The most comprehensive and determined attack on de Vaux’s idea of an Essene Qumran was launched in 2004 by the recently deceased Hebrew University professor Yizhar Hirschfeld in a fashionably entitled monograph, Qumran in Context: Reassessing the Archaeological Evidence. (Nowadays to be with it, one must treat everything ‘in context’.) Leaving aside the relics dating to the pre-exilic era, Hirschfeld allocates the archaeological finds to three periods. In the Hasmonean era, from the late second century to the midfirst century BCE, Qumran was a small fort and served exclusively military purposes. In the Herodian period, from c. 40 BCE to 68 CE, both Qumran and Ain Feshkha formed a rural estate belonging to a well-to-do Jewish family. Hirschfeld, like the Donceels before him, identified de Vaux’s scriptorium as a triclinium or dining hall, and as far as industries are concerned, saw the production of balsam, for which Jericho and Engedi were world-famous in antiquity, as the distinctive speciality of the Qumran estate. This theory is primarily based on the discovery in a cave, not in close proximity to Qumran (about 3 km to the north), of a small bottle that may have contained balsam according to the ‘very cautious’ suggestion of J. Patrich and B. Arubas (Eretz-Israel, 20 (1989), p. 206*). Here again the Scrolls have no role to play. In Hirschfeld’s view, the only possible connection between the inhabitants of the site and the Scrolls was that they may have assisted Jerusalem Jews, seeking to save their manuscript treasures, in advising them about suitable hiding places in the cliffs. Yizhar Hirschfeld proudly described himself as the champion of a secular Qumran which he had liberated ‘from the burden of religious significance’!
Finally, in an electronic publication issued in 2007, Yitzhak Magen and Yuval Peleg, two archaeologists working for the Israel Antiquities Authority, rejected all the previous theories and in the light of their excavation of the site, conducted between 1993 and 2003, concluded that Qumran was an industrial centre primarily devoted to pottery production.
So was Qumran a military establishment (Golb)? A villa rustica or country estate (the Donceels and Humbert)? A luxurious inn for travelling merchants (Crown and Cansdale)? A pottery workshop (Magen and Peleg)? Was it first a fort, then an agricultural settlement and then finally turned into a balsam factory (Hirschfeld)? Or was an original fortress converted in time to become the residence of a Jewish religious group (Humbert)? Or was it, as mainstream scholarship in the footsteps of de Vaux has always held, the centre of a religious community?
Before tackling the revisionist ideas, let me confront their common underlying presupposition, namely that the Dead Sea Scrolls have nothing to do directly with the people who lived at Qumran at the turn of the era. It is true, let it be repeated, that no scroll, not even the minutest manuscript fragment, has turned up in the ruins themselves. It is also conceivable – even if unlikely – that the more distant natural caves (1–3, 11) may have served as specially chosen hiding places by people who did not live in the area. But the man-made caves (4–10) in the marl terrace within a stone’s throw from the eastern edge of the building complex can hardly be imagined as unconnected with Qumran. Among these caves figures Cave 4, a library or manuscript depository, originally with wooden shelves, containing about two-thirds of over 900 Dead Sea Scrolls. Scholars who ignore these archaeological facts in their attempt to interpret the Qumran settlement do so at their own risk. But even the manuscripts deposited in the more distant caves do not lack an indirect, but significant, archaeological link with the Qumran site. Untypical cylindrical scrolls jars found in Cave 1, but almost unattested and definitely uncommon elsewhere, have been discovered both on the Qumran site and in neighbouring caves. In short, not only the great closeness of the majority of the discovered manuscripts to the Qumran establishment, but the presence of the peculiar Qumran-type pottery in Scrolls caves, make it a priori methodologically unsound to consider the manuscripts as unrelated to the nearby habitation.
