the flood story with a pesher-style interpretation of the Blessing of Jacob
in Genesis 49.
The scrolls also provide ample evidence for an extensive literature as-
sociated with biblical figures, in the manner of the Pseudepigrapha
(Dimant 1994; Flint in Flint and VanderKam 1998-1999: 2:24-66). Since
most of this literature is fragmentary, it is difficult to be sure of the literary
genre of many compositions. Related to the Enoch literature is a fragmen-
taryBook of Giants.Possible apocalypses found at Qumran include theVi-
sions of Amram,which describes dualistic angelic-demonic powers, the so-
calledAramaic ApocalypseorSon of Godtext (4Q246), theNew Jerusalem
text (a vision in the tradition of Ezekiel 40–48), and a “four kingdoms”
prophecy in which the four kingdoms are symbolized by four trees
(4Q552-553). There are also prophecies after the fact attributed to Daniel
(4Q243-244, 245) and a similar text, 4Q390, variously identified asPseudo-
MosesorJeremiah Apocryphon.There are Aramaic texts relating to Levi
and Qahath, and an AramaicGenesis Apocryphon.The Aramaic literature
found at Qumran is not perceptibly sectarian.
Since so many of the scrolls are dependent on biblical texts, there is a
tendency to assume derivation from biblical prototypes. In some cases,
this is justified. There are Targums of Leviticus and Job, and theGenesis
ApocryphonandAramaic Levi Documentare obviously related to the bibli-
cal text. But this literature is not all derivative. ThePrayer of Nabonidus
may have been a source for the book of Daniel, but it does not depend on
it, and at least some of the pseudo-Daniel literature also appears to be in-
dependent. The text sometimes known asProto-Esther(4Q550) is related
to Esther only insofar as both are tales set in the Persian court. The book of
Tobit, which is included in the Apocrypha and is found at Qumran in both
Hebrew and Aramaic, is another example of a narrative work that is not
derived from a biblical story, although it draws on various biblical motifs.
The scrolls also expand significantly our corpus of nonbiblical wisdom lit-
erature, including an extensive and important text, 4QInstruction (Goff
2007). Fragments of Ben Sira were also found. The corpus of liturgical
texts is also enlarged (Nitzan 1994; Falk 1998). The sapiential and liturgical
texts are in Hebrew, but in many cases they are not necessarily sectarian.
The scrolls, then, support the view that Jewish literature in the late Second
Temple period was quite diverse. Some of it certainly shared the halakic in-
terests of the later rabbis, but much of it also exhibited concerns similar to
those attested in the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha.
The most distinctive literature found in the scrolls consists of sectar-19Early Judaism in Modern ScholarshipEERDMANS -- Early Judaism (Collins and Harlow) final text
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