1.1 [The text refers to itself as verbal entity (with implied or explicit boundaries): as the beginning and the end of the only textual evidence we have are missing, it is impossible to say what sort of a self-presentation, if any, the text might have had in these two strategic text positions. Here the evidence of the Qumran manuscripts will be interpreted as possible clues to the self-presentation of the text. In 11Q19 and the other manuscripts the first column is missing entirely. In 11Q19* the text of the last line of column 66 requires a continuation on the subsequent column, but that final column of the scroll contained, according to Yadin’s estimate, only about 5 lines of text. The lower part of that column is preserved but empty (cp. plate 82 of Yadin, Temple Scroll: Vol. 3, Plates and Text (1977); see also Qimron (1996), p. 91, note). The last column with text (66) seems to have an atypical bunching together of lines, reducing the generous space usually separating lines from each other throughout the rest of the scroll. It is thus possible to say that the last column had very little (if any) space for containing a framing meta-text or self-presentation, and may in fact have ended quite abruptly even as far as its subject matter is concerned. Nevertheless, the fact that we do not know what the ending or the beginning of the text looked like severely limits the usefulness of the concept of “self-presentation” for the Temple Scroll, with the exception discussed in 1.1.1. There is, however, evidence from the main body of the text (also incomplete) for assessing perspective (Inventory section 2) and the treatment of its subject matter (Inventory section 5).]
1.1.1 The text refers to itself using a genre term, speech act term, verb or other term implying verbal constitution: Certain parts of the text are clearly characterized as "torah", and this may well be meant also as a generic characterization of the kind of subject matter it contains throughout. The more specific question, arising in particular as a question of the scope of the deictic term "this" when the text refers to its own verbal matter, is whether something more bounded than a generic characterization of subject matter is intended. There are two passages in which the text as a whole may label itself as torah. (a) At 59:10 the biblical and stereotypical “according to all the words of this torah” (ha-torah ha-zot) occurs in a context which could be reasonably taken to refer to the whole text and its perspective, not just to a particular sub-topic or paragraph within it. (Similar phrases do occur with the more restricted reference elsewhere, e.g. 15:3 mishpat ha-zeh, 50:7 ke-mishpat ha-torah ha-zot, 57:1 we-zot ha-torah.) If so, this expression has a self-referential deixis (“this”), together with a “genre” term for the kind of verbal entity the text understands itself to be: torah, without the term thereby necessarily becoming the name of a unique document called by what is effectively a proper name “Torah”. The “all” here, alongside “this”, refers to the totality of the text, but does not describe the text itself as a totality of “torah”. Related to this usage of torah, there is also another passage in which there is reference to a book/text (sefer) called “Torah”, which thereby appears to be acknowledged as being a different text from the one whose voice mentions it: “and according to the word which they will say to you [vacat] from the sefer ha-torah and (which) they shall tell you in truth from the place upon which I shall choose to settle my name” (56:4). The passage worked into the text’s wording here, Deut. 17:8 ff., does contain the word torah (verse 11) but not the crucial word sefer which refers to a specific text by referring to the physical object carrying the text. (b) At 56:20-21, “And when he sits on his royal throne they shall write for him this torah (et ha-torah ha-zot) according to/into (al) a book/scroll (sefer) which is before the priests”, the wording could imply that this very text, concerned with torah=instruction, is identical with the book of which the priests have an authoritative copy. The formulation, if taken together with passage (a), may reflect a certain ambiguity in the self-perception of the text: in some sense the Temple Scroll may present itself as identical with the/an existing text (say, the Pentateuch at some stage of its development or in the form it has today) carrying a prestige which is either “biblical” or something like that prestige, yet it does not pretend to be that biblical text. Schiffman, The Courtyards of the House of the Lord, pp. 493-4, assumes that only the subsequent lines of Temple Scroll text are to be written for the king; Najman, Seconding Sinai, pp. 50–52 (see also pp. 30–1) claims that the Temple Scroll identifies itself in this passage as a complete totality or text of Torah.
1.1.2 [The text speaks of itself as dealing with an overall theme (subject matter) or purpose, or as consisting of coordinated parts making a whole: There is no conclusive evidence of the absence or presence of a declaration of a bounded theme/subject matter, purpose, parts and wholes, as the text is incomplete, and in particular its opening is missing.]
1.1.3 [The text uses expressions for characterizing itself as a bounded entity: There is no conclusive evidence of the absence or presence of other terms characterising the text as a bounded entity, as the text is incomplete.]
1.1.4 [The text introduces the governing voice, thereby indirectly marking its own boundedness: There is no conclusive evidence of the absence or presence of the introduction of a speaking voice, as the text is incomplete (see 2.2.1).]
1.2 The text presents its internal sequence of sentences (or larger parts) as mirroring the objective relationships of components in the projected world (an objective order), or projects its subject matter as self-limiting (5.3). See further under 4, 5.2–5 or 6: given the fragmentary state of the text, no firm conclusion can be drawn on this. However, the overall selection and sequence of themes is capable of being interpreted as embodying a unifying principle of order (see 5.2, 5.5); there is also a clear attempt being made at bringing together into the same part of the text themes that are dispersed in Scripture (see 7.1). Finally, transitions from one sub-topic to another can be clearly marked (see 5.8). It is thus at least possible to speculate that the text, when it was complete, did present its discursive-normative themes in a self-limiting treatment.
1.6 The approximate word count or other indication of comparative size is: 8,660 words in 66 columns; this estimate is based on counting the words in Qimron’s 1996 edition, counting all reconstructed words (“hollow” letters) in fragmentary lines (also integrating mss other than 11Q19). The count excludes any lines at the top of columns for which there is no surviving information at all (but which are reconstructed, e.g. in Yadin and Garcia Martinez/Tigchelaar, on the basis of Pentateuch passages). In other words, the original text is certain to have exceeded this total significantly (the fullest columns have c. 200 words).
