Separation from the Impurity of Death: A Hermeneutical Reading of the New Burial Law in the Temple Scroll

This article offers a hermeneutical analysis of the Law of Burial (11QTa XLVIII 10-14) in the Temple Scroll, a passage that remains underexplored in previous scholarship. This law reinforces the purity of the land by prescribing burial areas set apart from Israelite cities. The paper thus centers on the idea of 'separation', showing how the Scroll reflects a broader framework of preserving divine order and maintaining the sanctity of the land and temple by emphasizing cultic, spatial, bodily, ethnic and legal distinctions – between burial grounds and temple precincts, cemeteries and cities, living and dead, Israelites and gentiles, law and lawlessness. By engaging with various scriptural texts and themes such as the law of refuge cities (Num 35; Deut 19), the narrative of Abraham’s burial of Sarah (Gen 23), and Deuteronomic laws regarding idolatry and sacrificial rites (Deut 12), this article highlights how the Temple Scroll presents itself as the authoritative Torah through various hermeneutical innovations. It reflects how the Burial Law is formulated and reimagined as a means of preserving purity of the land, constructing sacred space, and defining Israelite identity in the late Second Temple period.