#8. Jesus and the Gospels in the Light of the Scrolls by F.F. Bruce
In any comparison of the Qumran literature with the Gospels there is an initial difficulty to be
taken into account: the historical subject-matter of the Gospels is far more securely
established than that of the Qumran literature. For example, whatever doubt may be
entertained of other elements in the story of Jesus, the fact that he was crucified by sentence
of Pontius Pilate fixes his position in history within narrow limits, for Pilate was prefect of
Judaea from A.D. 26 to 36/37.
If it were possible to fix the death of the Qumran Teacher of Righteousness within ten or twelve years, we should count ourselves fortunate indeed. As it is, two of the most distinguished British scholars who have dealt with this subject assign to the death of the Teacher dates separated from each other by over 230 years: H. H. Rowley identifies him with the high priest Onias III, who was assassinated in 171 B.C., while G. R. Driver identifies him with the Zealot leader Menahem, who was killed in September, A.D. 66.
It must make a difference to a comparative study of Qumran and the Gospels whether we date
the Teacher of Righteousness before Christ or after Christ. But even G. R. Driver, while
maintaining the post-Christian dating of the Scrolls, insists that “they are documents of prime
importance for the understanding of the New Testament and present a challenge which
Christian scholars will neglect at their peril” (The Judaean Scrolls, 1965, p. 6). His words are
still more to be heeded if, as is assumed for purposes of this essay, both the Teacher of
Righteousness and the bulk of the Qumran texts thus far published are pre-Christian…
Let it be said here that the Jesus with whom this essay is concerned is the Jesus of the
Gospels. No attempt will be made to draw a distinction between the Jesus of history and the
kerygmatic Jesus of post-Easter faith, any more than one will (or could) be made to
distinguish the historical Teacher of Righteousness from the Teacher as he appears in the
Qumran texts.
In the Qumran texts and in the Gospels the Hebrew prophets are valued and interpreted in
their own right; they are not relegated (as so often in rabbinical Judaism) to the role of
providing comments or haphtaroth to the Torah. In the Qumran literature those covenantbreakers
are denounced “who will not believe when they hear all that is coming upon the last
generation, from the mouth of the priest [presumably the Teacher of Righteousness] into
whose heart God has put wisdom, to interpret all the words of his servants the prophets,
through whom God told all that was to come upon his people and upon his land” (1 QpHab. ii.
6-10); similarly Jesus chides his disciples, calling them “foolish men” because they were so
“slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken” (Luke 24. 25). The time at which
the prophetic oracles would be fulfilled was not made known to the prophets themselves; it
was revealed to the Teacher of Righteousness, and communicated by him to his disciples,
who thus had reason to thank God for divulging to them his “wonderful mysteries” which
were concealed from others. So Jesus thanks God for revealing to babes things that had been hidden from the wise and understanding (Matt. 11. 25; Luke 10. 21) and congratulates his hearers because they see and hear things that prophets and righteous men longed in vain to see and hear (Matt. 13. 16f.; Luke 10. 23f.).
The distinctive theology of each of the two bodies of literature is based in great measure on the interpretation of prophecy characteristic of each.
In the Qumran literature, however, there is a note of hope deferred which is absent from the
Gospels. It may be that at one time the winding up of the old age was expected within the lifetime
of the Teacher of Righteousness, but its postponement beyond his death called for some
reinterpretation of prophecy: “the last time is prolonged, extending beyond all that the
prophets have spoken, for the mysteries of God are wonderful” (1 QpHab. vii. 7f.). This
reminds us of the New Testament problem of the postponement of the parousia, but while this
problem has left its mark here and there in the Gospels (cf. Luke 19. 1; John 21. 22f.) their
dominant theme is that the age of fulfilment is here. “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in
your hearing”, says Jesus in the Nazareth synagogue after reading Isa. 61. If. (Luke 4. 2 I); his
contemporaries should understand that his casting out demons is a sign that the kingdom of
God has arrived (Matt. 12. 28; Luke 11. 20), and if it has not yet arrived “with power”, it will
do so very soon (Mark 9. r); the limitations under which he labours at present will disappear
once he has undergone his coming baptism (Luke 12. 50)—a baptism which, in the light of
Mark 10. 38f., can readily be identified with his death. There is a difference here which is
bound up with the differing roles ascribed to Jesus and the Teacher of Righteousness by their
respective disciples….
As the Qumran community owes its character and outlook preeminently to the personality and
teaching of the Teacher of Righteousness, so primitive Christianity owes its being to Jesus.
A comparison of Jesus and the Teacher of Righteousness is difficult because of the
allusiveness of the Qumran references to the Teacher and the uncertainty of any
reconstruction of his career; even the most sceptical assessment of the historical element in
the Gospels among contemporary New Testament students leaves us with much more definite
information about the historical Jesus than the Qumran documents provide about the Teacher.
One thing must be said: in any such comparison apologetic motives have no place. It is
foolish to imagine that the significance of Jesus can be enhanced by depreciation of one of the
righteous men who went before him. Yet the words “who went before him” are appropriate in
more than a chronological sense. The formulation of Jesus’ indictment which was fastened to
his cross, “The King of the Jews”, indicates that he was held to have made some sort of
messianic claim for himself, and he was certainly proclaimed by his followers very soon
afterwards as the Messiah of Israel. There is no indication that any messianic claim was made
for the Teacher of Righteousness either by himself or by his followers: his role was rather that
of a forerunner of the messianic age, “to make ready for the Lord a people prepared” (cf. Luke
1. 17). Of the manner of his death we have no information, nor yet about any significance that
was attached to it, save that with it a final probationary period of forty years was believed to
begin (CD xx. 14 f.; cf. the implied interpretation of the forty years of Ps. 95. 10 in Heb. 3.
7ff.).
It is quite uncertain whether his resurrection is implied in the reference to the “standing
up of one who will teach righteousness in the end of days” (CD vi. to f.); it is, indeed, quite
uncertain whether the Qumran community held the doctrine of resurrection or not. But it is
nowhere suggested that, if such an expectation was entertained with regard to the Teacher, he
ever did rise again or that anyone thought he did so. Apart from his qualities as an organizer and leader of men, his main service to his followers appears to have been his creative biblical
exegesis. Jesus too taught his followers the principles of a creative biblical exegesis, and
while they might not have regarded this as his main service to them, it provided them with the
framework for understanding and declaring the meaning of his person and work.
Another essay in this collection deals with the messianic doctrine of the Qumran community.
Here it may suffice to say that the messianic doctrine of Qumran, especially as it related to the
Messiah of Israel and his career of conquest, was repudiated by Jesus as decisively as other
current forms of messianic expectation. If analogies are sought in Old Testament prophecy for
Jesus’ understanding and fulfilment of his mission, they may be found more readily in a combination of the Servant of Yahweh of Isa. 42-53 and the “one like a son of man” of
Dan. 7. 13 than in the explicit messianic passages.
