Qumran (Khirbet Qumran)
Northern Dead Sea desert plain, part of Jordan (1949-1967); region of the eleven caves yielding Hebrew biblical, sectarian, and literary scrolls. It is the habitation site where excavations have uncovered what some have interpreted to be a complex of communal structures though it has only generated non-sectarian artifacts, except for some fraction of the Dead Sea Scrolls; others have interpreted this site as initially the location of a fortress of the type dating to at least as early, if not earlier than, the destruction of the First Temple ca. 586 BCE. and possibly as early as the seventh or eighth century BCE; the site was apparently abandoned for centuries and then reoccupied, probably by the Hasmonaean state (circa 140-130 BCE) that reestablished and strengthened all the fortresses of the region and probably added the tower. At later times it was occupied by Roman military forces during and after the First Revolt during which Jerusalem and the Second Temple were destroyed in 70 CE and which ended with the capture of Masada in 74 CE.
It lies thirty-three miles north of Masada, twenty miles from Jerusalem, about 8 miles from Jericho and a mile and a quarter from the current Western shoreline of the Dead Sea. A cemetery of some 1,200 graves, oriented North/South, lie on the Eastern side of the fortress plateau.
Gustav Dalman observed as early as 1914 that the site was “exceptionally well suited for a fortress.” Michael Avi-Yonah observed in 1940 that it was a fortress, situating it among a large number of known military sites in the Judaean Wilderness whose purpose during biblical and intertestamental times was the defense of Jerusalem against incursions from beyond the Jordan River and the Dead Sea. He is responsible for the site’s designation on early maps.
Qumran-Essene hypothesis or Qumran-Sectarian hypothesis.
see consensus.
- R -
rabbinic Judaism
The form of Judaism that became most widely accepted from the second century CE on. It espouses various teachings of the rabbis (”masters” or “great ones”) or hakhamim (”sages”) as binding for Jewish thought and practice. Rabbinic Judaism harks back to the earlier Pharisaic Judaism; like the Pharisees, the rabbinic Jews accept the validity of oral tradition, beliefs in angels and spirits, and the resurrection of the dead.
recension, recentional
n., adj.
ritual purity
In the case of the Jews, the special state of cleanness required of those who would observe the laws of the Pentateuch relating to the pure and impure and take part in various religious ceremonies. Ritual purity involved both the avoidance of certain people (e.g., lepers), items (e.g., a corpse), or animals (e.g., mice) considered as defiling, and the performance of certain kinds of washings and other rituals in order to purify oneself after coming into contact with things considered defiling.
Rockefeller Museum (changed to the ‘Palestine Archaeological Museum’ at one point, but after 1967 renamed once more the ‘Rockefeller Museum’)
Home of the cache of scrolls located in Cave 4 near the ruins of Qumran in 1952. The ‘Scrollery’ is the site inside the Rockefeller Museum where the assembled fragments actually reside for use by the few original scholars (later expanded to over 100) who are allowed official access. The Museum itself is in East Jerusalem and passed from Jordanian into Israeli hands at the conclusion of the Six Day War in 1967.
The museum was opened in 1938 during the British mandate and was built with funds donated by John D. Rockefeller. Long an independently endowed institute, it was nationalized by the Jordanian Government in 1966 and captured by the Israelis in 1967.
- S -
sacerdotal
Referring to the Temple or priesthood.
Sadducees (”Menasseh” in some Qumran writings)
One of the three religious parties or sects of Jews, first mentioned under Jonathan Maccabaeus, during the Second Temple Period; priestly and aristocratic Jewish families, and regular allies of the government, who interpreted the law more literally than the Pharisees and rejected the oral traditions, belief in angels, spirits, divine providence and the resurrection of the dead. Because of their links to the aristocracy and the Temple establishment they were reduced to an increasingly minor sect soon after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE.
Samaria
Central region of ancient Palestine. Unlike Judaea and Galilee it was not an area of dense Jewish settlement during the intertestamental period.
Samaritans
Inhabitants of the region of Samaria in Palestine who were not exiled with the Judaeans to Babylonia. They maintained belief in the holiness of the Pentateuch to the exclusion of other writings deemed holy by the Jews and included in the Hebrew Bible. Their center was Neapolis (Nablus), and they offered sacrifices not on the Temple Mount but on Mt. Gerizim, a few hundred still survive today.
Sanhedrin
The Jewish council of state, with political and judicial functions, meeting under the presidency of the high priest. While still in debate, many scholars hold that there were two sanhedrins; the primarily Sadducaean political council (to which Josephus often refers) and the primarily Pharisaean Great Sanhedrin of seventy members, with religious and legislative functions, under rabbinic control.
scriptorium
A room in which texts are copied, especially in mediaeval monasteries. The lack of evidence for a scriptorium at the Qumran site are the obvious missing tools to be expected in place where scrolls were being transcribed; parchment, tools for smoothing it, needles and thread for binding parchment sheets together, line markers for making straight rows of script, pens, inkwells and styluses. Only three plaster tables and a couple of inkwells were discovered. The slabs called tables were later identified as benches. The evidence is more consistent with a small military office than with a large scriptorium where the wholesale copying of hundreds is not thousands of scrolls took place. Even at Masada, which everyone agrees was strictly a military site, parchment fragments were found in the rubble. Why then not at Qumran?
scroll
A roll of parchment, papyrus, or other material containing written texts, with the sheets being sewn or otherwise fastened together one next to the other so as to facilitate the rolling up of the joined text. In biblical times, the Hebrew term sefer designated no a codex but a scroll, which preceded the codex throughout the Mediterranean world.
