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This chapter examines the intellectual climate that gave rise to a creative scientific environment in the Dead Sea Scrolls community called Yahad. It first considers the antecedents of the Yahad's scientific outlook within larger movements of Judaism of the Hellenistic period, including the Enochic literature and the apocalyptic-sapiential Aramaic texts from a cave. It then outlines some of the prerequisites for the development of science as they are represented in the early Jewish tradition, along with the myths about the birth of knowledge found in the apocalyptic literature and in the literature of the Yahad. It also presents a case study from the integration of astrological and astronomical themes in Yahad literature and concludes with a discussion of the epistemological infrastructure that triggered the commitment of the Yahad to science.

This chapter lies at the heart of the book. It traces the way in which tropes and formulations initially developed in the books of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the late additions to Deuteronomy that envisioned and resolved catastrophic failure in moral agency were introduced into other post-exilic genres, notably first-person singular prayer. In this shift the speaking voice (“I”) confronts the ineradicable flaw of its own moral self (its “Me”) in a gesture of self-alienation. The objectification of certain troubling aspects of one’s own self develops an arena of intrapersonal conflict and leads toward the development of introspective practices. Some forms of this awareness, especially those nurtured in the sectarian culture of the Yahad, develop dualistic models of intrapersonal conflict in which an executive consciousness contemplates struggles taking place within its self. The most developed is found in the Two Spirits Teaching of the Serek ha-Yahad. The shift in the model of the self also involves a reconfiguration of the nature of agency.

This chapter evaluates the Qumran Hodayot (Thanksgiving Hymns) in the manuscript 1QH^a. Although the poems never entered anyone’s Bible, they nonetheless exhibit many of the dynamics seen in other texts that become scripture. Certain psalms within the collection are connected to the Maskil, the principal leader of the Yaḥad movement who claims possession of the divine spirit. The Maskil confesses esoteric knowledge reflecting a sectarian interpretation of scripture. The Maskil is called to prostrate himself like Moses, thus enacting an intercessory role for the community. The revelatory claims of the Maskil serve to sacralize the text. The youngest and most refined scroll of hodayot, 1QH^a is scripture-like in the refined character of the manuscript. The intimate and intricate relationship between liturgy and scriptural interpretation, wisdom and prophecy, and their mediation by a leader cannot be separated from a consideration of the continuing performed enactment of the hodayot.