While the Servant of Yahweh and the Son of Man do not figure expressly in the Qumran
literature, the influence of the biblical passages where they are portrayed can be discerned in
the thought and language of the community. The speaker in some of the Hymns of
Thanksgiving—whether he is the Teacher of Righteousness in person or an anonymous
spokesman of the community—describes his experiences in terms of the obedient and
suffering Servant. More important still: the community as a whole seems to have regarded
itself as called upon corporately to fulfil the Servant’s role. As the Teacher and his followers
devoted themselves to the study and practice of the law of God, as they endured persecution
and privation for righteousness’ sake, they believed that they were accumulating a store of
merit which would be accepted as an atonement for the polluted land of Israel. But they also
believed that, when the “epoch of wickedness” came to an end, it would be their privilege to
be God’s instruments in the execution of judgement against the ungodly (cf. 1 QpHab. v. 3-6).
These two phases of corporate fulfilment of prophecy may be compared with Jesus’ words
about the Son of Man, on the one hand suffering rejection and giving his life a ransom for
many, on the other hand coming in glory to acknowledge faithful confessors and to disown
the faithless in the presence of God and the holy angels. The corporate aspect is not absent
from the Gospels: Jesus speaks of his followers as both sharing his cup of passion and sharing
his throne of glory with him.
#9. The Dead Sea Scrolls and Christian Doctrine by Matthew Black D.D., F.B.A.
Principal of St. Mary’s College and Professor of Biblical Criticism in the University of St Andrews
The Ethel M. Wood Lecture delivered before the University of London on 8 February 1966
The Dead Sea scrolls ‘are documents of prime importance for the understanding of
the New Testament and present a challenge which Christian scholars will neglect at
their peril’.1 The relevance and importance of the scrolls for the study of Christian
beginnings, doctrinal as well as historical, is now widely recognized. The ‘battle’ of
the scrolls, moreover, seems largely to have moved away from questions of date and
history―though these are still fundamental and few of them yet resolved―to
doctrinal or theological issues where there is every indication that these will be as
hotly contested as the fundamental problems of history and dates.
At the moment, however, the most urgent need is not for controversy, but for clarification; and my
main purpose in this lecture is to seek to clarify some of the debated theological
issues as well as to report several of my own conclusions. The scrolls are important
for Christian doctrine: but there is a very real danger that this importance may be
exaggerated, and a distorted, even false, picture given of their doctrines as well as
their dates. I may add that I am also acutely aware of the difficulties and
complexities of the subject; and these I do not think can be exaggerated.
I have two preliminary remarks to make. Firstly, I assume that the scrolls are to be
dated not later than the end of the first Christian century, or, at the latest, the early
decades of the second. Some of the scrolls, at any rate, must therefore be contemporary with New Testament writings, others are undoubtedly earlier. Secondly, the
favourite identification of the sect is with the Essenes, a large body of whom is located by
ancient historians near the Dead Sea. The theory has been challenged, most recently by
Professor Driver,2 and can no longer, it seems to me, be maintained without qualification. The
modification I would accept is that the Essene group who held the fort at Qumran at the
outbreak of the First Revolt (and thus the last custodians of the scrolls) had ceased, at least in their leadership and dominant elements, to be the pacific ascetics idealized by Josephus and
Philo; they had by then thrown in their lot with Zealot and Pharisaic groups…
It is now common knowledge that the Qumran sect believed in two Messiahs, a priestly
Messiah and a secular leader or royal Messiah, more in line with the orthodox conception of
traditional Judaism. In addition, a third individual has figured prominently in the discussion of
the scrolls, the so-called Teacher of Righteousness.
Apart from the fact that he was the founder of the sect and some kind of teacher of the Law (the term, which is ambiguous, really means ‘the Rightful Teacher [of the Law]’) his identity has baffled scholars, and there is still no general agreement as to who he was or when he flourished: the most recent solution of the problem is still sub judice.4
One school of interpreters claims that he too was a Messiah, or rather, it is claimed that the sect believed that he would arise or ‘return’ ‘at the end of the days’ as the priestly Messiah of the sect. Where so much is still. obscure it is not surprising to find even more extravagant claims being made:
indeed, a whole mythology has now grown up around the Teacher of Righteousness, based on
the slenderest of evidence, such as that he was crucified, appeared in a theophany to his
followers, rose again from the dead, and so on; and the portrait of Christ in the Gospels is then
made out to be a second-hand copy of a Qumran original…
The idea that the Qumran sect believed in some form of messianic atonement is one of the
most fiercely contested in scroll interpretation. That the scrolls do attest some kind of
atonement ‘for the nation’, that is, for Israel, through human suffering, in this case the
persecutions of the sect, is not in dispute and I take the homologoumena first before turning
to the antilegomena.
One must begin by recognizing that the concept of atonement is a large one, capable of
embracing a variety of not necessarily related ideas. In the Manual of Discipline, for
instance, the individual makes atonement for his own sins by renewed obedience to the Law;
elsewhere it is God who makes atonement (CD v.5). One disputed passage speaks of the Messiah as making atonement (CD xviii.8-9), and I shall return to this passage shortly.
The idea is also closely connected with the doctrine of grace; and in the Hymns of Thanksgiving
we encounter again and again a deep spiritual insight in this connection found elsewhere only
in the great prophets, or the Psalms, and the New Testament; it is a spirit of almost
evangelical piety―man has no righteousness of his own except what God confers on him.19
Evidence for the atoning efficacy of the sufferings of the spiritual leaders of the sect is
incontrovertible and specially noteworthy use is made of Second Isaiah. At fol: viii in the
Manual of Discipline special mention is made of fifteen men, twelve laymen and three
priests, who are said to be ‘perfect in all that is revealed from the whole Torah’…
It is a fairly general assumption among scroll interpreters that the Qumran doctrine
of the Last Things―its eschatology―is substantially that of the New Testament
writings. The Qumran Essenes shared, we are told, with the early Church the same
kind of beliefs in the imminence of the Last Judgement, the coming of the Kingdom
of God, the End of the world, in heaven and hell, in rewards and punishments in an
after-life, etc.
In general it may certainly be said that there is a larger area of common ground here
between Qumran Judaism and the New Testament than between the New Testament
and any other branch of Judaism: but the situation is more complicated than can be
conveyed in such general terms, for, as in the New Testament itself, there are diverse tendencies as well as development within Qumran eschatological doctrine. What
began as a political programme or goal, for instance, albeit a goal to be reached in
God’s own time and by His will ‘at the end of the days’, namely the national
recognition of the claims of the sect as the body representing the true Israel, tended
to find increasing expression in apocalyptic language and imagery so that the End
Time became, as in the New Testament, a cosmic drama of Judgement.
No sharp line of distinction, however, can be drawn between an other-worldly eschatology and the
political aspirations of the sect even in their wildest dreams of world dominion. The
birth-pangs of the new age, the Kingdom of God, were to be the death-throes of the
old age, the overthrow of the dominion of Satan represented by the kingdoms of this
world…
The Qumran doctrine of salvation, along with its closely related doctrine of man―again and
again we are reminded of the frailty and inherent sinfulness of man apart from Godis central
in Qumran belief. As in the Psalter and the great Prophets, man is always seen in his
difference and distance from God but by God’s mercy and by his sustaining and enabling
power man can transcend his own weakness to become like one of the angelic beings
themselves. The foundations are here for the Pauline doctrine of ‘flesh’ and ‘spirit’ and
‘adoption’ as ‘children’ or ‘sons of God’. (Romans viii. 14 f.)
