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Type of Document Dissertation Author Thomas, Samuel Isaac Author's Email Address sthomas@callutheran.edu URN etd-04162007-135024 Title The 'Mysteries' of the Qumran Community: The RAZ-Concept in Second Temple Judaism and in the Dead Sea Scrolls Degree Doctor of Philosophy Department Theology Advisory Committee
Advisor Name Title James C. VanderKam Committee Chair Eugene Ulrich Committee Member Gary Anderson Committee Member John Meier Committee Member Keywords
- dead sea scrolls
- qumran
- esoteric knowledge
- revelation
- sod
- raz
- mysteries
- mystery
- second temple judaism
- yahad
- secrecy
Date of Defense 2007-03-27 Availability restricted Abstract The dissertation is a study of the concept of ‘mystery’ in Second Temple Judaism,especially as this concept is expressed by the Hebrew and Aramaic word raz. It
characterizes the raz-concept as one that arises out of Israel’s prophetic and sapiential
traditions, is an important feature of Jewish apocalyptic literature of the mid-late Second
Temple period and becomes a central theological and cosmological reference point for the
Yahad associated with the manuscript discoveries of Khirbet Qumran. The dissertation
provides a comprehensive analysis of the semantic range of the term raz in the Qumran
literature, and demonstrates that its verbal associations suggest a dynamic that includes
the revelation, knowledge, and concealment of ‘mysteries’ among the sect and its
opponents. Especially in the Qumran sectarian literature, the raz-concept is employed in a
fashion that draws upon prophetic, sapiential and priestly discourses as a way of
authorizing the Yahad’s claims to special, esoteric knowledge. As seen in compositions
such as the Community Rule, Pesher Habakkuk, the Hodayot, the War Rule, the
Mysteries texts, the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice and related works, the content of
such knowledge included aspects of both the cosmological structure of the created order
and the unfolding of historical (eschatological) time, and such knowledge was evidently
guarded by the Yahad as necessary for guiding its communal rationale, structure and
praxis.
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