4QMMT Abstract

Here is the abstract for today's essay on 4QMMT:

4QMMT is a Halakhic letter, and the Composite Text has been put together by Elisha Qimron. There has been much controversy over the "ownership" of this text, a case that has been brought to court in Israel, giving Qimron copyright. I will focus on this case and the main controversies in the first part of my paper.

The contents of 4QMMT, as we have it in the Composite Text, are comprised of three main sections; a calendar, a list of the halakhah, or rules of the community, and a concluding exhortation. Within my second section I will discuss three views of the genre of 4QMMT, and the implications this has for the way we view the letter, and with whom we identify the "we", "you" and "they" parties mentioned in the letter.

I will end the paper by discussing two other issues brought up by scholars; firstly, whether the scriptures of the writers of 4QMMT corresponded to the Hebrew Bible as we now have it, in its three sections, and secondly, how the problem of having a calendar on only one of the six copies of 4QMMT can be solved.

Kelda Hunter