a Lilit-like form is described as possessing wings.26 The next descriptive element in our text, following a short lacuna, is ‫תועפות‬ ‫לילה‬. Allegro rendered this rather vaguely “depths of the night.” Carmignac and others noted that in Job 11:17 (‫ )תעפה כבוקר תהיה‬the word ‫ תעפה‬appears to denote “darkness,” the meaning which, in view of ‫ אפלות‬in the following line, they proposed to transfer to our text. However, there are obvious difficulties. First, toʿafa is distinct from teʿufa. Secondly, why the plural form? ‫ תועפות‬in biblical Hebrew is found in the expression ‫( תועפות ראם‬Num 23:22; 24:8), where its literal meaning is “horns.” Metaphorically, the expression denotes strength and majesty. However, in Ben Sira 45:7 it is said of the High Priest: ‫ויאזרהו בתועפות ראם וילבישהו פעמונים‬. The context suggests that ‫תועפות‬ ‫ ראם‬refers here to an article of attire; most likely the mitre worn upon his head. That demonic figures should be portrayed as having horns is not unexpected. We have previously noted that this is found in 11QApPsa as well as in the Talmud. The horned crown on the Lilit figure in the Burney Relief would provide another pertinent illustration. Alternatively, if we suppose that ‫ תועפות‬may be related to ‫ תעופות‬by metathesis, ‫ תועפות לילה‬may perhaps be afflictions or creatures which fly by night. This brings to mind the Canaanite inscription from Arslan Tash directed to a female demon: ‫“ לעפתא בחדר חשך עבר פעם פעם ללי‬To the female demon that flies in the dark chamber, say: Pass by, time and again, Lilit.”27 The incantation is directed against Lilit as a winged sphinx, pictured on an amulet. She was supposed to cause the death of infants. The expression ‫ תועפות לילה‬in our text would accordingly be comparable to Ps 91:5–6: ‫לא תירא מפחד לילה מחץ יעוף יומם מדבר באפל יהלך מקטב ישוד צהרים‬. This passage alludes to protection from demons active at different times of the day. It is possible that just as ‫ חץ יעוף יומם‬denotes arrows flying in the daytime, so ‫ תועפות לילה‬may be demonic afflictions flying by night. It is interesting that the Talmud refers to ‫“ גירא דלילתא‬arrows of Lilit,” according to Rashi, meteor stones in the shape of arrows.28 Unfortunately, the lacuna before ‫תועפות לילה‬ prevents us from determining how they were disposed. Line 5 of our text refers

26 27

28

B. Nid. 24b: DMWT LYLYT … ŠYŠ LW KNPYM. W.F. Albright, “An Aramean Magical Text in Hebrew from the Seventh Century B.C.,” BASOR 76 (1939): 5–11; Pritchard, ANET, 658. In his commentary on Job 10:22, Tur-Sinai has suggested that ʾRṢ ʿPTH was the realm of flying demons dwelling in darkness (N.H. Tur-Sinai, The Book of Job: A New Commentary [Jerusalem, 1957], 112–13 [in Hebrew]). B. Giṭ. 69b.

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to her ornaments as “plagues of the Pit,” ‫נגיעי שחת‬, which describes the afflictions spread by the seductress.29 Another prominent aspect of the description of the seductress is her association with darkness. 4Q184 has five parallel expressions denoting darkness: ‫ מוסדי אפלות‬,‫ אישני לילה‬,‫ משכבי חושך מוסדי חושך‬,‫נשף‬. Darkness is the essential feature of the netherworld, which the Babylonians referred to as bit ikliti, House of Darkness.30 The editor has left unrestored the lacuna near the beginning of line 11, but as already suggested by Strugnell, on the basis of Prov 2:19, the reading ‫כול [באיה‬ ‫ לא] ישובון‬can be restored with confidence. The phrase is there applied to the “strange woman,” but this was originally a stock description of the netherworld in Babylonian mythology: The house which none leave who have entered it. The road from which there is no way back. biti ša eribušu la aṣuu ḫarrani ša alaktaša la taarat31 In his warning about the seductress the writer says ‫ושדדה לכול תומכי בה‬, “and she despoils all who possess her” (line 8). The choice of the verb ‫ שדד‬is not likely to have been random. It was probably associated with ‫ שדים‬and particularly with the description of the demon Qeteb in Ps 91:6 ‫מקטב ישוד צהרים‬. We come now to the depiction of the behavior of the seductress in the streets. Ostensibly it has much in common with that of the typical harlot: “In the squares of the city she lies down (?)32 and in the gates of the town she sets herself up.” However, she is also characterized by a furtive effort to conceal herself and to “lie in ambush in secret places.” “Her eyes glance keenly hither and thither.” It is illuminating to compare the description of the kaššaptu sorceress in the Babylonian Maqlu ritual series:33

29 30 31 32 33

Allegro’s translation, “touched with corruption,” is clearly erroneous, since the form negiaʿ serves in Qumran writings as an alternative for the substantive negaʿ, “plague.” See [The Descent of Ishtar, quoted] above, with n. 24. Ibid. For HTʿLP in the sense of “to faint” compare Jonah 4:8 and Isa 51:20. In Gen 38:14, however, translators have taken it to mean “to cover up.” G. Meier, Die assyrische Beschwörungsammlung Maqlu (Berlin, 1937), 22–34; V. Haas, Magie und Mythen in Babylonien (Gifkendorf, 1986), 157, 223–24.

On the Nature of the Seductress in 4Q184

353

The sorceress, who walks about in the roads, enters the houses, runs about the streets, chases through the squares: forward and backward she turns, remains standing on the road and turns her foot, in the square she blocks the way, the handsome man she robbed of his power, from the beautiful maiden she took the fruit. (3.1–9) Elsewhere the kaššaptu is described as “seated in the shade of brick-walls” (5.2), for which we may compare line 12 of 4Q184: ‫ובשערי קריות תתיצב‬. The remarkable durability of the association between the behavior of the malevolent female spirit and that of the harlot may further be illustrated by the following excerpt from the Zohar (1:148a–b [Sitrei Torah]): ‫קשיטת גרמה בכמה תכשיטין כזונה מרחקא קיימת בריש אורחין ושבילין לפתאה‬ ‫בני נשא … לבתר דחמאת ליה סטי אבתרה מאורחא דקשוט אפשיטת גרמה מכל‬ ‫אינון תקונין דהות מתתקנא לגבי דההוא שטיא … קאים לקבליה לביש לבושא דנורא‬ 34]‫מלהטא בדחילו תקיף מרתתא [גרמא ונפשא‬

She adorns herself with many ornaments like a repulsive harlot, and takes up her position at the head of highways and paths to seduce the sons of man … After she sees him turning aside after her from the path of righteousness35 she divests herself of all the trappings which she put on for that fool … and she stands before him clothed in garments of flaming fire inspiring fearful terror [of body and soul]. The subject of the Zohar’s description, it turns out, is Lilit, the female counterpart of the evil Samael. Who are the targets of the seductress in our text? They are particularly the righteous, the ‫איש צדיק‬, the ‫ ישרים‬whom she causes “to turn aside from the way,” and the ‫ בחירי צדק‬whom she seduces with “smooth things,” ‫חלקות‬, in order to prevent them from “keeping the commandments.” It is this which led Carmignac to suggest that the harlot was a symbol for a rival sect.36 Indeed, the term ‫ חלקות‬may well be intended as an allusion to the ‫ דורשי חלקות‬the “seekers of smooth things,” that is the Pharisaic rivals of the Qumran sectarians. However, I do not believe that the seductress was merely an allegorical symbol. Strugnell has referred to her as Lady Folly. My only reservation about this epithet is its somewhat Gentile connotation. For the author of 4Q184 she 34 [The editors thank Dr. Avishai Bar-Asher for his help with this passage]. 35 Compare line 16: WLHṬWT PʿMYHM MDRKY ṢDQ. 36 See Carmignac, “Poème allégorique.”

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was a very real and dangerous embodiment of the sinister powers which ruled the realm of darkness. As the Community Rule warns, “The Angel of Darkness leads all the children of righteousness astray, and until his end, all their sin, iniquities, wickedness, and all their unlawful deeds are caused by his dominion in accordance with the mysteries of God” (1QS 3:22–23). Until recently, we were not familiar at Qumran with the specific demonic personifications within the realm of evil. Now we can identify the Lilit-like seductress who was the ‫סטרא אחרא‬, the “other side,” of the female personification of Wisdom. The latter, as is known, was the subject of [Ben Sira 51], preserved in the Qumran library. It is noteworthy that the description of personified Wisdom in Proverbs 7–8 is directly juxtaposed with that of the Strange Woman. Both walk about in the streets and call out their invitations at the gates. Evidently it was not always easy to tell them apart. [Ben Sira 51] employs markedly erotic language to portray the love for Lady Wisdom. 4Q184, we submit, is the description of the seductive demoness who resides in the darkness of the netherworld but issues forth stealthily to lure the unsuspecting to apostasy and perdition.

Chapter 30

The Book of Elkesai and Merkabah Mysticism In* contemporary scholarship, Elkesai and the religious movement which he initiated at the beginning of the second century are studied primarily within the matrix of Jewish Christianity.1 The approach of Wilhelm Brandt, who underlined the essentially Jewish character of Elkesai’s teachings, has not been significantly extended by historians of Judaism. Gedaliah Alon, who noted the presence of elements of Shiʿur Qomah, the esoteric description of the dimensions of the divine, limited himself to the general affirmation of Brandt’s position and the hypothesis that the christological passages might be later accretions from the time when the book was translated from Aramaic to Greek.2 The importance of Elkesai (henceforth E) for the study of Judaism has been considerably enhanced by the publication of the Cologne Mani Codex.3 This Greek text not only confirms that Mani, the founder of a major gnostic movement, was brought up within the Elkesaite community, but indicates that the ritual practices of this community in the third century were still remarkably close to the halakhic sphere from which they had departed more than a hundred years earlier. Thus, we gather from the criticism leveled by the Elkesaites at Mani’s deviational behavior that they still observed strictly the prohibition * This paper was read at the Eighth World Congress of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem on August 19, 1981. [Original publication: “The Book of Elkesai and Merkabah Mysticism,” JSJ 17 (1986): 212–23. Republished with the kind permission of Brill Academic Publishers.] 1 The following is but a partial list of available studies on Elkesai: J. Danielou, The Theology of Jewish Christianity (ed. and trans. J.A. Baker; Chicago, 1964), 64–66; A.F.J. Klijn and G.J. Reinink, Patristic Evidence for Jewish–Christian Sects (Leiden, 1973), 54–66; K. Rudolph, Die Mandäer (2 vols.; Göttingen, 1960), 1:222–39; H.J. Schoeps, Theologie und Geschichte des Judenchristentums (Tübingen, 1949), 325–34; G. Strecker, “Elkesai,” RAC 4:1171–86; H. Waitz, “Das Buch des Elchasai,” in Harnack-Ehrung: Beiträge zur Kirchengeschichte ihrem Lehrer Adolf von Harnack zu seinem siebzigsten Geburtstage (7. Mai 1921) dargebracht von einer Reihe seiner Schüler (Leipzig, 1921), 87–104; J. Thomas, Le mouvement baptiste en Palestine et Syrie (Gembloux, 1935), 140–56; W. Brandt, Elchasai: Ein Religionsstifter und sein Werk (Leipzig, 1912); and idem, “Elkesaites,” ERE 5:262–69; [G.P. Luttikhuizen, The Revelation of Elchasai (Tübingen, 1985)]. 2 G. Alon, History of the Jews in Eretz-Israel (2 vols; Tel Aviv, 1967), 1:189–90 [in Hebrew; in English as The Jews in Their Land in the Talmudic Age (2 vols.; Jerusalem, 1980–1984), 1:302–3. 3 A. Henrichs und L. Koenen, “Ein griechischer Mani-Codex (P. Colon. inv. nr. 4780),” ZPE 5 (1970): 97–216 (141–60), and eidem, “Der Kölner Mani-Kodex (P. Colon. inv. nr. 4780) ΠΕΡΙ ΤΗΣ ΓΕΝΝΗΣ ΤΟΥ ΣΩΜΑΤΟΣ ΑΥΤΟΥ: Edition der Seiten 72,8–99,9,” ZPE 32 (1978): 87–199.

© Joseph M. Baumgarten, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004505087_032

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PART 5: THEOLOGY AND APOCALYPTISM

against Ἑλληνικὸς ἄρτος, the bread of pagans.4 The ban against such bread, designated in rabbinic sources as ‫פת עכו״ם‬, was at about that time relaxed by R. Judah ha-Nasi (b. ʿAbod. Zar. 35b). It appears that the Elkesaites carried even further the obsession with ritual purity which had characterized the Qumran community.5 Their daily baptisms recall those of the Essenes and the ṭobelê shaḥarîn, though there is no apparent precedent for their immersion of vegetables and other foods. The Jewish character of their practices is further brought out by the descriptions of the haeresiologists:6 their insistence on circumcision, marriage, Sabbath observance, and prayer in the direction of Jerusalem. Ritual practices, however, do not suffice to delineate the orientation of a religious sect. This writer’s interest in E was aroused by a passage from his book cited, though, as we shall see, not properly understood, by Epiphanius (ca. 375). Before we turn to this passage, we note that the book is first mentioned by Hippolytus (ca. 225), who says that it was brought to Rome by Alcibiades from Apamea. E’s gospel of a new forgiveness of sins involving baptism “was preached to men in the third year of Trajan’s reign.” Origen, too, mentions the book, but does not adduce any extracts.7 It is Epiphanius who provides the most detail and some very interesting excerpts. Of these, I should first like to cite the following passage which, it seems, does not support Brandt’s judgment that E was lacking in learning and had never studied the Jewish scriptures. It pertains to E’s lenient view of idolatry with reservatio mentalis at a time of persecution: The deceiver does not shrink from adducing a witness for this practice, saying that a certain Phineas, a priest from the stock of Levi and Aaron and of the old Phineas, worshipped the Artemis in Susa during the exile in Babylon and that in this way he escaped the destruction of death under king Darius. Epiph., Pan. 19.1.28

The historical illustration intended by E seems at first hopelessly obscure. What makes it more puzzling is the use of the name Phineas, the biblical paragon of righteous zeal (Num 25:7–15), as a model for compromises with idolatry. It develops, however, that E’s exegesis is not without method. A heuristic clue 4 Henrichs and Koenen, “Ein griechischer Mani-Codex,” 145. 5 Ibid., 141. 6 Hippolytus, Ref. 9.13–17; 10.29; Epiphanius, Pan. 19.1–6; 53.1–9. The sources are conveniently collected and translated in Klijn and Reinink, Patristic Evidence, 114–23 and 155–61, 194–97. 7 As quoted in Eusebius, Church History 6.38. 8 [Klijn and Reinink, Patristic Evidence, 157.]

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may be found in the Zohar, where the covenant of eternal priesthood granted to Phineas is interpreted in the light of Zech 3:1–3, the visionary removal of the soiled garments from Joshua, the High Priest.9 A rabbinic tradition held that Phineas never died but reappeared in the form of later priests. The assertion ‫פנחס זה אליהו‬10 makes plausible the similar identification of Phineas with Joshua. It is recorded that E espoused the doctrine of metensōmatōsis according to which Jesus is born and reborn, moving from body to body.11 By analogy, Joshua, the High Priest in the days of Darius, was a reincarnation of Phineas. The filthy garments, which a rabbinic tradition12 took as some improper marriage, were for E a figure for idolatry. Thus he inferred that even the taint of idolatry could be cleansed through divine purification. Needless to say, such an assurance of forgiveness for a cardinal sin was most relevant in the second century, a period of persecution and apostasy.13 We may now proceed to the main concern of this paper, E’s familiarity with Jewish esotericism. Among the excerpts from E’s book cited by Epiphanius we find the following, preceded by the latter’s decidedly pejorative evaluation: Behold the madness of this deceiver. For on the one hand he curses the sacrifices and the cult as things being strange to God and having not been offered to God at all as appears from the Fathers and the Law, but on the other hand he says that one has to pray in the direction of Jerusalem, where had been the altar and the sacrifices, refusing to eat meat, like the Jews, and other things and rejecting the altar and fire as being abhorrent to God. With these words he says that water is acceptable to God but that fire is strange to Him: τέκνα, μὴ πρὸς τὸ εἶδος τοῡ πυρὸς πορεύεσθε, ὅτι πλανᾱσθε· πλάνη γάρ ἐστι τὸ τοιοῡτον. ὁρᾷς γάρ, φησίν, αὐτὸ ἐγγυτάτω καὶ ἔστιν ἀπὸ πόρρωθεν· μὴ πορεύεσθε πρὸς τὸ εἶδος αὐτοῡ, πορεύεσθε δὲ μᾱλλον ἐπὶ τὴν φωνὴν τοῡ ὕδατος. “Children, do not go to the appearance of fire, for in that case you shall err. For this is an error. For, he says, you see it as something quite near, but 9 10 11 12 13

“Behold, I have caused your iniquity to pass from you. And I have clothed you with rich apparel” (Zech. 3:4); “So Phineas did not depart from this world until there were prepared for him other garments pleasing to the spirit” (Zohar, Pinḥas 214a). Song of Songs Rabbah, 2; Pirqe R. El. 47a. Hippol., Ref. 10.29.1–3. See L. Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews (7 vols.; Philadelphia, 1909–1938), 6:426, who notes the similarity to Justin Martyr, Dialogue 116. Cf. Alon, History, 1:190 [Jews in Their Land, 1:304–5].

