scrollery.com

Two interesting books:

(1) T. Lim and J. Collins (eds), The Oxford Handbook of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Many good articles, especially Martin Goodman (“the notion that the Dead Sea sectarians cut themselves off from the Temple would seem to us bizarre if we only had the pagan evidence and archaeology as the background to our understanding of the scrolls” [p. 88]), Sacha Stern (“The absence of calendar polemics in Qumran sources raises our suspicion that the calendar was not a major issue that would have defined the Qumran community as essentially different, sectarian, or separatist” [p. 247]), Michael Wise (“the Teacher and his movement appear to belong to the first century BCE” [p. 119]), Joan Taylor (“Josephus does not imply that the Essenes . . . avoided the Temple, Jerusalem, or the public life of Judaism” [p. 182]), and more. Charlotte Hempel reviews the volume here.

(2) Zdislaw Kapera and Robert Feather, Doyen of the Dead Sea Scrolls. An in depth biography of Jozef Tadeusz Milik (1922-2006). Krakow: Enigma Press, 2011. Milik, universally regarded as the most brilliant text person of the original generation of editors of the Dead Sea Scrolls, reclusive, mercurial . . . Robert Feather not only was able to befriend and have a number of visits with the legendary Milik in Paris in the last years of Milik’s life but in this volume gives details of some of those conversations. Fascinating material. (Good luck trying to order it or find a copy; there appears to be no known way to order this book online. The publisher’s address is Enigma Press, ul. Podedworze 5, PL–32-031 Mogilany, Poland.)

Greg Doudna, “Ostraca KhQ1 and KhQ2 from the cemetery of Qumran: a new edition”, in E. Ben-Zvi, ed., Perspectives on Hebrew Scriptures II. Comprising the contents of Journal of Hebrew Scriptures vol. 5 (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2007), pp. 59-116.

(Contents of this volume can be viewed on google books.)

The ostraca (= potsherds with writing) KhQ1 and KhQ2 were found outside the east wall at Qumran in 1996. The editors, Frank Cross and Esther Eshel, identified KhQ1 as a deed of gift of property from a new member to a religious community at Qumran in a manner enjoined by the Community Rule (1QS). It was claimed that KhQ1 provided the first direct evidence that the Community Rule was practiced at Qumran. In the most detailed analysis of these texts undertaken to date, this article presents new readings of KhQ1 and KhQ2 and takes up the question of whether KhQ1 can confirm or exclude the community-gift interpretation on the basis of an accurate reading of the text.