Ethics in the Qumran Community: An Interdisciplinary Investigation [Illustrated] 3161506189, 9783161506185

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Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament · 2. Reihe Herausgeber / Editor Jörg Frey (Zürich) Mitherausgeber / Associate Editors Friedrich Avemarie (Marburg) Markus Bockmuehl (Oxford) Hans-Josef Klauck (Chicago, IL)

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Marcus K. M. Tso

Ethics in the Qumran Community An Interdisciplinary Investigation

Mohr Siebeck

Marcus K. M. Tso, 2000 MDiv, Regent College, Vancouver; 2009 PhD, University of Manchester; Adjunct Professor of Biblical Studies, Carey Theological College; since 2010, also Sessional Lecturer in Old Testament, Regent College.

e-ISBN PDF 978-3-16-151635-1 ISBN 978-3-16-150618-5 ISSN 0340-9570 (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament, 2. Reihe) Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliographie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. © 2010 by Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, Germany. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form (beyond that permitted by copyright law) without the publisher’s written permission. This applies particularly to reproductions, translations, microfilms and storage and processing in electronic systems. The book was printed by Laupp & Göbel in Nehren on non-aging paper and bound by Buchbinderei Nädele in Nehren. Printed in Germany.

Preface This book is a reworked version of my PhD thesis, which I submitted in 2008 to the University of Manchester in the Faculty of Humanities. An extended project like this naturally incurs many debts. My thanks first go to my thesis advisor, Prof. George Brooke, for his patient guidance, continual encouragement, and inspiring generosity, both in the thesis stage and the publication stage of this project, and to my thesis examiners, Dr. Todd Klutz of the University of Manchester and Dr. Simon Gathercole of the University of Cambridge, for their valuable comments on my thesis. I am also grateful to Prof. Dr. Jörg Frey, Editor of WUNT II, and Dr. Henning Ziebritzki, Editorial Director Theology and Jewish Studies at Mohr Siebeck, for warmly accepting my work for publication. Here I want to recognize the editorial staff, particularly Ms. Tanja Mix, whose meticulous guidance was indispensible for the proper formatting of this monograph. Heart-felt appreciation also goes to Prof. Martin Abegg Jr. of Trinity Western University, British Columbia, Canada, who introduced me to the fascinating world of the Dead Sea Scrolls and opened the door for me to pursue this research at the University of Manchester. His continual interest in my work has been most heartening. I am also indebted to Drs. Jennifer Shepherd and Dorothy Peters for their advice, encouragement, inspiration, and practical assistance in numerous instances. I especially value Dr. Shepherd’s careful reading of the entire second draft of my thesis, along with her many helpful comments. It was a privilege for me to have conversed with several other Qumran scholars about my research, especially Drs. Hanne von Weissenberg, Cecilia Wassen, and Jutta Jokiranta. Dr. Jokiranta’s detailed comments on Chapter Six were particularly beneficial. Moreover, the opportunity to present aspects of this research at the University of Durham (2007) and at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome (2009) was a treasured honour, particularly so when the organizers of the meetings kindly included my papers for publication. For this I thank Profs. George Brooke, Hindy Najman, and Loren Stuckenbruck, the organizers of the Durham conference, and Profs. Armin Lange and Kristin De Troyer, Qumran Section Co-Chairs of the Rome SBL Meetings. Turning my thoughts towards home, I want to thank the members of my home Bible study group at Willingdon Church, Burnaby, for their care and

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Preface

support in the last few years. Their fellowship and personal interest saved me from being a total recluse when I was immersed in the world of Qumran scholarship. I am also grateful to Carey Theological College for being my institutional home in the latter phase of this project, and for providing me with financial support and enhanced access to library resources at the University of British Columbia, Regent College, and Vancouver School of Theology. My work has been enriched deeply by these and other people and institutions, but all its flaws of course remain my responsibility alone. This monograph, like the thesis on which it is based, is dedicated to Prof. Bruce Waltke, who taught me Hebrew and the Hebrew Bible, and the memory of Prof. Stanley Grenz, who taught me theology and ethics, and above all, my ever-loving and supportive wife, Daphne, without whom this project would never have started, much less finished.

hwhy Kwrb Burnaby, September 28, 2010

Marcus K. M. Tso

Table of Contents Preface ............................................................................................................. V Table of Contents...........................................................................................VII
List of Abbreviations ......................................................................................XI
Part I

Introduction Chapter 1: General Introduction ............................................................... 3 A. Why Is Ethics in the Qumran Community Worth Investigating?................ 3 B. What Aspects of Ethics in the Qumran Community? .................................. 4 C. How Will This Book Investigate Ethics in the Qumran Community? ........ 5 Part II

Setting the Scene
Chapter 2: Literature Review .................................................................. 11 A. “Qumran Ethics” before the Discoveries at Qumran (before 1947).............................................................................................. 11 B. Qumran Ethics in the Formative Phase of Qumran Research (1947 to 1990)............................................................................................ 16 C. Qumran Ethics in the Flourishing Phase of Qumran Research (1990 to the Present) .................................................................................. 24 D. Conclusion ................................................................................................. 31

Chapter 3: The Language of Ethical Discourse.................................. 33 A. Ethical Language in the Qumran Texts ..................................................... 34 B. Greco-Roman Ethical Language in Second Temple Judaism.................... 38 C. Ethical Language in Rabbinic Literature ................................................... 42

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D. Modern Ethicists’ Language...................................................................... 48 E. Modern and Postmodern Jewish Ethical Language ................................... 52 F. Conclusion.................................................................................................. 57

Chapter 4: A Historical Framework ...................................................... 58 A. Historical Reconstruction .......................................................................... 58 B. Locating the Key Texts in Their Historical Contexts ................................ 64 C. Textual Evidence for Development and Variation in Worldviews............ 68 Part III

Ethics in the Qumran Community: Four Contributing Factors
Chapter 5: Scriptural Tradition............................................................... 75 A. The Tradition of Authoritative Texts in the Qumran Community............. 76 B. The Use of Torah Texts in the Sectarian Scrolls: Genesis......................... 78 C. The Use of Torah Texts in the Sectarian Scrolls: Deuteronomy ............... 83 D. The Use of Prophetic Texts in the Sectarian Scrolls: Isaiah...................... 87 E. The Use of Prophetic Texts in the Sectarian Scrolls: Psalms .................... 92 F. Conclusion.................................................................................................. 96

Chapter 6: Self-Identity ............................................................................ 98 A. The Ethical Significance of Identity .......................................................... 98 B. Forming Identity through (Re)constructing the Past................................ 103 C. Forming Identity through Constructing the Present................................. 109 D. Forming Identity through Constructing the Future.................................. 119 E. Conclusion................................................................................................ 120

Chapter 7: Cultural and Political Contexts ........................................ 122 A. Hellenistic Cultural Influences ................................................................ 123 B. Persian Cultural Influences ...................................................................... 128 C. Other Cultural Influences: Egyptian, Parthian, and Nabatean ................. 133 D. The Hasmonean Period (c. 140–63 B.C.E.) .............................................. 135 E. The Roman Period (63 B.C.E.–70 C.E.)..................................................... 141 F. Conclusion................................................................................................ 145

Table of Contents

IX

Chapter 8: Eschatology........................................................................... 147 A. Ethical Significance of Eschatology ........................................................ 148 B. Future Rewards and Punishments as Ethical Motivation......................... 152 C. “Realizing Eschatology” and Its Ethical Significance ............................. 160 D. Conclusion ............................................................................................... 167 Part IV

Synthesis and Conclusion
Chapter 9: Principles behind Practices ............................................... 173 A. Ethics in a Qumran Rule Text: 1QS VI, 24–VII, 25................................ 173 B. Ethics in a Qumran Wisdom Text: 4QCrA Words of the Sage to the Sons of Dawn (4Q298) ....................... 180 C. Ethics in a Qumran Liturgical Text: 4QBerakhota–e (4Q286–290).......... 188 D. Ethics in a Qumran Exegetical Text: 4QpPsa (4Q171) I, 17–II, 20......... 193 E. Conclusion................................................................................................ 202

Chapter 10: Conclusion .......................................................................... 203 A. Review of Methodology .......................................................................... 203 B. Review of Findings .................................................................................. 204 C. Synthesis .................................................................................................. 205 D. Future Directions ..................................................................................... 207

Appendices ................................................................................................... 209
Appendix A: The Penal Code In 1QS VI, 24–VII, 25.................................. 210
Appendix B: The Relationship between Psalm 37 and 4Q171..................... 214 Bibliography ................................................................................................. 221
Index of Ancient Sources.............................................................................. 251
Index of Names............................................................................................. 263
Index of Subjects .......................................................................................... 267


List of Abbreviations See SBLHS Chapter 8 for other abbreviations not listed below. ABD ABRL ANRW

ANYAS ATANT ATDan BAJS BETL BHis Bib BIRS BJS BRLJ BSem BTB BZAW CBQ CBQMS CBW CDSSE CHJ CJA COL ConBNT Cons CQS CRINT CSJH CSRel DJD DJDJ DJDJ V DJD XI

Anchor Bible Dictionary. Edited by D. N. Freedman. 6 vols. New York, 1992 Anchor Bible Reference Library Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt: Geschichte und Kultur Roms im Spiegel der neueren Forschung. Edited by H. Temporini and W. Haase. Berlin, 1972– Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences Abhandlungen zur Theologie des Alten und Neuen Testaments Acta theologica danica Biblical and Judaic Studies Bibliotheca ephemeridum theologicarum lovaniensium Bibliothèque historique Biblica Bibliographies and Indexes in Religious Studies Brown Judaic Studies Brill Reference Library of Judaism The Biblical Seminar Biblical Theology Bulletin Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft Catholic Biblical Quarterly Catholic Biblical Quarterly Monograph Series Cities of the Biblical World The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English. G. Vermes. London, 1997 Cambridge History of Judaism. Edited by W. Horbury, W. D. Davies, and Louis Finkelstein. Cambridge, 1984– Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity Christian Origins Library Coniectanea biblica: New Testament Series Consensus Companion to the Qumran Scrolls Compendia rerum iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism Contributions to the Study of Religion Discoveries in the Judaean Desert Discoveries in the Judaean Desert of Jordan Qumrân Cave 4.I (4Q158–4Q186). Edited by J. Allegro. Oxford, 1968 Qumran Cave 4.VI: Poetical and Liturgical Texts. Edited by E. Eshel, et al. Oxford, 1998

XII DJD XX DJD XXII DJD XXXVI DSD DSSR DSSSE EDSS EJ EJSP EMSP EpRev ErIsr ESSP Ethics EvQ FO FP GBS/NTS GDNES HCS HD HO HR HTR IEJ JAAR JBL JBV JBQ JJS JNES JQR JR JRE JSCE JSem JSJ JSJSup JSOT JSOTSup JSP JSPSup

List of Abbreviations Qumran Cave 4.XV: Sapiential Texts, Part 1. Edited by T. Elgvin. Oxford, 1997 Qumran Cave 4.XVII: Parabiblical Texts, Part 3. Edited by G. Brooke et al. Oxford, 1996 Qumran Cave 4.XXVI: Cryptic Texts; and Miscellanea, Part 1. Edited by S. Pfann et al. Oxford, 2000 Dead Sea Discoveries The Dead Sea Scrolls Reader. Edited by D. Parry, and E. Tov. 6 vols. Leiden, 2004–2005 Dead Sea Scrolls: Study Edition. Edited by F. García Martínez and E. J. C. Tigchelaar. New York, 1997–1998 Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Edited by L. H. Schiffman and J. C. VanderKam. New York, 2000 The Encyclopedia of Judaism. Edited by J. Neusner et al. 3 vols. New York, 1999 European Journal of Social Psychology European Monographs in Social Psychology Epworth Review Eretz-Israel European Studies in Social Psychology Ethics Evangelical Quarterly Folia orientalia Fields of Philosophy Guides to Biblical Scholarship/New Testament Series Gorgias Dissertations Near East Series Hellenistic Culture and Society Human Development Handbuch der Orientalistik History of Religions Harvard Theological Review Israel Exploration Journal Journal of the American Academy of Religion Journal of Biblical Literature Journal of Beliefs and Values Jewish Bible Quarterly Journal of Jewish Studies Journal of Near Eastern Studies Jewish Quarterly Review Journal of Religion Journal of Religious Ethics Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics Journal of Semitics Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman Periods Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Journal for the Study of the Old Testament: Supplement Series Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha: Supplement Series

List of Abbreviations JSS JWSTP

LBS LEC LJLE LJPSTT LNTS LSTS MSer NovTSup NTL NTOA NTS Numen OCTb PAAJR Phae PHFPS PRSt QSM RB RelSRev RevQ RevScRel RGRW RI RRJ RTR SBL SBLEJL SBLHS SBLMS SBLSP SBLSymS ScrHier SCT SDSSRL Sef SFSHJ SJC SJLA SJT Sound SSEJC STDJ

XIII

Journal of Semitic Studies Jewish Writings of the Second Temple Period: Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, Qumran Sectarian Writings, Philo, Josephus. Edited by M. E. Stone. CRINT 2.2. Assen/Philadelphia, 1984 The Library of Biblical Studies Library of Early Christianity The Library of Jewish Law and Ethics Literature of the Jewish People in the Period of the Second Temple and the Talmud Library of New Testament Studies Library of Second Temple Studies Moreshet Series Supplements to Novum Testamentum New Testament Library Novum Testamentum et Orbis Antiquus New Testament Studies Numen: International Review for the History of Religions Oxford Centre Textbooks Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research Phaenomenologica Prentice-Hall Foundations of Philosophy Series Perspectives in Religious Studies Qumran Sectarian Manuscripts: Qumran Text and Grammatical Tags. Version 2.9. Edited by Martin G. Abegg, Jr., 1999–2007 Revue biblique Religious Studies Review Revue de Qumrân Revue des sciences religieuses Religions in the Graeco-Roman World Recherches intertestamentaires Review of Rabbinic Judaism Reformed Theological Review Society of Biblical Literature Society of Biblical Literature Early Judaism and Its Literature The SBL Handbook of Style. Edited by P. Alexander et al. Peabody, Mass., 1999 Society of Biblical Literature Monograph Series Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Papers Society of Biblical Literature Symposium Series Scripta hierosolymitana Studies in Continental Thought Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature Sefarad South Florida Studies in the History of Judaism Studien zu Judentum und Christentum Studies in Judaism in Late Antiquity Scottish Journal of Theology Soundings Studies in Early Judaism and Christianity Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah

XIV StPB SUNT TeG TTFC TTS USQR UTPSS VT VTSup WAC WUNT

List of Abbreviations Studia post-biblica Studien zur Umwelt des Neuen Testaments Traditio exegetica Graeca Theology for the Twenty-First Century Texts and Translations Series Union Seminary Quarterly Review University of Texas Press Slavic Series Vetus Testamentum Supplements to Vetus Testamentum The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation. Edited by Michael O. Wise, Martin G. Abegg, Jr., and Edward M. Cook. San Francisco, 1996 Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament

Part I

Introduction

Chapter 1

General Introduction A. Why Is Ethics in the Qumran Community Worth Investigating? In antiquity as today, Jews and Christians were concerned with how they ought to live in the presence of God. Such a concern about the rightness or wrongness of one’s conduct in all aspects of life and of one’s inner character or motivations falls within the wider discussion of ethics. Although a fuller statement on what “ethics” and related words mean in this book will await Chapter Three, a preliminary working definition is apropos here. This book uses the word “ethics” in its broad sense, without a sharp distinction from, nor exact equivalence with, its synonym “morality.” “Ethics” can refer here to a moral code, the reflection on and study of morality, or to morality itself.1 Furthermore, ethics is concerned with that which is normative, how good and evil are distinguished vis-à-vis personal choices – a distinction essential to all biblical religions. Thus, both Christians and Jews since antiquity have their own varied ethical systems, even when they do not explicitly describe them as such. Indeed, contemporary Jews and Christians have written about ethics in their own cultural contexts, drawing upon the resources of their sacred texts and religious traditions, while responding to the philosophical tradition of ethical discourse in the West.2 But did Palestinian Jews in the Second Temple period articulate ethics as a part of their socio-religious worldviews? If so, how and on what bases? Investigating ethics in the Qumran community as a special case of religious ethics among Jewish groups in Second Temple Palestine is one way to begin answering these questions. As Chapter Two will show, however, this 1 For the typical definition of ethics as “moral philosophy,” or “a consideration of the various kinds of questions that arise in thinking about how one ought to live one’s life,” see, Jack Glickman, ed., Moral Philosophy: An Introduction (New York: St. Martin’s, 1976), 1. However, defining ethics with reference to morality can be problematic as the definition for the latter is no less difficult. Nevertheless, this preliminary definition at least dispenses away with the overly strict definition of ethics as something that is other than morality and outside of religion. 2 For examples of contemporary Jewish ethics, see Chapter Three. For examples of contemporary Christian ethics, from the social activism of Rauschenbusch to the communitarianism of Hauerwas, see Stanley J. Grenz, The Moral Quest: Foundations of Christian Ethics (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1997), 165–203.

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Chapter 1: General Introduction

subject has largely been ignored. Indeed, it has been the trend in Qumran studies since the 1980s to eschew categories and concepts that are not explicitly found in the Scrolls and to shun inappropriate systematization. Despite the risk of distortion that comes from using the category of ethics to read the evidence of the Scrolls, if carefully done, such a reading will prove illuminating in many ways. For example, investigation of “Qumran ethics” promises a better understanding of who the Qumranites were and their beliefs and practices. Thus, it is intrinsically valuable for Qumran studies itself. Moreover, it can elucidate the development of later Jewish and Christian ethics and even provide comparative cases for a better understanding of how ethics develops in contemporary religious communities that trace their roots ultimately to Second Temple Judaism.

B. What Aspects of Ethics in the Qumran Community? Inasmuch as the Qumranites’ writings exhibit a set of ethical norms, based on certain communally held values or principles, which reflect certain worldviews specific to the community and are shaped by various factors, all of these expressed in whatever degree of coherence and consistency, they display an ethical system in a minimal sense, though not one that is either static or monolithic. While each of these aspects is important and will be touched upon from time to time, this book will focus on the more fundamental question: what are the factors that contributed to the ethics-shaping worldviews and principles at Qumran, and how did these factors work? It will pursue this two-fold question by examining four prime candidates for such contributing factors, to be introduced in the next section on methodology. Beyond this fundamental focus question, this book will also seek to clarify a number of other issues concerning Qumran ethics. These include identifying the terminology, concepts, and categories in the Qumran literature that belong to a contemporary discussion of the ethics of an ancient group. This involves some work of translation and mapping between what anthropologists call the emic and the etic perspectives. The term “emic” is derived from the linguistic category “phonemic” and denotes “the viewpoint, categories of thought, and explanations of the group being studied,” and the term “etic” is derived from the linguistic category “phonetic” and denotes “the perspective and classifying systems of the external investigator.”3 Related to this question of emic terminology for ethics is the question of the relationships between ethics and Jewish religious law, or halakhah. Although halakhah is not an explicit emic category at Qumran, but is borrowed 3 John H. Elliott, What Is Social-Scientific Criticism? (GBS/NTS; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 37–40, 129.

C. How Will This Book Investigate Ethics

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from rabbinic studies, it has proven useful as an investigative category when applied to legal issues in the Scrolls.4 Specifically, this book will inquire whether there was ethics apart from halakhah, and vice versa, at Qumran. Can one be subsumed under the other? Are they coterminous? If not, where do they differ? Similarly, the relationship between ethical norms and ritual norms needs to be clarified. As noted in earlier studies, purity is a major concern at Qumran. Did the sectarians distinguish between moral purity and ritual purity? Previous research on this question needs to be re-examined in the context of this broader study. Other questions to be addressed include the following. Did the Qumranites have a natural law ethics, versions of which are found in the writings of the Stoics, Philo, and later Jewish and Christian ethicists? If so, how did they understand natural law? Where did they stand with respect to determinism and freewill? What kind of changes can be detected in their ethics during the time they occupied Qumran?

C. How Will This Book Investigate Ethics in the Qumran Community? This book will use an eclectic and interdisciplinary methodology to answer the diverse questions outlined above. This methodology can be adumbrated by a delineation of the scope and an overview of the chapters of this book. I. Scope By focusing on the sectarian community that most scholars believe resided at Khirbet Qumran, as Chapter Four will elaborate, this book will work with a plausible historical reconstruction that locates this community at Qumran from around 100 B.C.E. to 68 C.E. This sociological, geographical, and chronological specification will help avoid conflating different communities and confusing the distinctions between their ethics.5 As a result of this focus on the Qumran community, as opposed to their sectarian predecessors or affiliated groups located elsewhere, this book will prioritize as evidence texts that are more assuredly Qumranic, without excluding non-Qumranic texts that are clearly influential at Qumran. Since there is often no simple answer to which texts are Qumranic or sectarian, the group of 4

See Chapter Two and Three for details. See the cogent argument for not using the term “Qumran Community” to refer to the movement as a whole in John J. Collins, “Beyond the Qumran Community: Social Organization in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” DSD 16 (2009): 351–69. 5

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Chapter 1: General Introduction

texts used in this book is a centred set and not a strictly bounded set. Furthermore, a diversity of genres will be chosen as a control over the evidence, lest too much attention to a particular genre distort the picture. However, space limitation precludes the examination of all genres in every chapter. Finally, as mentioned above, this book will focus primarily on the question of how ethics was shaped at Qumran rather than on the particular ethical views of the Qumranites. The book will argue that four sets of factors contributed to the shaping of Qumran ethics in a complex and interrelated way. These factors are scriptural tradition(s), identity formation, cultural/political contexts, and eschatology. While these four factors are not meant to be exhaustive, they are proffered as representative of other factors that may also have contributed to the processes of formulating ethics at Qumran. Nevertheless, these contributing factors are not randomly selected, but commend themselves, not only for the study of Qumran ethics, but, with proper adjustments, also for the ethics of other comparable religious communities. First, the importance of tradition, whether written or oral, in the construction of ethics in religious communities is evident. For the Qumranites, appealing to their authoritative texts was one of the main strategies for explaining or justifying their ethics. Second, the communal character of the Qumran sect invites a sociological approach to gauge the link between the social constructions of its identity and ethics. Third, since all ethical systems are to some extent products of their time and reflect their cultural and political contexts, an examination of the contextual factors in Qumran ethics is necessary despite the sect’s isolationist reputation. Finally, ethics in religious communities often reflects at least some aspects of their theologies.6 Qumran scholarship has long recognized eschatology as a key aspect of the expressed beliefs of the Qumranites. Therefore, it is reasonable to attend to the effects eschatology in particular had on Qumran ethics. II. Overview After this introductory chapter, Chapter Two will begin setting up the stage for this study by reviewing the state of scholarship. This review will not only note the partial treatments this subject has received, but also observe the major trends in Qumran scholarship that are relevant to this investigation, providing tools for this book to fill the gaps in the scholarly discussion. Chapter Three will explore the language and discourses in the Qumran texts first, then in the roughly contemporary writings of Philo of Alexandria as a representative of Hellenistic Jewish ethics, then in rabbinic literature, finally in the debates of modern ethicists, particularly Jewish ethicists. This wide-ranging exploration will seek to identify what constitute ethical dis6

Cf. the statement that Christian ethics is “theology in action” in Grenz, Moral Quest, 19.

C. How Will This Book Investigate Ethics

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courses in the Qumran texts in a way that is faithful to the texts and their Jewish roots, while still commensurate with modern philosophical ethics. Furthermore, it will expose a number of issues about Qumran ethics that will be addressed in later chapters. Chapter Four will complete the stage setting by giving an account of the history of the Qumran community that will serve as the historical framework for this book. Although the details of this history are not conclusive, this historical realism justifiably emphasizes the reality of the community, one that is collaborated in part by archaeology and classical sources. Moreover, it highlights that the Qumran texts are historical products developed over time. This chapter will therefore aid the discussion in the later chapters by providing a way of locating texts within their historical contexts. Chapters Five through Eight will contain the main exploration of the four contributing factors of Qumran ethics. Chapter Five will tackle scriptural tradition(s) and explore how the Qumranites understood and appropriated the various genres of their authoritative texts, especially laws and narratives, to determine the demands of God. The most influential and authoritative biblical books will be selected for separate analysis to show how texts from each book variously influenced Qumran ethics. Chapter Six will turn to identity formation, drawing most heavily on the social sciences, and will highlight that ethics was socially constructed at Qumran. Chapter Seven will examine the political and cultural contexts of the Qumranites and demonstrate that the formulation of their ethics was not done in a vacuum, but was sensitive and responsive to their political and cultural environments. Chapter Eight will consider eschatology as a salient aspect of the Qumranites’ theology and will show that Qumran ethics was also theological. Chapter Nine will tie the discussion together by demonstrating how these four tributaries of Qumran ethics flow together and mingle with each other in their effects on Qumran ethics. This will be done by taking example texts from four different genres. In the process, some dominant underlying principles will be identified. The book will conclude with a review of its objectives, methodology, and major findings, and will present a synthesis of principles uncovered throughout the book and especially in Chapter Nine.

Part II

Setting the Scene

Chapter 2

Literature Review The research on ethics in the Qumran community has never been sustained, focused, or comprehensive. Tracing the historical development of this research will confirm that although various scholars have made their contributions to this subject, their collective effort has yet to produce an adequate account of ethics in the Qumran community. A review of the literature on this subject can be divided into three periods: before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, from their initial discovery to 1990, and from 1990 to the present.1

A. “Qumran Ethics” before the Discoveries at Qumran (before 1947) Prior to the discovery of the Scrolls, much learned work had already been done to set the stage for how Scrolls researchers would study and discuss ethics in the Qumran community. These “pre-Qumran” studies included works on the ethics of the Essenes, the ethics of the apocryphal and pseudepigraphic literature, and the ethics of the Damascus Document. I. The Ethics of the Essenes Almost immediately after the initial discovery of the Scrolls, scholars began to identify the group responsible for them as the Essenes,2 partly on the basis of the correspondence between how the classical witnesses described the 1 This trichotomous approach to reviewing the literature is not original in recent Qumran research. See, e.g., Catherine M. Murphy, Wealth in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the Qumran Community (STDJ 40; Leiden: Brill, 2002), 3–21; see a more elaborate version of this approach in George J. Brooke, “The Scrolls and the Study of the New Testament,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls at Fifty: Proceedings of the 1997 Society of Biblical Literature Qumran Section Meetings (ed. Robert A. Kugler and Eileen M. Schuller; SBLEJL 15; Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1999), 61–76. 2 E.g., Eleazar L. Sukenik, twzwng twlgm I (Jerusalem: Bialik, 1948), 16, later concurred by Józef T. Milik, Dix ans de découvertes dans le Désert de Juda (Paris: Les Editions du Cerf, 1957) and André Dupont-Sommer, Les écrits esséniens découverts près de la mer Morte (BHis; Paris: Payot, 1959).

