Reading Material Features of Qumran Tefillin and Mezuzot

Abstract

For fifty years or so, after the Qumran tefillin and mezuzot first came to light, scholarly focus centered on the biblical texts they contained, and on the relation of these artifacts to practices later discussed by post-destruction rabbis.1 More recent works by Adler and Cohn have treated material features independently of the rabbinic corpus, alongside textual ones,2 and here I will “reread” material features. To put it slightly differently, my goal in this article is to highlight the extent to which material considerations have informed the analysis of the Qumran tefillin and mezuzot—including instances where the material record shows less than has sometimes been claimed.3