6. Ideals of Science: The Infrastructure of Scientific Activity in Apocalyptic Literature and in the Yahad
Jonathan Ben-Dov
1. Introduction1
[☞ p6.1] The fragments of scientific literature discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls justify the title of the present book as a field of study. While previous studies in the field of the history of science pointed to systematic scientific activity among Jews only as early as the Islamic period,2 it is now clear that science existed earlier in Jewish history. After the recent publication and discussion of the scientific material in the Dead Sea Scrolls, it is now time to access this corpus by means of more general questions: why is it that scientific activity existed in the Dead Sea Scrolls community? What was the epistemological infrastructure that prompted scientific creativity in this milieu? What were the sources for the science in the scrolls, and how were these sources carried further? A wider question is whether science was equally integrated in other branches of early Judaism, whose writings were not lucky enough to be deposited in the caves. In other words, what is it in the Qumran Yahad that brought about a creative scientific vocation?
[☞ p6.2] What are the necessary conditions for the establishment of a scientific culture? One may seek to answer this question by means of sociological tools, tracing the social and political framework that gives power, prestige and funding to an institutionalized scientific organ within society;3 or by means of historiography, as many recent histories of science do.4 Although one may venture to determine the role of various practitioners of knowledge in ancient societies,5 I believe that the main efforts should rather be directed towards the ideological aspect: what is it that prompts pre-modern writers to study and promote scientific knowledge about the world? How do they conceive of ‘the World’ and of the ways assigned to a human being to explore it? What are the sources of knowledge? Whence the epistemic authority of the human prerogative to study the world?6 What are the historical or mythological precedents for this kind of vocation?
[☞ p6.3] Significant motivation for the present paper—as well as for the initiation of this conference—arose from some recent historiographical work, which opened the way for a great upsurge in the study of pre-modern science among Jews. This work was primarily done by Amos Funkenstein and later David Ruderman,7 whose categories of thought in many ways set the stage for the present discussion. From Funkenstein I learned that forms of science exist also outside the epistemological cosmos of the present-day, western and secular science, and moreover, that the roots of modern science lie with the theological imagination no less than they lie with the rise of empiricism. The tools developed by Ruderman and others to study the scientific imagination in the medieval and early modern periods can now be applied—with some modifications—to the materialization of scientific thought in early Judaism.
[☞ p6.4] Do the Dead Sea Scrolls attest to a creative scientific culture? Take for example the vast range of rabbinic literature, where one finds a huge variety of what we would call scientific knowledge: cosmography, mathematics, geography, astronomy, biology, medicine, etc.8 Yet there remain some characteristics in the Dead Sea Scrolls which distinguish them from the knowledge collected in the Talmud. A central characteristic is the use of scientific genres, i.e. complete treatises dedicated to systematic scientific knowledge, as opposed to sporadic statements embedded in other genres. While it is still often claimed that the first systematic Jewish science books were such late-antique to early-medieval treatises as Sefer Yetzirah, Mishnat ha-Middot, Midrash Konen, Baraita de-Shmuel, Sefer Asaf haRofe, etc., we are now aware of some previously unknown—or at least not enough appreciated—Jewish scientific texts: the Book of the Luminaries in 1 Enoch, the corpus of calendars and mishmarot, and some texts which combine astrology and physiognomy.9 Another central characteristic of scientific culture in the scrolls is creativity: what share of the knowledge presented in the literary corpus continues the preceding scientific tradition, and what share proceeds from it to introduce some novel concepts. The novelty sought here is not what we call ‘progress’, i.e. irreversible advancement towards an absolute scientific truth. Rather, we see examples in which the scientific knowledge is so deeply integrated into the ideological and literary texture of the Dead Sea Scrolls community that it produced new paths in astrology, for example. These paths constitute unique attestations of applied science for the use of the Yahad, and attest to the extent of acceptance of the scientific discourse in this environment.
[☞ p6.5] The above-noted features support the distinction between the science in the scrolls and that in later, Talmudic or medieval Jewish literature. While the latter science is not essentially Jewish, but rather “A Science practiced by Jews”, the scientific interests in the scrolls are profoundly Jewish and apocalyptic in their outlook, as they werei fashioned by Jewish-sectarian scholars for religious and cultic use, and were meant to answer the particular needs of a concrete Jewish community.
[☞ p6.6] The main aim of the paper, therefore, is to describe and account for the intellectual climate that prompted the formation of a creative scientific environment in the Dead Sea Scrolls community. The community will be designated here by the neutral term Yahad, used by community members to refer to themselves.10 The Yahad is a specific cultural and societal entity, quite limited in scope. It is thus crucial to trace the antecedents of the Yahad’s scientific outlook within larger movements of Judaism of the Hellenistic period: Wisdom and Apocalypticism, or for the present purposes: The Enochic literature, the apocalyptic-sapiential Aramaic texts from cave 4, the Hebrew wisdom text 4QInstruction (musar la-mevin), and to a certain extent also the Wisdom of Ben Sira. While these streams of tradition triggered the commitment of the Yahad to science, scholarship should also account for the transformation of this tradition in the specifically sectarian thought and practice.11
2. Scientific Texts and Themes in the Scrolls
[☞ p6.7] In one of Flavius Josephus’ reports on the Essenes, he writes (War 2.136):12
They apply themselves with extraordinary zeal to the study of the ancients choosing, above all, those which tend to be useful to body and soul. In them they study the healing of diseases, the roots offering protection and the properties of stones.
[☞ p6.8] Based on this paragraph, and others similar to it, the Essenes gained the reputation of a group which excelled in divinatory and para-scientific activity. Thus for example in an intriguing remark made by William Albright in 1940: 13
They further possessed an extensive esoteric literature, access to which was only allowed members of the order. According to Josephus, they were interested in the virtue of plants and stones, they possessed an elaborate angelography… and they attached great importance to the art of predicting the future, in which they seldom made mistakes… we can infer that the Essenes, in opposition to virtually all pre-cabalistic Jews, were believers in astrology, which harmonizes just as well with their strict pre-destinarinism… It seems probable that the Essenes represent a sectarian group which had migrated from Mesopotamia to Palestine after the victory of the Maccabees. This theory would explain their interest in the virtues of plants and stones…, their attention to divination and astrology… since all of these points were characteristic of Mesopotamian practice.
[☞ p6.9] Albright’s statement is based solely on the report by Josephus (in fact it somewhat exceeds it as Josephus is never explicit about astrology and divination). Today we are in the position to assess its validity with regard to the actual collection of scrolls from Qumran. Indeed one finds in the scrolls a pronounced interest in the sciences, as attested in both scientific texts proper and in the frequent mention of scientific themes. While some of this material is in Aramaic and seems to have preceded the Yahad, other parts of it are in Hebrew and are more clearly sectarian. In a previous article I summarized the evidence for scientific activity in the Aramaic texts, which includes the following:14 astronomy, astrology, physiognomy, geography, metrology. Hebrew scrolls from Qumran carry further the interest in astronomy and astrology, which will be discussed here at some length.
Astronomy
[☞ p6.10] Astronomy was woven into the sectarian texture, primarily in the calendrical texts.15 A notable feature of these texts is that they not only give the practical aspects of calendar making, those that are required for a quotidian routine, but rather transfer the calendrical discourse to a more elevated level, both in terms of ritual status and in terms of the scientific discourse. The meticulous anchoring of the calendar in the service cycle of the priestly families (mishmarot) supplies the ritual context. In addition, central calendar texts from Qumran are framed by statements on the creation of the world and the place of the luminaries at that time (4Q319 IV 10-11; 4Q320 1 i 1-5; 4Q320 3 i 10). The calendars contain detailed rosters of lunar phenomena, which cannot be explained as part of a normative calendar but should rather be seen as an astronomical apparatus.16 It was important for calendar experts of the Yahad to include astronomical calculations—mostly very schematic—in their agenda, back to back with ritual concepts like priests and festivals.
Astrology and Physiognomy
[☞ p6.11] Astrology is often mentioned or implied in writings of the Yahad. Except for the systematic presentation of astrological teachings in texts like 4Q186 (on which see below), there are recurrent references to astrological themes, as astrology acquired a central place in the predestination doctrine of the Yahad. This seems to be the case already in the wisdom texts from Qumran, especially 4QInstruction and the ‘Book of Mysteries’, texts which probably preceded the Yahad and were strongly embraced in it.17
[☞ p6.12] In the wisdom texts one finds statements on the general evaluation of a person’s role or destiny, or of the world’s destiny, as this role corresponds to a preexistent cosmic order.18 This preexisting order, or, as Elgvin calls it “a comprehensive word for God’s mysterious plan for creation and history” is denoted by the enigmatic and polyvalent term רז נהיה, ‘the mystery that becomes’.19 However, the enigmatic term and the various contexts for its use do not disclose much on the nature of the mystery, or on the questions how it is to be fathomed by a human being. Usually the commandment is to deduce the raz by observing the wondrous deeds of god, either in history, in nature or in the fate of individuals, but no specific mechanism is indicated.20 The terminology of ‘the Book of Mysteries’ and 4QInstruction suggests that—at least in some cases—this observation should be achieved by means of astrology. Strong indications come forth from the terms מולד and בית מולדים, which appear in both wisdom texts, often closely associated with רז נהיה. Despite its simple meaning ‘birth’, the context often requires that these terms convey the more technical meaning of ‘nativity’ or even ‘horoscope’, as recorded in some later Aramaic literature.21 In these cases, as noted quite clearly by Kister and Baumgarten, the simple meaning ‘birth’ is insufficient to carry the burden loaded upon it in such polyvalent contexts as the following: 22
[מ]חשבת בית מולדים פתח לפ[ניהם/נינו
(God) has opened before [us / them] the art of nativity23
[הבט ברז] נהיה וקח מולדי י֯שע ודע מי נו̇חל כב̇וד וע֯[ו]ל
[Gaze upon the mystery] that becomes, and comprehend the nativities of salvation, and know who is to inherit glory and (and who-) e[vi]l. (4Q417 2 i 10-11)24
וברז [נ]ה̇י̇ה̇ דרוש מולדיו ו֯א֯ז תדע נחלתו
And by the mystery that becomes study the nativity thereof and then you shall know its inheritance (=fate) (4Q416 2 iii 9-10)
[☞ p6.13] The addressee is commanded to enquire the רז נהיה by means of investigating various nativities: either with regard to the general history of the world or with regard to the fate (lit. inheritance, equivalent to Greek κλῆρος, κληρονομία) of a specific individual.25 Baumgarten suggested that a similar command is issued to a person to calculate his wife’s nativity (4Q416 2 iii 20-21), and possibly also that of his newborn child (4Q415 11 11). The passage about the wife reads:26
אשה לקחתה בריֿשכה קח מולדי֯[ה ..... ] מרז נהיה
You have taken a woman in your poverty, inquire [her] nativities [….] from the raz nieyeh
[☞ p6.14] Kister highlights the use of מולדים in 4Q299 frg 5, which in his opinion has “explicit astrological overtones” because it is appears in conjunction with theological-cosmological poetry about the regular alteration of light and darkness.27 In some way therefore, astrological knowledge is part and parcel of revealed wisdom in these texts, and is recurrently associated with the רז נהיה.