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Chapter 2: Literature Review

Essenes, sometimes in ethical terms, and how the Scrolls described the practices and perspectives of their authors. Therefore, what scholars had said about the ethics of the Essenes became relevant for the study of Qumran ethics after the discovery of the Scrolls. The eminent nineteenth-century Hebraic scholar C. D. Ginsburg, for example, aimed to present an impartial account of the Essenes by reading past the biases of the classical witnesses and consulting the rabbinic sources.3 Nevertheless, Ginsburg’s study illustrates clearly the way many pre-Qumran scholars had an idealized and romanticized view of the Essenes as a supremely ethical group of people, a view that can be traced directly to the classical witnesses upon whom they necessarily depended.4 Despite Ginsburg’s claim of impartiality, his portrayal of the ethical characteristics of the Essenes is largely an uncritical reflection of his ancient sources, along with some contrived harmonization with Christianity.5 This is a typical example of how commentators grasped the ethics of the Essenes up to the middle of the nineteenth century.6 They tended to see in the Essenes ethical values that postEnlightenment Christendom and Haskalah Jewry considered praiseworthy. Indeed, Ginsburg’s survey of scholarship provides what amounts to an annotated bibliography of very early Essene scholarship, citing works that are not otherwise readily accessible today.7 Thus, his work provides a valuable glimpse into how the Western scholarly community in the mid-nineteenth century thought about the Essenes and highlights a few issues applicable to this study, such as the need to read the ancient sources with care, to avoid linking the Qumran community to other groups too closely, and to exclude value-laden biases in the analysis of its ethics.

3

This essay was first published in 1864 and republished with another one of his works almost a century later in, Christian David Ginsburg, The Essenes: Their History and Doctrines; The Kabbalah: Its Doctrines, Development and Literature (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1955). Ginsburg was born a Jew and converted to Christianity in his teens. He is perhaps best known for the many articles he contributed to various encyclopaedias, including the Encyclopædia Britannica. 4 E.g., as Ginsburg quotes Philo, “They leave the logical . . . and the natural part [of philosophy to others] . . . but the ethical part they thoroughly work out for themselves, using as their guides the laws which their fathers inherited.” Ginsburg, Essenes, 33–34. 5 E.g., Ginsburg, Essenes, 9–10, describes the Essenes using Christian terms such as “baptism” and “sacrament.” On page 11 he stretches the implications of the classical witnesses and links Josephus’ report – that the Essenes adopted others’ children – with Jesus’ charge to let children come to him. 6 E.g., Hall’s 1847 article in The Biblical Repository and Classical Review, cited in Ginsburg, Essenes, 74–75. 7 E.g., De Rossi’s sixteenth-century work in Meor Enajim and Frankel’s 1853 article in Monatschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judenthums.

A. “Qumran Ethics” before the Discoveries at Qumran

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II. The Ethics of the Apocryphal and Pseudepigraphic Literature The early studies of the ethics contained in the Jewish apocryphal and pseudepigraphic literature, though dated, are valuable precursors to the study of Qumran ethics. First, they describe a segment of the cultural-religious milieu and the ethical thought of part of the Jewish world in which the Qumranites lived. Second, some of the apocryphal and pseudepigraphic literature, such as parts of 1 Enoch and Jubilees, are found among the Scrolls and were likely influential in sectarian ethics. Finally, these studies provide possible models for and raise important issues regarding the study of Qumran ethics. One such early work is H. M. Hughes’ doctoral thesis published in 1910.8 In this book the British Wesleyan Methodist minister provided an analysis of the content and development of ethical doctrines found in the Jewish apocryphal and pseudepigraphic literature, based on the pioneer critical research of R. H. Charles. Hughes did so by dividing the pertinent literature into documents of Palestinian or Alexandrian origin, and grouping them chronologically by the century in which they were supposedly written. Using this geographical/chronological grid, Hughes described and traced the development of ethical thought under four subject headings derived largely from Christian ethics as developed in the West – the moral ideal, moral evil, the will, and moral sanctions. Hughes’ method of analyzing the literature by dividing it into two geographic regions and three centuries is significant. For example, his study shows broadly that Palestinian literature reveals evidence of Sadducean accommodation to the influence of Hellenism as well as Hasidic rejection of it, while Alexandrian literature displays a creative adaptation of the Hellenistic influence.9 Furthermore, Hughes’ thesis indicates that Second Temple Jewish ethical thought developed in a very complex way from their roots in Jewish Scriptures in response to the historical experience and interactions with foreign powers and ideas. Thus, for example, with the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, at least some Jewish writers turned from a focus on political Messianism back to a focus on the law. What this suggests for the present study is the need to discern as much as possible the diachronic theological development of the Qumran community. Moreover, Hughes’ work reveals at least two of the contributing factors of Jewish ethics in the Second Temple period – scriptural traditions and political/cultural contexts. 8 Henry Maldwyn Hughes, The Ethics of Jewish Apocryphal Literature (London: Robert Culley, 1910). 9 For a more recent analysis of how Jews in this period “negotiated” around their cultural environment, especially in the Alexandrian context, see John M. G. Barclay, “Using and Refusing: Jewish Identity Strategies under the Hegemony of Hellenism,” in Ethos und Identität: Einheit und Vielfalt des Judentums in hellenistisch-römischer Zeit (ed. Matthias Konradt and Ulrike Steinert; SJC; Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2002), 13–25.

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Another key issue that Hughes raises for this study is the appropriate categories to use in the investigation of Qumran ethics. While Hughes’ choice of ethical categories in his analysis is debatable,10 there is no denying that categories foreign to much of Second Temple Jewish literature are needed in order to talk about its ethics. Appeals to various philosophical traditions, as the next chapter will show, are necessary to clarify what is meant by ethics in the Qumran community. One last issue that Hughes’ thesis highlights is once again the problem of a value-laden reading of ethics that he and his contemporaries tend to exemplify.11 Hughes’ implicit Christian and modernist perspective on ethics, most probably rooted in his British Methodist background, frequently led him to approve and prefer certain ethical positions. This book, however, will avoid making such value judgments. III. The Ethics of the Damascus Document The discovery of the Damascus Document quickly sparked a series of excited scholarly responses.12 These pre-Qumran studies were very significant forerunners to the Scrolls research which began half a century later, not only by providing later scholars with some prior, albeit limited, knowledge of the content of Qumran sectarian literature, but also by developing methodologies for theorizing about the histories and origins of the sect(s) behind the texts.13

10 To paraphrase the four categories Hughes used, they are the understanding of good, evil, choice, and consequence. The implication is that these matters are what ethics is about. 11 This tendency to relate the sectarian ethics to the Jewish mainstream on the one hand, and to Christianity on the other, is also observable even after the discovery of the Scrolls, as illustrated by the first essay devoted to Qumran ethics: John G. Harris, “Aspects of the Ethical Teaching of the Qumran Covenanters,” EvQ 37 (1965): 142–46. Despite the problem of this approach, it corrects the opposite tendency to put the Qumran community in the margins of Second Temple Jewish society. 12 The responses are described as “a flurry of reaction and speculation” by Philip R. Davies, The Damascus Covenant: An Interpretation of the “Damascus Document” (JSOTSup 25; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1983), 5. Joseph A. Fitzmyer, in his prolegomenon to the 1970 reprint of Solomon Schechter’s original 1910 publication of CD, Fragments of a Zadokite Work, gives the date of Schechter’s journey to Cairo as 1896, Solomon Schechter, Documents of Jewish Sectaries (New York: Ktav, 1970), 10, while Stefan C. Reif, in his account of Schechter’s pioneer contribution to CD research, reports that Schechter brought CD from Cairo in 1897, “The Damascus Document from the Cairo Genizah: Its Discovery, Early Study and Historical Significance,” in The Damascus Document: A Centennial of Discovery: Proceedings of the Third International Symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, 4–8 February, 1998 (ed. Joseph M. Baumgarten, Esther G. Chazon, and Avital Pinnick; Leiden: Brill, 2000), 113. 13 Cf. the assessment of the significance of early research of CD in Lawrence H. Schiffman, “Zadokite Fragments (Damascus Document),” ABD, 6:1037–38.

A. “Qumran Ethics” before the Discoveries at Qumran

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When scholars identified manuscripts of this document among the Scrolls in the 1950s, its connection to the Qumran sect became even more certain. Nevertheless, pre-Qumran studies on CD have little to say explicitly about ethics in the Qumran community. Their contribution to the study of Qumran ethics lies mainly in their early identification of the importance of halakhah for the sectarians behind CD, and by extension, for the Qumran community. This awareness was gained partly by a careful comparison between CD and rabbinic literature. Two of the trailblazers in this respect were S. Schechter and L. Ginzberg.14 Ginzberg is particularly noteworthy, not because he is representative of his contemporary scholars in all ways,15 but because he serves as a clear illustration of the kinds of bias that were often at work. Ginzberg’s expertise in, and apparent commitment to, rabbinic Judaism shaped his approach to CD. He was very ready to see in CD views that are essentially identical to his favourite Second Temple Jewish group – the Pharisees, whom he frequently put in a positive light in contrast with the Sadducees.16 In a rare explicit remark about the ethics of the CD community, he censured the sectarians’ particularism as “narrow-mindedness,” in contrast with the more generous and universal spirit of the Pharisees.17 Ginzberg underscores, beside the danger of value-laden assumptions, both the usefulness and the hazards of using rabbinic literature to study the Scrolls.18 Moreover, the recognition of the Jewish and halakhic nature of CD and its community points to the need to tease out the relationship between halakhah and ethics.19 14

Schechter, Documents of Jewish Sectaries; Louis Ginzberg, An Unknown Jewish Sect (trans. Ralph Marcus, et al.; MSer 1; New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1976). 15 E.g., Ginzberg’s identification of the sectarians in CD as essentially Pharisaic in halakhah and theology stood in sharp opposition to the general trend in his days to link them with the Sadducees. 16 E.g., Ginzberg endorsed the “orthodox” Pharisees and censured the “worldly” Sadducees by saying, “The Sadducees, who had their roots wholly in this world and its pleasures, had more than enough in the written law and had no desire [to] expand the Law . . . . Greater zealots for the Law than the Pharisees can hardly be imagined.” Ginzberg, Unknown Jewish Sect, 162. 17 Ginzberg, Unknown Jewish Sect, 202–4. 18 It is clear that early rabbinic writings may shed light on the Scrolls, but it is equally clear that reading the Scrolls through the lens of rabbinic literature distorts them. See subsection III below and Chapter Three, Section C, Subsection I for more on this point. 19 As the next section will show, the importance of Jewish context and halakhah would not be recognized fully in the early stage of Qumran research until the arrival of Jewish researchers such as Schiffman, and especially after the publication of 4QMMT, the Temple Scroll, and other 4Q materials. See Lawrence H. Schiffman, Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: The History of Judaism, the Background of Christianity, the Lost Library of Qumran (ABRL; New York: Doubleday, 1995), xiii–xiv.

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To sum up, valuable seeds for studying Qumran ethics were already sown in the period before the discovery of the Scrolls. They caution indirectly against religious biases and presuppositions. They show not only the need to use philosophical categories to discuss ethics, but also the problem of anachronistic categories. Moreover, they emphasize the Jewish contexts of the community(ies) behind the Scrolls and the importance of halakhah for them. All these will be taken into account in the following chapters, but the story of the research into Qumran ethics has yet to begin.

B. Qumran Ethics in the Formative Phase of Qumran Research (1947 to 1990) The actual beginning of research into Qumran ethics was built on the foundation of some of the early syntheses of Scrolls scholarship after their initial discoveries. Although scholars quickly constructed a framework for discussing the various aspects of the Qumran community, there was little explicit discussion of its ethics. Moreover, this framework was determined to an extent by who happened to be working on the Scrolls and the order of their discovery and publication. For example, on the one hand, most early Scrolls researchers were Christians and used categories from Western Christian theological perspectives in their discussion of Qumran beliefs and practices. On the other hand, the early discovery and publication of 1QS (aside from being the most complete copy extant) led scholars to treat it as the standard text of the Community Rule. Thus, early discussions on Qumran ethics, rare as they were, showed biases that came from the early framework. As more texts gradually became available for study, and more scholars from varied backgrounds joined the field, the early grand syntheses and systematization under predominantly Christian influences eventually gave way, particularly under Jewish influences in the 1980s and beyond, to an emerging awareness that the Scrolls have to be understood and explained primarily in their place in a Jewish trajectory. Three authors in particular illustrate these developments in this preliminary phase of Qumran scholarship. I. Early Christian Syntheses H. Ringgren’s monograph on “Qumran theology” is a good example of the early syntheses mentioned above.20 Indeed, Ringgren’s explicit treatment of 20 Helmer Ringgren, Tro och liv enligt Döda-havs-rullarna, (Stockholm: Diakonistyrelsens, 1961), published later in English as, The Faith of Qumran: Theology of the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. James H. Charlesworth; trans. Emilie T. Sander; COL; New York: Crossroad, 1995 [original English translation published by Fortress, 1963]).

B. Qumran Ethics in the Formative Phase of Qumran Research

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Qumran ethics, albeit only briefly as a facet of the sectarians’ “doctrine of man,”21 makes his book directly relevant to this book. Of particular interest for ethics are Ringgren’s observations about the ideas of divine predestination and cosmic dualism in the sectarian scrolls,22 which raise the issues of whether or how these ideas affected ethics at Qumran, and the source(s) of these ideas. While a typical example of the early syntheses, Ringgren’s comprehensive and systematic account of Qumranic beliefs and practices had few parallels.23 Even almost four decades after the original publication of Ringgren’s work, J. Collins observed that a new synthesis on the religion of the Scrolls is still a desideratum.24 Furthermore, Ringgren’s general conclusions about Qumran theology, as reflecting his careful reading of the sectarian texts then published, remain valuable.25 Understandably, later studies of Qumran ethics often build upon this foundation.26 With both its strengths and weaknesses, Ringgren’s work exposes a number of helpful guidelines for how the present investigation should proceed. First, Ringgren’s basic approach of delineating the views of the Qumran community by carefully examining their texts on their own terms and in their historical context must be followed, even his preference for the sectarian texts.27 Nevertheless, the sectarian status of pertinent texts needs to be more carefully examined and qualified, and the selection of texts be broadened to 21

Ringgren, Faith of Qumran, 132–44. Ringgren, Faith of Qumran, 60, 72, 76. 23 Charlesworth cites only one exception, the earlier German work of F. Nötscher, Zur theologischen Terminologie der Qumran-Texte (Bonner Biblische Beittäge 10; Bonn: Peter Hanstein Verlag, 1956), Ringgren, Faith of Qumran, ix–x. 24 John J. Collins and Robert A. Kugler, eds. Religion in the Dead Sea Scrolls (SDSSRL; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2000), 1–8, esp. 5–6. Collins introduces this edited work by making a direct comparison with Ringgren. While he sees the great need to revisit the subject in light of the mountain of new data and refined methodologies since Ringgren’s study, he acknowledges that the essays in this book are not yet a synthetic treatment of the religion of the Scrolls, but merely prolegomena to that grand task. 25 See James Charlesworth’s perhaps exaggerated endorsement in his forward to the expanded edition of Ringgren’s work thirty years after it first appeared in English, in Ringgren, Faith of Qumran, x–xi. 26 Both Kimbrough and Kampen, two authors to be reviewed below, cite Ringgren in their articles on Qumran ethics. 27 For a seminal discussion on the complexity and sometimes uncertainty in determining which texts should be counted as sectarian, see Carol A. Newsom, “‘Sectually Explicit’ Literature from Qumran,” in The Hebrew Bible and Its Interpreters (ed. William H. Propp, Baruch Halpern, and David Noel Freedman; BAJS 1; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 167–87. See also Devorah Dimant, “The Qumran Manuscripts: Contents and Significance,” in Time to Prepare the Way in the Wilderness: Papers on the Qumran Scrolls, by Fellows of the Institute for Advanced Studies of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1989–1990 (ed. Devorah Dimant and Lawrence H. Schiffman; STDJ 16; Leiden: Brill, 1995), 23–58. 22

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include a nuanced analysis of the non-sectarian and pre-Qumran manuscripts.28 Second, this book must not assume a grand homogenous ethical system and ignore or gloss over the diversity of ethical perspectives within the Scrolls.29 Even when taking Charlesworth’s cue in constructing a cohesive account of overarching themes and trends, it must be sensitive to the internal differences, whether owning to development over time, or to internal differentiation within the sect. Finally, a current account of Qumran ethics ought not only be textually based and cognizant of internal diversity, but also engaged with both Jewish and non-Jewish scholarship on both the Scrolls and ethics. Qumran ethics needs to be seen in the context of the wider Jewish ethics in the Second Temple period before any comparison with Christian ethics can be made.30 Moreover, caution is also needed against retrojection from any later religious systems, whether Christian or rabbinic. II. Qumran Ethics Based on the Early Syntheses S. T. Kimbrough’s 1969 article was one of the earliest contributions to the study of Qumran ethics.31 As a product of that period, it is a great example of how Christians scholars dealt with the subject using the earlier syntheses mentioned above. Kimbrough’s work shows dependency on some of the Christian pioneers of Scrolls research, such as Barthélemy, Delcor, DupontSommer, along with Ringgren. Consequently, it shares some of their general characteristics, including the acceptance of the Essene hypothesis, the use of the “sectarian texts” then available, and most problematically, the view of the 28

E.g., legal texts that were not available to Ringgren, which now highlight the importance of law or halakhah in the Qumran community, demand adjustments to his presentation of Qumranic beliefs and practices. See Collins and Kugler, Religion, 4. For the feasibility of discovering Qumran religious views from non-sectarian Qumran texts, see Robert A. Kugler, “Hearing 4Q225: A Case Study in Reconstructing the Religious Imagination of the Qumran Community,” DSD 10 (2003): 81–103. 29 As Charlesworth notes convincingly, there are diverging theological viewpoints among the sectarian scrolls, and one should speak of “theologies” of the Scrolls instead. Nevertheless, Charlesworth is still positive about the prospect of discerning trends and coherence among the diverse theologies at Qumran, Ringgren, Faith of Qumran, xix–xxi. 30 As Collins correctly notes, Ringgren’s Christian assumptions are reflected by his choice of words, e.g., “faith” and “theology,” and his use of categories from Christian theology. Furthermore, his neglect to discuss Qumran religion in terms of halakhah and compare it with rabbinic literature is particularly criticized as a shortcoming typical of scholarship in his generation. Collins and Kugler, Religion, 3–5. 31 S. T. Kimbrough, Jr., “The Ethic of the Qumran Community,” RevQ 6 (1969): 483–98. Harris, “Ethical Teaching,” already cited above, appeared before this. But it was much less substantial, did not engage earlier scholarly studies, and was only based on 1QS and CD. Therefore, it made little impact in the field.

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Qumran community as a link between the Old Testament and the New Testament. Nevertheless, Kimbrough’s groundbreaking work on Qumran ethics offers the present study a set of key issues to bear in mind. Kimbrough appropriately begins his analysis by describing the background and the nature of the Qumran community. His adoption of the Essene hypothesis, which is still the prevailing opinion in one form or another,32 shows the need to establish the identification and history of the community as a starting point for the investigation of its ethics, as will be done more fully in Chapter Four. Next, Kimbrough delineates the religious character of the Qumran community by highlighting the importance of God as the ruler and righteousness as the goal of the community, a community that did not seek to convert the world and yet welcomed converts, one that was meticulous about obeying the Law and keeping the rituals and festivals properly, and one that apparently was non-violent towards its enemies and yet expected a day of Holy War against the “sons of darkness.” Also, Kimbrough describes the life within the Qumran community as “characterized by religious asceticism, brotherly love, and praise of God,”33 a community where evil desires were replaced by strict discipline, the temple was replaced by fraternity, and the sacrificial offerings replaced by moral conduct. This basically sound reading of the religious character of both the community and its ethics firmly locates the subject within the framework of religious ethics and precludes any radical separation of religion and ethics, as the next chapter will confirm. With this background set, Kimbrough then raises the important question of how ethics at Qumran should be characterized more specifically. According to his analysis, it is theonomous, communal, dualistic, and eschatological.34 These characterizations in part coincide with the foci of the four central chapters of this book and will generally be validated through them. Nevertheless, this book will add the necessary updating and adjustments, and greatly expand the study in these directions. First, while Kimbrough traces the various ways the Qumran community saw God as the ultimate source of ethical norms, whether mediated through creation or scriptural commands, this book will explore in Chapter Five how 32

For a reasonable critique of the Essene identification, see Michael O. Wise, Martin G. Abegg, Jr., and Edward M. Cook, eds., The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1996), 26–27, (hereafter WAC). Nevertheless, Jodi Magness, in her even more recent work, The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls (SDSSRL; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2002), 43, supports the Essene identity by asserting, “the points of correspondence between the archaeological evidence and the information provided by the Scrolls and our ancient sources indicate that the community at Qumran should be identified as Essenes.” 33 Kimbrough, “Ethic,” 485. 34 This sequence follows the present book and not Kimbrough’s analysis.

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scriptural traditions were appropriated to establish those norms. Along the way, it will consider from time to time if the Qumran community subscribed to some version of ethical naturalism. Second, Kimbrough identifies the three-fold locus of ethical authority in Qumran as God, the Teacher of Righteousness, and the community itself. As he succinctly summarizes, “Moral life was to be sustained by the observance of the Law under the ultimate authority of God through the Teacher of Righteousness and the community.”35 While his reference to the Teacher of Righteousness needs qualification to include the leaders of community after the death of the Teacher, Kimbrough’s point about the community being the medium and context of divine ethical authority highlights the social aspect of Qumran ethics, which will be the focus of Chapter Six’s inquiry into the role of identity formation in ethics. Third, Kimbrough exposes the dualistic character of Qumran ethics. Citing 1QHa and 1QS, he concludes that the Qumranites believed God had predetermined the ethical character of each person. According to the varying proportion of the “two spirits” each person behaves either righteously or perversely. Yet this dualism was sometimes softened, as the sectarians’ apparent openness to those outside to join their community indicates. This book will pay more needed attention to this tension between dualistic determinism and an individual’s ability and responsibility to choose. Furthermore, Chapter Seven will investigate the provenance of dualistic and deterministic ideas at Qumran, specifically whether they had foreign roots. Finally, in light of Kimbrough’s exploration of the eschatological nature of Qumran ethics and the “ethical interpretation of history at Qumran,”36 the necessity to tease out the connection between the community’s eschatology and its ethics becomes even more apparent. This will be the task of Chapter Eight. Apart from these four characterizations of Qumran ethics, another crucial issue that Kimbrough raises is the relationship between religious laws, halakhah, and ethics. Kimbrough identifies this question as vital but complex. For example, the sectarians understood the Law firstly as the Torah of Moses, but the Qumranites claimed additional understanding as the sons of Zadok. Kimbrough remarks further that the legal terms in the Scrolls were largely derived from the Old Testament, and that their usage at Qumran indicates how legally conditioned the Qumranites were in their behaviour. Such claims invite a closer look at the ethical vocabulary of the Scrolls, which the next chapter will provide. Regarding the concept of halakhah, Kimbrough observes that it is much wider than ethics and includes the legal and cultic dimensions

35 36

Kimbrough, “Ethic,” 492. Kimbrough, “Ethic,” 487.

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of community life as well.37 Nevertheless, he sees great promises for the study of Qumran ethics in the comparison between the halakhic portions of the Scrolls and rabbinic halakhah.38 This is correct and anticipates to some extent later scholars such as Schiffman. What is required is a careful consideration of the meaning of the terms law, halakhah, and ethics, and the relationship between them, which the next chapter will provide. Lastly, Kimbrough’s consideration of halakhah reveals “the ultimate goal of the Qumran ethic” as “symmetry between the righteous God and man’s activities.”39 By this he means an ethic of imitation, an ethic of correspondence between the character traits and actions of God and humans. For him, this suggests that Qumran ethics is concerned with inner motivation and the virtuous life, not just externalism. The validity of these suggestions will be checked occasionally against the textual evidence in the following chapters. III. Jewish Corrective of the Early Syntheses As indicated above, Kimbrough’s account of Qumran ethics, though based largely on the early Christian syntheses, noted the importance of halakhah as a category in the study of the Scrolls. However, Christian scholars generally lacked the kind of control over rabbinic literature that their Jewish counterparts had. Consequently, they were unable to use it effectively as a comparative source. It was here that Jewish scholars eventually introduced a needed corrective that challenged the often Christianized syntheses of early Qumran scholarship. One of the most forceful spokespersons in this respect was L. Schiffman.40 Through his early publications, such as The Halakhah at Qumran,41 and its sequel, Sectarian Law in the Dead Sea Scrolls,42 Schiffman convincingly 37

Halakhah is defined as the normative law of the Oral Torah that provides norms of conduct in Jacob Neusner, “Halakhah, Religious Meaning of,” EJ, 1:350. 38 Kimbrough, “Ethic,” 496, cites the works of Ginzberg and Schechter as old trails that need to be revisited in light of the new evidence in this regard. 39 Kimbrough, “Ethic,” 497. 40 His challenge to the “Christianization of the scrolls” was expressed most forcefully in Schiffman, Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls, esp. 16–19. Although this book partly depended on some of the later developments in Scrolls scholarship subsequent to 1990, much of that book was prepared in 1989–1990, and the foundations of his challenge were laid even in his earlier works in the 1970s and 1980s. Thus, Schiffman’s earlier works represent the beginnings of a trajectory of thoughts that is more fully developed in the next period. Before Schiffman, another notable Jewish scholar who helped highlight the importance of Jewish law in the Scrolls was Joseph M. Baumgarten, Studies in Qumran Law (SJLA 24; Leiden: Brill, 1977). 41 Lawrence H. Schiffman, The Halakhah at Qumran (SJLA 16; Leiden: Brill, 1975). 42 Lawrence H. Schiffman, Sectarian Law in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Courts, Testimony and the Penal Code (BJS 33; Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1983).

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demonstrated that religious law, or halakhah, was central for the Qumran community.43 Accordingly, Schiffman helped changed the earlier tendency of understanding the Qumranites through primarily Christian categories to locating the religion of the Qumranites firmly in the historical and religious milieu of ancient Judaism, particularly with the aid of the legal material from rabbinic literature. With this change of perspective, Schiffman’s research on Qumran halakhah is significant specifically for the study of Qumran ethics in at least two ways. First, it highlights the centrality of religious law in the study of Jewish ethics (specifically the Qumran variety). Although Schiffman used the category of law or halakhah instead of ethics, Jewish law and Jewish ethics are closely related, as is widely acknowledged among modern scholars of Judaism.44 Therefore, any discussion of the ethics of any Jewish group cannot neglect to consider its legal interpretations, or the relationship between ethics and halakhah, as will be elaborated in the next chapter. Second, Schiffman’s work validates the importance of Jewish scholarship in Scrolls research,45 especially in its early phase when scholars from the Christian traditions dominated the field. This Jewish scholarship introduced rabbinic literature and other halakhic sources to Qumran research as valuable comparative sources. It also brought in the use of rabbinic and later Jewish categories to analyze the texts. These innovations cast a different and often clarifying light on the reading of the Scrolls. The use of these sources and categories can also be problematic, however, since an anachronistic use of them to read the Scrolls is just as inappropriate as the Christianized reading that Schiffman rightly critiqued. This suggests for the present study that while rabbinic literature should be consulted, its later approaches to ethics must not control how the Qumran texts are read.

43 This is summarized well in Schiffman, Sectarian Law in the Dead Sea Scrolls, 3, “Without [the study of Qumran legal texts,] all our musings on theology, Messianism, communal life, and the rest of the nuts and bolts of the field of Qumran studies, will amount to very little.” 44 See e.g., Louis E. Newman, “Ethics as Law, Law as Religion: Reflections on the Problem of Law and Ethics in Judaism,” in Contemporary Jewish Ethics and Morality: A Reader (ed. Elliot N. Dorff and Louis E. Newman; New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 79– 93. See also Basil Herring, Jewish Ethics and Halakhah for Our Time: Sources and Commentary (LJLE 11; New York: Ktav, 1984), 1–23, esp. 10, for his germane assertion regarding the relationship between “halakhah” and “morality,” “[W]hat is clear is that we are dealing with two realms that are closely interconnected, if not in many ways identical.” 45 The Jewishness of Schiffman’s works is well illustrated by his acknowledgement in Halakhah at Qumran, where he names among his key influences Alexander Altmann, expert in Jewish religious and intellectual history, Jewish Bible scholars Nahum M. Sarna, Baruch A. Levine and Shemaryahu Talmon, and the prolific Judaic scholar Jacob Neusner. Indeed, Schiffman, as an Orthodox Jew, identifies with rabbinic Judaism.

