Literary Invention and the Mediation of Divine Knowledge at Qumran

Beskrivelse

The aim of this presentation is to explore the rhetorical function of the remarkably individualistic psalmist of the Hodayot leader-psalms. Exposed as an exclusive mediator of divine knowledge, otherwise withheld from human beings, he resembles the "seers" of the apocalypses. Seemingly the author of the Hodayot consciously worked with apocalyptic patterns in his effort to re-present traditional material in new settings, social as well as literary, and claim ultimate authority for his re-presentations: Form is as important as content in this respect: Hodayot is a collection of psalms that resembles scriptural psalms, but has some significant features of its own. The text demonstrates great creativity when it comes to development and invention of genre. This, together with the infusing of apocalyptic thinking was rhetorically productive and meaningful for the effort to promote a changing identity for the sectarian society in which the text belonged. By way of transferring the apocalyptic-like mediating figure from a common literary realm, which the Dead Sea society shared with the larger society from which it was striving to detach itself, into its own literary compositions, the author could picture divine revelation and election as applying exclusively to the sectarian society. Inventing, developing, and mixing genres made it possible to replace the dominating discourses of the surrounding society.