ON THE TESTIMONY
    
    OF WOMEN
    
    IN 1QSa
    
    PHILIP R. DAVIES University of Sheffield and JOAN E. TAYLOR University of Wai Kato In his recent Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls,' L. Schiffman has a chapter entitled "Women in the Scrolls" which deals, inter alia, with the apparently problematic passage in lQSa 1:11:
    
    The text appears to mean: "and then (or: accordingly) she shall be received to attest the precepts of the torah against/concerning him and to take her place in hearing judgments." Schiffman comments: "It would be attractive for our argument to be able to claim that women even testified in the sectarian legal system. However, then we would have a text allowing women to testify about one and only one thing: the conduct of their husbands. Imagine what marriages this would have made! Clearly the text has been corrupted through scribal error and must be emended (substituting yqbl for tqbl and 'lpy for 'law) to read: 'And at that time he shall be received to testify in accordance with the laws of the Torah' and to take [his] place in hearing judgments. Those familiar with how limited women's roles were in ancient Jewish and general legal proceedings would understand why this emendation makes more sense
    
    1 LawrenceH. Schiffman, Reclaimingthe Dead Sea Scrolls (Philadelphiaand Jerusalem: Jewish Publication Society, 1994) 127-43. For the more detailed treatment on which his discussion is based see his Sectarian Law in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Courts, Testimony and the Penal Code (Chico: Scholars Press, 1983) and The Eschatological Community of the Dead Sea Scrolls: A Study of the Rule of the Congregation (SBLMS 38; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989). 2 Reclaiming, 134-5.
    
    224 This treatment of an ancient text is methodologically dubious. First, what marriages this sort of ruling might have made is a poor imagining argument against simply reading from ancient texts what actually has been set down and then attempting to understand it. Second, textual corruption is not "clear" unless the text makes no grammatical or syntactic sense otherwise.3 Where the text does make sense, emendation is hazardous. It is not adequate to claim support for an emendation purely on the grounds that the text then says what you think it should. Third, the emendation proposed is hardly to be ascribed to a "scribal error." Conceivably a scribe might err in writing a taw for a yod, though it is not clear why such a slip should be made. But to compound this by instead of It bo does not look like a scribal continuing to write error.' If the text had been deliberately altered, then the present reading, of course, has to stand as what was ultimately intended. Finally, to appeal to "how limited women's roles were" is to imply not only that we know enough about women in the ancient world to be able to pontificate about what they may or may not have been allowed to do in individual cases, but also to deny the possibility that women's roles must always conform to some reconstructed cultural norm. This is an inadequate way to deal with ancient texts that appear to challenge scholarly conceptions. Our approach is rather to accept what this statement says (with a number of earlier scholars) and to explain the reasoning behind it on the basis of other relevant texts. If we can provide a plausible account of the text, there seems no further cause to suspect the reading. What is more, we shall have added to our understanding of the ideology behind the legal stipulations in lQSa. In the editio princeps, D. Barthélemy had already noted the peculiarity of the ruling about women's testimony, but suggested that in a time when the influence of Hellenism was felt, the more traditional and zealous women were charged with keeping an eye on the fidelity of their husbands.' However, it is not obvious that marital fidelity is the issue here, for whether in such cases the wife would be in a position
    
    3 Even though, as Schiffman points out, there are problems with the script of this line, such a phenomenon does not automaticallyjustify changing what is written. 4 A clear example of a scribal error is actually presented in the quotation: there is no Hebrew word Rather, Schiffman must have intended , as his predecessor Baumgarten proposed (see below). 5 D. Barthélemy, J.T. Milik et al., Qumran Cave I (DJD I; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955) 113.
    