1.7 The text’s Inventory profile should be seen in the light of the following further information on completeness, thematic progression, aesthetic effects, etc.: The methodology of the Inventory presupposes that the role of any literary feature within the text as a whole can be assessed. Therefore the attempt to apply the Inventory to a fragmentary text constitutes an experiment. The fact that the extant evidence for the Temple Scroll is incomplete severely limits the usefulness of a Profile like this, and renders some entries speculative that would otherwise not be so. See further under 1.1. The apparent thematic parts of the text are explained under 5.2.1.
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2.1 The information conveyed in the text defines the perspective of the governing voice in the following way:
2.1.1 The text does not thematize how the governing voice comes to know the text’s contents (or its right to command obedience from the addressee), but suggests that its knowledge (or authority) is unlimited: While there is no evidence to say that the governing voice does not thematize the source of its authority (as the text is extant only in part) there is no passage surviving in which the governing voice indicates a dependency on other information sources, and it ranges over many, mostly normative, topics. If the unknown text parts did not contain verbal matter that would contradict this, the text suggests unlimited authority, by the governing voice assuming the role of the source of the law, and so determining the law absolutely.
2.1.1.4 The text’s governing voice speaks from the perspective of unlimited authority in commanding the addressee’s obedience: See 2.1.1.
2.2 A first-person voice imposes its perspective on all (or almost all) knowledge or norms conveyed in the text: This is true of the extant fragments; whether this was the case continuously throughout the document is impossible to ascertain.
2.2.1 [The first-person governing voice is identified by an anonymous voice through a proper name or unique description. Points 2.2.1.1–3 are devoted to the anonymous voice; all other points presuppose the knowledge horizon of the first-person voice, unless otherwise indicated: there is no evidence for saying that there was or was not such an identification in the text parts (in particular the beginning) now lost. Thus it is uncertain if the first person is the highest level of the text, or whether there was another voice introducing that first person. However, there appears to be no trace of the kind of repeated introduction of God speaking (along the lines of "And God spoke to Moses, saying: '…' ”) which is so typical of the Pentateuch passages the Temple Scroll is engaging with.]
2.2.2 The first person voice identifies itself by name or uniquely identifying expression (once or repeatedly): it is impossible to ascertain with certainty if the governing voice is continuous throughout the document, given its fragmentary nature. However, what appears to be the governing voice names itself explicitly in 45:14, in the phrase “because I, YHWH, dwell in the midst of the children of Israel”, and in 51:7–8. (It may be noted that in the extant manuscript the tetragrammaton is written in square script, not in Palaeo-Hebrew, as Yadin emphasises in Temple Scroll: The Hidden Law, 67 ff.) 29:10 offers a culturally unambiguous self-identification of the text’s voice by way of a narrative-“biblical” reference (“establishing it for myself for all days, according to the covenant which I made with Jacob at Bethel…”), and another fixed point of biblical history identifies the governing voice in 54:16 f. where the speaking voice mentions “your God, who brought you out from the land of Egypt” (the third person is clearly a self-reference of the speaker, who a few lines earlier said, “I am putting you to the test”, 54:12). (See also 2.3.)
2.2.4 The number and gender of the first-person governing voice are as follows:
2.2.4.1 The first person singular is used.
2.2.4.4 The first person forms are marked for gender: as masculine (e.g. 45:14 ani…shokhen, twice). The “historical” identification of the voice as the publicly known God of Israelite history also identifies the persona projected by the governing voice as masculine.
2.2.5 The first-person governing voice refers to herself/himself also in third person grammatical constructions: The apparent speaker, God, seems to use his own name in the third person (as happens e.g. in some passages of Ex. 19 and 20, and also in Ex. 34:10 ff., presumed to have been used in col. 2); 54:12 has an example of the transition from the grammar of the first person to that of the third person (using the divine name), which indicates clearly that the first person perspective is not meant to be suspended by such a usage of the third person. In columns 13 to 28 the divine name occurs, and no first person; these passages are in theory compatible with someone other than God speaking (with or without an assumption that a changed speech report originally occurred in the textual lacunae). However, they can also present God speaking and referring to himself in the third person by proper name, as in the biblical usage. Some of the themes in these columns, including sacrifices, might have invited the imitation of formulaic biblical phrases which have such a third-person grammar, e.g. “a pleasing odour before the Lord” (15:13 and elsewhere), and generally the usage “before the Lord” in collocations with verbs of cultic import. In other words, these usages are compatible with God being presented as the speaker throughout the extant document (see also 2.3).
2.3 [There is an unexplained switch of the grammatical person of the governing voice within the main body of the text, from third to first person or from first to third person: this appears unlikely, but one cannot be sure because of the fragmentary nature of the evidence for the text. In column 2, “God” (el) is used in the third person (2:12); and there is no unequivocal evidence in that first extant column for the use of a first person. The text has been restored as offering traces of the grammatical first person by Yadin, Qimron (1996), Maier and García Martínez/Tigchelaar, respectively. This is partly based on its assumed use of Ex. 34:10–16 (see 7.1), where God is speaking in the first person. Also, in 3:4 the expression “my name” is clearly visible (also elsewhere, e.g. 56:5, 60:13, 63:3). In columns 13–28 there is mention of the divine name in the third person (see 2.2.5). From col. 29 the use of the first person is common (see 2.2.2).]
2.4 The governing voice defines a horizon of knowledge as shared with the projected addressee by taking for granted the following linguistic usages or references (in selection): Please note for all the following points under 2.4 that the examination of proper names as either presupposed or introduced is affected by the fragmentary nature of the evidence for this text. Proper names are sensitive to the positioning of their first mention, as they can be taken for granted after initially having been introduced explicitly.
