The Body in Qumran Literature Flesh and

Dead Sea Discoveries 23 (2016) 155182
brill.com/dsd
The Body in Qumran Literature: Flesh and Spirit,

Purity and Impurity in the Dead Sea Scrolls
Alexandria Frisch
Ursinus College
afrisch@ursinus.edu
Lawrence H. Schiffman
New York University
lawrence.schiffman@nyu.edu
Abstract
This article examines the concept of the body within a wide range of Qumran litera-
ture. In a comparison with the biblical tradition, which does not evince a consistent
and systematic idea of the body, this article demonstrates that the sectarians devel-
oped their own somatic model. The sectarian model, as revealed through a close read-
ing of such texts as Hodayot, 1QS, 1QSa, CD and 1QM, is one that repeatedly emphasized
the body as a corporate entity comprised jointly of flesh and spirit. This article then
reexamines the same Qumran texts to show that this concept of the body explains the
extreme focus on purity at Qumran, particularly the sectarian conflation of moral and
ritual purification. A final comparison with Philo, who espoused a dualistic model of
the body, underscores just how truly unique the sectarian view of the body and purity
was among early Jews.
Keywords
Sectarian Qumran Hellenistic Judaism body flesh spirit purity sin
Secluded in the Judean desert, the Qumran sectarians were not only far removed
from the Jerusalem Temple, but had constituted their own community as a
koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 6|doi 10.1163/15685179-12341386

156 Frisch and Schiffman
temporary replacement for the corrupted Temple.1 Purity, therefore, was of

the utmost importance to all members of the sect.2 Initiates had to be pure to
enter the sect and, once they were members, had to maintain purity to be able
to participate in communal meals.3 The sects concern with purity was not only
extreme compared to that of other Jewish groups, but it was fundamentally
different from the concept of purity that they had inherited from the biblical
tradition. A number of scholars have characterized the sects view of purity as
unique within Second Temple Judaism primarily because, as Jonathan Klawans
puts it, at Qumran the once distinct concepts of ritual and moral impurity
were merged into a single conception of defilement.4 Yet, scholars have not
1 The early, proto-sectarian text of 4QMMT reveals that the writers disagreed with the current
cultic practices within the Temple and so withdrew. Later sectarian texts portray a group
that had resigned itself to the illegitimacy of the Jerusalem Temple by using the sect as a
stand-in for the Temple (see, for example, CD 4:18; 1QS 5:6, 8:59, 9:36, 11:8). One of the first
scholarly descriptions of this view appears in Bertil Grtner, The Temple and the Community
in Qumran and the New Testament (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965), 115.
See also Devorah Dimant, 4QFlorilegium and the Idea of the Community as Temple, in
Hellenica et Judaica, ed. Andr Caquot, et al. (Leuven: Peeters, 1986), 16589. For the oppos-
ing view, namely that the analogy between the Temple and the Qumran community was
meant to be metaphorical, not literal, see Susan Haber, Metaphor and Meaning in the Dead
Sea Scrolls, in They Shall Purify Themselves: Essays on Purity in Early Judaism, ed. Adele
Reinhartz (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2008), 10624.
2 For a full study on purity in the DSS, see Hannah Harrington, The Purity Texts (New York:
T&T Clark International, 2004). Harrington unequivocally argues that the many purity
texts found at Qumran reveal an approach to purity that is stringent. The biblical prescrip-
tions for purity are often increased and impurity is regarded as a more potent force than it
is by any other ancient Jewish group in antiquity (12). Jonathan D. Lawrence also makes
the observation that in the Scrolls there is a broadening of biblical, priestly bathing into a
form of ritual immersion that every sectarian must undergo (Washing in Water: Trajectories
of Ritual Bathing in the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Literature [Atlanta: Society of Biblical
Literature, 2006], 8119).
3 See, for example, CD 6:17, 7:3, which are general statements about the priority of purity
among the community. For laws related to the maintenance of purity within the group,
see 1QS 6:16ff. The focus on purity is also echoed in Josephus description of the Essenes
(e.g., Ant. 18:19) and is one of the reasons that scholars so often associate the two groups.
For a discussion of the sectarian penal codes focus on purity, see Lawrence H. Schiffman,
Sectarian Law in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Courts, Testimony and the Penal Code (Chico: Scholars,
1983), 16168, 21516.
4 Jonathan Klawans, Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2000), 75. The first to identify this conflation was Jacob Neusner, The Idea of Purity in Ancient
Judaism (Leiden: Brill, 1973), 54. Other scholars who have echoed this idea include: Michael

The Body in Qumran Literature 157
offered an explanation for what contributed to this conflation of impurity cat-

egories.5 Is this a misunderstanding or confusion on the part of the sectarians?
Surely, if the community viewed itself as the Temple, then they would have
been familiar with and vigilant about the various biblical laws of impurity.
Instead, the answer is to be found in a complex interplay of beliefs in the
sectarian texts that, in particular, revolve around the concept of the human
body. Not surprisingly, discussions of purity intrinsically relate to the body; we
need only consider the discovery of a number of mikvaot at the Qumran site to
grasp the extent of the sects efforts to maintain their bodily purity.6 By study-
ing the links between the concepts of purity and the body in the Qumran cor-
pus, we reveal that the sects ideas about purity were a result of a correlating,
extreme focus on the human body.
Newton, The Concept of Purity at Qumran and in the Letters of Paul (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1985); and Florentino Garca Martnez, The Problem of Purity: The Qumran
Solution, in The People of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their Writings, Beliefs, and Practices, ed.
Florentino Garca Martnez and Julio Trebolle Barrera (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 13957. Hannah
Harrington offers a modified position in that she argues that the sect regarded sin as ritually
impure, but did not view ritual impurity as sinful (The Nature of Impurity at Qumran in The
Dead Sea Scrolls: Fifty Years after Their Discovery, 19471997, ed. L.H. Schiffman, E. Tov, and J.C.
VanderKam [Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2000], 61016). The main dissenting view
is found in Martha Himmelfarb, Impurity and Sin in 4QD, 1QS, and 4Q512, DSD 8:1 (2001):
937. Himmelfarb acknowledges a conflation of purity and sin, but sees it as a metaphori-
cal innovation, not an actual legislative one. A very thorough overview of all of these views
appears in Haber, They Shall Purify Themselves, 4771.
5 For example, Neusner only characterizes the process of conflation as the last stage in the
development of ideas about purity [that carried] to the logical conclusion the interpretation
of priests, both lawyers and prophets, who inaugurated the process by making use of purity
as a metaphor for righteousness (The Idea of Purity, 54). Klawans suggests that the conflation
of types of impurity goes hand in hand with sectarian notions of separatism and may have
played a role in the sects decision to live in relative isolation from the rest of Israel (Impurity
and Sin, 189). This suggestion, however, seems to represent a result of the ideas about purity,
not the cause.
6 At least ten water structures with steps have been excavated at Qumran. For discussions of
the mikvaot at Qumran, see Jodi Magness, The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea
Scrolls (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2002), 13462; and Ronny Reich,
Miqvaot, in Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. L.H. Schiffman and J.C. VanderKam
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 56063.

Bodily Imagery in the Hodayot
The Hodayot (Thanksgiving) Scroll deals extensively with issues pertaining

to the nature of the human body.7 There are quite a number of passages that
describe the human body in negative terms.8 In particular, the author repeat-
edly emphasizes the insignificant nature of the human being, molded of clay,
formed of dust and kneaded with water. Although some ideas like these do
appear in the Hebrew Bible,9 the emphasis on the lowly status of humanity is
much greater in the Hodayot than anywhere in the biblical text.10 For example,
the author rhetorically questions, What, then, is a mortal beinghe is only
dirt, pinched-off c[lay], whose return is to dust (1QHa 18:56).11 Elsewhere he
similarly asks, But I, a vessel of clay, what am I? A thing kneaded with water.
And as what am I regarded? (1QHa 11:2425).12 Much of the imagery, derived
from the Bible, stresses the notion that humans were molded in the manner
of an earthen vessel by a potter. But this imagery is not merely an allusion to
7 The Hodayot are considered to be a sectarian text that originated within the Qumran com-
munity itself (see, for example, Carol Newsom, Sectually Explicit Literature from Qumran,
in The Hebrew Bible and Its Interpreters, ed. W.H. Propp, B. Halpern and D.N. Freedman
[BJS 1; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1990], 169)
8 As Crispin H.T. Fletcher-Louis so aptly puts it, The very negative view of human nature in
the Hodayot is well known: the psalmist meditates ad nauseam on his identity as one cre-
ated from the dust and from clay, who is utterly unworthy of Gods presence (All the Glory
of Adam: Liturgical Anthropology in the Dead Sea Scrolls [STDJ 42; Leiden: Brill, 2002], 104).
9 Biblical references to people as clay and God as the potter are found in: Job 10:9, 33:6; Isa
29:16, 41:25, 45:9, and 64:8; Jer 18:6; and Lam 4:2. For studies focused on the human body
in the Hebrew Bible, see Hans Walter Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament, trans.
Margaret Kohn (London: SCM, 1974); Silvia Schroer and Thomas Staubli, Bodily and
Embodied: Being Human in the Tradition of the Hebrew Bible, Interpretation: A Journal
of Bible and Theology 67 (2013): 519. Overall, the consensus is that the Hebrew Bible does
not have a consistent and systematic anthropology.
10 J. Philip Hyatt, The View of Man in the Qumran Hodayot, NTS 2 (1956): 27778.
11 Unless otherwise stated, translations of Hodayot are taken from Eileen M. Schuller and
Carol A. Newsom, The Hodayot (Thanksgiving Psalms): A Study Edition of 1QHa (Atlanta:
Society of Biblical Literature, 2012). The column and line numbers follow the DJD instead
of Sukeniks 1954/1955 edition.
12 See also 1QHa 9:23, 17:16, 19:6, 20:29, 20:35, 22:10 and 23:13 for humanity as a creation of
clay. The concept is also found in other Second Temple literature such as in Sir 33:1013.
See Karina Martin Hogan, The Mortal Body and the Earth in Ben Sira and the Book of
Watchers, in Christian Body, Christian Self: Concepts of Early Christian Personhood, ed.
Clare K. Rothschild and Trevor W. Thompson (WUNT 284; Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011),
3437.

