Collins, Matthew A.2017-05-242017-05-242017-05-12Collins, M. A. (2017). Text, Intertext, and Conceptual Identity: The Case of Ephraim and the Seekers of Smooth Things. In A. Feldman, M. Cioată, & C. Hempel (Eds.), Is There a Text in this Cave? Studies in the Textuality of the Dead Sea Scrolls in Honour of George J. Brooke (pp. 209–225). Leiden: Brill.9789004344525http://hdl.handle.net/10034/620511This essay first highlights some ambiguities in the use of “Judah” and “Ephraim” (and to a lesser extent, “Manasseh”) in the Qumran sectarian Dead Sea Scrolls, which together problematize a straightforward reading of these typological labels in relation to distinct (let alone historical) groups. It then turns to focus on “Ephraim” and its seemingly unprompted employment as an identifying label for “the Seekers of Smooth Things.” Proposing an alternative sectarian provenance for this conceptual identification, it suggests that the explicit association of “Ephraim” with “the Seekers of Smooth Things” (and indeed the community of the Liar) in the pesharim both derives from and builds upon implicit scriptural allusions present in the Damascus Document.enhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Dead Sea ScrollsQumranBook chapter