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What The Book Of First Enoch And The Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls Reveal About The History Of The Qumran Community, Kenneth Atkinson
What The Book Of First Enoch And The Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls Reveal About The History Of The Qumran Community, Kenneth Atkinson
Faculty Publications
The Aramaic book commonly known as First Enoch is among the most important of all the compositions found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The fragments of this pseudepigraphal work and related documents provide new information about the use and growth of the Enochic traditions, as well as how their contents influenced the community that collected and placed the Dead Sea Scrolls in the caves in the vicinity of Khirbet Qumran. Research on the Enochic literature in this corpus of documents is important for Jewish studies and for understanding the history of Christianity since the New Testament cites from and alludes …
Periodization At Qumran And Its Importance For Understanding Hellenistic History, Kenneth Atkinson
Periodization At Qumran And Its Importance For Understanding Hellenistic History, Kenneth Atkinson
Faculty Publications
Periodization, the belief that God has divided history into fixed segments of time, frequently appears in Second Temple Period Jewish literature. It is especially popular in the Qumran texts, whose authors often display an interest in apocalyptic historiography to explain and categorize historical occurrences. The writers of the Dead Sea Scrolls frequently use periodization to uncover and comprehend historical events. These writings often couple this doctrine with apocalyptic eschatology, specifically the use of Scripture to organize history into discrete historical periods to calculate the end of days. The present study briefly highlights periodization in the Dead Sea Scrolls in light …
Galla Placidia And The “Daughter Of The Queen Of The South”: The Historical Consequences Of A Late Roman Interpretation Of Daniel 11, Kenneth Atkinson
Galla Placidia And The “Daughter Of The Queen Of The South”: The Historical Consequences Of A Late Roman Interpretation Of Daniel 11, Kenneth Atkinson
Faculty Publications
The tragic story of the Roman Empire’s decline and fall has captivated the imaginations of countless artists, scholars, and filmmakers, among others. The many rulers of the Roman Empire—regardless of whether they were competent or not to hold office—dealt with insurmountable problems such as frequent invasions, numerous civil wars, attempted coups, unchecked immigration, racism, economic downturns, inept government officials, political corruption, changing values, religious violence, and sexism. Yet, despite overwhelming odds, the Roman Empire managed to survive these and other threats until September of 476 A.D. when a Roman of Gothic origin, Odoacer, forced the emperor Romulus Augustulus, to abdicate. …
Jewish Eschatology And Early Islamic History, Kenneth Atkinson
Jewish Eschatology And Early Islamic History, Kenneth Atkinson
Faculty Publications
The arrival of the first Muslims in Palestine had profound effects for the country’s Jewish population. The decline of Christian rule, and the appearance of a new religion by a monotheistic prophet from Arabia, initially led to close relations among the country’s Jews and first Muslims. Many Jews sought to explain the ministry of Muhammad (ca. 610- 632 C.E.) through eschatology and viewed his message as a sign that the end of days was near. Muslims, moreover, initially held a similar theological understanding of the eschaton, which may have been influenced by their contacts with Jews. The Islamic reverence for …
Are The Dead Sea Scrolls From Khirbet Qumran?, Kenneth Atkinson
Are The Dead Sea Scrolls From Khirbet Qumran?, Kenneth Atkinson
Faculty Publications
The Dead Sea Scrolls continue to remain the subject of an intense academic debate concerning their interpretation, their authors, and whether there is a connection between the caves in which these documents were discovered and the archaeological site of Khirbet Qumran. The answers to these questions are important because of the unprecedented number of fragmentary documents in this collection and their diverse contents. Because Roland de Vaux found the same types of pottery in the Scroll caves that he uncovered inside Khirbet Qumran, most scholars view the Scrolls as archaeological objects that are associated with this settlement. Khirbet Qumran’s architectural …
The “Three Nets Of Belial” In The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Pre-Qumran Tradition, Kenneth Atkinson
The “Three Nets Of Belial” In The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Pre-Qumran Tradition, Kenneth Atkinson
Faculty Publications