[☞ p6.15] It is remarkable that the texts never indicate the method invoked in order to study the nativity, but rather limit themselves to general statements on astrological rulings. This is even more disturbing due to the fact that no ‘horoscope’ proper was found at Qumran. Even in 4Q186, the closest exemplar of a specific astrological technique, one searches in vain for what historians of astrology would call a horoscope.28 Not only the technique, but also the role of astrology remains implicit or even veiled in the overall formulation of the texts. The fact that the astral mechanisms are seldom explicit in the scrolls is due to the fact that the judgment was in the hands of the Maskil alone (see quotes from 1QS below). Yet it remains clear, in my eyes, that astrology reflects the true preordained order of the world. 4QInstruction often advises the addressee how to cope with his preordained fate in an active yet legitimate way. Since in this text the fate is determined mainly—or at least to a great extent—by astrology, one is justified to say that the move in 4QInstruction resembles that of some later stoic literature, which advocates a similar move.29
[☞ p6.16] Central texts of the Yahad continue the sapiential-deterministic line of 4QInstruction, while concealing the explicit role of astrology. Thus in the Discourse on the Two Spirits (1QS III 13 – IV 26) the metaphysical order of the world is entirely administered by angels and demons rather than by stars. However, hints for astrological determination of human fate remain in the introduction to the Discourse (1QS III 13-15), stating the roles of the Maskil:
למשכיל להבין וללמד את כול בני אור בתולדות כול בני איש לכול מיני רוחותם באותותם למעשיהם בדורותם
To the Maskil. To instruct and teach all the Sons of Light concerning the nature of all the sons of man, according to all the kinds of spirits revealed in the character of their deeds during their generations30
[☞ p6.17] This passage refers to the תולדות of all humanity, a term based on the root ילד which in later Jewish literature is associated with the deterministic rulings of physiognomy. It may be connected with Greek ϕύσις and Latin natura, terms which relate to the fixing of human character at the time of birth.31 In addition, later in the same sentence from 1QS human beings are classified by means of their אות, ‘sign’, a term which carries astral connotations. As Baumgarten noted in the above mentioned article, as well as Mladen Popović and Philip Alexander, astrological categories played a role in sorting out the candidates for membership in the Yahad and even members of the Yahad themselves.32 Thus we read elsewhere about the role of the Maskil or the Mebaqqer in judging and assigning a place to community members (CD 13:11-12):
וכל הנוסף לעדתו יפקדהו למעשיו ושכלו
(following 4QDa)
וכוחו וגבורתו והונו וכתבוהו במקומו כפי נחלתו בגורל הא[ור
ןכןחו וגבורתו והונו וכתבוהו במקומו כפי בגורל הא[ור (following 4QDa) וכל הנוסף לעדתו יפקדהו למעשיו ושכלו
And whoever joins his congregation, let him examine him with regard to his works and his intelligence, his strength and might, and his wealth. Let them inscribe him in his place according to his inheritance in the lot of lig[ht]33
[☞ p6.18] The classification of Yahad members was done according to their relative share in the assigned portions of light. This procedure is reflected in the astrological-physiognomic teaching of the scroll 4Q186, on which see below. A scientific mechanism was thus integrated into the heart of the worldview of the Yahad. It was not a marginal interest which could be easily concealed (as can be said for example about astrology in b. šabbat 156a-b), but rather a central tool in the anthropology of the Yahad. This notion is further exemplified below in a more detailed study of some aspects of 4Q186.
[☞ p6.19] The Yahad’s interest with scientific themes constitutes a significant advance from the apocalyptic interest in nature, which preceded the Yahad. In early Apocalypticism and in the contemporary wisdom traditions the study of nature played a significant role alongside the revelations of past and future history.34 The human need to catalogue the marvels of nature and reflect on them was mutatis mutandis conceived as a fertile mirror of the rules of nature for the eschatological age. Despite the famous prohibitions in Ben-Sirah (3:19-21) against revealed wisdom, it now seems probable that the difference between Ben-Sirah and the apocalyptic authors with regard to scientific themes is not as great as previously imagined, with the difference probably being that Ben-Sirah assigned a smaller role to revelation in comparison with his apocalyptic compatriots.35 Other wisdom authors expand on cosmological themes, as can be seen in also some passages from the Wisdom of Solomon.36 The acceptance of scientific themes in the Yahad thus rests on the solid ground of previous ideological trends. However, the Yahad does not directly continue any previous tradition, neither in terms of its general ideology nor in its relation to scientific themes.37 Yahad literature uses the scientific and cosmological knowledge inherited from previous (Aramaic) Wisdom and Apocalyptic traditions, while modifying them to fit their new context. The integration of astronomy and astrology into the sectarian texture was so profound, that one can speak of actual scientific creativity, i.e. of new modes of scientific learning created for sectarian needs.
3. Ideals of Science in the Apocalyptic Tradition
[☞ p6.20] When contemplating the formation of a scientific discipline at a given society, it is necessary to not only evaluate the phenomenology of science in that discipline—i.e. the methods and tools, the experiments and techniques employed—but also the epistemology of that discipline: what its assumptions are about the world and the way it corresponds to the scientific product; what is the justification for scientific enquiry, what is the source of authority behind the study of nature. To use the terms of Amos Funkenstein, we seek not only the ideas of science but also its ideals:38
Ideals of science differ in many ways from ideas of science. They indicate how a scientific community imagines science as it ought to be if ever completed; they express the ultimate criteria of rationality of their time. … (my italics, Jonathan B.)
… in a certain sense, all science, every scientific argument or procedure, has an ideal—and, if you wish, fictional—aspect to it. It is the ultimate justification why the historian of science ought to distinguish between ideals and actual arguments, and then detect the former even in the latter.
[☞ p6.21] In modern manifestations of science the ideals of a given discipline would be such concepts as monocausality, or maybe more ‘subjective’ criteria such as harmony or symmetry or aesthetics, concepts that are often emphasized in recent histories of science. However, when discussing an ancient scientific discipline which left little explicit reflection on method (not so, by the way, in the study of Torah which was admirably reflective in the Yahad), the ideals of science should be formulated in a more simple way. I suggest the following three criteria which together constitute a sound epistemological basis for an ancient scientific discipline. The list is by no means definitive, as one may come forward with other constitutive elements, but I feel that my three criteria give a good account of the epistemic authority of science in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
[☞ p6.22] The following principles are characteristic of the questions that a creative scientific discipline would ask itself:
a. What are the origins of human knowledge about the world? The answer to this question would come in the form of a founding myth or an etiology, and quite often would invoke the name of a founding figure, a primary inventor or the like.39
b. What is the justification for absorbing and accommodating earlier knowledge? This question will arise whenever earlier knowledge is embraced, for example with the circulation of Greek science and scholarly tradition among Islamic scholars.40
c. How does knowledge about the world function within the religious beliefs and practices of society? One may expect to see local narratives about the justification and use of science,41 which would merge it within the fabric of society.
[☞ p6.23] These characteristics will be investigated first as regards the apocalyptic milieu of the Enoch and Levi literature in the 2-3 centuries BCE, and subsequently with regard to the environment of the Yahad. Similarities and differences between the two milieus are pursued in order to highlight the unique scientific venture in the Yahad.
[☞ p6.24] The early apocalyptic movement was a wide-scale project aiming to unveil the mysteries of the world by means of contemplating the revelations of primeval visionaries.42 While strongly emphasizing the revelation of the future occurrences or the end of days, this movement also found great interest in revealing the secrets of ancient history, such as the tale of the Fallen Angels.43 It also gave pride of place to studying the secrets of the created world. Apocalypticism believes that the Divine Order of the world becomes manifest in both the temporal and spatial aspects of the cosmos, indeed that they can all be fit into one harmonious entity. Therefore a true disciple of this movement is compelled to study the marvels of the Universe on the manner of the great patriarch Enoch (cf. 1 En 82:1-4a, 93:11-14). The parade example for this kind of wisdom is the Book of Astronomy, which was considered to be part of the Enochic heritage already at an early stage of the tradition.44
a. The Founding Myth: Origins of Knowledge
[☞ p6.25] The Book of Watchers is an early Enochic composition which now covers chapters 1-36 of 1 Enoch. It tells of the grave sins of the Fallen Angels, who have taken the daughters of men, as depicted in Genesis 6:1-4 and expanded in the Enoch tradition. This myth in many ways becomes the constitutive myth of the apocalyptic tradition.45 But the Watchers, as they are often called, were not only guilty of perpetrating sex and violence, but rather also of introducing to humanity the secrets of arts, crafts, and knowledge. In a Promethean mode of thought, the writer (or better writers, as there are most probably several intertwined traditions) reports:46
8:1. Asael taught men to make swords of iron and weapons and shields and breastplates and every instrument of war. He showed them metals of the earth and how they should work gold to fashion it suitably, and concerning silver, to fashion it for bracelets and ornaments for women. And he showed them concerning antimony and eye paint and all manner of precious stones and dyes… 3. Shemihazah taught spells and the cutting of roots. Hermani taught sorcery for the loosing of spells and magic and skill. Baraqel taught the signs of the lightning flashes. Kokabel taught the signs of the stars. Ziqel taught the signs of the shooting stars. Artoqeph taught the signs of the earth. Shamshiel taught the signs of the sun. Sahriel taught the signs of the moon.
[☞ p6.26] The transmission of knowledge to humanity—technology, divination, crafts, astronomy, astrology—is thus a grave sin. In contrast, other Enochic compositions trace a more benign source for human knowledge, as in the introduction to the Book of Astronomy.47 Here it is Enoch who taught knowledge:
72:1 The book about the motion of the heavenly luminaries, all as they are in their kinds, their jurisdiction, their time, their name, their origins, and their months which Uriel, the holy angel who was with me (and) who is their leader, showed me.
81:2 I looked at all the heavenly tablets, read everything that was written, and understood everything. I read the book of all the actions of people and of all humans who will be on the earth… 5. Those seven holy ones brought me and set me on the earth in front of the gate to my house. They said to me: “Tell everything to your son Methuselah and show all your children that no human is righteous before the Lord… 6. We will leave you with your son for one year until you again live your (last?) command, to teach your children, write for them, and testify to all your children. In the second year they will take you from them.
[☞ p6.27] A number of traditions about the sins of the watchers are collected in 1 Enoch 7-8 in a somewhat haphazard way.48 While a basic version of the myth disclosed the acts of violence performed by the angels, other traditions emphasize that the transgression consisted—either in addition or alternatively—in the transmission of knowledge. A first list concentrates on technological skills related with sex and violence: not only did the Watchers indulge in these two vices, they also revealed to mankind some material qualifications used to that end:49 the mining and production of metals for the production of arms and jewelry, as well as the mining and production of cosmetics. Yet another literary layer introduces a list of ‘applied’ sciences revealed by the sinning angels. Most of this material reflects the combination of divinatory and magical acts which are characteristic of Mesopotamian scholarship and āšipūtu: cutting roots, absolving spell-charms, as well as the arts of deducing portents from the heavenly luminaries, as taught in the cuneiform series Enūma Anu Enlil.50 This use of the Watchers’ teaching is seen also in the terminology נ]חשי כוכבין and נחשי שמ[ש, ‘au]guries of stars’ and ‘auguries of the su[n’ with the word נחש indicating a clear divinatory meaning, which is not evident in the various Greek and the Ethiopic translation of this passage.51 In BW knowledge about the luminaries is depicted as a part of illicit divination, while AB presents a perfectly legitimate version of it.
[☞ p6.28] While the wisdom of the watchers is depicted as negative and sinful, the transmission of Enoch’s revelation seems positive and benign. The difference is at least partly due to the magical application of the watchers’ knowledge, which is nothing but witchcraft (ϕαρμακεία) in the account of BW (1 En 8:3, Syncellus). The message is thus an anti-magical one, and can be evidently seen in the AB, where an abstention from astrology and astrological themes is clearly discerned.52 Enoch’s knowledge in AB is more theoretical and lacks an applied aspect.
[☞ p6.29] Alexander conceived of the difference between the wisdom of the Watchers and that of Enoch through a prism of national identity: while the Watchers represent alien wisdom, Enoch represents the Jewish tradition.53 The alien source in this hypothesis could be Greek, as suggested for example by David Suter, or, more probably, Mesopotamian. Recently, Henryk Drawnel and others claimed for a full correspondence between the teaching of the Watchers and the practices of the traditional Mesopotamian āšipu and ṭupšar Enūma Anu Enlil.54 The famous fragment from Pseudo-Eupolemos about Enoch and Abraham as the inventors of astrology vis-à-vis the Greek sages proves that the figure of Enoch was indeed used for this purpose, of instituting a Jewish culture hero. The question is, however, whether the Enochic authors were aware that their scientific traditions are originally Mesopotamian, and whether indeed they meant to domesticate them by means of the Enochic stories. More specifically, the question is whether, as Drawnel claims, the Watchers are designed as a parody on Mesopotamian ummanū. The problem is of course that this opinion is never noted in the BW, in contrast for example to the explicit parody in the Book of Daniel. In addition, the figures of the watchers as primordial sages have much deeper roots in the mythological imagination than a mere parody on human protagonists. The scene of intellectual dispute between Israel and the gentiles is thus better anchored in Daniel than in BW, where other explanations yield better results.55 Note that, while Daniel is clearly a Jewish hero, Enoch is not exactly a Jewish protagonist par excellence. His figure—both in the BW and in the Book of Giants (where there are some hints as to his whereabouts)—is more that of a liminal sage than a pious Israelite.56
[☞ p6.30] If one seeks to legitimate the origins of science and technology among mankind, the Watchers are a rather bad choice to play the culture hero. However, we may gain a better glimpse of them by acknowledging the mythical character of the Watchers’ story, a view which entails some complexity which could not have been expected in a more theologically-oriented text. It is an essential characteristic of ancient myths that mediating figures which stand between the human and divine world carry both benign and malevolent aspects. Thus, for example, the use of such protective creatures as kārib(t)u, lamassu in Assyrian and Babylonian palaces, and of apkallu in glyptic art.57 Their agency is neither good or evil: they are powerful beings whose force lies beyond good and evil. The acts of these mediators may be apprehended by human beings as good or as evil in a particular circumstance, but it would be wrong to associate goodness or evil with them. The fusion of man, beast, and divine within a single creature breaks the normal cultural categories, creating an abnormality and necessarily raising disorder, awe and violence. Ambiguity in this case is a horrifying trait. This is true also in the Greek mythology, as in the case of Prometheus, the Titan, whose figure exemplifies the mediating figure par excellence. Being a Titan, he is a priori conceived as an enemy of the structured world, which later flourishes under the dominion of Zeus. Yet Prometheus conveyed to humanity the ability to control fire. Fire itself is an ambiguous symbol, being an emblem of technology and the domestication by means of industry, while on the other hand it is quite often the foremost example of uncontrollable disaster. In addition, Prometheus is ultimately responsible not only for the human mastery of technology, but also for the calamities brought by Pandora.
