File:2014 Collins.jpg

Scriptures and Sectarianism: Essays on the Dead Sea Scrolls (2014) is a book by John J. Collins.

Abstract

"The Dead Sea Scrolls include many texts that were produced by a sectarian movement (and also many that were not). The movement had its origin in disputes about the interperation of the Scriptures, especially the Torah, not in disputes about the priesthood as had earlier been assumed. The definitive break with the rest of Judea society should be dated to the first century BCE rather than to the second. John J. Collins illustrates how the worldview of the sect involved a heightened sense of involvement in the heavenly, angelic world, and the hope for an afterlife in communion with the angels. The essays in this volume are divided into three main sections, dealing with Scripture and Interpretation, History and Sectarianism, and Sectarian Worldview. The opening essay provides an overview of what we have learned from the Scrolls, and the last essay discusses the relation of the Scrolls to early Christianity."--Publisher description.

Editions

Published in Tübingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck, 2014.

Contents

Introduction : what have we learned from the Dead Sea scrolls? -- The transformation of the Torah in Second Temple Judaism -- Changing scripture -- Tradition and innovation in the Dead Sea scrolls -- The interpretation of Genesis in the Dead Sea scrolls -- The interpretation of Psalm 2 -- The book of Daniel and the Dead Sea scrolls -- Historiography in the Dead Sea scrolls -- Reading for history in the Dead Sea scrolls -- "Enochic Judaism" and the sect of the Dead Sea scrolls -- Sectarian consciousness in the Dead Sea scrolls -- Covenant and dualism in the Dead Sea scrolls -- The angelic life -- The Essenes and the afterlife -- Prayer and the meaning of ritual in the Dead Sea scrolls -- The eschatologizing of wisdom in the Dead Sea scrolls -- The Dead Sea scrolls and the New Testament : the case of the suffering servant.