Explicit quotations and allusions to writings from the apocrypha and pseudepigrapha are rare in the Dead Sea Scrolls. For this reason, the two references to non-canonical writings in the Damascus Document (CD) are of particular importance. The first is a citation from the well-known Book of Jubilees in CD 16:3-4. Literature on Jubilees and CD is quite abundant. However, the second and more enigmatic passage in CD is the topic of this paper. It has much to tell us about the source of the theology and beliefs reflected in the Dead Sea Scrolls. In this citation, found in CD 4:15, …
A Review By Kenneth Atkinson Of Alexandria And Qumran: Back To The Beginning, By Kenneth Silver, Kenneth Atkinson
A Review By Kenneth Atkinson Of Alexandria And Qumran: Back To The Beginning, By Kenneth Silver, Kenneth Atkinson
Faculty Publications
Kenneth Silver (a.k.a. Kenneth A. K. Lönnqvist), is a historian and professional archaeologist, who has lived and worked for decades in the Near East. With extensive publications on Hellenistic and Roman archaeology, history, and numismatics, Silver is the director of a survey and mapping project in Northern Mesopotamia studying the border zone between the late Roman/ Byzantine Empires and Persia. Author of numerous publications on Qumran and related topics, Silver’s lengthy monograph proposes that the documents and type of library found at Qumran were based on models derived from Egypt. The main thesis of the volume is that Pythagorean philosophy …
The Case For Hyrcanus Ii As The “Wicked Priest” And A Pirate: Evidence From Neglected Roman Historical Sources, Kenneth Atkinson
The Case For Hyrcanus Ii As The “Wicked Priest” And A Pirate: Evidence From Neglected Roman Historical Sources, Kenneth Atkinson
Faculty Publications
Scholars have long debated the identity of the mysterious person denounced in the Dead Sea Scrolls by the sobriquet the Wicked Priest (הכוהן הרשע). Since the discovery of the Scrolls, researchers have identified nearly twenty persons as the Wicked Priest. Some view this vast number of proposals as indicative of a faulty method for understanding the history of the community behind these texts. This is because such efforts assume the Wicked Priest was an actual person. Consequently, scholars seeking to uncover his identity use material from Josephus, Philo, Pliny, and other writers to interpret the references to him in the …
The Gabriel Revelation (Hazon Gabriel): A Reused Masseba Forgery?, Kenneth Atkinson
The Gabriel Revelation (Hazon Gabriel): A Reused Masseba Forgery?, Kenneth Atkinson
Faculty Publications
The Gabriel Revelation (Hazon Gabriel) is a large limestone stele that contains a lengthy Hebrew text in two columns. The smooth side of the stone with the composition known as the Gabriel Revelation has forty-seven horizontal guidelines, four vertical lines bordering the columns, and eighty-seven lines of writing in ink on stone. Much of the composition is incomplete or partially preserved. The Gabriel Revelation is of unknown provenance. Its current owner purchased the artifact from a Jordanian antiquities dealer around the year 2000.
Abstracts By Kenneth Atkinson Of The Josephus Between The Bible And The Mishnah: An Interdisciplinary Seminar, Kenneth Atkinson
Abstracts By Kenneth Atkinson Of The Josephus Between The Bible And The Mishnah: An Interdisciplinary Seminar, Kenneth Atkinson
Faculty Publications
The “Humanities and Social Sciences Fund Seminar on Josephus between the Bible and the Mishnah: An interdisciplinary Seminar” was held at the Hotel Neve Ilan in the hill country outside Jerusalem from April 7 to 11, 2019. Organized by Professor Michael Avioz, Chair of the Department of Bible at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, the event consisted of papers delivered by a variety of experts on Josephus and Second Temple Judaism from Israel, Europe and the United States. The following abstracts offer a brief summary of all the papers presented at the conference.
Portrayals Of The Pharisees And The Sadducees In The Qumran Texts And Josephus, Kenneth Atkinson
Portrayals Of The Pharisees And The Sadducees In The Qumran Texts And Josephus, Kenneth Atkinson
Faculty Publications
The accuracy of Josephus's portrayals of the three major schools of Jewish thought, namely the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes, continues to be the subject of scholarly debate. A related issue is whether he accurately portrayed the relationships between theses haireseis and the Hasmoneans. This paper uses a variety of Qumran texts often ignored in Josephus studies to suggest that Josephus correctly described political and religious alliances between the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the members of the Hasmonean royal family.
Sacrifice At Khirbet Qumran And In The Dead Sea Scrolls: Implications For Understanding The Wilderness Tradition And Penitential Prayers, Kenneth Atkinson
Sacrifice At Khirbet Qumran And In The Dead Sea Scrolls: Implications For Understanding The Wilderness Tradition And Penitential Prayers, Kenneth Atkinson
Faculty Publications
No abstract provided.