[☞ p6.31] Mediation is thus a tricky business, with the figure of the Watchers being a prime example of this double-edged sword. While bestowing to humanity the great benefits of technology, they act with violence and terror and nearly cause the extermination of mankind. Recent publications redefine the image of the watchers on the backdrop of Mesopotamian apkallu traditions, where the ambiguity of the protagonists is discerned.58 Depicted as a man-fish emerging from the primordial waters, or as a man dressed in fish skin, the apkallu is the perfect Zwischenwesen. Oannes, the first apkallu, is called by Berossus ‘a senseless beast’ (ζῶον ἄφρενον).59 While previous scholarship stressed the positive parts of the tradition, more could be done with traditions such as those preserved in the series bīt mēseri, reporting the sins of the apkallu: “… who angered the god Adad in heaven…. Who hung his seal on a ‘goat-fish’ and thereby angered the god Enki\Ea…”.60 Within the Cuneiform tradition there are signs that the transmission of knowledge by the primordial sages was not always considered a benign act.61 As Fritz Graf points out, technological inventions were also considered as ‘ambivalent power’ in the Greco-Roman tradition.62 Part of the malign nature of the watchers is undoubtedly due to this mythological aspect. Enoch himself is a liminal figure just like the watchers, and his frequent associations with them in those primordial days placed him too in that numinous realm standing ‘betwixt and between’ the cultivated world and the world of the demons. In this respect, both associations of the origin of knowledge—to Enoch and to the watchers—convey the message that natural science has revered origins, and is thus to be both respected and feared at the same time.
[☞ p6.32] The distinction between the Watchers’ wisdom and that of Enoch also involves the extent of distribution of cosmological wisdom. The ambiguity within Enochic literature with regard to the value of science—whether sinful or benign—represents the question how much it is legitimate to distribute esoteric teaching in public. Mesopotamian science, which served in some way as the ancestor of Enochic science, practiced strict limitations on the distribution of knowledge outside the circles of the initiated. These limitations took the literary form of short formulary prohibitions incorporated in the colophons of scientific texts.63 The variant evaluation of astral lore in Enochic literature may thus be due to the degree of the prohibition on communicating secret knowledge: while Enoch and his progeny are considered legitimate transmitters of esoteric wisdom, the transmission by the Watchers was illegitimate as it involved both dubious teachers and incompetent students.64
[☞ p6.33] The association of the Watchers with the sin of transmitting knowledge, so prominent in the Book of Watchers, loses its popularity and gradually disappears from subsequent Enoch traditions. Thus, in Jubilees for example, the sin of the watchers is limited to violence and sex, and the discovery of sciences and writing is assigned to Enoch alone (4:17-21). A similar situation pertains in later literary sources such as the early Church fathers, some notable exceptions being the Book of Parables (Chapter 69), Pseudo-Philo 34:3, and the Christian Orthodox tradition, which retain the old themes of the angelic transmission of illicit knowledge.65 One way to explain the disappearance of forbidden knowledge from the Jewish Enochic tradition is that the mythological ambiguity of the mediating figures was not well-accepted by later apocalyptic literature, where a clearer black-and-white polarity prevailed: Enoch = good; Watchers = bad. In addition, the fact that the malevolent origin of science and technology gradually gives way to a benign view of these disciplines proves that the legitimacy of scientific speculation was growing. What had functioned in earlier times as an apologetic argument in favor of the scientific reflection no longer required apologetics, since by then the sciences were safely backed by the legitimate figure of Enoch, both in the Book of Astronomy (1 En 82:1-3) and in Jubilees 4:17-21.66
[☞ p6.34] Finally, the metamorphosis of cosmological knowledge from forbidden revelation to pious discipline may be due to the accommodation of the—originally Mesopotamian—outlook on science into the prevalent attitude in Hellenistic Judea. In fact, at that time even the Babylonian environment itself was heavily Hellenistic, as can be discerned both from mythological accounts (Berossus) and divinatory-scientific texts.67 Populations of the Hellenistic Levant happily joined forces with the Hellenistic quest after a prōtos heuretēs, promoting the Antiquity of their national traditions by positing a primordial culture-hero. This motif is often invoked by Phoenician-Hellenistic writers and appears also in the heavily-studied passages from the Jewish authors Pseudo-Euploemos, Josephus, the Genesis Apocryphon from Qumran, etc.68 What had originally echoed the ambiguous origins of wisdom in one mythological tradition gave way to a more unequivocal assertion of the value of science in a later, more Hellenistic-oriented, setting.69
[☞ p6.35] The motivation to study scientific themes exemplifies the commitment of apocalyptic writers to the exemplary revelation of revered patriarchs. The one-time revelation given to Enoch, Levi, Isaac, or whoever else, was not expected to reoccur to any of the initiated. The wisdom of Enoch is prisca theologia: the one true teaching to which all future practitioners should attune. There are very few reflective statements in this literature, i.e., statements that prompt the reader to contemplate on it and study this wisdom further. In 1 En 81:1-3, one of few such passages, Enoch is commanded to write his vision in books and transmit them to future generations. Other passages found in the Aramaic texts from Qumran treat apocalyptic wisdom in general rather than the scientific themes in particular. In these passages wisdom is an ‘inheritance’, its distribution limited to a closed circle with strict restrictions on strangers and foreigners (4Q542 Testament of Qahat ar 1 i 4-6).70 This wisdom is not renewable but rather conservative; it is content in preserving the old teaching rather than updating it. The preservation of this wisdom is the right way to salvation and the ultimate implementation of wisdom in the eschatological age.
b. Reception and Accommodation
[☞ p6.36] For us modern scholars it seems clear that the Enochic science is in many ways an inheritance of earlier, mostly Mesopotamian traditions. This statement requires some supplementary qualifications, since evidently the Judean scientific discipline is not a mere branch of the Babylonian one but rather a new cultural formation, with its own aims, methods, and presuppositions. In addition it undoubtedly embraced also other, non-Mesopotamian, concepts and molded them together with the Mesopotamian infrastructure.71 Nevertheless, the Mesopotamian origin of some basic concepts is hard to deny. The reliance is especially apparent in the lunar visibility texts of Enūma Anu Enlil tablet XIV, as converted into the Aramaic medium in 4Q208 and 4Q209 (or more probably the forerunner thereof).72 The question remains, however, whether or not the adherents of the emerging Jewish scientific discipline were aware of the foreign origin of their teaching, and what they did to incorporate it in the authoritative framework of the Jewish literary creation.
[☞ p6.37] The literary form of the early apocalyptic scientific lists is instructive in this regard, as it discloses the authoritative voice chosen by the authors. Both the Astronomical Book and the Aramaic Levi Document are the products of the third, or possibly the early second century BCE, and are framed by a narrative about patriarchal times, given mostly in the first person of Enoch or Levi. The ‘I’ of the speaker is the patriarch himself, who lends his authority to the scientific material included in his book.73 The technical materials, which originally had taken the form of a technical roster or table without any particular author, now appear as the testament of a patriarch to his sons, sometimes even as part of a creative dialogue. Enoch and Levi are thus depicted as the proto-scientists, who lend credibility to the entire scientific enterprise. Somewhat similarly, a later apocalyptic text like Fourth Ezra depicts the interest of Ezra with cosmology, and a Jewish-Hellenistic text like the Wisdom of Solomon which was possibly influenced by apocalyptic thought, would rely on the firm authority of King Solomon, the wise of all men.
c. Religious function of science
[☞ p6.38] Science in the early Enoch compositions is part of the Eschatological Weltbild. It is the received wisdom that should be learned when uncovering the heavenly mysteries, in order to unveil the Divine plan and improve one‘s ability to survive when the final day comes. More simply, knowing the correct order of the world is necessary in order to understand what happens when the world deviates from its norm, a common apocalyptic trope. A classical text for this purpose is 1 Enoch 80:2-8, a passage which seems to be a late part of the editorial framework of the book:
In the days of the sinners the years will grow shorter. Their seed will be late on their land in their fields. Everything on earth will change and will not appear at their times… The moon will change its order and will not appear at its (normal) time… Many heads (i.e., leaders, cf. 82: 11-13, JBD) of the stars will stray from the command… The entire law of the stars will be closed to the sinners…
[☞ p6.39] In this passage, the natural order is not distinct from the ethical or covenantal order. Carrying an ancient biblical notion to its extreme, this author proclaims the essential unity of physis and nomos. If one learns the astronomical basics of 1 Enoch 72-79, he will be sure to notice the deviations from Nature which materialize in the age of the sinners.74. For this purpose it would suffice to rehearse the ancient teachings inherited from Enoch and Levi, without developing them further or practicing any scientific creativity.
4. The Scientific Environment within the Yahad
[☞ p6.40] As demonstrated in some detail in section 2 (above), scientific themes such as astronomy and astrology were carried within the Yahad further than their employment in preceding sapiential and apocalyptic traditions. It is now time to reexamine these scientific notions in Yahad literature in light of the analysis presented so far.
a. Modes of Acquiring Knowledge
[☞ p6.41] A fundamental point distinguishes the mode of revelation celebrated in the Yahad from that of previous apocalyptic trends: the Yahad allows for less strict learning procedures and encourages new learning. While this point is made explicit only with regard to the study of Torah, we have reason to believe that it applies to the study of the natural world as well. It is a potential catalyst for the Yahad’s attitude to new ventures in scientific themes. This conception is demonstrated in some passages of columns 8-9 of Serekh ha-Yahad.
[☞ p6.42] 1QS IX 12-1475
אלה החוקים למשכיל להתהלכ בם עם כול חי לתכון עת ועת ולמשקל איש ואיש לעשות את רצון אל ככול הנגלה לעת בעת ולמוד את כול השכל הנמצא לפי העתים ואת חוק העת
These are the statutes, by which the Maskil shall walk with every living being, according to the measure of each time and the weight of each man, to do God’s will according to everything which has been revealed from time to time, and to measure the understanding which has been found according to the times, and the law of the time.
[☞ p6.43] As Dimant indicates, “the most striking feature of this remarkable statement is its temporal perspective”.76 The passage conveys the clear notion that the revelation of God’s mysteries is progressive and constantly susceptible to modification, both with regard to “the measure of each time” and “the weight of each man”. The study of Torah is thus a dynamic process, and new revelations are available to the members of the Yahad at any time—given that they remain loyal to the Yahad’s way of life. A similar concept of progressive revelation is invoked earlier on in the Serekh, aligning the modes of interpretation of the words of the prophets with those of the Torah (1QS VIII 15-16). This notion contrasts with the notion of a one-time antiquarian revelation, as attested in the apocalyptic writings.77 Not only the Maskil but also each member of the Yahad is eligible to receive such revelation, as in 1QS VIII 11-12:78
וכול דבר הנסתר מישראל ונמצאו לאיש הדורש אל יסתרהו מאלה מיראת רוח נסוגה
No doctrine concealed from Israel but discovered by an interpreting man is to be hidden from these men out of fear that they might backslide.