2.4.1 Persons or unique objects referred to by proper name or by technical expression:
2.4.1.1 for persons mentioned or presented in narrative usage; as characters; or topics, for example: Israel (in: tribes of, in 18:16, or children of, e.g. 22:11); the names of the 12 tribes are introduced as “names of the children of Israel” 39:12 and thereafter (gates of the court); see also cols. 13, and 40–41; in the accepted reconstruction of col. 2 acc. to Ex. 34, the names of the seven Canaanite nations (including the Girgashites which do not occur in Ex. 34:11 but in Deut. 7), and again in 62:14 f.; the priests are called “sons of Levi” (e.g. 63:3); “sons of Aaron” are mentioned in 44:5 with the apposition “your brother” (Maier translates, “brothers”), which could imply a reference to Moses as the addressee also (Yadin, Temple Scroll: The Hidden Law, p. 66); mention of Jacob as partner of God’s covenant at Bethel (29:10; cf. Lev. 26:42).
2.4.1.3 for Gods/mythical figures/supernatural beings, etc., for example: the tetragrammaton is used regularly in certain sections of the text (in square script, not palaeo-Hebrew); Azazel is mentioned in 26:13; the “children of Belial” occur in 55:3 – whether Belial is here used as a demon’s proper name (as elsewhere in Qumranic texts), or as “worthless” (as probably in the model verse Deut. 13:14) is not clear from the co-text.
2.4.1.4 for locations, for example: the biblical place name Bethel is mentioned in 29:10; 51:7 mentions norms of uncleanness "which I declare to you [sg.] on this mountain”, which presumably is meant to be taken as a reference to the mountain also mentioned in biblical texts as the place of revelation (e.g. Mount Sinai). On Jerusalem, see also 2.5.1.
2.4.1.5 for times or calendar dates (specific to a language or culture), for example: there are regular references to calendar months by ordinal number, e.g. “first month” (17:6, for Nisan), see 2.5.1; festival references by uniquely identifying description rather than proper name, e.g. “day of the waving of the omer” (11:10), or chag ha-sukkot (11:13); generic festival terms, e.g. miqra’ qo[desh] (17:10).
2.4.1.6 for documents, texts, books, etc. (identified through being referred to or quoted): a sefer ha-torah is mentioned without explanation in 56:4 (see 1.1); also 56:20, introduced as "And I said to you" (echoing closely the Deut. 17:16 speech report).
2.4.3 The text as a whole routinely employs the following language(s), knowledge of which is taken for granted: Hebrew is the text’s language. The text often employs the long suffix forms typical of “Qumranic” (and not biblical) Hebrew, and uses both the biblical waw consecutive verbal tense and the unchanged tense.
2.4.4 Special linguistic usages occur pervasively or prominently: A Persian loan word for “beams” is found in col. 41:16 according to Yadin (Temple Scroll, vol. 1, 38). Maier, p. 2, stresses the absence of Greek loanwords.
2.4.4.4 Biblicizing language, such that the text may be assumed to project itself as having a link to texts today known as biblical (see 7.1.4.1): This is potentially a very prominent feature of the text. There is pervasive (but far from total) use of biblicising language, but at the same time very extensive but entirely tacit overlap with actual biblical wording (7.1.4.2). The phenomenon includes the use of word choices and syntax, phraseology, as well as phrases for separating smaller text parts (2.4.3 and 9.1) known from biblical texts. It extends to somewhat “technical” terminology for the cult occurring in biblical texts also (e.g. Urim and Thummim, 58:20–21), animal parts, measures, etc. If the text largely depends on earlier texts now forming the Pentateuch, and if it wished to present itself in that dependency (which cannot be judged without knowing the context or the full text), then its language points very clearly to a fixed earlier text, i.e. the then or later "biblical" text of the Pentateuch. See also 7.1.4.
2.5 The text contains deictic or other expressions referring to the governing voice’s time or place, or place it after/before some key event:
2.5.1 as part of the words of the governing voice: There is one extant deictic reference to the place of the "speaking" of the text, in 51:7 where God speaks of the types of uncleanness "which I declare to you (singular) on this mountain”, which presumably is meant to refer to Mount Sinai (cf. Brin on a possible link to the text of Jubilees); see 2.6.1. There is also a temporal deixis “today” in 54:5–6 which stands in parallel to Deut. 13:1 (in the text form also used by the Septuagint and Samaritan Pentateuch, while the Masoretic Text does not have “today”): “All the things which I command you today, take care that you do them...” More generally, the self-identification of the speaking “I” locates the text in a situation co-extensive with part of the biblical historical narrative, perhaps tacitly adopting the biblical speech situation of Ex. 34 (see 7.1). Furthermore, if “Aaron your brother” in 44:5 identifies Moses as addressee (2.4.1.1), then the text’s self-presented situation of speaking is narrowed down to the time, and presumably known locations, of this human figure. Israel’s conquest of Canaan is located in the future (56:12), and so is the building of the Temple. The latter’s being built is subject to commandments addressed to the “you” of the text or third parties, and apparently contrasted with a renewal of the building in the still more distant future (29:9–10; cf. Yadin, Temple Scroll, vol. 1, pp. 182 ff. and vol. 2, p. 129). Its location is left open, by use of expressions such as “place which I shall choose” (e.g. 52:9/16; 56:5, 60:13) or “city of the sanctuary” (45:11–12). The proper name “Jerusalem” is not mentioned in the text (see Yadin’s concordance, vol. 2 of Temple Scroll). The avoidance of post-exilic names of months (2.4.1.5) as well as of the place name Jerusalem could be meant as reinforcing the pre-exilic temporal horizon of the governing voice.
2.6 The text presents itself as speaking to certain persons, groups or entities, explicitly projecting a certain image of its addressee.
