The Use and Dissemination of Religious Knowledge in Antiquity - Catherine Hezser
4. The Production and Dissemination of Knowledge within the Qumran Community
The Use and Dissemination of Religious Knowledge in Antiquity - Catherine Hezser
David Hamidovic [+]
University of Lausanne
David Hamidovič is Full Professor and holder of the chair of “Jewish Apocryphal Literature and History of Judaism in Antiquity” at the Faculty of Theology and Sciences of Religions, University of Lausanne (Switzerland). He has published many articles and monographies concerning Ancient Judaism, especially the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Jewish apocryphal texts.
Description
The analysis of the textual cluster of serakhim relating to the Rule of the Community enables us to consider the production and dissemination of knowledge within the Qumran community itself. The literary genre of serakhim demonstrates the transformation of oral traditions into written format and of writing into orality within the community. The columns 5, 6 and 9 of 1QS describe this process at work. Assuming that we are dealing with a composite text here, I explain the production and dissemination of knowledge by re-contextualising the concept of mishpatim that constitute the background of the serakhim.