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Beside these two points, some of the details of Schiffman’s books also underscore other relevant issues for this book. For example, Schiffman’s early agnostic conclusion about the identity of the Qumran community, à la Ginzberg,46 was, as P. Wernberg-Møller mildly puts it, “extremely cautious.”47 Despite the problems in his early agnosticism, his persistent rejection of the Essene identification, and his later Sadducean identification,48 what Schiffman helpfully points out is the impact the identification of the community has on how its ethics is interpreted. Schiffman was right in his refusal to interpret the Scrolls through the descriptions of the Essenes in the classical sources, but failed to apply the same principle on the rabbinic source. Instead of a radical agnosticism on the question of the identification of the Qumran community, or giving preference for one ancient source over another, the following chapters will consider the diverse sources critically and will avoid reading non-Qumranic materials as if they reflect the Qumran community accurately. Another issue raised by Schiffman’s early works is indicated by his tendency to depend on Jewish, not Christian, scholars. Specifically, as J. Fitzmyer points out, Schiffman made no reference in Halakhah at Qumran to the relevant and important studies by A. Dupont-Sommer, P. Guilbert, J. MurphyO’Connor, R. Bloch, and A. G. Wright.49 A. van der Woude, in his more critical review, adds O. Betz to the list of neglected studies and goes as far as to accuse Schiffman of not being “fully aware of the main literature relevant to his study.”50 This exemplifies that confessional biases could be found among scholars of any religion and were not a Christian monopoly. What this points to is the need to engage with scholarship from as many different perspectives as possible. Finally, Schiffman argued that the Qumranites relied solely on what they regarded as inspired exegesis of Scripture for their legal positions, instead of any concept about oral law.51 This raises again the issue of the role of scriptural traditions in the construction of ethics, whether his point about the absence of oral tradition at Qumran is correct or not.52 Naturally, Schiffman’s findings about the process of halakhic formulation through exegesis are relevant for

46

Schiffman, Halakhah at Qumran, 2, 136. Preben Wernberg-Møller, review of Lawrence H. Schiffman, The Halakhah at Qumran, JSS 22 (1977): 229. 48 Schiffman, Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls, 83–95. 49 Joseph A. Fitzmyer, review of Lawrence H. Schiffman, The Halakhah at Qumran, CBQ 39 (1977): 134–35. 50 Adam van der Woude, review of Lawrence H. Schiffman, The Halakhah at Qumran, JSJ 8 (1977): 98. 51 Schiffman, Halakhah at Qumran, 76. 52 See van der Woude, review of Schiffman, 98–99, for his strong skepticism about this. 47

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the analogous question of how ethics was formulated at Qumran through the use of scriptural traditions. Notwithstanding some of the debatable points of his works, Schiffman has provided a viable paradigm for the investigation of Qumran halakhah and proved himself a noteworthy Jewish expert on Qumran law. Accordingly, in any study of Qumran ethics, Schiffman’s findings on Qumran law and the issues he has helped raise deserve attention. To summarize, discussion in this period of germination and growth in Qumran studies tended to identify the Qumran community and its texts too simplistically and treated the beliefs and practices of the Qumranites as more or less homogenous and fixed. A. S. van der Woude rightly criticizes this approach and warns against its continual practice by declaring, Without further evidence, we should not automatically identify the beliefs and halakhah of the Qumran community with those of the Essene movement from which it sprang, but must take into consideration the various layers and stages of development in the sectarian literature. Reflecting the lack of thorough literary-critical analysis of the documents in the first decades of Qumran research, many authors tended in those years to look upon the corpus of texts as reflecting a homogeneous system of thought; even later on, some scholars have unfortunately advocated this approach.53

Indeed, the conflating of perspectives from different stages of the community’s history is found in both the early Christian syntheses and their later Jewish corrective. The next phase of Qumran research will present this study with the means to rectify the situation.

C. Qumran Ethics in the Flourishing Phase of Qumran Research (1990 to the Present) What enabled the dramatic change of landscape in Qumran scholarship from the 1990s to the present was the full publication of the Scrolls in 1990–1991 under the editorship of E. Tov,54 which has greatly accelerated not only the rate of publication of the official DJD volumes, but also the general release of 53

Adam S. van der Woude, “Fifty Years of Qumran Research,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls after Fifty Years: A Comprehensive Assessment (ed. Peter W. Flint and James C. VanderKam; vol. 1; Leiden: Brill, 1998), 36. 54 For a description of this period as “the Tov Era (1990– ),” see James C. VanderKam and Peter W. Flint, The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their Significance for Understanding the Bible, Judaism, Jesus, and Christianity (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2002), 390–402, esp. 397 for the reference to 1990–2002 as the “Golden Years” of publication. For a succinct overview of the significant publications on the Dead Sea Scrolls in the 1990s, see George J. Brooke, “The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Review of the Last Decade’s Publications and Activities,” EpRev 26, no. 3 (1999): 87–97, esp. 88 for Tov’s contribution.

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the Scrolls in 1991.55 Coincidentally or as a consequence of this open access to the Scrolls, several important developments occurred after 1990, allowing scholars to take Qumran research in exciting new directions. One direct result of the publication of new texts was the publication and subsequent research on the wisdom texts from Qumran, with their many ethical instructions. Full access to the Scrolls also made possible the emergence of new comprehensive analyses of different aspects of the Scrolls and their communities, sometimes using interdisciplinary methodologies, including those from the social sciences.56 Yet another development was the availability of important tools such as DSSSE, EDSS, DSSR, 57 and electronic resources such as grammatically tagged texts and digital images of the manuscripts. An example from each of these developments will now be given, in reverse order, to tease out its contribution to the study of Qumran ethics. I. New Tools One of the important new research tools that appeared in this most recent phase was Schiffman and VanderKam’s EDSS, published in 2000. It represented a milestone in Qumran scholarship as a stellar cast of international scholars contributed introductory articles in their areas of expertise, covering nearly every conceivable topic in the field, including the most recent general treatment of Qumran ethics by J. Kampen.58 Although he cites Kimbrough and covers some of the same ground, his article supersedes Kimbrough’s with the benefit of a greater body of evidence. As typical for an encyclopaedia article, however, it lacks a clearly defined thesis, but treats this subject generally, presenting remarks under several subheadings related to the ethics of the Qumran community. Kampen’s often-insightful piece contributes significantly to the subject of this book, not least by bringing to light certain key matters that warrant further attention. For example, he begins his article by locating the ethics of Qumran in the context of Second Temple Judaism and the Greco-Roman world. This focus on contexts, whether religious, cultural, or political, is vital for a proper understanding of Qumran ethics, as the later chapters will show. 55

This took place in 1991 in the forms of photographs on microfilm and in print, followed by the decision by the Israeli Antiquities Authority to grant full access to the Scrolls. In 1993, even greater access to the Scrolls became possible through microfiche. For more details, see VanderKam and Flint, Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 390–402. 56 See Brooke, “Scrolls and the Study of the New Testament,” 75. 57 See the abbreviation list and bibliography for full citations. DSSSE and DSSR, along with the various electronic texts, allow today’s researchers ready access to almost all of the non-biblical scrolls from Qumran and related texts, greatly facilitating work on these materials. 58 John I. Kampen, “Ethics,” EDSS 1:272–76.

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Next, Kampen wisely cautions against assuming the anachronistic distinction between religion and morality when considering the ethics of any Jewish group in this period.59 This introduces the question of taxonomy – which aspects of Qumranite beliefs and practices should be classified under the category of ethics, a question that will be addressed in the next chapter. Further, Kampen shows subtlety by identifying the people whose ethics he is describing, not as “Essenes,” or even “the Qumran community,” but the “authors of the documents attributed to Qumran as well as the other inhabitants of the sectarian communities.”60 This apparently vague and roundabout label allows for the possibility, first, that the Scrolls were not (all) written by the inhabitants of Qumran, second, that more than one group of people settled at Qumran through its history, and third, that other contemporaneous communities beside those at Qumran shared the same ethical tradition. This points to the importance of settling the identification of the community, or the need to be precise about whose ethics is being investigated – both to be done in Chapter Four. Another issue Kampen identifies is how to prioritize the sources for describing the ethics of these sectarian authors and their communities. He suggests that these sources are primarily the Qumran texts, secondarily the ancient witnesses, and finally the archaeological data. This book will follow Kampen’s lead by using the Qumran texts, especially those that are more probably composed at Qumran or influential, as the primary source of information, and by using the ancient witnesses only secondarily as comparative sources. However, archaeology will be used mainly to help reconstruct the history and identification of the community rather than as a source of information about ethics.61 Aside from these preliminary issues, the four major headings of Kampen’s article point towards four areas requiring more investigation. First, Kampen notes that the dualistic and deterministic worldview evidenced by the sectarian texts had profound implications for the sectarian ethics.62 He asserts that it led to a communitarian ethics that promoted a deep fraternal solidarity within the sect while rejecting association with outsiders. Such an ethics pushed them to distinguish themselves with a rigorous interpretation and practice of the Law that focused on purity and an exclusive religious calendar. Such plausible links between worldview and ethics need to be examined more 59

Kampen, “Ethics,” 272. Kampen, “Ethics,” 273. 61 Nevertheless, some examples of how archaeology can substantiate what is known about the ethics of the sect from the other two sources are given in Magness, Archaeology of Qumran. These examples include their “unique concerns regarding purity” (158), “the minimal female presence at Qumran and an absence of families with children” (185), and their “antiHellenizing attitude” (206). 62 Kampen, “Ethics,” 273. 60

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carefully based on more textual evidence. Other questions demanding more clarity include the precise nature of this dualism and determinism, and the sources of these ideas. Second, the sectarians’ pursuit of distinctiveness through purity naturally leads Kampen to discuss the role of purity laws in the sectarian communities. These laws, typically more strictly interpreted than by other Second Temple Jewish groups, served as boundary markers for the community and defined them over against other Jews. The sectarians were critical of their Jewish contemporaries for their lack of distinction between the pure and the unclean, the holy and the profane.63 It was in this general framework of purity that the sectarians prescribed ethical injunctions, linking righteousness with purity. Their concern for purity was not limited to matters of Sabbath observance, religious calendar, temple worship and sacrifice, but reached to matters of relationships with Gentiles and sexual ethics. This discussion suggests that purity was a key ethical category at Qumran. What the present study will explore is how purity related to ethics and how ritual and moral purity were related at Qumran. Third, Kampen’s treatment of practical ethics vis-à-vis the wisdom literature highlights the relevance of the latter for this study. He points out that just as the apocryphal work Ben Sira links wise living with the Torah, Qumran wisdom texts also link practical wisdom with biblical legal terminology. Furthermore, frequent mention of “the mystery that is to come” gives the sectarian wisdom texts a decidedly dualistic and eschatological flavour that links them to documents such as 1QS, suggesting some strong connections between the wisdom texts from Qumran and the sect’s eschatology and ethics. Finally, Kampen sees the most significant difference between the ethics of Josephus’ Essenes and the people behind the Scrolls to be their ideological justification. Josephus justifies Essene ethics in Stoic terms (rejection of pleasure and virtue of self-control), while the Scrolls do so for Qumran ethics on the basis of a cosmological and ethical dualism.64 By making such a contrast, Kampen helpfully alludes to one of the fundamental questions of ethics in the Western tradition – what are the underlying principals that justify a certain normative stance or even an entire ethical system. This will be dealt with chiefly in Chapter Nine. II. New Methods Not only was Qumran research after 1990 facilitated by new tools, it was also propelled by new methods applied to explore new questions, or to re-examine old questions in fresh ways. A notable example of such studies is C. Mur63 64

Kampen, “Ethics,” 274. Kampen, “Ethics,” 275.

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phy’s 2002 monograph on wealth.65 Murphy sets out to present a comprehensive thematic study on wealth based on a re-examination of a very broad range of evidence, using a socio-redactional approach to reconstruct the economic practices and attitudes of the communities behind the Scrolls and, more important, the rationales and the symbolic world behind them.66 Discussion of social practices and attitudes pertaining to wealth naturally overlaps with discourse on ethics, as economic issues typically fall within the concern of practical or applied ethics.67 Nevertheless, Murphy’s work is relevant to the study of Qumran ethics not only because of the multitudes of specific readings related to the Scrolls’ economic ethics and its ideological frameworks, but especially because of the methodology it exemplifies. The first aspect of this methodology is the use of the entire spectrum of non-biblical texts from Qumran as evidence. Murphy’s work aims to consider every text, both sectarian and non-sectarian, from virtually every genre, where wealth is mentioned. This exhaustive, and perhaps exhausting, approach no doubt contributes to the great length of Murphy’s book and is not practicable for the present study with its prescribed length. Instead, this book will reap much of the advantage of this approach by selectively sampling texts from as many genres as feasible, and making distinction between sectarian and nonsectarian texts whenever they are cited.68 A closely related aspect of Murphy’s methodology is the use of newly published texts (i.e. after 1990). This is especially conspicuous in the sapiential work Instruction, the official publication of which in 1999 led or enabled Murphy to expand a section in her 1999 thesis into a separate chapter in her book.69 More will be said below about the use of new texts, especially wisdom texts, as illustrated by Goff. It suffices here to note that Murphy’s use of new texts goes beyond wisdom or sapiential texts and includes liturgical and poetic texts that also provide a much wider perspective on the currents of ideas in the Qumran movement than the earlier published texts can furnish. 65

Murphy, Wealth, revised and expanded from Catherine M. Murphy, “The Disposition of Wealth in the Literature and Practice of the Qumran Community and Its Relevance for the Study of the New Testament” (PhD diss., University of Notre Dame, 1999). 66 Murphy, Wealth, 22–24. 67 For an example from a modern secular humanist perspective, albeit under a truncated rubric of “business ethics,” see Jacques P. Thiroux, Ethics: Theory and Practice (8th ed.; Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2004), 374–407. For a modern Jewish treatment on sharing wealth with the poor, see Byron L. Sherwin, Jewish Ethics for the Twenty-First Century: Living in the Image of God (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2000), 127–50. 68 As mentioned above, the sectarian status of many texts is a complex question that throws into doubt the apparently sharp line between sectarian and non-sectarian texts in much of Murphy’s presentation. 69 See her original treatment of Instruction (Sapiential Work A) in Murphy, “Disposition of Wealth,” 218–28.

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This book will also take advantage of some of these more recently published texts in its exploration of Qumran ethics. Another aspect of Murphy’s methodology is the inclusion of non-literary data in her investigation, such as those provided by archaeology and the documentary texts found in the Judean desert. Although some such data are irrelevant for the present study, Murphy’s use of them demonstrates the potential effectiveness and even necessity of bringing other disciplines to bear on any inquiry into the communities behind the Qumran texts. This interdisciplinary approach, while powerful and worth following, nevertheless brings with it certain perils, since few researchers can claim mastery over all the relevant disciplines. Therefore, caution regarding the conclusions is in order, despite the care and judiciousness with which the researcher appropriates the findings of specialists from other fields. A different way Murphy’s approach is interdisciplinary, not in terms of the data used, but the method used to interpret the data, is the use of what she calls “the socio-redactional method,” otherwise known as social-scientific criticism. While the method, which applies some of the categories and theories of social scientists, has been employed since the 1970s in biblical studies, particularly New Testament studies,70 it has been used in Qumran studies only recently.71 Murphy utilizes this method successfully to expose the underlying rationales behind practices and attitudes, by reconstructing the symbolic frameworks of the sectarians’ worldview. Similarly, this book will endeavour, not to enumerate the specific ethical norms of the Qumran community, but to theorize how they arose in their social contexts and how they were justified in the sectarian worldview.72 The appropriateness of a social-scientific approach 70

Elliott, What Is Social-Scientific Criticism, 17. See the rest of this book for an excellent introduction to social-scientific criticism as applied to NT studies. 71 Other notable Qumran studies that employ the social-scientific approach include, Jutta Jokiranta, “Identity on a Continuum: Constructing and Expressing Sectarian Social Identity in Qumran Serakhim and Pesharim” (PhD diss., University of Helsinki, 2005), and a few essays in Jonathan G. Campbell, William J. Lyons, and Lloyd K. Pietersen, eds., New Directions in Qumran Studies (London: T&T Clark, 2005). For an account of the usefulness of this approach to Qumran research, see Jutta Jokiranta, “Social-Scientific Approaches to the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Rediscovering the Dead Sea Scrolls: An Assessment of Old and New Approaches and Methods (ed. Maxine L. Grossman; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 246–63. 72 For an example of a similar social-scientific approach to the Qumran texts to inquire about the relationship between behaviour and worldview, see Maria Mamfredis, “‘A Nation of Priests’: The World-View of the Temple Scroll and Its Application to the Way of Life Prescribed in the Sectarian Scrolls from Qumran” (PhD diss., Concordia University, 2000). Mamfredis’ thesis is that the sectarian worldview as reflected in the Temple Scroll was the basis for the way of life of the Qumran community. At the core of her methodology is Clifford Geertz’s theory, as presented in his book, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (New York: Basic Books, 1973), esp. 90, that religion as a cultural system presents a “congruence between a particular style of life and a specific . . . metaphysic.” While her

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to studying Qumran ethics is confirmed further by the recognition of contemporary ethicists that ethics is socially constructed and finds its meaning only in its social contexts.73 The availability of literary, historical, archaeological, and documentary evidence on the social realities behind the Scrolls only makes the case for using this approach stronger. Furthermore, the introduction of special categories, such as etic (from the perspective of the researcher) and emic (from the perspective of the group being studied), enables investigators to raise questions in terms that are foreign to the texts, while reducing the danger of anachronistic or ethnocentric readings.74 To summarize, Murphy’s comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach is a fruit of the various recent developments in Qumran research, and the adaptation of this method for the present book is expected to illuminate new areas of inquiry and to yield fresh perspectives on old questions. III. New Texts As mentioned above, one of the revolutionary developments that have occurred in the last two decades is the publication of new texts. A noteworthy study that has taken advantage of this new trend is M. Goff’s monograph on the largest sapiential text from Qumran – 4QInstruction, or simply Instruction.75 Goff contributes to the study of Qumran ethics by highlighting the ethical relevance of Qumran’s wisdom texts, especially 4QInstruction. He does this in at least two ways. First, on a methodological level, Goff freely and frequently presents 4QInstruction in ethical terms, both regarding its general purpose and its specific admonitions.76 This is unprecedented among recent analyses of Qumran non-sapiential texts, where the trend has been to avoid conceptual categories foreign to the texts, especially those that appear Christianizing or anachronistic. Goff is not original in using ethical categories in his exposition, however, but follows a scholarly tradition that is accustomed to speaking about

identification of the Temple Scroll as the basis of sectarian worldview is not convincing, her use of Geertz to link the sectarian norms for living with their worldview is suggestive. Specifically, Geertz’s ethical naturalism – “what is” equals “what ought to be” – is a very promising model for examining the basis of Qumran ethics. 73 See Chapter Six for a more detailed discussion on this. 74 Elliott, What Is Social-Scientific Criticism, 37–40. 75 Matthew J. Goff, The Worldly and Heavenly Wisdom of 4QInstruction (STDJ 50; Leiden: Brill, 2003). As Goff admits, 4QInstruction is somewhat a misnomer since 1Q26 is one of its manuscripts. (The other manuscripts are 4Q415–4Q418, 4Q418a, 4Q418c, and 4Q423.) While the composition is probably pre-Qumranic, it was clearly important and probably influential for the Qumranites. For a more detailed discussion on this text, see Chapter Eight. 76 E.g., Goff, Worldly and Heavenly Wisdom, 6, 27–28, 78–79, 162–63, 214–15.

D. Conclusion

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ethics in the context of wisdom literature.77 Just as researchers of Qumran legal texts, using rabbinic literature as a comparative source, have found halakhah to be a helpful heuristic category, Goff and other scholars of Qumran wisdom texts, using Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and Hellenistic wisdom texts as comparative sources, have justifiably engaged in a discussion on ethics.78 In view of this, ethics is no more or less anachronistic a category than halakhah is to bring to the Scrolls. Both need to be used judiciously and both can be heuristically valuable. Whether in a Jewish or another Ancient Near East context, it is natural to talk about the ethics of wisdom texts because of their well-known focus on practical living and character formation. Nevertheless, these aspects do not exhaust the concerns of ethics, nor are these concerns exclusively found in the sapiential material from Qumran. Therefore, the entry pass that Goff has provided for researchers to discuss the ethics of Qumran wisdom texts can be exploited to access other non-sapiential materials in a similar way. Second, on the level of the contents of 4QInstruction, Goff supports the thesis that worldview was the basis of practical ethics for the sectarians and their related communities.79 Specifically, Goff describes the worldview of 4QInstruction as apocalyptic and eschatological. By apocalyptic, he means a point of view that emphasizes heavenly revelation, pre-determined history, and future divine judgment. Thus, apocalypticism in this sense is closely related to eschatology. Goff’s thesis helpfully underscores the special link between eschatology and ethics at Qumran, a subject to which Chapter Eight will return.

D. Conclusion To recapitulate this chapter, the seeds for the study of Qumran ethics had already been sown before the Scrolls were found. In the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, studies on the Essenes, the Apocrypha/Pseudepigrapha, and the Damascus Document prepared the soil for later investigations of ethics in the Qumran community. They showed by their examples some possible ways forward and some hazardous dead-ends for our present task. In the formative phase of Scroll research, early syntheses germinated in a green77 E.g., Roland E. Murphy, “Assumptions and Problems in Old Testament Wisdom Research,” CBQ 29, (1967): 407–18; James L. Crenshaw, “A Mother’s Instruction to Her Son (Proverbs 31:1–9),” PRSt 15, no. 4 (winter 1988): 9–22. 78 Egyptian and Mesopotamian parallels were already noted as commonplace in scholarship in Murphy, “Assumptions and Problems.” For a more recent use of these sources, see Goff, Worldly and Heavenly Wisdom, 129–40. 79 Goff, Worldly and Heavenly Wisdom, 27–28.

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house of incomplete evidence and predominantly Christian perspectives, producing studies on Qumran ethics that shared the same strengths and deficiencies. Fortunately, Jewish scholars later in this period brought necessary adjustments to the field, including the reintroduction of later Jewish literature. Nevertheless, the slow publication rate of the remaining scrolls stymied further research. The 1990s ushered in the flourishing phase of Qumran scholarship, which has seen the blossoming of new tools, new methods, and new texts. In particular, Kampen’s EDSS article represents just a small sample of the valuable new tools now available and is a good introduction to the subject. Nevertheless, it is far from a monograph treatment that the subject deserves. The conditions are now ripe for the subject of Qumran ethics to bear fruit and be reaped – to uncover the underlying bases or contributing factors of ethics at Qumran using a more comprehensive and interdisciplinary methodology that incorporates more recently published texts, such as the wisdom texts from Qumran, along with more assuredly Qumranic texts such as the Rule of the Community and the pesharim. The next methodological step for this endeavour is to work out more precisely what is meant by ethics with respect to Qumran, and what are the broad issues needing resolution.

Chapter 3

The Language of Ethical Discourse This chapter aims to construct a mode of discourse for talking about the bases of ethics in the Qumran community. To avoid imposing inappropriate modern ethical categories on the Qumran texts, this chapter will examine some of these texts first. It will consider how parts of the Rule of the Community articulate the sect’s main concerns, and in what sense they can be regarded as ethical concerns. Next, the language of ethical discourse in a more explicitly Greco-Roman representation of Second Temple Judaism will be explored, mainly through a survey of how Philo talks about Jewish ethical issues. Continuing in a Jewish trajectory, the chapter will then move to investigate the way ethics is expressed in rabbinic literature, which likely reflects the ethical perspectives of a rival Jewish group contemporary with the Qumranites, viz., the Pharisees.1 Next, the chapter will survey some of the important taxonomical issues debated by modern philosophical ethicists, issues that have dominated how the Western academy has understood and taught ethics. Finally, this chapter will conclude with a brief study on the way ethics has been discussed among contemporary Jewish ethicists, those who are familiar with the ethical discourse of the Western philosophical tradition, those who attempt to remain faithful to their Jewish religious traditions, and especially those who endeavour to respond to the cultural shift of postmodernism. With this selective survey of how various groups have talked about ethics from the Second Temple period to now, this chapter will piece together a mode of discourse, with insights from recent debates in comparative religious ethics (CRE), for talking about the ethics at Qumran in a way that is both faithful to its original contexts and cultural milieux and relevant to a contemporary, even postmodern, discussion of ethics.

1

See the more complex account in Vered Noam, “Traces of Sectarian Halakhah in the Rabbinic World,” in Rabbinic Perspectives: Rabbinic Literature and the Dead Sea Scrolls: Proceedings of the Eighth International Symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, 7–9 January, 2003 (ed. Steven D. Fraade, Aharon Shemesh, and Ruth A. Clements; STDJ 62; Leiden: Brill, 2006), 67–85. In contrast, early Christian literature, though often predating the rabbinic material and sharing a common Palestinian Jewish milieu, often took on a self-consciously non-Jewish trajectory. Hence, it is less appropriate as a comparative source.

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A. Ethical Language in the Qumran Texts What constitutes discourse about ethics in an ancient text? Where should one begin looking for that discourse in the Scrolls? Instead of starting with a Kantian or neo-Kantian definition of ethics as moral obligations in one’s conduct,2 more suitable is Socrates’ broader question, “How should one live?”3 If ethics can be understood broadly as discourse and reflection on how one should live – the highest ends in life and the means to those ends – then the Rule of the Community would be the prime candidate for where Qumran ethics can be found. I. Ethical Discourse in 1QS I 1QS, the most complete copy of the Rule, is the definitive Qumranic text that most clearly reveals the beliefs, practices, and organization of the Qumran community.4 Indeed, 1QS begins by stating the aim and ideals of the Yahad in terms that answer the Socratic question. According to 1QS I, 1, the instructor of the Yahad is to teach the members of the community how to live.5 The goal and the means of the sectarian life are delineated in I, 1–15, including to seek God, to do what is good and upright according to God’s commands in Scrip2 Cf. Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals (trans. Herbert J. Paton; New York: Harper & Row, 1964); and the works of William Frankena cited below. 3 In Plato’s words, Socrates asked, “ontina crh tropon zhn?” (Gorgias 500d, cf. Republic 352d) For the inadequacy of Kantian deontology and the appropriateness of Socrates’ question as a starting point for a comparative study on the ethics of a radically different culture, see Jung Hyup Lee, “Ethics from a Daocentric Perspective: Normativity, Virtue, and Self-Cultivation in Early Daoist Thought” (PhD diss., Brown University, 2003), 5–9, 47–48. I thank Prof. Lee for the Plato references. 4 The palaeographic date of this manuscript, 100–75 B.C.E., locates it near the beginning of the community’s occupation of Qumran (see Chapter Four). For this dating, see Frank Moore Cross et al., eds., Scrolls from Qumrân Cave I: The Great Isaiah Scroll, the Order of the Community, the Pesher to Habakkuk (Jerusalem: Albright Institute of Archaeological Research, 1972), 4. However, palaeographic results should be considered approximate and chronologically typical rather than absolute, as argued in Nahman Avigad, “The Palaeography of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Documents,” in Aspects of the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. Chaim Rabin and Yigael Yadin; 2d ed.; ScrHier 4; Jerusalem: Magnes, 1965), 56–87. The shorter copies from Cave 4 were either later excerpts of 1QS, so Philip S. Alexander, “The Redaction History of Serek ha-Yahad,” RevQ 17 (1996): 437–56, or later copies of earlier recensions, so Sarianna Metso, The Textual Development of the Qumran Community Rule (STDJ 21; Leiden: Brill, 1997. Either way, the evidence shows that the first four columns of 1QS were present and indicative of Qumranic teaching, at least in its early stage. There is no reason to believe this section was later rejected. 5 Though the line is damaged, this reading is plausibly reconstructed. See the translation of the phrase wyjl in WAC and CDSSE. Even if this reading is incorrect, there is no doubt that the content of what follows is about how the sectarians should live.

