Chapter Twelve. Sapiential revelation: wisdom and prophecy in the Dead Sea Scrolls

The existence of sapiential revelation is tracked from its earliest appearance in the Hebrew Bible, through its expansion in the Second Temple literature and the Dead Sea Scrolls. The earliest attestation of sapiential revelation as a mode of divine discourse is found in several wisdom texts of the Hebrew Bible. This chapter analyzes the application of sapiential revelation to biblical prophets as found within the Qumran corpus and related literature. These texts present biblical prophets, from Moses to Isaiah, communicating with the divine through models previously restricted to the sapiential movement. The chapter focuses on Moses in the Joshua Apocryphon, David in 'David's Compositions' from the Cave II Psalms Scroll, and Isaiah in Ben Sira. It identifies the revelatory context of the transmission of divine knowledge to human beings in the Second Temple period. The chapter examines the exact manner in which this revelation is said to take place.Keywords: Ben Sira; biblical prophets; David; Dead Sea Scrolls; Isaiah; Joshua Apocryphon; Moses; sapiential revelation; wisdom texts