The Rolling Corpus
Materiality and Pluriformity at Qumran, with Special Consideration of the Serekh ha-Yaḥad
In: Dead Sea DiscoveriesSearch for other papers by James Nati in
Current site
Google Scholar
Abstract
Drawing on insights from the field of Book History, the article draws out connections between the material aspects of the Qumran corpus on the one hand and textual pluriformity on the other, paying particular attention to the Serekh ha-Yaḥad. The article suggests that the large-scale pluriformity exhibited by texts such as the Serekh is best understood in light of certain material features particular to skin scrolls, and that opisthographs ought to be integrated into discussions of textual pluriformity. The article concludes by offering more general comments about the effects of the scroll on writing and reading practices in early Judaism.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
-
Alexander, Philip S., and Géza Vermes. Qumran Cave 4. XIX: Serekh Ha-Yaḥad and Two Related Texts. DJD 26. Oxford: Clarendon, 1998.
-
Attridge, H. et al. Qumran Cave 4.VIII: Parabiblical Texts, Part 1. DJD 13. Oxford: Clarendon, 1994.
-
Baillet, M. Qumrân Grotte 4.III (4Q482–4Q520). DJD 7. Oxford: Clarendon, 1982.
-
Bakker, Arjen. “Sages and Saints: Continuous Study and Transformation in Musar le-Mevin and Serek ha-Yaḥad.” Pages 106–18 in Tracing Sapiential Traditions in Ancient Judaism. Edited by H. Najman, J.-S. Rey & E. Tigchelaar. JSJSupp 174. Leiden: Brill, 2016.
-
Bennett, Tony, and Patrick Joyce, eds. Material Powers: Cultural Studies, History, and the Material Turn. London: Routledge, 2010.
-
Berg, Shane. “Religious Epistemology and the History of the Dead Sea Scrolls Community.” Pages 333–49 in The “Other” in Second Temple Judaism: Essays in Honor of John J. Collins. Edited by D.C. Harlow et al. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011.
-
Boyarin, Daniel. Intertextuality and the Reading of Midrash. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994.
-
Brooke, George J. “Between Scroll and Codex?: Reconsidering the Qumran Opisthographs.” Pages 123–38 in On Stone and Scroll: Essays in Honour of Graham Ivor Davies. Edited by J.A. Aitken, K.J. Dell & B.A. Mastin. BZAW 420. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011.
-
Brooke, George J. “Choosing Between Papyrus and Skin: Cultural Complexity and Multiple Identities in the Qumran Library.” Pages 119–35 in Jewish Cultural Encounters in the Ancient Mediterranean and the Near Eastern World. Edited by M. Popovic, M. Schoonover & M. Vandenberghe. JSJSup 178. Leiden: Brill, 2017.
-
Brown, Michelle. “The Triumph of the Codex: The Manuscript Book before 1100.” Pages 177–93 in A Companion to the History of the Book. Edited by S. Eliot and J. Rose. Malden, MA: Wiley, 2007.
-
Bülow-Jacobsen, Adam. “Writing Materials in the Ancient World.” Pages 1–29 in The Oxford Handbook of Papyrology. Edited by R.S. Bagnall. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
-
Busa, Anna. Die Phylacterien von Qumran (4Q128.129.135.137) aus der Heidelberger Papyrussammlung. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2015.
-
Cavallo, Guglielmo. Libri scritture scribi a Ercolano: Introduzione allo studio dei materiali greci. Naples: Macchiaroli, 1983.
-
Cavallo, Guglielmo. “Discorsi sul libro.” Pages 3:613–647 in Lo spazio letterario della Grecia antica. 3 vols. Edited by G. Cambiano et al. Rome: Salerno editrice, 1992–1996.
-
Cavallo, Guglielmo. “Between Volumen and Codex: Reading in the Roman World.” Pages 64–89 in History of Reading in the West. Edited by G. Cavallo and R. Chartier. Translated by L.G. Cochrane. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999.
-
Cavallo, Guglielmo. “Scroll.” Online in Brill’s New Pauly. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1574-9347_bnp_e1023920. First published 2006.
-
Chartier, Roger. Forms and Meanings: Texts, Performances, and Audiences from Codex to Computer. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995.
