The Verbal System Of The Dead Sea Scrolls

In this volume, Ken M. Penner uses an empirical method to establish that the Qumran authors’ selection of finite verb forms is determined not by aspect, but by tense or modality.

The Dead Sea Scrolls enrich many areas of biblical research, as well as the study of ancient and rabbinic Judasim, early Christian and other ancient literatures, languages, and cultures. With nearly all Dead Sea Scrolls published, it is now time to integrate the Dead Sea Scrolls fully into the various disciplines that benefit from them. This two-volume collection of essays answers this need. It represents the proceedings of a conference jointly organized by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the University of Vienna in Vienna on February 11 14, 2008.

Charts a new methodological course in Dead Sea Scrolls scholarship by employing memory theory to inform historical research. This is an instructive resource for scholars who are seeking an alternative to currently constructed approaches to the subject, and will be of appeal to those interested in the Dead Sea Scrolls more generally.

This volume is a revised and enlarged version of the author's Ph.D. dissertation (1999). It gives a comprehensive analysis of the morphosyntax and syntax of the tenses in the Hebrew text of Ben Sira. Due attention is paid to the heterogeneous character of the textual evidence (three manuscripts from the Desert of Judah and six mediaeval manuscripts from the Cairo Geniza), which complicates any linguistic study of Ben Sira. A descriptive analysis is complemented by a comparison with other contemporaneous, earlier, and later forms of Hebrew. It is argued that the Hebrew of Ben Sira is a literary language in its own right, rather than an imitation of Biblical Hebrew or a predecessor of Mishnaic Hebrew.

This volume contains 15 contributions addressing linguistic and philological issues. They seek to relate the Hebrew texts of the Hellenistic period to both earlier and later traditions. The papers deal with the Qumran scrolls, the Apocrypha and the Hebrew Bible.

In the context of current research on grammaticalization phenomena, this book offers a synchronic explanation of the verbal system of the Aramaic of Daniel that is coherent with the diachronic development of Aramaic and of human languages in general.

Among the predominantly Hebrew collection of the Dead Sea Scrolls are twenty-nine compositions penned in Aramaic. While such Aramaic writings were received at Qumran, these materials likely originated in times before, and locales beyond, the Qumran community. In view of their unknown past and provenance, this volume contributes to the ongoing debate over whether the Aramaic texts are a cohesive corpus or accidental anthology. Paramount among the literary topoi that hint at an inherent unity in the group is the pervasive usage of the dream-vision in a constellation of at least twenty writings. Andrew B. Perrin demonstrates that the literary convention of the dream-vision was deployed using a shared linguistic stock to introduce a closely defined set of concerns. Part One maps out the major compositional patterns of dream-vision episodes across the collection. Special attention is paid to recurring literary-philological features (e.g., motifs, images, phrases, and idioms), which suggest that pairs or clusters of texts are affiliated intertextually, tradition-historically, or originated in closely related scribal circles. Part Two articulates three predominant concerns advanced or addressed by dream-vision revelation. The authors of the Aramaic texts strategically employed dream-visions (i) for scriptural exegesis of the antediluvian/patriarchal traditions, (ii) to endorse particular understandings of the origins and functions of the priesthood, and (iii) as an ex eventu historiographical mechanism for revealing aspects or all of world history. These findings are shown to give fresh perspective on issues of revelatory discourses in Second Temple Judaism, the origins and evolution of apocalyptic literature, the ancient context of the book of Daniel, and the social location of the Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls.

A reexamination of the people and movements associated with Qumran, their outlook on the world, and what bound them together Dead Sea Scrolls, Revise and Repeat examines the identity of the Qumran movement by reassessing former conclusions and bringing new methodologies to the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The collection as a whole addresses questions of identity as they relate to law, language, and literary formation; considerations of time and space; and demarcations of the body. The thirteen essays in this volume reassess the categorization of rule texts, the reuse of scripture, the significance of angelic fellowship, the varieties of calendrical use, and celibacy within the Qumran movement. Contributors consider identity in the Dead Sea Scrolls from new interdisciplinary perspectives, including spatial theory, legal theory, historical linguistics, ethnicity theory, cognitive literary theory, monster theory, and masculinity theory. Features Essays that draw on new theoretical frameworks and recent advances in Qumran studies A tribute to the late Peter Flint, whose scholarship helped to shape Qumran studies