“Scribes as Authors in the Dead Sea Scrolls” with Molly Zahn, Yale University

The discovery and publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls has revolutionized our understanding of the composition and development of the books of the Hebrew Bible and other early Jewish texts. Central to this revolution is a new understanding of the role of scribes. Far from functioning as mere copyists, early Jewish scribes actively shaped the prestigious literature that was handed on to them; thus in many ways they are responsible for the texts as we know them. This presentation will explore how thinking of these scribes as authors points us towards new models of early Jewish literary culture and a clearer picture of the place of biblical books in that culture.

Molly Zahn is Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible at Yale Divinity School, where she recently joined the faculty after 14 years in the Religious Studies department at the University of Kansas. Her research focuses on the composition and transmission of texts in early Judaism, with special attention to the fluid boundary between these two processes. She is the author, most recently, of Genres of Rewriting in Second Temple Judaism (Cambridge, 2020), and is currently working on a commentary on the Qumran Temple Scroll for the Hermeneia series. She serves as Executive Editor for the Brill journal Dead Sea Discoveries.

Website for More Info: https://jewishstudies.unc.edu/event/zahn/