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R e v i e w s

Htory, Fcton, and th Contructon of Ancnt Jh idntt*

Steven Weitzman. Surviving Sacrilege: Cultural Persistence in Jewish Antiquity.

Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005, ix + 193 pp.

Sara Raup Johnson. Historical Fictions and Hellenistic Jewish Identity: Third

Maccabees in Its Cultural Context. Berkeley: University o Caliornia Press,2004, xix + 253 pp.

Carol A. Newsom. The Self as Symbolic Space: Constructing Identity and Community

at Qumran. Leiden: Brill, 2004, x + 376 pp.

Any expedition through the scholarship on Second Temple literature over the last

several decades will reveal a number o twists and turns in the quest to reconstruct the

history o Jews in that period. One o the most requently asked questions, o course,

has been: Do these works tell us what happened? Even questions about authorship,

date, provenance, or literary genre have oten served a broader interest o determining

just how trustworthy or dependable a text might be; which parts o a text appear to be

sound historical reections; and which elements are problematic enough to warrant

ignoring them in our reconstructions. Scholars have tried to answer such questions as

these: Which version o the events surrounding the Maccabean revolt gives us thebest account, 1 or 2 Maccabees? How do the apocalyptic visions o Daniel support,

correct, or supplement the narrative accounts? Does the Letter of Aristeastell us about

the origins o the Septuagint? Examples could be multiplied.

More recently, many scholars have relegated the what happened question

to a secondary status and have read these texts to reconstruct a dierent kind o

history. The traditional concern with historical accuracy and reliability gets

demoted, and texts are read as literary products whose objectives extend beyondthe details o what happened. They do not aim primarily at oering the usual

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or outwardly to getiles; whether the material reects a Jewish commuity at ease

with or i tesio with its eviromet; or whether the author ad the communn

ity seem comortable or axious about getile iuece (ote called Hellenism).Such questios are less tied up with the problem o what happeed ad are more

ocused o perceptios o the texts authors ad their readig commuities.

As biblical studies have paid icreasig attetio to postmoder cocers, ot

oly has iterest i the what happeed receded urther ito the backgroud, but ay

clear ad certai aswer to the questio itsel has bee thought i some corers to be

largely uattaiable. Whatever the authors o aciet texts might have uderstood

themselves to be doig, moder scholarly readers approach the texts or what they

reveal about how the works uctioed i the costructio o the idetity(nies) o their

aciet Jewish authors ad readers. Although may cotemporary readers do ot

egage i traditioal historical readigs or costructios, they do attempt to ucover a

dieret set o realitiesthe ways the discourse preserved i these texts ecoded ad

orged selves ad commuities withi their historical worlds. Each o the three books

eatured i this essay, i its ow way, egages the postmoder eort to excavate

Secod Temple Jewish works i order to discover idetity ormatios.

I Surviving Sacrilege: Cultural Persistence in Jewish Antiquity, Steve Weitzma

otes that though the works he examies certaily cotai fctioal costructios,

they do persoiy a real struggle or cultural survival (3); accordigly, he emphasizes

the role o imagiatio ad storytellig i the Jewish art o cultural persistece. I

Historical Fictions and Hellenistic Jewish Identity: Third Maccabees in Its Cultural Context,

Sara Raup Johso tries to problematize the gere o Jewish ovel, which i hermid obscures the udametal purpose o what she calls Jewish fctios, i which

each author sought to recreate the past i his ow particular way i order to shape his

ow particular visio o cotemporary Helleistic Jewish idetity (xv). Fially, i The

Self as Symbolic Space: Constructing Identity and Community at Qumran, Carol Newsom

uderstads the sectaria texts oud at Qumra to represet a commuity o

discourse, ad examies the Serek hanYahad ad the Hodayot so as to model a way

o readig the sectaria texts that draws attetio to how the discourse o the communn

ity creates a alterative fgured world ad selnidetity, thereby critically egagig

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work or tryig to egotiate the problem o readig texts whose historical value might

be suspect.1 Rather tha fdig material or recostructig some historical arrative,

Weitzma sees these literatures as represetig strategies or cultural survival employedby people who are subject to oreig rule. The aciet text orms a respose to a real

situatio, oe i which the weak must make do with what opportuities happe to

preset themselves, aticipatig powers moves, exploitig its vulerabilities,

obstructig its feld o visio or operatig withi its cracks (7). Weitzma thus

approaches the texts he treats as examples o a Jewish imagiatio that results ot

simply i literary creativity marked by storytellig, but i the art o cultural persisnn

tece, which he defes as a ability to maeuver betwee the real ad the imagied,

to respod to ad operate withi the costraits o reality but also to trasced them

(161). These tactics, all o which Weitzma fds exhibited i early Jewish literature,

ca be categorized roughly ito three types: (1) Appeasement and Symbiosis; (2)

Resistance; ad (3) Flight, Concealment, Defection (to illustrate how Weitzma sees this

persistece beig worked out i texts, I will shortly cite three examples, oe rom each

o these categories).

