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Document Details :

Title: The Husband's or Father's Authority to Annul his Wife's or Daughter's Vows Introduction
Author(s): HEGER, Paul
Journal: Revue de Qumran
Volume: 27    Issue: 2   Date: 2015   
Pages: 205-223
DOI: 10.2143/RQ.27.2.3127280

Abstract :
The rules about the husband’s authority to annul his wife’s vows and oaths in CD XVI 6-12 and 4Q416 (4QInstrb) 2iv 6-11 seem at first sight to be conflicting. Whereas 4Q416 decrees the husband’s unlimited authority, the CD seems to limit it. Cecilia Wassen indeed confirms this divergence, alleging that the CD restricts the husband’s annulment authority exclusively to commitments which conflict with scriptural law. After an extensive analysis of the scriptural sources, and their rabbinic interpretation, the study effects a meticulous scrutiny of the CD text, and postulates the notion that the CD does not restrict the husband’s authority, but advices him how to proceed regarding a commitment by his wife, which seems to conflict with a particular Qumran regulation. Hence, the two sources are not contradictory.

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