The Story of the Scrolls
Page 14
Reference to the messianic banquet provides an opening for a mention of another appendix to the complete manuscript of the Community Rule, known as the Blessings (1QSb). As it ends with a benediction of the final Prince of the Congregation (the royal Messiah), it logically follows that all the other benedictions also refer to the messianic age and that the high priest is in fact the priestly Messiah. The words of blessing pronounced on him run:
May the Lord lift His countenance towards you; [May He delight in the] sweet odour [of your sacrifices]!
…
May He place upon your head [a diadem]… in [everlasting] glory; may He sanctify your seed in glory without end!
May He grant you everlasting [peace]…
(1QSb 3:1–6)
The Prince of the Congregation is blessed by the Master in the following terms:
May the Lord raise you up to everlasting heights, and as a fortified tower upon a high wall!
[May you smite the peoples] with the might of your hand and ravage the earth with your sceptre; may you bring death to the ungodly with the breath of your lips…
May He make your horns of iron and your hooves of bronze; may you toss like a young bull… like the mire of the streets…
He shall strengthen you with His holy Name and you shall be as a [lion]…
(1QSb 5:23–9)
Among the annual festivals of the Community the most important was that of the Renewal of the Covenant celebrated on the Feast of Weeks. On that day, the ‘novices’ who had passed muster and the children born into the married branch of the Community who had reached the age of twenty years were enrolled into the sect by swearing an oath to return to the Law of Moses and observe it as interpreted by the Zadokite priests. Together with the newly professed, the existing members reiterated their commitment in the course of a solemn ceremony which entailed a ‘baptism’ or ritual purificatory immersion. The same festival witnessed the annual re-ranking of the sectaries in conformity with their spiritual performance during the preceding twelve months. The sad event of the occasion was the expulsion of members who had seriously failed to live up to the onerous moral and ritual demands of the Community.
The first section of the Cave 1 version of the Community Rule (1QS 1:1–3:12) focuses on this ritual. It begins by setting out the aim of the sect:
that they may seek God with a whole heart and soul, and do what is good and right before Him as He has commanded by the hand of Moses and all His servants the prophets.
(1QS 1:1–3)
The newcomers and those who reiterated their previous commitment are portrayed as men freely devoting themselves to the observance of the divine precepts by refraining from following ‘a sinful heart and lustful eyes’ and accepting all the revelations concerning the sect’s ‘appointed times’. Entry into the Covenant began with the recitation by the priests and Levites of a benediction of God, which was concluded by a double amen uttered by all. Next, the priests recounted God’s loving kindness towards the biblical Israel and the Levites detailed the sins committed by the people in the past, leading to a public confession by all the participants:
We have strayed! We have [disobeyed!] We and our fathers before us have sinned and acted wickedly… But He has bestowed His bountiful mercy on us from everlasting to everlasting.
(1QS 1:24–2:1)
The confession is followed by a priestly blessing of the lot of God in the form of a paraphrase of Numbers 6:24–5:
May He bless you with all good and preserve you from all evil!
May He lighten your heart with life-giving wisdom and grant you eternal knowledge!
May He raise His merciful face towards you for everlasting bliss!
(1QS 2:2–4)
It was then the turn of the choir of the Levites to curse the lot of Satan, or Belial as he was called at Qumran, and those who entered the Covenant confirmed the blessings and the curses by saying ‘Amen, amen’. The priests and the Levites went on jointly to pronounce a malediction on any dishonest member of the Community whose repentance did not come from the heart. They were told they would be cut off from among the sons of light. ‘Amen, amen’, approved the sectaries. This cursing seems to amount to a formal expulsion of members who had transgressed the rules in serious matters or broken any single commandment of the Law of Moses. A parallel passage in one of the Cave 4 manuscripts of the Damascus Document lays down: ‘And all the inhabitants of the camps shall assemble in the third month and curse him who turns aside, to the right [or to the left, from the] law’ (4Q266, fr. 11).
After the curses and the eventual banishments, all those remaining formed themselves into a procession to enter into, or to renew, the Covenant, first the priests, second the Levites and third the people, each one in the place allotted to him according to his spiritual progress, a place they would keep until the reclassification due twelve months later.
