
Rhetoric and the Dead Sea Scrolls
Purity, Covenant, and Strategy at Qumran
Bruce McComiskey
Rhetoric and the Dead Sea Scrolls
Purity, Covenant, and Strategy at Qumran
Bruce McComiskey
“Bruce McComiskey is the first in rhetorical studies to conduct a systematic reading of seven Dead Sea Scrolls manuscripts, examining how identification, distinction, persuasion, performative strategies, dissociation, and ideas about material rhetorics are present and enacted through these manuscripts. In doing so, he makes an important case for the rhetorical significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls as well as the methodological utility of a hermeneutics/rhetoric approach for reading these texts.”
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Applying methods of rhetorical analysis to six substantive texts—Miqṣat Maʿaśeh ha-Torah, Rule of the Community, Damascus Document, Purification Rules, Temple Scroll, and Habakkuk Pesher—Bruce McComiskey traces the Essenes’ use of rhetorical strategies based on identification, dissociation, entitlement, and interpretation. Through his analysis, McComiskey uncovers a unique, fascinating story of an ancient religious community that had sought to reintegrate into Temple life but, dejected, instead established itself as the new covenant people of God for this world, only to turn ultimately to a trust in a metaphysical afterlife.
Presenting forms of ancient Jewish rhetoric largely uninfluenced by classical rhetoric, this book broadens our understanding of human and religious rhetorical practice, even as it provides new insight into the events that led to the emergence of the Talmudic period. Rhetoric and the Dead Sea Scrolls will be useful to scholars working in the fields of religious rhetoric, Jewish studies, and early Christianity.
“Bruce McComiskey is the first in rhetorical studies to conduct a systematic reading of seven Dead Sea Scrolls manuscripts, examining how identification, distinction, persuasion, performative strategies, dissociation, and ideas about material rhetorics are present and enacted through these manuscripts. In doing so, he makes an important case for the rhetorical significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls as well as the methodological utility of a hermeneutics/rhetoric approach for reading these texts.”
Bruce McComiskey is Professor of English and Director of Professional Writing at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He is the author of Teaching Composition as a Social Process; Gorgias and the New Sophistic Rhetoric; Dialectical Rhetoric; and Post-Truth Rhetoric and Composition.
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