הכִּתִּיִּים והכיבוש הרומי במגילות קומראן

This paper examines the significance, for the Qumran sectarians, of the Roman conquest of Judea in 63 BCE. A first step in such an examination is the establishment of an inventory of Qumran texts that are likely to reflect the Roman conquest or refer to the Romans. For this purpose, I first explore the identity of the ‘Kittim’ in the scrolls. Whereas the term ‘Kittim’ clearly denotes the Romans in some scrolls, such as Pesher Nahum and Pesher Habakkuk, which appear to have been composed in the aftermath of the conquest, various scholars assert that in some scrolls, particularly the war texts, ‘Kittim’ designates the Greeks. This paper reexamines that question and concludes, in contrast, that in the War Scroll and other war texts, ‘Kittim’ likely signifies the Romans; thus those texts, too, were composed in the years after the Roman conquest. In addition, the paper suggests that certain other scrolls also likely allude to the Romans and the Roman conquest. The second part of the paper analyzes the significance of the Roman conquest for the Qumran sectarians. It argues that the Roman conquest was of profound significance for them, because it ‘proved’ to them that they had been right all along, and that the Jerusalem authorities were impious. However, whereas some scholars assert that the sect was initially quite neutral towards the Romans, seeing them as a tool in God’s hand, this paper argues that those same scrolls actually convey a deep hatred of Rome and a hope for its impending downfall. Thus the Roman conquest forced the sectarians to develop a new eschatological scenario.