The Hasmonean Temple and Its Water-Supply System in 4QMMT

101 THE QUMRAN CHRONICLE THE QUMRAN CHRONICLE Vol. 13, No. 2/4 ISSN 0867-8715 April 2006 The Enigma Press, ul. Podedworze 5, 32-031 Mogilany, Poland; E-mail: [email protected] ks. Bartosz ADAMCZEWSKI UKSW Warsaw - Rome THE HASMONEAN TEMPLE AND ITS WATER-SUPPLY SYSTEM IN 4QMMT The Qumran document commonly known as Miq^at Ma‘aœ¢ HaTôrâ (4Q394-399) has been a subject of much debate in the past decade1. Several scholars argued that it has affinities to the kind of Halakhah ascribed by Talmudic sources to the Sadducees. One of the alleged proofs of this connection is the ruling concerning twqcwmh and their role in conveying impurity from one object to another (4QMMT B 55-58). This fragment has been understood by Elisha Qimron, one of the official editors of 4QMMT, as dealing with impurity conveyed by unbroken streams of liquids from one vessel to another up the stream, which was one of the matters of dispute between Pharisees and Sadducees. The basis for this hypothesis has been found in the linguistic affinity between twqcwm mentioned in 4QMMT B 55-57 and qwcn dealt with in m. Yad. 4.7; m. Toh. 8.92. The hypothesis has been supported in the same editorial volume by Ya‘akov Sussmann (citing m. Yad. 4.7; m. Makh. 5.9; and m. Miq. 6.8)3 and later by many other scholars4. 1 For a bibliography of the earlier stages of the debate and the first, preliminary publication of 4QMMT, see Z. J. K APERA, An Anonymously Received Pre-Publication of the MMT, “The Qumran Chronicle” vol. 1 no. 2 (Dec. 1990: Appendix “A”), 1-9; Idem, A Preliminary Subject Bibliography of 4QMMT: 1956-1991, “The Qumran Chronicle” vol. 1 no. 2/3 (Dec. 1990 / Apr. 1991), 75-80; Idem, A Preliminary Subject Bibliography of 4QMMT Part II: Summer 1991 – Spring 1994, “The Qumran Chronicle” vol. 4 no.1/2 (June 1994), 53-66. 2 E. Q IMRON – J. S TRUGNELL , Miq^at Ma‘aœe Ha-Torah (DJD X), Clarendon: Oxford 1994, 162. 3 E. Q IMRON – J. S TRUGNELL , op. cit., 188. 4 See already Y. YADIN , The Temple Scroll [Hebrew Edition], vol. 2, Text and Commentary, Israel Exploration Society: Jerusalem 1977, 150 and J. B AUMGARTEN, 102 THE QUMRAN CHRONICLE This standard view has been, however, subject to serious criticism on linguistic and Halakhic grounds, so that the problem of the meaning of 4QMMT B 55-58 remains still unresolved5. It seems that getting out of the impasse requires rethinking the methodological validity of interpreting 4QMMT B 55-58 as an isolated text, only in light of its supposed Talmudic parallels. Detailed analysis of the text in its own linguistic, literary and historical setting, according to standard rules of the historical-critical method, should be performed instead. Some proposals aiming at this direction will be offered below. Only thereafter, by way of a kind of “canonical” approach, the Halakhic pronouncement of 4QMMT can be appropriately put together with its Talmudic counterparts. 1. Problems with the standard translation of 4QMMT B 55-58 Since the publication of 4QMMT in the official DJD series scholars discussing the content of this document generally accept the translation proposed by its first official publishers: Elisha Qimron and John Strugnell. There are, however, several points where this translation moves quite far from the Hebrew original. Let us consider these points briefly: a) The Hebrew word twqcwmh has been rendered by Qimron in his The Pharisaic-Sadducean Controversies about Purity and the Qumran Texts, “Journal of Jewish Studies” 31 (1980), 163-164. Later, among others L. H. SCHIFFMAN, The Temple Scroll and the Systems of Jewish Law of the Second Temple Period, [in:] Temple Scroll Studies. Papers presented at the International Symposium on the Temple Scroll. Manchester, December 1987 (JSP.SS 7), ed. G. J. Brooke, Sheffield Academic: Sheffield 1989, 250-251. It must be noted, however, that even scholars espousing this general view, e. g. Johann Maier, do not necessarily regard the text as dealing with the impurity transmitted by a liquid from one vessel to another up the stream: J. MAIER, Purity at Qumran: Cultic and Domestic, [in:] Judaism in Late Antiquity, part 5, The Judaism of Qumran: A Systematic Reading of the Dead Sea Scrolls, section 1, Theory of Israel, ed. A. J. Avery-Peck – J. Neusner – B. D. Chilton, Brill: Boston – Leiden 2001, 118. 