The Qumran Copper Scroll—A Post-apocalyptic Journey

Post-apocalyptic fiction triggers images of survivors of a catastrophe, forced to set out on a journey into a brutal and a dangerous world, struggling to ensure continued existence. Predators, zombies, and hostile bands are potentially lurking behind every corner. The sceneries of post-apocalyptic narratives are the remnants and ruins of the civilization that has collapsed. Buildings, roads, and bridges have been left empty and unattended; there is an atmosphere of uncanny strangeness. The landscape is often seemingly deserted, and yet it is impossible to know what hides in the shadows. This article attempts to read the landscape and the journey prescribed in the Copper Scroll (3Q15) in the light of images and sceneries found in “post-apocalyptic” fiction. I intend to show that this instructed journey leads through a landscape that has an affinity with the landscapes and journeys often portrayed in post-apocalyptic descriptions. The scroll depicts a landscape without any other human presence than the anonymous instructing voice and the anonymous addressee. The treasures are hidden in caves, ruins, empty decaying buildings, water installations, and tombs. As in post-apocalyptic narratives, 3Q15 gives the impression of a desolate world, where remnants of the past abound, but their significance has become ambiguous. Drawing on recent studies on post-apocalyptic fiction, I attempt to shed light on why Jerusalem, the temple, and the most sacred temple vessels are never explicitly mentioned in the scroll

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Biblical studies · Cave · Civilization · Dead Sea Scrolls · Hebrew Bible · Literature · Narrative · Uncanny · Archaeology and Historical Studies · Biblical Studies and Interpretation · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies · History

• The Wilderness Itineraries

  Angela R Roskop, Angela Roskop•Wilderness Itineraries•2011

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