Dead Sea Discoveries, 11, 2004

Dead

Sea

Discoveries XI

Dead r~ *

A

Sea

~~

of

Journal

Research

on

Related

the

Current

Scrolls

Literature VOLUME XI

BRILL LEIDEN*BOSTON 2004

and

Editors

John J. COLLINS,Armin LANGE,Hindy NAJMAN Editorial Board

P.S. Alexander,M.J. Bernstein,G.J. Brooke, E. Chazon, D. Dimant, C.A. Evans,H. Eshel, M. Kister,A. van der Kooij, F. GarciaMartinez, J.P. Meier, G.W.E. Nickelsburg,B. Nitzan, E. Puech, L.H. Schiffman, E. Schuller,M.E. Stone, E. Tov, E. Ulrich, J.C. VanderKam

ISSN 0929-0761 (Print version) ISSN 1568-5179 (Online version) ( Copyright 2004 by KoninklijkeBrill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmittedin any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, withoutprior written permission of the publisher. Authorizationto photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Brill Academic Publishers provided that the appropriatefees are paid directly to Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change.

CONTENTS

Articles JOSEPHATWILLand STEvE BRAUNHEIM, Redating the Radio-

carbonDating of the Dead Sea Scrolls .................................. 143 Who Cares and Why Does It Matter? ALBERTBAUMGARTEN,

Qumranand the Essenes, Once Again! .................................. 174 WomenandChildrenin LegalandLiturgical MosHEJ. BERNSTEIN, Texts from Qumran .................... 191 ............................ SHANIL. BERRIN, The Use of SecondaryBiblical Sources in 1 Pesher Nahum ............. ................................... KEITHBODNER,The Royal ConscienceAccordingto 4QSama 158 MAGENBROSHI,The Dead Sea Scrolls, the Sciences and New Technologies ............ ................................... JOSHUAE. BURNS,PracticalWisdom in 4QInstruction............ CHARLOTTEE. FONROBERT,From Separatism to Urbanism: The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Origins of the Rabbinic 'Eruv MATTHEW J. GoFF, Reading Wisdom at Qumran: 4QInstruction and the Hodayot ................ ................................. MAXINE GROSSMAN,Reading for Gender in the Damascus

Document ...............................................

133

12 43 263

212

More on the Qumran Roundel as an GEORGEM. HOLLENBACK,

EquitorialSundial ................

...............................

289

JAMESA. KELHOFFER, Did John the BaptistEat Like a Former

Essene? Locust-Eating in the Ancient Near East and at Qumran ................................................ DONG-HYUKKIM, Free Orthography in a Strict Society: Reconsidering Tov's "Qumran Orthography"..

293

........................ 72

SARIANNA METSO,MethodologicalProblemsin Reconstructing Historyfrom Rule Texts found at Qumran ............................ 315 DAVID LAMBERT,Last Testamentsin the Book of Jubilees .... 82 ROB KUGLER and ESTHER CHAZON, Women at Qumran: Introducing the Essays .......................... ..................... BARBARATHIERING,The Temple Scroll Courts Governed by Precise Times ............ ................................... EMMANUEL ToV, Reply to Dong-Hyuk Kim's Paper on "Tov's Qumran Orthagraphy" ...................... ......................... BENJAMIN G. WRIGHT III, Wisdom and Women at Qumran ...

167 336 359 240

CONTENTS

vi

Book Reviews Bread, Wine,Wallsand Scrolls, by MAGENBROSHI.JSPSup 36 (JEANDUHAIME)

108

Meghillot: Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls 1, edited by DEVORAHDIMANTand MOSHEBAR ASHER(TAL ILAN)

377

Where is Boasting? Early Jewish Soteriology and Paul's (JAMES Responsein Romans1-5, by SIMONJ. GATHERCOLE CROSSLEY)...............................................

381

Pesharim, by TIMOTHYH. LIM. Companion to the Qumran Scrolls 3 (KENNETHE. POMYKALA)......................................

113

Wealthin the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the QumranCommunity, M. MURPHY.STDJ 40 (CHARLOTTE HEMPEL) 116 by CATHERINE The Sacrifice of Isaac: The Aqedah (Genesis 22) and its Interpretations, edited by ED NOORTand EIBERTTIGCHELAAR. Themes in Biblical Narrative: Jewish and Christian Traditions 4 (HINDYNAJMAN) ............................................... QumranCave 4. XXIII:UnidentifiedFragments,by DANA M. PIKE and ANDREW C. SKINNER. DJD 33 (MARTIN G. ABEGG,JR.) ...............................................

380

120

The Dead Sea Scrolls Fifty Years After Their Discovery: Proceedingsof theJerusalemCongress,20-25 July1997, edited H. SCHIFMAN,EMMANUEL Tov, and JAMES by LAWRENCE 122 C. VANDERKAM(EILEENSCHULLER).................................... Calendarsin the Dead Sea Scrolls: MeasuringTime,by JAMES 127 C. VANDERKAM(DANIELK. FALK) ...................................... Accordance, QumranModule for Macintosh. Version 5.6.1., Oak Tree Software (BENJAMING. WRIGHTIII) .................... 373

Calliope: World History for Young People. The Dead Sea Scrolls. Vol. 12, Iss. 4 (SHANIBERRIN) ....................11............ I

Books in Debate The Archaeologyof Qumranand the Dead Sea Scrolls, by JODI MAGNESS(MAGENBROSHIand HANA ESHEL) ....................

361

The Archaeologyof Qumranand the Dead Sea Scrolls, by JODI .......................................... MAGNESS(JURGENZANGENBERG)

365

Sea

Dead

Discoveries A

Journal

on

Research

the

Scrolls

Literatutre

Related

VOL.

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of

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NO.

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www.brill.nl

BRILL

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DEAD SEA DISCOVERIES A Journal of Current Research on the Scrolls and Related Literature Armin

Hindy

EDITORS:

John J.

EDITORIAL BOARD:

P.S. Alexander, M.J. Bernstein, G.J. Brooke, E. Chazon, D. Dimant, C.A. Evans, H. Eshel, M. Kister, A. van der Kooij, F. Garcia Martinez, J.P. Meier, G.W.E. Nickelsburg, B. Nitzan, E. Puech, L.H. Schiffman, E. Schuller, M.E. Stone, E. Tov, E. Ulrich, J.C. VanderKam

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BRILL LEIDEN * BOSTON ? Copyright 2004 by KoninklijkeBrill Nv, Leiden, The Netherlands All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmittedin any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Brill provided that the appropriatefees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. ISSN 0929-0761 (Print version) PRINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS

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THE USE OF SECONDARY BIBLICAL SOURCES IN PESHER NAHUM SHANI L. BERRIN University of Sydney

The "continuouspesharim"from Qumranare characterizedby their commentary-likeform-the structuredtreatmentof sequential,explicitly-citedversesof particularbiblicaltexts.1By definition,Qumranpesher is a type of "explicit"biblical interpretation,and this attributeis especially emphasizedin the continuouspesharim.It is thus well-known that the consecutiveunits of these pesharimare of the form "citation (lemma) + introductoryformula + pesher interpretation."Far less attentionhas been paid to the use of biblical texts other than the primary base-text in these compositions.In this paper,we draw from an aspect of Bilhah Nitzan's work on PesherHabakkukto investigatethe implicit employmentof biblical texts in Pesher Nahum. Specifically, we will examine how apparentlapses in lemma/peshercorrespondence may functionto signal the pesher'sdependenceupon a secondarybiblical source. In her treatmentof lQpHab, Nitzan drew attentionto instances in which the pesher interpretationincluded words or phrases with no apparentbasis in the cited base-text of Habakkuk.She referred to these cases as rnn=:

FTlrnKA5t MDOT

(additions without a 'peg' in the

text").2Nitzan demonstratedthat these "pluses"may be motivatedby

I The term "continuouspesher"is first found in J. Carmignac,"Le Documentde Qumransur Melkisddek,"RevQ 7 (1969-71) 361. Discussionof the natureof Qumran Peshercan be found, inter alia, in M.P. Horgan,Pesharim:QumranInterpretationsof Biblical Books (CBQMS8; Washington,DC: CatholicBiblical Association,1979);G.J. Brooke, "QumranPesher: Toward the Re-definitionof a Genre,"RevQ 10 (1981) 483-503; DevorahDimant, "Pesharim,Qumran,"in ABD vol. 5, ed. D.N. Freedman (NY: Doubleday,1992) 244-51; S.L. Berrin9' "Pesharim"in OxfordEncyclopediaof the Dead Sea Scrolls (eds. L.H. Schiffmanand J.C. VanderKam;NY: Oxford University Press, 2000) 2.644 47, 2.653-54; "QumranPesharim,"in Matthias Henze, Biblical Interpretationat Qumran(GrandRapids,MI: Eerdmans,forthcoming). 2 p1p:n -sB r'*=?(IQpHab), (Jerusalem:Mosad Bialik, 1986) 58-61.

? Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2004 Also available online - www.brill.nl

Dead Sea Discoveries 11, 1

2

SHANI L. BERRIN

content or style. In the formercategory, the most significanttype of "tplus"is that which signals an allusion to a source from anotherbiblical text. Nitzan describes this technique as "similar to, but more sophisticatedthan, the explicit use of secondarysources in 4QFlor."3 By tracingthe sources of words or phrasesthat appearto be without pegs in the lemma, we can be led to biblical contexts that will illuminate the pesher. It has been observedthat PesherNahumexhibitsa very close correspondencebetween the cited biblical texts and their respectivepesher interpretations.4 As a rule, each elementof pesherinterpretation can be directlyalignedwith a correspondingelement,or "peg,"in the lemma. In the exceptionalcases in which an element of the pesher seems to lack such a "peg,"we have an example of a Zlflf m*rn NtE rMorl, or "un-peggedplus." Our interesthere is in those "unpeggedpluses" that function as "cross-references,"or "hyperlinks,"employing language that directs the readerto a secondarybiblical source. This phenomenonis not only noteworthyfrom a literaryperspective, but it can also be used to assist the modem readerin determining historical contexts of pesher interpretations.There is general agreementtoday that the subjectof 3-4, col. i of Pesher Nahum,the "Lionof Wrath,"is to be identifiedas the HasmoneanmonarchAlexander Jannaeus.SHowever, this same degree of consensushas not yet been reachedfor other identificationsin the composition.Let us examine a numberof cases in Pesher Nahum in which the historicalcontext is unclear, and in which "cross-references"to biblical texts may shed light on the matter. I. One case in which a useful cross-referencemay be discernedis in frags 1-2, lines 5-9 of PesherNahum: M-1 0':-: In

--r lar

17[:I,]6

1-._ .

[. .. iilW]

rl

vac t5nK 1jmt n::

'nol"9SI= b;...^]9

]r_z1

:5 [r

t t8AlU :&n

b21 1 t8v

3 Ibid., pp. 64-65.

Cf. Berrin,"Lemma/PesherCorrespondencein PesherNahum,"in The Dead Sea ScrollsFiftyYearsAfterTheirDiscovery(eds.L.H.Schiffman,E. Tov,andJ.C.VanderKam; Jerusalem:Israel ExplorationSociety, 2000), 341-50. S This has been the consensus in the field since Allegro first proposedthe identificationin his preliminarypublicationof 4QpNah,"FurtherLight on the Historyof the QumranSect," JBL 75 (1956) 89-95. For the most recent dissenting view, see GregoryDoudna,4Q Pesher Nahum:A CriticalEdition(JSPSup35 Sheffield:Sheffield Press, 2001), 639-74. 4

THE USE OF SECONDARY BIBLICAL SOURCES IN PESHER NAHUM

3

The scholarlyliteratureon this passage reflects disagreementas to the identificationof "Lebanon"in the pesher.From formal standards, the extant portionsof the pesher identify the elements of the lemma in a very straightforwardmanner.The pesher formula entails "identifying pronouns"linking the biblical term with its corresponding element in the interpretation,thus explicitly indicating the exegetical "pegs"in the lemma (e.g., RtIMfl[]t Tlmi).Nonetheless,Lebanon has been identifiedvariously as a reference to foreign enemies (the Kittim);6Jewish opponents of the QumranCommunity(the Seekers after SmoothThings, whom we shall identify throughoutthis paperas the Pharisees);7and even the QumranCommunityitself.8The use of the word cri in the pesherhas no basis in the cited text of Nahum.It thus is likely to functionas a sort of "hyperlink,"directingthe reader to anotherbiblical contextin which the root cl: is used with Lebanon. Such a context is found in Isa. 10:33-34 (note the under-linedwords in the citation):Isa. 10:33-34 ptm' r'7A=':nm ... MTll Fir:pn'rzr. In the interpretationof these verses, the pesher of 4Qplsaa identified Lebanon as the Kittim.9The "un-pegged"word 1:1 in Pesher Nahummay thus be viewed as a referenceto Isaiah 10, as understood in Pesher Isaiah. This supportsthe identificationof Lebanon as the Kittim in this section of Pesher Nahum.

6 Cf. J. Strugnell,"Notes en Marge du Volume V des 'Discoveries in the Judean Desert'," RevQ 7 (1970) 163-276, specifically, "Notes sur le No 169 des 'Discoveries,"'206; L. Moraldi,I manoscrittide Qumrdn(Torino:Unione TipograficoEditriceTorinese, 1971), 547; Nitzan,plpan -sB Mt:n,43. Allegro does not explicitly identify the elements in this unit, but he notes that Lebanon is identified with the Kittimin 4Qplsaa(DJD 5, 37, n. 7). Horgan,Pesharim, 168-69. here to refer to the 8 Vermes himself takes "Lebanon"in the pesher interpretation community.He translates,"Carmeland to his commanders,Lebanonand the sproutof Lebanonare [the priests,the sons of Zadok and the men of] their [counclil and they shall perishfrom before... the elect.. ." (CompleteDead Sea Scrolls in English [New York: Allen Lane, PenguinPress, 1997] 473-4). Note that Vermes has associatedthe symbolicvalence of "Lebanon"in Qumranwritingswith two streamsof Targumictraditions in which the term is renderedas (1) a powerfulentity or (2) the Temple (and of Lebanon thus,theCommunity,in theCommunity'sview.) Cf."SymbolicalInterpretation in the Targums:The Origin and Development of an Exegetical Tradition,"JTS 9 (1958) 1-12; Scriptureand Traditionin Judaism(Leiden:Brill, 1961) 26-43. Vermes supposesthat 4QpNah 1-2 reflectsthe second of the two traditions,while we perceive the allusion to Isaiah as evidence of the first.

4Qplsaa iii 3-5: . .. cR:i 'l13KIchiK1

D I-IOEvac t1v]

jlns

] r._._ .

l -* ...b

[?r]D[1l:1] no[pp

_ m,on c"Dru __m nwp

'o-i1

[_

4

SHANI L. BERRIN

II. A second instance in which an un-pegged clue may function as a "hyperlink"and shed light on historicalcontext is found at the end of col. i and beginningof col. ii in frags 3-4 of PesherNahum,in the pesher interpretationto Nah 2:14.10 4QpNah frags 3-4, i 8-12-ii 1 reads: *1M-1-1 mln:;

i:n=r

-IVA o::wlVr

I...

porz

-im>

A:

r:[m ].]p

rn;

vac n::Rribp

-WSluxl cri

1's:[.]1

Sil- le-v[. tsK-

-1. -unul 0t110vac -,tm-[to .. .] 1 a1Z n I'B= [:[. .. .] Ini,

:n-i[R

. ..]J cn=:

i,r[,] rn1

12

Dlp

As above, the pesher identificationsin this selection are formally clear-cut ("x is y.. ."), but the referents of these elements are subject

to dispute. The allusive natureof these lines and their poor state of preservationprecludes us from determiningwhether the message is directedagainst the Lion of Wrathor one of his opponents.We suggest that using the distinctivelyBiblical Hebrew-i' as a synonymfor JKR',the author echoes the prophecies against Edom in Jer. 49:14 (= Obad. 1:1): "I have received tidings from the Lord and an envoy is sent out among the nations,"FrtwMI=l -b:l... 'nflV rwlrz1.11 The '& -CURrr:; CMrzRt01, sense of the pesher, C rnI'71u R D0 reflects that of Nahum, "thatthe voice of your messengers(iT::r7) will no longerbe heard,"but the languageis closer to thatof Jeremiah and Obadiah.We suggest that the verses from these biblical passages, which introduce prophetic vituperation against the land of Edom, would be particularlywell-suited to renunciationsof latter-dayEdomites, namely the Idumeans.Those "whose voices will no longer be heardamong the Gentiles"are thus best identifiedas Idumaeanambassadors of Jannaeusand Salome, and the use of the term m- may be viewed as a referenceto the biblical context involving Edom.'2

'0 The restoredlemma reads, "'Behold I am againstyou', it is the declar[ationof the Lordof Hosts. I will burnin smokeyoulr [multitude],and the swordwill consume your young lions. I will cut [off p]rey [from the land], and no [longerwill be heard the voice of your messengers." P1.,"we have receivedtidings"in Obad. 12 In Ant 14 ?10, Josephus states that the IdumeanAntipater(the grandfather of Herod)was made a generalof Idumaeaby Jannaeusand Salome (otpaTqlolv; Marcus renders this as "governor,").In this capacity, he formed a league with the Arabs, Gazites, and Ascalonites.We suggest that Antipaterand his associatesin these diplomatic activitiesare representedas Jannaeus's"messengers... among the Gentiles."

THE USE OF SECONDARY BIBLICAL SOURCES IN PESHER NAHUM

5

II.a Our next example is from frags 3-4, ii 3-6. As in the previous cases, the historicalcontext of columns ii and iii of frags 3-4 is subject to dispute. Chapter3, verses 1-3 of the biblical book of Nahum describe the punishmentof Nineveh. The pesher adapts these images to describe a time of suffering in Judea. Nah 3:1b-3 (as cited in 4QpNah) reads:'3

The pesher offers this interpretation:'4 1:0 Mli :11n1 =1n% n

rp I,hI

I~IE

vi, s ,:E6

K n

ottO

mp*mn'u-11 nltumn bsUI-10 -I r:11 nu M:rn: nrnIrn

Mz,I rnsr

The pesher has been set within the time-frame of Alexander Jannaeusby some scholars;'5others have assigned the passage to the period of Jannaeus'swife and successorSalome Alexandra;'6and still others, including A. Dupont-Sommer,date the events of the pesher somewhatlater, to the time of the Roman conqueror,Pompey.'7One of the issues at stake is whether lines 4-6 depict the Seekers-afterSmooth-Thingsas victims or victimizers.'8Accordingto the interpretationsof Tantlevskijand Amusin,lines 4-6 describea Pharisaicreign of terrorin which Pharisaicleaderscoerce and torturethe populaceof Judea. 13 "Predation will not cease, nor the sound of the whip, and the sound of the rumbling of the wheel, and the gallopinghorse, and the chargingchariot.Lunginghorseman! Flame and flash of spear!And a multitudeof slain, and a mass of corpses!And there is no end to the (dead) bodies and they will stumbleover their bodies." MT has the word DIl after nrl'. The omission in 4QpNahis probablya scribalerror. 14 "Its interpretation: upon the domain (or "the dominion")of the Seekers-aftersmooth-things,that there will not cease from their midst the sword of Gentiles, captivity and plunder,and heated strife among them, and exile from fear of the enemy." 1' See, esp., I.R. Tantlevskij,"The Reflectionof the Political Situationin Judea in 88 B.C.E. in the Qumran Commentaryof Nahum (4QpNah, Columns 1-4)," St. PetersburgJournal of OrientalStudies6 (1994) 221-31. 16 Thus, J.D. Amusin, "tphraim et Manasse dans le Pesher de Nahum (4 Q p Nahum)"RevQ 4 (1963-4) 389-96; and "The Reflectionof HistoricalEvents of the First CenturyB.C. in QumranCommentaries(4Q 161; 4Q 169; 4Q 166)" HUCA 48 (1977) 123-52. 1' Dupont-Sommer, "Le Commentairede Nahum D6couvertpres de la Mer Morte (4QpNah): Traductionet Notes," Semitica 13 (1963), 55-88; "Observationssur le Commentairede Nahum D6couvert pres de la Mer Morte," Journal des Savants (October-December1963), 201-26. 1 In the biblical text of Nahum,the phrase f1l0o'ni X' ends verse 3:1, and is part

6

SHANI L. BERRIN

We maintain, however, that this pesher is better understood as referringto Pompey's conquestof Jerusalem,in accordancewith the view of Dupont-Sommersince, as noted above, the lemma here refers to thepunishmentof Nineveh,notto Assyriancrimes.Contextualizing this passagewithin the time of Pompeyallows the pesherto be understood as faithfullyreflectingthe retributivecontext of the biblical verses in Nahum. Moreover,the pesherincludes a numberof "pluses"vis-a'-vis the lemma, all of which point to the Seekers-after-Smooth-Things as victims. The underlinedwords in the citationabove are stylistic pluses that stand out as specificationsof the Seekers-After-Smooth-Things, such as CNn MOM;rnniz ;rrwD:7prz. Similarly,the designationof M'1las perpetratorsof the violence in line 5, seems to stress that they occupy this role vis-a'-vis the Seekers-after-Smooth-Things (ratherthan that they are employed by the Seekers-after-Smooth-Things to harm others,as suggestedby some scholars).The functionof the above elements as "context-markers" accountsfor their presencein the pesher, despite the lack of "peg"in the lemma. Most significantlyfor our purposes,we suggest that additionalsupas the victims in port for viewing the Seekers-after-Smooth-Things this passage can be adducedif we recognizea secondarybiblical text which underliesthe formulationof the pesher. Daniel 11:32-35 is an excellent candidatefor this secondarysource since it seems to have exerted substantialinfluence on the phrasingof a numberof pesher interpretationsin these columns, cols. ii and iii, of PesherNahum. To illustrateour point, we have chartedthe structuralcorrespondence of the pesher and its lemma. Note that in our understandingof the pesher, the phrase 0r0' N' governs the subsequenttext up until n?n p-mi. All these horrorswere "not to cease." Although the elements of the pesherare not pairedwith the elementsof the lemma in a direct, linear fashion, our chart demonstratesthat a definite alignment, is discernible.The words of the pesher are not so much "unpegged"as they are crypticallypegged.

of the prophet'sdescriptionof the evil of Nineveh. r-C0 indicatesan offense, either plunderor bloodshed.The pesherattachesthese words to the following verse, so that they introduceand become partof a stringof phrasesindicatingterrorin Nineveh. It might be possible to construeverses 2-3 of Nahumas expansionsof the corruptacts committedby inhabitantsof the "bloodycity," but it seems morenaturalto view them as retributionexperienced by these inhabitants.In Nahum, verses 2-3 are almost always understoodas a descriptionof the imminentpunishmentof Nineveh.

THE USE OF SECONDARY BIBLICAL SOURCES IN PESHER NAHUM

7

Equivalents align as follows: 4QpNah

Nahum

n:r ,[:T] 9-ID

neD

=

:

MIP)

CC

CM,:2I

. ..

pmrn,:int,

1B' CL'(''

=

=

:"'s -rnDrnlt

m:rn:lnnrnl

A detailed account of the basis for each of the above pairs of equivalents is beyond the scope of the current investigation.'9 For our purposes here, we call attention to the dependence of the language upon Daniel 11:32-35. After describing the desecration of the Temple by the navies of the Kittim,and the establishmentof the "'tIUM rlnpt" by the King of the North, Daniel describes the anarchy that will plague Judea:20 C -It. 71tV' 0&V:n)M VWDMT= 'MOMMUIMt:l:2-I: ft=:n -7.ul 71.V ' . .. MIptlPtn= crr mn"5 l*:1 M.=

The significance of Daniel 11:32-35 for the pesher is both lexical and contextual. There is already lexical similarity between Daniel and the biblical verses of Nah 3:1-3, the base-text of the pesher. Note the words *0:2 and Fr:171nl:nnM in parentheses in the English translation in footnote 20. The author of 4QpNah seems to have relied upon this lexical overlap, as well as Daniel's use of the term nlpnr, in choosing to formulate the pesher to Nah 3:1-3 in words derived from Dan 11:32-35. Hence, the presence of the words no and Trnin the pesher. Although these words are aligned with elements of the lemma in the chart above, they are only loosely pegged upon the corresponding words of the biblical text. Rather than deriving from Nahum, they derive from an external source, and are imposed upon the text. We suggest that the author of 4QpNah chose to evoke the passage in 19 The matter is treated in greater depth in Berrin, "4QpNah (4Q169, Pesher Nahum):A CriticalEditionwith Commentary,HistoricalAnalysis, and In-DepthStudy of ExegeticalMethod"(Ph.D. diss., New York University,2001). 20 "He will flatterwith smooth words (nlpbnTD)those who act wickedly towardthe covenant, but the people devoted to their God will stand firm. The knowledgeable among the people will make the many understand;and for a while they shall fall ('nn1) by swordand flame ( MI:r' l:2n), suffer captivity and spoliation (Tt1T= '=:). In defeat they will receive a little help, and many will join them insincerely.. . for an intervalstill remainsuntil the appointedtime" (NJPS).

8

SHANI L. BERRIN

Daniel because he was describinga similarhistoricalsituation.Pesher Nahum implicitly employs Daniel's descriptionof Judea's encounter with AntiochusIV in its own descriptionof the Judeanencounterwith Pompey. In both cases, the Seekers-after-Smooth-Things suffer along with their followers, after having been swayed in some measure to supporta powerfulforeignkingwho proceededto desecratetheirTemple. III.b Pesher Nahum continues to allude to Daniel in the succeeding interpretation,in lines 7-10, commentingupon Nah 3:4:21 '1 nnnnl Vw:: IM: r1n:11 nzl ' -ItC7 al[on]: nlnC:l nlt ,TM-Iniew mrzC't jivj1 Irpto -nln:ri -i vac o -ie xmn ~[- il] -vo [:wt:;;[. .] *1C)"C?a ']Mn

Note the underlinedwords, and recall Dan 11:35

7[Z]:

11n _

nLpjnrn.

Correspondenceis not easy to chart in this unit. Althoughthere is an overall sense of symmetry, the details are elusive. For our purposes, it is sufficientto point to the words 'n*:1and C"n' (althoughthe formermay be somewhatrelatedto the word flf at the beginningof the verse). Both of these terms derive from Daniel 11:35. In fact, the termMI:Yrecalls the previouspesherinterpretation, even as it repeats the use of Daniel. Here again, the secondarybiblical source may be of some aid in determiningmattersof content and historicalcontext. It is unclearwhetherthe victims of the Seekers-after-Smooth-Things describedin this pesher are opponentsof the Phariseesor their followers. Do they sufferfrom Pharisaiclibel and slanderor do they bear the guilt of adhering to Pharisaic teachings? We maintain that the pesherdescribesboth sorts of victims. The dependenceupon Daniel is one of the indicationsthat at least some of the victims in this pesher are followers of the Pharisees. III.c Our final example of a "cross-reference" to a biblical text seems to re-workthe same verses of Daniel discussed above. 4QpNah 3-4 21 "Becauseof the many harlotriesof the harlot, the charminglypleasing mistress of sorceries, who sells nations through her harlotries and families through her sor[celries. Its pesher:upon those who lead Ephraimastray, that by means of their lying tlmwd,deceitfultongue, and treacherouslips they mislead many:kings, officers, priests,and (the) people with the accompanyingstranger;cities and families will perish throughtheir counsel;notablesand rulerswill fall by ... their tongue."

THE USE OF SECONDARY BIBLICAL SOURCES IN PESHER NAHUM

9

col. iii 1-5 commentsupon Nah 3:6-7a, "And I will cast upon you detestedthings, and I will [de]gradeyou, and I will make you despicable. And it will be that all who see you will flee from you." Nahum describes Assyria's public experience of defeat. The prophetspeaks in generalterms,statingthatAssyriawill becomerepulsiveanddegraded. In the pesher,the fall of the Phariseeshas a more specific expression, as the grouploses its formeradherents.The people will not only witness the results of Pharisaicpower, but they will come to realize and reject the wickedness of the Pharisees. 17IT'1'W-1 tIM 77M 71InRM'Innol jbnt[:n] E:n;P07'g 'n:ftni ...' D'nn :nrimu*r rprtnbnn -vt rits 1:WIBVJ3vac 7n: mssnptrnns : 1:': :':m14'7M285 nnt[:]r:nonrzs pmntg :ns: :n:n: bi)i*nt:-nunm nn inuintg np linn:resm,-nk i i-n, n-nnin-I= 3lts pesher: concerning the Seekers-after-Smooth-Things that at the end of time

their evil deeds will be revealed to all Israel, 4and many will understand their iniquity and hate them and despise them because of their insolent guilt. And upon the revelation of the glory of Judah, -the simple ones of Ephraim will flee from the midst of their congregation and will leave those who mislead them and will join themselves to Israel.