I Chapter 1, Ater Babel, Weitzma cosiders the restoratio o Solomos

Temple as a matter or Jewish mythmakig (14). Whatever the actual ate o the

Temple, Jews ater the act believed that some part(s) o it had survived. Cosequetly,

the arratives ispired by such mythmakig eabled Jews to imagie a revitalized relinn

gious traditio. Although the storytellig might commuicate oly a ew details o

how the Jewish cult survived such destructio, the tales reveal strategies employed by

mythmakers ad storytellers or preservig the Temple i the ace o potetial culturaldestructio by oreig powers. The survivig vestiges represet a lik with a traditio

severely damaged by outside coquest.

The book o Ezra, or example, begis by establishig that Israels God had

allowed Cyrus to achieve military success i order that the Jews might be able to

rebuild the Temple (1:111). As part o his repatriatio o the Jews, Cyrus is said to

have give back the Temple vessels that Nebuchadezzar had carried away rom

Jerusalem ad placed i the house o his gods (1:7). While historical details o the

accout are suspicious, Weitzma argues that Ezras arrative recalls earlier istaces

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The portrayal o Cyrus at the beginning o Ezra resembles other ancient Near Eastern

descriptions, but rather than serving as a reection o Cyruss actual policies and

actions, Weitzman suggests that these representations are primarily rhetoricalconstructions whose original object was to disguise Persian domination o other

cultures as the restoration o their native tradition (20). The ability o the reigning

power to achieve cultural domination depended on native scribes, who then played

along. Weitzman speculates that local elites took advantage o such representations,

despite their colonialist agenda, as a oundation to enable them to accomplish both

their personal ends and those o local traditions. In particular, Jewish elites such as

Ezra understood that they potentially had at their disposal imperial support and

patronage or restoring both Temple and cult. Yet the expectation o state support also

required participation in imperial politics, and required a quid pro quo or royal

patronage: a public acknowledgement rom a cult dedicated to the welare o the ruler

and his success o the sort we see in Ezra 6:910 (22).The narrative relates that Ezra

apparently appeased the ruling power by playing by its rules o patronage, and he was

able to get the Temple rebuilt.

Weitzman argues that the Ezra narrative played an essential role in Jewish cultural

survival. Storytelling unctioned as an intermediary between Jewish culture and

Persian rule, keeping their perspectives and interests aligned (23). In this way, the

narrative helped to maintain the symbiotic relationship between Judea and Persia.

Cyrus, and hence Persia, had been the vehicle or reestablishing the religious tradition

ater the disruption brought about by Babylonian conquest, but state support could

also be coopted by Israels enemies and could urther disrupt the tradition. The bestsurvival strategy would then be to continue to engage the Persian imperial power on its

own terms. Ezras narrative helps sustain this relationship by ostering the perception

o God and Persia as allies serving each others interests (24).

Weitzmans second category, resistance directed against oreign powers, does

not always consist o meeting on the feld o battle, although our texts certainly

describe times when Jews opted or that tactic. An obvious example o armed

resistance is the Hasmonean revolt. In a period o successul military campaigns,

however, the Hasmonean amily also demonstrated its strategic exibility in

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much stroger orces with seemigly little chace o success. I such istaces,

Jews could employ ritual to elist the aid o their God i deeatig their eemies.

Weitzma calls such ritual acts the arts o the irratioal (121),because thesemeas assist the smaller ad weaker orce to set aside the ratioal assessmet that

it is about to ace a oe who will certaily deeat it. His clearest example o this

otio cocers the War Scroll rom Qumra. As Weitzma puts it, The War

Scrolls chie tactical objective, oe might say, is to draw the power o God ad

his agelic warriors ito the battle (125). The uclea may ot eter the battle

ecampmet; prayers exhort God to Rise up!; ad God ad his agels must

come i order to oppose the superatural allies o the eemy. Weitzma argues

that the War Scrollwas ot iteded to be a actual battle pla, but would serve

to boost morale ad to reassure, ad he fds similar tedecies i sectios o 1

ad 2 Maccabees.

The tactics ofight, concealment, and defection serve as variatios o oe theme.

Illustrative is Weitzmas discussio o the Jewish use oekphrasis, a Greek ad Roma

literary device or commuicatig i words the experiece o viewig a great spectacle.

