The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Vantage Point on Judaism in Antiquity with Prof. Rachel Elior Part 3

Part 3 - The struggle on the Calendar: Holy Place, Holy Time, Holy Liturgy, holy memory. The unexpected finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls between 1947-1956 shed a new light on Jewish history in antiquity. Their final authoritative bilingual editions in Hebrew and in English or in Aramaic and in French or English became available only in the last few decades. All the unknown Hebrew and Aramaic manuscripts written on parchment are a part of a priestly sacred library of authors who describe themselves as "The priests the sons of Zadok and their allies". In this series, we discuss the four fold nature of the unknown books, the background of their authors and their purpose, the historical background of their writing in the two last centuries BCE in relation to the bitter dispute on the priestly calendar, and the connection of the scrolls to the ongoing conflict between the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Rachel Elior is the John and Golda Cohen Professor Emerita of Jewish Philosophy and Jewish Mystical Thought at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where she taught for decades and twice served as Chair of the Department of Jewish Thought. A leading scholar of Jewish mysticism and the Dead Sea Scrolls, her research spans early Jewish mystical traditions, Heikhalot literature, Kabbalah, Hasidism, Messianism, Sabbatianism, and the place of women, slavery, and freedom in Jewish culture and religious history. Prof. Elior is the author of 20 books and more than 120 scholarly articles, with works translated into multiple languages. Among her books are The Unknown History of Jewish Women, Israel Ba’al Shem Tov and His Contemporaries, and The Three Temples: On the Emergence of Jewish Mysticism. Her scholarship has received numerous honors, including the Gershom Scholem Prize for Research in Kabbalah and an honorary doctorate from Hebrew Union College.