The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Rural Economy
The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Rural Economy
When we speak of the Dead Sea Scrolls, it is suggested that the domestic and scholarly pursuits we tend to focus on only tell part of the story. This talk by Charlotte Hempel will acknowledge that agricultural resources were a driving force behind ancient economies and beyond before shifting attention to neglected evidence in the Dead Sea Scrolls on the rural economy. She will also address the vulnerable populations whose lives were negatively impacted from chronic hunger and malnourishment, sickness, and premature deaths. To conclude, Charlotte will reflect on the implications of her findings on the socio-economic dynamics that characterize the movement associated with Qumran.
Charlotte Hempel is Professor of Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Judaism at the University of Birmingham, UK, and Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Pretoria. She is a former Fellow of the Meyerhoff Program and Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Maryland. She has published extensively on the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Hebrew Bible, including The Community Rules from Qumran: A Commentary (Mohr Siebeck, 2020) and, with George Brooke, T&T Companion to the Dead Sea Scrolls (Bloomsbury, 2019). She served as Editor-in-Chief of Dead Sea Discoveries from 2012-2018, as President of the British and Irish Association for Jewish Studies in 2016, and President of the Society for Old Testament Study in 2022. She is the Founding Director of The Second Temple Early Career Academy which was conceived as a Virtual Common Room for early career scholars globally and joined the Editorial Board of the Journal of Jewish Studies in 2024.