The Dead Sea Scrolls on human worth

The Thanksgiving Hymns from Qumran represent another striking articulation of divine benevolence, with the distinctive accents of a sectarian community. Effusive expressions of gratitude for divine goodness punctuate these hymns with extraordinary regularity: in multiple variations God is addressed with thanks for what has transpired “by your kindnesses” (בחסדיכה), “according to the abundance of your compassion” (כהמון רחמיכה), because of “your abundant goodness” (רוב טובכה), and through “forgiveness” (סליחות) (e.g., 1QHa XIL38; XV.33; XVII.34).‘ The language of “abundance” mirrors the almost obsessive articulation of this theme, which matches the fact that the signature tune of all these compositions is the attribution of knowledge, righteousness, power, and glory — indeed, every dimension of salvation — to God. At the same time, there is an equal emphasis on the worthlessness of the recipients of mercy, an insistent assertion that there is nothing in the material, social, or moral quality of the human object that could provide grounds for this outpouring of grace.—J. M. G. Barclay, Paul and the Gift, 239

Wrong focus

Barclay, Paul and the Gift, 569, puts it summarily: “The priority of the gift is everywhere presupposed, but Paul rarely draws out predestinarian conclusions, as in the Hodayot [of the Dead Sea Scrolls] or in the theologies of Augustine and Calvin.” That is, Paul himself is not nearly as interested in perfecting the volitional priority of God’s personal electing grace (God’s choosing specific individuals before their birth for final salvation) as some of Paul’s interpreters have been. While God’s all—encompassing knowledge of the past, present, and future is everywhere presupposed (e. g., Rom. 11:33-36; 1 Cor. 2:7; Eph. 3:9), and Paul frequently speaks of specific events that God has arranged in advance (Rom. 8:28-30; 1 Cor. 15:51-55; Gal. 3:8; Eph. 1:3—14; 2:10; 1 Thess. 4:16; 2 Tim. 1:9), Paul’s emphasis is consistently on God’s choosing of the Christ and the corporate people of God in the Christ, not on individual predestination unto eternal life or damnation.—Matthew Bates in Salvation by Allegiance Alone, 106 n. 5

Where did it come from?

It is fair to say that the importance of Jewish psalms and hymns from the Second Temple period for the purposes of this study cannot be overstated. As Dead Sea Scrolls scholar George Brooke has noted, “The texts that reflect the prayer and worship of a community and its members are a, probably the, key indication of what the community thought particularly important."* Thus a careful look at early Jewish psalms and hymns will help us get to the heart of some of the most important aspects of early Jewish communities, and will be a good pointer to some of the traditions and values inherited by the earliest Christians, many of whom were themselves part of Jewish communities.—Matthew Gordley, New Testament Christological Hymns, p. 61 *George Brooks, "Aspects of the Theological Significance of Prayer and Worship on the Qumran Scrolls," in Penner, Penner, and Wassen, Prayer and Poetry, 54 (emphasis original)

Let's spin a yarn or two

All explanations work with data from the biblical tradition itself or with cultural-historical analogies from the ancient Near East and, more recently, from Greece. Unfortunately, they disregard the idiosyncrasies of the biblical tradition that do not fit the historical and institutional context. The crucial question, therefore, is: In what circles and institutions did the transition from the prophecy common in the ancient Near East and known from Israel and Judah to biblical prophecy take place? To answer this question, one probably has to spin the same amount of historical fantasy that we find in the common hypotheses of the writing prophet and his “pupils,” or the curriculum of the scribal school, or the diverse interest groups of Israelite society—about which we know virtually nothing.—The Prophets of Israel, page 151

<idle musing>
Refreshingly honest, isn't it?

That's the final excerpt from this book. As I've said many times, he is more skeptical than I about the percentage of original content in the prophetic books. But he is clearly correct that some form of editorial work was going on. The chapter on the Qumran tradition of annotation was excellent, and provides a useful analogy to what might have been going on. That chapter alone was worth the price of the book. (That's metaphorical; because I work for Eisenbrauns, I didn't have to purchase it!)

