Weisheit Und Pr Destination

This volume comprises the lectures delivered at a conference on the sapiential texts from Qumran hosted by A. Lange and H. Lichtenberger in Tubingen (1998) as well as a number of additional contributions. This literature, although found in the Qumran library, is mostly of non-Essene origin and can be dated to the third and second century BCE with a single exception which might be even older. The sapiential texts from Qumran add to the sparse corpus of postexilic sapiential literature and shed new light on the later Israelite and Jewish wisdom as well as on the sources from which early Christian wisdom traditions originated. Therefore, the volume attempts to understand the wisdom literature from Qumran in the broader context of sapiential thought in the Ancient near East, the Hebrew Bible, Ancient Judaism and the New Testament. Beyond this, the volume further includes treatments of introductory and linguistic questions as well as articles on specific sapiential texts.

Some literary expressions in the Dead Sea Scrolls led scholars to allege that their authors professed a dualistic and deterministic worldview of Zoroastrian origin and that the omission of Moses and Sinai from the Enoch writings evinces that a segment in Jewish society marginalized the Torah, adopting Enoch’s prophecies as its ethical guideline. This study challenges these allegations as utterly conflicting with essential biblical doctrines and the unequivocal beliefs and expectations of Qumran’s Torah-centered society, arguing that scholars’ allegations are erroneously based on interpreting ancient texts with a modern mindset and influenced by the interpreter’s personal cultural background. The study interprets the relevant texts in a manner compatible with the presumed doctrines of ancient Jewish authors and readers.

The 13 papers comprising this volume represent the fruits of the first Orion Center Symposium devoted to the comparison of the Dead Sea and early Christian texts. The authors reject the older paradigm which configured the similarities between Qumran and early Christian literature as evidence of influence from one upon the other. They raise fresh methodological possibilities by asking how insights from each of these two corpora illuminate the other, and by considering them as parallel evidence for broader currents of Second Temple Judaism. Topics addressed include specific exegetical and legal comparisons; prophecy, demonology, and messianism; the development of canon and the rise of commentary; and possible connections between the Gospel of John and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

This text publishes the International Scandi navian Conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls and Qumran. This c ollection of essays offers a wide range of recent Scandinavi an scholarship on the Dead Sea Scrolls. '"

The volume contains the papers read at the 51st Colloquium Biblicum Lovaniense (July 31 - August 2, 2002) dedicated to the study of the theme of Wisdom and Apocalypticism in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the biblical tradition in general. The "Main papers" and some of the "Offered papers" have been thematically grouped in four parts. Part I comprises four articles dealing with the relationship between wisdom and apocalypticism in the Scrolls compared to the biblical tradition. Part II includes five papers which focus on specific wisdom compositions from Qumran, such as 1Q/4QMysteries, 4QInstruction, 4QTime of Righteousness, or the "Tractate of the Two Spirits" from the Rule of the Community. The nine contributions of Part III analyse different aspects of biblical Wisdom compositions (in Qohelet, Sirach, and the Wisdom of Solomon) or of apocalyptic writings (in 1 Enoch and 4 Ezra) in the light of the Qumran Wisdom texts. Part IV groups six studies on several aspects of the Wisdom compositions from Qumran (messianic ideas, ecstatic worship, the beatitudes, or the fate of the righteous) which are directly relevant for the study of the New Testament. The articles are written in English (14), French (6), and German (4). Among the contributors are specialists of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Jean Duhaime, Torleif Elgvin, Armin Lange, Hermann Lichtenberger, Emile Puech, Eibert Tigchelaar) and of Early Judaism (e.g., John J. Collins, Daniel Harrington, Michael Knibb), as well as Old Testament scholars (e.g., Hainz-Josef Fabry, Maurice Gilbert, Klaus Koch).

The volume is a commentary on 1 Enoch chapters 91-108 that begins with the Ethiopic text tradition but also takes the Greek and Aramaic (Dead Sea Scrolls) evidence into account. This section of 1 Enoch, which contains material from at least five different documents composed some time during the 2nd century BCE, provides a window into the early stages of the reception of the earliest Enoch tradition, as it was being negotiated in relation to elitist religious opponents, on the one hand, and in relation to other Jewish traditions that were flourishing at the time. The commentary, at the beginning of which there is an extensive introduction, is structured in the following way: there is a translation for each unit of text (including the Greek and Aramaic where it exists, with the Greek and Ethiopic translations presented synoptically), followed by detailed textual notes that justify the translation and provide information on a full range of variations among the manuscripts. This, in turn, is followed by a General Comment on the unit of text; after this there are detailed notes on each subdivision of the text which attempt to situate the content within the stream of biblical interpretation and developing Jewish traditions of the Second Temple period. The five documents in 1 Enoch 91-108 are dealt with in the following order: (1) Apocalypse of Weeks (93:1-10; 91:11-17); (2) Admonition (91:1-10, 18-19); (3) Epistle of Enoch (92:1-5; 93:11-105:2; (4) Birth of Noah (106-107); and (5) the Eschatological Appendix (108).

The volume publishes the papers read at an international conference on the Book of Ben Sira, held at the Shime'on Centre, Pápa, Hungary. Renowned specialists of the field treat among others various questions of early Jewish wisdom thought, the interpretation of history, and canon forming.

4Q246 (4QApocryphon of Daniel ar), 4Q521 (4QMessianic Apocalypse), and 4Q215a (4QTime of Righteousness) are among the «newer» texts from Qumran Cave 4 that are of relatively recent publication. All three texts share an interest in eschatology, and more specifically in the time of salvation. Two of them, 4Q246 and 4Q521, are among the most debated texts from the Qumran library, chiefly because they are assumed to have significant and substantial parallels to texts in the New Testament. The main aim of the thesis is a separate and detailed analysis of the three texts. More substantially this analysis aims at presenting improved textual editions of each of the texts, with new readings, critically examine and evaluate scholars' attempts to restore the texts' fragmentary parts, and writing detailed commentaries on the texts. On the basis of this detailed treatment of the three texts, the images they present of the time of salvation are compared in a synthetic presentation.