Book Review: Qumran and Jerusalem: Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the History of Judaism

Qumran and Jerusalem, the most recent installment in the Eerdmans Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature series, is a collection of twenty-five articles by Lawrence Schiffman, twenty-four of which have been previously published over a twenty-year period, and one of which is brand new (chapter 21). Schiffman describes this volume as “a cross between a book of collected studies and an independently written volume” (p. x), since he has extensively revised all of the previously published articles so that they are organized topically and chronologically. The articles themselves are divided into six sections: “The Scholarly Controversy”; “History, Politics, and the Formation of the Sect”; “Jewish Law at Qumran”; “Religious Outlook of the Qumran Sectarians”; “Qumran Sectarians and Others”; and “Language and Literature.”

In the introduction, “The Qumran Scrolls and Rabbinic Judaism” (pp. 1–11 [orig. 1999]), Schiffman lays the foundation for the entire volume by making the case that halakic issues and disputes are the key to understanding Jewish sectarianism in the Second Temple period (p. 5). Based on this understanding, most of his chapters deal with various aspects of Jewish law and how they are clarified by the Dead Sea Scrolls. Naturally, the Temple Scroll, 4QMMT, and the rules located in the Damascus Document feature prominently. Schiffman is convinced that these legal materials illuminate the conflicts over control of the temple and its ritual during the Hasmonean and Herodian periods, and point to an identification of the founders of the Qumran community with the Sadducees. He argues that the legal views in 4QMMT and other texts are also in harmony with those of later rabbinic commentators (pp. 112–22).

Qumran and Jerusalem also contains many other fascinating essays on such things as the early battles over the scrolls (pp. 15–43), summaries of their contribution to scholarship, and a number of interesting chapters on matters such as the concept of covenant (pp. 235–55), definitions of holiness and sanctity (pp. 256–69), conceptions of the messiah (pp. 270–85), ideas about restoration (pp. 286–302), the place of Jerusalem in the Dead Sea Scrolls (pp. 303–18), and even the Dead Sea Scrolls in the popular media (pp. 411–23).

With this volume, Schiffman makes several important contributions to long-running debates in the study of pre- and post-70 ce Judaism and to Dead Sea Scrolls studies. For example, for years many scholars thought that the Qumran scrolls only represented the beliefs of a solitary sect located on the shores of the Dead Sea. Schiffman, however, argues that the Qumran scrolls represent one or more voices in the debates taking place within the broader world of Judaism at the time. Chapter 19, “The Pharisees and Their Legal Traditions according to the Dead Sea Scrolls” (pp. 321–36), is a case in point. In this chapter, Schiffman synthesizes material about the Pharisees from the scrolls with previously known evidence from other sources, including Josephus, the New Testament, and tannaitic sources, showing how all the sources contribute to larger debates. Another example has to do with the conventional understanding that rabbinic Judaism is discontinuous with Second Temple Judaism.

Schiffman counters this conventional understanding and demonstrates that the scrolls from the Judean Desert share much continuity with rabbinic Judaism, especially with regard to “the centrality of Jewish law, the notion that there must be some form of extrabiblical Jewish law, the substitution of some sort of ritual for the sacrificial ritual (including daily prayer), the development of a nontemple liturgy, the extension of ritual purity from the temple to daily life, and other areas such as messianism and mysticism” (p. 10). On the basis of this continuity, Schiffman concludes that future studies of pre- and post-70 ce Judaism cannot treat the Dead Sea Scrolls as the materials of an esoteric sect group, but must fully integrate them into such research (p. 11).

In summary, Qumran and Jerusalem accomplishes two things. First, it provides a compendium of Schiffman's work in the area of Dead Sea Scrolls studies from the last two decades. Second, it makes an important contribution to both Qumran studies and the study of pre- and post-70 ce Judaism. Anyone working in either of these areas will want to have this volume within arm's reach.