Next up, The "Image of God" in the Garden of Eden. Here's all the scoop on it:

The "Image of God" in the Garden of Eden
The Creation of Humankind in Genesis 2:5-3:24 in Light of the mis pi pit pi and wpt-r Rituals of Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt
Siphrut: Literature and Theology of the Hebrew Scriptures 15
by Catherine McDowell
Eisenbrauns, 2015
Pp. ix + 246, English
Cloth, 6 x 9 inches
ISBN: 9781575063485
List Price: $47.50
Your Price: $33.25
www.eisenbrauns.com/item/MCDIMAGEO
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An ancient magisterium?

The interpretation of the biblical text appears in any case to be directed or stimulated by exegetical problems arising from the received biblical text itself. These problems are solved by reference to contemporary history, which is the situation of the Qumran community, in accordance with the hermeneutical rule of the “Teacher of Righteousness” that determines to which time and to whom the predictions of the biblical prophets relate.—The Prophets of Israel, page 104

<idle musing>
Of course, we all have our own "magisterium." We just don't often acknowledge it, do we? We always are interpreting things from our own context. Usually we don't even realize it, it's that subconscious. I just finished a book entitled Thinking, Fast and Slow (watch for excerpts soon) that discusses the role of the subconscious in our day-to-day functioning.

The fully rational human is an illusion. To realize we can never step fully outside ourselves is what Postmodernism is supposed to have taught us—despite what other side effects it might have had : ) The problem is we didn't learn it. I guess that's one more reason we need the "hound of heaven," the Holy Spirit, to break through our subconscious walls and show us who we are and what we can be in Christ. Now there's a phrase that is loaded with meaning, "in Christ."
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Still asking the same questions 2000 years later

We find the pesharim taken up with the same questions that concern modern scholarship. Who is the second-person singular feminine, the second-person singular masculine, the third-person singular masculine, or the third-person plural masculine in Nahum 1? Or, where is the “bloody city” in Nah 3:1, given that it is also spoken about in Isa 1 and Hab 2:12 and there identified with Jerusalem or an Israelite city? Or, where is the ruined Nineveh, when we are told in the Book of Jonah that Nineveh converted to the true God and escaped destruction? Or, where is the “No-Amon” that Nineveh took sides with and is associated with idol worship in Jer 46 and Ezek 30? These and other questions result from a close reading of the biblical text, especially if we consider the text not only in relation to the book (as we normally do) but interpret it verse-by-verse, cross-referencing it with biblical writings and other texts (as is common in Jewish exegesis).—The Prophets of Israel, pages 102-3

The more things change...

Those who live in the biblical history and locate their own time in it will regard the books of the biblical prophets as scripture that directly concerns them and their own time. As we have already seen, this is how the hermeneutical rules of the “Teacher of Righteousness” understood things in the pesher on the Book of Habakkuk. Thus, it would be strange if the interpretations in the pesharim had no substantial relationship to their biblical original whatsoever, apart from catchwords and other technical interpretive links. This question emerges especially in our example from the pesher on Nahum, where the external enemies of the seventh century B.C.E., Nineveh and No-Amon, are understood in relation to the Israelite powers, Ephraim and Manasseh, that correspond to the community’s contemporary enemies within Israel and Judah in the first century B.C.E.—The Prophets of Israel, page 101

<idle musing>
Of course, we could apply the same logic to some (most?) interpretations of scripture in the 21st century, couldn't we? And that's why a Christocentric hermeneutic is so important! If the Bible is all about Jesus (and as a Christian, I believe it is), then we should make Jesus the center of our hermeneutic.

Of course, how that plays out in our hermeneutics is the rub, isn't it? Which Jesus do we use as the model? The incarnate, cruciform one in the Gospels, Acts, and most of the Epistles? Or the triumphant, conquering king of Revelation? Of course, I would argue that the conquering king is really the lamb, slain from the foundation of the world. But, others take the triumphant messiah as their starting point and reinterpret all the servant/cruciform stuff through the militaristic lens. And so, in some ways, we are back to square one, aren't we?