Once again, there are two phrasesin this pesherwhich standout as "'unpeggedpluses"to the lemma, and once again these phrasescan be viewed as cross-referencesto Daniel 11:32-35. There is no equivalent in Nahum to ::IW: l:'M'DlIl nor to bK10t [I tD 1*21,both of which are by now familiarto us from chapter11 of Daniel and from the previous pesher interpretationwe discussed. In contrastwith the previousexamples, this pesher shows some reworkingof Daniel in its use of the borrowedterminology.Daniel predicts that "the knowledgeableamong the people will make the many understand (

*1:')."

There :]"' is a causative verb, with the

"many"serving as the indirectobject;in the pesher,the "many"functions as the subject of m:'r, indicating those who will understand). ':n" 0;bD 1l* seems to refer to folMoreover,in Daniel, nmpbpmn: lowers of the Smooth-talkers.That is how we understoodthe phrase in its previousadaptationin PesherNahum (ExampleIII.b).However, in this case, the term 11*flseems to indicatethose who remove themselves from the Seekers-after-Smooth-things and join the true Israel, the community of Qumran.We tentatively raise the possibility that Jer. 50:4-5 functions as an intermediarytext, serving as a vehicle which enables the authorof Pesher Nahum to adapt Dan. 11 to this

10

SHANI L. BERRIN

differentcontext. The text in Jeremiahreads, "In those days and at that time ... the childrenof Israel and the childrenof Judahtogether will come and attachthemselvesto the Lord (bLU1l*1) by a covenant for all time." Dan. 11:35 states that "the time" has not yet come; 4QpNah wishes to describe a time in which salvation has indeed arrived,the "time"for entry into the eternal covenant mentionedin Jeremiah.The languageof Daniel is thus re-workedin a mannerthat stressesthe arrivalof the long-awaitedtime of enlightenmentand salvation, for which the time had not yet been ripe in the prophecyfound in the book of Daniel itself. In this context, it is interesting to note a similar re-working of Daniel 11:34-35 by a Karaiteexegete, as cited by N. Wieder:22 "It is furtherwritten:nlp pr7r: D":: 71*n i.e. they [meaningthe maskilim]3 will now be joined by many of the people of God who have turnedaway from the words of the shepherds,who fed [them] with smooth things, with the smoothnessof their lips ... those who previously were unwillingto join and embracethe stringentways and keep the prohibitionsof the Torahof the Lordaccordingto the teachingsof the maskilim."In this Karaite eisegesis of Daniel, the phrase 1I*:1 fl-*1nDr: crn :nrrtu is presented as an assurance that the people will

abandon their earlier (Rabbanite)allegiance, and join the Karaites. The : of Mlpbptn: is treatedas though it means "instead";they will follow the way of the maskiliminstead of smooth things. This Karaite"eisegesis,"as I have termedit, highlightsan interesting questionabouttheuse of secondarybiblicalsourcesin PesherNahum. We have made the claim that lexical influence indicates contextual relevance;the use of biblical terminologyin a pesher is an implicit referenceto a biblical context. In our first two cases (examplesI and II), we suggested that biblical terminologyprovideda hyperlink,or cross-reference,which helped clarify an ambiguoushistoricalcontext. In the examples in section III, implicitreferencesto chapter11 of the book of Daniel helped clarify the contextof the pesher.But it remains unclearwhetherany of these pesherformulationsare also intendedas interpretationsof Daniel itself. Is Daniel viewed as describinga parallel case, and thus providing a relevant perspectiveon the current context?Or does the peshergo even furtherand aim to providea con-

22 Judahben Elijah Hadassi,Eshkol Hakofer, 132, lamed, cited by Wieder in The Judean Scrolls and Karaism(London:East and West Library,1962), 137. 23 I.e. the Karaites.

THE USE OF SECONDARY BIBLICAL SOURCES IN PESHER NAHUM

11

temporizingre-interpretation of Daniel as well? We have demonstrated the significance of secondary biblical sources in Pesher Nahum as vehicles of expression for interpretationsof Nahum. It remains to be determined whether the pesher's use of these sources should be viewed as implicit biblical interpretation,or "implicit biblical citation."24

24 This paper has been adapted from a paper presentedat the ThirteenthWorld Congressof Jewish Studies in Jerusalem,August 2001.

PRACTICALWISDOM IN 4QINSTRUCTION JOSHUAEZRA BURNS Yale University

4QInstruction,or the "MusarleMevin"document,as reconstructed by modem editors, is comprisedof a numberof fragmentaryscrolls from Cave 4, of which several are of sufficientlengthto imbueits text with a distinct profile.' Its primaryfocus revolves aroundcontemplation of the eschaton,the hereafter,touchingupon issues of rewardand punishment,and offeringthe readeradvice assertingthe notion that a praiseworthylife will merit a favorablejudgment.4QInstructionhas been classified by scholars as a wisdom text of the genre typical amongstthe scrolls, and indeed second templeperiodJewish literature in general.The text has been identifiedas a representativecomponent in the developmentof the genre, the distinct featuresof which place its stance somewhere between the speculative positions assumed by

I

The document,initiallylabeledSapientialWorkA, has been arrangedon the basis of five significantmanuscriptsfrom Cave 4 (4Q415-418, 4Q423), three smallerfragments whose place in the documenthave not been determined(4Q418a-c), and a correspondingcopy fromCave 1 (1Q26). On the groupingof the fragments,see T. Elgvin, "The Reconstructionof SapientialWorkA," RevQ 16 (1995) 559-80; J. Strugnelland D.J. Harrington(eds), Qumran Cave 4XXIV: 4Qfnstruction (Musar leMevin): 4Q415ff. (DJD 34; Oxford:ClarendonPress, 1999) 17-20. In referringto the variousfragments, I will follow the designationsthat follow theirmost recentarrangement,as appliedby Strugnelland Harringtonin the DJD edition. Although certainrelevantparts of the 4Q416 and4Q417 manuscriptscontainoverlappingcontent,I shall for the sake of easier referencetend to cite the text from 4Q417, as publishedby Strugnelland Harrington. The form of the documentis one of a moralizingset of instructionsto an individual addressedas a "'1:0," not to be renderedas a "maven"in the word's Yiddish sense, but more accurately"one who understands," i.e. one who is a perceptiveindividual. I don't believe that the label refers to a known type of individualor that its use would have called to the mind of the ancient reader a preconceivedcharacter. Rather,the subjectought to be definedin the termsdelineatedby the documentitself, so that any individualwho heeds its advice would de facto assume the mantleof the of the mevineffectivelyopens the documentto the broader mevin.This characterization audience of the sectarianworld, not limiting its wisdom to consumptionby the few who would have been seen to merit its counsel. ? Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2004 Also available online - www.brill.nl

Dead Sea Discoveries 11, I

PRACTICALWISDOM IN 4QINSTRUCTION

13

Ben Sira in his work and by Pseudo-Solomonin his apocryphalBook of Wisdom. Yet despite its decidedlyspeculativenature,we encounter in 4QInstructionwhat appearsto be a strainof advice that seems more practicalthan sapiential. The text's apocalyptic interest may be it's most unique element, and indeed the one that has arousedthe most interestin currentscholarship. But the counsels offered in the document actually cover a range of issues. Its various advices are strungtogetherin a none-toocohesive fashion, boundingfrom one subject to another,much in the style employed in the books of Proverbsand Ben Sira. Much of its advice is ethereal, describing the imperative of the mysterious "tn mln,"and offeredin the context of a broaderdiscourseon the natures of the creation and of the imminent eschaton. Some of its advice, however, seems orientedtowardrealia, profferingdirectionsregarding more mundane topics as family life, business dealings, and social interaction.Its brief sidebaron the wife and family (4Q416 2 iii 15iv 13), though not obvious in its relationto the broadertheme of the document,does not involve a topic foreign to antecedentJewish sapiential works.2Its advice on financialtransactions,and especially their interactiveaspects, however, is starklyincongruouswith the milieu of the rest of the document. Yet even these tangible matters are addressedwith the detachedgravitycharacteristicof a sapientialtreatise, addressing the reader in a second-personimperative style, sterilely dictatingwhat the mevin is and what he is not to do. It is amidst this etherealpedagogythat the authordigressesto addressa very real problem, the threatof physical violence to the person of the mevin. (a) The mangledmevin in 4QInstruction Among the lofty morals prescribedto the mevin appears a bit of advice that yanks the reader out of the philosophical medium and throwshim squarelyin the middle of a Greco-Romansocial complex seemingly alien to the tenor of 4QInstruction.In a frameworkpatterned upon the document's eschatological interest, the mevin is exhorted to humble himself before the Lord in his effort to merit a

2 Cf. Sir. 3:1-16, 9:1-9, 25:13-26:27, et al. See J.J. Collins, Jewish Wisdomin the HellenisticAge (Louisville:WestminsterJohn Knox, 1997) 64-73 for discussion and parallelsto Ben Sira.

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JOSHUA EZRA BURNS

favorablejudgment.3But the directionof the discoursethereaftertakes a sharp turn away from concerns of divine justice and begins to addressa distinctlyhumanform of recompense.4What seemed a mere metaphorfor poverty, the referenceto the mevin's humility is recast as an indicationof actual destitution,of dire financialconditions.If, the narratoradvises, the mevin were to find himself so sorely broke that he can't even feed himself, he is advised "niron Mp,"to "take,"or borrow from someone, for this too, says the narrator,is part of the portionthat God has predeterminedas the lot of the mevin.S Once the mevin is assumed to have taken out the said loan, however,his fortunetakesa troublingturn.Suddenly,theindebtedis instructed to rack himself with angst, and is told to bristle underthe expected harsh survey of his creditor.6That the borrowershould remainwary of his debt is natural;that he should defer to the pressureof his creditor is less intuitive,but nonethelesscomprehensible.But in no time at all, the poor mevin is on his knees, receivinga flogging and getting beaten with a stick.7Ouch! What has happenedhere? How did the topic of 4QInstructionveer from a discussionof lofty eschatologicalspeculationto one of raucous brutality?Althoughthe words are lost beyondthis point in the instruction, the topic, I feel, can be safely seen to have run aground in respectto its originalcourse. The wisdom of this passage, it seems, is quite practical-too practical, in fact, for a sapiential treatise. The advice offered cannot even be called a moral instruction,but seems more a concessive gesture, informing the unfortunatedebtor that it I 4Q417 2 i 14-17. In respectto the motif of poverty,"'IDUttr"is employedin In. 14 and both "71':K" and "fl'rn7 " in In. 17. 4 Cf. the following with Sir. 27:1-7. s 4Q417 2 i 18-21. I am following here the reconstructionof Strugnelland Harringtonwho utilize the np of In. 18 to governthe apparentimperativeof In. 19 as well, renderingthe verb first as 'take' and then as 'borrow,'based on a similarreadingin the relatedsapientialtext 4Q424 (DJD 34.187). The term'Thi:nr," is repeatedin lns. 19 and 21, and later in In. 24 as well. 6 4Q417 2 i 21-24; Cf. Prov. 6:1-5. One might suggest a non-linearreadingof the recommendationsto the mevin, a readingwhich would not requireus to imaginethat his newly assumedonus is a directresultof the aforementionedmonetarytransaction. However,as I hope to demonstrate,the terms employed throughoutthis section tend to drawtogetherthe themesof advice into a groupsuggestiveof contemporary Jewish notionsof due legal process;note especially In. 24, whereinthe mevin is instructedto submitto the reproach,the `.:n:" of his patron.As we shall soon discuss, this term bears considerableweight in the context of the sectariancommunity. 7 4Q417 2 i 25-28.

PRACTICALWISDOM IN 4QLNSTRUCTION

15

would not be outside the boundsof expected behaviorfor his creditor to administersome form of physical abuse as long as the loan remains outstanding. There is a conspicuouswhiff of incongruitysuffusingthe advice to the mangled mevin. If indeed the documentis a productof the Dead Sea sect, the mere suggestion of such violent behavior amidst the sedate Qumranitesis striking. Even from the earliest stages of the community'sdevelopment,there had apparentlybeen set in place a complex system of civil procedure,one with a highly structuredset of rules regardingthe sect's modes of legal redress.The "streetjustice" of 4QInstructionis thus quizzical in its evidently licit administration, a social conventionuncharacteristicnot only of the Dead Sea sect but of the nascenthalakhicsociety envisionedin the rabbinicera. Further to this disparityis the passage's utter lack of context. The prevailing tenor of 4QInstructionis one typical of sapientialdiscourse,addressing the issue of God's eschatologicaljudgment,and offeringthe reader advice as to how to best gain His favor. Yet with our beleaguered mevin, the tone shifts to assume an apologetic stance, effectively telling the readerhow to sate not the Lordbut a peeved creditor.What does this have to do with the promiseof heavenly retribution? I will in the present study attemptto tie up these loose ends. By placing the incongruouspassage into its literary and historical contexts, I hope to demonstratethat the advice extended to the mangled mevin is, if nothing else, reflective of the dangerousposition of the indebted in the Roman-eraJudea contemporaryto the settlementof the Dead Sea sect. In doing so, I hope as well to providerationalefor the specific languageutilized by the authorof 4QInstruction,language that belies certain eschatologicalconcepts fundamentalto the framework of the documentas a whole. (b) Social legislation in the Qumranlegal codes Perhapsmost problematicabout our passage from 4QInstructionis not the mere appearanceof the vicious creditor,but the manner in which we are forced to digest the episode in light of our knowledge of the strict penal codes to which the Dead Sea sect was evidently bound.The sectarianpenal code, which appearswith variationsin the QumranDamascusDocument(4QDa-h [4Q266-273]) and the Rule of the Community(lQS) manuscripts,was quite clearly a viable entity, one bearing modes of legal recourse inherentlyintertwinedwith the

16

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developing organizational structure of the Qumran community.8 The penal code, or more precisely, codes, are comprisedof lists of offenses, recordingfirst the transgressionin question, followed by a prescribedpunishment.9The penalties imposed upon those deemed guilty were, in contrastto the vigilantejustice describedin 4QInstruction, quite meek. The very worst of offenses incurred permanent expulsion from the sect, while most infractionswere punishedwith abrogationsof the transgressor'srights within the frameworkof the community:the reductionof his food rations, his being barredfrom partakingof the so-called "pure"foods. Nowhere, of course, do we have any hint of the sort of penaltylevied against the indebtedmevin in 4QInstruction.In fact, one proscription in lQS seems to warn

8 I refer here to the theory placing the CD version of the penal code at an earlier stage in the developmentof the sectarianlaw than those which appearin the 4QD manuscripts,itself a componentof the 'GroningenHypothesis'set forth by F. Garcia Martinez in his articles "QumranOrigins and Early History,"Folia Orientalia 25 (1988) 113-36 and, with A.S. van der Woude,"A 'Groningen'Hypothesisof Qumran Origins and Early History,RevQ 26 (1990) 521-41. I do not necessarilyagree with GarciaMartinezin respectto his intimationthat the Qumransect was an offshootof a priorEssene group;in the matterof the sect's roots I defer to the theorydevelopedby L.H. Schiffman;see Schiffman,ReclaimingtheDead Sea Scrolls (New York:Doubleday, 1995) 83-95. GarciaMartinez'smethodology,however,holds fast in its treatmentof the developmentof the sectarianpenal code as a process evident in light of the two aforementionedrecensions;see F. GarciaMartinezand J. TrebolleBarrera,The People of the Dead Sea Scrolls (trans.W.G.E. Watson;Leiden:Brill, 1995) 152-57; cf. L.H. Schiffman,SectarianLaw in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Courts,Testimony,and the Penal Code (Chico, CA: ScholarsPress, 1983) 155-73, who treatsthe penalcode in a strictly halakho-centriccontext,and who identifieda stratumof the code priorits development into the Rule of Community,which stage we now can identifyamong the Cave 4 versions of the DamascusDocument.Thatthe penal code describedin the 4QD fragments itself underwentconsiderablechange and actuallyreflectsmultiplestrataof recension I accept as well; see J.M. Baumgarten,"The Cave 4 Versions of the QumranPenal Code,"JJS 43 (1992) 273-76; SchiffmanReclaiming108. For the sake of simplicity, however,I shall in this study refer to the DamascusDocumentand to the Rule of the Communityas uniformdocuments,as we will not be dealing with them in a formcritical framework;I shall refer to individual manuscriptswhen necessary. For an index of the penal code keyed to the lQS and 4QD manuscripts,see C. Hempel,"The Penal Code Reconsidered,"Legal Texts and Legal Issues: Proceedingsof the Second Meetingof the InternationalOrganizationfor QumranStudies,Cambridge,1995 (ed. M. Bernstein,et al.; Leiden: Brill, 1997) 338-41, 344. For a synoptic listing of the variants in the 4QD penal code(s), see Baumgarten,"The Cave 4 Versions of the QumranPenal Code"275-76. 9 Damascus Document:4Q266 10; 4Q269 11 i-ii; 4Q270 7 i; Rule of the Community: lQS 6:24-7:25, with parallels in 4QSe and 4QS (4QS261). As these latter fragmentscontainonly minororthographicalvariantsfrom the Cave 1 version,I shall, except where noted, employ lQS in my referencesto the document.

PRACTICALWISDOM IN 4QINSTRUCTION

17

against this sort of behavior,imposing a year-longexpulsionfrom the communityupon one who "takeshis hand against someone else," or who "takesthe law into his own hand."'0 The operationof vigilantejustice within the sect clearly has no lawful basis. In fact, the codes are quite specific in providinga more temperate mode of legal redress in civil cases. In apparentdeference to Lev. 19:17-18, both the Damascus Document and the Rule of the The Communityprescribetheir adherentsa process of rebuke,7lrMM.T" verse in the Pentateuchordains,amidsta discourseon legal procedure: "You shall not hate your brotherin your heart;you shall surelyrebuke (rr:r mnrir) your neighborand not bear sin on his account."The sectarianssubscribedto the idea that a binding legal procedurecould be extrapolatedfromthisverse,thenotionthatan explicitexerciseof reproof was a prerequisiteto furtherlegislation in a civil qase. The responsibility for the procedure,we are told, was to be entrustedto the camp's Overseer,the Cpn, who is known from elsewhere to have played a role in a formal procedureof rebuke.'2 The law of reproof was evidently an essential componentof sectarian legal procedure,part of an immutablecourse of due process without which the litigation could not proceed."3And though the importanceof the rebuke is sufficientlyemphasizedwithin the legal codes, we can now be even more certainof its functionin light of two recently-publishedtexts wherein the procedureof reproof is further elucidated. One, 4QBerakhot(4Q286-290), includes in its benedictions referencesto the functionof the rebukeas a form of discipline, not so much a penalty on its own merit, but a preventive measure intendedto educate the transgressorin the properspirit of the law by

10 IQS 6:27, '"k IT' 7rDi[IM]," as renderedby E. Qimronand J. Charlesworthin J.H. Charlesworth,et al., The Dead Sea Scrolls: Hebrew,Aramaic,and Greek Texts with English Translations,vol. 1 (Tiubingen:Mohr-Siebeck;Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994) 30-31. CD 9:2-4; IQS 5:24-6:1. 12 CD 9:16-20, cf. 5Q13 4:1; For the correlation,see E. Eshel in S.J. Pfann (ed.), Qumran Cave 4.XXVI: Cryptic Texts and Miscellanea, part 1 (DJD 36; Oxford: ClarendonPress, 2000) 475-76. 13 On the centralityof the law of reproofin the legal writingsof the Dead Sea sect, see Schiffman,SectarianLaw,92-97; J.M.Baumgartenin J.M.Baumgarten(ed.),Qumran Cave 4.XIII: The Damascus Document (4Q266-273) (DJD 18; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996) 7; John Kampen, "CommunalDiscipline in the Social World of the MattheanCommunity," CommonLifein theEarlyChurch(ed.J.V.Hills,et al.;Harrisburg, PA: TrinityPress Int'l, 1998) 159-67.

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delineatinghis deviationtherefrom.'4The other,4Q477, labeledby the editors "RebukesReportedby the Overseer,"completes the picture, provideswhat appearto be recordsof the mm:rnin action, transcriptions of the procedureas it was performedby the Overseer.The sins transgressedby the litigants in question are, as in 4QBerakhot,not clear and are best characterizedas ethical breaches:having a short temper,being of haughtyspirit,etc.'5 Nonetheless,it is quite obvious that any officialswho would have upheld such lofty behavioralideals within their communitywould not have been very keen on allowing a litigant to prosecutehis opponentwith the advocacy of a whackingstick.16

14 B. Nitzan, "The Laws of Reproofin 4QBerakhot(4Q286-290) in Light of Their Parallelsin the DamascusCovenantand OtherTexts from Qumran,"Legal Textsand Legal Issues: Proceedingsof the SecondMeetingof the InternationalOrganizationfor QumranStudies,Cambridge,1995 (ed. M. Bernstein,et al.; Leiden:Brill, 1997) 157, of the text (159-60), notes (155-56) that 161-63. Nitzan,in her updatedreconstruction no legal transgressionsare specified in this version of the law of reproof,but merely She does, however,suggest that theoreticalvices such as anger (rs) and envy (FrtDp). these ethicaldirectiveswere seen as elementsof the enforceablelaw of the Torah,tributariesof the "love your neighboras you love yourself"maximin Lev. 19:18.Cf. here Eshel in Pfann, DJD 36.482, note on 4Q477 2 ii 8. 's Eshel in Pfann,DJD 36.476 and following. verse, 16 The law of rebuke,in that it seems to have been foundedupon a scriptural can be clearly discernedas having had conceptualparallels in other ancient Jewish sources.On the appearanceof prototypicallaws of reproofin Ben Sira (19:13-17), the Testamentof Gad (6:1-5), and the New Testament,see Eshel in Pfann,DJD 36.475; Nitzan, "The Laws of Reproof,"151-152; J.L. Kugel, "On HiddenHatredand Open Reproach:EarlyExegesis of Leviticus 19:17,"HTR80 (1987) 47-52. On the new 'ethical' transgressionsof 4QBerakhotand 4Q77 and their implicationsto the Israelite community as described in the Gospel of Matthew, see Kampen, "Communal Discipline,"167-72. In respectto knownparallels,one could suggesthere the laterhighly-developedrabbinic procedureof mWinr,warning, a prerequisitestage in the exaction of corporal punishment,as prescribedin the talmudiccodes and first alluded to as early as the mishnaicperiod,as is evident in m. San. 5:1. Althoughthe "warning"procedurewas no doubt relatedin concept to that of the "rebuke,"the developmentof the rabbinic law took place well into the tannaitic period and bears only vague traces of the Qumranicmethod(Schiffman,SectarianLaw,97-98; Nitzan,ibid. 152-53).As is described in numerousloci throughoutrabbinicliterature(see esp. b. San. 8b, 40b-41a, 80b; b. was originallydesignedto be administeredafter Mak. 6b, 16a;t. San. 11:1),the KTnnM the subject'sinitial transgressionof a given law in an effort to avert his repetitionof that same violation.The Qumranic7n:Dn,in comparison,was not envisionedas a preventativemeasure,but as a conciliatoryone, to have been administeredafter the violation but not in anticipationthat it would be repeated;on the contrary,the sectarian procedurewas to be recordedand kept on file. In the event that the transgressorwas caughtcommittingthe same errora second time, he would receive the due punishment ("IMtr3C:5"; see CD MS A 9:19-20). This ominous decree, as recorded in the

PRACTICALWISDOM IN 4QINSTRUCTION

19

Althoughmuch of 4QInstructionis concernedwith issues not alien to the ongoing eschatologicaldiscussion of the Dead Sea Scrolls, we must be careful not to assume that this document is necessarily a productof the Dead Sea sect. Its strainsof wisdom and advice could easily be construedas the productsof any camp of ancientJewish philosophy. In fact, the Musar leMevin, for all its lofty metaphysical speculation,bears no indication that it was composed in a medium afield of the Judeanliterarymainstream.Unawareof the document's originalprovenance,therefore,we canonly makeguessesas to its intended role in the context of a broaderlegal system. In light of the temperate natureof the Dead Sea sect's legal proceduresand penal codes, it is certainlydifficultto construea set of circumstancesunderwhich the behaviordescribedin 4QInstructionwould have had to have been recognized by the novice mevin as a legitimate danger within its localized community.While we remain puzzled as to how such a reader might have perceivedthe advice offeredto him, we can be reasonably certain that the evil creditorreferencedthereinwould not have been acting underthe auspices of the Dead Sea sect. Its legal codes simply do not accommodaterogue violence as a means of negotiation. Furtherdistancingthe passage from the likelihood of a Qumranic origin is the mere notion of privateownershipin the context of a community bound by the known Dead Sea legal codes. The sectarians were supposedto have lived in an archetypalcommunistsociety, surrenderingtheir propertyto the sect as a collective. This rule is stated

DamascusDocument,was to be appliedonly to a capitaloffense (rtlwn:r, CD MS A 9:6, 9:17; see Schiffman,SectarianLaw 92; Kampen,"CommunalDiscipline" 163). The rabbinicwarning,however,was eventuallyappliedto all mannersof corporaldisciplining, includingthe non-lethalflogging, or mnpt, to which topic we shall return later. An additionaldifference,pointedout by Nitzan, "TheLaws of Reproof" 153, is that the rabbinicwarningwas not a legal procedureper se in that it was not meantto be performedin a juridical setting, but in confidentiality,in order to preclude any embarrassment on the partof the transgressor.The Qumranicrebuke,on the otherhand was to be performedin a procedureofficiatedby the Overseerand witnessedby designatedobservers(CD 9:16-19; lQS 6:1). In my opinion, the connection between the rabbinic warning and the Qumranic rebuke is justified in that they likely stemmedfrom a common pentateuchalsource. However, I would hesitate to place the Qumranicprocedurein a position within the developmentalframeworkof the later tannaiticmodel. The modi operandiof the two proceduresare sufficientlydisparateto warrantthe dissociation.In respectto our study, moreover,identificationof the rabbinicIN-TTlwith the sectarianlaw would not be helpful,as tannaiticlaw, quite unlike sectarianlaw, did indeedpermitbodily harm,in the form of flogging, as a legal mannerof discipline.

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explicitly in the Rule of the Community,'7 and allusions to it abound

throughoutboth thatwork and the DamascusDocument.'8Underideal circumstances,the membersof the Dead Sea sect presumablywere to have bowed to the authorityof their legal codes, eschewing private ownershipand consultingwith the leaders of their sect when a withdrawalfromthe publicfundwas necessary.'9Theneedymevin,as a member of such a community,likely would have had access to this fund, makingsuperfluousany need to seek monetaryaid from an outsider.20 Yet alongsidethe laws that prescribethe sectarians'rejectionof private propertyare laws that presumethe retentionof privateproperty among the members.2'By the stage at which the Rule of the Communitywas instituted,there existed a friction over the distinctionbetween privateand public propertyso evident that it necessitateda law addressingthose who would lie about the matter.22In the heyday of the Dead Sea sect, it seems, the paragonsof virtue in respect to the rules of propertyhad so erodedthat in the resultingsystem, "use was communalbut ownershipwas private."23 Possessionswere shared,but the recognition of one's own private property apparentlywas still upheld. The poor man of the sectariancommunityseems to have lived in a society with this sort of haphazardwelfare complex in place. He might have been affordedsome aid from commonfunds, but was provided with no guaranteethathis personalpiggy bankwould be replenished should he find himself so completelybereft of assets. Forcedto seek alternatemeans of funding,the sectarianwould not have been at a loss for options.Thrivingin the wildernessof Judeawas a network of desert outposts occupied by peoples of varying degrees of social

lQS I 6:19-20. CD 9:22; 12:8-11; IQS 1:11-12; 5:2; 7:6-8, 24-25, et al. On the communaluse of property, see Schiffman, Reclaiming, 106-10; J.C. VanderKam,The Dead Sea Scrolls Today (GrandRapids,MI: Eerdmans,1994) 82, 172-73. Both Josephus(War 2:122) and Pliny (HistoriaNaturalis 5:78) remarkedon analogouspracticesin their Essene communities,providingevidence that such operationwas commonamongquite a few Jewish sectariangroups,includingthe early Christians;cf. Acts 2:44 45; 4:32; 5:1-11. 19See CD 13:14-16, IQS 6:24-25; 7:6-8. For furthertextualattestationto this procedure, see C.M. Murphy, Wealth in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the Qumran Community(Leiden:Brill, 2002) 57-60. 20 CD 14:12-16, 16:14-16. 21 CD 9:10-14; 12:8-11; 14:12-16. 22 lQS 6:24-25. 23 Schiffman,Reclaiming,110. 18

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conscientiousness.These towns were not unitedundera universallegislative aegis, each one essentially governedby the landowneror collective who held sway over the local trade. Despite the fact that the legal codes discouragemonetarytransactionswith individualsoutside of their communities,24 it would not be unreasonableto assume that a man so destitute may have been forced to seek the aid of eager moneylendersworking in the towns peripheralto his own. So who was the specious moneylenderof 4QInstruction?It's no mystery-he was simplyan opportunist,perhapsfromJerusalem,perhaps from Jericho, a man whose business it was to take advantageof the poor.25In fact, it doesn't really matter.Once a sectarianhad set foot outside of his insularcommunity,he had enteredthe wider, more precarious world of Roman-eraJudea. The advice to the batteredmevin bears the ring of universalprudence,essentiallyadvising the borrower of the dangers of the money-lending trade. It must therefore be regardedas reflectiveof the broadersocial dimensionsof the ancient Jewish world. The vicious creditormust be perceivedas a figurewho posed a threatto any Jew, sectarianor otherwise,who maintainedreverence for contemporarysocial and financialinstitutions. (c) Debt-bondageas a legal means of restitution But whereforethe author'stacit acceptanceof physical abuse? In thebroadercontextsof boththeknownJewishandGreco-Romanspheres, the mere mention of such violence calls to mind one common social construct:slavery. The slave was universallytreatedas a subhuman figure, an individualwhose civil rights were abrogatedby his social position. If there was anyone in the ancient world who would have been acquaintedwith the sortof beatingofferedthe mevinin 4QInstruction, it was the lowly servant.And it is towardslavery that we must turn to uncover the vital relationshipunderlyingthe friction between the creditorand the lender in 4QInstruction. That connection is the ancient notion of 'debt-bondage.'Defined simply, the notion of debt-bondageprescribedthat a borrower'smonetary obligations, if he was unable to afford restitutionby a given deadline, could be fulfilled by his entranceinto indenturedservitude, becoming a slave to the lender.The practicewas a common, if much

14 CD 9:8-9; 13:14-16; 1QS 5:14-18. 25

Cf. here the "richman"and "influentialman"in Sir. 13:1-24.