2.6.1 The governing voice uses apostrophe, second-person grammatical forms or first-person exclusive or inclusive “we”: by second-person pronouns or suffixes in the singular (see Wise, p. 63) or plural, and in the use of verb forms conveying norms directly addressed to the audience of the text. In 48:10 the second-person singular is used collectively, in parallel to Deut. 14:2 (“you [sg.] are a holy people”), and continuing it with the use of plural suffixes (cf. Yadin, Temple Scroll, vol. 2, p. 209) and verbs. In the case of the second person singular, there may be an indirect identification of Moses as addressee in 44:5 speaking of Aaron as “your brother” (see 2.4.1.1). As for the ultimate recipients of the commandments, these appear also to be mentioned in the third person, as “children of Israel”, priests (also as “sons of Aaron”) and levites (also as “sons of Levi”), respectively. At least once the immediate addressee is identified as being an intermediary speaker: “And you shall warn the children of Israel of all the impurities” (51:5–6), a passage which is tied to a subsequent reference of the governing voice to its own speaking, “And they shall not defile themselves with those things which I declare to you (sg., but 11Q20 has plural) on this mountain” (see 2.5.1). This also suggests (like the third person recipients of commandments) that a Moses-like intermediary is taken for granted throughout, but that the governing voice is not that of the intermediary (see also Schiffman, "The Temple Scroll and the Halakhic Pseudepigrapha").
2.6.3 The governing voice uses verbs of epistemic or moral exhortation or employs a “focus marker": There is pervasive use of verbal forms of command (the “future” tense) directed at the addressee or via the addressee to other groups, implying that these are told by the addressee what to do. These include verbs such as “to build” or “to make” but also verbs concerning many other normative themes (cp. Wise, 62 ff.).
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5.1 [The bulk of the text is constituted by thematic discourse/description, albeit presented as speech/wording quoted from a narrative setting: Insofar as there is no trace in the extant evidence of an explicit introduction of a narrative setting for the speech of God that constitutes the Temple Scroll, this point only applies with certainty in an indirect fashion, namely by the allusions, within the governing voice's speech, to a biblically known setting of the giving of commandments, see 7.1.1.1.1.]
5.1.1 [The discursive or descriptive treatment of themes is presented as one character’s continuous speech or wording in a unique narrative situation: applicable only with the proviso made in 5.1.]
5.2 The sequence of themes in the discursive or descriptive text suggests an objective order constituted in dividing a larger topic by a constant principle (or set of principles) of subordination/coordination: It is not clear, in the absence of evidence for the complete text, whether this point applies. This entry is an attempt to make the argument for it. From the overall arrangement of themes there emerges arguably a unifying principle, whose subdivisions determine the thematic sequence and thus text parts. This unifying principle is not articulated in the extant text, although it (or a different one) may have been named in the now lost parts, in particular at the beginning of the text. The current interpreter’s identification of such a principle here suggested takes into account a number of factors. If the geography matters (see 5.5), if the sequence in which the text speaks of its normative themes is one of “most important first”, and if that first is the Temple itself, then what might be suggested by the overall ordering of norms is a principle of “holiness”: holiness in the cultic sense but also as the absence of defilement from the land of Israel caused when God’s non-cultic commands are broken. Holiness would be implied as something achieved through implementation of God’s wishes by both priests and non-priests, but tied to the holiness of spaces, including the whole of the land of Israel. This would make all such (biblical, or elaborated biblical) commandments the text’s topic which are connected to the holiness of persons, space or time. There is obviously considerable flexibility in determining what counts as norms of such “holiness”, beyond cultic and purity laws. Thus the norms on judges and bribes in 51:11 ff. might be seen as falling outside the unifying idea of holiness. But, as Maier (p. 120) points out, this can be interpreted as preventing pollution of the land by injustice. Scripture itself expresses the idea that the land can be polluted through acts of idolatry, injustice, sexual misdemeanor or violence. It is thus possible that the Temple Scroll author(s) followed a line of thought which includes effectively all divine commandments to Israel under the idea of holiness, and saw them as continuous with the priestly duties in the sanctuary. If so, there would arise the problem of certain unexplained thematic gaps in the text, e.g. the absence of norms dealing with murder (which is mentioned in passing in 66:6–7). (The space available at the lost top part of the final column (67) would scarcely have been enough to supply this or any other thematic lack, if our fullest manuscript is anything to go by.) Perhaps the author(s) limited the idea of holiness in certain ways, tacitly or in a now lost introduction. Alternatively, the text’s unifying programme was possibly never quite completed by the author(s). If this is the overall idea of the composition, then the major thematic divisions would be intended as sub-topics of the overall theme. However, this principle, while capable of unifying the themes of the text, is nowhere expressed in the extant text; it (or some other scheme which provides textual order) could conceivably have been enunciated in the now lost frame positions of beginning and ending. Since the situation of speaking implied by the perspective of the governing voice (see 2.2, 7.1) falls in the period before the Temple, the norms of holiness may be seen to be conditional on the norms of creating the Temple as a physical structure. And this seems to account for the sequence priority which the text gives to norms for building (see 5.2.1). But these architectural norms are not treated as a separate topic from the envisaged use of the future buildings. In many passages the building commandments are found alongside or integrated with norms that concern future acts taking place in the architectural structures. The Temple is thematised as a functional space, or a process space, not merely as a static topic of measurements, materials and spatial orientation. For instance: “And the gates through which they come in and through which they go out: The width of the gate is fourteen cubits….”, 36:7 f.; or “And the huts shall be made...for the elders of the congregation…who shall go up and sit there until the burnt-offering is offered …”, 42:12 ff. In other words, even in the architectural sections of the text, human acts are mentioned which go beyond those involved in building a physical structure, and this links the earlier parts of the document organically to the later ones.