Moreover, the unexamined theory, first mooted by Norman Golb and unhesitatingly adopted by Yizhar Hirschfeld and others, regarding the provenance of the Scrolls from Jerusalem, runs into a twofold difficulty. Imagine that the manuscripts discovered in the Dead Sea region of the Judaean desert actually had belonged to a Jerusalem institution, even perhaps to the library of the Temple, and their owners or guardians decided to take them to a safe place in a time of danger, why on earth should they have risked carrying large numbers of precious manuscripts to a God-forsaken spot like the faraway Qumran caves when equally good hiding places could have easily been found closer to home? Also, looking at it from a down-to-earth point of view, would the authorities which failed to put the Temple treasure in a safe location (see chapter VII, p. 168), have taken all that trouble to transport to relatively distant Qumran a collection of manuscripts?
A second serious argument militates against the Jerusalem library theory, namely the nature of a notable proportion of the texts. The reason for asserting the Jerusalem origin of the Scrolls is to combat the mainstream opinion that they came from the Essene sect resident at neighbouring Qumran. Yet many of the manuscripts found in the caves are definitely sectarian. Take, for instance, the liturgical calendars as an example. We number fifteen of these among the Scrolls. They all attest an unofficial sectarian calendar and not a single one comprises the time reckoning according to which the priests in Jerusalem regulated their worship. Examined from close quarters, the revisionist historians’ endeavour to ‘secularize’ Qumran by ‘liberating’ it from the Scrolls falls flat. It would even become ludicrous if, in order to combat the theory that the Dead Sea Scrolls were manuscripts deposited by the Qumran Essenes in nearby caves, the revisionists had to fall back on the suggestion that the texts were concealed by Jerusalem Essenes in the Qumran area with which they had no prior connection! To strengthen my sarcasm, let me point out that Josephus’ mention of an ‘Essene gate’ in the Holy City (Jewish War III:145) implies the likely existence of an Essene congregation in Jerusalem.
But even without their deliberate ignoring of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the revisionist theories stand up badly to scrutiny. The only argument in favour of Qumran being a fortress (Golb, Humbert, Hirschfeld) is that it has a reinforced tower, although some of the reinforcement should probably be attributed to repair work after the earthquake which hit Judaea in 31 BCE. But it is well known that towers were not necessarily linked to strongholds; they existed also in orchards and agricultural estates as observation points and even as protection against marauding gangs of brigands. Furthermore, the idea of a military establishment at Qumran is hardly consonant with the thin and shabby perimeter walls and the unsecured water supply. As for the adjacent cemetery consisting of 1,200 individual military graves, this hardly makes sense. If for hygienic reasons the victors had decided to bury the corpses of the fallen enemy, they would surely have thrown them, as Magen Broshi has remarked, into a shallow mass grave and not in neatly arranged individual resting places.
If the idea of a fortress does not fare well, neither does that of a rural mansion in the midst of an agricultural estate (Donceels, Hirschfeld). The arid land of the Dead Sea shore cannot be compared to the fertile oasis of the area of Jericho or Engedi, and Hirschfeld’s assertion that the climate was more favourable to agriculture 2,000 years ago is an unascertainable supposition. The Qumran buildings, devoid of decorative features, do not resemble the structure of a typical villa rustica, and the idea of a triclinium for luxury banquets has been blown sky-high by Ronny Reich when he pointed out that the Qumran couch or divan is only 50 centimetres wide, too narrow to allow a person to recline in comfort. The only other plaster furniture of this sort discovered in Judaea and dating to the same period is 1.8 metres wide (Journal of Jewish Studies, 46 (1995), pp. 157–60).
The hostelry surmise (Crown, Cansdale) is the weakest of a set of ill-founded theories. For Qumran to be seen as a caravanserai for merchants travelling from Transjordan to Jerusalem, we must suppose that it lay close to busy roads. But there is no evidence that this was the case. There are no signs of nearby
harbour installations either, nor do the ruins reveal remains of international commercial activity. Once I ironically referred to the Crown–Cansdale thesis as the Qumran Hilton theory, an installation providing comfort with swimming pools and a large library to rich salt merchants who sought relaxation in the study of religious literature. As for the unexpectedly large graveyard, attached to a place without regular inhabitants, it would be best explained by the hypothesis of successive outbreaks of salmonella poisoning.
