1. M. O. Wise, Thunder in Gemini and Other Essays on the History, Language and Literature of Second Temple Palestine (JSP Supp. Ser. 15; Sheffield 1994) 186-221.

2. See in my "The Greek Names of the Hasmoneans," JQR 78 (1987-8) 7, n. 28.

3. See particularly D. Flusser, "Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes in Pesher Nahum," in M. Dorman, S. Safrai and M. Stern (eds.), Essays in Jewish History and Philology in Memory of Gadaliahu Alon (Tel Aviv 1970), pp. 133-68.

4. See discussion in M. P. Horgan, Pesharim: Qumran Interpretations of Biblical Books (Washington 1979) 138-9; 148-9.

5. D. Amusin, "The Reflection of Historical Events of the First Century B.C. in Qumran Commentaries (4Q161; 4Q169; 4Q166)," HUCA 48 (1977) 123-52.

6. Ibid., 149.

7. A parallel tradition exists for this midrash in the tannaitic Sifra on Leviticus, verse 26:3-4 ("If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them, then I will give you your rains in their seasons" Behuqotai pereq 1 :1), but I believe it is secondary, because it is more elaborate and also because the queen is no longer presented by herself in the tradition but together with Shimeon ben Shatah.

8. On this date for the manuscript, based on palaeographic considerations, see J. Strugnell, "Notes en marge du Volume V des Discoveries in the Judaean Desert," Revue Qumrân 7 (1969), 199.

9. The notion that the queen is to blame for the sibling war after her death, which brought the Romans to Palestine is also championed by Josephus, or more likely by Nicolaus of Damascus, see my: "Josephus and Nicolaus on Women," in Ge schichte-Tradition-Reflexion: Festschrift für Martin Hengel zum 70. Geburtstag, eds. H. Cancik, H. Lichtenberger and P. Schäfer (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1996) ***.