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LAWRENCE: It's my pleasure to welcome you
all back

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and to see that we continue to have

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wonderful participation in the conference,

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which we thank all the participants.

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Now, we are going to hear our
first paper

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from Professor James VanderKam
of the University of Notre Dame.

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And without any further ado,
I will turn it over to him.

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Jim.

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OK. Good.

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JAMES: Alright.

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Thank you Larry.

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Good to see you again.

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Thanks to the sponsoring organizations

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and to organizers like yourself.

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And I want to say a special thanks to Kirsten
Howe

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who has certainly answered all of my
questions very well.

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Today, I want to talk about two texts
that interest me quite a bit

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and I believe are very good illustrations
of what might be done

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with Biblical events, texts, characters

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as these are passed along in the tradition.

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And in some ways, this will illustrate what
(INAUDIBLE)

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were talking about a little earlier,

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the different kinds of ways in which very
intelligent people

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read older texts like Genesis and Exodus,

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what messages they found in them

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and perhaps what messages they wanted to
add to them.

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So there are two texts
that we'll consider.

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The Book of Jubilees and the Visions of
Amram,

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which is a text found
among the Dead Sea Scrolls.

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First, a few basics about both of these texts.

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The Book of Jubilees is

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an example of what we usually call rewritten
scripture.

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It has an introductory chapter
which tells us

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that the book contains the revelations
given by an angel of the presence

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to Moses while Moses is on Mount Sinai.

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And the angel of the presence is reading
from heavenly tablets.

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So this book claims it is revelation from
heaven

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given to Moses at Mount Sinai.

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The following chapters
tell the stories of Genesis,

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all the way to the end of the book,
and then on into the Book of Exodus

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until the Israelites are at Mount Sinai

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and the covenant is made there.

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So,

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it is an example of
rewriting the older stories

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in the book of Genesis
and the book of Exodus.

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The book was written in Hebrew
and a number of the fragments

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of the fragmentary copies of the book of
Jubilees

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have been found among the Dead Sea
Scrolls.

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A total of 14 copies in all,

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which is a an unusually high number of
copies.

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The other texts called the Vision or Visions of
Amram

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is a text found at Qumran, a text that we didn't
know about

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before the discovery of the fourth cave

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and the publication of those texts.

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There are seven copies of this work, it
appears.

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They're numbered by the
numbers given to the texts from cave four

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as 543 to 549.

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And using the different copies of this text,

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we can put together a pretty good sequence
in it

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and get a pretty good idea of
what the writer is saying.

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Now, the Visions of Amram was written in the
Aramaic language

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and it contains a statement from this man
Amram.

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He may not be the most familiar person to

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people in our audience
but his name is mentioned in the Bible

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and his claim to fame for us

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is that he was the father of Moses
and Aaron and Miriam.

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His name is listed in genealogies in the Bible.

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But when we read the stories about Moses'
birth,

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his father is just called his father,

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he's not given the name, Amram, there.

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In this text, Amram, Moses' father,

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is calling his children together

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as he's about to die to die at the age of 136.

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and in the text, he gives wise words to his
children.

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So Jubilees and the Visions of Amram
are rather different kinds of texts

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but in one small respect,
they overlap with each other

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and give us illustrations of how people,

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very early writers like this,
were dealing with some issues

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in the last chapter or so of Genesis

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and the first chapter of the book of Exodus.

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Now, about the Visions of Amram,

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and in fact, that's what the text calls itself.

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So it's one of those scrolls
that gives itself a name.

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We can tell from several of the copies,
how the text began,

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and putting these fragmentary copies
together,

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the beginning of the text reads like this.

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I haven't prepared a slide of this,
so I'll just read it to you.

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It begins "A copy of the book.

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The words of the visions of Amram,
son of Kohath, son of Levi.

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It contains everything that he told his sons

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and everything that he commanded them

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on the day that he died

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in the 136th year,

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that is the year of his death,

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in the 152nd year of Israel's sojourn in
Egypt".

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And at that point, the text tells us

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"he gave his 30 year old daughter Miriam

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to his younger brother Uzziel".

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Another name that's mentioned in the Bible,

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who is a son of Kohath just as Amram is.

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So he gives his daughter Miriam

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in marriage to his brother Uzziel.

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A niece marriage in this case.

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Amram hosted a seven day banquet,
after which he summoned his son Aaron

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who was supposed to be about 20 years of
age at the time.

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And Aaron is to call the other children

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for the testamentary address

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that Amram is going to give them.

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So those are some basic things
about these two works.

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Now, even though they are so different,

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they overlap in one section
that I would like to turn to now.

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If we look at these texts in their entirety,

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we might be surprised that they overlap in
anything

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but in... as a matter of fact they do.

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The one section where they give a similar
material,

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or related material, is the story about

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the effort to bury the bones of Joseph's
brother in Canaan

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and some obstacles
that impeded the effort.

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These two texts - Jubilees and the Visions of
Amram -

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provide the earliest literary records

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of a story or perhaps stories

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about warfare between the king of Canaan
and the king of Egypt

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and how that conflict
impacted travel between the two countries

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and thus, affected the project

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to bury the bones of Joseph's 11 brothers.

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So let's turn to the account in Jubilees first,

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and if we could have that slide

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so we can have the translation in front of us,

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that would be good at this time.

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There we have the account in the book of
Jubilees.

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You can see it's from chapter 46

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and the beginning of chapter 47.

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Now remember, an angel of the presence

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is dictating all of this stuff to Moses.

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It's an unusual section
because at this point,

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the angel of the presence
gets up to Moses' life.

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So he starts talking...

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telling Moses what happened in his - Moses' -
own life.

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Now this is from my translation
of the Book of Jubilees.

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So before Joseph died,
he ordered the Israelites

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to take his bones along

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at the time when they would leave the land of
Egypt.

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He made them swear about his bones
because he knew

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the Egyptians would surely not allow him
to be brought out

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and be buried in the land of Canaan
on the day of his death

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since Makamaron, the king of Canaan,

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while he was living in the land of Assur,

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fought in the valley with the king of Egypt

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and killed him there.

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He pursued the Egyptians as far as the
borders of Egypt.

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He was unable to enter
because another new king ruled Egypt.

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He was stronger than he,
so he returned to the land of Canaan

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Kanan and the gates of Egypt
were closed

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with no one leaving or entering Egypt.

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Joseph died in the 46th Jubilee in the sixth
week

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during its second year.

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In brackets there, you see what the year of the
world is

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that Jubilees expresses in that unusual way.

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He was buried in the land of Egypt
and all his brothers died after him.

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Then the king of Egypt went out to fight
with the king of Canaan

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in the 47th Jubilee in the second week

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during its second year.
The Israelites brought out

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all the bones of Jacob's sons except Joseph's
bones.

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They buried them
in the field of the double cave,

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that is Machpelah in the mountain.

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Many returned to Egypt
but a few of them remained on the mountain.

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Few of them remained on
the mountain of Hebron

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and Moses father, Amram, remained with
them.

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Then the king of Canaan conquered the king
of Egypt,

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closed the gates of Egypt,

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conceived an evil plan
against the Israelites,

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and then we read about the oppression,

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including the words about
expressing the king's concern

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that the many many Israelites
might fight against the Egyptians.

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And then we get to the birth of Moses

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after his father returns from Canaan to Egypt.

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Moses' birth in the year 2330 of the world.

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Now, a few comments on that version.

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It relates fairly closely to the end of the Book
of Genesis.

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And if you're familiar with that part of the Book
of Genesis,

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you start reading and you think

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'Oh yes, I know this story at the end of
Genesis'

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but all of a sudden, it takes a turn

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and you get some unfamiliar material.

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You meet a king, Makamaron, the king of
Canaan

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who conquered the king of Egypt and so on.

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Now at the beginning of the story, of course,

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Joseph is the key actor in the drama

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and the writer refers to Joseph's
instructions to...

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First, he gives them to his brothers, and then
the text says,

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he gives them to the Israelites

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to bring up his bones
when the Israelites leave Egypt,

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they'll leave when the Lord visits them.

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Whatever that might have been.

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But he speaks very emphatically about this.

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And later on in the book of Exodus,

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there's reference to Moses taking the bones of
Joseph

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when they left Egypt
and the burial is talked about in Joshua 24.

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Now, these statements of Joseph's

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making his brothers or the Israelites

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swear that they'll bring his bones out of Egypt

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suggests that there was something unusual
about his case.

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He does not mention the bones of his brothers

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or any need to bring their bones up

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at the time of the divine visitation.

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So the reader senses
that Joseph's remains

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will be treated differently,
as indeed they were,

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but does not know why,

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and Jubilees explains why that was,

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it was because of this war with the king of
Canaan

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that meant that the borders
between the two areas were closed

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so one couldn't go out from Egypt to bury
Joseph

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as they had buried his father Jacob.

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Now, we also read, both in the Bible and
Jubilees,

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about Joseph's burial in the land of Egypt

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before his brothers die.

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Well, the victory of the king of Canaan over
Egypt

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and the closing of Egypt's borders

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explains why Joseph couldn't be buried in
Canaan

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right away on the day of his death.

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He already knew this beforehand apparently,

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almost in a prophetic way,

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so he gave instructions
about handling his bones.

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Now, the brothers deaths after Joseph,

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this is suggested by a couple of verses in the
Bible

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that they died after Joseph.

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Their bones were handled when the king of
Egypt,

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the new king of Egypt,

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made a counteroffensive against the king of
Canaan

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that opened the borders of Egypt.

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So they took advantage of this time,

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went up and buried the 11 brothers
but not Joseph,

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who was already buried in Egypt.

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So they went to the family burial ground,
the cave on Machpelah.

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Well, when the king of Canaan reconquered
Egypt

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and, again, forced closure of the borders,

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the oppression began in Egypt.

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And of course, there was the fear

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that the Israelites would fight against the
enemies of Egypt,

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which seemed to be Canaan at this time,

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and so the Egyptians oppressed them.

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Eventually, Amran returns to Egypt
after a 40 year absence

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and Moses is born.

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Now, could we see the other slide

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which has the translation of the Visions of
Amram?

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This is a translation of Ed Cook Dead
Sea Scrolls reader

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that I've modified slightly.

248
00:14:32,880 --> 00:14:36,520
And this is a composite text

249
00:14:36,520 --> 00:14:40,760
based on several of the manuscripts of the
Visions of Amram.

250
00:14:40,760 --> 00:14:44,480
It's a typical Qumran text in that you have a lot
of gaps

251
00:14:44,480 --> 00:14:47,600
that we don't know what was present there.

252
00:14:47,600 --> 00:14:51,200
But there is reference, and remember, Amram
is talking,

253
00:14:51,200 --> 00:14:55,880
he's In the land of Canaan, he went to bury
our fathers.

254
00:14:55,880 --> 00:15:00,760
These appear to be
the 11 brothers of Joseph.

255
00:15:00,760 --> 00:15:04,120
And he mentions that his father, Kohath or
Kohath,

256
00:15:04,120 --> 00:15:06,840
was also along there.

257
00:15:06,840 --> 00:15:10,320
And they talk about building
the tombs of the fathers,

258
00:15:10,320 --> 00:15:13,360
so it doesn't seem as if
it's just a burial in a cave,

259
00:15:13,360 --> 00:15:16,240
they're actually building tombs.

260
00:15:16,240 --> 00:15:19,440
While others of the relatives are there.

261
00:15:19,440 --> 00:15:25,840
A large body of people are burying
the 11 brothers of Joseph.

262
00:15:25,840 --> 00:15:28,160
But then they hear about a war, it says,

263
00:15:28,160 --> 00:15:31,120
a frightening rumor of war.

264
00:15:31,120 --> 00:15:35,160
And our group, he says, returned to the land
of Egypt.

265
00:15:35,160 --> 00:15:38,280
And then Amram says that...

266
00:15:38,280 --> 00:15:41,120
I don't know if he went back to Egypt
and then back to Canaan again

267
00:15:41,120 --> 00:15:43,920
or just stayed in Canaan, but at any rate,

268
00:15:43,920 --> 00:15:48,880
he remained in Canaan to bury the bones
of Joseph's brothers.

269
00:15:49,360 --> 00:15:50,840
And war broke out.

270
00:15:50,840 --> 00:15:53,920
He mentions that he has both (INAUDIBLE)
and Canaan

271
00:15:53,920 --> 00:15:59,600
fighting against Egypt,
and they close the borders again.

272
00:15:59,600 --> 00:16:02,680
This... the text mentions apparently,

273
00:16:02,680 --> 00:16:04,400
although it's quite broken here,

274
00:16:04,400 --> 00:16:10,520
that Amram was separated from his wife,
Jochebed, for 41 years,

275
00:16:10,520 --> 00:16:13,280
and only after that, was he able to return.

276
00:16:13,280 --> 00:16:18,720
And then the text continues with a vision
that Amram talks about.

277
00:16:18,720 --> 00:16:22,880
So both of these texts - Jubilees and the
Visions of Amram -

278
00:16:22,880 --> 00:16:26,600
talk about a war between Canaan and Egypt,

279
00:16:26,600 --> 00:16:31,240
how the border gets closed, how this affects
the burial process

280
00:16:31,240 --> 00:16:34,280
of burying the 11 brothers.

281
00:16:35,440 --> 00:16:39,600
We don't know the immediate preceding
context for the Visions of Amram

282
00:16:39,600 --> 00:16:42,160
because of damage to the texts

283
00:16:42,160 --> 00:16:45,520
but we can tell that it's not as closely tied

284
00:16:45,520 --> 00:16:48,720
to the text of Genesis and Exodus as Jubilees
is,

285
00:16:48,720 --> 00:16:51,480
and it, of course, focuses on Amram.

286
00:16:51,480 --> 00:16:54,280
After all, this texts is named after him.

287
00:16:54,280 --> 00:16:59,240
And it's the account of his report
to his children on his deathbed.

288
00:17:00,280 --> 00:17:04,120
This is one of several texts we have
from the Dead Sea Scrolls,

289
00:17:04,120 --> 00:17:09,000
Aramaic texts about these early priests,

290
00:17:09,000 --> 00:17:12,880
Levi, his son Kohath and his son Amram.

291
00:17:12,880 --> 00:17:15,680
We have texts about all of them in Aramaic

292
00:17:15,680 --> 00:17:21,640
expanding what little is said about them in the
Bible.

293
00:17:22,400 --> 00:17:26,440
Perhaps the reason being that it was felt

294
00:17:26,440 --> 00:17:30,600
these characters really should have more of a
resume

295
00:17:30,600 --> 00:17:35,520
to justify their occupying such an important
position

296
00:17:35,520 --> 00:17:38,840
in the genealogy of priests.

297
00:17:38,840 --> 00:17:41,840
Very briefly, you can see that the burial of
Joseph's brothers

298
00:17:41,840 --> 00:17:45,280
is a major element in the plot.

299
00:17:45,280 --> 00:17:48,920
Much more time is spent in this text with that

300
00:17:48,920 --> 00:17:53,720
than in Jubilees, which mentions it just in one
line.

301
00:17:54,360 --> 00:17:59,160
It's quite a project
because the tombs have to be built.

302
00:17:59,160 --> 00:18:02,360
Another element that's important in the
Amram text

303
00:18:02,360 --> 00:18:07,520
is that Amram is separated from his wife.

304
00:18:07,520 --> 00:18:10,440
It may be that the text says

305
00:18:10,440 --> 00:18:14,960
he did not take another wife during these 41
years,

306
00:18:14,960 --> 00:18:17,480
although apparently others were available,

307
00:18:17,480 --> 00:18:21,360
and he's eager to get back home to see his
wife.

308
00:18:21,360 --> 00:18:25,160
But the two of them are separated for many
many years.

309
00:18:25,160 --> 00:18:28,280
Now, what I want to consider very briefly

310
00:18:28,280 --> 00:18:31,120
is the relation between these two accounts.

311
00:18:31,120 --> 00:18:32,400
Did one...

312
00:18:32,400 --> 00:18:34,520
Did, say, Jubilees borrow it from the testament

313
00:18:34,520 --> 00:18:38,560
or the Visions of Amram

314
00:18:38,560 --> 00:18:40,320
or was that the other way around

315
00:18:40,320 --> 00:18:46,440
or did both of them borrow it from some other
source?

316
00:18:48,880 --> 00:18:53,080
Jubilee is... I think everybody agrees,

317
00:18:53,080 --> 00:18:54,920
was written in the 2nd century BCE,

318
00:18:54,920 --> 00:18:57,360
exactly when during the century, people
debate.

319
00:18:57,360 --> 00:19:00,480
I think maybe toward the middle of the
century.

320
00:19:00,480 --> 00:19:03,720
It may be that the Visions of Amram is an
older text.

321
00:19:03,720 --> 00:19:07,760
The editor of the text, Emile Puech,
certainly thought it was older

322
00:19:07,760 --> 00:19:12,760
and that perhaps Jubilees used the Visions of
Amram.

323
00:19:12,760 --> 00:19:15,120
I think though that that's very unlikely,

324
00:19:15,120 --> 00:19:17,320
the texts are similar in some ways.

325
00:19:17,320 --> 00:19:22,160
They both refer to a war between Canaan and
Egypt

326
00:19:22,160 --> 00:19:23,760
and both present the war

327
00:19:23,760 --> 00:19:27,840
as the context for burying the bones
of Joseph's brothers.

328
00:19:29,600 --> 00:19:32,360
And both mention Amram's return to Egypt

329
00:19:32,360 --> 00:19:36,080
after apparently about the same amount of
time, 40 or 41 years

330
00:19:36,080 --> 00:19:41,440
that he was separated from his wife in Canaan

331
00:19:41,440 --> 00:19:45,960
before he could go back to the land of Egypt.

332
00:19:45,960 --> 00:19:48,400
So the emphases are certainly different

333
00:19:48,400 --> 00:19:50,840
and it seems as though the Visions of Amram

334
00:19:50,840 --> 00:19:53,480
pick up only a part of the war account

335
00:19:53,480 --> 00:19:56,760
whereas Jubilees has a more expanded form
of the war account,

336
00:19:56,760 --> 00:19:58,880
having three phases in it,

337
00:19:58,880 --> 00:20:02,040
and Jubilees includes the Joseph story,

338
00:20:02,040 --> 00:20:06,280
the last days of Joseph in its account.

339
00:20:06,280 --> 00:20:08,560
Now, we could...

340
00:20:08,560 --> 00:20:11,520
I think it's likely that both of them do this
story

341
00:20:11,520 --> 00:20:14,520
from some other source or sources

342
00:20:14,520 --> 00:20:18,880
and we could just briefly ask
what that source might have been.

343
00:20:18,880 --> 00:20:20,840
I think that one could put together

344
00:20:20,840 --> 00:20:25,520
from some hints in the books of Genesis and
Exodus

345
00:20:25,520 --> 00:20:29,360
that there was a war or a threat of war

346
00:20:29,360 --> 00:20:32,920
at the time around Moses' birth

347
00:20:32,920 --> 00:20:35,960
and the time of the oppression in Egypt.

348
00:20:35,960 --> 00:20:38,880
Perhaps already at the end of Genesis,

349
00:20:38,880 --> 00:20:42,880
there was hostility between Egypt and
Canaan.

350
00:20:42,880 --> 00:20:46,920
And there are many hints to this effect in the
text,

351
00:20:46,920 --> 00:20:49,520
and I've already mentioned the fact
that the new king of Egypt

352
00:20:49,520 --> 00:20:54,360
was concerned about the Israelites
becoming so numerous and mighty

353
00:20:54,360 --> 00:20:57,720
that they were mightier than the Egyptians
in case of war.

354
00:20:57,720 --> 00:21:02,200
They might join their enemies, the Canaanites
apparently

355
00:21:02,200 --> 00:21:06,680
and fight against Egypt and leave the land.

356
00:21:06,680 --> 00:21:10,840
The Israelites are put to work on
(UNKNOWN)

357
00:21:10,840 --> 00:21:13,520
it says in Exodus.

358
00:21:13,520 --> 00:21:17,160
One of the understandings of this term
(UNKNOWN)

359
00:21:17,160 --> 00:21:19,960
was that these were fortified cities.

360
00:21:19,960 --> 00:21:23,160
We find this understanding of the term

361
00:21:23,160 --> 00:21:25,880
in the Septuagint and a couple of the
Targums.

362
00:21:25,880 --> 00:21:30,000
It's certainly what we have in the book of
Jubilees.

363
00:21:30,000 --> 00:21:32,680
I suspect then that the two do it
from a common source.

364
00:21:32,680 --> 00:21:36,640
I think maybe someone do to gather the clues

365
00:21:36,640 --> 00:21:39,040
that we have in Genesis and Exodus

366
00:21:39,040 --> 00:21:43,640
about possible conflict
at the end of Joseph's life

367
00:21:43,640 --> 00:21:46,360
and the burial of the brothers and so on.

368
00:21:46,360 --> 00:21:49,960
Conflict between Egypt and Canaan.

369
00:21:50,840 --> 00:21:54,200
I wonder if a story like this
was perhaps in something

370
00:21:54,200 --> 00:21:58,760
like the texts that we call either
reworked Pentateuch or Pentateuch,

371
00:21:58,760 --> 00:22:03,240
whatever they were.
These somewhat expanded stories

372
00:22:03,240 --> 00:22:05,800
or accounts of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus,

373
00:22:05,800 --> 00:22:08,040
Numbers and Deuteronomy.

374
00:22:08,040 --> 00:22:12,040
Maybe something like this
entered into such a text

375
00:22:12,040 --> 00:22:16,760
and this is the way
in which our two authors ran into it

376
00:22:16,760 --> 00:22:19,560
and both developed it for their own purposes.

377
00:22:20,360 --> 00:22:22,520
OK, I'll stop there.
Thank you.

378
00:22:22,520 --> 00:22:25,280
LAWRENCE: OK. Thank you very much
for this wonderful presentation.

379
00:22:25,280 --> 00:22:30,920
And we go to our wonderful question
moderator, Pat.

380
00:22:30,920 --> 00:22:32,880
PATRICK: Thank you, Professor
VanderKamp.

381
00:22:32,880 --> 00:22:37,120
So, can we have a couple of questions lined
up so far.

382
00:22:37,120 --> 00:22:40,520
First being from Dr Elizabeth (UNKNOWN)
who asks,

383
00:22:40,520 --> 00:22:44,760
if you have any thoughts on the language
difference

384
00:22:44,760 --> 00:22:47,560
between the Visions of Amram being in
Aramaic

385
00:22:47,560 --> 00:22:50,560
and Jubilees being in Hebrew.

386
00:22:52,320 --> 00:22:54,200
JAMES: I don't have many thoughts about it.

387
00:22:54,200 --> 00:22:57,840
I know it's sometimes
argued in our field that

388
00:22:57,840 --> 00:23:02,240
the Aramaic texts at Qumran are generally
earlier

389
00:23:02,240 --> 00:23:03,560
than the Hebrew ones,

390
00:23:03,560 --> 00:23:06,040
whether that's the case all the time,

391
00:23:06,040 --> 00:23:09,800
I really don't know
because I haven't investigated it.