    225 to testify is dubious. Wives are not usually eyewitnesses to their husbands' infidelity, and consequently it is hard to see what they could contribute to a legal hearing. It is more likely that the testimony of a wife is admitted on something to which she (and perhaps she alone?) could give evidence: something that transpired between her and her husband privately. While Barthelemy applied the reading to the "marrying order" of Essenes, and not to Qumran (which he regarded as a celibate male group), Richardson proposed that even this desert community of Qumran included women, and hence lQSa would apply to it also.6 In particular he invokes texts from classical and rabbinic sources that appear to permit women to testify. Dupont-Sommer, like Richardson, proto read lQSa and 1QS as referring to the same group and thus posed' also proposed that women were included in the yahad. He even translated lQSa 1:10 as referring to the woman's knowing good and evil, rather than the man's.g 8 Yet it is not particularly helpful to identify the 'edah of lQSa with the yahad, since 1 QSa does not speak of the yahad. It is true that both texts appear on a single Cave 1 manuscript, but we are apparently nevertheless dealing with two social organisations bearing different names, and with certain differences in organisation. Discussion of each text to be kept separate. Whether the status of women in the "Conought gregation" is the same as that in the yahad is a separate issue (this is a point we shall occasionally repeat here, because it is so fundamental and so often ignored). Richardson's principle9 that texts should be allowed as far as possible to say what they appear to say should be strongly a?rmed. But we must also accept that we do not know from any other source, historical or literary, what IQSa means to say about is based on the bibliwomen, except, perhaps, that its "congregation" cal model in Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers, where it applies to the entire people of Israel. 6 H. Neil Richardson, "Some Notes on 1QSa," JBL 76 (1957) 108-22. 7 A. Dupont-Sommer,The Essene Writingsfrom Qumran (Oxford: Blackwell, 1961) 104, n. 1. 8 But if "knowing good and evil" implies sexual activity (as probably here and in Gen. 3:5, 8) the age of twenty can hardly suit women, who were married generally at puberty. Schiffman appears to share this wrong assumption (Reclaiming, 134): "In the view of the sect and in wider circles in Palestinian Judaism in our period, twenty was the age of physical and legal maturity." Or is he really only thinking about males, without saying so? 9 Richardson, "Some Notes," 119.
    
    226 The suggestion to emend the text of lQSa 1:11 originated with J. Baumgarten. It is his proposal that Schiffman has in fact followed, 10 though other commentators remain divided." Baumgarten's arguments the fullest advocacy of the case, and require detailed considrepresent eration. Even so, they do not ultimately emerge as cogent. The first reason Baumgarten gives is that the passage in which this statement is embedded deals with the stages of initiation of young men into the congregation (not, as Baumgarten says, "into the community" which, according to Baumgarten's usage, would imply the yahad). one would expect a regulation about the rights and duties Accordingly, of the young man, and "a regulation concerning the wife's qualification to present indictments against her husband is here entirely out of place."'2 "Entirely out of place" is somewhat overstated. The previous statement deals, after all, with the man's eligibility for marriage: "he shall not [approach] a woman to have sexual intercourse until he is twenty years old, when he knows [good and] evil." It is not entirely out of place to have a statement about the wife that he is now eligible to marry (for we all agree that marriage is what is implied). This is especially the case if the testimony is to deal with marital offences, as the phrase "against him" implies. The unemended text, after all, does not cover testimony in general, as the emendation requires. second argument is that making the wife's testimony Baumgarten's and participation dependent on the age of her husband is illogical: "would an adolescent girl marrying a man of twenty become eligible 'to take her place in proclaiming the ordinances'?" Putting aside the question of whether "proclaiming the ordinances" is the correct transOnce the lation, the logic of the text here is quite straightforward. man is eligible to marry, he becomes liable to testimony from his wife against himself. The age of the woman is in fact irrelevant, since nowhere does lQSa or any Qumran document specify ages of eligibility for women. They are not on an equal status to men in respect of membership of the congregation. They are indeed members, but members
    
    10J. Baumgarten, "On the Testimony of Women in 1QSa," JBL 76 (1957) 266-9; reprinted in Studies in Qumran Law (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1977) 183-6. 11The most popular current English language translations disagree on this reading. G. Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls in English (London/Sheffield:Penguin Books/ SheffieldAcademic Press, 1994) 120, reads an emended text; F. Garc�a The Mart�nez, Dead Sea Scrolls Translated (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1994) 126, reads as the text stands. 12"On the Testimony of Women," 267.
    
