The Context of 4QMMT and Comfortable Theories

This paper argues that the still dominant reading of the separation statement as a reference to community origins tallies beautifully with views of the Qumran community and its withdrawal from wider society but ties in rather awkwardly with the fragmentary evidence of MMT itself. The intellectual acrobatics necessary to reconcile the eirenic tone of the text with rupture become unnecessary if we allow for the possibility that the text is not about rupture. MMT, perhaps more than any other text from Qumran, was read in the light of a number of preconceptions with scholars not infrequently pouncing on a phrase and building a case on their reading of it. I hope to have shown that this happened to a considerable degree also with the famous separation statement.
The notion of comfortable theories is taken from an article by Samuel Sandmel of 1979 where he describes a comfortable theory as follows: "A comfortable theory is one which satisfies the needs of the interpreter, whether theological or only personal, when the evidence can seem to point in one of two opposite directions."
When MMT first hit the scholarly scene with a bang of excitement and subsequent drama it was very much read by means of the most comfortable theory to hand. It seems to me that more recently we are moving out of that comfort zone. The paper closes by proposing an alternative interpretative avenue.
If we leave behind the comfortable theory of MMT’s key role in Qumran origins and contemplate instead a broader halakhic context, the text’s significance may go far beyond the confines of a particular group. Thus, it is perhaps more likely that the characteristic phrases of MMT such as ‘you know’ and ‘we say’ are part of an ongoing dialogue rather than indicative of a rift.
We simply do not know how common this type of exchange may have been and how widely some of the halakhic issues shared by the Mishnah and MMT were debated. But there is no reason to assume that the views and the terms of reference employed in MMT are unique and particular to the group behind the Scrolls.