A final word about the Magen–Peleg theory: two working kilns are scarcely enough for the establishment of a pottery manufacturing centre in the middle of nowhere.
The long and the short of the re-examination of the revisionist attempts is that they all lack the strength to undermine the mainstream interpretation of Qumran archaeology. Roland de Vaux’s thesis that Qumran was the home of a Jewish religious community, which in some way was associated with the Dead Sea Scrolls, has stood the test by fire. This flattering conclusion does not mean, however, that the original excavator has said the last word on the subject. The understanding of the material objects found at Qumran has moved ahead during the last half century, and now is the moment to catch up with progress.
Over the years, and especially during the last two decades, both field archaeology and further study of the already available evidence have improved the commonly held views but have also questioned some of de Vaux’s interpretations without affecting his generally accepted conclusions. A clear, even magisterial account of the current state of research has been available since 2002 in The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls by Professor Jodi Magness. She has added much valuable information on pottery, water installations, ritual purification, etc. but her most notable innovation concerns de Vaux’s chronology of the site. She is not convinced that de Vaux’s earliest phase (Period Ia) of the communal occupation of Qumran (130–100 BCE) really existed, as the sect, in her opinion, did not settle in the area before 100 BCE. Magness’s opening phase is de Vaux’s Period Ib (100–31 BCE) ending with the earthquake. But as she – like a number of other historians, myself included – does not follow de Vaux’s hypothesis about the devastated site being left unoccupied during the remaining years of king Herod’s reign, her first period of sectarian occupation is dated between c. 100 and Herod’s death in 4 BCE.
All the main propositions of de Vaux’s concerning the communal and religious nature of the settlement still stand. They are testified to by the large assembly hall/dining room and the adjacent pantry with remains of a large quantity of tableware, pots and pans, as well as by ten out of the sixteen pools, some of them with steps leading to the water, which prove that ritual purification was an important part of the life of the ancient occupants of Qumran. Apropos of purity, one must not forget the latrine in Room 51 of the site, situated close to a pool of ritual purification, already referred to by de Vaux and discussed in full detail by Jodi Magness (see pp. 105–113 of her book).
Where did the inhabitants of Qumran sleep? The question of residential accommodation is still debated. It is possible that some rooms on the collapsed second floor served for living quarters. Estimates vary from 10 to 70 persons housed in the buildings. The rest of the population of the site (possibly 150 to 200 in total, judging from the size of the cemetery, according to Magen Broshi) slept in caves, huts and tents. The hypothesis is supported by the discovery by Broshi and Hanan Eshel of relics of tent equipment in the neighbourhood, and domestic utensils in ‘residential’ caves where no scrolls were found (DSD, 6 (1999), pp. 328–48).
A final comment on the fascinating question whether women lived at Qumran: the archaeological evidence implies only a sporadic and insignificant female presence and it should be recalled that most of the women and all the children buried in the southern extension of the cemetery are now identified by Joe Zias as recent Bedouin burials (see chapter II, p. 40). If we approach the problem from the vantage point of a hypothetical male celibate community, we are left to explain the presence of a couple of female skeletons in the western cemetery, together with one spindle whorl and four beads in the sectarian settlement (Magness (2002), p. 178). Whatever these prove, it is not a regular occupation of the establishment by female inhabitants in any way proportionate to the number of male members.
In conclusion, since the communal religious interpretation of the Qumran establishment and the contents of the sectarian Dead Sea Scrolls mutually confirm one another, it is now reasonably safe to move to the next question and seek to attach a name to the people who occupied the Qumran site some time between the turn of the second century BCE and 68 CE.
2. Identifying the Qumran Community
Having set out the aim, the organizational structure and the hierarchy of the membership of the Jewish groups described in chapter VII, let us now move a step forward and try to identify the Qumran sect with one of the known Jewish religious parties flourishing in Palestine in the pre-70 CE era. Before proceeding, it will be useful to rehearse succinctly the information relative to the structure and the religious ideas of the two types of congregation that the six Dead Sea rules have revealed.
