Reading the Present in the Qumran Library

How did ancient scribes interpret their own reality by means of scriptural exegesis? The essays in this volume explore this question from various prespectives by examining the earliest known exegetical texts of Jewish origin namely the exegetical texts from the Qumran library. Scholars have debated the precise nature of the exegetical techniques used in the Qumran texts. To bring clarity to the discussion this book analyzes the phenomenon of reading the present in the Qumran library and asks how far comparable phenomena can be observed in authoritative literature in ancient Israel and Judah in the textual tradition of the Hebrew and Greek Bible in ancient Judaism and in early Christian literature.