Ezra's Legacy and the Dead Sea Scrolls: Law and Narratives of Exclusion

从公元前587年第一圣殿的消失开始，在此后的几个世纪里，犹太法律及其正确解释和实施的争论在犹太教的出现中发挥了决定性的作用。关于犹太律法的要求，如割礼，对于非犹太人皈依基督教的强制性程度的分歧，也是新兴的早期基督教社区在定义自己的边界时努力解决的一个重要因素（使徒行传15）。最后，律法的中心地位及其在不断变化的世界中的正确解释，今天继续界定着地球仪各地犹太社区不同群体的身份。这个项目探讨了沿着两个重要见证人的证据：以斯拉-尼希米和死海古卷。以斯拉-尼希米讲述了一项改革计划，该计划的灵感来自公元前五世纪祭司兼抄写员以斯拉的使命，即将巴比伦流亡者的法律归还给耶路撒冷，并在人民中颁布其正确的解释。死海古卷揭示了大量以前不为人知的犹太法律的文本。自从古卷完全出版以来，学者们开始将这些新材料融入我们所知道的犹太法律历史中，从摩西五经到经典犹太文本的出现，如米示拿和塔木德，这些文本在几个世纪后被编纂成法典。《以斯拉-尼希米记》和《死海古卷》全集中犹太律法的性质和地位提供了一个丰富的、基本上未被探索的研究领域。到目前为止，《死海古卷》中没有明确涉及以斯拉的形象，这常常被认为是两部文献都来自于彼此不一致的圈子。与此同时，学者们越来越多地质疑关于杰出个人的开创性影响的说法，他们倾向于承认，重大变化被更合理地视为更大社区内持续的复杂发展时期的高潮。通过将注意力从描绘个别人的单手成就上转移开，比如在少数死海古卷中提到的以斯拉或正义之师，这个项目将揭示两种文献背后的圈子之间的一系列接触点，这些接触点迄今为止一直被忽视。我们还将密切关注关于排斥的叙述，即在我们的声音来源中发现的被边缘化的痕迹，例如一些运动的成员，他们的愿景和做法偏离了我们所掌握的文献中所宣传的主要议程。

Beginning with the loss of the First Temple in 587 BCE and for centuries thereafter Jewish law and debates about its correct interpretation and implementation played a defining role in the emergence of Judaism. Disagreements about the extent to which requirements of the Jewish law such as circumcision was obligatory for non-Jewish converts to Christianity was also an important factor that emerging early Christian communities grappled with in defining their own boundaries (Acts 15). Finally, the central place of the Law and its correct interpretation in a changing world continues to define the identities of different strands of the Jewish community across the globe today. This project explores the evidence of two crucial witnesses along this journey: Ezra-Nehemiah and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Ezra-Nehemiah offers an account of a programme of reform inspired by the mission of the fifth century BCE priest-scribe Ezra to return the law from the Babylonian exile to Jerusalem and promulgate its correct interpretation among the people. The Dead Sea Scrolls have revealed a substantial number of previously unknown Jewish legal texts. Since the full publication of the Scrolls scholars have begun to integrate this new material into what we know of the history of Jewish law from the Pentateuch to the emergence of classical Jewish texts like Mishnah and Talmud that were codified several centuries later. The nature and place of Jewish law in Ezra-Nehemiah and the full corpus of the Dead Sea Scrolls offers a rich and largely unexplored field of enquiry.Until now the lack of explicit engagement with the figure of Ezra in the Dead Sea Scrolls has often been taken to suggest that both literatures emanate from circles that were at odds with each other. At the same time scholars have increasingly challenged accounts of the seminal impact of extraordinary individuals in favour of recognizing that significant changes are more credibly perceived as the culmination of sustained periods of complex developments within larger communities. By shifting attention away from the portrayal of the single-handed achievements of individuals such a Ezra or the Teacher of Righteousness mentioned in a small number of Dead Sea Scrolls this project will expose a series of contact points between the circles behind both literatures that have hitherto been overlooked. Close attention will also be paid to narratives of exclusion, i.e. traces in our sources of voices that have been side-lined such as members of the movements whose vision and practice departs from the dominant agenda promoted in the literature we have at our disposal.