-
Chazon, E. et al. Qumran Cave 4.XX: Poetical and Liturgical Texts, Part 2. DJD 29. Oxford: Clarendon, 1999.
-
Cross, Frank Moore. “The Development of the Jewish Scripts.” Pages 3–43 in idem, Leaves from an Epigrapher’s Notebook: Collected Papers in Hebrew and West Semitic Palaeography and Epigraphy. HSS 51. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2003.
-
Daly, Lloyd W. “Rotuli: Liturgy Rolls and Formal Documents.” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 14 (1973): 333–38.
-
De Vaux, R. and J.T. Milik. Qumrân grotte 4.II: I. Archéologie, II. Tefillin, Mezuzot et Targums (4Q 128–4Q157). DJD 6. Oxford: Clarendon, 1977.
-
Derrida, Jacques. Dissemination. Translated by Barbara Johnson. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, 1981.
-
Diringer, David. The Book Before Printing: Ancient, Medieval and Oriental. New York: Dover, 1982.
-
Eshel, Esther. “4Q414 Fragment 4: Purification of a Corpse-Contaminated Person.” Pages 3–10 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. Edited by M. Bernstein et al. STDJ 23. Leiden: Brill, 1997.
-
Eubanks, Charlotte. “Circumambulatory Reading: Revolving Sutra Libraries and Buddhist Scrolls.” Book History 13 (2010): 1–24.
-
Eubanks, Charlotte. Miracles of Book and Body: Buddhist Textual Culture & Medieval Japan. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011.
-
Falk, Daniel K. Daily, Sabbath, and Festival Prayers in the Dead Sea Scrolls. STDJ 27. Leiden: Brill, 1998.
-
Falk, Daniel K. “Material Aspects of Prayer Manuscripts at Qumran.” Pages 33–87 in Literature or Liturgy?: Early Christian Hymns and Prayers in their Literary and Liturgical Context in Antiquity. Edited by C. Leonhard & H. Löhr. WUNT2 363. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014.
-
Falk, Daniel K. “Prayer, Liturgy, and War.” Pages 275–94 in The War Scroll, Violence, War and Peace in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature: Essays in Honour of Martin G. Abegg on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday. Edited by Kipp Davis, Kyung S. Baek, Peter W. Flint, and Dorothy M. Peters. STDJ 115. Leiden: Brill, 2015.
-
Finkelstein, David, and Alistair McCleery. An Introduction to Book History. 2nd Edition. London: Routledge, 2013.
-
Goff, Matthew J. “Reading Wisdom at Qumran: 4QInstruction and the Hodayot.” DSD 11 (2004): 263–88.
-
Goff, Matthew J. 4QInstruction. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2013.
-
Grafton, Anthony. “Introduction.” The American Historical Review 107 (2002): 84–86.
-
Greenspan, Ezra and Jonathan Rose. “An Introduction to Book History.” Book History 1 (1998): ix–xi.
-
Haran, Menahem. “Book-Scrolls in Israel in Pre-Exilic Times.” JJS 33 (1982): 161–73.
-
Haran, Menahem. “Book-Scrolls at the Beginning of the Second Temple Period: The Transition from Papyrus to Skins.” HUCA 54 (1983): 111–22.
-
Haran, Menahem. “Bible Scrolls in Eastern and Western Jewish Communities from Qumran to the High Middle Ages.” HUCA 56 (1985): 21–62.
-
Hayles, N. Katherine. “Translating Media: Why We Should Rethink Textuality.” Yale Journal of Criticism 16 (2003): 263–290.
-
Hempel, Charlotte. “The Place of the Book of Jubilees at Qumran and Beyond.” Pages 187–96 in The Dead Sea Scrolls in Their Historical Context. Edited by T.H. Lim. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000.
-
Hempel, Charlotte. “Shifting Paradigms Concerning the Literary Development of the Serekh.” Pages 109–119 in eadem, The Qumran Rule Texts in Context: Collected Studies. TSAJ 154. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013.
-
Hempel, Charlotte. “The Long Text of the Serekh as Crisis Literature.” RevQ 27 (2015): 3–24.
-
Hempel, Charlotte. “Wisdom and Law in the Hebrew Bible and at Qumran.” JSJ 48 (2017): 1–27.
