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This article revisits the evidence of the Community Rule on commensality in the Yaḥad. Rather than offering a synthesis of various passages, as is customary in many discussions, the approach adopted here stresses significant differences between the description of the common meal in 1QS 6:2c–3, 4b–5 and the place of pure food and drink in the admissions process in 1QS 6:13b–23. The common meal emerges as a rather low-key and uncontroversial shared meal of standard Mediterranean staples preceded by a priestly blessing. The admissions process, on the other hand, is considered afresh against the background of halakhic texts such as 4QTohoraha (4Q274) 3 and 4QHarvesting (4Q284a). It is argued that partaking of the pure food and drink of the community is only the final stage in a more extended and laborious process of food production and preparation envisaged for gradually advancing new members. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Karaite grammatical thought originated in the ninth or even the eighth century CE. It had its roots in Masoretic literature and in the Arabic tradition of grammar. Scholarly study of Karaite grammatical tradition was given new impetus when the second Firkovitch Collection held in the National Library of Russia in St Petersburg and containing the majority of extant Karaite linguistic manuscripts became open to international scholars. Hitherto a number of Karaite grammatical treatises have been edited and the origins, periodization and characteristic features of this tradition studied. Yet further surviving treatises must be reconstructed and grammatical concepts investigated in more detail before a complete account of the Karaite linguistic teachings can be given. This article reconstructs from unpublished manuscripts the Karaite grammatical treatise KitĀb al-uqūd fi taṣĀrīf al-lugha al-'ibrĀniyya traditionally attributed to Abü al-Faraj Hãrün. The newly reconstructed text shows that KitĀb al-uqūd was not composed by Abū al-Faraj HĀrūn and must presently be considered anonymous. Additionally, it provides evidence that the word 'uqūd here is a previously unknown technical term meaning 'derivational relations, rules' rather than 'pearl-strings' as was suggested before. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses the prohibitions of heresies imposed by premodern Judaism and argues that the mechanism for defining and the circumstances for the prohibition of Jewish heresy varied greatly according to time and place. She discusses three cases of Karaites, scripturalists who departed from rabbinic tradition and focused on the Bible for interpretations, in an attempt to understand the importance of doctrine to medieval and early modern judgments about religious conformity in Judaism and that the changing circumstances of heresy's articulation changes its definition over time.

The study of early Christian asceticism, which formerly focused strictly on ascetic practices, has been transformed in recent years. In addition to ascetic practices, scholars analyze the discourse of asceticism, which emphasizes the decentering of the self, the problematizing of the person's ability to govern the body and be considered righteous before God. Although this approach has pushed back the origins of ascetic discourses in Christianity, the decentering of the self can be observed in Qumran texts. In the present article this ascetic discourse of the decentered self is traced in other pre-Christian Jewish texts and in an unexpected context—novelistic texts. This approach allows for an exploration of literary, ritual, and ascetic aspects of the texts, and some consideration is given to the social context of these important developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Until fairly recently Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance has been the standard paradigm for understanding reactions to failed prophecy. This theory has been criticized on both empirical and theoretical grounds. Festinger's approach fails to pay sufficient attention to the perspectives and interpretations of followers, who are seen by him as irrational and driven by forces beyond their understanding. This paper examines messianic belief among Lubavitchers and discusses what happened when their leader died without revealing his messianic status. Following failed prophecy, Lubavitchers continued missionizing at the same high level as previously. The case material illustrates the fact that such an intense religious group as Lubavitch do not follow teachings blindly but are sane people who try to reason their way through facts and doctrine in pursuit of understanding. Lubavitchers dealt with this failure of prophecy by appealing to a number of post-hoc rationalisations. In accordance with Melton's (1985) theory, the messianic belief underwent a process of spiritualization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]