Narrative

My research concentrates on the literary heritage of Second Temple period Judaism (6th century B.C.E. – 1st century C.E.) and the important role that this literature plays in reconstructing the history and development of classical Judaism. I am also interested in literary and theological traditions among early Christian communities and their relationship to scriptural antecedents and contemporary Jewish models. The primary research prism in which I approach these questions is the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Qumran community. I teach courses related to the history and literature of Second Temple and rabbinic Judaism as well as the larger framework of Jewish history and thought. I am particularly interested in the ways that Jews in the Second Temple period continued to seek access to the divine word and will through means such as prophecy, divination, magic, mysticism, and biblical interpretation. My research also focuses on the development of post-biblical Jewish law, in particular how the formation of Jewish law is tied to prophetic and revelatory claims. My book Mediating the Divine: Prophecy and Revelation in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Second Temple Judaism (E.J. Brill, 2007), examines how the Qumran community conceptualized the meaning of prophecy and divine revelation in dialogue and in contrast with received biblical models and the evidence for ongoing prophetic activity at Qumran and in Second Temple Judaism. I recently completed a second monograph entitled Scripture and Law in the Dead Sea Scrolls (forthcoming with Cambridge University Press). It is the first work of its kind to examine legal exegesis in the Dead Sea Scrolls from the perspective of both the history of Jewish law and early biblical interpretation. My current major research project is a monograph entitled Violence, Religion, and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Religious violence, both real and imagined, frames much of the Qumran community’s history and worldview. This monograph will be the first comprehensive study of (1) the role of violence in the formation of the sectarian Qumran community, (2) the function of violence in the ordering of communal life and legitimization of sectarian ideology, and (3) the rhetoric of imagined violence against other Jews and foreign powers (especially Rome) in the end of days.