Performance, Space, and Time in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Papers from the Eleventh Meeting of the International Organization of Qumran Studies, Zürich 2022

The collection focuses on performative and ritual aspects of the Dead Sea Scrolls, originating from the IOQS 2022 meeting. The concept of ritualization is examined at both individual and collective levels, using ritualization of covenant as a case study. Other essays examine performative aspects of the Hodayot manuscripts, and singing, meditation, and poetic form in Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice. Spatial aspects are examined in two essays: one argues against the common assumption that the temple city in the Temple Scroll is clearly or only referring to Jerusalem, and the other essay demonstrates 4QMMT’s legal stringency in the question of the presence of dogs in Jerusalem. Aramaic compositions are examined for their view of priesthood. Finally, past, present and future time is argued to be brought together in ritual, with the result that the role of eschatological time in the Scrolls should be complemented by ritual time.

Michael B. Johnson, Ph.D. (2019), McMaster University, is editor of English publications at the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls (HUJI). His research focuses on early Jewish poetry and the reconstruction of Dead Sea Scrolls, with work published in Dead Sea Discoveries and Revue de Qumran.

Jutta Jokiranta, Ph.D. (2006), University of Helsinki, is Professor of Hebrew Bible and Cognate studies, and President of IOQS. She has published widely using social-scientific and cognitive approaches to the Scrolls, including Social identity and Sectarianism in the Qumran Movement (Brill 2013). She is co-editor of the STDJ series.

Molly M. Zahn, Ph.D. (2009), University of Notre Dame, is Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible at Yale Divinity School. She is the author, most recently, of Genres of Rewriting in Second Temple Judaism (Cambridge, 2020), and of numerous articles on the development and interpretation of sacred texts in early Judaism. She is the executive editor of the Brill journal Dead Sea Discoveries and President of IOQS.