Weitzma coteds that Jewish writers such as Philo, Josephus, ad the author o the

Letter o Aristeasemploy this device to describe the Jewish Temple, with the itetio

o distractig curious Romas, who, Weitzma suggests, had a societal case o scopnn

tophilia (the urge to see orbidde objects). Jewish eorts to deed the sactity o the

Temple by prevetig getiles rom eterig certai areas o itstories about itruders

beig puished, a priesthood resposible or deedig it, ad various taboos about

etrymight oly tempt outsiders the more to desire such etry. Accordig toWeitzma, paitig a sesatioal verbal picture o the Temple reects a worry that

was very real, the ear o losig cotrol over all the secrets o oes culture uder a

regime isatiably curious about what it caot see (81). I describig the Temples

magifcece, Jewish writers attempted to cocetrate the potetial viewers attetio

o the exterior ad thereby mitigated ay possibility that the viewer would trasgress

the orbidde iterior. These fctioal descriptios also appealed to Roma aesthetic

sesibilities, turig the Temple ito a object that should be looked ater ad

preserved rather tha violated. Josephus thus relates that eve though Titus ultimately

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evet that such arratives oly ueled curiosity, some authors, such as Philo, the author

o 3 Maccabees, ad Josephus, actually preseted their readers with descriptios o

that orbidde iterior, but i such a maer as to satisy, ad thus dampe, curiosityrather tha ehace it. Beore someoe could eve try to eter, he or she would kow

that there was othig there to see.

I these cases ad others, Weitzma argues that the texts costruct a ramework

or creatig meaig i a world i which the Jewish producers o these texts lived as a

domiated miority i a domiat imperial culture. However, the termiology

Weitzma employs to describe this process is sometimes watig. He characterizes

the process as directed alterately at cultural survival ad cultural persistece. The

frst term, though, seems too broad, as the preservatio o ay vestige might be

costrued as survival, while the secod term is too vague, as persistece does ot

accout adequately or the complex exus o preservatio, cotiuity, ad adaptatio

that combies traditio ad iovatio whe that which persists is chaged by presnn

sures o imperial domiatio. For example, i the case o Judith, Weitzma percepnn

tively highlights her ability to pivot betwee meaigs: she ca play the double aget

ad ca appear to be compliat to the oreig power while still remaiig costat i

allegiace to her God. But by characterizig this strategy broadly as survival,

Weitzma occludes may o the uaces o egotiatio etailed by such pivotig.

I also am ot etirely persuaded by some o Weitzmas readigs o idinn

vidual texts. I cite two examples here. First, his discussio o Josephuss use o

ekphrasis, or example, is problematic, because at the time that Josephus wrote, o

Temple stood to ispire curiosity, ad eve i Josephus expected oe to be rebuilt,I am ot certai that his descriptio o a Templeninthenpast would succeed as a

preemptive measure to head o uture scoptophilic curiosity. Secod, although

he calls the War Scrolla hownto maual or fghtig with (ad agaist) superatnn

ural power, by otig that the scroll alls somewhere betwee apocalyptic

atasy ad a military maual (125), Weitzma suggests that this does ot

represet a realistic visio o how the sectarias believed uture evets would

uold. Rather, the text provides a meas o oerig reassurace o divie

support. However, while the books o the Maccabees cotai evidece that

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purports to describe a eschatological sceario domiated by warare betwee

two opposig huma ad spiritual camps. While it icludes ritual practice as oe

vehicle o assurig victory, what Weitzma does ot sufcietly cosider is theextet to which the Qumra sectarias reallydidexpect evets to uold i the

maer described i the scroll. How, or istace, would the War Scrollreassure

sectarias o divie support, i they did ot expect evets to traspire accordig

to the scrolls details? The importace o divie cotrol ad power, as revealed i

the scroll, would seem to ecessitate that the expected coict would happe

accordig to a predetermied course, without ay surprises (126), i the same

way that may cotemporary Protestats look at what they uderstad as

predicted catastrophes that will accompay the ed times as set out i Daiel ad

Revelatio. Tragic ad catastrophic? Yes. Surprisig or upredictable? No. What,

the, is the relatioship betwee a literary work as it comes to us ad the expecnn

tatios o those who read it? For the War Scrollto be eective, must people believe

that it accurately describes uture sequeces o evets?

Overall, Weitzmas readigs are itriguig, oerig asciatig isight ito

ways that Jews maaged the realities with which they lived through their use o imaginn

atio ad storytellig. Ideed, give the social eviromet o Jewish weakess ad

oreig rule that Weitzma imagies or the Jewish commuities, oe ruitul aveue

o iquiry might be to ask how questios ad issues o the kids raised by cotemponn

rary postcoloial literature would complemet, correct, or compete with Weitzmas

assessmets. While he does draw o some isights rom postcoloial writers, such as

Homi Bhabhas idea o the ot quite (7475), the broader problems at the ceter oWeitzmas studythe ways that the coloized respod to the coloizers particularly

i order to preserve their traditios usullied (at least as the coloized costruct

them)would seem to call or iquiry ito how aciet Jews adopted ad/or cotested

the discourse o their imperial coloizers ad ito how such measures elarged or

costraied Jewish resposes to oreig powers. This, o course, was ot how

Weitzma iitially ramed his study, but i light o what he has udertake here, this

aveue o iquiry seems a atural postscript.

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costructed. Her book employs several dieret argumets that ultimately are

meat to work together i her thikig about this questio. She begis by

critiquig the idea that certai Jewish works ca be called novelsi ay meaigulway. I her early chapters, she claims that gere characteristics do ot hold these

texts together i a sigle category but that some appropriatio o the past that is

iteded to create a particular visio o Helleistic Jewish idetity coects the

diverse body o texts that have bee idetifed as Jewish fctios (218).