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ture, to love what/whom God chooses and hate what/whom he rejects, to be far from every evil deed and to cling to all good works, and to do truth, righteousness, and justice on earth.6 This introductory passage not only displays the paramount concern of the sectarian community regarding the proper way to live and some of its ethical terminology, but when brought into conversation with the contemporary debate in CRE, it also reveals how problematic it is to use a formalist approach to investigate the ethics of this community.7 For example, D. Little and S. Twiss, whose controversial work invigorated the field of CRE in the 1970s, decried the definitional and methodological confusion that had hampered the field and proposed a typological methodology that focused on the structure of practical justification in “moral action-guides.”8 Although aware of the weaknesses of the Kantian formalist approach of R. Green, Little and Twiss nevertheless retained many modernist assumptions in their reconstructions of the concepts of morality, religion, and law. In trying to distinguish these three concepts that can be closely related, Little and Twiss defined all of them as “action-guides” that differ from each other only in the problem each is intended to solve and the “special condition of legitimacy” each employs.9 While terminological precision has its value, defining ethics only as guides for actions that impinge on other people’s welfare focuses too narrowly on actions at the expense of character traits, to name just one of the blind spots. Instead, in light of how 1QS deals with life’s ultimate concerns, it fits the data better to view ethics as a set of normative guides for living. Moreover, an 6 For an encapsulation of both the means and end of life at Qumran as “perfection of way” (a prominent concept in both D and S, e.g., 1QS I, 8), see Alex R. G. Deasley, The Shape of Qumran Theology (Carlisle: Paternoster, 2000), 210–46. 7 For an example of the formalist approach, which seeks to uncover the universal structure of moral reason in various ethical systems, see Ronald M. Green, Religious Reason: The Rational and Moral Basis of Religious Belief (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978). For two surveys of the competing approaches to the field of CRE, see the editors’ introduction in Robin W. Lovin and Frank E. Reynolds, eds., Cosmogony and Ethical Order: New Studies in Comparative Ethics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), 1–35; and Eric Walter Bain-Selbo, “Understanding Others Morally: Philosophical Hermeneutics and Comparative Religious Ethics” (PhD diss., The University of Chicago, 1997), 171–323. 8 David Little and Sumner B. Twiss, Comparative Religious Ethics (New York: Harper & Row, 1978). While Lovin and Reynolds describes this book as “semi-formalist,” the problems it exhibits also apply to the formalist approach. For an example of a critical reaction to this book and the subsequent dialogue, see Jeffrey Stout, review of David Little and Sumner B. Twiss, Comparative Religious Ethics, RelSRev 6 (1980): 289–95; David Little, “The Present State of the Comparative Study of Religious Ethics,” JRE 9 (1981): 210–27; Jeffrey Stout, “Holism and Comparative Ethics: A Response to Little,” JRE 11 (1983): 301–16. 9 In a nutshell, a moral action-guide solves the problem of cooperation by using otherregardingness as the legitimization of its norm; a religious action-guide addresses the problem of interpretability by appealing to the concept of the sacred for legitimization; and a legal action-guide preserves social order by appealing to the concept of sovereign authority.

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appeal to God and his commands as sacred authority is the basis of the guides for living exemplified in 1QS I, making the modernist distinctions between morality, religion, and law seem potentially more obscuring than illuminating, in that these distinctions are foreign to sectarian thought. Nevertheless, Little and Twiss’ focus on how ethical principles are applied and justified remains valuable as one aspect of comparative ethics. II. Ethical Naturalism in the Two Spirits Treatise A better approach is the “holist” or “empiricist” methodology of ethical naturalism, as championed most notably by R. Lovin and F. Reynolds,10 which seeks “an explication of rationality adequate to the real complexity of the relations between what is and what ought [to be.]”11 This approach to CRE seeks to explore the relationship between a tradition’s moral order and its beliefs about the “facts” of the world, particularly its cosmogony. In short, ethical naturalism posits metaphysics as the basis of ethics. This perspective clearly resonates with another key passage from 1QS – the so-called Two Spirits Treatise in 1QS III, 13–IV, 26. This passage, commonly viewed as the foundational doctrine of the Qumran community,12 purports to present the reality about human nature and to explain why people live the way they do (Cya ynb lwk twdlwt). The worldview it elucidates is a radical monotheistic determinism, coupled with a stark ethical dualism that is sometimes expressed in cosmic terms.13 Thus, while it does not explain how ethical norms have metaphysical warrants, it delineates these norms in a particular metaphysical framework. Though inexplicit, the practical implication of this passage for the Qumranites seems unavoidable: since they are the children of light, they should live according to the instrumental power of the spirit of truth, with the corresponding character traits and behaviour, so that they will fulfil the destiny God has predetermined for them (IV, 2–8). Conversely, there is an implicit appeal to shun the ways of the chil10

Beside Lovin and Reynolds, Cosmogony and Ethical Order, cited above, this approach is described in Bain-Selbo, “Understanding Others Morally,” 237–42. 11 Lovin and Reynolds, Cosmogony and Ethical Order, 18. 12 E.g., Michael A. Knibb, The Qumran Community (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 93; A. R. C. Leaney, The Rule of Qumran and Its Meaning: Introduction, Translation, and Commentary (NTL; London: SCM Press, 1966), 37. For how pervasive the teaching in this passage is in other texts from Qumran, see Philip S. Alexander, “Predestination and Free Will in the Theology of the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Divine and Human Agency in Paul and His Cultural Environment (ed. John M. G. Barclay and Simon J. Gathercole; LNTS 335; London: T&T Clark, 2006), 37–47. 13 As noted in Alexander, “Predestination,” 29, “our author is concerned primarily with the moral universe of human action, and not with the physical universe of cosmic elements and forces. He clearly sees these two universes as parallel, the one mirroring the other (light = truth: darkness = falsehood), but how exactly they are related he does not tell us.”

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dren of darkness, lest they participate in their fate (IV, 9–14). In short, this passage is a moral road map showing the way of life and the way of destruction, with an “X” boldly marking the sectarian community’s position on the way of life and the whole landscape explained in terms of God’s eternal plan that spans creation and the final visitation. III. Preliminary Observations about Qumran Ethics A few preliminary observations can be made from these passages. First, as a set of normative guides for living, Qumran ethics is concerned both with actions and dispositions. Second, while Scripture is not explicitly cited, biblical language and concepts provide much of the ethical terminology in this passage. Both ethical virtues immediately recognizable by modern ethicists, such as humility, patience, compassion, and goodness (IV, 3), and terms that moderns classify as religious, such as righteousness, holiness, and purity, are scriptural and equally normative for sectarian life. Third, the tension between determinism and human choice, on which the moral life is predicated, at least in most Western accounts of it, is unresolved.14 This casts doubt on the feasibility of reconstructing a complete and coherent ethical system from the Qumran texts that corresponds to a modern rational understanding. Accordingly, this book aligns with the naturalist approach by exploring how “facts,” as understood by the Qumranites, are dialectically related to their normative guides for living. While it seems perfectly viable to trace out the relationship between cosmogony and ethics at Qumran,15 this book will expand the frontier of this approach by considering four other major “facts” or factors in the sectarian worldview that influenced how they thought life should be lived and why. As the sample texts cited above suggest, their concepts of the good life were partly informed by scriptural traditions, partly explicated in terms of their self and group identity as the “sons of light,” and partly vindicated by their eschatological expectations. Exploration of their political and cultural contexts will also reveal how foreign influence helps explain the dualist worldview of the community and the ethics it engendered, as well as how experience of tension with others helps explain their construction of a worldview that envisioned an eternal conflict between two radically divided groups.

14 For an examination of this problem from a religious studies perspective, see Jonathan Klawans, “The Dead Sea Scrolls, the Essenes, and the Study of Religious Belief: Determinism and Freedom of Choice,” in Grossman, Rediscovering the Dead Sea Scrolls, 264–83. 15 As proposed by Lovin et al.; cf. notes 10 and 11 above and their context.

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B. Greco-Roman Ethical Language in Second Temple Judaism Notwithstanding the striking differences between the writings of Qumran and those of Philo of Alexandria,16 they are roughly contemporaneous and share a common religious-ethical heritage.17 More importantly, Philo’s references to the Essenes and the Therapeutae, which present them as the best examples of virtuous living among the Jews, invite comparison between the unsystematic ethics of the Jewish philosopher and that of his Palestinian compatriots.18 This section will tease out how Philo’s exposition of Second Temple Judaism using Greek philosophical-ethical concepts exposes issues and categories applicable to Qumran ethics. I. Philo as a Link between Greek and Jewish Ethics As one of most noteworthy spokespersons for Diaspora Jews in the Second Temple Period,19 Philo articulated his understanding of Judaism in Hellenistic terms and became in effect the “Rosetta Stone” of ancient ethics,20 helping to translate the ethical concepts of later thinkers between cultures and religions, including those of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.21 Of the ethical concepts Philo expounded, his notions of law (no/moß) and virtue (aÓreth/) are the most prominent, both of which he invoked in Prob. 80 to introduce the Essenes. 16

See the contrast in Wayne A. Meeks, The Moral World of the First Christians (LEC 6; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986), 81, where Meeks states, “It would be hard to imagine a Jewish spokesman more different from the Qumran covenanters than Philo of Alexandria.” 17 Writing more generally about the connection between Philo and Palestinian Judaism, Sandmel notes minimally that while the connection is debatable, at the very least, there is the indisputable link of the Hebrew Scripture. Samuel Sandmel, Philo’s Place in Judaism: A Study of Conceptions of Abraham in Jewish Literature (augm. ed.; New York: Ktav, 1971), 24f. See also Erich S. Gruen, Heritage and Hellenism: The Reinvention of Jewish Tradition (HCS 30; Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1998), xv, where he observes that the radical dichotomy between the Judaism of Palestine and that of the Diaspora is not tenable, and that “simplistic formulations once in favor are now obsolete. We can no longer contrast ‘Palestinian Judaism’ as the unadulterated form of the ancestral faith with ‘Hellenistic Judaism’ as the Diaspora variety that diluted antique practices with alien imports. Hellenism existed in Palestine, and the Jews of the Diaspora still held to their heritage.” 18 Prob. 80, 84; Hypoth. 11.2. 19 JWSTP, 279–80. 20 For an argument that Philo was neither a Jew in philosophical guise nor a Hellenized philosopher in Jewish guise, but someone truly committed to both Platonism and Judaism, see David Winston, The Ancestral Philosophy: Hellenistic Philosophy in Second Temple Judaism: Essays of David Winston (ed. Gregory E. Sterling; BJS 331; Providence, R.I.: Brown University, 2001), 181–98. 21 Harry Austryn Wolfson, Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (rev. ed.; 2 vols.; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1948), 2:307–21.

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II. Philo’s Notions of Law During the Second Temple period, Jews well versed in Greek philosophy sought to commend their religious laws to the Hellenistic world by using notions of law from Greek ethics,22 including the idea of natural law – a universal ideal law that is according to reason or nature (cosmic order).23 For the Greeks, living according to this natural law is a virtue; and virtue leads to happiness; and happiness is the good that the ethical life seeks.24 In the hands of Philo, the concept of the natural law of the Greek philosophers took on a decidedly religious flavour. Specifically, Philo presented the Mosaic Law as divine revelation and the most accurate reflection of “natural law.” 25 He explained why the Law of Moses begins with the creation account thus, And [Moses’] exordium [of his laws] . . . is most admirable; embracing the creation of the world, under the idea that the law corresponds to the world and the world to the law, and that a man who is obedient to the law . . . arranges his actions with reference to the intention of nature (to boulhma thß fusewß), in harmony with which the whole universal world is regulated.26

Although Philo viewed the Mosaic Law as a written reflection of the ideal natural law, it was still implicitly inferior to the natural law that was more perfectly embodied in the lives of the Patriarchs.27 Furthermore, Philo’s concept of natural law includes not only elements from the Greek philosophy of Plato and the Stoics,28 and from the biblical materials of Moses and the Patriarchs, but also draws from traditional Jewish conceptions of the “Noachian 22 Gregory E. Sterling, “Universalizing the Particular: Natural Law in Second Temple Jewish Ethics,” in The Studia Philonica Annual: Studies in Hellenistic Judaism, Volume XV, 2003: Laws Stamped with the Seals of Nature: Law and Nature in Hellenistic Philosophy and Philo of Alexandria (ed. David T. Runia, Gregory E. Sterling, and Hindy Najman; BJS 337; Providence, R.I.: Brown University, 2003), 64–65. 23 See Wolfson, Philo, 170f for various perspectives on natural law in Greek philosophy. For a Stoic expression of natural law that Philo might have been familiar with, see Cicero, De Finibus II, 11, 34. 24 Eth. nic. I, 4, 1095a, 1–2. 25 Mos. 2 12–14. 26 Opif. 3. All translations of Philo here are Younge’s. 27 See Abr. 5–6; also Samuel Sandmel, “Confrontation of Greek and Jewish Ethics: Philo De Decalogo,” in Judaism and Ethics (ed. Daniel Jeremy Silver; New York: Ktav, 1970), 171, where he asserts the secondary nature of the Mosaic Law, “The laws of Moses . . . are the best possible imitation of and substitute for the law of nature” (italics mine). The superior expression of the law of nature is to be found in the lives of the Patriarchs, who were the living exponent of the law of nature. 28 For more on the Platonism and Stoicism in Philo’s ideas, see Sandmel, “Confrontation,” 166–70. See also Thomas H. Billings, The Platonism of Philo Judaeus (AP 3; New York: Garland, 1979), esp. 87.

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laws” attested in rabbinic literature. These Noachian laws were thought to be universal laws observed by certain scriptural personages prior to the revelation of the Mosaic Law.29 As did the rabbis, Philo viewed these laws generally as acquired through reason and nature rather than revelation.30 As he related in Abr. 5–7, the written laws are nothing more than a memorial of the life of the ancients . . . for these first men, without ever having been followers or pupils of any one, and without ever having been taught by preceptors what they ought to do or say, but having embraced a line of conduct consistent with nature from attending to their own natural impulses, and from being prompted by an innate virtue, and looking upon nature herself to be, what in fact she is, the most ancient and duly established of laws.

Thus, in this important concept of law is an example of how Philo developed what can be described as a highly Hellenized Jewish ethics that had links to Greek philosophical ethics, to biblical laws and narratives, and to Jewish ethical concepts found also in later rabbinic literature. Indeed, the concept of natural law was evidently a popular idea among various Jewish groups in the Second Temple period, connecting Jewish discourses about God’s laws with Greek discourses about ethics.31 III. Philo’s Notions of Virtue Philo connected the Law of Moses not only to natural law, but also to virtue.32 Indeed, Philo’s notions of virtue – his own blend of Greek and Jewish conceptions – are crucial for his ethical theory. Some issues raised by Philo’s treatment of virtue are the nature of virtue, the means to attain virtue, and the rewards of virtue. In his various expositions on the nature of virtue, Philo attempted to classify and enumerate various virtues. He produced several complementary classifications of the virtues. Somn. 2 277, for example, distinguishes divine and human virtues, corresponding to the Greek distinction between intellectual and moral virtues. According to Philo, divine virtues have God as their object. The most important among these is wisdom (understood as service to God). 29

E.g., Adam, Noah, and Abraham. Cf. Jubilees 7:39; 21:10. Wolfson, Philo, 183. For an example from rabbinic literature, see Numbers Rabbah 14, 2. 31 Sterling, “Universalizing the Particular,” 78–79. While Sterling cautiously concedes that the evidence for whether Second Temple Jews used natural law in popular ethical instruction is ambiguous, he asserts that it is clear Second Temple Jews knew how to connect the law of Moses with the law of nature. 32 Spec. 4 134, 179. Following Plato, Philo saw the purpose of specific laws as the promotion of specific virtues. For how Philo, under Jewish influence, mostly agreed with Aristotle in defining virtue as the mean between two vices, see Ronald Williamson, Jews in the Hellenistic World: Philo (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 203. E.g., Migr. 146–47. 30

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Wisdom further consists of piety, godliness, holiness, and faith, along with right opinions about God and his creations. Philo’s moral virtues, in contrast, are directed towards humanity, and are expressed first of all in terms of the typical Greek cardinal virtues of prudence, courage, temperance, and justice.33 Leg. 1 56–56, 63–64 speaks of a further distinction between particular virtues, which are both contemplative (or theoretical) and practical, and generic virtue, their ideal source. Reflecting his Platonism, Philo asserted that generic virtue exists in the ideal intelligible world and is supreme, whereas the particular virtues (as exemplified by the cardinal virtues) exist in the sensible world and are their temporal reflections.34 For Philo, “the individual particular requirements [of his Jewish tradition] are the ‘practical’ virtues which bring into the sensible world the intelligible idea of virtue.”35 While much of Philo’s exposition on virtues can be traced to Greek moral philosophy, some of the virtues he listed are specifically Jewish, including the intellectual virtue of faith and the moral virtue of humanity.36 According to Wolfson, the virtue of humanity (filanqrwpi÷a), which Philo linked closely with the virtue of justice (dikaiosu/nh), was regarded by Philo as one the highest virtues through the influence of traditional Judaism.37 The Jewish emphasis on hqdx, through the translation of the word in LXX as dikaiosu/nh, was the basis for Philo’s high regard for the virtue of humanity. In explaining how virtue(s) is attained, Philo used the Aristotelian categories of education, habit (or custom/ethos), and nature.38 Yet into this framework he once again poured contents from his Jewish tradition. Thus, for Philo, only a few are by nature virtuous (viz. the Patriarchs). Others need to be educated in the Law of Moses and practice its commandments habitually. Finally, Philo blended Greek and Jewish responses when he discussed the rewards of virtue(s). Occasionally, he offered the traditional Jewish response that virtue (obedience to God) brings earthly blessings in this life and heavenly blessings in the next.39 Nevertheless, Philo sometimes mimicked the

33

See Wolfson, Philo, 208–25 for the various references to Philo. Cf. Cher. 4–8. 35 Samuel Sandmel, Philo of Alexandria: An Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), 114. 36 E.g., Abr. 270; Mut. 225. 37 Wolfson, Philo, 220. See also Williamson, Jews in the Hellenistic World, 223, for how highly Philo placed humanity in his hierarchy of virtues. 38 E.g., Abr. 52. See also Meeks, Moral World, 83, were the three keys to become wise and virtuous are listed as nature, education, and practice. 39 E.g., Praem. 119; QG 3 11. Cf. Wolfson, Philo, 301–3. 34

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Greek philosophers by insisting that virtue is its own reward,40 though with Jewish nuance.41 IV. Implications for Qumran Ethics The notions of natural law and virtue discussed above are two possible points of contact between two contemporaneous Jewish approaches to ethics. Philo’s conception of natural law reinforces the appropriateness of the naturalist approach to CRE mentioned earlier and raises the question of whether (and how) the Qumranites appealed to natural law as a justification for their ethics. How did they understand the world and human nature? How was that related to their ethics? The discussion on virtue suggests another set of questions with respect to the Qumranites. What was their concept of virtue? What were the specific virtues for the Qumranites? If identified, did these virtues have any hierarchy? Were they classified? How were they enjoined to pursue virtues? What were the motivations provided for such a pursuit? Approaching Qumran ethics with these two sets of questions suggested by Philo opens up our investigation in some measure, but other modes of ethical discourse need to be considered before the door is fully open.

C. Ethical Language in Rabbinic Literature Beside the more explicitly Hellenized Second Temple Jewish literature, such as Philo’s writings, rabbinic literature is also relevant for our study, although again methodological questions abound for comparing that vast literature with the Scrolls. This section’s goal is to delineate that relevance and to observe what issues scholarship on the Mishnah in particular highlights for investigating Qumran ethics. I. The Relevance of Rabbinic Literature for Qumran Study Any comparison between rabbinic literature and the Scrolls needs justification.42 The pragmatic justification of this comparison is its fruitfulness in other aspects of Qumran research. As recounted in the last chapter, rabbinic specialists have long recognized the centrality of Jewish law or halakhah in the Scrolls through the illuminating comparison with rabbinic literature, 40 “For wisdom itself is the reward of wisdom; and justice, and each of the other virtues, is its own reward.” Spec. 2 259 41 Wolfson, Philo, 295–96. 42 Jacob Neusner, “Are There Reasons to Think . . . ? Twelve Questions on Formative Judaism,” RRJ 5 (2002): 377, is skeptical about the relevance of the Scrolls for rabbinic literature and vice versa.

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introducing the non-Qumranic term “halakhah” in Qumran research.43 The same phenomenon of illumination is observed elsewhere, such as exegesis, mysticism, and magic.44 Greater understanding on these and other aspects of Qumran studies has been achieved through reading the Scrolls from a rabbinic perspective.45 The theoretical justifications for the comparison help explain this fruitfulness. First, rabbinic literature and the Scrolls have similar chronological, geographical, and cultural provenances. Second, rabbinic literature probably reflects some views contemporaneous with some of the Scrolls. Most importantly, rabbinic literature and the Scrolls contain some comparable concerns and agenda. Both corpora represent endeavours to substitute the temple cult with something else.46 Yet both retain priestly and cultic concerns, and even generalize them for the whole community. Both share similar concerns for holiness, purity, conformance to God’s commandments, understanding of Torah, etc.47 Both have an extended Torah through interpretation, albeit in very different formats. These shared underlying concerns influence normative behaviours, if not also with normative attitudes and character traits. Therefore, even with a cursory comparison between the two bodies of literature, it appears that they share some ethical concerns. II. The Pride of Place of the Mishnah in Rabbinic Ethics For several reasons, the Mishnah in its entirety is the best rabbinic document to begin comparing with the Scrolls regarding ethics.48 First, it is among the

43 See also Joseph M. Baumgarten, “The Relevance of Rabbinic Sources to the Study of Qumran Law,” in Proceedings of the Twelfth World Congress of Jewish Studies: Jerusalem, July 29–August 5, 1997, Division A: The Bible and Its World (ed. Ron Margolin; vol. 1; Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1999), 73–78. 44 Cf. Paul Mandel, “Midrashic Exegesis and its Precedents in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” DSD 8 (2001): 149–68, and Michael D. Swartz, “The Dead Sea Scrolls and Later Jewish Magic and Mysticism,” DSD 8 (2001): 182–93. 45 As illustrated in Fraade, Shemesh, and Clements, Rabbinic Perspectives. 46 For the Qumranites, they rejected the Jerusalem Temple while it was still standing; for rabbinic literature, it was a response to the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. See Jacob Neusner, Early Rabbinic Judaism: Historical Studies in Religion, Literature and Art (SJLA 13; Leiden: Brill, 1975), 39, 43. 47 For shared concern about purity, see, Neusner, Early Rabbinic Judaism, 31–32; Joseph M. Baumgarten, “Zab Impurity in Qumran and Rabbinic Law,” JJS 45 (1994): 273–78. For a fuller examination of the shared agenda of the two corpuses, see Lawrence H. Schiffman, “The Qumran Scrolls and Rabbinic Judaism,” in Flint and VanderKam, Dead Sea Scrolls after Fifty Years, 2:552–71. 48 For another argument for the special status of the Mishnah within rabbinic literature, see Jacob Neusner, Introduction to Rabbinic Literature (New York: Doubleday, 1994), 124– 28.

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first rabbinic documents to have reached completion,49 and more likely to reflect a variety of late Second Temple Judaism.50 Second, the Mishnah is the foundation and core of the rest of Talmudic literature, if not the whole rabbinic literature.51 Third, the Mishnah is an integral and systematized document that has its own internal coherence as compiled.52 Therefore, it needs to be treated as a whole document here. For reasons similar to these, J. Neusner rightly asserts that any account of early Judaism must begin with the Mishnah.53 Does the Mishnah contain rabbinic ethics?54 Although the old debate on the nature or purpose of the Mishnah is still far from decided,55 it is indisputable that its chief concern is halakhic.56 In short, the Mishnah is the foundational rabbinic document that reflects some of the Pharisaic views on normative behaviours – how one lives in practice according to God’s will revealed in the Torah. Since our definition of ethics includes normative behaviours, the halakhic concerns of the Mishnah fall within the scope of ethics. III. Various Approaches to Describing Mishnaic Ethics As a part of the lively debate in CRE, J. Lightstone’s programmatic essay opposes any account of early rabbinic ethics that starts with an externally

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While Mekhilta’s date may come close, it is much more uncertain. This is not to deny that such Tannaic views are also reflected in later rabbinic literature. See Jacob Neusner, Ancient Judaism: Debates and Disputes (BJS 64; Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1984), 102. 51 Cf. Abraham Goldberg, “The Mishna – A Study Book of Halakha,” in The Literature of the Sages: Part One (ed. Shmuel Safrai; vol. 3; CRINT 2: LJPSTT 3; Assen: Van Gorcum, 1987), 211. 52 Cf. Neusner, Introduction, 97–100. 53 Neusner, Ancient Judaism (1984), 94–96, 101–3. 54 Other documents in rabbinic literature, such as }Abot (though now printed with the Mishnah, Neusner considers it an independent document), }Abot R. Nat., and the Midrashim, seem to be more relevant for ethics. Neusner, Introduction, 10. Indeed, a more thorough examination of ethics in rabbinic literature would need to account for these documents. 55 For a succinct survey of the recent debate, see Hermann L. Strack and Günter Stemberger, Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash (ed. Markus N. A. Bockmuehl; trans. Markus N. A. Bockmuehl; 2d ed.; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996), 133–38. The main options for the original intended purpose of the Mishnah are: 1. a collection of halakic sources (Charles Albeck), 2. a study guide on halakah (Abrahm Goldberg, “Miahnah”), or 3. a binding code of halakah (Jacob N. Epstein). Although Goldberg (“Miahnah,” 243) does not see the Mishnah as a book of binding code, he acknowledges that it began to take on an authoritative nature as a book of canon law as early as the Amoraic period. 56 Goldberg, “Mishna,” 213, “Since halakha is the prime matter of the Mishna, it is definitely a book of law.” 50

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imposed systematic scheme and pigeonholes isolated rabbinic texts into it.57 Instead, he proposes a “systemic” and “comparative” approach that takes seriously the native concerns and structure of the documents themselves. Realizing that some external categories are inevitable in any modern analysis of rabbinic documents, Lightstone nevertheless insists that one should meet the texts “more than halfway.”58 Two examples of the error Lightstone opposes are R. T. Herford and, much more obviously, Z. Falk,59 both of whom more or less fail to begin with the discrete documents and end up producing highly systematic accounts that exhibit their modernist assumptions. In contrast, M. Kadushin champions an organic approach to rabbinic ethics.60 He argues that rabbinic thinking is organic, with its distinct concepts displaying coherence and interdependency, finding their coherence in four “fundamental concepts,” namely, God’s loving-kindness, God’s justice, Torah, and Israel. Hence, all rabbinic concepts are woven out of these four fundamental concepts, forming an interrelated organic complex.61 For Kadushin, rabbinic ethical concepts are constituent concepts under the fundamental concept of Torah.62 57

Jack N. Lightstone, “Problems and New Perspectives in the Study of Early Rabbinic Ethics,” JRE 9 (1981): 199–209. 58 Lightstone, “Problems,” 203, 204, 207 n. 4. 59 R. Travers Herford, Talmud and Apocrypha: A Comparative Study of the Jewish Ethical Teaching in the Rabbinical and Non-Rabbinical Sources in the Early Centuries (New York: Ktav, 1971), first published in 1933. Herford identifies the first rabbinic ethical principle as the imitation of God, as expressed by the terms “Kedushah and Hasiduth, Holiness and Saintliness,” (Herford, Talmud and Apocrypha, 129), and the second as “lishmah” – doing right for its own sake, (Herford, Talmud and Apocrypha, 133–34), and a third as the principle that distinguishes between commandments that can be defined precisely by halakot, and those that cannot and are left to the conscience of the individual, (Herford, Talmud and Apocrypha, 136–38). Herford further identifies seven examples of divine expectations that are left to the conscience as virtues: 1. good deeds and the doing of kindness, 2. love to one’s neighbour, 3. truthfulness and sincerity, 4. honesty, 5. forgiveness, 6. honour to father and mother, and 7. chastity, (Herford, Talmud and Apocrypha, 141). Ze’ev W. Falk, Religious Law and Ethics: Studies in Biblical and Rabbinical Theonomy (Jerusalem: Mesharim, 1991). In Religious Law and Ethics, 207, Falk describes one of the goals of the Enlightenment as “the formation of a humanist morality based on reason and the idea of humanity.” This description fits precisely the kind of ethics Falk is attempting to portray from the Jewish tradition. He describes Jewish ethics in terms of heteronomy, autonomy, theonomy, ontology, deontology, teleology, virtues, etc. 60 Max Kadushin, Organic Thinking: A Study in Rabbinic Thought (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1938); The Rabbinic Mind (3d ed.; New York: Bloch, 1972); Worship and Ethics: A Study in Rabbinic Judaism (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1963). 61 Kadushin, Organic Thinking, 6–7. 62 Kadushin cites such ethical concepts such as “Good Deeds” (Mybwf MyCom), “Derek Erez” (Krd Xra), “Charity” (hqdx), and “Deeds of Loving Kindness” (Mydsj twlymg).