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actually it is very far away. Do not go toward its appearance, but rather to the sound of water.” Epiph., Pan. 19.3.5–7014

It is clear how Epiphanius understood the foregoing admonition. Fire represents the sacrifices, which E, like the Ebionites, held to be abhorrent to God. In thus construing the excerpt from E’s book, Epiphanius has been, as far as I know, unanimously followed by modern scholars. They add only that the preference for water reflects the substitution of baptism for sacrifice as the central rite in Elkesaite practice.15 The contradiction, noted by Epiphanius, between the repudiation of the Temple and the qibla toward Jerusalem remains unresolved. It has been theorized that Jerusalem was venerated not as the site of the Temple, but as the locale of Jesus’s ministry.16 For Brandt, who felt that the denigration of sacrifices was not readily reconcilable with the otherwise conservative orientation of E, the passage was especially vexing. He resorted to the dubious premise that E was specifically addressing himself to heathen converts, admonishing them not to revert to pagan sacrifices.17 The decisive objection to the foregoing interpretation is the fact that the text does not refer to sacrifices at all. Even granting the possibility of using fire as a symbol for burnt offerings,18 it is not of fire that E speaks in his admonition, but the appearance of fire, τὸ εἶδος τοῡ πυρός. The fire appears as quite near, but actually it is very far away. Correspondingly, the desirable direction is indicated by the sound of water. Quite clearly we are dealing with the perception of a vision. The unschooled visionary is warned of being misled by one element which is described as deceptive. Those who follow the fire will stray after an ignis fatuus. The sound of water, on the other hand, is depicted as a trustworthy indicator of the right direction. Students of mysticism will readily recognize that what we have here is a fragmentary allusion to perils of the kind associated with the heavenly ascent. 14 15 16 17 18

The translation is taken from Klijn and Reinink, Patristic Evidence, 159, apart from their “do not go to what is fire” [and “do not go to that”], which fail to render the meaning of eidos. Prof. I. Gruenwald, however, has in a private communication called my attention to the baptism of fire which is portrayed as superior to that of water in Matt 3:11 and Luke 3:16, as opposed to Mark 1:8. Cf. E.E. Urbach, The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs (Cambridge, Mass., 1987), 61. ERE 5:264b. The premise that fire represents the sacrificial altar in Jewish-Christian writings is not born out by Kerygmata Petrou (Hom. 11.26.4), which invites the faithful to “flee to the water for that alone can quench the violence of fire.” Fire is here identified with the spirit of passion. Cf. Rudolph, Mandäer, 1:240 n. 3.

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At certain points in his journey the visionary is confronted with tests which may determine not only the outcome of his quest, but his very survival. This “danger motif” is found in Jewish apocalyptic and in gnostic literature and efforts have been made to trace its biblical and ancient Near Eastern roots.19 One of the striking illustrations of the perils involved in heavenly journeys is found in the well-known rabbinic account of the four who entered the Pardes. According to the version found in b. Ḥagigah 14b, R. Akiba warned his colleagues before their ascent: When you come to the place of the pure marble plates, do not say Water! Water! For it is said: He that telleth lies shall not tarry in my sight. Psalm 101:7

In his definitive studies Gershom Scholem has shown that this warning is to be understood in the light of the Hekhalot texts which refer to the illusion of waves of water seen by one who ascends at the gates of the sixth palace.20 Actually there is no water, only the glitter of marble plates. In the book of E, fire, rather than water, is depicted as illusory, but the admonition is drawn from the same conceptual context. In the biblical source of Merkabah speculation, Ezekiel 1, both the “noise of great waters” and the “appearance of fire” figure in the divine vision; similarly in the Enoch literature. One of the earliest apocalyptic accounts of a heavenly ascent, 1 Enoch 14, describes the heavenly temple as “hot as fire and cold as snow” (14:11, 13) with “rivers of glowing fire emerging from under the throne” (14:19). The pure marble plates in the Pardes also appear in the rabbinic description of Herod’s Temple which was built with “stones of pure marble which gave it the appearance of waves of the sea” (b. Sukkah 51b). Josephus describes the Temple as covered with gold which, when the sun was up “radiated a fiery flash (πυρωδεστάτην αὐγήν).21 There is, of course, an affinity between what is found below and what is envisioned above. 19 20

21

J. Maier, “Das Gefährdungsmotiv bei der Himmelsreise in der jüdischen Apokalyptik und ‘Gnosis,’” Kairos 5 (1963): 18–40. G. Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (3rd ed.; New York, 1954), 40–79 [esp. 52–54]; Jewish Gnosticism Merkabah Mysticism, and Talmudic Tradition (New York, 1965), 14–19; Cf. E.E. Urbach, “The Traditions about Merkabah Mysticism in the Tannaitic Period,” in Studies in Mysticism and Religion Presented to G. Scholem (ed. E.E. Urbach, R.J.Z. Werblowsky and C. Wirszubski; Jerusalem, 1967), 1–28 (in Hebrew) [reprinted in idem, The World of the Sages (Jerusalem, 1988), 486–513 (in Hebrew)], and most recently the valuable study of I. Gruenwald, Apocalyptic and Merkavah Mysticism (Leiden, 1980), 73–97. J.W. 5.222.

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It is natural to ask why in the rabbinic sources water was seen as illusory while E attributed this to the sight of fire. Rather than finding in E’s warning about fire a bias against sacrifices, Wilhelm Bousset made the plausible suggestion, that E, whose book is said to have originated in Parthia, may be polemicizing against the Mazdean fire cult, while underlining the ritual centrality of water.22 This would also serve to explain the obtrusive absence of fire from the list of seven elements invoked as witnesses at the time of baptism.23 However this may be, the admonition in our passage opposes the appearance of fire to the sound of water. This suggests that the significant contrast may be between what the mystic sees with his eyes and the sounds he hears. The latter hypothesis gains strength from a Hekhalot text recently published by I. Gruenwald.24 Although this Genizah manuscript is judged to be from the eleventh century, and its text is later than the Lesser and the Greater Hekhalot from which it cites, it clearly derives from the genre of Merkabah literature, whose ancient roots are increasingly becoming manifest. The following passage is part of the instruction for those who aspire to “go down” to the Merkabah. We have followed the editor’s text, except for one important emendation which will be indicated: ‫וחזור לך ידיד לסמני אזהרת היכל שישי שתפוס לך‬ 38 ‫ ראה אישות המתרגשות ויוצאות מהיכל שביעי להיכל‬.‫ כחביריו ואל תשחת‬39 ‫שישי אש גחלנית ואש זחלנית‬ ‫ ואש להטנית ואש מתוקה כחיצים הן יוצאות וניכנסות לפיכך אמרתי לך‬40 ‫אל תעמוד בינתיים בפתח היכל‬ 25‫ שישי אלא לצדדים כשיוצאות מהיכל שביעי להלך בהיכל שישי סימן קלון‬41 ‫יהא ידוע לך ואל תבהל כי‬ ‫ שמונת אלפים רבבות פרסאות רחוקות מן פתח היכל שביעי ועד מקום שאתה‬42 ‫ וכשהיו עוזבות‬.‫עומד בו‬ … ‫ קול זו בזו‬43 ‫ … ומוך באזנך ומוך בחוטמך ומוך בטבעתך‬44 … ‫ כדי שתהא לה עכבה לנשמתך ולא תצא עד שאני מגיע אותך‬45 ‫ אתה וכל שהוא מבקש לירד למרכבה בין בדוריך ובין בדורות אחרים‬47 ‫על כל היכל יזכיר שמי ויקראני‬ ‫ בקול נמוך מיד אין כל ביריא מזיקו ואין משיגו‬48 22 23 24 25

W. Bousset, Hauptprobleme der Gnosis (Göttingen, 1907), 156–59. Hippol., Ref. 9.15.2; Epiph., Pan. 19.1.6 [Klijn and Reinink, Patristic Evidence, 116–17, 156–57]. I. Gruenwald, “New Passages from Hekhalot Literature,” Tarbiz 38 (1968/69): 354–72 (in Hebrew); and Apocalyptic, 188–90. Note ‫ קול‬in line 43 and ‫ רעש אישות‬in line 49 [cited by Gruenwald, “New Passages,” 361].

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The translation which follows is ours: 38 And learn well, O friend, the warning signals for the sixth Hekhal, that it may be accessible to you 39 like the others, and you not be destroyed. Behold the fires which rage out of the seventh Hekhal to the sixth: glowing fire, streaming fire, 40 blazing fire, and sweet fire.26 Like arrows they go forth and enter. Therefore I said unto you: Do not stand in the middle of the entrance to the 41 sixth Hekhal, but at the sides. When (the fires) go forth from the seventh Hekhal to the sixth, let the mark of their sound be known to you so that you will not be confounded. For 42 they are at a distance of 80,000,000 parasangs, from the entrance of the seventh Hekhal to the place where you stand. And when they emit 43 their sound one toward the other … 44 … plug your ear, nose, and anal ring 45 so that your soul be retained and not expire before I reach you … 47 you and whoever desires to descend to the Merkabah, in your generation or in others, at each Hekhal let him mention my name and call me 48 in a low voice, and no creature will do him harm nor reach him. This text concerns the perils at the entrance to the sixth heavenly palace, which is also designated as a place of danger in other Hekhalot sources. However, in b. Ḥagigah and parallels the danger is connected with the illusion of water; here the threat stems from the fires. As in the Book of E, the fires appear to be near, but actually they are very far away. The visual perception is not a reliable gauge of their distance. Rather, one must learn to recognize the mark of their sound. The fact that E similarly bade his disciples to follow the “sound of the waters” may indicate a preference for the sense of hearing in the via mystica of Merkabah teaching. We note further that the Genizah text is in the first person, that of Uzhaya, the angel of the Presence and the guide of those who wish to descend to the Merkabah.27 The latter are called “friends.” E calls his disciples “children.” It is not clear whether the instructing guide is E or the angel to whom the revelation of the book was attributed.

26 27

For the varieties of fire cf. 3 Enoch 34 and Preisendanz, Papyri Graecae Magicae, 537ff. cited by M. Smith, “Observations on Hekhalot Rabbati,” in Biblical and Other Studies (ed. A. Altmann; Cambridge, Mass., 1963), 142–60 (158–59); cf. Ginzberg, Legends, 2:307. See lines 4 and 17.

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The role of some heavenly paraclete is indicated in another excerpt from E’s book preserved by Epiphanius: Later in his book he speaks the following deceitful words full of empty talk: “Nobody must look for the significance, but he must say the following words in his prayer” (the following he apparently took from the Hebrew as far as we have understood partially though his phantasies possess no meaning), for he says: ABAR ANID MOIB NOCHILE DAASIM ANE DAASIM NOCHILE MOIB ANID ABAR SELAM. Epiph., Pan. 19.4.128

Epiphanius was frustrated by his inability to make any sense out of these words and concluded that they were just empty babble. It was only in the nineteenth century that it was pointed out29 that, when read from the middle outward, we obtain a quite intelligible Aramaic sentence: “I will testify on your behalf on the Day of the Great Judgment.” For greater theurgic effect the formula is repeated in reverse order. The Day of the Great Judgment already appears as an eschatological term in the early strata of the Enoch literature, where it is associated with salvational reckoning in “weeks.” Thus, we now have from Qumran the Aramaic version of 1 En. 91:15: And thereafter the tenth Week, in the seventh part of which an eternal Judgment and the fixed time of the Great Judgment (‫ )וקץ דינא רבא‬shall be executed in vengeance in the midst of the Holy Ones.30 In Jub. 5:10 the offspring of the fallen angels are kept imprisoned in dungeons until the Day of the Great Judgment. In 1 En. 22:1–4 a similar disposition is ascribed to the souls of the children of men. The figure of the Day of Great Judgment continues through the Slavonic version of the Secrets of Enoch.31 Closely connected with this is the image of an angelic intercessor. In the early sources, Enoch, the Scribe of Righteousness, is asked by the sinful angels to intercede on their behalf, but is compelled instead to announce their doom.32 In later rabbinic sources Metatron emerges as the heavenly scribe and paraclete 28 29 30 31 32

[Klijn and Reinink, Patristic Evidence, 159.] See M.A. Levy, “Bemerkung zu den arabischen Analekten des Herrn Prof. Hitzig,” ZDMG 12 (1858): 712. J.T. Milik, The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4 (Oxford, 1976), 266. See 2 En. 13:83, 104; 49:4 in A. Vaillant, Le livre des secrets d’Hénoch (Paris, 1952), 51. 1 En. 12–16.

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for Israel. The Hekhalot literature further depicts him as the protector of worthy men against the hostility of the angels during their heavenly ascent.33 In a Shiʿur Qomah text cited by Scholem,34 Metatron is called ‫שרא רבא דסהדותא‬, the Great Prince of Testimony. The phraseology resembles that employed for the intercessor in E’s formula, though the subject of Metatron’s testimony here is the description of the Deity. The fact that E was familiar with Shiʿur Qomah, the doctrine which ascribed physical measurements to divine beings, emerges from yet another excerpt: Next he describes Christ as a power of whom he also gives the dimensions: his length is 24 schoinoi, that means 96 miles, his breadth is 6 schoinoi, which is 24 miles and concerning his width, his feet and the other fables he repeats similar fairy tales. Also the Holy Spirit is said to be like Christ, but she is a female being, like a statue rising above the clouds and standing between two mountains. Epiph., Pan. 19.4.1

Hippolytus, who identifies the Christ figure as the revealer of the book, gives the same measurements. The schoinos is reckoned as equivalent to four miles, like the parasang in talmudic texts. In Merkabah Shelemah, where Metatron appears as the revealer of these mystical dimensions, the unit used is the parasang, but, curiously, it is reckoned as equivalent to only three miles.35 However, this lack is more than compensated for by the inflated counting of 10,000 cubits per mile. Elkesai was not the only second-century figure to carry Shiʿur Qomah teachings beyond the framework of Jewish tradition. Gaster and Scholem have called attention to the anatomical description of the Body of Truth in the Gnostic writings of Markos.36 Here the ‫ אתב״ש‬alphabetical system is used to describe the limbs of the female figure of Aletheia. In E’s book there is likewise a female figure, the Holy Spirit, corresponding to the male Christ. Such male–female syzygia in the divine realm are without parallel in the Hekhalot literature and 33 34 35

36

See Scholem, Major Trends, 67–70; Jewish Gnosticism, 43–55. Jewish Gnosticism, 50. Merkabah Shelemah (ed. S. Mussajoff; Jerusalem, 1922), 30a. For similar variations in the measurement of the zeret in the Hekhalot literature see M. Idel, “The Concept of the Torah in the Hekhalot Literature and Its Transformations in the Kabbalah,” Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 1 (1981): 23–84 (42) (in Hebrew). M. Gaster, “Das Schiur Komah,” in idem, Studies and Texts in Folklore, Magic, Medieval Romance, Hebrew Apocrypha and Samaritan Archæology (3 vols.; London, 1925–1928), 2:1330–1353 (1341–46); Scholem, Jewish Gnosticism, 37–38.

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were, according to Scholem, excluded from Jewish esotericism until the period of Kabbalism. They can, however, be found in the Gnostic speculations concerning the male and female aeons which make up the world of the plērōma.37 The depth of E’s affinity with the diffuse phenomenon of Gnosticism requires new assessment. Hippolytus already charged E with “apparent adhesion to the Law” while “in reality he devotes himself to the ideas of the Gnostics or even those of astrologists and the magicians.”38 Among modern scholars, Hans Joachim Schoeps has characterized the Elkesaite movement as a highly gnostical form of Judaeo-Christianity.39 Among gnostical elements he reckoned: (1) the magical conception of baptism; (2) the veneration of the elements connected with the baptismal formula; (3) the ensomatic christology; and (4) the gnostic mysticism saturated with astrological and demonological notions. In evaluating this judgment one must note that Schoeps espoused the extremely skeptical view which denied the existence of E at the beginning of the second century and dated the origin of the movement attributed to him long after the formation of the early gnostic systems. This is now excluded by the Mani Codex. Moreover, Schoeps here used the term Gnosis in a much more fluid sense than that advocated by him in more recent writings.40 Most cogent is Schoeps’ observation on the veneration of the elements. E enjoined his followers to take a sacred oath witnessed by seven elements including, among others, heaven, earth, water, and salt.41 These, Hippolytus records, “constitute the astonishing, ineffable, and great mysteries of E which he reveals to worthy pupils.”42 While this need not imply a mystery cult of the elements (stoicheia), it is noteworthy that a warning against such a cult is the subject of Colossians 2: 8 Be on guard, do not let your minds be captured by hollow and delusive speculations, based on traditions of man-made teaching and centered on the elements of the world (kata ta stoicheia tou kosmou) and not on Christ. 9 For it is in Christ that is embodied the whole plērōma of the divine 10 and in him you have been brought to completion. Every power and authority in the universe is subject to him as head … 18 You are not to be disqualified by the decisions of people who go for self-mortification 37 38 39 40 41 42

Scholem, Major Trends, 229–30. Ref. 9.4. H.J. Schoeps, Theologie und Geschichte des Judenchristentums, 325–33. H.J. Schoeps, Urgemeinde, Judenchristentum, Gnosis (Tübingen, 1956), 35–40. For a comparison of the different lists of the elements see Klijn and Reinink, Patristic Evidence, 57–58. Ref. 9.15.1.

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and angel-worship and the things he saw when going in (ha heoraken embateuōn). M. Smith has directed attention to this passage with distinct proto-gnostic nuances as evidence of the antiquity of Merkabah-type mysticism. He suggests that “the things he saw when going in” is an allusion to magical techniques for heavenly ascension.43 A link between the elements and the heavenly ascent may be found in gnostic as well as Hekhalot writings.44 In Ophite liturgy, for example, the ascending soul addresses a prayer to Astaphaios, the archon of the third gate, identified as the guardian of the primeval waters.45 The Greater Hekhalot ascribes to Dumiel, the archon of the sixth palace, the cryptic name [‫אביר [גהידריהם‬, i.e., ruler of the four elements: air, earth, water, and fire.46 The seven elements in the book of E may possibly have been conceived as guardians of the seven heavens, though they are mentioned in connection with baptism rather than an ascent. It is also not clear whether E’s admonition concerns the ascent of the soul after death as in gnostic writings or a temporary mystic journey as in Merkabah sources. The term yom dina rabbah is evidently eschatological, but the admonition is not found in the same context and resembles the descriptions of the perils associated with entrance into the Pardes. To sum up, the purpose of this paper is to direct attention to E’s s affinity with the sphere of early Jewish mysticism. From the “ineffable and great mysteries of E” contained in his book, there remain the admonition about the illusion of fire, descriptions of the gigantic measurements of divine beings, and the assurance of advocacy at the Great Judgment. We have also taken note of the veneration of the elements, a component of early Gnosis which already evoked opposition in the New Testament. As to the classification of the Elkesaites as a Jewish, Judaeo–Christian, or gnostic movement, this may be considered a reductionist problem. Epiphanius dismissed it by describing them as “neither Christians, nor Jews, nor Greeks, keeping to the middle way they are actually nothing” (Pan. 53.1.3). The rabbis might have been more generous. In terms of halakhah, E was still substantially within the framework of Jewish practice. However, in his theological stance he 43 44 45 46

Smith, “Observations,” 156. For a discussion of the relationship between Gnosticism and Merkabah mysticism see Gruenwald, Apocalyptic, 98–126. Origen, Contra Celsum 7.40; see K. Rudolph, Die Gnosis: Wesen und Geschichte einer spätantiken Religion (Göttingen, 1977), 186. Scholem, Major Trends, 362 n. 50, citing J. Le[w]y, “Remainders of Greek Phrases and Nouns in ‘Hechaloth Rabathi,’” Tarbiz 12 (1940/41): 163–67 (165) (in Hebrew).