‘Scrollery’
The room at the Rockefeller Museum where the scroll material from Cave 4, mainly, and elsewhere are housed and studied by members of the international team, their students and their selected associates.
Second Jewish Commonwealth
Narrowly speaking, the Jewish state at the time of the kingdom of the Hasmonaeans, who ruled in Judaea from ca. 160 BCE to 67 BCE; more broadly, the same state until the destruction of the Second Temple and Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE.
Second Temple Period ca. 520 BCE – 70 CE
A time of crucial development for monotheistic religions; ended with the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE Period in which the Dead Sea Scrolls were composed, transcribed and/or copied. The period from the rebuilding of the Jewish Temple at Jerusalem to the victory of the Romans over the Jews during the First Revolt.
sectarian
Having the characteristics of a sect, i.e., a dissenting religious group adhering to a distinctive doctrine, body of beliefs and practices.
Seleucid Empire
Created out of part of Macedonian Empire after the death of Alexander the Great (323 BCE) and, at its height, extended from the southern coast of modern Turkey south through Palestine and east to India’s border; spanned the period 312 – 64 BCE
Septuagint
The Greek translation of the Jewish (Old Testament) scriptures, but including also the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, that was in use among the Jews of Alexandria. Translated by Jewish scholars in the third to second centuries BCE; the first vernacular translation of the Bible and still used in the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Shrine of the Book
A building of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, in which are located some of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Sicarii
The assassins or “daggermen” lead by Menahem b. Jair, Eliezer b. Jair, and Simeon bar Giora, who took the leading role in the First Revolt against Roman rule. It remains a matter of debate whether or not they were a cadre recruited from among the Zealots.
stratigraphy
The method of dating and ordering layers of soils and rock formations based on the compositions of the soil, rocks and lavas throughout a vertical column under study. As used by archaeologists, positions of artifacts embedded within the layers are used to estimate the age, or the relative age, of the artifacts.
Synoptic Gospels
The first three Gospels, i.e., Matthew, Mark and Luke-so called because of the similarity of their contents, statements, and order. The Acts of the Apostles is also attributed to Luke, usually acknowledged to be the same Luke who composed the Gospel. Like the Gospel it was also written in Greek and addressed to the same recipient. Sometimes Acts is referred to as the second half of the Gospel according to Luke, though it is not usually referred to as one of the Synoptic Gospels.
Syriac
A dialect of Aramaic that became widely used in Syria and Mesopotamia from the late pre-Christian antiquity until it was largely displaced by Arabic. It continues in use in some Eastern Orthodox Christian churches to this day.
- T -
Tac mireh
Tribe of Bedouins credited, or accused, of finding, or looting, several of the caves at Qumran and elsewhere in the Judaean Desert.
Talmud
(Babylonian; Palestinian) The authoritative body of Rabbinic Judaism, consisting of the Hebrew Mishnah and Aramaic Gemara or commentary. The Babylonian Talmud, eventually considered to be the most authoritative of the two Talmuds, consists of the Mishnah and commentary by rabbinic teachers mainly of Babylonia; the Palestinian (or Jerusalem) Talmud consists of the Mishnah and commentary mainly by Palestinian rabbinic teachers. Developed during the first to the fifth centuries CE
Tannaitic
Referring to the Tannaim (tannaites), or early generations of rabbinic teachers. The actual period of rabbinic Judaism is generally held to span the period from 70 CE to about 220 CE, the traditional time of compilation of the Mishnah.
targum
(Hebrew, “translation”) Any of numerous Aramaic translations of portions of the Hebrew Bible. “The Targum” usually refers to the so-called Targum Onqelos of the Pentateuch.
tefillin
See phylacteries.
terminus a quo (ante quem)
The earliest possible date for a manuscript, event, etc.
terminus ad quem (post quem)
The date after which an event, etc. could not have occurred.
tetradrachms
Ancient Greek silver coins. The Library of Congress exhibition includes coins minted in Tyre about 136 – 126 BCE
Tetragrammaton
The four Hebrew letters that represent the divine name of God, usually transliterated YHWH or JHVH in many parts of the Bible. The name was regarded as too holy to be pronounced and out of reverence, Jews ceased to pronounce the word aloud about the third century BCE It was vocalized in mediaeval manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible with the vowels of the Hebrew word adonai, an epithet signifying “God”.
tetrarch
A Greek term originally meaning the ruler of a quarter of a piece of territory, but by the first century BCE meaning a dependent prince of fairly low rank and status.
toparchy
A small territorial unit comprising a town, from which it took its name, and a number of villages. Palestine was divided into toparchies for local administration.
Torah
Hebrew (”the Law” or “the Teaching”) particularly designates the first five books of the Bible, otherwise known as the Pentateuch or Five Books of Moses (to whom they are traditionally attributed). Among the rabbis, the term became used more generally for Jewish law, both oral and written.
Tosephta
Literally, “The Addition,” i.e., to the Mishnah. A large collection of laws and legal and ritual opinion of early rabbinic Judaism (early third century CE), very similar to the Mishnah in style and contents. The legal rulings of the Tosephta were not granted the same authority by the rabbis as those in the Mishnah, although historically they are of equal importance and derive from the same original corpus of early rabbinic and social views.
- U -
unicum
A unique thing; esp., a text that exists only in a single manuscript without necessarily being the author’s own autograph.
- V -
Vorlage
- W -
w di
(Arabic) A seasonal river or stream; Hebrew, nahal.
W di Murabbacat
A valley on the western side of the Dead Sea that leads down and eastward to the Dead Sea. Its outlet to the Dead Sea is about half way between Qumran and Masada, somewhat north of En Gedi. Location of the four caves and scrolls