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The article primarily deals with a textual connection between two admonitory texts 4QSapiential Admonitions B (4Q185) and 4QAdmonition on the Flood (4Q370). Beside the existence of this connection very little has been done to explore it and even the direction of the influence is still open to question. This connection will be thoroughly analyzed here, in order to appreciate fully its importance for understanding the purpose of the fragmentary individual texts and the applied editing practices. It will be shown that 4QAdmonition on the Flood was one of the main sources used in the composition of 4QSapiential Admonitions B that was radically edited (e. g., additions, omissions and recontextualizing) and combined with Proverbial wisdom traditions. The purpose of this editorial activity was to create a synthesis out of the more traditional wisdom thinking and the Torah-oriented deuteronomic parenesis, as was also done by, for example, Ben Sira in his own wisdom composition around the same time period.
Abstract
Mika S. Pajunen examines the reception of the exodus narratives within the Dead Sea Scrolls. His focus is on the approximately twenty Qumran texts which interact with this tradition, which he considers within three broad groupings: those (e.g. 4Q158; the Book of Giants; the Visions of Amram) which prophesy the exodus as a future event; historical summaries (e.g. 4Q370; 4Q422; 4Q470) and liturgical texts (e.g. the Festival Prayers and the Words of the Luminaries) whch retell and reinterpret these narratives, often with an exhortatory purpose; and those (e.g. the Damascus Document and the Barkhi Nafshi Hymns) which employ the exodus as a prototype of divine justice to explain contemporary events. This chapter, therefore, highlights the range of ways in which exodus motifs are used within the Scrolls to reinforce the community’s theology and ideology.
Wisdom” is a central concept in the Hebrew Bible and Early Jewish literature. An analysis of a selection of texts from the Second Temple period reveals that the way wisdom and its possession were understood changed gradually in a more exclusive direction. Deuteronomy 4 speaks of Israel as a wise people, whose wisdom is based on the diligent observance of the Torah. Proverbs 8 introduces personified Lady Wisdom that is at first a rather universal figure, but in later sources becomes more firmly a property of Israel. Ben Sira (Sir. 24) stressed the primacy of Israel by combining wisdom with the Torah, but he still attempted to do justice to other nations’ contacts with wisdom as well. One step further was taken by Baruch, as only Israel is depicted as the recipient of wisdom (Bar. 3–4). This more particularistic understanding of wisdom was also employed by the sages who wrote the compositions 4Q185 and 4Q525. Both of them emphasize the hereditary nature of wisdom, and 4Q525 even explicitly denies foreigners’ share of wisdom. The author of Psalm 154 goes furthest along this line of development by claiming wisdom to be a sole possession of the righteous among the Israelites. The question about possessing wisdom has moved from the level of nations to a matter of debate between different groups within Judaism.