#10 Qumran and the Old Testament by F.F. Bruce Presidential Address, 2 June 1959
The Qumran documents include an abundance of material bearing on the Old
Testament―Hebrew texts, Greek texts, Targums and commentaries.
(1) Over 200 copies of Old Testament books in the Hebrew (or Aramaic) original have been
identified among the more than 500 books represented by the Qumran finds. Most of these
have survived only as fragments, but there are a few reasonably complete copies, such as
Isaiah A from Cave I and the copies of Leviticus and the Psalms from Cave XI. All twentyfour
books of the Hebrew Bible are represented with the exception of Esther; there are also
fragments of some books of the Apocrypha.
(2) Some Septuagint fragments of two manuscripts of Leviticus and one of Numbers have
been identified from Cave IV; Cave VII has yielded fragments of the Septuagint text of
Exodus and also of the Epistle of Jeremiah, which appears in most editions of the Apocrypha
as the last chapter of Baruch, although it is an independent composition.1
(3) Of all the Targumic material found, greatest interest attaches to the Targum of Job found
in Cave XI, because we have independent evidence for the existence of a written Targum of
this book in the period of the Second Temple, which Gamalel I ordered to be built into the
temple walls2 (presumably not later than A.D. 63, when Herod’s temple was finally completed). We remember, too, the note appended to the Septuagint text of Job which is said to have been ‘translated from the Syriac book’ (probably from an Aramaic Targum).
Fragments of a Leviticus Targum (xvi. 12-15, 18-21) have been found in Cave IV.
The Genesis Apocryphon from Cave I certainly contains Targumic sections, although J. T.
Milik says that it is ‘no true Targum’.3 Other scholars, however, disagree with him; M. Black,
working out a hint dropped by P. Kahle, says that it ‘is almost certainly our oldest written
Palestinian Pentateuch Targum’.4
(4) One of the most important groups of writings found at Qumran consists of commentaries
(pesharim) on various Old Testament books or parts of books. These not only tell us much about the biblical interpretation and religious outlook of the Qumran sectaries, but also have a
contribution of their own to snake to the history of the biblical text.
In the light of these different species of Qumran literature we now propose to consider what
can be learned about (a) the literary criticism of Old Testament books; (b) the text of the Old
Testament; (c) the canon of the Old Testament; (d) the interpretation of the Old Testament
current at Qumran…
To be sure, the Qumran evidence does appear to refute conclusively arguments to the effect
that the book of Isaiah did not receive its present form until after the Maccabaean revolt. We
may think, for instance, of R. H. Kennett’s suggestion5 that the portrayal of the Suffering
Servant in Isaiah Iii. 13-liii. 12 was inspired by the martyrdom of faithful Jews under
Antiochus Epiphanes (between 168 and 164 B.C.), or of B. Dulun’s dating6 of the ‘Isaiah
Apocalypse’ (Isa. xxiv-xxvii) in the reign of John Hyrcanus (135-104 B.C.). If we now have a
copy of the book of Isaiah, complete with Servant Songs and ‘Isaiah Apocalypse’, assignable
on palaeographical grounds to the general period of the Maccabaean rising, there is no further
need of argument. So, at least, one might have thought; but in a book actually dealing with the
Qumran discoveries one French scholar hazarded the suggestion that the portrayal of the
Suffering Servant could have been based on the historical experience of the Teacher of
Righteousness, the revered leader of the Qumran community, whose death he placed between
66 and 63 B.C.!7…
The text of the Old Testament has come down to us along three principal lines of
transmission.
There is, first of all, the Massoretic Hebrew text.9 This is the consonantal text of the Hebrew Bible which is commonly supposed to have been fixed by
Jewish scholars in the days of Rabbi Aqiba (c. A.D. 100), the text to which the Massoretes of
the sixth to ninth centuries A.D. affixed an elaborate apparatus of signs which standardised
the pronunciation, punctuation and (up to a point) interpretation of the text. Although the
earliest surviving manuscripts of this text belong, with fragmentary exceptions,10 to the ninth
century A.D., we have witnesses to its earlier stages in quotations in the Mishnah and
Talmud, in the Midrashim and Targumim, and in the Syriac (Peshitta) and Latin (Vulgate)
versions of the Old Testament.
There is, secondly, the Greek version of the Old Testament commonly called the Septuagint,
produced in Alexandria in Egypt in the last two or three centuries B.C., and reflecting a
Hebrew text which sometimes deviates from that of the Massoretes, and which may
reasonably be labelled as an Egyptian text-type.
Thirdly, so far as the Pentateuch is concerned, there is the Samaritan Bible, an edition of the
Hebrew text which has for at least 2,000 years been preserved along a lime of transmission
quite independent of the Massoretic text of the Jews. Before the discovery of the Qumran
texts, P. Kahle expressed the view that the Samaritan Bible, apart from certain adaptations in
the interest of Samaritan claims, is in the main a popular revision of an older text, in which
antiquated forms and constructions, not familiar to people of later times, were replaced by
forms and constructions easier to be understood, difficulties were removed, parallel passages
were inserted’.11
The discovery at Qumran of biblical texts a thousand years older than the earliest Hebrew
biblical manuscripts previously known naturally gave rise to considerable excitement and
speculation, especially as the possibility of our ever finding Hebrew biblical manuscripts
substantially earlier than the Massoretic period had been dismissed for all practical purposes
by the highest authorities.12 The general reader of the Bible asked if the new discoveries
involved much alteration in the traditional text of the Old Testament; the specialist asked to
which, if to any, of the known text-types the newly discovered texts could be assigned…
The best-preserved biblical manuscript from Cave IV is a copy of. Samuel in Hebrew (4Q
Sam. A). This scroll originally contained fifty-seven colunms, of which parts of forty-seven
survive. It is of particular interest, because not only does it exhibit very much the type of text
which the Septuagint translator of Samuel must have used, but a type of text closer to that
which the author of Chronicles appears to have used in the compilation of his work than to the
M.T. of Samuel. P. W. Skehan16 suggests that the M.T. of Samuel is a ‘scissored’ text, in
which certain material has been removed from an earlier ‘vulgar’ text of which 4Q Samuel A
and the Septuagint together give us information.
Among the prophetical books, Jeremiah shows the greatest divergence between the Septuagint
and M.T., the Septuagint attesting a shorter text. Thus shorter text is exhibited in a Hebrew
copy from Cave IV (4Q Jer. B), but the longer recension is also represented at Qumran
A fragmentary scroll of Exodus from Cave IV, written in palaeo-Hebrew script, shows a type
of text hitherto regarded as distinctively Samaritan. The Samaritan text is characterised by
expansions, only a few of which reflect a sectarian tendency. This scroll exhibits all the
Samaritan expansions for the area which it covers, except the supplement to the Tenth
Commandment at the end of Exodus xx. 17, which is one of the expansions where a sectarian
tendency is evident. There is thus nothing sectarian about this scroll, and its evidence
confirms Dr Kahle’s suggestion, quoted above, that the Samaritan Pentateuch in essence is a
popular recension of the traditional text.
The well-known document 4Q Testimonia, which brings together a number of ‘messianic’
proof-texts from the Old Testament, quotes as its first proof-text part of the expanded
Samaritan text of Exodus xx. 21, where the words ‘Moses drew near unto the thick darkness
where God was’ are followed by a conflation of Deuteronomy v. 28 £ and Deuteronomy xviii.