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evinced a readiness for accommodation with a variety of prevalent beliefs. He was receptive to astrology, an Ebionite type of Christology, and a male–female syzygism akin to gnostic thought. In rabbinic terms he may perhaps be characterized as one who entered the Pardes, cut down its plants, and attempted to root them in other orchards.

Chapter 31

The Qumran Sabbath Shirot and Rabbinic Merkabah Traditions The* potential importance of the Angelic Liturgy from Qumran for the history of Jewish mysticism was recognized even before the publication of the first excerpts. An initial report described this text as a “type de liturgie angélique (qui peut être associé à un ouvrage plus ample, forme ancienne de la vision de la Merkabah …).”1 This was confirmed when John Strugnell disclosed a fragment containing the phrase TBNYT KSʾ MRKBH as part of an elaborate description of the angels surrounding the throne.2 The strangely diffuse and solemn language was characterized by Gershom Scholem as already containing many ingredients of the particular style of the Hekhalot hymns. He was also quick to declare that “these fragments leave no doubt that there is a connection between the oldest Hebrew Merkabah texts preserved in Qumran and the subsequent development of the Merkabah mysticism as preserved in the Hekhalot texts.”3 Scholem’s observation was contained in the addenda to a seminal study, one of whose major themes was the effort to demonstrate continuity between the Merkabah traditions found in tannaitic sources and those emerging in early Jewish mysticism. Since Scholem’s passing, however, his intuitive judgment has been subjected to the scrutiny of critics who question the legitimacy of making comparisons between sources stemming from different historical contexts. No vertical parallels between Qumran, rabbinic, and Hekhalot texts should be pursued, they argue, until each literary system has been independently and fully analyzed.4 * Original publication: “The Qumran Sabbath Shirot and Rabbinic Merkabah Traditions,” RevQ 13 (1988) 199–213. Republished with the generous permission of J. Gabalda et Cie. 1 J. Strugnell, “Le travail d’édition des fragments manuscrits de Qumrân,” RB 63 (1956): 49–67 (65). 2 J. Strugnell, “The Angelic Liturgy at Qumrân: 4Q Serek Šȋrôt ʿÔlat Haššabāt,” in Congress Volume: Oxford 1959 (ed. G.W. Anderson et al.; Leiden, 1960), 318–45. 3 G. Scholem, Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism, and Talmudic Tradition (New York, 1965), 128. 4 D.J. Halperin, The Merkabah in Rabbinic Literature (New Haven, 1980), 1–9, 179–85; P. Schäfer, “Merkavah Mysticism and Rabbinic Judaism,” JAOS 104 (1984): 537–41; and idem, “New Testament and Hekhalot Literature: The Journey into Heaven in Paul and in Merkavah Mysticism,” JJS 35 (1984): 19–35. For an earlier disavowal of Scholem’s interpretation of the Pardes materials in tannaitic sources see E.E. Urbach, “The Traditions about Merkabah

© Joseph M. Baumgarten, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004505087_033

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While we recognize the importance of establishing the chronological provenience of all sources and the historical context in which they are found, this paper proceeds from the premise that the task of the historian of ideas involves not only the differentiation of chronological strata, but also the recognition of elements of continuity and permanence. In the area of biblical exegesis, the remarkable endurance of certain themes of interpretation is a phenomenon which the literary historian can hardly overlook.5 Here we shall seek to demonstrate that certain aspects of Merkabah exegesis preserved in rabbinic sources serve as indispensable guidelines for the proper understanding of the Qumran Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice. The known fragments of this work from Qumran Caves 4 and 11, as well as those found at Masada, have now been collected and edited in the preliminary critical edition of Carol Newsom.6 On the basis of her painstaking work, which involves not only the first presentation of new portions of the text but an effort to arrange them according to the sequence of Sabbaths, it is now appropriate to reassess Scholem’s initial judgment, as well as to point out certain affinities with rabbinic Merkabah exegesis which now emerge. With regard to vocabulary and style, the more extensive text and convenient concordance which Newsom provides will make possible literary studies both within the context of other Qumran writings as well as in comparison with later Jewish mystical works. For example, the salient frequency of such words as RWM, QDṢ, PLʾ, KBWD, HDR, HWD may be reminiscent of some of the Hodayot, but the numinous unarticulated syntax is unique to the Songs of the Sabbath and supports the editor’s impression that they were designed to evoke the feeling of being in the heavenly sanctuary and in the presence of the angels. Yet there is no reference to any individual’s ecstatic trance or ascent to heaven, nor to the perils which esoteric tradition associated with such experiences. The description of the celestial realm, though apparently perceived as one of the mysteries (RZYM), is phrased from the perspective of a plurality of human observers. Newsom terms the text “quasi-mystical.”7 We would prefer Mysticism in the Tannaitic Period,” in Studies in Mysticism and Religion Presented to G. Scholem (ed. E.E. Urbach, R.J.Z. Werblowsky and C. Wirszubski; Jerusalem, 1967), 1–28 (in Hebrew) [reprinted in idem, The World of the Sages (Jerusalem, 1988), 486–513 (in Hebrew)]; compare the response of I. Gruenwald, Apocalyptic and Merkavah Mysticism (Leiden, 1980), 73–97 and J. Dan’s appraisal of Gruenwald’s methodology in his review of that volume in Tarbiz 51 (1981/82): 685–91 (688) (in Hebrew). 5 For a fruitful diachronic study of certain exegetical themes, compare G. Vermes, Scripture and Tradition in Judaism (Leiden, 1961). 6 C. Newsom, Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice: A Critical Edition (Atlanta, 1985). 7 Songs, 59; compare Gruenwald, Apocalyptic, 155–56.

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369

to suggest that it represents an early form of congregational mysticism. The description of the hymns of the angels attending the divine throne still is a prominent element of the Yoṣer compositions which precede the Qedushah in the traditional liturgy.8 As we note below, through the numinous portrayal of the heavenly sanctuary in the Songs of the Sabbath, the human worshippers were transported progressively from the vestibules of the Hekhal, through the wondrously embroidered veil of the sanctuary, to the base of the divine throne, and finally to the vision of the Merkabah. The Sabbath sacrifice served as the climax of this progression. In her commentary to the Songs of the Sabbath and in a subsequent study,9 Newsom has made a strenuous effort to derive the Qumran characterization of the angelic songs from hypothetical exegesis of Ezekiel 1 and 10. Since the original basis of Merkabah speculation was primarily the vision of Ezekiel, this effort is certainly legitimate as a tentative step. Yet, it raises the methodological question of whether it is feasible to attempt to limit a developed complex of visionary ideas exclusively to the medium of textual exegesis. Few would, for example, venture to try to contain all facets of the elaborate Hekhalot mysticism of the post-talmudic period within a purely textual–exegetical mold. In his initial comments on the Angelic Liturgy, Strugnell already spoke of the possibility that the increase in descriptive detail of the angelic realm may be due more to independently developed beliefs than to a very tenuous biblical exegesis.10 Thus, the interpretation of the Sabbath Songs is not likely to be reducible to a one-dimensional search for biblical antecedents. The elaborations found in later apocalyptic or rabbinic sources may be of equal value in identifying motifs which may be found to have already emerged earlier. We shall now turn to specific illustrations of the value of rabbinic sources for the clarification of a number of obscurities in the Songs of the Sabbath. 4Q405 15 ii–16 describes the veil (PRWKT) in the celestial debir as having “figures of hea[venly beings …] of glory from both of their sides” (MŠNY ʿBRYHM).11 The expression derives from Exod 32:15 where the tablets of the Law are said to have been inscribed on both their sides. However, nothing similar is said of the veil. It is only described as made with artistic work with kerubim (Exod 26:1, 31). It is in the Babylonian Talmud (Yoma 72b) that this is elaborated to mean that the threads were interwoven in such a way that 8 9 10 11

For the ancient roots of the Yoṣer Qedushah see the exploratory study of Moshe Weinfeld, “Traces of Kedushat Yoẕer and Pesukey De-Zimra in the Qumran Literature and in Ben-Sira,” Tarbiz 45 (1975/76): 15–26 (in Hebrew). C. Newsom, “Merkabah Exegesis in the Qumran Sabbath Shirot,” JJS 38 (1987): 11–30. Strugnell, “Angelic Liturgy,” 344. Newsom, Songs, 286.

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different figures (ŠNY PRṢWPWT), were seen from each side.12 The expression MʿŚY RWQMWT PLʾ “wondrous embroidery work” in 4Q405 may indeed, as Newsom suggests, refer to this visual feature of the veil. Another wonder described in 4Q405 14–15 i was auditory in nature. The figures embroidered in the vestibules of the royal chambers were capable of joining in hymns of praise: RWQMWTM YRNNW.13 Newsom has identified 1 Kgs 6:29 and Ezek 41:15–26 as the biblical sources for the image of angelic figures carved on the walls and doors of the Temple. However, in biblical Hebrew the verb RQM is used for embroidering cloth and garments. In 1QM the word RWQMH is extended to ornamental designs carved on shields or spears. Yet the idea that such designs were capable of singing hymns seems quite strange.14 In his study of Merkabah mysticism, Scholem referred to the song of the kine who drew the ark of the covenant.15 According to the Talmud, the song depicted the ark as “girdled in golden embroidery” HMḤWŠQT BRQMY ZHB.16 Scholem compared this with the hymn in Hekhalot Rabbati where God is described as HMHWDR BRQMY ŠYR, “He who is glorified with embroideries of song.” He also speculated on a possible Greek source for this unusual phrase: hymnos as “woven speech.” We now recognize that the root RQM was already used at Qumran for the embroideries of angelic figures which uttered songs of adoration. The veil was not the only object in the heavenly sanctuary which bore images of divine creatures. The Qumran Angelic Liturgy frequently uses the word BDNYM, previously known only from the War Scroll,17 to describe figures engraved on various furnishings of the debir. In one key passage in text 4Q405 19ABCD, the figures are said to be inscribed on brickwork:

12 13

14 15 16 17

Compare y. Šeqal. 8b and Rashi on Exod 26:1. Syntactically it seems preferable to read YRNNW as an imperfect with the preceding RWQMWTM as the subject. However, the idea of the angelic images uttering song does not depend solely on this reading. It is explicitly indicated in 4Q405 19A: WŠBḤHW BDNY ʾLWHYM “And the figures of the divine beings praise Him.” Among other places where we would suggest the yod of the imperfect rather than copulative waw followed by the perfect, as read by the editor, we may list: 4Q403 1 ii 16: YHLLWHW and line 20: YRWMMWHW; 4Q405 23 ii 12: [Y]BRKW. D.C. Allison, Jr., “4Q403 Fragm. 1, Col. 1, 38–46 and the Revelation to John,” RevQ 12 (1985– 1987): 409–14, takes note of the idea of Temple furnishings singing songs of praise. Scholem, Jewish Gnosticism, 20–30. B. ʿAbod. Zar. 24b. See Newsom’s concordance, Songs, 396–97.

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[B]DNY ṢWRWT ʾLWHYM MḤWQQY SBYB LLBNY [K]BWDM Figures of the shapes of divine beings engraved round about their glorious bricks. The editor notes that it is clear from the context that the subject of these descriptions is either the debir or the chariot throne. She further observes that the mention of bricks brings to mind the platform on which the divine throne rests, as in Exod 24:10: WTḤT RGLYW KMʿŚH LBNT HSPYR And under his feet a kind of brickwork of sapphire. However, Newsom rejects this interpretation because of one difficulty. In her words: Lines 5–6 speak of the “figures of divine beings engraved round about the glorious brickwork.” There is no such tradition that I know of associated with the pavement under the throne; but the existence of images carved on the walls and doors of the Temple, even in the debir, is attested in 1 Kgs 6, 2 Chr 3, and Ezek 40 (though in these instances it is the wooden panelling rather than the brickwork which is engraved). My assumption, then, is that it is [primarily the appearance of the debir itself which is being described in 4Q405 19. Only at the end of the eleventh Sabbath song, in 4Q405 20ii–21–22, does the chariot throne itself seem to be the subject of extensive description.]18 This assumption is, however, impossible to accept since it runs counter to the plain sense of the text. In fact, the connection with the brick pedestal of Exod 24:10 is confirmed in the same context where we read: WŠWRWT BDNYHM MLʾKY QWDS MTḤT L …, “and the images of their figures, holy angels underneath the …” It is also corroborated by the reference in 11QShir to MʿŚY LB[N]. There can thus be no doubt that the Qumran writer conceived of the angelic figures as engraved on the pedestal of the divine throne. The difficulties which the editor encountered turn out to be less formidable in the light of rabbinic sources. 18

Songs, 296. [In the original publication of this article, this quotation ended two sentences earlier.]

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We may first cite a very late source which, interestingly, still preserves in Aramaic some of the terminology which we have encountered. The Zohar depicts the four creatures of the Merkabah as engraved on the divine throne: ‫דיוקנין אלין מחקקן גליפן בכורסייא וכורסייא גליפא מרקמא בהו חד לימינא וחד‬ ‫לשמאלא וחד לקמא וחד לאחורא רשימא בארבע סטרין דעלמא‬

These images (of the creatures) are chiseled and engraved on the throne, and the throne is engraved and embroidered with them, one on the right, one on the left, one in front, and one behind, marked in the four directions of the world.19 We note the use of ḤQQ to describe the engravings on all sides, as in the Angelic Liturgy: MḤWQQY SBYB LLBNY KBWDM. We have already referred to the description of the angelic figures as embroidered MRQMʾ. Although the Zohar refers to the throne, while the Qumran text describes the brickwork under it, both emphasize the presence of the angelic figures round about the throne. Interestingly, this is likewise stressed in Rev 4:6: καὶ ἐν μέσῳ τοῦ θρόνου καὶ κύκλῳ τοῦ θρόνου τέσσερα ζῷα. In the midst of the throne and round about the throne were four living creatures. It does not seem that the three-dimensional creatures in Ezekiel, who were underneath the throne, could be described as being in its midst. It is, however, possible that the writer had in mind the engraved images of the living creatures.20 As far as rabbinic sources are concerned, the conception of images engraved on the divine throne can be documented much earlier than the Zohar, though these turn out to be images of patriarchs, rather than kerubim or angels. A midrashic theme, attributed to Amoraim of the third century and already

19 20

Zohar Bereishit 19a (ed. R. Margaliot; Jerusalem, 1984), 37. A similar ambiguity may be found in 1 En. 14:18, where in the description of the throne one Greek manuscript reads “and there was the oros of kerubim.” Charles took oros to be a corruption of horasis and rendered “and there was the vision of kerubim.” If horasis is original, it could well signify “images” of kerubim.

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recorded in Genesis Rabbah [68]:12, portrays the angels as taunting Jacob while he slept during his dream of the ladder:21 ‫מעלים בו מורידים בו אופזים בו קופזים בו סונטים בו שנ׳ ישראל אשר בך אתפאר‬ ‫את הוא שאיקונין שלך חקוקה למעלן‬

They both exalted and deprecated him; they danced about him, jumped around him, and taunted him; for it is written, You, Israel in whom I glory (Isa 49:3), Are you the one whose image is engraved above? The theme of Jacob’s visage on the heavenly throne recurs in other midrashim and is also found in Hekhalot Rabbati:22 ‫קלסתר פניו של יעקב אביכם שהיא חקוקה לי על כסא כבודי‬

[the image of the face of your father Jacob, which is engraved on my honored seat] The Hekhalot text goes on to describe God in a strikingly anthropomorphic image as fondling, kissing, and embracing the likeness of Jacob whenever Israel recites the Qedushah: ‫[כורע אני עליה מגפפה ומנשקה ומחבקה] וידי על זרועותי שלש פעמים‬

The three expressions of affection correspond to the trishagion and form an apparent contrast to the three expressions of disdain by the angels cited above. In his Rivalität zwischen Engeln und Menschen, Peter Schäfer took notice of this motif.23 Yet, he cites Tanna d’Be Eliyahu, where the angels who object to the creation of man are rebuked and told to turn their eyes to the Merkabah.24 Schäfer construes this to mean: “Richtet eure Augen auf die Merkabah; mit anderen Worten: Kümmert euch um eure Angelegenheiten und nicht um die des Menschen.”25 Actually, the point is that the Merkabah itself bears testimony to the primacy of righteous man since it has the visage of man portrayed as 21 22 23 24 25

Text according to J. Theodor and C. Albeck, Midrash Bereishit Rabba (3 vols.; Jerusalem 1996), 2:787–88; parallels in b. Ḥul. 91b and in other midrashim are listed there. [For the text, cf.] A. Jellinek, Bet ha-Midrasch (3 vols.; Jerusalem, 1938), 3:90; P. Schäfer, Synopse zur Hekhalot-Literatur (Tübingen, 1981), §164. P. Schäfer, Rivalität zwischen Engeln und Menschen (Berlin, 1975), 204–7. Sefer Tanna de be Eliyahu [ed. M. Friedmann; Wien, 1902, 162]. Schäfer, Rivalität, 90.

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one of the four creatures. Elsewhere in Genesis Rabbah the theme is extended by Simeon b. Laqish in the assertion: HʾBWT HN HN HMRKBH “The patriarchs, themselves, constitute the Merkabah.” Consequently, the divine throne is depicted as TRWNWS ŠL ŠLŠ RGLYM.26 The foregoing is a classic illustration of the anthropocentric tendency in rabbinic sources to downgrade the angels and even usurp their preeminence in the celestial sphere. We have elsewhere discussed this tendency in connection with the image of the heavenly tribunal.27 Basing themselves on Isa 24:23 (“before his elders will He manifest his glory”), rabbinic homiletes stressed that the righteous, rather than the patron angels, will serve as the judges of the eschatological Sanhedrin. In the Qumran Songs of the Sabbath, on the other hand, the patron angels of the nations are, as recently noted by Qimron, described as standing BGBWLM WBNḤLTM, “in their boundaries and their inheritance.”28 This is an allusion to Deut 32:8–9, where, as we pointed out in an earlier study, the Qumran and LXX readings imply a correspondence between the quorum of the heavenly tribunal and the number of nations. Melchizedek is also mentioned in the Songs as the priest of the divine assembly, presumably as its presiding angel.29 The humanizing ouranology of rabbinic aggada is not at all in evidence in the Songs of the Sabbath. On the contrary, the angels are described as aweinspiring to “mortal councils.” In a tone of self-effacement the human worshippers are made to say: “How shall we be considered among them and how shall our priesthood (be considered) in their habitations? … [What] is the offering of our mortal tongue (compared) with the knowledge of the angels?”30 It is for this reason that I am hesitant to accept the editor’s thesis that one of the primary functions of the Angelic Liturgy at Qumran was to lend legitimacy to the sect’s priesthood.31 It is the heavenly priesthood which is glorified in the Angelic Liturgy. As far as human worshipers are concerned—and this includes both priestly and lay adherents of the sect—their aspirations are fulfilled by merely being permitted to descriptively approach the splendors of the angelic realm.