5 See Y. E LMAN , Some Remarks on 4QMMT and the Rabbinic Traditions: or, When Is a Parallel Not a Parallel?, [in:] Reading 4QMMT. New Perspectives on Qumran Law and History (SBL.SS 2), ed. J. Kampen – M. J. Bernstein, Scholars: Atlanta, GA 1996, 99-128; L. L. GRABBE, 4QMMT and Second Temple Jewish Society, [in:] Legal Texts and Legal Issues. Proceedings of the Second Meeting of the International Organization for Qumran Studies Cambridge 1995. FS J. M. Baumgarten (STDJ 23), ed. M. Bernstein – F. García Martínez – J. Kampen, Brill: Leiden – New York – Köln 1997, 93-95. THE QUMRAN CHRONICLE 103 Halakhic commentary to 4QMMT as “(unbroken) streams of a liquid (poured from a clean vessel into an unclean vessel)”6. Leaving aside for a while the problem of the specific meaning of the word twqcwm, it has to be noted here that its translation has been supplemented with much exegetical comment added in brackets. As a result, the equivalent of one Hebrew word amounts to over ten words in English, nearly all of which have the status of only a hypothetical semantic reconstruction. No wonder that Fiorentino García Martínez and Eibert J. C. Tighelaar corrected the overcoded translation of Qimron to a much simpler one: “liquid streams”7. b) No serious attempt has been made to solve the problem of the meaning of the repeated particle X in the phrase !yaX ~hX (B 55). Qimron and Strugnell take the problematic ~hX simply as redundant8. However, from the syntactical point of view, the clause introduced by !yaX probably functions as an explanatory or qualifying relative clause, giving the reason or extent to which the main sentence (introduced by ~hX) is true: “We say that they, because / as far as there is no purity in them, they (twqcwmh) also do not separate...” Therefore the main issue dealt with in 4QMMT B 55-58 is not the impurity of the twqcwm themselves, but the fact that they are unable to separate realms of impurity and purity. c) The Hebrew clause: hrhj ~hb !ya (B 55-56) has been oversimplified in Qimron’s and Strugnell’s rendering: “they are not pure” 9. Martinez’s translation is much better here: “in these there is no purity”10. This apparently small difference is in reality quite important for the interpretation of the text. It does not refer here to the impurity of the twqcwm themselves, as the editors suggest (“they are not pure”), 6 7 E. QIMRON – J. S TRUGNELL, op. cit., 161. F. G. MARTÍNEZ – E. J. C. T IGCHELAAR, The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition, vol. 2, Brill – Eerdmans: Leiden [et al.] 1998, 793. Cf. M. WISE – M. ABEGG, JR. – E. COOK, The Dead Sea Scrolls. A New Translation, HarperCollins, New York 1996, 362. The translation of G. VERMES, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, Penguin: London 20042, 226 is alas rendered in singular and moreover significantly inconsistent: “the pouring (of liquids)”, “the pouring”, “the poured liquid”. 8 E. Q IMRON – J. S TRUGNELL , op. cit., 52. 9 See, however, the note: “Literally ‘have no purity in them’” (E. Q IMRON – J. STRUGNELL, op. cit., 161, n. 133). 10 Similarly G. V ERMES , op. cit., 226: “it contains no purity”; P. M UCHOWSKI, Rêkopisy znad Morza Martwego. Qumran – Wadi Murabba‘at – Masada (Biblioteka Zwojów. T³o Nowego Testamentu 5), The Enigma Press: Kraków 1996, 284: „nie maj¹ one w sobie czystoœci”. 104 THE QUMRAN CHRONICLE but to the assumed impurity of their content (“they contain no purity”)11. d) Translating the text that describes the twqcwm as not separating impure from pure (B 56-57), Qimron and Strugnell added the English word “liquids” at the end of the clause12. This noun, however, has no equivalent in the original text and serves only to support the editors’ interpretation of the twqcwm as streams of liquids. The Hebrew text, translated more equivocally by Martínez, might deal not only with separation of impure and pure liquids, but also with separation of more generally conceived realms of impurity and purity. e) The structure of the phrase hmhm lbqmhw twqcwmh txl (B 57) implies that the referents of the words twqcwmh and lbqmh, which are set in the text in a paradigmatic relation to each other, most likely belong to the same class of objects. It is less probable that the first word signifies liquids themselves and the second one – a vessel for them. If this possibility