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The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls & Related Literature)

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The archaeology and scriptural/textual studies of the Dead Sea Scrolls have held the public imagination for much of the past half-century. Since the first Scrolls were discovered not far from the ancient site of Qumran in the late 1940s, there has been an air of mystery and intrigue around them unlike almost any other archaeological find. This is largely because of the association with the text of the Bible and the undeniable impact it has had on modern culture. The book The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls is a welcome addition to the ranks of basic introductory texts on the topic.

The author, Jodi Magness, is on the faculty of the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. Her professional interests centre largely on early Judaism, and include such topics as ancient pottery, ancient synagogue architecture and construction, the role of the Roman Army in the Eastern Empire, and, of course, the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Qumrani settlement. An experienced field archaeologist, she has participated in twenty different excavations in the Middle East and Greece, including work at Masada, the great fortress in the south of Israel that was a `last stand' spot during the Jewish revolt against the Romans.

An Introduction to the Archaeology of Qumran
In her first chapter, Magness looks at the basics of Qumran. Not a tourist hot-spot until fairly recently, for much of its excavation history it has been a desolate and remote location. One problem Magness highlights is that the primary person associated with archaeological excavation of Qumran, Roland de Vaux, who was also part of the controversial scroll research and translation team, never published a final report on his archaeological studies. There were several preliminary and introductory reports (not all of which have been made available in English translation to this day), but de Vaux died before finishing. Truth be told, this is not a problem unique to de Vaux or to Qumran, and publications such as Biblical Archaeology Review have highlighted the problem of archaeologists who do not follow through with their research by putting it into publication.

Magness cautions against looking at her work as anything definitive. This is more of an introduction and overview of the current state of affairs. She gives further in this chapter a brief introduction for the untrained in archaeological methodology, a survey of dating techniques, and a look at why Qumran is controversial. Arachaeology is far from an exact science; dependent upon interpretation and knowledge of ancient human behaviours, it is subject to multiple interpretations and constant revision in the light of new finds. Qumran is awash in multiple interpretations as to the nature of the community there and the use of rooms and artifacts found there.

Subsequent chapters cover the following topic in some detail, outlining continuing areas of question and controversy, as well as Magness's own theories.

-The Discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Exploration of Qumran
-The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Community at Qumran
-The Buildings and Occupation Phases of Qumran
-What Do Pottery and Architecture Tell Us about Qumran?
-Communal Meals, a Toilet, and Sacred Space at Qumran
-Miqva'ot at Qumran
-Women and the Cemetery at Qumran
-The Temple Tax, Clothing, and the Anti-Hellenizing Attitude of the Sectarians

The Settlements at Ein Feshkha and Ein el-Ghuweir

Magness concludes by looking at two settlements also at the north end of the Dead Sea that have a relationship with Qumran. She describes the layout and buildings, as well as some of the finds associated with them. Magness is wary of direct connections being assumed between Qumran and these other nearby settlements. In some cases time frame conflicts, and in others simply a lack of any direct evidence leads to her suspicion. However, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence and she allows that there might have been relationship between the three sites.

Extra stuff
At the beginning of the book is a brief introduction followed by a series of plates, maps and line-art drawings. Sixty-six figures in all, these are all placed up front for ready reference, as many will be useful and referred to again and again throughout the text of the chapters.

In addition to these chapters, Magness includes indexes in several different categories. There is an index by Author and Contemporary Historical Figures; there is an index of Scrolls, Biblical Books, Extrabiblical Books, and Historical Figures; and there is an index of Sites and Place Names. These, in addition to the general index, make this a very practical and useful book for ready research.

At the conclusion of each chapter, Magness has a narrative bibliography directing the reader/researcher to more broad and in-depth information about the topics discussed. Given the recent publication date, this information makes this text a great ready-reference resource for further Dead Sea Scroll and Qumran research.

In this well-written study Jodi Magness helps us see how people lived at Qumran and why they did things as they did. Unlike many scholars, Jodi Magness is persoanl in her reporting and evaluating. She speaks from experience as a working archaeologist. The Intoduction the Archaeology of Qumran is a fascinating overview of the field. Maps and illustrations add to the value of the introduction and the chapters which follow. Each of the ten chapters has an extensive bibliography to encourage in-depth study. Reading this book will not only add depth to Bible study but it will challenge the reader to see and appreciate more the world around him. What do the items found in our own backyards tell about people who lived where we do? Jodi Magness teaches in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has participated in 20 different excavations in Israel and Greece.