All the old and new members were to descend into purifying waters and undergo a baptism, which was believed to wash away all uncleanness through the spirit of holiness, uprightness and humility from those who were motivated by a humble submission of their soul to all the laws of God.
The ceremonial baptism was accompanied by a doctrinal instruction by the Master (maskil), who delivered a sermon on the works of the two spirits, the spirit of light and the spirit of darkness. This is the oldest theological tractate that has survived in Jewish literature (1QS 3:13–4:26). This was followed by the reading out of all the sectarian regulations (1QS 5:1–9:25). The account recalls the renewal of the Covenant and the reading of the Law by the priest Ezra in early post-exilic times (458 or 398 BC), as recorded in the Book of Nehemiah 8:1–8. Ezra’s ritual seems to be the prototype of the Qumran festival. The Community Rule ends with a splendid and uplifting long poem from which the following extract is taken:
As for me, my justification is with God.
In His hand are the perfection of my way
And the uprightness of my heart.
He will wipe out my transgression through his righteousness.
For my light has sprung from the source of His knowledge,
My eyes have beheld His marvellous deeds,
and the light of my heart the mystery to come.
He that is everlasting is the support of my hand;
The way of my steps is over stout rock which nothing can shake.
For the rock of my steps is the truth of God
And His might is the support of my right hand.
From the source of His righteousness is my justification,
And from His marvellous mysteries is the light of my heart.
My eyes have gazed on that which is eternal,
On wisdom concealed from men,
On knowledge and wise design (hidden) from the sons of men;
On a fountain of righteousness and a storehouse of power,
On a spring of glory (hidden) from the assembly of flesh.
God has given them to His chosen ones as an everlasting possession,
And has caused them to inherit the lot of the Holy Ones.
He has joined their assembly to the Sons of Heaven
To be a council of the community,
a foundation of the building of holiness,
an eternal plantation throughout the ages to come.
(1QS 11:2–9)
Besides communal liturgies, the Qumran library has also yielded prayers written for individual use. The best preserved of these are the Thanksgiving Hymns contained in a scroll from Cave 1 and supplemented by fragments from Cave 4 (1QH, 1Q36, 4Q427–32). They are all more or less well-inspired imitations of the biblical Psalter. The poet almost always speaks in the first person singular, the I-form rather than the we-form. Some of the psalms appear to voice the life and sentiments of a controversial Community leader. Hence their not altogether convincing attribution to the Teacher of Righteousness, recounting his conflict with ungrateful members of his Community and a hostile high priest, who forced him into exile (1QH 4, 10–11; Habak
kuk Commentary 11:4–8). However, most of the poems may be applied to anyone. Profound humility and limitless gratitude towards a benevolent God characterize them. Two leading ideas run through the corpus: election and knowledge. A frail human being, a ‘creature of clay’, is chosen by the Almighty and graciously elevated to the company of the angels to sing God’s praises in unison with the heavenly choirs.
Clay and dust that I am, what can I devise unless You wish it, and what can I contrive unless You desire it?
What strength shall I have unless You keep me upright
And how shall I understand unless by (the spirit) You have shaped for me?
What can I say unless You open my mouth
And how can I answer unless You enlighten me?
Behold, You are the Prince of gods and the King of majesties,
Lord of the spirits and Ruler of creatures;
Nothing is done without You, and nothing is known without Your will.
Beside You, there is nothing, nothing can compare with You in strength.
In the presence of Your glory there is nothing, Your might is priceless.
Who among Your great and marvellous creatures can stand before Your glory?
How can then he who returns to dust?
For Your glory’s sake alone have you made all these things.
(1QH 18:5–10)
As for the second theme, heavenly knowledge, the sectary, using the words of the poet, constantly seeks to express his thanks for being the beneficiary of the divine mysteries revealed to the Teacher of Righteousness and the spiritual masters of his community.
I [thank You, O Lord],
for You have enlightened me through Your truth.
In Your marvellous mysteries and loving-kindness to a man [of vanity
And] in the greatness of Your mercy to a perverse heart
You have granted me knowledge.