I applyig the termfction to these works, Johso holds that their authors,

while appropriatig ad shapig the past, deliberately misrepreseted what they

kew to have bee the case. For example, she claims that i the Letter o Aristeas,

The historical author i the persoa o Aristeas, ad the more sophisticated

members o his audiece, at least at frst, kew perectly well that the arrator

Aristeas was fctioal, that Demetrius could ot have played ay part i the

traslatio, ad that the archival documets to which the author so solemly

appeals were imagied, but o the metaphorical truth o the leged they had o

doubt (38). Yet she adds that such itetioal distortio o the acts was ot a

mechaism meat to deceive; these authors used historical data to create a persuann

sive sese o verisimilitude, but chaged or created certai acts or the purpose

o shapig Jewish idetity i specifc ad itetioal ways.

Johso surveys a wide variety o Secod Temple texts i order to ucover

istaces o this strategy. Her frst chapter deals with Esther, Daiel, Judith, Tobit,

Aristeas, ad 2 Maccabees. Chapter 2 is cocered with Josephus tales o Alexader

ad the Tobiads. Chapter 3 aalyzes Artapaus adJoseph and Aseneth. I Part II, shetakes 3 Maccabees as a case study or approachig these questios. While cofrmig

much o what other scholars have cocludedthat there are close liks betwee 3

Maccabees adAristeas(ad also with Esther ad Daiel), or exampleshe covicnn

igly challeges the idea that the purposes o 3 Maccabees ad Aristeasare opposed.

She demostrates that all their major poits o emphasis agree ad that 3 Maccabees is

ot corotatioal ad separatist, but, likeAristeas, ecourages cooperatio betwee

Jews ad getiles: The diereces betwee these two texts, she writes, are purely a

uctio o the imagiative poit o view: oe author has chose as his subject a coopnn

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met o oes traditio, is viewed as a greater cocer tha persecutio i 3 Maccabees.

Faithul allegiace to Jewish traditio is udametal ad ot at all icosistet with

loyalty to the crow or with participatio i the larger, domiat Helleistic culture.Rather tha ocusig o which idividual poits about each text i Johsos

aalysis are (or are ot) covicig, I will cosider the ways i which Johso

relates history, fctio, ad idetity ormatio. It is primarily i her coclusios

that she draws much o her argumet together. First, as I read her, it seems as i

deliberate maipulatio o the acts costitutes a ecessary elemet i her argunn

met that these works are frst ad oremost iterested i the costructio o a

Jewish idetity. Fictio works to serve the authors didactic purpose: frst, to

produce a covicig illusio o autheticity; secod to help commuicate the

authors message more eectively (218). Clearly, her cotetio allows Johso

to set aside the questio o how much historical value these works have. History

is ot the poit o these compositios.

I woder, though, about the extet to which the aciet stories that she calls

fctio are ecessarily so deliberate, whether people readig the text would have bee

aware o the fctioalizatio, ad what exactly this meas or arguig that a text is

workig to costruct idetity. Artapaus, or example, clearly seems to have used the

Septuagit but relates a highly embellished ad revisioist story. I some parts,

icludig Moses prenExodus lie, Artapaus might simply be fllig i the blaks as a

good writer might do, but udeiably he maipulates the biblical story itsel. O

course, this storytellig misrepresets the biblical arrative, but I am ot as sure

about the extet to which we ca clearly idetiy a motive that we could label delibnnerate misrepresetatio. That is, we do ot have ay access to other possible traditios

that Artapaus might have draw upo, much less to his persoal motivatio. I am

also ot sure i we ca kow the degree to which ayoe readig Artapaus work

would have bee clearly aware o or eve have cared about his revisio o his source. To

say that the readership oAristeaswould have bee coscious o actual problems or

that the books audiece would have kow some o the historical claims to be alse

assumes a cultural world i which people are deeply coversat with the same texts ad

are cocered with certai stadards o historical accuracy. I am simply ot as cofnn

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Code, whose author says up rot that he has created a work o fctio but whose readers

ted to approach it as i it were historical descriptiodespite the act that they have

access to much more iormatio tha a aciet audiece would have had.Eve i the audiece did ot kow or did ot care about the fctioal aspects

o Artapaus arrative, oe ca still claim that he was iterested i idetity

ormatio. Johsos aalysis o the major poits i the Joseph ad Moses stories

are sesitive, showig icely how Artapaus sought to balace the Jewish tradinn

tio o the Exodus ad the cotemporary reality o lie i the Egyptia diaspora

(107). Artapaus simultaeously respods to the sladerous accusatios o

Maetho ad argues that Jews ca hold to their ative traditios and live amog

Egyptias whose way o lie they could regard with what Johso calls beevonn

let tolerace (107). Here, however, two o Johsos argumets almost ru at

couter purposes or at least do ot dovetail as icely as she would like. I am ot

coviced that oe eeds deliberate fctioal alsifcatio or misrepresetatio to

establish that a author was iterested i idetity ormatio.

