The Self as Symbolic Space: Constructing Identity and Community at Qumran (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781589832985)

This volume investigates critical practices by which the Qumran community constituted itself as a sectarian society. Key to the formation of the community was the reconstruction of the identity of individual members. In this way the "self" became an important symbolic space for the development of the ideology of the sect. Persons who came to experience themselves in light of the narratives and symbolic structures embedded in the community practices would have developed the dispositions of affinity and estrangement necessary for the constitution of a sectarian society. Drawing on various theories of discourse and practice in rhetoric, philosophy, and anthropology, the book examines the construction of the self in two central documents: the Serek ha-Yahad and the Hodayot.

Author: Carol a. Newsom
ISBN-10: 1589832981
ISBN-13: 9781589832985
Publisher: Society of Biblical Literature
Language: English
Published: 11/09/2007
Pages: 392
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.26lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.87d