Adams creation from the earth in Gen 2:7,13 but is closely connected with a
feeling of complete unworthiness: As for me, from dust [you] took [me, and
from clay] I was [sh]aped as a source of pollution and shameful dishonor, a
heap of dust and a thing kneaded [with water, a council of magg]ots, a dwell-
ing of darkness (1QHa 20:2728). The author emphasizes humanitys lowly
state, fragility and ultimate mortality.14
Yet, it is not the bodys creation or its death that makes it low. Rather, the
body is cast negatively as a source of sin.15 For example, What being of flesh is
like this? And what vessel of clay is able to do wondrous great deeds? It (exists)
in iniquity from the womb, and until old age in faithless guilt (1QHa 12:3031).
In the Hodayot, as in much other sectarian literature, the operative terminol-
ogy is not that of body, but rather of flesh, basar,16 and the sinfulness of flesh
13 As pointed out by Julie Hughes, only the verbal root yr is shared by the Hodayots phrase
creature of clay, kneaded with water and Gen 2:7 (Scriptural Allusions and Exegesis in the
Hodayot [STDJ 59; Leiden: Brill, 2006], 4647). She characterizes the Hodayot phrase as
a biblical idiom rather than as a direct biblical allusion to Genesis. In contrast, Fletcher-
Louis argues that much of the Hodayot is a sustained and extended meditation on the
anthropology of Gen 2:7 where Adam is formed form the dust of the ground (All the Glory
of Adam, 107).
14 Mathias Delcor, Les Hymnes de Qumrn (Hodayot): texte hbreu, introduction, traduction,
commentaire (Paris: Letouzey et An, 1962), 4849.
15 Svend Holm-Nielsen describes the clay metaphor as technical terms in DSS for mans sin-
fulness as contrasted with the divine character (Hodayot Psalms from Qumran [Aarhus:
Aarhus University Press, 1960], 24n3.
16 The term basar appears 29 times in Hodayot. For an overview of the use of the term in
Hodayot and its relationship to the biblical usage, see Jason Maston, Divine and Human
Agency in Second Temple Judaism and Paul (Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 8485. In
the Hebrew Bible, basar is the most commonly used anthropological term for the
external, fleshly aspect of mans nature (G. Johannes Botterweck and Helmer Ringgren,
eds., Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, vol. 2,trans. John T. Willis [Michigan:
William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1975], 325). Some of the Hodayot passages use
the term flesh as synonymous with the human body, but other passages use it to refer to
all of humanity, usually emphasizing the weakness and mortality of human beings. The
same two connotations exist in biblical literature. See Carol A. Newsom, Flesh, Spirit,
and the Indigenous Psychology of the Hodayot, in Prayer and Poetry in the Dead Sea
Scrolls and Related Literature, ed. Jeremy Penner, Ken Penner, and Cecilia Wassn (STDJ
98; Leiden: Brill, 2012), 344. Newsom cites 1QHa 16:34 as an example of flesh as the body
and 5:33 as an example of flesh as humankind. See also Jrg Frey, Flesh and Spirit in the
Palestinian Jewish Sapiential Traditions and in the Qumran Texts: An Inquiry into the
Background of Pauline Usage, in The Wisdom Texts from Qumran and the Development
of Sapiential Thought, ed. C. Hempel, A. Lange, and H. Lictenberger (Leuven: University
Press, 2002), 367404 (specifically, pages 37885 on the Hodayot); and J. Licht, Megillat

stems from its origin within the mothers body.17 Thus, humans, by virtue of
their having flesh, are generally sinful, even afflicted with a kind of original sin.
Although reference to the bodys state of iniquity clearly indicates that the
flesh is somehow opposed to the forces of goodness, it is not the flesh alone
that causes humanity to sin; rather the fleshly body is the locus for the evil that
is within the spirit. Take, for example, the following statement: I am a vessel
of clay and a thing kneaded with water, a foundation of shame and a well of
impurity, a furnace of iniquity, and a structure of sin, a spirit of error, and a
perverted being, without understanding, and terrified by righteous judgments
(1QHa 9:2324).18 Here we have the familiar association between the human
being and the vessel of clay, but there is the added element of the spirit
(rua) that causes a person to sin. The sinfulness of a humans spirit is traced
back to a concept found in the Treatise of the Two Spirits in the Rule of the
Community. According to this view, evil is found in humans when the spirit
of evil overcomes that of good, the spirit of darkness winning out over that of
light.19 The use of the two terms, flesh and spirit, does not reflect an inherent
dualism, however. Rather, the spirit is regarded as apportioned into one of two
predestined lots, good or evil. The speaker reveals, And you have caused your
servant to have insight [... lo]ts of humankind. For according to (their) spirits
you cast (the lot) for them between good and evil (1QHa 6:2223). What is at
stake, therefore, is how that spirit will operate in light of the tendency of the
ha-Hodayot mi-Megillot Midbar Yehudah: im Mavo, Perush u-Milon be-eruf Qetaim mi-
Sefer ha-Razim umi-Pesher Tehilim (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1957), 3334.
17 A connection between the mothers womb and the iniquity of humanity also appears in
1QHa 5:31; 15:3940; 21:2, 9; and 23:1314. Cf. Job 14:1, 15:14, 25:4.
18 While the Hodayot employ metaphors, this does not preclude us from identifying a clear
concept of the body. Even when bodily terms are used metaphorically, there is an assump-
tion about the body that lies behind the metaphor that makes it work as such. In the same
vein, Haber notes that an essential feature of metaphor is concreteness... the metaphor
becomes a kind of shorthand in which a whole set of associations can be brought to bear
on a given topic, merely by naming another area of human experience (Metaphor and
Meaning, 94). It is this concreteness that we are after.
19 See, in particular, 1QS 3:134:26. Cf. Robert W. Kvalvaag, The Spirit in Human Beings in
Some Qumran Non-Biblical Texts, in Qumran Between the Old and New Testaments, ed.
Frederick H. Cryer and Thomas L. Thompson (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998),
15980. Kvalvaag emphasizes that there is a difference between the notion of spirits in the
Hodayot and in the Two Spirits Treatise, because the latter text differs from the Hodayot
because according to this text God has designed or appointed two spirits for every human
being, while the Hodayot focuses upon the creation of the one spirit in humans (The
Spirit in Human Beings, 163).

body towards evil. The spirits of those predestined to be in the good lot follow
the inclination to good, the other lot to evil. But the body and spirit act as a
unit, depending on to which lot that person is assigned.
The corporate nature of the body/spirit20 is further underscored by the inter-
changeable use of basar and rua to refer to human beings in 1QHa 17:1516:
one man may be more just than another man, a guy wiser [than] his [neigh-
bor], flesh may be respected more than something made from [clay], one spirit
more powerful than another spirit.21 Moreover, the speaker refers to himself
as a spirit of flesh, rua basar, signifying their unity.22 In turn, the spirit of
flesh appears in the text in contrast to the divine: In the mysteries of your
understanding [you] apportioned all these in order to make known your glory.
[But how i]s a spirit of flesh to understand all these things (1QHa 5:3031)?
Thus, there is the sense that it is not a persons spirit that is opposed to his own
flesh, but rather it is opposed to the divine spirit that is external to the flesh.
Indeed, the speaker first entreats God with the spirit that you have placed in
me and then thanks God for cleansing me by your holy spirit and drawing me
nearer by your good favor (1QHa 8:2930).23 Essentially, we have an opposition
20 Newsom calls this corporate nature, psycho-somatic unity (Flesh, Spirit and the
Indigenous Psychology, 345).
21 Trans. Florentino Garca Martnez, The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated: The Qumran Texts in
English (Leiden: Brill, 1996). See Miryam T. Brand, Evil Within and Without: The Source
of Sin and Its Nature as Portrayed in Second Temple Literature (Gttingen: Vandenhoeck
& Ruprecht, 2013), 63, who similarly argues that in the Hodayot flesh and spirit are
not contradictory elements. When used in conjunction with each other, these two terms
emphasize human corporeality in the Hodayot; the flesh is not an entity separate from
the essence of the human being.
22 See also Eibert J.C. Tigchelaar, Spiritual People, Fleshly Spirit, and Vision of Meditation:
Reflections on 4QInstruction and 1 Corinthians, in Echoes from the Caves: Qumran and
the New Testament, ed. Florentino Garca Martnez (STDJ 85; Leiden: Brill, 2009), 10318.
Tigchelaar understands the fleshly spirit in Hodayot to refer generally to humanity (110).
Matthew Goff understands the term in Hodayot as having a biological sense that denotes
human mortality and bodily existence (Being Fleshly or Spiritual: Anthropological
Reflection and Exegesis of Genesis 13 in 4QInstruction and First Corinthians, in Christian
Body, Christian Self: Concepts of Early Christian Personhood, ed. Clare K. Rothschild and
Trevor W. Thompson [Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011], 45). In contrast, Frey understands
the spirit of flesh in Hodayot as referring to the human spirit, which is characterized as
fleshly, i.e. not capable of grasping Gods counsel and his wondrous deeds (Flesh and
Spirit, 379).
23 Newsom, Flesh, Spirit and the Indigenous Psychology, 34851, explores this idea in
depth, coming to the conclusion that there is a gift from an external divine source that