    227 by virtue of their attachment to a man, in this case their husband.13 The point at issue, then, is not the eligibility of the woman to give testimony but the liability of the man, once married (at whatever age, twenty or beyond) to testimony from her. The third objection starts from the assumption of Baumgarten (and that the "sectarians" of lQSa are to be identified with Richardson) the marrying kind of Essenes to whom Josephus alludes (and which Baumgarten also includes when he uses the phrase "the community"). Baumgarten suggests that such marrying Essenes did not "constitute more than a fraction of the order." He takes the view that marriage among the Essenes was a concession serving to ensure the perpetuation of the race. Such a misogynistic attitude, argues Baumgarten, would hardly induce the Essenes to permit women to testify against their husbands, especially since the Pharisees did not allow either a woman to testify, or anyone to testify against a relative. Here he cites a text from CD 9:23-10:2, according to which two (reliable) witnesses are acceptable in cases about money, and one in matters of holy food; but not one alone in a capital case. It also adds that no-one who has been convicted of an offence is to be taken as a reliable witness. Baumgarten's reason for citing this passage seems to be that a woman could not testify against her husband in lQSa. But in IQSa nothing is said about a capital offence, nor about money. We do not know the issue on which a woman would be allowed to testify, but it is clear that her testimony is restricted: only against her husband. Accordingly, appealing to CD 9:23 is a red herring. There is no question of women being allowed to testify generally: the text as it stands must be understood as an exception, and explained as such. We can also ignore any appeals to other groups such as Pharisees, since we are not dealing with them, but with a group that disagreed with others-and here emerges the danger as well as the advantage of a talmudic expertise to the study of non-rabbinic law. Howbringing view about the proportion ever, we should point out that Baumgarten's
    
    13See CD 7:6-9 which makes wives and children of male members of the community automatically members of the covenant and subject to its regulations-regardless of their age. This does not imply a full liability to all the rules, but does give them a recognized status. Such a stipulation is logical in a family-based community.
    
    228 of marrying to non-marrying Essenes has changed, 14 and in this change of mind Schiffman agrees with him." Thus, all of Baumgarten's objections, in our view, miss the point, and Baumgarten appears to be unwilling to explore or understand the implications of the reading because he is simply not prepared to accept that any ancient Jewish group would allow women to testify .16 Yet he The wife is not allowed to testify misses the point of the word but only against her husband. This specific stipulation holds generally, the key to the meaning of the statement. The question of what is meant by onrnr also needs to be considered. Here we support Baumgarten on the meaning of the term. He argues that this cannot mean "proclaiming the ordinances" translation to which Schiffman adheres) because the following (the regulation (line 13; cf. CD 10:6-7) makes thirty the age at which a man may judge. He proposes, as an alternative, that the phrase means attending as an observer at judicial hearings, and notes a parallel in m. San. 4:4. Baumgarten's suggestion makes good sense of the term, not for the reason he gives. Since the text does not speak of though males, participation in judgment cannot be the issue. Whatever the status of women or their capacity to bear witness, no text mentions women as judges. But it is feasible that, in addition to being allowed to testify against her husband, a woman who is married to a member of the congregation, and thus a member herself, may be entitled to attend judgments. Indeed, lQSa 1:4-5 reads: "they shall assemble all those who come, including children and women, and they shall read in their hear[ing] all the regulations of the covenant, and shall instruct them in all 14"The Qumran-Essene Restraints on Marriage," Archaeology and History in the Dead Sea Scrolls: The New York UniversityConference in Memoryof Yigael Yadin (ed. L.H. Schiffman; Sheffield:JSOT Press, 1990) 13-24, specifically p. 20: ".... celibacy at Qumran was never made into a universal norm. It was confined to those who emulated a 'perfection of holiness' requiring uninterrupted purity, and even for them perhaps only in the later stages of their lives. This would account for the fact that the Messianic Rule, in describing the practices of Israel at large, assumes that marriage would continue to be the 'order of the land'." (Baumgarten is quoting from CD 7:6.) 15Schiffman makes the point that if 1QSa is describing the ideal Israel, then "... it is hard to escape the conclusion that the Qumran sectarians lived in a normal society that included marriage and family" (Reclaiming, 135). Schiffman's opinion that 1QSa describes an ideal, future community allows him in theory to distinguish its contents from descriptions and prescriptions of a sectarian lifestyle. Unfortunately, in discussing the role of women in "the community" he does not enforce this distinction adequately. 16"There is no evidence, so far as I know, of women acting as witnesses in criminal cases in ancient Jewish sources" ("Testimony," 268).
    
