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How did ancient scribes interpret their own reality by means of scriptural exegesis? The essays in this volume, edited by Kristin De Troyer and Armin Lange, explore this question from various prespectives by examining the earliest known exegetical texts of Jewish origin, namely, the exegetical texts from the Qumran library. Scholars have debated the precise nature of the exegetical techniques used in the Qumran texts. To bring clarity to the discussion, this book analyzes the phenomenon of reading the present in the Qumran library and asks how far comparable phenomena can be observed in authoritative literature in ancient Israel and Judah, in the textual tradition of the Hebrew and Greek Bible, in ancient Judaism, and in early Christian literature.

Kristin De Troyer is Professor of Hebrew Bible at Claremont School of Theology in Claremont, California, and the author of five books, including Rewriting the Sacred Text: What the Old Greek Texts Tell Us about the Literary Growth of the Bible (Society of Biblical Literature, 2003). Armin Lange is Professor for Second Temple Judaism at the Institute for Jewish Studies at the University of Vienna, a member of the international team editing the Dead Sea Scrolls, and a co-editor of the journal Dead Sea Discoveries. He is the author of four books, among them, Vom prophetischen Wort zur prophetischen Tradition: Studien zur Traditions- und Redaktionsgeschichte innerprophetischer Konflikte in der Hebräischen Bibel (Mohr Siebeck, 2002).

Is It True? Hermeneutical Reading of the Present
—Christine Helmer

Pesharim: A Mirror of Self-Understanding
—Jutta Jokiranta

Contemporizing Halakic Exegesis in the Dead Sea Scrolls
—Lawrence H. Schiffman

Jeremiah and the “Diaspora Letters” in Ancient Judaism: Epistolary Communication with the Golah as Medium for Dealing with the Present
—Lutz Doering

Justifying Deviance: The Place of Scripture in Converting to a Qumran Self-Understanding
—George J. Brooke

“Reading the Present” in the Animal Apocalypse (1 Enoch 85–90)
—Loren T. Stuckenbruck

Why Has Daniel’s Prophecy Not Been Fulfilled? The Question of Political Peace and Independence in the Additions to Daniel?
—Ulrike Mittmann-Richert

Reading Deuteronomy in the Second Temple Period
—Sidnie White Crawford

Building the Altar and Reading the Law: The Journeys of Joshua 8:30–35
—Kristin De Troyer

Interpreting the Exile: The Experience of the Destruction of the Temple and Devastation of the Land
—Beate Ego

Reading the Decline of Prophecy
—Armin Lange