between the human as flesh/spirit and the divine spirit that is the means for
humanitys salvation.24 If there is any dualism, it is between people and God.25
The same is true in 4QInstruction,26 which, like Hodayot, refers numerous
times to the concept of the spirit of flesh, rua basar (4Q417 1 i 1318; 4Q416
1 12; 4Q418 1 12).27 According to this fragmentary text, those with a spirit of
flesh do not receive the vision of Hagu, a vision which is reserved for spiri-
tual people, am rua. The spiritual people, in turn, are those who are like the
angels, qedoshim (4Q417 1 i 1617).28 This dichotomy emphasizes that, just as in
Hodayot, the human body, which is comprised of flesh and spirit, is contrasted
with that which is divine and solely spiritual.
has been placed internally in him, not temporarily cloaking him, but lastingly constitut-
ing his essential self (351). Similarly A.A. Anderson identifies the use of rua to mean a
constituent part of man and often practically equivalent to self (The Use of Rua in
1QS, 1QH and 1QM, JJS 7 [1962]: 294).
24 For a thorough survey of the different uses of rua within the scrolls, see Arthur E. Sekki,
The Meaning of Rua at Qumran (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989). Sekki divides his study
between the use of rua to refer to Gods spirit, a persons spirit, angels, demons, wind
or breath. According to his count, rua as a persons spirit appears 97 times in the non-
biblical scrolls compared to 35 times as Gods spirit (95). The same categories of meaning
are also found in Anderson, 293303.
25 Newsom characterizes the depiction of the spirit of flesh in the Hodayot as an example
of the masochistic sublime in which the self enacts its own nothingness in radical con-
trast to the being of God. To its pollution corresponds the holiness of God; to its guilt,
Gods righteousness; to its inability to will and to do, Gods uniquely autonomous will and
creative power; to its lowliness among the works of God, Gods own absolute incompara-
bility (The Self as Symbolic Space: Constructing Identity and Community at Qumran [STDJ
52; Leiden: Brill, 2004], 220).
26 The scholarly consensus is that this text is not sectarian in origin. However, some scholars
argue that its origin can be found in the pre-sectarian predecessors of the community
on account of several linguistic and thematic connections between the text and some
sectarian literature. Most scholars explain this similarity as a result of the influence that
1Q/4Q Instruction undoubtedly exerted on sectarian literature and ideology (Alex Jassen,
Mediating the Divine: Prophecy and Revelation in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Second Temple
Judaism [STDJ 68; Leiden: Brill, 2007], 315). The similarities that we have found between
4QInstruction and the Hodayot regarding the body support this conclusion.
27 Goff understands the spirit of flesh in 4QInstruction as a reference to the type of spirit
that one possesses, which is emphasized in his translation of the term rua basar as
fleshly spirit (Being Fleshly or Spiritual, 44). The person with a fleshly spirit is the
opposite of the spiritual person who acts only with heavenly concerns (Being Fleshly
or Spiritual, 51).
28 Goff, Being Fleshly or Spiritual, 44.

Another indication, albeit subtle, of the corporate nature of the body and
spirit is the use of the word yeer in Hodayot.29 As we have seen above, yeer
appears in the text to designate the created body as in the yeer haomer, crea-
ture of clay, (e.g., 1QHa 9:23) or yeer afar, creature of dust (e.g., 1QHa 7:34).
However, there is also evidence of the use of yeer in the sense of inclination;
much like the spirit of error, the yeer leads one to do evil.30 Take, for exam-
ple, the assertion, you did not abandon me to the devices of my inclination
(yeer) (1QHa 13:8). Similarly, the following statement stresses that it is the
yeer/spirit that directs action: And as for me, I know, by the understanding
that comes from you, that it is not through the power of flesh [that] an indi-
vidual [may perfect] his way, nor is a person able to direct his steps. And I know
that in your hand is the inclination (yeer) of every spirit, [and all] its [activi]ty
(1QHa 7:2526). Moreover, the root y--r also appears in the verbal form in
Hodayot. See, for example, 1QHa 7:3435: But what is flesh that it should have
insight into [these things? And] how is [a creat]ure of dust able to direct its
steps? You yourself have formed (yaarta) the spirit and determined its activ-
ity [from of old].31 Not only does this passage portray the spirit as that which
directs the flesh, it is also clear that, just like the flesh, the spirit is a created
thing.32 The versatility with which the term yeer, as well as the term rua
basar, can navigate between reference to the physicality of the body and the
impulse behind the bodys actions suggests that the author of Hodayot (as well
as the author of 4QInstruction) viewed the flesh and the spirit as the unified,
functioning body.33
29 On the concept of yeer in the DSS, see Johann Cook, The Origin of the Tradition of the
yeer hatov and the yeer hara, JSJ 38 (2007): 8891.
30 Hyatt, The View of Man, 281.
31 Brand, Evil Within, 67, emphasizes that yeer in this passage reflects predetermination.
While she does refer to the yeer in the Hodayot as the internal desire to commit future
sins, she also sees in the expression the devices of my inclination (1QHa 13:8) a unique
example of the early use of yeer to mean an independent force (6566).
32 The term yeer also appears in a similar context in 4QInstruction. There is a reference
to fleshly inclination yeer basar in 4Q416 1 16, which is equated with the rua basar.
Thus, there seems to be a connection (albeit not entirely worked out in the fragmentary
text) between the terms yeer, rua and basar. The term yeer as inclination also appears
in 4Q417 2 i 11 and yeer hara in 4Q417 1 ii 12, so we see the beginnings of the idea that the
inclination can lead a person astray.
33 Cf. Kvalvaag, The Spirit in Human Beings, 178, who understands this passage as depict-
ing human beings as dual beings: viewed from the flesh-dust side, they are weak and
ignorant; viewed from the aspect of the created spirit, they are capable of insight.

Bodily Imperfection in Sectarian Law
As in the Hodayot, the human body figures prominently within the legal rul-
ings in the Qumran literary corpus. In particular, a series of laws which pertain
to the exclusion of those with physical deformities from the assembly of the
sect at the end of days emphasizes the central role that the body plays in con-
figuring sectarian identity. The laws are primarily based upon the biblical laws
of exclusion of certain people from priestly service in the Temple (i.e., the tab-
ernacle in biblical descriptions of the desert wandering period).
According to Leviticus 21, a priest may not serve in the sanctuary if he exhib-
its blemishes or any one of a number of disabilities, including being blind, lame
or having a mutilated face or misshapen and broken limbs (vv. 1624). The Rule
of the Congregation (1QSa) likewise contains a list of those who may not enter
into the assembly or take their office amongst the congregation (2:45). This
list includes those who have impurities, but also anyone who is afflicted in his
flesh, crippl[ed in the legs] or the hands, [lam]e or [blin]d or deaf or dumb, or
if he is stricken with a blemish [in his flesh] visible to the eyes; or a tottering
o[ld] man who [can]not maintain himself among the congregation (2:57).34
The sectarians appear to have taken the levitical prohibitions and extended
the requirement of wholeness of body to those who are privileged to sit in the
sectarian assembly at the end of days (1QSa 2:311).35 Thus, a man would be
34 Trans. Lawrence H. Schiffman, Eschatological Community of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Atlanta:
Scholars Press, 1989), 3738.
35 See Schiffman, Eschatological Community, 4349, for a discussion of these prohibitions
in relationship to both Leviticus 21 and later tannaitic interpretations. According to Saul
Olyan, the author of 1QSa might also be relying on Deut 23:1, which reads, He that is
crushed or maimed in his privy parts shall not enter into the assembly of the Lord (verse
2 in the Hebrew). The association between physical imperfection and the assembly, qahal,
might lie behind the exclusion of the disabled from the sectarian assembly at the end of
days (although the term for assembly in 1QSa is edah). See Saul M. Olyan, Disability
in the Hebrew Bible: Interpreting Mental and Physical Differences (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 208), 1089. See also Katell Berthelot, La place des infirmes et des
lpreaux dans Qumrn et les vangiles, Revue biblique 113 (2006): 21141. According to
George J. Brooke, the exclusion of the lame is based on 2 Sam 4:4 (Body Parts in Barkhi
Nafshi and the Qualifications for Membership of the Worshipping Community, in
Sapiential, Liturgical and Poetical Texts from Qumran, ed. Daniel K. Falk, Florentino Garca
Martnez and Eileen M. Schuller [STDJ 35; Leiden: Brill, 2000], 85). Cecilia Wassn offers
an entirely different reason for the additional categories of exclusion. Instead of attempt-
ing to identify a biblical basis, she argues that, since the sectarians believed that imperfect
bodies could indicate demonic possession, the exclusion of certain peoples was a result
of fear of evil spirits (What do Angels Have against the Blind and the Deaf? Rules of
Exclusion in the Dead Sea Scrolls, in Common Judaism: Explorations in Second-Temple

