Lawrence Schiffman

Already before its publication, it was clear that the Temple Scroll represented a major contribution to the history of Jewish law in Late Antiquity. The present volume brings together the author’s studies on this important scroll. He has sought to uncover the hermeneutics of the Zadokite/Sadducean legal system and to compare and contrast it with other texts of its own type as well as with those in rabbinic literature preserving the Pharisaic-rabbinic approach.

This volume contains a collection of compositions from Cave 4 at Qumran, written during the Second Temple period and linked to biblical texts through characters, themes, or genre. Some of these, such as the Levi Aramaic Document, Testament of Naphtali, and Prayer of Nabonidus, were known previously from Greek and Aramaic manuscripts of the Apocrypha. The additional documents include PseudoDaniel, the Commentaries on Genesis, Commentary on Malachi, Apocryphon of Joshua, The Two Ways, Apocryphon of Elisha, Prayer of Mercy, and a number of small miscellaneous texts. All these documents greatly enhance our understanding of the phenomenon of psuedepigraphy (written in the name of a famous biblical or religious character) and of biblical interpretation during the Second Temple period.