The Dead Sea Scrolls

Over the past fifty years, archaeological excavations in Israel have unearthed about half a dozen ancient synagogues that were in use at different points in time between the first century BCE through the outbreak of the Bar-Kochba rebellion early in the second century of the Common Era.  In close proximity to each of these synagogues, a mikveh (ritual bath) has been discovered.  In contrast, no mikvaot have been discovered adjacent to any of the dozens of later synagogues that have been excavated and studied, with only one or two possible exceptions. 
At this point it is impossible to determine exactly when mikvaot ceased to be built in connection with synagogues, as the archaeological record reports very little about synagogues of the late second - early third century CE.  From an archaeological perspective, it is clear that at least from the second half of the third century, synagogues began to be built without regard for proximity to mikvaot.
Talmudic sources make no mention of a requirement to build mikvaot adjacent to synagogues. To date, no satisfactory explanation has been given for the evident connection between the synagogue and the mikveh in the early period, and the disappearance of such a connection in later periods of synagogue history. The objective of this paper is to present and explore a possible interpretation of this puzzling phenomenon.
  During the Second Temple and Mishnaic Periods, a rabbinical enactment was in effect requiring mikveh ablutions prior to engagement in Torah study and prayer for individuals who had experienced seminal emission. Careful study of the Talmudic sources reveals that this enactment was nullified early in the Amoraic Period, sometime during the second quarter of the third century CE.
It would appear that the mikvaot built adjacent to the earlier synagogues were intended for this precise function, serving visitors to the synagogue who required ritual ablutions prior to Torah study and prayer.  Once the rabbinical enactment regarding these ablutions was nullified, there was no longer need for such mikvaot, and hence the absence of mikvaot in proximity to the later synagogues.

The Jewish revolt against Rome in 67 C.E. has been variously characterized as a spontaneous reaction to political/economic oppression, a messianic holy war, or as some combination of the two. 1 In part, the diversity of opinions can be attributed to the methodological approaches of the investigators, but a greater portion of the controversy is due to the frustrating scarcity of data and the nature of the early witnesses to the Revolt. With the exception of Josephus's writings (and perhaps the Megillat Ta`anit, or "Scroll of Fasting"), no texts have survived that can be attributed to the participants in the Great Revolt

In diesem Artikel werden zunächst die Gruppenbezeichnungen sowie die inhaltlichen Hinweise zum Zelotentum innerhalb der Schriften des Flavius Josephus untersucht. Die hieraus gewonnenen Grundmuster dieser gewaltsam-revolutionären Strömung werden dann auf latente, grundsätzlich nur schwach erkennbare Andeutungen innerhalb der neutestamentlichen Schriften angewandt und eine entsprechende zelotische „Atmosphäre“ der jeweiligen Situation hervorgehoben. Abschließend werden Schnittmengen sowie Gegensätze zwischen den zelotischen Anklängen und der neutestamentlich-christlichen Geisteshaltung herausgestellt.

4Q390 is a document akin to but not identical with Apocryphon of Jeremiah C. It presents the exilic and postexilic era of history of Israel as a period of 70 x 7 = 70 + 7 x 49 + 70 + 7 years of forced theocracy. 4Q390 may partially account for the rise of Messianic expectations in Israel ca. 200-175 B.C. and ca. 103-96 B.C.

It is not often that the three disciplines of archaeology, ancient history and epigraphy come together to illuminate a particular event.  But this is precisely what happens in the case of Masada.  The desert fortress built by Herod the Great is still surrounded by the remains of Roman siegeworks built at the end of Rome’s first Jewish War. And, while Josephus provides the historical narrative, a detailed military career inscription brings Masada’s Roman captor to life.

This interlinear edition of the biblical Hebrew Dead Sea Scrolls brings a new level of user-friendly functionality to this priceless collection of ancient texts. The resource collates the textual witnesses of hundreds of manuscript fragments into a single text of the Hebrew Bible as collectively attested in the Qumran scrolls.

The text draws on expert scholarly analysis to select the best readings for verses with multiple manuscript witnesses. Verses with multiple witnesses include notes linking to individual transcriptions of the variant readings. This edition also features Logos Hebrew Morphology, so you can search the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Lexham Hebrew Bible as a single body of literature in one search.