disqualified if he was crippled, deprived of the use of one of his legs or had a
fracture in the leg or hand (even if it were not visible when he walked or used
his hand), was lame or limped. Likewise, the sect disqualified those who were
blind, deaf or mute. While Leviticus 21 mentions the blind, 1QSa excludes the
deaf and dumb on the basis of Exod 4:11, which links all three.
The Damascus Document (CD) reinforces the notion that people with cer-
tain defects are prohibited from the Council: And no-one stupid or [de]ranged
should enter; and anyone feeble-minded and insane, those with sightless eyes,
[and] the lame or one who stumbles, or a deaf person, or an under-age boy,
none [of] these [shall enter] the congregation (4Q266 8 i 79).36 There are a
number of obvious similarities between the Rule of the Congregation and the
Damascus Document. First, both legal codes exclude the deaf, the lame and
the blind. Second, both texts highlight age as a possible source of defect. 1QSa
excludes those who are too olda tottering o[ld] man who [can]not main-
tain himself among the congregation (2:7)37whereas CD excludes those
who are too young. These similarities strongly suggest that CD and 1QSa reflect
two versions of the same set of expanded biblical prohibitions.
There is a possible third category shared by these legal codes, that of mental
disabilities. The Damascus Document lists the feeble-minded and the insane,38
but the Rule of the Congregation does not mention these specifically. However,
the Rule of the Congregation does include those who are dumb, ilem (2:6),
but does not clarify whether this disability results from a physical problem or
mental incompetence. Thus, there is room to allow for the class of muteness
to overlap with the class of mental illness/disability. The law codes among the
Judaism, ed. Wayne O. McCready and Adele Reinhartz [Minneapolis: Fortress Press,
2008], 11529).
36 This is the more complete version of CD 15:1517. There is also a parallel in 4Q270 6 ii 89.
Trans. Martnez and Tigchelaar, DSSSE.
37 Aharon Shemesh understands this disqualification of old age as based not on lack of
understanding but on weakness and physical disability, considered a deformity by
the Qumran sect (The Holy Angels are in their Council: The Exclusion of Deformed
Persons from Holy Places in Qumranic and Rabbinic Literature, DSD 4 [1997]: 196).
38 There is a disagreement about whether the first part of line 15, which begins with the stu-
pid and the deranged, is part of the list of those who are to be prohibited or is part of the
previous section about the examination by the overseer. J.H.W. Dorman, The Blemished
Body: Deformity and Disability in the Qumran Scrolls (Groningen: Rijksuniversiteit, 2007),
10910; and Schiffman, Eschatological Community, 48, conclude that these terms belong
to the previous section. In contrast, Olyan, Disability in the Hebrew Bible, 11213, and
Shemesh, The Holy Angels, 19697, consider the terms as belonging to our section.

Qumran literature, therefore, seem to consider those with mental deficiencies

as in the same category of those with prohibited, physical bodies.39
Just as people with bodily defects are prohibited from participating in the
eschatological assembly, so too are they prohibited from participating in the
final eschatological battle. The War Scroll (1QM) cites the exclusion of every
lame man or blind man, or cripple or a man who has a permanent blemish
in his flesh (7:4).40 It is interesting to note that the War Scroll is tolerant of
temporary blemishes. The council that will meet in the eschatological period
requires the utmost purity and does not even countenance a temporary
blemish.41 Moreover, the War Scroll appears to be accepting of temporary geni-
tal impurities; 1QM 7:5 reads, And any man who is not pure in regard to his
sexual organs on the day of battle shall not join them in battle.42 Age is also
a factor for exclusion in the War Scroll. The designated men involved in vari-
ous roles within the camp range in age from twenty-five to sixty years of age
(7:23), so presumably, as in 1QSa, the elderly are excluded.43 Conversely, as
in the Damascus Document, the War Scroll also excludes the young: a young
boy or woman shall not enter their encampments when they go forth from
Jerusalem to go to battle until they return (1QM 7:34).44 Here we also see that
sex, like age, is another category of bodily difference that is on par with bodily
imperfections in disqualifying a person from participation in the highest order
of the sect.
39 Even if we are to assume that mental illness is not synonymous with muteness in 1QSa,
then, at the very least, the fact that the Damascus Document does not list dumbness sug-
gests that the author understood mental illness to encompass muteness. Cf. Dorman who
concludes, 1QSa seems only to exclude persons with physical shortcomings and makes
no mention of mentally disabled persons (The Blemished Body, 75).
40 Trans. Schiffman, Eschatological Community, 46.
41 1QM also makes no mention of the deaf and the dumb or the man whose fractured arm
has healed improperly. Perhaps the author of 1QM did not make the connection between
Leviticus 21 and Exod 4:11 (Schiffman, Eschatological Community, 47). This would argue
against J. Carmignacs suggestion that 1QM is dependent on 1QSa (Les Textes de Qumrn,
traduits et annots [Paris: Letouzey et An, 1963], 1.103n7).
42 Although genital emissions are not explicitly stated, it is probable that human unclean-
nesses mentioned in 1QSa 2:3 does refer to all impurities, including that resulting from a
seminal emission. If so, the laws for battle (not conscription) are in this case the same as
those of the council of the community (Schiffman, Eschatological Community, 40).
43 Age restrictions also appear in the Damascus Document albeit not in reference to the
eschatological community. Those over the age of sixty are understood as senile, having
their knowledge removed by God (see CD 10:710). Cf. Schiffman, Sectarian Law, 3237.

Those who are disqualified, however, are not excluded from the sect.45 They
are simply not allowed to participate in the Council of the community or the
military camp during the eschatological period.46 The reason for exclusion is
the same in all three texts. According to the Rule of the Congregation, these
may not en[ter] to take (their) stand [among] the congregation of the [me]n
of renown for holy angels [are in their coun]cil (1QSa 2:89).47 The Damascus
Document prohibits admission to the midst of the community, for the holy
angels [are in the midst of it) (CD-A 15:17).48 Likewise, in the War Scroll dur-
ing the battle, holy angels are together with their armies (1QM 7:6),49 fighting
alongside the Sons of Light to their ultimate victory over the forces of evil.50
Therefore, persons with defects are barred from the assembly and the
military camp because their presence somehow interferes with the angelic
presence.51 What is it about imperfect bodieswhether it be those
45 For example, 1QSa 1:4 issues a command for the congregation to assemble all those who
enter, (including) children along with women. 1QSa 1:611 also gives regulations for
young boys education and their first sexual encounters, emphasizing that both the young
and women were part of the community. Similarly, in 4QMMT B 4954 we read: [And
concerning] the blind who cannot see so as to beware of all mixture and cannot see a mix-
ture that incurs [reparation]-offering; and concerning the deaf who have not heard the
laws and the judgments and the purity regulations, and have not heard the ordinances of
Israel, since he who has not seen or heard does not know how to obey (the law); neverthe-
less they have access to the sacred food (trans. E Qimron and J. Strugnell, Qumran Cave
4.V: Miqat Maase Ha-Torah [DJD 10; Oxford: Clarendon, 1994], 5153). See also CD 13:6
and 14:1416. Thus, the exclusion of imperfect bodies relates only to the inner council.
At the same time, however, there are other texts found at Qumran that evince different
perspectives. See Brookes discussion of the Barkhi Nafshi text in which he asserts that the
hymns were non-sectarian in origin, but were used at Qumran as reflections of the com-
munitys understanding of the role of physical features in determining membership and
status within the community (Body Parts in Barkhi Nafshi, 94). Brooke also mentions
the more inclusive perspective found in 4Q521 in which the eschatological period enables
the reversal of blindness, deafness and lameness.
46 In contrast, Charlotte Hempel argues that CD excludes persons with defects from the
entire community itself (The Laws of the Damascus Document: Sources, Tradition, and
Redaction [STDJ 29; Leiden: Brill, 1998], 86n51).
50 See also 1QM 12:4, which reads, muster the arm[ies] of your [ch]osen ones according to
its thousands and its myriads, together with your holy ones [and with] your angels.
51 An overview of the angelic presence in these texts appears in Schiffman, Eschatological
Community, 4951. Schiffman sees these texts as aligned so much so that the prohibition
against women and children in the eschatological military encampment as expressed

characterized by blemishes, physical defects, mental disabilities, disqualify-

ing ages, or the female sexthat impedes angelic community and warfare?
There is an answer in the War Scroll, which further clarifies, All these shall
be volunteers for war, perfect in spirit and in body, and ready for the day of
vengeance (7:5).52 The concept of perfect in spirit and in body, temime rua
uvasar, echoes the corporate nature of the body that we identified in the
Hodayot. Thus, the demand for the perfection of the body is, in actuality, a
demand for the perfection of the spirit; they are synonymous.
The corporate nature of the body and spirit is similarly echoed in the Rule of
the Community (1QS), in which there is an association between the body and
the spirit of deceit, rua awlah:
To the spirit of deceit belong greed, sluggishness in the service of justice,

wickedness, falsehood, pride, haughtiness of heart, dishonesty, trickery,
cruelty, much insincerity, impatience, much foolishness, impudent
enthusiasm for appalling acts performed in a lustful passion, filthy paths
in the service of impurity, blasphemous tongue, blindness of eyes, hard-
ness of hearing, stiffness of neck, hardness of heart in order to walk in all
the paths of darkness and evil cunning (4:911).53
in 1QM should be assumed to extend to the eschatological council depicted in 1QSa.

