Reading the Present in the Qumran Library: The Perception of the Contemporary by Means of Scriptural Interpretations (Symposium Series (Society of ... Biblical Literature Symposium Series; No. 30)

How did ancient scribes interpret their own reality by means of scriptural exegesis? The essays in this volume explore this question from various prespectives by examining the earliest known exegetical texts of Jewish origin, namely, the exegetical texts from the Qumran library. Scholars have debated the precise nature of the exegetical techniques used in the Qumran texts. To bring clarity to the discussion, this book analyzes the phenomenon of reading the present in the Qumran library and asks how far comparable phenomena can be observed in authoritative literature in ancient Israel and Judah, in the textual tradition of the Hebrew and Greek Bible, in ancient Judaism, and in early Christian literature.

Kristin De Troyer is Professor of Hebrew Bible at Claremont School of Theology in Claremont, California, and the author of five books, including Rewriting the Sacred Text: What the Old Greek Texts Tell Us about the Literary Growth of the Bible (Society of Biblical Literature, 2003). Armin Lange is Professor for Second Temple Judaism at the Institute for Jewish Studies at the University of Vienna, a member of the international team editing the Dead Sea Scrolls, and a co-editor of the journal Dead Sea Discoveries. He is the author of four books, among them, Vom prophetischen Wort zur prophetischen Tradition: Studien zur Traditions- und Redaktionsgeschichte innerprophetischer Konflikte in der Hebräischen Bibel (Mohr Siebeck, 2002).