26 27 28 29 30 31

Genesis Rabbah 68:12; compare ibid. 47:6; 69:3; 82:6. J.M. Baumgarten, “The Duodecimal Courts of Qumran, Revelation, and the Sanhedrin,” JBL 95 (1976): 59–78 [= idem, Studies, 145–71]. E. Qimron, “A Review Article of Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifices,” HTR 79 (1986): 366–67. Qimron refers to my study, “The Heavenly Tribunal and the Personification of Ṣedeq in Jewish Apocalyptic,” ANRW 2.19.1:219–39 [included in this volume]. 4Q401 11 3, Songs, 133–34. 4Q400 2, Songs, 110. Newsom, Songs, 59–72.

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One of the valuable aspects of Newsom’s work is her effort to identify the order of the fragments according to the sequence of thirteen Sabbath offerings mentioned in the headings. She has arranged the thirteen songs in a triangular pattern with the seventh Sabbath at the climax. Her reason for doing so is the apparent emphasis on the number seven in the sixth, seventh, and eighth songs.32 However, she appears to attach insufficient importance to the progression toward a climax indicated by the contents of the subsequent songs. The song for the ninth Sabbath brings the worshiper into the “royal vestibules”; in the tenth he approaches the marvelous veil; in the eleventh he views the figures on the brick pedestal of the throne; in the twelfth the Merkabah is described, leading finally in the thirteenth to the climax of the burnt offering. Although Newsom noted this progression, it would appear that her misapprehension of the brickwork as belonging to the walls of the debir rather than the base of the divine throne may have contributed to the neglect of the climactic sequence. The foregoing discussion may serve to illustrate how rabbinic traditions, despite the late date of the edited collections in which they appear, can be helpful, either by comparison or contrast, in gaining a better perspective on themes found in the Qumran writings. We should now like to cite an example of the converse: two Cave 4 fragments which may throw valuable light on a rabbinic aggada, of central significance in the ongoing debate concerning Hekhalot mysticism in the talmudic period. 4Q400 1 ii preserves only the beginning words of the twenty-one lines of the text describing the heavenly sanctuary. Newsom observes that the context involves direct address to God, as exemplified by the phrase “the beauty of Your kingdom.” She also notes that the ŠBʿ NTYBWT “seven paths” must refer to some feature of the sanctuary and points out that the term NTYBWT is found in the Hekhalot literature as a designation for six rivers of joy in heaven. The discrepancy in the number of paths is of little significance, as may be seen from the source in Hekhalot Rabbati 8:4, which merely enumerates synonyms of joy:33 ‫נהרי שמחה נהרי ששון נהרי גילה נהרי רצון נהרי אהבה נהרי ריעות משתפכין‬ ‫ויוצאין מלפני כסא הכבוד ומתגברין והולכין בשערי נתיבות ערבות רקיע‬

32 33

Newsom, Songs, 13–21. [For this text, see the two editions cited in n. 22, at 3:90 in the former and §161 in the latter.] In b. Ketub. 8a, ten expressions of joy are enumerated, including five of those listed here.

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Streams of joy, mirth, rejoicing, good-will, love, and friendship pour forth from the throne of glory and flow mightily through the gates of the paths of the firmament Arabot. What is noteworthy is the unusual use of NTYBWT for “streams” and the image of rivers of joy issuing from the divine abode. The image, no doubt, derives from Ps 46:5: ‫נהר פלגיו ישמחו עיר אלהים קדש משכני עליון‬

A river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holiest dwelling place of the Most High. Here the locale of the beneficent streams is the Temple in Jerusalem, the divine dwelling place upon earth. There is another Qumran text which alludes to these streams and shows a close affinity with 4Q400 1 i. In a recent paper we called attention to 4Q500, a small fragment of six lines, which as we sought to demonstrate, contains a significant interpretation of the Lord’s vineyard in Isaiah 5.34 The following is the text, as read and translated by M. Baillet: [◦] [◦] [◦ ̊‫איכה י̇ נצו ו‬ ̇ ]‫ בכ‬2 [ ̇‫ ]יקב ̇תירושכה [ב]נ̇ ו̇ י̇ באבני‬3 [ ‫ ] לשער מרו̇ ם הקודש‬4 [‫ ] ̇מטעכה ופלגי ֹ כבודכה ̊ב‬5 [◦ ‫ ]◦כפות שעשועיכה‬6 ‫ ]◦מכה‬7 … que tes [mûri]ers fleurissent et … … ton pressoir à vin [b]âti en pierres … … à la porte de la sainte hauteur … … ta plantation et tes magnifiques canaux … … les branchages (qui font) tes délices …35

34 35

“4Q500 and the Ancient Exegesis of the Lord’s Vineyard,” JJS 40 (1989): 1–6. M. Baillet, Qumrân Grotte 4.III (4Q482–4Q520) (DJD 7; Oxford, 1982), [78 where some letters are marked as doubtful.]

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The words ŠʿŠWʿYKH, MṬʿKH, YQB TYRWŠKH are taken from the description of the vineyard in Isa 5:1–7. In fact, we would restore the first word in line 7 as KR]MKH. Moreover, while the prophet, himself, identified the vineyard with the house of Israel (5:7), 4Q500 already reflects the exegesis found in rabbinic sources, according to which the vineyard was the site of the Temple, which was at the same time associated with the Garden of Eden. The phrases ŠʿR MRWM HQWDŠ and WPLGY KBWDKH are allusions both to the Temple Mount and the fructifying streams in its vicinity (Ezek 47:1–12 and Ps 46:5), as well as the branches of the river of Eden which watered the garden (Gen 2:10). When I wrote the aforementioned paper, I was not aware of the links which appear to connect 4Q500 with 4Q400 1 ii, the fragment from the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice which we cited above. Both texts are formulated in the second person and addressed to God. Both portray aspects of a divine sanctum. The ŠʿR MRWM HQWDŠ of 4Q500 corresponds to the ŠʿRY MRWMY RWM of 4Q400. Since MRWMY RWM is regularly used in the Angelic Liturgy for the heavens, and is juxtaposed in 4Q511 frag. 41 with KRWBY QWDŠ, the “holy kerubim,” one may infer that ŠʿR MRWM HQWDŠ designates not merely the gate of the Temple in Jerusalem, but that of the celestial sanctuary. We have already noted that PLGY KBWDKH is an allusion to the streams (PLGYM) which bring joy to God’s dwelling place in Ps 46:5. The corresponding element in 4Q400 1 ii is the reference to the “seven paths” (ŠBʿ NTYBWT), which as Hekhalot tradition indicates, was also the designation used for the rivers of joy issuing from the Throne of Glory and flowing through the ŠʿRY NTYBWT. The fact that 4Q500 is based on the description of the Lord’s vineyard points to the vineyard or garden as a key symbol in the visionary convergence of the heavenly and earthly sanctuaries. This is borne out by a series of rabbinic texts that allude to restrictions on human access to the garden. We may first cite a late source in which the vineyard of Isaiah is explicitly mentioned: ,‫ ר׳ אליעזר הגדול אומר כרמו של הקב״ה בית ישראל‬,‫כי כרם ה׳ צבאות בית ישראל‬ ‫ ואם‬,‫ ואם ירדת לתוכו אל תהנה ממנו‬,‫ ואם הצצת בו אל תרד לתוכו‬,‫אל תציץ בו‬ ‫ סופו‬,‫ ואם הצצת וירדת ונהניתה ואכלתה מפירותיו‬.‫נהנית ממנו אל תאכל מפירותיו‬ .‫של אותו האיש ליכרת‬ “For the House of Israel is the vineyard of the Lord of hosts” (Isa 5:7). R. Eliezer the Great says: The House of Israel is the vineyard of the Holy

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One Blessed Be He. Do not glance into it; if you have glanced into it, do not descend into it; if you have descended into it, do not take pleasure in it; if you have taken pleasure in it, eat not of its fruits. If you glance and descend and take pleasure and eat of its fruits, you are destined to be driven out of the world.36 Scholars have been perplexed in their efforts to provide a rationale for these restrictions. Some have suggested that the homily was intended as a warning against the enemies of Israel.37 However, R. Eliezer’s identification of the vineyard with Israel is missing in one of the parallel versions.38 In ʾAbot de Rabbi Nathan (B text, ch. 33; ed. Schechter, 72), the vineyard is merely described as belonging to a man: ,‫ ואם ירד[ת] אל תביט‬,‫ ואם הצצת אל תרד‬,‫הוא היה אומר אל תציץ לכרמו של אדם‬ ‫ ואם הגעת אל תאכל; ואם אכל הרי אדם נמצא טורף נפשו מחיי‬,‫ואם הבטת אל תיגע‬ .‫העולם הזה ומחיי העולם הבא‬ He [Ben Zoma] used to say, Do not glance into a man’s vineyard, and if you glance do not descend, and if you descend do not look, and if you look do not touch, and if you touch do not eat; for if a man eats, behold he tears himself away from the life of this world and that of the world to come. Lieberman observed that the text was obscure: “What prohibition is there to glance and to look? Why is his end more dire than that of other robbers?”39 However, Lieberman also noted that the saying was attributed to Ben Zoma, who is well known as one of the four mystics “who entered the Pardes.” We should further observe that the restrictions on the man entering the vineyard show an unmistakable resemblance to those placed upon Adam in Paradise. The forbidden fruit, we recall, was not only “good for food,” but “desirable to the sight.” Furthermore, the command not to eat from the tree was exaggerated by Eve into a ban on touching it. Adam was admonished that by eating of the tree he would forfeit his life. In fact, in view of the prevalence of the aggadic tradition which identified the forbidden fruit with the grape, there 36 37 38 39

Seder Eliyahu Rabbah, ch. 8 (ed. M. Ish-Shalom; Vienna, 1904), 43. D. Halperin, Merkabah in Rabbinic Literature, 94; compare H.A. Fischel, Rabbinic Literature and Greco-Roman Philosophy (Leiden, 1973), 74–75. Yalquṭ, Va‌ʾera 182. S. Lieberman, Tosefta Ki-fshuṭah: A Comprehensive Commentary on the Tosefta (10 vols.; New York, 1955–1988), 5:1291.

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are good grounds for supposing that in Ben Zoma’s saying, KRMW ŠL ʾDM was intended to mean, not “a man’s vineyard,” but “Adam’s vineyard,” that is Paradise.40 The talmudic story of the four who entered Paradise is still the subject of ongoing scholarly debate.41 In the Babylonian Talmud the story runs as follows: Our Sages taught: Four entered the Pardes; they were Ben Azzai, Ben Zoma, Aḥer, and R. Akiba. R. Akiba said to them, When you reach the stones of pure marble, do not say, Water, water, for it is said: “He that tells lies shall not abide in my sight” [Ps 101:7]. Ben Azzai looked and died…. Ben Zoma looked and was smitten…. Aḥer cut the shoots; R. Akiba emerged safely. b. Ḥagigah 14b

Scholem attempted to show that the motif of the perils facing those who would enter, including R. Akiba’s enigmatic warning about mistaking the marble plates for water, were to be understood in the light of the Hekhalot literature.42 There the mystic is warned of the dangers confronting him in his ascent through the seven palaces of Arabot, the seventh heaven. Scholem also pointed out that the word pardes was already used as a designation for the heavenly Paradise, PRDS QWŠṬʾ, in the Aramaic text of Enoch.43 Moreover, Paul referred to “a man who was caught up into Paradise” where “he heard things that cannot be told, that man may not utter” (2 Cor 12:2–4). All this led Scholem to view the talmudic Pardes account as an integral link in a mystical tradition much older than the Hekhalot literature. The critics of Scholem’s thesis have tried to isolate the Pardes motif from all mystical connotations. Halperin has argued that originally the garden parable had nothing whatsoever to do with Merkabah mysticism. Its intended 40

41 42 43

Note, however, that in the sequel, HRY ʾDM NMṢʾ ṬWRP NPŠW, ʾadam was apparently employed in the generalized sense of “any man” common in rabbinic Hebrew. This ambiguity also obscures the Tosefta’s reading: MH ʿLYW ʿL ʾDM, “What must a man do?” [On “man,” see also below, n. 48.] For a recent reappraisal of the Pardes story and its interpretation by scholars, see Y. Liebes, The Sin of Elisha, the Four who Entered Paradise, and the Nature of Talmudic Mysticism (Jerusalem, 1986) (in Hebrew). G. Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York, 1941), 52–54 and Jewish Gnosticism, 14–19. [See also Baumgarten’s discussion of R. Akiba’s warning in “The Book of Elkesai and Merkabah Mysticism,” JSJ 17 (1986): 212–23, included in this volume.] [See J.T. Milik ed., The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments of Qumrân Cave 4 (Oxford, 1976), 232, 289.]

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meaning can no longer be determined.44 Schäfer suggests that it was a symbolic criticism of different methods of Torah teaching.45 Urbach distinguishes between the mashal of the garden which was metaphorical and did not intend any actual entrance into Paradise, and its application to Merkabah exegesis.46 However, it now emerges that the mashal, itself, was already laden with esoteric connotations which were part and parcel of the ancient exegetical tradition attached to the Lord’s garden. Since the aforementioned scholars share in common a preference for the Tosefta’s rather than the Babylonian Talmud’s version of the Pardes story, we may note that in the former the story is immediately followed by this parable: ‫ מה עליו על אדם‬,‫ לפרדס של מלך ועלייה בנויה על גביו‬,‫משל למה הדבר דומה‬ ‫להציץ ובלבד שלא יזין את עיניו ממנו‬

A parable; to what may the matter be likened? To a king’s garden with a balcony built over it. What must a man do? Glance; only let him not feast his eyes upon it. t. Ḥag. 2:5

The terminology and substance of this parable is clearly parallel to that of the version in Sefer Eliyahu Rabbah cited above. There are, to be sure, some minor differences. The tosefta uses pardes rather than kerem. The garden has a balcony over it. This is a visual feature which can readily be traced to the tower (MGDL) built within the vineyard (Isa 5:2). In 4Q400 and 4Q500, it is represented by the “heights” MRWMY RWM and MRWM HQWDŠ. Rabbinic exegesis associated the tower with the Temple, and it is no accident that the same terminology is used with regard to the precautions taken to prevent Temple repair workers from “feasting their eyes upon the Holy of Holies” (m. Mid. 4:5). Yet there is a tradition which relates that at the time of the pilgrimage festivals the curtain of the sanctuary was drawn to allow the public a glimpse of the Hekhal.47 This ambiguity may be reflected in the tosefta text, which permits glancing, but not “feasting one’s eyes.” Sefer Eliyahu Rabbah prohibits even glancing, though it provides for the possible breach of this restriction.

44 45 46 47

Halperin, Merkabah in Rabbinic Literature, 90–91. Schäfer, “New Testament and Hekhalot Literature,” 24–35. Urbach, “Traditions.” B. Yoma 54a; Josephus, Ant. 3.6.4 [§128].

THE QUMRAN SABBATH SHIROT AND RABBINIC MERKABAH TRADITIONS

381

That the aforementioned restrictions, limiting access to the Pardes as the Lord’s garden, were associated with the mysterium of the Merkabah is confirmed by the opening of Hekhalot Zuṭarti: }‫ {ואם נהנית ממנו‬,‫ ואם ירדת לו אל תהנה ממנו‬,‫הוי זהיר בכבוד קונך ואל תרד לו‬ ‫סופף להטרד מן העולם‬

Pay heed to the glory of thy Maker and descend not to it (the Merkabah). And if you have descended to it, do not take pleasure in it; {and if you have taken pleasure in it}, you are destined to be driven out of the world. Here we have the same terminology as that of Sefer Eliyahu Rabbah and its forerunners in Tosefta Ḥagigah and ʾAbot de Rabbi Nathan, but clearly in the context of Merkabah mysticism. Of course, one must reckon with the possibility that this may have been a later adaptation of an earlier nonmystical motif. This is the view espoused by the aforementioned source-critical scholars who question the existence of a continuous stratum of esoteric tradition in the Second Temple and rabbinic periods. However, in the light of the available fragments from Qumran, we must take account of what now emerges as a continuous development of the “garden” motif centered around the Merkabah. 4Q500 shows that the vineyard of Isaiah 5 was portrayed as the Eden-like garden, the source of God’s “glorious streams,” and the site of the “sacred heights” upon which the Sanctuary was built. 4Q400 describes the gates of these “lofty heights” as well as the seven “paths” or rivers which flowed from the royal seat of His glory.48 Since 4Q400 48

Mrs. Jean Jenkins has kindly drawn my attention to the parallel in Rev 22:1, where the “river of water of life” proceeds “out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.” The setting here, too, is that of Paradise, as indicated by the description of the tree of life (22:2). The implications of this paper for the much-discussed problem of the meaning of MQDŠ ʾDM in 4QFlorilegium require separate study. We shall merely list here summarily the considerations which, in our opinion, can now be tentatively offered in support of the hypothesis that this enigmatic phrase may indeed allude to Paradise as Adam’s sanctuary: The conception of the Garden of Eden as a sanctuary is already set forth in Jubilees 3. Also developed there is the identification of Paradise with the Holy of Holies on Mount Zion (3:19, 27). However, it was only after the expulsion that Adam began to make offerings. As indicated in Jubilees as well as Life of Adam and Eve 29:4–7, Adam took with him incense (QṬWRT) from the Garden to be burnt upon the altar. We may infer that, prior to the Fall, Adam’s worship consisted only of obedience. It is thus most appropriate for 4QFlorilegium to portray the eschatological sanctuary as one where “they shall burn before Him deeds of Torah,” LHYWT MQṬYRYM BWʾ LWʾ LPNYW MʿŚY TWRH. Unlike the “sanctuary of Israel” which was destroyed through sin, the sanctuary of the latter days would be a MQDŠ ʿWLMYM, “an eternal sanctuary,” in which purified

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places the “lofty heights” clearly within the context of the portrayal of the heavenly Hekhalot, there can no longer be any doubt about the “mystic” connotation of the garden parable. While we do not yet have at Qumran the admonishments about entering or descending to the Pardes nor the perils associated therewith, it seems difficult to escape the conclusion that the rabbinic texts which refer to these are using the terms “vineyard” and “orchard” in the sense of Paradise. They thus give testimony to the rabbinic belief, already identified by Hai Gaon and affirmed by Scholem, that it was possible for living men to somehow gain access to Paradise and to behold the splendor of its fruits. The critics of Scholem have consistently accompanied their critique with certain methodological pronouncements. They have drawn a sharp contrast between the “integralistic–complementary,” or synthetic, approach of Scholem and his disciples, and the literary source-critical analysis which begins by breaking down transmitted sources into hypothetically independent units, studiously avoiding any comparison with what went before or came after. They have sternly admonished us against even glancing at nonsynchronous parallels lest we succumb to “parallelomania.” We shall resist the temptation to generalize from the apparent vindication of Scholem’s synthetic approach here to a general repudiation of the limits which the critical analysts seek to impose. Suffice it to say, that the tree of knowledge bears many varieties of exotic fruit and one can hardly expect mortals to refrain from comparing them and classifying them in accordance with their kind. mankind would be restored to the state of Adam in Paradise. 4QFlorilegium dwells on those features of the sanctuary which recall Paradise: 1. It will be wrought by God’s hands (Exod 15:17), just as the garden was planted by him (Gen 2:8); 2. It will not be contaminated by the presence of aliens; 3. Only “his holy ones,” that is the angels, will be in the sanctuary together with purified men. The concept that righteous men and angels will constitute the eternal sanctuary of the future is now documented in 4Q511 35:2–3: ‫במזוקקי‬ ‫“—שבעתים ובקדושים יקדי[ש] אלוהים לו למקדש עולמים וטהרה בנברים‬Among the sevenfold purified, God will sanctify unto himself a sanctuary of eternity and purity among those who are cleansed.” This writer has previously expressed himself in favor of the view that takes MQDŠ ʾDM to mean a sanctuary consisting of men, that is, the community (“The Exclusion of ‘Netinim’ and Proselytes in 4QFlorilegium,” RevQ 8 [1972–1975]: 87–96 [= Studies, 75–87]; and most recently in [a review of Yadin’s Temple Scroll] in BASOR 264 [November 1986]: 91–92). I hope to devote a future study to the possible bearing of the foregoing materials on the reconsideration of this view. [This hope seems not to have been realized.]

