The centrality of the repatriation in Ezra–Nehemiah resulted in a rich reception history, as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam had to confront questions regarding religious identity within the orbit of social displacement.

In “The Book of Isaiah at Qumran,” Jesper Høgenhaven offers a concise overview of the texts related to Isaiah that were discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls. The book’s importance for the Qumran community is attested not only by the large number of copies that survived, but also by various other genres of sectarian literature that drew from and reflected on the book, including the pesher commentaries and even the Community Rule (1QS). The Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsaa) is the longest biblical scroll found at Qumran. It is an important witness for reconstructing the oldest text of the book, and also subtly reflects some of the earliest interpretive decisions about it.

This chapter examines the texts surviving from Qumran and the surrounding area and how their tradents understood the nature of biblical law. It will identify and describe the interpretive strategies reflected in the scrolls for both harmonization and creative reuse of biblical law.

Abstract: This article explores early Jewish conceptions of the “bad man” as reflected in the hermeneutic legacy of one seminal biblical passage (Num 15:30-31) in order to discern the most egregious forms of religious wrongs. This offers a prism for gauging whether early iterations of “Judaism” were so fully aligned with law and praxis that this constituted the entirety of religious life and its ultimate measure. Or, alternatively, whether one can already perceive in classical Jewish discourse an acknowledgement, or even an articulation, of a “religious” or “theological” nucleus apart from the normative order.

In ‘Wisdom at Qumran’, David Skelton takes stock of the Dead Sea Scrolls and shows that they, in some ways, differ from the wisdom literature of the OT. The Scrolls lack those references to Solomon that seem so characteristic to biblical wisdom, and whilst they exhibit Wisdom as a personification, she is ‘toned down’ and appears more passive than she does in, say, Proverbs 1–9. Amplified in tone are the torah-wisdom connection and apocalyptic nature of the Qumran materials, not least the well-known raz nihyeh. Skelton also discusses the importance of poverty and hymnody in the Scrolls, to conclude by drawing these many distinctives together, as well as the Hellenistic context, pedagogy, and scribal practices, in order to reconsider the notion of ‘wisdom literature’ and the scholarly consensus surrounding it.

Following unsuccessful attempts to keep the descendants of Nebuchadnezzar II on the throne, the usurper Nabonidus became king. Persian tribes had moved into Elamite lands, and the Medes made Harran a dangerous city; Nabonidus‘ mother, an aged acolyte of Ashurbanipal, resided there. His lengthy inscriptions are informative about his deeds and his character. He dedicated his daughter to the Moon-god at Ur according to precedent, and spent ten years in Arabia, leaving his son Belshazzar in charge in Babylon. He returned and restored the temple in Harran. Cyrus the Great brought his rule to an end, but continued to employ some high officials. Cyrus was probably of mixed Elamite and Persian descent. The Cyrus Cylinder, inscribed in Babylonian cuneiform for a Babylonian audience, used traditional denigration of the previous king Nabonidus, and acknowledged Marduk as Babylon’s god. In another cuneiform text, Nabonidus was mocked for his scholarly pretensions and for sacrilegious acts. Babylon continued to be the centre where all subsequent kings felt obliged to celebrate the New Year festival to be accepted as legitimate rulers. Old monuments were not defaced. Cyrus may have been responsible for an imitation of Babylon’s glazed bricks at Persepolis. He made his son Cambyses co-regent.

Demonstrates that rewriting was not restricted to versions or interpretations of biblical books. First shows how Jubilees and the Temple Scroll, two texts known for their rewriting of biblical texts, themselves were revised and reused, then demonstrates how the major compositions of the sectarian community associated with the Qumran site were also subject to rewriting. Rewriting must thus be seen as a broader component of early Jewish textuality, not something narrowly associated with biblical books.

It is impossible to understand the rabbis and the works they produced without a grasp of the Jewish world they inherited. In this chapter, we will review that world and the documents that reflect its qualities. The evidence for the Jewish world in Palestine before the rabbis begins with the Hebrew Bible. What were the worldviews, theologies, literary styles, and systems of practice supported by the canonical books? The pre-rabbinic Jewish library also includes other literary compositions, including the Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, and Dead Sea Scrolls. We may also learn a great deal from the writings of early Christians. There were also received oral traditions that ultimately influenced the teachings of the rabbis. To what extent was the rabbis’ “Oral Torah” grounded in the oral traditions of the pre-Christian centuries? The difficulties in answering these questions will be addressed so that we may later consider the traditional or innovative quality of rabbinic productions. Lastly, it is impossible to understand the world of Jews in Palestine without gaining some sense of the broader Greco-Roman environment. In this chapter, we examine all this evidence and more.