Wednesday 18th November 2009
Professor André Lemaire (University of the Sorbonne, Paris)
THE PLACE OF THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS COMMUNITY IN JEWISH HISTORY
Khirbet Qumran is famous for the discovery of some 900 Hebrew and Aramaic manuscripts, dated about the turn of the era, in caves around the ruins. These manuscripts are now all published but the publication of the excavations directed by R. de Vaux is still on the way because the excavator died in 1971. There are still many discussions about the function of the site itself with some ten different interpretations. From the archaeological point of view, the function of the site seems an enigma since none of the proposed interpretations fit all the archaeological data and the historical context. After reviewing these archaeological data, the connection with the manuscripts and their content, as well as the historical context, a new interpretation will emerge that explains the place of Khirbet Qumran in Jewish history.
André Lemaire is Professor of Hebrew and Aramaic Philology and Epigraphy at the École Pratique des Hautes Études (Sorbonne, Paris).He took part in twenty exacavations in Israel and has published extensively on Bible, West Semitic Epigraphy and History of the Levant during the First Millenium BCE, including Nouvelles inscriptions araméennes d'Idumée, 2 Volumes, Paris, Gabalda, 1996 and 2002; Naissance du monothéisme. Point de vue d'un historien (Paris, Bayard, 2003) =The Birth of Monotheism (Washington, Biblical Archaeological Society, 2007); Histoire du peuple hébreu, Que sais-je? 1898, (Paris, PUF, 8th ed.2009).
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