[☞ p6.44] This short statement opens a window to the learning process in the Yahad, by which it is made clear that not only the Teacher, but also lay members of the Yahad expected to receive a revelation enlightening a segment of the teaching.79 Thus, alongside the progressive revelation, the Yahad’s learning procedures were relatively open and only meagerly hierarchic.80 This setting is far more institutionally better for study than the vague transmission modes of the Enochic literature. It also encourages a freer indulgence with older texts and ideas, rather than being limited to perpetuating them. This kind of atmosphere may shed light on the background for the way scientific concepts were treated within the Yahad.81
[☞ p6.45] While the Serekh passage quoted here refers specifically to the interpretation of the Torah, there are reasons to believe that scientific knowledge, especially diagnostics by means of astrology, was considered according to this epistemological model too. In the same passage from 1QS IX 12-14 quoted above, the teaching of the Maskil is qualified “according… to the weight of each man”. This component is clarified in the immediately following lines 14-15:
להבדיל ולשקול בני הצדוק
(4QSe
הצדק)
לפי רוחם... ואיש כרוחו כן לעשות משפטו
…to separate and weigh the Sons of Righteousness according to their spirit… and according to a man’s spirit (is) justice to be done (to him)82
[☞ p6.46] The diagnosis (weighing) of community members according to their spirit is thus the Maskil’s duty alongside the progressive interpretation of the Torah. This vocation is depicted in other descriptions of the Maskil, as in 1QS III 13-15 (quoted above). As noted above, this passage presents several diagnostic terms which were part of the science of the day: תולדות (‘character’),83 רוח (‘spirit’, used with divinatory meaning in 4Q186), אות (‘sign’, close to Greek semeion). Progressive revelation was necessary in order to improve the diagnostic skills of the Maskil, a field which was not well-represented in earlier apocalyptic literature. In other words, I suggest that Yahad members—or at least the Maskil—pursued new developments in the field of diagnostic astrology because they believed this was part of the mysteries revealed to them, which could be as useful as the study of Torah. After all, as noted above, astrology was part of the רז נהיה, which is promoted in the wisdom texts as a source of inspiration and the object of constant reflection. Indeed, an examination of the yahad’s teachings reveals that in the same way that revelation led to novel torah rulings, the yahad also introduced novel insights to the astrological practice, using methods that are hardly attested elsewhere and should be considered as novelties of the Yahad. These novelties, described below, which appear in explicit sectarian contexts, must have been justified by some sort of ideology about the role of astrology in unfolding the Divine wisdom.
[☞ p6.47] Returning now to the above discussion about the role of astrology in the Yahad, new notions can be pointed out with the creative scientific character of the Yahad in mind. The discussion so far has highlighted the role of astrology in the wisdom texts as well as in the Serekh, a text which is strongly influenced by these traditions. However, a more tangible sense of the practice of astrology in the Yahad comes forth in the text 4Q186. This fragmentary text, dated to around the turn of the era, diagnoses a series of personal types by means of placing their moments of birth in a finely measured section of a zodiacal sign. The fine tuning extends beyond the assignment of one sign (=30o) for the person, as attested for example in birth omens from Mesopotamia, employing instead a more advanced location. In one extant example the birth is located within a section of the sign Taurus ברגל השור ‘in the foot of Taurus’; in addition there seems to be a finer division of the sign into nine or more parts, divided between the ‘house of light’ and the ‘house of darkness’. The fine division of the zodiacal sign was explained by Albani and others as indicating the ‘ascendant’ (Greek ὡροςκόπος), an astrological technique which focuses on the exact section of the zodiacal sign rising above the horizon at the time of birth.84 Most interestingly for the present purposes, the ascendant could not have been computed before Hypsicles of Alexandria in the early second century BCE, and did not enter the astrological practice until later. The ascendant was thus a relatively new concept.85 Its actual use in Greek horoscopes does not precede 62 BCE, according to the material currently known to us. While 4Q186 does not formally answer our definition of a horoscope, its use of the ascendant makes it one of the earliest pieces of manuscript evidence for the ascendant in any language, Greek included, and certainly the earliest in Jewish literature. The Yahad sectaries thus not only subscribed to the antique science of their Enochic predecessors, but also sought to renew the techniques available to them.86 In the present case, the motivation for improving the astrological techniques was the need for a better diagnostic of group members. Such an activity could not have taken place without being accommodated into the epistemological paradigm of the Yahad, either explicitly or implicitly.
[☞ p6.48] A closer look at 4Q186 will supply further insights about the scientific discourse in the Yahad, and will also correspond to section (b) of the above discussion: translation and accommodation of earlier knowledge. The text is concealed from the lay reader by a strange mechanism of writing from left-to-right, while in addition some of the Hebrew letters are replaced with cryptic characters of sorts.87 Therefore I see this text as a sectarian production. A characteristic quote from this scroll reads as follows (4Q186 1 ii 5-9):88
[☞ p6.49] ושוקיו ארוכות ודקות ואצבעות רגליו
[☞ p6.50] דקות וארוכות והואה מן העמוד השני
[☞ p6.51] רוח לו בבית האור שש ושלוש בבית֯
[☞ p6.52] הח֗ושך וזה הואה המולד אשרהואה ילוד עליו
[☞ p6.53] ברגל השור ענו יהיה וזה בהמתו שור
and his thighs are long and slender, and his toes are slender and long. And he is from the Second Column. He has six (parts) spirit in the house of light, and three in the house of darkness. And this is the nativity on which he is born — in the foot of Taurus. He will be humble; and this is his animal: Taurus.
[☞ p6.54] This text apparently creates an algorithm for casting a person’s horoscope, using his bodily traits (thighs, toes) as a point of departure. Searching thoroughly for a similar procedure to that of 4Q186 in other divinatory literature, Popović came up with very meager evidence. Astrology and Physiognomy are often interrelated in ancient literature, but usually the logical sequence between them works in the opposite direction: one departs from the given birth data and deduces from them the predicted physiognomic features of the person. However, in 4Q186 the opposite is the case. The deduction of astrological data from bodily features is a very rare one, indeed unattested in the divinatory literature published or discussed until today.89 I suggest that this extraordinary procedure was conceived and developed within the Yahad, based on earlier astrological and physiognomic traditions, due to the special diagnostic needs of the community. It is thus not the fruit of Greek or Babylonian knowledge, but rather a novel creation, somewhat awkward in terms of scientific argumentation, but one that was meant to answer a pressing need in community life.
[☞ p6.55] The knowledge contained in 4Q186 is no longer purely ‘theoretical’ science, as in the Book of Astronomy for example, but rather an application of scientific theories in actual life. Covering a series of various human types, 4Q186 bears the form of a continuous treatise, not of mere sporadic statements within a wide theological context. The scant remains of this scroll suffice to show that it had originally contained a series of diagnosed persons or types of persons, forming as it were a treatise on personalities and their physiognomic traits.
b. Translation, accommodation, language
[☞ p6.56] As I claimed in more detail elsewhere, much can be made from the choice to write 4Q186 in Hebrew, using a certain sort of encryption, all the more so since a similar case is apparent also in the scroll 4Q317 cryptA Phases of the Moon.90 Both scrolls depend to some extent on Aramaic precedents, with a pronounced new thrust in the Hebrew scroll. In addition, both are encrypted, probably in order to render the new text more authoritative, or possibly to limit its circulation to the initiated.91 Translation and encryption are mutually related: the encryption assigned ritual significance to the new text once it was presented in the holy tongue.
[☞ p6.57] Scientific themes were one of the few encrypted genres in the Qumran library. The other genres are wisdom (4Q298), Halakhah (Midrash Sepher Moshe, 4Q249) and community organization (Serekh ha-‘Edah, 4Q249a-i). Why were these themes chosen? This question is part of a large set of questions arising from the corpus of writings in esoteric script at Qumran. These questions were discussed only preliminarily and require a more comprehensive treatment, an urgent desideratum in our field.92
[☞ p6.58] Not all science in the scrolls was ideological and sacred, however. A good case in point is the scroll 4Q318, which is in Aramaic and not encrypted. Precious little information accompanies this scroll: it displays neither a narrative framework as in the scientific treatises of apocalyptic literature, nor a religious-organizational context, as in the sectarian astronomy, astrology and calendar texts. Instead, the remains of this scroll preserve an innocent anthology of astrological lists, divided between a bronotologion (omina based on the appearance of thunder in specific months) and a selendromion (a roster of the place of the moon within the signs of the zodiac).93 Both extant parts of this scroll find parallels in Greek and Babylonian astrological literature. There is little, however, which would connect this scroll with sectarian practice. The fact that it is written in Aramaic and lacks any sectarian terminology—indeed any theological and cultic terminology at all—also speaks against its demarcation as a document of the Yahad. That is to say, it is certainly an intriguing piece of ancient science, and one cannot deny that it was found at Qumran; however, it does not correspond to the patterns employed by the scholars of the Yahad, as exemplified in other scientific themes that were submerged in the literary stream of the community.
[☞ p6.59] In the above mentioned article I suggested that linguistic ideology played a significant part in the scientific efforts of the Yahad.94 In the present context, as a wider discussion of scientific themes in a theological framework is employed, we may note that linguistic ideology played a dominant part in legitimating science among Jews also in the Medieval period. A good example comes from the treatise, Keley Nehoshet by the great medieval astronomer, astrologer and Bible exegete Abraham Ibn Ezra:95
… the holy tongue was the most comprehensive since it was the first among the languages of all nations. But, since the holy people were exiled from their holy land, they intermingled with the other nations, learnt their languages, and so forgot their own language and were only left with the books of the Prophets. But all those words which the Prophets had no need for in their works, do not appear at all in scripture. Therefore it is difficult to create new nouns, that is, to translate them from one language into another.
[☞ p6.60] Like other medieval writers, Ibn Ezra is required to cope with the fact that the dominant science in his days was not Jewish, and that the Jews interested in science were obliged to base themselves on the achievements of gentiles. Moreover, the Hebrew language was ill equipped to deal with the scientific curriculum, lacking proper terminology. Ibn Ezra produced an interesting explanation for this situation: while the Hebrew language knew all the required scientific terminology because it was by definition a perfect language, and because the ancient Hebrews mastered all scientific knowledge, this knowledge perished in the exile. Ibn Ezra‘s task is thus not to invent a new Hebrew scientific vocabulary and a fresh discipline, but rather to reclaim what had been Jewish originally!96
[☞ p6.61] As the finds presented here show, linguistic ideology and the dominance of Hebrew played a part in the Yahad’s ideology which is not too far apart from that of Ibn Ezra.97 The Yahad sought to construct a Jewish scientific corpus in the Hebrew language, based on antecedents which were mostly Aramaic. Several Hebrew terms like dwq ‘waning of the moon’, mwld ‘nativity’, and ʿmwd ‘column in a table’.98 were invented or refashioned for this purpose. The translation of science joins forces with the special importance attributed to the Hebrew language in Qumran texts and related literature. While Aramaic has been the general language of Apocalypticism, the Yahad departed from this tradition, presenting itself as exceeding mere visionary literature.
[☞ p6.62] The intention to supersede previous apocalyptic literature is apparent in one further element of the pattern in which earlier scientific writings were taken over by the scholars of the Yahad. While the ‘I’ of the speaker in the scientific passages of Enoch and Levi was the primordial hero himself, as part of the literary framework of the book, the speaker in Yahad scientific documents is anonymous, just like the authoritative voice in all other sectarian Dead Sea Scrolls.99 There is no longer need of an external figure to legitimize science, as it is considered a legitimate branch of knowledge in and of itself. While science in the Enochic tradition served as part of the eschatological paradigm, within the Yahad it was more tangibly integrated into the sectarian texture of beliefs, and, more importantly, of practices. Astrology, which had been entirely avoided in the Book of Astronomy, was applied in the Yahad as a means for enhancing the diagnostic ability of the Maskil. In a similar way, while the Book of Astronomy was never explicit about the use of its teaching as a cultic calendar, this usage is widely expanded in the sectarian Mishmarot texts.
[☞ p6.63] A central feature of the scientific activity in the Yahad must finally be pointed out: its relative lack of mathematical skills, precise measuring methods, and structured presentation models. As we understand today, Science is not only the ‘content’ in whichever form it appears; rather it is the combination of form and content, as the formal means chosen by the scientific writers play a central part in fashioning their research questions and the entire scientific worldview.100 However relativistic we bring ourselves to be in our judgment of pre-modern science, the fact should be made clear that its practice in the Yahad did not lead to new methods, nor to new observations, greater precision or novel mechanistic models. Scientific theories were used on a schematic level and harnessed to the ideology and practice of the community. The Yahad scholars’ notion of making sense of the world did not consist of accurate measurements and sets of data arranged in neat tables.101 Thus for example, the lunar theory propagated in the Qumran calendars is twice or thrice removed from the Babylonian origins of this discipline: the measurements are not realistic but rather schematic, the system for expressing fractions is far less accurate than the cuneiform demarcation, and the tabular presentation is replaced by continuous prose. The acculturation of science in the Yahad, theologically elaborate as it was, tended to be more schematic than its extra-Israelite ancestors and relied on less accurate means of expression.
[☞ p6.64] An additional manifestation of science at Qumran was not discussed until now: the so-called Qumran Sundial. Admittedly it is much harder to make sense of this find within the present discussion as it does not speak with words but rather with the mute force of an enigmatic object. Found in Locus 45 of Khirbet Qumran, the stone disc is about 14 cm in diameter, marked with an elaborate system of concentric rings and gradual marks, and furnishes a place for a gnomon in its middle. In 1997 the disc was identified as a sundial, with the editio princeps also offering a preliminary explanation for its mode of use and the underlying astronomical theory.102 While the technical aspect of their explanation is insufficient, significant advance was achieved recently in a publication by P. Tavardon.103 The presence of this instrument at Qumran—a sundial that does not resemble any other sundial known from Antiquity—could support the claim for the existence of scientific and technological ability among the Yahad members.
