The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

178 The Aramaic Bible: Tar gums in their Historical Context
believes that 4QMMT confirms his view, that the Qumran caves offer
a collection of writings rescued from various libraries in Jerusalem,
instead of being Essene productions only. This pluralistic view, which
is supported by M. Wise, N. Golb's student and now colleague at
Chicago, and by P.R. Davies (to some extent also by L.H. Schiffman8),
seems to win more and more adherents since the publication of the
fragments from Cave 4. However, glancing through the 4Q photographs
published by R. Eisenman and J. Robinson, I cannot see anything
that is basically different from the theology and ethics of the
Essene texts from the Qumran caves known to us for many years. 9
We have to look at the content of 4QMMT. The editors called it a
'Halakhic Letter', containing prescriptions (haldkhoth) usually having
to do with purity, whereby the sanctity of the temple and of the priests
was a special concern. 10 In the eyes of the author of this letter these
so-called haldkhoth, which are based on certain laws for purity in
Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, were not observed correctly
by the Jerusalem priests. L.H. Schiffman, an expert on Qumran law
and rabbinic halakhah, compared this controversial letter with the
debate between the Pharisees and the Sadducees in the Mishnah, especially
m. Yad. 4.6-7. The judgment, pronounced by the author of
4QMMT, agrees with the strict position, held by the Sadducees of the
Mishnah over against the more lenient view of the Pharisees, which
must have been that of the high priest and his colleagues, criticized by
8. '... This hoard of manuscripts includes material representing a variety of
Jewish groups as well as polemics against other Jewish groups. As a result of this
new understanding, much more can be done with the scrolls' (The Sadducean
Origins', pp. 42-43. But see his criticism of N. Golb, pp. 45-46). In my view, it
was quite dangerous to hold Golb's pluralistic view over against the Essene theory of
the 'Scrollery-Team' that was familiar with the unpublished fragments from Cave 14.
9. Besides many biblical fragments, the world of the Apocrypha and
Pseudepigrapha is represented there together with texts which agree with the mentality
of the major scrolls and some wisdom literature, related to life in worldly business,
similar to that in the parables of Jesus. But these texts are quite different from
what we have in the Mishnah and from the spirit of the Sadducees of Josephus and
the New Testament; the latter did not write much anyway. I think that Josephus and
the New Testament give us very good guidelines for the understanding of the Jewish
religious groups in the time of the Second Temple.
10. According to L.H. Schiffman, the letter contains 22 halakhoth. They do not
appear in other Qumran texts with the exception of the 11Q Temple-Scroll.