is accepted, the phrase twqcwmh txl becomes almost tautologous, which is evident in the translation of Martínez and Tigchelaar: “the liquid of the liquid streams”13. f) The Hebrew prepositional phrase hmhm (“from them”) in B 57 has been translated by Qimron and Strugnell simply as “them”, as though there were no preposition !m in the Hebrew text14. This apparently small omission is again not accidental. It serves to support the hypothesis of the editors, who suggest that the container (lbqmh) has to be understood here as receiving twqcwmh themselves (“them”) and not their content (“from them”). However, the prepositional phrase hmhm (“from them”), referring to twqcwmh (and not txl, which is singular), again clearly suggests that the text deals primarily not with liquids, but with a system consisting of some elements conducting liquids (twqcwmh) and of an element receiving liquids from them (hmhm lbqmh)15. 11 12 13 Y. ELMAN, op. cit., 117. E. QIMRON – J. STRUGNELL, op. cit., 53. The apparently similar phrase ~ym txl in 11QTa 49:12 has in reality quite different significance. It can be assumed from the context that it refers to “dampness of water” – a small stain of water on a surface of something that is generally dry. It denotes therefore no “liquid of the streams”. Cf. also 4Q274 3 ii 5. 14 Cf. the meaning of the verb lbq with the preposition !m in Job 2:10; Sir 50:12 Hebr. B: “receiving sth from sb/sth”. 15 Cf. apparently similar, and yet misleading translations: J. M AIER , Die QumranEssener: Die Texte vom Toten Meer, Bd. 2, Die Texte aus der Höhle 4 (UTB 1863), THE QUMRAN CHRONICLE 105 g) The prepositional phrase ~hk (“like them”) in B 57 has been rendered by Qimron and Strugnell as “are alike”. By omitting the demonstrative pronoun ~h (“they”) in the translation, the editors avoided answering the question, what does the pronoun refer to16. It cannot refer to twqcwmh alone, because the sentence would then be illogical: “The liquid of A [plural] and of B [singular] is like A [plural] – one liquid.” It cannot point also to both twqcwmh and lbqmh understood as two different liquids, because the sentence would then be tautologous: “The liquid of A and of B is like them (i.e. like both liquids).” The pronoun inevitably refers therefore to twqcwmh and lbqmh taken together (on the level of syntax connected by the conjunction w) and understood not as two liquids, but as two somehow joined water-containers: “The liquid of A and B is like them (i.e. like A and B) – one liquid.” The Hebrew text implies that twqcwmh and lbqmh constitute together one entity, one coherent water-conducting system, so that the liquids contained in its various parts may also be treated in the Halakhic ruling as one liquid17. The syntactical and semantic analysis of 4QMMT B 55-58 shows that this text, taken as a whole, deals with the question of the purity of liquids conducted to some container by a system of elements called twqcwm. Now we have to discuss the meaning of the problematic noun twqcwm itself. Is it possible that it refers not to poured streams of liquids, but to some sort of liquid-conduits? 2. The twqcwm as liquid-conduits in the Hebrew Bible As far as we know, the word twqcwm, used three times in the short fragment 4QMMT B 55-58, is peculiar to 4QMMT in the non-biblical Dead Sea Scrolls. As we have already noted, it is usually translated as “streams of a liquid”. This meaning, however, contradicts the semantics of the whole fragment, which implies that the twqcwm refer to some sort of liquid-conduits. We shall therefore investigate the Reinhardt: München – Basel 1995, 368: “(in den) von ihnen aufnehmenden (Gefäßen)“; W. W. DOMBROWSKI, 4QMMT After DJD X Qumran Cave 4 Part V, “The Qumran Chronicle” vol. 5 no. 2 (Oct. 1995), 167: “the container thereof”; F. G. M ARTÍNEZ – E. J. C. TIGCHELAAR, op. cit., vol. 2, Brill – Eerdmans: Leiden [et al.] 1998, 793.797: „their vessels”, “their containers”. 16 The editors theorize that it may be simply meaningless: E. Q IMRON – J. STRUGNELL, op. cit., 53. This is not a solution of the problem, however. 17 Cf. Y. ELMAN , op. cit., 121. 