# Topic: DSS Textual Environment

## Core Issue
How should the Dead Sea Scrolls be understood:
- as a canon?
- as a sectarian library?
- as a broader textual snapshot?

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## Major Positions

### 1. DSS as Library (Preferred Working Model)

#### Thesis
The Dead Sea Scrolls preserve a textual library rather than a finalized canon.

#### Key Points
- multiple copies of some texts (e.g., Jubilees, Enoch)
- presence of both later-canonical and non-canonical works
- inclusion of sectarian writings

#### Implication
- authority was not strictly defined by later canon boundaries
- proximity and preservation matter

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### 2. DSS as Sectarian Collection

#### Thesis
The scrolls reflect a specific group’s textual preferences

#### Key Points
- some texts appear more frequently
- sectarian writings are included

#### Limitation
- identity of group (Essene or otherwise) is debated
- cannot assume full ideological uniformity

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## Key Observations Relevant to Enoch

### Enoch Manuscripts
- multiple Aramaic fragments
- indicates transmission and value

### Jubilees Presence
- heavily represented
- strong thematic overlap with Enoch

### Tobit Presence
- preserved in Aramaic and Hebrew
- demonstrates broader textual environment

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## Reusable Takeaways

- DSS ≠ later canon
- textual clustering is real
- preservation indicates significance (but not uniform authority)
- Enoch appears within a network, not in isolation

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## Against Our Argument

### Objection
Presence does not equal authority

### Response
Agreed:
- argument is not authority by presence
- argument is **interpretive environment and clustering**

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### Objection
Different texts may reflect different groups

### Response
Possible, but:
- clustering still reflects a preserved textual world
- interpretive relevance does not require identical authorship

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## Key Insight

The DSS do not prove Enoch is canonical.

They do something more important:

> They show that Enoch belongs to a preserved textual environment
that overlaps with other Jewish works and helps define the interpretive world
in which later biblical texts operate.