-
Hurtado, Larry W., and Chris Keith. “Writing and Book Production in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods.” Pages 63–80 in The New Cambridge History of the Bible. Vol. 1: From the Beginnings to 600. Edited by J.C. Paget & J. Schaper. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
-
Johnson, Michael Brooks. “One Work or Three? A Proposal for Reading 1QS-1QSa-1QSb as a Composite Work.” DSD 25 (2018): 141–177.
-
Johnson, William A. Bookrolls and Scribes in Oxyrhynchus. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004.
-
Johnson, William A. “The Ancient Book.” Pages 256–81 in The Oxford Handbook of Papyrology. Edited by R.S. Bagnall. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
-
Jokiranta, Jutta. “What is ‘Serekh ha-Yahad (S)’?: Thinking About Ancient Manuscripts as Information Processing.” Pages 1:611–35 in Sibyls, Scriptures, and Scrolls: John Collins at Seventy. 2 vols. Edited by J. Baden, H. Najman & E. Tigchelaar. JSJSup 175. Leiden: Brill, 2016.
-
Jokiranta, Jutta, and Hanna Vanonen. “Multiple Copies of Rule Texts or Multiple Rule Texts? Boundaries of the S and M Documents.” Pages 11–60 in Crossing Imaginary Boundaries: The Dead Sea Scrolls in the Context of Second Temple Judaism. Edited by M. Pajunen & H. Tervanotko. Helsinki: The Finnish Exegetical Society, 2015.
-
Jones, Brice C. “Papyrus.” Pages 270–71 in The Dictionary of the Bible and Ancient Media. Edited by T. Thatcher et al. London: Bloomsbury, 2017.
-
Jones, Brice C. “Scrolls.” Pages 361–62 in The Dictionary of the Bible and Ancient Media. Edited by T. Thatcher et al. London: Bloomsbury, 2017.
-
Kelly, Thomas Forrest. The Exultet in Southern Italy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.
-
Kelly, Thomas Forrest. “A Milanese Processional Roll at the Beinecke Library.” The Yale University Library Gazette 73 (1998): 14–31.
-
Kugel, James. “Two Introductions to Midrash.” Pages 77–103 in Midrash and Literature. Edited by G. Hartman & S. Budick. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986.
-
Lange, Armin. Weisheit und Prädestination: Weisheitlick Urordnung und Prädestination in den Textfunden von Qumran. STDJ 18. Leiden: Brill, 1995.
-
Lewis, Naphtali. Papyrus in Classical Antiquity. Oxford: Clarendon, 1974.
-
Lundhaug, Hugo, and Liv Ingeborg Lied. “Studying Snapshots: On Manuscript Culture, Textual Fluidity, and New Philology.” Pages 1–19 in Snapshots of Evolving Traditions: Jewish and Christian Manuscript Culture, Textual Fluidity, and New Philology. Edited by L. Lied & H. Lundhaug. TUGAL 175. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2017.
-
Mastnjak, Nathan. “Jeremiah as Collection: Scrolls, Sheets, and the Problem of Textual Arrangement.” CBQ 80 (2018): 25–44.
-
McCutcheon, R.W. “Silent Reading in Antiquity and the Future History of the Book.” Book History 18 (2015): 1–32.
-
McGann, Jerome J. The Textual Condition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991.
-
McKane, William. Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Jeremiah. 2 vols. ICC. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1986–1996.
-
McKenzie, D.F. Bibliography and the Sociology of Texts. London: British Library, 1986.
-
Metso, Sarianna. The Textual Development of the Qumran Community Rule. STDJ 21. Leiden: Brill, 1997.
-
Metso, Sarianna. The Serekh Texts. LSTS 62. London: T&T Clark, 2007.
-
Milik, J.T. The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4. Oxford: Clarendon, 1976.
-
Miller, Peter N. “Introduction: The Culture of the Hand.” Pages 1–29 in Cultural Histories of the Material World. Edited by P.N. Miller. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2013.
-
Milstein, Sara J. Tracking the Master Scribe: Revision Through Introduction in Biblical and Mesopotamian Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.
-
Monger, Matthew P. “4Q216 and the State of Jubilees at Qumran.” RevQ 26 (2014): 595–612.