5.2.1 This suggestion includes all substantive parts of the text (other than any frames), or deviations are made explicit: if the explanation given in 5.2 is correct, the sequential parts of the text can be seen as sub-topics of the overall theme of the divine norms whose implementation creates holiness. They are then ordered along a conceptual path from the most immediate and spatially central expressions of holiness, concerned with God’s seat on earth and the cult attached to it, to more mediated expressions of holiness in the land of Israel, such as the behaviour of lay Israelites in their own cities. The text would thus map degrees of holiness onto spatial realities, as is the case in some parts of rabbinic literature, see Mishnah Kelim 1:6–9 and the opening of the Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael (in regard to revelation). The direction would be outwards, from a central holy location (e.g., the holy of holies) to a periphery (the land of Israel outside Jerusalem; see Maier, Temple Scroll, pp. 5–6). Textually speaking, the movement in stages “from the inside out” appears to account for the textual sequence of topics, as follows: 1. Some kind of introduction, perhaps meant to echo specifically not just the contents but also the narrative speech situation of Ex. 34 (col. 2, perhaps also in a first column not preserved); 2. Norms concerning the construction of the central parts of the Temple complex, including the Temple building proper and the altar in front of it (cols. 3–13; see 5.5); 3. Norms concerning what is to be done with these particular structures, effectively providing a calendar of events and sacrifices for part of the year, the festival season from Nisan to Tishri, but starting with daily and weekly occasions (cols. 13–29); an enumeration is already found in col. 11, perhaps as anticipatory summary, or as relating to the altar (Yadin, Temple Scroll, vol. 2, 43 ff.); 4. Norms concerning the construction of the remaining parts of the Temple complex, such as utility buildings and other structures in the central part, walls, gates, porticos and then outer courts (with an extended, but apparently still integrated, description of cultic acts in col. 34), (cols. 30–45); 5. Norms concerning the holy city (the “city of the sanctuary”, 45:11–12) which surrounds the Temple complex (cols. 45–47); this city is put into explicit opposition (col. 47) to “their/your cities” which are then treated in their own right in the subsequent section; 6. Norms which affect holiness in the land beyond the holy city, starting with rules on eating insects and ending with forbidden marriage ties (cols. 48–66). Often a section "law of the king" is discerned by modern scholarship to form a separate component, although usually only explained from a diachronic point of view as a "source"; see e.g. Crawford, pp. 57–60; Alexander and Alexander). This order appears to make it possible to understand the otherwise puzzling separation of two sections of Temple construction laws (cols. 3–13 and 30–45) by a section on the festivals and sacrifices (13–29). (For a detailed attempt to identify disparate “sources” used by the makers of the Temple Scroll, see Wise; for an overview of main parts different from the one suggested here, see Crawford, p. 27). Even so, the stringency of this thematic order does not apply to norms within any one of the main sections, in particular if they are very extensive, as section 6. This is not surprising in itself. One would expect this to be the case for any abstract conceptual scheme applied to a diverse variety of pre-existing concrete norms. These would require subsidiary principles of order, as found in section 2 (see 5.5.2) but apparently not in section 6. The material in section 6 can be interpreted as offering self-contained, and usually well-demarcated, thematic units (see also 5.8) which, while determined in their overall positioning by the larger, spatial, principle of order, are determined by the same principle in their mutual sequence. (Even modern systematic scholarly texts will have sections like this.) This may also be the reason for the fact that within section 6, the text’s dependency on passages of the Pentateuch (or a Deuteronomy-like source, acc. to Wise, pp. 35 ff.) sometimes extends to the detailed biblical sequencing of themes, not just their identity (see 7.1). Overall, the Temple Scroll appears to be a very strong candidate for a text of the 5.2 kind, but this rests on the assumption that nothing occurred in the lacunae which would disturb this order.
5.5 The text’s sequence of sub-topics (discursive or narrative) mirrors a temporal or spatial order, but without narrative emplotment between the sub-topics. Or it mirrors the sequence of units of meaning in another text (from single words to whole books), while not reproducing the relationships between those parts, not using quotations from it as lemmatic progression (i.e., no 6.1), and not creating narrative emplotment.
5.5.1 This order includes all parts of the text (excepting any frames), as follows:
5.5.1.3 A spatial or geographical order provides the sequence for the text’s themes (including any normative themes): It is possible that all larger text parts follow a geographical progression, which reflects the putative conceptual progression identified in 5.2, namely, from the Temple marking the holiest place outwards towards the boundaries of the land of Israel (not thematised as such). Terms of spatial orientation abound in the first part of the text, including direction terms and, in one passage, the direction downwards, towards the middle (tokh) of the earth (col. 32). There is also one expansion which, while holding “still” the spatial point (altar and Temple building), inserts a separate temporal progression (5.5.2).
5.5.1.3.1 Additionally, the themes so ordered are distinguished from one another by spatial or geographic expressions: see 5.5.1.3.
5.5.2 This order defines only a continuous substantial part of the text, as follows:
5.5.2.1 A temporal order provides the sequence for a continuous text part thematizing norms or normative information: In addition to and within the overall spatial scheme, i.e., the overall spatial movement from inside out (5.5.1.3), there is a secondary principle of order, at the point at which the altar has been described. This sub-group of topics is ordered in relation to time and calendar, and consists of norms that presuppose the existence of the altar for the bringing of sacrifices and related issues. The themes are ordered as a succession of cultic occasions, from the daily offerings to festival rites in their annual sequence, but only from the first month (Nisan) to the seventh, in cols. 13–30.