This is really about one's presuppositions, not about scripture at all. But it influences—actually, it controls—our interpretation of scripture. If I start with the presupposition that the U.S. is God's chosen vessel (and a holy one, too), then I will interpret scripture much differently than if I start with the presupposition that, yes, God uses the U.S. in the world, but it is not God's chosen nation—unless you want to say that it is chosen in the same way that God chose Assyria—and then judged her when she overstepped her bounds (see Habakkuk).

Just another
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Hermeneutics in the Dead Sea Scrolls

The Qumran community wrestled with the biblical tradition. Repeatedly they sought to reconstruct and interpret both their history and their present situation in light of biblical, and especially prophetic, citations. In doing so, they also hoped to gain a perspective on the future, the “end of days.”—The Prophets of Israel, page 96

Textual transmission and authority

The biblical manuscripts from the Dead Sea afford us a unique view into textual transmission during the Greco-Roman period. The habits and customs of the ancient scribes testify to their absolute fidelity to the text. Nevertheless, there was no single standard text, and alterations such as the one we have described were quite possible. Indeed, the manuscripts from the Dead Sea give the impression of considerable diversity. Thus, for example, the great Isaiah scroll (1QIsa^a) represents its own text type in comparison to the version preserved in the Masoretic Text. Fragments have been preserved of the Book of Jeremiah, some of which follow the Masoretic version (4QJer^{a, c, e}), while some attest to the short, divergent text of the Greek translation of the Septuagint (4QJer^{b, d}). At the same time, there are also harmonizing and standardizing revisions, to which the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts of the Twelve Prophets from Wadi Murabaʾat (Mur 88) and Nahal Hever (8Hev^l) testify.

How to explain this diversity is a much-discussed problem. Some postulate an original text, or one as close as we can get to it, from which the diversity developed. Others, however, argue for textual traditions that originated independently of each other. Given the high percentage of agreement among the texts, the first possibility seems to be more likely. At any rate, it is clear that the diversity did not alter the authority of the text and the esteem in which it was held. There was anything but a slavish word-for-word fidelity. Even if readings differed, for the scribes and readers of the biblical books, the same text always contained the word of God for all time, and consequently for them and their time.—The Prophets of Israel, page 94

<idle musing>
I'm reminded of a snippet from a forthcoming book from Augsburg/Fortress, Isaiah Old and New: Exegesis, Intertextuality, and Hermeneutics:

…however uncomfortable it may make some modern interpreters of the Bible, in the NT era there was assumed to be a fluidity to these scriptural texts such that even the paraphrastic Greek versions of the MT could still be assumed to be the Word of God, and one was free to go with the version which more nearly made one’s point, in this case a christological point. The canon of the OT was relatively fixed and closed in the NT era for most books, such as Isaiah, but the text itself was not absolutely fixed at that juncture.

For some this is indeed a problem, isn't it? But my faith is built on Christ and his faithfulness, not on the Bible. Yes, the Bible reveals Christ, but I know enough about textual transmission to question inerrancy and its straightjacket approach to the text. As the hymn says:

My hope is built on nothing less than Zondervan and Moody Press..

No, that's wrong; let's try again:

My hope is built on nothing less than Scofield's Notes and Moody Press...

Still wrong! How about this:

My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness

And the scripture bears witness to that, so I guess you would have to classify my hermeneutic as Christocentric.

Here's what Ron Hendel says in his recent collection of essays, Steps to a New Edition of the Hebrew Bible (from chapter 11, I don't have the page number handy):

As Roland Bainton observes, for Luther “inspiration did not insure inerrancy in all details. Luther recognized mistakes and inconsistencies in Scripture and treated them with lofty indifference because they did not touch the heart of the Gospel.” [Roland H. Bainton, “The Bible in the Reformation,” in The Cambridge History of the Bible. Volume 3: The West from the Reformation to the Present Day, ed. Stanley L. Greenslade (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963), 12] Where minor errors occur, as when Matthew 27:9 mistakenly cites Jeremiah instead of Zechariah, Luther responds: “Such points do not bother me particularly.” [ibid., 13] Similarly, in his commentaries Calvin is not bothered by errors in the text where they are unrelated to matters of faith and salvation. [See Brian A. Gerrish, “The Word of God and the Words of Scripture: Luther and Calvin on Biblical Authority,” in The Old Protestantism and the New: Essays on the Reformation Heritage (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 62–63] He acknowledges minor errors without anxiety, as in the contradictions among the Gospels: “It is well known that the Evangelists were not very concerned with observing the time sequences.” [John Calvin, Commentaires sur le Nouveau Testament. Tome premier: Sur la concordance ou harmonie composée de trois évangélistes (Paris, Meyrueis, 1854), 319 (at Luke 8:19): “on sçait bien que les Evangélistes ne se sont pas guères arrestez à observer l’ordre des temps.” Cited in William J. Bouwsma, John Calvin: A Sixteenth Century Portrait (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 121–22]