18 f…
The biblical manuscripts proper are not the only Qumran documents which provide us with
the information about the biblical text; indeed, reference has already been made in this respect
to 4Q Testimonia, which is not a biblical manuscript in the strict sense. The biblical
commentaries are also useful in this respect, the more so because the commentators make
skilful use of textual variants. Where one variant suits a commentator’s purpose better than
another, he will use it, although his exposition may show plainly that he is well aware of an
alternative reading. Out of several instances that might be given, let one suffice…
As between the three main text-types, that which developed in due course into the Massoretic
is superior to the other two. In a considerable number of places the new discoveries have
helped us to emend it, or have confirmed emendations previously conjectured; but in general
neither the Septuagint Vorlage nor the Samaritan text can approach the proto-Massoretec for accuracy.
It is evident that down to the end of the Second Commonwealth no one text-type was fixed as authoritative among Palestinian Jews, even in so strict a community as that of Qumran. But when, about the end of the first century A.D., a uniform consonantal text was fixed by Aqiba and his fellow-rabbis, it is clear that they proceeded with sound judgment. It is significant, by the way, that the biblical Hebrew manuscripts found in the Murabba‘at caves, whose presence there evidently dates from the years of the second Jewish revolt against Rome (A.D. 132-135), uniformly exhibit one texttype― the text―type recently standardised by Aqiba and others, the text-type which some
centuries later formed the basis on which the Massoretes worked…
It is difficult to make a definite pronouncement on the limits of the biblical canon recognised
by the Qumran community. It is clear that they recognised the Law and the Prophets as
divinely inspired. The commentaries which are written on those books, or on excerpts from
them, presuppose that they are to be treated as divine oracles, whose interpretation was a
closely-guarded mystery until it was made known in the latter days to the Teacher of
Righteousness. The Psalter was evidently accorded the same recognition as the Law and the
Prophets. But what about the other books in the third division of the Hebrew Bible―the
‘Writings’? We cannot simply infer that they were regarded as canonical from the fact that all
of them (except Esther) are represented in the Qumran literature, for many other books are
represented in the Qumran literature. The Qumran library evidently included many
apocalyptic and pseudepigraphic works which enjoyed considerable prestige in certain
sections of the population of Judaea in those days, such as Jubilees and I Enoch,18 which
appear to be closely related to the distinctive theology of Qumran. It also included fragments
of Tobit (in Aramaic and Hebrew), of Ecclesiasticus (in Hebrew) and, as we have already
mentioned, of the Epistle of Jeremiah (in Greek)…
What can be said about the fact that thus far no fragment of Esther has turned up at Qumran?
Obviously no sound inference can be built upon the argument from silence. Its nonappearance
among the Qumran texts may be accidental. On the other hand, we know that its
right to a place in the sacred canon was questioned in some Jewish quarters,20 as also later in
some Christian quarters,21 and it would not be surprising if it were not accepted at Qumran…
And these
criteria may, with due caution, be used to throw light on ambiguous references in other
Qumran texts. The Qumran commentaries plainly do not give us much help in understanding
the Old Testament. But the serious student of Scripture can never fail to be interested in what
was thought of its meaning by serious students of earlier days; and in this regard the Qumran
commentaries on the Old Testament have opened a new world for our exploration.
#11 Qumran and the New Testament by F.F. Bruce Presidential Address, 2 June 1958
The most varied answers are given when we ask students of the Qumran texts what affinities
exist between these texts and the New Testament. We are told that there are no affinities
whatsoever; we are told that the career and passion of Jesus represent an ‘astonishing
remcarnatiou’1―or, on the other hand, a pale reflection―of the activity and death of the
Teacher of Righteousness; we are told that Jesus Himself was the Teacher of Righteousness
of the Qumran texts, that the men of Qumran were Jewish Christians and that the Wicked
Priest was the Apostle Paul;2 we are told that the Qumran discoveries conclusively prove that
Jesus never existed at all.3
All these answers cannot be true. But the intelligent layman need not stand in bewilderment
before them, wondering which (if any) he is to believe. Much of the material on which these
divergent accounts are based is accessible to him in one or more translations,4 and while some
of these translations are defective in one way or another, he can see that some of the answers
which. are offered to him have little or no substantial foundation, while others deserve more
serious attention.
One difficulty, with which we cannot deal here in detail, concerns the dating not only of the
scrolls but of the original works which they reproduce, and not only of these works but of the
persons and events referred to in them. In particular, to which generation should we assign the
Teacher of Righteousness, the effective founder of the Qumran community? Did he meet his
death under Antiochus Epiphanes (175-163 B.C.)? Did he flourish under one of the
Hasnnonean rulers; and if so, should we date his ministry in the second half of the second
century B.C. or in the first half of the first century? Or should we bring him down to the
Roman period, even to the point of identifying him with Menahem, son of Judas the
Galilaean, whose attempt to seize supreme power in Jerusalem in the autumn of A.D. 66 came to an end when he was captured and killed by Eleazar, captain of the temple, and his followers?5 It is clear that, to some extent at least, these chronological problems must affect the relevance of the Qumran literature for New Testament studies…
The men of Qumran went out to their wilderness retreat in order to organise themselves as a
new Israel, rather after the fashion of the tribes under the leadership of Moses. The nation as a
whole had proved unfaithful to the covenant with the God of their fathers, but these men
regarded themselves as the righteous remnant of the nation, the hope of the future, a miniature
Israel, whose faithfulness would be accepted by God as a propitiation for the unfaithfulness of
the nation at large. They attached special importance to the maintenance of the priestly and
levitical classes, in order that, when the new age dawned, a pure sacrificial worship might be
restored without delay and administered by those who had not gone astray as the majority of
the priests had done.
The believing community of New Testament times similarly regarded itself as a new Israel, ‘a
remnant, chosen by grace’ (Rom. xi. 5), ‘a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation,
God’s own people’ (1 Pet. ii. 9). The kingdom of God had been taken away from those who
had shown themselves unworthy of their trust, and given to ‘a nation producing the fruits of
it’ (Matt. xxi. 44). But instead of maintaining distinct priestly and levitical classes, as the
Qumran community did, the Christian community was taught to consider itself corporately as
‘a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ’ (1 Pet.
ii. 5). Both communities regarded themselves as the people of the new covenant, but the
Qumran community thought of the new covenant as a restoration of the old one.
