A community lecture with Sidnie White Crawford, University of Nebraska, Lincoln.

The Morris, Ida and Alan Heilig Lectureship in Jewish Studies

Scribes and Scrolls at Qumran: A New Synthesis

The lecture will explore both the textual and the archaeological evidence from Qumran to argue that during the first century BCE- first century CE Qumran was inhabited by a Jewish community affiliated with the Essene movement in Judea.  The Essenes founded Qumran as a library site, where the collecting, copying, and preserving of sacred manuscripts was the primary activity.  I will argue that the building compound contained rooms compatible with a library and scroll workshop, and that the nearby Caves 4 and 5 were used for “overflow storage” from that library.  The limestone cliff caves, however, were used for long-term or permanent storage of scrolls in jars.  The scrolls found at Qumran come from all over Judea, but were brought to Qumran to become the primary library of the Essene movement.

Sidnie White Crawford teaches in the areas of Hebrew Bible, Second Temple Judaism, Biblical Hebrew and feminist criticism of the Bible. Professor Crawford’s areas of scholarly expertise are in the Dead Sea Scrolls and textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible. She is a member of the international publication team for the Dead Sea Scrolls, responsible for editing fourteen manuscripts from the Qumran collection. She has written extensively on various aspects of the Dead Sea Scrolls, including the rewritten bible texts and the role of women in the Qumran community. Professor Crawford’s current research involves the textual criticism of the book of Deuteronomy. She is one of the general editors of the Oxford Hebrew Bible Project, which will result in an eclectic critical edition of every book of the Hebrew Bible. In addition to being the volume editor for the book of Deuteronomy, she is the general editor for the books of the Pentateuch. She is also involved in the Biblia Qumranica project, and will be contributing the volume on Deuteronomy for the series “The Bible at Qumran,” to be published by E.J. Brill.

Professor Crawford is the President of the W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeology in Jerusalem, the American school for the study of the Ancient Near East in Israel and the Palestinian Territories.

This event will be held in Hill Hall, Moeser Auditorium

135 E. Cameron Ave
Chapel Hill, NC 27599