(1QH 15:26–7)
C. HISTORY AND BIBLE INTERPRETATION
No historical document in the strict sense has emerged from the Qumran caves. A very fragmentary calendar (4Q331–3), mentioning known personalities like the Priest John (probably John Hyrcanus I, 135–103 BCE) and Shelamzion or Queen Salome Alexandra (76–67 BCE), widow of the high priest Alexander Jannaeus (102–76 BCE), and a poem alluding to ‘king Jonathan’ (4Q448) of disputed identity (the same Jannaeus or Jonathan Maccabaeus, 153/2–143/2 BCE) usefully set the historical framework. Our best sources for the reconstruction of the origins of the Qumran Community are the Exhortation at the beginning of the Damascus Document (CD 1–8), a kind of sermon sketching the appearance of the Teacher of Righteousness and the early history of the sect, and commentaries or pesharim attached to the biblical books of Habakkuk, Nahum and the Psalter (Psalm 37), in which the interpreters assert that ancient predictions point at persons and events in the history of the Qumran sect and that these persons and events, divinely chosen and arranged, constitute the fulfilment and supply the meaning of scriptural prophecies.
1. The Exhortation of the Damascus Document
To start with the Damascus Document, the initial scene refers to the ‘age of wrath’, a period of political and religious turmoil, occurring 390 years after the conquest of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, in 586 BCE, according to our chronological reckoning. The preacher of the Exhortation, relying on the scriptural concept of the ‘righteous remnant’, that is to say, a small group of God-fearing people providentially saved from the cataclysm, speaks of the root of a new plant springing to life out of Jewry, literally out of Aaron and Israel, to form a little society, full of good intention, but not knowing where to go and what to do. They ‘groped for the way’ in darkness like blind men for a time. After twenty years God took pity on them and sent for them a leader, the Teacher of Righteousness, to guide them towards the light. The career of the Teacher did not proceed smoothly. Opposition arose within the community, motivated by doctrinal and legal disagreements. The mischief-maker is variously nicknamed the ‘Scoffer’, the ‘Liar’ or the ‘Spouter of lies’. He and his followers contrived to force the Teacher and his faithful followers into exile to the ‘land of Damascus’, probably a sobriquet for Qumran (CD 1:4–21; 8:21; 20:12). There the Teacher launched a new Covenant based on the correct interpretation of divine revelation. The details of his career are unknown and all we are told about his end is that he was ‘gathered in’, that is, he died, presumably in exile. His opponents were to reap their just deserts when God’s revenge was meted out to them by the hand of ‘the chief of the kings of Greece’. Another chronological detail alludes to a final forty-year period separating the death of the Teacher from the violent destruction of his enemies, depicted as ‘the men of war who had deserted to the Liar’ (CD B2:13–14), the leader who rose against the Teacher from within the ranks of the community. The historical and chronological analysis and identification of these and other allusions will be presented in chapter VIII.
2. Bible Interpretation and the Historically Linked Pesher
The Qumran caves have preserved documents containing various works of scriptural exegesis. The simplest of these figure in specimens of straight Bible translation: a small fragment of Leviticus (4Q156) and a mutilated scroll of Job (11Q10; 4Q157) have survived in Aramaic, and remains of Exodus (7Q1), Leviticus (4Q119–20), Numbers (4Q121), Deuteronomy (4Q122) and the Epistle of Jeremiah (7Q2) in Greek. Some further tiny Greek papyrus fragments from Cave 7, mistakenly identified first by José O’Callaghan and later by Carsten Peter Thiede as representing New Testament extracts, are more likely relics of the Greek version of the Book of Enoch.
The examples, not of translation, but of the actual exposition of Scripture oscillate between occasional paraphrases inserted into a biblical book, as in the Reworked Pentateuch (4Q158; 4Q364–7), and continuous and substantial interpretative passages cleverly woven into the text of the books of the Bible, prefiguring Josephus’ reformulation of the Scripture narrative in his Jewish Antiquities and the midrashic enlargements built into the Palestinian paraphrastic Targums (Fragmentary Targum, Pseudo-Jonathan and Neophyti). The Genesis Apocryphon from Cave 1 offers excellent illustrations. For instance, instead of the prosaic statement that on Sarah’s arrival in Egypt, Pharaoh’s princes reported her prettiness to their master (Genesis 12:14–15), the writer of the Apocryphon inserts a poem in which they enthusiastically sing the praises of the lady’s stunning beauty:
… and how beautiful her face?