The Qumran community, moreover, lived in the conviction that the end of the age then
present, the ‘epoch of wickedness’, was at hand. Its thought and life were dominated by this
eschatological conviction…
Here we find a striking parallel with something that is emphasised time and again in the New
Testament. The age of fulfilment has dawned. The prophets who foretold the blessing into
which Christians were to enter ‘searched and inquired about this salvation; they inquired what
person or time was indicated by the Spirit of Christ within them when predicting the
sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glory’ (1 Pet. i. 10 f.). Much had been revealed to
those prophets, but not everything. But those Christians to whom Peter wrote these words had
no need to search and inquire in order to ascertain what person or time was indicated by the
prophecies; they knew. The person was Jesus; the time was the time in which they were
living. Words spoken by Peter on another occasion sum up the early Christian attitude to the
Old Testament: ‘This is what was spoken by the prophet’ (Acts ii. 16). And again: ‘Moses…
and all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and those who came afterwards, also proclaimed these days’ (Acts iii. 22, 24)…
Here, then, we have an important point of resemblance between the founder of the Qumran
community and the founder of the Christian community, in that each imparted to the
community which he founded its distinctive principles of Old Testament exegesis. But every
time that we observe a resemblance between the two founders or the two communities, we
observe a contrast within the resemblance; and such a contrast is apparent here. To the early
Christians Jesus was the central theme of Old Testament revelation, which indeed found its
fulfilment in Him. But to the Qumran sectaries the Teacher of Righteousness, while he was
certainly a subject of Old Testament prophecy, was not its central subject; Old Testament
prophecy reached out beyond him for its fulfilment. For Jesus appeared to His followers as
the Messiah, to whole all the prophets bore witness (John v. 39; Acts x. 43); the Teacher of
Righteousness, in spite of the great veneration with which his followers regarded him, was not
the Messiah―not even a Messiah. He was to them pre-eminently just what they called
him―the Teacher of Righteousness…
A number of Qumran documents show us the form which messianic expectation took at
Qumran; and it is reasonable to suppose that the community learned its messianic expectation,
as it learned so much besides, from the Teacher of Righteousness. This expectation was directed towards two distinct individuals who would arise in the end-time―a great priest and
a great king. The great priest, the ‘Messiah of Aaron’, would be the head of the state in the
new age.8 The great king, the ‘Messiah of Israel’, was the promised prince of the house of
David who would lead the people of God to victory over all their enemies in the
eschatological warfare which the prophets had predicted. In the new age he would be
subordinate to the ‘Messiah of Aaron’. With these two Messiahs was associated a third figure,
who did not, however, receive the messianic title; this was a great prophet, the second Moses
of Deuteronomy xviii. 15 ff.
While the Qumran community, to judge by the literature thus far published, never seems to
have reached the point at which they believed the Messiah (or Messiahs) to have come, the
New Testament is dominated by the announcement that the Messiah has come. And while the
Qumran community distinguished the prophet, the priest and the king who were to arise at the
end of the age as three individual personages, the New Testament presents Jesus as the
prophet of whom Moses spoke, the heir to David’s throne, and die perpetual priest of
Melchizedek’s order acclaimed in Psalm cx. 4. The traditional Christian doctrine of the
‘threefold office’ of Christ goes back to the earliest days. Jesus, of course, could not be
regarded as a ‘Messiah of Aaron’ because He did not belong to the tribe of Levi; the one New
Testament document which enlarges on the priestly aspect of His messianic work funds Old
Testament authority for ascribing to Him a greater priesthood than Aaron’s.10…
The Qumran community, too, attached great importance to the Old Testament figures of the
Servant of the Lord and the Son of man, but they do not appear to have interpreted them
messianically…
Considerable interest has been aroused by the discovery of certain affinities of thought and
language between the Qumran texts and St. John’s Gospel.14 However do these affinities may be evaluated, they provide additional
evidence in support of the basically Hebraic character of this Gospel. They must not be
exaggerated; and it might be good to bear in mind that practically every new discovery in
Near Eastern religious literature of the late B.C. and early A.D. epoch has been hailed by
someone as supplying the key to the problem of this Gospel. The Old Testament rather than
the Qumran literature is the sourcebook of the Fourth Evangelist, but it is the Old Testament
as fulfilled by Jesus. The Old Testament is also the source-book of the Qumran literature, but
it is the Old Testament as it had passed through the mind of the Teacher of Righteousness and
perhaps other interpreters of similar outlook. The opposition between light and darkness (to
take one instance of the dualistic phraseology which the Qumran literature and this Gospel
have in common) goes back ultimately to the first chapter of Genesis. Yet the way in which
light and darkness, truth and falsehood, and so forth are opposed in the Rule of the Community, for example, reminds us particularly of the language of the Johamnine Gospel
and Epistles…
Another New Testament document in which affinities have been traced with the Qumran sect
is the Epistle to the Hebrews. Dr. Yigael Yadin, in particular, has argued that the ‘Hebrews’
named in the traditional title of this epistle were Jews originally belonging to the Qumran
sect, who were converted to Christianity but carried with them into Christianity some of their
former beliefs and practices, with which the writer takes issue. Among these beliefs Dr. Yadin
makes special reference to the idea of the angels’ eschatological rôle (Heb. ii. 5), and to the
conceptions of a priestly Messiah and of the prophet to appear in the last days. ‘It is my
sincere hope,’ he says, ‘that more competent students in the field of NT studies will either
refute this suggestion or, if they agree to it―wholly or partially―will submit more data in its
support.’18
In the form in which Dr. Yadin defends his thesis, it probably cannot be sustained. But the
material which he has adduced must be added to the evidence already at our disposal for the
presence in the early Roman church of elements derived from sectarian Judaism. Such
elements are attested, for example, by the Apostolic Tradition ascribed to Hippolytus, early in
the third century A.D. And there is little doubt in my mind that the Epistle to the Hebrews was
written to a Jewish-Christian group in Rome in the sixties of the first century…
These are not the only parts of the New Testament which present parallels with the Qumran
literature. Resemblances between the Qumran community and the milieu in which the First
Gospel took shape have been traced by Krister Stendahl in The School of St. Matthew (1954).
It may well be that some of Luke’s special material was derived from Christian circles sharing
in certain respects the outlook of Qumran. And Paul’s use of the Old Testament occasionally
reminds one of the methods of the Qumran commentators. But these and related fields of
study cannot be surveyed here.
There is some reason to believe that, when the Qumran community was broken up towards
A.D. 70 (as archaeological evidence indicates), some of its members (together perhaps with
members of other Essene groups) made common cause with another body of refugees―the
fugitive Church of Jerusalem which left its doomed metropolis and settled east of the Jordan.
Some of the distinctive features o£ those Ebionites, as they are described by Christian writers
of later generations, could be accounted for in terms of influences exercised by such a body as
the Qumran community.20…
Finally, we should be restrained from premature dogmatism when we consider how
fragmentary is our knowledge of the Qumran community as yet. Indeed, when everything that
has been discovered is published―and this will be the work of years―the realisation that
even that is but a fragment of what the library originally contained will continue to impose
counsels of caution. But one thing is sure: the real differentia of Christianity is the person and
achievement of Jesus (not, as is popularly supposed, His teaching by itself); and the
appreciation of His essential uniqueness which the new knowledge has underscored is likely to be enhanced, not diminished, as further additions are made to this knowledge.
#12 NEW TESTAMENT FRAGMENTS AT QUMRAN? By C. J. HEMER
The recent publication by J. O’Callaghan of suggested identifications
of New Testament texts among the Greek fragments
from Cave 7 at Qumran1. and the early dates assigned to them
on palaeographical grounds will doubtless be rigorously sifted
in every facet.
The purpose of the present note is limited to raising one
question of method. Some of the fragments are very tiny. Would
it be possible to offer alternative identifications of any of them?
