Social group effects on the emergence of communicative conventions and language complexity

Languages differ in their complexity. One possible explanation for this observation is that differences in social factors influence linguistic complexity: languages which are used for communication in small-scale "societies of intimates" exhibit greater complexity as a result of the communicative contexts in which they are typically employed. We used the techniques from referential communication studies across three experiments to assess the effects of two social group factors — group size and amount of communally-shared knowledge — on the brevity and transparency of linguistic conventions. In Experiment 1 we explored the effects of a manipulation of group size, comparing the conventions which develop from the interaction of two speakers, with those which develop between three speakers. In Experiment 2 we manipulated the extent to which groups of three speakers share talk-relevant contextual information. While we found the conditions which involve larger groups and less shared background information initially resulted in longer labels and a greater reliance on more literal descriptive terms, there was no effect of either factor in the longer term. In Experiment 3 we investigated the transparency of the conventions of Experiments 1 and 2 by assessing how well they could be matched to their intended referents by naive individuals. We found no evidence to support the claims that communicative contexts involving communicating with more individuals, or individuals with whom less relevant information is shared, produce more transparent conventions. Our experiments ultimately provide no support for the idea that the structure of linguistic conventions is shaped by the groups in which they develop

What the Book of First Enoch and the Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls Reveal About the History of the Qumran Community

The Aramaic book commonly known as First Enoch is among the most important of all the compositions found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The fragments of this pseudepigraphal work and related documents provide new information about the use and growth of the Enochic traditions, as well as how their contents influenced the community that collected and placed the Dead Sea Scrolls in the caves in the vicinity of Khirbet Qumran. Research on the Enochic literature in this corpus of documents is important for Jewish studies and for understanding the history of Christianity since the New Testament cites from and alludes to First Enoch while the Ethiopian church reveres it as part of its Scripture. This study seeks to offer some new insights concerning the development and use of First Enoch and related Aramaic texts in the Dead Sea Scrolls by examining their importance for the Khirbet Qumran community. The first portion explores the transmission of First Enoch and related writings in the Dead Sea Scrolls to uncover what the copies of these texts tell us about the community at Khirbet Qumran and its precursor movement(s). The second section compares the theology of the prayers preserved in the Aramaic texts with those in the Hebrew Dead Sea Scrolls to show what they reveal about the use of the Enochic traditions by the Qumran sect and related groups. This investigation proposes that the Qumran community’s precursor movement(s) combined elements of pre-Maccabean Aramaic and Hebrew prayers but preferred the theological perspective of the penitential Hebrew prayer tradition. However, First Enoch and related works held a special status for the Khirbet Qumran community as its calendrical system and doctrine of evil shaped its theology for centuries. The Dead Sea Scrolls also show that the authors of the Enochic writings and those who collected and used them were influenced by literature and events in the Hellenistic world

Academic Work as Factory Work: A Former Blue-Collar Worker’s Observations on Class and Caste in the Academy

What was it like to have come of age after the Glorious Thirty (1945-1975), an era Jack Metzger (2016; 2021a) describes as a time when the working-class bettered their lives? I had the misfortune to have worked in several Metropolitan Detroit factories during the period of decline after the Glorious Thirty. During that time, I witnessed what the journalist George Packer (2013) has called ‘the Unwinding,’ the unraveling of the social contract that has left the working class to their own devices to find success and salvation. In keeping with the tradition in working-class studies of sharing lived experienced of class (Linkon, 2021, pp. 20-31; Strangleman, 2005, pp. 137-51), I highlight my multiple working-class lives to show that academic life is increasingly becoming more like blue-collar labor. Through a discussion of the concepts of class and caste, and the uniqueness of working-class culture, I propose that working-class academic crossovers are essentially ghosts trapped in a liminal limbo in an intellectual version of a contemporary factory that is largely devoid of the benefits of working-class culture

A Review by Kenneth Atkinson of Reading the Dead Sea Scrolls: Essays in Method, Society of Biblical Literature, by George J. Brooke

This diverse collection of essays by George Brooke, the Rylands Professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis at the University of Manchester, explores how some of the Dead Sea Scrolls might be read and analyzed. The book includes essays that urge scholars to refine traditional methods of studying ancient texts in light of the Scrolls, as well as chapters devoted to text criticism, literary traditions, lexicography, historiography, and theology. Brooke also highlights the relevance of newer methods for the study of the Scrolls, such as deviance theory, cultural memory, hypertextuality, intertextuality, genre theory, spatial analysis, and psychology

Judean Piracy, Judea and Parthia, and the Roman Annexation of Judea: The Evidence of Pompeius Trogus

Pompey the Great’s 63 BCE conquest of the Jewish kingdom known as the Hasmonean State has traditionally been viewed as an inevitable event since the Roman Republic had long desired to annex the Middle Eastern nations. The prevailing consensus is that the Romans captured the Hasmonean state, removed its high-priest kings from power, and made its territory part of the Republic merely through military force. However, Justin’s Epitome of the Philippic Histories of Pompeius Trogus is a neglected source of new information for understanding relations between the Romans and the Jews at this time. Trogus’s brief account of this period alludes to a more specific reason, or at least, circumstance for Pompey’s conquest of Judea. His work contains evidence that the Jews were involved in piracy, of the type the Republic had commissioned Pompey to eradicate. In addition to this activity that adversely affected Roman commercial interests in the Mediterranean, the Jews were also involved with the Seleucid Empire and the Nabatean Arabs, both of whom had dealings with the Parthians. Piracy, coupled with Rome’s antagonism towards the Parthians, negatively impacted the Republic’s attitude towards the Jews. Considering the evidence from Trogus, Roman fears of Jewish piracy and Jewish links to the Republic’s Parthian enemies were not unfounded

The Gabriel Revelation (Hazon Gabriel): A Reused Masseba Forgery?

