In brief, this book comprises introductory matter two chapters dedicated to the formal analysis of Qumran pesharim (“Qumran Commentaries: A General Description” and “Qumran Commentaries: A Formal Description ”) two chapters dedicated to comparing the formal features of Qumran pesharim with Mesopotamian ones (“Mesopotamian Commentary, Qumran Pesher: A Comparison of Formal Features” and “Mesopotamian Commentary, Qumran Pesher: Compositional Models”) one chapter reflecting on the historical implications of this comparison along with its methodological limitations (“Mesopotamian Commentary, Qumran Pesher: Commenting Communities and Comparative Conclusions”) and a final chapter called “Authority.” The technical material in the first section of the book is also supplemented by extensive and useful appendices. This comparison is developed through a series of guiding inquiries: First of all, how similar are these two collections on a formal level? Second, what historical connections might account for the similarities that do exist between them? Finally, if these commentary forms are at all similar, does that mean that the scribes who wrote them ascribed similar types of authority to the base texts upon which they were commenting? However, Bronson Brown-deVost sets out to demonstrate that the Qumran commentary corpus can fruitfully be compared with much older Mesopotamian literary forms. Texts revealing eschatological secrets might seem to perfectly exemplify the zeitgeist of the late Second Temple period. These hidden secrets were revealed to the Teacher of Righteousness, and subsequently expounded in pesharim, or commentary texts, for the benefit of the initiated. Commentary and Authority in Mesopotamia and Qumran.Īccording to the Qumran community, the secrets of the impending apocalypse have been encoded in ancient texts.
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