Reflecting the increasing recognition of the importance of legal texts and issues in early Judaism, the essays in this collection examine halakhic and rule texts found at Qumran in light of the latest scholarship on text production, social organization, and material culture in early Judaism. The contributors present new interpretations of long-lived topics, such as the sobriquet “seekers of the smooth things,” the Treatise of the Two Spirits, and 4QMMT, and take up new approaches to purity issues, the role of the maśkil, and the Temple Scroll. The volume exemplifies the range of ways in which the Qumran legal texts help illuminate early Jewish culture as a whole.
Jutta Jokiranta, Ph.D. (2006), University of Helsinki, is Professor of Hebrew Bible and Cognate Studies at that university. Her monograph Social Identity and Sectarianism in the Qumran Movement (Brill, 2013) focused on rule texts and pesharim, and she has published articles widely on ritual behavior and Dead Sea Scrolls. Molly Zahn, Ph.D. (2009), University of Notre Dame, is Associate Professor of Religious Studies, University of Kansas. Her numerous articles and her 2011 Brill monograph Rethinking Rewritten Scripture focus on the scribal rewriting of prestigious texts in early Judaism.
All interested in the Dead Sea Scrolls, especially legal and rule texts, and anyone concerned with the history of Jewish law or the culture of Second Temple Judaism.