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls was a monumental event in the history of biblical studies. With the Lexham Dead Sea Scrolls Hebrew-English Interlinear Bible, you can dig into this biblical treasure trove and see for yourself what a powerful witness these ancient manuscripts bear to the text of the Hebrew Bible!

Readers have long wondered what is the meaning of the dog that briefly appears in the Jewish fairy tale known as the Book of Tobit. This article considers common answers such as influence from Ahikar, the Odyssey, influence of Persian culture and influence of folktale and goes into depth of the dog's significance in human culture, especially in connection with healing and defeating dragons and evil spirits and raises questions about the dog's possible connection to the archangel Raphael.

This paper re-examines 4QcryptA Lunisolar Calendar (4Q317), a scroll from Qumran in an esoteric Hebrew script with many emendations that aligns the moon’s daily waxing and waning to a 364-day calendar. It seeks to ascertain whether the calendar may be exegetically related to the Creation and also discusses the text’s arithmetical relationships with the cycles of the priestly courses from Qumran, possible intertextual allusions to other lunar calendars in the Dead Sea Scrolls (4QDaily Prayers [4Q503], 4QAstronomical Enocha-bar [4Q208–4Q209]), biblical passages, and parallels with another Mesopotamian calendar text. The first transcription of the largest fragments using a Cryptic A font is here published with a commentary (in the Appendix), focusing on the text’s unusual scribal features. A reconsideration of the calendar’s structure with a new arrangement of its dates is presented. [Please note there is a Hebrew transcription error in the Appendix, p.87 at 4Q317 frags 1+1a, line 9: the penultimate letter is cryptic waw, not a tav]

The theological beliefs of the ancient Israelites developed within the greater context of late Second and First Millennia, B.C. ancient Near Eastern culture and thought.  Their roots in ancient Mesopotamian civilizations and contacts with the peoples of ancient Egypt, Canaan, Assyria, Babylonia, and Persia ensured that their own kingdom was a marketplace of ideas affording them the opportunity to interpret their own beliefs through the prism of new concepts.  The biblical figure of Satan, as an ancient Israelite belief, demonstrates development throughout the pages of the Old Testament.  By examining the differences in depiction and levels of understanding surrounding this adversarial figure through comparative analysis with surrounding ancient Near Eastern cultures a developmental process can be determined and thus applied to the Old Testament writings in which Satan is mentioned, both directly and indirectly, in order to date their composition.

Abstract

The ancient literary sources indicate that the laws of ritual purity played a crucial role in the halakhic discourse of the late Second Temple period. Intensive discussion of this issue is found in the books of the Apocrypha, in the works of Philo and Josephus Flavius, in the documents from the Judean desert, in the books of the New Testament and in the early strata of the Tannaitic literature. The laws of purity continued to remain in the center of halakhic debates even after the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 70 C.E., at least within the circles of the sages from whom we have inherited the early rabbinic literature.

These literary sources present us with a number of fundamental questions: To what extent were the laws of ritual purity observed amongst the greater Jewish population of Ereẓ-Israel? What place did these laws occupy in the daily lives of those who observed them? Were there differences in the level of observance of these laws between various segments within contemporary Jewish society? Were there regional differences with regard to the observance of these laws? What kind of developments and changes occurred over time in the field of ritual purity observance? These research questions, which are of utmost importance in any attempt to understand the religious and social histories of Jewish society in Ereẓ-Israel during the late Second Temple era and during the period of the Mishnah and Talmud, are the focus of the present study.

There are three major types of archaeological finds that reflect on the scope and the nature of ritual purity observance during the historical periods under discussion. The first is stepped water installations, which should be identified as the “miqwa’ot” mentioned in early rabbinic sources, ritual baths that were used for ablutions. Another type of archaeological find that evidences the observance of purity laws is chalk-stone vessels, used especially by those who kept the purity laws due to the insusceptibility of these vessels to ritual impurity. Important additional data may be culled from a study of the distribution of imported pottery as these vessels were considered inherently impure, and as such we may learn about the observance of purity law by examining the extent to which these vessels were either used or avoided.

