The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

188 The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context
which are slaughtered outside of the temple are considered to be
unclean (B 18-22; HQMiqd 47.11-12); (c) to slaughter pregnant
animals is prohibited (B 36-38: see Lev. 22.28; Deut. 22.6-7); (d) the
fruits, which a tree has produced in the fourth year, should go to the
priest (B 63). Moreover, in 4QMMT B 27-34 and HQMiqd 52.13-16
(21) the issue of slaughtering outside the temple is dealt with in the
same way, but differently from the mishnaic halakhah. The rabbis
allowed profane slaughtering outside of the temple according to Deut.
12.20ff. Our letter, however, quotes from Lev. 17.13ff.: a slaughtered
animal must be brought to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting
as a sacrifice. In 4QMMT and 1 IQMiqd these two biblical commandments
are combined with the result, that the animals within a three
days distance from Jerusalem are sacred and must be slaughtered in
the temple; outside of it profane slaughtering is allowed.
One may contend, of course, that HQMiqdash is much different
from the other Qumran texts, because they do not deal with the temple
and its sacrifices; consequently, it must be a non-Essene document.
Supporting this view, L.H. Schiffman 20 finds quite a few discrepancies
in the Temple Scroll, especially over against the Zadokite Fragments
(CD). 21 But I believe that Y. Yadin, the editor of HQMiqdash, was
right in attributing this document to the Essenes. Moreover, he
identified it with the Sephdr Ha-Hagu (mentioned in CD 10.4-6; 13.2-
3; 14.6-8 22 ). I like to support Yadin's assumption from hitherto
unknown texts. They reveal the close connection between (a) CD and
4QMMT and (b) CD and the Temple Scroll. B.Z. Wacholder has
recently reconstructed and published some important fragments from
Cave 4, belonging to CD and offering a longer and more original
version of its text, preserved at the Cairo Genizah. In CD De fragm.
9.2.12-18 a list of people is given who must be considered as being
defiled and rejected by God. A similar list we find in 4QMMT B 39:
the Ammonite and Moabite, the bastard and the eunuch, are forbidden
to enter the sanctuary (see also 4QFlor 1.4; 1QM 7.5-6; 1QS a 2.3-9);
in 4QMMT B 49-54 the blind and the deaf are excluded. In
20. See his article The Sadducean Origin', pp. 44-45. According to him, the
author of 11QT (Miqdash) used older Sadducean sources.
21. See his article 'Miqsat Ma'Sse Ha-Torah and the Temple Scroll'.
22. Y. Yadin, Megillath Ha-Miqdash (Jerusalem, 1977), I, pp. 301-302,
304-305. See B.Z. Wacholder and M. Abegg, 'A Preliminary Edition of the Unpublished
Dead Sea Scrolls', Fasc. I (Washington, 1991), p. 41.