Chapter 32

Messianic Forgiveness of Sin in CD 14:19 (4Q266 10 i 12–13) There* is an interesting Talmudic account (b. Sanh. 38b) of Rabbi Akiba’s efforts to interpret the multiple thrones in chapter seven of the book of Daniel. He first suggested that one was for the Ancient of Days and another for David. This was rejected out of hand as an affront to the divine presence. He then proposed that the two thrones represented different divine attributes, but this, too, was dismissed as unacceptable by R. Eleazar b. Azariah, who exclaimed, “Akiba, why are you meddling in Haggada? Keep rather to the laws of leprosy and tent defilement!” Those who know of my efforts to explore various aspects of Qumran religious law may view as ill-advised this venture into the nebulous realm of theology, especially that of the intensively debated topic of messianism. It might be appropriate to underline ab initio the very circumscribed objective of this paper, which is to determine the text and meaning of the messianic reference found in CD 14:18–19 in light of the reading found in 4Q266, one of the early Cave 4 manuscripts of the Damascus Document. The medieval text of Genizah MS A reads: [ ‫]וזה פרוש המשפטים אשר‬ [ ‫משי]ח אהרן וישראל ויכפר עונם‬

[ [

18 19

The restoration of ‫ משו]ח‬was already suggested by Schechter,1 and on the basis of three parallels in CD, the reading ‫ משי]ח אהרן וישראל‬was generally accepted by subsequent commentators. It was also recognized that after ‫פרוש המשפטים‬ there must have followed an allusion to the present laws in the premessianic age, such as Rabin’s restoration, “in which [they shall walk during the epoch of wickedness, until there shall arise the Messi]ah of Aaron and Israel.”2

* Original publication: “Messianic Forgiveness of Sin in CD 14:19 (4Q266 10 i 12–13),” in The Provo International Conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. D.W. Parry and E. Ulrich; Leiden: Brill, 1999), 537–44. Republished with the kind permission of Brill Academic Publishers. 1 S. Schechter, Fragments of a Zadokite Work (Cambridge, 1910), LIV. 2 C. Rabin, The Zadokite Documents (Oxford, 1954), 70.

© Joseph M. Baumgarten, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004505087_034

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There was much less clarity among scholars concerning the subject of the verb ‫ויכפר‬. Syntactically, the most natural supposition should have been that it was the ‫ משיח‬just mentioned in the immediately preceding context. However, certain other considerations prevented scholars from accepting this straightforward conclusion. One was already given by R.H. Charles in 1913: “Since in the other four passages where atonement is mentioned [in CD] God is the agent, we conclude that it is so here.”3 The cogency of this argument is considerably lessened by the fact that these four other passages are historical, rather than eschatological in character. That the writer of CD may have conceived of God in the future using a soteriological agent for atonement should not a priori be dismissed as a possibility. Moreover, God is nowhere mentioned in our passage. True, Louis Ginzberg proposed to remedy this lack by emending ‫עד אשר‬ ‫ישלח אל משוח מאהרון וישראל ויכפר עוננו‬,4 but that was in an earlier age, when textual emendation was held to be a respectable scholarly vocation. Ginzberg’s motives for resorting to this correction were apparently twofold. One was his understanding of the designation ‫ מש]יח אהרן וישראל‬as referring to two messiahs, one priestly and one royal. In this he is still followed by a substantial number of contemporary scholars, although Martin Abegg has recently called for a reassessment of this messianic duality in Qumran writings other than the Serekh ha-Yaḥad.5 The need for such reassessment is, I believe, underlined by the apparent combination of “priests and kings” among the descendants of Levi in the Cave 4 fragments of an Aramaic Levi apocryphon.6 Moreover, the messianic Rule of the Congregation, which is often cited as exemplifying the two messiahs concept, actually puts the Messiah of Aaron in the cardinal position as the head of the entire congregation of Israel ‫[הכהן ב]רואש‬ ‫( כול עדת ישראל‬1QSa 2:12). However, since Ginzberg held ‫ מש]יח אהרן וישראל‬in CD to denote two messiahs, he could not take them as the subjects of the verb ‫ויכפר‬, in the singular. Ginzberg’s other motive was frankly theological and he articulated it in categorical fashion: “Ein ‘Sünden vergebender Messias’ wäre nur in einem 3 R.H. Charles, The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English (2 vols.; Oxford, 1913), 2:832. 4 L. Ginzberg, Eine unbekannte jüdische Sekte (New York, 1922), 129. 5 M.G. Abegg, Jr, “The Messiah at Qumran: Are We Still Seeing Double?” DSD 2 (1995): 125–44. 6 The Preliminary Concordance to the Hebrew and Aramaic Fragments from Qumrân Caves II–X, Including Especially the Unpublished Material from Cave IV (comp. R.E. Brown et al.; 5 vols.; Göttingen, 1988) s.v. ‫( מלך‬5:2285), cites from a Testament of Levi the phrase ‫אף כהנין ומלכין‬ ‫ ;תה[וון‬contrast the Greek T. Levi 8:14, where kingship and “a new priesthood” are to rise from Judah. [For this passage see now M.E. Stone and J.C. Greenfield, “213. 4QLevia ar,” in Qumran Cave 4.XVII: Parabiblical Texts, Part 3 (ed. G.J. Brooke et al.; DJD 22; Oxford, 1996), 1–24; this text (frag. 2 ll. 15–16) is on pp. 16–20, with a discussion of this phrase on p. 20.]

Messianic Forgiveness of Sin

385

christlichen Werke denkbar.”7 Hartmut Stegemann appears to lend support to this theological axiom when he writes: “Sündenvergebung aber kann nach alttestamentlichen Zeugnis kein Mensch gewähren, weder ein Priester noch ein Prophet, weder der Messias noch der gerechteste oder heiligste aller Frommen, sondern stets nur Gott allein (vgl. Mk 2:7).”8 This view was, according to the Gospels (cf. Matt 9:3), shared by the scribes, who looked upon Jesus’s forgiving of sins as tantamount to blasphemy. We would, however, caution that that which was blasphemy for the presumably Pharisaic scribes, may not necessarily have been blasphemy for the visionaries of Qumran. There are two Qumran works which display a distinct proclivity to attribute the divine roles of judgment and forgiveness to mediating figures. The first, 11QMelchizedek, describes [Melchizedek] as the archangel presiding in judgment as ‫ אלוהים‬over the divine assembly of Psalm 82. Melchizedek is to proclaim liberty for all the Sons of Light by releasing them from the burden of their sins. This will take place on the Day of Atonement at the end of the tenth jubilee, the time preordained for atonement for the Sons of Light ‫לכפר בו על כול‬ ]‫( בני [אור‬11QMelchizedek 2:7–8). Some commentators have tried to mitigate this radical arrogation of divine power by an angelic intermediary, suggesting that ‫ כפר‬has here the sense of “making expiation.” Since Melchizedek was a priest he could obtain atonement by performing the appropriate cultic rituals. However, this approach fails to reckon with the fact that no such priestly function is mentioned in the text. It is the role of universal judgment which is attributed to the king of Ṣedeq, who is to bring about the conviction of Belial and his cohorts as well as the granting of forgiveness for the Sons of Light. While Melchizedek is portrayed as a divine hypostasis, we now have another figure whose redemptive role is described as emerging on the plane of human activity. We owe to Émile Puech the publication of 4Q541, a fragmentary Aramaic text concerning the eschatological priest also known from Testament of Levi 18. The best preserved continuous text is found in Fragment 9, which describes the illuminational teaching of the future priest: “His word is like the word of the heavens, and his teaching according to the will of God. His sun will illuminate the world and his fire will burn to all the ends of the earth.”9 7 Ginzberg, Eine unbekannte jüdische Sekte, 129. 8 H. Stegemann, Die Essener, Qumran, Johannes der Täufer und Jesus (Freiburg, 1993), 303. 9 É. Puech, “Fragments d’un Apocryphe de Lévi et le personnage eschatologique: 4QTestLévic–d(?) et 4QAJa,” in The Madrid Qumran Congress: Proceedings of the International Congress on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Madrid 18–21 March, 1991 (ed. J. Trebolle Barrera and L. Vegas Montaner; 2 vols.; Leiden, 1992), 2:449–501 (466). [And see now idem, “4Q541. 4QApocryphe Levib? ar,” in idem, Qumrân Grotte 4.XXII: Textes Araméens, Première Partie: 4Q529–549 (DJD 31; Oxford, 2001), 225–56 (241–44—text and discussion of Frag. 9 i 3–4).]

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PART 5: THEOLOGY AND APOCALYPTISM

Despite this glorification, he is depicted as the object of rejection and calumny on the part of his antagonists, much like the Suffering Servant in Isaiah. Yet, he is to atone for all the children of his generation, ‫ויכפר על כול בני דרה‬. Here, too, scholars have been inclined to limit the eschatological priest’s atonement function to expiation through sacrifice, although neither 4Q541 frag. 9, nor its parallel, Testament of Levi 18, make mention of any priestly sacrifice. The claim that ‫ כפר על‬always refers to ritual expiation is contradicted by the occasional usage of this phrase in both biblical and Qumran Hebrew for divine forgiveness.10 Moreover, even if we take ‫ כפר‬in the sense of expiation, the allusion to the hostile disparagement suffered by the priest suggests that, like the Suffering Servant (Isa 53:10), his humiliation was itself considered to constitute an ‫אשם‬, a guilt-offering for the sins of his generation. Neither Melchizedek nor the eschatological priest is designated as a messiah. In 11QMelchizedek the term ‫ משיח הרוח‬is used for the herald (‫)מבשר‬, who has a distinct role. Yet, these eschatological figures illustrate well the tendency in Second Temple apocalyptic to assign divine functions such as judgment and atonement to heavenly or earthly intermediaries. This must be considered in assessing the nature of the messianic atonement referred to in CD 14:18–19. We have seen how from the beginning the theological axioms toward which both Jewish and Christian scholars were predisposed influenced their understanding of this passage. It may be that such influence still lingers and should be consciously evaluated. Thus one finds repeatedly the presumption that the verb ‫ ויכפר‬in CD 14:19 refers to expiation obtained by the priestly Messiah, presumably by offering the prescribed sacrifices or performing the atonement rites. This opinion is expressed by scholars who, in consonance with others, take ‫ משי]ח אהרן וישראל‬to signify two messiahs; yet they attribute the singular verb ‫ ויכפר‬to the priestly Messiah because he is the one who can perform the cultic acts necessary for atonement. If so, we may ask, leaving the grammatical problem aside, why is the Messiah of Israel mentioned altogether? Let us now see how the interpretation of this passage is affected by the reading found in 4Q266 10 i:

‫וזה פרוש‬ 11 ‫וישר ̊אל‬ ̊ ‫[ ̊מ ̊שיח אהרון‬sic] ‫ממוד‬ ̇ ‫ [המשפטים אשר יש] ̊פטו בם עד‬12 vacat ] [ ◦ ‫ [ויכפר עוונם ממנ]חה וחטת‬13

The significant addition here is the phrase ‫“ מנ]חה וחטת‬meal and sin offerings” which follows after the required restoration of [‫]ויכפר עוונם‬. In his edition 10

Jer 18:23; CD 4:10; 4Q221 4:4.

Messianic Forgiveness of Sin

387

of the Genizah manuscripts, for which he used the Cave 4 fragments, Elisha Qimron restored [‫ ויכפר עונם מנ]חה וחטאת‬and left it at that. He perhaps took ‫ מנחה וחטאת‬to be the compound subject of the preceding verb, but this is syntactically very difficult. Clearly a preposition is needed before ‫מנחה וחטאת‬. It was suggested to me that a bet might be restored before ‫מנחה‬, thus yielding the sense through “meal and sin offerings.” This may appear straightforward, but it raises the question as to why the coming of the Messiah is needed for the bringing of regular atonement sacrifices. Moreover, in Genizah MS A, the curvature of the base of the letter after ‫ עונם‬fits a mem rather than a bet, as Qimron has properly indicated. The reading which best conforms to the criteria of both the Genizah and the Cave 4 MSS is ‫“ [ויכפר עוונם ממנ]חה וחטת‬and he (the Messiah) will atone for their sin better than meal and sin offerings.” This comparative connotation of the prepositional mem is supported by a significant parallel. The Community Rule looks forward to the time when the yaḥad will be established as a House of Holiness for Aaron and a Communal House for Israel, “to atone for iniquitous guilt and for sinful unfaithfulness and as good will for the earth, better than the flesh of burnt-offerings and the fat of sacrifices” (1QS 9:4), ‫לכפר על אשמת פשע ומעל חטאת ולרצון לארץ מבשר עולות ומחלבי זבח‬. The prepositional mems in this passage have been rendered by some translators in the privative sense, “without the flesh of burnt-offerings and without the fat of sacrifices.” Jacob Licht took them to denote comparison, “better than,” which is preferable as a more commonly used connotation of ‫מן‬. In either case, this 1QS passage is relevant to our text not only grammatically, but also conceptually. Both envision a time when the perfection of priestly and lay institutions will become a source of atonement which will be available without the need for ritual sacrifice.11 In CD 14:19 it is the Messiah of Aaron and Israel, standing at the head of the total community, both priestly and lay, who will have the role of providing atonement. He will do so not through any prescribed ritual, but as the divinely anointed redeemer through whom forgiveness of sin will be granted. Is such a delegation of the divine power of atonement to the Messiah conceivable in a pre-Christian Jewish text? On the basis of the Gospels, one may 11

John Collins has in private conversation raised the valid question whether the parallel with 1QS 9:4 is not weakened by the fact that this passage deals with the atoning value of the institutions of the community in the present age, while CD 14:19 refers to the messianic era, when a purified sacrificial cult would presumably be restored. Granting the centrality of some form of eschatological temple, divinely or humanly built, as in the visions of 4QFlorilegium and the Temple Scroll, it nevertheless seems inevitable that the emphasis on prayer and “perfection of way” as superior offerings had its effect on Qumran concepts of ultimate atonement.

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infer that the contemporary scribes would have viewed it as bordering on blasphemy. We also noted the disapproval of later tannaitic sages of any suggestion assigning a judgment throne in the heavenly court to David. In the same context the Talmud sharply rejects the notion that Metatron, the mysterious angel whose name was associated with that of God (Exod 23:20–21) had any discretionary authority (b. Sanh. 38b). In apocalyptic literature, however, one finds considerably less restraint in assigning the function of divine judgment to surrogate figures. This is well illustrated by the role of the Elect One or the Messiah in the Parables of Enoch, whose pre-Christian origin is now widely accepted. As Nickelsburg observes, “the Elect One is the agent of God’s judgment and as such is depicted with imagery that the early chapters of Enoch ascribe to God himself.”12 Michael Knibb notes that both the Parables of Enoch and 4 Ezra “assign almost divine status to their respective messianic figures.”13 Strack and Billerbeck early on made the same observation and explained it as due to the fact that the Messiah, looked upon as the preexistent figure for the redemption of God’s people, ultimately assumed functions originally reserved for the Creator.14 The Qumran tendency to assign divine functions to surrogate personifications is, as we have seen, well-illustrated by the glorification of Melchizedek as the one who presides over the celestial court. This surrogation of the role of Elohim, who is called upon in Ps 82:8 to rise and judge the earth himself, ‫קומה‬ ‫אלהים שפטה הארץ‬, would, I suspect, have been particularly jarring to some of the Tannaim and presumably also their Pharisaic forerunners. At the end of the mishnaic tractate dealing with the Day of Atonement there is appended a haggadic homily, not found in all the manuscripts, which is attributed to R. Akiba: “Fortunate are you Israel! Before whom do you purify yourselves, and who purifies you? Your Father who is in heaven” (m. Yoma 8:9). Fourth century homilists drew a similar lesson from Isa 35:10: “And the redeemed of the Lord shall return, not the redeemed by Elijah, not the redeemed by the royal Messiah, but the redeemed by the Lord.”15 That God was the supreme judge of all mankind and the ultimate source of forgiveness was, of course, not denied in Qumran theology. This is affirmed 12 13 14 15

G.W.E. Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature between the Bible and the Mishnah (Philadelphia, 1981), 215. M.A. Knibb, “Messianism in the Pseudepigrapha in the Light of the Scrolls,” DSD 2 (1995): 165–84 (170–71). H.L. Strack and P. Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch (4 vols.; Munich, 1922), 1:68. The Midrash on Psalms (trans. W.G. Braude; 2 vols.; New Haven, 1959), 2:196.

