The Temple Scroll

Over eight meters in length, the Temple Scroll is the longest of the Dead Sea Scrolls. It is of great importance for the study of the history of halakhah, biblical interpretation, and the development of the biblical canon (see also From Collection to Canon). The Temple Scroll takes the form of a direct revelation from God to Moses on Mount Sinai and may be described as rewritten Bible (see BIBLICAL CHARACTERS AND STORIES).

The Temple Scroll organizes the legal material found in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, presenting it in a systematic manner and, in a way, as a new Torah. The document is named for its distinctive and detailed plans for a Temple of massive proportions in Jerusalem, wherein a much stricter set of ritual purity laws would be practiced than those that were observed in the Jerusalem Temple that then stood. It goes on to detail the procedure for sacrifices to be offered and to list the cycle of festivals, including a few that are not attested in the biblical material, such as the festivals of new wine, oil, and wood. Subsequent sections address purity issues, including corpse impurity, the banning of unclean individuals from the holy city (i.e., Jerusalem), and dietary laws. Purity laws that appear scattered in different parts of the Torah are grouped here in one section. Regulations are harmonized, and gaps and ambiguities are clarified. The result is an interpretation of biblical legislation. The last part of the document harmonizes relevant legislation elsewhere in the Torah with the extensive legal material of Deuteronomy 12–23 to rewrite legislation on idolatry, the slaughter of animals, judges, false prophets, the law of the king, and more.

It is evident that the Temple Scroll is a composite text. Its composition is generally dated to the second century BCE, but the sources on which it draws represent earlier traditions. There is much debate regarding the classification of the document. Was it intended as an authoritative interpretation of the Torah, or was it meant to be its replacement? Seeing that the Temple Scroll depends on the Torah and that it does not rewrite all of it, it is most likely that it was meant as an authoritative interpretation. There is also much debate about the Temple Scroll’s relationship to the rest of the Qumran scrolls. It shares various halakhic links with the Damascus Document and Some Precepts of the Torah (Miktsat Ma‘asei ha-Torah), but it lacks the distinctive sectarian vocabulary and worldview that characterize these and other sectarian texts.