The material variance of the Dead Sea Scrolls: On texts and artefacts

HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies

 
 
Field Value
 
Title The material variance of the Dead Sea Scrolls: On texts and artefacts
 
Creator Tigchelaar, Eibert
 
Subject Religious Studies; Judaism Dead Sea Scrolls; Judaism; Manuscripts
Description 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
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor
Date 2016-06-10
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — —
Format text/html application/octet-stream text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/hts.v72i4.3281
 
Source HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies; Vol 72, No 4 (2016); 6 pages 2072-8050 0259-9422
 
Language eng
 
Relation
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https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/3281/7000 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/3281/7001 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/3281/7002 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/3281/6881
 
Coverage — — —
Rights Copyright (c) 2016 Eibert Tigchelaar https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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