I acknowledge the meticulous skill as well as the ingenuity of
the restorations, and allow that when one larger fragment has
been plausibly attributed to Mark the possibility is raised in
other cases. The whole argument will indeed be strengthened
if several associated items, each securely and exclusively identified,
corroborate each other.
It may however be that when one unexpected and attractive
identification has been made it becomes easier in more doubtful
cases to find what one is now looking for. But what sort of
mathematical chances are there against finding suitable letter
sequences in other, even chronologically impossible, texts, and
of producing hypothetical ‘restorations’ to fit them?…
So the essence of the experiment is to evaluate the chances
of finding in any text, irrespective of date, provenance or
content, the sequence EIT followed at a distance of about 20
letters by ΛH, subject only to a plausible manipulation of the
lineation to fit the incidence of word and syllable divisions and
punctuation spaces.
We may note the natural frequency of these groupings,
particularly the first, which is liable to occur freely both within
and between words. (a) The sequence EIT has several contexts,
e.g. (i) in the second person plural contracted –εῖτε; (ii) in the
third person ending -ει-τ- (often an accusative article preceding
the object); (iii) in various conjunctions and adverbs
like εἴτε, εἶτε, ἔπειτα, or in εἰ, ἐπεί + τόν etc.; (iv) in such
formations as πολ(ε)ίτης, ὁπλ(ε)ίτης, and numerous ethnics like
Ἰεροσολυμ(ε)ίτης. The interchange of ι and ει is habitual in
first-century orthography and no special justification of this
case is necessary…
It could
doubtless be shown that the doubtful traces of other letters in
the fragment would exclude the viability of either of these
readings. But the experiment will still serve to make a broader
point. The possibility of two such identically arranged reconstructions
within so short a passage poses a question. The chances
of coincidence are too great. May not any identifications of
such brief fragments be open to the objection that alternatives
are too easy to come by? It may be too easy to find the answer
in Mark if one is seeking it there.
The point may be pressed a little further. If the fragment had
indeed been of 2 Thessalonians, the preservation of the whole
word ἐπιστολῆς would have added nothing to the prospects of
choosing between the two possibilities…
This doubt may however throw into stronger relief the more
impressive case for the assignment of fragments where clearly
legible letters extend over three or four lines. The latitude we
have allowed in line length at once becomes restricted: all must
fit the same norm. And the mathematical chances against
coincidence are multiplied for each additional line. It would be
far harder to locate in a text five lines of two clear letters each,
but if a place is found it is more likely to be correct.
#13 The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Formation of the Canon by Francis I. Andersen
It is now twelve months since Dr. J. Philip Hyatt, in his Presidential address to the Society of
Biblical Literature and Exegesis reviewed the progress of the study of the Dead Sea
materials.1 He expressed one of his challenges in these words: “The whole question of
canonicity, and the date of fixing the canon, will have to be restudied.” The aim of this paper
is to indicate, in a tentative way, some of the matters that might be involved in such a line of
study. The time has scarcely come for aiming at final conclusions, and they will be avoided
here. For one thing, the dust of misleading controversy has scarcely subsided, and further, all
the relevant materials are not yet fully published. Textual criticism is an exacting discipline,
and it will be some time before its results are certain. And even now the literature has become
so extensive that only a specialist could hope to do it justice.2
The situation may be clarified and the difficulty of the task indicated by stating simply that
the Qumran discoveries and related finds have not thrown any direct light on the history of the
formation of the canon of the Old Testament. That is, there is no explicit discussion of the
formal concept of canonicity, and certainly no lists of canonical books. The light that they
throw is indirect, but none the less valuable and significant for that―the danger is that being
less tangible, more elusive, it is more open to misconstruction and misinterpretation, as we
shall see.
It has been fully recognized that these sources help to fill in the background of New
Testament times, supplying needed information about pre-Christian and pre-rabbinic Judaism.
As such their importance cannot be exaggerated. In relation to the canon they show us what
scriptures existed, and in what tests, and, more appositely, how they were regarded and used
by a community of Jewish sectaries of those days. Not much attention seems to have been
paid to the problem of what (tacit) doctrine of scripture was held by the covenanters of
Qumran. The importance of this for the study of New Testament backgrounds is obvious, yet
most writers who have treated this subject have been content to list numerous parallels
between the N. T. and the DSS, and to evaluate the evidence for a closer or remoter
connection between them. While it is important that these small details be clarified early in
our research, the broader and deeper theological issue of revelation and authority within the
two movements needs to be examined. Gaster, for instance, does not include such a point in
his list of similarities between the N. T. and the DSS.3 The same must be said of Murphy’s
recent and admirable review of “The New Testament in the light of the Scrolls and the
Fragments”.4…
All this is a little too theological for our immediate aim of investigation, but it needs to be
said to avoid the danger of seeing too much in outward similarities, and to avoid surprise that
two movements contiguous in space and time, and with so much in common, could yet be two
totally distinct worlds. It was Christ who made the difference, and he transformed everything.
There is nothing like him to be found at Qumran, not even as an extravagant hope. And for us
he has transformed the doctrine of Scripture, even as his gift of his Spirit to the Church has
transformed the role of Scripture in the world.
1. The Qumran covenanters were clearly a Bible-centered, Bible-revering, Bible-studying
sect. There is nothing remarkable about this for Judaism. It is not surprising that there is no
explicit discussion of the extent or nature of their sacred scriptures, since it was probably
taken for granted. Sectaries tend to emphasize their peculiar beliefs to justify their separation,
and the men of Qumran did that too; but scripture was common ground with other Jewish
groups. But is there any indirect way of telling what their Bible was? They owned and used
not only books of the (later) Palestinian Canon, but also many that later found their way into
the so-called Alexandrian Canon, I.e., books recognized by the Roman Church as
deuterocanonical, designated Apocrypha by the Reformed churches. In addition, they had
works of the kind usually called pseudepigraphical, some known from elsewhere, some not
otherwise attested. Besides these they had a literature of their own which was probably the
product of the movement. This last group covers a remarkably wide range of literary
genres―commentary, psalm, handbooks of discipline and of war (?). The movement clearly
attached the greatest importance to the written word, and the archaeological recovery of their
scriptorium in what was evidently the headquarters of this group, discloses the prominence of
copying as an activity of the members.
We do not 2 know how individual members studied the scriptures.6 There is no evidence that they
enjoyed liberty of interpretation or that the sect prized mystical insight or used it as a key to
the meaning of Scripture.7 This shows that they had no notion of the sufficiency of Scripture.
To them study was the inculcation of the esoteric wisdom peculiar to the sect; they were
instructed in the orthodox sectarian interpretations which, while they were imparted to lay
initiants, could not be discussed in public.8…
There is no point in enumerating the evidence here, except in so far as it provides a valuable
introduction to the same issue in the Dead Sea Scrolls. It is the way Jesus and his followers
used and quoted scripture that shows what was their Bible. The Law certainly. The Law and
the Prophets are mentioned together very often as if they composed the whole of Scripture. In
one place only in the N.T. are the so-called three divisions referred to (Lk. 24:44), and even
here it is not certain that “the psalms” meant the full set of Writings. Indeed, in the New
Testament, there is no precise name for Holy Scripture. The terms “Law” (given even to a
Psalm), “Prophets” (so that Moses and David are called “prophets”) or both together, seem to
refer at times to the whole body of Scripture, as well as being used more exactly, and the
same formulae of quotation are used indiscriminately for passages from all parts of the Old
Testament.