The Gabriel Revelation (Hazon Gabriel) is a large limestone stele that contains a lengthy Hebrew text in two columns. The smooth side of the stone with the composition known as the Gabriel Revelation has forty-seven horizontal guidelines, four vertical lines bordering the columns, and eighty-seven lines of writing in ink on stone. Much of the composition is incomplete or partially preserved. The Gabriel Revelation is of unknown provenance. Its current owner purchased the artifact from a Jordanian antiquities dealer around the year 2000

Judah Aristobulus and Alexander Jannaeus in the Dead Sea Scrolls

The reigns of Judah Aristobulus and Alexander Jannaeus marked a major turning point in the history of the Hasmonean dynasty. Judah Aristobulus transformed his family’s state into a monarchy in which a single person held the offices of king and high priest. His brother, Alexander Jannaeus, succeeded him as king and high priest and expanded the boundaries of the Hasmonean state. He also preserved the territorial integrity of the Hasmonean state when he fought off invasions by Egyptian and Seleucid rulers. Although the reigns of Judah Aristobulus and Alexander Jannaeus are widely known from the writings of Josephus, the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls were also interested in these two monarchs. Their presence in these texts is not as widely known, even though these documents contain new historical information about them. This study explores the references and allusions to these two Hasmonean rulers in the Dead Sea Scrolls to show the importance of these texts for understanding the Hasmonean period. They not only contain new information about this time, but they also have much to tell us about how the community that produced the Qumran writings viewed Judah Aristobulus and Alexander Jannaeus

The Case for Hyrcanus II as the “Wicked Priest” and a Pirate: Evidence from Neglected Roman Historical Sources

Scholars have long debated the identity of the mysterious person denounced in the Dead Sea Scrolls by the sobriquet the Wicked Priest (הכוהן הרשע). Since the discovery of the Scrolls, researchers have identified nearly twenty persons as the Wicked Priest. Some view this vast number of proposals as indicative of a faulty method for understanding the history of the community behind these texts. This is because such efforts assume the Wicked Priest was an actual person. Consequently, scholars seeking to uncover his identity use material from Josephus, Philo, Pliny, and other writers to interpret the references to him in the Scrolls. Then, the same experts use the Scrolls to interpret these Greco- Roman authors. In recent years, several researchers have criticized the apparent circularity of this approach. Instead, these scholars focus on how the Scrolls have been interpreted and how these understandings have changed over time. They view the search for the Wicked Priest as futile since he did not exist. This study proposes that we can uncover new information about the Wicked Priest from a close reading of the extant references to him in light of overlooked Roman historical texts. The growing awareness of the Hellenistic influences in the Scrolls makes such an approach not only feasible, but academically sound as well. A reading of the Scrolls in light of Roman texts suggests that the Wicked Priest inadvertently played a major role in Pompey’s 63 B.C.E. termination of the Hasmonean state

A Review by Kenneth Atkinson of Alexandria and Qumran: Back to the Beginning, by Kenneth Silver

Kenneth Silver (a.k.a. Kenneth A. K. Lönnqvist), is a historian and professional archaeologist, who has lived and worked for decades in the Near East. With extensive publications on Hellenistic and Roman archaeology, history, and numismatics, Silver is the director of a survey and mapping project in Northern Mesopotamia studying the border zone between the late Roman/ Byzantine Empires and Persia. Author of numerous publications on Qumran and related topics, Silver’s lengthy monograph proposes that the documents and type of library found at Qumran were based on models derived from Egypt. The main thesis of the volume is that Pythagorean philosophy is the core and basis for the beliefs reflected in the non-Biblical texts found at Qumran

Josephus the Essene at Qumran?: An Example of the Intersection of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Archaeological Evidence in Light of Josephus’s Writings

The thesis that the Khirbet Qumran community was a branch of the larger Essene movement has dominated scholarship since the discovery of the first Dead Sea Scrolls. The number of books and articles challenging the theory that the Scrolls found in the caves belonged to a sectarian community that lived at Khirbet Qumran – and that these sectarians should be identified as Essenes – indicates that we are far from a consensus concerning the history of the Qumran history. What has largely been neglected in this debate is Flavius Josephus, who alone among the extant Second Temple Period authors claims to have been an Essene. This article examines the importance of Josephus as an eyewitness to Essene beliefs and practices in the first century C.E. It suggests that his descriptions of the Essene admission procedure matches the latest version of the Serek ha-Yahad, which documents changes in the practices and beliefs of this sect during the first century C.E. The study seeks to show that the Serk belonged to a sectarian library that is archaeologically connected with Khirbet Qumran and that this library was more widely dispersed among the caves than previously recognized. The article builds on this evidence to propose that we can connect the Serek and Josephus to Khirbet Qumran, and that this text was used as a sort of archaeological blueprint for this settlement. The evidence examined in this article reveals that Josephus is our only extant witness to life at Khirbet Qumran during its later occupational phase (Periods II–III, ca. 4 B.C.E.–73/4 C.E.)