Shemesh, The Holy Angels, 19495, connects these texts understanding of an angelic
presence among the people to the biblical understanding that God is often among the
people. For example, God is portrayed as marching with the people into battle (Deut 20:1,
4) and standing in an assembly (Ps 82:1). Similarly, Baruch M. Bokser understands the War
Scrolls sense of angelic presence within the camp as based on the notion of the divine
presence in the camp, but he attributes it to a reworking of Deut 23:15 (Approaching
Sacred Space, HTR 78 [1985]: 283). In addition to Deut 23:15, Saul Olyan also considers
that 1QSa has been influenced by Num 5:3, which forbids the presence of the unclean
within the camp, because God dwells there (The Exegetical Dimensions of Restrictions
on the Blind and the Lame in Texts from Qumran, in Social Inequality in the World of
the Text: The Significance of Ritual and Social Distinctions in the Hebrew Bible [Gttingen:
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011], 136). Dorman provides yet another possibility for a bib-
lical antecedentLev 21:23, which forbids the disqualified priest from drawing near to
Gods sanctuaries. She argues that the sectarian author could have understood miqdashai,
not as my sanctuaries, but as mequdeshai, my sanctified ones, or meqadishai, my sanc-
tifying ones (The Blemished Body, 8386). The same association is made in b. Shabbat 55a
based on Ezekiel 9:6.
52 Trans. Martnez and Tigchelaar, DSSSE.

Within this list of attributes associated with the spirit of deceit are a number
of bodily componentsheart, tongue, eyes, ears and neck. While blindness
and deafness most likely are used here figuratively,54 the metaphor only works
if we are to understand the body/spirit as corporate; namely, the persons
outward bodily defects are indicative of an inner, spiritual defect. As a result,
these people will suffer an abundance of afflictions at the hands of all the
angels of destruction for eternal damnation by the scorching wrath of the God
of revenges (1QS 4:12).55 It is the angels, by virtue of their being aligned with
God, who will punish those with errant spirits.
The angels innate connection with God (and distinctness from humanity)
is also evident in 1QM. The author declares, the King of glory is with us.
A people of holy ones, her[oes and] a host of angels is mustered with us, and
the Mighty One of w[ar] is in our congregation, and the host of His spirits
marches with us (1QM 12:78).56 There is a very telling, fourfold parallelism in
this statement:
The King of glory with us

Host of angels with us
Mighty One of war in our congregation
The host of his spirits with us57
The parallelism not only functions to demonstrate that the angelic beings are
fighting alongside their human counterparts, but also signifies that angels and
spirits, the two collective groups in the list, are synonymous. It is because angels
have a spiritual nature that the sectarians must have perfect spirits, but given
the corporate nature of humanitys body/spirit, this can only be achieved via
perfect bodies. In other words, perfect bodies qua spirits are necessary because
the sectarians will be fighting along with angelic spirits.
Thus, just as in the Hodayot, there is an inherent dualism not between flesh
and spirit, but between the human spirits, which are synonymous with their
54 For the figurative use of bodily defects in Qumran literature, see Olyan, Disability in the
Hebrew Bible, 10210. Perhaps the most well-known expression is the notion that the
sectarians were like blind persons who grope for a path over twenty years before the
Teacher of Righteousness appeared (CD 1:911).
57 This parallel arrangement of the text (albeit with a different translation) appears in Brian
Schultz, Conquering the World: The War Scroll (1QM) Reconsidered (STDJ 76; Leiden: Brill,
2009), 279n107.

flesh, and the divine spirits. If they are to interact in the eschatological period,
then it is only possible if people are perfect in spirit. Those afflicted with blem-
ishes, blindness, deafness, muteness, mental disabilities, lameness, the wrong
age, or the wrong genitalia were not permitted to participate; perfection of the
spirit entails perfection of the flesh.
Physiognomy in Qumran Literature
Thus far we have demonstrated that in a variety of sectarian texts, ranging from
liturgical to eschatological to legal, there is a distinct Qumran understanding
of the corporate nature of the flesh and the spirit as the body. This same idea is
apparent, and perhaps most pronounced, in three physiognomic texts found at
Qumran. These texts (4Q186, 4Q534 and 4Q561) evince a correlation between a
persons physical featuresthat is, their fleshand the nature of their spirits.
Two examples from the fragmentary text of 4QHoroscope read as follows:
And his thighs are long and slender, and his toes are slender and long.
And he is in the second column. His spirit has six (parts) in the house of
light and three in the house of darkness and this is the sign in which he
was born: the period of Taurus. He will be poor. And his animal is the bull
(4Q186 1 ii 59).
The sound of his voice is simple. His teeth are sharp and regular. He is
neither tall nor short and like that from his conception. His fingers are
slender and long. His thighs are smooth and the soles of his feet are
[... and] regular. [His] spirit has eight (parts) [in the house of light, in
the] second column, and o[ne] [in the house of darkness.] And the sign
in which he was born is [...] (4Q186 2 i 28).58
Here external body parts are judged regarding their appearance and assumed
to indicate something unseen, the persons spirit. Following John Allegro,
most scholars have understood his spirit, rua lo, to relate to the concept
of the two spirits as seen in the Treatise of the Two Spirits (1QS 3:134:26).59
58 Trans. Martnez, The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated.

59 J.M. Allegro, An Astrological Cryptic Document from Qumran, JSS 9 (1964): 291.
Following Allegro is Philip Alexander, Physiognomy, Initiation, and Rank in the Qumran
Community, in GeschichteTraditionReflexion: Festschrift frMartinHengelzum70,
ed. H. Cancik, H. Lictenberger and P. Schfer (Tbingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1996), 38594. Cf.
Mladen Popovi, Reading the Human Body: Physiognomics and Astrology in the Dead

In the Treatise, peoples spirits are divided between the spring of light and
the source of darkness (1QS 3:19), two phrases that parallel the house of
light and house of darkness in 4Q186.60 Moreover, in the Treatise there is
a sense that two spirits, one of truth and one of deceit, feud in the heart of a
person (1QS 4:23),61 indicating that no person has a completely good or evil
spirit. Instead, every deed they do (falls) into their divisions, dependent on
what might be the birthright of person, great or small,62 which suggests that
whichever a person has a greater share in, good or evil, determines their lot
(1QS 4:16).63 In much the same way, a persons physical features indicate the
proportion of light and darkness on a nine-point scale in 4QHoroscope, so that
all people are both in varying degrees.64 The variations in the persons spirit
are, in turn, synonymous with the variations in their body type, determining
everything from the length of ones toes to the sharpness of ones teeth.
Moreover, a persons body, and therefore his or her spirit, is said to be pre-
determined from conception (4Q186 2 i 4), which echoes the Treatises state-
ment that a person has a great or small allotment as a birthright.65 Therefore,
Sea Scrolls and Hellenistic-Early Roman Period Judaism (STDJ 67; Leiden: Brill, 2007).
Popovi argues that these texts show that the purpose of physiognomy was to discern
a persons astrological sign. The spirit that corresponds to the physical feature is not the
spirit within the person, but the spirit related to the zodiac. This conclusion is based on
translating rua lo, not as his spirit, but as a spirit to him, signifying that a person
has an external spirit (172206). For a shorter summation of his argument, see Mladen
Popovi, Reading the Human Body and Discerning Zodiacal Spirits: A Proposal for the
Use of Physiognomies in the Dead Sea Scrolls, in Northern Lights on the Dead Sea Scrolls:
Proceedings of the Nordic Qumran Network 20032006, ed. Anders Klostergaard Petersen
et al. (STDJ 80; Leiden: Brill, 2009), 15572.
60 Alexander, Physiognomy, 390.
61 This translation has been changed from feud in the heart of a man (trans. Martnez and
Tigchelaar, DSSSE) to reflect its applicability to all humankind. See also 4Q444 14 i 3, in
which the innards of flesh are the site of the struggle between good and bad spirits.
62 This translation has been changed from the birthright of man (trans. Martnez and
Tigchelaar, DSSSE) to reflect its applicability to all humankind.
63 Kvalvaag, The Spirit in Human Beings, 16061.
64 Popovi, Reading the Human Body, 18182, refers to this as relative dualism, a concept
which the Treatise and the physiognomic texts share. In contrast, see F. Schmidt, Ancient
Jewish Astrology: An Attempt to Interpret 4QCryptic (4Q186), in Biblical Perspectives:
Early Use and Interpretation of the Bible in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. M.E. Stone and
E.G. Chazon (STDJ 28; Leiden: Brill, 1998), 189205. Schmidt views 4Q186 as evincing a
notion of relative dualism whereas the Treatise reflects absolute dualism (203).
65 This birthright concept is also reminiscent of the notion within the Hodayot that the
iniquity of humanity is connected to the womb.