In the present study, I have collected data on 850 miqwa’ot that have been discovered in the framework of excavations and archaeological surveys throughout Israel. The miqweh first appeared during the Hasmonean period, apparently as a result of changes in the exegetical treatment of the scriptural injunction to “wash” in order to obtain ritual purification. By the end of the Second Temple period, the miqweh had become an integral component in both rural and urban settlements alike. During this period, it is common to find numerous miqwa’ot at any one settlement site, a phenomenon which provides evidence for the frequent use made of these installations as well as for the central position that the observance of purity laws had taken in daily life. Miqwa’ot were installed not only in residential areas, but also next to winepresses and oil presses, near tombs, adjacent to the gates leading into the Temple Mount, near synagogues, in road stations, in bathhouses and in pottery production sites. During this period miqwa’ot are found mostly in Judea, and less frequently in Galilee, the coastal plain, Idumea and other peripheral areas. Miqwa’ot remained common even after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E., and it was only after the failure of the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135 C.E. that a significant decrease in the number of miqwa’ot may be discerned, as well as changes in the ways that these installations were used.

Chalk-stone vessels have been discovered at over 250 sites throughout Israel. These vessels first appeared in Ereẓ-Israel in the second half of the first century B.C.E., and are found almost exclusively in Jewish settlements. Unlike vessels made of other materials (such as clay, wood or metal), stone vessels are impervious to ritual impurity, and as such their use helped facilitate the observance of the purity laws. Chalk-stone vessels continued to be widespread until the Bar Kokhba revolt, after which time they disappeared almost completely.

Imported pottery, particularly Eastern Terra Sigillata and transport amphorae, are quite common in non-Jewish settlements in Ereẓ-Israel during the late Second Temple period, while they are almost completely absent from contemporary Jewish sites. The avoidance of these vessels amongst Jews points to a tendency isolation from contact with the pagan surroundings, a tendency which received halakhic expression in the attribution of ritual impurity to gentiles and to foreign lands. The stark dichotomy in the distribution of imported pottery between Jewish and pagan settlements continued until the middle of the second century C.E., at which point the importation of Eastern Terra Sigillata and other imported ceramic families ceased almost completely. For more than one hundred years, imported fine tableware was almost completely absent throughout the country, in both Jewish and pagan settlements alike. Imported pottery began to reappear in Ereẓ-Israel only during the Late Roman period (Late Roman Red Ware), and from its first appearance in the fourth century C.E. and throughout the entire Byzantine period, this pottery is common in Jewish settlements throughout the country. These finds indicate that, as opposed to the late Second Temple period and the early Tannaitic period, the Amoraitic period lacks archaeological evidence for a widespread avoidance of gentile impurity and impurity of foreign lands.

A study of the entirety of these data indicates that the observance of ritual purity in daily life was widespread throughout Jewish society at large in Judea during the late Second Temple period and during the period leading up to the Bar Kokhba revolt, and was not confined to minority groups such as the priests or the Pharisees. The general picture of the state of affairs in the Galilee and in other areas outside of Judea proper is less clear, however it appears that purity observance was relatively less prevalent in these outlying areas during this period. A dramatic decline in the observance of ritual purity on a daily level occurred after the suppression of the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135 C.E., after which time only a minority of the population continued to observe these laws.

Seven animal hide scrolls with Hebrew and Aramaic writing were sold in Jerusalem in 1947. Additional smaller fragments of similar scrolls were sold from 1948 to 1950. Within a few years of their appearance, these “Jerusalem Scrolls” as they were then known, became “the Dead Sea Scrolls from Qumran Cave 1.” While this change of names may seem trivial, it glosses over some difficult questions about the provenance of these materials. What we now call “Cave 1Q” or “Qumran Cave 1” was excavated in 1949, but scholarship reveals considerable confusion concerning which purchased scrolls can be materially connected to fragments that were excavated by archaeologists under controlled conditions in Cave 1. Furthermore, Cave 1 is often treated as if it was a sealed context rather than the highly contaminated site that it actually was at the time of its excavation by archaeologists. For these reasons, it is not completely clear whether all the scrolls usually assigned to Cave 1 actually originated at this site. This article is an attempt to sort through the evidence to determine exactly which scrolls and fragments attributed to Cave 1 were purchased, when and from whom such pieces were purchased, and what can actually be known with confidence about the connection of these “Jerusalem Scrolls” with the site we now call Qumran Cave 1.

