Hananiah Notos: The Never-ending Importance of the Dead Sea Scrolls

Revised: 17-Jun-2013

One of the recently published Dead Sea Scroll documents is known as the “Register of Rebukes.”^[5] Only parts of eleven lines of a column of this document have survived. However, even these few words and parts of words are enough to see that the document, or a portion of it, was a list of the sect’s members who were rebuked because they had violated community laws. The three individuals mentioned in the document are the only members of the Dead Sea sect that we know by name.

Dr. Esther Eshel of the Faculty of Jewish Studies of Bar-Ilan University published a preliminary edition of the document’s text.^[6] The following is Vermes’ English translation^[7] of the document:

…who…[wh]o acted wickedly…the Congregation…Yohanan son of Ar…[they rebuked because] he was short-tempered…with him…the iniquity with him and also the spirit of pride was with [him]…[blank] They rebuked Hananiah Notos because he…[to dis]turb the spirit of the Communi[ty…and] also to mingle the …they rebu[k]ed because evil…was with him and also because he was not…and also because he loved his bodily nature (or: showed preference to his near kin)…[blank] And [they rebuked] Hananiah son of Sim[on] [because he…and he also loves the goodness…

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• ^[1] See Rachel Hachlili, "Names and Nicknames of Jews in Second Temple Times," Eretz-Israel 17 (1984): 188-211 (Hebrew); Tal Ilan, "Names of Hasmoneans in the Second Temple Period," Eretz-Israel 19 (1987): 238-41 (Hebrew). In contrast to the early biblical period, in the time of Jesus there were relatively few personal names in use among the Jewish population of the land of Israel. The name ישוע (Yeshua, Jesus) was one of the most common male names in that period, tied with אלעזר (Elazar, Eleazar) for fifth place behind שמעון (Shim'on, Simon), יוסף (Yosef, Joseph), יהודה (Yehudah, Judah) and יוחנן (Yohanan, John). Nearly one out of every ten males known from the period had the name Yeshua. ↩
• ^[2] See David Bivin, "Matthew 16:18: The Petros-petra Wordplay—Greek, Aramaic, or Hebrew?" ↩
• ^[3] See David Bivin, "Queen of Teman," Jerusalem Perspective 7 (April 1988): 4. According to Matt 12:42 and Luke 11:31, Jesus said βασίλισσα νότου (basilissa notou, queen of south). The word notos appears five more times in the New Testament (Luke 12:55; 13:29; Acts 27:13; 28:13; Rev 21:13), always in the sense of "south" or "south wind." ↩
• ^[4] So Yigael Yadin and Yosef Naveh (Masada I [Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1989], 40) understood "Notos" in the name Shim'on bar Notos that occurs in a Masada inscription (no. 462). However, bar Notos (son of Notos) might indicate that this Shim'on's father's name was Notos. The bar could also indicate "belonging to" or "of the," that is, "Shim'on of, or from, the South." ↩
• ^[5] The document’s scientific designation is 4Q477. ↩
• ^[6] Esther Eshel, “4Q477: The Rebukes by the Overseer,” Journal of Jewish Studies 45.1 (1994): 111-122. ↩
• ^[7] Geza Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 1997), 237-38. ↩