So I stand in the finest tradition, lest you be tempted to paint me as a heretic : )

Just an
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Foretelling and Qumran

In his work about the Jewish war of the first century C.E., the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus writes the following on the Essenes:

There are some among them who profess to foretell the future, being versed from their early years in holy books, various forms of purification and apothegms of prophets; and seldom, if ever, do they err in their predictions.

This description is usually taken as a confirmation of the identification of the Essenes with the Qumran community. The testimony is, however, not quite so clear. Josephus has in mind an active ability to prophesy about contemporary events, and in his main work, the Jewish Antiquities, he adduces various examples of Essene predictions that were fulfilled. However, the Dead Sea Scrolls never speak in this manner. Quite the opposite: the Qumran community appears to have stuck to what is found in Neh 6 and Zech 13, regarding their contemporaries as “false” prophets. It is no coincidence that a list of the names of “false” prophets was found at Qumran. This enumeration of well-known prophets from the biblical tradition was possibly augmented with a contemporary prophet. Unfortunately, the text is too damaged to be able to say anything certain.—The Prophets of Israel, page 91

Qumran and the prophetic

[At Qumran] works were composed that employed cosmological speculation about the divine plan for the world or described the eschatological battle of good and evil spirits in heaven as well as on earth. The community began to determine its own place within biblical, sacred history and to extend their reflection on this history as it reached the expected “end of days.” Apart from the biblical history in the Torah and Former Prophets, the Latter Prophets played a decisive role: here, the prophetic books including the Book of Daniel and the Psalms of David, which were also regarded as prophecy, come into play. The many copies of biblical prophetic books, citations from the prophets, prophetic apocrypha, as well as the interpretations of entire prophetic books in the pesharim attest to this.—The Prophets of Israel, page 90

But I want it to mean this!

In the face of insufficient data, any judgment is weakly founded. Since the Qumran texts are the very epitome of incomplete data, caution is necessary.—Ronald Hendel in Steps to a New Edition of the Hebrew Bible, forthcoming from SBL Press

<idle musing>
Wise words! Many have ignored the perils and gone beyond the data...
</idle musing>

Final DJD volumes finally

I meant to post this last week and forgot. The final two volumes of the Discoveries in the Judean Desert (DJD) were finally published and arrived last Friday. The copyright date says 2010, but they just were printed recently. This marks the end of the series, as far as I can tell. Initially they thought it would take what, 10 years? Well, 1947-2011 is a bit longer than 10 years—more like 64 years, but it beat the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary!

Here's a question, though: how many of the original editors are still alive? The only one I can think of is Frank Moore Cross. Is there anybody else?

Discoveries in the Judaean Desert, XXXII
Qumran Cave 1. II: The Isaiah Scrolls: Part 1: Caves and Transcriptions
Discoveries in the Judaean Desert - DJD 32
Edited by Eugene Ulrich and Peter W. Flint
Oxford University Press, 2010
176 pages with 61 color and 22 b/w plates, English
Cloth
ISBN: 9780199566662
Your Price: $180.00
www.eisenbrauns.com/item/DJD321

Discoveries in the Judaean Desert, XXXII
Qumran Cave 1. II: The Isaiah Scrolls: Part 2: Introductions, Commentary, and Textual Variants
Discoveries in the Judaean Desert - DJD 32
Edited by Eugene Ulrich and Peter W. Flint
Oxford University Press, 2010
240 pages, English
Cloth
ISBN: 9780199566679
Your Price: $145.00
www.eisenbrauns.com/item/DJD322