Prof. Magness, an archaeologist with extensive relevant experience, provides in this book a fine treatment of the archaeology of Qumran, the site associated with the Dead Sea Scrolls. Associated, that is, by archaeology, as well as by proximity and by the content of the scrolls and external sources. This is now the best interpretation of the evidence--and she directly engages the material realia--currently in print, to my knowledge. Of course, as she acknowledges, this will not be the last word on the subject, as some excavated evidence has not yet been published. But enough is known of the material culture to explore many aspects of the site and its usage and chronology.
She analyses many of the previous proposals and shows several of them to be not credible. While I don't agree on every detail (e.g., the "toilet" might be listed with a question mark, as previously, pending further data) and while I could add--as could she!--more observations (e.g. for me, that Pliny's source on Essenes wrote circa 15 BCE; that the etymology of "Essenes" from Hebrew self-designations in the DSS, 'osey hatorah, observers of torah is increasingly recognized [she notes the option]), it's a pleasure to read this book. It is clearly written and well-informed (bibliographies are provided), unlike, for instance, the approach that denies Essenes while denying denying Essenes (as too hard to know, so bracket them out, yet use Josephus for all other subjects, including those harder to know), or the approach that alternates from saying goodbye to Essenes and then that Essenes cannot be located (how then are they to be excluded?--can't have it both ways). Subjects include: archaeology and dating methods; discoveries; DSS and Q community; buildings and occupation phases; pottery and architecture; communal meals, toilet, and sacred space; miqva'ot [ritual baths]; women; the cemetery; temple tax, clothing, and anti-Hellenizing attitude; Ein Feshkha and Ein Ghuweir. It includes indexes and 36 pages of b/w illustrations.

Amid all the scholarly debates, academic rivalries and imaginative theorists, the general reader needs an objective, factual, readable account of the ruins at Qumran and what they tell us about the people who lived there. This book fulfills this need.

Aimed, it seems, rather more at the academic scholar, the book offers some useful insights into the archaeology of Qumran and its associated sites - evidenced by the academic level of the above reviews. For the lay person, however, it will prove rather hard going.
Magness is a consensus supporter, but it is refreshing to read some subjects looked at from a feminine viewpoint; a direction most consensus and other male commentators rarely bother to address. She thus considers the role of women in the 'Essene' set up, in terms of dress, burial, adornments, artefacts, and ritual participation, more acutely than others.
In supporting the main contentions of Roland de Vaux and the Ecole team, she follows the main line, that Qumran was a sectarian settlement and the occupants wrote and possessed what are referred to as the Dead Sea Scrolls. In the light of the evidence, which she sets out rather well, and the conclusions of other high-powered scholars like George Brooke, Geza Vermes, Rohrhirsch, Schiffman, Lim etc it is perplexing that some other, quite respected scholars, still persist in postulating weired theories about the purpose of the Qumran Community. A test of their credibility in this respect is that they are invariably lone voices, with few supporters, touting theories that conflict with all the other lone voices as well as the mainstream. Their voices tend to become increasingly strident and ears increasingly muffled as they become more isolated. Magness has little time for these alternative theories, and shows it somewhat abrasively.
If there are weaknesses in her presentation they relate to her historical analyses. As she rightly points out herself archaeologists look at materials and historians look at texts. As an archaeologist she is strong in the former area but weak in the latter and perhaps should not have expressed so many strong opinions on matters of historical texts. For instance she refers to the Copper Scroll, as being insribed on "sheets of bronze". How can copper be bronze? All the analytical evidence shows that the original materials was at least 99% pure copper. She states the Masoretic Text became authoritative c 100 CE, whereas the Masoretic Text was not standardised until the 10th century CE. She misunderstands the relationship of the Yahad (Community)stream to the First Temple, let alone the Second and the significance of the Essenes in relations to the New Testament.
Magness is on firmer ground with her archaeological assessments, but even here her new chronology is not completely convincing. She has the 'Essenes' coming to Qumran c 100 BCE wherreas de Vaux estimates 130 BCE, and I favour an even earlier date. Part of her reasoning is that "De Vaux found no coins associated with Period 1a", whereas he found pottery and at least 11 coins dated to c135 BC. In considering the numismatics of the site she makes no mention that a huge proportion of the original finds have 'gone missing', which together with the fact that de Vaux's orignal notes have still not been made available, means any firm chronology is even more difficult to determine.
One uncorrected typo gives the distance of Cave 4 to Khirbet Qumran as 500 m, whereas it is actually more like 250 m. This is particularly unfortunate as the proximity of Cave 4 is significant in making the case for a connectioon between the caves and the settlement.
When it comes to digging around in the cemetery there is one statement that needs explanation, especially in relation to my own recently published study. Magness refers to nine skeletons that were recently discovered in storage in Jerusalem. This statement conflicts with other reports.