5.8 The bulk of the text consists of small forms and patterns drawn from a limited set of formats for thematic articulation or for discussion (further section 8): This is not equally true of all parts of the Temple Scroll, but substantial parts of the text fall under this category, since there are many shorter units of text which, while fitting into the overall schema described under 5.2, provide self-bounded short treatments of particular normative areas. These are often compatible with being the result of bringing together, but avoiding repetitive use of, relevant verses from across the Pentateuch (and beyond), if a priority of the latter is assumed. Their themes can be marked off against each other by closure markers or closing formulae of one sort or another, built along the same lines as biblical markers or also found in the biblical text which is parallel to the Temple Scroll at a given point. These implicit boundary markers between topics include reason clauses, as in 48:10 (see 8.1.8), as well as standing phrases/clauses (in biblical language) such as “Eternal precepts for their generations, year after year” (22:14; similar 25:8, 27:4), “It is an X offering…a pleasing odour for the LORD” (e.g. 16:10, 18; 34:14), “And you shall do what is upright and good before me, I am the LORD your God” (53:7–8), and “and not shall cea[s]e [the co]venant of sal[t] [forever]” (once, 20:13–4). In ms. 11Q19 some of these phrases are followed by vacats, the latter clearly used to mark the separation of sub-topics in the textual continuum (see 9.13). There is also the use of achar in the meaning “afterwards” when procedures are described (e.g. 22:14, 25:7, 27:3, 34:7), indicating that one sub-topic is closed and another begins. For many passages there are thus clear and well-managed thematic boundary markers, but without explaining or motivating the thematic transitions as such: those remain de facto independent of each other as self-contained small forms and patterns.
5.9 The text’s governing voice projects the accuracy or validity of its statements as:
5.9.1 Being taken for granted or being self-evident: The governing voice takes for granted its right to command obedience for the norms it prescribes.
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7.1 Narrative or thematic correspondences, or overlap of specific wording, occur between a non-biblical text and one or more biblical texts in a manner that is prominent or pervasive.
7.1.1 [Characters correspond between the non-biblical narrative and the narrative of a biblical text or texts: This point and the subordinate points only apply insofar as the normative-thematic discourse of the governing voice also has an implied narrative background setting.]
7.1.1.1 [Some or all main characters of the text correspond to main characters in a biblical partner text: the governing voice persona of the Temple Scroll corresponds to the God character in the Pentateuch; see comment in 7.1.1.]
7.1.1.1.1 [A main character shared with a biblical partner text is also the first-person narrator of the text: The following needs to be read in ight of the explanation in 7.1.1: The governing voice of the Temple Scroll is identical with a character in the Pentateuch, God, in that God is (with the provisos made in 2.2., 2.2.4) projected as being the speaker of the whole text of the Temple Scroll. God is thus the speaker of the normative contents both in the Pentateuch (reported directly or indirectly, via Moses) and in the Temple Scroll. However, in the latter he is the governing voice of the whole text or its bulk (if there was an introduction of the governing voice at the text's beginning), while in the former he is a character in a narrative, reported as having made certain utterances by an anonymous narrator (see 2.2.1). The precise point in the chronology of communications between God and Israel/Moses (e.g. 51:5-7, see 2.6.1) is not clarified by the extant Temple Scroll text, but there is an overlap with the speech situation of Ex. 34, privileged by its (near) opening position in col. 2. This perhaps points to the situation of Ex. 34 as an implied setting for the whole of the Temple Scroll as an event of communication, without the Temple Scroll thereby becoming a narrative text. The co-extensive relationship only concerns the situation of speaking; the speech (that is, the Temple Scroll) is normative-thematic (and non-narrative) in its contents and structure. A covenant scenario provides the communicative “model” for the text’s own attitude of speaking (narrative self-location); if the text was presenting itself as standing in response to an already existing text (the Pentateuch or a similar text), then it presents a repetition or resumption of the Sinai covenant of the kind that the Hebrew Bible itself contains several times.]
7.1.2 [Chronology, physical setting or emplotment correspond between the non-biblical narrative and the narrative of a biblical text or texts: this only applies indirectly, as the Temple Scroll is not a narrative text; see explanation at 7.1.1.]
7.1.2.1 [The narrative’s chronological and spatial framework, as well as certain events, are co-extensive with that of a biblical partner text, or with some extended part of it: This point applies insofar as the thematic contents of the Temple Scroll, as divine direct speech, also presupposes narrative information. Within this framework, however, the Temple Scroll constitutes itself as the contents of one unified speech act, while the narrator of the Pentateuch reports the same norms as distributed over a number of different speech occasions and speech acts by God, Moses, or Moses in the name of the God; see 7.1.2.2.]
7.1.2.2 [While the narrative covers the same chronological-spatial ground or plot as a biblical text, it lacks extended speeches found in that biblical text: This point does not apply to the Temple Scroll, but its OPPOSITE can be said to apply to it, and is therefore here noted for comparative purposes. The Temple Scroll may be considered to contain what are in effect large parts of the "direct speech" attributed to God in Exodus-Deuteronomy and containing commandments and laws, without telling the narrative within which these speeches took place according to the Pentateuch. If the extant text is considered, there is no narrative at all; even if now missing text parts contained some narrative information, the roles of extended speech and narrative setting would certainly be reversed in the Temple Scroll, if compared to the Pentateuch. Additionally, normative information that is distributed over several separate speech acts identified throughout the Pentateuch between Exodus and Deuteronomy, is treated as one continuous speech act of promulgation in the Temple Scroll, thus providing implicitly a single point in the narrative of divine law-giving which unifies all norms mentioned.]
7.1.4 The text shares features of language with the Hebrew Bible, or exhibits tacit overlap with specific biblical wording, whether narrative or not: There is pervasive (but far from total) use of biblicising language (7.1.4.1 and 2.4.4.4), and at the same time very extensive but entirely tacit adoption of actual biblical wording (7.1.4.2). Much of the Temple Scroll could be seen as alluding to specific passages of Scripture. It is impossible to separate this neatly from the use of biblicizing language (See Wise, pp. 208–9). The phenomenon includes the adoption of biblical word choices and syntax, phraseology, as well as phrases for separating smaller text parts (2.4.3 and 9.1). It extends to somewhat “technical” biblical terminology for the cult (e.g. Urim and Thummim, 58:20–21), animal parts, measures, etc. Depending on the distance of ordinary language from biblical language at the time of composition of the Temple Scroll, this may amount to treating the biblical language more generally as some kind of technical language. If the text depends, in its genesis, on texts now forming the Pentateuch (rather than the other way round, but the overlap cannot be accidental) and if it wished to present itself in that dependency (which is far from certain), then informed contemporary readers will have taken its language as creating a more or less constant relationship of allusion to the fixed earlier text.