392
00:23:11,560 --> 00:23:14,840
It is interesting that Jubilee is it sticks much
more closely

393
00:23:14,840 --> 00:23:17,840
to the texts of Genesis and Exodus

394
00:23:17,840 --> 00:23:21,760
and explains certain problems
that arise in the text

395
00:23:21,760 --> 00:23:24,520
or fills in certain gaps in the text.

396
00:23:24,520 --> 00:23:31,280
Whereas the Aramaic text
is of more of a free composition,

397
00:23:31,280 --> 00:23:33,960
a free creation, I think.

398
00:23:33,960 --> 00:23:38,600
Perhaps writing in Aramaic allowed that

399
00:23:38,600 --> 00:23:42,040
or facilitated that more so
than writing in Hebrew,

400
00:23:42,040 --> 00:23:45,600
but we, of course, have some Hebrew texts

401
00:23:45,600 --> 00:23:47,600
that are also

402
00:23:48,120 --> 00:23:53,400
more freely with material and scriptural books.

403
00:23:54,360 --> 00:23:56,800
PATRICK: Great. Thank you.

404
00:23:56,800 --> 00:24:00,360
So another question lined up here asks

405
00:24:00,360 --> 00:24:04,080
if you have any thoughts on whether the
Visions of Amram

406
00:24:04,080 --> 00:24:07,840
should be considered as a sectarian
document,

407
00:24:07,840 --> 00:24:11,560
closely associated, for example, with
(UNKNOWN)

408
00:24:11,560 --> 00:24:16,240
or just how any sort of sectarian interpretation

409
00:24:16,240 --> 00:24:18,840
might be involved in any of these expansions

410
00:24:18,840 --> 00:24:23,480
or reworkings of the biblical text.

411
00:24:23,480 --> 00:24:25,800
JAMES: I don't...

412
00:24:25,800 --> 00:24:29,640
I'm not aware of any very strongly sectarian
aspects

413
00:24:29,640 --> 00:24:32,800
of the Visions of Amram.

414
00:24:32,800 --> 00:24:37,800
It is a text that partakes of a concern we find

415
00:24:37,800 --> 00:24:40,080
in other texts from Qumran also

416
00:24:40,080 --> 00:24:42,560
that I think are not obviously sectarian

417
00:24:42,560 --> 00:24:46,200
like the Aramaic Levi document

418
00:24:46,200 --> 00:24:49,560
and the testament of Kohath.

419
00:24:50,400 --> 00:24:53,880
These are texts that, as I said earlier,

420
00:24:53,880 --> 00:24:58,240
give a better resume to these ancient priests
than we...

421
00:24:58,760 --> 00:25:03,480
otherwise have only names for them
given in the Bible.

422
00:25:03,480 --> 00:25:07,280
But I don't see these as sectarian texts.

423
00:25:08,360 --> 00:25:10,560
I don't...

424
00:25:10,560 --> 00:25:14,120
It's not obvious to me at least that they are,

425
00:25:14,120 --> 00:25:18,400
let's say, texts attacking the current
priesthood,

426
00:25:18,400 --> 00:25:22,480
the priesthood in Jerusalem in a sectarian
fashion

427
00:25:22,480 --> 00:25:26,840
like we find some other attacks
in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

428
00:25:26,840 --> 00:25:32,160
I presume these texts
were written before this particular

429
00:25:32,160 --> 00:25:34,720
group of (INAUDIBLE) was formed,

430
00:25:34,720 --> 00:25:39,200
and therefore, we wouldn't expect to find
sectarian features

431
00:25:39,200 --> 00:25:42,080
in them anyway.

432
00:25:43,800 --> 00:25:46,360
PATRICK: Great. Thank you.

433
00:25:47,160 --> 00:25:48,800
Let's see.

434
00:25:48,800 --> 00:25:51,720
Yeah. I mean a follow-up question to that, I
guess,

435
00:25:51,720 --> 00:25:55,560
is one posed here about
just how widely then

436
00:25:55,560 --> 00:25:58,160
might these texts be representative of,

437
00:25:58,160 --> 00:26:00,440
kind of, currents and thoughts, traditions

438
00:26:00,440 --> 00:26:04,880
in the second temple period.

439
00:26:05,760 --> 00:26:09,280
JAMES: I think that both of them show,

440
00:26:09,280 --> 00:26:12,880
in addition to

441
00:26:12,880 --> 00:26:15,520
the desire to expand on

442
00:26:15,520 --> 00:26:19,600
what the end of Genesis
and the beginning of Exodus offer us.

443
00:26:19,600 --> 00:26:21,760
I think both of them show some evidence

444
00:26:21,760 --> 00:26:24,400
of concern with chronological problems

445
00:26:24,400 --> 00:26:27,160
that arise in the scriptural text.

446
00:26:27,680 --> 00:26:31,200
One of the chief problems in chronology

447
00:26:31,200 --> 00:26:33,920
that we find treated in several sources,

448
00:26:33,920 --> 00:26:36,320
both in the scrolls and outside,

449
00:26:36,320 --> 00:26:40,240
is the time after the descent into Egypt,

450
00:26:40,240 --> 00:26:44,520
after Joseph's or Jacob's descent into Egypt.

451
00:26:44,520 --> 00:26:46,360
He lives another 17 years there

452
00:26:46,360 --> 00:26:50,120
and we read about the end of Joseph's life.

453
00:26:50,120 --> 00:26:54,400
And we also have a genealogy in Exodus 6

454
00:26:54,400 --> 00:26:57,080
of the early priests,

455
00:26:57,080 --> 00:27:00,440
the descendants of Levi for several
generations

456
00:27:00,440 --> 00:27:05,400
where we run into Kohath and Amram and
Aaron.

457
00:27:05,400 --> 00:27:09,000
And that particular genealogy

458
00:27:09,000 --> 00:27:12,920
does not give us the kind of chronological
information

459
00:27:12,920 --> 00:27:16,320
that we would get, say, in Genesis 5 or 11

460
00:27:16,320 --> 00:27:18,600
where we find out how old the father was

461
00:27:18,600 --> 00:27:21,360
when his first son was born.

462
00:27:21,360 --> 00:27:23,880
But all of this fed into the larger problem

463
00:27:23,880 --> 00:27:27,040
of when did the Israelites leave from Egypt.

464
00:27:27,040 --> 00:27:30,480
How do you explain the number in Exodus
12:40,

465
00:27:30,480 --> 00:27:33,000
about the 430 years,

466
00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:37,200
or the one in Genesis 15 about 400 years.

467
00:27:37,200 --> 00:27:40,360
So they play into a larger chronological issue

468
00:27:40,360 --> 00:27:43,640
and offer their own solutions to it.

469
00:27:45,480 --> 00:27:47,960
PATRICK: Do we have time for one more?

470
00:27:47,960 --> 00:27:49,440
LAWRENCE: I think we can take one more
question

471
00:27:49,440 --> 00:27:51,120
because this is the last session of the day,

472
00:27:51,120 --> 00:27:55,280
if we end up ending five minutes late,
not gonna hurt anyone, I think.

473
00:27:55,880 --> 00:27:59,120
PATRICK: Sure.
So we have a question from Jonatan Miller.

474
00:27:59,120 --> 00:28:00,120
So I'll just...

475
00:28:00,120 --> 00:28:02,400
It's a little...

476
00:28:02,400 --> 00:28:05,480
It sets up well, so I'll just read the whole
thing.

477
00:28:06,360 --> 00:28:10,720
Could these texts be trying to make sense of
I Chronicles 7,

478
00:28:10,720 --> 00:28:14,200
especially verse 24, which insinuates

479
00:28:14,200 --> 00:28:18,120
that the sons of Ephraim never left the land of
Canaan.

480
00:28:18,120 --> 00:28:24,200
Perhaps they were stuck on account of the
border closure.

481
00:28:25,080 --> 00:28:30,400
JAMES: I don't see any obvious connection
to that particular issue.

482
00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:34,320
We find a focus here on

483
00:28:34,320 --> 00:28:38,120
at least in the Amram text, on the part that

484
00:28:38,120 --> 00:28:41,840
Amram and his family, his father and so on,

485
00:28:41,840 --> 00:28:43,920
played in this burial process.

486
00:28:43,920 --> 00:28:46,400
And I really don't see any

487
00:28:46,400 --> 00:28:51,680
explicit indication that the Ephraim issue was
involved.

488
00:28:51,680 --> 00:28:56,600
LAWRENCE: OK. Thank you very much Jim
for this wonderful presentation.

489
00:28:56,600 --> 00:28:59,720
And I think the audience (INAUDIBLE)

490
00:29:00,400 --> 00:29:03,800
figure out that most of the people speaking
are all friends,

491
00:29:03,800 --> 00:29:06,960
and we all hope to be seeing each other soon
in person

492
00:29:06,960 --> 00:29:08,920
and arguing out some of these issues.

493
00:29:08,920 --> 00:29:11,520
So our next speaker, Ariel Feldman,

494
00:29:11,520 --> 00:29:14,880
from Brite Divinity School
will be speaking on

495
00:29:14,880 --> 00:29:17,720
'Deciphering fragments, tefillin -

496
00:29:17,720 --> 00:29:21,200
which are phylacteries - or an amulet'. OK?

497
00:29:21,200 --> 00:29:23,080
Professor Feldman.

498
00:29:23,080 --> 00:29:25,000
ARIEL: Well, let me begin with a
word of thanks

499
00:29:25,000 --> 00:29:27,760
to Professor Schiffman for this generous
invitation

500
00:29:27,760 --> 00:29:30,400
to be a part of this wonderful conference.

501
00:29:30,400 --> 00:29:33,000
I am also very grateful to Professor Justin

502
00:29:33,000 --> 00:29:37,960
and all others at NYU and beyond
who made this event possible.

503
00:29:38,880 --> 00:29:41,280
My presentation today is a result of

504
00:29:41,280 --> 00:29:44,560
a sort of a scholarly side job, if you like.

505
00:29:44,560 --> 00:29:46,800
Some time ago, I was asked to write an essay

506
00:29:46,800 --> 00:29:49,640
on the fifth book of the Hebrew Bible

507
00:29:49,640 --> 00:29:52,360
- the Book of Deuteronomy
in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

508
00:29:52,360 --> 00:29:54,840
This proves to be a really challenging task

509
00:29:54,840 --> 00:29:59,440
because Deuteronomy appears
to be everywhere in Dead Sea Scrolls

510
00:29:59,440 --> 00:30:04,200
including the tiny tefillin or phylacteries.

511
00:30:04,200 --> 00:30:08,320
Many of you are familiar
with this quite well known Jewish custom

512
00:30:08,320 --> 00:30:12,200
of wearing phylacteries or tefillin.

513
00:30:12,200 --> 00:30:15,560
Fill in small boxes with leather straps.

514
00:30:15,560 --> 00:30:17,840
During morning prayer on weekdays,

515
00:30:17,840 --> 00:30:20,920
one of the two boxes
is attached to one's forehead

516
00:30:20,920 --> 00:30:23,760
while the other one goes on the left arm.

517
00:30:23,760 --> 00:30:27,760
And inside these two little boxes are four
biblical passages.

518
00:30:27,760 --> 00:30:30,880
The next slide shows a scribe
hard at work

519
00:30:30,880 --> 00:30:34,280
to prepare this tefillin slips which contain,

520
00:30:34,280 --> 00:30:38,680
as you may know, pieces from Exodus
chapter 13,

521
00:30:38,680 --> 00:30:43,080
verses one through ten and also 11 through
16,

522
00:30:43,080 --> 00:30:46,000
Deuteronomy six, verses four through nine,

523
00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:50,640
and Deuteronomy 11,
verses 13 through 21.

524
00:30:50,640 --> 00:30:53,320
One of these passages is particularly well
known,

525
00:30:53,320 --> 00:30:55,880
Deuteronomy six, verses four through nine,

526
00:30:55,880 --> 00:30:59,160
which contains the famous (UNKNOWN)
Israel,

527
00:30:59,160 --> 00:31:02,240
'the Lord is our God, the Lord alone'.

528
00:31:02,240 --> 00:31:06,520
Well, when you look at the sentence marked
in red,

529
00:31:06,520 --> 00:31:07,840
'bind them as a sign on your hand

530
00:31:07,840 --> 00:31:10,720
and let them serve as a symbol on your
forehead',

531
00:31:10,720 --> 00:31:14,440
this is a sentence that is commonly cited
as the scriptural basis

532
00:31:14,440 --> 00:31:18,600
for the custom of making and wearing tefillin.

533
00:31:18,600 --> 00:31:20,720
However, a reader might wonder

534
00:31:20,720 --> 00:31:24,440
whether this requirement
was intended to be understood literally

535
00:31:24,440 --> 00:31:27,280
or rather as a figure of speech.

536
00:31:27,280 --> 00:31:31,240
When this command was first understood
literally is unknown.

537
00:31:31,240 --> 00:31:34,840
What we do know, however,
is that this custom or custom associated

538
00:31:34,840 --> 00:31:38,240
with such a literal interpretation of
Deuteronomy six,

539
00:31:38,240 --> 00:31:42,080
was in place already in 2nd century BCE.

540
00:31:42,080 --> 00:31:43,720
How do we know that?

541
00:31:43,720 --> 00:31:47,120
Well first, there might be a hint
to an existence of such a custom.

542
00:31:47,120 --> 00:31:50,120
in the Letter of Aristeas,

543
00:31:50,120 --> 00:31:54,080
a Jewish work written sometime in 2nd
century BCE in Greek.

544
00:31:54,080 --> 00:31:56,480
Secondly and far more importantly,

545
00:31:56,480 --> 00:32:00,400
we have in our possession multiple tefillin
from the Judean desert.

546
00:32:00,400 --> 00:32:02,960
Predominantly from the caves of Qumran.

547
00:32:02,960 --> 00:32:07,120
And the oldest ones of them
are dated on palaeographic grounds

548
00:32:07,120 --> 00:32:09,920
to the 2nd century BCE.

549
00:32:09,920 --> 00:32:11,520
So let me explain a little bit more

550
00:32:11,520 --> 00:32:14,600
what exactly was found among the Qumran
scrolls

551
00:32:14,600 --> 00:32:17,560
as far as tefillin are concerned.

552
00:32:17,560 --> 00:32:19,720
We have several complete phylacteries

553
00:32:19,720 --> 00:32:22,560
with slips inside the cases.

554
00:32:23,080 --> 00:32:25,240
In fact, recently, Dr Yonatan Adler

555
00:32:25,240 --> 00:32:28,280
was able to locate, in the depths of a storage,

556
00:32:28,280 --> 00:32:33,960
a box with nine tefillin cases
which seemed to have text inside,

557
00:32:33,960 --> 00:32:37,040
and they are still yet to be opened.

558
00:32:37,040 --> 00:32:39,440
In addition to few complete tefillin,

559
00:32:39,440 --> 00:32:44,520
the Judean desert also include multiple tefillin
cases which are empty,

560
00:32:44,520 --> 00:32:46,400
some 25 of them,

561
00:32:46,400 --> 00:32:49,440
as well as many tefillin slips out of the boxes,

562
00:32:49,440 --> 00:32:51,320
some 40 of them.

563
00:32:51,320 --> 00:32:53,800
Most of them come from the Qumran caves,

564
00:32:53,800 --> 00:32:56,040
and a few from sites associated

565
00:32:56,040 --> 00:33:00,480
with the Second Jewish revolt against Rome
under Bar Kokhba.

566
00:33:01,200 --> 00:33:04,880
Well, this ancient tefillin are remarkable
objects.

567
00:33:04,880 --> 00:33:07,000
First, there is a craftsmanship.

568
00:33:07,000 --> 00:33:08,640
The cases are tiny.

569
00:33:08,640 --> 00:33:11,800
For instance, this tefillin
published by (INAUDIBLE)

570
00:33:11,800 --> 00:33:14,440
which has four compartments

571
00:33:14,440 --> 00:33:16,960
to house for slips of text,

572
00:33:16,960 --> 00:33:20,360
is only 13mm by 20mm.

573
00:33:20,360 --> 00:33:22,720
Namely, less than an inch.

574
00:33:22,720 --> 00:33:25,800
The texts themselves
are also exceedingly small.

575
00:33:25,800 --> 00:33:28,760
Again, taking the (INAUDIBLE) tefillin as an
example,

576
00:33:28,760 --> 00:33:34,480
one of the slips measures some 27 by 44mm.

577
00:33:34,480 --> 00:33:36,960
An inch by two inches.

578
00:33:36,960 --> 00:33:40,120
As you can see, they were carefully folded

579
00:33:40,120 --> 00:33:43,800
Into tiny packages and then fastened
to prevent unfolding

580
00:33:43,800 --> 00:33:48,760
apparently with the hair of a clean kosher
animal such as a goat.

581
00:33:48,760 --> 00:33:50,960
Finally, there is the script.

582
00:33:50,960 --> 00:33:54,760
Many tefillin from the Judean desert
feature a tiny script

583
00:33:54,760 --> 00:33:59,360
with letters often ranging
between 0.5 and 1mm.

584
00:33:59,840 --> 00:34:02,560
This sort of miniature writing must have
required

585
00:34:02,560 --> 00:34:05,760
a remarkable skill and concentration.

586
00:34:05,760 --> 00:34:10,280
In some cases, the script is quite difficult to
decipher.

587
00:34:10,280 --> 00:34:13,120
The challenge is not only the small size of the
letters

588
00:34:13,120 --> 00:34:15,520
but also the tendency found here and
there

589
00:34:15,520 --> 00:34:18,520
to reduce the familiar shapes of the Hebrew
letters

590
00:34:18,520 --> 00:34:20,160
to simpler forms.

591
00:34:20,160 --> 00:34:24,120
Apparently, in order to make the process
of writing easier and faster.

592
00:34:24,600 --> 00:34:27,080
I would like to offer one example of such a
reduction

593
00:34:27,080 --> 00:34:29,680
or simplification, if you like, of the letters

594
00:34:29,680 --> 00:34:32,080
coming to you from a slip of (UNKNOWN)

595
00:34:32,080 --> 00:34:34,280
from the eighth cave of Qumran.

596
00:34:34,280 --> 00:34:39,040
And this image represents two words
from Deuteronomy 10, 22.

597
00:34:39,040 --> 00:34:41,960
If you're able to follow Hebrew,
you can follow the text

598
00:34:41,960 --> 00:34:45,600
in the red in the square script
below the image.

599
00:34:45,600 --> 00:34:49,320
The two words in question
are (UNKNOWN) and (UNKNOWN)

600
00:34:49,320 --> 00:34:53,960
rendered into English as 'so many persons
went down'.

601
00:34:53,960 --> 00:34:56,240
Please know that there is no space or interval

602
00:34:56,240 --> 00:34:58,400
between the two words at all.

603
00:34:58,400 --> 00:35:00,240
More importantly, I think,

604
00:35:00,240 --> 00:35:04,280
you can see how similar the letters are
in the second word.

605
00:35:04,280 --> 00:35:07,840
Without knowing the Biblical passage,
would you ever be able to tell

606
00:35:07,840 --> 00:35:11,680
that this four vertical lines
are actually four different letters.

607
00:35:11,680 --> 00:35:14,920
(UNKNOWN)

608
00:35:15,520 --> 00:35:17,240
The Qumran tefillin are remarkable

609
00:35:17,240 --> 00:35:19,000
not only because of their physical features

610
00:35:19,000 --> 00:35:21,280
but also because of their contents.

611
00:35:21,280 --> 00:35:23,680
As you may know, Rabbinic law, 'Halakha'

612
00:35:23,680 --> 00:35:26,640
requires a precise and uniform execution

613
00:35:26,640 --> 00:35:29,600
of the slips inserted into the tefillin.

614
00:35:29,600 --> 00:35:33,480
No slightest deviation from the
received text of Exodus and Deuteronomy

615
00:35:33,480 --> 00:35:35,200
is allowed.

616
00:35:35,200 --> 00:35:38,480
One of the biggest surprises of the Qumran
tefillin, in this regard,

617
00:35:38,480 --> 00:35:42,920
was that multiple tefillin include more biblical
text

618
00:35:42,920 --> 00:35:46,160
than traditional or Rabbinic tefillin do.

619
00:35:46,160 --> 00:35:50,240
Thus in Exodus for instance,
several verses from the preceding chapter,

620
00:35:50,240 --> 00:35:54,840
Chapter Twelve, verses 43 through 51 are
included.

621
00:35:54,840 --> 00:35:56,640
In the case of Deuteronomy,

622
00:35:56,640 --> 00:36:00,440
preceding sections from chapters five, six and
ten

623
00:36:00,440 --> 00:36:02,080
are copied.

624
00:36:02,080 --> 00:36:05,080
The inclusion of Deuteronomy five is
particularly important

625
00:36:05,080 --> 00:36:08,920
because it contains
the famous Ten Commandments.

626
00:36:08,920 --> 00:36:10,480
Besides the tefillin slips

627
00:36:10,480 --> 00:36:13,840
that include large chunks of Exodus and
Deuteronomy,

628
00:36:13,840 --> 00:36:16,960
there is also one tefillin slip which is unusual.

629
00:36:16,960 --> 00:36:20,440
It contains a few verses from Shirat Haazinu,

630
00:36:20,440 --> 00:36:24,000
or Moses' song from Deuteronomy 32.

631
00:36:24,520 --> 00:36:28,160
I should make sure now
that along with this expansive tefillin,

632
00:36:28,160 --> 00:36:30,840
there are also several phylacteries at Qumran

633
00:36:30,840 --> 00:36:33,760
that have exactly the same biblical passages

634
00:36:33,760 --> 00:36:36,840
as traditional tefillin do.

635
00:36:37,520 --> 00:36:39,400
Most of this tefillin slips from Qumran

636
00:36:39,400 --> 00:36:41,640
were deciphered and published relatively
early

637
00:36:41,640 --> 00:36:44,280
by a gifted polygrapher, Józef Milik.

638
00:36:44,280 --> 00:36:47,360
His work on reading and reconstructing these
tiny scrolls

639
00:36:47,360 --> 00:36:49,400
is astonishing.

640
00:36:49,400 --> 00:36:53,720
And this brings me back to my little side joke
story, if you will.

641
00:36:53,720 --> 00:36:55,800
As I studied the tefillin slips

642
00:36:55,800 --> 00:36:58,560
containing passages from the Book
of Deuteronomy,

643
00:36:58,560 --> 00:37:03,080
I came across one slip that Milik left unread.

644
00:37:03,080 --> 00:37:05,480
No that he completely ignored it. No.

645
00:37:05,480 --> 00:37:07,400
He actually masterfully unrolled it

646
00:37:07,400 --> 00:37:10,840
and then reassembled it from several small
scraps.

647
00:37:10,840 --> 00:37:13,920
However, he considered it to be

648
00:37:13,920 --> 00:37:18,240
practically indecipherable, to quote his own
language.

649
00:37:18,240 --> 00:37:22,160
This tefillin slip is known as 4Q Phylactery T.

650
00:37:22,160 --> 00:37:24,840
Let's take a closer look at it.

651
00:37:25,440 --> 00:37:27,680
What you see on the next slide
appears to be the

652
00:37:27,680 --> 00:37:32,240
earliest available photograph
of this 4Q Phylactery T.

