Purity and Cult in the Qumran War Texts: A Reconsideration

Purity and Cult in the Qumran War Texts: A Reconsideration Michael DeVries University of Birmingham, UK [email protected] The increased importance of purity within Judaism of the late Second Temple period is beyond question. The widespread presence of miqva’ot from the late first century BCE to 70 CE (and whose use has been argued as continuing past 70 CE), including their distribution within residential areas, near synagogues, agricultural installations, ways of pilgrimage, and cemeteries, as well as the widespread use of stone vessels all attest to the notion of an intensified concern for ritual purity.1 The archaeological record of Khirbet Qumran only strengthens this portrayal, including the presence of potentially upwards of ten large miqva’ot, as well as the use of stone lids, stoppers, and storage jars.2 With the full publication of the Qumran corpus, the evidence available concerning the nature of purity and impurity has grown dramatically offering a more nuanced depiction of the issues. Nevertheless, this increase in available evidence has not always resulted in greater clarity, nor universal agreement. Discussion continues concerning the impact of the purity requirements at Qumran upon the development of conceptual frameworks or coherent paradigms for 1 Boaz Zissu and David Amit, “Common Judaism, Common Purity, and the Second Temple Period Judean Miqwa’ot (Ritual Immersion Baths),” in Common Judaism: Explorations in Second-Temple Judaism, eds. Wayne O. McCready and Adele Reinhartz (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008), 47–62; revised and updated in “A Classification of the Second Temple Period Judean Miqwa’ot (Ritual Immersion Baths),” in Speleology and Spelestology: To the Centenary of A. V. Ryimin’s Birth (Nabereznye Chelny, 2014), 246–61. Also, Jodi Magness, Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 134–62 and Stone and Dung, Oil and Spit: Jewish Daily Life in the Time of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), 16–17. On the use of mikva’ot past 70 CE, see Yonatan Adler, “The Decline of Jewish Ritual Purity Observance in Roman Palestina: An Archaeological Perspective on Chronology and Historical Context,” in Expressions of Cult in the Southern Levant in the Greco-Roman Period: Manifestations in Text and Material Culture, CS 6, eds. Oren Tal and Zeev Weiss (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2017), 269–84. 2 Magness, Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls, 79–89 and 147–58. 1 understanding the nature of impurity concerns.3 There is debate concerning if and to what degree we might speak of a coherent system of purity at Qumran, which raises further questions regarding which texts should be seen as representative of such a system as opposed to texts merely received by the Qumran movement but not informing the lived practice of the movement as a whole or the Qumran sectarians specifically.4 There continues to be discourse regarding the level of stringency seen in purity requirements at Qumran vis-à-vis those required by other expressions of Judaism in the Second Temple period.5 Finally, debate continues as to the amount of intersection between the categories of ritual and moral purity envisaged within so-called purity texts in the Qumran corpus.6 Whereas these discussions surrounding purity at Qumran have tended to focus on the conceptual framework of purity and impurity and its implications in light of various serekh and halakhic texts, including the Damascus Document, the Community Rule, 4QTohorot, 4QOrdinancesa-c, the Temple Scroll, and 4QMMT, the evidence from the Qumran war texts has rarely been drawn upon within the discussion. While time does not allow for a comprehensive analysis regarding 3 Thomas Kazen has convincingly discussed the integration of texts from the Qumran corpus into his psychobiological approach to impurity concerns. See Issues of Impurity in Early Judaism, ConBNT 45 (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2010). See also, Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concept of Pollution and Taboo (London: Routledge, 1966); Leviticus as Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999); and Tracy Lemos, “Where There is Dirt, Is There System? Revisiting Biblical Purity Constructions,” JSOT 37 (2013): 265–94. 4 In support of a coherent system, see Hannah K. Harrington, The Impurity Systems of Qumran and the Rabbis: Biblical Foundations, SBLDS (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993) and The Purity Texts, CQS 5 (London: T&T Clark, 2004), 12–30. For the contrasting position, see Ian C. Werrett, Ritual Purity and the Dead Sea Scrolls, STDJ 72 (Leiden: Brill, 2007). 5 Hannah Harrington suggest that the Qumran “system” was more consistently more stringent (see Impurity Systems, 47–67 and Purity Texts, 12). Vered Noam and Ian Werrett have convincingly demonstrated that Qumran purity requirements were at times more lenient. See Vered Noam, “Stringency in Qumran: A Reassessment,” JSJ 40 (2009): 1–14 and Ritual Purity and the Dead Sea Scrolls, 288–305. 6 See Jonathan Klawans, Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000) where Klawans argues that ritual and moral impurity have become a “singular conception of defilement” (p. 90). Also, Eyal Regev, “Abominated Temple and a Holy Community: The Formation of the Notions of Purity and Impurity in Qumran,” DSD 10 (2003): 243–78. For a contrasting position, see Martha Himmelfarb, “Impurity and Sin in 4QD, 1QS, and 4Q512,” DSD 8 (2001): 9–37 and more recently, Cecilia Wassen, “Purity and Holiness,” in T&T Clark Companion to the Dead Sea Scrolls, eds. George J. Brooke and Charlotte Hempel (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2018), 513–15. 2 the aforementioned areas, this paper seeks to explore issues of purity and impurity within the Qumran war texts, more specifically within 1QM 7:3–7 and 9:6–9 and their related texts in 4Q491 and 4Q493 respectively, and the light they might shed on the discourse regarding the notion of purity at Qumran. 3