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reviled, form of investment security throughoutthe ancient world. Althoughthe terminologyis borrowedfrom the Greco-Romanworld, the institutionof debt-bondagewas deeply ingrainedin the law of the Jews,evidenceof thepracticeappearingquiteexplicitlyin thePentateuch. The practice of debt-bondagewas as simple as that of monetary security.The poor man, in lieu of money or possessions,would offer his own man-poweras security for a loan. A default on said loan would result in his conversionto the status of a 'debt-slave,'a status which ideally renderedits subjects"betweenfree men and slaves,"but in reality placed them firmly under the authorityof their creditors.26 Both at Athens27and at Rome28the practicehad been long outlawedby the era of the Dead Sea sect, althoughwe find attestationto its wideIn spreadpopularitywell into the later stages of the RomanEmpire.29 fact, debt-bondagewas not merely a last resortbut often enforcedas the initial course of action in a creditor'sattemptat restitution,who wouldhavebeenexpectedto levy a "personalexecution,"i.e. vigilantism, in his quest.30 Debt-bondagecould have easily found a place among the Jews of ancient Israel. Simply put, the essential frameworkof a debt-bondage

26 ThomasWiedemann, GreekandRomanSlavery(Baltimore:JohnsHopkinsUniversity Press, 1981) 36, quoting the Second CenturyCE Hellenistic Egyptianlexicographer Julius Pollux, Onomasticon3:83. 27 In Athens, the practicewas bannedby the reformerSolon as partof an effortto relieve the burdens of the indebted around the year 592 BCE (Pseudo-Aristotle, AthenaionPolitieia 6:1). Althoughthe sort of servitudeemployed at Athens was not permanentslavery, the heavily indebtedseem to have been consideredon par with actual slaves, bearing the label of 8oikot just as would have any other slaves. See G.E.M.de Ste. Croix,Class Strugglein the AncientGreekWorld(London:Duckworth, 1981) 136-37; See also Paul C. Millet, Lending and Borrowing in Ancient Athens (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress, 1991) 48. 28 At Rome, the issue was taken up at a similarlyearly date, probablycirca 326 BCE, when the practice of debt-slavery, there known as the nexum, was officially banned(This date accordingto Livy, Ab Urbe Condita8:28 [cf. 7:27-28], who attributes the lex Poetelia de nexis to the consul Gaius PoeteliusLibo Visolus. Varro,De LinguaLatina 7:105, dates the reformto 313 BCE, ascribingit to the son of the former Poetelius;viz. Wiedemann,Greekand RomanSlavery,40). 29 For a survey of classical Roman-erareferencesto debt-slavery,see Ste. Croix, Class Struggle, 162-70; see also Millet, Lending and Borrowing, 78; viz. primary sources in Wiedemann,Greekand RomanSlavery,37-44. 30 Ste. Croix, Class Struggle, 165-166. See also the canonical 'Twelve Tables' of Roman law, Table III, apud Aulus Gellius, Noctes Attica 20:1, which extends an official grace periodof thirtydays before the creditorwas to be permittedto "lay his hands"upon the indebted.Cf. Matt. 5:25, Luke 12:58, where one being 'accused' is advisedto come to termsquicklybeforehe is handedover to a judge and throwninto

prison.

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institutioncloselyresemblingtheGreco-Roman modelwas fortheIsraelite audience definitively laid down in the Pentateuchitself. The text is quite explicit: "If any who are dependanton you become so impoverished that they sell themselvesto you, you shall not make them serve as slaves. They shall remain with you as hired or bound laborers. They shall serve with you until the year of the Jubilee (Lev. 25:3940).9'31 The passage deals with such individualsin the context of the Hebrew slave, a figure treatedelsewhere in more detail (Exod. 21:111; Deut. 15:12-18; cf. Jer. 34:8-22). The Hebrew slave, unlike the paradigmaticCanaaniteslave, was allowed by the pentateuchalcode to retain his rights as a self-serving individual. His bondage is described with a fixed time limit, for, as the verse says, the Jews saw themselves not as servants of men but as servants of God (Lev. 25:42). The social construct of debt-bondagehas been identified as the ancient Babylonianundercurrentof the legislation in Leviticus, providing literary proof that the practice was not an invention novel to the Greco-Romanera but one which would have been recognized by the Jews as far back as theirlegal historycould be dated.32Although the Torahrefers to this man as an rnDs, as per its typical slave terminology, there is a discrepancy between this and other passages on Hebrew slavery. In other typical cases of Hebrew servitude,wherein the enslaved was for the purposesof labor tantamountto chattel, the Hebrew slave was instructedto be set free upon the seventh year of the shemitahcycle, which would effectively set the maximumtime of his indentureat six years (Deut. 15:12). This Hebrew slave was presumablyborn into his lot, or was a convert,or was acquiredin some other form of monetary transaction.But, as we saw above, a man,

3' NRSV translation. 32 J. Milgrom,Leviticus23-27, AB 3a (New York: Doubleday,2000) 2213-2214; G.C. Chirichigno,Debt-Slaveryin Israel and the AncientNear East (Sheffield:JSOT Press, 1993) 302; cf. 145-146; B.G. Wright,"'Ebed/Doulos:Terms and Social Status in the Meeting of Hebrew Biblical and Hellenistic Roman Culture,"Semeia 83-84 (1998) 86. For discussionof debt-bondageas the foundationfor otherpentateuchallegislation on slavery, see Chirichigno,ibid. 186-96, 268-75. Chirichigno'sstudy generally posits the debt-slaveas the universalsocial constructupon which the pentateuchal slave codes were designed, employing text-criticalreadingsof the relevant passages. In light of his identificationof debt-bondageas a definite substratumto the Israelite law, only our selectionfromLeviticusretainsa languagesufficientlyexplicit as deflects the need for a text-criticalreading.Wright,ibid. 90-91, addressesthe LXX translation of the Leviticuspassage, suggestingthe translators'recognitionof the uniquelegal status of the debt-slave.

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even a Hebrew,whose insolvency was so dire that he needed to sell himself into slavery was to be bound for a maximumof forty-nine This distinctionserves to years, to be freed only upon the Jubilee.33 bolster our identificationof debt-bondageas a legal mode of restitution. Clearly, the referencein Leviticus was to a case not dissimilar from the classical model of debt-bondage. The conceptualrecognitionof the debt-slavein ancientIsrael is not limited to the legal codes; referencesto the practiceof debt-bondage crop up throughoutthe Old Testament.In 2 Kgs. 4:1, a creditorthreatens to enslave the childrenof a deceaseddebtor.In Isa. 50:1, the concept of debt-bondage is employed in reference to the "sale" of mankindto a specious creditor.In Amos, both the righteousand the poor are said to be sold for silver (2:6; 8:6). In Neh. 5:2-5, the sale of childreninto slavery is suggestedas a means to allay the pangs of destitution.And in Prov. 22:7, the borroweris called the slave of the lender.The forceful imageryof debt-bondageis consistentthroughout the Hebrew Scriptures. Thus the institutionof debt-bondagewould have been a very real option to even the most observant Jewish creditors, having been grantedexplicit license in the Torah. The juxtapositionof the scriptural model with the contemporaryGreco-Romanmodel effectively insuredthat the practicewould have been saleable in the Judeansociety of the era duringwhich the Dead Sea sect was active. Although the practiceitself, as far as I can tell, has been definitivelyidentified nowhereelse among the Dead Sea Scrolls, the allusion in 4QInstruction to the mangledmevin appearsto establishthe crucialconnection. But would sectarians reading the Musar leMevin have accepted debt-bondageas a legitimate legal institution?Althoughthe Qumran legal codes are quite specific in their shared insistence against the sectarians' retentionof private property,we can be certain that the institutionof private slavery was not completelyforeign to the community.34The DamascusDocumentcode containstwo vital references that presume the ownership of slaves among its adherents.First, a slaveholderis discouragedfrom exhibitinghostilitytowardhis charges on the Sabbath.3" Second, he is prohibitedfrom selling his slaves to treatmentsof slav33 On the readingof this passage in light of other pentateuchal ery, see Milgrom,Leviticus,2217-19; Chirichigno,Debt-Slavery,303-11. 34 Cf. the Essenesdescribedby Philo, Prob.79, and Josephus,Ant. 18:21,who quite clearly did not tolerateslavery. 3S

CD 11:12; cf. 4Q271 5 i 7.

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the Gentiles,the slaves apparentlyhaving convertedor semi-converted to Judaismwhile underhis command.36 Although no explicit referencesto slavery have been identifiedin the Rule of the Community,it is plausible to suggest that discussion of the practicehad been neglectedby that point in the evolutionof the legal code. But documentaryevidence from Qumransuggests that the institutionof slavery was not completely abolishedin the desert sect. An ostracon recovered from the Qumransite, throughits decidedly fragmentarytext, reveals a transactionwherein a slave named Hisdai was transferredto the possession of a certainEleazar.37Taken in the context establishedby the legal codes and various similar documents recoveredfrom desertsites, the documentappearsto be a deed recording a gift given by one sectarianto another.38 Regardlessof the intent of the transfer,we have in this documentproof positive that at least one form of slavery was practicedat Qumran. In respectto the pentateuchallaw of debt-bondage,we may turnto the apocalyptic lIQMelchizedek(1 1Q13) for a reference upholding the traditionset forth in the Pentateuchprescribingthe release of such slaves upon the Jubilee year.39Althoughthe evidence is only circumstantial, the document clearly composed in a metaphoricalvein, it serves only to reinforceour recognitionthat the Dead Sea sectarians, at some point in their developmentas a community,did indeed tolerate slave-ownership.Assumingthen that the sectarianswere forced to contemplatethe laws of slavery ordainedby the Torah, there is no reasonwhy we shouldn'tconcludethat they would have been wary of the institutionof debt-bondage.

36 CD 12:10-11. On the ambiguity of the objective of this law, see Schiffman, SectarianLaw, 379-80; Schiffman,Reclaiming,373. 37 The so-called "Yahad"ostracon(KhQ1), most recently publishedby F.M. Cross and E. Eshel as "1. KhQOstracon"in Pfann, DJD 36.497 and following, and previously by the same editors in "Ostracafrom Khirbet Qumran,"Israel Exploration Journal 47 (1997) 17-28. I will not include here as evidence the various deeds of slaves sales from Wadi ed-Daliyehand publishedby D.M. Groppin D.M. Gropp,et al. (eds), Wadi Daliyeh II and QumranCave 4XXVIII: Miscellanea, Part 2 (DJD 28; Oxford:ClarendonPress) 33 and following, as we cannotbe certainof the applicable religious affiliationsof the residentsof that settlement. 38 Murphy,Wealth,387-88. 9 1 QMelchizedek2.6, in F. GarciaMartinez,E.J.C.Tigchelaar,and A.S. van der Woude (eds), Manuscriptsfrom QumranCave 11 (JJQ2-8, IIQ20-30) (DJD 23; Oxford:ClarendonPress, 1997) 221-41. Cf. Luke 4.18, where the release of the captive is associatedwith the Jubileeyear; Murphy,Wealth,257.

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Withthisdatain hand,we canfinallyreturnto thetextof 4QInstruction. For in the very next fragmentfollowing the advice to the mangled mevin, we find this telling maxim: "If your treasurepurse you have entrustedto your creditoron accountof your friends,you have given And soon afterwards,quitebluntly, away all your life for it(s price)."40 "Do not sell yourself for money. It takes no stretchof the imaginationto see how these references may have been intended to address the social dilemma of debtbondage.42Even assumingthat the advice offeredin 4QInstructiondid of the mangled not originatein a sectariancontext,its characterization in mevin could easily fill the mold of the debt-slave any of several contexts: the Greco-Romanproxy slave, the Old Testament'sindentured servant,or indeed the unfortunatepauperin a Jewish community. These debtors,all of whom had slid down the pathto destitution, wouldhavefoundthemselvesin similarstraits.Theyweren'tquiteslaves, nor were they free of obligationto their social superiors.They were subjugatedto their new 'masters,' subject to their work orders, and evidently, subjectto their discipline as well. (d) Sects and violence

There should be no doubt that the mevin could have fallen prey to the scourge of debt-bondage,and that his creditorwould have had every right to uphold the ancient institution.Part and parcel of this law was the violence inherentto the system. The abuse of slaves was no doubt a widespreadphenomenonin the Greco-Romanworld; their societies had very little tolerationfor the civil rights of the enslaved. Their possessions, their families, their very bodies were under the dominionof theirowners,alwayssubjectto whateveriniquitousor impulsive needs.43Slaves were forced to sustain physical abuse as a mode of discipline;mastersare said to have beatentheir unassumingslaves

40 4Q417 2 ii 6: "I: flY:"f Z: Mnn:,"translationD.J. Harrington,Wisdom Texts from Qumran(London:Routledge,1996) 42, parenthesesmine. Cf. Sir. 18:33. 41 4Q416 2 ii 17: 71O: -1:[Or 'I]; Cf. the next line: n:rn:z m N. JIM= Wisdom 42 For prior suggestionsof debt bondage in these words, see Harrington, Texts,46; Strugnelland Haffington,DJD 34.105, note on In. 17; Murphy,Wealth,180, 182. 43 See sources cited in K.R. Bradley, Slavery and Society at Rome (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversityPress, 1994) 28-30, 49-50. See note 29 on p. 29 for further references.

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out of sheer frustrationand anger." More temperate slave-owners, however, employed a rationale which reveals the logic behind the institution of debt-bondage:"Solus fustium ictus gravior est quam pecuniarisdamnatio"-a single blow of a stick is heavierthan a monetary penalty.45To the Romans, slaves were thus more propertythan they were people; corporalviolence was seen as nothingmore than a ploy to damage the sense of dignity inherentin the humanbeing.46 Though we've little to discern the rationalespecific to the slavery laws of the Pentateuch,therecan be little doubtof their acceptanceof violence toward certain slaves. The slave-owner is urged against inflictingany sort of bodily harmupon his servants,evidently including those of the Canaanitevariety (Exod. 21:26-27). Yet at the same time he is apparentlygiven license to do so at will, at least up until the point of the slave's death, upon which occasion the offender's actions would not escape retribution(Exod. 21:20-21).47 On the other hand, Hebrew slaves were, for the purposes of societal hierarchy, treatedas equals to their masters.In fact, the referenceto the debtslave in Lev. 25:39-40 is followed by a triptych of notices to the housemasterwarning him not to rule over his charge with force, be the slave a Hebrew,a Canaanite,or a proselyte(Lev. 25:43, 46, 53). Even the fugitive slave is instructedto be treatedwith some measure of egalitarianism (Deut. 23:17).48

I

See Seneca,Dialogi 5 ("OnAnger")3:24, 32; Galen,De AnimaePassionibus1:4,

1:8. Justinian,Digesta 48:19:10:2. 46 R.P. Saller, "CorporealPunishment,Authority, and Obedience in the Roman Household," in Marriage, Divorce, and Children in Ancient Rome (ed. B. Rawson; 4S

Canberra:HumanitiesResearchCenter;Oxford:ClarendonPress; New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 1991) 151-54. 47 On this law, see Chirichigno, Debt-Slavery,163-69, who focuses his attention upon the terminologyof Exod. 20.20-21, "Up:':p'," a deviationof the formulaic"inr r1lz',"employed regularlythroughoutthe Exodus legal codes. Chirichignotakes this term as an indicationthat the verse refers to a Canaaniteslave, who, as the property of his master,would have had no relativesof legal standingwho could prosecutethe murderousslave-owner.In effect, the law prescribesthat no charge could be levied againstthe slave-owner,but that he would be subjectto divine retribution.The slaveowner, he suggests,would have been wholly responsiblefor any bodily harmexacted against a Hebrew debt-slave (pp. 166-67). Cf. the rabbinicdiscussion of this law, which limits its applicabilityto a case where the slave's ownershipis completely in the hand of a single master;any status less than full ownershipwould warrantthe release of the slave (b. B.Q. 90a). The Rabbisbowed to the prescriptionof the verse, but clearlyhad an uneasy opinionover the idea of uninhibitedviolence againstslaves. I8 Again, we have no informationas to what extent these laws were put into practice in Old Testamenttimes, but see Sir. 33:31 (cf. 33:26) for echoes of the ancient

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However, the beleagueredborrowerin 4QInstructionis not a typical slave. As we have seen, his debt-bondageis more of an indentured servitudethan a relegationto being the propertyof his creditor.Yet the poor mevin in 4QInstructionappearsnot to be affordedthe option of earninghis restitutionwith man-hours,but is promptlyand shortly issued a trouncingat the hands of his creditor.More imperativeto the situationenvisionedin 4QInstructionwould be an examinationof corporeal violence not as it relates to the laws of slavery, but as a lawful mode of persuasion. Thepassagedescribingthe mangledmevinemploysdualterminologies to describe the beating inflicted upon him. Initially, the ambiguous verb ni, "afflicted,"is used.49Soon after, the description becomes "struck more specific, telling us that the borrowermight be MwV:%:'%, of terms call to mind a known with a stick."50Though neither these method of legal recourse,they exude the bearingsof vigilante sentiment not unfamiliarto studentsof the milieu whence they were contrived.The use of physicalbrutalityas a legitimatemode of discipline, both for slaves and free men, was well-establishedin the era of the Dead Sea sect. Upon initial consideration,we would assume that the administration of vigilante justice was commonplace in the world of the Hebrew Bible; figures from Moses to Phineas to David are told to have at timesassumedthemantleof thejudge,juryandexecutionerin impromptu hearingson civil affairs.But execution, it seems, was a more popular penalty than merely beating the guilty. Aside from the archaic"eyefor-an-eye" code, or the lex talionis (Exod. 21:23-25; Lev. 19:21; 24:20),5'

the pentateuchalcodes include only one explicit referenceto a nonthe thirty-nine lethal form of bodily punishment,namely that of n stripesor flogging, mentionedin Deut. 25:1-3, specificallyin the context of civil litigation.52Evidently,the numberof stripesadministered

laws advocatedin a voice perhapsreflective of his times; see also Collins, Jewish Wisdom,73-74 for furtherHellenistic-eraparallelevidence. 49 4Q417 2 i 25. Cf. the employmentof this verb in referenceto mortalviolence in Deut. 17:8; 21:5; Prov. 6:33. 50 4Q417 2 i 27. For +b# as a instrumentof mortalviolence, see Exod. 21:20; Mic. 4:14; Isa. 10:15;Prov. 10:13, et al. s' This law was from a very early stage renderedas non-literal,its penaltyconsisting merely of monetarycompensation;see Josephus,Ant. 4:280; m. San. 8:1; b. San. 83b-84a. 52 Note the wordingin Deut 25.1: "If there is a disputebetweenmen and they take it to judgment. . ." The verse identitiesthe flogging penaltyas a legal institutionto be

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was to be subjective,dependanton the circumstancesof the individual crimes at issue (25:2), which provisionmay have been includedin an effort to set limits on a practice already established among the Israelitepopulace.The licensed penalty, however, was prescribedfor no particularsort of offense. It is thereforeimpossibleto determineto what extent its legal usage was upheld in Old Testamenttimes. We may only suggest allusions to the practice of disciplinarycudgeling, culled from the book of Proverbs,as evidence of its continued use (Prov. 19:18; 23:13-14; 29:17; cf. the context in Deut. 21:18). Despite its relativeabsencein the Old Testament,we have a wealth of evidence in later literatureattestingto the continuedemploymentof corporealdiscipline in the sphereof social justice. The debtorin particularappearsto have been a frequenttargetof such correction.Philo recounts an occasion at which a tax-collector appointedwithin the Jewish community of Alexandria, seeking to bear down on certain absentee debtors,resortedto the abductionand methodicaltortureof their family membersand neighbors,demandingrestitutionfrom the While Philo certainlydid not approveof such behavimpoverished.53 ior on moral grounds, he nonetheless seems to have conceded that one's voluntarysubmissionto his social superiors,even as far as the surrenderof his personal freedom, was sometimes an unfortunate necessity.54 Perhapsthe clearestreferenceto the practiceof debt-bondagefrom Roman-eraIsraelis providedin Jesus' parableaddressingthe virtueof forgivenessin Matthew18:23-35. There, a slave (Gk. 8o?koq)is said employed in civil procedure.To be sure, the pentateuchalcodes do refer to certain vaguely-definedpenaltieswhich, althoughnot definedas such in the Bible, were taken by rabbiniccommentatorsas furtherreferencesto the penaltyof nlp'M.One such punishment, mentionedin Lev. 19:20, is called rnMP,literally rendered"investigation" (see b. Ker. Ila), and the other is the subjectionto -O0 (Deut. 21:18, 22:18; cf. Deut. 8:5. See b. Ket. 46a), or "discipline."See below on the limits of the flogging penalty as definedin rabbiniclaw. 53 Philo, Spec. iii.159-162; cf. Spec. ii.74-75. Cf. Josephus,Ant. 12:180-185 for similar episodes at Ascalon and Scythopolis.Cf. also a similar episode describedby the fourthcenturyCE St. Basil of Caesarea,Epistula3:2. 5 Philo,Spec.ii.79-85, commentingon thelawsof theHebrewslavein Deut. 15:12-15. R. MacMullen,Roman Social Relations, 50 BC to AD 284 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974) 11-15, identifiedpapyrirecoveredat sites of ancienttowns in the Nile valley thatreveal this barbarousforce to have been employedthroughoutthe Nile valley. It seemed that the pursuitof debt collection often relegatedthe stricturesof civil legal proceduresto the back of the creditor'smind. The conductthat resultedwas essentiallymanifestedin outrightthuggery,with enforcersaspiring"to 'shakedown'the defenselesswithoutexcuse."

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to beg a certainking for mercy when he is unable to repay an astronomical debt of ten-thousandtalents. The king takes pity and remits the debt. Relieved, the slave leaves the king and soon encountersa fellow slave who owes him a mere one-hundreddenarii. The first slave immediatelyseizes the second by the throat,demandingrestitution and throwingthe debtorinto prison.The moralof the story is not relevant here, but its details are telling. The "slaves" in question, despite their labels, are not actual servants,but debt-slaves.With our knowledge of the practice of debt-bondage,it's quite clear how one so-called "slave"could have been socially superiorto another.55 The Mattheanaudience,regardlessof their individualreligious affiliations, presumablywould have recognizedthe elements of the parable. Once the lien of debt-bondagehad befallen our mevin, he would have been helpless to defendhimself againstthe disciplineof his master, however harsh that might have been. Even bearingthe legal status of a Hebrew servant, the debt-slave would have been subject to the sort of maltreatmentthat was the unfortunatelot of the enslaved. (e) Corporealpunishmentin civil legal procedure The concept of bodily disciplineas legal institutionwas more fully developed by the Rabbis, whose treatmentof the pentateuchallaws updatedthe archaicIsraelitecode for applicationto a society attuned to the actual treatmentof criminalbehavior.Whereasthe Torahprovided very scant detail on corporealpunishment,the vicissitudesof the Jewish society contemporaryto the era of the Tannaimnecessitateda vast revision of the ancient law. The details of its undercurrent legal strategycan be read as evidence pertinentto the social circumstances surroundingthe mangledmevin episode. The pentateuchalpenalty of flogging providedthe Tannaimwith a scripturalbasis about which they circumscribedthe superstructure of an entirely novel order of legal requital. The Rabbis never defined which types of violations were to be deemed deserving of flogging, but the mishnaiccodex, in the tractateof Makkoth,"Penalties,"attests to its many applications.

ss Forthis identification,see Ste. Croix,Class Struggle,164. Wright,"'Ebed/Doulos," discusses the relevance of the Greek term bo&bo; to Hellenistic Jewish writers, but the choice of words seems to bear little upon this New Testament passage.