106 THE QUMRAN CHRONICLE meaning range of the word twqcwm in the Hebrew language of the Second Temple period. The noun hqcwm / tqcwm occurs in the Hebrew Bible two times: in 2 Chr 4:3, where it clearly refers to casting of metal, and in Zech 4:2, where its meaning is much more problematic. Lexical descriptions of the meaning of hqcwm / tqcwm in Zech 4:2 range from “pipe” (BDB; Clines, DCH: I) to more general “cast metal” (Clines, DCH: II) or even “reed” (HALOT). Also commentators of the Book of Zechariah translate twqcwm in Zech 4:2 variously: as “spouts” (R. L. Smith, WBC; C. L. Meyers – E. M. Meyers, AB) or “channels” (Germ. “Rinnen“ – R. Hanhart, BKAT). They generally agree, however, that the word twqcwm in Zech 4:2 refers to some sort of channels or pipes by means of which the oil flows from a bowl and reaches the oil-lamps18. The word twqcwm may therefore, on the basis of its use in the Hebrew Bible, denote also in 4QMMT some type of liquid-conduits. This sense of the word, as we have seen, accords well, the general meaning of the fragment 4QMMT B 55-58. It corresponds also with the problems that are dealt with in the immediate context of the fragment. 3. 4QMMT B 55-58 in its literary context The document commonly known as 4QMMT has been found at Qumran in several copies. Unfortunately, none of them has been preserved in a state good enough to enable reconstruction of the content and the structure of the entire writing. It is possible, however, to reconstruct at least the immediate literary context of the fragment 4QMMT B 55-58. The whole Halakhic part of the document deals clearly, as it states in its beginning (B 1-3), with various issues concerning ritual purity (hrhj). In the central section of this literary unit the authors of the document repeatedly complain that various objects (persons, animals, things) enter (awb) “the holy camp” of Jerusalem, without proper recognition of its holiness (B 39-72). This problem might function as a background for the whole Halakhic part of the document (B 1–C 7a)19. 18 See e.g. the detailed discussion in R. H ANHART , Dodekapropheton 7.1. Sacharja 1-8 (BKAT XIV/7.1), Neukirchener: Neukirchen-Vluyn 1998, 245. 261f. 278. 19 See the first and the last Halakhic regulations in the document, for which the key word is notably also awb (B 5; C 6). These two regulations may form a thematic THE QUMRAN CHRONICLE 107 In its central section (B 39-72) various objects, unlawfully entering Jerusalem, have been listed in the following order: the Moabites, bastards, and eunuchs (B 39-49); the blind and deaf people (B 49-54); twqcwmh (B 55-58)?; dogs (B 58-62); first-fruits of fruit plantations and tithes of the cattle (B 62-64)?; and lepers (B 64-72). A section similar in its content to 4QMMT B 39-72 can be found in 11QTa 45:7-47:1820. Notwithstanding all the similarities, there are some important differences between these texts. The rulings contained in the Temple Scroll are more general (“They shall not enter”), whereas their counterparts in 4QMMT have the form of an actual complaint (“But they enter!”). The Halakhah presented in 11QTa 45:7-47:18 is being authoritatively imposed on all its implied recipients, whereas 4QMMT seems to be addressed to priests who should instruct the people in the differences between pure and impure (B 12. 17. 26). The Temple Scroll takes into consideration not only the purity of the Temple City but also of other cities and places in the land of Israel (47:17; 48:11), whereas 4QMMT seems to deal almost uniquely with the holiness of Jerusalem21. The most important difference between these two parallel texts consists, however, in the different motivation given to corresponding Halakhic rulings. The discrepancy is most visible in the immediate context of the ruling on the twqcwm. According to the Temple Scroll, the blind people shall never enter the Holy City because they are generally considered impure (45:12f pace Lev 21:18.22). In 4QMMT B 49-54 the blind and the deaf shall not enter either – but here only the Sanctuary (cf. Lev 21:18.22) and not on the grounds of their physical defectiveness, but of their inability to learn and maintain the difference between pure and impure (B 50. 52-54). Similar reasoning inclusio, hinting at the main subject of the whole Halakhic part of 4QMMT. This central part of the document clearly ends in C 7a and not in B 82, as has been suggested by the official editors. The last Halakhic l[w has been used in C 4, and the explanatory conclusion begins only in C 7b. Cf. a similar view: M. J. B ERNSTEIN, The Employment and Interpretation of Scripture in 4QMMT: Preliminary Observations, [in:] Reading 4QMMT, op. cit., 47; G. V ERMES, op. cit., 226 and the analysis of the use of the introductory formula l[w: M. P ÉREZ F ERNÁNDEZ, 4QMMT: Redactional Study, “Revue de Qumran” 18 (1997), 193-194. 