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While Kadushin allows rabbinic literature to speak in its own terms much more than Herford and Falk do, Neusner nevertheless dismisses him as one of the producers of “grand syntheses.”63 Instead, Neusner’s systemic approach attempts to uncover the systematic coherence of rabbinic literature through a careful analysis of its constituent documents. Neusner’s analysis of the six divisions of the Mishnah reveals its priestly and cultic emphasis, which reflects its principal concern of sanctification.64 He observes that the postTemple “Mishnaic system” is dominated by the concern to preserve holiness for the people of Israel, which is achieved by putting natural things in their right order.65 This suggests that Mishnaic ethics is likely controlled by, and expressed through, its concern for holiness, and even reflects naturalism in the sense that what is good and right in its worldview is defined by correspondence with nature, and ultimately with the supernatural world. Building on Neusner, R. Brooks also discerns the inner coherence of the Mishnah, but sees further that the special demands for holiness arise out of the special relationship between God and Israel.66 For Brooks, the overarching question of the Mishnah is, “What must a Jew do to reflect the special relationship between self and God?”67 Thus, Mishnaic ethics is not only concerned with doing what is right according to God’s commands, but also with living in such a way so as to properly reflect one’s identity as a member of God’s holy people.

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On his criticism of earlier Judaic scholars, see Neusner, Ancient Judaism (1984), 79. Neusner, Introduction, 99. Neusner further clarifies the Mishnaic understanding of sanctification as “the correct arrangement of all things, each in its proper category, each called by its rightful name.” For him, the Mishnah expresses “in concrete language abstract principles of hierarchical classification,” and is a philosophical document concerned with “the order of the natural world in its correspondence with the supernatural world.” 65 Neusner, Introduction, 111. 66 Roger Brooks, “Mishnah,” ABD, 4:871–73. He sees the Mishnah as a rabbinic response to centuries of oppressive Roman rule, constituting “a theological network representing three major interests: priestly attention to holiness, scribal concerns for the correspondence of word and act, and ordinary householders’ regard for daily conduct.” Thus, Zera’im deals with how the land and its agricultural products are to be used on the basis of God’s ultimate ownership. Mo’ed covers the special actions for the special appointed times on Israel’s calendar on the basis of God’s historical interaction with Israel. Nashim focuses on the demand for holiness in one’s family relationships, particularly with women. Neziqin is concerned with civil, governmental, and economic conducts on the basis of the unity and equality of God’s people Israel. Qodoshim attends to proper conduct of temple worship in keeping with God’s holiness. And Tohorot treats the requirements of cultic purity on the basis of a broadened application of the demand for holiness. 67 Brooks, “Mishnah,” 873. 64

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IV. Implications for Qumran Ethics These systemic readings suggest that Mishnaic ethical discourse is likely found in the language of holiness and purity, and is concerned with the community’s self-identity as Israel. As adumbrated above, the language of holiness, purity, and self-identity also dominates 1QS, underscoring some important aspects of Qumran’s ethical language. Other debated issues applicable to Qumran ethics are identifiable. First, just as rabbinic scholarship has generally moved away from constructing grand syntheses and cast doubt on the legitimacy of systematization, research in Qumran ethics likewise needs to be wary of over-homogenization and attentive to discrete texts. Second, the centrality of halakhah in the Mishnah is matched by the importance of legal issues in the Scrolls. The category of law in both collections is clearly different from that defined by modern ethicists, intractably blurring their neat boundaries between morality, religion, and law. While it is still valuable to ask whether there was ethics outside of halakhah and vice versa at Qumran, or whether ritual laws are distinguishable from moral laws, this book will focus instead on the bases of sectarian legal positions in the context of our broader definition of ethics, including the justifications for any tendency towards halakhic stringency or leniency. Third, did naturalism form a metaphysical basis for ethics in the Scrolls? Contra Neusner’s conclusion about naturalism in rabbinic literature, M. Bockmuehl argues that direct appeal to natural law was lacking in both the Scrolls and rabbinic literature.68 Nevertheless, texts suggesting sectarian interest in, and practice of, horoscopy, magic, and physiognomy reflect a kind of naturalistic worldview.69 Finally, can general ethical principles be abstracted from specific commandments? According to Philip Alexander, rabbinic literature testifies to an ongoing discussion within early Judaism on this question.70 Do the Scrolls manifest the same drive? Examining briefly how rabbinic scholarship has approached ethics has brought to the surface and somewhat clarified these key issues. More light, however, is needed to explicate what ethics means in modern discourse. 68 Markus N. A. Bockmuehl, Jewish Law in Gentile Churches: Halakhah and the Beginning of Christian Public Ethics (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000), 103–7. 69 E.g., 4Q186; 4Q510–511. For an exposition on 4Q186/561, see Mladen Popovi, Reading the Human Body: Physiognomics and Astrology in the Dead Sea Scrolls and HellenisticEarly Roman Period Judaism (STDJ 67; Leiden: Brill, 2007). The appeal to nature in 1 Enoch is consistent with a naturalistic worldview. 70 Philip S. Alexander, “‘The Rest is Commentary: Go and Learn!’: The Debate on the ‘Greatest Principle’ (kelal gadol) of the Torah in Early Judaism” (paper presented at the Bible and Law Conference, Sheffield and Manchester, UK, 9–10 May 2005).

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D. Modern Ethicists’ Language The three sections above have focused on the native language and concepts of 1QS, Philo, and the Mishnah, revealing certain chief concerns that fit a broad definition of ethics. To validate this definition, which is selected from competing options in recent CRE debates, this section will review the broader intellectual context in which these debates are located. Hence, this section will partially survey how modern ethicists have struggled to define ethics from at least two different perspectives – duty ethics and virtue ethics. Along the way, it will identify from this modern discourse other issues relevant to Qumran ethics. I. Frankena and Duty Ethics One perspective in modern analytical ethics is represented by W. Frankena’s duty ethics.71 His widely acclaimed and influential textbook on ethics offers not only an accessible introduction to the issues of moral philosophy, but also presents his own normative ethical theory.72 This theory avers that a comprehensive normative guide can be obtained by combining the principles of beneficence (doing nonmoral good and avoiding nonmoral evil) and justice (equal treatment). Whenever an action meets the requirements of both principles, it is then prima facie a morally obligatory duty.73 To clarify further the meaning of ethics and distinguish morality from other normative action 71 For an admission of his influence by a critic, see Frederick S. Carney, “On Frankena and Religious Ethics,” JRE 3 (1975): 9, where Carney accuses Frankena of bias against religious ethics, but acknowledges his importance by saying, “[In] America at least, Frankena has been more widely and appreciatively drawn upon by theological ethicists than has any other analytic philosopher.” 72 William K. Frankena, Ethics (2d ed.; PHFPS; Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1973). Originally published in 1963, this highly readable primer on philosophical ethics has been translated into eight languages. The second edition alone has gone through at least twenty six printings. Its success is cited in Stephen Darwall, “Learning from Frankena: A Philosophical Remembrance,” Ethics 107 (1997): 685, 702 n. 2, published less than three years after Frankena’s death. See there also his account of how Frankena was both indebted to and critical of one of the founders of analytical philosophy – G. E. Moore. Frankena’s ethical theory has been described as an ethic of duty or obligation. Frankena himself calls it a mixed deontological theory of obligation, Frankena, Ethics, 52. Since Frankena emphasizes obligation or duty, others see him as being opposed to an ethic of virtue, or promoting an ethic of doing over against an ethic of being. While Frankena’s normative theory includes aretaic judgments about “being,” his own critique of virtue ethics gives credence to the claim that he is against it. 73 Frankena, Ethics, 52–53, avers that all other moral obligations can be derived from these two principles. Though he recognizes that there can be potential conflicts between the two principles, he wishfully surmises that conflicts can be resolved with a sharpened rationality and increasing knowledge of facts.

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guides such as etiquette, prudence, and law, Frankena provides a typically Kantian and modernist view of morality as a guide that has to do with norms of “relatively great social importance,” is not motivated by one’s self-interest, and is not enforced by external sanctions, but is rational and autonomous.74 In short, according to this modernist perspective, what makes a judgment ethical is the type of rationale(s) used to justify it. Using the typical trichotomy of descriptive, normative, and analytical (meta-ethical) ethics,75 Frankena concentrates unapologetically on normative ethics. Furthermore, he also classifies and ultimately rejects the three alternative meta-ethical strategies for justifying ethical judgments – definist (including its naturalistic and metaphysical varieties), intuitionist (non-naturalist), and noncognitivist (nondescriptivist, including emotivist and prescriptivist).76 In his own meta-ethical theory, an ethical judgment can be justified if “it is or will be agreed to by everyone who takes the moral point of view and is clearheaded and logical and knows all that is relevant about himself, mankind, and the universe.”77 The central component of this theory is Kurt Baier and David Hume’s concept of “the moral point of view,” which Frankena defines as (a) “making normative judgments about actions, desires, dispositions, intentions, motives, persons, or traits of character”; (b) being “willing to universalize one’s judgment”; (c) considering the impacts of one’s judgments on sentient beings in terms of nonmoral good and evil; and finally (d) considering the impacts of one’s judgments concerning oneself on other sentient beings.78 This definition of the moral point of view is not only a key part of Frankena’s theory of justification, but also epitomizes what he considers to be within the realm of morality. Thus, for him, ethics or morality is about making universalizible normative judgments about either obligations (deontic judgments regarding actions) or values (aretaic judgments regarding virtues, including persons, motives, intentions, and character traits). Both types of judgment consider primarily the welfare (nonmoral good or evil) of sentient beings, especially the welfare of others when the judgments are about one’s own actions or disposition.79 74

Frankena, Ethics, 8. The similarity to Little and Twiss’ definition is obvious. Frankena, Ethics, 4–5. For a different presentation of this standard trichotomy, see Thiroux, Ethics. 76 Frankena, Ethics, 95–113. 77 Frankena, Ethics, 112. As a formal justification, it does not warrant any aspect of this statement as true or possible in practice. Frankena’s meta-ethical theory is either merely idealistic or excessively confident in human objectivity or rationality. See the critique by David Schenck, Jr., “Recasting the ‘Ethics of Virtue/Ethics of Duty’ Debate,” JRE 4 (1976): 273. 78 Frankena, Ethics, 113. 79 For his distinction between normative judgments that are deontic, aretaic, moral, and nonmoral, see Frankena, Ethics, 9–11. While Carney endorses Frankena’s inclusive definition 75

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II. MacIntyre and Virtue Ethics While Frankena represents duty ethics in the key meta-ethical debate, A. MacIntyre exemplifies virtue ethics.80 His seminal account of ethics illuminates the history and development of ethics in the West and introduces ethical concepts from a very different perspective than Frankena’s. MacIntyre’s argument is not against duty ethics alone, but the entire trajectory of modern ethics from the rationalist and universalistic deontology of Kant, to the utilitarianism of Mill, to the intuitionist deontology of Moore, to the emotivisms of Ayer and Stevenson, to the prescriptivism of Hare.81 According to him, the Enlightenment project, with its goal of providing the autonomous moral agent with a secular and rational justification for one’s ethical norms, has failed badly.82 Through the rejection of traditional moral bases such as divine law, natural teleology, or hierarchical authority, modern ethics has lost its ability to justify its moral judgments cogently. Instead, emotivism has become the prevailing ethical theory in modern liberal societies. MacIntyre’s answer to this chaotic fragmentation of moral philosophy is a return to the virtue ethics of the Aristotelian/Thomistic tradition.83 For him, this tradition presents ethics as the science that enables people to make the transition from their present state to the realization of their essential human nature, or telos, and the means of this transformation as the cultivation of virtues.84

for portraying ethics as both action-guide and virtue-guide and covering the central ethical concerns of utilitarism (promotion of non-moral good), of Kantianism (universal obligations), and of Aristotelianism (virtue considerations), he argues that such a definition is skewed against Stoic, existential, and particularly religious ethics. Carney, “On Frankena,” 12–16. Stanley Hauerwas also objects to Frankena’s greater emphasis on obligations over virtues, and his failure to recognize the interdependence between the two. See Stanley Hauerwas, “Obligation and Virtue Once More,” JRE 3 (1975): 27–44. For Frankena’s rebuttal to these Christian ethicists, see William K. Frankena, “Conversations with Carney and Hauerwas,” JRE 3 (1975): 45–62. 80 Alasdair C. MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (3d ed.; Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007). For Frankena’s critique of the first (1981) edition, see William K. Frankena, “MacIntyre and Modern Morality,” Ethics 93 (1983): 579–87. For a positive evaluation of After Virtue, see Paul Martens, “The Invigoration of Kierkegaardian Ethics,” RelSRev 29 (2003): 29–33. See also its precursor, Alasdair C. MacIntyre, A Short History of Ethics (FP; New York: Macmillan, 1966), and its follow-up volume, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988). 81 MacIntyre, Short History, 190–269. MacIntyre, After Virtue, 6–68. 82 MacIntyre, After Virtue, 68. 83 This kind of tradition-bound virtue ethics is not necessarily authoritarian or religious, as shown by Jean Porter, “Openness and Constraint: Moral Reflection as Tradition-Guided Inquiry in Alasdair MacIntyre’s Recent Works,” JR 73 (1993): 514–36. 84 MacIntyre, After Virtue, 52–53.

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Realizing that there is no agreement on what the virtues are and how they should be ranked,85 MacIntyre defines virtues as acquired human qualities indispensable for excellence in practices, and strongly linked to “the good of a whole human life conceived as a unity” and the “living tradition” of the community in which one is embedded. 86 Therefore, using his three-stage account of the virtues, MacIntyre’s virtue ethics along Aristotelian lines can be encapsulated as a primary concern for the cultivation of virtues that simultaneously promotes the goods internal to social practices and the good of an individual’s whole life, and is consistent with the tradition of one’s community.87 III. Implications for Qumran Ethics Surveying two very different contemporary ethicists above has shown how contested the field is on every level, which in turn helps explain the variety of conflicting methodologies in CRE. Little and Twiss,88 for example, follow the route represented by Frankena and offer a typology loaded with questionable modernist assumptions and a bias towards rational autonomy. As a normative ethicist for modern society, Frankena is perhaps entitled to these assumptions. But they are misleading in an area he largely neglects – descriptive ethics, especially when applied to an ancient group. There is no reason to limit ethics to what is rational, secular, and autonomous. Though by no means a comparative ethicist,89 MacIntyre’s approach is much more congenial to the ethical naturalism of Lovin and Reynold.90 His 85

MacIntyre, After Virtue, 181. MacIntyre, After Virtue, 191, 201–3, 219, 222. In the postscript to the second edition of After Virtue, where MacIntyre responds to the challenges raised by a number of critics, including Frankena, Hauerwas, and Stout, he concisely summarizes his account of the virtues thus, “My account of the virtues proceeds through three stages: a first which concerns virtues as qualities necessary to achieve the goods internal to practices; a second which considers them as qualities contributing to the good of a whole life; and a third which relates them to the pursuit of a good for human beings the conception of which can only be elaborated and possessed within an ongoing social tradition . . . . [No] human quality is to be accounted a virtue unless it satisfies the conditions specified at each of the three stages.” MacIntyre, After Virtue, 273, 275, emphasis original. 87 MacIntyre, After Virtue, 223, “The virtues find their point and purpose not only in sustaining those relationships necessary if the variety of goods internal to practices are to be achieved and not only in sustaining the form of an individual life in which that individual may seek out his or her good as the good of his or her whole life, but also in sustaining those traditions which provide both practices and individual lives with their necessary historical context.” 88 See note 8 above and its context. 89 For his emphasis on non-commensurability between ethical traditions, see Stephen E. Fowl, “Could Horace Talk with the Hebrews: Translatability and Moral Disagreement in MacIntyre and Stout,” JRE 19 (1991): 1–20. 86

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critique of the Enlightenment project and the rejection of traditional moral bases in modern ethics invites a re-examination of those traditional bases at Qumran – divine law, teleology, authoritative hierarchy, etc. Moreover, his virtue ethics implies some kind of definist meta-ethics because ethical norms are justified by an appeal to the “fact” of human telos. This leads to a set of related questions: Can the Qumranites be described as definists, and in what sense? (Was their naturalism the physical, metaphysical, or theological variety, or a combination of these?) How did they understand the present human condition and its ideal telos? Was the means to get from one state to the other the virtues, or was it rules of behaviour? How did the tradition of the community inform its members about practices and virtues? What are these virtues and do they show any hierarchy? Despite the unsuitability of Frankena’s approach for CRE, his normative ethics does help raise another group of questions applicable to Qumran ethics, though they need to be asked carefully, without demanding a priori clear cut, either-or answers. Were ethical norms in the Qumran community more about obligations or virtues? Was its ethics rule-based, principle-based, or virtuebased? What kind of rationality did it exhibit in its normative judgments?

E. Modern and Postmodern Jewish Ethical Language MacIntyre’s contrast with Frankena exemplifies the postmodern critiques of modern ethics, with the latter’s focus on rational, secular, universal, and interhuman obligations. A parallel development can be observed in how religious Jews have articulated their ethics in the last few centuries. Faced with both the challenge and opportunities of modernism in the eighteenth century, Jewish thinkers quickly developed accounts of Jewish religious ethics more or less compatible with their secular counterparts. But in the unsettling wakes of postmodernity in the twentieth century, Jewish ethicists found themselves compelled again to reformulate the way they understand what ethics is and what makes it Jewish. I. Modern Jewish Ethics While modernity can be said to be a product of Christian Europe in the aftermath of the Reformation, partly through such thinkers as Descartes, Hume, and Kant, European Jews confronted the challenge of responding to this new social, political, and cultural reality, led most notably by Moses Mendelssohn

90

See note 10 above and its context.

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(1729–86), the “father” of Haskalah.91 The challenge was to find a way to maintain Jewish religious tradition and identity while embracing the opportunity for Jews to be full members in modern society.92 One of the reactions was to express Judaism through ethical discourse.93 Although a great diversity of approaches to Jewish ethics has arisen since Mendelsshon, this two-fold agenda still characterizes the motivation behind most modern expressions of Jewish ethics. Aside from this common underlying agenda, modern Jewish ethics typically appeal to a tradition that includes the Bible, rabbinic literature, medieval Jewish philosophy, and the pietist/mystical movement (or others pre-modern movements within Judaism).94 According to most, this collection of traditional sources is what makes Jewish ethics distinctive.95 Nevertheless, modern Jewish ethicists appropriate these common sources variously, placing different emphases on diverse parts of this tradition, or assigning different levels of authority to them. While these differences are too complex to be characterized as a debate between traditionalists and liberals, or even among the Orthodox, Conservative, and Reformed branches of modern Judaism, these distinctions do suggest some of the shifting lines of disputes.96 Among the disputed issues in modern Jewish ethics, the more salient ones are the distinctions between ethics and morality,97 or law/halakhah,98 or reli-

91 The attempt to reconcile Judaism with philosophy of course began in antiquity, as illustrated by Philo, and had developed significantly by the medieval philosopher Maimonides, well before the dawn of modernity. See Raymond L. Weiss, Maimonides’ Ethics: The Encounter of Philosophic and Religious Morality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991). On Mendelssohn, see S. Daniel Breslauer, ed., Contemporary Jewish Ethics: A Bibliographical Survey (BIRS 6; Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1985), 16. 92 Menachem Kellner, “Ethics of Judaism,” EJ 1:256–57. 93 Louis E. Newman, An Introduction to Jewish Ethics (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson, 2005), 130–36. 94 Breslauer, Contemporary Jewish Ethics, 9–15. 95 Kellner, “Ethics of Judaism,” 251. 96 Breslauer, Contemporary Jewish Ethics, 20–25. 97 Dorff and Newman, Contemporary Jewish Ethics and Morality, and Breslauer equate “ethics” to meta-ethics, and “morality” to applied ethics, while Shubert Spero, Morality, Halakha, and the Jewish Tradition (LJLE 9; New York: Ktav, 1983), xiv, equates “morality” with normative ethics. Others disagree with such precise distinctions. E.g., Kellner, “Ethics of Judaism,” 259. 98 Some propose that halakhah is the essence of Jewish ethics, e.g., Aharon Lichtenstein, “Does Jewish Tradition Recognize an Ethic Independent of Halakha?” in Modern Jewish Ethics: Theory and Practice (ed. Marvin Fox; Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1975), 62–88. Others affirm a supra-halakhic Jewish ethics, e.g., Shaul Magid, “Ethics Differentiated from the Law,” in The Blackwell Companion to Religious Ethics (ed. William Schweiker; Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2005), 176–87.

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gion;99 the tension between universalism and particularism;100 the search for the essence of Jewish ethics;101 and what makes ethics Jewish.102 These unsettled issues notwithstanding, modern Jewish ethics, especially versions before the twentieth century, tends to affirm both Jewish traditions and the possibility of a rational, universal ethics that unites all humanity, with an emphasis on the latter, hence its similarity to the secular ethics of analytical philosophy.103 However, the situation changed drastically about the time when the Scrolls were discovered. II. The Postmodern Context Although accounts of the origin of postmodernity or postmodernism vary,104 in the Jewish context, most commentators identify it with the Nazi Holocaust and the founding of modern Israel.105 The Holocaust, as one of the watershed events in modern Jewish history, signalled for many Jewish thinkers the bankruptcy of ethics in the Western tradition and the naïveté with which Jews had embraced integration into the larger society.106 Moreover, the existence of a Jewish state has made a particularist ethics once again an attractive option visà-vis a universal ethics. But the complication of holding state power also raises urgent questions of social and political ethics, both domestically and internationally.107 Meanwhile, disenchantment among Western thinkers with ethics based on supposed universal reason and many other intellectual edifices of modernity led to the multifarious reactionary movement of postmodernism, sometimes exemplified by post-structuralism, deconstructionism, and social constructionism.108 These intellectual trends and movements also became the matrix of 99

Newman, “Ethics as Law, Law as Religion”; and Introduction to Jewish Ethics, 13–19. Kellner, “Ethics of Judaism,” 259. 101 Breslauer, Contemporary Jewish Ethics, 34–35. 102 Kellner, “Ethics of Judaism,” 251. 103 E.g., the correlative Neo-Kantian project of Hermann Cohen, Religion of Reason, Out of the Sources of Judaism (trans. Simon Kaplan; 2d ed.; TTS 7; Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1995), first published in 1919. 104 Postmodernism is notoriously difficult to define precisely and include expressions in diverse fields of culture since the second half of the twentieth century, including philosophy, art, architecture, and literature. 105 E.g., S. Daniel Breslauer, Toward a Jewish (M)Orality: Speaking of a Postmodern Jewish Ethics (CSRel 53; Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1998), ix, 1–2. 106 Cf. Newman, Introduction to Jewish Ethics, 136–37. 107 See, e.g., the essays on these issues in Dorff and Newman, Contemporary Jewish Ethics and Morality, 403–53. 108 E.g., Joseph P. Natoli, A Primer to Postmodernity (Malden, Ma.: Blackwell, 1997), 71–72. Or, in the words of Jean François Lyotard, La condition postmoderne: rapport sur le savoir (Paris: Minuit, 1979), 7, “on tient pour « postmoderne» l’incrédulité à l’égard des métarécits (meta-narratives).” 100

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new expressions of Jewish ethics, one prominent representative of which is Emmanuel Levinas.109 III. Levinas’ Postmodern Ethics Raised as a devout Jew steeped in Talmudic training, and a survivor of Nazi imprisonment, the naturalized French philosopher personally embodied the painful experience of many European Jews, and proposed a radically different conceptualization of ethics in response to the obvious failure of Western ethics.110 For Levinas, Western philosophy has erred by putting ontology (knowing what is) before ethics. Instead, he reversed the priority and called ethics the “first philosophy.”111 Rather than starting with the rational subject and her autonomous determination of the good, Levinas’ ethics begins with the alterity of the Other and the asymmetric responsibility arising from the presence of the Other.112 Although initially influenced by the phenomenology of Husserl and Heidegger, Levinas rejected their latent solipsism and the endeavour to comprehend the Other.113 Instead, he insisted that the Other is encountered as one ultimately incomprehensible. Furthermore, such an encounter evokes the subject’s response and hence his responsibility.114 Moreover, because of the difference inherent in the Other, this responsibility is asymmetrical – the subject has an infinite responsibility towards the Other that is non-reciprocal.115 Following Levinas’ lead, other postmodern Jewish thinkers have ushered a “revival of Judaism as ethics,”116 though one that is drastically different from its modernist counterpart.117 The modernist tendency to reduce Judaism to a humanistic, universalistic, and rationalistic ethics contrasts sharply with the 109 For an accessible introduction, see Colin Davis, Levinas: An Introduction (Cambridge, England: Polity Press, 1996). See also Bettina Bergo, Levinas between Ethics and Politics: For the Beauty that Adorns the Earth (Phae 152; Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 1999). 110 Richard A. Cohen, Elevations: The Height of the Good in Rosenzweig and Levinas (CSJH; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 115–32. 111 Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority (trans. Alphonso Lingis; Pittsburgh, Pa.: Duquesne University Press, 1969). 112 Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 43. 113 Davis, Levinas, 5–33. 114 “This presentation [of the Other] is preeminently nonviolence, for instead of offending my freedom it calls it to responsibility and founds it.” Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 203. 115 See Cohen’s introduction in Emmanuel Levinas, Time and the Other and Additional Essays (ed. Richard A. Cohen; trans. Richard A. Cohen; Pittsburgh, Pa.: Duquesne University Press, 1987), 13–19. 116 Edith Wyschogrod, “Trends in Postmodern Jewish Philosophy; Afterword,” Sound 76 (1993): 191. 117 E.g., Robert Gibbs, Why Ethics?: Signs of Responsibilities (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000).

