Mladen Popovic

The Jewish Revolt against Rome

The contributions of this volume reflect on a wide range of literary, archaeological, documentary, epigraphic and numismatic sources and their bearing on the historical context of the Jewish revolt against Rome and on our own historical methods.

Physiognomic Knowledge in Qumran and Babylonia: Form, Interdisciplinarity, and Secrecy

This article is limited to a comparison of some aspects of two texts from the Dead Sea Scrolls (4Q186 and 4Q561) with some features of the Babylonian physiognomic tradition. The primary goal is not to establish a generic relationship of dependence, such as has been done, for example, for the DSS calendar texts or the Astronomical Book of 1 Enoch. A comparative approach helps to appreciate certain features of the Qumran texts better, but due to constraints of space, must here be limited to the Babylonian texts. I discuss three issues: (1) the form and structure of the texts, (2) the combination of and relationship between physiognomics and astrology, and (3) the status of physiognomic learning and inverted and mixed writing.

Jewish Cultural Encounters in the Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern World

The essays in this volume originate from the Third Qumran Institute Symposium held at the University of Groningen, December 2013. Taking the flexible concept of “cultural encounter” as a starting point, the essays in this volume bring together a panoply of approaches to the study of various cultural interactions between the people of ancient Israel, Judea, and Palestine and people from other parts of the ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern world. In order to study how cultural encounters shaped historical development, literary traditions, religious practice and political systems, the contributors employ a broad spectrum of theoretical positions (e.g., hybridity, metissage, frontier studies, postcolonialism, entangled histories and multilingualism), to interpret a diverse set of literary, documentary, archaeological, epigraphic, numismatic, and iconographic sources.

Pseudepigraphy and a Scribal Sense of the Past in the Ancient Mediterranean: A Copy of the Book of the Words of the Vision of Amram

Explanations for the use of the word “copy” in Visions of Amram were offered before, also drawing the concept of pseudepigraphy into the discussion. In this brief article I wish to add to some of these explanations by taking the use of “copy” in Visions of Amram as point of departure in order to rethink the production and transmission of ancient Jewish pseudepigraphic texts within the ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern contexts. Here I will focus on a so-called scribal sense of the past and investigate notions of original and copy. This contribution adds the notion of antiquarianism as a scribal sense of the past as an extra feature to take into consideration in recent discussions in the field about pseudepigraphy.

Reading, Writing, and Memorizing Together: Reading Culture in Ancient Judaism and the Dead Sea Scrolls in a Mediterranean Context

This article focuses on reading culture as an aspect of the Dead Sea Scrolls textual community in its ancient Mediterranean context. On the basis of comparative evidence, the article approaches reading in ancient Judaism as a multi-dimensional and deeply social activity by taking reading aloud, writing, and memorizing as intertwined practices occurring in group reading events. The evidence discussed, such as from Philo of Alexandria, the first-century CE Theodotus inscription from Jerusalem, and 1QS 6:6–8, reflects certain aspects of reading cultures shared between different Jewish communities in the ancient Mediterranean during the Hellenistic and early Roman periods. In addition, it is argued that features such as scribal marks in manuscripts, evidence such as the writing of excerpts, manuscripts such as 4Q159 and 4Q265, or note-taking in 4Q175 and other such manuscripts should be considered within the context of the ancient procedure of reading by intellectual or scholarly readers. Moreover, the article suggests that the Genesis Apocryphon actually preserves a glimpse of the scrolls’ elite reading culture described in a text from Hellenistic-period Judaea.

The Ancient ‘Library’ of Qumran between Urban and Rural Culture

The scrolls found in the caves near Qumran are archaeological artefacts that belong to the settlement, but the question is what the exact significance is of the scrolls lying in those caves. Is it a coincidence and did the scrolls somehow end up there during the revolt against Rome, at which moment the inhabitants of Qumran helped because they were around? Or is it less of a coincidence that the scrolls ended up in those caves? If some scrolls were present at the site before the revolt broke out and if some of the inhabitants were collectors and copyists of scrolls then the site of Qumran in combination with the nearby caves in which the scrolls were found represents a fascinating mixture of rural and regional material culture on the one hand and, on the other hand, urban and high literary culture. Comparative analysis of the text finds in the Judaean Desert highlights two issues.1 First, the find sites indicate the spread of literary texts within various strata of ancient Jewish society, outside of urban centres such as Jerusalem. Second, the context, number of literary texts, and character of texts of the Judaean Desert text finds reveal a differentiated engagement with literary texts by different kinds of people in Jewish society at the time. The movement behind the scrolls can be characterized as a milieu of Jewish intellectuals or scholars who were engaged at a very high level with their ancestral traditions.

Qumran as Scroll Storehouse in Times of Crisis? : A Comparative Perspective on Judaean Desert Manuscript Collections

Abstract This article takes a material and comparative approach to the Qumran collection. Distinctive features set the Qumran manuscripts apart from other Judaean Desert collections, suggesting a scholarly, school-like collection of predominantly literary texts. The few literary texts from other Judaean Desert sites reflect the valuable copies owned by wealthy individuals or families and are illustrative of the spread of these texts within various strata of ancient Jewish society. The historical context of most manuscript depositions in the Judaean Desert is characterized by violence and conflict, and such a context probably also typified the deposition of the Qumran manuscripts. In contrast to at least some of the other Judaean Desert sites where refugees hid with their manuscripts, the deposition evidence at Qumran may suggest an anticipation of such violence. The movement behind the Dead Sea Scrolls can be characterized as a textual community, reflecting a milieu of Jewish intellectuals who were engaged on various levels with their ancestral traditions. The collection of texts attracted people and shaped their thinking, while at the same time people shaped the collection, producing and gathering more texts. In this sense, the site of Qumran and its surrounding caves functioned like a storehouse for scrolls.

The Jewish Revolt against Rome: History, Sources and Perspectives

This chapter brings together different disciplines, some for the first time, and combines fields of research that should not be pursued in isolation from each other should the author wishes to further his understanding of the broader historical context of the first Jewish revolt against Rome. Several issues with regard to the literary, archaeological, numismatic and epigraphic sources and the historical reconstruction of this conflict warrant further reflection. True to the pursuit of history briefly outlined, the chapter presents new data that generate new questions, as well as new perspectives that shed new light on already familiar data. The perspectives offered by the various contributors are often interdisciplinary, engaging different sources and approaches. Keywords:archaeological source; epigraphic sources; first Jewish revolt; literary source; numismatic source; Rome