-
Monger, Matthew P. “The Development of Jubilees 1 in the Late Second Temple Period.” JSP 27 (2017): 83–112.
-
Morgenstern, M. “A New Clue to the Original Length of the Genesis Apocryphon.” JJS 47 (1996): 345–47.
-
Mroczek, Eva. “Thinking Digitally About the Dead Sea Scrolls: Book History Before and Beyond the Book.” Book History 14 (2011): 241–69.
-
Mroczek, Eva. The Literary Imagination in Jewish Antiquity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.
-
Mroczek, Eva. “The End of the Psalms in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Greek Codices, and Syriac Manuscripts.” Pages 297–322 in Snapshots of Evolving Traditions: Jewish and Christian Manuscript Culture, Textual Fluidity, and New Philology. Edited by L. Lied & H. Lundhaug. TUGAL 175. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2017.
-
Mukerji, Chandra. “The Material Turn.” Pages 1–13 in Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Edited by R.A. Scott & S.M. Kosslyn. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2015.
-
Murphy-O’Connor, Jerome. “La genèse littéraire de la règle de la communauté.” RB 76 (1969): 528–49.
-
O’Donnell, James. Avatars of the Word: From Papyrus to Cyberspace. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998.
-
Pajunen, Mika S. The Land to the Elect and Justice for All: Reading Psalms in the Dead Sea Scrolls in Light of 4Q381. JAJSup 14. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013.
-
Pannkuk, Justin L. “Are there למשכיל Sections in the Hodayot? Evidence from Cave 4.” RevQ 28 (2016): 3–13.
-
Perrot, Antony, Daniel Stoekl ben Ezra and Eibert Tigchelaar, “More Red Ink on the Qumran Manuscript 11Q22.” Comparative Oriental Studies Manuscript Bulletin 1 (2015): 29–33.
-
Peters, John Durham. The Marvelous Clouds: Toward a Philosophy of Elemental Media. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2015.
-
Pfann, S.J. et al. Qumran Cave 4.XXVI: Cryptic Texts and Miscellanea, Part 1. DJD 36. Oxford: Clarendon, 2000.
-
Popović, Mladen. “Qumran as Scroll Storehouse in Times of Crisis? A Comparative Perspective on Judaean Desert Manuscript Collections.” JSJ 43 (2012): 551–94.
-
Popović, Mladen. “Reading, Writing, and Memorizing Together: Reading Culture in Ancient Judaism and the Dead Sea Scrolls in a Mediterranean Context.” DSD 24 (2017): 447–70.
-
Qimron, Elisah. The Dead Sea Scrolls: The Hebrew Writings. 3 vols. Jerusalem: Ben Zvi, 2010–2014. [Hebrew]
-
Resnick, Irven M. “The Codex in Early Jewish and Christian Communities.” Journal of Religious History 17 (1992): 1–17.
-
Roberts, C.H. and T.C. Skeat. The Birth of the Codex. London: British Academy, 1983.
-
Schiffman, Lawrence H. “Memory and Manuscript: Books, Scrolls, and the Tradition of the Dead Sea Scrolls.” Pages 133–50 in New Perspectives on Old Texts: Proceedings of the Tenth International Symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature. Edited by E.G. Chazon & B. Halpern-Amaru. STDJ 88. Leiden: Brill, 2010.
-
Skeat, T.C. “Roll Versus Codex: A New Approach?.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 84 (1990): 297–98.
-
Skeat, T.C. “The Origin of the Christian Codex.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 102 (1994): 263–68.
-
Skehan, P.W., E. Ulrich and J.E. Sanderson. Qumran Cave 4.IV: Palaeo-Hebrew and Greek Biblical Manuscripts. DJD 9. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992.
-
Sommer, Benjamin. “The Scroll of Isaiah as Jewish Scripture, or, Why Jews Don’t Read Books.” Pages 225–45 in Society of Biblical Literature 1996 Seminar Papers. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 1996.
-
Stallybrass, Peter. “Books and Scrolls: Navigating the Bible.” Pages 42–79 in Books and Readers in Early Modern England: Material Studies. Edited by J. Andersen & E. Sauer. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002.