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The penalty of flogging, as treated in the rabbinic codes, was clearly seen as an alleviating substitute for the more strict, albeit vague, divine judgment. That the Rabbis sought to soften the often harsh decree of the Torahwith their expansive institutionof flogging can be demonstratedby its applicationto the case of the false witness (mirt W) in m. Mak. 1:1.56 The Deuteronomiclaw would have such a violator subjected to whatever judgment in which he intended to implicatethe defendant(Deut. 19:16-21).7 That non-specificprescription, unique in the Pentateuchas a qualitativelyvarying penalty,was evidently seen as a parallel to the quantitativelyvarying flogging, which, as we have seen, was ordainedin quite specific terms. M. Mak. 3:1-8 prescribesthe penalty of flogging to those negative commandments("thoushalt not.. .") addressedby the Torahbut not explicitly associatedwith a particularmeans of corporealpunishment. These commandmentswere at some point before the tannaiticperiod perceivedas belonging to a categorytranscendingthe boundsof civil law and were, by the period of the Mishnah,designatedas 'tTk I': :lpUt," breachesin the relationshipbetween man and God, or simply 'divine law,' as opposed to the civil law infracted'Irrsnrf Crt r"9 between man and his fellow man."8The violation of such laws, since their penalties were not specified in the Pentateuch,were by some thoughtto incursomeformof divineretribution.59 By thetannaiticperiod, there appears to have been a consensus agreeing to shelve the illdefined penalty of divine judgment and apply the punishment of flogging as the preferredjudgmentin non-civil cases.60

56 On this legislation,see Philo, Spec. ii.27-28, who somewhatcuriouslyknew that the penaltyof flogging was to be levied against the false witness long before the age of the Rabbis. S7 The case presentedin the Mishnahis employedas a paradoxicalmodel which, as elucidatedin the Talmud(b. Mak. 2a), serves as justificationfor the introductionof flogging as a stand-infor otherill-definedpenalties.See the cited texts for the exegetical logic employedin redefiningthe fluctuatingpentateuchalpenalty. 58 See m. Yoma 8:9 and furthertreatmentbelow. S9 See m. Mak. 3:15; b. Mak. 13b; cf. m. San. 9:6; b. Shevu. 21a; b. Shab. 25a; b. Mo'ed Q. 28a; b. Yev. 2a; y. Bik. 2:1; 64c, et al.; biblical source in Num. 17:28. For the scripturalbasis of the concept of divine punishment,see Exod. 21:23-25; Lev. 24:19-21; Deut. 28:58-59; cf. Nathan'sparableto David in 2 Sam. 12:1-20, esp. vv. 13-14. w The applicationof the flogging penalty was seen not as an addendumto the Scripturalpenaltyof divine deathbut as an unequivocalreplacement;one punishedby floggingwas thoughtto have been legally exonerated.Thus the flogging penaltycould exempt one from a lighterpenaltysuch as a monetaryfine (m. Mak. 1.2; b. Mak. 4b;

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As for the rabbinicattitudetowardthe applicationof flogging as a means of civil discipline, it was much more reservedthan what was implicitlyendorsedin their scriptures.Their institutionof nMr- rnz:), apparentlysome sort of publicflogging,was employedonly in extreme cases of civil violations wherein, unlike the cases typically deserving of flogging, the violatorvocally refusedto obey a positive commandment ("thou shalt.. .").61 Other known legal applications of flogging

involve violations not specifically addressed in the Pentateuchbut ones clearly demonstratingthe perpetrator'slack of discipline, for example, having sexual relationsin public (b. Yev. 90b), and making untenablevows (y. Suk. 5:2, 55b).62 The Rabbis authorizedthe widespreadapplicationof flogging as a legal means of retribution.But they strayedfrom the plain text of the Torah in prescribingit as a mode of penance in non-civil cases, a legal recourse that had been in place since New Testamenttimes.63

b. Ket. 32a), and conversely,it could not exemptone from a heavierone such as execution (t. Mak. 5:17). We should note here that the rabbinicprescriptionof flogging, though a common penalty,did bearstrictrules as to the limitationsof its employment(m. Mak.3:10-14). Its application was not at all akin to the "vigilante justice" mold which we have assumedwas being filled in our passage in 4QInstruction.I chose that terminologyfor its associationwith violence, with brutality.But even the beatingof the mevinshould be taken as a result of due process, his penaltypresumablyto have been dictatedin some form of legal procedureor by a known legal code. That our text implies the creditorwas the one administeringthe beatingought not to be taken literally,as he or otherwise,take his place as the thrasher may have had some agent, court-appointed (cf. the proceduredescribedin m. Mak. 3.12). 61 See b. Ket. 86a-b. Cf. a referenceto the penaltyof flogging for civil infraction offeredin juxtapositionto its scripturalsource,b. San. 71a. 62 For otherapplications of the rabbinicpenaltyof flogging,see b. Tem. 3b; b. Mak. 16a; b. Shevu. 21a; y. Shevu. 3:10, 3:12, 35a. 63 Early Christianwriters too exhibited a tacit concession to "establishmentviolence," the very sort of legally-sanctionedvigilantismthat we've been discussing. I have adoptedthis identificationfrom T. Seland, EstablishmentViolencein Philo and Luke (Leiden:Brill, 1995) 9-11, who defines such vigilantismas a recognizedcorollary of the hierarchicalstructureof ancient mainstreamJewish societies. For further analysis of certain aspects of establishment violence in contemporaryJudea, see Seland, 205-21. The actual employment of legally-valid vigilante justice, viewed alongside such contemporarytestimony,was no doubt prevalentin the Judeansociety that provideda settingfor the New Testament.We have seen referencesto such behavior in the works of Philo and Josephus, in rabbinicliteratureand in the Dead Sea Scrolls, but the context in which they are used most explicitly is in that of the early church. So many of Jesus' parablesinvolve the batteringand executionof seeminglyundeservingsouls. As we have seen, the "slaves"in the parableof forgivenessare subjected to severe treatment,both by the proverbialking and by one another.In the parableof

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But the Rabbis' tactic of softening the harshjudgmentof the Pentateuch in the divine MPt? ?n 1p:laws, however,was precededby the legislationbehindthe Dead Sea penal codes. Thereis no evidence that the penalty of flogging was a popularmode of punishmentor discipline in the Qumrancommunity.Apart from biblical references,reference to the practicedoes not appearin the Qumrandocuments,legal or otherwise. In fact, some of the legislationdescribedin the Qumranpenal codes seems to indicate that the sectariansdeclined to institutethe flogging penaltywhere otherswere inclined to do so. The Rabbis, in broadening the scope of the pentateuchalpenalty,resolved to generallyapply p: laws. But one such law, the dictum the flogging to the 01pD*Erm against blasphemy(Exod. 20:7; Lev. 19:12; Deut. 5:11), had been in the Scripturesprescribedthe punishmentof executionby stoning(Lev. 24:10-23).64Thoughwe might have justifiablypresumedsome authoritative capacity to have upheld the law, we find that the Tannaim instead softened the legislation of the Torah and effectively rendered the harsh penalty of stoning a rarity.Accordingto rabbiniclaw, the

the vineyard (Matt. 21:33-46; Mark 12:1-12; Luke 20:9-19), the slaves don't fare much better,the renegadetenantsunceasinglybeating,wounding,insulting,and killing them. The parableof the talents (Luke 19:12-27; cf. Matt. 25:14-30) ends with the irresponsibleslave being sentencedto death for his lack of foresight. And the violence wasn't merely idiomatic.The ancientJewish institutionof violent capital punishment,eventuallyassuagedby the Rabbis,is all too evident in the tomes of ancientChristianity:so many of its crucialfigures-Jesus, Stephen,Paul, James,to name a few-are said to have fallen prey to its scourge.Thoughtheir known details are often vague, each of these men are said to have been affordedsome form of trial priorto his execution.The New Testamentepistles providefurtherdetails of the sorts of violence commonlyemployedin ancientJudeansociety. A maxim commonto three epistles describesthe familiarplight of the slave thatwe've seen in allusionsin GrecoRoman and Hebrewtexts: "Slaves, accept the authorityof your masterswith all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh... If you endurewhen you are beaten for doing wrong, what credit is that?"(1 Pet. 2:18-21; Cf. Col. 3:22-25, Eph. 6:5-8). In describinghis subjectionto the penaltiesof Judean law, Paul claims to have met with "countlessfloggings,",a stoning,five rabbinic-style floggings of thirty-ninelashes, and most intriguingly, claims, "Three times I was beaten with rods (2 Cor. 11:23-25)." The authorutilized here the verb " 38i4o," a hapax legomenon derived from the noun "P'6p3oq,"a "rod" or "staff." The word a6x8oqappearsin the LXX twenty-seventimes for 0:10, which makes this verse the closest parallelthat I've been able to find for 4QInstruction's"M=C:1:" as an apparently legal beatingthat was not administeredby means of the traditionalflogging. Cf. LXX esp. Prov. 10:13;22:15; 23:13-14; 26:3, which deal with the vaguely, thoughnot authoritatively,licit practiceof beating a fool. I Cf. the same punishmentlevied against a violator of anotherof the laws of the Decalogue,Num. 15:32-36.

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perpetratorwould get punishedby execution only if his violation of blasphemytranspiredundertwo circumstances:firstly,that it was seen and heard by two valid witnesses, and secondly that it was preceded by a formal FMrnM,, or warning.65 Instead, the penalty typically prescribedfor blasphemywould be flogging. The Dead Sea penal codes never go so far as to prescribeany form of bodily punishment,let alone execution;the Rule of the Community decreed as its very harshest penalty permanentexpulsion from the camp. This punishment,moreover,was to be levied againstthe member who would commit the dreadedsin of blasphemy.66 There can be no doubt that the authorsof this documenthad to consciouslyaffix a mollificationto the biblical law, as their treatmentof its violatorwas even less strict than that to which the Rabbis would be resigned.67 The sectarians'punishmentfor blasphemy,though ostensibly devastating to the culprit, is, when comparedto the biblical penalty of stoning and the rabbinicpenaltyof flogging,ratherlax. Yet it was the harshest penalty allowed within the sectarian law. But blasphemy wasn't the only crime associated with permanentexcommunication; several others are known from 1QS and from the Cave 4 versions of the Damascus Document(4QD). One can be roughly describedas a 011%JC7K1pnlaw, though one with no direct biblical parallel, namely

committing some forbidden sexual act with one's wife (4Q270 7 i 13).68 The others pertainto intra-sectlegislation,dealing with issues of deferenceto the community'srules themselves:69 apostatizingfrom the communityafter ten years (lQS 7:22-24), bearinga grudge in a capital case, i.e. failing to respect the decision of the sectarianjudge (4Q266 10 ii 1-2 = IQS 7:8), slanderingthe community(4Q270 7

65 M. San. 7:5; b. San. 56a, 60b; cf. the opinion of the sages in m. San. 7:8. See also y. San. 7:8, 25a, where the possibilityof repentancefor blasphemyis denied;b. 'A.Z. 18a retainsan opinionof the TannaAbba Saul, who treatedblasphemyas a typical Mpnbcrt 11: law, prescribingto its violatorthe divine punishmentof having no share in the world-to-come. 66 lQS 6:27-7:2. 67 At least that is how the situationseems to our modem sensibilities.In fairness, we shouldallow the possibilitythat sectariansperceivedexpulsionfromtheircamp and the resultingexile to dwell among the sons of Belial as a fate worse than execution. 68 On which see Baumgarten, "The Cave 4 Versionsof the QumranPenal Code," 270. 69 C. Hempel,The Laws of the DamascusDocument:SourcesTraditionand Redaction (Leiden:Brill, 1998) 146-147; Hempelincludesthe aforementionedlaw regarding improperfornicationin her account of the communallaws describedin 4QD fragments, thoughI see no direct connectionnor any need for one.

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i 7 = 1QS 7:15-16), murmuringagainstthe fathers(4Q270 7 i 13-14), and despising the sectarianlaw (4Q270 7 i 11). Theviolationsforwhichthe sectariansreservedtheirmostharshpenalties do not seem to have had any unifying theme. While their ruling on blasphemyreducedthe severity of the Torah,their ruling on other sins perceived as equally detestableclearly amplifiedthe severity of the Torah.Despite the fact that these laws obviously were not drawn from the scriptures,they were treatedto the same legislation as those describedby the Torah as the most severe. But why would the sectarianshave made such an equation?Granting that blasphemywas perceivedas a very onerousviolation of the law, as it is described in the Pentateuch,the authors of these laws appearto have had very high expectationsas to the sanctity of their societal constructs70-sofar, in fact, that they saw the possible disruption of the rule of the communityas tantamountto a violation of the p" relationship. divine order,a violation of the sanctifiedDlpnmDmrn (f) The bearing of civil law upon the eschaton We have alreadystressedthe importantdifferentiationbetween the concepts of mpn* pm'-I and rl'ml crK 1j: in respect to rabbiic Jewish legal procedure.Clearly,the categorizationof these laws could not have been a mere mechanicaldivision. The distinctionbetweenthe two types of law is a crucial recognition that can go some way in helping us establish the context of our excerpt of 'practicalwisdom' in a conventionalsapientialtext. The typology of the distinctionbetween divine law and civil law, though not formally codified in its legal ramificationsuntil the age of the Amoraim, can be identified in rabbinic writing as early as The concept is introducedat the end of tractateYoma the Mishnah.71 in the context of defining the types of sins for which the Day of Atonementritual does indeed elicit atonement: 70 Cf. here N. Jastram,"Hierarchyat Qumrran" in Legal Texts and Legal Issues, 372-73. 71 The categorizationwas also known to Philo, who spoke of the Ten Commandments being "dividedequally into two sets of five, the former comprisingduties to God, and the other duties to men." (Her. 168, trans.F.H. Colson, LCL); cf. Her. 35, Decal. 50-51, 106. On Philo's recognitionof this division, see H.A. Wolfson, Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity,and Islam, 2 vols. "DerDekalog (Cambridge, MA:HarvardUniversityPress,1947)2.200-01; U. Kellermann, in den Schriften des Fruihjudentums: ein Uberblick," Weisheit, Ethos und Gebot:

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Transgressionsthat are between man and god (=ipr* =7K p`:)-the Day of Atonementatones [for them].72Transgressionsthat are betweenman and his fellow man ( C'rNJ I, p:)-the Day of Atonementdoes not atone [for them],until he seeks [forgiveness]from his fellow man.73

The statementinitially is left unattributed, but is immediatelyafterwards repeatedand ascribedto the first centuryCE TannaEleazarben Azariah, who, employing the exegetical tool of midrash halakhah, associates it with Lev. 16:30, "Fromall your sins you shall be clean before the lord."Irrespectiveof the intendedforce of the midrash,the Mishnahrecordsnothingfurtherin respectto the distinction.Its earliest expressionin rabbinicliterature,therefore,upholdsthe distinction between humanand divine law not in terms of legal procedurebut in terms of the meta-legalconceptionof heavenlyjudgment. Furthertreatmentof the distinction,however, furnishesa specific definitionof the mishnaic terminology.Casting an eye upon 1 Sam. 2:25, the thirdcenturyCE AmoraJosephben Hebo points out a seeming contradiction with the Mishnah: "If one person sins against another,someone can intercedefor the sinnerwith the Lord (D'flR), but if someone sins against the Lord, who can make intercession?" The former clause effectively contradicts the Mishnah in Yoma, eschewing one's necessity to seek forgivenessfrom his or her fellow. To explain the idiosyncrasy,he reads the verse's "n'rrt" not as "the Weisheitsund Dekalogtraditionenin der Bibel und im fruhen Judentum(ed. H. Graf Reventlow;Neukirchen-Vluyn: NeukirchenerVerlag 2001) 165-66; cf. Y. Amir, "The DecalogueAccordingto Philo,"The Ten Commandments in Historyand Tradition(ed. B.-Z..Segal; Englishversioned. G. Levi; Jerusalem:MagnesPress, 1990) 156-58. See also Wolfson, Philo 202; R.D. Hecht, "PreliminaryIssues in the Analysis of Philo's De SpecialibusLegibus,"StudiaPhilonica5 (1978) 4-5, 9-12, for opinionson whether we may safely apply Philo's distinctionto the broadercorpusof pentateuchallaw. Thoughless explicitlyassociatedwith the distinctionmade by Philo and the Rabbis, see furtherreferences to the sanctity of the Torah's civil law in 4 Macc. 2:1-13; Josephus,Ag. Ap. 2:190-219. 72 For God as the "1ipi" cf. m. Ber. 5:1. 73 M. Yoma 8:9; y. Yoma 8:9, 45c; cf. Sifra, Ahere Mot 8:5. Note that the term n'nrl (lit. "to his friend")should be taken as parallelto the rvir* of 4Q4172 i 23, as mrr is a commonrabbinicrenderingof the biblicalMiDT1; see especially the Hebrew of Exod. 22:7, 9, which deal with monetarymatters,cf. b. Qid. 1lb, b. Bek. 40b. At any rate, it is clear that both terms are euphemistic,as neitherrbx nor our MU-1seem to be dear friendsof their adversaries. Virtuallyabsentfrom theirtexts, the applicationof midrashhalakhahappearsnot to have been currentto the Qumrancommunity.On the general lack of evidence of halakhic exegesis in the Dead Sea Scrolls, see S.D. Fraade, "Looking for Legal Midrashat Qumran,"Biblical Perspectives:Early Use and Interpretationof the Bible in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. M.E. Stone and E.G. Chazon; Leiden: Brill, 1998) 77-79.

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Lord"but as "the Judge,"thus renderingit a referenceto the mFTvs. CIPr distinction:"Thisis what [the verse] means to say: 'If a man sins againsthis fellow man, the judge will judge him, he [his fellow] will forgive him, but if a man sins againstthe LordGod, who shall entreat for him? Only repentanceand good deeds."74 In other words, Joseph's intimationputs the 'Minvs. nipmin direct juxtaposition to that of civil vs. divine law. The statement of the Mishnahwas clearly meantas an effortto establishcivil procedure,to compel a claimantto seek settlementwith his fellow man instead of harboringanimositytowardhim. Lateron, however,the 177* M-rtI': category was recast to include all laws that were subject to earthly legal procedure,while nlp73L: 0nt 1p: was defined to cover those subject only to divine judgment. The associationis upheld by furtherreferencesto the -:n vs. nipm distinctionsin the context of civil legislation.In fact, the distinctionis often treatedin the specific context of monetaryrelationships.The terminology of "rr'rf DkR I'm" is used in one early midrashin reference to a moneylenderwho conductshis businesswith a scowl on his face, who is said to thus receive no meritfor his supposedkindness.75 Elsewhereit is adoptedto frame rabbinicmaxim instructingits readers not to come between a man and his money, and ratherto work to make peace between man and his fellow man.76 It is to the theme of civil harmony,D1'tV, that the rr:nt Irt p1: label was most frequentlyapplied,but several referencesseem to tie even that theme to the concept of divinejudgment.77 The maintenance of 1-11or CrA v is in m. Pe'ah 1:1 called a requisitefor an indi11:rp vidual's rewardof a sharein the world-to-come.In b. Qid. 40a, Rabba (ca. fourth centuryCE) furtherasserts that one who maintainspeace between man and his fellow man is promised a share in the world to come. All of which leads me to draw a particularlyconduciveconclusion: the Rabbisperceivedof one's behaviorin civil legislationas integrally related to his or her eschatologicalreward.In the rabbinicmind-set,

74 b. Yoma 87a. Cf. similar usages of the -Zfl vs. orpr distinctionas an explanation for seeming Scripturalinconsistenciesin b. R. ha-Sh. 17b; b. Yoma 86b. 75 Avot R. Nat. version B 23, ca. third centuryCE. Cf. the use of the concept in respectto civil judgmentin y. Maas. 2:6, 50a. 76 Gen. Rab. 93:1, ca. thirdcenturyCE, commentingon Prov. 6:1. 77 See Avot R. Nat. version A 29, 40; version B 24, 25, 35. Cf. other uses of the terminologyin b. Pes. 8a; b. Mo'ed Q. 15a.

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therefore,one would necessarilyhave to defer to civil law if he or she wished to gain favor of the Lord. One's conductin financialmatters was particularlynoted as an arm of civil law which is of great bearing upon divine reward. If we could retrovert the rabbinic template to the world-view espoused by the author of 4QInstruction,we would find a perfect encapsulationof the wisdom describedtherein. Consideringthat the componentsof rabbinictraditionoften predatethe Dead Sea Scrolls, the authorcould have been offeringadvice to the mevinthatwas more than mere practicaledification.Keeping in tune with the tenor of the document,he appearsto have been offeringadvice on how the mevin could, by maintaininga docile role in monetaryrelationships,merit a favorablejudgmentfrom God. This position,of course,would call for exceeding humilityon the partof the suppliant,a humilitynot only of his body but in his spirit as well. These conceptionsof povertyare in fact crucial to the languageutilized in 4QInstruction. The image of the poor or humble man is not one employed frequentlyin early Jewish wisdom literature.It is employed,for instance, in theEpistleof Enochto an effectreminiscentof theone in 4QInstruction, projectinggood fortune for the poor in the world-to-come.78Nonetheless, our text containsa few exhortationsthat seem to posit financial humility as somehow indicativeof spiritualhumility.The author of 4QInstructionseems to have thus devised his metaphorof the poor man, employing it in rhetoricalfashion typical of wisdom literature: "Whatis more insignificantthan a poor man?,"he muses, "anddo not rejoice in your mourning,lest you have troublein your life."79Surely this couldn't have been intendedas reinforcementto the reader."Be like a humbleman when you contendfor a judgmentin favor of him," advises the narrator,"And then God will appear,and His anger will turn back, and He will overlook your sin.""8Before his advice slips into the temporalframeof debt-bondage,he leaves the mevinwith this last bit of advice:"Andwho will be declaredrighteouswhen He gives judgment?And without forgiveness,how will there stand before him any poor man?"8'

78 See J.J. Collins, Jewish Wisdom, 119, ref. to I Enoch 92-105. Cf. Isa. 6:62; Matt. 5:3; Luke 6:20. See Murphy, Wealth, 184-85 for other possibly related treatments of poverty in sapiential contexts. 79 4Q417 2 i 10.

80 4Q417 2

81

i 14-15.

4Q417 2 i 16-17. Passages in the New Testament attest to the notion that God's

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The termsused here are vague; we do not know whetherthe 'judgment' and the 'forgiveness' here were thoughtto be tenderedby God or by the proverbialpauper'sfinancialbenefactor.82 It appearsto me that the terminologyis not to be attributedto either partybut should be seen as an element of the metaphor.The narratorsought to equate one's earthly activities with his or her eschatologically-envisioned heavenly affairsby uniformlyapplyingthe imageryof the 'judgment.' Thus does the very text of 4QInstructionassociate one's civil affairs with his or her divine judgment.Indeed, the associationis reiterated elsewherein the scrolls, perhapsnot coincidentallyin a text with close affinitiesto the Cave 1 fragmentof 'lQlnstruction.' In lQMysteries (1Q27), which appearsto be a relic of anothertypical eschatological text, we find some telling rhetoric:"Who are the people who want to be oppressedby anothermore mighty than them?Who wants to have their wealth sinfully stolen? But who are the people who do not oppress their neighbor?Where is the people who have not stolen the wealth of another?"83 Once again we encounter the notion of man maintaininghis social and financial proprietyin the context of the final judgment.An aspiringmevin, of course, irrespectiveof his financial state, surelywould have had to recognizethe importanceof assuming a certainsense of humilityin the face of God, the ultimatearbiter of his supposedvirtues. As has been suggested by T. Elgvin,84much of the advice to the mevin is highly reminiscentof the sort of materialthat would eventu-

justice is integrallyconnectedto civil behavior,especially when the behaviorin question relates to one's community.The story of Ananias and Sapphirain Acts 5:1-11 indicates that divine punishmentcould effect even sectariancivil legislation, in this case failure to fully remit their propertyto the church. See Seland, Establishment Violence,266-67; R. Pesch, Die Apostelgeschichte,2 vols. (Zurich:Benziger Verlag/ Neukirchen-Vluyn: NeukirchenerVerlag 1986) 1.195-96. Cf. the aforementionedsectarianrule of the surrenderingof privatepropertyto the yahad. In 1 Cor. 5:1-5, Paul prescribeswhat seems to be a divine judgmentfor a church memberwho had been corruptedby immorality,a dictumfurtherconnotingthe association of humanbehaviorwith divine retribution.If nothingelse, we can be sure that the theoreticalproblemof divine vs. humanlaw and its relationto the eschatological judgmenthad begun to be mined by the authorsof these texts. 1 Cor. 5:5: "You are to deliverthis man to Satanfor the destructionof the flesh, thathis spiritmay be saved in thedayof theLordJesus."Cf. perhapsthedeliveryof thesoulto Belialin 4QFlorilegium 1:9 (Seland,EstablishmentViolence,268). 82 Cf. Murphy,Wealth, 178. lQMyst 1 i 10-12 (= 4Q299 1; 4Q300 3). 4 T. Elgvin, An Analysis of 4Qlnstruction(HebrewUniversityPh.D. Dissertation: Jerusalem,1997) 119-122.

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ally find its way into the post-Templeritualsof the New Year Day of Atonementliturgies.AlthoughI have not identifiedany strainof direct textual tradition,the thematic elements of divine judgment and forgiveness, just as they appearin 4QInstruction,createdthe cornerstones of the ancientrabbinicliturgythat today comprisesthe opening prayers of the Day of Atonementservice. I would like to reinforceElgvin's suggestion by offering the evidence of the undercurrentdistinctionbetween human and divine law in 4QInstruction.As we have seen, the prime rabbinicexpressionof this legal complex is found in the context of the Day of Atonement ritual (m. Yoma 8:9): the Mishnahstates quite explicitly that the Day of Atonementeffects only those transgressionsthat cannotbe resolved by means of humanforgiveness,transgressionsof cip: :-ro "'I laws. For others, the 1lF::T* C7R 1p" laws, one is said to require the forgiveness of the wrongedbefore he can achieve atonement.If indeedit was the roots of the distinctionbetween human and divine law that educatedthe authorof 4QInstruction,his advice to the mevin in reference to his interpersonalobligations accords quite well with the atonementritual describedin the Mishnah. The identificationof the Musar LeMevinwith the Day of Atonement is supportedby a convenientpassage in a late midrashictext. The Pesiqta Rabbati,a collection of unknowndate, preservesthe following discourse: Let our masterteach us: If there has been a quarrelbetweena man and his fellow, how may he obtain forgiveness on the Day of Atonement?Our Masters, using the style of the Mishnah,taughtas follows: "TheDay of Atonementatones for transgressionsof those thingsbetweenman and God. As for transgressionsof things between man and his fellow man, the Day of Atonementdoes not bring atonementto a man unless he makes peace with his fellow man [m. Yoma 8:9]." But if he goes to make peace with him, what is he to do? R. Samuel bar Nahmansaid: Let him fetch ten men, have them draw up in a line, and in their presencesay: "Betweenme and So-and-sotherewas a quarrel.I have soughtto make peace with him, but he will not listen. Since he remainsobdurate,I [in your presence] ask his pardon."And the source of this procedure?Scripture, which says: Let him draw up a line of men and say: I have sinned,and perverted that which is right, etc. (Job 33:27). When the Holy One, blessed be He, sees a man that humbleshimself, He forgives his sins.85

85 Pesiq. R. 38, trans. W.G. Braude, Pesikta Rabbati (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968) 691-92. Although the only named figure, Samuel bar Nahman, was active in the late third century CE, the elements of the midrash can be identified in earlier works. The process of the line of ten men is described in y. Yoma 8:9, 45c, as well as t. B.Q. 9:29-30, and y. B.Q. 8:10, 6c, where it is attributed to the early third century CE Amora Rab. The institution of seeking personal forgiveness can be dated as

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The Rabbisweren't dealing here with divine forgivenessas an element of man's eschatologicaljudgment,but merely in the context of his perennialjudgmentupon the Day of Atonement.Now comparethe conclusionof this section of the midrashwith the previouslydiscussed advice from 4QInstruction:"Be like a humbleman when you contend for a judgment in favor of him."86Replace the editor's "him"with "Him"and we have a direct associationbetween the concept of civil vs. divine law and the judgmentof the Lord. (g) Summary and conclusions

What at first seemed like a completely incongruouspassage in the wider context of 4QInstructionnow seems an essential componentof the sapiential treatise. The violent treatmentof the indebted pauper was almost certainlynot a recognized form of legal recoursewithin the communitiesenvisionedby the Qumranlegal codes. Violationsof their self-imposedrule engenderedpunishmentof an egalitariansort, providedby a penal code prescribingthe depravationof certainintrasect privileges;vigilantejustice was not an option for the sectarians. Althoughthe appearanceof such a confrontationalpassage among the often contemplativewritingscollected by the Dead Sea sect is initially striking,it becomes less so when removedfrom that context and properlyreplacedin the wider world of RomanJudea. Outsideof the walls of Qumranlay a harsherreality. The poor mevin in our passage appearsto have sought financialaid away from the environs of such a community,in a world where a rougherform of justice was prevalent. Whetherby the standardsof Israelite or Greco-Romanconvention, the indebtedmevin could have been subjectto the basest whims of his creditor.As a debtorincapableof remuneration,the poor mevin might have found himself reducedto the status of a slave in that he was subject to the possibly violent discipline of his benefactor.The phenomenonof the debt-slavewas one that ostensibly affectedsectarians and non-sectariansalike, a fact imbuing the final portionof the Musar leMevinwith a universallyrelevantgravity. The advice to the mevin can now be placed in its properliterary context as well. As a dutiful adherentto the law of the Torah, the early as the First CenturyCE Tanna GamalielH (t. B.Q. 9:30). On the textualdevelopmentof this pisqa, see B. Elitsur,Pesiqta Rabbati:Pirqe Mavo' (Hebrew)(Hebrew UniversityPh.D. Dissertation:Jerusalem,2000) 191-93. 86 4Q417 2 i 14.

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mevin would have recognizedhis unluckyposition in the social hierarchyof his surroundings.Reflectingthe dictumsof the sectarianlegal codes, he would have to have been carefulnot to overstepthe bounds of acceptablebehaviorin dealing with his creditor.Althoughthe relationshipbetween borrowerand creditorcould be perceivedas a mere civil matter,the authorof the Musar leMevin,consideringits unique incorporationof financial and civil law, regardedthe resultinglegal complex with a particularlyhigh level of import.As would the Dead Sea sectarians and later, the Rabbis, the author of our document, deeming an individual'sfinancialproprietyan element of his or her relationshipwith God, perceivedthe issue as one directlypertinentto His final judgment.The advice to the mevin to respect social equilibrium in financial relationships thus bears directly on the broader eschatologicalthemes of 4QInstruction,and in turnamong the various eschatologicalwritingscollected by the Dead Sea sect.87

87 I would like to express thanksto ProfessorsJohn Collins and LawrenceSchiffman, in whose graduateseminarsI was familiarizedwith 4QInstruction,and whose insightson the explicationof the documenthave contributedto my own.