Wilhelm Shapira astonished the European academic world in 1883 by offering for sale fifteen or sixteen leather fragments of an ancient Hebrew scroll containing parts of Deuteronomy but in a version that deviated from the Masorah. The script of the scroll, known to us today as Paleo-Hebrew , is an archaism of the pre-exilic Hebrew script. The sale offer was made to the British Museum and the asking price was one million British pounds. The British museum was willing to consider the offer and appointed Christian David Ginsburg to ascertain the authenticity of the scroll.
Ginsburg analyzed the fragments of the Shapira scroll for almost three weeks but it was Charles Clermont-Ganneau , the renowned French scholar, who publicly announced on August 21, 1883 that the scroll is a forgery. On the following day, Ginsburg wrote to Bond, the director of the British Museum, that the manuscript is in fact a forgery.
This article attempts to demonstrate that the Shapira scroll was an authentic manuscript by presenting circumstantial evidence in favour of the scroll. The evidence focuses upon physical characteristics of the scroll as well as upon paleographic aspects.

La presente investigación de corte filológico fue un intento de aproximación un tanto inédito a determinados datos de composición de una de las tradiciones literarias, también, hebrea de larga fecha (alrededor de 2000 años, periodo herodiano, considerando su testimonio documental semita más antiguo hasta el momento: 11Q11 y 4Q84) comúnmente denominada el salmo 91. Para ello, se hizo uso de la crítica textual, la intertextualidad y la exegesis con el fin de averiguar, en base rasgos sintácticos, gramaticales, uso de vocabulario y retórica, haber alguna clase de correspondencia entre la tradición aquí en cuestión y su entorno literario, correspondencia que, como una huella digital en una escena del crimen, pudiera indicar la existencia de una paternidad literaria compartida entre el salmo y otra composición (o, composiciones), mas, si es mucho decir misma autoría, entonces, alguna clase de dependencia, relación de derivación entre composiciones. Como se podrá observar, la aplicación metodológica no sé realizó sobre la totalidad del salmo sino sobre una pequeña porción selecta del texto. Así mismo, otro objetivo que se buscó alcanzar fue lograr una comprensión teológica (en el sentido de qué ideas sostenía el autor, a nivel discursivo, literario, no como una verdad a que vivir) acertada del fragmento elegido. Se cree que los resultados son relevantes e inéditos.
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(Observación: el compromiso personal del tesista respecto al objeto de la investigación se limite, meramente, a un abordaje literario profesional, no hay ninguna clase de compromiso de vida respecto a la tradición aquí en cuestión [en el sentido de una creencia metafísica de la que vive; el investigador es ateo agnóstico]. Las conclusiones de la tesis [más que nada, aquellas referentes al significado teológico del trozo estudiado] están para exponer las ideas del autor vinculado al manuscrito bajo análisis, y no como recomendaciones para la vida, no es una obra proselitista. En otras palabras, se buscó entender lo que el autor realmente quiso expresar con lo que puso por escrito, aunque las ideas del texto no viniesen a ser las mismas que las del tesista. Desde la utilidad, la ética, lo científico… el investigador no encuentra razones como para recomendar una aplicación a nivel personal de las conclusiones expuestas en la presente tesis. No obstante, sí, las conclusiones tienen mucha relevancia, en la opinión del investigador, a nivel del estudio de la lengua hebrea y griega, para la historiografía, la historia, la reflexión sociológica, filosófica, antropológica, el estudio del desarrollo de la literatura hebrea y griega, así como para _ y sobre todo _ la comprensión de los distintos aspectos relacionados a la tradición aquí en cuestión. Y, finalizando, que no se interprete las aclaraciones previas como un discurso de intolerancia religiosa, el tesista es un defender de las libertades individuales y consensuadas. Lo que se expresó son observaciones de un autor respecto a su producción.)
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El presente documento es mi tesis de la Licenciatura en Teología (alumno 18427) cursada en la Facultad de Teología en la UAP (Entre Ríos-Argentina) presentada en la fecha del 10/9/20 y, posteriormente, aprobada en la fecha del 9/11/20 por mi director Dr. Raúl Alberto Quiroga. De paso, estaré publicando aquí en mi perfil de Academia.edu algunas críticas y observaciones a mi tesis y material inédito relacionado a la temática en cuestión, material que fui acumulando a lo largo de los dos años mientras hacia la investigación y que no pude agregar al cuerpo del documento por cuestiones de delimitación y extensión.