The other issue that strikes me is Johsos use o the phrases didactic

purpose, moral truth, ad Helleistic Jewish idetity as i they are syoynn

mous (she makes these idetifcatios especially i her coclusios o page 218).

To costrue these categories so broadly rus the risk o makig them meaignn

less. Johso wats to emphasize the diversity o the works that have bee idenn

tifed as Jewish fctios; ideed, she says, The deliberate creatio o fctios

about the past cuts across almost every divisio withi Helleistic Jewish literann

ture (218). Yet the implicit equatio o the three cocepts threates to collapsethe diverse works ito oe large category, a result that cuts agaist the grai o

what Johso clearly wats to achieve. She reers throughout to the didactic

purpose o the works she examies, but i some cases I am ot sure about that

characterizatio. Johso thiks, or example, that she ca discer a didactic

poit i Josephus source or the Tobiad Tales, but she ultimately ascribes a politnn

ical purpose to the tale: I suggest that the author o the Tales o the Tobiads

similarly sought to costruct a model o political iteractio or the Hasmoeas,

but oe with a slightly dieret ideological orietatio. This pronPtolemaic

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rule (91). It seems to me that such political ideology has didactic itet i oly

the very broadest o seses, ad certaily ot i the trasparetly istructioal

maer ecoutered i such works as Proverbs, Tobit, or the Wisdom o BeSira. Or to take aother example, I am ot sure that we ca state that Artapaus

is proerig moral truth. Johso is primarily ocused o the ormatio o Jewish

idetity. I order to costruct idetity, a author could employ didactic or

istructioal material, moral lessos, political ideology or eve the truth. The

sources ad orms might be diverse, but the literary techiques or rames work

well i a eort to shape the way that particular Jews uderstad themselves i

relatio to their surroudig cultural eviromet.

Noetheless, Johso eectively demostrates that very dieret sorts o Jewish

textseve i they do ot orm a specifc gereshape the Jewish past i the service

o cotemporary attempts to create a Jewish idetity. I am sure that maipulatig the

past as a meas o shapig preset idetity was as eective i atiquity as it is today. A

moder devicethe medium o flmserves or compariso. It would be hard to

accout or certai cotemporary America attitudes toward beig America ad

about the coutrys role i the world without takig ito cosideratio several geerann

tios o war flms, stretchig rom flms like To Hell and Back (1955), The Deer Hunter

(1978), Apocalypse Now (1979), to the more recet Platoon (1986) ad Saving Private

Ryan (1998). Such flms create, rame, ad reiorce may o the dieret ways that

Americas see themselves, but also project a America idetity to onAmerica

viewers. Johsos study reveals how aciet Jewish historical fctios would have

served some o the same purposes. They provided a ramework or some Jews touderstad themselves i relatio to the domiat culture ad oered aswers about

what costituted beig Jewish; they eve suggested ways or Jews to participate i that

culture while remaiig Jewish at the same time. For a getile who might read them,

they also projected a picture o a commuity ready to cooperate with those amog

whom they lived.

Alog this vei, Carol Newsoms The Self as Symbolic Space tackles the rhetorical

world o Qumra, particularly i the Serekh HanYahad ad the Hodayot. Her

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cover a etire area, Newsom does ot ited her studies to be exhaustive, but she

shows how they do serve to suggest certai ways i which the sect costructed

distictive forms of self ad commuity (347). Drawig o the work of theoristssuch as Keeth Burke, Mikhail Bakhti (ad his followers), Louis Althusser, ad

Michel Foucault, Newsom examies the commuitys discourse as it appears i

these texts, because [d]iscourse does ot oly form commuities; it forms persos

as well (12). Newsom observes that eve i cases for which idetity is ot the

primary issue, the way that a society talks about various matters bears o what it

meas to be a perso. Discourse forms subjects, both i its speakig to a subject

ad i the subjects act of speakig. The possibilities preseted by such aalyses for

studyig Secod Temple literature are may, as Newsom realizes: This discursive

approach to the formatio of subjectivity is obviously rich i implicatios for the

study of Secod Temple Judaism, where it is possible to discer the discourse of a

umber of possible selves ad to locate the cultivatio of a distictive form of

subjectivity at Qumra as a part of its work i cotestig other discourses (14).

The sectaria discourse at Qumra thus is ot simply a mumblig to itself, to use

Newsoms phrase, but rather a couterndiscourse that cotests the domiat

discourse, the practices of the establishmet. Yet, that couterndiscourse is

directed ot to outsiders but to isiders. Hece, the discourse of the commuity

ad that of the self have a costitutive relatioship. Newsom especially focuses o

the discourse of the self at Qumra, as there the self emerges as a particularly

productive symbolic space i the sectaria world (19).