FROM SEPARATISM TO URBANISM: THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS AND THE ORIGINS OF THE RABBINIC 'ERUV CHARLOYITE ELISHEVAFONROBERT StanfordUniversity

The concept of the 'eruv appears to be one of the most radical innovationsof rabbiniclaw (halakhah),both with respect to biblical Sabbath law, as well as with respect to other interpretationsand expansionsof Sabbathlaw known to us from the later Second Temple period.'In its fully developedsymbolismthe 'eruv, therefore,presents itself as one of the most importantaspects of the rabbinicizationof the Sabbath laws. At first sight, this would seem to be an obvious claim, since we find the first attestationof this principleonly in the Mishnah,with one possible exception in the Dead Sea Scrolls to be discussed shortly.Granted,the BabylonianTalmuddoes recorda rabbinic opinionwhich attributesthe origin of the 'eruv to King Solomon (b. 'Eruv. 21b) who is said to have "ordained'eruvin and the washing of hands"(:"r'bn5'cmn pn:nmpfn)with the heavenly approvalof a can hardlybe accordedovert historHowever, this statement fl-.2 Lp not least of all because the claim is attributedto a first, ical value, resp. second generation'amora (first half of the thirdcenturyCE).3

I1 would like to thankespecially the following for their helpful commentson the manuscriptversion of this article: Daniel Boyarin, Hindy Najman, Ishai Rosen-Zvi, and Elliot R. Wolfson. I also received helpful remarksfrom LawrenceSchiffmanand the anonymousreadersof the manuscript.Further,I benefitedgreatlyfrom the discussion of a previous version of this article at the CJA Colloquium at Notre Dame University,March 26, 2003, as well as from discussions of some of the conceptual ideasat the"JewishConceptionsandPracticesof Space,"convenedat StanfordUniversity, May 18-19, 2003. 2 Some manuscriptversions of the text have MnlrNM 1':rW. See also Maimonides, MishnehTorah,HilkhotEruvin 1:2 and 1:4. 3 J.N. Epsteinappearsto read this as historicalinformation: "'Eruvin'is an ancient takkanah,and is already connectedto King Solomon, and they establishedthe eruv alreadyduringthe era of the (Second) Temple,"(Introductionto TannaiticLiterature, Jerusalem:Magnes Press 1957, [Heb.]) 300. Aside from the problemof the historicity of sucha statement,thisdisregardsthefact thattheattribution to Solomonis only 'amoraic,

C KoninklijkeBrill NV, Leiden, 2004 Also availableonline - www.brill.nl

Dead Sea Discoveries 11, 1

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The Mishnahitself, of course, devotes an entire tractate(Mishnah 'Eruvin) to this institution in its two main forms; the oln'rn InrD ("boundary'eruv")which extendsthe distancebeyonda town's boundary a Jew is allowed to walk, and the nmvrrnD ("domain'eruv")or the 'eruv of court-yardsby means of which a Jew is allowed to transfer objects from what is commonly translatedas "privatedomain" (rnrlm'iltoV) to anotherprivatedomain.4As the companionto the preceding tractatedealing with the laws of the Sabbath,'m. 'Eruv.can, at least in part,be read as developingthe spatialityof the seventhday of the week. Indeed, supplementingHeschel's popularnotion of the Sabbathas the "palacein time,"which forms the basis of his description of Judaismas a "religionof time" versus a "religionof space," the rabbinicSabbathhas all the world to do with spatial practiceand situatingoneself and the communityin space.6 The culturalforce of the rabbinic'eruv as a practiceof place making has not yet been fully and properlyassessed.7The goal of the following reflectionsis to demonstratethatthe rabbinic'eruvas we know namely by Rav Yehudahin the name of Samuel, the lattera first generation'amora. Rather, the question to be asked is why Samuel would attributethe takkanahto Solomon. I A furtherform of an 'eruv, not to be consideredhere, is the 7'8'v:1 n?D(cooking 'eruv),the ritualact that allows one to preparefood for the Sabbath,even if Friday shouldhappento be a holiday.For basic information,see EJ 3.849-50. On the ambiguity of the term reshut,see furtherbelow. I J.N. Epstein and others following him have arguedthat the two were originally one tractate,but then were divided into two, due to its length (TannaiticLiterature, 300). See, however,A. Goldberg,TheMishnaTreatiseEruvin(Jerusalem:The Magnes Press, 1986, Heb.) who arguesfor an originaldivisioninto two tractates,IX (Eng.) and 13 (Heb.). 6 A.J. Heschel, The Sabbath: Its Meaningfor Modern Man (New York: Farrar, Strausand Giroux, 1951). He writes, for instance:"Judaismis a religion of time aiming at the sanctification of time" (8, his emphasis). Further,"the meaning of the Sabbathis to celebrate time ratherthan space. Six days a week we live under the tyrannyof things of space; on the Sabbathwe try to become attunedto holiness in time," 10. Jon Schofer points out to me in oral communicationthat at the same time as juxtaposingspace and time conceptually,Heschel thoroughlyspatializeshis analysis of time metaphorically.For a moredifferentiateddiscussionconcerningsecond temple sourcessee L. Doering,Schabbat:Sabbathalachaund -praxisim antikenJudentum und Urchristentum(TSAJ 78; Tubingen:MohrSiebeck, 1999), esp. 47-48. the relationshipbetweendifference,identityand 7 This concept, which interrogates place, is developed in Culture,Power, Place: Explorationsin CriticalAnthropology (ed. A. Gupta and J. Ferguson;Durhamand London:Duke UniversityPress, 1997), 6-15. The intersectionof identityand space/ place is being exploredin a numberof different disciplinary discourses. E.g., ThinkingSpace (ed. Mike Crang and Nigel Thrift;Londonand New York:Routledge,2000) for a collectionof essays introducing a variety of approaches;The Geographyof Identity(ed. PatriciaYaeger;Ann Arbor:

FROM SEPARATISM TO URBANISM

45

it, in its fully developedsymbolism,can be read as a "theoryof neighborhood,"8a reflectionon the intersectionof collective identity (both ethnic and religious)and space, and more specifically,urbanspace. As such the 'eruv is a prominentsite of the process of rabbinicself-fashioning as normative"Israel"not only with respect to non-Jews, but also and in this context more significantlywith respect to other Jews, such as the Sadducees and other groups.9 By extension, therefore, the

'eruv-particularlyas it is designedto markcommunalbelonging and boundaries,as will be demonstrated-is a site of rabbinicheresiology, of the attempt, that is, to establish a clear boundarybetween those Jews who belong and those who are to be excluded from the 'eruv community. My hypothesisis that if the 'eruv is indeed to be regardedas a rabbinic innovation,we have to analyze it synchronicallyas to its function within the rabbinic culturaluniverse, or as one of the rabbinic strategies of drawing boundariesbetween Jews and others, and between rabbinicJews and other Jews. Admittedly,it is not as simple as it seems to advance this argument,since most often the ceruv is read as merely a symptomof the legal leniency characteristicof the rabbisvis-a-vis the strict letter of the law, in this case the prohibition of carryingon the Sabbath.10In other words, the 'eruv is commonly

The Universityof MichiganPress, 1996) on social geographyandRemappingMemory: The Politics of TimeSpace(ed. JonathanBoyarin; Minneapolis:University of Minnesota Press, 1994). All of these are helpful for a reflectionon the emergenceof the rabbinic'eruv. 8 For a contemporarytheory of neighborhoodand the productionof neighborhood which informs my thinking about the cultural significance of the 'eruv, see A. Appaduarai,Modernityat Large: CulturalDimensionsof Globalization(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996). See especially his chapter on "The Productionof Locality,"178-201. 9 On the adaptationof "Israel"as a choice of self-designationin early rabbinicliterature,see S. Stern,Jewish Identityin Early RabbinicWritings(Leiden:Brill, 1994). 10 E.g. Y. Gilat, R. Eliezer Ben Hyrcanus:A Scholar Outcast (Tel Aviv: Bar Ilan University, 1984) who assumes a "generaltendencyto relax the prohibitionsassociated with the Sabbath"among the rabbinicsages, 219. Doering follows Gilat in this respect (Schabbat,181). See also the recent discussionof the institutionof the 'eruv by the foildoristA. Dundes,The ShabbatElevatorand OtherSabbathSubterfuges:An Unorthodox Essay on Circumventing Custom and Jewish Character (Lanham, Maryland:Rowman & Littlefield,2002), 45-50. In his view, "the Jews have always been a resourcefulpeople and in this instance,they have had to be in orderto function on the Sabbath.The trick was to find an acceptableway aroundthe regulations, a loophole so to speak, or what has been aptly termeda Sabbathsubterfuge,"32. The Ceruvserves as an example of such a "subterfuge".Dundes' study of this cultureof

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regardedas merely the productof a halakhic impulse that seeks to solve a technicalproblemof practicabilityin the process of applying biblical law to practicalor every-dayreality, for the sake of convenience." This reading has of course validity, since clearly the 'eruv does serve a practicalpurpose.At the same time, however, the institution of the 'eruv also allows the rabbisto engage more or less selfconsciously in a fashioningof a distinctJewish identityas rabbinic."2 The latter is precisely the approachto be developed here, by tracing the conceptual origins of the 'eruv, and more specifically the nrlv irnln, to the Dead Sea Scrolls.'3 To that end, the argumentadvancedin this article is that the sages of the Mishnah, as they develop the concept of the 'eruv, draw on concepts developed in the Dead Sea Scrolls, and more specificallyin the Manualof Discipline, but then translatethem into the context of tannaiticSabbathlaw. To put it boldly, what was the economicGutergemeinschaftor "communityof goods"'4at Qumran,is reconstituted

circumvention,however, is marredby his reductionistFreudianism,as David Biale points out in his review in AmericanJewish History (forthcoming). " See for instanceL.H. Schiffman,The Halakahat Qumran(Leiden:Brill), 1975. "In analyzingindividuallaws, it was noted that the existence of these legal fictions ['erubin]might answer a questionor solve a problemwhich the observantsectarian must have faced" (133), with reference to the Qumranitesas the sectarians.This assumes that the 'eruv primarily solves a problem of practicability, in that the Qumranitessurelystruggledwith the fact that they could not carryon the Sabbath.The rabbissubsequentlywould have relaxedthe prohibitionto circumventthat problem. 12 This is not to claim that the symbolic functionof the 'eruv in the rabbinicproject of fashioninga distinctJewish identityas rabbinicwas the exclusive or even the intentionalgoal of creatingthe ritualsystem of the 'eruv.Hence, my analysisdoes not intend to contradictor invalidatethe commonly assumed purposeof the 'eruv with regardsto the Sabbathprohibitionof carrying.Rather,the currentanalysis intendsto add a differentaspect to that common understanding,in that it focuses on the inner logic of the rabbinicinnovation.I thankIshay Rosen-Zvifor his remarkson this point. 13 The focus on the irnrn Mrn'ratherthan the C'Mnwrn Ml-I will become clearerin the second partof the articlewhich focuses on the tannaitictexts. Briefly,the latteris more concernedabout allowing an individualto pursuehis or her activities on the Sabbath,normallyprohibited,and walk furtherbeyondthe limits of a town, while the formerfocuses on the questionof a Sabbathcommunity,of forgingthe collective identity of "Israel."The mnmrIzr1u addressesthe residentialcommunity,whetherwithin the confinesof the courtyard,of the alleyway, or the walled town. 14 These locutionscan be consideredas keywordsof the earlierscholarshipon the relationshipbetweenthe Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament,e.g. S. Segert,"Die der Essaier," StudiaantiquaAntonioSalac septuagenariaoblata (ed. Guitergemeinschaft C. Varcle; Ceskoslovenskaakademieved. Sekce jazyka a literatury;Sbornikfilologicky 3.1; Prague:SumptibusAcademiaeScientiarumBohemoslovenicaePragae,1955), 66-73; and J.G. Greehy,"Communityof Goods: Qumranand Acts," ITQ 32 (1965),

FROM SEPARATISM TO URBANISM

47

by the rabbisas the symbolic 'eruv-communityof a shareddomainin the urbanneighborhood. In orderto develop this argumentand to analyze the rabbinicprogrammaticreconfigurationof earlier legal traditionsin the institution of the 'eruv, including its hermeneuticalrelation to biblical law, we need to briefly discuss the biblical backgroundas well as alternative Jewish adaptations of biblical Sabbath law in the second temple period. This will help us to sharpenthe distinctively rabbinic intervention in the developmentof Sabbathlaw. Exod. 16:29 and Its Interpretationsin Jubilees and the Damascus Document To begin with, biblical law does not provide an abstractlanguage for categories of space, such as the distinctionof "domains"in rabbinic legal terminology, nor does it name specifically designated spaces, such as houses, court-yards,and tents. Rather,it remainsunThe basic prohibidifferentiatedas to the spatialityof the Sabbath.15 tion can be found Exod. 16:29: ". . . sit, each man in his place (Vfllf), a man shouldnot go outfrom his place (Irz1pon)on the seventhday,"'16

230-40. Later also B.J. Capper,"Erwagungenzu IQS VI.20 und der urchristlichen RevQ 12 (1986), 223-36; idem, "Communityof Goods in the Gtitergemeinschaft," Early JerusalemChurch,"in ANRW2.26.2 (ed. W. Haase; Berlin:Walterde Gruyter, 1995), 1730-1774; idem, "ThePalestinianCulturalContextof EarliestChristianCommunity of Goods," in The Book of Acts in Its Palestinian Setting (ed. R. Bacukham; BAFCS 4; GrandRapids:Eerdmans,1995), 323-25. For a summarydiscussionon the history of scholarshipsee C.M. Murphy,Wealthin the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the Qumran Community(Leiden: Brill, 2002), especially chapter one. I thank Prof. LawrenceSchiffmanfor directingmy attentionto this importantstudy. 15 The M=scmn or Sabbathlimit of walking outsideof a city only emergesin later legal literature,such as the Damascus Documentresp. the ZadokiteFragments(CD 10:21) and tannaitictexts, based on mergingthe prohibitionin Ex 16:29 with the limits of the levitical cities in Num. 35:2-5. See L. Schiffman,The Halakhahat Qumran, 91-98, who also discusses Karaitehalakhah.See furtherL. Doering's recent discussion of how the Qumrantexts interpretedthe termCipn in Exod. 16:29, "New Aspects of QumranSabbath Law from Cave 4 Fragments,"Legal Texts and Legal Issues: Proceedings of the Second Meeting of the International Organization of Qumran Studies Cambridge1995 (eds. M. Bernstein,F. GarciaMartinez,J. Kampen;Leiden: Brill, 1997), 259-61. 16 Each partof the verse uses a differentlocution.The first partis difficultto translate literally.In his commentary,W.H.C. Propp,who attributesthis verse to JE, suggests "sit, (each) man underhimself,let (each) man not go out from his place on the seventh day," Exodus 1-18: A New Translationwith Introductionand Commentary (AB 2; New York:Doubleday,1999), 584. He notes that the locutionfor "underhim-

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a prohibitionthat seems, on the face of it, more concernedwith distance in generalthan with transferringobjects per se, even thoughthe second part of the verse (to go out) does imply a spatialrelationality of inside/outside.'7The verse leaves open both the qualitativeas well as the quantitativedefinition of "place" (mipn),whether it refers to whereverone happensto be (e.g., Gen. 28:11) or specificallyto a residential place. Biblical law itself is, therefore,not explicit about the prohibition of carryinganythingout of one's house. However, the prohibitionof carrying itself is clearly not a specifically rabbinic contributionto Sabbathlaw, but precedes rabbiniclaw by centuries.Already in the propheticliteratureand perhaps the post-exilic Nehemiah'8we find presumedrestrictionsof carryingon the Sabbath,and more specifically carryingthings out of one's house: "Thus says the Lord: 'Take heed to yourselves,and bear no burdenon the day of the Sabbath,nor bring it into the gates of Jerusalem.And do not bring out a burden

self" appearsalso in Exod. 10:23 (duringthe plague of darkness"they saw not one another,neitherdid anyone rise from his place for three days") and basically means "in his place"(598). Proppclaims that the verse meansthat"the Sabbathis to be spent at home" (598) and rathercuriouslyrefers to Mishnah'Eruvinwhich does precisely not legislate this. The NRSV translates"eachof you stay where you are; do not leave your place on the seventh day." The Septuagint translates1'flflfl as "in your (pi.) houses"(i.; oio; otKo'5o i i@v). 1" For a careful discussion of what he calls an "interpretative reworking"of this verse in one of the 'newer' fragmentsof Qumran(4Q251 (= 4QHal) 1 4-5, rendering it as a prohibitionto carry, see Lutz Doering, "New Aspects," 251-75, and more recentlyhis monographSchabbat,229-31. 18 For a careful analysis of the relationshipbetween Neh. 13:15-21, Jer. 17:19-27 and Dtn. 5:12-14, see M. Fishbane,Biblical Interpretationin AncientIsrael (Oxford: ClarendonPress 1985), 129-34. Accordingly,Nehemiahbases his formulationon Jer. 17:19-27, who in turnbases his exegetical expansionon the deuteronomicversionof the Decalogue(131-32). FishbanearguesagainstC. Tchernowitz'renderingof "do not take any burdenfrom your homes"in Jer. 17:22 as "do not barter"(132, n. 73). See alsoJ. R. Lundblom, Jeremiah1-20: A NewTranslationwithIntroduction andCommentary (AB 21A; New York:Doubleday,1999), 809. Neh. 13:15-22 focuses on the space of walled Jerusalem,and its gates. As opposedto Jer. 17:22,his mainconcernhere seems to be with tradingon the Sabbath,and carryinginto the city is regardedonly as a subsidiaryact to this: "In those days I saw in Judahpeople treadingwine presseson the Sabbath,and bringingin (VtV:1) heaps of grain and loading them on donkeys, and also wine,grapes,figs,andall kindsof burdens,whichtheybroughtinto(Cfr"NO) Jerusalem on the sabbathday; and I warnedthem at that time againstselling food" (Neh. 13:15). As Lundblom(Jeremiah1-20) puts it: "no garagesales, tag sales or Sabbathflea markets," 806. So alreadyL. Finkelstein,The Pharisees: The SociologicalBackgroundof TheirFaith (Philadelphia:Jewish PublicationSociety, 1938), 3.136.

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49

from your houses on the day of the Sabbath,nor do any work. And sanctify the day of the Sabbath,as I have commandedyour fathers"' (Jer. 17:21-22). 19

The prohibitionof carrying out from one's house becomes even more pronouncedin the legal literatureof the second and first century BCE. Jubilees demands death for the transgression: "[The man] . . . who

lifts that which he carriesto bring (it) outside his tent or his house is to die" (Jub. 50:8).20 Earlierin the same text we learn about bringing into the house on the Sabbathas well: "[Informand tell the Israelites the law (which relates to) this day . . . on which it is not proper to do what they wish, namely: . . . to bring in or remove on it anything

which one cafries in their gates ... (Jub. 2:29). They are not to bring (anything) out or in from house to house on this day because it is more holy and more blessed than any of the jubilee of jubilees"(Jub. 2:30).21

The evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls is equally unequivocal,as in the Damascus Document:"No one shall carry (anything)from the house to the outside, or from the outside into (the) house. And if he

'9

See previousnote. The anonymouseditoriallayer of the BabylonianTalmudin

b. Hor. 4a uses Jer. 17:22 to argue that the prohibition of carrying out is indeed bib-

lical law, contraxyto what the Mishnah(m. Hor. 1:3) seems to assume. The prohibition of bringingin, on the otherhand, not explicatedin Jer. 17:22, is here admittedto be a rabbinicenactment.Interestingly,the MassoretHa-Shas claims the existence of a differentversion of the text, according to which it is Exod. 16:29 which serves as proof-text for the argumentthat "carryingout" is a biblical prohibition.See also Doering,"New Aspects,"258, n. 37. 20 The text is cited from J.C. Vanderkam, The Book of Jubilees (CSCO 511; Louvain:Peters 1989), 326. For a more extensive discussionof this passage as well as Jub. 2:29, 30 see L. DoeringSchabbat,75-79. 21 Vanderkam, The Book of Jubilees, 15. Doering identifiesJub. 2:29 and Jub. 50:8 as stemmingfrom earlier halakhic lists which the authorof Jubilees works into his text, while Jub. 2:30 representthat author'sown gloss on this particularprohibition (Schabbat,76). I am not entirelycertainwhy the point of the locution"fromhouse to house"shouldbe to specificallyprohibitcarrying"overa sharedcourtyardand a blind alley-way,"as Doering claims, as if Jubileeswere alreadyfamiliarwith the halakhic particularitiesof the joined courtyardin tannaiticlaw ("New Aspects,"260). Doering here relies on Y. Gilat,RabbiEliezer, and cites Albeck and Epsteinfor the same argument (Schabbat,77), but I remainunconvinced,as if the sharedcourtyardwould be the only implied alternativescenario.Gilat writes: "The early halakhahforbade 'carrying' from one reshut(= domain)to another:not only from reshuthayahid(= private domain) to reshut harabbim(= public domain) or vice versa but also from a house into a courtyardor alley,"R. EliezerBen Hyrcanus,217, but he clearly retrojectsrabbinic language into his discussion of the "early halakhah",i.e., Jubilees and the ZadokiteFragments.

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is in the sukkah,let him not carry(anything)out from it or bring(anything) into it" (CD 11:7-9) on the Sabbath.22 It should be noted that in all these cases the juxtapositionis one between house and outside (Jub. 50:8 and 2:30, CD 11:7),23 or sukkah(CD 11:8) or tent (Jub. 50:8). The abstractionfrom these concretelynamedspaces to the rnnr M107is a rabbinicneologism in the "halakhicmarketplace"24 of the first centuryBCE throughsecond centuryCE. In short,whateverthe reason for the specific or ideologicalreason of this prohibitionmight be, it is well attestedthroughoutthe Jewish legal and interpretiveliteratureof the second templeperiod,regardless of what the precise identityof the respectiveauthorsmay be. We can thereforeeasily agree with A. Goldberg when he points out: "That these prohibitionswere not an 'invention' of the Rabbis is clearly demonstratedby the fact that they were observed by non-Pharisaic sects as well."25By contrast,"we do not find, however,among any of 22 Schiffman,Halakhahat Qumran,113. L. Doering notes that this text "is clearly dependenton Jer 17:22a*,"in contrastto the text fragmentthat is the subjectof his article,i.e., 4Q251 (= 4QHal) 1 4-5 ["(No) one shall bringout of his place (anything throughout)the whole Sabbath"]which is an interpretiverenderingof Exod. 16:29, "New Aspects,"256-258. This is recapitulated,with slight revisions,in his monograph Schabbat,216-217, 229-231. For his more extensive discussion of CD 11:7-9, see Schabbat,178-182. I shall not discuss 4Q251 separately,since it does not add to the point advancedhere. Doering argues, quite convincinglyin my view, that from the point of view of historyof halakhictradition4Q251 representsa later level than CD, even thoughbothareexemplarsof thepriestlyapproachto theSabbathhalakhah,Schabbat, 280. 23 Cp. m. Shab. 1:1 which juxtaposesMIM, "inside"and rrl=, "outside",both representedrespectivelyby the fl`:1l1'.: and the '1.V,pace Doering,"New Aspects,"259 into this n and again Schabbat,280 who reads the locutionC':77 nMCIresp. rn"Mr'I text. In his articulation"bothJubilees and the DamascusDocumentdeviate from the rabbinicconceptionof the 'domains',"("New Aspects,"260). However,m. Shab. 1:1 is not automaticallyto be equatedwith the programof t. Shab. 1:1-6 which precisely develops the abstractspaces as to theirmeasurementsand characteristics.I.e., rabbinic texts do not uniformlyuse the languageof "domains,"and m. Shab. 1:1 may represent a differentstratumof mishnaicmaterial. 24 I borrowthis felicitous phrase from L. Schiffman,"Halakhahand History:The Contributionof the Dead Sea Scrolls to Recent Scholarship,"in Judische Geschichte Munchen:OldenbourgVerlag,1999), in hellenistisch-romischer Zeit(ed. A. Oppenheimer; 213. 2S There is, however, a wide-spreadassumptionthat the Sadducees actually disagreedwiththisprohibition,"orwithsomeof its details"(Schiffman,Halakhahat Qumran, 113), in agreementwith B. Revel, The KaraiteHalakhahearlier(Philadelphia:Press of Cahan,1913)114, n. 201); so also L. Ginzberg,Albeck. However,aside from the questionof the "halakhicidentity"of the Qumranites,i.e., whetherthey are Essenes or Sadducceantypes, this hypothesisis based on a numberof problematicpresumptions, not the least of which is thatamoraicsources(b. Hor.4a) are consideredto be reliable evidence for Sadduceanhalakhahof the first century.Even the tannaiticproof-textin

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51

the non-Pharisaicsects any effortto seek a formulafor the relaxation of any of the restrictionsregardingcarryingor the extend of the permitted walking limits."26 The prohibitionof carnyingout of and into the house on the Sabbathwas widely subscribedto (if not necessarily practiced!)across the presumedboundariesof various groups,but the attemptto circumventthat prohibitionwith the help of a legal fiction such as the 'eruv is uniqueto only one legal traditionin the "halakhic marketplace,"that of the rabbis.27 Damascus Document11:4-5 The one exception may be the indirect evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls, more specifically from what Schiffmandesignatesas the "Sabbathcode"28in the Damascus Document, or the Zadokite fragments respectively,where we find the following much debated line: :'tn (CD 11:4-5, cp. 4Q 271 5 i 1-2 = 4Q Df 5 i 1-2).29

m. 'Eruv.6:2 is far from transparentas to Sadduceanhalakhah,as will be discussed below. More recently,Goldbergpresumesa Sadduceandisagreementon the prohibition of carrying:"the Sadduceesdid not accept all the Pharisaicrules restrictingcarrying from domain to domain,"(The Mishnah Treatise Eruvin, XIV [Heb.] and 16 [Engl.]).Only Doeringtentativelysuggests that in fact "the attributionin m. Erub.6:2 might turn out to be later rabbinicpolemic against the Sadducees,"("New Aspects," 262). 26 XIV (Engl.) and 16 (Heb.). Goldberg assumes a basic continuity between Pharisees(= proto-rabbis)and rabbis,while I-along with others-would take a more cautionaryapproach.See for instance A. Baumgarten,"Graeco-RomanAssociations and Jewish Sects" (ed. M. Goodman; Jews in a Graeco-Roman World, Oxford: ClarendonPress, 1998), 102, n. 35. 27 Of course, to be more precise one should say across the boundariesof textual identities,since whatevergroupstherewere are only representedby individualtextual voices, in this case Jubilees,the DamascusDocumentresp. the ZadokiteFragmentsor rabbiniclaw (e.g., m. Shab. 1:1). 28 On the argumentthat the body of Sabbathlaw in the Zadokitefragmentconstitutes a unity see Schiffman,Halakhahat Qumran,80-83. This view is adopted by Doering,"New Aspects,"251, n. 1. 19 As early as with the originalpublicationof the Zadokitefragmentsby Schechter in 1910 a numberof scholarshave suggested the emendationof ZWll' to :Irr (to fast, starve oneself): "no one should voluntarilyfast on the Sabbath."So Schechter, Rabin,Segal and Ginzberg,as discussedby Schiffman,Halakhahat Qumran,109-111. However, as far as I can tell this suggestion is now rejectedby virtuallyeveryone, since the actual manuscriptversions of the law have :)Wr7. So also most recently C. Murphy,Wealthin the Dead Sea Scrolls, 70. Schiffman(op. cit.) weighs the fasting option and admitsin his summaryconclusionthat "it may have been forbiddento fast on the seventhday" (132), particularlysince Jub. 50:12, and later rabbinictexts make a point of prohibitingfasting on the Sabbath.In addition,some kind of Jewishpractice

52

CHARLOTTEELISHEVA FONROBERT

Suggestionsfor translationsand the meaningof this particularprohibition, unique in the Qumrancorpus, are extremely far-rangingand need not all be rehearsedhere.30That it refers to some kind of 'eruv practice,prohibitedon the Sabbathby the authorof this law, had been suggested early

on3'

and is most recently affirmed by G. Stemberger,

if only tentatively.32 The immediatecontextwould seem to corroborate this assumption,since the immediatelyfollowing law concernsthe distance one is allowed to venturebeyond a city and CD 11:7-9 lists the prohibition to move things in and out of the house, as discussed above. At the same time, this explanationhas been debunkedsince it cannot explain the phrase l "by his own volition"or "voluntarily."33 F. Garcia Martinez, on the other hand, translates: "No-one should interminglevoluntarilyon the sabbath,"whatever that might specifically mean.34This echoes perhapsJ.M Baumgartenand D.R.

of fasting on the Sabbathseems to have been known among "Latinclassical writers" (111) and-one might add-in later debates over the observance of the Sabbath amongstJews and Christians,some authorsadvocatedfasting on the Sabbath,as for instance in the fourth centuryCE Didascalia Apostolorum.But even Schiffmanultimately chooses rnwr for his base translation. 30 L. Doering, Schabbat, 169-70 counts eleven, and adds his own, which is however closely relatedto J.M. Baumgartenand E. Qimron.Alread Qimronpresenteda M-In' R9",Proceedings careful critique of the suggested interpretations,in "nflZ 1z1'tN of the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies, D. 1, Hebrew Section (Jerusalem, 1986), 9-15. 31 Lezynsky and M.-J. Lagrange,"La secte juive de la Nouvelle Alliance au pays de Damas,"RB 9 (1912), 21340, 321-60, in responseto Schechter'sZadokitefragment in 1910. 32 G. Stembergeridentifiesthe authorsof the text as Essenes and argues:"Von den wissen, der Essenernist nach allem, was wir aus Josephusund den Qumranschriften Sabbatnoch strikterals von den Pharisaemeingehaltenworden:'Auch huten sie sich an Sabbatenmehr noch als alle Juden,Arbeitenanzuruhren'(BJ II, 147). Einen Erub hatten sie sicher nicht gestattet, auch wenn CD XI, 4f nicht eindeutig ist: 'Nicht yit'areb ein Mensch nach seinem Willen am Sabbat.'. . . Wenn man den Vers im Kontext mit dem Folgendenliest, lage allerdings der Gedankean den Erub naher" Essener,Stuttgart: Verl.Kath.Bibelwerk, thanemendingit to :nsrn (Pharisaer,Sadduzder, 1991), 71, my emphasis. 33 Thus alreadyS. Hoenig, "An InterdictAgainst Socializingon the Sabbath,"JQR N.S. 62 (1971), 77-83 pointedout againstLezynsky'sand Lagrange'searliersuggestions: ". . . can there be any forced wager or a compulsoryerub without volition or intention?"(80). However,it shouldbe notedthat the phrasedoes not easily fit any of the proposed interpretationsof this law. Following E. Qimron, Doering makes the explanationof the locution I1rN-I one of the criteriafor any possible explanationof the phraseSchabbat,170. 34 The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition (eds. and trans. by F. GarciaMartinezand E.J.C.Tigchelaar;Leiden:Brill, 1997) 569, 621. See also Vermeswho translates:"No man shall willingly mingle (with others) on the Sabbath"(The CompleteDead Sea

FROM SEPARATISM TO URBANISM

53

Schwartz'stranslationwho, however, is more specific as to the reference of the intermingling:"Let no man intermingle(puritieswith others) voluntarily on the Sabbath."35Alternatively, this choice might point in the direction that S. Hoenig had suggested earlier. Hoenig translates:"let no man socialize, of his own free will, on the Sabbath."36 By socializinghe means with anybody,includingfellow-Jews, not merelywith non-Jews.However,his readingis based on the argument that this is a reiterationof known Karaitepractice, and hence supposedlyproves the Karaiteprovenanceof the Zadokitefragments,37 obviously no longer a tenable position. Finally, rejecting the 'eruv option based on a grammaticalargument,L.H. Schiffmantranslates:"No one shall enterpartnershipby his own volition on the Sabbath."38 That is, he rejects the hypothesisof

Scrolls in English [New York: PenguinPress, 1997] 140). The biblical echo for this translationis perhapsthe use of the hitpa'elform of the verb in Ps. 106:35(being mingled with the 0'1: or "non-Jews")and Ezra 9:2 (the holy seed is being mingled with the r 'rVtM, the "peoples of the land"). On the latter see Fishbane, Biblical Interpretationin AncientIsrael, 115-116. In both cases the mingling is negative. In the Damascus Document, the close-by prohibitionof contact with non-Jews on the Sabbathin CD 11:14 uses a differentlocution:n:1: C':' Dlcp mlpm:krKnUtt1'bm. 3S The Dead Sea Scrolls: Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek Texts with English Translations (ed. J.H. Charlesworth; Louisville:Westminster,1995), 2.47. It shouldbe noted that the parenthesisis pureconjecture.In a footnote,Charlesworthrefersto lIQ 45:11 (sic) and 4Q 274 1 i 5 (= 4Q TohorotA) for the verb as "intermingle"in the context of ritualpurity,47, n. 164. C. Murphyfurtherclaims that "the verb used for 'mixing' one's wealth, YID, is consistentwith the languageof purityand pollution,"Wealthin the Dead Sea Scrolls, 133, 222 without however providingevidence for the latter. Qimron and Baumgartenboth made a connection with ritual purity, followed by Doering. Hence Doering translates "nobody should deliberately intermingle (with regardto humanlytransferableimpurity),"Schabbat,173. 3 "An InterdictAgainst Socializing,"83 (his emphasis). We might also consider E. Qimron'spropositionthat ZWrl' refers to sexual interminglingor relations,as one particularform of socializing.See E. Qimron,"ZnWi 't," 9-15 and E. Nodet, "LaLoi a Qumranet Schiffman,"RB 102 (1995), 56. 31 He arguesin fact that this line demonstrates "thatthe ZadokiteFragmentis nothing but a medieval Karaiticcontext ... No earlier text conveys such a notion,"("An Interdict,"83). Thus the argumentis circular. 38 The Halakhahat Qumran,109 (my emphasis).The grammaticalargumentis the following: "It is clear that this verb cannot mean 'to make an 'eruv' as that meaning commonly requiresa pie'el in Heb., and a pa'el in Aram."But this is derived from rabbinicHebrew.Interestingly,Schiffmanpoints out that grammaticallyour locutionis uniquein the Dead Sea Scrolls, the exceptionto any rule: ". . . Note that normallythe hitpa'elof 'rb in the Qumranliteraturerequiresthat the prepositionb follow. Our passage is an exception" (109, n. 167). On Schiffman's translationStembergernotes brieflywithoutfurtherelaborationthat his choice is "sachlichauch nicht problemlos," Pharisaer,Sadduzaer,70.

