Cover: Out of the Cave: A Philosophical Inquiry into the Dead Sea Scrolls Research, from Harvard University PressCover: Out of the Cave in HARDCOVER

Out of the Cave

A Philosophical Inquiry into the Dead Sea Scrolls Research

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HARDCOVER

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$75.00 • £65.95 • €68.95

ISBN 9780674022232

Publication Date: 05/15/2006

Short

168 pages

6 x 9 inches

7 halftones

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  • Preface
  • Introduction
  • 1. Writings and Ruins: The Essene Connection
    • Overview
    • Setting the Stage
      • Discovery
      • Reception and Expectations
      • Scholarship
      • Popular Interest
    • The Problem of Identification
    • The Emergence of the Qumran–Essene Hypothesis
      • Yadin
      • De Vaux
    • The Linkage Argument
      • The Weak Version
      • De Vaux’s Strong Version
    • The Strength of the Linkage Argument
      • The Links
      • Resilience and Consilience
      • Elasticity and Co-optation
        • Who Were the Essenes?
        • The Composition of the Qumran Library
  • 2. A Hard Look at “Hard Facts”: The Archaeology of Qumran
    • The Fantasy
      • The Chain of Events
      • The Fantasy in Detail
      • Formation and Confirmation
    • The Method
      • Leaving Traces
      • Reasoning about the Traces
      • Background Expectations
      • Prior Probabilities, Posterior Probabilities, and Interpretation
    • The Task
      • A Two-Way Split
      • Examples
        • Negating Findings
        • Affirming Findings: Ritual Baths
        • Affirming Findings: Scriptorium
        • Affirming Findings: The Yahad Ostracon
      • Threshold Effects
    • Assessment
      • Test or Presumption?
      • Confirmation Bias
    • Framing Finds as Facts
      • Artifacts
      • The Case of the Bone Deposits
      • Facts under Description
    • Uniqueness
      • The Scroll Jars, the Glass Assemblage, and the Hatchet
      • The Copper Scroll
  • 3. Sects and Scholars
    • The “Scrolls Sect”
    • Why “Sect”?
    • To Be a Sect
      • Traits Shared by Sects
      • Sectarian Traits of the Dead Sea Group
      • Celibacy and Geographic Center
    • Which Sect?
      • Heterodoxy and Orthodoxy
      • Political Power and Religious Power
      • Protest against Whom?
      • Sadducees or Pharisees?
    • The Calendar
      • A Deviant Calendar
      • What Difference Does a Different Calendar Make?
    • Ideology or Practice?
      • Christian Agendas
      • The Spiritual Picture
      • Changed Circumstances, Different Picture
      • Examples and Further Observations
    • Scholarly Anxieties and Motivated Agendas
  • Bibliography
  • Index

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