Sacred Blueprints: Temple Politics and Social Transformation from Nabonidus to Qumran
This project examines how temple imagery and architectural symbolism in the Dead Sea Scrolls express social transformation, political resistance, and divine justice. By comparing Qumran’s temple discourse with King Nabonidus’ renovations in late Mesopotamia, it proposes a new model for how ancient Near Eastern communities formulated visions of society, critique of power, and alternative orders. Temple symbolism is approached as a performative tool, not merely metaphorical.
The project brings fresh insights to studies of ancient religion, political theology, and symbolic systems, and highlights the Dead Sea Scrolls’ ties to broader Near Eastern traditions—an often overlooked aspect in Qumran scholarship. It has so far generated two articles, one published and one forthcoming.
Funding is sought for the project’s final phase: completing a monograph that synthesizes the comparative analysis and develops a theoretical framework for sacred architecture as a mode of ethical resistance and social transformation.
The research will be based at the Faculty of Theology and Religion and the Oriental Institute, University of Oxford—centers of excellence in the Dead Sea Scrolls and ancient Near Eastern studies. The nearby British Museum holds key sources, including the Nabonidus corpus. A one-month stay is also planned at the École Biblique in Jerusalem, home to one of the world’s foremost research libraries on the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The project brings fresh insights to studies of ancient religion, political theology, and symbolic systems, and highlights the Dead Sea Scrolls’ ties to broader Near Eastern traditions—an often overlooked aspect in Qumran scholarship. It has so far generated two articles, one published and one forthcoming.
Funding is sought for the project’s final phase: completing a monograph that synthesizes the comparative analysis and develops a theoretical framework for sacred architecture as a mode of ethical resistance and social transformation.
The research will be based at the Faculty of Theology and Religion and the Oriental Institute, University of Oxford—centers of excellence in the Dead Sea Scrolls and ancient Near Eastern studies. The nearby British Museum holds key sources, including the Nabonidus corpus. A one-month stay is also planned at the École Biblique in Jerusalem, home to one of the world’s foremost research libraries on the Dead Sea Scrolls.