This volume brings together a wide range of international scholars of Ancient Judaism, whose essays explore various issues surrounding Jewish communities and Jewish identity in late antiquity. The essays are organized into three sections: Interpreting Ritual Texts, Mapping Diaspora Identities, and Rewriting Tradition.

Florentino García Martínez illuminates the nexus between philology and theology. The essays engage ancient Jewish texts such as Philo, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Jubilees, 4 Ezra and the Targumim, and focus on how ancient Jewish writers interpreted and transformed biblical traditions and how these new interpretations shape theological concepts.

Convincingly argued, this work will surely spark fresh debate in the discussion on the Qumran community and the famous Dead Sea Scrolls.

The first full-length analysis of the heavenly book motif in English, this study highlights a vital element of early Jewish and Christian apocalyptic literature. Through multiple intertextual readings, it demonstrates that for the ancients heavenly writing had life or death consequences.

Through close readings of texts such as Ezra-Nehemiah. Philo of Alexandria, and 4Ezra, Hindy Najman develops the idea of a discourse tied to a founder, illuminating the nexus between revelation, interpretive authority, and the quest for perfection in ancient Judaism.

This volume is devoted to 4QInstruction, the last lengthy text of the Dead Sea Scrolls to be officially published. It is also the largest wisdom text of this corpus. The central concern of this study is how this composition should be understood in relation to the sapiential and apocalyptic traditions. Features of 4QInstruction that are examined include its appeal to revelation, its presentation of poverty, and its eschatology. The document’s relationship to both 1 Enoch and the Dead Sea sect is also discussed. This study will prove useful to anyone interested in the Dead Sea Scrolls, the reception of the Jewish wisdom tradition in the Second Temple period, and apocalypticism.

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