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The Book of Nahum is the seventh book of the 12 minor prophets of the Hebrew Bible. It is attributed to the prophet Nahum, and was probably written in Jerusalem in the 7th century BC. Its principal theme is the destruction of the Assyrian city of Nineveh.
The Book of Habakkuk is the eighth book of the 12 minor prophets of the Bible. It is attributed to the prophet Habakkuk, and was probably composed in the late 7th century BC. The original text was written in the Hebrew language. It is an important text in Judaism, and passages from the book are quoted by authors of the New Testament, and its message has inspired modern Christian hymn writers.
The Essenes or Essenians were a mystic Jewish sect during the Second Temple period that flourished from the 2nd century BCE to the 1st century CE.
The Gospel of Matthew is the first book of the New Testament of the Bible and one of the three synoptic Gospels. It tells how Israel's messiah (Christ), Jesus, comes to his people but is rejected by them and how, after his resurrection, he sends the disciples to the gentiles instead. Matthew wishes to emphasize that the Jewish tradition should not be lost in a church that was increasingly becoming gentile. The gospel reflects the struggles and conflicts between the evangelist's community and the other Jews, particularly with its sharp criticism of the scribes and Pharisees with the position that through their rejection of Christ, the Kingdom of Heaven has been taken away from them and given instead to the church.
The Pharisees were a Jewish social movement and school of thought in the Levant during the time of Second Temple Judaism. Following the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD, Pharisaic beliefs became the foundational, liturgical, and ritualistic basis for Rabbinic Judaism. Although the group no longer exists, their traditions are of great importantance for the manifold Jewish religious movements.
The Dead Sea Scrolls, also called the Qumran Caves Scrolls, are a set of ancient Jewish manuscripts from the Second Temple period. They were discovered over a period of 10 years, between 1946 and 1956, at the Qumran Caves near Ein Feshkha in the West Bank, on the northern shore of the Dead Sea. Dating from the 3rd century BCE to the 1st century CE, the Dead Sea Scrolls include the oldest surviving manuscripts of entire books later included in the biblical canons, including deuterocanonical manuscripts from late Second Temple Judaism and extrabiblical books. At the same time, they cast new light on the emergence of Christianity and of Rabbinic Judaism. Almost all of the 15,000 scrolls and scroll fragments are held in the Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum located in Jerusalem. The Israeli government's custody of the Dead Sea Scrolls is disputed by Jordan and the Palestinian Authority on territorial, legal, and humanitarian grounds—they were mostly discovered following the Jordanian annexation of the West Bank and were acquired by Israel after Jordan lost the 1967 Arab–Israeli War—whilst Israel's claims are primarily based on historical and religious grounds, given their significance in Jewish history and in the heritage of Judaism.
The Sadducees were a sect of Jews active in Judea during the Second Temple period, from the second century BCE to the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. The Sadducees are described in contemporary literary sources in contrast to the two other major sects at the time, the Pharisees and the Essenes.
Pesher, from the Hebrew root meaning "interpretation," is a group of interpretive commentaries on scripture. The pesharim commentaries became known from the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The pesharim give a theory of scriptural interpretation of a number of biblical texts from the Hebrew Bible, such as Habakkuk and Psalms.
Most scholars who study the historical Jesus and early Christianity believe that the canonical gospels and the life of Jesus must be viewed within their historical and cultural context, rather than purely in terms of Christian orthodoxy. They look at Second Temple Judaism, the tensions, trends, and changes in the region under the influence of Hellenism and the Roman occupation, and the Jewish factions of the time, seeing Jesus as a Jew in this environment; and the written New Testament as arising from a period of oral gospel traditions after his death.
The Boethusians were a Jewish sect closely related to, if not a development of, the Sadducees.
In the Book of Genesis, the curse of Ham is described as a curse which was imposed upon Ham's son Canaan by the patriarch Noah. It occurs in the context of Noah's drunkenness and it is provoked by a shameful act that was perpetrated by Noah's son Ham, who "saw the nakedness of his father". The exact nature of Ham's transgression and the reason Noah cursed Canaan when Ham had sinned have been debated for over 2,000 years.