Most work on Qumran & the Dead Sea Scrolls is of a theological nature. This is the finest work I have found from an archaeological perspective. It is technical enough for the professionals and interesting for the lay people. It was a fitting prelude to visiting the actual exhibit.

"The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls" is somewhat of a misnomer. The book is a species of archaeological apology for the Essene Hypothesis, the belief that Qumran was a sectarian settlement. In Tel Aviv 27 (2000) Jodi Magness and David Amit presented a response to Yizhar Hirschfeld's "A Settlement of Hermits above `En Gedi" to which Hirschfeld provided a rejoinder (not cited in Magness's bibliographic notes) in which he mentioned two methodological flaws in their response, the first, "the erroneous use of sectarian writings found at Qumran as a historical source for analysis of the archaeology of the Essenes" and the second, "the indiscriminant application of Josephus's general descriptions of the Essenes to the Essenes of the Judean Desert." Magness is still working under the same misconception, ie that she can assume that the similarities (with the site and with Josephus's reports of the Essenes) found in the "sectarian" scrolls are sufficient to presume that the texts represent the Essenes and the site.

As a functional alternative hypothesis to the Essene production of the scrolls has been put forward, ie that the scrolls came from Jerusalem religious circles, one must wonder how Magness can opt for a hypothesis which explains fewer of the facts manifested regarding the scrolls, such as why there are at least 700 scribal hands visible in the 850 scrolls, or why the (elected) leaders of a celibate community should be hereditarily defined as the "sons of Zadok", or why so many of the features we learn about the Essenes from classical sources are contradicted in the scrolls or the archaeology.

For the last of these though an interesting fudge has been employed regarding Josephus, ie that he reports only those things that took his fancy and not the whole truth. This means that when one comes across something which apparently contradicts Josephus's indications, such as a toilet within the settlement, one can say that Josephus wasn't interested in such mundane things or perhaps simply didn't know about it. But this type of analysis then leads to arbitrary choice of which facts suits one's theories.

The toilet should be a warning to Magness to rethink her analysis, yet she has attempted to defend it at least four times in print (this being merely the latest), recognizing that its presence contradicts the classical information we know about the Essenes. Worse than the toilet is her analysis of the large room she calls a dining room. This is because in the room next door there were found a thousand odd eating bowls and assorted ceramic wares, so it must have been a "pantry". It is incredible enough that her sources advocate about 120-150 diners, meaning that these diners must have had at least four bowls each, considering Josephus tells us "the cook serves only one bowlful of one dish to each man." (BJ 2,8,5; 2.131), but more reasonable estimates of the population of Qumran based on analyses of archaeologist Joseph Patrich would be 20-50, meaning around twelve bowls per person. Yet more incredible, if this were a dining room, is the location of the kitchen which is on the other side of the settlement. Obviously we are not dealing with a dining room, and the room next door simply wasn't a "pantry". Qumran had at least two potter's kilns in operation and was a producer of ceramics. The wares found in the pantry were a store of fresh pottery which was destroyed by an earthquake. There was another, smaller store of pottery found near the round cistern as well.

(Patrich surveyed the flat areas around Qumran but found no sign of tell-tale traces of permanent tent dwelling; he also checked most of the caves for evidence of permanent living; but in both cases the lack of evidence spoke against the possibility. This led Hanan Eshel and Magen Broshi to propose that the elusive Essenes must have lived elsewhere in caves most of which are now destroyed, but they have as yet provided any solid evidence.)

Though I have mentioned only a few, there are in fact so many problems brought about by Magness's apology for the Essenes it prevents her, despite her vast knowledge of the archaeology, from giving a reasoned presentation of Qumran archaeology. She is unable to contemplate any of those theories she sets out to belittle. Yet if it weren't for the Donceels' erroneous analysis of Qumran as a villa (occasioned by their effort to understand the anomalies of the site which lay hidden in de Vaux's notes), we would not be in a better position to understand Qumran as an economic centre that it should be seen as today. Archaeologists are rethinking Qumran. Hirschfeld now has a book, "Qumran in Perspective", which reviews all the archaeology of Qumran and presents a rather different interpretation. Yitzak Margen and Yuval Peleg have found more evidence that we are dealing with a well-to-do settlement.