[☞ p6.65] Unfortunately, cogent analysis casts serious doubts on the adequacy of this object as an astronomical measuring device. On the one hand it would have been of little practical use as a sundial, while on the other hand simple and fully functional Roman-type sundials were easily available in Judea at the time. Furthermore, the astronomical skills which would have been required to operate the sundial—if it indeed worked as scholars suggest that it did—do not correspond to the interests of similar devices from the ancient world, and the crude level of production would damage the degree of expected accuracy. In addition, there is meager correspondence between the interests of the calendrical and astronomical texts from Qumran and the data collected by this particular object. Based on these and other difficulties I therefore concluded my article about this disc by expressing doubt whether it 1) was used as a scientific measuring instrument, and 2) how much it could be connected with the Yahad.
[☞ p6.66] If indeed a scientific instrument in sectarian use, despite the incongruence with the calendrical texts, one may suggest that the disc was manufactured for the sake of experiments by a person or persons who were not interested in the convenience of contemporary technology but chose instead to tread a new path, crude as it may be. At the same time that person was keen on making sense of the natural world. Thus, as much as the device seems naïve in terms of the history of technology, it might have been significant for a person who viewed the world through idiosyncratic eyes. This scenario—feeble as it is—epitomizes the scientific activity in the Yahad: driven by a strong motivation to make sense of the world, and having inherited some scientific techniques from previous cosmological traditions, members of the Yahad were free to improvise on scientific themes in an effort to merge them in the religious-apocalyptic fabric of the community.
5. Conclusion
[☞ p6.67] The present study sought to uncover the Ideals of science in the Dead Sea Scrolls community on the background of previous sapiential and apocalyptic thought. After presenting a case study from the integration of astrological and astronomical themes in Yahad literature, the paper aimed to evaluate the epistemological infrastructure to this kind of activity. Three categories were chosen to calibrate the scientific ideals in the scrolls. Although they are by no means exhaustive, they stand as good indicators for the type of scientific reflection that could be expected. They are: a notion of the origin of knowledge in the world; a justification for absorbing and reworking earlier scientific material; and an active integration of the scientific material in religious and social life.
[☞ p6.68] A Long section discusses the epistemology of science in the Enochic tradition, analyzing the narratives from the Book of Watchers and the Book of Astronomy according to the hereby suggested tools. In this tradition, knowledge was dependant on a one-time revelation given to a primordial patriarch. It is legitimized by being threaded into a narrative about that patriarch. Being an ancient tradition, it perpetuates in later generations as students are commanded to contemplate the wisdom of Enoch. However, this epistemological framework does not encourage creative scientific work.
[☞ p6.69] The Yahad, in contrast, engendered more productive conditions for scientific creativity. This stemmed mainly from the paradigm of revelation and the learning processes employed in the Yahad: learners were encouraged to seek renewed revelation in a less hierarchic environment, not only with regard to the study of Torah and prophets, but also with regard to the natural world. Departing from the knowledge transmitted in apocalyptic writings, and encouraged by the cosmological ideology of 4QInstruction, scholars in the Yahad found new paths in astronomy and astrology. Those new paths depended on precedents from the koine of the time, while molding them to fit the needs of the community. The result was a kind of science that may seem awkward in modern eyes but is motivated by the religious-social needs of the community. I support this view by an analysis of 4Q186, which I see as an application of the vague astrological statements in 4QInstruction and in Serekh ha-Yahad. This scholarly endeavor was, in turn, buttressed by a linguistic ideology which sought to anchor the new scholarly achievements in the Hebrew language, while at the same time authorizing some of the texts by means of the code we know as Cryptic A. The enigmatic (sun)dial from Qumran may also fit in this paradigm.
[☞ p6.70] In contrast to the activity of Jewish scientists in the medieval period, which was not inherently Jewish but is better seen as general science practiced by Jews, the science in the Yahad was Jewish in a deeper way. Whoever expected to find in this article the magnificent scientific achievements by Jews two millennia before Einstein, should be slightly disillusioned. What the modern science values as scientific skill was not particularly strong at Qumran. The scrolls do display, however, a lively Jewish scientific discipline, which anticipated the questions of medieval Jewish scientists.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-1] 1 Work for the present article has been supported by the Israel Science Foundation, grant number 527/08. I am very much indebted to Seth Sanders for his illuminating remarks on earlier drafts of this paper.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-2] 2 Y. Tzvi Langermann, “On the Beginnings of Hebrew Scientific Literature and on Studying History through ‘maqbilot’ (parallels)”, Aleph 2 (2002): 169-189. The present article does not deal with the use of the term ‘science’ with regard to the ancient Jewish material. The philosophical justifications for this use are discussed at length in the introduction to the present volume.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-3] 3 For example Jürgen Habermas, “Science and Technology as Ideology,” Towards a Rational Society (trans. Jeremy J. Shapiro; Boston: Beacon, 1971); Pierre Bordieu, “The Forms of Capital,” in Readings in Economic Sociology (ed. N.W. Biggart; Oxford: Blackwell, 2008), 280-291.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-4] 4 Simon Schaffer and Steven Shapin, Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985).
[☞ endnote-chapter6-5] 5 For example, using variegated methodologies: Anthony J. Saldarini, Pharisees, Scribes and Sadducees in Palestinian Society: A Sociological Approach (Edinbourgh: T & T Clark, 1985); Lester L. Grabbe, Priests, Prophets, Diviners, Sages: A Socio-historical Study of Religious Specialists in Ancient Israel (Valley Forge, Pa.: Trinity Press International, 1995); Carol A. Newsom, The Self as Symbolic Space: Constructing Identity and Community at Qumran (STDJ 52; Leiden: Brill 2004).
[☞ endnote-chapter6-6] 6 For the term ‘epistemic authority’ see Arnon Keren, “Epistemic Authority, Testimony and the Transmission of Knowledge,” Episteme: A Journal of Social Epistemology 4 (2008): 368-381.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-7] 7 Amos Funkenstein, Theology and the Scientific Imagination from the Middle Ages to the Seventeenth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1986); David B. Ruderman, Jewish Thought and Scientific Discovery in Early Modern Europe (New Haven and London: Yale University Press 1995). As it turns out, I was unaware that my motivation echoes Funkenstein’s until notified by Micha Perry of Yale University. I am deeply grateful to him for an illuminating remark.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-8] 8 Much of this material was collected in the late 19th or early 20th century by scholars who sought to demonstrate the Jewish mastery of science in ancient times, at least partly for apologetic reasons. The works thus vary significantly in their accuracy and reliability: e.g. Julius Preuss, Biblisch-talmudische Medizin: Beiträge zur Geschichte der Heilkunde und der Kultur überhaupt (Berlin: Karger, 1923); William M. Feldman, Rabbinical Mathematics and Astronomy (New-York: Hermon Press, 1978). More recently see the articles by Kottek, Safrai and Ophir-Shemesh in S. Safrai et al., The Literature of the Sages (CRINT 3/2; Assen: Van Gorcum 2006), 485-520. Reuven Kipperwasser, “Body of the Whore, Body of the Story and Metaphor of the Body” in Introduction to Seder Qodashim: A Feminist Companion on the Babylonian Talmud ed. Tal Ilan et al. (A Feminist Commentary on the Babylonian Talmud; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), 305-319.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-9] 9 One may possibly add medicine to the scientific skills of the Dead Sea Scrolls community. See recently Joan E. Taylor, “Roots, Remedies and Properties of Stones: the Essenes, Qumran and Dead Sea Pharmacology,” JJS 60 (2009): 226-244; Ida Fröhlich, “Medicine and Magic in Genesis Apocryphon. Ideas on Human Conception and its Hindrances,” RQ 25 (2011): 177-198.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-10] 10 The use of this term, as well as any talk on the community that produced the Dead Sea Scrolls, requires a clarification with regard to the basic questions of the identity of the Yahad: does it correspond to the Essenes mentioned in Greek sources? To the community of the Damascus Covenant? Did it reside in the site of Qumran, adjacent to the caves where the scrolls were found? However, the scope of the present discussion does not suffice to give full answer to these questions. I generally subscribe to the Essene theory, as recently modified by John Collins and Alison Schofield: Alison Schofield, From Qumran to the Yahad: A New Paradigm of Textual Development for the Community Rule (Leiden : Brill, 2009); John J. Collins, Beyond the Qumran Community: The Sectarian Movement of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Grand Rapids, Mi.: Eerdmans, 2010). The Yahad is an umbrella term designating various small groups across Palestine of the 1st century BCE-1 century CE, with one representative, possibly an elite group of the Yahad, residing at Qumran. This group produced or at least collected most of the scrolls represented in the caves. It essentially overlaps the group described in the Damascus Document. The entire discussion is necessarily quite limited since most probably the various sects were not clearly departmentalized as we modern scholars expect them to be; see Eyal Regev, Sectarianism in Qumran: a Cross-Cultural Perspective (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2007).
[☞ endnote-chapter6-11] 11 On the molding of earlier traditions in the framework of the Yahad see recently John Collins, “Tradition and innovation in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls. Transmission of Traditions and Production of Texts (eds. S. Metso, H. Najman and E. Schuller; STDJ 92; Leiden: Brill, 2010), 1-23.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-12] 12 Translated by Geza Vermes and Martin Goodman, The Essenes According to the Classical Sources (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1989), 43. Cf. Ronald Bergmeier, Die Essener-Berichte des Flavius Josephus. Quellenstudien zu den Essenertexten im Werk des Jüedischen Historiographen (Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1993), 87, 96-97.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-13] 13 William F. Albright, From the Stone Age to Christianity (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1940); Stephen J. Pfann, “The Writings in Esoteric Script from Qumran” in The Dead Sea Scrolls Fifty Years after their Discovery (eds. L.H. Schiffman and E. Tov; Jerusalem: IES and The Shrine of the Book, 2000), 177-190, 289. See also Jonathan Ben-Dov, Head of All Years: Astronomy and Calendars at Qumran in their Ancient Context (STDJ 78; Leiden: Brill, 2008), 255.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-14] 14 Jonathan Ben-Dov, “Scientific Writings in Aramaic and Hebrew at Qumran: Translation and Concealment” in Aramaica Qumranica: Proceedings of the Conference on the Aramaic Texts from Qumran in Aix-en-Provence 30 June - 2 July 2008 (eds. K. Bertholet and D. Stökl Ben Ezra; STDJ 94; Leiden: Brill, 2010), 379-399, 381-384 with full bibliography.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-15] 15 For an edition of the calendrical texts from Qumran see Shemaryahu Talmon, Jonathan Ben-Dov, and Uwe Glessmer, Qumran Cave 4 XVI. Calendrical Texts (DJD XXI; Oxford, Clarendon Press, 2001).
[☞ endnote-chapter6-16] 16 See Jonathan Ben-Dov, “Lunar Calendars at Qumran? A Comparative and Ideological Study” in Living the Lunar Calendar (eds. J. Ben-Dov, W. Horowitz and J. Steele; Oxford: Oxbow, 2012), 173-189. For the astronomical value of these lists see Jonathan Ben-Dov and Wayne Horowitz, “The Babylonian Lunar Three in Calendrical Scrolls from Qumran,” ZA 95 (2005): 104-120; Ben-Dov, Head of all Years, 197-243.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-17] 17 For 4QInstruction see Eibert J.C Tigchelaar, To Increase Learning for the Understanding Ones : Reading and Reconstructing the Fragmentary Early Jewish Sapiential Text 4QInstruction (STDJ 44; Leiden: Brill, 2001), 247-248; Matthew J. Goff, Discerning Wisdom: The Sapiential Literature of the Dead Sea Scrolls (VTSup 116; Leiden: Brill, 2007), 61-65; Jean-Sébastian Rey, 4QInstruction: sagesse et eschatologie (STDJ 81; Leiden: Brill, 2009), 335. In contrast, Menahem Kister, “Wisdom Literature and its Relation to Other Genres,” in Sapiential Perspectives: Wisdom Literature in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Proceedings of the Sixth International Symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, 20-22 May, 2001 (eds. J.J. Collins, G.E. Sterling and R. Clements; STDJ 51; Leiden: Brill 2004), 13-47 is inclined to view 4QInstruction as closer to the writings of the Qumran community, and so is Bilhah Nitzan, “Key Terms in 4QInstruction: Implications for Its Ideological Unity,” Meghillot 3 (2005): 120-121 (in Hebrew).
