Rhetoric and the Dead Sea Scrolls

Bruce McComiskey

Published by Penn State University Press 2021

Rhetoric and the Dead Sea Scrolls

Purity, Covenant, and Strategy at Qumran

Bruce McComiskey

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780271090528

Overview
Contents

About this book

Discovered in 1947, the Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of ancient Israelite documents, many of which were written by a Jewish sectarian community at Qumran living in self-exile from the priesthood of the Second Temple. This first book-length study of the rhetoric of these texts illustrates how the Essenes employed different rhetorics over time as they struggled to understand God’s word and their mission to their people, who seemed to have turned away from God and his purposes.

Applying methods of rhetorical analysis to six substantive texts—Miqṣat Maʿaśeh ha-Torah, Rule of the Community, Damascus Document, Purification Rules, Temple Scroll, and Habakkuk Pesher—Bruce McComiskey traces the Essenes’ use of rhetorical strategies based on identification, dissociation, entitlement, and interpretation. Through his analysis, McComiskey uncovers a unique, fascinating story of an ancient religious community that had sought to reintegrate into Temple life but, dejected, instead established itself as the new covenant people of God for this world, only to turn ultimately to a trust in a metaphysical afterlife.

Presenting forms of ancient Jewish rhetoric largely uninfluenced by classical rhetoric, this book broadens our understanding of human and religious rhetorical practice, even as it provides new insight into the events that led to the emergence of the Talmudic period. Rhetoric and the Dead Sea Scrolls will be useful to scholars working in the fields of religious rhetoric, Jewish studies, and early Christianity.

Author information

McComiskeyBruce:

Bruce McComiskey is Professor of English and Director of Professional Writing at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He is the author of Teaching Composition as a Social Process; Gorgias and the New Sophistic Rhetoric; Dialectical Rhetoric; and Post-Truth Rhetoric and Composition.

Reviews

“Bruce McComiskey is the first in rhetorical studies to conduct a systematic reading of seven Dead Sea Scrolls manuscripts, examining how identification, distinction, persuasion, performative strategies, dissociation, and ideas about material rhetorics are present and enacted through these manuscripts. In doing so, he makes an important case for the rhetorical significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls as well as the methodological utility of a hermeneutics/rhetoric approach for reading these texts.”
—Jim Ridolfo, author of Digital Samaritans: Rhetorical Delivery and Engagement in the Digital Humanities

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Chapter 1 Rhetorics of Identification, Distinction, and Persuasion in Miqsat Maʿaśeh ha-Torah (4QMMT) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	24
Chapter 2 Performative Rhetorical Strategies in the Rule of the Community (1QS) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	48
Chapter 3 Dissociation as a Rhetorical Strategy in the Damascus Document (CD) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	73
Chapter 4 Impurity and Purification as Material Rhetoric in the Purification Rules (4QTohorot A and B) and the Temple Scroll (11QT) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	100
Chapter 5 Hermeneutics/Rhetoric in the Book of Habakkuk and the Habakkuk Pesher (1QpHab) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	131
Conclusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	173
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	185
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	203
Resources for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	219
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	221

Language: English
Publisher: Penn State University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 242
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 2
- Other: 2 illustrations

eBook

Published: August 5, 2021
ISBN: 9780271090528