Creation in the Dead Sea Scrolls

Abstract

The topic of creation in the Dead Sea Scrolls can be approached from many different perspectives. A few years ago, we concentrated on “micro level,” on the two parallel accounts of creation of man and woman in Genesis and on its interpretation. This chapter examines how the “creation” on macro level has been interpreted in Scrolls. To author this implies a certain level of abstraction, of going a step further than the narrative of the biblical text of Genesis in which God’s creative action is described using the verb בדא, but where we do not find an abstract name to designate the divine action or all things created. This level of abstraction, if we may judge from absence of a name for results of God’s creative act in a general way or this action in itself, is absent from the entire Hebrew Bible, with the exception perhaps of Num 16:30. Keywords: בדא; biblical text; Dead Sea Scrolls; divine action; Genesis; God’s creative act; Hebrew Bible