"The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls" is a reactionary book which doesn't help us understand Qumran. It is too busy saying why other theories are wrong, due to the author's adoption of her variety of the status quo theory. It does have a few good chapters at the end of the book which are less involved in her apology and more to do with archaeology. The book also has some good diagrams to help one understand the different zones of the site and their local developments. I recommend that this book be read with caution, as it is very hard to find a single fact unadorned with polemic.

Jodi Magness points out in the introduction to her book that there are two reasons why fringe theories about the Dead Sea Scrolls are numerous. The second is that "we tend to side with the underdogs." The first reason is that controversy sells. Magness shows why the available archaeological evidence supports the basic conclusions of Roland de Vaux. The scrolls and the Qumran settlement are related. The scrolls were owned by a sectarian group. The settlement is not a villa rustica. Etc. Yet Magness does not rubber stamp the work of de Vaux. For example she sets forth her own chronology of the settlement.

This book is not for people who subscribe to fringe theories. There are no Christian writings found among the scrolls. Nor are the scrolls a depository of the Temple either in 62 BCE or 68 CE. There used to be a sect known as the Essenes who lived at Khirbet Qumran...

This book is the best primer out there for those interested in learning about the "Essene Hypothesis," or the theory that Qumran was inhabited by the Essene Jewish sect as described by Josephus which also produced all of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Magness is a good author and presents an easy-to-follow outline in which she uses textual and archaeological evidence to buttress her claims.

Magness also leaves out the considerable body of evidence that does not support her conclusions. In the opinion of several scholars, she traffics in assumptions, overinterprets the material evidence, and many of her exegeses of textual sources are questionable.

The Essene hypothesis was the first one proposed to explain the existence of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls, back when the site and the scrolls were in the process of first being excavated and discovered (respectively) in the 1950's. Magness has stuck to the original interpretation - the only place she challenges it is in her revision of Qumran site chronology. She also refers sarcastically to scholars who have come to different conclusions.

Magness states that even though the full body of evidence (ie. field notes, material remains) is still not available from the 1950's expeditions at Qumran, it will not affect the validity of the Essene hypothesis.

In other words, the author has a firm opinion on the subject of who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls. For a balanced perspective, I would recommend following this book with work by scholars who have challenged the Essene hypothesis.

Since this is only the second work concerning Qumran that I have read I am not sure how helpful this review will be. However, I found this book to be a great read for the most part and informative concerning the matters surrounding Qumran.

The first thing that I noticed about this book was the accessibility of it. Although, I have not studied Qumran in detail I minored in anthropology and this gave me an edge into the language used in the field. Most people reading this book may not have the same background but Dr. Magness takes time to explain a few things about dating methods and always tries to make sure that she explains archaeological terms in clear non-technical language. In other words, Dr. Magness is not merely interested in talking to academics, or hearing the sound of her own voice, but she wants to talk to general audiences.

The work that she does here surveys the archaeological findings of De Vaux who excavated the site but did not publish a detailed analysis of his finds. She examines his findings and attempts to interpret what this community looked like. She makes a very good case for the idea that Qumran was not a military fort or a private villa. There seems to have been a community there and like Stegemann she thinks that this community was responsible for the production of the scrolls themselves. Her history of the finding of the scrolls by the Bedouins was scant compared with Stegemann who gave more detail to the matter. This is of course a trivial matter as her main goal had nothing to do with providing the background to the finding of the scrolls.

I think she does well interacting with historical texts such as "The Community Rule" and established a solid case for the unique style of pottery assemblages at Qumran. She explains the strange purification rituals of the Essenes showing that many of the finds such as the "miqva'ot" (bath) and the style of the pottery lend themselves as evidence for Essene occupation. I found the purification process and the community meal to interesting and especially in comparing with Biblical texts. Many of the habits described seem to resemble (imperfectly) some of the statements and ideas found in the writings attributed to the Apostle John. It certainly raises questions as to what kind of contact the biblical writer might have had with the Essene population.

I also thought she gave a fair argument for the dating issue which I cannot say is necessarily correct without further study. De Vaux thought there were 4 periods of occupations. Period IA ca. 130-100 B.C.E. was thought to be the first occupation but due to a number of problems such as almost complete lack of coinage and pottery shards (among others) Magness believes this period did not exist. Period Ib De Vaux dated from ca. 100-31 B.C.E. but Magness suggests that the community was inhabited 100-50 B.C.E. and after the a massive Earthquake was uninhabited till 31 B.C.E. After this period both scholars agree on Period III and IV.

Overall, I think the book was well done. She made a fair argument for women as part of the Qumran community but it was not necessarily quite convincing (Although, I am inclined to agree.) Despite some boring spots the book was overall very engaging and enlightening.