Scrolls before the Sect(s). Recharting the Jewish Groups behind the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The research program aims at analyzing correlations between texts within the corpus of Dead Sea Scrolls, at describing distinct forms of Judaism recognizable in specific groups of texts, and ultimately at a new charting of 2d-c B.C.E. Jewish groups and movements, based primarily on the evidence of the Dead Sea Scrolls. This research is programmatic, as it proposes a new approach to the corpus as a whole that does not use the sectarian Rule of the Community, and the assumed yahad-community of Qumran, as its primary hermeneutical key. Instead, it proceeds from the interpretive paradigm that the corpus is a collection of texts from different groups and times. The program aims first to identify within the corpus core texts that clearly represent complexes of distinct views; to chart the relation between these core texts and other texts that are closely related with regard to terminology, specific interests, or world-view, etc.; and to describe the correspondences and differences between such clusters of texts. Second, it aims to review two large group of texts, which have been qualified as non-sectarian, namely the Aramaic and sapiential texts within the corpus.

Keywords:Sectarianism, Sapiential texts from Qumran, Aramaic texts from Qumran, Second Temple Judaism, Dead Sea scrolls

Disciplines:Theology and religious studies, Other philosophy, ethics and religious studies not elsewhere classified