How… fine is the hair of her head and how lovely are her eyes!
How desirable is her nose and all the radiance of her countenance!
…
How fair are her breasts and how beautiful all their whiteness!
How pleasing are her arms and how perfect her hands
And how[desirable] the appearance of her hands!
How fair are her palms and how long and slender are her fingers!
How comely are her feet and how perfect her thighs!
No virginal bride led into the marriage chamber is prettier than she,
She is fairer than all other women; truly her beauty is greater than theirs!
Yet together with all this grace goes abundant wisdom
So that whatever she does is perfect!
(1Qap Gen 20:2–8)
In another type of commentary on Genesis, the interpreter seeks to adjust the biblical chronology of the flood of Noah to the solar calendar of the Qumran sect and expressly associates the ‘men of the Community’ with the future ‘Messiah of Righteousness, Branch of David’ (4Q252).
The most important among the exegetical works attached to a distinct biblical book are the so-called pesharim (singular, pesher). The term simply means ‘interpretation’, but is used for a special kind of exegesis in which a biblical prophecy is explained through its realization in an event or in a person within the history of the Qumran Community. This type of exposition of the Bible, though characteristic of the Dead Sea Scrolls, is attested also in the numerous New Testament exampl
es where biblical prophecies are claimed to have been realized in Jesus and, less frequently, in the midrashic literature of rabbinic Judaism where, for instance, the leader of the second Jewish rebellion against Rome, nicknamed Bar Kokhba or Son of the Star is seen as the fulfilment of the scriptural prediction, ‘A star shall come out of Jacob’ (Num. 24:17). It is not impossible and is even likely that this interpretative technique was borrowed from the Qumran Community by the evangelists, Paul and the later rabbis.
In the Scrolls the continuous pesher accompanied some of the prophetic books as well as the Psalms, the latter also being considered by the sect as ‘uttered through prophecy’ (11QPsalms 27:11). Pesher-type exegesis is attached to the biblical books of Isaiah (4Q162–5), Hosea (4Q166–7), Micah (1Q14), Nahum (4Q169), Habakkuk (1QpHab), Zephaniah (1Q15; 4Q170), Malachi (4Q253a) and Psalms (1Q16; 4Q171, 173). The Habakkuk Commentary, covering the first two chapters of the prophet, has been preserved in a nearly complete form covering thirteen columns. The Nahum pesher survives in several largish fragments as do those commenting on Isaiah and Psalm 37. The others are more scrappy.
As far as the history of the Dead Sea Community is concerned, the pesharim tell the story which has already been anticipated in lesser detail in the Exhortation of the Damascus Document. The synopsis is primarily based on the Habakkuk Commentary which offers the fullest picture. In it, we are faced on the one hand with the ‘Teacher of Righteousness’, a priestly leader having enjoyed special divine revelations. He was surrounded by disciples who formed his community. Within the group arose a rebellious leader who disagreed with the Teacher on various points of doctrine, and from outside came the ‘Wicked Priest’, a high priest endowed with political power (‘he ruled over Israel’), who was at first well-meaning, but subsequently went astray, corrupted by might and money. The Teacher and his party were forced into exile, where they proclaimed themselves the spiritual replacement of the Jerusalem Temple. The fate of the Teacher of Righteousness is not disclosed – he probably died in exile – but that of the Wicked Priest is clearly stated: he was captured by unspecified enemies called ‘the violent of the nations’ (Commentary on Psalms 37, 4Q171, 4:9–10), and his later successors were removed from power by the new world conquerors, the Kittim, who acted as God’s chosen instrument in executing vengeance on ‘the last priests of Jerusalem’. The historical perspective of the Habakkuk Commentary ends with the arrival of a ruler of the Kittim (Romans) in the capital of Judaea, no doubt Pompey the Great in 63 BCE.