Esther Eshel
Dr. Esther Eshel visited TWU in September 2009.
Dr. Eshel is an editor for the Discoveries in the Judean Desert series, the official publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls. She is involved in two main areas of research: (1) the late books of the Hebrew Bible, as part of an interest in Jewish literature of the Second Temple period, including early Jewish exegesis; and (2) epigraphy.
As a member of the international team formed in 1991 to publish the Dead Sea Scrolls, she was responsible for the publication of 13 scrolls that were found in Cave 4 at Qumran. These scrolls deal with a variety of subjects, some historical, such as a text containing a prayer for the welfare of King Alexander Jannaeus, or another briefly summarizing the life of Antiochus IV, apparently used as a source of Daniel 12:7; or various texts that shed light on the worldview of the Qumran sect; a passage reciting the prayer said before immersion in a ritual bath; a text containing a list of transgressions by members of the sect; and a passage that includes a hymn written in the name of the High Priest who will lead the sect at the End of Days. Dr. Eshel also published an ostracon from the first century CE, which records, as it seems, the transfer of property from a new member to the Qumran sect. Recently she published 14 small fragments of Dead Sea Scrolls that had been in the hands of various antiquities collectors. They are primarily biblical verses, but include also a papyrus fragment of an additional manuscript of the Book of Enoch.
Dr. Eshel is interested in the Second Temple period interpretations of the Hebrew Bible, specifically those on the Book of Genesis. In this area of study she has published, together with Prof. Michael Stone and the late Prof. J. C. Greenfield from the Hebrew University, an annotated scientific volume on the “Aramaic Levi Document,” which records the life of Levi son of Jacob. Fragments of the document were found at Qumran, in the Cairo Geniza, and in a Greek manuscript translated from Aramaic.She has also studied the different versions of biblical texts uncovered at Qumran, and their use as a basis for sectarian exegesis; as well as the apocryphal psalms from the Second Temple period.
As an epigraphist, Dr. Eshel has published a number of important inscriptions, including a Hebrew inscription from the seventh century BCE unearthed at Maresha; a juglet bearing a Phoenician inscription from the Persian period from Jaffa; an Idumaean marriage contract from 176 BCE from Maresha; scribal exercises written on bowls from the Hellenistic period, including fragments of previously unknown Edomite wisdom literature; and an assortment of documents found at Ketef Jericho recording economic transactions during the time of the Bar Kokhba Revolt.
Soon to be released is a monograph presenting 65 Hellenistic ostraca discovered at Maresha, written in Aramaic, Phoenician, and Idumaean, with her translations and commentary. Lately, she has received for publication over 200 ostraca from the same period, most written in Aramaic, found recently during excavations at Maresha. These inscriptions are to be published in an additional monograph.
Dr. Eshel also published 34 Hebrew and Aramaic inscriptions from the First and Second Temple periods, discovered by the late Professor Nahman Avigad in the Upper City excavations of Jerusalem.