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postmodern rejection of such reductionism, and with its openness to diversity and uncertainty.118 According to Richard Cohen, such an ethics is marked by “its concrete existence in communal life, the specificity of social obligations and responsibilities, developed across living traditions, appearing not in ideas but in what . . . Levinas call[s] the ‘face.’”119 Reminiscent of MacIntyre, this postmodern observation sees ethics as located in the particularities of communities and their traditions rather than as context-less abstractions.120 IV. Implications for Qumran Ethics One of the most fundamental issues underscored by the above discussion is how unsettled the definition of ethics is in contemporary Judaism, from the relatively insignificant disagreement over the distinction between ethics and morality, to how ethics relates to halakhah, to the debates about the very philosophical foundation of Jewish ethics. This confirms the recurring observation in this chapter that a narrow definition of ethics derived from modern analytical philosophy is inappropriate. Moreover, postmodern Jewish ethics challenges even basing ethics on the ancient Greek tradition, with its preoccupation with the rational subject. This insight provides an alternative way of understanding Qumran ethics – to look not only for the ways Qumranites answered, “How should I live my life?” but also, “How should I (or we) respond to the presence of the (human or divine) Other?” Related to definition is the issue of what makes ethics Jewish. If contemporary Jewish ethics, in all its diversity, locates its Jewishness in a tradition that includes, minimally, the Bible and rabbinic literature, in what sense is Qumran ethics Jewish? Or why should contemporary Jewish ethics be more relevant for Qumran than Christian ethics is, since both appeal to texts mostly later than the Scrolls? The answer may lie not in the dependency of ethics on post-biblical literature, but in how biblical texts were understood and appropriated as sources for ethics (Chapter Five). In as much as the Qumran community shared a primarily halakhic orientation towards Scripture and a particularist ethnic self-identity with traditional Judaism, it should be regarded as Jewish, despite important discontinuities. The importance of Jewish identity in contemporary Jewish ethics and the Jewishness of Qumran ethics both point up the role of identity in Qumran ethics (Chapter Six). Beyond the definition issue, the modern debate about the essence of Jewish ethics, often expressed in terms of one of the central theological concepts in 118 Michael Wyschogrod, “Some Reflections on Jewish Biblical Ethics in the Contemporary Context,” in Reverence, Righteousness, and Rahamanut: Essays in Memory of Rabbi Dr Leo Jung (ed. Jacob Schacter; Northvale, N.J.: Jason Aronson, 1992), 315–24. 119 Cohen, Elevations, 304. 120 Jewish ethics “can never be divorced from the historical situation in which the Jewish people finds itself.” Wyschogrod, “Some Reflections,” 316.

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Judaism, whether covenant, holiness, image of God, or imitation of God, underlines both the link between theology and ethics (one aspect of which will be treated in Chapter Eight) and the possibility of finding overarching principles behind the diversity of norms in the sectarian literature (Chapter Nine), notwithstanding the postmodern scepticism towards such a search. On the level of ethical discourse, Jewish experiences in early modernity and in the last century demonstrate how strongly historical contexts influence articulations of ethics. This reinforces the need to locate the Scrolls in the life of a historical community (Chapter Four). Further, the impacts of political and cultural milieux on contemporary Jewish ethics also warrant a consideration of these factors at Qumran (Chapter Seven).

F. Conclusion This chapter has examined both examples of how Qumran texts exhibit ethical discourse, and the distinctive languages in several contrasting ethical traditions. By juxtaposing these varied modes of discourse and the methodological debate in CRE, it seems clear that an inclusive and open-ended definition of ethics that is centred on the reflection on and articulation of the way life should be lived is appropriate for this book. Furthermore, this book will focus on examining some of the bases of ethics at Qumran rather than constructing a complete systematic account. It will strive to be attentive to the texts in their discreteness and foreignness. It will pay attention to how worldview relates to ethics in the Qumran community. It will be sensitive to the historical contexts of the texts, to which the next chapter is directed.

Chapter 4

A Historical Framework Following the methodological lead of the previous chapter, this chapter has three objectives. First, it will reconstruct a historical account of the Qumran community, which will serve as a general framework for reading the Scrolls. The goal is not to read history from the Scrolls, but to read them against the background of a highly plausible historical reconstruction, which depends on a judicious reading of the texts and other sources of historical information. Second, this chapter will identify two important documents as examples of key sectarian texts and trace their developmental history and chronological relationship. This will draw attention to the diversity of ideas in the Qumran texts as a result of changing historical circumstances, diachronic developments, or variations among different branches of the movement. Finally, this chapter will outline two examples of this diversity in the Scrolls – purity and dualism – which will illustrate how particular ethically relevant concepts in the Scrolls have changed and developed over time, possibly in response to different historical situations.1

A. Historical Reconstruction I. Basic Starting Assumptions The typical sources for reconstructing the history of the group(s) behind the Scrolls include archaeology, palaeography, a few classical witnesses, and the Scrolls themselves.2 Since the historical information found in these sources is vague or uncertain, no definitive conclusion about the precise history of the people behind the Scrolls is possible yet. Nevertheless, starting with the remains of Khirbet Qumran and the surrounding caves, certain basic assump1

For more on this possibility, see Chapter Seven. Although Josephus overshadows the other classical witnesses with respect to historical information, Philo and Pliny’s accounts of the Essenes are also indispensable in theories that link the people behind the Scrolls with the Essenes. See, e.g., Geza Vermes and Martin D. Goodman, eds., The Essenes: According to the Classical Sources (OCTb 1; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1989). The few most often cited texts are CD (though it was from Cairo), 1QS, and the pesharim. 2

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tions seem beyond dispute. First, based on the general coherence of the worldview in most of the Scrolls, it is reasonable to assume that a more or less cohesive Jewish group was responsible for at least their collection, if not their production, and that some of these texts more or less reflect the views of these people.3 Second, some of the group can be assumed to have moved to settle at Qumran at some point, rather than arising in situ, and to have occupied the site for several generations.4 Third, the community apparently composed or at least copied some of the Scrolls at Qumran, besides bringing most of them there from elsewhere.5 Finally, it is very probable that Khirbet Qumran was violently overthrown by the Romans around 68 C.E., and its inhabitants were either killed or dispersed, never to return to the site again.6

3

For the contrary Jerusalem library hypothesis, which most Scrolls scholars reject, see Norman Golb, Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls? The Search for the Secret of Qumran (New York: Scribner, 1995). For a refutation, see Hartmut Stegemann, “The Qumran Essenes – Local Members of the Main Jewish Union in the Late Second Temple Times,” in The Madrid Qumran Congress: Proceedings of the International Congress on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Madrid, 18–21 March, 1991 (ed. Julio C. Trebolle Barrera and Luis Vegas Montaner; STDJ 11; Leiden: Brill, 1992), 1:96–100. 4 R. de Vaux viewed Khirbet Qumran as an Israelite stronghold during the late Iron Age, which was resettled in phases by the sectarians from the third quarter of the second century B.C.E. to its destruction by Romans in 68 C.E. Roland de Vaux, Archaeology and the Dead Sea Scrolls (London: Oxford University Press, 1973), 1–44. Magness, Archaeology, 63–69, has reassessed the archaeological evidence and revised de Vaux’s chronology, eliminating period Ia and shortening the sectarian occupation to c. 100 B.C.E.–68 C.E. For her recent reassertion that the site was indeed a sectarian settlement, see Jodi Magness, “A Response to D. Stacey, ‘Some Archaeological Observations on the Aqueducts of Qumran,’” DSD 14 (2007): 244–53. 5 According to typological palaeography and radiocarbon tests, the Scrolls are dated approximately to between the late-third century B.C.E. and the mid-first century C.E., showing some to have been produced long before the sectarians occupied Qumran. Frank Moore Cross, “Palaeography and the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Flint and VanderKam, Dead Sea Scrolls after Fifty Years, 1:385. 6 For how this date was determined by combining archaeological and numismatic evidence with Josephus’ historiographic note, see de Vaux, Archaeology, 36–41. However, the discoveries of manuscripts at Masada and Cairo suggest the possibility that some Qumranites survived the siege of 68 C.E. and escaped with some of their texts, leaving a religious legacy to other groups such as the Sicarii of Masada and the medieval Karaites. See James H. Charlesworth, “The Origin and Subsequent History of the Authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Four Transitional Phases among the Qumran Essenes,” RevQ 10 (1980): 228–30.

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II. Some Key Elements of a Historical Reconstruction Proceeding on the basis of these assumptions, some details about the following four key elements are needed for even a minimalist history of the Qumran community.7 1. Khirbet Qumran As noted above, the convergence of evidence now supports a sectarian occupation of Khirbet Qumran from around 100 B.C.E. to 68 C.E., with the terminus ad quem much more certain than the terminus a quo because of the lack of archaeological evidence for de Vaux’s period Ia.8 While most scholars agree justifiably that the occupants of the site were related to, if not identified with, the Essenes of the classical sources,9 whether they represented the main Essene group or a splinter group is much debated.10 Moreover, the location of the Qumran site intimates the motivation for the sectarians’ move there. Its harsh and relatively isolated environment suggests a desire for austerity and physical separation from others.11 Yet its relative proximity to Jerusalem and other Judean towns may indicate the sect’s aspiration to engage or challenge other Jews by its physical presence. 2. Origins Since some of the key sectarian documents, such as D and S, have forms that predate the occupation of the site, this group and the related Essene movement must have originated earlier. The most plausible date is the Macca-

7

For somewhat divergent accounts that nevertheless demonstrate more fully the many debated issues in reconstructing this history, see van der Woude, “Fifty Years of Qumran Research,” 28–35; James C. VanderKam, “Identity and History of the Community,” in Flint and VanderKam, Dead Sea Scrolls after Fifty Years, 2:501–531. 8 See the dispute cited above in Magness, Archaeology, 63–8. For the certainty of the date of destruction, see note 6 above. 9 For early expressions of the “consensus theory,” see Frank Moore Cross, The Ancient Library of Qumran (3d rev. and enl. ed.; BSem 30; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995, first published in 1958), and Milik, Dix ans. For a non-Essene theory, see Shemaryahu Talmon, “The Community of the Renewed Covenant: Between Judaism and Christianity,” in The Community of the Renewed Covenant: The Notre Dame Symposium on the Dead Sea Scrolls, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Ind. (ed. Eugene C. Ulrich and James C. VanderKam; CJA 10; Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), 3–24. 10 See respectively Stegemann, “Qumran Essenes,” 83–166; Philip R. Davies, Behind the Essenes: History of and Ideology of the Dead Sea Scrolls (BJS 94; Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1987), 20, following Murphy-O’Connor. This is relevant for how a majority/minority group identity might affect ethics. 11 See Philip R. Davies, Qumran (American ed.; CBW; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1983), 15–20, for Qumran’s physical environment.

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bean/Hasmonean period (second century B.C.E.),12 although some suggest roots in or after the Babylonian exile. The most likely location of their origins is Judea, near Jerusalem.13 Theories that suggest origins in the Diaspora or Damascus are plausible, but far from certain.14 The identity of these protoEssenes, some of whose successors eventually settled at Qumran, is even more obscure. The favourite option is that they were originally priests,15 with Enochic Jews and late returnees from the exile being other plausible but not necessarily mutually exclusive suggestions.16 Quite aside from the actual history, how the sect accounted for its own origins was important for how it constructed its identity. 3. Teacher of Righteousness Although the identity of the enigmatic “Teacher of Righteousness” cannot be determined precisely,17 many scholars recognize his key role in the founding of the Qumran community or its predecessor. While some believe that the Teacher brought his followers to Qumran, he probably had died before his followers settled at Qumran. Nevertheless, even if the Teacher was not himself at Qumran, his prestige and spiritual authority persisted in the collective memory of the Qumranites, as reflected in the appeals to his authority as the

12 For variants within this view, see VanderKam, “Identity and History of the Community,” 507–14. 13 This is implied by the Maccabean hypothesis, and the understanding that the sectarian movement began with certain controversies surrounding the Jerusalem Temple. See, e.g., Hartmut Stegemann, The Library of Qumran: On the Essenes, Qumran, John the Baptist, and Jesus (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1998), 148–52. 14 Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, “The Essenes and Their History,” RB 81 (1974): 215–44, and Joseph Blenkinsopp, “The Qumran Sect in the Context of Second Temple Sectarianism,” in Campbell, Lyons, and Pietersen, New Directions in Qumran Studies, 10–25. Samuel Iwry, “Was There a Migration to Damascus? The Problem of Shvi Yshr}l,” ErIsr 9 (1969): 80–88. Theories of first century C.E. origins are inconsistent with the archaeological data. 15 E.g., the early synthesis of Kurt Schubert, The Dead Sea Community: Its Origin and Teachings (trans. John W. Doberstein; London: A&C Black, 1959), 37. 16 For Enochic Jews or Enochian, see Paolo Sacchi, The History of the Second Temple Period (JSOTSup 285; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), esp. 174–80, and Gabriele Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis: The Parting of the Ways between Qumran and Enochic Judaism (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1998), esp. 165–96. For late returnees from exile, at least for the community of CD, see Davies, Damascus Covenant, 202–3. 17 Although this sobriquet or honorific title is the subject of intense interest and speculations in Qumran research, its occurrence in the Scrolls is limited to the pesharim, most notably 1QpHab (I, 3; II, 2; V, 10; VII, 4; VIII, 3; IX, 9–10; XI, 5), which consistently uses the form hrwm qdxh , and CD, which has qdx hrwm instead. The title is not attested unambiguously in any Qumran version of D, but is very plausibly reconstructed in 4Q266 2 I, 14. This scarcity of references to the Teacher of Righteousness, except for one document of dubious historical reliability (1QpHab), precludes certainty about the Teacher.

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inspired interpreter of God’s law.18 Furthermore, references to the Teacher’s priesthood in 4QpPsa and the mentions of the “sons of Zadok” in CD and 1QS, for example, have led many to accept that the Teacher of Righteousness was a Zadokite high priest,19 helping to explain the priestly worldview of the sect and its concern for purity. Although who the Zadokites were in this context remains problematic, some Qumran texts recall the Teacher as a priest, plausibly the high priest in Jerusalem during the so-called intersacerdotium in 159–152 B.C.E.20 4. Opposition/Schism Since references to the Teacher often allude to some conflict with others, scholars have focused on the contexts of the opposition(s) and schism(s) that gave rise to the Qumran community or its predecessors.21 According to one theory, the Teacher broke away from the Hasmonean priests and their followers to form the Essene movement, and a later split within that group caused the Teacher to lead his followers to Qumran.22 Another theory envisions the Essenes as an apocalyptic/messianic group prior to the appearance of the Teacher, who then caused a split within the group and led a splinter group to Qumran.23 Recently, scholars have shifted their attention to the issues of the schism(s) rather than the identification of the opposing parties.24 While it has long been suggested that the Essenes emerged out of a power struggle over the Jerusalem priesthood,25 more recent studies clarify that the issues that 18

E.g., 1QpHab VII, 4. For a concise survey, see Charlotte Hempel, The Damascus Texts (CQS 1; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), 62, where she identifies G. Jeremias and his student H. Stegemann as the trendsetters who began the reconstruction of Qumran history by focusing on the identity of the personalities. 20 Stegemann, “Qumran Essenes,” 148–53. Combining this conclusion with the dating of the beginning of the Qumran settlement at around or after 100 B.C.E. would lead to the tentative inference that the Teacher probably had died before the move to Qumran. 21 See, e.g., the statement in Cross, Ancient Library of Qumran, 100, “The key to any sound reconstruction of the historical circumstances which gave rise to the Essene movement lies in an adequate explanation of the particularly priestly character of the early schismatic community.” (emphasis mine) For a more recent study on the polemic concerns within the Qumran texts, see Stephen Goranson, “Others and Intra-Jewish Polemic as Reflected in Qumran Texts,” in Flint and VanderKam, Dead Sea Scrolls after Fifty Years, 2:354–51. 22 For the view that the Teacher of Righteousness founded the Essene movement, see Stegemann, “Qumran Essenes,” 138–9. For the idea that the Teacher led a group to Qumran after an internal split within the Essene movement, see VanderKam, “Identity and History,” 527. 23 E.g., Florentino García Martínez, “Qumran Origins and Early History: A Groningen Hypothesis,” FO 25 (1988): 113–36. 24 For the shift towards legal issues as the cause of dispute, see Hempel, Damascus Texts, 65. 25 E.g., Cross, Ancient Library, 101. 19

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precipitated the irreconcilable split(s) included legal interpretations, religious ideologies, and cultic calendars.26 III. Summary and Implications of Reconstruction Joining the pieces of the puzzle above, a tentative summary of the history of the Qumranites can be expressed in terms of at least three stages. First, early Essenism emerged in Palestine during the mid-second century B.C.E., possibly as a multi-faceted reaction against the domineering rise of the Maccabeans. Later Essenes remembered this formative stage of Essenism as a well intentioned but undirected reform movement until the arrival of the Teacher (CD I, 8–11). During this phase, a number of distinctive concerns and ideologies arose within different Jewish groups, including priestly interests, apocalypticism, wisdom and scribal concerns, and mantological matters, as reflected in such compositions as 1 Enoch and Jubilees.27 Second, the Teacher emerged as a leader of the movement, probably in the second half of the second century. As a charismatic priest claiming special insight into the Torah, he unified early Essenism against the Maccabeans and provided an alternative way to be faithful to God. The sect continued under the Teachers’ leadership, produced its own literature, and established local chapters until his death some years later.28 Then, an internal dispute in the following leadership vacuum probably fractured the Essenes into two groups or more,29 one of which, apparently with a more strict priestly legal interpretation, went to Qumran.30 Finally, having settled at Qumran around 100 B.C.E., these Qumranites experienced ebbs and flows in both their communal life and literary activities,31

26

For cultic purity, see Schiffman, Reclaiming, 83. For calendar as well, see Meir BarIlan, “The Reasons for Sectarianism according to the Tannaim and Josephus’s Allegation of the Impurity of Oil for the Essenes,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls Fifty Years after Their Discovery (ed. Lawrence H. Schiffman, Emanuel Tov, and James C. VanderKam; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2000), 587–99. 27 George J. Brooke, “Crisis Without, Crisis Within: Change and Development within the Essene Movement,” (Forthcoming, Paper presented at TWU on October 6, 2005). 28 Milik, Ten Years, 90. 29 Brooke, “Crisis.” 30 Hannah K. Harrington, “Holiness in the Laws of 4QMMT,” in Legal Texts and Legal Issues: Proceedings of the Second Meeting of the International Organization for Qumran Studies, Cambridge, 1995: Published in Honour of Joseph M. Baumgarten (ed. Moshe J. Bernstein, Florentino García Martínez, and John I. Kampen; STDJ 23; Leiden: Brill, 1997), 109–28. However, see the caveats in Lester L. Grabbe, “4QMMT and Second Temple Jewish Society,” 89–108 in the same volume. 31 See Magness, Archaeology, 66–69, for her persuasive argument, contra de Vaux, that Qumran was abandoned only for a few years shortly before the turn of the era.

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but continued to exist until they were apparently annihilated by the Roman army around 68 C.E. This synopsis of the Qumran/Essene history, though necessarily tentative and imprecise,32 suggests the importance of reading the Scrolls in their probable historical contexts for a better understanding of the ethics of the Qumranites and their wider movement. Such a reading is illuminating in at least three interrelated ways. First, reading texts in their historical contexts helps elucidate each text on its own terms and in its own historical setting. For example, reading the pre-Qumranic strands of D against the backdrop of the priestly conflicts of Hasmonean Palestine helps explain the centrality of holiness expressed in sectarian purity laws. Second, such a reading of the texts helps avoid homogenization. It promotes taking diversity and disparate perspectives seriously and allows for explanations in terms of development and splintering within the movement. Finally, this way of reading the Scrolls heightens the awareness of the important factors in the development of Essene ethics, including the Qumranic variety, factors that likely played key roles in the ethics of the movement, such as their particular appropriation and interpretation of sacred texts as a part of their tradition, their self-identity, their social and political contexts, and their “apocalyptic” eschatology. How these factors affected ethics in the Scrolls will be explored in turn after this chapter.

B. Locating the Key Texts in Their Historical Contexts The Damascus Document (D) and the Rule of the Community (S) are arguably two of the most important sectarian documents for the Qumran community.33 This section will take them as examples of sectarian texts and locate them in the history of the Qumran movement by exploring the complexity of their composition and textual development.34

32 For alternatives that place both the Teacher and his sect in the first century B.C.E., see, e.g., Michael O. Wise, “Dating the Teacher of Righteousness and the Floruit of His Movement,” JBL 122 (2003): 53–87. 33 See, e.g., the assertion in Milik, Ten Years, 38. Though the attention these two documents have received partly arose from their early discovery (CD in Cairo and 1QS in Qumran Cave 1) and their relatively well-preserved condition, their unrivalled status as authoritative guides for community life is acknowledged by most scholars. See the reasons for their importance in Hempel, Damascus Texts, 87, and Metso, Textual Development, 1. 34 As Metso astutely states, “The . . . penal codes in S and D . . . shows clearly that the composite character of the documents must be considered in any attempts to reconstruct the life and history of the Essene communities.” Sarianna Metso, “The Relationship between the Damascus Document and the Community Rule,” in Baumgarten, Chazon, and Pinnick, Damascus Document, 91.

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I. The Damascus Document Schechter was the first to recognize the composite nature of CD.35 While offering no source-critical theories, he noted the major divisions of the document – what later researchers would call the Admonition and the Laws.36 Explicitly source-critical studies of CD since Schechter have focused only on either one or the other division.37 Whatever the inherent weakness of such segmented analyses, it is still convenient to present the source criticism of CD in two parts.38 The composite quality of the Admonition has been documented clearly since the 50s and 60s. Some scholars isolated here material in verse from interpolations in prose.39 More important for this book, commentators such as A. Denis proposed that the Admonition could be divided into parts reflecting different stages of the community’s development.40 In the early 70s, J. Murphy-O’Connor discerned eight components in the Admonition that stemmed from various stages of the community.41 A decade later, P. Davies postulated a pre-Qumran original core document (a composite document originated in the pre-Qumran community), a second layer of warnings added in the context of opposition from external authorities, and a final layer of Qumranic redactional supplement that reflected the ideology of this “community of the new covenant”.42 More recently, M. Boyce has argued that the Admonition is composed of three strands – a poetic strand dating to the lifetime of the Teacher of Righteousness (140–110 B.C.E.), a redactional strand (from 88–70 B.C.E.), and a midrashic strand from no later than the second half of the first century B.C.E.43

35

Schechter, Documents, 42. Though generally correct in his assessment of the contents of each part, the Talmudist anachronistically described these divisions as “Hagada” and “Halacha.” Schechter, Documents, 44. 37 Hempel, Damascus Texts, 52–53, 87–88. 38 The following draws from the excellent survey in Hempel, Damascus Texts, 44–53. 39 E.g., Isaac Rabinowitz, “A Reconsideration of ‘Damascus’ and ‘390 Years’ in the ‘Damascus’ (‘Zadokite’) Fragments,” JBL 73 (1954): 11–35; Rav A. Soloff, “Toward Uncovering Original Texts in the Zadokite Documents,” NTS 5 (1958): 62–67. 40 Albert-Marie Denis, Les thèmes de connaissance dans le Document de Damas (Louvain: Universitaire de Louvain, 1967). 41 Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, “An Essene Missionary Document? CD II, 14–VI, 1,” RB 77 (1970): 201–29; “A Literary Analysis of Damascus Document VI, 2–VIII, 3,” RB 78 (1971): 210–32; “Critique of the Princes of Judah: CD VIII, 3–19,” RB 79 (1972): 200–216; “A Literary Analysis of Damascus Document XIX, 33–XX, 34,” RB 79 (1972): 544–64. 42 Davies, Damascus Covenant, 198–201. 43 Mark J. Boyce, “The Poetry of the Damascus Document (Syria, Qumran),” (PhD thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1988). 36

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The Laws in CD are likewise found to be a composite work. A. Rubenstein,44 working with the misarranged text,45 identified five components in the Laws and suggested a three-stage development of CD as a whole. However, it was much later that researchers, such as R. Davis, began to include the evidence from Cave 4 in the analysis of the Laws.46 Davis proposed that the Laws were composed in four stages that included a “pre-Qumranic nonsectarian legal code”, “extra-Qumranic sectarian rules”, and “Qumranic redaction”. More recently, C. Hempel uses 4QD comprehensively to distinguish four blocks of material in the Laws,47 concluding that “the communal legislation underwent a process of redaction in order to bring it into line with the community behind the Community Rule . . . . Thus, the Laws of the Damascus Document continued to be revised and brought up to date rather than merely copied by the S community.”48 These redactional theories for both parts of D debunk the assumption that D reflects a pre-Qumran or extraQumran perspective throughout. Care is therefore required in later chapters to determine the redactional layer to which a particular passage belongs. II. The Community Rule Scholars have long realized that 1QS is a composite and redacted document.49 J. Murphy-O’Connor presented one of the first redactional theories of 1QS, dividing it into four developmental stages corresponding to de Vaux’s archaeological phases.50 Though seminal, this proposal was subsequently undermined by the uncertainty of de Vaux’s period Ia and the publication of 4QS. Based on her material reconstruction of these Cave 4 texts, S. Metso offers a schema for the multi-strand development of S, theorizing that two distinct lines of traditions of S, as represented by 4QSb,d and 4QSe, were brought together by a redactor to form 1QS.51 One of the major premises of

44

Arie Rubinstein, “Urban Halakhah and Camp Rules in the «Cairo Fragments of a Damascene Covenant»,” Sef 12 (1952): 283–96. 45 Milik later corrected the placement of CD XV–XVI by placing it before CD IX, based on his work on 4QD. See additional note 3 in Milik, Ten Years, 151–52. 46 Robert W. Davis, Jr., “The History of the Composition of the ‘Damascus Document’ Statutes” (PhD diss., Harvard University, 1992). 47 Charlotte Hempel, The Laws of the Damascus Document: Sources, Tradition, and Redaction (STDJ 29; Leiden: Brill, 1998), 11–12; 51–52. 48 Hempel, Laws, 191. 49 Sarianna Metso, The Serekh Texts (CQS 9; London: T&T Clark, 2007), 15. 50 Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, “La genèse littéraire de la Règle de la Communauté,” RB 76 (1969): 528–49. This work, later developed by J. Pouilly, was done without the benefit of the 4Q material of course. 51 Metso, Textual Development.

