Health and Disease in Qumran Texts and Jewish Aprocryphal Literature

Preview this chapter:

Health and Disease in Qumran Texts and Jewish Aprocryphal Literature, Page 1 of 1

< Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/10.1484/M.STR-EB.5.121558/M.STR-EB.5.122743-1.gif

The Qumran community which emerged in the second century bc accounts for a plurality of texts which includes writings with a marked eschatological tendency. These texts are both their own production and those from late Judaism. These latter writings are considered apocryphal because they are not part of the official canon established in Jabneh at the end of the first century ad. The political circumstances that accentuated the crisis of Judaism motivated the reaction from heologians, who were forced to explain the plan of God in a historical perspective. Hence, much of the literature of the time such as the Book of Jubilees, Daniel in its chapters 7-12, part of 1 Enoch and the Testament of Moses, among others, are crossed by certain historical determinism. The anguish and calamities of the present do not escape the foresight of God, who very soon was to intervene decisively in history to punish the wicked and reward the righteous. In this context there are references about disease, demonic possession and its consequent liberation, about health and purification rites where legal and liturgical aspects overlap with health aspects. Besides these texts, certain works belonging to the Qumran library such as the Genesis Apocryphon (1Q 20) and the Prayer of Nabonidus (4Q 292 / 4Q PrNab) deserve consideration. In order to specify the medical, religious, and liturgical practices regarding the health-disease relationship in the different periods of the Jewish apocalyptic literature and in their respective literary contexts, this set of writings are analyzed within their current classification frameworks. They are: the historical and diachronic criterion provided by Nickelsburg, the typological method for apocryphal literature used by Trebolle Barrera, and the typological of Qumran by García Martínez.