Ritual baths (miqwa’ot) built adjacent to winepresses and olive-presses have been unearthed at about twenty sites dating to the Second Temple period, most of them in Judea and the environs of Jerusalem. While much has been written in recent years on the form and function of ancient ritual baths in general, little scholarly attention has been paid to miqwa’ot found in agricultural contexts.
The presence of these miqwa’ot suggests that the ritual purity of the wine and olive oil processed in these installations was of particular importance. The fact that these ritual baths were situated adjacent to winepresses and olive-presses suggests that agricultural laborers made use of these miqwa’ot immediately prior to commencing work in these installations, a practice which accords with the Pharisaic concept of tevul yom. These finds thus provide rare archaeological evidence for the observance of ritual purity laws based on the Pharisaic system of halakhah.

The article focuses on the author's research on the chronographical background of the Zodiac Mosaic Calendar in Synagogue at Hammath-Tiberias. He researched to find the origin of mosaic decoration, the twelve zodiac sign, the four seasons, and Helios, which was found in synagogues in two parts of Palestine, Galilee and Judah. The chronograph of the mosaic art was extensively debated. The author further studied the history of Palestine Jews in the 4th century. Most of the work was done during the period of Hillel II.
The author concludes that the mosaic from the Stratum IIa synagogue with the Zodiac Calendar was executed in the time of Hillel II, who said to have died around 365 CE. He proposes the new date of the execution of the Zodiac Mosaic from Hammat-Tiberia (Stratum IIa) after the earthquake in 363, that is, in 364 or 365.

This course investigates the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the late 1940s and the subsequent events surrounding their acquisition and scholarly evaluation. The archaeological excavation of the Qumran site, the implication of the findings for the understanding of the community that populated it, and the texts associated with it are explored as well. The importance of the scrolls for the text critical study of the Old Testament, the history of Judaism in the late Second Temple period, and various interpretations of the identity of the Qumran sectarians are evaluated.

For those of us in this post-Gutenberg age who spend our days studying written media-books, articles, and reviews--to craft a credible piece of scholarship for publication, the contrast could not be stronger. 1 In Greco-Roman antiquity, the most credible "scholarship" was offered in person, through "the living voice" of the teacher. Loveday Alexander has drawn attention to a common proverb that circulated in antiquity that favored the "living voice" over written expression in instruction. It is mentioned by many ancient writers. The famed physician Galen cites in a prologue a saying that "gathering information out of a book is not the same thing, and cannot even compare to learning from the living voice." Seneca (EP.6.6) wrote that the living voice of a teacher is more profitable than a treatise. Quintilian (Inst.2.2.8) and Pliny (Ep.2.3) also aver that "the living voice" of an orator provides a more powerful means of communication over the written words of texts. 2 This accords with the importance of the living voice generally in training for different societal roles. The principle was current across a range of social classes and contexts, among the different philosophical schools and occupations: rhetoriticians, doctors, craftsmen, and teachers. She writes:

