In 4QInstruction: Divisions and Hierarchies, Benjamin Wold challenges the interpretation of 4QInstruction as a deterministic and dualistic composition. In a re-examination of key fragments he offers new reconstructions and translations that indicate 4QInstruction envisaged wisdom available to all humanity, divisions among humankind and communities as the result of individual adherence to wisdom, and a hierarchy of authority as a result of individual merit.

This volume is devoted to 4QInstruction, the last lengthy text of the Dead Sea Scrolls to be officially published. The central concern of this study is how it should be understood in relation to the sapiential and apocalyptic traditions.

This volume consists of an edition, a translation and a commentary of the most important fragments of 4QInstruction. Initially it deals with the linguistic characteristics of the scroll highlighting the links between 4QInstruction and Ben Sira, and also with the Community Rule and the Hodayot. It then investigates the Sapiential fragments dealing with poverty, husband-wife and parent-child relationships. Finally it examines the eschatological fragments. The work seeks to improve the edition and understanding of this fundamental text enhancing our knowledge of the history and development of thinking at Qumran. Moreover, it examines links which 4QInstruction establishes between purely Sapiential discourse and descriptions of eschatological judgement. This study substantially illuminates our understanding of the Wisdom movement in the early intertestamental period.

In spite of the amount of literature on the relationship between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament, no consensus among the scholars has emerged as yet on how to explain both the similarities and the differences among the two corpora of religious writings. This volume contains a revised form of the contributions to an experts meeting held at the Catholic University of Leuven on December 2007 dedicated to explore the relationship among the two corpora and to understand both the commonalities and the differences between the two corpora from the perspective of the common ground from which both corpora have developed: the Hebrew Bible.

This volume comprises the lectures delivered at a conference on the sapiential texts from Qumran hosted by A. Lange and H. Lichtenberger in Tubingen (1998) as well as a number of additional contributions. This literature, although found in the Qumran library, is mostly of non-Essene origin and can be dated to the third and second century BCE with a single exception which might be even older. The sapiential texts from Qumran add to the sparse corpus of postexilic sapiential literature and shed new light on the later Israelite and Jewish wisdom as well as on the sources from which early Christian wisdom traditions originated. Therefore, the volume attempts to understand the wisdom literature from Qumran in the broader context of sapiential thought in the Ancient near East, the Hebrew Bible, Ancient Judaism and the New Testament. Beyond this, the volume further includes treatments of introductory and linguistic questions as well as articles on specific sapiential texts.

The Dead Sea Scrolls continue to shed ancient light on both the text and interpretation of the Hebrew Bible during the Second Temple period. Among the scrolls are several copies of Genesis dating from the first century BC to the mid-first century AD that contain portions of text from the creation account. These fragmentary copies have provided an unprecedented glimpse into the condition of the text in antiquity and have also provided a unique window into certain scribal practices in the copying of the text. In addition, several texts from Qumran contain the most ancient surviving interpretations of the Genesis creation account, dating from the mid-second century BC to the first century AD. A literary analysis of these texts reveals how ancient Jews interpreted and employed the creation account. These diverse texts address issues such as the creation of various entities (the universe, angels, Eden, humanity), Adam's dominion and knowledge in Eden, God's election of Israel on the first Sabbath, the prohibition in the garden and Adam's rebellion, and the Garden of Eden as an archetype of the sanctuary.

The wisdom tradition of ancient Israel, represented in the Hebrew Bible by Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes and in the Apocrypha by Ben Sira and the Wisdom of Solomon, is also well-attested in the texts from Qumran. 4QInstruction (1Q26, 4Q415–418, 4Q423), the largest wisdom text of the Dead Sea Scrolls, is considered a sapiential text primarily because of its explicit and insistent pedagogical nature. To make this significant wisdom text more widely available, this volume offers a critical edition, translation, and commentary on the main fragments of 4QInstruction. It examines particular texts of 4QInstruction as well as broader issues, including its date, genre, main themes, and place in Second Temple Judaism. Finally, in order to contextualize this pivotal work, 4QInstruction’s relationship to the sapiential and apocalyptic traditions is also explored.