taken together, the Treatise of the Two Spirits and 4QHoroscope evince a
notion that each person possesses a ratio of two spirits, good and evil, that
determines ones lot from birth.66 While the Treatise only indicates that
certain signs, otot, exist to indicate the rank of a persons spirit (1QS 3:14), the
physiognomic texts reveal that there are physical and obvious signs in the way
of the bodys features.67 The corporate nature of flesh and spirit, therefore, is
demonstrated by the correlation between the persons spiritual goodness, or
lack thereof, and his/her bodily features. In this way, ones spirit is laid bare for
the sect to see and judge.68
Purity and the Body in Qumran Literature
In the sectarian texts that we have surveyed, the concept of purity is repeat-
edly referenced in conjunction with discussions about the body. For instance,
as mentioned above, the Rule of the Congregation excludes anyone who is
afflicted [with any one of] the human uncleannesses (1QSa 2:3) or afflicted
in his flesh, cripple[ed in the legs or the hands [lam]e or [blin]d or deaf or
dumb, or if he is stricken with a blemish [in his flesh] visible to the eyes...
(1QSa 2:57). The repeated use of the term afflicted, menuga, references both
those with impurities and physical disabilities, thereby functioning to equate
their role, or lack thereof, in the community.69 The same is true of the War
Scroll, which lists those who cannot go to war with the holy angels; included
are those with physical disabilities and every man who has not cleansed him-
self of his spring on the day of battle (1QM 7:56).70 The body is intimately
66 Scholars consider the Treatise of Two Spirits to have once been a separate composition
apart from the Rule of the Community. Therefore, its sectarian origin is in question. See,
for example, the discussion in Charlotte Hempel, The Treatise on the Two Spirits and the
Literary History of the Rule of the Community, in Dualism in Qumran, ed. Gza G. Xeravits
(London: T&T Clark, 2010), 10220. If the Treatise is indeed not originally a sectarian
composition, the fact that it shares a similar concept of the body (as well as other theo-
logical concepts) with clearly sectarian texts further explains why it was inserted into 1QS
and included within the Qumran corpus.
67 While Alexander argues that these signs in the Treatise could have included physical fea-
tures in the vein of 4QHorososcope (Physiognomy, 390), the more likely explanation is
that they were reflected in the deeds of the person.
68 Alexander goes so far as to propose that physiognomy was used as a way for the sects
leadership to determine admittance into the sect and assess proper rank (Physiognomy,
39093). There does not seem to be any evidence of this, however.
69 Dorman, The Blemished Body, 79.

connected to the purity system.71 Having considered the sectarian notion of

the human body, we are now in the position to return to the question with
which we beganwhy did the sectarians conflate ritual and moral impurity?
We have, thus far, established that 1) the sectarians conceptualized the
body as a union of spirit and flesh that together was a source of sin in opposi-
tion to the divine; and 2) they repeatedly emphasized this concept in their
foundational texts, so much that it informed everything from their prayers to
their eschatological ideas to their communal structure. Therefore, any act that
might appear to be physical in naturesuch as ritual immersionwas neces-
sarily understood to affect both flesh and spirit. In other words, the corporate
nature of the body was reinforced daily within the sect as they strove to always
be in a state of purity to eat the pure food and to sit in the assembly.
According to the biblical text, impurity can result from normal bodily func-
tions and occurrences and, therefore, impurity is largely unavoidable. For
example, menstrual blood (Lev 15:19), various skin diseases (Lev 13:145), geni-
tal discharge (Lev 15:133), and contact with a dead body (Num 19:13) render
a person impure. In fact, these types of impurity are so unavoidable that one
can become impure merely by coming into contact with someone who suf-
fers from these impurities (Lev 15:511). In most case these impurities are tem-
porary and their reversal is easily achieved via time, sacrifice and some sort
of ritual purification consisting of laundering, immersion or sprinkling.72 For
example, in order for a man to become pure after a gonnorhea discharge, he
has to count seven days after the end of the discharge, wash his clothes and
himself, and, finally, make a sacrificial offering (Lev 15:1315).
Simultaneously, there is a sense in the biblical tradition that certain sins can
also lead to impurity. These are deeds that do not occur in the everyday life of
a person and, therefore, are completely avoidable. According to Leviticus, cer-
tain sexual acts, such as bestiality (Lev 18:2030), and forms of idolatry, such as
seeking out a wizard (Lev 19:31), cause a person to become defiled. Similarly,
murder is understood to defile the murderer (Num 35:3334). In fact, these
sins are so defiling that the land itself becomes defiled: for blood pollutes the
land, and no expiation can be made for the land, for the blood that is shed in
it, except by the blood of the one who shed it. You shall not defile the land in
71 Even in the Hodayot, which does not contain purity laws, the word niddah still appears
frequently (Johanna Stiebert, Shame and the Body in Psalms and Lamentations of the
Hebrew Bible and in Thanksgiving Hymns from Qumran, Old Testament Essays 20:3
[2007]: 816). See below, n77.
72 For an overview of biblical purification rituals for corpse impurity, skin disease and bodily
discharges (and the corresponding rituals in the sectarian literature), see Harrington, The
Purity Texts, 7882, 91, 97.

which you live, in which I also dwell; for I the Lorddwell among the Israelites
(Num 35:3334).73 In these verses it is evident that, unlike the impurities that
result from normal life (i.e., ritual impurities), some of these sinful impurities
(i.e., moral impurities)74 can never be purified from the sinner himself; the
murderers punishment is death. Ritual lustrations have no effect. Instead
moral purity is achieved by punishment, by atonement, or by not committing
morally impure acts in the first place.75
Despite the marked differences between ritual and moral impurity in the
Hebrew Bible, these two types of impurity merged within Qumran thought.
In particular, this conflation is found in a number of the texts that we have
surveyed thus far. For example, as mentioned above, in the Hodayot we read,
I am a vessel of clay and a thing kneaded with water, a foundation of shame
and a well of impurity, a furnace of iniquity, and a structure of sin, a spirit of
error, and a perverted being, without understanding, and terrified by righteous
judgments (1QHa 9:2324). The negativity of the body is described in terms of
its natural impurity and its natural sinfulness; the two are one and the same.
Likewise, within a list of sins such as greed, wickedness and dishonesty, the
Treatise of the Two Spirits includes, filthy paths in the service of impurity
(1QS 4:10).76 Its place in a list of moral failings suggests that the filthy paths
are a general reference to sins. At the same time, the language that is used to
describe these immoral actsnamely, niddah and tamehad been used in
the biblical text to refer to ritual impurity.77 Therefore, at Qumran immorality
is understood to lead to ritual impurity.78
73 N RSV translation.
74 The distinction between ritual impurity and moral impurity is Klawans and do not
appear as categories in the biblical or post-biblical literature (Impurity and Sin, 2223).
Cf. Neusner who does not differentiate between the different sources of impurity within
the biblical text (The Idea of Purity, 1822).
75 Klawans, Impurity and Sin, 41.
77 Although in the Hebrew Bible, niddah does often refer to impurity stemming from men-
struation, at other times it does more generally mean polluted or defiled (see, for
example, Lev 20:21, 2 Chr 29:5). In this sense, it functions as a synonym for tumah (see
2 Chr 29:16, which uses tumah to reference the earlier niddah of v. 5). It is this latter mean-
ing of niddah as pollution that is more common throughout the DSS where it functions
as a synonym to tame. In contrast, in rabbinic literature, niddah is exclusively used to
refer to menstrual impurities. For a more detailed explanation of the term, see Eve Levavi
Feinstein, Sexual Pollution in the Hebrew Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014),
18184.

Ritual and moral impurity also become conflated in texts that discuss the
purification process.79 For example, in the Rule of the Community we find the
following statement: He may not go into the waters to share in the pure food
of the men of holiness, for one is not cleansed unless one turns away from
ones wickedness, for he is unclean among all the transgressors of his word
(1QS 5:1314).80 Much like the contagious quality of ritual impurities, there is
a sense that wickedness as a moral impurity must be kept away from the ritu-
ally pure objects within the community.81 Conversely, the impure, unlike those
in the biblical tradition, can become pure again only through repentance and
immersion. This is one of the major innovations of the sects view on purity
just as moral and ritual impurity have been combined, so too have moral
repentance and ritual immersion.82
The unification of the immersion/repentance process is found elsewhere
in the Rule of the Community. A person who is stubborn of heart cannot
become clean by the acts of atonement, nor shall he be purified by the cleans-
ing waters, nor shall he be made holy by seas or rivers, nor shall he be purified
by all the water of ablution (1QS 3:45).83 This text expresses the inadequacy
of cleansing purification or repentance alone. Instead, the two acts are simul-
taneously required:
by the spirit of uprightness and of humility his sin is atoned. And by the
compliance of his soul with all the laws of God his flesh is cleansed by
being sprinkled with cleansing waters and being made holy with the
waters of repentance (1QS 3:79).84
79 The necessity of atonement for purification was noticed early on by both David Flusser,
Yahadut u-Meqorot ha-Natzrut (Tel Aviv: Sifriat Poalim, 1979), 8489; and J. Licht, Megillat
ha-Serakhim mi-Megillot Midbar Yehudah: Serekh ha-Yaad, Serekh ha-Edah, Serekh ha-
Berakhot (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1965), 76.
80 Trans. of 1QS from Martnez and Tigchelaar, DSSSE. This passage is Neusners primary
example of the fact that for the yahad, one cannot distinguish between cultic and moral
impurity (The Idea of Purity, 54).
81 For other examples of the sinful person being separated from the pure food, see 1QS 7:23,
1516; 8:1618, 24. For a detailed discussion, see Schiffman, Sectarian Law, 15968; and
Newton, The Concept of Purity, 4046.
83 According to Newton, The Concept of Purity, 47, another indication of the combination
of moral/ritual purification appears in 1QS 11:14 in which the terms pardon, kipper, and
cleanse, taher, are used in parallel.