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CHARLOTTEELISHEVA FONROBERT

communalpropertyat Qumranand insteadinsists that"communaluse, not communalownership,seems to have been the rule at Qumran."39 He then clarifies that "the law would then prohibitdeclaringon the Sabbathany privatepropertyto be availablefor communaluse,"40but presumablynot duringthe rest of the week. In otherwords, the group allows for whateverform of co-mingling(or forminga partnership,or making an individual'spropertyavailable for shareduse) duringthe regularweek, or perhapsspecifically upon initiation,as will be discussed below, but not on the Sabbath.Schiffmanthen concludes:"If the interpretationof above is correct,there would be no rabbinicparallel, as the contentof this law is purely sectarian,applyingonly in a communitywhich sharedthe use of its property"to begin with, since in his view there is no evidence of such an idea to be found in rabbinic law.41 Pooling Property in the Manual of Discipline

Given the variety of interpretationsit would seem that the one line in the DamascusScroll does not yield a huge amountof information,

3 Halakhahat Qumran,90. Schiffmaninsists on communaluse of propertyas the Qumranitemode of affiliationin juxtapositionto an actualGutergemeinschaft throughout his work, see the subsequentnote. However,C. Murphy,Wealthin the Dead Sea Scrolls, has now arguedfor communalproperty.She concludesin her monographthat the "sharingof wealth"was a featureof communallife (158). Based on this assumption she argueswith respectto CD XI, 4-5: "The passage is a naturalapplicationof the prohibitionof useless activity in Isa. 58:13 to the peculiarand voluntaryintermingling of propertythat characterizemembersof the Dead Sea commmunity"(70). Still, her translationclosely parallelsSchiffman's:"Let no man associate accordingto his pleasureon the sabbath,"to be understoodas prohibitingthe formationof associations with other membersof the community. I Again, this interpretation still does not accountfor the locution"by his own volition,"and thereforewould fall victim to Qimron'scriteriafor offeringa possibleexplanation of the prohibition.Schiffmandoes not expand on what the exact difference would be between the communal use and communalpropertyin The Halakhahat Qumran(1975). In his SectarianLaw in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Courts,Testimonyand the Penal Code (Chico: ScholarsPress, 1983) he describesthe social characterof the of CD 9:10-12 (restoragroupas "closely knit"and insists, based on his interpretation tion of lost property)and 1 QS 6:24 (on the man who lies about his property)et al. thatcommunaluse of propertyis envisaged,ratherthana communityof goods:"Communal use of propertynever obliteratesthe conceptof privateownershipso clearly assumed in the biblical traditionand, indeed,in the ancientNear East," 112, cf. 162 and 214. 41 109. Cp. also Doering,"New Aspects,"who arrivesat a similarconclusion:"In that there are missing conditionsfor such legal fictions as the 'erubhaserot,there is no congruenceof QumranEssene and rabbinicSabbathlaw regardingthis topic"(264). What he identifiesas missing conditionswill be discussedin the conclusion.

FROM SEPARATISM TO URBANISM

55

and building any argumentof the existence of a proto-type'eruv on this law at best has to remain conjecture. However, in contrast to Schiffman'sconclusion, often repeatedby others, that there would be no rabbinic parallel between Qumran and the rabbinic corpus, we might draw a different,and perhapsintriguingconnectionbetween the texts from Qumran and the rabbinic institution of the 'eruv which might add a differentnuanceto our understandingof the latter. Towards that goal we may draw on a tentative suggestion advanced by J. Licht in his commentaryon the Rule Scroll (SerekhHa-Yahad) or Manualof Discipline.42His study illuminatesthe use of the verbal forms of "'ID in that text. That is, in the context of the initiation process of a new memberinto the groupthe rule is that at the end of zwDMlR--"shall not [yet] be co-mingled the firstyear, still, a-Ilm plnn: with/in the propertyof the many"(lQS 6:17).43 Here, Licht takes the verb to mean: "He should not transferhis propertyto you. The verb :-D refers to the formationof a partnershipin propertyalso" throughout the Rule Scroll.44This point is sharpenedby C. Murphywho reads the initiation passage 6:13b-23 as a descriptionof "the incremental contributionof wealth and the graduallyincreasing,reciprocalclaims All of communityand individualupon the newly donatedresources."45 in all, Licht assumes a closer associationthan Schiffmanbetween the language deployed in IQS and in the rabbinic texts and notes that "thisroot is commonin the languageof the sages concerningthe issue of partnership(m. Qin.1:4); ... so also fl-lSr "mD which is nothing but

a partnershipof courtyardsand parallelto the languageof partnership

42 J. Licht, The Rule Scroll: A Scroll from the Wildernessof Judaea (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute,1965 [Heb.]). The difficultredactionalquestionsconcerningthe Rule Scroll need not concernus here, since we are only dealing with small passages from it. Vis-d-visthe conceptualdevelopmentin rabbinicliteratureit does not matterwhich layer of the text or textual traditionof the Rule Scroll the passages stem from. For a recent discussionof redactionaland textual questionsconcerningthe Rule Scroll, see J.H. Charlesworthand B.A. Strawn, "Reflectionson the Text of Serekh Ha-Yahad Foundin Cave IV,"RevQ 17, 1996, 403-35 and P. Alexander,"TheRedaction-History of SerekhHa-Yahad:A Proposal,"437-56. 43 Charlesworth translates:". . . Nor shall he have any sharein the Many's property" (TheDead Sea Scrolls:Rule of the Community,[PhotographicMulti-LanguageEdition, Philadelphia:AmericanInterfaithInstitute,1996], 62). For a descriptionof the Rule of the Communityand the inductionof a novice into the community,see D. Dimant, "QumranSectarian Literature,"Jewish Writingsof the Second Temple Period (ed. Michael E. Stone; Philadelphia:FortressPress, 1984), 483-551. 4 Licht, The Rule Scroll, 150 n. 17. 45 Wealthin the Dead Sea Scrolls, 158.

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CHARLOTIE ELISHEVA FONROBERT

(m. 'Emv. 3:1, 7:6; m. Dem. 1:4, etc.)."46In other words, he points to

an overlappingof language in both textual corpora:just as the 1nr mnrn:has to do with 'joiningtogether,"with the formationof a partnershipof sorts, so also the co-minglingof the propertyof the initiate. Based on Licht's linguistic point we are now in a position to advance the following suggestion. The overlappingof the language is not arbitrary,nor does it merely indicate a generic relationshipof two forms of partnership.Indeed, the rabbinic'eruv is thereforenot entirelya creatio ex halakhicor at least conceptualnihilo. Rather,the rabbis,I would suggest, in part adapt the conceptuallanguageof the Dead Sea Scrolls and specifically the Manual of Discipline for their own purposes,recontextualizeand translateit symbolicallyto endow it with a different,but relatedsymbolic task.47That relatedtask is one of producingand maintaininga sense of collective identity.In the rabbinic case this is carriedout in the midst of the religiouslyand ethnically mixed towns of Palestine, quite in contrastto the Qumranites. The relationshipis importanthere. In other words, I am suggesting that there is a conceptualrelationshipbetween the Qumranicthinking about the "mergingof property"as a way of constitutingthe yahad, and the rabbinic'eruv of symbolicallymerging individualresidential units to form a ?nfl flIw- on the Sabbath.To be more precise, in the conceptualbackgroundof the emergenceof the rabbinic'eruv is the concept of mergingthe initiate's propertywith the yahad, whetherin the sense of renderingit accessible to the community(Schiffman)or establishingcollective property(Murphy).

Licht, The Rule Scroll, 150 n. 17 S. Fraade who observes a different set of connections between the Qumran and the rabbiniccorpus, or more specifically the DamascusDocumentand Midrash Sifra, carefully raises the question of historical interconnectionsbetween the texts, "ShiftingFromPriestlyto Non-PriestlyLegal Authority:A Comparisonof the Damascus Documentand the MidrashSifra,"DSD 6 (1999), 123-24. None of these, he asserts, can be answeredwith any degree of certainty.However,regardlessof this open question, I agree with him that his "disclaimerof influence in either directionneed not negatethe historicalsignificanceof the comparisonof these texts, and the light thereby Polemics in shed by each on the other's contours"(124). M. Broshi,"Anti-Qumranic the Talmud,"(The MadridQumranCongress:Proceedingsof the InternationalCongress on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Madrid, 18-21 March, 1991 [eds. J.T. Barreraand L.Vegas Montaner;STDJ 11; Madrid:EditorialComplutense;Leiden: Brill 1992]), arguesmuch more forcefullyand thereforeremainsopen to the chargeof speculation that "Qumranicbeliefs and practiceswere still in circulationall throughthe first millenium CE," as evidenced by the Karaites, and that hence the rabbis direct their polemics againsttheir contemporaries,2.599. 4' 47

FROM SEPARATISM TO URBANISM

57

We recall the self-definitionof the communityin IQS 5:1-2: "This is the rule for the men of the Communitywho freely volunteerto convert from all evil and to keep themselves steadfast in all He commanded in compliance with His will. They should keep apart from the congregationof the men of injusticein orderto constitutea Community in law and possessions (pfl1 7MTln) [...]."948 Hence, next to Torah49"poolingproperty"is one of the two ways which establishthe collective unity of the yahad, and which draw strong boundaries between outsiders and insiders, setting the yahad apart from others, includingotherJews outside the community.50 Integratingthe property of the individual into communal property signifies the individual's own assimilationinto the community.5'The rabbis,on the otherhand, constitutetheir version of Israel, their choice designationof the collectivity theirhalakhicwork constructs,52 aroundequivalentpoles. The first is obviously the study of Torah, rabbinicallyreinforcedby the concept of oral Torah,which becomes the main constituentfactor to establish the rabbinic verus Israel.53 The second pole, I suggest here,

48

So Martinez,The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition, 79, my emphasis. Murphy

translates ". . . in wealth," 154; alternatively Charlesworth has ". . . with Torah and

with property."Cp. lQS 5:14 and CD 20:7 on the injunctionfor the group members to separateoneself from a transgressoralso by means of property. 49 See S. Fraade,"Shiftingfrom Priestlyto non-PriestlyLegal Authority," who also emphasizesthat "studywas an essential practicefor both communities"(123). 50 For a recent assessmentof the laws of separatismat Qumranand their connection to rabbinichalakhah,see A. Shemesh,"The Origins of the Laws of Separatism: QumranLiteratureand RabbinicHalacha,"RevQ 70 (1997), 223-43 and referencesto previousstudies in n. 2, 224. Shemeshpoints out that "it is clear that within the sect's non-apocalyptic,practical-halachicframework,Jews outside the Qumrancommunity were treatedfor all intentsand purposesas non-Jews,"227, while the membersof the group are consideredto be "the true childrenof Israel,"230. On the issue of separatismsee also A. Baumgarten, "Graeco-Roman VoluntaryAssociations,"94. Charlesworth arguesthat some of the fragmentssuggest that the groupeven might have a notion of a corporatemiqdashor sanctuarywithin the group,"Reflectionson the Text of Serekh ha-Yahad,"432-5.The Qumranicseparatismhas traditionallyprimarilybeen read with respectto the centralsanctuaryin Jerusalem(Murphy,Wealthin the Dead Sea Scrolls, 152). The case could be made that there are numerousother ways that undergirdthe projectof boundarydrawingby the groupsin additionto the two named above, such as the practice of commensality and the discourse of ritual and moral im/purity. However, it is strikingthat in the introductorysummaryto the rules for the community the boundariesare organizedaroundTorahand property. "1 Murphy,Wealthin the Dead Sea Scrolls, 158. Indeed, she considersthe sharing of wealth as "a preeminentsymbol of unity"in the Manualof Discipline. 52 See S. Stem, Jewish Identity,particularly11-13 and 127-38. 53 The classic text here is the much discussed passage in m.Sanh. 10:1. Daniel Boyarin discusses this passage in his forthcoming book Border Lines: Hybrids,

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CHARLOTTEELISHEVA FONROBERT

is similarlyconstitutedby property,that is by the 'eruv and the symbolicmergingof individualresidentialspaces.Butcontraryto theQumran texts, where the yahad is in partconstitutedby an exodus from urban space54and by a strict conceptualseparationfrom "the men of iniquity," the rabbis' Israel and its 'eruv is constitutedprecisely there, in the presence, nay, in the midst of and togetherwith other kinds of Jews of various shades and colors and non-Jews, of apostates and The 'eruvthenbecomesa meansof maintainingtheintegrity transgressors. the collective identityof Israel.WhatMeeksobservesaboutthePauline of groups is applicableto the rabbis in equivalentterms (without committing ourselves to his identificationof the group at Qumran):"The Pauline groups' strong and intimatesense of belonging, their special beliefs and norms,their perceptionof their own discretenessform 'the world,' did not lead them to withdrawinto the desert,like the Essenes of Qumran.They remainedin the cities, and their memberscontinued to go about their ordinarylives in the streets and neighborhoods,the shops and agora.""To demonstratethe conceptualconnectionbetween the tannaitic 'eruv and the Qumranicprocess of merging an initiate into the yahad let us turn to the rabbinictexts. The Tannaitic Eruv

The mishnah56in which the unity of "Israel"with respect to the 'eruv is foregroundedis the following: Heretics and the Partition of Judaeo-Christianity (University of Pennsylvania Press,

forthcoming). S4 Cp. Murphy,Wealth in the Dead Sea Scrolls, 146, where she arguesthat the sepat some point in the community'shistory arationfrom the "men of unrighteousness" meant "a spatial separationto the wildernessas well." See also G.J. Brooke,"Isaiah 40:3 and the Wilderness Community" The New Qumran Texts and Studies: Proceedings of the First Meeting of the International Organization for Qumran Studies, Paris

1992 (eds. G. Brooke and F. Garcia Martinez;Leiden: Brill, 1994), 117-32; and Associations,"107 with referenceto 1 QS 9:19-20. A. Baumgarten,"Graeco-Roman ss Wayne A. Meeks, The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle

Paul (New Haven:Yale UniversityPress, 1983), 105. Interestingly,Meeks entitles the section here "Gatesin the Boundaries"(105), an articulationthat applies very well to the rabbinicconceptualizationof the 'eruv. I thankElliot R. Wolfson for calling my attentionto the relevanceof this text for my argument. 56 I use lower case mishnahfor an individualtext unit and capitalizewhen referring to the entirecorpus.My translationsin the followingare based on the Kaufmannmanuscript.A. Goldberghas provideda text-criticaledition for this tractate,The Mishna TreatiseEruvin.Any relevantdivergencein othermanuscriptsof early printedversions will be noted. [ ] in the translationsindicate clarifying additionsto the eliptic and thereforeenigmatichalakhicrhetoricof the Mishnah.

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If someonelives with a non-Jew57 in a court-yard,or with someonewho does not agree with the 'eruv,58 then that one [i.e., the non-Jew] imposes a prohibition [of

transferringany object from his house into the courtyardon the Sabbath]on him.59 But Rabbi 'Eliezer ben Ya'acov says: Indeed, he [i.e., the non-Jew, or the other personwho does not agree with the 'eruv] does not impose a prohibition [of carryinginto the courtyardon him], unless two Israelitesimpose a prohibition on each other. (m. 'Eruv. 6:1, my emphasis)

In the backgroundof this mishnahis the assumption,laid out in the tractateas a whole and specificallythe sixth chapter,that two rabbinic Jews

(:tfllw),

as those who presumably agree to the principle of the

'eruv and who live in a joined courtyard,would be able to make an 'eruv in orderto circumventthe prohibitionof carryinginto the courtyard on the Sabbath.This mishnah, then, raises the question about the collective homogeneity of such an ceruvcommunity.Differently put, the questionis whetherthat collectivity can potentiallytranscend "ethnic"(Jew versus non-Jew)or "religio-legal"(rabbinicJew versus "the one who does not agree to the principleof the ceruv")boundaries. The preliminaryansweris negative, or at least the mishnahleaves the questionopen, while the disagreementhere only concernsthe number of rabbinicJews present. Notably, the spatialframefor this questionis providedby the walls of the joined courtyard,which is expandedto the alley in the immediately following mishnah,a much-discussedcase-storyfrom the past involving a Sadducee:10 S7 Ms Kaufmannand most other versions of the text have '-:: (the most neutral term for non-Jew),whereas the printededition of the BabylonianTalmud has M"=Z (idol-worshipper). 58 J.N. Epstein, Introductionto the Version of the Mishnah (Jerusalem:Magnes Press, 1963, [Heb.]), 2.608-9; and Introductionto the Literatureof the Tannaim,313, has argued that this phrase is a secondaryemendation.See also A. Goldberg, The MishnahTreatiseEruvin, 161. It is missing in a numberof manuscriptsas well as in some medieval commentaries.Rabbeinu Hanan'el omits the phrase, but as Albeck notes, he often abbreviatesthe textualversionof Mishnahor Talmud,ratherthan having a different textual version, 70OM flID ltUN(Tel Aviv: Dvir Publishing, 1988), 2.435. Rashi clearly does have our version in front of him, see b. 'Eruv. 61b. More significantly,however, both the Babylonian and the PalestinianTalmud ignore the phrasealtogetherin their discussionsof m. 'Eruv.6:1, based on which Epstein concludes that "essentially the mishnah only included the 'non-Jew"' (Version of the Mishnah, 609) whereas the phraseZn)s: n771 T'O 'ICis supposedlyimportedfrom elsewherein the tractate,i.e., m. 'Eruv.3:2. S9 The first printededition here adds "[according]to the opinion of Rabbi Meir." The discussionin the BabylonianTalmudassumesthat the first anonymousopinion is Rabbi Meir's, see b. 'Eruv.62a. I The case-storyis rathercomplicatedand has been put to varioususes, mostly as

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RabbanGamli'el said: [There is] a case story (;rO?O)about a certainSadducee who used to live with us in an alleyway in Jerusalem.Fathersaid to us: Hurry and bringout all your vessels to the alleyway, lest he bringsout [his] and [thus] imposes on you a prohibition[of carryingyour things into the alleyway on the Sabbath]. RabbiYehudahsaid it in a differentversion:Hurryand performall your needs in the alley lest he bringsout and [thus]imposes a restrictionon you. (m. 'Eruv. 6:2)

The joined courtyardand the alleyway are parallelcases both in a social and in a halakhic sense. Socially, in the Mishnahthey are the representativespaces of the mixed urban neighborhood.Israel, i.e., rabbinically defined Jews, are assumed to live with non-Jews and other types of Jews in close proximity,both in the past in Jerusalem, as in RabbanGamli'el's case-story,and in the presentof the mishnaic halakhic discussions themselves (m. 'Eruv. 6:1). The mishnaic legis-

lators reflect on whether these mixed neighborhoodscan be joined into a communityfor the purposesof the Sabbath.6'Secondly, both (joined) courtyard and (blind) alleyway62are halakhically parallel cases, in that they providethe properspatialframeworkwhich allows That is, the physicalspatial for the formationof an 'eruv-community.63

a proof-textfor Sadduceanhalakhah.See below for the halakhicanalysisof this story which, however,ignoresfor reasonsof space the differencebetweenRabbanGamliel's and Rabbi Yehudah'sversion of what exactly RabbanGamliel's statementwas. 61 For a discussion of the courtyardin terms of social space, in conjunctionwith discourse of gender as it constitutes distinction between private versus public, see C. Baker,Rebuildingthe House of Israel: Architecturesof Genderin Jewish Antiquity (Stanford:StanfordUniversityPress, 2002), in particularthe fourthchapter,"Inside Out and Outside In: Courtyards, Alleyways, and the Gendering of 'Public' and 'Private'."She emphasizesthe dynamic quality of the courtyardand alleys: "In the built environmentof Roman Galilee and in the texts of the tannaim,the -1;M,courtyard, and the U:, alleyway, are the sites par excellence of such overlapand indeterminacy"(1 13). 62 The furtherexpansion of the blind alleyway or cul-de-sac is the walled city, whose gates either are locked at night or can be locked, see Maimonides,Mishneh Torah,Hilkhot'Eruvin 1:1, which treats all three spaces together.The mishnaictractate, however, mostly discusses its issues within the walls of either the courtyardor the alleyway, as far as constitutingan 'eruv-communityis concerned.It is only the medieval responsa literaturewhich discusses issues pertaining to the status of a (walled) city more extensively. See, e.g., I'VID nOrMbP C'MR1 WDp"-m: (Tifrah: Makhonle-hotsa'atsifre rishonim,1991). (within it) as a courtyard 63 See m. 'Eruv.6:8: "The alleyway is to the courtyards is to the houses (within it)." The focus of the currentarticle does not allow for a detaileddiscussionof the complicatedways by which the spatialframeworkis constituted. Sufficeit to say that the first two chaptersof the tractatedeal with preparinga blind alley-way for co-joiningthe courtyardsand householdswithin it by constructing a "shapeof a doorway"in its entry (m. 'Eruv. 1:1). M. 'Eruv.9:2 and 9:3 define the

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conditionsare only the preconditionfor the possibilityof mergingresidential space and residents,by means of food symbolism.The 'eruv itself, or the 97tt in the case of the alleyway, is the food collected from those who participatein the 'eruv-community.64 It is the collected and collective food which serves as a symbolic means of unification,65 to be deposited in one of the residential units (see m. 'Eruv. 8:4). Framingm. 'Eruv.6:1 and 6:2 within the walls of the courtyardor the cul-de-sac, then, allows the mishnaic editors to focus solely on the question of the socio-ethnic homogeneity of the 'eruv-communityto which we will now turn. Two groups other than the "Israelites,"16 the locution for the normative rabbinicJews, are namedin m. 'Eruv.6:1, non-Jewsand those "who do not agree with the very concept of the 'eruv."67 The referent for the former is of course evident, certainlyfrom the perspectiveof invalidationof a courtyardin case of a breachin the wall. The symbolisminherentin this tractateis a wildly understudiedissue. 64 In the case of the 'eruv, m. 'Eruv .7:10 records a disagreement.According to RabbiEliezer, any food but water and salt is appropriate,while RabbiYehoshuaholds that only a whole loaf of bread is appropriate.For a discussion of the disagreement see Y. Gilat, R. EliezerBen Hyrcanus,219-228. In m. 'Eruv.3:1, the anonymouseditorialvoice holds that"withanythingone can establishan 'eruvor a shittuf."M. 'Eruv. 7:6-7 describesthe preparationof the shittuffood, while it omits a detailed description of the preparationof the 'eruv food. See also t. 'Eruv.6:1 (ms Erfurt9:1) and b. 'Eruv. 80a For a later descriptionof the collection of the 'eruv food, modeled on the prescriptionof the shittuf,see MaimonidesMishnehTorah,HilkhotEruvin 1:16. 65 The unificatoryforce of the food symbolismis underscoredby an early amoraic statementrecorded in the Babylonian Talmud:"Rav Yehudah said in the name of Samuel:If a man is particularabouthis [share]in the 'eruv,his 'eruv is not an 'eruv. For what is its name?'Eruv [= co-joining]"(b. 'Eruv.49a). And again, the same Rav Yehudahin the name of Samuel:"He who divides his ceruv,it is not an 'eruv."The medieval commentaries,such as Rashi, R. Hananeland the Meiri, all emphasizethat the name ('eruv)impliesjoining of the community,and if an individualinsists on consuming only his own contribution,he is not really co-mingled with the group. His stinginess or miserliness preventshim from symbolic integrationinto the collective M singularform is the more commonone in tannaiticliterature.S. Sternpoints The out that "the pluralform Yisre'elimis occasionallyfound in the Mishnah,Tosefta and Sifre: e.g. M. Eruv.6, 1; M.AZ 4,11. However,IsraelFeintuchin MesorotveNus'haot (Ramat-Gan:Bar-IlanUniversity Press, 1985, 187-90) demonstrateson the basis of manuscriptreadingsand early editions that this pluralform Yisre'elim is probablynot authentic,"Jewish, 11, n. 68. 67 Even if Epstein is correct,as it seems he is judging from the talmudicevidence, and this locution is a post-talmudicemendation,the analysis presentedhere is still valid, since nobody contests that the phraseis indeed mishnaic,as the evidence in m. 'Eruv.3:2 is uncontested.The argumentabout the tension this phraseintroducesinto the mishnaictaxonomyof others as will be demonstratedin what follows is therefore not entirelydependenton the presenceof this phrasehere.