653
00:37:32,240 --> 00:37:34,480
Taken during the process of initial sifting

654
00:37:34,480 --> 00:37:36,280
and arranging of the fragments,

655
00:37:36,280 --> 00:37:39,440
sometime in 1958.

656
00:37:39,440 --> 00:37:42,440
On this image, it appears still as a folded text.

657
00:37:42,440 --> 00:37:44,320
And many of the fragments surrounding it

658
00:37:44,320 --> 00:37:48,360
belong to other tefillin that Milik read and
published.

659
00:37:48,360 --> 00:37:51,360
Clearly, very little can be said about this tiny
text

660
00:37:51,360 --> 00:37:55,440
from this particular image at this particular
stage.

661
00:37:55,920 --> 00:37:57,920
The next image takes us...

662
00:37:57,920 --> 00:38:02,560
A few years ago taken picture
from 2014

663
00:38:02,560 --> 00:38:06,320
and it presents a partially unfolded text.

664
00:38:06,320 --> 00:38:09,520
I'm saying partially unfolded text of fragment
one

665
00:38:09,520 --> 00:38:11,680
because the long rectangular piece

666
00:38:11,680 --> 00:38:14,080
in the right bottom corner of the fragment

667
00:38:14,080 --> 00:38:16,720
is actually a sort of multi-layered wad.

668
00:38:16,720 --> 00:38:21,120
A sandwich, if you like,
with several layers of text inside.

669
00:38:21,120 --> 00:38:24,760
If unfolded,
it would reveal the entire missing part

670
00:38:24,760 --> 00:38:28,000
of the text on the right-hand of the text.

671
00:38:28,000 --> 00:38:30,200
I very much hope that it will be soon opened

672
00:38:30,200 --> 00:38:33,760
by our high skilled curators.

673
00:38:34,520 --> 00:38:36,480
As with other tefillin slips,

674
00:38:36,480 --> 00:38:42,040
this fragment is very small
- about 30mm wide and 15mm high.

675
00:38:42,040 --> 00:38:45,520
The letters are tiny too,
no more than 1mm high

676
00:38:45,520 --> 00:38:48,920
just like in many other tefillin from Qumran.

677
00:38:48,920 --> 00:38:52,320
And as in several other phylacteries,
the height of the letters

678
00:38:52,320 --> 00:38:55,720
Is not only the challenge that I'm dealing with

679
00:38:55,720 --> 00:38:57,800
but also the challenge that

680
00:38:57,800 --> 00:39:01,120
the main letters appear to be very similar in
their shape.

681
00:39:01,120 --> 00:39:02,880
Please take a look at this image.

682
00:39:02,880 --> 00:39:06,240
Lots of similarly looking vertical strokes.

683
00:39:06,240 --> 00:39:09,920
In addition, the ink also has spread out some,

684
00:39:09,920 --> 00:39:13,640
blurring the precise contours of the letters.

685
00:39:13,640 --> 00:39:15,240
Well, when I first saw it,

686
00:39:15,240 --> 00:39:19,560
I felt, to quote the well-known musical, excited
and scared.

687
00:39:19,560 --> 00:39:21,720
I was excited because I thought,

688
00:39:21,720 --> 00:39:25,720
"How often does one find a text
that no one really worked on?"

689
00:39:25,720 --> 00:39:28,440
It seemed to be an incredible opportunity
to be a part of,

690
00:39:28,440 --> 00:39:33,440
so to speak, original Dead Sea Scrolls
experience deciphering of fragment.

691
00:39:34,120 --> 00:39:37,440
However, I also felt apprehensive
because it was very clear to me

692
00:39:37,440 --> 00:39:39,360
that this is a difficult one.

693
00:39:39,360 --> 00:39:41,720
If Milik gave up on it, it has...

694
00:39:41,720 --> 00:39:44,880
must have been very difficult to read.

695
00:39:44,880 --> 00:39:46,680
At the same time, as you know, these days,

696
00:39:46,680 --> 00:39:48,720
these days, we have so many new tools at our
disposal

697
00:39:48,720 --> 00:39:51,000
when we work on this text.

698
00:39:51,000 --> 00:39:53,560
First, thanks to IAA, I had an access

699
00:39:53,560 --> 00:39:56,760
to the new high resolution images of this text,

700
00:39:56,760 --> 00:40:00,640
for which I'm very grateful to the Scrolls team
at IAA.

701
00:40:00,640 --> 00:40:03,320
Second, I had the software to manipulate
these images,

702
00:40:03,320 --> 00:40:06,840
enlarging and changing their features as
needed.

703
00:40:06,840 --> 00:40:11,600
Milik, as you will recall, worked with a
magnifying glass only.

704
00:40:11,600 --> 00:40:14,280
Finally, I had another great advantage.

705
00:40:14,280 --> 00:40:16,280
My wife is interested in Dead Sea Scrolls

706
00:40:16,280 --> 00:40:19,240
and she happens to be a software engineer,

707
00:40:19,240 --> 00:40:22,520
so she and I decided to join forces.

708
00:40:22,520 --> 00:40:25,640
We spend long hours inspecting the old and
new images

709
00:40:25,640 --> 00:40:29,000
trying to match them
with the text of Exodus and Deuteronomy

710
00:40:29,000 --> 00:40:32,000
that we expected to find that this fragment.

711
00:40:32,000 --> 00:40:36,200
However, the more we tried,
the less likely it seemed to be.

712
00:40:36,200 --> 00:40:39,960
The text simply refused to match those
biblical verses.

713
00:40:39,960 --> 00:40:43,680
So what do you do
when you have a string of tiny letters,

714
00:40:43,680 --> 00:40:45,680
many of which look alike,

715
00:40:45,680 --> 00:40:49,080
with almost no intervals between the words,

716
00:40:49,080 --> 00:40:53,320
and unlike tefillin slips,
you don't know the text.

717
00:40:53,320 --> 00:40:55,680
All of a sudden, it was no more a task

718
00:40:55,680 --> 00:40:58,960
of deciphering an unread tefillin slip

719
00:40:58,960 --> 00:41:02,000
but an apparently unknown document.

720
00:41:02,000 --> 00:41:03,960
So here's what we try to do.

721
00:41:03,960 --> 00:41:07,880
First, we try to identify the letters
that were more or less distinct.

722
00:41:07,880 --> 00:41:10,720
And using various charts prepared by other
scholars,

723
00:41:10,720 --> 00:41:14,080
figure out what could they be.

724
00:41:14,080 --> 00:41:16,320
We pay particular attention to what appeared
to be

725
00:41:16,320 --> 00:41:20,400
the final letters making the ends of the words.

726
00:41:20,400 --> 00:41:22,320
Second, my wife designed a software

727
00:41:22,320 --> 00:41:24,760
that allowed us to search for strings of letters

728
00:41:24,760 --> 00:41:27,360
we thought we were able to recognize

729
00:41:27,360 --> 00:41:29,200
within biblical texts.

730
00:41:29,200 --> 00:41:30,880
We, of course, had no idea

731
00:41:30,880 --> 00:41:33,040
whether there is any biblical passage
in this fragment,

732
00:41:33,040 --> 00:41:34,720
but we got lucky.

733
00:41:34,720 --> 00:41:37,480
We were able to identify several words.

734
00:41:37,480 --> 00:41:43,200
In fact, two full lines of text
that had a match in the Hebrew Bible.

735
00:41:43,200 --> 00:41:45,840
It wasn't Exodus or Deuteronomy

736
00:41:45,840 --> 00:41:47,760
but rather the book of Psalms.

737
00:41:47,760 --> 00:41:51,920
Psalm 36, verses eight through 11.

738
00:41:51,920 --> 00:41:54,160
As you can see on the slide,

739
00:41:54,160 --> 00:41:55,880
this is not a precise quotation

740
00:41:55,880 --> 00:41:59,680
but some sort of paraphrase of this ritual
passage.

741
00:41:59,680 --> 00:42:01,480
The passage itself reads

742
00:42:01,480 --> 00:42:04,520
'All people may take refuge in the shadow of
your wings.

743
00:42:04,520 --> 00:42:07,080
They feast on the abundance of your house.

744
00:42:07,080 --> 00:42:10,200
And you give them drink
from the river of your delights.

745
00:42:10,200 --> 00:42:13,160
O continue your steadfast love to those who
know you

746
00:42:13,160 --> 00:42:16,480
and your salvation to the upright of heart'.

747
00:42:16,480 --> 00:42:20,440
So the words in red have a parallel in the
fragment.

748
00:42:20,440 --> 00:42:23,480
They will drink their fill from the shadow of
your wings.

749
00:42:23,480 --> 00:42:26,880
They will take refuge with the sadness of your
house.

750
00:42:26,880 --> 00:42:28,840
And then we have a missing part.

751
00:42:28,840 --> 00:42:31,400
He will place you on the river of delights.

752
00:42:31,400 --> 00:42:34,760
And the upright of heart will rest.

753
00:42:34,760 --> 00:42:37,360
Well, once we had this match,

754
00:42:37,360 --> 00:42:39,560
we could proceed with more certainty.

755
00:42:39,560 --> 00:42:40,960
For now, we knew a bit more

756
00:42:40,960 --> 00:42:44,800
about the way the scribe executed his letters.

757
00:42:44,800 --> 00:42:47,440
This is not to say
we were able to offer a definitive reading

758
00:42:47,440 --> 00:42:50,600
of the entire fragment,
this is still a work in progress,

759
00:42:50,600 --> 00:42:53,760
still the preliminary additions that we were
able to publish

760
00:42:53,760 --> 00:42:58,720
suggested an addition to this quotation from
Psalms 36.

761
00:42:58,720 --> 00:43:02,080
This fragment also contains non-biblical text,

762
00:43:02,080 --> 00:43:04,440
not a passage from the Bible at all,

763
00:43:04,440 --> 00:43:09,920
that deals with such topics as healing,
strength and blessing.

764
00:43:10,840 --> 00:43:13,640
Yet there were more surprises in store.

765
00:43:13,640 --> 00:43:16,280
There is another fragment in this tiny scroll.

766
00:43:16,280 --> 00:43:20,200
It is much smaller
but it is somewhat easier to read.

767
00:43:20,200 --> 00:43:23,720
As you can see
from these two images on this slide,

768
00:43:23,720 --> 00:43:26,040
it is also still partially folded

769
00:43:26,040 --> 00:43:30,360
and needs the loving hand of a curator
to unfold and straighten it.

770
00:43:30,360 --> 00:43:34,280
Meanwhile we are able to digitally unfold it
using Photoshop.

771
00:43:34,280 --> 00:43:37,920
And you can see the result on the next slide.

772
00:43:38,520 --> 00:43:40,320
As with the previous fragment,

773
00:43:40,320 --> 00:43:44,680
we soon realized that this is not a text
of Exodus or Deuteronomy.

774
00:43:44,680 --> 00:43:46,800
(INAUDIBLE) was fragment one.

775
00:43:46,800 --> 00:43:49,760
Some of the wording here is not easy to
decipher.

776
00:43:49,760 --> 00:43:55,360
Still in line four, we think one can clearly read
the name of Raphael.

777
00:43:55,360 --> 00:43:58,400
As you may know, Raphael is the name of an
angel.

778
00:43:58,400 --> 00:44:01,320
In such early texts as first book of Enoch,

779
00:44:01,320 --> 00:44:04,880
he's one of the top angels, one of the
archangels.

780
00:44:04,880 --> 00:44:08,320
His name comes from the Hebrew root
meaning 'to heal'.

781
00:44:08,320 --> 00:44:11,240
And another early Jewish text, the book of
Tobit,

782
00:44:11,240 --> 00:44:14,040
he helps to heal the main protagonist, Tobit,

783
00:44:14,040 --> 00:44:17,240
and restrains a demon named Asmodeus.

784
00:44:17,760 --> 00:44:20,400
In fact, later Jewish magical texts and amulets

785
00:44:20,400 --> 00:44:23,040
frequently invoke the name of Raphael.

786
00:44:23,040 --> 00:44:25,080
But all we know from this text

787
00:44:25,080 --> 00:44:28,920
Is that Rafael will frighten them.

788
00:44:28,920 --> 00:44:30,360
But 'frighten' does not explain

789
00:44:30,360 --> 00:44:33,880
who are implied by the plural feminine 'them'.

790
00:44:33,880 --> 00:44:35,760
However, the Hebrew noun 'ruach', 'spirit'

791
00:44:35,760 --> 00:44:39,720
or (UNKNOWN) in plural, comes to mind.

792
00:44:39,720 --> 00:44:43,520
Interestingly, a similar language
of frightening evil spirits

793
00:44:43,520 --> 00:44:45,760
is found in another Dead Sea Scroll.

794
00:44:45,760 --> 00:44:48,720
This text is known as the Song of the Sage.

795
00:44:48,720 --> 00:44:50,880
It appears to contain hymns

796
00:44:50,880 --> 00:44:53,640
that were recited by the Dead Sea Scrolls
community

797
00:44:53,640 --> 00:44:56,320
for protection from evil spirits.

798
00:44:56,320 --> 00:44:59,120
So, the text describes the role of the person

799
00:44:59,120 --> 00:45:02,080
entrusted with this task as follows,

800
00:45:02,080 --> 00:45:06,120
'And I, the instructor, proclaim his glorious
splendor

801
00:45:06,120 --> 00:45:07,880
so as to frighten

802
00:45:07,880 --> 00:45:12,400
and to terrify all the spirits of the destroying
angels'.

803
00:45:12,960 --> 00:45:15,120
Well, having done all this work,

804
00:45:15,120 --> 00:45:17,440
we are now facing the big question.

805
00:45:17,440 --> 00:45:20,600
What is this tiny text that resembles tefillin,

806
00:45:20,600 --> 00:45:24,760
as far as physical features are concerned,
and yet contains a text

807
00:45:24,760 --> 00:45:28,760
that does not match other ancient tefillin at
all?

808
00:45:28,760 --> 00:45:32,360
Is this another tefillin text?

809
00:45:32,360 --> 00:45:36,320
After all, one of tefillin from Qumran
contains Deuteronomy 32,

810
00:45:36,320 --> 00:45:39,600
which is never to be found in other tefillin.

811
00:45:39,600 --> 00:45:43,920
Another option to consider
is that this text is an amulet.

812
00:45:43,920 --> 00:45:45,760
The problem with this proposal is that

813
00:45:45,760 --> 00:45:49,920
we have no other contemporary Jewish texts
to compare it with.

814
00:45:49,920 --> 00:45:53,280
The earliest Jewish, or should I say Judean
text

815
00:45:53,280 --> 00:45:55,560
which is an amulet we possess

816
00:45:55,560 --> 00:45:57,840
is the famous Silver Scrolls

817
00:45:57,840 --> 00:46:02,000
from the burial cave in Ketef Hinnom in
Jerusalem.

818
00:46:02,000 --> 00:46:07,280
These tiny silver scrolls are dated to 7th or 6th
century BCE.

819
00:46:07,280 --> 00:46:10,560
Then we have reference to written amulets
and rabbinic texts,

820
00:46:10,560 --> 00:46:13,160
which are much later.

821
00:46:13,160 --> 00:46:17,280
We also have actual Hebrew and Aramaic
amulets

822
00:46:17,280 --> 00:46:20,920
from 4th and 5th century CE onwards.

823
00:46:20,920 --> 00:46:24,800
That's if you like the gap between the Ketef
Hinnom amulets

824
00:46:24,800 --> 00:46:27,560
and those from the late antiquity
is rather impressive,

825
00:46:27,560 --> 00:46:29,800
it's about 1000 years.

826
00:46:29,800 --> 00:46:33,720
An absence of written Jewish amulets
from this entire period of time

827
00:46:33,720 --> 00:46:37,800
has been suggested to be
an indication that Jews just abstained

828
00:46:37,800 --> 00:46:41,400
from written amulets
in this period of time at all.

829
00:46:41,400 --> 00:46:44,080
Still I think we can compare our little text

830
00:46:44,080 --> 00:46:47,240
with at least the later Jewish amulets.

831
00:46:47,240 --> 00:46:49,320
There are several similarities.

832
00:46:49,320 --> 00:46:51,520
Rabbinic texts, for instance, tell us that

833
00:46:51,520 --> 00:46:54,920
amulets and tefillin often looked alike.

834
00:46:54,920 --> 00:46:58,080
One actually could mistake an amulet for
tefillin.

835
00:46:58,080 --> 00:47:01,000
It seems to fit our text rather well.

836
00:47:01,000 --> 00:47:04,160
Rabbis also reported
amulets contain biblical texts,

837
00:47:04,160 --> 00:47:07,960
which our text also does, Psalm 36.

838
00:47:07,960 --> 00:47:11,920
The actual later amulets we possess
often mention angelic names.

839
00:47:11,920 --> 00:47:15,840
Well, as we could see, our text does too.

840
00:47:15,840 --> 00:47:18,400
But there are also important differences

841
00:47:18,400 --> 00:47:20,240
which are not to be overlooked.

842
00:47:20,240 --> 00:47:24,760
Ancient Jewish amulets, or amulets in
general, are often personalized.

843
00:47:24,760 --> 00:47:26,360
They evoke the name of a person

844
00:47:26,360 --> 00:47:29,320
for whom this particular amulet is written.

845
00:47:29,320 --> 00:47:32,200
Also, later Jewish amulets
are often very specific.

846
00:47:32,200 --> 00:47:37,920
They aim at particular disease,
particular danger or particular desire.

847
00:47:37,920 --> 00:47:41,000
Finally, there's almost invariably

848
00:47:41,000 --> 00:47:43,520
a text or a phrase of adulation,

849
00:47:43,520 --> 00:47:48,440
which is a formula making the demons obey
the amulet.

850
00:47:48,440 --> 00:47:52,640
All these features are clearly absent from our
text.

851
00:47:52,640 --> 00:47:54,960
Yet I think this does not necessarily rule out

852
00:47:54,960 --> 00:47:59,280
the possibility that our tiny scroll is an amulet,

853
00:47:59,280 --> 00:48:01,960
for these very features are also missing

854
00:48:01,960 --> 00:48:05,760
from the Ketef Hinnom amulets, the early
ones.

855
00:48:05,760 --> 00:48:08,720
In fact, in comparison to later Jewish amulets,

856
00:48:08,720 --> 00:48:10,600
Ketef Hinnom amulets seem to be

857
00:48:10,600 --> 00:48:12,880
more of a prophylactic type, if you like.

858
00:48:12,880 --> 00:48:15,720
They're not treating a particular disease or
menace

859
00:48:15,720 --> 00:48:18,680
but rather secure protection from evil in
general

860
00:48:18,680 --> 00:48:20,880
and a divine blessing.

861
00:48:20,880 --> 00:48:23,040
Perhaps this could be true of our object.

862
00:48:23,040 --> 00:48:25,400
It served a sort of protection

863
00:48:25,400 --> 00:48:27,960
prophylactic purpose, if you like.

864
00:48:27,960 --> 00:48:29,400
So what is it then?

865
00:48:29,400 --> 00:48:32,440
A tefillin, a phylactery or an amulet?

866
00:48:32,440 --> 00:48:35,000
Well, you're, of course, free to make your own
judgement

867
00:48:35,000 --> 00:48:38,840
but please allow me to complicate things a
little bit further.

868
00:48:38,840 --> 00:48:42,560
Does it really have to be this or that?

869
00:48:42,560 --> 00:48:45,320
Several scholars have argued that tefillin

870
00:48:45,320 --> 00:48:49,400
were apotropaic objects or amulets
themselves.

871
00:48:49,400 --> 00:48:52,080
The most detailed argument in support of this
thesis

872
00:48:52,080 --> 00:48:55,040
has been recently put forward by
(UNKNOWN)

873
00:48:55,040 --> 00:48:57,040
In his important monograph, he argues

874
00:48:57,040 --> 00:49:00,200
that tefillin originated as amulets.

875
00:49:00,200 --> 00:49:02,720
A kind of, if you like, Jewish response

876
00:49:02,720 --> 00:49:06,760
to the prevalence use of amulets
in the Greco-Roman world.

877
00:49:06,760 --> 00:49:09,320
The biblical passages utilized in them

878
00:49:09,320 --> 00:49:14,120
intended to secure a long life in the land for
their owners.

879
00:49:14,120 --> 00:49:17,760
Well, if this logic is followed one step further,

880
00:49:17,760 --> 00:49:20,880
then what we have at Qumran, maybe,

881
00:49:20,880 --> 00:49:23,400
is a variety of

882
00:49:23,400 --> 00:49:27,000
apotropaic text. A variety of miniature text

883
00:49:27,000 --> 00:49:29,640
serving apotropaic purposes.

884
00:49:29,640 --> 00:49:32,160
The majority of them uses the familiar
passages

885
00:49:32,160 --> 00:49:34,160
from Exodus and Deuteronomy.

886
00:49:34,160 --> 00:49:38,040
Some prefer longer stretches of text
while others, shorter.

887
00:49:38,040 --> 00:49:42,240
There is also one instance of an amulet
using Deuteronomy 32.

888
00:49:42,240 --> 00:49:44,800
And now, there is also a text - our text -

889
00:49:44,800 --> 00:49:46,600
which is a very different animal.

890
00:49:46,600 --> 00:49:52,160
It is citing biblical verses
but otherwise, is a non-biblical document.

891
00:49:52,160 --> 00:49:54,160
Well, if you were to agree,

892
00:49:54,160 --> 00:49:56,040
if all this is correct

893
00:49:56,040 --> 00:50:00,560
and all these tiny text we're discussing
are amulets in a way,

894
00:50:00,560 --> 00:50:04,600
then we would have still
a very interesting question to answer.

895
00:50:04,600 --> 00:50:06,400
Why do most of them

896
00:50:06,400 --> 00:50:08,360
contain Exodus and Deuteronomy

897
00:50:08,360 --> 00:50:12,360
and only one seems to contain a non-biblical
text?

898
00:50:12,360 --> 00:50:16,000
All I can suggest at this point
is that this may say something

899
00:50:16,000 --> 00:50:20,080
about the community or communities
that own this object.

900
00:50:20,080 --> 00:50:23,120
A community or communities
that prioritize scripture

901
00:50:23,120 --> 00:50:27,280
over other texts
that could secure divine benevolence.

902
00:50:27,760 --> 00:50:31,320
Well, what began as a side job for me
became a long-term project.

903
00:50:31,320 --> 00:50:34,160
I've been working on Qumran tefillin ever
since.

904
00:50:34,160 --> 00:50:38,800
I think there might be
one or two more tiny scrolls

905
00:50:38,800 --> 00:50:42,160
that appear to be tefillin
but contain texts that do not really match,

906
00:50:42,160 --> 00:50:44,840
again, Exodus and Deuteronomy.

907
00:50:44,840 --> 00:50:47,200
Yeah. This is a topic for a different
presentation.

908
00:50:47,200 --> 00:50:49,200
Thank you.

909
00:50:49,200 --> 00:50:54,280
LAWRENCE: Thank you very much Ariel
for this wonderful presentation.

910
00:50:54,280 --> 00:50:59,040
And I think you may have used an amulet
to show your success.

911
00:50:59,040 --> 00:51:01,120
And of course, we wish you continued
success

912
00:51:01,120 --> 00:51:02,360
in research on tefillin.

