The Second Temple S Significance

¶ … Dead Sea Scrolls There are approximately 930 texts that comprise the Dead Sea Scrolls, which would make uniformity in purpose or structure between them immensely difficult. Moreover, their authorship is disputed, which certainly gives rise to the possibility of multiple authors and, by extension, agendas.

Nonetheless, a careful examination of some of the pivotal factors pertaining to these scrolls and their very existence -- historical knowledge of the community surrounding these scrolls, archaeological evidence, and passages from the Scrolls themselves -- attests to a similarity of purpose that transcends all of these writings. From a microcosm perspective, then, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls enabled a more profound understanding of life during the period of the second temple, as well as of the evolution of the bible.

At a more granular level, however, the function of the scrolls can be stratified into three components that all point to a common goal: to guide the everyday life for the Dead Sea Sect, to interpret the biblical texts, and to provide hope for a swiftly impeding future via the conception of messianism.

The crux of interpreting the function of the Dead Sea Scrolls as a means of guiding the daily activities of the Dead Sea Sect, provisioning messianism and interpreting the Bible pertains to the notion of the foregoing sect and its relation to conventional Judaism at the time it existed. Specifically, that sect is comprised of the Qumran and the Essenes.

What is significant about these peoples and their relation to both the Dead Sea Scrolls and to Judaism itself is that as respective sects, they had effectively distinguished themselves from the more mainstream members of their faith. That distinction also includes religious beliefs and the observances of those beliefs as they pertain to daily life, convictions of messianism, interpretations of the Bible and their proclaimed "authoritative interpretation" (Vanderkam and Flint 307) of Jewish practices.

Quite simply, the aforementioned peoples (collectively referred to as the Dead Sea Sect) believed that they were the ones truly upholding the core principles of Judaism in the way that they were originally intended to be practiced. Thus, those convictions are readily demonstrated in a deconstruction of the Dead Sea Scrolls and their meaning, which readily reinforces the thesis for this particular document.

The aspect of the Dead Sea Scrolls that explicates the everyday life of the Dead Sea Sect directly correlates to the community origins and identity reflected of those people (particularly the Qumrans) in some of these documents. The identity of these peoples was transcribed in certain of these documents such as the Damascus Document and the Rule of the Community partly because they distinguished themselves from other Jews, which they considered "exiles" (Schiffman 298) from the true interpretation and practice of the Jewish faith.

The aforementioned texts outline some of the historical conventions of these peoples as it pertains to both their identities and their claim to have inherited the spirit and legacy of true Judaism. A large part of the first half of the Damascus Document, for instance, functions as a story of origin of these peoples and substantiates their claims as the rightful heirs of this faith. Furthermore, some of the more salient theological convictions of these people are detailed in the Rule of the Community.

This point is significant because a large part of the identity of the Dead Sea Sect was rooted in their theology and religious tenets. Thus, from an extremely pragmatic viewpoint, it is clear that the Dead Sea Scrolls certainly function to guide everyday life as it pertains to their faith and point of origination in the world.

The Damascus Document is particularly utilitarian in that it also offers a degree of insight into Jewish Law as found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, which is another vital aspect of the everyday mores, principles, and codes by which these people lived. Points of disagreements with laws in saudccean texts was one of the reasons for the sundering of the Qumran (Schiffman 273). Whereas the first half of this document consists of the origination of the Dead Sea Sect, the second half contains practical guidelines for everyday life.

In this text and The Temple Scroll are very specific edicts for observing the Sabbath, legal precepts, and the appropriate punishments for transgressing them. There are also very specific guidelines for dealing with any outsiders who attempt to join the sects whose cultural, legal, and moral values are reflected in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Collectively, then, the many laws and mandates for living among the Dead Sea Sect are outlined in the Dead Sea Scrolls, which corroborates the notion that part of the function of these texts was for shaping (if not regulating) the everyday lives of those in these sects. The confluence of the religious conviction of the Dead Sea Sect and the everyday way in which their daily activities coalesced with them is partially found in the tenet of messianism specified in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The information found in these texts about messianism and The End of Days buttresses the viewpoint that the Dead Sea Sect considered itself the true heirs of Judaism as it was intended, as the former implies a return to "the ancient glories of the Davidic kingdom" (Schiffman 317). Messianism was vital to the Dead Sea Sect because they existed at a time when persecution by the Romans was a daily, and undesirable reality for them.

The idea of The End of Days perhaps justified such suffering and certainly obliterated it -- which perhaps made enduring it more tolerable for the Dead Sea Sect. Texts such as the Book of War and the War Scroll chronicle the ultimate triumph of the true Jewish adherents the Dead Sea Sect thought itself to be in a war fought against the unholy and undeserving.

Such a war is predicated on the holiness that the Dead Sea Sect was attempting to preserve, since such a virtue would mesh with the notion that the "The Lord is Holy" (12:7:8) found in the The War Scroll. In this regard, the Dead Sea Scrolls both reflect the messianism believed by the Dead Sea Sect and their justification for their daily activities pertaining to its religious.