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Metso’s hypothesis, endorsed by M. Bockmuehl and others,52 is that earlier and shorter text forms were later expanded and conflated. This leads to the seemingly odd conclusion that earlier forms of S were apparently copied and preserved even after the emergence of later forms. Consequently, Metso challenges the prevalent assumption that a single authoritative version of S existed as a law book at Qumran.53 Instead, she concludes that multiple versions of S existed simultaneously, each functioning more like “a record of judicial decisions and a digest of oral traditions” for educational purpose in the community.54 Bockmuehl, parting with Metso here, proposes three speculative but plausible explanations for late copies of earlier texts: they were copied for unofficial study; they were brought to Qumran by Essenes from elsewhere; or they were copied in the same way different recensions of biblical texts were copied.55 P. Alexander likewise insists on the official function of S and moreover gives priority to the palaeographic dating.56 Thus, he proposes a recension history that comports with Cross’ schema: beginning with 1QS and 4QSc at c. 100 B.C.E., followed by 4QSe c. 50 B.C.E., and 4QSb,d c. 25 B.C.E., with the later and shorter texts being abbreviations of the earlier texts. As Knibb observes with a hint of resignation about the redaction history of S, “in the end it may have to be recognized that there can be no certainty.”57 Important questions such as whether 1QS preceded or followed 4QSb,d and 4QSe, whether the texts developed in a linear fashion or in separate traditions, whether there was a standard text that functioned authoritatively, are far from settled. Nevertheless, this book will tentatively assume that various forms of S were successively normative in the Qumran community in some sense, that they reflect developing norms based on evolving worldviews. As Bockmuehl reasonably concludes, “[I]t is clear that the manuscript tradition of the Community Rule did undergo significant changes, and these changes may attest developments both in the sect’s corporate governance and in its overall understanding of theology and membership in the people of God.”58

52

Markus N. A. Bockmuehl, “Redaction and Ideology in the Rule of the Community (1QS/4QS),” RevQ 18 (1998): 545–46. 53 Metso, Textual Development, 151, 154, 54 Sarianna Metso, “The Redaction of the Community Rule,” in Schiffman, Tov, and VanderKam, Dead Sea Scrolls Fifty Years After, 383–84. See also her “In Search of the Sitz im Leben of the Community Rule,” in The Provo International Conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls: Technological Innovations, New Texts, and Reformulated Issues (ed. Donald W. Parry and Eugene C. Ulrich; STDJ 30; Leiden: Brill, 1999), 314. 55 Bockmuehl, “Redaction,” 545–6. 56 Alexander, “Redaction History.” 57 Knibb, “Rule,” 796. 58 Bockmuehl, “Redaction,” 557.

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III. Fitting Texts in the Chronology of the Qumran Community As presented above, both D and S are generally recognized to have a preQumran core that the Qumran community continuously revised, expanded, and updated as the community developed.59 Although dating the origins of various portions of either document is often extremely hazardous,60 whenever there are indications about the dating of different portions of these documents, whether absolute or relative, it is proper to attend to their different perspectives and consider if development is evident. To apply this more generally to other texts from Qumran, it is possible to locate the view of a particular text approximately in a pre-Qumran, early-Qumran, or late-Qumran context. These three periods correspond roughly to second century B.C.E., first century B.C.E., and first century C.E. Alternatively, one can correlate them with early Hasmonean rule or before, late Hasmonean rule, and Herodian rule to explicate how the political context influenced sectarian ethics. For example, as Chapter Eight will suggest, some Qumranic texts seem to reflect a greater emphasis on future judgment as ethical motivation than some pre-Qumran or early-Qumran texts do, possibly because of the community’s reaction to the increasing hostility of outside forces.

C. Textual Evidence for Development and Variation in Worldviews The brief review above showed D and S as examples of Qumran texts that can be placed, however tenuously, on a historical framework of the Qumran community and the wider Essene movement. In this section, two sample topics that seem fundamental to Qumran ethics, as the previous chapter has highlighted, will be examined from this perspective, to find some evidence for variation and development in the sectarian worldviews as the results of changing historical contexts. I. Purity The Qumran sectarian texts reveal a strong concern for purity, one that not only played a probably decisive role in the formation and development of the

59 As S. Metso observes, the evidence from Cave 4 challenges the view that D applied to the Essene movement at large while S applied to Qumran. See Metso, “Relationship,” 86–7. For a recent discussion on the complex literary relationship between parallel sections of D and S, see Charlotte Hempel, “CD Manuscript B and the Rule of the Community – Reflections on a Literary Relationship.” DSD 16 (2009): 370–87. 60 Metso, “In Search of the Sitz im Leben,” 309.

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community,61 but also reveals one of its worldviews. F. García Martínez convincingly demonstrates that purity was a key concept that developed with the community.62 According to his analysis, Palestinian Jews wrestled with the problem of purity in the Maccabean period, following the desecration and rededication of the Temple. Various approaches to solve this problem both became important for Jewish self-identity and caused sectarian divisions.63 Appearing within this context is the Temple Scroll, which is thoroughly preoccupied with purity, both of the Holy Temple and the holy people.64 This composition shows three distinctive tendencies to extend 1) the purity required of the Temple to the whole city; 2) the purity required of the priests to the whole people; and 3) the field of defilement.65 Written after 11QTa but no later than the early stage of the Qumran community is 4QMMT.66 Its list of disputed halakhic issues as the basis of sectarian separation is also full of purity concerns and even more explicitly shares the same triple tendency to maximize purity requirements.67 Its views likely reflect a time before the sect’s final break from the Temple. Next, CD IX–XII, 20 represents the halakhic positions of the community after its decisive break from the Temple.68 It continues the trends mentioned above, to the point of transferring the purity requirements of the Temple to the community.69 Finally, 1QS VI, 24–VII, 25

61

Hannah K. Harrington, “Purity,” EDSS 2:724. Florentino García Martínez, “The Problem of Purity: The Qumran Solution,” in The People of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their Writings, Beliefs and Practice (ed. Florentino García Martínez and Julio C. Trebolle Barrera; trans. Wilfred G. E. Watson; Leiden: Brill, 1995), 139–57, 253–56, originally published in Spanish in 1989. 63 García Martínez, “Problem of Purity,” 140. See Chapter Six for the role of purity stringency in identity formation and its implications for ethics. 64 Despite its coherence with other sectarian texts, the reception of 11QTa at Qumran is uncertain. While García Martínez all but considers 11QTa a Qumran sectarian text, which is probably pre-Qumran, his conclusion about its impact on the idea of purity at Qumran is not invalidated. 65 García Martínez, “Problem of Purity,” 143. 66 Though possibly pre-Qumran, judging by the number and lateness of the copies, 4QMMT most probably reflects the views of the Qumranites. 67 For the expanded definition of holiness in 4QMMT, see also Hannah K. Harrington, “Biblical Law at Qumran,” in Flint and VanderKam, Dead Sea Scrolls after Fifty Years, 1:176; and Harrington, “Holiness in the Laws of 4QMMT,” 109–28. 68 While the chronological relationship between 4QMMT and this part of CD is unsettled, the relative sequence of García Martínez’s analysis is generally valid, clearly showing the ideological development in the pre-Qumran/pre-sectarian phase (11QTa), pre-Qumran/early Qumran phase (4QMMT, CD), and early Qumran phase (1QS) of the community’s history outlined above. 69 For the possible implications of such a transference of temple ideology to the Qumran site on marriage and sexuality, see Elisha Qimron, “Celibacy in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the 62

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presents even later ideas about purity, where the transfer of the purity requirements to the community is clearly developed.70 Moreover, it contains a complete and unprecedented equation of ritual and moral impurity along with the equation of purification and justification.71 This tendency to maximize purity requirements reflects the priestly worldview of the Qumranites and their predecessors, with its focus on purity, holiness, and hierarchy. As E. Regev proposes, this suggests a dynamic or ontological view of holiness that sees it as a dangerous reality calling for extreme vigilance, rather than a static or deontological view of holiness that understands the preservation of holiness as a matter of obedience independent of metaphysics.72 If so, the Qumranic worldview embraces a kind of ethical naturalism mentioned in the previous chapter. II. Dualism The prominence of dualism in the sectarian literature is likewise well noted from the beginning of Qumran scholarship.73 Recent discussions of dualism in the Scrolls draw a complex picture that challenges the “unilinear” models of development.74 While most recognize that the dualism found in the Scrolls is “attenuated” – it is “dualism under God,”75 there is yet no consensus on its origins or the direction of its development. J. Frey rejects two contrasting approaches to Qumran dualism: P. von der Osten-Sacken, who proposes that the cosmic or eschatological dualism reflected in 1QM was later developed into the ethical dualism of 1QS III, 13– Two Kinds of Sectarians,” in Trebolle Barrera and Vegas Montaner, Madrid Qumran Congress, 1:287–94. 70 For my analysis of this passage and its ethical implications, see Chapter Nine, Section A. 71 Such equations make immoral acts and actors especially reprehensible in a community that identifies itself through Temple purity. 72 Eyal Regev, “Reconstructing Qumranic and Rabbinic Worldviews: Dynamic Holiness vs. Static Holiness,” in Fraade, Shemesh, and Clements, Rabbinic Perspectives, 87–112. 73 E.g., the seminal work of Peter von der Osten-Sacken, Gott und Belial: Traditionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zum Dualismus in den Texten aus Qumran (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1969). 74 This challenge potentially complicates the rather linear model of the development of the concept of purity presented above. 75 Jean Duhaime, “Dualism,” EDSS 1:216. For a clarifying analysis of the various types of dualism, see Jörg Frey, “Different Patterns of Dualistic Thought in the Qumran Library: Reflections on Their Background and History,” in Bernstein, García Martínez, and Kampen, Legal Texts and Legal Issues, 275–335, and illustrating a particular type of dualism, Jutta Leonhardt-Balzer, “A Case of Psychological Dualism: Philo of Alexandria and the Instruction on the Two Spirits” in Early Christian Literature and Intertextuality, Volume 2: Exegetical Studies (ed. Craig A. Evans and H. Daniel Zacharias; LNTS 392; London: T&T Clark, 2009), 27–45.

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IV, 26, and J. Duhaime, who views the ethical dualism in the Two Spirits Treatise as original, while the cosmic dualism in the passage was introduced afterwards.76 Frey suggests that the dualism found in this passage is a conflation of distinct patterns of dualistic thought.77 For him, the Two Spirits Treatise contains both a sapiential ethical dualism from such pre-Essene texts as 4QInstruction, a priestly cosmic dualism from the likewise pre-Essene Aramaic testaments, and also a psychological dualism. Elsewhere, however, Frey sees cosmic dualism eclipsing both the ethical and the psychological, as in 1QM. Thus, he considers 1QS III, 13–IV, 26 an anomaly and not a representative text for the Qumran community.78 S. Hultgren, in his recent monograph,79 disagrees with Frey and defends the importance of 1QS III, 13–IV, 26. He sees the priestly and sapiential forms of dualism as pre-Qumran sources of Qumran dualism and draws on Osten-Sacken to add the eschatological war dualism of the War Scroll as a third source.80 According to Hultgren, this particular blend of dualism in 1QS III, 13–IV, 26 had an important function in the Qumran community: it reinforced the self-understanding of the community as the only place where divinely required purity is possible, where the sons of light are kept from the sons of darkness, and where the sectarians can live proleptically in God’s eschatological purification.81 Despite his disagreement with Frey, Hultgren affirms Frey’s view that several types of dualism were brought together and developed by the Qumran movement. Furthermore, Hultgren sees this development as a reflection of a separatist self-understanding. This suggests that, at least in some cases, a particular worldview was not the basis of self-identity, but that an identity that arose out of historical exigencies, such as a break from the political centre in Jerusalem or the arrival of the Romans, may have shaped worldview and the resulting ethics.82 The above discussions, brief as they are, illustrate and suggest the strength of a historically sensitive investigation of Qumran ethics. Such an approach endeavours to trace the development of concepts in the sectarian texts by locating the relevant texts in a cautiously reconstructed historical framework, exposing how historical situations might influence worldviews and the ethics 76

These statements may oversimplify Frey’s account, not to mention the original authors. Frey, “Different Patterns,” 285–89. 78 Frey, “Different Patterns,” 306. 79 Stephen Hultgren, From the Damascus Covenant to the Covenant of the Community: Literary, Historical, and Theological Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls (STDJ 66; Leiden: Brill, 2007). 80 Hultgren, From the Damascus Covenant, 317–78. 81 Hultgren, From the Damascus Covenant, 373–78. He also cites 1QHa XII, 12b–22a to suggest how different kinds of dualism functioned together in the community’s selfunderstanding. 82 See Chapter Six for an exploration in this direction. 77

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they engendered. Thus, with a method that is attentive to the specific mode of ethical discourse at Qumran vis-à-vis the diversity of ethical discourses (Chapter Three), and to the historical contexts behind the texts (this chapter), the stage is set for the investigation proper in the following chapters.

Part III

Ethics in the Qumran Community: Four Contributing Factors

Chapter 5

Scriptural Tradition This chapter aims to demonstrate the crucial and complex role scriptural tradition played in forming Qumran ethics. As noted, all forms of Jewish ethical discourse surveyed in Chapter Three appeal in some way to tradition as a source. Even some contemporary non-Jewish ethicists, such as MacIntyre, are reasserting the importance of tradition in shaping a community’s ethics.1 Since tradition is such a broad concept, including, for example, oral narrations and artifacts, it is necessary to limit our focus here to the sacred texts of the Qumran community. This is not only because the evidence at hand is primarily textual, but also because the collection of sacred texts found at Qumran is prima facie the most important aspect of the tradition that influenced sectarian thought and practices. Therefore, the subject of this chapter will be the reception and appropriation of scriptural traditions in some “non-biblical” texts from different stages of the Qumranites’ history, and how these traditions variously became sources or resources for their ethics. To begin, the next section will examine the concept of authoritative texts as tradition in the Qumran community, identify which sacred texts the Qumranites treated as especially authoritative, and consider the role of exegetical methods in the transformation of scriptural traditions into elements of ethics.

1 See, e.g., his remark in the context of defining a concept of tradition, “[T]he individual’s search for his or her good is generally and characteristically conducted within a context defined by those traditions of which the individual’s life is a part and this is true both of those goods which are internal to practices and of the goods of a single life.” MacIntyre, After Virtue, 222. For the Kantian “detraditionalization” of philosophical ethics after the Enlightenment, see Stephen H. Watson, Tradition(s) II: Hermeneutics, Ethics and the Dispensation of the Good (SCT; Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 2001), esp. 3–37. Inasmuch as modern ethicists following Kant reject tradition as a valid basis for ethics, they implicitly acknowledge tradition’s determinative role in “pre-modern” ethics.

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A. The Tradition of Authoritative Texts in the Qumran Community According to M. Stone, Second Temple Judaism gradually shifted from oral tradition to written scripture.2 Indeed, the Scrolls indicate that the Qumranites possessed a collection of traditional sacred texts, which was one of their primary sources of religious authority. How then did the Qumranites handle this still emerging tradition of sacred texts, or better, emerging written traditions, as the diversity of “editions” among the “biblical” manuscripts from Qumran evinces?3 I. Scriptural Authority and Canonicity Since the canon, as a closed list of sacred texts, was not fully developed in the Second Temple period, it is an anachronistic term inappropriate for this period.4 Nevertheless, the concept of scriptures, as a collection of normative and authoritative religious texts, certainly existed among the Qumranites and their contemporaries. As J. Barton convincingly asserts, Jewish scriptures included then the Torah and the Prophets, the latter of which was an open-ended collection, and both of which were viewed as divine revelation and thus authoritative.5 For the Qumran movement, the authority of scriptures rested not only on their status as God’s ancient revelation, but also on their contemporary, correct, and inspired interpretation, which the sectarians claimed to possess exclusively.6 Thus, according to the sectarians’ perspective, there was a chain 2

Michael E. Stone, “Three Transformations in Judaism: Scripture, History, and Redemption,” Numen 32 (1985): 218–35. 3 Geza Vermes, “Tradition and Scripture in Judaism: The Genesis of Literary Works in the Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Tradition: Proceedings of an International Research Workshop at IFK, Vienna, 10–12 June 1994 (ed. Christoph J. Nyíri; Wien, Austria: Internationales Forschungszentrum Kulturwissenschaften, 1995), 33–44; Eugene C. Ulrich, “The Bible in the Making: The Scripture at Qumran,” in Ulrich and VanderKam, Community of the Renewed Covenant, 83–93. For an analysis of the phenomenon of plural textual traditions within the theoretical frameworks of Durkheimian sociology, see Julio C. Trebolle Barrera, “The Authoritative Functions of the Scriptural Works at Qumran,” in Ulrich and VanderKam, Community of the Renewed Covenant, 95–110. 4 John Barton, Oracles of God: Perceptions of Ancient Prophecy in Israel after the Exile (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1986), 55–75. For an even more radical questioning of terms related to “Bible,” see Johann Maier, “Early Jewish Biblical Interpretation in the Qumran Literature,” in Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: The History of its Interpretation (ed. Magne Sæbø; vol. 1; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996), 108–29. 5 Barton, Oracles of God, 91–94. 6 Michael A. Fishbane, “Use, Authority and Interpretation of Mikra at Qumran,” in Mikra: Text, Translation, Reading, and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity (ed. Martin Jan Mulder and Harry Sysling; vol. 1; CRINT 2: LJPSTT 1; Assen: Van Gorcum, 1988), 360, citing 1QS I, 3, VIII, 15–16. “[T]he authority of the Law

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of authority that began with God and his revelation, mediated through his authoritative spokesmen, Moses and the prophets, and finally coming through the authoritative teachers of the community as inspired interpreters of the texts.7 In this way, the Qumranites viewed divine revelation as ongoing in their times.8 II. List of Authoritative Texts While all of the books of the subsequently canonical Hebrew Bible were apparently present at Qumran, except Esther,9 it is unclear if the Qumranites treated them as equally authoritative. Conversely, the scriptural status of “non-canonical” compositions, such as Jubilees, cannot be summarily ruled out. If the sectarians’ view of authoritative scriptures, as suggested above, did not envision a closed canon, it may be more appropriate to ask which compositions within their sizable collection they considered especially authoritative, rather than canonical. G. Brooke has helpfully supplied four criteria for identifying such “especially authoritative” texts in terms of “the canon within the canon” at Qumran.10 The four criteria are the number of copies preserved, the frequency of explicit citations, the implicit dependency of a later composition, and the function as a model for later texts. Using these four criteria together, Brooke identifies four “biblical” books as the most authoritative scriptural texts at Qumran: Deuteronomy, Isaiah, Psalms (the popularity of these at Qumran has long been recognized), and Genesis.11 The multifarious use of these four particularly privileged books in the Qumran community to formulate ethics, two from the Torah and two from the Prophets, will be examined below.

and the Prophecies for the sectarians cannot be separated from the way in which they were interpreted.” 7 Fishbane, “Use, Authority and Interpretation,” 360. 8 See the description of scriptures at Qumran as a “living bible” in Talmon, “Community of the Renewed Covenant,” 17–20. See also Alex P. Jassen, Mediating the Divine: Prophecy and Revelation in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Second Temple Judaism (STDJ 68; Leiden: Brill, 2007). 9 Though not extant, Esther was likely known at Qumran. Shemaryahu Talmon, “Was the Book of Esther Known at Qumran?” DSD 2 (1995): 249–67. 10 George J. Brooke, “‘The Canon within the Canon’ at Qumran and in the New Testament,” in The Scrolls and the Scriptures: Qumran Fifty Years After (ed. Stanley E. Porter and Craig A. Evans; JSPSup 26; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), 244–50. 11 Brooke, “Canon within the Canon,” 250. Applying the criteria separately, Brooke identifies other notable books as Exodus, Leviticus, the Twelve Minor Prophets, Numbers, Ezekiel, and Jeremiah.

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III. Exegetical Methods While the Qumran community had its own list of especially authoritative scriptures, the techniques it employed to interpret, apply, and appropriate scriptures for its own purposes were at least comparable with those of other Second Temple groups.12 Nevertheless, the particularly sectarian applications of these exegetical methods partly controlled how scriptural traditions helped shape ethics distinctively at Qumran.13 Among the vast literature on Qumran exegesis,14 many have classified the forms of scriptural interpretation at Qumran, with their corresponding exegetical techniques.15 Some of these specific methods will be mentioned below as appropriate.

B. The Use of Torah Texts in the Sectarian Scrolls: Genesis Various compositions from Qumran show a heavy dependence on Genesis. First are those pre-sectarian and non-sectarian narrative works such as 1 Enoch and Jubilees. Second are the Aramaic pseudepigraphic compositions such as Testament of Levi/Aramaic Levi/Apocryphon of Levi (1Q21, 4Q213– 214b, 4Q540–541), Testament of Qahat (4Q542), and Vision of Amram (4Q543–548), most of which are probably pre-sectarian.16 Third are some probably non-sectarian compositions first found at Qumran, including Reworked Pentateuchb (4Q364), Pseudo-Jubileesa (4Q225), and Genesis Apocryphon (1QapGen/1Q20). Finally, there are truly sectarian works such as

12 E.g., Menahem Kister, “A Common Heritage: Biblical Interpretation at Qumran and Its Implications,” in Biblical Perspectives: Early Use and Interpretation of the Bible in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Proceedings of the First International Symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, 12–14 May 1996 (ed. Michael E. Stone and Esther G. Chazon; STDJ 28; Leiden: Brill, 1998), 101–11. 13 Fishbane, “Use, Authority and Interpretation,” 339–40, avers that the Scrolls reveal the vital role of scriptural interpretation in community formation. 14 For a recent survey, see George J. Brooke, “Biblical Interpretation at Qumran,” in The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. James H. Charlesworth; vol. 1; Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2006), 449–97. 15 E.g., Fishbane, “Use, Authority and Interpretation”; Julio C. Trebolle Barrera, “The Bible and Biblical Interpretation in Qumran,” in García Martínez and Trebolle Barrera, People of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 113–35; Moshe J. Bernstein and Shlomo A. Koyfman, “The Interpretation of Biblical Law in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Forms and Methods,” in Biblical Interpretation at Qumran (ed. Matthias Henze; SDSSRL; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2005), 65–74; and Brooke, “Biblical Interpretation,” 304–14. 16 For the possible sectarian status of the latter two, see Michael E. Stone, “Qahat,” EDSS 2:731–32, and Michael E. Stone, “Amram,” EDSS 1:23–24.

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Commentary on Genesis A (4Q252).17 At least three functions are discernible for how developing and adapted traditions from Genesis were used in these and other compositions from Qumran to construct ethics. I. The Use of Genesis to Explain the Origin of Evil The apparent interest in the origin of moral evil is well attested in such Second Temple texts as 1 Enoch, Jubilees, and the Scrolls. This reflects a concern for a part of what some ethicists call “moral cosmologies”18 – accounts of the universe that infuse it with moral meanings. Among the diverse writings from this period that explain the origin of evil, two distinct traditions from Genesis are found. While the tradition about the fall of Adam and Eve (Gen 3) is preserved among the Scrolls,19 the tradition highlighting the responsibility of the fallen angels in the corruption of humanity (Gen 6) dominates the Qumran collection.20 Two diachronic examples below show the varied ways the community appropriated this tradition about the demonic origin of evil. In a part of the Damascus Document (CD II, 14–21, parallel 4Q266 2 II, 13–21), which most commentators date to the earliest period of the movement,21 the addressees are exhorted to choose to “walk perfectly in all [God’s] ways” and not to “follow after the thoughts of sinful inclination and fornicating eyes.” In this passage heavy with ethical overtones, the example of the fallen angels and humanity in the aftermath of Gen 6:1–4 is cited. Seemingly influenced by Deut 29:18 or its numerous citations in Jeremiah, this passage attributes the fall of the “Angels of Heaven” to their “walking in the stubbornness of their heart.” How this early passage handles the Genesis tradition intertextually with Deuteronomy and Jeremiah seems to shift the focus from 17

While 4Q252 is probably composed of extracts from older compositions, some of which are non-sectarian, it is clearly Qumranic in its final form, as indicated by its reference to djyh yCna. George J. Brooke, DJD XXII, 185–207. 18 E.g., William Schweiker, “Time as a Moral Space: Moral Cosmologies, Creation, and Last Judgment,” in The End of the World and the Ends of God: Science and Theology on Eschatology (ed. John C. Polkinghorne and Michael Welker; TTFC; Harrisburg, Pa.: Trinity Press International, 2000), 124–38. 19 As indicated by the presence of material from Gen 3 in 4Q10 and 1Q1. See also references to Adam’s fall in CD X, 8–9 (parallels in 4Q266 8 III, 7 and 4Q270 6 IV, 18), and 4Q167 7 1 (via Hos 6:7). 20 Aside from the texts mentioned below, the presence of this second tradition is very prominent in non-sectarian or pre-sectarian works attested in part among the Scrolls, such as 1 Enoch (4Q201–202, 204–212), the Book of Giants (1Q23, 1Q24, 2Q26, 4Q203, 4Q530– 533, 6Q8), and Jubliees (1Q17–18, 2Q19–20, 3Q5, 4Q176a-b?, 4Q216, 4Q217?, 4Q218–224, 11Q12). Ironically, Gen 6:1–4 itself did not survive among the Genesis manuscripts from Qumran. 21 Hempel, Damascus Texts, 44–49.

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the fallen angels as originators of moral corruption to their being merely the first example of the stubborn heart, which is presented as the real and persistent cause of evil throughout human history. Such a moral cosmology, with its focus on choice, appears particularly apt for a convert-seeking movement. In contrast, the palaeographically-late-Herodian pesher, Ages of Creation (4Q180 1 7–10), alludes to the same tradition in a way more similar to 1 Enoch 6–16, 89–90 and Jubilees 4, 5, 7, 10,22 emphasizing that it was “Azazel [who taught them to love] iniquity and caused them to inherit wickedness” (WAC). Thus, the fallen angels, under their diabolical leader, are once again held to be responsible for the spread of evil in the world. This is consistent with the heightened dualistic worldview exhibited in the Two Spirits Treatise of 1QS, and its identification of spiritual beings as sources of evil. Furthermore, this “recovery” of an earlier moral cosmology may suit better a stage in Qumran history when converts were few and stark contrasts between insiders and outsiders were needed to reinforce group boundaries. II. The Use of Genesis to Present Moral Exemplars The second ethically significant function that Genesis had in the Qumran movement was to provide moral exemplars. This often involved the idealization of biblical heroes contra their less-than-flattering or at least ambiguous biblical characterizations. Chief among these biblical heroes in the Scrolls is Abraham.23 Three examples illustrate how traditions based on the Abraham of Genesis were appropriated consistently to present him as a paragon of virtue. First, in the parabiblical composition Genesis Apocryphon (1QapGen XIX, 14–XX, 10),24 which is probably dependent on Jubilees and 1 Enoch, the story of Abram making Sarai claim to be his sister while in Egypt (Gen 12:10–20) is supplemented with “extra-biblical” details. One such insertion is 22 For evidence of Qumranic provenance, see Devorah Dimant, “Ages of Creation,” EDSS 1:11–13. 23 For a discussion on how biblical heroes are idealized in ancient Jewish literature and the Scrolls, see Craig A. Evans, “Abraham in the Dead Sea Scrolls: A Man of Faith and Failure,” in The Bible at Qumran: Text, Shape, and Interpretation (ed. Peter W. Flint and Tae Hun Kim; SDSSRL; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2001), 149–58, where he states on 158 that, “The evidence of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which coheres with many other sources ancient and later, attests the early tendency to extol biblical figures. It is not surprising that Abraham’s virtue would be exaggerated while his moments of weakness would therefore be glossed over.” For the way Levi has been idealized and made into an ethical teacher in the Scrolls, all out of proportion with his unremarkable characterization in Genesis, see the comments on Aramaic Levi by Edward M. Cook in WAC, 250–60. For other examples of other figures in Levi’s lineage as moral teachers, see also the apparent sequels – Testament of Qahat (4Q542), and Vision of Amram (4Q543–548). 24 Though probably non-Qumranic, this Aramaic manuscript is late and possibly an autograph. Joseph Fitzmyer, “Genesis Apocryphon,” EDSS 1:302–4.