[☞ endnote-chapter6-18] 18 Nitzan, “Key Terms in 4QInstruction,” 105-106 points out the difference between different compositions in this respect: while the Book of Mysteries (1Q27, 4Q299, 4Q300) discusses the fate of all nations, the contexts in 4QInstruction are oriented towards individual fate.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-19] 19 Torleif Elgvin, quoted by Kister, “Wisdom Literature,” 31. In terms of verbal tenses, the participle of hyh in this phrase connotes the aspect of an unfinished act: the mystery that becomes. See the cogent analysis in Matthew J. Goff, The Worldly and Heavenly Wisdom of 4QInstruction (STDJ 50; Leiden: Brill 2003), 51-79 with earlier literature adduced there. Goff chose the translation “the mystery that is to be,” and Kister: “secret (or: mystery) of (things) to come” (Kister, “Wisdom Literature,” 31), based on similar formulations in Ben Sira 42:19, 48:25. In contrast, Rey, 4QInstruction, 284-292 stresses the ambiguity of the participle niphal, and demonstrates how both past and future aspects are produced by this participle in various contexts. In order to bypass this ambiguity he prefers a nominal form “le mystere de l’existence,” despite the fact that the rigidity of the nominal form misses the dynamics of the participle (Rey, 4QInstruction, 292 n.44). For the esoteric message of the word רז see Samuel I. Thomas, The “Mysteries” of Qumran: Mystery, Secrecy, and Esotericism in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Atlanta: SBL, 2009).
[☞ endnote-chapter6-20] 20 For a deduction of the raz from the observation of history and nature see 4Q471 i 1-13 (with parallels in 4Q418 and 4Q418a; see Tigchelaar, To Increase Learning, 52; and more generally Kister, “Wisdom Literature,” 29-35). Lange claimed that the raz is to be found in writing, within the mysterious ספר ההגו and ספר זכרון, basing himself on the statements in 4Q417 1 i 14-18 and on reverberations of the verb חרת: see Armin Lange, Weisheit und Prädestination: weisheitliche Urordnung und Prädestination in den Textfunden von Qumran (STDJ 18; Leiden: Brill, 1995), 19. Lange sees the entire section in 4Q417 1 i as a continuous statement on the nature of the raz. However, the section mentioning the written books (4Q417 1 i 13-18) is clearly separated from the neighboring sections by the headings ואתה (בן) מבין (lines 13 and 18), as well as by a vacat in line 18. This section does not mention רז נהיה at all, and is thus not a direct sequence to the previous section.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-21] 21 For מולד as an astrological technical term see Matthew Morgenstern, “The Meaning of בית מולדים in the Qumran Wisdom Texts,” JJS 51 (2000): 141-144. It should be noted, however, with Tigchelaar, To Increase Learning, 238, that not every mention of מולד in Yahad literature should be automatically associated with astrology, since some contexts clearly defy this meaning. The following discussion will dwell on several such contexts.It should also be noted that it is not clear whether the cognate terms in Syriac and Mandaic quoted by Morgenstern reflect the exact meaning of Greek horoskopos (see below). Rather, I suspect that they reflect the less-specific meaning ‘nativity’, which is astrological nonetheless but not rigorously technical. I thank Alexander Jones for pointing out this matter to me.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-22] 22 Joseph M. Baumgarten, “Qumranic and Astrological Terminology in Musar leMevin,” Tarbiz 72 (2003): 321-328 (in Hebrew); Kister, “Wisdom Literature,” Cp. Goff, Discerning Wisdom, 24, 81.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-23] 23 Kister, “Wisdom Literature,” 28 connects this passage with the debate on the origins of astronomy and the divinatory arts – between good wisdom and illicit knowledge. See also below. Kister reads לפ[נינו while Schiffman in DJD 20: 41-42 reconstructs לפ[ניהם; see Kister, “Wisdom Literature,” 28 n. 71.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-24] 24 Hebrew transcriptions of 4QInstruction follow Tigchelaar, To Increase Learning, 47, 55. The reconstructed portions are practically certain based on parallels in other copies of 4QInstruction. English translations are mine.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-25] 25 See TDNT s.v. κλῆρος, κληρονομία, III: 760-764, 779-785; further Nitzan, “Key Terms in 4QInstruction,” 109-120. Nitzan, however, does not dwell on the astrological aspects of this word. I believe that the growing frequency of this word in wisdom writings from the Second Temple period (Tigchelaar, To Increase Learning, 239) is connected with the growing awareness to questions of pre-destination and free will.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-26] 26 Baumgarten, “Qumranic and Astrological Terminology,” 324.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-27] 27 Kister, “Wisdom Literature,” 45. Kister further connects this passage with other apocalyptic passages in which a cosmological section introduces an eschatological admonition: 1 Enoch 2-5 as well as the introduction to 4QInstruction, as reconstructed by Tigchelaar, To Increase Learning, 175-193, and discussed further by Rey, 4QInstruction, 228-276. For the role of Laws of Nature in apocalyptic admonitions see Lars Hartman, Asking for a Meaning. A Study of 1 Enoch 1-5 (CB.NT 12; Lund: Gleerup, 1979); Michael E. Stone, “The Parabolic Use of Natural Order in Judaism of the Second Temple Age,” in Gilgul. Festschrift R.J.Z. Wervlowsky (Numen Supplement 50; eds. S. Shaked, D. Shulman and G.G. Stroumsa; Leiden: Brill, 1987), 298-308.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-28] 28 On horoscopes see Otto Neugebauer, and Henry B. van Hoesen, Greek Horoscopes (MAPS; Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1959); Alexander Jones, Astronomical Papyri from Oxyrhynchus: (P. Oxy. 4133-4300a) (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1999), 10-11; Matthias Albani, “Horoscopes in the Qumran Scrolls,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls after Fifty Years: a Comprehensive Assessment (eds. J.C. VanderKam and P.W. Flint; Leiden: Brill, 1999), 280-282. The so-called ‘Babylonian Horoscopes’ in Francesca Rochberg, Babylonian Horoscopes (TAPS 88; Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1998) do not correspond with this form either, but they are closer to the Greek format in that they indicate a full set of stellar and planetary positions at a given time for one specific person. It is important to note that not one planet or star is mentioned by name in the DSS outside the zodiac names in 4Q318 and 4Q186.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-29] 29 For the stoic encounter with astrology see the old but still valuable survey by Franz V.M. Cumont, Astrology and Religion among the Greeks and Romans (New York: GP Putnam, 1912). For a preliminary comparison of the determinism in Qumran wisdom with Stoicism see Martin Hengel, “Qumran and Hellenism,” in Religion in the Dead Sea Scrolls (eds. J.J. Collins and R. Kugler; Grand Rapids, Mi.: Eerdmans, 2000), 46-56; Corrado Martone, “Qumran and Stoicism: An Analysis of some Common Traits,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls Fifty Years after their Discovery 1947-1997 (eds. L.H. Schiffman, E. Tov and J.C. VanderKam; Jerusalem: IES and the Shrine of the Book, 2000), 617-622; further David Flusser, Judaism of the Second Temple Period. Volume 1: Qumran and Apocalypticism (Grand Rapids, Mi.; Jerusalem; Eerdmans: Hebrew University of Jerusalem / Jerusalem Perspective, 2007), 114-139. I consider some parallel notions between Stoicism and Qumran sectarian thought to be a fruitful field for future study.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-30] 30 Translation follows partly that of Elisha Qimron and James H. Charlesworth, “Rule of the Community (1QS)”, in Rule of the Community and Related Documents (ed. J.H. Charlesworth; SSHAGT 1; Tübingen / Louisville: Mohr Siebeck / John Knox, 1994), 15. The latter part follows the translation by Knibb, quoted ibid. note 61.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-31] 31 See detailed bibliography in Mladen Popović, Reading the Human Body: Physiognomics and Astrology in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Hellenistic-Early Roman Period Judaism (STDJ 67; Leiden: Brill, 2007), 180 n. 29.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-32] 32 Baumgarten, “Qumranic and Astrological Terminology,” 325; Philip S. Alexander, “Physiognomy, Initiation and Rank in the Qumran Community,” in Geschichte-Tradition-Reflexion: Festschrift für Martin Hengel zum 70. Geburtstag (ed. P. Schaefer; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1996), 385-394. Popović is reluctant to accept this use of astrology in the Yahad, as he considers the text 4Q186 to have been written outside the sectarian context; however, he concedes that at some stage 4Q186 was indeed used in a sectarian context: see Popović, Reading the Human Body, 237-239.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-33] 33 Translation follows Joseph M. Baumgarten & Daniel R. Schwartz, “Damascus Document (CD)”, in Damascus Document, War Scroll, and Related Documents (ed. J.H. Charlesworth; DSSHAGT 2; Tübingen / Louisville, Mohr Siebeck / John Knox, 1995), 55.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-34] 34 John J. Collins, “Cosmos and Salvation: Jewish Wisdom and Apocalyptic in the Hellenistic Age,” HR 17 (1977): 121-142; Hartman, Asking for a Meaning; Stone, “The Parabolic Use of Natural Order” ; idem, “Lists of Revealed Things in the Apocalyptic Literature,” in Magnalia Dei - the Mighty Acts of God; Essays on the Bible and Archaeology in Memory of G. Ernest Wright, (eds. F.M. Cross, W.E. Lemke and P.D. Miller; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976), 414-452. More recently Klaus Koch, “The Astral Laws as the Basis of Time, Universal History, and the Eschatological Turn in the Astronomical Book and the Animal Apocalypse of 1 Enoch,” in The Early Enoch Literature (eds. G. Boccaccini and J.J. Collins; JSJSup 121; Leiden: Brill, 2007), 119-137.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-35] 35 Despite the assertions in 3:19-21, Ben-Sira does elsewhere treat revelation as his source of inspiration and knowledge. In addition, it seems that Ben Sira and Enoch are not too far apart, and probably belonged to the same circles in terms of their encyclopedic knowledge and interest in cosmology; see Annette Y. Reed, Fallen Angels and the History of Judaism and Christianity: The Reception of Enochic Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 43-44; Benjamin G. Wright, “1 Enoch and Ben-Sirah: Wisdom and Apocalypticism in Relationship,” in The Early Enoch Literature, (eds. G. Boccaccini and J.J. Collins; JSJSup 121; Leiden: Brill 2007), 159-176. Contra Randal A. Argall, 1 Enoch and Sirach: A Comparative and Conceptual Analysis of the Themes of Revelation, Creation, and Judgment (Atlanta, Scholars Press, 1995), 74-76.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-36] 36 John J. Collins, “The Reinterpretation of Apocalyptic Traditions in the Wisdom of Solomon,” in Jewish Cult and Hellenistic Culture. Essays on the Jewish Encounter with Hellenism and Roman Rule (JSJSup 100; Leiden: Brill, 2005), 153-157, 158-180 (with earlier proponents of the same opinion quoted there) considers the Wisdom of Solomon to be the product of apocalyptic influence. Compare the different opinion by Reed, in the present volume.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-37] 37 One should note, therefore, that the interest in scientific themes is an apocalyptic feature which continued—albeit with some modification—in Yahad ideology. This feature remains unnoted in the survey by John J. Collins, Apocalypticism in the Dead Sea Scrolls (London and New York: Routledge, 1997), even in the section titled “The heavenly World” (pp. 130-149). For the transformation of scientific theories as modifications rather than revolutions see Funkenstein, Theology and the Scientific Imagination, 12-18.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-38] 38 Funkenstein, Theology and the Scientific Imagination, quotations from pp. 18, 21.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-39] 39 A. Kleingünther, PROTOS EURETES: Untersuchungen zur Geschichte einer Fragestellung (Leipzig: Dietrich, 1933).
[☞ endnote-chapter6-40] 40 See e.g. Dimitri Gutas, Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early ‘Abbāsid Society (2nd-4th/8th-10th Centuries), (London: Routledge, 1998); Kevin T. van Bladel, The Arabic Hermes: from Pagan Sage to Prophet of Science (Oxford and New-York: Oxford University Press, 2009).
