Not Checked|AK|24/07/2011 OA
One of the main features of the Qumran library in each and every of its sectors is undoubtedly the textual fluidity of the various works to be found there. This fluidity has long been recognized among the so-called “biblical” texts from Qumran, and many scholars have remarked how difficult and risky it is to label a given Qumran biblical text as belonging to a given tradition. This free attitude toward the biblical text is to be found not only in the biblical manuscripts from Qumran but even more in the parabiblical (and not biblical) texts. On the basis of some examples mainly taken from the pesher literature, this paper will try to analyze the way the Qumran group uses this fluid approach to the text of the Scripture in order to elucidate the historical vicissitudes of the group itself and of its leader as well as to provide its own ideological views with a (stronger) Scriptural basis. The same can be said for the works that have been labelled as sectarian. The redactional history of some of them (1QS, for example) might shed some light on the group’s historical evolution and in particular on the establishment of the Zadokite element within it.