I aalyzig the Serekh HanYahad, Newsom accepts the coclusios ofPhilip Alexader ad Geza Vermes i their DJD editio that the Serekh, espenn

cially its 1QS recesio, served as a guide for the Maskil to prepare him for work

as a spiritual leader i the commuity. She argues that the rhetorical structure

recapitulates the differet stages of sectaria lifemotivatio, admissio,

istructio, life together, ad leadershipad that the differet sectios of the

work are textual samples of the commuitys life, values, ad ethos (135).

Newsom locates the fuctio of the Two Spirits Treatise, which was origially

a idepedet compositio, withi the Serekhs broader descriptio of the

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the way they create a fgured world i which the idetity o the sectaria gets

costructed. The iitial sectio o the Serekh presets the commuity as a place

o disciplie; give the relatioship betwee commuity as discipliary istitunntio ad the kowledge o the sel, Newsom argues that the Two Spirits Treatise

comprises what oe eeds to kow about oesel i order to be willig to submit

to the discipliary power o the commuity (127).

By havig his subjectivity ormed via the kowledge cotaied i the Two

Spirits Treatise, the sectaria ca ulfll the goal o the sectaria lie, to walk

perectly beore [God] i accordace with all the thigs that have bee revealed

(1:89). The treatise describes each idividual as a imbalaced combiatio o

two spiritsoe o truth ad oe o perversitythat together costitute volitio.

But the work also cotais the laguage o predestiatio, ad a image o

struggle mediates betwee these two aspects. Eve the sectaria caot ully

escape the seductios o perversity (134),but by iteralizig this kowledge,he ca gai eschatological reward through a process o purifcatio that leads him

to submit to the disciplies o the commuity. The Serekh HanYahad is a

istrumet or creatig a sectaria idetity i which the ovice eters a fgured

world, participates i its social practices, ad lears to speak its laguage. It is

roughly shaped as a virtual experiece o discourse ad praxis that members

would experiece as they etered the commuity ad became icreasigly profnn

ciet participats i its fgured world (187). The Maskil ca be see to persoiy

the commuity ad also uctios as a paradigm or a subjectivity ully ormed

by the kowledge ad disciplies o the commuity (190).Whe she ocuses o the Hodayot, Newsom turs to other aspects o the ormann

tio o idetity at Qumra. The Hodayot are ote divided ito two mai groups: the

Hodayot o the Teacher or leader i which the speakig I is a persecuted leader o

the commuity, ad the Hodayot o the commuity i which the I represets ordinn

ary members. Oe importat task o the volutary sectaria commuity would be to

separate ew members rom their old idetities ad to give them ew oes: They had

to be made ito subjects o a ew discourse (193). To do so, Newsom argues, the

sectaria commuity had to atted to two sides o the same coi: (1) makig problemnn

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uctio o the sects couterndiscourse, its challege to the domiat discourse(s) o

other commuities.

The commuity Hodayot, especially i their use o the proous I ad you ithe cotext o addressig God (through prayer), are essetially dialogical speech. The

act o costructig God i these texts thereore costructs the speaker at the very same

time. Cosequetly, both this process ad the various ways that the speaker iserts

himsel ito the prayer idicate the ways i which the speakers sectaria idetity gets

ormed. The frstnperso strategy o the Hodayot is particularly iterestig as it ecesnn

sarily opes a gap betwee the speaker o the text ad the I withi the text. Newsom

calls this a sel corotatio that might be expressed i the laguage o the geeral

huma coditio or i frstnperso laguage. I either case, this selnreeretial attenn

tio produces a momet o judgmet ad horrifed recoil (215), sice [t]he recoginn

tio o the observed sel throws ito questio the kowledge ad discourse that is

costitutive o the observig sel (216). This seemigly schizoid divisio o the sel as

both a subject o kowledge ad a object o kowledge is cultivated as a experiece

that holds the clue to who oe is (215).

The sel i the Hodayot is costituted i relatio to the divie other ad to the

huma other. I relatio to the divie, sectaria subjectivity orms aroud the otio

o the speaker as oe who kows (i.e., is the subject o kowledge) ad who is kow

(i.e., is the object o kowledge). A dieret dyamic, oe o idetity, pertais whe

the other is huma. Eve i such cases as 1QH(a) 11:118, which, i depictig the sel

beset by Gods eemies, would seem to project the egative outside o the sel ad help

it to defe its boudaries, the egative is ot so easily dismissed. This is so because theworldview o the sect projects a distressig similarity betwee the huma other ad

the sel, because those whom God has chose possess whatever righteousess they

have due to Gods geerosity ad ot because o actors itrisic to themselves. They

thus caot ully escape some idetifcatio with Gods eemies. The sectaria must

corot this ambiguity, ad it is oly resolved through the recogitio that the diernn

ece betwee sel ad other is oud i diviely give kowledge, which prepares the

sectaria i learig dispositios o humility ad a willigess to submit to the reornn

derig o his sel accordig to the will o God as expressed i the sect ad its leadernn

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The Hodayot o the leader accomplish the same ed. Newsom accepts the posinn

tio that leaders o the sect would have used these texts, ad i them she sees the

symbolic world o these compositios as oe i which the leader defes boudaries,coers spiritual beefts o the members, explais the mysteries o relatios with

outsiders, deals with disaectio, ad through selnpresetatio ecourages loyalty.