Almost throughout its development and duration, the Jewish revolt was approached by the Roman administration with an attitude completely opposed to that generally witnessed in the subjugation of other provincial revolts. Various aspects of this different Roman treatment of the Jews – whether in Judea and Galilee or in Diaspora communities – have been noticed and analyzed by scholars. But there is a twofold risk in over-emphasizing only the differences; if we neglect to notice that the case of the Jews did not exist in complete isolation in the Roman world, we are liable to come to extreme conclusions regarding Jewish uniqueness on the one hand, and Roman innovation on the other. In fact, the relevant Roman actions can hardly be considered as unprecedented, if we only shift our perspective – as the Roman government must have done – to regard the rebelling Jews as foreign enemies of the Roman empire. Cestius Gallus, Syria’s governor, came to Jerusalem in 66 to subjugate the revolt in its early stages, and was humiliatingly defeated by the rebels. After this event, the long and generally friendly relationship of Rome with the Jews was put on a hold, as were all prospects for a prompt renewal of mutual trust in the region. Instead, the next campaign was prepared, executed, and later commemorated in the same manner as, for example, the invasion of Britain in 43. Most measures turned against the rebelling population stemmed naturally from Rome’s habitual policy in the case of foreign wars, and not from invention in the face of some perceived exceptionality in Judaism or the Jews.

Three caves were discovered by the first archaeological expedition to Naḥal Ṣeʾelim in 1960 under the direction of Yohanan Aharoni: Cave 31 (“The Cave of the Arrows”), Cave 32 (“The Cave of the Skulls”) and Cave 34 (“The Cave of the Scrolls”). This article presents a tefillin case from Cave 34, a find which was never published or even mentioned in preliminary reports on the results of the expedition. The miniscule case is made of leather; it is almost square in shape (16×17 mm) and is divided into four compartments. No inscribed tefillin slips were found inside. Two tefillin slips which were discovered separately in the cave have been published in the past, however it is impossible to know for sure if these originated in the case under discussion. Although Aharoni identified the Bar Kokhba revolt as the main period of activity in the three adjacent Naḥal Ṣeʾelim caves, it is possible that the tefillin case might have been brought to Cave 34 earlier—perhaps during the course of the Great Revolt. The structure and size of the tefillin case are quite similar to those of tefillin cases with four compartments found elsewhere in the Judean Desert, most of which date to the late Second Temple period. It should come as no surprise that our tefillin case matches certain details found in the rabbinic prescriptions considering the fact that the rabbis were certainly aware of the way contemporary Jews practiced the tefillin ritual, and it is against this backdrop of common practice that the comments of the rabbis should be read and understood. Recognizing that the rabbis were likely reacting to existing practices rather than acting as primary promulgators of halakhic praxis, there is little reason to label the tefillin case from Naḥal Ṣeʾelim as in some way or other “rabbinic”.

A lo largo de su historia el Imperio romano tuvo que hacer frente a numerosas revueltas, debido al enorme territorio que controlaba. De entre los pueblos que las protagonizaron, los hebreos se contaban entre los que con mayor insistencia lucharon por recuperar su independencia. En cuanto a los diversos conflictos que enfrentaron a judíos y romanos, la que, a la postre, seria recordada como la Primera Guerra Judeo-romana (66-73 d.C.) pasó a la historia como el más importante de todos. Ello se debe tanto a que requirió de la participación de dos futuros emperadores al mando de las tropas romanas que debían restablecer la paz en la provincia de Judea, Vespasiano y su hijo Tito, como al hecho de que la ciudad de Jerusalén y el Gran Templo que albergaba acabaron completamente destruidos.

En el año 66 d.C. numerosos factores se unieron al odio que sectores radicales hebreos sentían hacia sus conquistadores romanos, provocando la caída del procurador de Judea, Gesio Floro, y la derrota del Legado de Siria, Cestio Galo, en Beth Horón, quien acudió con sus tropas a pacificar la región sin conseguirlo. El movimiento fue cobrando fuerza tras estos éxitos, y Jerusalén se convirtió en el epicentro del independentismo judío. Roma no podía permanecer pasiva ante estos acontecimientos y Nerón envió allí a Vespasiano, un general experimentado, para acabar de una vez por todas con el problema. La resistencia implacable que demostraron los rebeldes y los problemas políticos que, durante ese tiempo, se produjeron en Roma, provocaron que la conquista final quedara en manos de su capaz hijo Tito quien, a la postre, consiguió conquistar Jerusalén y acabar con la revuelta. El gran triunfo que se celebró en Roma para conmemorar la victoria era lo que la nueva dinastía Flavia necesitaba para afianzar su poder. Sin embargo, la campaña no finalizó hasta el año 73 d.C., tras la toma de la fortaleza de Masada, donde los últimos insurrectos prefirieron suicidarse antes de ser derrotados. El enfrentamiento se saldaría con una enorme pérdida de vidas, tanto entre los soldados romanos como entre los insurrectos judíos y la población civil. Gracias a la obra de Flavio Josefo, podemos reconstruir lo sucedido para poder así conocer con detalle uno de los grandes episodios de la Historia Antigua.