Messianic Forgiveness of Sin

389

repeatedly in the Hodayot and in the lyrical prayers appended to the Community Rule: “For with God is the judgment of every living being” (1QS 10:18); “(By) his judgment I am chastened according to my iniquities … and to God I call ‘My Righteousness (‫( ”’)צדקי‬1QS 10:11). Yet, this did not prevent Qumran teachers from attributing the dominion of all the Sons of Righteousness to the Prince of Lights and personifying ‫צדק‬, Righteousness, as a divine warrior who will rejoice on high when he overcomes the dark forces of Belial (1QS 3:19–20; 1QM 17:6–8). In this connection I tried some years ago to redirect attention to Josephus’s statement concerning Essene belief: περιμάχητον ἡγούμενοι τοῦ δικαίου τὴν πρόσοδον (Ant. 18.18). Strugnell and Feldman pointed out that πρόσοδον must be taken in the sense of “approach” rather than “rewards,” which usually requires the plural. Feldman translates: “[They] believe that they ought to strive especially to draw near to righteousness,” taking δικαίου as equivalent to δικαιοσύνη.16 However, “to draw near” would be better with πρὸς τὸ δίκαιον, rather than the genitive. In view of the messianic belief in the coming of one who will teach righteousness ‫( יורה הצדק‬CD 6:11), perhaps Feldman’s alternative interpretation: “[They] believe that the approach of the righteous one is highly to be prized,” is worthy of renewed consideration. Such an eschatological credo would fit rather well following Josephus’s reference to the Essene belief in immortality. In conclusion, the receptivity in Qumran eschatology for agents of divine salvation, whether angelic or human, removes the basis for the scholarly reluctance to read the now more fully available text of CD 18:19 in its literal sense. The Messiah of Aaron and Israel, that is, of the total eschatological community, would with his coming atone for any sins resulting from the previously imperfect knowledge of the Law. He would do so not through ritual sacrifice, ‫מנ]חה‬ ‫וחטת‬, but through his illuminational presence as the embodiment of divine good will for the earth. 16

J. Strugnell, “Flavius Josephus and the Essenes: Antiquities XVIII.18–22,” JBL 77 (1958): 106–15 (109); L.H. Feldman, trans., Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, Books XVIII–XX (LCL; Cambridge, Mass., 1965), 15–16; J.M. Baumgarten, “The Heavenly Tribunal and the Personification of Ṣedeq in Jewish Apocalyptic,” ANRW 2.19.1 (1979): 219–39 [included in this volume].

Index of Modern Authors Abegg, M.G. Jr. 384 Albeck, C. 88n.14, 126n.22, 207n.11, 12, 208n.16, 210n.27, 227n.11, 229n.13, 230n.19, 281n.8, 373n.21 Albright, W.F. 2, 6, 351n.27 Alexander, P.S. 90n.19, 282n.10 Allegro, J.M. 103n.17, 114n.16, 115n.17, 172n.83, 192n.1–2, 193nn.5, 7, 245n.11, 261n.1, 275n.45, 277n.1, 347n.17, 348, 349n.21, 350–51, 352n.29 Alon, G. 120, 220n.29, 237, 251n.4, 255n.22, 256, 260, 299n.7, 329n.25, 334, 337, 355, 357n.13 Amira, K. von 268n.25 Amusin, J.D. 264n.11 Aptowitzer, V. 256n.26, 258n.31 Aschim, A. 302n.14 Avigad, N. 228n.12 Bacchiocchi, S. 320n.10 Badia, L.F. 341n.24 Baer, Y. 56–58 Baillet, M. 8n.19, 54, 63n.27, 87n.8, 91–92, 97–100, 105, 123, 156n.17, 193, 198, 200n.29, 235, 243–44, 309, 318n.4, 321n.16, 324, 326–27, 341–42, 345–47, 376 Bamberger, B.J. 257n.29, 258n.32 Barthélemy, D. 101n.9 Baudissin, W.W. 156n.19, 162nn.36–37 Baumgarten, A.I. 93n.33 Beckwith, R.T. 109n.1, 197, 199n.25 Ben-Hayyim, Z. 291n.11 Berger, A. 268n.25, 269n.26, 273 Bernstein, M.J. 264n.12, 270n.29, 276n.51 Bialoblocki, S. 258n.32 Bickerman, E.J. 254n.16 Billerbeck, P. 388 Blidstein, G.J.  252n.12, 255n.19 Bousset, W. 360 Bowman, J. 124n.15 Box, G.H. 163n.45 Brandt, W. 355–58 Braun, H. 109n.1 Breasted, J.H. 160n.30

Broshi, M. 4 Brownlee, W.H. 44n.50 Brüll, N. 126n.21 Burgmann, H. 349n.21 Burney, C.F. 156n.19 Busink, Th. A. 162n.39 Caquot, A. 31n.2 Carmignac, J. 349n.20, 351, 353 Carnsey, P. 271n.33 Charles, R.H. 157n.21, 159n.28, 174n.87, 196n.16 Charlesworth, J.H. 4n.10, 113, 227, 332n.18 Chazon, E.G. 103n.18, 314, 321–22 Chilton, B.D. 340 Clermont-Ganneau, C. 254 Collins, J.J. 153n.3, 297n.1, 387 Coppens, J. 97n.2, 109n.1 Cothenet, É. 115, 116n.21 Craigie, P. 275n.48 Cross, F.M. 152n.1, 156nn.19–20, 164n.51, 168n.60, 169, 170n.69, 275n.45 Dandamajew, M.A. 205 Danielou, J. 355n.1 Davies, P.R. 109n.1, 307n.2, 331n.3 Davies, W.D. 48, 331, 333 Davila, J.R. 300, 301n.10 Davis, M.T. 4n.10 De Jonge, M. 159n.28 Delcor, M. 157n.22 Denis, A.M. 115 Díez Merino, L. 262n.5, 263n.10, 266 Dillon, R.J. 262 Dimant, D. 31n.1, 33n.9, 38n.29, 148n.23 Doering, L. 79n.9, 80n.12 Driver, G.R.  132–33, 165n.52, 170n.72, 172n.80 Dupont-Sommer, A. 44n.50, 262n.5, 263n.10 Eckhardt, B. 259n.37 Eissfeldt, O. 259n.37 Elgvin, T. 86n.4 Eppstein, V. 124n.15 Epstein, A. 139n.7

392 Epstein, J.N. 36n.24, 82, 147n.19, 237n.8, 337n.17 Eshel, E. 299n.6, 324, 328 Farber, W. 346n.10 Feldman, L.H. 148, 166, 255n.22, 256, 340, 389 Ferguson, J. 179n.12, 14 Finkelstein, L. 42n.42, 121, 130n.30, 134–35 Fischel, H.A. 378n.37 Fishbane, M. 35, 37, 39n.33 Fitzmyer, J.A. 111n.6, 150n.30, 155n.14, 156n.19, 175n.2, 228n.12, 262, 263n.11, 266, 273–74 Flusser, D. 118n.27, 131n.35, 155n.11, 163, 339 Ford, J.M. 262n.6 Frankfort, H. 350 García Martínez, F. 277n.1, 344n.3 Gaster, M. 363 Gaster, T.H. 159, 175n.2, 348n.19 Gazov-Ginzberg, A.M. 349n.20 Geiger, A. 49, 57, 62, 71, 73, 127, 142, 149, 171, 183n.9, 226, 230, 232, 255n.19, 289 Ginsberg, H.L. 167 Ginzberg, Louis. 3, 8, 41–42, 53, 68–69, 78, 130n.31, 143, 165n.53, 170n.73, 230n.18, 239, 294, 307, 320, 357n.12, 361n.26, 384–85 Glessmer, U. 92 Golb, N. 109n.1 Goldstein, J.A. 208n.14, 319 Gray, G.B. 160n.30 Gray, J. 154n.9, 161n.35 Greenfield, J.C. 1–2, 4, 297, 300–303, 384n.6 Grintz, Y.M. 201, 208n.16, 209n.19, 215 Gruenwald, I. 358–60, 365n.44, 368 Guillaumont, A. 109n.1, 118 Guttman, A. 126n.21, 131n.34 Haas, V. 352n.33 Halivni, D. 35 Halperin, D.J. 264–65, 267n.22, 367n.4, 378–79 Haran, M. 214n.6 Harkavy, A. 239n.14 Hasel, G.F. 320n.10 Hayes, C. 251n.4 Heinemann, I. 98n.6, 115n.17, 207n.11 Heinemann, J. 263–64, 289

Index of Modern Authors Hengel, M. 262n.5, 266–68, 271n.32 Henrichs, A. 355–56 Herr, M.D. 67, 80n.14, 201 Hitzig, H.F. 268, 272–73 Hoffmann, D. 199, 214n.5 Hofius, O. 320n.10 Hollis, F.J. 162n.38 Horgan, M.P. 274–75 Horovitz, H.S. 236n.7, 337n.16 Horowitz, C.M. 238n.11 Hübner, H. 98n.6, 109n.1 Hurvitz, A. 275n.49 Hvidberg, F. 176n.7 Idel, M. 363n.35 Isaksson, A. 109n.1 Iwry, S. 35n.19 Jackson, B.S. 52n.71, 62n.24 Jagersma, H. 206 Jassen, A.P. 3–4, 8–10 Jastrow, M. 304n.22 Jaubert, A. 50n.66 Jeremias, J. 207–8, 216n.10, 255n.22, 260n.39 Johnson, M.D. 299n.4 Johnson, S.E. 163n.45 Kahana, M.I. 292n.12 Karl, Z. 218n.23 Katz, J. 259n.36 Kaufmann, Y. 214 Kister, M. 45n.54, 132n.38, 148, 163n.42, 177n.10, 228 Klijn, A.F.J. 355–56, 358n.14, 360n.23, 362n.28, 364n.41 Knibb, M.A. 388 Knohl, I. 91 Koenen, L. 355–56 Kohler, K. 183n.9 Kraeling, E.G. 350 Kugler, R. 103n.18, 300–304 Kuhn, K.G. 199n.25, 257n.29 Kutscher, E.Y. 275 Larson, E. 82n.17, 229n.14, 279n.3, 308n.3 Latte, K. 268n.25 Lehmann, M.R. 82n.17, 229n.14, 279n.3, 308n.3 Leiman, S.Z. 126n.21, 200 Levenson, J.D. 168n.60

393

Index of Modern Authors Lévi, I. 346n.10 Levine, B.A. 122n.11, 236n.6, 336n.15 Levine, L.I. 77n.4 Levy, J. 304 Levy, M.A. 362n.29 Lewy, J. 170n.70 Licht, J. 175n.2, 169, 387 Lieberman, S. 51n.70, 53, 87, 126n.21, 129n.28, 132, 138, 143, 147n.19, 187n.11, 192n.3, 221n.31, 238, 288n.5, 378 Liebes, Y. 379n.41 Lim, T.H. 149n.28 Liver, J. 132n.40, 168–70 Lods, A. 156n.19 Loewenstamm, S. 156n.20 Lohse, E. 175n.2 Luttikhuizen, G.P. 355n.1

Niese, B. 256 Nitzan, B. 318n.3, 327n.13, 345nn.6, 8 Noth, M. 155n.14 Novakovic, L. 4n.10

Maccoby, H. 262–63 Machiela, D.A. 228n.12 Magness, J. 9n.25 Maier, J. 115, 175n.2, 359n.19 Mansoor, M. 7 Mantel, H. 130n.33, 154n.7 Maori, Y. 292 Margaliot, M. 303n.17 Mason, S. 147n.21 May, H.G. 160n.31, 162n.38 McKenzie, J.L. 161n.33 Meier, G. 352n.33 Mendels, D. 179n.13 Meyer, R. 164n.51, 171n.75 Milgrom, J. 87, 123, 209n.17, 212n.33, 215–18, 239n.16, 242n.3, 300n.8, 323n.1 Milik, J.T. 4, 49–50, 56, 120n.2, 128, 132n.38, 144, 154–56, 158, 163–65, 168, 172n.82, 177, 183, 185–86, 194, 229n.14, 231, 362n.30, 377n.43 Mitteis, L. 113n.12 Mommsen, Th. 267–68, 271 Montgomery, J.A. 346 Moore, R.D. 349n.22 Murphy, C.M. 280n.6 Murphy-O’Connor, J. 115–16

Qimron, E. 8n.20, 42n.42, 46n.57, 53, 58, 71–74, 128–29, 144, 194n.9, 233n.26, 289, 291, 293, 310n.12, 332n.6, 374, 387

Naveh, J. 346n.13 Nemoy, L. 34n.15, 171n.74 Neusner, J. 9, 11, 56–57, 59n.20, 135 Newsom, C.A. 322n.18, 368–71, 374–75 Nickelsburg, G.W.E. 388

Safrai, S. 35n.21, 250n.1 Salonen, E. 205 Sanders, J.A. 155n.15, 159n.27, 177n.9, 344n.1 Schäfer, P. 367n.4, 373, 380 Schalit, A. 173n.86, 217, 256–57, 260n.38

Oppenheimer, A. 201n.36, 208–10, 213n.1, 215n.9, 217–18 Parvey, C.F. 104n.21 Patai, R. 346n.10 Patton, J.H. 152n.1 Pfaff, S. 268n.25, 273n.39 Pfann, S.J. 132n.38, 163n.42, 177n.10, 339n.19 Ploeg, J.P.M. van der 344 Pope, M.H. 161n.35 Pritchard, J.B. 350–51 Puech, É. 146n.14, 345, 385

Rabin, C. 9, 33n.10, 41n.37, 54, 143, 175–76, 383 Rabinowitz, I. 261n.2 Rappaport, U. 257nn.29–30 Refoulé, R.P. 323n.3, 340n.23 Rein, W. 273n.38 Reinink, G.J. 355–56, 358n.14, 360n.23, 362n.28, 364n.41 Rengstorf, K.H. 256n.24 Revel, B. 294n.16 Rietz, H.W.M. 4n.10 Ringgren, H. 161n.35, 163n.41 Ritter, B. 207 Robinson, J.A.T. 341n.24 Rosenberg, R.A. 156, 162n.38, 170n.70 Rosenthal, F. 131n.35 Rossi, A. dei 150, 182, 201n.33 Rosso, L. 264n.12 Rost, L. 176n.7 Rudolph, K. 355n.1, 358n.18, 365n.45 Rudolph, W. 206, 250n.2 Ruether, R.R. 104n.21

394

Index of Modern Authors

Schechter, S. 3, 8, 41, 53, 68, 74, 142–43, 175–76, 307, 383 Schiffman, L.H. 8–9, 36, 43n.48, 49n.63, 79, 80–82, 109, 116n.23, 145n.13, 181n.2, 199n.24, 229n.14, 243n.6, 279n.3, 308n.3 Schoeps, H.J. 355n.1, 364 Scholem, G. 331, 346, 359, 363–65, 367–68, 370, 379, 382 Schremer, A. 150n.33 Schüpphaus, J. 259n.37 Schürer, E. 63, 71, 106n.25, 254n.15, 256–57, 341n.25 Schwartz, D.R. 4n.10, 5n.13, 253n.14, 256n.22, 330n.1 Schwartz, S. 147n.21 Schwemer, A.M. 318–19 Seeligmann, I.L. 166n.57 Segal, M.H. 246n.14, 275 Shaked, S. 346n.13 Shemesh, A. 88–89 Singer, S. 165n.53, 322n.17 Skehan, P.W. 159n.28 Smith, M. 103n.15, 112n.9, 361n.26, 365 Stegemann, H. 46n.56, 257n.29, 341n.24, 344n.3, 385 Stemberger, G.  35n.21, 38n.30 Stern, M. 172n.79, 210n.25, 258n.31 Stökl Ben Ezra, D. 246n.14 Stone, M.E. 297, 300–303, 384n.6 Strack, H.L. 35n.21, 38n.30, 388 Strecker, G. 355n.1 Strugnell, J. 4, 8n.20, 42n.42, 46n.57, 53, 58, 71–74, 128–29, 144, 156n.17, 166, 170n.72, 194n.9, 233n.26, 289, 291, 293, 311, 332n.6, 348n.18, 352–53, 367, 369, 389 Sussmann, Y. 43n.48, 72–73, 138, 146–47, 149–50, 182n.7, 294n.16

Thompson, R.C. 346n.10 Thorion-Vardi, T. 116n.22 Tigchelaar, E.J.C. 277n.1, 344n.3 Torrey, C.C. 161n.33 Tov, E. 4, 32n.4 Tur-Sinai, N. 351n.27

Talmon, S. 50, 55n.9, 90–92, 241n.1 Tchernowitz, C. 209n.17, 230, 259n.37 Thomas, J. 355n.1

Zeitlin, S. 130n.29, 173n.84, 176, 227n.8, 247n.15

Urbach, E.E. 38, 48n.59, 51, 59, 61, 64, 147, 249n.19, 253n.13, 257n.29, 358–59, 367–68, 380 Vaillant, A. 158n.23, 362n.31 Vaux, R. de 103n.18, 156n.20, 168n.60, 208n.17 Vermes, G. 90n.19, 99n.7, 101n.11, 106, 109n.1, 168n.62, 286, 282n.10, 368n.5 Voigt, M. 268–69, 271 Wacholder, B.Z. 199n.24 Waitz, H. 355n.1 Webb, R.L. 338n. Weinfeld, M. 42n.44, 159n.28, 214, 250n.2, 297, 346n.11, 369n.8 Wellhausen, J. 57, 71, 168n.60 Wernberg-Møller, P. 98n.6 Wieder, N. 144n.6, 243, 248 Wilcken, U. 113n.12 Wilcox, M. 262n.5, 264n.12, 275n.46 Wise, M.O. 91n.25 Wolfson, H.A. 93, 252n.8 Woude, A.S. van der 154n.10, 344n.3 Yadin, Y. 8n.18, 39, 42n.45, 53n.1, 61n.22, 74n.2, 102n.12, 110n.4, 118, 120n.1, 122n.10, 128n.25, 194n.9, 199, 205n.1, 210–11, 217n.21, 219n.26, 228n.12, 261n.3

Index of Ancient Sources Hebrew Bible Genesis 1:27 34, 111 382n.48 2:8 2:10 377 34 7:9 7:11 288 8:3–4 50, 149 10:5 153 154, 160n.30 14:18 14:20 209n.17, 215 14:22 33 15:6 333 18:23 302n.15 28:19 215 30:33 161n.34 35:22 47 38:14 352n.32 Exodus 12:43 255 12:48 255 15:17 382n.48 16:5 80 35, 79 16:29 63, 220 19:6 19:10 299 19:14–15 299 19:15 118n.29 20:21 137 22:28 232 23:7 90n.20, 281, 283 23:20–21 388 24:[6–8] 337 24:10 371 185 26 26:1 369 26:31 369 29:4 291 29:34 220 30:17–21 122 32:15 369 34:21 199

Leviticus 5:20 89n.17, 279n.4 7:16 289 76, 220 7:17 8:32 220 11:24 121n.5 11:27 121n.5 11:28 121n.5 11:32 137 11:36 137, 290 11:39 121n.5, 125 11:39–40 122 11:40 121n.5 13:46 123n.11 14:8 121 15:5–7 121n.5 121, 299 15:13 15:18 118, 121n.5 15:20 121n.5 15:27 121n.5 15:32 121n.5 185 16 16:28 121 16:29 243 13, 75–77, 83 17–22 17–26 116n.23 17:4 186 17:7 76 247 18 18:13 34, 77 18:22 76 18:24 78 19:6 220 19:16 39n.34, 270 19:17–18 116n.23 19:18 116n.23 19:23–25 224 227, 229 19:25 19:25–28 78 19:31 76 20 77 20:3 76 76 20:6 20:27 76 76 21:6

