On the testimony of women in 1QSa

Dead Sea Discoveries

Volumn 3, Issue 3, 1996, Pages 223-235

  Davies, Philip R ^a   Taylor, Joan E ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD   (United Kingdom)

^b University of Wai Kato

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 60950738946     PISSN: 09290761     EISSN: 15685179     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/156851796X00011     Document Type: Review

References (17)

1. Lawrence H. Schiffman, Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls (Philadelphia and Jerusalem: Jewish Publication Society, 1994) 127-43
2. Reclaiming, 134-5
3. H. Neil Richardson, "Some Notes on 1QSa," JBL 76 (1957) 108-22
4. A. Dupont-Sommer, The Essene Writings from Qumran (Oxford: Blackwell, 1961) 104, n. 1
5. J. Baumgarten, "On the Testimony of Women in 1QSa," JBL 76 (1957) 266-9
6. reprinted in Studies in Qumran Law (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1977) 183-6
7. The most popular current English language translations disagree on this reading. G. Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls in English (London/Sheffield: Penguin Books/ Sheffield Academic Press, 1994) 120, reads an emended text
8. F. García Martínez, The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1994) 126, reads as the text stands
9. "The Woman Question and Female Ascetics Among Essenes," BA 57 (1994) 220-34; see pp. 226-30
10. "The Woman Question," 230-2
11. Beyond the Essenes: History and Ideology in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987) 73-85
12. The implication of only three periods in three years has puzzled some commentators, such as T.S. Beall, Josephus' Description of the Essenes Illustrated by the Dead Sea Scrolls (Cambridge: CUP, 1988) 112
13. and P.W. van der Horst, "Two Short Notes on Josephus," The Studia Philonica Annual 4 (1992) 59-64. But van der Horst's conclusion that two separate tests are implied, one for fertility and the other for membership of the community, is unnecessary if one understands that three menstrual periods in three years are required. It must not be forgotten that women in question are probably just beginning puberty, and thus are aged typically from twelve to fourteen years. A regular cycle is not always immediately established
14. See 11QT 66:11-17; 4Q251; CD 5:7-11; for a convenient discussion, G. Brin, Studies in Biblical Law (JSOTSup 176; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994) 113-28
15. See the discussion in Baumgarten, "The Cave 4 Versions of the Qumran Penal Code," JJS 43 (1992) 270-1
16. Philo (Special Laws 3.32) commends a man not to waste his sperm during his wife's menstruation, for, as with sowing crops during the rainy season, his seed "will be swept away by the moisture."
17. Cited by Schuller in "Women in the DSS," 124, n. 41. Brooke suggested specifically intercourse during the menstrual cycle, but the observation obviously holds good for other cases too