Summaries

FIVE SUMMARIES OF PUBLICATIONS

by Galina Koleva –

Hebraistics and Qumranology

Post-graduate student

in the University of Shumen, Bulgaria

THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS AND THEIR IMPORTANCE

FOR THE ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN BIBLICAL TRADITION

/Summary/

The article examines the Dead Sea Scrolls from Orthodox Christian point of view. Having survived for more than 2000 years in the Qumran caves, these manuscripts are the biggest and the oldest archeological find, connected with the Bible. Representing the Judaism between its Biblical and Rabbinical period and dating back from the times of Jesus Christ, the Dead Sea Scrolls widen and enrich our conception about the historical context in which the Christianity appeared. Apart from that, side by side with the Masoretic text, Septuagint and the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Qumran manuscripts have inestimable value for Archeology and Biblical Studies and can be used as one of the sources for future Bulgarian translations of the Bible.

THE BIBLE IN THE LIGHT

OF THE LAST ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES

/summary/

The article examines the importance of Biblical Archeology for contemporary Theology. Despite the skepticism of many scholars, the results from the archaeological excavations at Boghaz-kyoy (Turkey), Dead Sea, Jericho and Tell Dan (Israel) undoubtedly confirm the historicity and accuracy of the Bible. As a matter of fact, no archeological discovery has ever controverted any biblical reference. Therefore, the Holy Scripture can be used as a reliable historical source.

THE HEBREW SCRIPTS AND THEIR USAGE

IN THE QUMRAN MANUSCRIPTS

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The article is dedicated to the significance of the Qumran library both from palaeographic and archaeological point of view. The Dead Sea texts, dating back mostly from the Hasmonaean and the Herodian periods, are an extremely important moment of the Hebrew scribal tradition’s history, because they offer us the possibility to observe the evolution of the Jewish square script in the course of ages.

The usage of the Paleo-Hebrew script in copying whole scrolls of the Torah (the Pentateuch), as well as in writing the Divine Name (the Holy Tetragram) in square-scripted texts, is an evidence not only for the existence of a Biblical canon as early as the 2^nd century BCE, but also – of the high literary culture of the Qumran scribes and their consciousness of belonging to the common Jewish spiritual heritage during the Second Temple period.

The diversity of styles, hands and scripts’ versions, inherent to the Qumran scrolls, and the archeological finds from the ruins (inkwells, debris of scribal benches, inscribed potsherds) prove that Qumran had been a developed scribal center, where many generations of scribes had been working tirelessly in order to create the Qumran library.

THE QUMRAN TEFILLINS

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The tradition of using tefillins, vital even today among pious Jews, dates back as early as the 2^nd century BCE. The most ancient remains of tefillins (black leather capsules and inscribed parchment slips) had been found in Qumran and Wadi Murabaat in the Judaean Desert.

It comes out that in the 1^st century CE there had been existing various customs about the tefillins' texts, but in the early 2^nd century CE rabbis had introduced a standard according to which the phylacteries' texts had to include only the four basic biblical portions (Exodus 13:1-10; 13:11-16 and Deuteronomy 6:4-9; 11:13-21) without any additional verses as it was in Qumran.

Since the Qumran tefillins contain the Ten Commandments while those from Wadi Murabaat do not, it's clear that the Mishnaic reform about excluding the Decalogue from tefillins, had taken effect by 135 CE.

As the custom of using phylacteries had originated most probably in the Hassidic circles during the Second Temple period, Qumran tefillins can be considered one of the secondary evidences about the Hassidic roots of the Qumran community. In any case, the Qumran people should be identified as Jews, because the tefillin tradition can be traced only in Jewish culture.

WERE THE QUMRANITES ESSENES?

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The identification of the Qumran community depends to a great extent on the interpretation of the Scrolls and the other historical sources. Any attempt of establishing the Qumranites’ identity should be based on the comparative analysis between the records of the DSS and the works of the Late Antiquity authors, without ignoring sources as the Bible and the Talmud, as well as the results from the archaeological excavations in Qumran.

Undoubtedly, the Jewish society during the Second Temple Epoch was much more sophisticated than Joseph Flavius represented it. The Essenes, Pharisees, Sadducees and the Qumranites had originated from the Hassidic movement and all the similarities among them are due to this common origin. Despite the resemblance between the Essenes and the Qumranites by beliefs, practices and social- economic characteristics, there are a lot of discrepancies and inner controversies in the sources which we obtain knowledge about these religious communities from, so, we have no enough reasons to consider that the Qumranites had been a part of the Essene movement by all means. When describing the Essenes, Joseph most probably had grouped together different Jewish ascetic sects under the same appellation.

Sprung up in the Hassidic environment during the 70’s of the 2^nd century BCE, the Qumran community had represented not the Essenes, but another Jewish religious community, (not described in the works of Joseph Flavius, Philo from Alexandria and Pliny the Elder), which had beliefs and practices similar to those of the Essenes.