396 Leviticus (cont.) 21:7 196 196, 197, 303 21:9 21:12 189 21:14 76 22:1–16 76 22:2 76 22:4–7 76–77 22:10 209n.19 22:12 196n.15 22:14 223 22:15 76 22:28 77 54–55, 70, 83 23 23:8 199 23:11 149 34, 149, 199, 200, 288 23:15 23:24 200n.29 23:36 199n.27 23:37 199 34, 55, 198 23:38 25:10 242 25:14 70 214, 218, 221, 223 27 27:29 35 218, 225 27:30 214–15, 221–223 27:30–31 Numbers 254n.18 1:51 3:10 254n.18 3:38 254n.18 225, 290 5:10 5:13 69 236, 336 8:7 8:21 300 136 9:9 12:1–2 118 19, 76, 213–17 18 18:7 254n.18 18:11–12 207 18:21–24 214–15 18:24 206 215 18:25 18:25–32 209n.19 18:26 212 18:27 232 25, 121, 236, 292–96, 19 300, 335

Index of Ancient Sources 19:2 237, 337 19:7 124 19:8 124 123, 135 19:9 19:10 124 19:13 124n.16 19:15 87, 88 19:16 125n.17 19:17 195n.13, 237, 336 19:18 125n.17 19:20 124n.16, 281 19:21 124n.16 23:22 351 24:8 351 24:17 163n.45 25:4 263n.10, 264, 265, 266 25:7–15 356 28:10 199n.24 30:10 111 30:11 33 31:22–23 130 31:30 211 31:47 212n.32 41, 69 35:4 Deuteronomy 5:12 32 116 7:9 14 19, 213–14, 221 219, 225 14:22–26 14:25 222 14:25–26 221 314, 321 15:2 17:10 38, 60 17:11 288 17:15 257n.28, 260 34, 287 17:17 18:4 207 19:6 89 19:15 89 226, 228, 230 20:6 21:1–9 279n.3 34, 111 21:15 21:22 290 21:22–23 22, 262, 263n.10, 265, 276n.51 262, 263, 274, 276 21:23 251, 278 22:13–21 251–52, 287 23

397

Index of Ancient Sources 23:1 350n.23 23:3 252 23:3–4 197 23:8 260n.39 23:9 252, 257 23:24 33 26:1–11 210 26:3 252 26:12 210 26:13 210n.25, 218n.24 26:14 219 75 27 31:10 185 31:10–12 100 32:8 152 32:8–9 374 32:17 346 33:10 164 33:11 288 33:19 172 Joshua 8:25–26 263n.10 8:29 263n.10 10:26 264 Judges 18:29 215 1 Samuel 8:11–17 206 273n.42 9:9 25:26 33 2 Samuel 7

62

1 Kings 6:29 370 7:23 128n.26 8:41–43 248n.1 11:7 197 18:36 302n.15 152, 153 22:19 2 Kings 17 258 23:16 125n.17 23:20 125n.17

Isaiah 1:26 160n.30 381 5 5:1–7 377 380 5:2 5:7 377 5:24 332 253 14:1 14:12 160n.31 19:18 160n.30, 170n.72 24:23 374 29:13 302n.15 30:15 151 30:26 164n.39 32:16 319 32:18 317n.1, 320 34:14 346 35:10 388 37, 48, 333 40:3 41:2 160, 161, 163n.45 41:10 161n.34 45:8 161n.34 49:3 373 51:20 352n.32 52:1 251n.5 53:10 386 53:11 166 254 56 56:3 253 21, 250 56:7 58:8 161 81, 314, 321 58:13 59:16 161n.34 61:3 165n.54 61:10 161n.34 61:11 165n.54 62:1 161 Jeremiah 6:10 67 6:11 67 6:12 67 17:13 343 18:23 386n.10 23:5–6 165n.53 31:23 160n.30 33:16 172

398

Index of Ancient Sources

Ezekiel 359, 369 1 1:7 302 1:7–12 302 4:5 50 10 369 13:9 186 13:10 81 16:8 312 21:19 176n.4 36:25 237 40:46 167n.59 41:15–26 370 43:19 167n.59 44:15 167n.59 44:31 188 45:11 193 18, 193n.7, 194 45:13 46:20–24 195 47:1–12 377 48:11 167n.59 Hosea 9:4 220n.27 185, 186 9:17 10:12 159n.28, 165 Joel 2:23 165 339 3:1 Jonah 3:5–7 244 352n.32 4:8 Micah 7:2 32, 35, 286 Nahum 11:1

223

Habakkuk 2:15

241, 242, 312

Zephaniah 3:5

160

Zechariah 3:1–3 357 3:1–10 302

3:2–3 302 357n.9 3:4 140 3:5 3:9 140 4:10 140 9:6 255n.19 Malachi 2:11–12 188 2:14 312 3:8 206 3:10 206 3:20 160n.30 Psalms 4:6 172n.83 152 7:8 37 192 37:18 114 46:5 376, 377 51:9 237, 336 51:21 160n.30 161 57 58:2 155n.11 82:1 152 82:8 388 85:1 161 159 89 89:15 161n.34 89:37 165n.53 318, 344 91 91:5–6 351 91:6 352 318, 320 92 92:9 318 92:10 319 94:14–15 172 95–98 319 95:7 320 95:7–8 320 315, 320 95:11 97 159 97:2 161n.34 101:7 359, 379 106:37 346 161 108 109:22 237, 336 110:1 153 110:3 163 113:1 102

399

Index of Ancient Sources 118 102 118:19 157n.22 127:3 103, 115n.17 132:9 161n.34, 173n.86 148:12 99 Proverbs 3:6 301 2:18–19 349 2:19 352 349 5:5 7:6 349 7–8 354 9:15 301 301 11:5 31:30 247 Job

153 1:6 5:8 155n.11 11:17 351 31:32 253 38:7 159 38:38 128n.26

Nehemiah 2:19 197 7:64 186 7:65 166n.56 8:7–11 208n.17, 216n.14 8:8 185 10:38 208n.17, 216n.12 10:39 212n.32 13:10 208n.17, 216n.12 13:28 196 1 Chronicles 5 24

168 168

2 Chronicles 371 3 19:8–11 154 23:6 250 30:15–19 136 30:17 328n.20 31:5 212 31:6 206 31:12 206

Song of Songs 3:8

275

Ruth 4:7

Other Versions, Translations, and Manuscripts

273n.42

Peshiṭta Deut 21:22 Deut 21:23 Josh 8:29 Josh 10:26

264n.12 264n.12 264n.12 264n.12

Septuagint Lev 23:15 Num 1:51 Num 3:30, 38 Num 18:7 Deut 21:22–23 Deut 21:22 Deut 21:23 Deut 32:8 1 Sam 1:21 Isa 19:18 Isa 41:2 Hosea 10:12

199 254n.18 254n.18 254n.18 264n.12 290 275n.48 152, 287, 374 207 160n.30, 170n.72 161 159n.28, 165

Daniel 7:9–14 153 7:22 153 9:24 155 157, 167 12:1–3 12:3 167 Ezra 2:62 186 2:63 186 3:8 216n.14 216n.14 3:10 136 6:19–22 6:20 208n.17, 216n.14 8:15 208n.17 8:20 208n.17 8:30 216n.14

400

Index of Ancient Sources

Septuagint (cont.) Joel 2:23 Joel 3(4):17 Zech 9:6 Ps 110:3 Ps 110:4

165 255 255n.19 163 155n.11

Vulgate Ps 110:4 Isa 41:2 Joel 2:23

155n.11 161 165n.62

Targumim Fragmentary Targum Num 25:4 Deut 32:8

266 287

Targum Neofiti Gen 16:5 Gen 41:3, 19 Num 19:11 Num 25:4 Deut 14:25 Deut 21:5 Deut 21:23 Deut 22:2

304 304 285 263n.9 221 276n.52 276n.52 276n.52

Targum Onqelos Deut 21:22 Deut 21:23

264 263n.9

Targum Ps.-Jonathan Gen 19:30 Gen 41:3 Exod 16:29 Exod 22:28 Num 19 Num 25:4 Deut 14:25 Deut 21:22

4 304 79, 286 232 292 263n.10, 264–66 221 264

Targum 1 Samuel 1:6

304

Targum Job 26:7 264n.12 Targum Ruth 1:17

263, 289n.7, 290

Targum Esther 7:9

264n.12

Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha Apocalypse of Elijah 1:20–21 246n.12 Assumption of Moses 6:1 7:3

173n.85 172

Ben Sira 7:33 172n.83 45:7 351 50:5 246n.14 50:6–7 164n.50 51 168 51:12 167n.59 1 Enoch 14 359 14:11 359 14:13 359 14:18 372n.20 14:19 359 22:1–4 362 32:3 165n.54 55:4 153 153 62:2–13 69:27 153 69:29 153 77:3 165n.54 91:14 166 91:15 362 93:2 156n.18 93:10 155n.15, 165 2 Enoch 13:83 362n.31 13:104 362n.31 157n.23 23 49:4 362n.31 3 Enoch 34

361n.26

1 Esdras 8:42 208n.17, 216

401

Index of Ancient Sources Jubilees 13, 20 1:23 338 2:2 159 2:30 47 2:33 47 3 381n.48 3:14 47 3:19 381n.48 3:27 381n.48 5:10 362 7:35–37 227 10:6 156n.18 13:25 208n.17, 215 15:25 47 15:27 47 15:33 47 16:30 47 21:10 289 21:16 122n.8 197 30 30:2 303 30:7 197 31:14 302 208n.17 32:1–8 215 32:2–9 32:9 215 20, 218 32:9–10 32:10 47 32:10–11 219 32:11 214 33:16 47 243, 313 34:19 76, 79 50:8 50:8–13 279 319 50:9 50:10 199n.24 50:12 314 Judith 208, 216 11:13 12:7 299 14:10 258 Life of Adam and Eve 299 6:2 323 6–7 29:4–7 381n.48

1 Maccabees 2:29 319 2:31–38 49 2:36 80 2:36–38 319 2:54 168 4:46 48 8 271 10:31 208n.14 48 14:41 2 Maccabees 1:7 318n.5 5:15 271 5:27 188 10:21–22 272 12:38 328 14:3 190 14:7 190 Psalms of Solomon 17:7 259 17:14 259 17:28 255 Sibylline Oracles 4:165–68 323 Testament of Levi 338n.18 2:3 5:3–5 303 9:10 196 9:11 122 9:14 231 301 18 18:3 159n.28 Testament of Naphtali 17 Tobit 1:6–7

207, 217

Wisdom of Solomon 3:13 98n.6, 103, 115n.17

402

Index of Ancient Sources

New Testament Matthew 385 9:3 19:3 112n.9 19:6 112n.8 19:8 34n.12 19:9 112n.8 19:10 112 19:11 112n.9, 118n.33 19:28 153 20:20–21 153 Mark 340 1:5 1:5–6 339n.29 385 2:7 9:29 246n.12 10:5 34n.12 10:9 112n.8 10:35–45 153 14:62 153 15:44 263n.10 Luke 10:1 153 22:30 153 22:69 153 Acts 5:17 183 339n.20 19:1–7 1 Corinthians 7:10 112n.8 7:36–38 105 2 Corinthians 12:2–4

379

Galatians 3:13 262 Ephesians 2

62

1 Timothy 104 5:1 5:1–3 103

5:2 104 5:9–15 104 Hebrews 315, 320 4:1–11 7:5 210n.25 9:13 337 9:19 337 Revelation 4:6 372 14:5 116n.23 22:1 381n.48 Judean Desert Documents 1QIsaa 275 39:5 161 44:19–20 166–67 1QpHab (Pesher Habakkuk) 7 1:12 166 5:8–9 166 169n.65 8:8 195, 326n.12 8:13 8–10 186 9:4–5 195 11:4–8 241 11:6–7 321n.14 43, 321 11:8 195, 326n.12 12:8 1QS (Rule of 7, 15 the Community) 2:11 75 2:15 245 23, 281 2:16 2:26–3:9 301 88, 299 3:4–5 3:7 339 3:7–9 236, 336, 338 3:8–9 340 195 3:11 3:19–20 389 3:20 156n.18 3:22 156n.18 3:22–23 354 23, 302 4:2 4:6–7 98, 103, 117

403

Index of Ancient Sources 4:6–8 99, 115 4:20–21 338 5:9 169n.66 36, 198 5:12 5:13 245, 341 5:14 235, 335 5:16 280n.5 5:16–17 175 5:21–22 169n.66 31, 39 6:7 6:20 116n.23 7:1–2 116n.23, 283 7:2–3 116n.23 178 7:7 7:12–14 116n.23 17, 44, 85, 110, 181 7:13 7:19 186 8:10 116 37 8:11 8:14–15 48 37, 333 8:15–16 8:16 339 8:20–27 116n.23 27, 387n.11 9:4 172n.83 9:5 9:11 333n.8 9:14 170 9:16–17 192 9:17 37 9:18–20 37 10:11 389 10:15 42 10:17–18 281 10:18 389 309, 326 11:9 1Q28a (1QSa; Rule of 46, 311, 312n.18 the Congregation) 1:2–5 185 1:4 100, 119 184 1:5 109, 119 1:10 1:10–11 110n.5 100–101, 110 1:11 1:25 100 104n.20 2:7 2:12 384 1QM (War Scroll) 245 1:5 1:8 159

2:8–9 315, 321 4:12 245 41n.39 7:7 8 184 13:10 156n.18, 158 13:12–13 246n.13 17:2–3 169 157, 389 17:6–8 1QHa (Hodayota) 7 1:21–22 118n.27 3:21 118n.27 164, 177 4:6 4:29–31 118n.27 7:24 164n.49 8:21 339 309, 326 9:22 12:5–12 242, 312 12:34 89n.17, 279n.4 17:3–15 115 4Q84 (Psb) 318 4Q159 (Ordinancesa) 1 ii 6 35n.20 2–4 35 277–78 2–4 8–9 4Q162 (Pesher Isaiahb) 332 4Q163 (Pesher Isaiahc) 332 23 4Q164 (Pesher Isaiahd) 159n.29 1 6 4Q169 (Pesher Nahum) 3–4 col. I 261n.1 4Q171 (Pesher Psalmsa) 245 1–2 ii 8–11 1, 3–4 iii 1–2 114n.16 4Q173 (Pesher Psalmsb) 103, 115n.17 4Q174 (Florilegium) 21 321n.14 1–2 i 7–8 172n.83 9–10 i 4Q177 (Catenaa) 192 26, 347–54 4Q184 (Wisdoma) 4Q212 (Enochg) 155n.15 1 iv 12–13 4Q213–214 (Aramaic 23, 88 Levi) 297–98, 338, 384 4Q213a (Levib ar) 3–4 303 4Q221 (Jubf) 386n.10 4:4

404 4Q229 (Mishna) 128–29 4Q251 (Halakha A) 1 i 7 326 308 1–2 1 4 79 9 (olim frag. 5) 229, 231–32 17 1 82 279n.3 18 4Q252 (Commentary on Genesis A) 6 v 3–4 48n.58 4Q264 (Sj) 80 1 ii 8 4Q264a (Halakha B) 81, 314 3 8 314–15 4Q265 (Miscellaneous Rules; olim Serekh Damascus) 79 6 4 27, 273, 183–90 4Q266 (Da) 277 6 ii 9–10 281 6 ii 10 10 i 386 310–11 10 i 11–13 310n.12 10 i 12 27, 383–89 10 i 12–13 282 11 10 78 11 14 78 11 12–13 280 11 14–16 4Q269 (Dd) 309–10 8 ii 3–6 9 311 4Q270 (De) 85 2 2 i 40 2 i–ii 75–77, 282 39n.34, 190, 277 2 ii 13 45 2 ii 16 4 69n.4 6 ii 17 42n.46, 69n.3 32n.6 6 v 1–2 45n.54 7 i 13 4Q271 (Df) 309–10 2 76 3 12–13 278n.2 3 12–15 321n.12 5 i 4Q273 (papDh) 183 4Q274 (Tohorot A) 42n.41 299, 323 1 i 1 33n.7 1 i 3

Index of Ancient Sources 239 1 i 7–9 308n.5 2 i 308n.5, 328 2 i 2 3 i 1 326 137n.2 3 ii 4Q275 (Communal Ceremony) 89 4Q277 (Tohorot Bb) 25 234 1 ii 4Q278 (Tohorot C) 239 4Q280 (Curses; olim Berf) 155n.13 2 2 10 ii 5 155n.13 21, 26, 235, 325, 4Q284 342 327n.16 1 327 3 299 3 3 3 4 326n.11 4Q320 (Cal. Doc. Mishmarot A) 91 4Q321 (Cal. Doc. 91n.26 Mishmarot B) 4Q365 (RPc) 83 23 4Q365a (Ta) 32n.4 4Q394-399 (MMTa-f) 8, 10, 15–16, 36–37, 39–40, 42–43, 46, 51, 53, 69, 71–72, 82n.16, 144–46, 148, 150, 289, 293, 307, 311, 332 76 B 62–64 46n.57 C 13–32 332 C 31 4Q394 (MMTa) 128n.25, 194n.9 8 iv 5–8 4Q400 (ShirShabba) 380, 381 376 1 i 375, 377 1 ii 374n.30 2 4Q401 (ShirShabbb) 374n.29 11 3 4Q403 (ShirShabbd) 370n.13 1 ii 16 4Q405 (ShirShabbf) 370 14–15 I 369 15 ii–16 19 A 370n.13 19ABCD 370 370n.13 23 ii 12

405

Index of Ancient Sources 4Q414 (RitPur A) 324 299n.6 2 [7] 3 328 328 7 6 78 328 11 299n.6 13 299n.6 339 [13] 7 4Q415 (Instructiona) 311, 312 2 ii 4Q416 (Instructionb) 310 1:13 4Q472a (Halakha C) 309 376, 377, 380, 381 4Q500 (papBened) 97–108, 109–10, 4Q502 (papRitMar)  113–14, 312 4Q503 (papPrQuot; Daily Prayers) 324 24–25 321 321n.16 37–38 xii 15 321n.16 40–41 ii 5 4Q504 (Dibre ha-Meʾorota) 339 1–2 15 4Q508 (PrFêtesb; Festival Prayers) 243 2 2–4 4Q509 (papPrFêtesc; Festival Prayers) 244 16 iv 2–4 4Q510 (Songs of the Sagea) 318 1 1 5 244 4–6 345n.8 4Q511 (Songs of the Sageb) 345n.8 10 1–3 63 35 35:2–3 382n.48 35:6–7 347 377 41 4Q512 (papRitPur B) 17, 20, 25, 235, 299, 324, 326, 341 235n.3, 327, 342 1–6 xii 328 10–11 x 2–5 11 x 4 44, 85, 181, 309, 326 16 viii 329 328n.23 27 viii 1–5 329 29–32 vii 5 342 29–32 vii 9 33 iv 327 327n.18 33 iv 3 342 34 v