    229 its precepts, so that they do not stray in their [errors]." It thus seems very clear that women and children are equally susceptible to the laws, and that women at least should be entitled to be present in their administration. Indeed, it seems probable that women could themselves be brought to judgment if they departed from such precepts. Baumgarten's interpretation thus facilitates to some degree the adoption of the text as it stands and coheres with what lQSa says elsewhere. We should now pay attention to the exegesis of two women scholars. Commendably, they are more readily prepared to accept the text as it stands. Eileen Schuller, dealing tentatively with a range of issues about women in the Scrolls, 17 raises the question of inclusive language. How far does any statement formulated in the masculine apply equally to females? Is it possible, for instance, that the age limits applied to males could apply also to females? Schuller believes this may be so, and accordingly she emphatically adheres to the written text at 1 QSa 1:11. Finally, she notes that women are not in the list of excluded categories given in 1:27-2:11, whereas they are among the similar list of those excluded from the war camp in 1QM 7:3-4. Do these arguments suggest that women were, as Schuller concludes, "full members"? The problems here are with the identity of the group in question and with the word "full." There is no doubt at all that women were members of the "congregation" of 1 QSa, but this does not of itself imply anything about "the community" (whatever it did they enjoy? As was). And what status within that congregation with the scriptural description of the congregation of Israel in the Pentateuch, women are members, as are children, but with different duties and privileges than males above a certain age. The presence of women, then, in the congregation of 1 QSa does not necessarily imply "full" membership. Schuller's contention that the masculine gender may include the feminine18 in IQSa 1:6-10, because the subject in line 4, which includes men, women and children, could be read until "the text alerts us to a
    
    17"Women in the Dead Sea Scrolls," Methods of Investigation of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Khirbet Qumran Site: Present Realities and Future Prospects (Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 722; ed. M. Wise, et al.; New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 1994) 115-27, especially pp. 123-4. 18CD 5:9 states the rule is written for males but applies to females also is not quite an analogy, since we are dealing in this case not with the gender of verbs but of gender specific nouns such as and
    
    230 change"19 is a little disingenuous, because line 6 is preceded by a vacat and commences a new section: "This is the rule for all the armies of the congregation." In any event, it does not seem satisfacto assume a common gender in lines 6-10 merely because women tory and children are added to men in line 4. Positive indications to counter the implications of the male gender reading would have to be introduced to counter the interpretation that males are meant. Finally, the limited scope of a woman's right to give testimony ("against him") further suggests that women and men in the congregation do not enjoy equal status (if that is what Schuller's "full membership" implies). Linda Bennett Elder's treatment of lQSa 4-1110 is equally unconvincing, though fuller. She uses the evidence of Qumran graves and Philo's account of the Therapeutae to establish that the Qumran texts may well refer to women as members of communities. But she goes from there to argue that in lQSa women are included as equal in status, even as knowing good and evil at twenty (following Dupont-Sommer). In many respects, the arguments we have used against Schiffman and Baumgarten apply here too: we cannot use what we think are cultural norms to exegete this particular passage, nor can we infer from lQSa vice-versa ! 21 The what may have been the case about the yahad-or evidence (which is variously interpreted by scholars) of texts such as 4Q502, to which Elder also refers,22 is also irrelevant. As for status, while in lQSa women are included in the congregation, and enjoined to hear the law, and wives may testify against their husbands, these rights do not amount to full equality: indeed, there is enough to suggest that their membership of the congregation did not entitle them to exactly the same rights and duties as males.
    
    19"Women in the DSS," 123. 20"The Woman Question and Female Ascetics Among Essenes," BA 57 (1994) 22034 ; see pp. 226-30. 21 Several scholars cited in this article conflate data from 1QS and 1QSa, including Schuller and Elder, who, dealing ostensibly with the yahad and female presence in it, assume that the contents of 1QSa contribute to that question; but they do not avoid confusing the two entities of yahad and 'edah. A distinction between the communities of 1QS and CD, however, in this respect (the former celibate, the latter containing married members) has often been suggested (recently by E. Qimron, "Celibacy in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Two Kinds of Sectarians," The Madrid Qumran Congress: Proceedings of the International Congress on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Madrid, 18-21 March, 1991 (ed. J. Trebolle Barrera and L. Vegas Montaner; STDJ 11; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1992) 1.287-94). 22"The Woman Question," 230-2.
    
