Familiarity With Torah and Second Temple Sacrificial Regulations and Practices
The Temple Scroll reveals a rather detailed awareness of temple sacrifices right down to precise details about animals and the sacrificial practice. An example of this precision is Column 15, beginning at verse 5:
holocaust of the ram, and the two kidneys and the fat which is on them, the loins and the tail, cut off at the coccyx, and the lobe of the liver, and its offering and its libation, according to the regulation. You shall take up a cake of unleavened bread from the] basket and a cake of oiled bread and a wafer, with the leg of the wave-offering, the right leg.
The Temple Scroll has many similar passages. This particular passage is about the annual consecration of temple priests and is derived from Leviticus 8:16 and Exodus 29:1-18. In passage after passage the writer of the Scroll reveals a familiarity with countless aspects of temple sacrificial offerings, leading one to the conclusion that he had either actually been present (and perhaps an active participant in) sacrifices in the Second Temple, or at the very least had a very thorough awareness of both written (Pentateuch/Torah) and oral sources of information regarding Jewish sacrificial practice. Johann Maier seems to favour the latter when he states:
...since Biblical passages (dealing with festivals and sacrifices) have been woven together, they should not be treated first and foremost as textual witnesses but rather as modified and adapted Biblical material.
Meier claims that "a distinct closeness to the Greek translation (the Septuagint) can at times be detected." A strong priestly influence is obvious in the Scroll, whether it originated in Qumran itself or in Jerusalem.
Read more about this topic: Temple Scroll
Famous quotes containing the words familiarity, temple, sacrificial, regulations and/or practices:
“We are rarely able to interact only with folks like ourselves, who think as we do. No matter how much some of us deny this reality and long for the safety and familiarity of sameness, inclusive ways of knowing and living offer us the only true way to emancipate ourselves from the divisions that limit our minds and imaginations.”
—bell hooks (b. 1955)
“I have often felt as though I had inherited all the defiance and all the passions with which our ancestors defended their Temple and could gladly sacrifice my life for one great moment in history. And at the same time I always felt so helpless and incapable of expressing these ardent passions even by a word or a poem.”
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)
“In every philosophical school, three thinkers succeed one another in the following way: the first produces out of himself the sap and seed, the second draws it out into threads and spins a synthetic web, and the third waits in this web for the sacrificial victims that are caught in it—and tries to live off philosophy.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“If it were possible to make an accurate calculation of the evils which police regulations occasion, and of those which they prevent, the number of the former would, in all cases, exceed that of the latter.”
—Karl Wilhelm Von Humboldt (1767–1835)
“They that have grown old in a single state are generally found to be morose, fretful and captious; tenacious of their own practices and maxims; soon offended by contradiction or negligence; and impatient of any association but with those that will watch their nod, and submit themselves to unlimited authority.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)