7.1.4.1 There are pervasive biblical linguistic features (vocabulary, morphology or syntax) or a pervasive use of unspecific biblical language, such as generic biblical phrases or single words: See explanation under 7.1.4.
7.1.4.2 The text contains prominently, but not necessarily frequently, the wording of specific biblical passages such as whole sentences or unique biblical phrases, used in a tacit manner. See also 8.1.4.1: See explanation under 7.1.4. There is pervasive overlap between the text (Temple Scroll) and extensive parts of the Pentateuch and other biblical texts, created by an interweaving of independent sentences with biblical sentences or sentence-parts which, in addition to the interweaving itself (point 1 in the following) has a number of other features. (1) As interweaving, the overlap with biblical text is entirely unacknowledged (in the extant text). Contrary to many formulations found in Temple Scroll scholarship, the biblical text is not quoted, if by that one means (as one often does) that the governing voice acknowledges a verbal entity as existing independently of the current text, and as not being the governing voice’s own words. Such acknowledgment is absent. Yet while biblical wording does not become explicitly thematic, it appears to be constantly represented and hermeneutically engaged with, if one assumes the precedence of the known biblical texts over the Temple Scroll (a combination of features also typical of the Targums, see Samely, “Is Targumic Aramaic Rabbinic Hebrew?”). Otherwise, this engagement goes the other way, or in both directions at different historical stages of the growth of the texts. However, the overlap cannot be accidental. An attempt to identify six patterns of “composition” (also hermeneutic use of Scripture) in relation to what is here called interweaving, is found in Kaufman (in particular p. 42) and Swanson, p. 9 ff.; see also the line-by-line analysis in the appendix of Wise (205–242). (2) The interweaving goes hand in hand with wording differences. (3) Parts of the text have a sequencing of sub-topics which is isomorphic with that of Scripture (see 7.1.7). (4) The fact that the governing voice is (apparently everywhere) God at Sinai “biblicises” the speech situation of the text as a whole. The overall document is tacitly located in a concrete and unique narrative context which is presupposed as known (namely God’s revelation to Israel, as depicted over stretches of the Pentateuch; see 2.5. and 2.6). This does not change the fact that the contents of the Temple Scroll are entirely non-narrative (as extant), namely consisting of commandments and normative themes.
7.1.4.2.1 The tacit overlap of specific wording extends regularly to whole sentences or to extensive sentence groupings, found alongside sentences or sentence parts not found in that biblical partner text.
7.1.5 The projected persona of the governing voice of the text, whether a narrative or not, is also known from a biblical text, or the governing voice assumes an epistemic stance similar to that of a biblical text.
7.1.5.1 The projected first-person persona of the governing voice is also a character in a biblical text.
7.1.5.1.1 The persona appears to be linked to a character as it specifically appears in the biblical text, not merely as it might be known from diffuse cultural knowledge.
7.1.6 The range of themes in the non-narrative text is wholly or nearly contained within the specific range of themes found also in a biblical text: There is a co-extensive thematic agenda between the non-narrative Temple Scroll and the Pentateuch. The Temple Scroll’s range of themes can be interpreted as overlapping entirely, or almost entirely, with that of the Pentateuch and selected other parts of the texts today referred to as Hebrew Bible (in particular Ezekiel for the topic of Temple dimensions). These topics are not necessarily presented in the same sequence (although some are, see 7.1.7), and not all normative positions accepted for these themes are the same as those found in the Pentateuch or elsewhere in Scripture.
7.1.7 The sequence of themes in (at least) substantial parts of the non-narrative text is tacitly isomorphic with the sequence of themes in a biblical text: Although there is no overall thematic isomorphism between the Temple Scroll and the Pentateuch, there are some striking examples of such isomorphism for limited passages, in particular in the latter part of the scroll (called “section 6” in 5.2.1). These include the sequence of diverse normative themes in Deut. 21 to 23 being echoed by the thematic concerns of cols. 63–66; also cols. 53–55 in relation to Deut. 12:20–13:19.
7.1.8 The non-narrative text pervasively or prominently presupposes the narrative fabric of biblical events/reported speech, beyond the contents of any specific biblical quotations that may occur: See 7.1.1.
7.1.8.1 The text presupposing biblical narrative fabric has a thematic structure of discourse or description.
7.2 Narrative or thematic correspondences, or overlap of specific wording, occur between the non-biblical text under discussion and other non-biblical texts in a manner that is prominent or pervasive: There are relationships between the Temple Scroll and Jubilees (see Brin), 4QMMT, and the Damascus Document (see on all of these, Crawford, pp. 77–87).
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8.1 Standard forms or contents formulated in set phrases, set sentence formats, or clauses in a standard syntactic connection.
8.1.1 Conditional norm or hypothetical legal case: occasional, e.g. 45:7 and 11; 50:7 (im) and 10; 65:7.
8.1.2 Unconditional norm: pervasive in the form of apodictic norms, in the grammatical form of “you shall”, “there shall be”, etc.
8.1.3 Sentence with theme anticipated to the beginning and repeated in a pronoun or by ellipsis: occasional, e.g. 36:7 f.
8.1.4.1 The expressive use of unmarked biblical wording whose function in the text’s discourse is enhanced or achieved by it being recognised as coming from a Scripture: Possibly pervasive, see 7.1.4.2 and 2.4.4.4.
8.1.8 Reason clause: occasional to frequent, using e.g. ki, and often formulaic: 32:15, 43:12 and 17, 45:14 /51:7–8 with self-identification, 46:4/12 with asher, 47:18, 48:10, 52:18, 60:19; see 9.1 on the thematic closure function of such clauses.