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the mishnaiceditor,and marksthe ethnicboundary.It is the latterthat is remarkablein that it appearsas a rhetoricalindeterminacy,"someone who does not agree with the very principleof the 'eruv."This phrase, in fact, producesa tension in the taxonomy of the Mishnah which mostly names other groups of Jews, such as the Sadducees (:'plTv),68 Samaritans(Mrnz:),69Boethusians(p:n')70 etc.. Virtually every discussionof our mishnahhas been tryingto resolve this tension. The phraseappearsonly one other time, earlierin the same tractate (m. 'Eruv. 3:2), there in the context of who may serve as the legitimate representativeof a male (rabbinic)Jew to depositthe food on the in order to extend it: "If one [i.e., a rabbinic borderof the MOtMMnn Jew] sends his 'eruv by the hand of a deaf-mute,a mad person or a minor, or by the hand of one who does not agree to the [principleof the] 'eruv, the 'eruv is not valid." In this context, the Babylonian Talmud (b. 'Eruv. 31b) cites an amoraic one-word statement,attributed to Rav Hisda, a Babylonian'amora of the thirdgeneration,who More often than not dis"identifies"such a person as a Samaritan.7" cussions of m. 'Eruv.6:1, or for that matterm. 'Eruv.3:2, adaptthis identificationas a givenfact,andmodemcommentators frequentlyequate this personwith the Sadduceanof RabbanGamli'el's case-storyin m. 'Eruv. 6:2 and deduce their hypotheses about Sadducean halakhah from this identification.72

68 69 70

M. Mak 1:6, m. Par. 3:7-8, m. Nid. 4:1-2, m.Yad. 4:7. m. Nid. 4:1. E.g., m. Men. 10:3.

IRMI:.See also TractateKutim 1:7, accordingto which "theyprohibitedthe 'eruv nov, [in the case of a kuti]just as [in the case ofl an idolator"(Albeck, inrz -rrC 2:435). Rashi importsthis identificationinto the context of m. 'Eruv. 6:1. So does -I m": :ntC:v: -:I K":M-In'VIM (ed. z&:Qtk the Ritba, see p on-wnzorz b M. Goldstein; Jerusalem:Mossad Ha-Rav Kook, 1981), 577 as well as the Meiri, 71

it-T7

-II&M '1:0, 1967), 3.240. n"M(ed. M.B. Hirschler; Jerusalem: &Uil I7K-7'W171

J.N. Epstein, however, acknowledgesthe problemwith a historicistreadingof Rav Hisda's comment, and thereforethe limits to its referentialvalue. He observes that R. Hisda repeatedlyreads tannaitic collective and often ambiguousterms, such as EpsteinconM-7iK(b. Pes. 51a) or nn:-n- (b. Sanh. 21b) as referringto the MIMI:. cludes from this that R. Hisda, therefore,can only be understoodas referringto the Samaritansas a possible examplefor such tannaiticsignifiers,ratherthanas exclusive referents,Versionof the Mishnah,609. 'no ; 72 See for instance Ch. Albeck, ;1mO2.435 and L. Doering, "New Aspects,"262. Doering however suggests that "the attributionin m.Erub.6:2 might turnout to be later polemic againstthe Sadducees.Maybe a differentgroupwas originally meant there"(262-63), referringto A. Geiger's propositionthat Jews who blatantly transgress the Sabbath laws were meant. See also Doering's slightly more extensive discussion (Schabbat,524-27), in which he concludes: "Whatcan in my

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However, ultimately these attempts at identifications follow the BabylonianTalmud'seffort to reestablisha clear taxonomyof heterodox identities and thus have only limited value in their avoidance of even consideringto ask whether or why the Mishnahwould choose precisely this formulation.Indeed, the indeterminacyof the locution arguablytells us moreaboutrabbinichalakhicself-perceptionwithregard to the 'eruv than about the "halakhic identity" of the projected oppo-

nents. Such an appraisalof the mishnah'sforce is corroboratedif we turnto theTosefta'selaborationon it, whichblurstheboundariesbetween "us"and "them"even more while raising the discussionto a different level: An Israel who desecratesthe Sabbathin public:he does not need to"3relinquish his "domain" [men- ',:'1.

But an Israel who does not desecratethe Sabbathin public [butperhapsin private] needs to74 relinquishhis "domain"[inIC An Israel can take ownershipor relinquish"domain"[mnic'tcmzrz mzni mi:, and with a non-Jew [presentan 'eruv cannot be established]until he rents [his domain].(t. 'Eruv.5:18; cp. b. 'Eruv. 62a and 69a)75

The Tosefta introducesyet anothertype of person, i.e., the (ostensibly) rabbinic Jew, still designated an "Israel,"who however desecratesthe Sabbath,in public or in privaterespectively,and attemptsto regulatethe ways in which such a personcan or cannotbe integrated into the 'eruv-community.The differentiationnow moves within the boundariesof "Israel."76 At issue here however, at least at first, is not

opinionbe deducedfrom mEr6:2 in termsof securehistoricalinformationis that from a Pharisaic-early rabbinicperspectiveone could not establish an 'eruv-community with Sadducees,since they objectedto the 'eruv (which made co-habitationwith them much more difficult)"(527, my translation). 73 S. Liebermancommentsthat the phrasingshould be "he cannot"renounce,see his Tosefta Eruvin (2nd edition; Jerusalem:The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1992) 115, n. 47 and his elaborationin the commentary,Tosefta Kifshuta (OrderMo'ed) (2nd edition;Jerusalem:The Jewish TheologicalSeminaryof America, 1992), 402. 74 Rather,he "can"relinquish,see previousnote. 7S In the version of this baraita in the BabylonianTalmud(b. 'Eruv.62a) the latter partis phraseddifferently,perhapsin an attemptto clarify:"Therabbissaid: An 'eruv is not effective in a place of an idolator,and the annulmentof domainis not effective in place of an idolator,and he [the non-Jew]rents out" his share in the courtyard. 76 The Yerushalmiadds: Zm1 5Z5 'm KiM 17: C'n I*= ZfltD n =Ul1 1n Zn m"A resident alien, resident slave, and a brazen apostate, behold, these are to be regardedas a non-Jewfor all purposes,"(y. 'Eruv.6:2, 23b). See S. Lieberman,HaYerushalmi Kiphshuto: A Commentary, 1:1 (Jerusalem: Darom, 1934), 306 who notes that the Meiri adds: .. . for all purposes concerning the 'eruv." Cp. b. 'Eruv 69a, there l i.

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the initial formationof the 'eruv-communitybefore the onset of the Sabbath, but the further fictional arrangementsto be made on the Sabbathif someone forgot to join in the 'eruv-makingby contributing food.77In such a case, the personwho forgot can-on the Sabbathverbally"relinquish"or "cancel"his rightsover his sharein the joined courtyard78 for the benefitof the otherresidentsby saying:"my reshut is given to you, my reshutis relinquishedto you ['irnn ,t MiM:'nIlt J Mrn"ny (t. 'Eruv. 5:18). Accordingly,he commits himself to refrain from carryingfrom his house into the courtyardfor the duration of the Sabbath.Here the two aspects of the term reshut in this context come into full play in that it oscillates between referringto a physical,definablespace (domain),i.e., his sharein the courtyard,and here referring to the rights or accessibilityto that space (dominion),79 specifically to carryingfrom his house into the courtyard.This performatorystatementcomes to mean:I will annulmy right of carrying from my house into the courtyardand therebyallow my share of the courtyardto be merged with yours, my rabbinicneighbor,or to the group of rabbinicneighborswho have alreadyjoined into the 'eruv community.My "dominion"is now your "dominion." By this verbal agreementhis share in the courtyardis conceptually merged into the collectivity of the courtyard,allowing him and the other rabbinically Jewish residents to carry from their houses into His verbal commitmentis key here, since ultimately the courtyard.80 the agreementcan only be valid and-I would add-retain a certain degree of symbolic integrity as far as the 'eruv-communityis concerned, if the person is to be trusted.In other words, the symbolic fiction of nlt- b10': which is in turnbuilt on the symbolic fiction of the 'eruv, can be regardedas a kind of privilege that only accruesto

T. 'Eruv.5:15 (ms Erfurt7:15). Cp. m. 'Eruv. 6:3. Specifically his right to carry into it. See also S. Schwartz, Imperialismand Jewish Society,200 BCE to 640 CE (Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress, 2001), 234 n. 59. either and overlaps. 79 The terminologyin English is not always self-explanatory My choice of the two terms is a preliminaryeffort to capturethe two aspects of the tannaiticconcept of reshut,which requiresmore research.The primarydefinitionof 77

78

"dominion" suggested by the O4ord English Dictionary (2002) is "the power or right

of governingand controlling;sovereignauthority,. . . control,influence,"while domain may be understoodas referringto "heritableproperty,estate or territoryheld in possession; lands"or "a districtor region underrule, control or influence,or contained within certainlimits." 80 See also m. 'Eruv. 6:3

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insiderswho are also recognizableas reliable in their public commitment to the notion of a Sabbathcommunity,at least accordingto the Tosefta. Hence, a person who blatantly transgressesthe Sabbath in public disrupts precisely that notion.8' Differently put, if he transgresses the Sabbathin public, the symbolic unificationof the joined court-yardinto an 'eruv-communitycannot attain believability. It may be surmisedthen that it is the question of niothat seems to be at stake in the case-storyof RabbanGamliel. That is, the questionaboutthe Sadduceeis whetherhe could be trustedto hold by an agreementnot to carry from his house into the courtyard.82 The itself does not concern the issue of an 'eruv with making case-story the Sadducee,whetherhe agrees to the principleof the 'eruv or not, but ratherthe issue of whetherhe can be trustedwhen he renounces his reshut in favor of the other rabbinicJews in the joined courtyard or the alleyway.83

8' The BabylonianTalmudillustratesthis point by providingan accountof an incident of "a certainpersonwho went out [on the Sabbath]with a bag of spices. When he saw R. YehudahNesiah he covered it" (b. 'Eruv. 69a). Nonetheless,R. Yehudah Nesiah ruled that such a person may still relinquishhis domain, presumablybecause he at least made an effort at correctappearance. 82 See also A. Goldberg,who reads the force of the story in line with the Babylonian Talmud:"RabbanGamliel differedfrom the opinionvoiced at the beginningof the chapterthat the one who does not agree with the eruv imposes a prohibition[of carrying]and cannot renouncehis reshut. RabbanGamliel held the opinion that the Sadducee (and the Samaritan)is not like a non-Jew,and even though the Sadducee does not agree to the principleof the 'eruvhe can renounce[his reshut]"(TheMishnah TractateEruvin, 164-65). It is the practiceof bittul reshut and the Sadducee'strustworthinessthat is at stake. In a parallelbaraita in the BabylonianTalmud(b. 'Eruv. 68b) RabbanGamli'el is quoted as calling that Sadduceanneighboran abomination (:Ynzn).Doering'sreading,however,is unclearto me when he states that "accordingto m.Erub.6:2 a certainSadduceedid carryinto a blind alley-way without participating in the shittuf," "New Aspects," 262. This reading is not supported by Rabban Gamli'el's case-story,in whose memoryhis fatheronly warnedthem thatthe Sadducee might act in a certainway. 83 G. Stembergersuggests that the Sadduceehad an alternativeexit throughwhich he could carry and thereforewould not need to carry throughthe courtyardor blind alleyway (Pharisaer,Sadduzder,Essener, 71), even thoughthis is not indicatedat all by the mishnah.Accordingly,this presumedalternativeexit would at least potentially allow the Sadduceeto enter an agreementwith the other residentsin the courtyard. Doering partially follows this reading, but points out the various questions that it raises, such as for instancethat it assumesthatthe Sadduceeeithersimply would carry on the Sabbath,contra the wide-spreadagreementon the prohibitionof carrying,or that he holds by a differentset of 'eruvrules, such that he might for instancedisagree on the natureof the court-yardor blind alleyway with respect to it being privateor public, (Schabbat,525-26).

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As far as the non-Jew is concerned,however, the boundariesare more clearly drawn.He is excludedfrom this notion of communityto begin with, and certainlyfrom the communityof symbolicfictionsthat are designedto unify the courtyardinto an 'eruv-community. We have seen that m. 'Eruv.6:1 merely states that he imposes a prohibitionof carryingfor the Jewishresidentsof the courtyard,but does not suggest how this obstacle could be overcome,whether,indeed, an 'eruv-communitycould be formedat all in the presenceof a non-Jew.However, ratherthan allowing the presence of a non-Jew in the joined courtyard to underminethe very possibilityof formingan 'eruv-community, as the Mishnahmight imply, the Tosefta rules that from a non-Jew one can rent, indeed, one must rent for the purposesof the Sabbath and the 'eruv-community,84 withouthoweveridentifyingwhat precisely it is that one rents. For presumablythe non-Jew will not lose his access to the jointly owned courtyard,and renting from him only affects the Sabbathbehaviorof the rabbinicJews.85Perhapsrenting, then, could be consideredas a more formalized,monetarytransaction with the other which would not transformthe non-Jewinto an actual memberof the symboliccommunity,even thoughat the same time the transactionenables the (rabbinically)Jewish membersof the courtyard, or the alleyway respectively,to forge it.86

84 The tannaitictexts do not discuss the amount of rent, i.e. whethera symbolic amountor a realisticamountis required(see b. 'Eruv.62a). The issue is actuallymore complex since t. 'Eruv.5:19 states that "the courtyardof non-Jewsis, indeed,like an animalbarn,it is permittedto carryin and out from the courtyardinto the houses, and from the houses into the courtyard."This raises the complicatedquestionwhy then a rabbinicJew would have to rentfrom the non-Jewat all, if his space is at least in theory not a halakhicallyvalid residentialspace, a non-entityand a Jew can theoretically carryinto the courtyard.The discussionin the BabylonianTalmud(b. 'Eruv.62a) suggests that the gezerah(or takkanahaccordingto the Tosafot,b. 'Eruv.62a, ff1zvi FrT) to rent from the non-Jewwas institutedin orderto inconveniencethe Jew and make it more difficultfor him to live in close proximitywith the non-JewI'MOC 7r` Nov. The talmudicdiscussionrequiresa separateanalysis. 85 The BabylonianTalmud,in distinctionfrom the PalestinianTalmud,adds in its formulationof the baraitaabout the rabbinictakkanahconcerningrenting from the non-Jewthat the non-Jewwill not comply (b. 'Eruv.62a) and then proceedsto discuss why the non-Jewwould not agree. The conclusionof this talmudicsugya is that even if the act of rentingis only symbolic,the non-Jewwill still be suspiciousthat the Jews are engaged in some kind of sorcery(Clnvzt ffZu O-FT,b. 'Eruv.62a). Most of this chapterin the BabylonianTalmudis built on that assumption.The talmudicdiscussion here again raises some interestingand importantissues pertainingto the rabbinicselfperceptionof the 'eruv, that cannotbe discussedin this framework. 86 Relevant in this context is A. Shemesh's enlighteningdiscussionof the prohibition of receiving gifts from people outside the sect, recorded in the Rule of the

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To summarize:we can picturethe 'eruv-communityin the image of concentric circles of establishing symbolic boundaries. The image works in the following way: the perimeteris constitutedby the walls of the joined courtyardwhich framesthe residential,potentiallymixed community. This community includes non-Jews and other types of Jews or transgressingJews. The outercircle of the 'eruv-communityis establishedby the more formal relationshipof rentingfrom non-Jews. Ratherthan ignoring the presence of a non-Jew altogether,rentingis necessary towards the symbolic unificationof the residential,mixed community of the urban neighborhood and thereby to identify the shared space as a unified Tflrt nrs- with some symbolic integrity. That is, some form of agreementhas to be negotiatedwith the nonJewish resident. At the same time, renting maintains a relatively strongersense of the differencebetween "us" and "them,"an imaginary boundarywithin the residential community.The next circle is constitutedby the performanceof the 'eruv-ritualitself which is established primarilybetween rabbinicallydefinedJews, but also can conceivably include other types of Jews, as long as they do not reject the very principleof the 'eruv. This circle is drawn by the collection of food to establish a communityof intent. Finally, within that circle is anotherone which draws a furtherdistinctionby including only rabbinically definedJews ("Israel"),who are known to respect the notion of a Sabbathcommunityenough not to transgressblatantlythe observance of the Sabbathin public. That circle is constitutedby the practice of Mn17tIMIl in the form of an oral agreement,the least tangible form of forminga partnershipand, therefore,the one that requiresthe greatest possible sense of recognitionof the other as the same. The spaces between the circles are not necessarilyhermeticallysealed as suggestedby the various groupingsof differenttypes of Jews that are considered in the context of the 'eruv-communitywho hover somewhere between those circles.

Community:"No one must either eat or drink anythingof their property,or accept anythingwhateverfrom their hand withoutpayment"(IQS 5:16-17). Shemeshargues that "the law fits quite well into the separatistideology, since nothingfosters feelings of fraternityand obligationso much as receivinga gift," "The Originsof the Laws of Separatism,"238. He notes that "interestingly,no similarrule appearsin the mishnaic discussionsof interactionwith idolatersnor, for that matter,in all of rabbinicliterature."However,theremay be an echo of preciselythis prohibitionin the Toseftanruling that from a non-Jewone must rent for the purposesof the 'eruv, in contrastto joining the food collectionor the verbal act of bittul reshut.

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Conclusion We are now in a position to draw the connectionwith the texts of the Qumraniccommunity.The Rule Scroll uses the conceptof "merging" (nmflr) as it describes the absorptionor incorporationof an outsider's possessions who becomes an initiate into the community. By means of his property,he is includedin stages within the boundaries of the yahad. Thus, the individualis eventually no longer distinguishablefrom the Dm': by means of his possessions.If one of the most powerfuland persuasiveways of maintainingdistinctiveindividuality is by means of one's property,an equally powerful way of establishinga strong sense of collective identity and unity is to dissolve those means of self-constitution.In this way the collective identity of the yahad and concomitantlyits separatismfrom others, nonJews and other Jews, is strengthened. This strategyis mirroredin the rabbinicversionof mergingdomains for the purposesof the Sabbath.At the risk of appearingto advance an anachronistic point,Maimonides'explanationof whatthe'eruvaccomplishes is instructivehere: What is this 'eruv [nMlrl]? It is that they are co-mingledby meansof one [collectionof] food, which they deposit before the beginningof the Sabbath.That is to say, that we are all comingled [n1:1^ZfD?I], and there is one meal for all of us, and not a single one of us divides [his] reshut from his fellow. Rather,just as all our authorityis equal in this place [the jointly owned courtyard]that is availableto all of us, so is the authorityof all of us equal in every place which each individual lays claims to for himself and, indeed,we are all one reshut.(MishnehTorah,Hilkhot 'Eruvin1:6)

Granted,this is of course a much later explanationof the symbolic force of the 'eruv which is not spelled out as such in the tannaitic texts, but perhapswe may read this as an emphasis of that which is only implied in the earliertexts. Maimonidesemphasizesthe dissolution of the distinctionbetween individualsby means of the symbolic food collection, the effect of which is that "we all become one reshut."87The individual flflsV -rnr. That collective 7777T nfls

are merged into one collective n's: may include others, while at the same

preservingthe status of the other as other: The non-Jew is held at

87 Cp. the Meiri,nFflTTif nM:3:184, who emphasizesthe unifictation of minds:"The reasonthat it is called an 'eruv is that they will all be co-mingledin their minds and accomodateeach other."

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arms-lengthby means of renting,while the Sadducee is by means of his exclusion from rnil51D'i . Nonetheless,theirreshutforms an integral part of the symbolic 'eruv-community.While the yahad categorically excludes outsidersand establishesits boundariesby mergingthe newcomer'spropertyinto that of the crnn to cut his ties from the outside, the rabbis "translate"-in the broadestsense of this term88-this procedureinto the establishmentof the symbolic 'eruv community. Thisallowsus to modifyorto addto someof theconceptualapproaches to the questionof the connectionbetween the Qumranictexts and the tannaiticliterature,particularlyas this pertainsto the emergenceof the 'eruv as a ritual institution.As far as I have been able to establish there are basically three such approaches.The first one is the most basic in that it assumes a fairly simple chronological relationship accordingto which the Dead Sea Scrolls are simply the earlier texts in relation to the rabbinictexts, and the latter representthe halakhic trajectoryor expansionof the earliertexts to some degree, when they do not overlap directly.89 L. Doering more recentlyhas attemptedto qualify this chronological relationshipmore specificallyin two differentways. These deserve some discussion, in spite of the brevity with which he offers them, since they presentthe only attemptsto explain at least in embryonic form the developmentof the rabbinicconcept of the 'eruv and differ from the argumentdeveloped in this article. Accordingly,the emergence of the 'eruv is regardedas the productof what appearto be somewhatdubious"socio-historical"or "religious-historical" factors.90 As to the first, Doering suggests that "in (pre-) Hasmoneantimes the

88 That is, direct philological relationships can of course not be proven, while the strong conceptual relationship between the two at the very least is extremely suggestive. 89 See for instance,L. Schiffman,The Halakhahat Qumran,who summarizeshis commentaryon the SabbathCode in the Zadokitefragments:"An interestingquestion is whether the sect had the legal fictions which the tannaimcalled 'erubin. Several times, in analyzing individual laws, it was noted that the existence of these legal fictionsmightanswera questionor solve a problemwhich the observantsectarianmust have faced. Yet nowhereis there explicit mentionof such a device. It would be folly to concludeby casuisticmeans that the 'erubinwere in existence in this period.Only with the later developmentsin Pharisaismand the expansionof the traditionsof the fatherswould such legal fictionshave come into wide use. The Qumransect is apparently earlier than these devices." (132-33, my emphasis). 90 Thus L. Doering, "New Aspects,"262-63 in an otherwisestrictly philologically arguedarticle on the Sabbathlaw at Qumran,and again repeatedin his monograph,

Schabbat, 230-31.

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publicexerteda greatinfluenceon thelives of theindividuals,an influence that has sometimesevidentlyshapedthe ancienthalakah"9'in Jubilees and in Qumran,in juxtapositionto the laterrabbis.This seems to suggest that only the rabbiswho lived in a later socio-historicalera could develop the concept of the 'eruv which underminesthe strict separatismbetween the individualand the public. But, we may ask, why would this "greatinfluence"of the publicno longerbe the case in rabbinic times? Similarly,the second argumentis that "in religioushistorythe limits of one's own possessionplay an early and importantrole; in adhering to these limits, the Qumrantexts continue scripturalthinking,"92 and hence could not develop the concept of the 'eruv. But, we may ask again, not the rabbinictexts? This seems odd. In fact, Doering concludesthat"in this respect,Jubileesand the Qumrantexts evidence Chronologicallyspeaking,this is selfthe older halakhic tradition."93 evident. But the chronotopehere is "religioushistory"and older here seems to mean, closer to the mentalityof the ancients,as in biblical law. In the end, both these suggestionsare purely hypotheticalas to the supposed changes in religious or in socio-historyand cannot be corroborated.94 In view of these approaches,I do not considerthe rabbisto simply expand on the halakhic hermeneuticbegun in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in other Second Temple literature,when they develop the concept 9' "New Aspects,"261-62. The specific context for this suggestionis the question why supposedly both the Qumranitesand Jubilees considered shared courtyardsto be public rather than private spaces, while the rabbis do not. Since according to Doering'ssuggestionthe publicexertedgreaterinfluenceearlieron, the domainof the public already startedwith the sharedcourtyard,ratherthan beyond the walls of the courtyard. 92 "New Aspects," 262 and Schabbat, 231. Doering here refers to J. Assmann's analysisof the attachinga mezuzahto the door-post(Dtn. 6:9) as indicatingthe importance of the boundarybetween inside and outside. See J. Assmann, Das kulturelle (Munchen: Gedachtnis:Schrift,ErinnerungundpolitischeIdentitatinfruhenHochkulturen Beck, 1992), 219. One may object, however, that the rabbis do not underminethis commandmentat all, and thereforeseem to attributeequal importanceto the limits of one's own possession in this respect. 93

"New Aspects," 262.

9 This is the case also with L. Finkelstein'searlier attemptto explain the emergence of the eruv in terms of economic class distinctionswhere "the plebeiansbegan to merge their several householdsinto a single large unit for the Sabbath,"while the "aristocratic"Sadducess "living in spacious homes or on large countryestates, had never felt the weight of the original"prohibitionof carryinginto the courtyard(The Pharisees: The Sociological Backgroundof Their Faith [Philadelphia:Jewish Publication Society, 1938] 1:137).

FROM SEPARATISM TO URBANISM

of the

Ceruv.95

71

Nor do I assume that the rabbis were any less con-

cerned about their own possessions than the Qumranites and on that basis furtherremoved from biblical legal sensibilities than they. Rather,based on the evidence gatheredhere, we may suggest that the rabbishad a differentconceptualizationof the socio-spatiallocation of their version of verus Israel than the Qumranites.They reject the literalist separatismof the Qumranitesand more or less self-consciously locate their verus Israel in urban neighborhoods where symbolic boundariesare establishedto maintainits collective identity.Based on this they remolded the legal traditionsrepresentedby the Dead Sea Scrolls for their own purposes. The rabbinic'eruv can then be describedas a projectof constructing, maintainingand re-enactinga collective identityin relationto the residentialspace of the mixed urbancourtyard.Its purposeis to create neighborhoodsof what might be consideredas intentionalco-habitation. Finally, read on the backgroundof the Qumranicattemptsto protect the boundariesof its collective, the rabbinic 'eruv appearsas a concertedeffort to formulatea theory of neighborhood.

95 This is not to say, however, that other legal areas can follow differentpatterns of relationshipbetween the Dead Sea Scrolls and the rabbinic texts. The work of Schiffmanand othershas amply demonstratedthe significantoverlapbetween some of the legal traditionsin the Dead Sea Scrolls and the rabbiniccorpus.See The Halakhah at Qumranand SectarianLaw in the Dead Sea Scrolls, as well as Reclaimingthe Dead Sea Scrolls: The Historyof Judaism,the Backgroundof Christianity,the Lost Library of Qumran(Philadelphia:Jewish PublicationSociety, 1994). Perhapswe could carefully advancethe suggestionthat some areasotherthan the Sabbathmay, however,be less in need of rabbinicization.

FREE ORTHOGRAPHYIN A STRICT SOCIETY: RECONSIDERINGTOV'S "QUMRAN ORTHOGRAPHY"* DONG-HYUKKIM Yale University

Linguistic features of QumranHebrew (hereafter,QH) have been presentedwell by multiple scholars.' These scholars' methods cover most areas of grammar-orthography,phonetics,morphology,syntax, and semantics. But due to the fact that we are dealing with written material,the most basic data pertainto orthography.For this reason the study of Qumranorthographyby E. Tov in 1986 has been especially important.2 Tov's Project and "QumranOrthography":Strengthsand Limitations Tov's project is simple and neat. He delineates and distinguishes unique orthographicand linguistic features of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The orthographicfeaturesof some scrolls have been describedwell by many scholars,3but Tov advancesbeyond their discussion to present

* My heartfelt thanks to Professor John Collins for guiding this research from selecting the topic to discussingand revising the drawbacksof my argument.A word of appreciationis also due to my friend Julie Parker,who improvedmy English on last Christmasday. Of course, I assume the full responsibilityfor this final paper. I For example,C. Rabin,"The HistoricalBackgroundof QumranHebrew,"Scripta Hierosolymitana4 (eds. C. Rabin and Y. Yadin; Jerusalem:Magnes Press, 1965) 144 61; E. Qimron,The Hebrewof the Dead Sea Scrolls (Atlanta,Georgia:Scholars Press, 1986); S. Morag, "QumranHebrew: Some Typological Observation,"VT 38 (1988) 148-63. 2 E. Tov, "The Orthography and Languageof the HebrewScrolls Foundat Qumran and the Originof These Scrolls,"Textus 13 (1986) 31-57. 3 Cf. Qimronin note 1; E. Y. Kutscher,The Languageand LinguisticBackground of the Isaiah Scroll (Leiden: Brill, 1974); M. Martin,The Scribal Characterof the Dead Sea Scrolls (2 volumes; Louvain: Publicationsuniversitaires,1958); Z. BenHayyim,"Traditionsin the HebrewLanguage,with Special Referenceto the Dead Sea Scrolls," Scripta Hierosolymitana 4, 200-214; M. Goshen-Gottstein, "Linguistic ? Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2004 Also available online - www.brill.nl

Dead Sea Discoveries 11, I

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73

the distributionof the featuresin all the available scrolls. According to Tov, the majorityof the scrolls use a special orthographicsystem, which he calls "Qumranorthography."This system is generallyrepresented by 15 features,whose spelling, in short, is "full":e.g., t1: for LD,

R1* for tt,

A'z for "D, etc.4 Tov classifies

scrolls using the

"Qumranorthography"undergroup 1, and the others undergroup 2. The resultof the classificationis illuminating.The "Qumranorthography"is used in all the "sectarian"scrolls except some copies of the scrolls of Jubilees.SHere, "sectarian"refersto all the scrolls composed within the Qumrancommunity, such as Serekh ha-Yahad, the Damascus Document,Hodayot, MMT, etc. Group 1 also includes some biblical scrolls, and tefillin and mezuzot.6 Group 2 is characterized by one feature only-the lack of the "Qumran orthography."The orthography of these scrolls closely approximatesthat of the MasoreticText (hereafter,MT). It is usually defective, but cannot be described as a peculiar system. Group 2 is comprised mainly of biblical scrolls, as well as a few tefillin and mezuzot,and biblical paraphrases.7 The fact that all but one of the sectarianscrolls were writtenin the "Qumranorthography"led Tov to proposethat all the works authored in the communityused this special orthographicsystem. The discrepancy of the orthographyamongbiblical scrolls is likewise explainedthe biblical scrolls that followed the "Qumranorthography,"8Tov argues, were copied within the community;the other biblical scrolls that were writtenin the MT orthographywere broughtto the community from elsewhere.9Tov thereforemaintainsthat the Qumranscribes Structureand Traditionin the QumranDocument,"ScriptaHierosolymitana4, 101136.