Did the so-called Sarmoung Brotherhood, from which George Ivanovich Gurdjieff claimed to have learned so much, exist.  What about their monastery he said was somewhere in the “heart of Asia"? It's hard to say because neither is attested outside Gurdjieff.  Still, Gurdjieff does provide in the same book where he speaks of them  (Meetings with Remarkable Men [1963]) other opportunities to test his general veracity on such subjects.  I refer to another secret “brotherhood” with another monastery of which Gurdjieff claims to have had both direct and indirect contact,  namely, the Essenes whose main monastery he claimed was on the shores of the Dead Sea.  Gurdjieff tells how  his old teacher Father Evlissi (or Bogachevsky) was himself an Essene and assistant to the abbot of the main monastery on the Dead Sea.  The only problem is, the Essenes and their monastery ceased to exist in ancient times, rendering almost everything Gurdjieff says about them and Father Evlissi not only fanciful but impossible.

Professor Geza Vermes, one of the translators of the Dead Sea Scrolls and an important voice in contemporary Jesus research, died after a prolonged battle with cancer in May, 2013. He was born in the town of Makó in southeastern Hungary in 1924, the son of Jewish parents who had converted to Catholicism and who were probably murdered in the Nazi holocaust, although no one knew how and where. Hidden in a Budapest seminary by a former parish priest, he survived and managed to make it to the Catholic University of Louvain, in Belgium, where he studied till 1952, obtaining his doctorate in theology with a dissertation on the Dead Sea Scrolls.

La prima guerra giudaica coinvolse l'Impero Romano fra il 66 e il 70 d.C., durante l'impero di Nerone. La rivolta si scatenò nel 66 a Cesarea, dapprima per dissapori religiosi fra la comunità greca e quella giudaica in Palestina, crescendo a causa della protesta contro le tasse, finendo per prendere di mira i cittadini Romani. il presente contributo narra in modo didattico l'assedio della fortezza di Masada da parte delle forze romane.

This article takes a material and comparative approach to the Qumran collection. Distinctive features set the Qumran manuscripts apart from other Judaean Desert collections, suggesting a scholarly, school-like collection of predominantly literary texts. The few literary texts from other Judaean Desert sites reflect the valuable copies owned by wealthy individuals or families and are illustrative of the spread of these texts within various strata of ancient Jewish society. The historical context of most manuscript depositions in the Judaean Desert is characterized by violence and conflict, and such a context probably also typified the deposition of the Qumran manuscripts. In contrast to at least some of the other Judaean Desert sites where refugees hid with their manuscripts, the deposition evidence at Qumran may suggest an anticipation of such violence. The movement behind the Dead Sea Scrolls can be characterized as a textual community, reflecting a milieu of Jewish intellectuals who were engaged on various levels with their ancestral traditions. The collection of texts attracted people and shaped their thinking, while at the same time people shaped the collection, producing and gathering more texts. In this sense, the site of Qumran and its surrounding caves functioned like a storehouse for scrolls.

This article draws attention to difficulties in the prevailing interpretation of 4Q372, which sees the text as referring to the fall of the historical northern kingdom. This study suggests the Joseph figure of 4Q372 appears to be a righteous king or 'eschatological patriarch' who quotes in his death-throes Psalms 89 and 22, like the suffering Ephraim Messiah of Pesikta Rabbati 36-37. This study therefore argues that the genre of 4Q372 is not history but prophecy, a view supported by its verbal forms. Such an interpretation has implications for the dating of the Josephite Messiah.

Keywords. 4Q372, Joseph Apocryphon, 4QNarrative and Poetic Composition, Messiah ben Joseph, Josephite Messiah, Messiah bar Ephraim, dying Messiah.