    231 The question is not, then, whether the Qumran texts include women: it is what the status of these women is in the different texts. It is now our task to explain the meaning of the passage. The purpose of this article is, indeed, not merely to insist again that the text means what it says but to suggest how its meaning might make sense to anyone familiar with the literature of the Qumran corpus. We are not proposing that this is the explanation of how a law about the testimony of a wife necessarily applied, but that it is a logical and consistent ruling given demonstrable legal principles. Our case rests on the fact that although lQSa does not expound its legal principles, other texts from the corpus expound theirs, and that these provide the closest evidence. We are not abandoning the principle that IQSa describes a different organisation from 1QS or from CD, but we regard the other Qumran Scrolls as the most appropriate source for suggesting the legal principles behind the laws of IQSa. In particular, the ideology of marriage and sex behind the laws of CD can be inferred where they are not explicit. It had already been proposed by Davies in 198711 that the view of marriage reflected in CD was consistent with what Josephus says about the Essenes in War 2.160-1, that "they give their wives a three years' probation, and only marry them after they have, by three periods of purification, given proof of fecundity.24 They have no intercourse with them during pregnancy, thus but the showing that their motive in marrying is not self-indulgence, of children." This suggestion has been taken up by several procreation commentators, to the point that it is now almost taken for granted. If what Josephus says about the Essenes applies to CD, the members of the group married and had intercourse only for procreation. It follows that intercourse without the possibility of procreation was illicit, "fornication" or "lust" (n'Jr). This classification should, then logically have applied to marriages with women who had not proven that they had 23 Beyond the Essenes: History and Ideology in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987) 73-85. 24The implication of only three periods in three years has puzzled some commentators, such as T.S. Beall, Josephus' Description of the Essenes Illustrated by the Dead Sea Scrolls (Cambridge: CUP, 1988) 112, and P.W. van der Horst, "Two Short Notes on Josephus," The Studia Philonica Annual 4 (1992) 59-64. But van der Horst's conclusion that two separate tests are implied, one for fertility and the other for membership of the community, is unnecessary if one understands that three menstrual periods in three years are required. It must not be forgotten that women in question are probably just beginning puberty, and thus are aged typically from twelve to fourteen years. A regular cycle is not always immediately established.
    
    232 begun to menstruate (as Josephus reports about the Essenes), and also, within marriage, to sex during menstruation, a practice explicitly condemned in CD 5:7. It thus extended the list of "forbidden degrees" of marriage with close kin, where the biblical list was extended. 15 Thus, while rn5r was not confined to sex without the possibility of procreation, such circumstances formed one of the major categories within it. The charge of sexual intercourse during menstruation which CD brings against its targets is, as commentators generally allow, not to be interpreted as wilful disobedience on their part but as the outcome of different rules about the period of impurity. It is not necessary to assume that the opponents of CD's authors deliberately had sex during menstruation. But neither is it plausible that the members of CD's community were spying on them to validate this charge; the difference in legal rulings between the different Damascus groups and others made the charge self-evident. Davies' original inference proceeded from an observation by Josephus about Essenes, and the objection might be raised that the "Damascus community" was not necessarily Essene. However, we now have a text, 4QD' (4Q270) that confirms Davies' deduction: it prescribes expulsion from the group for anyone who has sexual intercourse with his wife since the marriage itself is not condemned, and thus does not constitute a forbidden union, the nm referred to must indicate some other category,26 such as sex without the possibility of procreation (intercourse with pregnant, pre-menarchic, menopausal and women, raising a related issue about "female ascetpost-menopausal ics" which we propose to deal with elsewhere). Presumably "unnatural" sexual activity with one's wife (which scripture does not legislate against), and any form of contraceptive activity, would also fall under this rubric. Intercourse during the period of female uncleanness (menstruation as legally defined) must also be envisaged by this stipulation, because it was forfalling as it does under the rubric of nm-certainly bidden in scriptural law as a contravention of holiness, but perhaps also because such an act would not result in procreation. 21 25 See 11QT 66:11-17; 4Q251; CD 5:7-11; for a convenient discussion, G. Brin, Studies in Biblical Law (JSOTSup 176; Sheffield:SheffieldAcademic Press, 1994) 113-28. 26 See the discussion in Baumgarten, "The Cave 4 Versions of the Qumran Penal Code," JJS 43 (1992) 270-1. 27Philo (Special Laws 3.32) commends a man not to waste his sperm during his wife's menstruation, for, as with sowing crops during the rainy season, his seed "will be swept away by the moisture."
    