To begin with the married group, attested in the ‘Damascus’ writing (CD) and all the other documents except the Community Rule (S), this new miniature biblical ‘Israel’, with its priests and its laity symbolically divided into twelve tribes and smaller traditional units, is represented as living in towns and ‘camps’ (rural settlements) all over Judaea in the midst of the bulk of the population, Jewish and Gentile, but in self-imposed separation from them. These families, distinguished from the other Jews by their more rigorous sexual mores, ritual observances and the specific education they gave to their children during the first twenty years of their lives, were engaged in farming and practised commerce – among themselves, and with other Jews and, within the framework of restrictive regulations, even with non-Jews. They worshipped in their own ‘appointed times’, but seem to have maintained some contact with the Temple, sending their offerings, and observing, while in Jerusalem, their special rigorous laws concerning ritual purity which required abstinence from marital sex.
The government of the married ‘Damascus’ sect was in the hands of learned Zadokite priests, but in the absence of a qualified priest, a well-trained Levite, member of the lower class of the priestly tribe, could be put in charge. The priest in command of each unit was known as the Guardian, who was acting on his own, without a council. His task was to instruct, exercise pastoral care and oversee the contact between his subjects and the outside world. He was entrusted with the training of the adult Jewish candidates for membership. No doubt he also played a part, together with the parents, in the religious education of the children of the members of his community until they attained the age of enrolment.
Ten elected judges administered justice in accordance with biblical law and communal regulations. They could, apparently, order the execution of persons found guilty of grave offences, and impose lesser penalties on the lawbreakers and those who disobeyed the rules. On the whole, the Community’s precepts were more stringent than those of Scripture – with one exception. The death penalty imposed by the Bible on a person who desecrated the Sabbath is downgraded to a seven-year prison sentence (CD 12:4–6). The rigorousness of the sectarian law may be illustrated by the possibility of ‘fornication’ between a husband and his own wife, a sin that incurred the penalty of expulsion from the group (4Q270). What constituted this ‘fornication’ is not specified. It may have been intercourse with a menstruating wife, or possibly sex with a pre-pubescent, pregnant or post-menopausal spouse if the sect, like the marrying Essenes of Josephus, believed that intercourse was legitimate only for the propagation of mankind.
Contact with non-Jews was envisaged as possible, but subject to special regulations. Gentiles were protected by the law: Community members were forbidden to steal from them or kill them. On the other hand, sectaries were not allowed to sell clean animals or birds to Gentiles for fear that they might
sacrifice them to their gods. It was also prohibited, contrary to the custom followed in the Jerusalem Temple, to accept from a Gentile an offering for the sanctuary (MMT, 4Q394, fr. 4–7). Nor were members of the community permitted to sell them a servant who had been a slave prior to being made a proselyte and thus converting to Judaism.
Communal funds were administered jointly by the Guardian and the judges. Members of the Community, who kept the right to handle their property and earnings, were obliged to pay into the common kitty a sum equivalent to two days’ wages per month, which were to be employed for charitable purposes.
The Guardian presided over the periodic assembly of the camp and the overall superior, the Guardian of all the camps, chaired the general assembly of all members once a year on the Feast of Weeks, on which occasion the Covenant was renewed, new members were initiated and unworthy old members excluded.
With the exception of the rules relating to matrimony and ownership of property, the doctrines and beliefs of the married Community, including their expectation of a Messiah of Aaron and a Messiah of Israel, may be presumed to have been essentially the same as those of the celibate sect.
The association described in the Community Rule is also a symbolical Israel in a nutshell, split into priests and laymen and bearing the title of the ‘Community’ (yahad), the ‘council of the Community’, the ‘men of the Law’, the ‘men of holiness’ and even the ‘men of perfect holiness’. The members are described as cut off from the unrighteous. In explicit fulfilment of the prophecy of Isaiah, ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord’ (Isa. 40:3 quoted in 1QS 8:14), they chose to withdraw to the desert for the study of the divine Law as well as the ways of the spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood, and committed themselves to the practice of all the virtues prescribed in the Torah. The Community was governed by, and followed the teaching of, the priests, Sons of Zadok.
The Story of the Scrolls Page 16