What makes this New Testament practice so interesting to us is its remarkable similarity to
the references to Scripture in the writings of the Qumran Covenanters.17 The Manual of
Discipline begins with the aims of the movement: “To live in the order of the Community; to
seek God… to do what is good and upright in His sight, in accordance with what He has
commanded through Moses and through His servants the prophets…” There are other places
where the Torah and the Nebi’im are referred to thus in conjunction…
But here, no more than in the New Testament, can we assume that “Prophets” means
precisely the eight books of the later Jewish Canon. It is true that the interest of the group was
focussed particularly on the great prophets, Isaiah being their favourite;23 and in relation to
these two major interests of the Covenanters, the non-prophetic writings of the Old Testament
had less to offer directly, so that their smaller use is understandable. But we cannot conclude
from this that for them the so-called writings were uncanonical, even in whatever sense they would have given to that term.
We shall look at some more tangible evidence for this point in a moment, but before doing so we
must observe in general that the non-biblical writings among the Dead Sea Scrolls abound
with quotations from the length and breadth of Scripture.24 In view of their abundant use of
works later called “Writings”, it is remarkable that they have no term to apply to this group,
unless it be the term “prophets”. This may be considered probable, and if it is true, it means
that the later three-fold distinction did not exist for the Qumranites, and that the term
“Prophets” meant all the Scripture except the Law.25 This is very similar to the New
Testament. We may note, too, that although Josephus mentions three groups, he places
everything outside the Law in the era of prophecy.26…
No trace of Esther has been found among the scrolls.
Another line of investigation will aim at discovering what the Covenanters thought of the text
as such. A clearer notion of a canonical work, and its use as a court of appeal in argument, a
guide to life, a source of proof-texts for dogma, brings naturally an increased concern for its
literal form. There can be no final appeal to a text if there is no agreement as to what the text
is. This enquiry in relation to the people of Qumran must wait until present studies have
permitted us to rewrite the entire history of the transmission of the Hebrew Text. There are
indications that the variations shown by the Dead Sea Scrolls point not to liberty or
carelessness on their part, but to the existence of important text-types which they, for their
part, copied with the utmost fidelity, striving to preserve the purity of the text even in minute
particulars of pronunciation.
The indications of a text of Isaiah with a Babylonian background, the enhancement of the value of many readings hitherto attested only in the versions, and especially the evidence that the Septuagint is a faithful translation of a Hebrew text with Egyptian elements, may enable us not only to push the history of textual transmission back by several centuries, but to infer also that scrupulous copying (and the notion of scripture which demand it) is much older than has been commonly believed Meanwhile, in summary, we may tentatively conclude that while the men of Qumran
recognized the authority of all the main books of the Old Testament, we do not know what
they thought of some of the smaller ones, nor how they compared in their estimation with the
more popular extra-canonical books, some of which they valued highly. All must be placed in
the light of the fact that what mattered to the Covenanters was not the Law and the Prophets
as such, but their own esoteric interpretations of them; these were largely due to the Teacher of Righteousness, and the (Zadokite) priests, and were closely guarded secrets of the order.
They may not have had a rigidly defined canon, but they certainly did not enjoy any liberty in
the matter of belief.
#14 The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Jewishness of the Gospels by Craig A. Evans Acadia Divinity College
The Jewishness of the Gospels is seen at many points. Jesus is addressed as “Rabbi” (e.g.,
Mk 9:5; 11:21; 14:45 and parallels) or “Rabbouni” (Mk 10:51; Jn 20:16); he has
followers called “disciples” (e.g., Mk 2:15; 3:7; 4:34 and parallels), some of whom he
appoints as “apostles” (e.g., Mk 3:14; 6:30 and parallels), which is a designation in
rabbinic literature of Moses and various prophets “sent” by God (e.g., Exod. Rab. 3.4 [on
Ex 3:12]; 3.14 [on Ex 4:10]);1 and he engages in debates with scribes, Pharisees,
Sadducees, and priests regarding Jewish law and the meaning of Jewish scripture (e.g.,
Mk 2:23–3:6; 7:1–13; 11:27–12:34 and parallels).
Moreover, Jesus proclaims the rule of God and speaks of Israel’s redemption (e.g., Mk 1:14–15 and parallels). Israel’s priority over the nations is assumed (Mk 7:24–30), and is sometimes explicitly asserted (e.g., Mt 10:5–6; 15:24). The geography, topography, and demography of the Jesus story are thoroughly Jewish. Jesus is from Nazareth, is headquartered in Capernaum, teaches by
and frequently crosses the Sea of Galilee, and travels south to Jericho, Judea, and
Jerusalem. Jesus frequents the synagogue, prays, teaches his disciples to pray,2 and
upholds the Jewish law3 (even if his understanding differs from that of his contemporaries4). In short, the Jesus of the Gospels is as Jewish as any figure we know of
from this period.5 The parallels between his teachings and activities and contemporary
Judaism are so numerous that they fill more than 1500 pages in Paul Billerbeck’s
commentary on the Gospels, a commentary based on comparisons with Talmudic and
midrashic literature.6
Not only is Jesus, the central figure of the Gospels, thoroughly Jewish, the Gospels
themselves are Jewish to the core. We see this in the way the Gospel of Matthew begins:
“The book of the genealogy of Jesus Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham” (Mt
1:1; cf. Gen 5:1, “This is the book of the generations of Adam . . .”), followed by a
genealogy patterned after those found in scripture (Mt 1:2, “Abraham was the father of
Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob . . .” etc.; cf. Gen 5:3, “Adam . . . became the father of
. . . Seth” etc.). Matthew’s infancy narrative goes on to tell of Joseph and dreams,
reminiscent of another well-known Joseph, to whom God communicated through dreams
(cf. Gen 37:5–11; 40:1–19; 41:1–36). Punctuating his narrative with a series of fulfilled
prophecies, the Matthean evangelist tells the story of Jesus Messiah’s infancy in terms of
Moses typology, just as the Lukan evangelist punctuates his version of the infancy with
several canticles, whose contents consist mostly of words and phrases drawn from scripture…
The Dead Sea Scrolls have greatly added to our understanding and appreciation of the
Gospels as Jewish literature. The Scrolls are Palestinian, early, written in Hebrew and
Aramaic, and are unquestionably Jewish. Significant parallels between them and the
Christian Gospels should go a long way in confirming the contention here that the
Gospels are thoroughly Jewish, even if at points they are at variance with aspects of
temple and scribal Judaism as it existed prior to 70 C.E. Relevant examples will be cited
for all four Gospels.
Given its overtly Jewish character we should expect the largest number of important
parallels to be found in Matthew, and this appears to be the case. We may consider four:
the first concerns an interpretive approach to scripture, the second a Semitic genre, the
third an ethical theme, and the fourth a common understanding of a specific collocation
of words and phrases from the prophet Isaiah.
