Joseph M. Baumgarten
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Joseph M. Baumgarten (Vienna, September 7, 1928 – December 4, 2008) was an Austrian-born Semitic scholar known for his knowledge in the field of Jewish legal texts from biblical law to Mishnaic law and including the legal texts among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Baumgarten immigrated to the United States with his family in 1939 as a result of the
Baumgarten started his studies in the field of mathematics with a B.A. cum laude from
Prof. Baumgarten served as visiting professor at Towson State College (now
1953 saw the first of his publications on the Dead Sea Scrolls. Essays from the early period of his study were collected in 1977, Studies in Qumran Law (Leiden: Brill Publishers, 1977). His knowledge of Qumran legal matters was probably the reason why John Strugnell gave him the task of publishing the Cave 4 fragments of the Damascus Document. His work on the Damascus Document not only brought its manuscripts to publication but provided the basis for understanding it within the framework of the history of Judaism.
A festschrift was presented to him in 1995: Legal Texts and Legal Issues, Proceedings of the Second Meeting of the International Organization for Qumran Studies, Cambridge 1995, Published in Honour of Joseph M. Baumgarten, edited by M. Bernstein, F. García Martínez, J. Kampen (Leiden: Brill, 1997).
Publications
His publications include:
- Law in the Dead Sea Scrolls, (Routledge – an imprint of Taylor & Francis Books Ltd, 2005) ISBN 0-415-19651-5
- Qumran Cave 4 Vol. XIII: The Damascus Document (4Q266–273), editor with Jozef T. Milik, Stephen Pfann, Ada Yardeni (Oxford: OUP, 1997) ISBN 0-19-826396-1
- Qumran Cave 4 Vol. XXXV: Halakhic Texts, editor with Torleif Elgvin, Esther Eshel, Erik Larson, Manfred R. Lehmann (Oxford: OUP, 2000) ISBN 0-19-827006-2
External links
- "The Laws of the Damascus Document – Between Bible and Mishnah" – an article by Baumgarten hosted at the Orion Center.
- "Immunity to Impurity and the Menorah" by Joseph M. Baumgarten. Jewish Studies, an Internet Journal (JSIJ), vol. 5, 2006, pp. 141–5.
- Lawrence Schiffman's obituary for Joseph M. Baumgarten