I The 15 features are: 1) n:); 2) R1; 3) 7t010; 4) in:; 5) 6) R':); 7) rn1r/rttnrtlnlt; 8) lengthened pronominal suffix 2nd person sg. -,C-; 9) -mtuVI,nw-i, in-i ;ir1tp(l); iflt; 10) lengthened pronominal suffixes 2nd and 3rd person pl. rl2-, 7l1b-, I1 I-, :I -; 11) free usage of pausal forms *iMpr1(l), *'mpC(l); 12) lengthened future forms il5nt:pR(n), fl'tdl); 13) 1:'7olp'; 14) -TilnnC(1) for the 2nd person plural; 15)

innRnltrl:ttKlmltnR Tov, "The Orthography,"35-36. For the distributionof the features,see the chartsin Tov, "The Orthography," 50-55. 1 4QJubae.Tov, "The Orthography," 33, 56. 6 Tov, "The Orthography," 33. 7 Tov, "The Orthography," 33. 8 Most famously, IQIsa, and also lQDeuta, 2QJer, 4QDeutk,4QDeutm,4QSamc, 4QIsc,4QPsens, and 4QLama.Tov, "The Orthography," 53. 9 In Tov's argument,the "MT orthography" can only be definedagainsthis "Qumran orthography," given that the orthographyin MTis enormouslyvarious.Nevertheless,it is clearly shorterthan the "Qumranorthography."

74

DONG-HYUK KIM

whetherthey authoredor exclusively used the "Qumranorthography" copied the scrolls. Thus, the orthographyreveals the origins of the scrolls-the scrolls of group 1 were writtenin Qumran;those of group 2 were importedfrom outside.'0 Tov's argumentis impressive in two aspects. First, his research is extensive. Upon establishingthe 15 features,he analyzes not only all the published texts, but also some that were then unpublished, totaling approximatelytwo hundredtexts. The second strengthis the internalityof the evidence. Tov extractshis evidence pertainingto the scrolls' origin from within the texts themselves,not from speculation or reconstruction. There are weaknesses in his argument,nevertheless.The distribushows a greatdiversityeven among tion of the "Qumranorthography" sectariantexts. A uniformQumranicfeaturein one text exhibits heterogeneity in another, or in a third completely yields to its shorter equivalent.Also, some texts have all the Qumranicfeaturesand others only a few. Accordingly,Tov inevitablydivides the group which into threesubgroups:texts with "deciuses the "Qumranorthography" sive evidence," which constitute the majority of both sectarianand non-sectarianscrolls; texts with "positive but insufficientevidence," which include approximatelyone thirdof the whole group;and texts with "undecisiveevidence,"which consist of five sectarianscrolls." However, when separatingthe three subgroups,Tov fails to use a clear yardstick.He seems to dependon a generalratio of positive evidence, but he does not specify the ratio required. Therefore, a problem arises regardingthe texts with "undecisive evidence."What distinguishesthis thirdsubgroupfrom the texts lack(group2)? They hardlyshow the 15 ing in the "Qumranorthography" Qumranorthographicfeatures.'2According to Tov, these scrolls can still be groupedunderthe texts writtenin the "Qumranorthography" since they exhibitplene spelling in general.'3But here, I believe, Tov loses his logic by forfeitingwhat he has held throughoutthe project (i.e., the 15 criteria)and introducinga new criterion.In other words, Tov could not separatethese five texts with the 15 features,and had to resort to a new criterionof being generally written in "plene spelling."'4 10

39-40. Tov, "The Orthography," 11They are lQ34bis, 4Q162 pIsb, 4Q169 pNah, 4Q185, and 4Q434. Tov, "The 53. Orthography," 12 Especially,4Ql62pIsbdoes not have any of the 15 features. 3 Tov, "The Orthography," 36. 14 Tov, "The Orthography," 36.

FREE ORTHOGRAPHYIN A STRICT SOCIETY

75

Moreover, when we recognize that the texts in this subgroup(with "undecisive evidence") are all sectarian and that no non-sectarian scroll in group 1 belongs to this category, we may suspect that Tov imposes his hypothesisin interpretingthe data, ultimatelyforcing most sectarianscrolls into the groupwith the "Qumranorthography." These five texts cast a reasonable doubt on Tov's hypothesis and require more consideration. Nevertheless,it is fair to say that Tov, in 1986, generallysucceeded in arguingthatmostof theQumransectarianscrollsfollowedthe"Qumran orthography,"since the five "Iundecisive"texts are small in number, and moreover,as Tov points out, they are fragmentaryand may have stood at the early stage of the "Qumranorthography.""5 But is Tov's argumentstill valid after eighteenyears, when thereare far more texts available?This is especially pressing,since the QumranCave 4 series of the Discoveries in the Judaean Desert has broughtus a myriadof majortexts, many of which even Tov could not review in 1986. This new evidence along with the above problem in Tov's project duly calls for furtherresearch.In this article I will apply Tov's model of 1986 to the texts of 2003. "QumranOrthography"and Newly PublishedTexts In this discussion, I limit my samples to well-known major documents 4QS, 4QD, 4QInstruction,and 4QH.16Two things characterize my selection. First, there is enough text to provide an adequatebasis for research.Second, some of them (S and H) have parallelswhich were known before 1986. This will facilitate comparisonbetween my results and Tov's.'7 I also reducedTov's 15 items to 6 for practicalreasons.'8First, the items I have chosen are found in most documentsand therefore,in a betterposition to show a generaldistributionof the usage across most documents.The non-selectedfeatures in Tov's charts, such as numbers 3, 4, 5, 7, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15 are attestedin a relativelysmall 's 16

Tov, "The Orthography," 36-37. 4QS = 4Q255-264; 4QD = 4Q266-273; 4QInstruction= 4Q415-418, 418a, 423;

4QH = 4Q427-432.

Tov's data are includedin my chart. The 6 featuresI have chosen from the original 15 are: 1) tIn; 2) Rt; 6) W':; 8) lengthenedpronominalsuffix2nd personsg. ;IZ-;9) flRt,, ;lt', iOnntn, 77flh; 10) lengthened pronominalsuffixes2nd and 3rd personpl. fln-, inn-, ;!r;t-, in-. I retainedTov's numberingfor comparison.For the whole list, see note 4. 17

18

76

DONG-HYUK KIM

numberof documents,and even in those documentswith only a few occurrences.'9Second, the selection and arrangementof items in the chart below (Distribution of "QumranOrthography")represents a spectrumof uniformity.The left mostwords(e.g., 1 and2), whenattested, are regularlywrittenin Qumranicforms, and therefore,show high uniformityof Qumranicfeatures.The fuller forms predominateover their shorterequivalentsin most sectariandocumentsand the shorterforms of these words are very hard to find. There should have been a general agreementamong the scribes in writing these words fully. The right most words (e.g., 8, 9, and 10), on the other hand, have many more variations-some texts have Qumranicforms uniformly;others exhibit MT forms only; still othershave mixed attestation.Many times, these forms yield to their Masoretic equivalents. This vacillation shows variationin documentswrittenwith the "Qumranorthography." Therefore,my arrangementwill show the distributionmore systematically accordingto the degree of uniformityof evidence.The resultof my analysis can be seen in the charton the following page. Non-shaded texts, which are a majority, indicate that my results do not deviate very far from Tov's suggestions. Though not every Qumranorthographicfeature may be found in each of these texts, a noteworthynumberof Qumranicfeaturessurfacein them. Conflicting evidence may exist, for example,in 4Q266, where items 6 and 10 uniformly show a non-Qumranicfeature.It is, however,compromisedby a sizable numberof items 1 and 2, and therefore,may be said to show Qumranicfeatures. The shaded texts, on the other hand, present cases where Tov's hypothesis is greatly challenged.The six texts are worth noting and shall be explained in three cases. The first case includes 4Q416 and 4Q423. The two texts are similar in that items 1, 2, and 6 predominantly use non-Qumranicorthography.Nevertheless, it is difficult to maintain that these texts do not use the "Qumranorthography" because of the Qumranic features in items 8 and 10 (in case of 4Q416, item 9 also). At least, one should hesitate to say that the orthographyof these texts is non-Qumranic.20 19 It may be alleged that by omittingsome of Tov's items I may rig the data and conclusions.In fact, however, inclusion of all the remainingdata would show more inconsistencyin Tov's results and thereforefortify my argument. is a consistent system, orthography" 20 Since Tov does not argue that the "Qumran accordingto Tov's these cases seem sufficientto qualify as "Qumran-orthographic" categorization.

77

FREE ORTHOGRAPHYIN A STRICT SOCIETY Distribution of "Qumranorthography" 1

2 (

)

8

6 S :

(L7

S -

-)

9 M nnIM MR7 I'

(

i---

10 (tCMMli(withRM nMD:- out

MIRnn MMRs Mr-M il;,

Serekh ha-Yahad + IQS 4 0 4Q255 a 4Q256 b 15 0 4 0 4Q257 c 2 23 4Q258 d 4 4Q259 e 1 4Q260 f 5 0 4Q261 g 1 4Q262 h 0 4Q263 i 0 5 4Q264 j 4QD 4Q266 4Q267 4Q268 4Q269 4Q270 4Q271 4Q272 4Q273

+ 4 4 0 1 7 0 0

+ 0 0 11 0 0 1 1

+

0

1

0

4

0 0 1

0

1

0

2 0 0 0 16 0 0

14 6 1 2 0 3 2 0

7 0 0 0 8 0 0 2

0 1 0 2 0 0 0

13 1 2 0 5 7 1

4QInstruction 5 4Q415 1 4Q416 17 4Q417 87 4Q418 5 4Q418a 2 4Q423

0 20 1 4 0 17

5 3 7 37 4 2

0 6 5 6 0 5

2 0 9 10 4 0

1 17 5 16 0 2

Hodawot 1QH-A 4Q427 4Q428 4Q429 4Q430 4Q431 4Q432

95% 6 0 4 0 0 2

20% 2 7 8 0 2 0 2

2

0

20% 4 4 0 0

0 1 2 1

0 3 0 0

2 0 1 1

5

0

1

2 0

3 1

6

5

0 0

1 1

0 0 0 1 1

2 4 7 2 3

11 86 45 128 7 15

4 1 1 3 2 0

1 1 8 1 1 0

0 3 1 8 0 2

70% 7 0 8 0 2 0

-

M-)

-7.-.-,7-

-

+

4 2 0

38 8 3 1 0 9 I

a b c d e f g h

)

1

7

0 1

17 3

0 0 1 0 0 0

35 8 4 5 10 2

0 5 5 10 1 1

1 5 6 29 2 2

8 0 1 1

1 3 1 1

1

2

0 1

0

The data of IQS and 1QH-A are from Tov's charts. + represents consistent attestation of the "Qumran orthography";- represents consistent avoidance of it; a percentage shows a ratio of the "Qumranorthography"in mixed attestation.

78

DONG-HYUK KIM

The second case is more complicated.In 4Q271, though items 1 and 2 are decisively Qumranic,the other features(items 6, 8, 9, and 10) are never attested.Moreover,items 1 and 2 in plene spelling (bI: and R*), unlike RI: and 7l,ifl, can be consideredas a naturaldevelopment from Biblical Hebrew (hereafter,BH) if we contemplatethe possible pronunciationof these words. The augmentativelettersin the latter(RI: and nwvn)may have changedtheir originalpronunciationof BH (by adding the vowel /a/), but the matres in the former(bI: and tRl*)would have hardly affected the original pronunciation of /o/.

Therefore, the evidence of the "Qumranorthography"in 4Q271 (i.e., items 1 and 2) may be consideredslight and thus insufficient. Tov, I believe, would have labeled this text as a text with "positive but insufficientevidence,"given the substantialnumberof the Qumranic featuresin items 1 and 2. Nevertheless,the evidence in this case appearsto be dubious. The thirdcase (4Q258, 4Q264, and 4Q270) distinctlyrefutesTov's hypothesis.Except for the two '1:'s in 4Q258, these texts never conform to the 15 criteriawhich Tov distinguishes.Tov's last resort of being generally"plene"is also futile.2'The editors of Discoveries in the JudaeanDesert note that the three texts are predominantlywritten Therefore,the threetexts cannoteven belong in "shortorthography."22 to Tov's third subgroupwith "undecisiveevidence." These three texts belong to the most famous sectarian works: Serekhha-Yahad(4Q258,4Q264)andtheDamascusDocument(4Q270). The copies of these two works were not only writtenwithin the community,but also authoredthere.They were not imported,and nonetheless they deviate from the "Qumranorthography."This is perplexing when we see that the othercopies in the same works use the "Qumran orthography."These works indubitablythreatenTov's 1986 hypothesis. And they requireexplanation.

Also, see page 3 of this article. Alexander,and G. Vermes,QumranCave 4.XIX:Serekhha-Yahadand Two Related Texts (DJD 26; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996) 20-21, 89, 202; J. M. Baumgarten(ed.), with J. T. Milik, S. Pfann, and A. Yardeni,QumranCave 4.XIII: The DamascusDocument(4Q266-273) (DJD 18; Oxford:ClarendonPress, 1996) 140. 21 Tov, "The Orthography," 36. 22

p. S.

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79

Free Orthography in a Strict Society There seem to be two possibilities. First, these three texts may have stood at an early stage of the "Qumran orthography." Tov makes this suggestion when he explains the sectarian texts with "undecisive evidence" of the "Qumran orthography."23The same, if correct, might apply here too. But this is not, in fact, the case. Let's look at the palaeographic dates of Serekh ha-Yahad and the Damascus Document. Palaeography of Ser-ekhha-Yahad24 Texts

Dates

4Q255 (= 4QS ') 4Q257 (= 4QS') 1QS

125-100 BCE 100-75 BCE 100-50 BCE

4Q259 (= 4QSC) 4Q264 (= 4QSj)

50-25 BCE 50-25 BCE

4Q261 (= 4QSj) 4Q256 (= 4QSb)

50-1 30-1

(= 4QSd)

4Q258

4Q260 (= 4QSf) 4Q263 (= 4QSi) 4Q262 (= 4QS')

(1)

(2) (3) (4)

(4) (6) (7)

BCE BCE

30-1 BCE

(7)

30-1 30-1 1-68

(7) (7)

BCE BCE CE

(1)

Palaeography of the Damascus Document25 Texts 4Q266 4Q271 4Q267 4Q269 4Q272 4Q273

Dates (= (= (= (= (= (=

4QD ') 4QD') 4QDb)

4QD'1) 4QD-) 4QD')

4Q268 (= 4QDC) 4Q270 (= 4QDe)

100-50 BCE 50-25 BCE 30-1 BCE 30-1 BCE 30-1 BCE 30-1 BCE

(2) (3) (3) (3) (3)

1-30 CE 1-68 CE

(7) (8)

(1)

Tov, "The Orthography," 36-37. E. Tov, ed., The Textsfrom the Judaean Desert: Indices and an Introductionto the Discoveriesin the JudaeanDesert Series (DJD 39; Oxford:ClarendonPress, 2002) 372-374. Cf. Alexanderand Vermes, DJD 26.20-21. 25 DJD 39.372-374. Cf. Baumgarten, DJD 18.1-2, 30, 96, 116, 118, 124, 138, 140, 170, 172, 185, 187, 193-194. 23

24

80

DONG-HYUK KIM

I arrangedthe texts according to the palaeographicdates. Those underdiscussionare shaded.As exhibited,4Q258, 4Q264, and 4Q270 do not stand at an earlier stage in comparisonwith the other copies of the same corpus.4Q264 is aroundthe middle, and the othershave later dates. This refutes Tov's assumptionthat the defective spelling in sectarianscrolls may reflecttheirearlierdates. Moreover,relatively earlier copies, such as IQS, 4Q257, and 4Q266 demonstrate the "Qumranorthography."Therefore,no relationcan be found between the date and the orthography. If the orthographicdeviation is not a matterof date, we have to consider the second possibility: that is, the individual tendencies of scribes.Of course,Tov repeatedlymentionsthis consideration,but not to the degree that allows an individualto deviate completelyfrom the "Qumranorthography."26 Our new evidence, however, necessitates expandinghis explanation.Theseidiosyncrasies,in theveryfew instances of 4Q258, 4Q264, and 4Q270, cross over the boundaryof the "Qumran orthography." We find an intriguing fact about the handwriting of 4Q258 (= 4QSd), which is "very similar in style to that of 4QSb (= 4Q256)," which is writtenvery fully.27It is highly unlikely that the same hand copied both 4QSb and 4QSd, given the huge orthographicdifference. Accordingly,the similarityof the handwritingpresupposes,if not the same hand, a strong discipline in a scribal school or tradition.Notably, the strict discipline reflectedin scripts did not circumscribethe freedomof orthography. Libertyin orthographyis bolsteredby the fact that the texts of different orthographyeasily co-existed. The most importantsectarian documents(Serekhha-Yahadand the DamascusDocument)could be written not only in the "Qumranorthography,"but also in the MT orthography,and the texts of differentorthographywere preservedin the same cave (Cave 4). Conclusion While in 1986 Tov successfully demonstratedthe exclusive usage of the supposed "Qumranorthography"in the sectarian texts then available,this hypothesisshould now be revised. The majorityof the

26

27

Tov, "The Orthography," 34, 36. Alexander and Vermes, DJD 26.89.

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81

sectarian scrolls were written in what Tov calls "Qumranorthography," but three of the newly published texts (4Q258, 4Q264, and 4Q270) were clearly writtenin the MT orthography.Textual evidence proves that the Qumrancommunitywas very strict. Ironically,however, the scrolls which reflect the communitybest-Serekh ha-Yahad and the Damascus Document-betray the scribes' liberty in their orthography.From this we also suppose that the five "undecisive" texts in Tov's chartsmay in fact belong to the short orthographyand not to the "Qumranorthography."28 Thoughin 1986 they were "undecisive" due to their being fragmentary,now they have parallelexamples in muchfullertextsof Serekhha-YahadandtheDamascusDocument. The fact that the MT orthographywas used in the Qumransectarian works also refutes Tov's claim about the origins of the scrolls. Now, the orthographycan no longer tell where the text came from. The Qumransectarianworks show a wide spectrumin theirorthography, which refuses to be described uniformly. This clearly shows that the orthographyof the Qumranliteraturewas unstable.Whether the orthographicinstabilityreflects the fluidityof the languageshould be treatedin furtherresearch.

28

See note 11.

LAST TESTAMENTS IN THE BOOK OF JUBILEES DAVID LAMBERT HarvardUniversity

Despite a wide-spreadinterestin the "testament"genre,1relatively little attentionhas been paid to the many last testamentsin the Book of Jubilees.2What treatmentdoes exist tends to emphasizethe theological at the expense of the exegetical, assumingthat the particular contentof the testamentsis determinedsolely by concernsessentialto the authorof Jubilees ratherthan by interpretationof Scripture.3The following is a representativeview: "The authorplaces in the mouthof the patriarchsthe commandsand admonitionsthat he himself wishes to make to his readers.The most strikingexample of this occurs in Abraham'sthree testaments... ."4 Scholarshave thus conceivedof the lasttestamentin Jubileesas "summationspeeches"5thattheauthor"freely

I For an up-to-datebibliography,see L. DiTomasso, A Bibliographyof Pseudepigrapha Research 1850-1999 (Sheffield:SheffieldAcademic Press, 2001), 973-75. See also the review of scholarship on the "testament"genre by A.B. Kolenkow, "Testaments,"in R.A. Kraft and G.W.E. Nickelsburg,eds., Early Judaism and its ModernInterpreters(Philadelphia:Fortress,1986), 259-67. 2 This scholarlyneglect may be due to an emphasison the study of literarygenres ratherthan religious phenomena.Since the testamentsin Jubileesare integralcomponents of a unifiedwork, they are not as readilysusceptibleto such study. 3 See M.J. Bernstein, "4Q252: Method and Context, Genre and Sources: A Response to GeorgeJ. Brooke,"JQR 85 (1994) 63-65, for criticismof this generaltenof second temple literature.C. Werman,"The Story of the dency in the interpretation Flood in the Book of Jubilees,"Tarbiz64:2 (1995) (Hebrew), 183-84, expresses the oppositeconcern,thatthe discoveryof the importanceof the exegeticalnot lead scholars to ignore the variously-motivatedoutright reworkingsto which second temple authorssuch as Jubileessubjectthe biblical narrative.Few thoughwould claim that a work such as Jubileesis "pureexegesis,"and the tendencyamongscholarsto focus on the theologicalover the exegeticalwould seem to be a far greaterever-presentconcern. in Jewish Writingsof 4 G.W.E. Nickelsburg,"The Bible Rewrittenand Expanded," the SecondTemplePeriod (ed. M.E. Stone;Philadelphia:Fortress,1984), 97. This genofferedof particeral scholarlyapproachis most readilyevident in the interpretations will be noted below. ular passages.Some of these interpretations I For this label, see J.L. Kugel, Traditionsof the Bible: A Guide to the Bible As It Wasat the Startof the CommonEra (Cambridge:HarvardUniversityPress, 1998),867.

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Dead Sea Discoveries 11, I

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composes"in orderto addresshis second-centuryaudience.6As such, they have looked to the last testamentin Jubileesas an epitome of the author'stheological concerns. However this view fails to explain the mysteriouslyshifting content of the last testaments.If the last testament in Jubileesrepresentsa summaryof the author'spreoccupations, why are no two testamentsalike? Other scholars have maintainedthat the historicalreferentsof the testamentare highly significant.In particular,Noah's testamentto his childrenis thoughtto constitutean early form of a tradition,otherwise known from rabbinic literature,7of Noahide Laws, commandments given to all of humanity,aptly representedby the sons of Noah.8This approach,however, fails to take into account the last testamentsin Jubilees given by other patriarchsand a matriarch.9Are we to conclude that there are AbrahamicCommandments,as well as Isaacian and Rebeccian Laws, all enjoined specifically upon their particular historicalreferents? It is not for naught that Jubilees is "one of the heroes" of J.L. Kugel's Traditionsof the Bible.'0 As a retelling of Genesis and the beginningof Exodus, Jubileesexists in fundamentalrelationto Scripture and is thereforehardlysusceptibleto analysiswithoutit. To avoid skewed results,one must first identifythe biblical basis of the author's statements. In the case of last testaments, the formal distinction between testamentand narrativemay have caused Jubilees' last testaments to obtain a false aura of independencefrom the biblical text." Yet, as we shall see, both the notion of last testamentsamong the patriarchsand the content of those testamentsderives in large part from interpretationof scripture, not the "free composition" of the author;it is the exegetical base of Jubilees' last testamentsand hence

6 For this formulation,see J. Endres;Biblical Interpretation in the Book of Jubilees (CBQMS 18; Washington:CatholicBiblical Associationof America, 1987), 28-30. 7 For instance,b. San. 56a. 8 See, for instance,Kugel, Traditionsof the Bible, 225 and 769, and N.G. Cohen, "Taryagand the Noahide Commandments," JJS 43 (1992) 51-53. 9 G. Andersonsimilarlypoints to this problemin "The Statusof the TorahBefore Sinai,"DSD 1 (1994), 3-4 n. 4. '0 Traditionsof the Bible, 32. 11For a discussion of the form of Jubilees' last testaments,see K. Baltzer, The CovenantFormulary(trans.D.E. Green;Philadelphia:FortressPress, 1971), 137-41. Cf. J. Kugel's "TheJubileesApocalypse,"DSD 1 (1994), 322-37, accordingto which even chap. 23 of Jubilees,sometimesthoughtof as a separate"apocalypse"within the book, constitutesin large part an interpretation of Psalm 90.

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their dependenceupon Genesis that accountsfor their shiftingcontent and referents.The presence of an exegetical base certainlydoes not exclude the possibility of ideological motivations.But it does mean that Jubilees'ideals cannotbe determinedsimplyon the basis of what the authorhappensto include.The identificationof a generaltendency in his interpretationof Scriptureattestedto throughoutthe work is a more reliable indicator.This paperwill examine how Jubileesdevelops the notion of last testamentson the basis of the book of Genesis (despitetheirapparentabsence there)and how exegesis constitutesthe main criterionof inclusion in the compositionof those testaments.It will go on to addresshow, in Jubilees, oral last testamentsseem to join with writtenbooks in the transmissionof law from generationto generation. The (Near) Absence of Instructionin the Book of Genesis In the book of Genesis, one only occasionally finds fathers commandingtheir childrento performspecific deeds or tasks. Isaac commands Jacob to go to Paddan-aramto find a wife from Abraham's family ratherthan taking a Canaanitewife (Gen. 28:1), Jacob commandshis childrento bury him in his ancestralcave in Canaanrather than in Egypt (Gen. 49:29), and Jacob before his death purportedly commands that Joseph forgive his brothers(Gen. 50:16.) More frequent, or at least more prominent,are examples of fathers blessing their children and predictingwhat the future holds for them. Noah blesses and curses his childrenupon waking from his drunkenstupor (Gen. 9:24-27), a deceived Isaac blesses Jacob insteadof Esau (Gen. 27:1-40), and Jacob foretells the fate of his children'sprogeny(Gen. 49:1-28.) These blessings predictfuturebehaviorand outcomesrather than prescribinglaw.12 Given the importance of law in the rest of the Pentateuch and throughoutthe history of Judaism,ancient readersof Genesis would have been surprisedby this absence of almost any indicationthat the greatpatriarchs,the foundersof the biblicaltradition,taughttheirchildren or commandedthem to follow any statutesor general principles about either how to serve God or relate to one another;indeed such

12 Note A.B. Kolenkow's distinction between "blessing-revelation testaments" and "ethical testaments" in "The Genre Testament and Forecasts of the Future in the Hellenistic Jewish Milieu," JSJ 6 (1975) 57-71.

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commandmentsand principlesare for the most partabsentin Genesis. The few that do seem to be in evidence"3lack any apparentprocess of transmission.'4 There is, however, one anomalousverse in Genesis that suggests just such a process of instruction: Now the LoRD had said, "Shall I hide from Abrahamwhat I am about to do, since Abrahamis to become a great and populousnation and all the nationsof the earthare to bless themselvesby him. For I have singledhim out, that he may instruct(MIX')his children and his posterityto keep the way of the LORD by doing what is right (lp7!) and just (mmon)in order that the LORD may bring about for Abrahamwhat He has promisedhim" (Gen. 18:19).'5

This verse not only suggests that Abrahaminstructedhis childrento serve God by doing "whatis right and just" but that it is preciselyfor the purpose of such instruction that God chose Abraham and will rewardhim. In fact by alluding to the instructionof Abraham'sdescendents,this verse colors the reader'sview of the subsequentpatriarchalnarratives.

13 E.g. not to eat the blood of an animalor shed the blood of a humanbeing (Gen. 9:4-6), and to circumciseall males (Gen. 17:11-14). 14 Anderson,"Statusof the Torah,"1-4, makes a similar point but from the perspectiveof canonicalanalysis,thus achievingslightly differentresults.Andersonpoints out that in historicalcritical terms the J source assumes that the patriarchshad some knowledgeof cultic and puritymatters;P, on the other hand, restrictedthe giving of such knowledge to Sinaitic revelation.Viewing the Pentateuchfrom a canonicalperspective as a whole, one is left with the problemof how to explain evidence of the patriarchs'knowledge of commandments.Furthermore,there are allusions to punishment in Genesis, which could not be meted out, accordingto the early interpretersof the Bible, without actual law. From the perspectiveof canonical analysis, Anderson thus highlightsthe problemfor the ancient biblical interpreterof what is in the text. The formulationabove highlights the problemfor the ancient biblical interpreterof what is not in the text, namelycommandmentsand a processof transmission.That the latter was a major source of concern for the ancient biblical interpreteris readily apparentin the rabbinicassumptionthat the patriarchsknew all of the commandments, a position that cannot be said to be based on a problemthat is in the text. (For the many relevant sources, see L. Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews [Baltimore: Johns HopkinsUniversityPress, 1998], 5.259.) As we shall see, Jubileesoften assumes that actions performedby the patriarchsmust have been carried out according to later Sinaitic regulations,an assumptiondriven not by canonical analysis but by a certain type of piety. Thus, I would suggestthat the problemfor the ancientbiblical interpreter was as much, if not more, the absence of the vast majorityof the commandmentsas the presence of a few. To put it in historicalcritical terms, they were perhapsmore botheredby P's restrictionof law to Sinai than by J's inclusionof elements of it in the book of Genesis. Is All translationsare from Tanakh:A New Translationof the Holy Scriptures, (New York:The Jewish PublicationSociety, 1985), with a few slight alterations.

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Modern scholars of the Hebrew Bible have not failed to note the unusualnatureof this verse and have long opined