-
Stanley, Timothy. “The Early Codex Book: Recovering Its Cosmopolitan Consequences.” Biblical Interpretation 23 (2015): 369–398.
-
Stanley, Timothy. Writing Faith. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2017.
-
Stegemann, Hartmut. “Methods for the Reconstruction of Scrolls from Scattered Fragments.” Pages 189–220 in Archaeology and History in the Dead Sea Scrolls: The New York University Conference in Memory of Yigael Yadin. Edited by L. Schiffman. JSPSupp 8. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1990.
-
Stegemann, Hartmut. “Some Remarks to ‘1QSa’, to ‘1QSb’, and to Qumran Messianism.” RevQ 17 (1996): 479–505.
-
Stern, David. “The First Jewish Books and the Early History of Jewish Reading.” JQR 98 (2008): 163–202.
-
Stern, David. Jewish Literary Cultures. Vol. 1: The Ancient Period. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2015.
-
Stern, David. The Jewish Bible: A Material History. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2017.
-
Strugnell, J., D.J. Harrington and T. Elgvin. Qumran Cave 4.XXIV: Sapiential Texts, Part 2: 4QInstruction (Mûsar Lë Mevîn): 4Q415 ff. DJD 34. Oxford: Clarendon, 1999.
-
Talmon, S., J. Ben-Dov and U. Glessmer. Qumran Cave 4.XVI: Calendrical Texts. DJD 21. Oxford: Clarendon, 2001.
-
Tigchelaar, Eibert. “ ‘4Q499’ 48 + 47 (Par ‘4Q369’ 1 II): A Forgotten Identification.” RevQ 18 (1997): 303–6.
-
Tigchelaar, Eibert. “The Qumran Jubilees Manuscripts as Evidence for the Literary Growth of the Book.” RevQ 26 (2014): 579–94.
-
Tov, Emanuel. The Greek Minor Prophets Scroll from Nahal Hever (8HevXIIgr). DJD 8. Oxford: Clarendon, 1990.
-
Tov, Emanuel. Scribal Practices and Approaches Reflected in the Texts Found in the Judean Desert. STDJ 54. Leiden: Brill, 2004.
-
Tov, Emanuel. “The Tefillin from the Judean Desert and the Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible.” Pages 277–92 in Is There a Text in This Cave?: Studies in the Textuality of the Dead Sea Scrolls in Honour of George J. Brooke. Edited by A. Feldman, M. Cioatǎ and C. Hempel. STDJ 119. Leiden: Brill, 2017.
-
Turner, E.G. Greek Papyri: An Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968.
-
Uusimäki, Elisa. Turning Proverbs towards Torah: An Analysis of 4Q525. STDJ 117. Leiden: Brill, 2016.
-
Vandendorpe, Christian. From Papyrus to Hypertext: Toward the Universal Digital Library. Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2009.
-
Wernberg-Møller, P. The Manual of Discipline: Translated and Annotated with an Introduction. STDJ 1. Leiden: Brill, 1957.
-
Wollenberg, Rebecca Scharbach. “The Dangers of Reading As We Know It: Sight Reading As a Source of Heresy in Early Rabbinic Traditions.” JAAR 85 (2017): 709–45.
-
Wright III, Benjamin G. The Letter of Aristeas: ‘Aristeas to Philocrates’ or ‘On the Translation of the Law of the Jews’. CEJL. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 543 | 82 | 11 |
| Full Text Views | 164 | 10 | 1 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 251 | 26 | 2 |
The Rolling Corpus
Materiality and Pluriformity at Qumran, with Special Consideration of the Serekh ha-Yaḥad
In: Dead Sea DiscoveriesSearch for other papers by James Nati in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Abstract
Drawing on insights from the field of Book History, the article draws out connections between the material aspects of the Qumran corpus on the one hand and textual pluriformity on the other, paying particular attention to the Serekh ha-Yaḥad. The article suggests that the large-scale pluriformity exhibited by texts such as the Serekh is best understood in light of certain material features particular to skin scrolls, and that opisthographs ought to be integrated into discussions of textual pluriformity. The article concludes by offering more general comments about the effects of the scroll on writing and reading practices in early Judaism.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 543 | 82 | 11 |
| Full Text Views | 164 | 10 | 1 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 251 | 26 | 2 |