20 Cf. also 4Q174 1-2 i 3-4. See L. H. S CHIFFMAN , The Place of 4QMMT in the Corpus of Qumran Documents, [in:] Reading 4QMMT, op. cit., 94. 21 Cf. S. MÊDALA, The Character and Historical Setting of 4QMMT, “The Qumran Chronicle” vol. 4 no. 1/2 (June 1994), 12.16. 108 THE QUMRAN CHRONICLE concerns the dogs. According to 4QMMT B 59 they shall not enter Jerusalem, not because they are generally considered impure (cf. unclean birds in 11QTa 46:2), but because they might eat flesh of the sacrifices offered in the Temple 22. The subject of the central section of 4QMMT, which comprises the intriguing fragment B 55-58, is therefore quite evident. According to the authors of the document, the blind, the deaf, twqcwmh, and dogs should not be allowed to enter the Temple (although in reality they somehow do it) because they are not in a position to discern and separate purity from impurity and consequently they defile the holy Sanctuary. If then the fragment concerning twqcwmh is not totally unrelated to its immediate context, it, too, most probably deals with some objects entering the realm of the Temple but regrettably not separating impure from pure, thus allowing the defilement of the Sanctuary. As a result of the above analysis it can be stated that the theme of the larger section containing the fragment 4QMMT B 55-58 corresponds with the supposed meaning of the fragment itself. The twqcwm discussed in 4QMMT B 55-58 seem to be elements of a complex water-supply system (made of pipes or channels) which conveyed water to a receptacle located somewhere in the Temple. Although such a water-supply system was certainly very useful for the priests from a practical point of view, it was treated with great suspicion by the authors of 4QMMT. They complained that the twqcwm, which had to be conducted under the Temple wall and which together with the receptacle in the Temple area constituted one unbroken water-supply system, regrettably did not maintain the separation between the impure and pure realms (pace Ezek 42:20). Therefore, since the ritual purity of water conveyed by the twqcwm might be questionable, the Temple itself could be subject to severe defilement23. Does the above presented interpretation of 4QMMT B 55-58 accord with the realities of the Second Temple? The answer to this question requires some historical and archaeological considerations. 22 Cf. E. QIMRON – J. S TRUGNELL , op. cit., 160-163; J. SCHWARTZ , Dogs in Jewish Society in the Second Temple Period and in the Time of the Mishnah and Talmud, “Journal of Jewish Studies” 55 (2004), 265-266. 23 This possibility was already mentioned but not taken seriously into consideration by E. QIMRON – J. S TRUGNELL, op. cit., 162: „It [the controversy] probably involved the purity of pools and the purity of the water channels of the Temple.” THE QUMRAN CHRONICLE 109 4. 4QMMT B 55-58 in its historical and archaeological context Unfortunately we do not have much information about the water supply in the Jerusalem Temple in the Hasmonean period, when 4QMMT was most probably written24. The main source of water for Jerusalem was for many centuries the Gihon spring (together with the spring of En-Rogel). It had the disadvantage of being located in the Kidron Valley, too low to provide direct water supply for the City of David and for the Temple Mount. Moreover, in the Hellenistic period it became insufficient as a source of water for the constantly expanding city. Around 200 B.C. the high priest Simeon hewed out of bedrock a new, great water reservoir (Sir 50:3). Its precise location, though, remains unknown. It can only be presumed that this reservoir was located somewhere within the city walls, since it was meant to retain water for a siege (Sir 50:4). There was, however, another large pool, located close to the Temple, approximately on the level of the Temple Mount, which probably served as a reservoir of water for daily use in the Sanctuary. It was discovered in 1865 near St. Anne’s church and is traditionally identified with the pool of Bethesda / Bethzatha, known from the