Hece, these Hodayot corot the problems o maitaiig commuity. The

Hodayot might ot deal explicitly with the specifcs o commual structure as does

the Serekh HanYahad, but they provide the sectaria with essetial kowledge that

eables him to acquiesce to the discipliary commuity.

The precedig summary does ot do justice to Newsoms complex ad

uaced sets o argumets. At every poit, her costructio o the discourses o

the Serekh ad Hodayot challeges ad provokes. Her aalysis o the discourse(s)

discovered i these works opes a asciatig widow ito sectaria idetity,

especially as it is costructed through disciplie ad kowledge. Newsom otes

that [t]his discursive world o Qumra was oe o immese richess ad

complexity (351), ad her aalysis o the Serekh ad Hodayot certaily cofrms

that assessmet. She cocludes by coectig the sects costructio o kowlnn

edge with its essetial purpose, to create a commuity perect i torah (351). To

accomplish this would require kowledge o may thigs: ot oly what God

had revealed cocerig torah itsel, but also the pla o God expressed i

cosmology, history, ad eschatology. O cetral importace, however, was kowlnn

edge o huma ature itsel, both i its structural aspects ad as it was disclosed

i the selnkowledge that came to idividuals through lie i the sect (351).To highlight just a sigle cocer about Newsoms project, I would choose the

uses o the texts that she examies withi the lie o the sect. Oe might argue that

the Qumra texts refecta sectaria idetity (what oe might call a weaker claim), or

oe could maitai, as I thik Newsom does, that the texts actually orm or constructa

sectaria idetity through their use (a stroger claim). Yet the texts would oly ucnn

tio as creators o idetity to the extet that they were i act cotiually recited or

read by iitiates or ordiary members o the sect. That, however, is precisely what

seems most ukow about them. Is, or example, the Serekh addressed to the Maskil

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uctio has more to do with ormatio tha iormatio (103), but i the work ucnn

tios as a guide or the Maskil ad ot, or example, as a istructioal book or

icomig members, how exactly does its discourse costruct a iitiates idetity?There is o doubt i my mid that Newsom has detly revealed the way that the text

creates the fgured world o a discipliary commuity, but I still do ot have a good

sese o how it might be used i specifc social cotexts to detach the ovice rom his

old idetity ad orge a ew ad more sectaria subjectivity. How, or example, would

the ovice be coroted with the Two Spirits Treatise ad the selnkowledge that he

required? I some cases, o course, it is easy to uderstad the ways i which certai

materials might have uctioed. Oe ca easily imagie the eorcemet o the peal

code or ca accept that strict adherece to hierarchy i the meetigs o the sect

occurred i the maer Newsom suggests, as a meas o regulatig the sel, but I am

less clear about how rhetorical demads o the Serekh HanYahad oud their way

dow to the ovice whose subjectivity required renormatio.

The same issue is relevat to the Hodayot, but perhaps i a more acute way.

Newsom recogizes the uaswered questios related to their compositio ad

use i the commuity, ad she also otes the almost complete absece o the sort

o structures o the commuity oud i the Serekh (349). Who recited or read

these prayers? Were they icorporated ito the ritual lie o the commuity? I

sectarias did ot recite them, ad eve i the prayers preseted the ideal o

sectaria idetity, how would they have bee employed i sectaria lie to

costruct the subjectivity that Newsom so eloquetly describes?

Raisig these questios does ot mitigate the orce o Newsoms aalysis othe discourse o these texts, but it does restore to ceter stage the cocrete histornn

ical questios that all three authors, each i his or her ow way, relegate to the

backgroud. Eve though their primary iterest is ot i what happeed i ay

traditioal sese, their eterprises still remai iextricably tied to certai kids

o historical questios ad recostructios. Cultures, idetities, subjectivities,

ad subjects are all orged i real persos who live i real historical circumnn

staces. Weitzma, Johso, ad Newsom all are acutely aware o this act, but

each approaches the matters dieretly. Each o their mai argumets depeds

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Jews, ad he explicitly appeals to the uctio o the literature withi those

particular cotexts. Jewish imagiatio ad storytellig costitute reactios to

real situatios that ca be recostructed with some certaity. Thus, the rhetoricalstrategies that Weitzma idetifes as the arts o cultural persistece (6) are

meaigul iasmuch as they respod to realnlie circumstaces about which we

ca kow certai details. For example, he doubts the accout o Cyrus retur o

the Temple vessels as described i Ezra 1, ad argues that the accout is shaped

by a mythnlike literary structure that obscures what actually occurred (19). Yet,