This passage not only reveals that atonement and cleansing are both necessary
to reverse sin, but that the reason for this dual process is the corporate nature
of the body. In other words, since the body is flesh and spirit combined, then
purification must affect both.85
The connection of the concepts of the body and purification is most pro-
nounced in relation to the eschatological period. At this time, according to the
Treatise of the Two Spirits:
Then God will refine, with his truth, all mans deeds, and will purify for
himself the structure of man, ripping out all spirit of injustice from the
innermost part of his flesh, and cleansing him with the spirit of holiness
from every wicked deed. He will sprinkle over him the spirit of truth like
lustral water (in order to cleanse him) from all the abhorrences of deceit
and (from) the defilement of the unclean spirit (1QS 4:2022).86
Here we have a clear depiction of the corporate bodythe singular structure87

of a person consists of both spirit and flesh. The two components are so inter-
twined that the spirit is within the innermost part of the flesh and can only be
removed by God during the eschaton (and even then we get the sense that it is
not easily done as God must rip it out). It is no coincidence that the author of the
text finds it necessary to describe the body at the same time that he describes
the purification process; indeed, it is the body that dictates that process. In
comparison to the earlier description in 1QS 3:79 in which the person initiates
his own purification,88 this passage does not delineate a two-step purification
process of repentance and immersion. Instead these two steps have become
one process as the ritual purification acts of cleansing and sprinkling not
only affect the purity of the flesh, but are also used to reverse the moral impu-
rity within the spirit. The centrality of spirit within flesh is highlighted by the
fact that it is not actual water that purifies, but a corresponding divine spirit,
85 Elsewhere in this study we have focused on the corporate nature of basar and rua, but
this passage uses the term nefesh for soul, not rua. However, there is an overlap in the
meaning of nefesh and rua in the scrolls. Compare, for example, CD 7:36 in which a
persons spirit is defiled and CD 12:1113 in which a persons soul is defiled. See John R.
Levison, The Spirit in First Century Judaism (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 7475.
87 Mivneh is translated as frame by Geza Vermes, ed. and trans., The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls
in English (New York: Penguin, 1997), 103. Frame provides a useful image for depicting the
corporate nature of the body in that the body frames (or contains) the flesh and the spirit.
The same word is used in Ezek 40:2 to refer to the frame of an eschatological city.
88 Kvalvaag, The Spirit in Human Beings, 172.

a spirit of holiness that is like water (1QS 4:21).89 Purification thus resolves the
alienation of humanity from the divine.
Although there seems to be a concerted focus on the impurity that sin cre-
ates, the inverse is also apparent in the scrollsthe sinfulness of impurity.
There are several prayers to be recited by those undergoing ritual purification
that indicate a concern for penitence:
May you be blessed, [God of Israel, who] [forgave me al]l my sins, and
purified me from impure immodesty /and atoned/ so that (I) can enter...
(4Q512 2932 vii 89).
[Blessed] be you, God of Israel, [who commanded the tempo]rarily
impure to purify themselves from the impurity of] [...] the soul with the
atonement (4Q512 16 vii 13).90
Although these texts are largely fragmentary, the references to ritual impurity
combined with atonement suggest that the latter affects the former.
Taken together, therefore, the sectarian texts evince a concept of impurity
that is wholly identified with sin.91 In order to understand the ramifications
of this belief system, let us briefly revisit the biblical precedent. Most ritual
impurities occurred in the normal course of life as the flesh came into contact
with impurities or naturally produced them. Even if one could avoid touching
corpses or acquiring skin diseases, the impurities that resulted from procre-
ation would have affected most people.92 On the other hand, moral impurities
were entirely avoidable and occurred only when someone committed particu-
lar sins. As we have seen in the Qumran texts, removing the distinction between
these two types of impurities means that the external and the internal have
collapsed and that the flesh affects the spirit and the spirit affects the flesh.
Therefore, if one acts immorally, his whole body, including his flesh, becomes
impure (in addition to sinful); and, conversely, if a persons flesh inadvertently
touches something impure, then his whole body, including his spirit, becomes
89 Likewise in Hodayot the author thanks God for cleansing me by your holy spirit and
drawing me nearer by your good favor (1QHa 8:30). The idea of God purifying in the
eschatological future does appear in the Hebrew Bible in Ezek 36:2527, which perhaps
serves as the inspiration for this 1QS passage.
91 Pre-sectarian texts such as 4QMMT and the Temple Scroll do not evince a notion of sin as
ritually defiling (Klawans, Impurity and Sin, 4853, 7275).
92 Martha Himmelfarb, Sexual Relations and Purity in the Temple Scroll and the Book of
Jubilees, DSD 6 (1999): 15.

sinful (in addition to impure). This means that not only impurity, but immo-
rality becomes inevitable.93 However, by keeping strict laws about behavior
and purity, the sectarians could hope to remain both pure and good. How does
impurity and sin transfer so easily between the flesh and spirit? Simply put, it
depends on the very notion that we have seen in the same sectarian textsthe
flesh and the spirit are unified.
Beyond Qumran
Many of the sectarians contemporaries were also engaged in discerning (and

arguing about) the nature of the human body vis--vis its flesh and spirit.
These different views necessarily had ramifications for the ways in which each
group understood many aspects of life, such as sexuality, marriage, ritual, law,
ethnicity, gender, asceticism and, of course, sin and purity. In fact, the concept
of the body proved to be a fundamental dividing line between the worldviews
of different groups of Jews.94
In particular, Hellenistic Judaism, epitomized by the works of Philo, is often
characterized as reflecting a platonic dualizing tendency where the negative
body traps the spirit.95 Since Philo of Alexandria is chronologically close to the
Qumran community, his works can serve as a useful, albeit brief, point of com-
parison to our study of the sectarian texts. Philo displays two closely related
approaches. The first is a type of anthropological dualism in which the soul
and the flesh are distinct from one another.96 In this approach, Philo generally
93 Stiebert, Shame and the Body, 826.

94 Although he somewhat conflates the chronology of the following groups, Daniel Boyarin
does capture the overall tenor of their disagreement about the body: Various types of
Hellenistic Judaism, apocalyptic groups such as the one at Qumran, and early Christianity
were all competing with the Judaism of the Rabbis and their followers for hegemony,
and the discourse of the body was the major arena of contention. For most Jews of late
Antiquity (as well as for most non-Jews), the human being was conceived of as a spirit
housed, clothed, or even trapped and imprisoned in flesh, while for the Rabbis, resisting
this notion, the human being was a body animated by a spirit (Carnal Israel: Reading Sex
in Talmudic Culture [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993], 231).
95 See the brief discussion of Philos use of Platonic philosophy concerning the body in
Ronald Williamson, Philo and the Epistle to the Hebrews (Leiden: Brill, 1970), 26876; or
the lengthy comparison between the two in David T. Runia, Philo of Alexandria and the
Timaeus of Plato (Philosophia Antiqua 44; Leiden: Brill, 1986), especially pp. 26266.
96 Det. 8085. A brief overview of Philos concept of the body appears in Sara Pearce, The
Land of the Body: Studies in Philos Representation of Egypt (Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck,
2007), 8587.

takes a negative view of flesh, which is really a corpse, as the seat of charac-
teristics that essentially enslave the spirit, the noble thing.97 The soul can also
give rise to evil, although only when the flesh has power over it. But because of
his Judaism, Philo maintains the concept of free will to choose between good
and evil. He emphasizes that human beings may not use their physical consti-
tution as an excuse for transgression. But he also has a second approach, a type
of cosmic dualism, in which God is understood as a non-fleshly, non-corporeal
being. Hence, only that which fits the same non-physical category, that is, the
soul, can truly know God.98 In this approach, the body or the flesh is a burden
for the soul, and the body must in some way be dispelled to allow the soul to
unify with God. The flesh, then, is the physical part of humanity that prevents
the flight of the soul to God and the growth of wisdom. Thus, one who wants
to attain wisdom must separate from that which is physical. Otherwise, the
nonmaterial soul cannot soar up to the heavenly heights.99
The division between the body and the soul is also apparent in Philos dis-
cussion of impurity.100 In order to be able to offer sacrifices a person should be:
pure in body and soul, the soul purged of its passions and distempers
and infirmities and every viciousness of word and deed, the body of the
defilements which commonly beset it. For each it devised the purification
which befitted it. For the soul it used the animals which the worshipper
is providing for sacrifice, for the body sprinklings and ablutions
(Spec. 1.257261).101
97 Leg. III.72. Elsewhere the body is depicted as a lodging house (Agr. 65) and a tomb for
the soul (Leg. I.108). Cf. Platos Gorgias 493a, Cratylus 400c, Republic 611e612a. See David
Winston, Philo and the Rabbis on Sex and the Body, Poetics Today 19:1 (1998): 4853.
Winston mitigates Philos negative view of the body by surveying Philos positive com-
ments about the body (4849). For example, Philo depicts Adams body as symmetrical
and of good complexion since it came from pure earth (Creation 13638).
98 See, for example, Opif. 69 in which Philo explains that the likeness that the first man
shares with God in Gen 1:26 is the mind, which is the sovereign element of the soul. The
inclusion of the mind along with the soul and the body in this scheme has led some schol-
ars to qualify Philos dualism. See, for example, George H. van Kooten, The Two Types of
Man in Philo of Alexandria and Paul of Tarsus: The Anthropological Trichotomy of Spirit,
Soul and Body, in Philosophische Anthropologie in der Antike, eds., L. Jansen and C. Jedan
(Frankfurt am Main: Ontos Verlag, 2010), 263310.
99 See Deus 5556; Gig. 1315; Ebr. 69; Spec. 3.207.
100 Much of what follows on Philo is adapted from Klawans, Impurity and Sin, 6465.
101 Trans. F.H. Colson, G.H. Whitaker, R. Marcus, Philo in Ten Volumes (and Two Supplemental
Volumes) (Loeb Classical Library; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 192962).

