The material variance of the Dead Sea Scrolls: On texts and artefacts
What does a sacred text look like? Are religious books materially different from other books? Does materiality matter? This article deals with three different aspects of material variance attested amongst the Dead Sea Scrolls, Ancient Jewish religious text fragments, of which were found in the Judea...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2016
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| In: |
HTS teologiese studies
Year: 2016, Volume: 72, Issue: 4 |
| Further subjects: | B
Dead Sea Scrolls
B Judaism B Manuscripts |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | What does a sacred text look like? Are religious books materially different from other books? Does materiality matter? This article deals with three different aspects of material variance attested amongst the Dead Sea Scrolls, Ancient Jewish religious text fragments, of which were found in the Judean Desert. I suggest that the substitution of the ancient Hebrew script by the everyday Aramaic script, also for Torah and other religious texts, was intentional and programmatic: it enabled the broader diffusion of scriptures in Hellenistic and Roman Judea. The preponderant use of parchment for religious texts rather than papyrus may be a marker of identity. The many small scrolls which contained only small parts of specific religious books (Genesis, Psalms) may have been produced as religious artefacts which express identity in the period when Judaism developed into a religion of the book. Keywords: Dead Sea Scrolls; Judaism; Manuscripts |
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| ISSN: | 2072-8050 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: HTS teologiese studies
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.4102/hts.v72i4.3281 |