Minority Report: Re-Reading Gilgamesh After Levinas, Francis Dominic Degnin
Minority Report: Re-Reading Gilgamesh After Levinas, Francis Dominic Degnin
Faculty Publications
The Epic of Gilgamesh attempts to answer the question of how, given the finality of death, one might find meaning and happiness in life. Many commentators argue that the text provides two separate, although ultimately unsatisfactory, alternatives. What these commentators appear to miss, however, is the possibility that these two solutions may not be separate. Using Levinas’s distinction between “need” and “desire,” I argue that, by the end of the Epic, they may in fact be synthesized into a single solution, one that suggests the priority of an affective moral grounding as prior to and more fundamental than intellectual …
A Review By Kenneth Atkinson Of The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Biography, By John J. Collins, Kenneth Atkinson
A Review By Kenneth Atkinson Of The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Biography, By John J. Collins, Kenneth Atkinson
Faculty Publications
This is a concise and well-written book by one of the leading experts on the Dead Sea Scrolls. John J. Collins, the Holmes Professor of Old Testament Criticism and Interpretation at Yale University, in the pref- ace notes that this book may seem an unlikely candidate for inclusion in a series on “biographies” of books. However, he comments that the Scrolls, although not a single book but a miscellaneous collection of writings from the caves near Qumran, is not an entirely random ac- cumulation of documents. Rather, Collins comments that they appear to reflect the thought of a Jewish sect, …
A Review By Kenneth Atkinson Of Reading The Dead Sea Scrolls: Essays In Method, Society Of Biblical Literature, By George J. Brooke, Kenneth Atkinson
A Review By Kenneth Atkinson Of Reading The Dead Sea Scrolls: Essays In Method, Society Of Biblical Literature, By George J. Brooke, Kenneth Atkinson
Faculty Publications
This diverse collection of essays by George Brooke, the Rylands Professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis at the University of Manchester, explores how some of the Dead Sea Scrolls might be read and analyzed. The book includes essays that urge scholars to refine traditional methods of studying ancient texts in light of the Scrolls, as well as chapters devoted to text criticism, literary traditions, lexicography, historiography, and theology. Brooke also highlights the relevance of newer methods for the study of the Scrolls, such as deviance theory, cultural memory, hypertextuality, intertextuality, genre theory, spatial analysis, and psychology.
Shelamzion Alexander, Hyrcanus Ii, And Aristobulus Ii In The Dead Sea Scrolls, Kenneth Atkinson
Shelamzion Alexander, Hyrcanus Ii, And Aristobulus Ii In The Dead Sea Scrolls, Kenneth Atkinson
Faculty Publications
The reign of Queen Shelamzion Alexandra (ca. 79-67 B.C.E.), commonly known as Salome Alexandra, marks a unique period in the history of the Hasmonean dynasty. She is not only the sole Hasmonean queen regnant, but a person whose reign is difficult to reconstruct. Josephus’ two accounts of her time in power in his War and Antiquities often differ. The latter of the two, moreover, is consistently more negative than the former work. Although the Rabbinic literature generally describes her in a favorable light, this material is quite late and is therefore of dubious historical value. Although some scholars have tried …
Judah Aristobulus And Alexander Jannaeus In The Dead Sea Scrolls, Kenneth Atkinson
Judah Aristobulus And Alexander Jannaeus In The Dead Sea Scrolls, Kenneth Atkinson
Faculty Publications
The reigns of Judah Aristobulus and Alexander Jannaeus marked a major turning point in the history of the Hasmonean dynasty. Judah Aristobulus transformed his family’s state into a monarchy in which a single person held the offices of king and high priest. His brother, Alexander Jannaeus, succeeded him as king and high priest and expanded the boundaries of the Hasmonean state. He also preserved the territorial integrity of the Hasmonean state when he fought off invasions by Egyptian and Seleucid rulers. Although the reigns of Judah Aristobulus and Alexander Jannaeus are widely known from the writings of Josephus, the authors …
Historical References And Allusions To Foreigners In The Dead Sea Scrolls: Seleucids, Ptolemies, Nabateans, Itureans, And Romans In The Qumran Corpus, Kenneth Atkinson
Historical References And Allusions To Foreigners In The Dead Sea Scrolls: Seleucids, Ptolemies, Nabateans, Itureans, And Romans In The Qumran Corpus, Kenneth Atkinson
Faculty Publications
The Dead Sea Scrolls continue to shed new light on the religious history of the Second Temple Period. This unique library also describes many of the most significant historical events of this time. Although most research has focused on the religious content of these texts and their possible Essene authorship, relatively little attention has been paid to their historical and political contents. Although over 900 scrolls were found in the caves inside and around the settlement of Khirbet Qumran, relatively few contain proper names. Only eighteen names of identifiable persons appear in these texts, while other fragments possibly contain two …