Reader Checked|29/10/2012 SE
Since the discovery of the Cave 4 versions of The Community Rule (Serekh ha-Ya ad or S), scholars have been perplexed about its complex textual history. This important charter material for the Dead Sea Scrolls authors appears in alternate versions ones with contradictory legal prescriptions and opposing self-references but exhibits no clear order of chronological development. Benefitting from the entire Qumran library now available to us, this book offers a new, broader model for reading S that better accounts for the long and diverse history behind the text. The resulting paradigm challenges the Qumrancentric lens through which many read the sectarian texts and offers a fresh way of thinking about sectarian community formation among the authors of the Scrolls.
Contents: The Yahad and the Serekh: where are we now? -- Textual study of S -- Serekh ha-Yahad: comparative evidence -- External evidence: the classical sources -- Archaeology of Qumran: the contemporary debate.|Read more: http://books.google.co.il/books?id=7qVTOrldR-IC&printsec=frontcover&hl=…