Here Philo, much like the biblical text, delineates the differences between the
processes of purification: sacrificial repentance versus ritual immersion. These
are two different processes because the soul and the body are themselves
distinct.102 Moreover, because Philo views the soul as superior to the flesh, the
purification of the soul is also more important:
So we see that they who mean to resort to the temple to take part in sac-
rifice must needs have their bodies made clean and bright, and before
their bodies their souls. For the soul is queen and mistress, superior to the
body in every way because a diviner nature has been allotted to it
(Spec. 1.269).
This is not to say that ritual impurity of the flesh is not important. In fact, the
significance of ritual impurity lies in its function as a symbolical reminder of
the greater danger that moral impurity poses for the soul.103 Although Philo
recognizes both types of impurity, he in no way conflates them.
Thus, we can see that Philos views of the body and its purity is entirely
different than those of the Qumran community.104 Rather than Philos
understanding of the flesh and spirit as separate and in conflict, the sectarians
envisioned the flesh and spirit as the unified whole of the human being able
to do good or evil. Rather than prioritizing the spirit over the flesh as the true
essence of the person, the Scrolls testify to a concern for the wellbeing of both
together. And, finally, rather than distinguishing sharply between ritual and
102 See also Det. 20, which exemplifies the ineffectiveness of immersion on the piety of the
soul.
103 Spec. 1.269, Spec. 3.208209, and Deus. 131135. See Neusner for a discussion of Philos alle-
gorization of the purity laws (The Idea of Purity, 4449).
104 In this conclusion we disagree with other scholars who have seen the Qumran view as
parallel to Philos understanding of the body as divided between the good spirit and the
corrupting flesh. For example, in a comparison of 4QInstruction and 1 Corinthians, Goff
comes to the conclusion that the flesh-spirit dichotomy in Paul is reasonably read as
shaped by Palestinian sapiential traditions attested by 4QInstruction (Being Fleshly or
Spiritual, 58). In this conclusion he follows the work of Frey (Flesh and Spirit, 367404).
The negative view of the flesh in the works of Philo might, at first glance, appear to echo
the negative metaphors used to describe the body in Hodayot. We need only recall the
following Hodayot passage: As for me, from dust [you] took [me, and from clay] I was
[sh]aped as a source of pollution and shameful dishonor, a heap of dust and a thing
kneaded [with water, a council of magg]ots, a dwelling of darkness (20:2728). However,
as we have demonstrated above, Hodayot and other Qumran texts see the body and soul
as corporate.

moral impurity as Philo does, the Qumran sectarians merge ritual and moral
impurity. Therefore, the sectarians concept of the body does not reflect any
particular Hellenistic influence.
Despite the opposing views of Philo and the sectarians, they do each make
a concerted effort to directly correlate their concepts of the body with their
concepts of purity. Thus, a concept of unified flesh/spirit necessitates a uni-
fied ritual and moral purity and, conversely, a concept of dualistic flesh/spirit
necessitates two, distinct types of purity. Even more significantly, both Philo
and the sectarians emphasize a concern for the purity of the spirit, a concern
that is largely absent from the biblical text.105 In turn, by integrating the spirit
into the purity system, both Philo and the sectarians created the opportunity
for moral purification. For the biblical authors, there was no way for the sinner
to cleanse his severe moral impurity.
Conclusion
This study has revealed that the sectarians had a unique and systematic view
of the body. Given that the biblical tradition does not evince a consistent and
systematic idea of the body, the sectarians developed their own. In doing so,
they had to work out a somatic model that incorporated the flesh and spirit,
two concepts that were biblical. Yet, unlike the Hellenistic dualistic view as
presented in Philo, the sectarian authors repeatedly emphasized that the body
was a corporate entity comprised of flesh and spirit. The idea was so perva-
sive at Qumran that it appeared in diverse texts, ranging from the legal to the
eschatological. Because of this corporate understanding of the body, the sec-
tarian purity system necessarily had to accommodate a unified flesh and spirit,
which was achieved by merging ritual and moral purification.
More broadly, this study has shown that in the Second Temple period, Jews
were endeavoring to conceptualize the human body and its relationship to the
world around it, a trend that would continue with early Christians106 and with
105 There is no reference to the rua in the Leviticus and Numbers passages on moral impu-
rity. Instead, the word nefesh is used, but it seems to connote the entire person, not the
spirit or soul. See, for example, Lev 18:29.
106 Pauline anthropology is often equated with Philos dualistic view of the body. See, for
example, Daniel Boyarin, A Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identity (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1994), who argues that Paul is mobilized by as thoroughgo-
ing a dualism as that of Philo (59); and Geurt Hendrik van Kooten, Pauls Anthropology
in Context: The Image of God, Assimilation to God, and Tripartite Man in Ancient Judaism,

the later Rabbis.107 Flesh, spirit, deformity, disability, age, gender and physi-
cal features were all factors that had to be considered in relationship to God,
angels, purity, sin, fate and the end of daysa complicated system that fos-
tered what we might call a more embodied Judaism.
Ancient Philosophy and Early Christianity (Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 269312.
Paul uses the Greek term sarx, flesh, to connote that which is earthly as opposed to
heavenly. Here, the body is neutral, although it is susceptible to corruption, namely, when
the earthly concerns of the body cause a person to seek power on earth and use their
body improperly (e.g., when a person boasts, puts too much confidence in his or her
body, or seeks fame). Humanity can even become a prisoner to the most mundane of
bodily forcessexual desire, hunger and thirstand, as the earthly entices one to rely
more on flesh than spirit, sin dominates. For Paul, to set the mind on the flesh is death
(Rom 8:6), because it is hostile to God, does not submit to Gods law and cannot please
God (Rom 8:78). Sin, therefore, is understood as a denial of Gods will in favor of the
flesh. In order to keep from sinning one must constantly orient oneself to the spiritual
despite living life on the earthly level (e.g., Phil 3:19). Ultimately, however, the body is
not something that a person can deny, so only Gods spirit can free a person and can
determine his or her destiny beyond life on earth (Rom 8:911). Therefore, ones essence
becomes defined by ones relation to God rather than by ones physical body. For fuller
studies, see James D.G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids: Wm. B.
Eerdmans, 1998), 5178; Robert H. Gundry, Soma in Biblical Theology with Emphasis on
Pauline Anthropology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 13556; and Robert
Jewett, Pauls Anthropological Terms: A Study of their Use in Conflict Settings (Leiden: Brill,
1971).
107 For example, Boyarin designates the rabbinic anthropology as monistic and, as such,
resistant to the dualistic body of Hellenistic Judaism (Carnal Israel, 3335). He cites the
well-known midrash in Genesis Rabbah 34:10 that portrays the soul as salt that preserves
the meat, or body. In other words, body and soul work in unison. See also Alon Goshen-
Gottstein, who argues that Rabbinic anthropology differs in this respect from Hellenistic
and later Christian anthropology...no fundamental metaphysical opposition exists,
however, between these two aspects. There may be an existential confrontation, but
metaphysically soul and body form a whole, rather than a polarity (The Body as Image
of God in Rabbinic Literature, HTR 87 [1994]: 17677). More recent studies appear in
Ishay Rosen-Zvi, Guf ve-nefesh ba-hagut ha-Yehudit ha-atikah (Ben-Shemen: Modan,
2012); and Mira Balberg, Purity, Body, and Self in Early Rabbinic Literature (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2014), 4873. In contrast, Winston highlights examples of
dualism between body and soul in rabbinic texts, such as Sifre Deuteronomy 306 in which
Rabbi Simai asserts that the human beings soul is from heaven and body is from earth
(On Sex and the Body, 4648).

The Body in Qumran Literature Flesh and

Transféré par

Informations du document

Titre original

Copyright

Formats disponibles

Partager ce document

Partager ou intégrer le document

Options de partage

Avez-vous trouvé ce document utile ?

Ce contenu est-il inapproprié ?

Droits d'auteur :

Formats disponibles

The Body in Qumran Literature Flesh and

Transféré par

Droits d'auteur :

Formats disponibles

Dead Sea Discoveries 23 (2016) 155182