Barbara Elizabeth Thiering was an Australian historian, theologian, and biblical exegete specialising in the origins of the early Christian Church. In books and journal articles, she challenged Christian orthodoxy, espousing the view that new findings present alternative answers to its supernaturalistic beliefs. Her analysis has yet to be widely accepted by New Testament scholars or scholars in Judaism.
The Teacher of Righteousness is a mysterious figure found in some of the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran, most prominently in the Damascus Document. This document speaks briefly of the origins of the sect, probably Essenes, 390 years after the Neo-Babylonian Empire captured Jerusalem in 586 BCE. After another 20 years of study and waiting, "God... raised for them a Teacher of Righteousness to guide them in the way of His heart".
The Community Rule, which is designated 1QS and was previously referred to as the Manual of Discipline, is one of the first scrolls to be discovered near the ruins of Qumran, the scrolls found in the eleven caves between 1947 and 1954 are now referred to simply as the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Rule of the Community is a crucial sectarian document and is seen as definitive for classifying other compositions as sectarian or non-sectarian. Among the nearly 350 documents discovered, roughly 30% of the scrolls are classified as "sectarian."
The Testimony of Truth is a Gnostic Christian text. It is the third of three treatises in Codex IX of the Nag Hammadi library texts, taking up pages 29–74 of the codex. The original title is unknown; the editor created the title based on expressions in the text, such as "the word of truth" and "true testimony." The text is a homily that argues for accepting spiritual truth and renouncing the material world. The author interprets the serpent that instructed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden as Christ, who revealed knowledge of a malevolent Creator. Testimony of Truth is also the only Nag Hammadi text that identifies opposing Gnostic Christian groups by name.
The Book of Mysteries is an ancient Essene text found in fragmentary form among the Dead Sea Scrolls. The scroll fragments are given the alphanumeric designations of 1Q27 and 4Q299–301.
The Habakkuk Commentary or Pesher Habakkuk, labelled 1QpHab, was among the original seven Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in 1947 and published in 1951. Due to its early discovery and rapid publication, as well as its relatively pristine preservation, 1QpHab is one of the most frequently researched and analyzed scrolls of the several hundred now known.
4QMMT, also known as MMT, or the Halakhic Letter, is a reconstructed text from manuscripts that were part of the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered at Qumran in the Judean desert. The manuscript fragments used to reconstruct 4QMMT were found in Cave 4 at Qumran in 1953-1959, and kept at the Palestinian Archaeological Museum, now known as the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem.
Wicked Priest is a sobriquet used in the Dead Sea Scrolls pesharim, four times in the Habakkuk Commentary (1QpHab) and once in the Commentary on Psalm 37 (4QpPsa), to refer to an opponent of the "Teacher of Righteousness." It has been suggested that the phrase is a pun on "ha-kōhēn hā-rōš", as meaning "the High Priest", but this term for the High Priest was obsolete at the time. He is generally identified with a Hasmonean (Maccabean) High Priest or Priests. However, his exact identification remains controversial, and has been called "one of the knottiest problems connected with the Dead Sea Scrolls."
The Nahum Commentary or Pesher Nahum, labelled 4QpNah or 4Q169, was among the Dead Sea Scrolls in cave 4 of Qumran that was discovered in August 1952. The editio princeps of the text is to be found in DJD V., edited by John Allegro. The text is described thus: 'one of the "continuous pesharim" from Qumran, successive verses from the biblical Book of Nahum are interpreted as reflecting historical realities of the 1st century BCE."
References
Footnotes
- ↑ Berrin 2004, p. 91.
- ↑ Saldarini 2001, p. 279.
- ↑ "The Dead Sea Scrolls 60 Years Later". Grace Communion International.
- ↑ Longacre, Drew (September 22, 2022). "The Dead Sea Scrolls: 9 Common Questions, Answered". Word by Word.
Bibliography
- Berrin, Shani L. (2004). The Pesher Nahum Scroll from Qumran: An Exegetical Study of 4Q169. Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah. Vol. 53. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill. doi:10.1163/9789047404248. ISBN 978-90-04-12484-4. ISSN 0169-9962.
- Saldarini, Anthony J. (2001). Pharisees, Scribes and Sadducees in Palestinian Society: A Sociological Approach. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. ISBN 978-0-8028-4358-6.
- Schiffman, Lawrence H.; VanderKam, James C. (2000). Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls. New York: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acref/9780195084504.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-508450-4.
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