This picture is confirmed by indications in the pseudepigraphic literature of the third and
second century B.C.E.^1347 It is in this context that we find Watts’ model of the ritualisa-
tion of temple affiliated texts most at home. Jewish society at the outbreak of the Has-
monean revolt has in place all of the requirements for the ritualisation of priestly textual
traditions that Watts has outlined in his model, namely the centralisation of the cult and
the cultic texts, veneration of those texts producing a form that is singularly authoritative,
and a real and present threat to the political and social world that effectively hardens the
cultic structure.
If we accept the propositions of Carr and Watts that Judaism in the Second Temple pe-
riod essentially produced stabilised sacred texts through particular external influences and
internal processes, we must also explain the varied forms of the Torah scrolls from the
Dead Sea area. In particular we must describe the differences between the Qumran Torah
scrolls and the broadly contemporary Torah scrolls from Masada.^1348
(^1347) See D.M. Carr, Writing on the Tablet of the Heart (^) , 202-6. Carr points to early indications that educa-
tion-enculturation was the specific domain of the priests in such pre-Hasmonean texts as Enoch and Ara-
maic Levi, and in early Hasmonean texts such as Jubilees. According to Carr all of these pseudepigraphic
texts show signs that the priestly conception of controlling education through small genealogical circles
was prevalent in the society in which this literature was produced. 1348
In reference to the arguments for an early deposit of the scrolls at Qumran recently put forward by G.
Doudna and I. Young, see the discussion of the evidence from archaeology on pages 302-9 above. As has
been discussed there, the material culture from Qumran and the nearby caves very strongly suggests a link
between the Qumran scrolls and the second phase of occupation at the site itself. It was reasonably estab-
lished by R. de Vaux that the site of Qumran was destroyed by a Roman force, probably the Xth legion, in
around 68 C.E. This dating puts the Qumran scroll deposit in very close temporal proximity to the destruc-
tion of Masada, which in turn makes a strong case for seeing the scrolls at both sites as being contemporary
manuscripts that were in use at essentially the same time. The arguments put forward by Doudna and
Young on the basis of textual evidence do not satisfactorily address the facts that arise from the archae-