Reflections on Literacy, Textuality, and Community in the Qumran Dead Sea Scrolls

Drawing on the work of Brian Stock, Pierre Bourdieu, and others, this paper argues for the cultural and symbolic significance of the textual legacy of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Building on Stock’s insights on the nuanced make-up of textual communities, Hempel challenges the widespread view of the Qumran movement as made up of a socially monolithic scribal elite. She advocates instead that we allow for the hitherto largely ignored presence of a stratum of illiterate and semi-literate members alongside a highly educated
elite. The tremendous social pay-off of being associated with a substantial body of learned texts would have had an enormous impact on both rather distinct social groups as well as reinforced a shared sense of identity.