Gospel of John (John 5:2)25. Before the construction of the Third Wall the reservoir was located outside the city, but in close proximity to it26. The pool, consisting of two basins, was probably constructed in the Hasmonean period – after the rebuilding and reconsecration of the Temple but before its great enlargement, accompanied by the construction of the Pool of Israel, which began under the rule of Herod the Great. The northern basin of Bethesda was provided with a subterranean channel bifurcating in its further course27. This channel most probably constituted a part of a water-supply system that brought water from the Bethesda pool to a cistern in the Temple area. 24 Hopeful references to the addressee as a king of Israel (4QMMT C 23-32) suggest dating of the document for the beginning of the rule of Alexander Jannaeus (ca. 103-100 B.C.). 25 J. F. S TRANGE, Beth-Zatha, [in:] ABD 1, 701. 26 This fact corresponds well with the “entering” of the twqcwm, among other objects discussed in 4QMMT B 39-72, into the city and into the Temple from outside. 27 A. D U P R E Z , Jésus et les dieux guérisseurs. À propos de Jean, V (CahRevBibl 12), Gabalda: Paris 1970, 33-37; J. W ILKINSON, Ancient Jerusalem. Its Water Supply and Population, “Palestine Exploration Quarterly” 106 (1974), 43; M.-J. PIERRE – J.-M. ROUSÉE, Sainte-Marie de la Probatique, état et orientations des recherches, “Proche-Orient Chrétien” 31 (1981) 23-27. 110 THE QUMRAN CHRONICLE However, more rigorously oriented Jews might have treated bringing water from Bethesda to the Temple as causing severe defilement of the Sanctuary. Close to the eastern side of the Bethesda pools, in fact, there was a therapeutic bath consisting of several caves filled partially with water which most probably mingled with the water of the pools. Presumably already in the Hasmonean period the therapeutic activity that took place in the bath displayed features not of a ritual Jewish purification of unclean persons in a miqveh, but of a superstitious, maybe even syncretistic folk belief (cf. John 5:4.7). Hence, the great popularity of this healing activity led to its revival after the destruction of the city in 70 A.D., now in the form of a clearly pagan cult directed to Serapis or Asclepius28. It is therefore probable that on the grounds of the not entirely orthodox character of the therapeutic activity that took place at the Bethesda complex, the ritual purity of water from this reservoir was called into question by the authors of 4QMMT29. Water that from the technical point of view could be easily brought from Bethesda to the Temple by a system of joint pipes (twqcwmh), from the Halakhic point of view might be regarded as defiling the Sanctuary because of its presumably impure origin and the inability of the whole system to constitute a barrier between the realms of impurity and purity30. It is worth noting here that the plan of the sectarian settlement at Qumran might intentionally resemble the plan of an ideal, pure Jerusalem with the symbolic Temple in the center and the rest of the “camp”, with diminishing degrees of purity, located concentrically around it. Jodi Magness has recently suggested that the holiest area of the settlement could have comprised the loci L4 and L30 (the area of the so 28 A. D UPREZ , op. cit., 38-43; L. D EVILLERS , Une piscine peut en cacher une autre. À propos de Jean 5,1-9a, “Revue Biblique” 106 (1999), 178-181; cf. M. KÜCHLER , Zum »Probatischen Becken« und zu »Betesda mit den fünf Stoën«, [in:] M. Hengel [et. al.], Judaica, Hellenistica et Christiana. Kleine Schriften II (WUNT 109), Mohr Siebeck: Tübingen 1999, 384-385. 29 This rigorous judgment was presumably not shared by the majority of later rabbis (m. Miq. 8.1, but see the discussion in t. Miq. 6.1). 