913
00:51:02,360 --> 00:51:06,680
And turn over to Pat for our questions.

914
00:51:07,400 --> 00:51:08,840
PATRICK: Great, Thank you very much.

915
00:51:08,840 --> 00:51:10,000
I think we're...

916
00:51:10,000 --> 00:51:13,320
I'm sharing the screen so we can see you.

917
00:51:13,320 --> 00:51:16,000
Professor Feldman, thank you very much.

918
00:51:16,000 --> 00:51:18,960
So we have a few questions lined up already.

919
00:51:18,960 --> 00:51:21,200
But right off the bat,

920
00:51:21,200 --> 00:51:24,880
a couple of questions are asking about just
the...

921
00:51:25,640 --> 00:51:32,200
the kind of material context of these tefillin
man...

922
00:51:32,200 --> 00:51:35,480
or this tefillin manuscript at least, right?

923
00:51:35,480 --> 00:51:38,440
So what was it?
Where were they discovered?

924
00:51:38,440 --> 00:51:40,760
What was their context?

925
00:51:40,760 --> 00:51:44,800
And can we tell whether or not
they were written at Qumran

926
00:51:44,800 --> 00:51:48,680
or brought there, like some theories, I
suppose,

927
00:51:48,680 --> 00:51:51,400
about the scrolls not all being from Qumran...

928
00:51:51,400 --> 00:51:57,240
being written by sectarians at the site, etc. etc.

929
00:51:57,240 --> 00:51:58,800
So...

930
00:51:58,800 --> 00:52:01,600
ARIEL: Thanks very much.
Although those are really big questions.

931
00:52:02,080 --> 00:52:05,120
(INAUDIBLE) the final answer on all of them.

932
00:52:05,120 --> 00:52:07,920
Well, as far as the places where they've been
found,

933
00:52:07,920 --> 00:52:10,760
most of them, the majority have been found at
Qumran

934
00:52:10,760 --> 00:52:13,120
from what we have from the Judean desert, of
course,

935
00:52:13,120 --> 00:52:15,120
and there are several that have been found

936
00:52:15,120 --> 00:52:17,440
in the caves that are related to

937
00:52:17,440 --> 00:52:22,800
those Judeans who were seeking shelter from
the Romans apparently

938
00:52:22,800 --> 00:52:25,480
during the Second Revolt against Rome,

939
00:52:25,480 --> 00:52:29,040
but possibly, also in the times of the First
Revolt.

940
00:52:29,040 --> 00:52:33,920
So the majority comes from the Dead Sea
area, from the caves of Qumran.

941
00:52:33,920 --> 00:52:37,080
Some of them have features

942
00:52:37,080 --> 00:52:40,440
that according to at least to one school of
thought,

943
00:52:40,440 --> 00:52:44,480
may suggest that they have been written at
Qumran itself

944
00:52:44,480 --> 00:52:48,320
because of particularities of morphology and
orthography.

945
00:52:48,320 --> 00:52:52,440
However, it's not entirely clear
whether those indications are enough

946
00:52:52,440 --> 00:52:58,360
to secure that sort of very clear location for
this text.

947
00:52:58,360 --> 00:53:02,400
There is one or two
that are so remarkably resembling

948
00:53:02,400 --> 00:53:06,680
the traditional Jewish tefillin - the rabbinic
tefillin -

949
00:53:06,680 --> 00:53:08,680
that an article has been published that
suggests

950
00:53:08,680 --> 00:53:10,880
that maybe in those two,

951
00:53:10,880 --> 00:53:15,080
we have an example of a tefillin
that was actually pharisaic

952
00:53:15,080 --> 00:53:17,840
and brought by a member perhaps,

953
00:53:17,840 --> 00:53:22,040
adjoining member to Qumran,
and, therefore, we have it there.

954
00:53:22,040 --> 00:53:26,200
But so far, these are predominantly theories.

955
00:53:26,200 --> 00:53:30,160
We cannot say anything for sure
about the location of those texts.

956
00:53:30,160 --> 00:53:31,440
What is also very interesting

957
00:53:31,440 --> 00:53:34,280
that many of them have been found out of
their cases,

958
00:53:34,280 --> 00:53:36,280
out of their little housings,

959
00:53:36,280 --> 00:53:38,880
and this is raising a question why,

960
00:53:38,880 --> 00:53:42,160
what's the reason to have those texts
out of those housings

961
00:53:42,160 --> 00:53:44,680
and housings apart.

962
00:53:44,680 --> 00:53:47,160
I think maybe it's a bit premature

963
00:53:47,160 --> 00:53:49,680
to give any final answers to all this.

964
00:53:49,680 --> 00:53:53,240
First because not much work has been done
on tefillin.

965
00:53:53,240 --> 00:53:56,000
And secondly, we still have this ninth
specimen

966
00:53:56,000 --> 00:53:58,920
waiting to be opened at some point

967
00:53:58,920 --> 00:54:01,800
and many more secrets, I think,
will become more apparent

968
00:54:01,800 --> 00:54:06,120
as they go completely out and published.

969
00:54:06,120 --> 00:54:08,040
PATRICK: Yeah. Kind of following up on this.

970
00:54:08,040 --> 00:54:12,080
Is there any connection to burial practices

971
00:54:12,080 --> 00:54:15,320
or being buried in burial areas?

972
00:54:15,880 --> 00:54:18,880
ARIEL: Well, for the Ketef Hinnom amulets,
as you will recall,

973
00:54:18,880 --> 00:54:21,760
those two silver scrolls were found, indeed,

974
00:54:21,760 --> 00:54:24,360
in a burial cave in Jerusalem.

975
00:54:24,360 --> 00:54:26,920
And one of the suggestions that scholars have
made

976
00:54:26,920 --> 00:54:30,440
is that those two amulets were actually

977
00:54:30,440 --> 00:54:35,080
made or prepared to accompany a person on
his journey

978
00:54:35,080 --> 00:54:38,480
or her journey to the other world.

979
00:54:38,480 --> 00:54:40,720
This is not entirely clear too.

980
00:54:40,720 --> 00:54:43,720
These amulets might have been used in one's
life as well

981
00:54:43,720 --> 00:54:48,360
and then to continue with that person Into the
burial cave.

982
00:54:48,360 --> 00:54:50,960
There is no reasons whatsoever

983
00:54:50,960 --> 00:54:54,760
to assume that tefillin were used in a similar
fashion.

984
00:54:56,800 --> 00:54:58,160
PATRICK: Great.

985
00:54:58,160 --> 00:55:02,480
Thank you. So we have a question here about

986
00:55:02,480 --> 00:55:06,280
since some material that you discovered here

987
00:55:06,280 --> 00:55:10,040
related to works of Psalms,

988
00:55:10,040 --> 00:55:12,640
so how do you see these tefillin,

989
00:55:12,640 --> 00:55:16,800
or at least this one,
impacting

990
00:55:16,800 --> 00:55:19,680
your view of the use of Psalms,

991
00:55:19,680 --> 00:55:23,680
the textual tradition of Psalms etc.?

992
00:55:23,680 --> 00:55:25,760
ARIEL: Well, this is a wonderful question.

993
00:55:25,760 --> 00:55:28,160
As our listeners may know,

994
00:55:28,160 --> 00:55:31,880
Psalms is a very important book in Jewish
tradition

995
00:55:31,880 --> 00:55:35,040
for so many reasons, but also

996
00:55:35,040 --> 00:55:37,440
in the use in amulets.

997
00:55:37,440 --> 00:55:40,680
In fact, it has been suggested that Psalm 91,

998
00:55:40,680 --> 00:55:42,640
the first verses of that Psalm,

999
00:55:42,640 --> 00:55:45,320
are the most widely-used piece of scripture

1000
00:55:45,320 --> 00:55:49,720
In Judea or Judeo-Christian amulets ever.

1001
00:55:49,720 --> 00:55:53,480
So for us, maybe it's an instance of this

1002
00:55:53,480 --> 00:55:55,040
importance of Psalms

1003
00:55:55,040 --> 00:55:59,160
also for that sort of personal piety, if you would
like,

1004
00:55:59,160 --> 00:56:02,880
for that personal touch of divine,

1005
00:56:02,880 --> 00:56:06,160
the use of the text as an object of one's body

1006
00:56:06,160 --> 00:56:08,880
to protect or safeguard,

1007
00:56:08,880 --> 00:56:12,520
to seek divine benevolence.

1008
00:56:12,520 --> 00:56:14,840
PATRICK: Great. And on this same topic,

1009
00:56:14,840 --> 00:56:19,920
Professor (UNKNOWN) asks if Psalm 90
is quoted in any tefillin.

1010
00:56:19,920 --> 00:56:21,080
ARIEL: Is quoted where?

1011
00:56:21,080 --> 00:56:22,480
PATRICK: In any tefillin.

1012
00:56:22,480 --> 00:56:23,480
ARIEL: No. No, no.

1013
00:56:23,480 --> 00:56:25,520
Unfortunately not. And I think I probably
misspoke,

1014
00:56:25,520 --> 00:56:29,680
it's that Psalm that I was referring to
as the most widely-used.

1015
00:56:29,680 --> 00:56:31,280
And unfortunately, we have...

1016
00:56:31,280 --> 00:56:34,040
I mean this is not the probably proper
language,

1017
00:56:34,040 --> 00:56:35,560
fortunately, unfortunately.

1018
00:56:35,560 --> 00:56:37,960
We don't have it in those tefillin.

1019
00:56:37,960 --> 00:56:40,480
We don't have it in those little texts.

1020
00:56:40,480 --> 00:56:42,280
I wish we would.

1021
00:56:42,280 --> 00:56:45,440
That would make a very
interesting connection

1022
00:56:45,440 --> 00:56:50,600
between the later tradition
of including that Psalms in amulets

1023
00:56:50,600 --> 00:56:54,680
and also to such scroll as 11Q11

1024
00:56:54,680 --> 00:56:59,120
which includes that Psalm
along with incantations.

1025
00:56:59,120 --> 00:57:03,920
Some of the early examples
of incantations we had in our hands.

1026
00:57:03,920 --> 00:57:06,600
PATRICK: Yeah. I mean you put this in the
context

1027
00:57:06,600 --> 00:57:09,400
of some of these other Dead Sea Scrolls,

1028
00:57:09,400 --> 00:57:12,640
11Q11, the Songs of the Sage,

1029
00:57:12,640 --> 00:57:16,120
I'm also thinking of - was it? - 4Q444,

1030
00:57:16,120 --> 00:57:19,000
4Q Incantation.

1031
00:57:19,000 --> 00:57:22,040
And those texts are clearly written in larger
script,

1032
00:57:22,040 --> 00:57:26,040
they're written to be read and to be used.

1033
00:57:26,040 --> 00:57:28,080
So what might be a way that we can,

1034
00:57:28,080 --> 00:57:30,440
if we start to see connections between these

1035
00:57:30,440 --> 00:57:33,520
and break down the barriers between

1036
00:57:33,520 --> 00:57:36,560
strictly tefillin, strictly amulet etc.

1037
00:57:36,560 --> 00:57:38,720
we start to kind of break down those barriers,

1038
00:57:38,720 --> 00:57:43,000
what sort of generic distinctions can we draw
then

1039
00:57:43,000 --> 00:57:47,240
between a text it's clearly been written for
reading

1040
00:57:47,240 --> 00:57:50,400
and use in that way

1041
00:57:50,400 --> 00:57:53,720
and one that's been kind of tied up

1042
00:57:53,720 --> 00:57:58,400
and is not being read in the way the tefillin
(INAUDIBLE)

1043
00:57:59,040 --> 00:58:00,960
ARIEL: Well, that's precisely the sort of
question

1044
00:58:00,960 --> 00:58:04,240
that I'm pondering on quite a bit.

1045
00:58:04,760 --> 00:58:07,280
What amazes me, what excites me,

1046
00:58:07,280 --> 00:58:13,320
is the tiny script which is not really legible, to
be honest,

1047
00:58:13,320 --> 00:58:17,200
it was not intended to be read at all.

1048
00:58:17,200 --> 00:58:20,760
The text becomes much less of a text

1049
00:58:20,760 --> 00:58:23,560
but more of an object if you would like,

1050
00:58:23,560 --> 00:58:26,640
a sacred object, an apotropaic object.

1051
00:58:26,640 --> 00:58:29,600
And that, in itself, is a very interesting
trajectory

1052
00:58:29,600 --> 00:58:33,720
in which text ceases to be a significant,
important,

1053
00:58:33,720 --> 00:58:37,200
because if it's containing something
particular,

1054
00:58:37,200 --> 00:58:39,920
because if it's (INAUDIBLE) and it becomes

1055
00:58:39,920 --> 00:58:44,600
an object that can bring some goodies to the
person.

1056
00:58:44,600 --> 00:58:50,520
Well, how to explain all this
and place it in a neat logical way?

1057
00:58:50,520 --> 00:58:53,360
I don't think we know enough yet.

1058
00:58:53,360 --> 00:58:55,280
I would really postpone this question

1059
00:58:55,280 --> 00:58:58,040
until we have all those additional tefillin

1060
00:58:58,040 --> 00:59:00,360
that Dr Adler was able to find

1061
00:59:00,360 --> 00:59:05,480
Maybe those little boxes
have also scriptural text inside of them

1062
00:59:05,480 --> 00:59:08,240
and that will completely change our
perspective

1063
00:59:08,240 --> 00:59:11,720
on the frequency or on the percentage of
presence

1064
00:59:11,720 --> 00:59:14,360
of scriptural, non-scriptural

1065
00:59:14,360 --> 00:59:19,040
and how all those texts in their miniature form
might have been used.

1066
00:59:19,040 --> 00:59:20,280
So, a great question.

1067
00:59:20,280 --> 00:59:22,400
It's really worth a book.

1068
00:59:23,040 --> 00:59:26,800
LAWRENCE: I think we have to move on to
the next paper.

1069
00:59:26,800 --> 00:59:29,160
Thank you for this wonderful presentation.

1070
00:59:29,160 --> 00:59:33,360
So we will now be hearing from Daniel
Machiela of McMaster University

1071
00:59:33,360 --> 00:59:36,720
on 'Reimagining Israel, the Aramaic Dead Sea
Scrolls

1072
00:59:36,720 --> 00:59:40,080
and Judaism in the Hellenistic Period'.

1073
00:59:41,360 --> 00:59:45,280
DANIEL: Well, I wanna start by thanking Larry
for the introduction

1074
00:59:45,280 --> 00:59:47,920
and also Larry and all of the organizers

1075
00:59:47,920 --> 00:59:52,480
for both putting together a stellar conference
here.

1076
00:59:52,480 --> 00:59:54,840
This is fantastic. And also for the invitation

1077
00:59:54,840 --> 00:59:57,800
to take part in it and to present.

1078
00:59:57,800 --> 01:00:00,560
So, the title of my talk is

1079
01:00:00,560 --> 01:00:03,280
'Reimagining Israel, the Aramaic Dead Sea
Scrolls

1080
01:00:03,280 --> 01:00:05,720
and Judaism in
the Hellenistic Period',

1081
01:00:05,720 --> 01:00:09,720
which is a little overly ambitious, I realize, in
hindsight.

1082
01:00:09,720 --> 01:00:13,160
I'm going to have a little bit more
of a focused paper.

1083
01:00:13,160 --> 01:00:15,360
But hopefully,
we'll also be able to talk a little bit

1084
01:00:15,360 --> 01:00:19,560
about how these texts do, in many ways,
reimagine Israel.

1085
01:00:20,720 --> 01:00:23,800
I want to start just
by saying a few words

1086
01:00:23,800 --> 01:00:26,560
about how I got to the study of these texts.

1087
01:00:26,560 --> 01:00:30,040
So, I've been studying the Aramaic scrolls
now for a number of years,

1088
01:00:30,040 --> 01:00:32,440
over a decade at least.

1089
01:00:32,440 --> 01:00:34,640
I started during my dissertation
where I worked on

1090
01:00:34,640 --> 01:00:37,200
the Genesis Apocryphon primarily.

1091
01:00:37,200 --> 01:00:41,240
This is the picture that you see
on the slide in front of you here.

1092
01:00:41,240 --> 01:00:44,080
And when I finished that first phase

1093
01:00:44,080 --> 01:00:47,120
of my research on the Genesis Apocryphon, I
thought,

1094
01:00:47,120 --> 01:00:50,080
'Well, that was so fun and so fascinating
and so interesting'

1095
01:00:50,080 --> 01:00:53,400
that I wonder what the rest of those Aramaic
Scrolls

1096
01:00:53,400 --> 01:00:55,600
might have going on.

1097
01:00:55,600 --> 01:00:59,480
And so, I decided to go through
and read the entire Aramaic Corpus

1098
01:00:59,480 --> 01:01:01,520
in the original language.

1099
01:01:01,520 --> 01:01:05,600
And that was fostered by a couple of things.

1100
01:01:05,600 --> 01:01:08,320
The first was, and this was the most
important,

1101
01:01:08,320 --> 01:01:13,000
that, at that point, Emile Puech had just
published DJD37

1102
01:01:13,000 --> 01:01:17,520
which was the second major volume of
Aramaic texts from Qumran.

1103
01:01:17,520 --> 01:01:20,120
And so this, for the first time, made available

1104
01:01:20,120 --> 01:01:21,760
all of the Aramaic texts,

1105
01:01:21,760 --> 01:01:25,400
virtually all of the Aramaic texts from Qumran.

1106
01:01:25,400 --> 01:01:26,720
Along with that,

1107
01:01:26,720 --> 01:01:29,800
well, I had been very interested
in the scrolls for quite a while,

1108
01:01:29,800 --> 01:01:34,240
I noticed that most of the attention in studying
the scrolls,

1109
01:01:34,240 --> 01:01:36,960
certainly at a popular level, went to

1110
01:01:36,960 --> 01:01:39,440
the biblical texts on the one hand,

1111
01:01:39,440 --> 01:01:43,200
topics like we were hearing about

1112
01:01:43,200 --> 01:01:46,040
from Gene and Molly and Arman yesterday.

1113
01:01:46,040 --> 01:01:49,680
Cannon, how the Biblical text was formed in
antiquity,

1114
01:01:49,680 --> 01:01:52,960
and then on the other hand, the sectarian
scrolls.

1115
01:01:52,960 --> 01:01:54,720
A lot of attention about this Jewish group

1116
01:01:54,720 --> 01:01:57,720
associated with the site of Qumran and
elsewhere.

1117
01:01:58,520 --> 01:02:00,280
But not a lot of attention had been given

1118
01:02:00,280 --> 01:02:02,440
to Aramaic texts relatively speaking,

1119
01:02:02,440 --> 01:02:05,520
so I thought it would be interesting to go and
have a look.

1120
01:02:05,520 --> 01:02:10,440
And I came to this corpus of texts
with several questions.

1121
01:02:10,440 --> 01:02:12,800
I'll list Just a few of the questions that I had

1122
01:02:12,800 --> 01:02:17,720
when I started out on this mission.

1123
01:02:17,720 --> 01:02:19,640
for you on the slide here.

1124
01:02:19,640 --> 01:02:21,560
First of all, I really did know at the beginning,

1125
01:02:21,560 --> 01:02:25,640
what kind of texts do we find written in
Aramaic at Qumran.

1126
01:02:26,200 --> 01:02:32,000
To what extent and what ways
are these Aramaic texts a corpus?

1127
01:02:32,000 --> 01:02:34,840
What do we mean by calling them a corpus of
Aramaic texts

1128
01:02:34,840 --> 01:02:37,000
if we use that language?

1129
01:02:37,000 --> 01:02:38,920
Does that just mean they're all written in
Aramaic

1130
01:02:38,920 --> 01:02:42,360
or are the things that go beyond simply the
Aramaic language

1131
01:02:42,360 --> 01:02:46,600
which tie these texts in some way together?

1132
01:02:46,600 --> 01:02:48,960
And then finally, why Aramaic?

1133
01:02:48,960 --> 01:02:52,600
This question already came up with Jim's talk
earlier.

1134
01:02:52,600 --> 01:02:54,160
Why would the Visions of Amram there

1135
01:02:54,160 --> 01:02:56,600
be written in Aramaic
and not in Hebrew

1136
01:02:56,600 --> 01:02:58,680
and another text in Hebrew?

1137
01:02:58,680 --> 01:02:59,920
So I didn't really have questions,

1138
01:02:59,920 --> 01:03:03,920
I've been slowly formulating my own answers
to many of these questions.

1139
01:03:03,920 --> 01:03:06,280
And in what follows, I'm going to deal mostly

1140
01:03:06,280 --> 01:03:09,840
with the first two questions, not so much the
why Aramaic

1141
01:03:09,840 --> 01:03:12,200
but if we wanna talk about that during
the question session

1142
01:03:12,200 --> 01:03:15,280
and we have time, we certainly can.

1143
01:03:15,280 --> 01:03:19,760
OK. So what am I going to do
for the rest of this presentation?

1144
01:03:19,760 --> 01:03:22,320
The first thing I want to do
is give a very brief overview

1145
01:03:22,320 --> 01:03:25,480
of the corpus of Aramaic texts
because I realize

1146
01:03:25,480 --> 01:03:29,120
there are a lot of people watching
and many may not be familiar

1147
01:03:29,120 --> 01:03:31,240
with just what's there in the Aramaic Corpus,

1148
01:03:31,240 --> 01:03:33,760
so I'm going to give a very quick overview.

1149
01:03:33,760 --> 01:03:35,480
And then secondly, this gets to

1150
01:03:35,480 --> 01:03:38,280
the 'reimagining Israel' part a little bit.

1151
01:03:38,280 --> 01:03:40,560
I'm going to focus on one theme

1152
01:03:40,560 --> 01:03:44,480
that I see as being shared between two texts.

1153
01:03:44,480 --> 01:03:50,360
These texts are the Genesis Apocryphon
and the Aramaic Levi document.

1154
01:03:50,360 --> 01:03:55,040
And so, we'll take a look at those texts
after the corpus is introduced

1155
01:03:55,040 --> 01:03:57,240
and a few passages from them.

1156
01:03:57,240 --> 01:04:01,760
But first, let's just look at the Aramaic scrolls.
What do we have?

1157
01:04:01,760 --> 01:04:06,880
First of all,
we have around 130 Aramaic manuscripts

1158
01:04:06,880 --> 01:04:09,560
discovered in the caves of Qumran.

1159
01:04:09,560 --> 01:04:12,080
Now of course, you can count differently

1160
01:04:12,080 --> 01:04:15,720
and any different scholar you might ask
would give you a different count

1161
01:04:15,720 --> 01:04:19,680
but this is going to be in the range, in the
ballpark let's say,

1162
01:04:19,680 --> 01:04:23,320
of the number of manuscripts that we would
find.

1163
01:04:24,400 --> 01:04:28,080
Again, depending on how you count all of the
manuscripts from Qumran,

1164
01:04:28,080 --> 01:04:34,200
you come up with around 15 percent
of the overall Qumran corpus.

1165
01:04:34,200 --> 01:04:37,600
All calculations are somewhere in the mid
teens.

1166
01:04:37,600 --> 01:04:41,160
People differ by a percentage or two here or
there.

1167
01:04:41,160 --> 01:04:42,920
And it really depends.