[☞ endnote-chapter6-41] 41 See e.g. Simo Parpola, “Mesopotamian Astrology and Astronomy as Domains of the Mesopotamian ‘Wisdom’,” in Die Rolle der Astronomie in den Kulturen Mesopotamiens (ed. H.D. Galter; Grazer morgenländlische Studien 3; Graz: GrazKult, 1993); Maren Niehoff, “Inscribing Jewish Culture into Nature,” Philo on Jewish Identity and Culture (TSAJ 86; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001), 241-266.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-42] 42 For the early Jewish apocalyptic tradition see John J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature (Grand Rapids, Mi.: Eerdmans, 1998); James C. VanderKam, From Revelation to Canon: Studies in the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Literature (Leiden: Brill 2002); Andreas Bedenbender, Der Gott der Welt tritt auf dem Sinai. Enstehung, Entwicklung und Funktionsweise der frühjüdischen Apokalyptik (ANTZ 8; Berlin: Institut Kirche und Judentum, 2000). For the early Enoch literature see James C. VanderKam, Enoch and the Growth of an Apocalyptic Tradition (CBQMS 16; Washington D.C.: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1983); Gabriele Boccaccini and John J. Collins (eds.), The Early Enoch Literature (JSJSup 121; Leiden: Brill, 2007). For the origins of Levi literature see Michael E. Stone, “Enoch, Aramaic Levi and Sectarian Origins,” JSJ 19 (1988): 159-170; Robert Kugler, From Patriarch to Priest: The Levi-Priestly Tradition from Aramaic Levi to Testament of Levi (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996); Henryk Drawnel, An Aramaic Wisdom Text from Qumran: a New Interpretation of the Levi Document (JSJSup 86; Leiden: Brill, 2004).
[☞ endnote-chapter6-43] 43 On the motivation of the urge to study primordial history see Ed Greenstein, “The Retelling of the Flood Story in the Gilgamesh Epic,” in Hesed Ve-Emet: Studies in Honor of Ernst S. Frerichs (eds. J. Magness and S. Gitin; BJS 320; Atlanta: Scholars Press), 197-204; and quite differently John van Seters, Prologue to History: The Yahwist as Historian in Genesis (Westminster: John Knox Press, 1992).
[☞ endnote-chapter6-44] 44 For the incorporation of the Book of Astronomy in the Enoch tradition see George W. E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001), 21-26; Koch, “The Astral Laws”. Much of the reasoning should change according to the finds in R.D. Chesnutt, “Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 2069 and the Compositional History of 1 Enoch,” JBL 129 (2010): 485-505. Apparently we now have a Greek copy of the Book of Astronomy which is embedded with other Enochic compositions.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-45] 45 On the traditions of the Fallen Angels see: Devorah Dimant, “The Fallen Angels” in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the Apocryphal and Pseuepigraphic Books Related to them (Dissertation, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1974) in Hebrew; George W.E. Nickelsburg, “Apocalyptic and Myth in 1 Enoch 6-11,” JBL (1977): 383-405; C. Auffarth and L.T. Stuckenbruck, The Fall of the Angels (TBN 6; Leiden: Brill, 2004); Archie T. Wright, The Origin of Evil Spirits: The Reception of Genesis 6.1-4 in Early Jewish Literature (WUNT n.s. 198; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005); Reed, Fallen Angels; Veronika Bachmann, Die Welt im Ausnahmezustand: eine Untersuchung zu Aussagegehalt und Theologie des Wächterbuches (1 Hen 1-36), (BZAW 409; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2009).
[☞ endnote-chapter6-46] 46 Translation follows Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-47] 47 The contradiction between the positions of BW and AB is apparent in the present literary content of 1 Enoch, less so in earlier manifestations of the anthology of Enochic booklets, where it was not clear that AB and BW belong to the same collection. However, the contradiction was evidently conceived by the author of Jubilees, who produced the image of Enoch in 4:17-21 based on his knowledge of previous Enochic traditions, while also being sensitive to questions on the origin of knowledge. See Michael A. Knibb, “Which Parts of 1 Enoch Were Known to Jubilees? A Note on the Interpretation of Jubilees 4.16-25,” in Reading from Right to Left: Essays on the Hebrew Bible in Honour of David J.A. Clines (eds. J.C. Exum and H.G.M. Williamson; JSOTSup 373; Sheffield: Academic Press, 2003), 254-262; John S. Bergsma, “The Relationship between Jubilees and the Early Enochic Books (Astronomical Book and Book of Watchers)”, in Enoch and the Mosaic Torah: The Evidence of Jubilees (eds. G. Boccaccini and G. Ibba; Grand Rapids, Mi.: Eerdmans, 2009), 36-51.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-48] 48 Dimant, Fallen Angels, 52-65; Nickelsburg, “Apocalyptic and Myth”; Carol A. Newsom, “The Development of Enoch 6-19: Cosmology and Judgment,” CBQ 42 (1980): 310-329; Reed, Fallen Angels, 27-44; Helge Kvanvig, Primeval History: Babylonian, Biblical, and Enochic. An Intertextual Reading (JSJSup 149; Leiden: Brill, 2011), 453-469; Henryk Drawnel, The Aramaic Astronomical Book from Qumran: Text, Translation, and Commentary (Oxford and New-York: Oxford University Press), 53-70. Dimant, Nickelsburg and Newsom describe the Book of Watchers as an accretion of two or three different traditions, as accepted also by Michael Segal, The Book of Jubilees: Rewritten Bible, Redaction, Ideology and Theology (JSJSup 117; Leiden: Brill, 2007). More recently, Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 171-172 speaks of “a series of expansions, elaborations or accretions”.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-49] 49 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 171.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-50] 50 Drawnel, Aramaic Astronomical Book, 53-70.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-51] 51 Michaël Langlois, Le premier manuscrit du livre d’Hénoch: Étude épigraphique et philologique des fragments araméens de 4Q201 à Qumrân (Paris: Cerf, 2008), 259.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-52] 52 Matthias Albani, Astronomie und Schöpfungsglaube: Untersuchungen zum astronomischen Henochbuch (WMANT 68; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1994), 335-344; Reimund Leicht, Astrologumena Judaica: Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der astrologischen Literatur der Juden (TSMJ 21; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 28-35; contra Christfried Böttrich, “Astrologie in der Henochtradition,” ZAW 109 (1997): 222-245.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-53] 53 Alexander, “Enoch and the Beginnings of Jewish Interest in Natural Science,” in the present volume. See the criticism by VanderKam, in the present volume.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-54] 54 For the Greek hypothesis see David Suter, “Fallen Angel, Fallen Priest: The Problem of Family Purity in 1 Enoch 6-16,” HUCA 50 (1979): 115-135. For the Mesopotamian option see Drawnel, Aramaic Astronomical Book, 54-73; cp. Kvanvig, Primeval History, 453-469; Amar Annus, “On the Origin of Watchers: A Comparative Study of the Antediluvian Wisdom in Mesopotamian and Jewish Traditions,” JSP 19 (2010): 290-291. Although the work by Annus presents a bounty of sources and connections, their application to the Jewish and Aramaic traditions should be taken with a grain of salt.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-55] 55 See Alan Lenzi, “Secrecy, Textual Legitimation, and Intercultural Polemics in the Book of Daniel,” CBQ 71 (2008): 330-348. As well as the article by Sanders in the present volume.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-56] 56 Newsom, The Self as Symbolic Space, 49; Jonathan Ben-Dov, “Hebrew and Aramaic Writing in the Pseudepigrapha and the Qumran Scrolls: The Ancient Near Eastern Background and the Quest for a Written Authority,” Tarbiz 78 (2009): 27-60, here 38-49 (in Hebrew).
[☞ endnote-chapter6-57] 57 See for example Anthony Green, “Beneficent Spirits and Malevolent Demons: The Iconography of Good and Evil in Ancient Assyria and Babylonia,” in Popular Religion, Visible Religion 3 (ed. H.G. Kippenberg; Leiden: Brill, 1984), 80-105; Franz A.M. Wiggermann, Mesopotamian Protective Spirits: the Ritual Texts (CM 1; Groningen: STYX, 1992); Karen Sonik, Daimon-Haunted Universe: Conceptions of the Supernatural in Mesopotamia (Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 2010), 47-74.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-58] 58 Annus, “On the Origins of Watchers”; Kvanvig, Primeval History, 107-158.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-59] 59 As Dr. Romina Vergari (Perugia and Haifa) kindly informs me, the word ἄφρενον is derived from α-φρην, i.e “without heart/mind/sense” (cp. Xenophon, Mem 1,4,4 εἴδωλα ἄφρονά ‘senseless statue’). I see little justification for the translation in P. Schnabel, Berossos und die babylonisch-hellenistische Literatur (Leipzig: Teubner, 1923), 253 “ein furchtbares Untier”; as well as Gerald Verbrugghe and John M. Wickersham, Berossos and Manetho, Introduced and Translated: Native Traditions in Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996), 44 “a frightening monster”.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-60] 60 Quoted from Kvanvig, Primeval History, 108-109, cf. Annus, “On the Origins of Watchers,” 297-298. The main problem arising from this passage is the apparent ambiguity, even contradiction, between the image of the apkallū as mythological figures in ritual and their appearance as living human beings in scholarly texts; on this problem see the debate between Sanders and Lenzi apud Alan Lenzi, Secrecy and the Gods: Secret Knowledge in Ancient Mesopotamia and Biblical Israel (SAAS 19; Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 2008), 108-113.The recurrent invocation of apkallū and use of their images in magical and apotropaic contexts suggests, according to Annus, that these primordial figures have a certain demonological dimension. However, as Seth Sanders kindly informs me, this claim is going too far, since obviously the apkallū are called to scare away the demons, not to help them (Utukkū lemnūtu 7:109; Mark J. Geller, Evil Demons: Canonical Utukkū Lemnūtu Incantations [SAACT 5; Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 2007], 140, 223.)
[☞ endnote-chapter6-61] 61 Andrew R. George, Babylonian Literary Texts in the Schøyen Collection (Bethesda, MD: CDL Press, 2009), 110; cf. the review of this work by Alan Lenzi, RBL 01/2011.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-62] 62 Fritz Graf, “Mythical Production: Aspects of Myth and Technology in Antiquity,” in From Myth to Reason? Studies in the Development of Greek Thought (ed. R. Buxton; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 317-328. The ambiguity of astral divination and other arcane knowledge is most apparent in the Book of Zohar; see Yehuda Liebes, The Cult of the Dawn. The Attitude of the Zohar towards Idolatry (Jerusalem: Carmel, 2011, in Hebrew).
[☞ endnote-chapter6-63] 63 Mladen Popović, “Physiognomic Knowledge in Qumran and Babylonia: Form, Interdisciplinarity, and Secrecy,” DSD 13 (2006): 150-176. Lenzi, Secrecy and the Gods. For secrecy in earlier cuneiform tradition see Joan Goodnick-Westenholz, “Thoughts on Esoteric Knowledge and Secret Lore,” in Intellectual Life of the Ancient Near East: Papers Presented at the 43rd Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Prague, July 1-5, 1996 (Prague: Oriental Institute, 1998), 451-462.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-64] 64 See Reed, in this volume.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-65] 65 Dimant, Fallen Angels, 180-181; Graf, “Mythical Production,” 321-322; Reed, Fallen Angels, 160-189.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-66] 66 Curiously, Jubilees and other authors assign the transmission of primordial knowledge to the sons of Seth. See Albertus F.J. Klijn, Seth in Jewish, Christian and Gnostic Literature (NovTSup46; Leiden: Brill, 1977); Andrei A. Orlov, “Overshadowed by Enoch’s Greatness: ‘Two Tablets’ Traditions from the Book of Giants to Paleia Historica,” JSJ 32 (2001): 137-158.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-67] 67 Examples from divination: JoAnn Scurlock and Farouq N.H. Al-Rawi, “A Weakness for Hellenism,” in If a Man Builds a Joyful House. Assyriological Studies in Honor of Erle Verdun Leichty (ed. A.K. Guinan; CM 31; Leiden: Brill, 2006), 357-382; JoAnn Scurlock, “Sorcery in the Stars: STT 300, BRM 4.19-20 and the Mandaic Book of the Zodiac,” AfO 51 (2006): 125-146. It was claimed that two late cuneiform texts dealing with shadow length, or, more likely, manuals for the constructions of sundials, are written using Greek methods: Francesca Rochberg-Halton, “Babylonian Seasonal Hours,” Centaurus 32 (1989): 146-170.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-68] 68 Gerorge H. van Kooten, “Enoch, the ‘Watchers’, Seth’s Descendants and Abraham as Astronomer. Jewish Applications of the Greek motif of the First Inventor (300 BCE - CE 100)”, in Recycling Biblical Figures: Papers Read at a NOSTER Colloquium in Amsterdam 12-13 May 1997 (eds. J.W. van Henten and A. Brenner; Leiderdorp: Deo Publishing, 1999), 292-316; Annette Y. Reed, “Abraham as Chaldean Scientist and Father of the Jews: Josephus, Ant. 1.154-168, and the Greco-Roman Discourse about Astronomy/Astrology,” JSJ 35 (2004): 119-158.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-69] 69 For the changing perspectives of the Enoch tradition in the Hellenistic period see Annette Y. Reed, “The Origins of the Book of the Watchers as ‘Apocalypse’ and its Reception as ‘Apocrypha,’” Henoch 30 (2008): 55-59.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-70] 70 See Ben-Dov, “Scientific Writings,” 397-398. This revealed knowledge may be transmitted either by means of a chain of ancient books or by oral transmission of a primordial revelation; see Eibert J.C. Tigchelaar, “Aramaic Texts from Qumran and the Authoritativeness of Hebrew Scriptures: Preliminary Observations,” in Authoritative Scriptures in Ancient Judaism (ed. M. Popović; JSJSup 141; Leiden: Brill, 2010), 170-171.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-71] 71 See the contributions of Popović and Yoshiko Reed in this volume.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-72] 72 Drawnel, Aramaic Astronomical Book; idem, “Moon Computation in the Aramaic Astronomical Book,” RQ 23 (2007): 3-41; Ben-Dov, Head of all Years, 169-174, 189-192.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-73] 73 This strategy is characteristic of the Aramaic texts, including the Genesis Apocryphon; see Ben-Dov, “Hebrew and Aramaic Writing in the Pseudepigrapha and the Qumran Scrolls”; Tigchelaar, “Aramaic Texts from Qumran.”