(1) Pesher interpretation in the Scrolls and in Matthew. One of the first intriguing
features of the newly discovered Dead Sea Scrolls to gain the attention of scholars was
pesher interpretation. Happily, one well-preserved pesher (“interpretation” or
“commentary”) scroll was found in the first cave, discovered in 1947. Line after line of
the first two chapters of Habakkuk are quoted and then explained: “Its interpretation
concerns” some recent event or some event believed to occur soon. The author of the
Habakkuk Pesher systematically equates various events and personages in Habakkuk
with various events and personages in the era of the Qumran community…
(2) Beatitudes in the Scrolls and in Matthew. One of the best-known features in Jesus’
teaching was his stringing together of several beatitudes (Mt 5:3–12 = Lk 6:20–26).
Couplets of beatitudes are attested in Israel’s scriptures and in other Jewish writings from
late antiquity (e.g., Pss 32:1–2; 84:4–5; 119:1–2; Sir 14:1–2; 25:8–9; Tob 13:13–14), but
it was not until the discovery of 4Q525 that we actually had a Jewish text, apart from the
Gospels themselves, that preserves a string of beatitudes…
Scholars debate how many beatitudes originally made up this list. Obviously, there
were at least five (one more than we find in the Lukan collection). It is speculated that
there may have been seven. The structural similarity is interesting, to be sure, but what is
more interesting are the differences between Jesus’ beatitudes and those of 4Q525. The
beatitudes of this Scroll fit the typical wisdom pattern, whereas Jesus’ beatitudes promise
eschatological justice…
(3) Righteousness in the Scrolls and in Matthew. The various forms of “righteous” and
“righteousness” (including “just” and “justice”) occur hundreds of times in the Scrolls.
These words also appear frequently in the Gospel of Matthew. Especially interesting are
the references to the “teacher of righteousness” who comes in the “last days” (e.g., CD
6:10–11, “the one who teaches righteousness in the last days”; cf. 1QpHab 1:13; 7:4).
This authoritative teacher will instruct the faith faithful? in the true understanding of the
law of God. The parallel with the Matthean presentation of Jesus, especially as we see it
in the Sermon on the Mount, is striking….
(4) Works of the Messiah in the Scrolls and in the Gospels. One of the most startling
parallels between the Scrolls and the Gospels is found in 4Q521. This particular Scroll
fragment lends important support to the contention that Jesus did indeed understand
himself in messianic terms.11 In a passage whose authenticity can scarcely be doubted, an
imprisoned and discouraged John the Baptizer sends to Jesus, asking, “Are you he who is
to come, or do we look for another?” To this question Jesus replies: “Go and tell John
what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed
and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to
them. And blessed is he who takes no offense at me” (Mt 11:2–6 = Lk 7:18–23). Jesus’
message for John contains allusions to several words and phrases from the book of Isaiah
(e.g., Isa 35:5–6 [blind and lame]; 26:19 [dead]; 61:1–2 [good news]). This material
appears in 4Q521…
There are important points of contact between the Jesus story of Mark and the Dead Sea
Scrolls. Both involve similar understandings of passages of scripture.
(5) Isaiah 40 in the Scrolls and in Mark. Isaiah 40 advances a bold typology whereby
the original exodus serves as a model for a new era of salvation. Just as a way was
prepared in the wilderness long ago, that God’s people could travel from Egypt to the
promised land, so it will happen again – only even better, for there will be no wilderness
wanderings, but a highway leading directly from oppression to redemption. The men of
Qumran understood Isaiah 40:3 in a similar manner. They too cited this passage and
organized a community of covenant renewal in the wilderness of the Dead Sea region…
(6) The Vineyard Parable of Isaiah in the Scrolls and in Jesus. Jesus’ Parable of the
Vineyard (Mk 12:1–9 and parallels) is based on Isaiah’s Song of the Vineyard Speaking for the Lord, the prophet Isaiah complained that despite loving care, the
vineyard planted and nurtured on the hill produced worthless grapes. The parable is an
allegory and it is a juridical parable, that is, a parable that induces the hearers to pass
judgment on themselves. The vineyard is Israel, its owner is God, the fruit is the behavior
of Israel. Israel has no excuse: “What more could God do for his people?” Therefore, the
nation may expect judgment. Jesus’ parable presupposes these allegorical features, but
adds tenant farmers to the story and reassigns the guilt: Israel is not at fault, her religious
leaders are; and redirects the judgment: the religious leaders will lose their stewardship…
One might not expect distinctly Lukan contacts with Judaism, given the high probability
that the Lukan evangelist was a gentile. However, perusal of Luke–Acts indicates that
this person was familiar with the synagogue (and he gives us an early description of a
synagogue service in 4:16–30), and evidently knew well significant portions of the Greek
version of scripture. There are two important points of contact with the Dead Sea Scrolls
that can be mentioned briefly.
(7) The announcement of the coming Son of God. The angel announces to Mary: “He
will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give
Him the throne of His father David; and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever;
and His kingdom will have no end . . . the holy offspring shall be called the Son of God”
(Lk 1:32–35). These words echo the promise given David: “I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever . . . I will be a father to him and he will be a son to Me . . . your
house and your kingdom shall endure before Me forever; your throne shall be established
forever” (2 Sam 7:13-16). They also find a remarkable parallel in an Aramaic text from
Qumran: “He shall be called son of the great God, and by his name shall he be named. He
shall be called the Son of God, and they shall call him Son of the Most High . . . their
kingdom will be an eternal kingdom” (4Q246 1:9–2:5). This parallel, which is probably
speaking of the expected Jewish Messiah, demonstrates that in Judaism, in the land of
Israel, and in the Aramaic language, before the time of Jesus and Christian proclamation,
the Messiah was sometimes called the “Son of God…
(8) Fulfilling the Law and inheriting Eternal Life. On one occasion a legal expert
approaches Jesus and asks what he must do to inherit eternal life (Lk 10:25–28). When
the man affirms the commandments to love God and to love one’s neighbor, Jesus
assures him, “Do this and you will live” (v. 28). Most interpreters recognize the allusion
to Leviticus 18:5, where the Law of Moses assures Israelites that if a man does the law,
he will live. The problem is that Moses was speaking of life in the land of Israel, not
eternal life. So how does Jesus’ allusion to Leviticus 18:5 provide assurance to the legal
expert that he will inherit eternal life? The answer is found in observing that Leviticus
18:5 was understood in late antiquity as referring both to prosperous life in the promised
land and to life in the world to come…
(9) Dualism in the Scrolls and in John. The dualism found in the Rule of the
Community has especially drawn scholarly attention. Contrasts between light/darkness,
good deeds/evil deeds, and truth/falsehood are found in 1QS 3:13–4:26. A sample of the
passage reads as follows: “[God] allotted unto humanity two spirits that he should walk in
them until the time of His visitation; they are the spirits of truth and perversity. The
origin of truth is in a fountain of light, and the origin of perversity is from a fountain of
darkness. Dominion over all the sons of righteousness is in the hand of the Prince of
light; they walk in the ways of light. All dominion over the sons of perversity is in the
hand of the Angel of darkness; they walk in the ways of darkness” (1QS 3:18–21).
Although Johannine and Qumranian dualism is not identical, there is significant
similarity….
The Judaic character of the New Testament Gospels is illustrated by the nine important
parallels that have been briefly considered. There are many more parallels and points of
contact, some linguistic and technical, that could be added to our discussion. But the
examples that have been considered should be sufficient for the purposes at hand.
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