1168
01:04:42,920 --> 01:04:46,680
I use DJD39 and Emanuel Tov's count

1169
01:04:46,680 --> 01:04:51,600
of just over 900 manuscripts
to get this number of 15 percent.

1170
01:04:52,080 --> 01:04:55,160
So it's not a negligible percentage,
that is to say,

1171
01:04:55,160 --> 01:04:56,840
it's not like the Greek texts

1172
01:04:56,840 --> 01:04:59,680
where it's only a few percent of the overall
corpus.

1173
01:04:59,680 --> 01:05:04,520
This is fairly significant.
It's a considerable percentage.

1174
01:05:04,520 --> 01:05:07,240
And then, how many literary works,

1175
01:05:07,240 --> 01:05:09,680
how many compositions do we find here?

1176
01:05:09,680 --> 01:05:13,400
Well we've got, again,
around 30. And I say 'around'

1177
01:05:13,400 --> 01:05:17,920
because scholars will differ on where to draw
boundaries between texts.

1178
01:05:17,920 --> 01:05:20,840
Part of the problem here, of course,
is that they're so fragmentary.

1179
01:05:20,840 --> 01:05:23,560
Many of these texts, it's very difficult to tell

1180
01:05:23,560 --> 01:05:27,840
whether they might have belonged to the
same text or not.

1181
01:05:27,840 --> 01:05:30,000
You know? Speaking...

1182
01:05:30,000 --> 01:05:33,880
Professor VanderKamp was speaking earlier
of the Visions of Amram.

1183
01:05:33,880 --> 01:05:36,960
And for example, there you have 4Q549

1184
01:05:36,960 --> 01:05:39,800
which is included as one of the manuscripts
of the Visions of Amram

1185
01:05:39,800 --> 01:05:44,400
by some scholars and not included by others.

1186
01:05:44,400 --> 01:05:46,920
And 548 is also discussed a little bit.

1187
01:05:46,920 --> 01:05:50,400
So you've got around 30, give or take a few
works,

1188
01:05:50,400 --> 01:05:53,600
depending on how we divide those.

1189
01:05:53,600 --> 01:05:57,120
Or what about the caves?
How widely distributed are they?

1190
01:05:57,120 --> 01:06:02,320
Well, we find Aramaic manuscripts
in seven out of the 11 caves.

1191
01:06:02,320 --> 01:06:06,360
So, most of the caves
had Aramaic writings in them.

1192
01:06:07,000 --> 01:06:10,240
Given the fact that cave seven has Greek
texts only

1193
01:06:10,240 --> 01:06:12,880
and some of the other texts have very few
literary remains,

1194
01:06:12,880 --> 01:06:17,040
we could say that most of the caves with texts
in them

1195
01:06:17,040 --> 01:06:21,160
had Aramaic texts as well as Hebrew texts.

1196
01:06:21,160 --> 01:06:25,200
And then, at least six of the compositions

1197
01:06:25,200 --> 01:06:27,680
were found in more than one cave.

1198
01:06:27,680 --> 01:06:32,240
That is where we have one composition
spread out among multiple caves.

1199
01:06:32,240 --> 01:06:35,600
The text across the widest number of caves

1200
01:06:35,600 --> 01:06:37,480
is a text called 'the New Jerusalem'.

1201
01:06:37,480 --> 01:06:39,240
I'll talk about it in just a moment.

1202
01:06:39,240 --> 01:06:42,280
That was found in five different caves.

1203
01:06:42,280 --> 01:06:46,040
Most of the others of these six
were in two or three caves.

1204
01:06:46,040 --> 01:06:49,000
OK. So, so much for the stats and the
numbers.

1205
01:06:49,000 --> 01:06:54,520
Now, I wanna talk a little bit
about how we classify these texts.

1206
01:06:54,520 --> 01:06:57,200
Different scholars have taken...

1207
01:06:57,200 --> 01:06:59,720
have attempts to classify these texts.

1208
01:06:59,720 --> 01:07:03,480
I think especially of (UNKNOWN)
classification which is widely used

1209
01:07:03,480 --> 01:07:05,760
and is very helpful.

1210
01:07:05,760 --> 01:07:11,720
She tends to classify the texts
based on the topics that they deal with,

1211
01:07:11,720 --> 01:07:13,400
somewhat the literary genre.

1212
01:07:13,400 --> 01:07:16,400
I take a little bit more of a literary genre
approach

1213
01:07:16,400 --> 01:07:18,880
in the way that I divide the texts.

1214
01:07:18,880 --> 01:07:22,320
And I have three groupings,
which I'm going to run through quickly.

1215
01:07:22,320 --> 01:07:24,280
The first, and by far the largest,

1216
01:07:24,280 --> 01:07:28,120
is what I've called narrative literature
composed in Aramaic.

1217
01:07:28,120 --> 01:07:31,240
The important part is composed first in
Aramaic,

1218
01:07:31,240 --> 01:07:34,680
related to earlier Biblical traditions.

1219
01:07:34,680 --> 01:07:39,600
And I'll just refer you back to
the papers of yesterday afternoon

1220
01:07:39,600 --> 01:07:41,720
as to why I put biblical there

1221
01:07:41,720 --> 01:07:45,720
and also what (UNKNOWN) was saying
earlier today.

1222
01:07:46,840 --> 01:07:49,760
We should be very careful
how we use that word

1223
01:07:49,760 --> 01:07:52,840
in relation to the Second Temple period
if we use it at all.

1224
01:07:52,840 --> 01:07:56,640
But they were clearly related
to earlier traditions.

1225
01:07:56,640 --> 01:08:00,520
Other scholars such as (UNKNOWN)

1226
01:08:00,520 --> 01:08:03,600
Yonatan (UNKNOWN) have noticed

1227
01:08:03,600 --> 01:08:10,280
that these narrative texts
tend to fall into two different clumps.

1228
01:08:10,280 --> 01:08:13,320
We can put them in two different buckets, I
suppose, we could say.

1229
01:08:13,320 --> 01:08:17,920
And they're associated with historical periods
in Israel's past.

1230
01:08:17,920 --> 01:08:21,360
The first period that seems to be of interest

1231
01:08:21,360 --> 01:08:25,960
is what's sometimes called
the patriarchal and matriarchal period.

1232
01:08:25,960 --> 01:08:28,040
I here call it the period from Enoch

1233
01:08:28,040 --> 01:08:31,160
to the generation of Aaron, Moses and Miriam.

1234
01:08:31,160 --> 01:08:32,920
And then on the other hand,
we have a group of texts

1235
01:08:32,920 --> 01:08:37,000
that seem to be focused on the exile - the
period of the exile.

1236
01:08:37,000 --> 01:08:40,480
So just to list a few of these texts for you.

1237
01:08:40,480 --> 01:08:44,240
We have a number of writings
that are focused on the person of Enoch.

1238
01:08:44,240 --> 01:08:47,200
Enoch was a very popular character in a
number these texts.

1239
01:08:47,200 --> 01:08:49,400
And I just list them here for you.

1240
01:08:49,400 --> 01:08:52,080
We have the Genesis Apocryphon,
which I'll talk about

1241
01:08:52,080 --> 01:08:54,600
a little later on further.

1242
01:08:54,600 --> 01:08:58,400
We have the New Jerusalem text,
which I just mentioned earlier.

1243
01:08:59,240 --> 01:09:02,480
This, it's a little bit difficult to know where to
put it.

1244
01:09:02,480 --> 01:09:04,880
(UNKNOWN) has suggested that

1245
01:09:04,880 --> 01:09:07,720
the text is told from the perspective of Jacob,

1246
01:09:07,720 --> 01:09:09,280
and I think he's probably right

1247
01:09:09,280 --> 01:09:12,240
based on some information in Jubilees and
elsewhere.

1248
01:09:12,240 --> 01:09:16,440
It's a first person vision of the city of
Jerusalem,

1249
01:09:16,440 --> 01:09:22,200
and very interesting,
the way Jerusalem is portrayed in this text.

1250
01:09:22,200 --> 01:09:25,640
And then we have a number of texts which are
focused on,

1251
01:09:25,640 --> 01:09:27,880
the way I've said it is the priestly line of Levi,

1252
01:09:27,880 --> 01:09:31,280
and this includes the Visions of Amram,
which we've already heard about.

1253
01:09:31,280 --> 01:09:35,720
And I'll talk about
the Aramaic Levi document in a little while.

1254
01:09:35,720 --> 01:09:38,720
In terms of the exile,

1255
01:09:39,640 --> 01:09:42,600
we have these two texts.

1256
01:09:42,600 --> 01:09:46,480
Tobit takes place during the Assyrian exile.

1257
01:09:46,480 --> 01:09:50,240
'Jews in the Persian Court' is a so-called court
tale,

1258
01:09:50,240 --> 01:09:54,680
which is placed in the Persian court.

1259
01:09:54,680 --> 01:09:57,720
And so both of these take place in the exilic
period

1260
01:09:57,720 --> 01:10:00,560
and deal specifically with that time frame.

1261
01:10:00,560 --> 01:10:03,800
And then we have a whole bunch of texts
really

1262
01:10:03,800 --> 01:10:06,880
which I've gathered here under the term
'Danielic'

1263
01:10:06,880 --> 01:10:09,400
or the heading 'Danielic'.

1264
01:10:09,400 --> 01:10:12,840
This includes the Aramaic portions of the
book of Daniel,

1265
01:10:12,840 --> 01:10:16,920
and we might want to include the Hebrew
chapter one along with it

1266
01:10:16,920 --> 01:10:18,720
depending on what we think of that chapter

1267
01:10:18,720 --> 01:10:20,880
and whether it's been translated.

1268
01:10:20,880 --> 01:10:23,040
And then a number of other texts which either

1269
01:10:23,040 --> 01:10:25,880
are associated with the figure of Daniel

1270
01:10:25,880 --> 01:10:29,720
or seem, in some way, related to the Aramaic
tales of Daniel

1271
01:10:29,720 --> 01:10:32,520
in other ways
like the Prayer of Nabonidus

1272
01:10:32,520 --> 01:10:34,360
or the Four Kingdoms text.

1273
01:10:34,360 --> 01:10:37,360
And unfortunately I don't have time to get into
all of these

1274
01:10:37,360 --> 01:10:41,280
but ask questions later if you have them.

1275
01:10:41,280 --> 01:10:44,280
Now one last thing before I move on is

1276
01:10:44,280 --> 01:10:48,440
there a number of literary features which, I
think,

1277
01:10:48,440 --> 01:10:54,760
tie this group of texts together in various
assemblages in various ways.

1278
01:10:54,760 --> 01:10:58,280
One is the literary style or the literary format.

1279
01:10:58,280 --> 01:11:02,520
A really large number of these texts
are told in first person narration

1280
01:11:02,520 --> 01:11:04,880
or what we might call pseudepigraphy,

1281
01:11:04,880 --> 01:11:09,160
from the perspective
of a character from Israel's past.

1282
01:11:09,160 --> 01:11:12,040
And I think this is very connected

1283
01:11:12,040 --> 01:11:15,560
to what Hindy Najman was talking about
earlier today,

1284
01:11:15,560 --> 01:11:18,240
the mimesis which is happening.

1285
01:11:18,240 --> 01:11:22,240
We also have a number of shared subgenres
which take place.

1286
01:11:22,240 --> 01:11:24,000
I mentioned court tales already.

1287
01:11:24,000 --> 01:11:26,680
We have a lot of dream visions in these texts.

1288
01:11:26,680 --> 01:11:31,320
We have a lot of discourses, ethical
discourses, about wisdom and such

1289
01:11:31,320 --> 01:11:34,120
given from fathers to their children.

1290
01:11:34,120 --> 01:11:37,640
These recur throughout a number of the texts.

1291
01:11:37,640 --> 01:11:42,320
Then we have specific themes
such as proper marriage, for instance.

1292
01:11:42,320 --> 01:11:44,520
I think (UNKNOWN) is going to talk about that

1293
01:11:44,520 --> 01:11:49,680
later on in the conference in the Genesis
Apocryphon.

1294
01:11:49,680 --> 01:11:52,000
And then we have specific idioms,

1295
01:11:52,000 --> 01:11:55,840
which are used in several different places
across the corpus.

1296
01:11:55,840 --> 01:11:58,120
And I won't really have a chance to get into
that.

1297
01:11:58,120 --> 01:12:01,120
But my main thesis here is that
among these narrative texts,

1298
01:12:01,120 --> 01:12:04,880
we do have a lot of interconnections.

1299
01:12:04,880 --> 01:12:07,240
Very quickly, I'm not going to deal with
the other two categories

1300
01:12:07,240 --> 01:12:10,560
in the remainder of my talk
but I just wanted to list them.

1301
01:12:10,560 --> 01:12:14,080
The second category that
I would put out there

1302
01:12:14,080 --> 01:12:17,120
are translations of earlier Hebrew texts.

1303
01:12:17,120 --> 01:12:20,640
We have two manuscripts which are
translations,

1304
01:12:20,640 --> 01:12:23,520
sometimes they're called 'Targums', of the
book of Job,

1305
01:12:23,520 --> 01:12:26,320
11Q10 and 4Q157.

1306
01:12:27,040 --> 01:12:30,520
A fair bit of research has been done on these.
They're very interesting.

1307
01:12:30,520 --> 01:12:34,400
We also have a text which is sometimes
called

1308
01:12:34,400 --> 01:12:37,160
the Targum of Leviticus.

1309
01:12:37,160 --> 01:12:40,120
It's hard to know exactly what it is.
What we can say is that

1310
01:12:40,120 --> 01:12:43,880
it's an Aramaic translation of some parts of
Leviticus 16

1311
01:12:43,880 --> 01:12:46,200
which is the Day of Atonement ceremony.

1312
01:12:46,200 --> 01:12:49,320
And what exactly this text is
is little unclear.

1313
01:12:49,320 --> 01:12:51,280
There is some interesting material
characteristics

1314
01:12:51,280 --> 01:12:54,240
about that particular manuscript as well.

1315
01:12:55,320 --> 01:12:59,440
Then as a third group, we have the inevitable
'other'

1316
01:12:59,440 --> 01:13:01,440
or miscellaneous category,

1317
01:13:01,440 --> 01:13:04,480
which catches everything that you didn't see
before.

1318
01:13:04,480 --> 01:13:08,200
And in this category,
there actually aren't very many texts

1319
01:13:08,200 --> 01:13:12,320
If we look at the Aramaic group as a whole.

1320
01:13:12,320 --> 01:13:14,840
I've listed, I think, most of them here.

1321
01:13:14,840 --> 01:13:17,200
There may be a couple of others that we could
include

1322
01:13:17,200 --> 01:13:20,200
but there is a list of false prophets.

1323
01:13:20,200 --> 01:13:23,440
There's a physiognomic text which talks
about

1324
01:13:23,440 --> 01:13:27,000
the physical features of a person from head
going downward.

1325
01:13:27,000 --> 01:13:30,000
There's a brontological text, which is an omen
text,

1326
01:13:30,000 --> 01:13:32,280
which seems to have a lot of parallels

1327
01:13:32,280 --> 01:13:34,800
with other Mesopotamian omen texts.

1328
01:13:34,800 --> 01:13:38,400
And then there is, getting to Ariel Feldman's
paper again,

1329
01:13:38,400 --> 01:13:42,280
there's an apotropaic incantation text

1330
01:13:42,280 --> 01:13:46,040
which talks about fevers and chills and things
entering one's body

1331
01:13:46,040 --> 01:13:49,320
and seems to be warding off evil against that.

1332
01:13:49,320 --> 01:13:55,480
Like I say, I'm gonna focus now on that first
group of scrolls

1333
01:13:55,480 --> 01:14:02,200
and look at just one very narrow small
example as an indication of

1334
01:14:02,200 --> 01:14:05,280
some of these interconnections
that I've mentioned already.

1335
01:14:05,280 --> 01:14:08,600
And it's a shared theme.

1336
01:14:08,600 --> 01:14:10,920
The shared theme that I wanna talk about

1337
01:14:10,920 --> 01:14:16,040
is the idea of Israel's wisdom
as a gift to the nations.

1338
01:14:16,040 --> 01:14:19,200
And this is connected with how Israelites in
these texts

1339
01:14:19,200 --> 01:14:23,480
are interacting with foreigners especially.

1340
01:14:23,480 --> 01:14:27,600
I'm gonna begin by looking at the Genesis
Apocryphon.

1341
01:14:27,600 --> 01:14:34,320
And the Genesis Apocryphon rewrites, retells,
recasts

1342
01:14:34,320 --> 01:14:37,640
the narrative of Genesis.

1343
01:14:37,640 --> 01:14:39,600
It's fragmentary,

1344
01:14:39,600 --> 01:14:42,720
we don't possess the beginning and the end
of the scroll,

1345
01:14:42,720 --> 01:14:48,360
but what we have preserves around
Genesis five to Genesis 15.

1346
01:14:48,360 --> 01:14:52,560
And at many points,
the Genesis Apocryphon greatly expands

1347
01:14:52,560 --> 01:14:55,120
on the Genesis account,

1348
01:14:55,120 --> 01:14:59,640
seeking to solve (UNKNOWN) conundra
and do all sorts of other things.

1349
01:14:59,640 --> 01:15:01,800
But we can definitely pick up
on some themes,

1350
01:15:01,800 --> 01:15:04,480
the interests of whoever wrote this scroll.

1351
01:15:04,480 --> 01:15:08,080
And I wanna talk about one of those themes
for just a few minutes here.

1352
01:15:08,080 --> 01:15:13,960
And that is related to the story of Abram and
Sarai in Egypt.

1353
01:15:14,680 --> 01:15:20,280
We hear this story in Genesis 12,
it's quite short in Genesis 12

1354
01:15:20,280 --> 01:15:23,480
but it's greatly expanded in the Genesis
Apocryphon,

1355
01:15:23,480 --> 01:15:26,840
and I think the way that it's expanded is quite
interesting

1356
01:15:26,840 --> 01:15:29,520
and so I wanna take a look at that.

1357
01:15:29,520 --> 01:15:31,160
By the way, in the book of Jubilees,

1358
01:15:31,160 --> 01:15:34,360
which is often compared with the Genesis
Apocryphon,

1359
01:15:34,360 --> 01:15:37,800
this story is passed over in almost the
quickest way possible.

1360
01:15:37,800 --> 01:15:42,400
So here's one place as many connections
as these two texts seem to have

1361
01:15:42,400 --> 01:15:44,400
where we see quite a big difference

1362
01:15:44,400 --> 01:15:46,560
in the way that this story is handled in
Jubilees

1363
01:15:46,560 --> 01:15:49,920
versus the way it is in the Genesis
Apocryphon.

1364
01:15:49,920 --> 01:15:53,000
Like I said, the text is a little fragmentary.

1365
01:15:53,000 --> 01:15:56,200
So where there are brackets,
that means we don't have the text.

1366
01:15:56,200 --> 01:15:58,440
We can reconstruct fairly well, I think,

1367
01:15:58,440 --> 01:16:00,000
the passages that I'm giving you here.

1368
01:16:00,000 --> 01:16:03,080
I'm not going to read this entire passage.

1369
01:16:03,080 --> 01:16:06,400
But it's the first one that I wanna look at
together.

1370
01:16:06,400 --> 01:16:11,080
So, Abram and Sarai, at this point, have
entered into Egypt.

1371
01:16:11,600 --> 01:16:15,000
And in Genesis 12, we learn that

1372
01:16:15,000 --> 01:16:18,960
Pharaoh was told about Sarai from his
officials,

1373
01:16:18,960 --> 01:16:23,920
from some of his wise men,
and takes her to be his wife.

1374
01:16:23,920 --> 01:16:28,240
What we aren't told in Genesis 12 is how that
happened.

1375
01:16:28,240 --> 01:16:31,760
How did Pharaoh, or Pharaoh's officials,

1376
01:16:31,760 --> 01:16:35,200
first learn about Sarai and Sarai's beauty?

1377
01:16:35,200 --> 01:16:37,680
Rabbinic literature has stories about how this
happened

1378
01:16:37,680 --> 01:16:40,600
but we get quite a different story here
in the Genesis Apocryphon

1379
01:16:40,600 --> 01:16:45,640
and the Apocrypha dwells on this at some
length.

1380
01:16:46,960 --> 01:16:49,280
We find out we're missing the beginning of
the text.

1381
01:16:49,280 --> 01:16:51,240
Where you see the ellipsis at the beginning,

1382
01:16:51,240 --> 01:16:54,560
we're missing some parts. But it has to be

1383
01:16:54,560 --> 01:16:58,480
that the pharaoh heard about Abram's
wisdom.

1384
01:16:58,480 --> 01:17:02,840
And this was the premise
on which he eventually learns about Sarai.

1385
01:17:02,840 --> 01:17:06,800
So, Abram's wisdom must have preceded
him.

1386
01:17:06,800 --> 01:17:10,160
And Abram is now speaking in the first person

1387
01:17:10,160 --> 01:17:12,720
and he's telling us that the pharaoh sent

1388
01:17:12,720 --> 01:17:15,280
three of his highest officials to come

1389
01:17:15,280 --> 01:17:19,400
because of my words and because of my
wisdom.

1390
01:17:19,400 --> 01:17:23,600
So, this is the reason
that we have the officials coming.

1391
01:17:23,600 --> 01:17:27,600
And when they get there,
they ask for three things.

1392
01:17:27,600 --> 01:17:32,640
They ask scribal knowledge, wisdom and
truth.

1393
01:17:32,640 --> 01:17:35,320
And very interestingly,
the response of Abram

1394
01:17:35,320 --> 01:17:39,240
is that he obliges first of all their request.
He says, "Alright."

1395
01:17:39,240 --> 01:17:41,800
And he reads the book of Enoch to them.

1396
01:17:41,800 --> 01:17:43,800
This is the way that he fills them in

1397
01:17:43,800 --> 01:17:46,000
on the things that they're seeking to know.

1398
01:17:46,000 --> 01:17:48,960
So what we have here is

1399
01:17:48,960 --> 01:17:52,440
Egyptian knowledge basically being attributed
to Abram

1400
01:17:52,440 --> 01:17:56,320
but also Abram being willing
to share the knowledge that he has,

1401
01:17:56,320 --> 01:18:00,880
which is his ancestral wisdom, with the
Egyptians.

1402
01:18:00,880 --> 01:18:03,040
We lose the text after
this for a little while

1403
01:18:03,040 --> 01:18:06,840
but it's clear that
there was quite a nice situation

1404
01:18:06,840 --> 01:18:10,120
in which they had a talk about these teachings

1405
01:18:10,120 --> 01:18:11,960
and they had a meal together.

1406
01:18:11,960 --> 01:18:14,840
And this must be the context in which

1407
01:18:14,840 --> 01:18:16,640
they saw, they caught a glimpse of Sarai

1408
01:18:16,640 --> 01:18:20,880
and went back and reported to the pharaoh.

1409
01:18:20,880 --> 01:18:24,680
So, I wanna quickly put up here
just the three Aramaic terms

1410
01:18:24,680 --> 01:18:28,280
used for the three attributes that I mentioned
earlier.

1411
01:18:28,280 --> 01:18:31,480
(UNKNOWN)

1412
01:18:31,480 --> 01:18:36,640
These are the three things that Abram relates
to the Egyptians.

