This article explores the significance of the posture of full prostration by the Maskil that appears uniquely in association with him in the Hodayot. Using theoretical frameworks from ritual studies and embodied cognition, as well as traditional philological work, I argue that the Maskil’s prostration summons the cultural memory of Moses as chief intercessor. This embodied technique serves not only to form the self of the leader in relation to the Yaḥad, but shapes the community that worships with him in the gathered assembly.
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Bilhah Nitzan, “Repentance in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls after Fifty Years: A Comprehensive Assessment (ed. Peter W. Flint and James C. VanderKam; 2 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 1999) 2: 145–70. שבי פשע is a phrase drawn from Isa 59:20 (cf. 1QS 10:20; CD 2:5; 20:17; cf. the shavei Israel (CD 8:16; 19:29). It occurs three times in the Hodayot (1QHa 6:35; 10:11; 14:9; cf. 8:35 “those who return to you”) signaling an affiliation with this community self-understanding. For a more recent view that contests this, see David Lambert, “Was the Dead Sea Sect a Penitential Movement,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. John J. Collins and Timothy H. Lim; New York, n.y.: Oxford University Press, 2010), 501–13. I here express my thanks to the two anonymous dsd reviewers who offered astute comments that strengthened this article.
Angela K. Harkins, Reading with an ‘I’ to the Heavens: Looking at the Qumran Hodayot through the Lens of Visionary Traditions (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012).
Daniel K. Falk, “Petition and Ideology in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Prayer and Poetry in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Essays in Honor of Eileen Schuller on the Occasion of Her 65th Birthday (ed. Jeremy Penner, Ken M. Penner and Cecilia Wassen; Leiden: Brill, 2011), 134–59 (142).
Ibid., 269–73.
Marcel Mauss, “Les Techniques du Corps,” Journal de psychologie normal et patholigique 32 (1935): 271–93 which has been republished many times.
Roy A. Rappaport, Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 145.
Ibid., 52–54.
Ibid., 104. “We can perform four-way translation among 1) actual movement, 2) somatosensory representations of movement, 3) visual representations of movement, and4) memory,” 106.
Idem, “Ritual,” International Encyclopedia of Communications (ed. Erik Barnouw; 4 vols.; New York, n.y.; Oxford University Press, 1989), 3: 466–72.
Tessel M. Jonquière, Prayer in Josephus (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 270.
Uri Ehrlich, The Nonverbal Language of Prayer: A New Approach to the Study of Jewish Liturgy (trans. Dena Ordan; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004), 44.
Falk, “Petition and Ideology in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” 140–41; his observation about attribution to the Maskil occurs in n. 27.
Ibid., 142 n. 29.
Talal Asad, Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam (Baltimore, Md.: John Hopkins University Press, 1993); see in particular chapter 4, “On Discipline and Humility in Medieval Christian Monasticism,” 125–70.
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This article explores the significance of the posture of full prostration by the Maskil that appears uniquely in association with him in the Hodayot. Using theoretical frameworks from ritual studies and embodied cognition, as well as traditional philological work, I argue that the Maskil’s prostration summons the cultural memory of Moses as chief intercessor. This embodied technique serves not only to form the self of the leader in relation to the Yaḥad, but shapes the community that worships with him in the gathered assembly.
All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 404 | 189 | 15 |
Full Text Views | 208 | 2 | 0 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 102 | 5 | 0 |