nora
(Nora)
#1
Eyal Regev
peace, praise, and happiness will arrive. In both cases there is hope for reli
gious reform that will lead to salvation. Admittedly, the sense of salvation in
MMT is more imminent. The "end of days" is not merely a matter of expec
tation; it is a fact. This difference can be explained, not only in light of
MMT's special rhetorical aim to persuade the addressee to act according to
the authors' beliefs, but also by the assumption that several years elapsed be
tween the composition of Jubilees and MMT. During these years the messi
anic tension may have increased.
I have pointed to halakic and ideological connections of Jubilees with
the Temple Scroll and MMT, which are also not sectarian documents, at least
not in the strict sociological sense of this term. If MMT and the Temple
Scroll are usually regarded as preceding the formation of the yahad and the
Damascus Covenant, Jubilees can certainly be placed in the same category.
Moreover, there are several indications that Jubilees represents the events of
the Hellenistic reform in Jerusalem and the Maccabean wars against the
Seleucids, that is, before the Hasmonean period (a period that is certainly re
flected in the pesherim).^62 1 therefore believe that Jubilees preceded the for
mation of the Qumran sects, and should be related to (although probably
not identical with) the group behind the Temple Scroll and (slightly later)
MMT.
The relationship between the Essenes and the Qumran sects is difficult
to reconstruct. In contrast to the Groningen Hypothesis or the Enochic Hy
pothesis,^63 I do not think the Essenes were the parent group of the Qumran-
ites. First, the Essene practices on which the identification with Qumran is
based are described by first century c.e. sources, two centuries after the
emergence of the yahad and the Damascus Covenant. Second, as was shown
above, the similarities between the Essenes and the Qumran sects are quite
general. The only specific points of absolute similarity in the Damascus
Document are prohibitions on moving vessels on the Sabbath, preparations
in the course of the Sabbath, and intercourse with a pregnant woman.^64 In
the Community Rule the similarities relate to the role of the priests in the
62. VanderKam, Textual and Historical Studies, 217-38. The polemics against nudity
and neglecting of circumcision, as well as the hatred against the Gentiles, seem to be the
strongest signs for this date. For the pesherim, see H. Eshel, The Dead Sea Scroll and the
Hasmonean State (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Yad ben-Zvi Press, 2004).
63. See their evaluation in Enoch and Qumran Origins, ed. G. Boccaccini (Grand
Rapids and Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2005), 249-454.
64. All these are found in the Damascus Document. See Baumgarten, "Disqualifica
tions," 504-5, for references and bibliography.