1413
01:18:36,640 --> 01:18:39,080
Moving along,

1414
01:18:39,080 --> 01:18:43,600
the pharaoh takes Sarai. She moves in to be
with him.

1415
01:18:43,600 --> 01:18:46,280
This is, again, greatly expanded.

1416
01:18:46,280 --> 01:18:48,480
I just wanna dwell on one more detail,

1417
01:18:48,480 --> 01:18:54,360
and that is that we're told that Abram heals the
pharaoh

1418
01:18:54,360 --> 01:18:57,320
from the affliction that we're told he has in
Genesis 12.

1419
01:18:57,320 --> 01:19:00,160
Now this, in part, is brought over

1420
01:19:00,160 --> 01:19:04,200
as Moshe Bernstein and others have shown,
Daniel Falk as well,

1421
01:19:04,200 --> 01:19:07,280
from Genesis 20
and they're very closely related

1422
01:19:07,280 --> 01:19:10,960
a story of Abimelech and Abram and Sarai.

1423
01:19:10,960 --> 01:19:14,880
But there are a few details
that even that doesn't account for.

1424
01:19:14,880 --> 01:19:18,480
And one of those is basically the fact that

1425
01:19:18,480 --> 01:19:21,760
Abram performs an exorcism on the pharaoh

1426
01:19:21,760 --> 01:19:24,440
by casting out an evil spirit from him,

1427
01:19:24,440 --> 01:19:28,360
by praying over him and laying his hand on
him.

1428
01:19:28,840 --> 01:19:32,200
The main point I wanna make with this story is
that

1429
01:19:32,200 --> 01:19:35,400
we have a very positive portrayal
of the interactions

1430
01:19:35,400 --> 01:19:39,760
between the Egyptians and Abram here,

1431
01:19:39,760 --> 01:19:42,680
and the fact that Abraham teaches the
Egyptians something.

1432
01:19:42,680 --> 01:19:46,000
He makes a contribution to their knowledge.

1433
01:19:46,640 --> 01:19:49,320
Now, I wanna move along very quickly

1434
01:19:49,320 --> 01:19:54,280
to another text, the Aramaic Levi document.

1435
01:19:54,280 --> 01:19:58,440
This is a text told mostly from
the first person perspective, again,

1436
01:19:58,440 --> 01:20:01,160
of the figure of Levi.

1437
01:20:01,160 --> 01:20:04,280
And towards the end of the work, as far as we
can tell,

1438
01:20:04,280 --> 01:20:07,640
there is what's often called a wisdom poem.

1439
01:20:07,640 --> 01:20:10,640
And a central part of the wisdom poem,

1440
01:20:10,640 --> 01:20:14,600
which is spoken by Levi to his children,

1441
01:20:14,600 --> 01:20:19,840
it's really an ethical exhortation of sorts,
focused on wisdom.

1442
01:20:19,840 --> 01:20:23,280
As an example of this wisdom, he holds forth
Joseph

1443
01:20:23,280 --> 01:20:27,240
as the central example, his brother, Joseph.

1444
01:20:27,240 --> 01:20:30,280
And he says that Joseph taught scribal
knowledge

1445
01:20:30,280 --> 01:20:33,520
and insight and wisdom

1446
01:20:33,520 --> 01:20:34,920
to kings.

1447
01:20:34,920 --> 01:20:36,320
The text is a little convoluted here

1448
01:20:36,320 --> 01:20:38,640
and I don't have time to get into the textual
difficulties,

1449
01:20:38,640 --> 01:20:41,520
but what we clearly have is another triplet

1450
01:20:41,520 --> 01:20:47,880
very like the three terms
that we found in the Genesis Apocryphon.

1451
01:20:47,880 --> 01:20:49,400
Here are the terms in Aramaic

1452
01:20:49,400 --> 01:20:51,800
that we find in the Aramaic Levi documents.

1453
01:20:51,800 --> 01:20:54,560
(UNKNOWN)

1454
01:20:54,560 --> 01:20:56,480
And then just here for comparison, again,

1455
01:20:56,480 --> 01:21:01,520
are the three terms that Abram relates
in the Genesis Apocryphon,

1456
01:21:01,520 --> 01:21:04,360
again, to the Egyptians.

1457
01:21:04,360 --> 01:21:07,560
So I think this is one connection. And both
cases,

1458
01:21:07,560 --> 01:21:10,720
we have Joseph and Abram teaching the
Egyptians

1459
01:21:10,720 --> 01:21:12,600
a very similar set of things

1460
01:21:12,600 --> 01:21:16,720
with two of the terms that they're teaching
overlapping one another.

1461
01:21:16,720 --> 01:21:20,280
If we keep going further down into the poem,

1462
01:21:20,280 --> 01:21:23,760
we'll see a description that I think could
perfectly describe

1463
01:21:23,760 --> 01:21:29,320
Abram's interactions with the Egyptians
in the Genesis Apocryphon.

1464
01:21:29,320 --> 01:21:33,040
To every land and place, country to which he
will go,

1465
01:21:33,040 --> 01:21:36,800
he has a brother and a friend therein. He's not
a foreigner.

1466
01:21:36,800 --> 01:21:40,360
And also they wish to learn from his wisdom.

1467
01:21:40,360 --> 01:21:43,120
His friends are many, his well-wishers are
numerous

1468
01:21:43,120 --> 01:21:46,120
and they will seat him on a seat of honor

1469
01:21:46,120 --> 01:21:49,760
in order to hear his wise words.

1470
01:21:49,760 --> 01:21:52,560
Now, what I want to notice
is just one detail here at the end,

1471
01:21:52,560 --> 01:21:58,320
and that is that we have these foreigners
wanting to learn

1472
01:21:58,320 --> 01:22:01,680
from someone like Joseph
because of the wisdom

1473
01:22:01,680 --> 01:22:05,760
and because of the words
of a figure like Joseph.

1474
01:22:05,760 --> 01:22:09,200
Now, I will just recall here

1475
01:22:10,120 --> 01:22:13,520
the words from the Genesis Apocryphon.

1476
01:22:13,520 --> 01:22:18,360
The officials of the Egyptians came to see
Abram

1477
01:22:18,360 --> 01:22:21,480
because of my words and because of my
wisdom.

1478
01:22:21,480 --> 01:22:23,720
So again, we have a very similar situation.

1479
01:22:23,720 --> 01:22:26,160
Again, a very positive portrayal

1480
01:22:26,160 --> 01:22:29,280
of how Joseph is interacting with the
Egyptians

1481
01:22:29,280 --> 01:22:32,800
and the idea that there is a real contribution
here, that the knowledge,

1482
01:22:32,800 --> 01:22:36,920
the revealed knowledge
that people like Joseph and Abram have

1483
01:22:36,920 --> 01:22:41,560
can make a contribution to foreigners like the
Egyptians.

1484
01:22:41,560 --> 01:22:47,440
OK. So very quickly, just to sum up and to
conclude,

1485
01:22:47,440 --> 01:22:51,480
I would suggest that here we have Israel's role
reimagined

1486
01:22:51,480 --> 01:22:55,480
through figures like Abram and Levi or Joseph

1487
01:22:55,480 --> 01:22:58,040
in the Aramaic Levi document.

1488
01:22:58,040 --> 01:23:01,200
And I would suggest that
here we have a couple of Aramaic texts

1489
01:23:01,200 --> 01:23:03,600
with some clear similarities.

1490
01:23:03,600 --> 01:23:05,760
These include but aren't limited to the fact

1491
01:23:05,760 --> 01:23:08,040
that they're both in first person narration,

1492
01:23:08,040 --> 01:23:10,360
what we might call pseudepigraphic.

1493
01:23:10,360 --> 01:23:13,160
They're focused on figures from Israel's past.

1494
01:23:13,160 --> 01:23:17,880
They share this theme of teaching wisdom
to foreigners

1495
01:23:17,880 --> 01:23:22,960
and they also use similar idioms
like these trios of terms

1496
01:23:22,960 --> 01:23:27,440
that we find in the Aramaic Levi document
and Genesis Apocryphon.

1497
01:23:27,440 --> 01:23:28,880
Thinking just very quickly about

1498
01:23:28,880 --> 01:23:32,080
the broader historical context for a moment.

1499
01:23:32,080 --> 01:23:33,800
I would make just a couple of points.

1500
01:23:33,800 --> 01:23:36,080
There are many others that could be made.

1501
01:23:36,080 --> 01:23:41,000
But the first is that
this theme fits, I think, quite well

1502
01:23:41,000 --> 01:23:43,440
within the Hellenistic compositional setting

1503
01:23:43,440 --> 01:23:47,720
within which most scholars would place these
texts.

1504
01:23:47,720 --> 01:23:50,800
Certainly, the Aramaic Levi document
has often been proposed

1505
01:23:50,800 --> 01:23:53,920
to be a product of the Hellenistic period.

1506
01:23:53,920 --> 01:23:57,880
And I think we have, in these texts, really

1507
01:23:57,880 --> 01:24:02,040
a reimagining of the roles of figures from
Israel's past

1508
01:24:02,040 --> 01:24:04,800
showing that there was something

1509
01:24:04,800 --> 01:24:07,840
which Israel had to offer the foreign nations,

1510
01:24:07,840 --> 01:24:10,520
and we see that in various ways
and I think we see it

1511
01:24:10,520 --> 01:24:14,240
in the couple of texts
that we just looked that here.

1512
01:24:14,240 --> 01:24:20,160
The other observation is that these texts,

1513
01:24:20,160 --> 01:24:22,960
texts like the ones that we've been looking at
so far...

1514
01:24:22,960 --> 01:24:26,480
Excuse me. I'm gonna go back here.

1515
01:24:26,480 --> 01:24:29,320
Move the window so that I can read this.

1516
01:24:29,880 --> 01:24:33,480
They're providing readers and listeners with
paradigms really

1517
01:24:33,480 --> 01:24:36,680
for thinking about Israel's inherited wisdom.

1518
01:24:36,680 --> 01:24:38,800
This is something which, of course,

1519
01:24:38,800 --> 01:24:41,800
should be cherished,
it should be guarded.

1520
01:24:41,800 --> 01:24:44,080
For people who have looked at the testament
of Kohath,

1521
01:24:44,080 --> 01:24:48,240
you'll certainly see this there.
It's called Israel's inheritance.

1522
01:24:48,720 --> 01:24:51,720
But it's also something that can be shared
with foreigners

1523
01:24:51,720 --> 01:24:54,760
to their benefit, both the benefit I think of the
foreigners

1524
01:24:54,760 --> 01:24:58,440
and as we see especially in the Aramaic Levi
document,

1525
01:24:58,440 --> 01:25:02,880
also to the benefit of Israelites.

1526
01:25:02,880 --> 01:25:06,680
I would just note very briefly
that this is quite a different approach

1527
01:25:06,680 --> 01:25:09,920
than the one we see adopted in the later
sectarian texts.

1528
01:25:09,920 --> 01:25:11,600
So, sometimes people ask questions

1529
01:25:11,600 --> 01:25:16,000
about how the Aramaic texts might be related
to the sectarian texts.

1530
01:25:16,920 --> 01:25:19,200
I think that's an interesting question to ask,

1531
01:25:19,200 --> 01:25:21,880
but this is one point where we certainly see
a great difference

1532
01:25:21,880 --> 01:25:27,560
where the sectarian texts often have
antagonism towards outsiders,

1533
01:25:27,560 --> 01:25:32,160
even others of the people of Israel,
the Jews at the time.

1534
01:25:32,160 --> 01:25:35,760
So, I think I'm gonna stop there
and see if anybody has some questions.

1535
01:25:35,760 --> 01:25:38,520
And I thank you for your attention.

1536
01:25:38,520 --> 01:25:42,480
LAWRENCE: OK. Thank you very much
for this reopening of the question

1537
01:25:42,480 --> 01:25:46,120
of trying to generalize on the Aramaic text.

1538
01:25:46,120 --> 01:25:50,360
And we turn over to Patrick for questions.

1539
01:25:50,360 --> 01:25:54,200
PATRICK: Great. Yeah. Thank you Professor
Machiela.

1540
01:25:54,880 --> 01:25:57,520
So we have a few questions lined up

1541
01:25:57,520 --> 01:26:02,960
but I wanna just start off by asking a question
of my own

1542
01:26:02,960 --> 01:26:08,560
about the relationship of the kind of
reimagining Israel's role,

1543
01:26:08,560 --> 01:26:12,520
especially in terms of knowledge and wisdom,

1544
01:26:12,520 --> 01:26:15,800
in relationship to the same sort of impulse that
we see

1545
01:26:15,800 --> 01:26:20,240
in some Hellenistic Greek Jewish literature.

1546
01:26:20,240 --> 01:26:24,000
So I'm thinking of like (UNKNOWN)

1547
01:26:24,000 --> 01:26:28,800
who use this... who kind of give this role to
Moses, for example.

1548
01:26:28,800 --> 01:26:31,600
I wonder if you could speak to that
(INAUDIBLE).

1549
01:26:31,600 --> 01:26:33,680
DANIEL: Yeah. I can, I think

1550
01:26:33,680 --> 01:26:37,800
that the impulse is essentially the same.

1551
01:26:37,800 --> 01:26:41,320
You know? I think we have it showing up

1552
01:26:41,320 --> 01:26:43,880
in different ways in different places
during the Hellenistic period

1553
01:26:43,880 --> 01:26:48,760
and I would say that this particular literature is
trying,

1554
01:26:49,320 --> 01:26:52,480
in a broad and general way,
to do something similar,

1555
01:26:52,480 --> 01:26:56,360
that is to bridge the gap between these
ancestral traditions,

1556
01:26:56,360 --> 01:26:58,520
the wisdom that's been received,

1557
01:26:58,520 --> 01:27:01,640
the Hebrew ancestral writings on the one
hand

1558
01:27:01,640 --> 01:27:04,440
and the way of life that comes along with that

1559
01:27:04,440 --> 01:27:07,600
and this cultural situation in which

1560
01:27:07,600 --> 01:27:11,720
Israel, at this point, doesn't have political
hegemony.

1561
01:27:11,720 --> 01:27:14,560
They're having to live in these foreign
cultures.

1562
01:27:14,560 --> 01:27:18,200
And the question is, how one navigates that.
And I think that

1563
01:27:18,200 --> 01:27:20,720
like some of the texts that you mentioned

1564
01:27:20,720 --> 01:27:24,040
where that's being done through the figure of
Moses.

1565
01:27:24,040 --> 01:27:27,520
Interestingly, Moses really isn't a focus in
these texts

1566
01:27:27,520 --> 01:27:31,000
but we have a number of other historical
characters where

1567
01:27:31,000 --> 01:27:34,080
I think they're kind of vehicles through which

1568
01:27:34,080 --> 01:27:36,040
some of these issues can be worked through.

1569
01:27:36,040 --> 01:27:39,080
So these stories are reworked and retold in
ways

1570
01:27:39,080 --> 01:27:43,440
that will speak to this Hellenistic setting in
new ways.

1571
01:27:43,440 --> 01:27:46,680
And so, I guess, that's where my word
'reimagining' comes in

1572
01:27:46,680 --> 01:27:50,520
because these figures are being reimagined
to speak to a new situation.

1573
01:27:51,040 --> 01:27:52,800
PATRICK: Agree. Thank you.

1574
01:27:52,800 --> 01:27:59,000
So, we have a question here from Professor
Katherine (UNKNOWN)

1575
01:27:59,000 --> 01:28:01,760
Sorry if I'm...

1576
01:28:01,760 --> 01:28:04,840
She asks, 'Given the language ideologies

1577
01:28:04,840 --> 01:28:07,960
of some groups in the Second Temple period,

1578
01:28:07,960 --> 01:28:11,640
can you say something about the relative
status of Aramaic

1579
01:28:11,640 --> 01:28:16,240
among the Dead Sea Scrolls compared to
Hebrew'.

1580
01:28:16,240 --> 01:28:18,480
DANIEL: Yeah. Well, thank you. That's a great
question.

1581
01:28:18,480 --> 01:28:20,640
And there are a couple of ways you could go
with this.

1582
01:28:20,640 --> 01:28:26,120
I think in terms of going back to the question
of 'why Aramaic?',

1583
01:28:26,120 --> 01:28:27,640
one part of the answer, I think,

1584
01:28:27,640 --> 01:28:31,520
is that Aramaic was a prestige language at
this time for sure.

1585
01:28:31,520 --> 01:28:34,760
During the Hellenistic period,
we start to see some Greek being used

1586
01:28:34,760 --> 01:28:38,680
but Aramaic, as we see at places like
(UNKNOWN)

1587
01:28:38,680 --> 01:28:41,680
is still very much active and there,

1588
01:28:41,680 --> 01:28:44,800
it's the language of the empire.

1589
01:28:44,800 --> 01:28:47,800
And so, I think there was...

1590
01:28:47,800 --> 01:28:50,240
the choice for Aramaic was partly ideological

1591
01:28:50,240 --> 01:28:52,840
in the sense that this was the language of
world literature.

1592
01:28:52,840 --> 01:28:57,560
We see things like the (UNKNOWN)
inscription and (UNKNOWN)

1593
01:28:57,560 --> 01:29:00,600
other texts being written in Aramaic.

1594
01:29:00,600 --> 01:29:05,960
In terms of the context of Qumran, why
Aramaic,

1595
01:29:05,960 --> 01:29:09,600
I think I would go first for a historical
explanation there.

1596
01:29:09,600 --> 01:29:13,560
I think that these texts, as VanderKamp
mentioned earlier,

1597
01:29:13,560 --> 01:29:18,640
typically are taken to be earlier
than the sectarian Hebrew texts.

1598
01:29:18,640 --> 01:29:22,320
And I think the reason why they're in Aramaic

1599
01:29:22,320 --> 01:29:25,960
is mostly because that's the language
in which they were composed

1600
01:29:25,960 --> 01:29:28,640
and they were just passed along in that
language.

1601
01:29:28,640 --> 01:29:30,920
At some point, there obviously was a desire

1602
01:29:30,920 --> 01:29:33,360
to move back to Hebrew, I think.

1603
01:29:33,360 --> 01:29:36,920
Many have proposed that this happened
with the Hasmoneans,

1604
01:29:36,920 --> 01:29:40,000
during the Hasmonean period. I think that's
probably right

1605
01:29:40,000 --> 01:29:42,280
to a large extent.

1606
01:29:42,280 --> 01:29:48,120
And the interesting thing is
we do find one case - 4Q200.

1607
01:29:48,120 --> 01:29:51,840
There is one Hebrew manuscript of The Book
of Tobit.

1608
01:29:51,840 --> 01:29:55,640
There are five, four or five of Aramaic

1609
01:29:55,640 --> 01:29:57,440
and one Hebrew.

1610
01:29:57,440 --> 01:30:00,240
So that to me indicates that someone wanted,

1611
01:30:00,240 --> 01:30:04,040
at some point, to turn that into a Hebrew book
rather than,

1612
01:30:04,040 --> 01:30:07,360
or at least translated into Hebrew
rather than have it in Aramaic.

1613
01:30:07,360 --> 01:30:11,400
So, that's at least start of an answer.

1614
01:30:11,400 --> 01:30:14,120
LAWRENCE: I think we have to call it quits

1615
01:30:14,120 --> 01:30:17,720
on the discussion of this interesting paper.

1616
01:30:17,720 --> 01:30:20,440
Go on to our last speaker.

1617
01:30:20,440 --> 01:30:22,960
I think we should estimate
that we will be ending

1618
01:30:22,960 --> 01:30:25,760
something like ten after three
instead of the scheduled time.

1619
01:30:25,760 --> 01:30:27,520
I hope that's OK with everybody

1620
01:30:27,520 --> 01:30:30,640
because we wanna make sure
to give every one full time.

1621
01:30:30,640 --> 01:30:34,920
And so, now we will be hearing from Bronson
Brown-deVost

1622
01:30:34,920 --> 01:30:39,520
from Georg-August-Universität Göttingen

1623
01:30:39,520 --> 01:30:42,600
on digital exploration of the Dead Sea Scrolls

1624
01:30:42,600 --> 01:30:45,960
with Scripta Qumranica Electronica.
OK.

1625
01:30:45,960 --> 01:30:48,280
BRONSON: So, I would like to thank
the conference organizers

1626
01:30:48,280 --> 01:30:50,040
for inviting me to speak about

1627
01:30:50,040 --> 01:30:53,200
the Scripta Qumranica Electronica project this
afternoon.

1628
01:30:53,200 --> 01:30:55,040
It's actually night for me.

1629
01:30:55,040 --> 01:30:57,840
It's a project that I've had the pleasure to work
on

1630
01:30:57,840 --> 01:31:00,280
for the last four years.

1631
01:31:00,280 --> 01:31:04,680
Scripta Qumranica Electronica
is a German-Israeli cooperative project

1632
01:31:04,680 --> 01:31:07,200
under the (UNKNOWN)

1633
01:31:07,200 --> 01:31:11,320
And our principal investigators are Reinhard
Kratz here in Göttingen,

1634
01:31:11,320 --> 01:31:14,680
Jonathan Ben-Dov in Haifa, now Tel Aviv,

1635
01:31:14,680 --> 01:31:17,440
and Nachum Dershowitz at Tel Aviv.

1636
01:31:17,440 --> 01:31:21,280
We work closely with our project partner,
Pnina Shor,

1637
01:31:21,280 --> 01:31:23,720
former director of the Dead Sea Scrolls Unit

1638
01:31:23,720 --> 01:31:28,120
at the Israel Antiquity Authority,

1639
01:31:28,120 --> 01:31:30,800
and her successor, Joe Uziel.

1640
01:31:30,800 --> 01:31:34,680
Ingo Kottsieper been in charge of technical
development

1641
01:31:34,680 --> 01:31:37,840
here in Göttingen.
Noam Mizrahi is working on

1642
01:31:37,840 --> 01:31:41,640
the analysis of parallel texts.
And Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra

1643
01:31:41,640 --> 01:31:46,360
has been working on digital analysis of the
scrolls.

1644
01:31:46,360 --> 01:31:47,560
You may have already had the chance

1645
01:31:47,560 --> 01:31:51,240
to hear Pnina and Joe speak yesterday.
I hope you did.

1646
01:31:51,240 --> 01:31:53,680
Jonathan will be speaking in the coming days

1647
01:31:53,680 --> 01:31:55,680
as well as some of our other colleagues

1648
01:31:55,680 --> 01:31:59,320
from the Israel Antiquities Authority
(INAUDIBLE)

1649
01:31:59,320 --> 01:32:03,160
I hope you get a chance to hear them speak.

1650
01:32:03,160 --> 01:32:05,800
So much for the people working on the
project.

1651
01:32:05,800 --> 01:32:10,320
What are we trying to accomplish here
in Scripta Qumranica Electronica?

1652
01:32:10,320 --> 01:32:12,440
So I'll just show quickly this slide

1653
01:32:12,440 --> 01:32:16,640
with our principal investigators and project
partners. Lots of names.

1654
01:32:17,360 --> 01:32:19,960
And this slide with, again, a lot of names.