30 That is why the authors of 4QMMT could complain that water conducted from Bethesda caused defilement of the Temple while at the same time they could regard water conducted by the aqueduct from Wadi Qumran to their settlement as ritually pure. The main argument against understanding the twqcwm in 4QMMT B 55-58 as water-pipes (cf. Y. ELMAN, op. cit., 118) is therefore not valid. THE QUMRAN CHRONICLE 111 called “scriptorium”)31. I would add to these two loci also the massive tower which could have for the community not only a practical but also a symbolic function32 and, with more hesitation, also the courtyard east of the “scriptorium”. The rest of the settlement might have been arranged according to the plan of the real city of Jerusalem – with the Qumran water channels conducted freely in such a way that they symbolized the Tyropoeon and Kidron valleys surrounding the Temple Mount from the west, the south and the east; with the main communal center placed in the southern part of the settlement just as the Essene quarter in the Holy City; with the toilet situated east of the “sanctuary”, in the imaginative Kidron valley33; and with the majority of the graves located farther to the east, on the symbolic Mount of Olives, oriented N-S, as though they were cut in the real slope. It is worth consideration that the holy “camp” at Qumran was not expanded on the northern side of its symbolic Temple Mount, so as to realize a fully concentric (or rather, square) design, according to the theology of the Temple Scroll. In the physical landscape there was clearly no obstacle to such an arrangement. This phenomenon may be explained by taking into taking into consideration the fact that the sectarians probably arranged their settlement not only according to the ideal design of the Temple City, but also according to the plan of the real Jerusalem, which was well known to them. The sectarians might have wanted to avoid expanding their settlement to the north of its symbolic “sanctuary” because they considered the area north of the Temple Mount in real Jerusalem as generally impure, on the grounds of its location outside the city wall and of its contamination by some sort of a religiously non-orthodox healing activity. The plan of the settlement at Qumran may thus supply an additional proof to the above-formulated thesis that the water brought to the Jerusalem 31 J. M AGNESS, The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, MI – Cambridge 2002, 128. 32 Could the Qumran tower symbolize the elevated Jerusalem Temple itself (as in the Jewish temple at Leontopolis – cf. Josephus, B. J. 7.10.3 §427)? Maybe the Hasmonean Temple (never seen by Josephus) resembled a fortified tower (cf. 1 Macc 10:11; 13:52)? Or should the Qumran tower be considered rather a resemblance of the Hasmonean fortress Baris located NW of the Sanctuary (which is in my view less probable)? Either way this structure at Qumran is far too massive to serve simply as a symbolic Sanctuary staircase described in 11QTa 30:5-10. 33 Cf. 11QTa 46:13-14. 112 THE QUMRAN CHRONICLE Temple by its water-supply system from the area north of the city wall was considered by the authors of 4QMMT impure and therefore heavily defiling the Jerusalem Temple of God. We should therefore conclude that 4QMMT B 55-58 deals not with the issue of the purity of liquids poured from one vessel to another, as discussed in Talmudic sources by Sadducees and Pharisees. The whole document does not primarily address issues of maintaining purity in everyday life, but deals first of all with several ways of defiling the Temple, from the point of view of a group of rigorously orientated priests34. The alleged defilement of the Sanctuary by means of its water-supply system was one of the reasons for their abandoning the Jerusalem Temple and forming a priestly sect eagerly awaiting the eschatological purification of Israel. SUMMARY Linguistic, literary, and historical analysis of 4QMMT B 55-58 shows that this text deals most probably not with the transmission of ritual impurity up the stream by liquids poured from one vessel to another, but with the alleged impurity of water conveyed to the Temple by its pre-Herodian water-supply system. The source of this impurity may have been a non-orthodox therapeutic bath located beside the Pool of Bethesda, which was probably connected by a system of channels to a cistern in the Temple area. The concern for the avoidance of impure areas may be reflected in the asymmetric plan of the Qumran settlement, arranged symbolically according to the plan of Jerusalem. 34 Cf. the vehement protest of Jesus against various acts of violation of the holiness of the Temple (Mk 11:15-17). This protest, indirectly involving also the authority of the High Priest, became one of the main reasons of violent actions taken against Jesus and eventually of his death (Mk 11:18; 14:53-64; cf. 1QpHab 11:4-8).