i tryig to uderstad the payo o this exercise i mythic imagiatio,

Weitzma grouds his iterpretatio i the very real world o ative scribes ad

their uctios i their respective societiesa world that he thiks we ca kow

airly well. Whereas the arrative might be a fctioal act o imagiatio iteded

to mediate betwee oreig power ad Jewish cultural iterests, the clue to that

itetio, or perhaps the basis or it, is discovered i the historical circumstaces

i which the authors o these works oud themselves. Which o these two

elemets domiates this symbiotic relatioship seems to vary rom oe act o

imagiatio to aother. I fd it hard to thik that Weitzma could make his

case or Ezra without the fengraied recostructio o Ezras historical world

that he employs. I oe looks at battlefeld rituals ivokig the support o the

deity, oe eeds a less detailed historical picture. To aalyze such rituals i the

way that he does, Weitzma requires oly the kowledge that the Hasmoeas

took to the battlefeld ad ought. Eve so, the War Scroll represets a more

complicated case, sice we have to try to imagie whether the Qumra sectariasactually believed that it told the way the coict would uold. Geerally,

Weitzmas argumetthat these texts are the products o storytellig ad

imagiatio employed i the eterprise o cultural persistecedepeds o

makig historical recostructios with some kid o cofdece.

Johsos approach might be see as movig i a opposite directio. That is, her

ocus o fctioalizatio seems to allow her some distace rom the what happeed;

she ca thus cocetrate o the way that the literature uctios to costruct idetity.

But Johso does ot distace hersel quite as much as she might like rom matters

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achored to a traditioal otio o historical truth, though she is iterested i istaces

o iversio o, rather tha adherece to, that truth. I have already raised some quesnn

tios about Johsos otio o deliberate fctioalizatio; I do ot thik, or example,that to accout or the impact oAristeaswe eed to assume that the author delibernn

ately but iaccurately iserted Demetrius o Phalerum ito the story o the Septuagits

origis or that at least the more sophisticated members o his audiece kew this

(38). But I do believe it is importat or uderstadig the discourse o Aristeas to

recogize certai eatures iheret to it; or example, it is useul to kow that it is a

secodncetury Alexadria Jewish text, separated rom the traslatio o the

Septuagit by at least a cetury, ad that it thus reects the Jewish commuitys iternn

ests ad axieties i this latter period, ot i the earlier oe.

Newsoms work proceeds rom a dieret methodological perspective, oe that

ostesibly releases the texts rom the moorigs o broader, traditioal historical quesnn

tios more tha does Weitzmas ad Johsos. Whe she claims that the discourse

o Qumra creates a alterative fgured world ad selnidetity, thereby critically

egagig other orms o cotemporary Judaism (21), her argumet does ot ivoke

some particular set o historical recostructios. But Newsoms argumets rely ot

oly, as I have argued above, o certai assessmets o the use withi the sectaria

commuity o the texts that she studies, but also o a broader uderstadig o the

relatioship betwee the sect ad outsiders. Newsom writes about the domiat

discourse o a society agaist which couterndiscourses, such as those at Qumra, are

directed. She calls this domiat discourse elusive, ad ideed it wouldbe sice, as

she otes, the domiat discourse ca be idetifed as precisely what goes withoutsayig. It is what everybody kows . . . (17). Perhaps that domiat discourse ca be

recostructed through examiig the iterruptive or disruptive (18) eatures o the

couterndiscourse. For istace, Newsom examies what she calls the couterndiscurnn

sive jostligs over oe cetral cultural symbol, torah, ad i the struggle over the

meaig o torah, the silet iterstices o the domiat discourse might emerge

through the voice o the couterndiscourse. It might also be ecessary to gai a more

traditioal historical sese o what the domiat power structures were, i order to

hear the ull rage o toes i these texts.

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Weitzmas ad Johsos that do ot assume that we moders wil l or the most

part remai i the dark about what took place log ago. Ad eve though

Newsoms study eschews most worries about the evets o arrative history, Iam coviced that she has shed sigifcat light o the way that the Serekh Han

Yahad ad the Hodayot uctioed i creatig ad sustaiig a sectaria idetity

i that isolated commuity. Eve i the ace o difculties ad diereces, the

commo problem occupyig these three studies revolves aroud determiig the

most satisactory mechaisms or relatig Jewish imagiatio, storytellig,

fctio, or idetity(ies) as they are represeted i Secod Temple Jewish literature,

comparig them to realnlie circumstaces i which these works took shape. All

three scholars successully illumiate vital aspects o Secod Temple Jewish

culture ad literature ad the roles that writte texts played i the lives o Jews i

this period. Whatever critical questios we might raise about these studies, all

three authors preset careul ad lucid argumets, ad they have moved the

coversatio decidedly orward. I their wake, we kow much more tha we did

previously, ad we have much richer ways o thikig about the productio,

uctios, ad uses o texts i atiquity.

Benjamin G. Wright

Departmet o Religio Studies

Lehigh Uiversity

N O T e s

* I am grateul to Tzvi Novick or his careul readig o a earlier drat o this essay

ad or his valuable suggestios.

1 Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life(Berkeley: Uiversity o Calioria

Press, 1984).

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