8.1.10 List sentence enumerating items by words or phrases: occasional.
8.1.17 Report sentence of a singular event in the past which is not part of a narrative unit, nor of a mashal: a clause makes reference, in TS 29:10, to the covenant with Jacob at Bethel.
8.1.18 Sentence making a prediction of a future event: once, as self-prediction of the speaking voice, 29:9.
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9.13 Physical evidence from antiquity potentially shows non-verbal signals indicating (an interpretation of) the text’s thematic division: In ms. 11Q19 there is regular use of vacats coinciding with thematic boundaries (see 5.8), but there are also other kinds of blank spaces (e.g. 56:4).
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11.1 The non-narrative text projects its thematic concern as being mainly one or more of the following:
11.1.3 Law, commandments or norms of behaviour: some events of the past/future, similar to those as would be indicated for narrative by point 11.2.1, are implied in commandments which take effect once the Israelites will have taken possession of the land.
11.2 The text is dominated by the reporting of emplotted events, whether or not in an overarching narrative format (4).
11.2.1 [The reported events are those of a biblical past, or of a biblically foretold future: some events of the past/future are implied in commandments which take effect once the Israelites will have taken possession of the land, but the text is not dominated by the reporting of emplotted events or in a narrative format.]
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12.1 Sampling of genre labels applied to the text in secondary literature: halakhic pseudepigraphon (Goshen-Gottstein 1967); new Torah, second Torah, re-redacted Torah, divine halakhic pseudepigraphon (in contrast to a Moses pseudepigraphon, see Schiffman); “Ur-Deuteronomy” (Maier, p. 6), “rewritten Bible of a legal nature” (Bernstein in Kugel FS 2004, p. 224 f.), pseudepigraph, sefer torah, rewritten Bible (Crawford, p. 17); rewritten Torah (Swanson), additional Torah.
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Bibliography:
Editions:
Y. Yadin, The Temple Scroll, 3 vols., plus vol. Supplementary Plates (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society/Institute of Archaeology of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem/Shrine of the Book, 1977–83); E. Qimron, The Temple Scroll. A Critical Edition with Extensive Reconstructions; Bibliography by F. Garcia Martinez (Beer Sheva and Jerusalem: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Press and Israel Exploration Society, 1996); F. García Martínez and E. J. C. Tigchelaar, The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition, 2 vols., (Leiden and Grand Rapids, Mich., Cambridge: Brill and Eerdmans, 1997–8); E. Qimron, The Dead Sea Scrolls (Jerusalem: Yad Ben Zvi, 2011) [Heb.; J. H. Charlesworth, H. W. Morisada Rietz, L. J. Johns (eds.), The Dead Sea Scrolls. Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek Texts with English translations, vol. 7: Temple Scroll and Related Documents (Princeton Theological Seminary Dead Sea Scrolls Project; Tübingen and Louisville, Kentucky: Mohr and Westminster John Knox Press, 2011).
Online facsimile of 11Q19: http://dss.collections.imj.org.il/temple (accessed 12/06/13)
Translations:
See Yadin, García Martínez/Tigchelaar and Charlesworth above; J. Maier, The Temple Scroll. An Introduction, Translation and Commentary, trans. R. T. White (JSOT Supplement 34; Sheffield, JSOT Press, 1985); M. Wise, M. Abegg Jr., E. Cook, The Dead Sea Scrolls. A New Translation (San Francisco: Harper, 1996); G. Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (London: Penguin Books, 1997); L. H. Schiffman, "Temple Scroll", in L. H. Feldman, J. L. Kugel and L. H. Schiffman (eds.), Outside the Bible. Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society/University of Nebraska Press, 2013), pp. 3036–3107.
Selected Studies:
Y. Yadin, The Temple Scroll: The Hidden Law of the Dead Sea Sect (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1985); L. H. Schiffman, The Courtyards of the House of the Lord. Studies on the Temple Scroll, ed. F. García Martínez (Leiden: Brill, 2008); G. Brin, “Regarding the Connection between the Temple Scroll and the Book of Jubilees”, Journal of Biblical Literature, 112 (1993), pp. 108-109; G. J. Brooke (ed.), Temple Scroll Studies (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1989); L. H. Schiffman, “The Temple Scroll and the Halakhic Pseudepigrapha of the Second Temple Period”, in E. G. Chazon and M. Stone (eds.), Pseudepigraphic Perspectives: The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Leiden: Brill, 1999), pp. 121–131 (repr. as chapter 10 of Schiffman's The Courtyards, see above); S. White Crawford, The Temple Scroll and Related Texts (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000); D. D. Swanson, The Temple Scroll and the Bible: The Methodology of 11QT (Leiden: Brill, 1995); S. A. Kaufman, “The Temple Scroll and Higher Criticism”, Hebrew Union College Annual, 53 (1982), pp. 29–43; M. O. Wise, A Critical Study of the Temple Scroll from Qumran Cave 11 (Chicago, Illinois: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 1990); H. Najman, Seconding Sinai: The Development of Mosaic Discourse in Second Temple Judaism (Leiden: Brill, 2003). P. Alexander and L. Alexander, "The Image of the Oriental Monarch in the Third Book of Maccabees", in T. Rajak et al. (eds.), Jewish Perspectives on Hellenistic Rulers (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2007), pp. 92–109; O. Murray, "Philosophy and Monarchy in the Hellenistic World", in Rajak et al. (eds.), op. cit., pp. 13–28; M. M. Zahn, Rethinking Rewritten Scripture. Composition and Exegesis in the 4QReworked Pentateuch Manuscripts (Brill: Leiden, 2011); A. Samely, “Is Targumic Aramaic Rabbinic Hebrew?”, Journal of Jewish Studies, 45 (1994), pp. 92–100.
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