CAI Adult Scholarly Committee presents PROFESSOR SIDNIE WHITE CRAWFORD

“Sacred Scripture in the Second Temple Period: Interpretation Inside and Outside of the Text” Dr. Crawford will discuss the textual history of the Hebrew Bible and its interpretation in the Second Temple period, as revealed by the Dead Sea Scrolls. The scroll fragments discovered in caves along the Dead Sea in the 20th century taught us a great deal about the text of the Hebrew Bible before the fall of the Temple in 70 CE. Rather than the fixed text that we are used to, the text of the biblical books was fluid, and in many cases interpretation was brought into the text. Also, biblical books could be rewritten to bring in new interpretations, sometimes resulting in an expanded text, but in other cases in a whole new composition. The lecture will discuss all these issues, with illustrations and examples.  

Sidnie White Crawford is a Willa Cather Professor of the Hebrew Bible emerita at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a Visiting Scholar at Princeton Theological Seminary. She is an internationally recognized scholar in the areas of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible. Her most recent book, edited with Cecilia Wassen, is The Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran and the Concept of a Library, published by Brill (2016). Dr. Crawford currently serves as Chair of the Board of Trustees of the W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem and as a member of the Society of Biblical Literature Council. She is also a member of numerous editorial boards, including Hermeneia: A Commentary Series (Fortress Press) and The Hebrew Bible: A Critical Edition (SBL Press). She now lives in Stroudsburg, PA.

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