The purpose of the War Scroll (1QM) cols. 2-9: Text and Ritual

The scroll of War of the Sons of Light against the War of Darkness (1QM) is a composite text which combines descriptions of eschatological events, military program and liturgical passages. This paper focuses on the ritual aspects of the military equipment and organization in the eschatological war.

Cols. 3–9 of 1QM appear to address military organization and tactics. However, the predominant focus in these sections extends beyond warfare to ceremonial elements such as trumpets, banners and the ritual inscriptions on them. Even the weaponry is described with meticulous attention to aesthetic and nonfunctional details, as one might find in a museum exhibition. A literary-rhetorical analysis of these columns points to ritual aspects crafted to evoke in the reader a perception of the war as a sacred, ritualistic event. This is achieved through repeated motifs, categorization into lists of specific orders, modes of communication and interactions, sacred war symbols and interactions with God. Ritual theory is used to demonstrate the ritualistic markers of the text, shedding light on the authors' aims in portraying the war in this ritualistic manner. This part of the War Scroll is more than a practical military plan, and is rather a textual ritual representation of the eschatological war, in which the army stands on spiritual foundations.

Eyal Regev is Full Professor in the Martin (Szusz) Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology at Bar-Ilan University, Israel. His research focuses on the social and religious history and social archaeology of the Second Temple period, with particular emphasis on Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Hasmoneans and Herod, the Pharisees and Sadducees, the Jerusalem Temple, early Christianity, and the social-scientific study of Second Temple Jewish society.

His scholarship combines literary and historical sources with archaeological evidence in order to reconstruct religious practice, social organization, identity, family life, ritual, material culture, and patterns of individualism and communal belonging in late Second Temple Judaea. His work has addressed ritual baths and purity, burial caves and ossuaries, Qumran sectarianism, Herodian and Hasmonean palaces, Masada, Josephus, and the role of the Jerusalem Temple in early Christianity.

Regev has also held senior academic leadership positions at Bar-Ilan University, including Head of the Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology and Head of Olamot – The School of Jewish Studies and Israeli Culture. He conducted postdoctoral research at Harvard University's Center for Jewish Studies as a Fulbright Scholar.