1 Conceptions of Masculinity in the Scrolls and the Gendered Emotion of Anger Ari Mermelstein 1. Introduction The field of gender studies has enabled historians to transcend the androcentric nature of the sectarian texts from Qumran, as it has with so many other texts from the ancient world, and address the place of women in the groups represented in the Scrolls. 1 This scholarship has provided fresh perspectives on the social standing of women and their participation in the legal process; 2 sectarian attitudes toward marriage and women; 3 and the vexed question of sectarian celibacy. 4 References to women in texts such as the Damascus Document and the Rule of the Congregation have figured prominently in scholarly research. 5 Much less attention has been paid to the sectarian construction of masculinity—that is, how the males of the Yahad understood what makes one a man. 6 In this paper, I consider the sectarian construction of masculinity as it pertains to emotion—a relationship of central importance in conceptions of masculinity. In both ancient and modern contexts, masculinity is often associated with reason, rather than emotion, or, alternatively, with specific emotions such as pride and anger. 7 Manly men are expected to feel a certain way. By attending to the emotional expectations that animates group life, we gain greater insight into how sectarian masculinity is conceived, constructed, and reinforced. In order to explore how emotion figures in the sectarian construction of masculinity, I focus on anger, perhaps the emotion most associated with the construction of gender through the ages. In the modern context, anger is regarded as a masculine emotion; 8 studies show that, from a very young age, boys are encouraged to show anger while girls are expected instead to cultivate emotions, such as compassion, that are construed as more feminine. 9 But anger’s association with the construction of gender extends back thousands of years, as we will see below. 1 Eileen M. Schuller stands out as one of the pioneers in applying gender studies to the Scrolls; see her “Women in the Dead Sea Scrolls.” For surveys of the topic, see, e.g., Ilan, “Women in Qumran”; Grossman, “World of Qumran.” In addition to those cited in the notes below, important contributions to the study of gender in the Scrolls include Regev, Sectarianism in Qumran, 301–33, and Heger, Women in the Bible. 2 Davies and Taylor, “On the Testimony of Women”; Baumgarten, “On the Testimony of Women.” 3 See, e.g., Wassen, “Importance of Marriage.” 4 See, e.g., Galor, “Gender and Qumran”; Magness, “Women at Qumran”; Taylor, “Cemeteries of Khirbet Qumran”; Heger, “Celibacy in Qumran”; Regev, “Cherchez les femmes.” 5 On 1QSa, see, e.g., Ilan, “Reading for Women in 1QSa”; Grossman, “Women and Men in the Rule of the Congregation.” On the Damascus Document, see, e.g., Wassen, Women in the Damascus Document; Grossman, “Reading for Gender in the Damascus Document.” 6 For important exceptions, see Keady, Vulnerability and Valour; Grossman, “Rethinking Gender in the Community Rule; eadem, “Gendered Sectarians.” Conceptions of masculinity in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament have received greater attention; see, e.g., Creangă, Men and Masculinity; Moore and Anderson, New Testament Masculinities; Creangă and Smit, Biblical Masculinities Foregrounded. 7 On the binary distinction between reason and men versus emotion and women, see Timmers, Fischer, and Manstead, “Ability Versus Vulnerability.” Masculinity is nevertheless often associated with particular emotions, for instance, pride and anger, while femininity is especially associated with fear, sadness, and shame. See Plant et al., “Gender Stereotyping of Emotions”; Hess et al., “Emotional Expressivity.” 8 See Brody, “Gender and Emotion,” 371. 9 Nussbaum, Anger and Forgiveness, 44.