1655
01:32:19,960 --> 01:32:23,520
But it's really important for us
to show the people who are working

1656
01:32:23,520 --> 01:32:28,400
and have been working on the project.
There's been a lot of man hours

1657
01:32:28,400 --> 01:32:32,280
and woman hours
and sleepless nights going into this project,

1658
01:32:32,280 --> 01:32:37,440
so everyone's been working very hard
and contributing a lot.

1659
01:32:37,920 --> 01:32:40,240
So, so much for that.

1660
01:32:40,240 --> 01:32:44,920
What are we trying to accomplish
in Scripta Qumranica Electronica?

1661
01:32:44,920 --> 01:32:47,440
We're creating two main resources,

1662
01:32:47,440 --> 01:32:51,360
a website that provides digital editions
of the Dead Sea Scrolls

1663
01:32:51,360 --> 01:32:53,480
and a web-based research environment

1664
01:32:53,480 --> 01:32:56,320
that enables scholars to create and share

1665
01:32:56,320 --> 01:33:01,000
their own digital critical editions
of individual manuscripts.

1666
01:33:01,000 --> 01:33:04,880
The website for viewing the SQE digital
editions

1667
01:33:04,880 --> 01:33:07,760
will include several exemplary critical editions

1668
01:33:07,760 --> 01:33:11,400
created by members of the project, myself
included,

1669
01:33:11,400 --> 01:33:13,320
as well as non-critical editions

1670
01:33:13,320 --> 01:33:18,000
created via automated computer analysis. I
really hope.

1671
01:33:18,000 --> 01:33:21,000
The SQE platform has been made possible

1672
01:33:21,000 --> 01:33:25,360
by leveraging the output of two major projects.

1673
01:33:25,360 --> 01:33:27,720
One is the imaging of the scrolls

1674
01:33:27,720 --> 01:33:30,480
carried out by the Israel Antiquities Authority

1675
01:33:30,480 --> 01:33:34,600
under the direction of Pnina Schor
for the Leon Levy digital library.

1676
01:33:34,600 --> 01:33:39,960
I'm sure you've already seen
many many images from that project.

1677
01:33:39,960 --> 01:33:43,920
And the second source
is the transcription and analysis of the scrolls

1678
01:33:43,920 --> 01:33:47,440
under the direction of Reinhard Kratz, Ingo
Kottsieper

1679
01:33:47,440 --> 01:33:49,440
and Annette Steudel

1680
01:33:49,440 --> 01:33:53,560
here in Göttingen for the Qumran Wörterbuch
Projekt

1681
01:33:53,560 --> 01:33:56,720
at the Akademie der Wissenschaften zu
Göttingen.

1682
01:33:56,720 --> 01:34:00,640
Lots of German words.
I promise that's the end of the German.

1683
01:34:01,840 --> 01:34:06,720
So, one of the main questions we came to this
project with

1684
01:34:06,720 --> 01:34:10,680
is what exactly defines a digital edition.

1685
01:34:10,680 --> 01:34:13,560
Well, we're still trying to explore that question

1686
01:34:13,560 --> 01:34:15,160
and we will continue to do so

1687
01:34:15,160 --> 01:34:18,480
long after this project reaches its conclusion.

1688
01:34:18,480 --> 01:34:21,520
We do, however, have some main concepts in
mind

1689
01:34:21,520 --> 01:34:23,960
which are perhaps easiest to highlight

1690
01:34:24,640 --> 01:34:26,600
in comparison to traditional print editions,

1691
01:34:26,600 --> 01:34:28,480
with which you might be familiar.

1692
01:34:28,480 --> 01:34:31,320
I'll present them here
in relation to the project,

1693
01:34:31,320 --> 01:34:35,240
process of an editor creating an edition.

1694
01:34:35,240 --> 01:34:37,600
Firstly, an editor usually begins

1695
01:34:37,600 --> 01:34:41,320
by organizing the materials necessary
for creating the edition.

1696
01:34:41,320 --> 01:34:44,280
This may include

1697
01:34:44,280 --> 01:34:48,880
materials previously organized by other
colleagues.

1698
01:34:48,880 --> 01:34:50,480
In a final print edition, this information

1699
01:34:50,480 --> 01:34:55,400
will not be easily accessible to a reader, if at
all.

1700
01:34:55,400 --> 01:34:58,520
One goal of our digital edition is to make it
simple

1701
01:34:58,520 --> 01:35:00,560
for a reader to dig down and access

1702
01:35:00,560 --> 01:35:03,160
the same datasets
that the editor used

1703
01:35:03,160 --> 01:35:05,720
to create the digital edition.

1704
01:35:05,720 --> 01:35:07,760
This is done by means of links

1705
01:35:07,760 --> 01:35:10,200
to data stored internally in our database

1706
01:35:10,200 --> 01:35:13,560
as well as links to external resources.

1707
01:35:13,560 --> 01:35:17,920
Secondly, an editor will evaluate this body of
evidence

1708
01:35:17,920 --> 01:35:20,400
and decide how to construct the edition

1709
01:35:20,400 --> 01:35:24,640
and what accompanying notes and
commentary should be included in it.

1710
01:35:24,640 --> 01:35:26,600
Due to the limitations of print,

1711
01:35:26,600 --> 01:35:29,520
the editor must usually place boundaries

1712
01:35:29,520 --> 01:35:33,040
on how much ancillary information is included
in the volume

1713
01:35:33,040 --> 01:35:36,560
and is also usually limited by the print
medium itself,

1714
01:35:36,560 --> 01:35:39,560
for instance, life-size mock-ups of a scroll

1715
01:35:39,560 --> 01:35:42,880
are usually difficult to share in many print
volumes

1716
01:35:42,880 --> 01:35:46,280
as are large numbers of high resolution
images.

1717
01:35:46,280 --> 01:35:49,400
Such restrictions do not typically apply to
digital editions

1718
01:35:49,400 --> 01:35:51,880
and it is possible to convey much more

1719
01:35:51,880 --> 01:35:54,600
of the critical editorial process.

1720
01:35:54,600 --> 01:35:59,240
The reader can then test the editorial
decisions

1721
01:35:59,720 --> 01:36:01,920
by directly interacting with the primary data

1722
01:36:01,920 --> 01:36:04,000
in the same way that the editor did,

1723
01:36:04,000 --> 01:36:08,640
thus, providing greater opportunities
for independent verification.

1724
01:36:08,640 --> 01:36:11,440
Finally, the editor of a print volume

1725
01:36:11,440 --> 01:36:15,680
is confined to the physical spatial limits of a
paper book,

1726
01:36:15,680 --> 01:36:18,880
with limits such as size, colour and formatting

1727
01:36:18,880 --> 01:36:23,760
often playing a large role
in the presentation of the final product.

1728
01:36:23,760 --> 01:36:26,680
The print edition being a physical object

1729
01:36:26,680 --> 01:36:30,480
can only exist in one place at one point in
time.

1730
01:36:30,480 --> 01:36:34,920
It must be transported
and is only copied with difficulty.

1731
01:36:34,920 --> 01:36:38,600
A digital edition can transcend many of these
bounds

1732
01:36:38,600 --> 01:36:40,280
though it does not always do so.

1733
01:36:40,280 --> 01:36:42,880
It can be copied at virtually no cost

1734
01:36:42,880 --> 01:36:45,320
and transferred at incredible speeds

1735
01:36:45,320 --> 01:36:47,840
It often affords both the editor and the reader

1736
01:36:47,840 --> 01:36:51,440
a greater degree of freedom in the way it is
presented.

1737
01:36:51,440 --> 01:36:52,880
And at the end of the day,

1738
01:36:52,880 --> 01:36:55,480
it can also be serialized into a physical form

1739
01:36:55,480 --> 01:37:00,000
such as a book or off prints if somebody
wishes to do so.

1740
01:37:00,000 --> 01:37:02,720
The digital edition adds also a further benefit

1741
01:37:02,720 --> 01:37:05,240
to the traditional print edition.

1742
01:37:05,240 --> 01:37:07,520
It can be made malleable such that

1743
01:37:07,520 --> 01:37:10,760
the editor can easily and quickly update it

1744
01:37:10,760 --> 01:37:12,960
should he or she desire to,

1745
01:37:12,960 --> 01:37:16,920
and a user can interact with it dynamically
to create derivative works,

1746
01:37:16,920 --> 01:37:20,960
all the while, maintaining clear attribution of
origin.

1747
01:37:20,960 --> 01:37:26,560
This is much more difficult to effectively
achieve in the print world.

1748
01:37:26,560 --> 01:37:29,560
So, what does our digital edition look like?

1749
01:37:29,560 --> 01:37:31,800
A small group in our project has put together

1750
01:37:31,800 --> 01:37:34,280
some mock-ups with functionality

1751
01:37:34,280 --> 01:37:37,000
that they would like to see in the end product.

1752
01:37:37,680 --> 01:37:41,160
In this window, we see a column
from the scroll of 4Q instructions

1753
01:37:41,160 --> 01:37:46,440
or (INAUDIBLE) One of the texts that
Daniel must be working on.

1754
01:37:46,440 --> 01:37:50,040
It's a very important wisdom composition at
Qumran

1755
01:37:50,040 --> 01:37:54,520
that was unknown to us
before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

1756
01:37:54,520 --> 01:37:59,200
Already we see access
to lots of information such as Hebrew text,

1757
01:37:59,200 --> 01:38:02,600
including reconstructions, an English
translation,

1758
01:38:02,600 --> 01:38:04,960
links to the new high resolution images

1759
01:38:04,960 --> 01:38:07,960
used in the reconstructed column in the
middle

1760
01:38:07,960 --> 01:38:12,960
and links to images of these fragments
from around 70 years ago.

1761
01:38:12,960 --> 01:38:17,200
Some display options and links to additional
data.

1762
01:38:17,200 --> 01:38:21,000
I'll get into this a little more closely in the
coming slides.

1763
01:38:21,000 --> 01:38:22,600
It's a lot to take in

1764
01:38:22,600 --> 01:38:26,880
even though it's just a little bit
on your computer screen.

1765
01:38:26,880 --> 01:38:32,120
So, the image to the left
contains images of fragmentary remains

1766
01:38:32,120 --> 01:38:35,360
overlaid with some reconstructed Hebrew text

1767
01:38:35,360 --> 01:38:38,120
in a font face based upon the letters as found

1768
01:38:38,600 --> 01:38:40,880
in the existing portions of the scroll.

1769
01:38:41,720 --> 01:38:45,560
The English text on the right
is a translation of the Hebrew.

1770
01:38:46,120 --> 01:38:48,640
The system allows the English translation

1771
01:38:48,640 --> 01:38:51,280
to be linked to the Hebrew text on the image.

1772
01:38:51,280 --> 01:38:54,280
Thus lay people who know even a little
Hebrew

1773
01:38:54,280 --> 01:38:57,640
can easily find the original text for themselves,

1774
01:38:57,640 --> 01:38:59,800
and that's an important thing for our project,

1775
01:38:59,800 --> 01:39:01,680
to get more and more people involved

1776
01:39:01,680 --> 01:39:05,560
in looking at and reading these scrolls.

1777
01:39:06,160 --> 01:39:09,360
Then this pane from the far right provides
quick links

1778
01:39:09,360 --> 01:39:11,720
to the images used in the reconstructed
column

1779
01:39:11,720 --> 01:39:14,400
along with links to older images that you see

1780
01:39:14,400 --> 01:39:18,800
with the PAM numbers, PAM43.487 and so
forth.

1781
01:39:18,800 --> 01:39:23,840
It also has a quick link to the parallel text
found in 4Q416.

1782
01:39:23,840 --> 01:39:27,200
So you could click on that and go directly to
that text.

1783
01:39:27,200 --> 01:39:29,840
And then it has some additional data

1784
01:39:29,840 --> 01:39:34,680
which would certainly include editor
commentary

1785
01:39:34,680 --> 01:39:39,760
and other types of information
related to what you see on the screen.

1786
01:39:39,760 --> 01:39:42,760
So, this is just a short glimpse of some of the
features

1787
01:39:42,760 --> 01:39:45,920
that will be available when exploring the Dead
Sea Scrolls

1788
01:39:45,920 --> 01:39:48,920
in a digital addition
on the SQE platform.

1789
01:39:48,920 --> 01:39:51,840
But I would like to turn now from website
mock-ups

1790
01:39:51,840 --> 01:39:54,000
to the current virtual research environment

1791
01:39:54,000 --> 01:39:57,920
which we're using to prepare our digital
editions.

1792
01:39:57,920 --> 01:40:00,480
And these are not mock-ups.

1793
01:40:00,480 --> 01:40:02,440
So, the virtual research environment

1794
01:40:02,440 --> 01:40:04,480
is currently under heavy development

1795
01:40:04,480 --> 01:40:07,640
and is usable already for several tasks.

1796
01:40:07,640 --> 01:40:10,240
This environment is similar to the online
edition

1797
01:40:10,240 --> 01:40:14,760
but adds the opportunity to create and change
information.

1798
01:40:14,760 --> 01:40:18,480
It will be published online
alongside the digital edition's web site,

1799
01:40:18,480 --> 01:40:22,800
but unlike that website,
you can register to use this,

1800
01:40:22,800 --> 01:40:26,480
which is very helpful when you
want to save any changes you make.

1801
01:40:26,480 --> 01:40:30,400
Registration will be free and open to all.

1802
01:40:30,400 --> 01:40:34,200
When you first log-on to the virtual research
environment,

1803
01:40:34,200 --> 01:40:35,800
you will see a list of additions,

1804
01:40:35,800 --> 01:40:38,800
the ones you have created or work on jointly

1805
01:40:38,800 --> 01:40:44,200
and a list of those provided by the base data
stored in our system.

1806
01:40:44,200 --> 01:40:47,880
So you see, for instance up here,
personal editions,

1807
01:40:47,880 --> 01:40:52,520
and here, publicly available editions.

1808
01:40:53,520 --> 01:40:57,360
Within any editions that is yours personally
or is shared with you,

1809
01:40:57,360 --> 01:41:00,280
you have the option to add further editors.

1810
01:41:00,280 --> 01:41:03,400
The edition can be shared with several levels
of permission

1811
01:41:03,400 --> 01:41:05,920
such as read only, write or admin,

1812
01:41:05,920 --> 01:41:08,840
and these are more or less self-explanatory.

1813
01:41:08,840 --> 01:41:13,000
What you don't see going on under the hood,
so to speak,

1814
01:41:13,000 --> 01:41:15,680
is a complete editor tracking system.

1815
01:41:15,680 --> 01:41:17,240
This keeps a full record of

1816
01:41:17,240 --> 01:41:20,600
who is responsible for each change in the
edition.

1817
01:41:20,600 --> 01:41:24,880
Such a minute accounting of each editor's
contribution

1818
01:41:24,880 --> 01:41:26,440
would be impossible in a print edition

1819
01:41:26,440 --> 01:41:29,680
and incredibly distracting if ever attempted.

1820
01:41:29,680 --> 01:41:31,760
The digital platform, however,

1821
01:41:31,760 --> 01:41:36,960
makes such best practices
effortless and easily accessible.

1822
01:41:36,960 --> 01:41:42,440
What is more, our system accomplishes
all of it edits in real time,

1823
01:41:42,440 --> 01:41:45,880
thus, saving the editor from many confusing
circumstances

1824
01:41:45,880 --> 01:41:49,440
created by near contemporaneous edits.

1825
01:41:49,440 --> 01:41:52,000
For instance,

1826
01:41:52,000 --> 01:41:57,120
here we see one editor,
the one on top,

1827
01:41:57,120 --> 01:42:00,000
cleaning up the mask for a fragment.

1828
01:42:00,000 --> 01:42:03,480
In this case, the automated masking
algorithms

1829
01:42:03,480 --> 01:42:06,000
selected a little too much area
and included

1830
01:42:06,000 --> 01:42:09,840
some of the backing material
along with the fragment itself.

1831
01:42:09,840 --> 01:42:12,000
The current editor wants to clean it up a bit

1832
01:42:12,000 --> 01:42:16,720
and make the mask conform a bit more
closely to the parchment remains.

1833
01:42:16,720 --> 01:42:18,920
At the same time, another editor,

1834
01:42:18,920 --> 01:42:23,040
the one in the bottom pane,
is looking at some transcribed text

1835
01:42:23,040 --> 01:42:26,360
next to a cut-out image of the same fragment.

1836
01:42:26,360 --> 01:42:31,520
Now, I want you to watch. Once this editor
finishes drawing,

1837
01:42:31,520 --> 01:42:36,520
the editor will save the changes,
and if you look at the image here,

1838
01:42:36,520 --> 01:42:39,360
you will see as these changes are saved,

1839
01:42:39,360 --> 01:42:42,200
those changes immediately apply down,

1840
01:42:42,200 --> 01:42:47,280
though I have this on loop,
so you're seeing it again.

1841
01:42:48,720 --> 01:42:52,480
So the video I showed here
was filmed in real time on my computer.

1842
01:42:52,480 --> 01:42:55,360
So you can see, the time that it takes
to save an edit to our database

1843
01:42:55,360 --> 01:42:58,600
and then to broadcast it to all other colleagues

1844
01:42:58,600 --> 01:43:02,280
working on the same manuscript
is nearly instantaneous.

1845
01:43:02,280 --> 01:43:06,160
This is really helpful because if a mistake was
made,

1846
01:43:06,160 --> 01:43:08,840
the editors could communicate it immediately

1847
01:43:08,840 --> 01:43:12,320
via email, phone or discord or whatever

1848
01:43:12,320 --> 01:43:16,800
while the problem is still fresh in both people's
minds.

1849
01:43:17,680 --> 01:43:21,560
I want to slow down for just a bit
and highlight the editorial work

1850
01:43:21,560 --> 01:43:24,720
that was going on in the previous slide.

1851
01:43:24,720 --> 01:43:28,160
Each image of a Dead Sea Scrolls fragment

1852
01:43:28,160 --> 01:43:31,520
contains rulers and color calibration meters

1853
01:43:31,520 --> 01:43:35,080
along with a label and a lot of other black
background.

1854
01:43:35,080 --> 01:43:38,120
If we want to reconstruct a nice column of text

1855
01:43:38,120 --> 01:43:42,360
like shown in the earlier slides
or even an entire scroll,

1856
01:43:42,360 --> 01:43:45,680
we need to extract each fragment from that
image.

1857
01:43:45,680 --> 01:43:50,000
This is a process that you saw
being carried out in the last slide.

1858
01:43:50,000 --> 01:43:54,440
In essence, we mark one or more regions on
an image

1859
01:43:54,440 --> 01:43:56,960
and give them an identification.

1860
01:43:56,960 --> 01:43:59,480
As you see here,
we have four regions

1861
01:43:59,480 --> 01:44:02,960
marking the four separate fragments
on this one image.

1862
01:44:02,960 --> 01:44:04,960
Maybe there are even five.

1863
01:44:04,960 --> 01:44:08,400
They each have a label in the top left panel.

1864
01:44:08,400 --> 01:44:14,360
9A, 9B, 9C, 9D and 10B.

1865
01:44:14,360 --> 01:44:18,120
Now that the fragments are marked and
identified,

1866
01:44:18,120 --> 01:44:22,320
they can be extracted and moved
independently of each other,

1867
01:44:22,320 --> 01:44:24,360
which we will see in a moment.

1868
01:44:24,360 --> 01:44:26,600
But first, you may remember that I mentioned

1869
01:44:26,600 --> 01:44:30,400
we often have several images of the same
fragment.

1870
01:44:30,400 --> 01:44:32,840
A new one like this,

1871
01:44:32,840 --> 01:44:35,880
and, in fact, we have corresponding images in
infrared

1872
01:44:35,880 --> 01:44:39,800
and also with raking bytes from the right and
left-hand side.

1873
01:44:39,800 --> 01:44:43,120
We also have older images called the pam
series

1874
01:44:43,120 --> 01:44:47,800
which are infrared and grayscale scale
images.

1875
01:44:49,440 --> 01:44:52,720
The current system we use will allow us

1876
01:44:52,720 --> 01:44:55,560
to map regions in the new images

1877
01:44:55,560 --> 01:44:58,280
to regions in the pams.

1878
01:44:58,280 --> 01:45:02,160
This mapping will allow to quickly access
those older images.

1879
01:45:02,160 --> 01:45:04,400
And you see here, on the bottom,

1880
01:45:04,400 --> 01:45:08,360
a black and white looking image,
that is one of the older pams,

1881
01:45:08,360 --> 01:45:10,160
and then one of the newer images

1882
01:45:10,160 --> 01:45:15,000
with the color bars and rulers attached to it.

1883
01:45:16,120 --> 01:45:19,640
The Tel Aviv computer science team
has been hard at work

1884
01:45:19,640 --> 01:45:22,200
developing algorithms to automatically find

1885
01:45:22,200 --> 01:45:25,520
any given fragment in the pams.

1886
01:45:25,520 --> 01:45:28,960
We also are working on how to be able to
implement a morphing feature

1887
01:45:28,960 --> 01:45:32,160
so that when parchment has shrunk over time,

1888
01:45:32,160 --> 01:45:35,480
we could stretch it back to the form it had in
the old pams.

1889
01:45:35,480 --> 01:45:37,840
or also do the reverse.

1890
01:45:37,840 --> 01:45:42,160
Searching the pam images themselves
is very important in our field.

1891
01:45:42,160 --> 01:45:45,280
You may have the pleasure to hear
(UNKNOWN) speak

1892
01:45:45,280 --> 01:45:48,760
about some of the new fragment
identifications he has made.

1893
01:45:48,760 --> 01:45:52,680
There are also exist fragments in the pam
images.

1894
01:45:53,640 --> 01:45:56,760
And that have become forgotten over time.

1895
01:45:56,760 --> 01:46:00,120
And by mapping all of the pam images with
the new ones,

1896
01:46:00,120 --> 01:46:02,600
we hope to identify those fragments

1897
01:46:02,600 --> 01:46:06,000
that have fallen through the cracks.

1898
01:46:07,320 --> 01:46:10,960
The second tool that you saw in the real time
demonstration

1899
01:46:10,960 --> 01:46:13,520
was the text ink mapping tool.

1900
01:46:13,520 --> 01:46:17,920
This tool lets you select a letter
from the transcription

1901
01:46:17,920 --> 01:46:21,280
and define ink remains
that it corresponds to.

1902
01:46:21,280 --> 01:46:24,480
Here we see a nice (UNKNOWN)

1903
01:46:24,480 --> 01:46:29,080
highlighted in red in the transcription

1904
01:46:29,080 --> 01:46:33,000
together with its corresponding ink remains,

1905
01:46:33,000 --> 01:46:34,920
highlighted in yellow,

1906
01:46:34,920 --> 01:46:37,680
on the fragment.

1907
01:46:37,680 --> 01:46:41,640
We are mapping every bit of ink here for
several reasons.

1908
01:46:41,640 --> 01:46:45,200
Firstly, it clarifies to every reader

1909
01:46:45,200 --> 01:46:47,800
exactly what you, as an editor, see.

1910
01:46:47,800 --> 01:46:52,280
This corresponds to the repeatability of
editorial analysis,

1911
01:46:52,280 --> 01:46:54,000
I mentioned above.