    233 any of these acts of mit be detected within a society (even ideally)? The only likely witness is the wife. If the offence, even in theory, can only be witnessed by her, then she must be allowed to testify against her husband. The credit for the first public suggestion that such a testimony as lQSa 1:11 has in mind is about illicit sexual intercourse belongs to George Brooke, who made such a comment to Eileen Schuller at a conference in 1992.28 Surprisingly, this sensible suggestion seems not to have been taken up. We propose that it provides the clue to a plausible explanation of the meaning of the text of IQSa 1:11, one that is in text. accord with principles evident in another Qumran-preserved Our point is not that the D texts prove what 1 QSa 1:11 means. A legal principle, however, can be demonstrated from these texts which would explain 1QSa's rule about a wife's testimony. Consequently, the is capable of making perfect sense and there are no adereading quate grounds for emending it. It might be suggested that this discussion has also provided some support for linking lQSa and the D texts, or even for identifying both D and 1 QSa as "Essene." Although that has not been our purpose here, our arguments do tend to support such conclusions. There are some further lessons that we believe this review teaches us. First, that the evidence of texts ought not to be subject to a priori prejudices about what may or may not be written in an ancient text. The first task of an exegete is to make sense of the text as it is. A second lesson is that only confusion will arise if various texts found at and describing different social Qumran, using different vocabulary are not carefully distinguished; the same applies to using organisations, archaeological data to exegete texts. We do not have the knowledge as yet to state which if any of the communities known from CD, or as in IQSa are real, the yahad in 1QS, or described as the "congregation" how they are related, or whether they inhabited Qumran. Our first task is to interpret texts soundly. Conclusions will in due course follow. A lesson also needs to be learnt in dealing with Jewish law. It is self-evidently wrong to argue from general practice to written legal stipulation, especially in cases where a group's law is known to deviate How would
    
    28 Cited by Schuller in "Women in the DSS," 124, n. 41. Brooke suggested specifically intercourse during the menstrual cycle, but the observation obviously holds good for other cases too.
    
    234 from that common outside the group. To argue that a rule cannot mean what it seems to say because such things did not happen constitutes a of the nature of early Jewish biblical and fundamental misunderstanding law, which is intended to articulate an ideological early postbiblical system. In such legal collections we may find laws that reflect contemporary practice, but we may also expect to find laws that are impelled by ideology and will not necessarily have accorded with practice. Thus, there are numerous mishnaic texts that are quite obviously prompted by considerations and not practical ones.19 The method theoretical-ideological of burning the body (by pouring hot lead down the throat) is unattested in any practice anywhere. But the text says what it says, and neither Baumgarten nor Schiffman has suggested emending it. The point about much early Jewish law is that it seeks to apply principles, often theoretically, by generating specific laws that show how such principles could be applied in practice. If we are to understand the nature of Qumran law, this understandbe applied. "Reclaiming the from rabbinic law-must ing-illustrated a basic scrolls for Judaism" means in the first place understanding of ancient Jewish law! We have not proved that women did principle testify against husbands. But we have shown that such a law could make perfect sense, within a view of marriage attested in another Qumran document also, and thus could quite easily have been formulated exactly as written. What such a law might have meant for ancient marriages may be a source of amusing speculation, but it is not a basis for exegeting ancient Jewish legal texts! A study such as this also illustrates the difficulties of reconstructing the place of women in ancient society, and especially in the Qumran corpus. It is clear that women play a role in many of these texts, and it is an important task to elucidate the various roles assigned to them in the various texts. We cannot, however, assume that this role is necessarily identical in every text or in every community that is described. Nor should we assume that the legally assigned role necessarily coincided exactly with actual roles. But in many respects these questions
    
    examples may be taken from m. Sanhedrin: the regulations for execution by burning and the right of endless recall of a person condemned to stoning, if new testimony is offered (see m. San. 7:2 and 6:1). In each case a principle can be discerned :that the body is not destroyed entirely, and that no-one should be condemned if there is even the slightest shadow of doubt.
    
    29 Two
    
    235 also apply to other questions raised by relate the various communities (of IQS, to various external sources, we need using these invaluable manuscripts to temple religion and society. the Qumran texts. Until we can lQSa and CD) to each other and to exercise the greatest care in inform our view of late second

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