[☞ endnote-chapter6-74] 74 For the biblical unity of nature and law see Hans H. Schmid, Gerechtigkeit als Weltordnung: Hintergrund und Geschichte der alttestamentlichen Gerechtigkeitsbegriffes (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1968). VanderKam, in his article in the present volume, stresses the incompatibility of chapter 80 with the main bulk of AB with regard to the stability of the laws of nature: the possibility that Nature will be disrupted contradicts the regularity of Nature according to the rest of AB. However, I do not find this difference compelling. On the contrary, the schematic and highly idealized character of Enochic science necessarily requires explanations for the discrepancy between these schemes and the less regular nature. The gap between the regularity of nature at Creation and the corruptness of the present-day world is built into the apocalyptic worldview and explains ideas such as “the New Creation,” so prevalent in apocalyptic writings (1 Enoch 72:5, Jub 1:29 etc.). Such a concept is reflected to a certain extent in Mesopotamian texts like the literary framework to the lunar section of Enūma Anu Enlil; see Ben-Dov, Head of all Years, 205-207, and previous literature cited there. There are other grounds why chapter 80 is not part of the original AB, but the above mentioned theological argument does not rule the case entirely.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-75] 75 Translation follows Devorah Dimant, “Time, Torah and Prophecy at Qumran,” in Religiöse Philosophie und philosophische Religion der frühen Kaiserzeit (eds. R. Hirsch-Luipold, H. Goergemanns and M. von Albrecht; STAC 51; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 155-156.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-76] 76 Dimant, “Time, Torah and Prophecy,” 156. While this aspect was already noted by Lawrence H. Schiffman, The Halakhah at Qumran (Leiden: Brill, 1975), 33-36 and earlier studies, Dimant made a great step forward by shedding light on this concept as part of a comprehensive conception of history within the Yahad. The passage was discussed recently also by Jassen, who suggests important distinctions between the notion of progressive revelation in the study of Torah (1QS IX) and the study of Prophecy (1QS VIII). Jassen presents a fuller discussion of the variants to this section in the parallel copy 4QSe in Alex P. Jassen, Mediating the Divine: Prophecy and Revelation in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Second Temple Judaism (STDJ 68; Leiden: Brill, 2007), 338-342.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-77] 77 Dimant, “Time, Torah and Prophecy,” 152.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-78] 78 Translation follows DSSEL with my corrections.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-79] 79 See also Albert I. Baumgarten, “Information Processing in Ancient Jewish Groups,” in Sectarianism in Early Judaism: Sociological Advances (ed. D.J. Chalcraft; London: Equinox, 2007), 246-255. The DSSEL translation understands the term האיש הדורש as “The Interpreter,” referring to one specific interpreter in the past, as in the figure of דורש התורה in CD. However, the term איש דורש is never applied to that past figure, but rather refers to a layman, as is suggested in my translation. This understanding is also shared by Eyal Regev, “Between Two Sects: Differentiating the Yahad and the Damascus Covenant,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Texts and Context (ed. C. Hempel; STDJ 90; Leiden: Brill, 2010), 437 n.21; cp. idem, “The Yahad and the Damascus Covenant: Structure, Organization and Relationship,” RQ 21 (2003): 233-262.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-80] 80 The progressive revelation and the learning procedures have been causes for disagreement among scholars lately. Regev in a series of articles suggested that while both traits are characteristic of the Yahad, they are not characteristic of the community described in the Damascus Document. This latter community, says Regev, denied the possibility of progressive revelation and imposed a strict hierarchic order on its learning members. However, most scholars view the progressive revelation of the D community as equivalent to the Yahad based on such statements as CD XII, 20-22 (Dimant, “Time, Torah and Prophecy,” 159), as well as XV, 10 אל הנמצא לעשות בכל קץ קרבו ‘that which is found to be done at any period of time in which he approaches (the community)’ (Menahem Kister, private communication). The question of the availability of revelation to laymen is not directly addressed in D, and thus remains to be decided on the basis of Regev’s other evidence. Generally speaking, Regev’s distinction between the D community and the S community gained only partial support: according to Collins, Beyond the Qumran community, 48-65 the differences are not compelling enough to consider them two separate communities. For the present discussion I limit myself to the Yahad without a clear conviction on the D community.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-81] 81 Martin Hengel, “Qumran and Hellenism,” 51-55 sees the “intellectual” atmosphere of the Yahad (which he detects in other quotes and examples) as the product of a Hellenistic mode of thought. While Hellenism is indeed a possible source, other factors may also be suggested too from within the Jewish tradition.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-82] 82 Translation from Qimron and Charlesworth, “Rule of the Community (1QS)”, 41 with minor variations.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-83] 83 See note 31 above.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-84] 84 This was first noted by Albani in 1993, conveniently approached in Albani, “Horoscopes,” 305-309, and maintained by Popović, Reading the Human Body, 164-171, and Leicht, Astrologoumena Judaica, 24-28. A different interpretation was given by Francis Schmidt, “Astrologie juive ancienne: Essai d’interprétation de 4QCryptique (4Q186)” RQ 18 (1997): 125-141. Popović surveys earlier literature and supplies numerous new insights into the zodiacal astrology employed in this text. See also below.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-85] 85 See Popović, Reading the Human Body, 125 and the rich bibliography cited there.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-86] 86 This conclusion stands in contrast to an old supposition by Michael Stone. Stone claimed that the Book of Astronomy used old fashioned Mesopotamian science as an act of resistance to the force of the new and contemporary Greek science: Stone, “Enoch, Aramaic Levi and Sectarian Origins.” While this notion is possible with regard to the Enochic science, it is not valid with regard to the activity of the Yahad. Cp. also Popović, Reading the Human Body, 223.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-87] 87 Popović, Reading the Human Body, 227-230.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-88] 88 Text from Popović, Reading the Human Body, 29. The translation follows Popović with several corrections. Naturally not all the peculiarities of this text can be explained here. For “the Second Column” see below, note 101.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-89] 89 Popović, Reading the Human Body, 112-118.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-90] 90 Ben-Dov, “Scientific Writings in Aramaic and Hebrew.” In that article I discussed the possibility that 4Q186 constitutes a translation—or possibly translation and revision—of the Aramaic scroll 4Q561 Horoscope. This question relies upon the more fundamental question whether at all there are astrological elements in 4Q561, or rather it relates to physiognomy only. Popović denies the presence of astrological elements in 4Q561, seeing it as a purely physiognomic treatise: Popović, Reading the Human Body, 54-55. Puech (DJD 37: 304), however, detected an astrological element in the (partly or fully reconstructed) term (רוח 4Q561 3 9; 6 2-4), connecting it with the similar usage in 4Q186. With Popović I consider the presence of astrological elements in 4Q561 unlikely; see also his response in Mladen Popović, “The Emergence of Aramaic and Hebrew Scholarly Texts: Transmission and Translation of Alien Wisdom,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Transmission of Tradition and Production of Texts (eds. S. Metso, H. Najman and E. Schuller; STDJ 92; Leiden: Brill, 2010), 100-104.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-91] 91 Compare the practice of writing cryptic texts in Hieratic papyri from Egypt: Jacco Dieleman, Priests, Tongues, and Rites: The London-Leiden Magical Manuscripts and Translation in Egyptian Ritual (100-300 CE), (Leiden: Brill 2005), 80-87.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-92] 92 See Pfann, “Writings in Esoteric Script”; idem, The Character of the Early Essene Movement in the Light of the Manuscripts Written in Esoteric Scripts from Qumran (Dissertation, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2001); Thomas, The Mysteries. Alan Lenzi tried, to no avail, to explain why some Mesopotamian scholarly texts are marked as secret while others or not, but produced extremely helpful statistics and illuminating reasoning: Lenzi, Secrecy, 204-219.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-93] 93 Jonas C. Greenfield, Michael Sokoloff, and David Pingree, “318. 4QZodiology and Brontology ar,” in Qumran Cave 4 XXVI. Cryptic Texts and Miscellanea, Part 1 (eds. S.J. Pfann, P.S. Alexander et al.; DJD 36; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000), 259-274; Albani, “Horoscopes,” 296-301; Mark J. Geller, “New Documents from the Dead Sea: Babylonian Science in Aramaic,” in Boundaries of the Ancient Near Eastern World: a Tribute to Cyrus H. Gordon (eds. M. Lubetski, C. Gottlieb and S. Keller; JSOTSup 273; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 224-229; Ben-Dov, Head of all Years, 256-257; Helen R. Jacobus, “4Q318: A Jewish Zodiac Calendar at Qumran?,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Texts and Context (ed. C. Hempel; Leiden: Brill, 2010), 365-395.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-94] 94 Ben-Dov, “Scientific Writings”. Puech made a similar statement in DJD 37, 305.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-95] 95 Translation follows Shlomo Sela, Abraham Ibn Ezra and the Rise of Medieval Hebrew Science (Brill’s Series in Jewish Studies 32; Leiden: Brill, 2003), 105. For further examples and a penetrating analysis of linguistic ideology in scientific writings see Sela, ibid., 93-143.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-96] 96 See in much detail Sela, Abraham Ibn Ezra .
[☞ endnote-chapter6-97] 97 For the contents of this paragraph see in greater detail Ben-Dov, “Hebrew and Aramaic Writing.”
[☞ endnote-chapter6-98] 98 For the latter see below, note 101.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-99] 99 Popović, “The Emergence,” 91-93, 97-99. See F. García-Martínez, “Beyond the Sectarian Divide: The ‘Voice of the Teacher’ as an Authority-Conferring Strategy in Some Qumran Texts,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Transmission of Traditions and Production of Texts (eds. S. Metso, H. Najman and E. Schuller; STDJ 92; Leiden: Brill, 2010), 227-244.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-100] 100 See mainly Karine Chemla (ed.), History of Science, History of Text (Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 238; Dordrecht: Springer, 2004).
[☞ endnote-chapter6-101] 101 One reference to tables remains in the Qumran scientific texts: the term העמוד השני (4Q186 1 ii 6; 4 1; 6 2), which refers in my opinion to the second column of an astrological-astronomical table. The term עמוד is comparable to Greek σελίς, ‘cross-beam in ceiling construction’ but also ‘column of writing in a papyrus roll’ (LSJ). By pure chance, δεύτερον σελίδιν “the second column” is partly preserved in the astronomical papyrus PSI 1491 line 4: Alexander Jones, “Babylonian Lunar Theory in Roman Egypt: Two New Texts,” in Under One Sky, Astronomy and Mathematics in the Ancient Near East (eds. J. Steele and A. Imhausen; AOAT 297; Münster: Ugarit Verlag, 2002), 169. For the history of the use of tables in scientific texts see M. Campbell-Kelly et al., The History of Mathematical Tables: From Sumer to Spreadsheets (Oxford and New-York: Oxford University Press, 2003).
[☞ endnote-chapter6-102] 102 Uwe Glessmer and Matthias Albani, “An Astronomical Measuring Instrument from Qumran,” in The Provo International Conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls: Technological Innovations, New Texts, and Reformulated Issues (eds. D.W. Parry and E. Ulrich; STDJ 30; Leiden: Brill, 1997), 407-442. Glessmer and Albani published several modifications of their initial explanation. They are surveyed in detail together with other studies in Jonathan Ben-Dov “The Qumran Dial: Artifact, Text, and Context,” in Qumran und die Archäologie (ed. J. Frey, C. Claussen and N. Kessler; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 211-237.
[☞ endnote-chapter6-103] 103 Paul Tavardon, Le disque de Qumrân (CRB 75; Paris: Gabalda, 2010).