1912
01:46:54,000 --> 01:46:57,000
This can be especially helpful
when looking at particularly small

1913
01:46:57,000 --> 01:47:01,000
or damaged fragments
where it is not always so clear

1914
01:47:01,000 --> 01:47:03,640
how an editor is interpreting the ink

1915
01:47:03,640 --> 01:47:06,840
even how he or she is placing the fragment.

1916
01:47:06,840 --> 01:47:11,880
In addition to that, it enables many
other computational possibilities.

1917
01:47:11,880 --> 01:47:15,600
For instance, we can automatically create a
custom font

1918
01:47:15,600 --> 01:47:18,200
based on the handwriting in a single
manuscript,

1919
01:47:18,200 --> 01:47:20,800
which could be helpful for training purposes.

1920
01:47:20,800 --> 01:47:22,720
We can evaluate the likelihood

1921
01:47:22,720 --> 01:47:25,800
of reconstructed text in a fragmentary
manuscript

1922
01:47:25,800 --> 01:47:29,360
by comparing the specific dimensions
it would likely require

1923
01:47:29,360 --> 01:47:34,600
based on the dimensions we know
of the handwriting so far.

1924
01:47:34,600 --> 01:47:39,320
We can also use this empirical data
to evaluate damaged letters.

1925
01:47:39,320 --> 01:47:43,040
We can compare the letters of one scroll
with those on others

1926
01:47:43,040 --> 01:47:45,400
or we can compare all the letters
within a manuscript

1927
01:47:45,400 --> 01:47:48,280
to look for similarities and differences.

1928
01:47:48,280 --> 01:47:52,880
These are all possibilities
once we have mapped the ink remains.

1929
01:47:54,400 --> 01:47:57,280
But this is quite tedious to do manually.

1930
01:47:57,280 --> 01:48:00,000
So, our computer science team has been
working

1931
01:48:00,000 --> 01:48:02,280
to automate this to some extent.

1932
01:48:02,280 --> 01:48:06,200
Right now, the results are incomplete
but look very promising.

1933
01:48:06,200 --> 01:48:08,840
The results above were produced

1934
01:48:08,840 --> 01:48:11,200
in cooperation with the Escripta project,

1935
01:48:11,200 --> 01:48:12,920
which intends to do this sort of thing

1936
01:48:12,920 --> 01:48:16,240
for manuscripts in all languages and periods.

1937
01:48:16,240 --> 01:48:20,400
Here, we see the identification of regions on
an image.

1938
01:48:20,400 --> 01:48:25,680
That is the green, red, green, red boxes.

1939
01:48:25,680 --> 01:48:29,680
With the identification of Hebrew letters
contained within them,

1940
01:48:29,680 --> 01:48:34,680
which I'm sure is quite difficult to see on your
screens, I apologize.

1941
01:48:34,680 --> 01:48:38,480
But the results here are astonishingly good.

1942
01:48:38,480 --> 01:48:42,680
We hope that this technology
in conjunction with some other processes

1943
01:48:42,680 --> 01:48:47,400
will enable us to create serviceable editions
for the entire corpus.

1944
01:48:47,400 --> 01:48:50,120
Granted, they won't be as curated

1945
01:48:50,120 --> 01:48:53,400
as well as the exemplary editions that we are
preparing

1946
01:48:53,400 --> 01:48:59,200
but they will be a very good base to build
upon.

1947
01:48:59,200 --> 01:49:01,880
So how does this all come together?

1948
01:49:01,880 --> 01:49:05,480
We have cut out fragment images

1949
01:49:05,480 --> 01:49:08,200
that can be moved
independently of each other,

1950
01:49:08,200 --> 01:49:11,520
we have mappings of ink to transcription,

1951
01:49:11,520 --> 01:49:14,680
and we also have the ability to situate the
fragments

1952
01:49:14,680 --> 01:49:17,480
on the virtual canvas, so to speak.

1953
01:49:17,480 --> 01:49:21,560
All of this comes together
to facilitate what we see here.

1954
01:49:21,560 --> 01:49:25,800
Three pieces that make a direct join with each
other

1955
01:49:25,800 --> 01:49:29,720
and fit so closely
that we can find complete letters

1956
01:49:29,720 --> 01:49:34,640
which were only fragmentary
on the individual pieces themselves.

1957
01:49:35,200 --> 01:49:39,560
All the data used to create this
is stored in a database

1958
01:49:39,560 --> 01:49:44,200
with proper attribution and the process
is completely repeatable

1959
01:49:44,200 --> 01:49:48,120
by anyone else who cares to download
the editorial information

1960
01:49:48,120 --> 01:49:50,440
and apply it to the images.

1961
01:49:50,440 --> 01:49:52,960
We do not actually create new images.

1962
01:49:52,960 --> 01:49:56,320
They are cropped dynamically
in the browser.

1963
01:49:56,320 --> 01:49:59,880
So we have no need to create
all sorts of new custom images

1964
01:49:59,880 --> 01:50:02,440
every time somebody makes a small change.

1965
01:50:02,440 --> 01:50:05,440
This has the added benefit that you can
always quickly get back

1966
01:50:05,440 --> 01:50:08,160
to the raw untouched data.

1967
01:50:08,160 --> 01:50:09,920
An editor can attach comments

1968
01:50:09,920 --> 01:50:13,400
to virtually any part of the process described
above

1969
01:50:13,400 --> 01:50:18,240
in order to describe, in order to explain
the decisions that were made

1970
01:50:18,240 --> 01:50:22,160
or to provide ancillary information.

1971
01:50:22,920 --> 01:50:26,680
Now, perhaps time will allow me for a few
closing remarks

1972
01:50:26,680 --> 01:50:29,000
about how we designed our system

1973
01:50:29,000 --> 01:50:31,520
and the principles upon which we operate.

1974
01:50:31,520 --> 01:50:34,480
Though I fear that many... it may only succeed

1975
01:50:34,480 --> 01:50:37,920
in putting the vast majority
of our audience to sleep at this point,

1976
01:50:37,920 --> 01:50:40,200
and it's - I know - just late afternoon for you

1977
01:50:40,200 --> 01:50:42,720
so you probably don't wanna go to bed just
yet,

1978
01:50:42,720 --> 01:50:46,040
but maybe you can watch this again later.

1979
01:50:46,040 --> 01:50:49,760
As you've already seen, we have a website,
two websites in fact,

1980
01:50:49,760 --> 01:50:52,200
that gather information from our data servers

1981
01:50:52,200 --> 01:50:54,440
and display it on the screen.

1982
01:50:54,440 --> 01:50:57,440
This is probably rather apparent to everyone.

1983
01:50:57,440 --> 01:51:01,040
What you don't see behind the scenes
are two components.

1984
01:51:01,040 --> 01:51:05,320
An API server and a database.

1985
01:51:05,320 --> 01:51:08,440
Most of you probably have some idea what a
database is.

1986
01:51:08,440 --> 01:51:11,920
For us, it is a, so called, single source of
truth.

1987
01:51:11,920 --> 01:51:15,360
If data is in there, it will be accessible for the
long term.

1988
01:51:15,360 --> 01:51:18,800
If it is not in there,
then it will disappear from your screen

1989
01:51:18,800 --> 01:51:21,200
the next time you reload the website.

1990
01:51:21,200 --> 01:51:26,720
What is perhaps not so clear
is the SQE API server or, better, servers.

1991
01:51:26,720 --> 01:51:29,880
This is the gatekeeper to the database.

1992
01:51:29,880 --> 01:51:32,800
When a website tries to get information from
the database,

1993
01:51:32,800 --> 01:51:36,200
it asks the SQE API to go fetch it.

1994
01:51:36,200 --> 01:51:38,040
The API decides whether the user

1995
01:51:38,040 --> 01:51:40,400
really is allowed to get that information.

1996
01:51:40,400 --> 01:51:42,920
It also packages the information

1997
01:51:42,920 --> 01:51:47,200
in a way that is easy for the user to read and
understand.

1998
01:51:47,200 --> 01:51:51,520
The same thing happens
when a user tries to edit or create data.

1999
01:51:51,520 --> 01:51:53,760
The API checks whether the user

2000
01:51:53,760 --> 01:51:56,800
is allowed to create or edit such information.

2001
01:51:56,800 --> 01:51:59,960
You may remember the permissions
that I mentioned earlier.

2002
01:51:59,960 --> 01:52:03,680
And then, it writes the data to the database.

2003
01:52:03,680 --> 01:52:06,800
And finally, it notifies all other relevant
parties

2004
01:52:06,800 --> 01:52:09,800
that a change has been made.

2005
01:52:10,800 --> 01:52:15,520
I will end with an example of why we make our
API publicly accessible

2006
01:52:15,520 --> 01:52:19,240
and how it fits with our hopes for the future.

2007
01:52:19,240 --> 01:52:24,080
Here is the output of a simple Python program
I wrote last week.

2008
01:52:24,080 --> 01:52:29,840
It requests data about the letter forms
directly from the SQE API.

2009
01:52:29,840 --> 01:52:32,520
Then it analyzes the information

2010
01:52:32,520 --> 01:52:37,400
and finds the prototypical or most common
form of a letter.

2011
01:52:37,400 --> 01:52:40,320
Here we see that it sifts through many
damaged forms

2012
01:52:40,320 --> 01:52:44,200
of the letter 'aleph' and forms in several
orientations,

2013
01:52:44,200 --> 01:52:48,760
and in the end, it comes up with a pretty good
looking aleph.

2014
01:52:48,760 --> 01:52:50,080
Perhaps a tool like this

2015
01:52:50,080 --> 01:52:53,080
will become an official part of the SQE
websites

2016
01:52:53,080 --> 01:52:54,800
but perhaps it won't.

2017
01:52:54,800 --> 01:52:57,440
The importance of making the API accessible

2018
01:52:57,440 --> 01:52:59,360
is that anyone who wants to move

2019
01:52:59,360 --> 01:53:03,440
beyond the common tools we create on the
websites

2020
01:53:03,440 --> 01:53:07,800
is allowed to do so and enabled to do it.

2021
01:53:09,360 --> 01:53:16,200
In closing, SQE is committed to open access
and open source licensing.

2022
01:53:16,200 --> 01:53:19,240
All of our tools, from the website to the API

2023
01:53:19,240 --> 01:53:24,720
to the database, are available with MIT
licences on github.

2024
01:53:24,720 --> 01:53:28,560
All our data is licensed with Creative
Commons licensing.

2025
01:53:28,560 --> 01:53:30,880
What is more, when the websites go live,

2026
01:53:30,880 --> 01:53:33,560
our APIs will be directly accessible

2027
01:53:33,560 --> 01:53:37,200
for people to create new and different tools,
should they wish to.

2028
01:53:37,200 --> 01:53:41,720
Even as we push forward rapidly
to complete our present goals,

2029
01:53:41,720 --> 01:53:43,640
we also keep an eye to the future.

2030
01:53:43,640 --> 01:53:47,040
We have high hopes for what SQE will soon
become.

2031
01:53:47,040 --> 01:53:51,160
And we can only imagine what will happen
after that.

2032
01:53:51,160 --> 01:53:53,280
Thank you very much for your time.

2033
01:53:53,280 --> 01:53:56,400
LAWRENCE: OK. And thank you
for this fascinating presentation.

2034
01:53:56,400 --> 01:54:00,520
Now, we turn it over to Patrick for questions.

2035
01:54:01,840 --> 01:54:04,880
PATRICK: Thank you very much.

2036
01:54:04,880 --> 01:54:07,520
So you might have answered this at the
outset,

2037
01:54:07,520 --> 01:54:11,400
but there's a couple of questions just about

2038
01:54:11,400 --> 01:54:16,720
the general timeline for SQE and its
availability for use

2039
01:54:16,720 --> 01:54:19,640
by scholars, the public etc.

2040
01:54:19,640 --> 01:54:23,920
BRONSON: Yeah. So kind of the harsh thing
is

2041
01:54:23,920 --> 01:54:28,080
I stop getting paid in June of next year, I
believe.

2042
01:54:28,080 --> 01:54:31,760
And so, it should be done before that.

2043
01:54:31,760 --> 01:54:34,160
PATRICK: Alright.

2044
01:54:34,840 --> 01:54:38,720
BRONSON: I wish I had more time
but these are the limits.

2045
01:54:38,720 --> 01:54:41,040
PATRICK: Terrific. Thank you.

2046
01:54:41,040 --> 01:54:44,880
So let's see. Here, we have

2047
01:54:44,880 --> 01:54:46,560
a couple of other questions.

2048
01:54:46,560 --> 01:54:49,960
One about the use of semantic technology

2049
01:54:49,960 --> 01:54:53,040
and how language is handled,

2050
01:54:53,040 --> 01:54:55,720
and if you could just speak to that a little bit.

2051
01:54:55,720 --> 01:54:56,840
BRONSON: Sure. Do you know...

2052
01:54:56,840 --> 01:54:59,640
Are they talking about semantic web type stuff

2053
01:54:59,640 --> 01:55:00,960
or about the terms that we use?

2054
01:55:00,960 --> 01:55:02,560
PATRICK: (INAUDIBLE) databases.

2055
01:55:02,560 --> 01:55:04,720
BRONSON: OK. Great.

2056
01:55:04,720 --> 01:55:06,880
So yeah. This is kind of a cool thing.

2057
01:55:06,880 --> 01:55:10,720
So technically, in the back end of our project,

2058
01:55:10,720 --> 01:55:14,120
we use an SQL database.

2059
01:55:14,120 --> 01:55:17,240
So it's a really old timey traditional thing.

2060
01:55:17,240 --> 01:55:21,520
But in fact, a lot of the data structures we use,

2061
01:55:21,520 --> 01:55:24,960
for instance, the way we string words together,
is a graph.

2062
01:55:24,960 --> 01:55:27,800
It's a directed acyclic graph.

2063
01:55:27,800 --> 01:55:32,400
And so, while we're not using something like
Neo4j or Ontotext,

2064
01:55:32,400 --> 01:55:36,560
we are using graph type data structures.

2065
01:55:36,560 --> 01:55:38,920
And then as far as the semantic...

2066
01:55:38,920 --> 01:55:40,960
the whole semantic question goes,

2067
01:55:40,960 --> 01:55:44,520
this is something that's kind of close to my
heart.

2068
01:55:44,520 --> 01:55:46,960
You can throw a bunch of data out there

2069
01:55:46,960 --> 01:55:49,680
but if you don't describe really carefully

2070
01:55:49,680 --> 01:55:52,560
what it is and what you meant for it to be,

2071
01:55:52,560 --> 01:55:56,840
it becomes kind of junk
that people have to sift through.

2072
01:55:56,840 --> 01:56:01,440
And so, while we are not yet exactly hooked
up

2073
01:56:01,440 --> 01:56:07,680
with using semantic ontologies, like an owl
description,

2074
01:56:07,680 --> 01:56:12,280
we are moving in that direction
to be able to support that as well.

2075
01:56:12,280 --> 01:56:14,720
And one of the ways that we would like

2076
01:56:14,720 --> 01:56:16,960
to interface with the wider community

2077
01:56:16,960 --> 01:56:20,680
is by outputting our text also as TEI.

2078
01:56:20,680 --> 01:56:25,280
So then, it would have a bit of a semantic
element to it,

2079
01:56:25,280 --> 01:56:29,680
although TEI is not easy
from a semantic...

2080
01:56:29,680 --> 01:56:34,520
It's not a semantic definition.

2081
01:56:34,520 --> 01:56:35,520
I hope that helps.

2082
01:56:35,520 --> 01:56:37,160
PATRICK: Yeah. Thank you.

2083
01:56:37,160 --> 01:56:40,800
So maybe this is building off of the same kind
of issue

2084
01:56:40,800 --> 01:56:43,080
in terms of the technology here.

2085
01:56:43,080 --> 01:56:47,280
But we also have a question
about the use of machine learning

2086
01:56:47,280 --> 01:56:50,640
to train neural networks to read through the
scrolls

2087
01:56:50,640 --> 01:56:53,120
or bring fragments together or how that might

2088
01:56:53,120 --> 01:56:56,000
kind of contribute to this process.

2089
01:56:56,000 --> 01:56:59,480
BRONSON: Yeah.
So our Tel Aviv team,

2090
01:56:59,480 --> 01:57:01,680
the head of that is Nachum Dershowitz,

2091
01:57:01,680 --> 01:57:04,240
who is an ex world expert in machine learning,

2092
01:57:04,240 --> 01:57:07,120
as well as Lior Wolf,

2093
01:57:07,120 --> 01:57:09,440
who is an advisor for the project.

2094
01:57:09,440 --> 01:57:11,480
And so, there's a lot of different places

2095
01:57:11,480 --> 01:57:13,760
where we use neural networks.

2096
01:57:14,280 --> 01:57:19,800
And we are using that, for instance,
in the removal of background.

2097
01:57:19,800 --> 01:57:23,800
That uses some components of a AI.

2098
01:57:24,400 --> 01:57:28,800
What I just showed with the brief attempt
to use machine learning

2099
01:57:28,800 --> 01:57:31,560
to isolate the letters on the fragment,

2100
01:57:31,560 --> 01:57:35,760
that's using neural networks in several
different layers,

2101
01:57:35,760 --> 01:57:40,080
LSTMs and things like this.
A lot of jargon to throw at you.

2102
01:57:40,080 --> 01:57:42,360
But the long and short of it is

2103
01:57:42,360 --> 01:57:45,520
what we see happening in this project which
is really exciting

2104
01:57:45,520 --> 01:57:50,760
is this interface between what machines can
do and what humans can do,

2105
01:57:50,760 --> 01:57:55,120
and trying to take tasks that humans do really
well

2106
01:57:55,120 --> 01:57:57,960
and feed that data to machines

2107
01:57:57,960 --> 01:58:01,360
to let the machines do what they do really
well.

2108
01:58:01,360 --> 01:58:06,200
And so, I see it as a real balancing act, a real
give and take.

2109
01:58:06,200 --> 01:58:09,120
And so, there's a lot of that going on in this
project,

2110
01:58:09,120 --> 01:58:13,560
and I expect it to continue long after I'm
finished with it

2111
01:58:13,560 --> 01:58:16,840
and the project is up and running.

2112
01:58:16,840 --> 01:58:19,160
PATRICK: Great. Thank you. Yeah.

2113
01:58:19,160 --> 01:58:21,960
So another kind of question here
that sort of relates

2114
01:58:21,960 --> 01:58:26,160
to the features on SQE

2115
01:58:26,160 --> 01:58:31,920
regards potentially using GIS analysis,

2116
01:58:31,920 --> 01:58:35,200
constructing maps with locations mentioned in
the scrolls

2117
01:58:35,200 --> 01:58:38,520
or where the scrolls were found,
on either end,

2118
01:58:38,520 --> 01:58:41,200
if that's incorporated at all.

2119
01:58:41,200 --> 01:58:44,840
BRONSON: So we don't have that
incorporated very much.

2120
01:58:44,840 --> 01:58:49,800
I've seen some very cool stuff like this in some
cuneiform,

2121
01:58:49,800 --> 01:58:53,040
some projects,
digital humanities projects using cuneiform,

2122
01:58:53,040 --> 01:58:55,240
where they have tablets and you can find

2123
01:58:55,240 --> 01:58:59,800
which caches come from which, sort of, part
of Iraq and so forth,

2124
01:58:59,800 --> 01:59:02,360
and Anatolia.

2125
01:59:02,360 --> 01:59:04,400
For right now, we don't,

2126
01:59:04,400 --> 01:59:08,120
except that the images, the IAA does have
information

2127
01:59:08,120 --> 01:59:10,240
- metadata with their images -

2128
01:59:10,240 --> 01:59:13,200
that suggests which cave it comes from

2129
01:59:13,200 --> 01:59:15,280
or which find spot it comes from.

2130
01:59:15,280 --> 01:59:18,280
So that information is available.

2131
01:59:18,280 --> 01:59:21,960
And you should be able, if you wanted to,

2132
01:59:21,960 --> 01:59:26,160
to sort by the collection by cave,

2133
01:59:26,160 --> 01:59:30,400
get all the cave one things
and all the cave seven things

2134
01:59:30,400 --> 01:59:34,320
or the cave of horrors, (INAUDIBLE)

2135
01:59:34,320 --> 01:59:38,200
Documents from my favorite cave, the cave of
horrors.

2136
01:59:38,200 --> 01:59:40,240
Just 'cause of the name.

2137
01:59:40,240 --> 01:59:41,680
LAWRENCE: One last question?

2138
01:59:41,680 --> 01:59:46,200
PATRICK: Sure. Yeah.
So, final question then.

2139
01:59:46,200 --> 01:59:50,120
Regards the English translation that
accompanies the fragments

2140
01:59:50,120 --> 01:59:52,160
as presented here on SQE.

2141
01:59:52,160 --> 01:59:56,080
Are these taken from older editions?

2142
01:59:56,080 --> 01:59:58,080
Are they generated anew?

2143
01:59:58,080 --> 02:00:00,360
Or how is the English... ?

2144
02:00:00,360 --> 02:00:04,040
BRONSON: So right now, they're going to be
done independently

2145
02:00:04,040 --> 02:00:07,000
by each scholar who's working on the edition.

2146
02:00:07,000 --> 02:00:10,520
So we have the exemplary edition.
So myself and my colleagues

2147
02:00:10,520 --> 02:00:13,480
will translate the English afresh for that.

2148
02:00:13,480 --> 02:00:15,720
We don't have a source right now

2149
02:00:15,720 --> 02:00:19,120
for the English translations for every scroll.

2150
02:00:19,760 --> 02:00:24,120
This is something that we may find a way
to take from somewhere else.

2151
02:00:24,120 --> 02:00:25,760
That's a possibility.

2152
02:00:25,760 --> 02:00:29,880
Also if the Qumran Wörterbuch gets an
extension,

2153
02:00:29,880 --> 02:00:34,560
then English translations is the next thing
that they want to work on.

2154
02:00:34,560 --> 02:00:39,280
And so, via the Qumran Wörterbuch
database, it would come in to SQE.

2155
02:00:39,280 --> 02:00:42,040
So there's a couple possibilities right now

2156
02:00:42,040 --> 02:00:44,000
but we don't have anything lined up

2157
02:00:44,000 --> 02:00:46,440
for English translations for the entire corpus

2158
02:00:46,440 --> 02:00:48,240
as it stands right now.

2159
02:00:48,240 --> 02:00:50,680
Thank you.

2160
02:00:52,160 --> 02:00:54,760
LAWRENCE: Interesting presentation.

2161
02:00:54,760 --> 02:00:57,400
And we wanna thank everyone of our
speakers

2162
02:00:57,400 --> 02:00:59,080
and our audience who joined with us today,

2163
02:00:59,080 --> 02:01:00,560
our staff members and everyone.

2164
02:01:00,560 --> 02:01:04,200
Hope you will be back.
More of the type of thing that we were hearing.

2165
02:01:04,200 --> 02:01:07,240
We'll be having a session tomorrow
starting at 9:00

2166
02:01:07,240 --> 02:01:10,200
on science, technology and the scrolls.

2167
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And of course, we hope you'll stay with us

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throughout the rest of the conference.

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Thank you very much.
And have a good rest of today

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and evening.
Thank you. Bye.