36–38 iii 17 309, 326, 327, 342 40–41 326n.11 44n.53 54 4Q513 (Ordinancesb) 17–18 44 1–2 i 13 2 ii 303 304 2 ii 3 278 2 ii 4 313n.20 44 4Q514 (Ordinancesc) 1 i 87n.8 146 4Q521 (4QMessAp) 4Q541 (apocrLevib? ar) 27, 385, 386 386 9 4Q255 (papSa) 339 2:1 6Q15 (D) 6Q18 (papHymn)

78 156n.17, 347n.16

11Q5 (11QPsa; Psalms Scroll) 21:11–17 102 159, 177 26:9–12 344, 345, 351 11Q11 (apocPsa) 11Q13 (Melchizedek) 16–17, 27, 154–56, 158, 166, 242–43, 385–86 2:7–8 385 371 11Q17 (ShirShabb) 11Q19 (Temple Scrolla) 8, 11, 15, 17, 19–22 20:12–13 289 35:5–9 251 37:10 212n.33 39:5–6 251 39:7–10 251 40:5–6 251 20, 218 43:2–17 45 118 45:5–6 130 45:7–12 300 47:14–15 125n.19 49:7–8 291 49:7–10 111n.7 49:8–9 34n.13, 123 49:8–10 87 17, 44, 85, 181, 194 49:11 49:11–12 131n.33, 291 49:18 124n.16 50:4–5 125n.17 50:4–6 42n.40

406 11Q19 (Temple Scrolla) (cont.) 50:10–11 41n.40, 295 122, 125, 220n.28 51:4–5 51:16–18 272 52:5–7 77 54:4 111 56:3–4 38, 60 56:12 39 57:11–15 154n.5 57:17–19 111 76 60 20, 226, 290 60:3–4 19, 210–12 60:4–10 60:6–7 209n.18, 214 63:12 286 77, 111, 190 64 22, 262, 269, 270n.29 64:6–13 64:8 264n.12 64:8–10 263n.10 64:11 263n.10 64:12 275 66:9 196n.15 CD (Damascus Document) 3–7, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 22, 24–25, 28 89n.17, 279n.4 1:3 1:5–11 50 386n.10 4:10 4:14–5:11 195 4:18 326n.12 47, 310, 333, 383, 386 4:18–19 111 4:20–21 5:2–3 38, 148 170 5:2–5 326n.12 5:6 5:7–11 338 77 5:8–11 82 5:9 5:11–13 193 5:12 51 6:9–11 47 6:10–11 166, 170 6:11 389 10, 115 6:11–7:6 6:15 176 6:17–7:2 40 6:18–19 243

Index of Ancient Sources 6:19 313 7:3–4 338 103, 115 7:6 7:6–7 115 116n.23 8:6 8:12 81 9:1 277, 286 9:2–6 89n.17, 280n.4 9:6 185 9:8 82 9:9–10 33 35, 76 9:13–14 9:14–15 178 9:16–20 89 9:16–21 22 9:17 185 9:20 116n.22 330 10 10:10 35, 129n.27, 220n.29, 328 10:10–14 135 10:11 88 10:12 291 10:12–13 194 35, 81, 314, 328 10:14 10:14–16 41 69 10:14–11:18 10:16–17 81 10:18 321 10:20 35 10:21 41n.39 18, 45, 85, 181 10:22 11:3–4 220n.29 41n.39 11:5–6 286, 315, 320 11:6 11:7 79 11:11 80 178, 321 11:12 11:15–17 49n.64 80 11:16–17 11:17 18, 85, 181 11:17–18 198 32, 34, 198 11:18 326n.12 12:1 12:1–2 118n.28 12:2–3 344 12:3 277 22, 277, 278 12:3–4

407

Index of Ancient Sources 12:10–11 178 12:15–16 294 12:16 17, 44, 85, 131n.33, 181, 194 12:17 131 12:17–18 130n.32, 137 12:22–13:1 46, 310, 333 13:14 176 18, 85, 175–79 13:14–15 13:15–16 178 14:13–14 178 103 14:14–16 14:15 185 14:18–19 47, 310–11, 333, 383, 386 27, 359, 383–89 14:19 15:12–13 89n.17, 279n.4 16:1 193 16:1–2 198 36, 83 16:2 42, 68, 83, 143 16:3 18, 45, 85, 182 16:7–8 16:7–9 33 35, 82n.16 16:10 16:10–11 33 82 16:13 16:14–15 286 27, 389 18:19 19:20 115 19:35 186 20:1–3 281n.7 20:2–8 116n.23 20:8 46 20:10 46 20:23 89n.17, 279n.4 46 20:31 Philo and Josephus Philo On the Special Laws 1.120 209n.19 1.156 207 1.186–187 247 1.261 238 2.161 17, 18, 25, 44, 45, 85, 106, 112, 181, 182, 309, 326, 329

2.417 255 113n.10 3.35 3.63 237 3.151–152 266n.18 On the Contemplative Life 68 101, 102, 119 101 72 85 101 89 101 Hypothetica 104, 114 11.3 104, 105n.24, 114 11.13 Who is the Heir? 225 140 On the Life of Moses 2.102 140 On the Virtues 207 95 159 229n.13 On the Decalogue 238, 337 45 Josephus Life 12 93, 142n.1 420 263n.10 Against Apion 1.34–35 188 1.188 210n.25 2.103 255 2.123 258n.35 2.210 258n.34 2.284 257n.30 Antiquities of the Jews 2.261–264 123n.11 123n.11 3.11 3.146 140 3.276 187 3.279 188 3.128 380n.47 4.68 210n.23 4.205 210n.23 4.240 210n.22 4.242 210 4.264 266n.18 8.45–46 345

408 Antiquities of the Jews (cont.) 11.307 196 12.145 251 12.331 255 13.208 258n.32 13.289 173n.86 13.291 173n.86 13.292 187 13.293–298 145 13.296 60 36, 38, 60, 147 13.297 13.311 92n.31 14.9 257n.28 14.167–179 154n.5 14.403 257 15.176 273n.37 15.253 257n.26 15.255 259 15.259–260 259 15.373 92n.31 16.163 173n.85 16.225 257n.27 17.346 92n.31 18.16 148 166, 249, 389 18.18 93, 195 18.19 18.21 15 18.22 183 18.117 340 18.133 257n.26 255n.21 19.332–334 209 20 20.43–47 258n.32 20.81 209n.20 20.146 259 20.206 209n.20 Jewish War 44, 85 2.123 2.127 18, 45, 85, 178, 182 86, 163n.43, 177 2.128 2.128–129 121n.7, 300 2.128–130 220 2.129 309 2.138 113n.13, 341 2.142 86 18, 182, 283 2.143 45, 281 2.143–144

Index of Ancient Sources 2.145 131n.36, 283 2.147 17, 18, 44, 79, 85, 110n.4, 181 2.147–148 44–45 2.148 163n.43 2.150 338 2.151 104n.20, 114 86, 92n.31, 338 2.159 2.160 97, 109, 117n.24 2.160–161 15 2.161 17, 18, 25, 44, 45, 85, 106, 112, 181, 182, 326, 329 2.164–165 145 4.155 172n.79 4.275 257 4.317 266n.18 5.194 254n.17, 255 5.195 253n.14 5.222 359n.21 6.426 136 6.427 251n.5 6.438 172 Rabbinic Texts Mishnah m. ʾAbot 13, 81 1:1 1:3 133 1:16 194n.10, 210n.27 210n.27 5:8 m. Baba Qama 40 1:1 m. Beṣah 5:2 314 m. Berakhot 293 1:1 3:4–5 299n.7 m. Bikkurim 252 1:4 2:2 210n.26 253 3:4 m. Demai 2:3 87 210 6:3 7:6 210n.27

Index of Ancient Sources m. ʿEduyyot 87 1:14 8:4 36n.24, 125n.17, 284 48n.59 8:7 m. Ḥagigah 1:8 81, 82 2:2 154n.6 200n.28 2:4 2:6–7 134 41 2:7 3:6 328 3:8 130, 134, 137, 140n.9 m. Ḥallah 231 4:11 m. Ḥullin 125n.18 9:1 m. Kelim 121n.6 1:5 87 1:8 1:8–9 250 128n.27 2:1 10:1 137 137 12:3–4 m. Ketubbot 187 2:6 187 2:7 187 2:9 m. Maʿaserot 210n.27 2:4 176n.4 4:5 m. Maʿaser Sheni 20, 222 3:3 222 3:4 222n.33, 225n.4 4:3 m. Makhshirin 137 4:6 128, 193n.8 5:9 m. Menaḥot 10:3 34n.16, 55, 56, 70, 134n.46, 199 m. Middot 4:5 380 m. Mikwa‌ʾot 290 1:1 1:4 194n.12 m. Nedarim 11:12 215n.8

409 m. Parah 3:1 124n.15, 335 3:2 334 72n.11 3:4 124n.15 3:5 3:7 43n.47, 58, 72, 86n.6, 121n.3, 132, 134, 144, 293 3:7–8 136 134 3:8 293n.14 3:9 86n.6, 121n.3 5:4 6:5 195n.13 m. Pesaḥim 136 5:5 81 6:1 7:4–6 136 9:1–4 136 m. Qiddushin 252n.11 4:1 m. Rosh Hashanah 215n.8 2:2 2:5 215n.8 200n.29 4:1 m. Sanhedrin 154n.5 2:2 287 2:4 4:5 90n.19 272n.35 6:4 272 7:3 11:2–4 155n.12 m. Shabbat 79 1:1 35 6:2 6:4 35 m. Sheqalim 328n.21 8:1 m. Soṭah 185, 260n.39 7:8 9:10 209n.17, 217 m. Sukkah 102n.14 4:4 102 4:8 4:9 249n.19 5:1–4 249 103n.16 5:4 197n.18 5:8

410 m. Taʿanit 313 4:8 m. Tamid 315, 320n.8 7:4 m. Ṭeharot 8:9 128n.27 m. Ṭevul Yom 216n.16 4:1 m. Terumot 194n.10 1:7 230 2:3 194n.10 4:6 209n.19 6:1 m. Yadayim 126 4:6 4:6–7 87, 132 4:7 43n.47, 57, 71, 127, 129, 144, 193n.8 4:7–8 127 131 4:8 m. Yebamot 16:3 266n.16 m. Yoma 185 1:3 3:3 122, 301n.11 185 7:1 7:4 246, 313 248, 341, 343, 388 8:9 m. Zabim 5:12 209n.19 m. Zevaḥim 212n.33 5:7–8 Tosefta t. ʿEduyyot 48n.59 3:4 t. Ḥagigah 82 1:9 2:5 380 3:24 328 3:35 129n.28, 130n.33, 138 t. Maʿaser Sheni 221 1:1 t. Makhshirin 36n.24 3:3–4 t. Menaḥot 10:23 200n.28 t. Mikwa‌ʾot 194n.1 1:7

Index of Ancient Sources t. Parah 121n.6, 134n.45 3: 6 121n.3, 134n.45 3:8 4:11 293 t. Qiddushin 1:4 34n.14 252n.11 5:1 t. Sanhedrin 153n.4 8:1 263 9:7 t. Shabbat 88n.12 1:7 14:1 80n.11 t. Sukkah 201n.35 3:1 3:16 249n.19 100 4:2 4:28 197n.18 t. Soṭah 7:16 260n.40 t. Yadayim 2:20 299 t. Yoma 1:14 122n.9 t. Zevaḥim 6:18 289 Babylonian Talmud b. ʿAbodah Zarah 258n.35 3b 24b 370n.16 35b 356 65a 258n.32 b. Baba Metziʿa 59b 258n.35 b. Baba Qama 38b 258n.31 69b 225n.4 b. Bekhorot 24a 165n.53 b. Berakhot 22a 299n.7 47b 213n.1 51a 323n.2, 329n.24 b. Beṣah 2b 80n.11 194n.10 13b 37a 314

Index of Ancient Sources b. ʿEruvin 79 17b 51a 79, 286 54b 153n.4 100b 346n.12 103a 81 b. Giṭṭin 69b 351n.28 b. Ḥagigah 167 12b 359, 379 14b 26b 140n.9 b. Ḥullin 258n.31 3b 47b 125n.18 72a 295 91b 373n.21 131b 208n.17, 216n.13 b. Ketubbot 375n.33 8a 26a 208n.17, 216n.13 46a 278 b. Keritot 234n.2 9a b. Menaḥot 66a 134n.46, 149n.26 72a 200n.30 55, 200n.30 72b b. Niddah 113n.11 12b 24b 346n.12, 351n.26 b. Qiddushin 312 2b 29b 110n.5 52b–54b 225n.4 59, 147, 192n.3, 288n.5 66a 75b 258n.31 b. Rosh Hashanah 229n.17 10a 173n.85 18b 29b 200n.29 b. Sanhedrin 154n.5 19a 153n.4 19b 383, 388 38b 46a 264n.14, 273n.36 52a 196n.17

411 76b 34n.14 90b 147n.17 b. Shabbat 314, 322 12a 209n.19 13b 14b 189 25b 220n.29 124b 79n.10 151b 346n.12 156a 160n.32 b. Shevuʿot 344n.2 15b b. Sukkah 359 51b 52b 165n.53 56b 197n.18 b. Pesaḥim 323n.2, 329n.24–25 7b 47b 80n.11 90a–b 136 111b 345n.5 b. Soṭah 41b 260n.40 47b 209n.17, 217 b. Temurah 221n.30 21b b. Yebamot 24b 257n.30, 258 46b 234n.2 47a–b 258n.33 47b 323n.3 49a 350n.23 62b 34n.14 64a 113n.10 85b–86a 209n.18, 218n.22 86a 209n.18, 218n.23 86b 216n.13 99b 198n.21 b. Yoma 140n.8 7b 249 19b 23a 57 30a 122n.9 53a 249 54a 380n.47 72b 369 81a–b 41n.38

412 Palestinian Talmud y. Berakhot 1:1 302 181 3:5 [6d] 7d 195n.13 y. Bikkurim 63d 212n.31 y. Ḥagigah 129n.28, 130n.33, 139 3:5 [79d] y. Ma‌ʿaser Sheni 56c 210n.26 56d 217n.20 y. Ma‌ʿaserot 210n.28 2:4 [49d] y. Rosh Hashanah 59b 200n.29 y. Soṭah 229–30 8:5[2], 22d 24a 217n.20 y. Sheqalim 370n.12 8b y. Terumot 42d 194n.10, 212n.32 Other Rabbinic Writings ʾAbot de-Rabbi Nathan A 5 147n.17 171n.76 26 378, 381 B 33 Exodus Rabbah 5:12 154n.8 19:4 253 42:8 176n.4 Genesis Rabbah 164n.49 3:6 43:3 160 47:6 374n.26 49:8 302n.15 68:12 374n.26 69:3 374n.26 82:6 374n.26 Halakhot Gedolot 229 ʿOrlah 381 Hekhalot Zuṭarti Leviticus Rabbah 34:3 309n.6 Maimonides Yad Laws of Death Impurity 23:1 87n.11

Index of Ancient Sources Laws of Forbidden Sexual Relations 258n.33 13:15, 18 Laws of Maʿaser 1:2 209n.18, 218n.22 Laws of Miqwa‌ʾot 11:12 237n.9 Laws of Shabbat 24:12 79n.10 Laws of the Red Cow 2:7–8 72n.11 Laws of the Second Tithe and Fourth-Year Fruits 9:12 229n.16 Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael 320n.8 Exod 31:13 Midrash ha-Gadol 265 Num 25:4 Midrash ha-Neʿlam 157n.23 Lekh lekha 25 Numbers Rabbah 7:8 250n.3 Pesikta Rabbati 22:5 258n.35 Pirqe de-Rabbi Eliezer 323 20 302 37 47a 357n.10 Qohelet Rabbah 154n.8 1:11 Song of Songs Rabbah 357n.10 2 Seder Eliyahu Rabbah 378n.36 8 258n.35 27 Semaḥot 4:22–23 189 Shulḥan ʿArukh ʾEben ha-ʿezer 17:31 266n.16 ʾOraḥ Ḥayyim 95:1 302n.16 Sifra Beḥuqotai 1:2 318n.2 Shemini 8 121n.6 125n.18 Shemini 10 227n.10 Qedoshim 3:9 Sifre Deuteronomy 235 278 247 252n.11 297 231n.21

413

Index of Ancient Sources Deut 21:12 286 Deut 21:22 264n.14, 273n.36, 276n.53 Sifre Numbers 6 225 19:9 86n.6 124 123n.14 168n.63 131 Sifre Zuṭa 236–38 7:1 336–37 251 Tanḥuma 154n.8 Exod 29 Ṭur ʾOraḥ Ḥayyim 606:3 323n.2 Yalquṭ Shimʿoni Pequdei 40 139n.7 Zohar 1:87a 158 1:148a–b 353 317 2:135 a–b 2:135b 322 357 Pinḥas 214a Bereishit 19a 372 Classical and Early Christian Writers Cicero Rab. Perd. 5.16 267 Diodorus Historical Library 2.54–60 179 5.45 179 Epiphanius Panarion 19.1–6 356n.6 19.1.2 356 19.1.6 360n.23 19.3.5–70 358 362, 363 19.4.1 53.1–9 356n.6 53.1.3 365

Eusebius Ecclesiastical History 4.22.7 132n.37 356n.7 6.38 Preparation for the Gospel 1.10.13 162n.37 Hippolytus Refutation of All Heresies 9.4 364n.38 9.13–17 356n.6 9.15.1 364n.42 9.15.2 360n.23 10.29 356n.6 10.29.1–3 357n.11 Isidorus Etymologies 10.15 255n.20 Jerome Commentary on Matthew 3.22.179 133 Livy History of Rome 1.26.6 268 Marcianus Digest 48.4.3 269 48.4.11 270 48.19.38.1 271 49.16.3.10 271 49.16.7 270 Plato Laws 743d 179 Pliny the Elder Natural History 5.17 117 5.73 105 18.12 268 Pseudo-Clement Recognitions 1.54 133n.42 Sallust Cataline’s War 55.5 273 Strabo Geography 7.3.9 179