PESHER. The Hebrew noun pesher (pl. pesharim) is an Aramaic loanword that entered late biblical Hebrew (Qoheleth 8:1) and is current in the Hebrew of the Qumran scrolls in the sense of "meaning, explanation, interpretation." Since this term is mostly employed by a particular type of Qumran biblical interpretation, it came to be the nomenclature of Qumran works, which in their literary character and their structure engaged in such interpretation. In Qumran research the term pesher has therefore four distinct usages: (1) as the name of the genre that contemporizes biblical prophecies according to the worldview of the Qumran ascetic community; (2) as the name attached to individual Qumran works or literary units containing such interpretations; (3) as a formula introducing the exposition of a given biblical text according to the said method; (4) as the name of the particular exegetical method applied in this kind of interpre-tation.

1. the Pesher Genre

One of...