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orion Knowlege of DSS outside Qumran in 1st cent CE??
I have a question about the knowlege ofthe DSS and of the Qumran
community outside Qumran by the community's contemporaries. Assuming
that a community lived at Qumran and that this community owned the DSS
and generated many of the non-biblical texts (I know tht all those
assumptions are challenged but if I don't stat somewhere, I can't ask
the question! -- plus I tend to think these are probably valid
assumptions, though obviously unprovable), how likely wold it be for a
person, especially a Jew or in general an inhabitant of Palestine in the
1st century CE to know of either one or more specifc DSS texts or the
geneal tnents of he Qumran community? For example, there are many
suggested parallels between Luke's gospel and various DSS. It is not
alwasy argued that there is direct dependence on a text as opposed to a
common tradition, but nevertheless, parallels are seen. It seems to me,
from reading the Community Rule in particular, as well as other texts,
plus of course scholars like Schiffmann, VanderKam, et al., that the
Qumran community was about as private as it gets. If it took a year
just to get to eat the group's normal food, while the iitiate was being
instructed in the rule of the community, it seems unlikely to me that
the contents of the War Scroll or MMT, etc., are going to be known at
all outside the group which authored them (I'm aware of course that
4QMMT may have beenwritten before the apparent separation to Qumran --
at least that is one of the possibilities mentioned by Milgrom to a
seminar I was in). So, when Luke's gospel reers to the "sons of
light," is there any real likelihood that the Qumran community's
notion/teacing/texts about the sons of light ever got outside of
Qumran? I know ultimatley there's no certainty here but I'd appreciate
the considered opinions of the experts on the list, and I know some
serious Scrolls scholars are out there (you know who you are!). What I
don't want is general debate over the few basic assumptions I've made --
except for the privacy of the group since that's the issue I'm raising.
Thanks.
Ken Litwak
Graduate Theological Union
Berkeley, CA