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Part 4.How
Did They Use Water at this Desert Site?
Water is a rare commodity in the Judean desert. Yet with summer temperatures
averaging well-over the 100°-mark, it is an absolutely essential commodity,
and one which must be conserved carefully.
If you agree
that we can read the scrolls as evidence for the compound and vice versa,
the elaborate water installations are a point the two bodies of evidence
share in common. There is a heavy emphasis in the literature on purification
and ritual ablutions or cleansings in water, and there are many features
of the compound where this could be done, such as the ritual bath (mikveh)
above.
Your task
in this part of the project will be to review the evidence for water storage
in the compound, and to compare it with certain passages in the scrolls.
Then, rather than answering a particular question, you will write two
paragraphs in which you (1) summarize the archaeological evidence and
(2) explain the uses of water at Qumran.
Evidence
& Questions
Click
on the map to the left, and it will open up a second window with an
expanded map of the Qumran water system. You will want to keep that
window open as you read on.
Remember
that the upper left corner, which is the NW corner of the compound,
is the highest in elevation, so that gravity is being utilized to aid
water flow.
There
are three types of "water features" at the compound: cisterns, ritual
baths or mikva'ot, and water channels. Cisterns hold water for
drinking and cooking. They sometimes have stairs so that people can
reach the water as the level drops. Mikva'ot hold water for ritual
bathing. They have more elaborate staircases, sometimes with one or
two vertical dividers to separate those who are ritually impure coming
into the bath from those who are ritually pure coming out of the bath.
See if you can distinguish the cisterns from the mikva'ot on
the map. The final feature, water channels, are simply the channels
cut to facilitate water flow between the receptacles. All of these features
would have been covered by stone slabs or wood in antiquity to slow
evaporation.
Some pictures
of these water features follow. They are numbered to match the numbered
arrows on the map. If you hold the cursor over one of the pictures,
a brief description of it will appear that will help you to locate it
on the map as well. The pictures are aligned on the right side of your
screen so that you can see them while looking at the map. Adjust the
size of both windows so that you can see both on your screen at the
same time (if you have trouble with toggling back and forth between
the screens, Mr. Armstrong can help you). The pictures will begin with
the NW corner of the compound and move counter-clockwise around the
site.
Now that
you have had a chance to review the site, please read the following
passages in García Martínez's book, The Dead
Sea Scrolls Translated:
- Rule
of the Community col. II line 24 - col. III line 12 (pp. 5-6)
(Hereafter, a reference like the one above will be abbreviated to
II.24-III.12)
- Rule
of the Community V.1-20 (pp. 8-9)
- Rule
of the Community XI.9-15 (pp. 18-19)
- 4QPurification
Rules A (4QTohorot A), fragment 1, col. 1 (p. 88)
- 4QBaptismal
Liturgy (p. 439)
This one is fragmentary, so do your best to make sense of it.
- 4QRitual
of Purification (pp. 441-2)
This one is fragmentary too, so again do your best with it.
You have seen
the archaeological evidence and read the texts that discuss purification
and purity. In your write-up for this part of the paper, compose two paragraphs
based on discussion with your partner. In the first, summarize the archaeological
evidence of water-related features in the compound. In the second, explain
the uses of water at Qumran, ranging more broadly into the theological
significance of purification. On this last point, VanderKam pp.
81-7 and 113-14 will be helpful, but don't look at those pages until you've
had a chance to discuss the evidence yourselves.
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