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a revelatory dream that Abram had, warning him of danger on account of Sarai. Another insertion is the Egyptian courtiers’ description of Sarai’s extraordinary beauty. These insertions serve to minimize Abram’s culpability, implicit in Genesis, for his conduct. The reworked narrative not only implies that Abram’s fear was well founded, but also that he acted according to a presumably divinely inspired dream. Thus, Abraham’s honour and moral impeccability is safeguarded.25 Second, Abraham is presented in the Scrolls as a model of faith in God and therefore righteous. Gen 15:6 affirms that Abram “believed in the Lord, and he considered him righteous.” Since antiquity, translators have struggled with the ambiguity of the second clause because of the inexplicit subject and object.26 In the probably pre-Qumran parabiblical Pseudo-Jubileesa (4Q225 2 I, 7), the ambiguity is removed by changing the active verb to an impersonal passive (hqdx wl bC«j«tØw), probably through an intertextual allusion to Ps 106:30–31, which memorializes the zeal of righteous Phinehas (cf. Num 25:7–13). The probably early Qumranic 4QMMT (C 31) also concludes its halakhic appeal with a version of this clause, defining righteousness by alluding to the zeal of Phinehas and the faith of Abraham. Third, Abraham is noted as an example of prompt obedience. In CD XVI, 4–6 (parallel 4Q270 6 II, 17–18), which many judge to be a later, possibly Qumranic redaction reflecting Jubilees,27 the addressees are urged to pledge to return to the Law of Moses, so that the angel of Mastemah will leave them alone. Then D cites as support Abraham’s circumcision on the very day that he knew it was required. As M. Kister persuasively argues, this citation is not about circumcision’s apotropaic power, but Abraham’s exemplary readiness to obey God.28 These examples demonstrate that Abrahamic traditions were often filtered through earlier pre-Qumran parabiblical literature, especially Jubilees, along with other intertextual allusions. Moreover, the invariably positive portrayal of Abraham as a moral example suggests the relative stability of these traditions by the first century B.C.E., though used with different nuances.

25

For a fuller discussion on this, see Evans, “Abraham in the Dead Sea Scrolls.” See Joseph A. Fitzmyer, “The Interpretation of Genesis 15,6: Abraham’s Faith and Righteousness in a Qumran Text,” in Emanuel: Studies in Hebrew Bible, Septuagint, and Dead Sea Scrolls in Honor of Emanuel Tov (ed. Shalom M. Paul, et al.; VTSup 94; Leiden: Brill, 2003), 257–68. 27 Hempel, Damascus Texts, 49–53. 28 Menahem Kister, “Demons, Theology and Abraham’s Covenant: (CD 16:4–6 and Related Texts),” in Kugler and Schuller, Dead Sea Scrolls at Fifty, 197–84, esp. 178–81. 26

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III. The Use of Genesis to Support Sectarian Halakhah Finally, three examples can be adduced to show that traditions based on Genesis were used to support the sectarians’ legal interpretations.29 CD IV, 12–V, 1 (parallel 6Q15 1 1–3), from an early, possibly pre-Qumran redactional layer of the Admonition,30 expresses the halakhic position of absolute monogamy – only one wife permitted in one’s lifetime. This apparently polemical passage, drawing intertextually from the Prophets and Deuteronomy to make its point, cites as prooftexts Gen 1:27, “male and female he created them,” and 7:9, about entering the ark “two by two.” Although these citations are not overtly about polygamy or monogamy, this passage in D seems to derive from them a principle deemed normative for marriage.31 Such a derivation of an “ought statement” about lifelong monogamy from “is statements” about the nature of humanity and creation seems to exhibit a form of ethical naturalism mentioned above.32 Another example is found in Commentary on Genesis A (4Q252 I, 1–II, 5a), where its Flood chronology supports the 364-day solar calendar promoted by earlier works such as Jubilees, a calendar that was apparently normative, if not practiced, at Qumran.33 In this possibly early Qumranic account (early Herodian or before), the day of the week of each event is purposefully noted, showing thereby that no major event happened on the Sabbath. The great importance of keeping the Sabbath and all the sacred days and festival according to the solar calendar is thus buttressed through a reworking of the Flood narrative from Genesis. Lastly, in Serekh Damascus (4Q265 7 11–17), a possibly late Qumranic halakhic anthology,34 the traditions from Jubilees 3 about when Adam and Eve each entered Eden the sanctuary are used to explain the rationale behind

29 Esther Eshel, “Hermeneutical Approaches to Genesis in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in The Book of Genesis in Jewish and Oriental Christian Interpretation: A Collection of Essays (ed. Judith Frishman and Lucas Van Romoay; TeG 5; Louvain: Peeters, 1997), 1–12. 30 Hempel, Damascus Texts, 44–49. 31 This is made explicit in Edward Cook’s translation of the phrase hayrbh dwsyw (CD IV, 21) as “although the principle of creation is . . . “ (WAC) instead of “but in the beginning.” Nevertheless, even if an appeal to “foundational principle” is not explicit in this phrase, it is implicit in the passage. 32 It may also demonstrate priestly realism in law. For the characterization of the Qumranic and Sadducean attitude towards the Law as “realist,” while that of the later Pharisees was “nominalist,” see Daniel R. Schwartz, “Law and Truth: On Qumran-Sadducean and Rabbinic Views of Law,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Forty Years of Research (ed. Devorah Dimant and Uriel Rappaport; STDJ 10; Leiden: Brill, 1992), 229–40. 33 George J. Brooke, “Genesis, Commentary on,” EDSS 1:300–302. 34 For its late Herodian palaeography, see Lawrence H. Schiffman, “Serekh-Damascus,” EDSS 2:868–69.

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the childbirth purification law in Lev 12:1–5.35 What is noteworthy is that an aetiological explanation is given for an unexplained law in scripture. This indicates a desire, already detectable in Jubilees, to give coherence to scriptural laws or even to clarify their rational/”naturalistic” bases. Once again, these examples show that relatively stable traditions from Genesis were often filtered through Jubilees and used intertextually to support ethics, and early uses of such traditions are found also in later texts.

C. The Use of Torah Texts in the Sectarian Scrolls: Deuteronomy Deuteronomy was the most “popular” Torah text among the Scrolls, as roughly indicated by the large number of both preserved manuscripts and citations/allusions in “non-biblical” works.36 Its significant influence on the language, content, and ideas of some of the Scrolls has been well noted.37 Among the “non-biblical” scrolls, the Temple Scrolla (11QTa), the Damascus Document (CD/4QD), and the Words of Moses (1Q22) contain the most citations or allusions to Deuteronomy.38 The primarily legal orientation of these most probably pre-Qumran compositions mirrors Deuteronomy’s legal concerns and partly explains its frequent citations/allusions. However, Deuteronomy was authoritative in the sectarian movement not only because of Moses’ role as lawgiver, but also because of his role as prophet. As both law and prophecy, Deuteronomy has various uses in the Scrolls. The following sections explore some of these uses that contributed to Qumran ethics. I. The Use of Deuteronomy to Promote Halakhic Stringency Two examples from the general category of “reworked” or “rewritten Bible” show a concern to reapply legal traditions from Deuteronomy more stringently. While both are probably pre-Qumran, they are clearly consistent with the ideologies of the Qumran community. First, 11QTa presents itself as a 35

Eshel calls this use of Genesis to explain the origin of a halakhah “halakhic-aetiological exegesis.” See Eshel, “Hermeneutical Approaches to Genesis,” 9–11. See also Joseph M. Baumgarten, “Purification after Childbirth and the Sacred Garden in 4Q265 and Jubilees,” in New Qumran Texts and Studies: Proceedings of the First Meeting of the International Organization for Qumran Studies, Paris, 1992 (ed. George J. Brooke and Florentino García Martínez; STDJ 15; Leiden: Brill, 1994), 3–10. 36 Johann Maier, Die Qumran-Essener: Die Texte vom Toten Meer (Band III: Einführung, Zeitrechnung, Register und Bibliographie) (3 vols.; München: E. Reinhardt, 1996), 161–78. 37 E.g., Julie A. Duncan, “Deuteronomy, Book of, “ EDSS 1:198–202; Brooke, “Canon within the Canon,” 249–50; 253–56. 38 See the indexes in Maier, Die Qumran-Essener, and VanderKam and Flint, Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

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second Torah revealed directly by God rather than through Moses, thus heightening its authority.39 While 11QTa evidently has “non-biblical” sources that champion cultic concerns similar to those of the Qumranites, a substantial portion of it (LI–LXVI) draws from the so-called Deuteronomic Code (Deut 12–26),40 which pertains to the “law for the land.” G. Brin has illustrated how such legal material from Deuteronomy was combined with other “biblical” and “extra-biblical” sources, rearranged, harmonized, and elaborated by the author/redactor of 11QTa.41 The result of this process is a coherent composition that promotes greater stringency with respect to the Temple, calendar/ festivals, purity, and miscellaneous halakhot.42 For instance, in the “Law of the King” (LVI, 12–LIX, 21), regulations for the king from Deut 17:14–20 are elaborated and tightened, possibly as a political protest against the practices of the Hasmonean kings.43 Another case is 1Q22 (1QDM Words of Moses), an apocryphal rewriting of Deuteronomy with an uncertain sectarian status. Like 11QTa, 1Q22 also reflects interests and perspectives that agree with the specifically sectarian scrolls.44 Moreover, it likewise uses traditions from Deuteronomy in a way that expands and intensifies halakhic requirements. However, these traditions emphasize Moses’ prophetic role. For example, 1Q22 1 I, 5–9 adds infractions of Sabbath and cultic festivals to the future sin of idolatry cited in Deut 4:25–28. This raises issues of sacred-time observance to the same level as idolatry. According to 1Q22, violations in both areas caused Israel’s demise in the past, in fulfilment of Moses’ words, and faithfulness in both is im39 For the appropriation and adaptation of the Bible in 11QTa, see Phillip R. Callaway, “Source Criticism of the Temple Scroll: The Purity Laws,” RevQ 12 (1986): 213–22; Lawrence H. Schiffman, “The Deuteronomic Paraphrase of the Temple Scroll,” RevQ 15 (1992): 567. 40 Andrew M. Wilson and Lawrence M. Wills, “Literary Sources of the Temple Scroll,” HTR 75 (1982): 275–88. 41 Gershon Brin, “Concerning Some of the Uses of the Bible in the Temple Scroll,” RevQ 12 (1987): 519–28. 42 For the tendency towards stringency in Deuteronomy itself, see Brooke, “Canon within the Canon,” 255. For the movement towards greater purity requirement in 11QTa, see Chapter Four, Section C, Subsection I, and Yigael Yadin, The Temple Scroll (3 vols.; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1983), 1:278–81. 43 Martin Hengel, James H. Charlesworth, and Doron Mendels, “The Polemical Character of ‘On Kingship’ in the Temple Scroll: An Attempt at Dating 11QTemple,” JJS 37 (1986): 28–38, persuasively date this passage to between 103/102 and 88 B.C.E., or during the reign of Alexander Jannaeus. For the intriguing suggestion that this passage might be read by the Qumranites as an expression of their polity and self-definition, see Steven D. Fraade, “The ‘Torah of the King’ (Deut 17:14–20) in the Temple Scroll and Early Rabbinic Law,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls as Background to Postbiblical Judaism and Early Christianity: Papers from an International Conference at St. Andrews in 2001 (ed. James R. Davila; STDJ 46; Leiden: Brill, 2003), 26–60. 44 Daniel K. Falk, “Moses, Texts of,” EDSS 1:577–81.

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plicitly crucial for the present. Adding to Deuteronomy, however, was not only done for halakhic purposes. The rendition of Deut 31:7 in 1Q22 1 I, 11b– 12 also adds Eleazar as Moses’ successor along with Joshua, reflecting a belief in plural leadership that includes both priestly and civil leaders, which in turn reflects a priestly orientation.45 II. The Use of Deuteronomy to Support Self-Understanding In contrast with the pre-sectarian compositions above, the two central sectarian documents, D and S, demonstrate that Deuteronomy was used to support not only halakhah, but also the community’s or the movement’s selfunderstanding. The halakhic function of Deuteronomy is unsurprising. C. Hempel, for example, focusing on the Laws in D (CD IX–XVI and parallels in 4QD), observes that Deuteronomy is a notable source of halakhah in what she calls the halakhic stratum of the Laws.46 J. Campbell, focusing exclusively on the Admonition (CD I–VIII, XIX–XX), notes that it not only frequently refers to parts of Deuteronomy, but also uses Deuteronomy with Leviticus to express the conspicuous theme of sin-exile-restoration.47 Indeed, CD’s presentation of the history of Israel and its own community is largely dependent on a select group of biblical texts, all interpreted in light of Deuteronomy.48 The Admonition (e.g., CD II, 14–III, 18) uses the prophetic words of Moses (e.g., Deut 29–30), among other things, to explain the history of Israel, especially its rebellion against God, its subsequent punishment, and the origin of a reforming community committed to God’s renewed covenant. The Admonition thus locates its community in this history, somewhere between the exile and the restoration, and presents a self-understanding that assumes a key role in Israel’s eschatological restoration.49

45 Falk sums up well by concluding, “Thus, a rewritten Deuteronomy is used to demonstrate concerns about calendar, submission to the community’s teachers, and atonement.” Falk, “Moses, Texts of,” 578. 46 Hempel, Laws, 14; for specific examples, see 30, 33–34, 67–70. While Hempel sees scriptural dependency as hardly noticeable in the stratum on community organization, her conclusion may be distorted by restricting her analysis to explicit scriptural citations. 47 Jonathan G. Campbell, The Use of Scripture in the Damascus Document 1–8, 19–20 (BZAW 228; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1995), 184. 48 Campbell, Use of Scripture, 102, also 187, where Campbell cites George Brooke’s observations that a number of Second Temple texts, such as CD, centre on Exod 32ff, Lev 26, Num 14ff, and Deut 27–33, “all of which are subsumed under a controlling use of [Deuteronomy].” 49 To borrow from Davies, Damascus Covenant, 55, “not only is [Deuteronomy] used by the community to present its appeal, but also that it was in [Deuteronomy] in the first place that it found its identity.” For more on the role of CD’s narration of history in identity formation, see Chapter Six, Section B, Subsection I 2.

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While the self-understanding that CD expresses partly with the help of Deuteronomy probably belonged to the predecessors of the Qumranites, 1QS contains an example that is, based on its probable date, more assuredly Qumranic. 1QS I, 16–II, 18 contains the initiation ceremony of the Yahad. Within this context, 1QS II, 1b–18 is a series of recitations of blessings and curses, roughly modelled after texts in Deut 27–29 that have to do with a communal renewal, or rectification, of the Mosaic covenant. A more obvious citation is found in 1QS II, 12b–18, where the influence of Deut 29:18–20 is unmistakable. 1QS II, 12b–14a matches the MT of Deut 29:18 almost verbatim, while the rest of the two passages have basically the same idea. Using the scriptural model of covenant renewal in nascent Israel for their own initiation ceremony, the Qumranites likely aimed to strengthen their self-understanding as the true heirs of the Mosaic covenant and the latter-day embodiment of Israel.50 The ethical significance of such strategies of identity formation will be explored more fully in the next chapter. III. The Use of Deuteronomy to Convey Eschatological Expectations Some texts from Qumran employ parts of Deuteronomy to express sectarian eschatology, the ethical relevance of which will be treated in Chapter Eight. One example is 4QTestimonia (4Q175), dated to 100–75 B.C.E. and linked palaeographically to the scribe of 1QS. As such, this short composition consisting exclusively of four excerpted texts, though showing no distinctive sectarian terminology, is regarded as a sectarian product by most.51 Even if 4Q175 had a pre-sectarian origin, its content communicates certain eschatological expectations compatible with those found in core sectarian documents such as S and D. While its citation of Exod 20:21 (Sam) and Num 24:15–17 echoes the belief in the emergence of a prophet and a royal messiah, its inclusion of Deut 33:8–11 implies the expectation of a priestly messiah (cf. 1QS IX, 11). As G. Brooke observes, these three biblical texts and a citation from Apocryphon of Joshua are used interdependently with each other to present the “cast of the eschatological struggle and reckoning,” linked together by key concepts and catchwords.52 The three Torah texts are juxtaposed to present those favoured by God in the end-time struggle between God’s people and their enemies. Lines 14–20, in particular, applies Deuteronomy to highlight the role of a priestly figure and those associated with him, which includes 50 Cf. Sarianna Metso, “The Use of Old Testament Quotations in the Qumran Community Rule,” in Qumran between the Old and New Testaments (ed. Frederick H. Cryer and Thomas L. Thompson; JSOTSup 290; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 228. 51 Jonathan G. Campbell, The Exegetical Texts (CQS 4; London: T&T Clark, 2004), 88. 52 George J. Brooke, Exegesis at Qumran: 4QFlorilegium in its Jewish Context (JSOTSup 29; Sheffield: JSOT, 1985), 309–19. This incidentally suggests once again that what the sectarians considered authoritative scriptures might have been quite fluid.

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exercise of oracular gifts and guardianship of the law and cultic practices. If Apocryphon of Joshua is cited in this text to refer to contemporary events and enemies, as most scholars believe,53 the citations referring to eschatological messianic figures may also reflect the belief that the community had already entered the End of Days, with at least some aspects of the messianic expectations already fulfilled in their experience. Another example using the same passage from Deuteronomy for eschatological purposes is 4QFlorilegium (4Q174). This thematic commentary on selected scriptural texts is Qumranic based on its distinctive terminology and pesher technique.54 As A. Steudel suggests, the phenomenon of mining scripture for eschatological insights into the historical experience of the community plausibly arose in the first century B.C.E. at Qumran.55 In 4Q174 6–7 3–6, Deut 33:8–11 is once again cited, but other fragments show that 4Q174 also includes parts of Moses’ blessings of the tribes, maybe the entire passage. Although the few preserved fragments of the commentary on each blessing do not clarify the precise point(s) of citing Deut 33, Steudel is probably right in interpreting this as one way the Qumran community identified itself as the true Israel at the End of Days – the exclusive recipient of Moses’ prophetic blessings.56 In the context of the whole composition, Deuteronomy’s prophetic elements, along with those from 2 Sam 7 and Pss 1, 2, 5, serve to affirm the sect’s identity as God’s eschatological people, Temple, and messianic community.57 This identity likely heightened purity requirements and motivated perseverance in the sectarian way of life regardless of opposition.

D. The Use of Prophetic Texts in the Sectarian Scrolls: Isaiah Isaiah is among the best-preserved biblical texts from Qumran,58 and apparently also the most cited,59 popular, and influential prophetic book at Qum-

53

Annette Steudel, “Testimonia,” EDSS 2:937. Cf. Annette Steudel, “4QMidrEschat: ‘A Midrash on Eschatology’ (4Q174 + 4Q177),” in Trebolle Barrera and Vegas Montaner, Madrid Qumran Congress, 2:535. 55 Steudel, “4QMidrEschat,” 538–39. In light of this and the similarities between 4Q174 and 4Q175, the likelihood of the latter being Qumranic is increased. Brooke, Exegesis at Qumran, 217, dates 4Q174 to the middle of the first century B.C.E. 56 Steudel, “4QMidrEschat,” 541. 57 Cf. George J. Brooke, “Florilegium,” EDSS 1:298. 58 Maier, Die Qumran-Essener, 169; Eugene C. Ulrich, “An Index to the Contents of the Isaiah Manuscripts from the Judean Desert,” in Writing and Reading the Scroll of Isaiah: Studies of an Interpretive Tradition (ed. Craig C. Broyles and Craig A. Evans; vol. 2; VTSup 70,2; Leiden: Brill, 1997), 477. 59 As approximately indicated by Maier, Die Qumran-Essener, 161–78. 54

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ran.60 Similar to Deuteronomy,61 Isaiah’s importance for Qumran ethics is evident in it use to support sectarian halakhah, eschatology, and self-understanding. I. The Use of Isaiah to Support Halakhah Parts of Isaiah were generally not read as legal texts at Qumran. Nevertheless, they were used occasionally to support legal positions, typically intertextually with other overtly legal texts. The so-called Sabbath Code in CD X, 14–XI, 18, for example, uses Isa 58:13 to extend the Sabbath law.62 Isa 58:13–14 is a re-stipulation of the Sabbath law as a condition of restoration. Its own extension of the Sabbath law includes the vague injunction against r`Db;d r¶E;bådw, which is elaborated in CD X, 17–20 through gezera shawa, linking key words from Deut 15:2 (…h™RÚvÅy), 18:8 (f#DÚpVvI;m), and 32:47 (qñér) to generate specific rulings against speaking idle words (qr), seeking repayment (hCy), and judging financial cases («fwpCy). This example, from what Hempel calls the halakhah stratum of the Law in D,63 may very well reflect the sectarian reception of earlier halakhic traditions.64 A more sectarian example is the use of Isa 2:22 in 1QS V, 17 to support the law(s) of dissociation from outsiders.65 Here, the context of the sectarian code of behaviour vis-à-vis non-members (“men of iniquity” lwoh yCna 1QS V, 10) draws upon various scriptural texts, including Lev 22:16 and Exod 23:7, to reinforce the rationales given for radical separation from outsiders. Scriptural phrases are used more or less apart from their original contexts. The citation of Isa 2:22, in particular, seems to be determined by the catchword “account” (b™DvVj‰n), which is used earlier in 1QS V, 11 in a membership sense, and once again in V, 18.66 What is noteworthy is the use of a non-legal scripture along with Torah texts to support a law, or a series of laws, that calls for radical separation from others. This insistence on separation likely reflects

60 George J. Brooke, “Isaiah in the Pesharim and Other Qumran Texts,” in Broyles and Evans, Writing and Reading, 2:631. 61 While scholars have long connected Deuteronomy and Jeremiah, recent scholarship has also observed the strong connections between parts of Isaiah and Deuteronomy, thereby helping to explain Isaiah’s popularity at Qumran. E.g., Thomas A. Keiser, “The Song of Moses: A Basis for Isaiah’s Prophecy,” VT 55 (2005): 486–500. 62 See the fuller discussions in Elieser Slomovic, “Toward an Understanding of the Exegesis in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” RevQ 7 (1969): 3–15; Fishbane, “Use, Authority and Interpretation,” 370; and Schiffman, Halakhah at Qumran, 87–90. 63 Hempel, Laws, 187. 64 Schiffman, Halakhah at Qumran, 89. 65 Cf. Fishbane, “Use, Authority and Interpretation,” 371–72. 66 Leaney, Rule of Qumran, 172–75.

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a priestly concern for purity that frequently underlies Qumran’s sectarian halakhah.67 An oblique example of halakhic support that likely originated later than the above examples is 4QpIsaa (4Q161) 8–10 21–24,68 with its probable mid-firstcentury-B.C.E. date.69 While little explicitly sectarian terminology survives in this fragmentary manuscript, like the other pesharim from Qumran, it displays the same interest in correlating prophetic scriptures with contemporary events and people, and is therefore probably Qumranic in origin. Towards the end of its portrayal of the eschatological struggle between the remnant of Israel and the Kittim (viz. the community and the Romans), it cites Isa 11:3 to argue that the Davidic messiah will be guided by others – probably the priests of the community – in his conduct of war against the nations. This interpretation depends on the law of kingship in 11QTa (11Q19) LVIII, 15–21,70 which in turn expands on Deuteronomy, as noted above. II. The Use of Isaiah to Understand Eschatology Unsurprisingly, the prophetic book of Isaiah served as a source for eschatology in sectarian literature. A few sample texts will illustrate the diverse ways Isaiah was used to inform or express ethically significant eschatological understanding. Various passages from the Hodayot, for instance, affirm that a number of eschatological blessings, often expressed in metaphorical language in Isaiah, were already experienced by their author(s) or persona(e). These include, for example, the divine provision of abundant life-giving and treeproducing water (Isa 41:17–20; 44:1–5; 60:13) in 1QHa XVI, 4,71 and the dawning of a glorious light in darkness (Isa 30:26; 60:1–2) in 1QHa XVII, 26–27. Such claims in these probably pre-Qumranic hymns, whether authored by the Teacher of Righteousness or not, indicate that the hymnist(s) believed that the End of Days had already begun. Such a perspective made a new way of living ethically both obligatory and possible – a situation that Chapter Eight will explore.

67

Knibb, Qumran Community, 109–10. Unless noted, references to 4Q161 follow Allegro. See also the numbering proposed in Maurya P. Horgan, Pesharim: Qumran Interpretations of Biblical Books (CBQMS 8; Washington, D.C.: Catholic Biblical Association, 1979), 70–86. 69 The references to the Kittim in 4QpIsaa 8–10 most probably reflect a Roman background rather than the Hasmonean background of some versions of D and S. 70 Brooke, “Isaiah in the Pesharim,” 624. 71 Unless noted, references to 1QHa follow new column numbers by Puech and Stegemann, and Sukenik’s line numbers. For a table of the two systems, see Angela Y. Kim, “Signs of Editorial Shaping of the Hodayot Collection: A Redactional Analysis of 1QHa–b and 4QHa–f” (PhD diss., University of Notre Dame, 2003), xv. 68

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The previous subsection has already mentioned one aspect of the messianism found in 4QpIsaa – the idea of the Branch of David being subject to priestly counsel. 4QSefer ha-Milhamah (4Q285) fragment 5 likewise quotes from Isa 11:1 with reference to the Branch of David – identified as the leader of the nation – vanquishing the Kittim and their leader.72 This opposition between an eschatological messianic figure (whom the community was probably still expecting) and Israel’s eschatological enemies (whom the Qumranites probably equated with the occupying Romans) is also reflected in 4QpIsaa.73 Such a mixture of a sectarian reading of current events and their eschatological hopes in the Roman period was conducive to a possible rise of militancy among the Qumranites, especially when they expected those hopes to be fulfilled imminently. Another use of Isaiah to give eschatological insight is found in 4Q174 1, 21, 2 III, 14–17.74 As mentioned above in connection with Deuteronomy, this thematic pesher by the Qumranites uses various scriptural passages to assert their identity as God’s eschatological people. The explicit citation of Isa 8:11 in lines 15–16 adds to this picture. Starting with Ps 1:1 as the base text, the pesherist correlates the ones who do not walk in the counsel of the wicked (MyoCr txo) with those who join the sectarian community (djy|h |t|x|o). As support, he cites Isa 8:11 and Ezek 37:23, the former applied specifically to the End of Days as a divine mandate for separation from an apostate nation, and the latter used to stress purity as the chief reason for the separation. Here, Isaiah is used with two other “prophetic” citations to show that a group of God’s righteous people will emerge in the End of Days as the Qumran community. Isa 8:11, in particular, through the catchphrase Krdb Klh, suggests that a certain understanding of and conformance to God’s halakhic requirements are crucial for the community’s distinctiveness. III. The Use of Isaiah to Express Self-Understanding As the previous example demonstrates, the applications of Isaiah’s eschatological “predictions” served to help express sectarian self-understand-ing. Several instances of this will illustrate the variety of this function. Early in the sect’s history, possibly before its settlement at Qumran, it began to employ language from such texts as Isa 60:21 and 61:3 to describe itself as a “plant72

Fragment 5 was subsequently renumbered to 7 in DJD XXXVI. See the plausible reconstruction in WAC. For the possible relationship between 4Q285 and the War Scroll, see Jean Duhaime, The War Texts: 1QM and Related Manuscripts (CQS 6; London: T&T Clark, 2004), 8–9, 31–33. 73 For how both 4Q161 and 4Q285 interpret passages from Isaiah to refer to the Kittim and the Branch of David, and the need to read the two manuscripts in light of each other, see Brooke, “Isaiah in the Pesharim,” 621–22. 74 Brooke, “Isaiah in the Pesharim,” 613–15.

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ing” (ofm) of God. This is seen in 1QHa XIV, 15 and XVI, 6, both of which use the phrase “eternal planting” (Mlwo tofm) to describe the Teacher’s community.75 This use of Isaianic language to describe the sectarian community is also found in 1QS VIII, 5, XI, 8 and CD I, 7. All of these cases could be influenced by Jubilees 16:26 “the plant of righteousness for the eternal generations.” This self-understanding as a community planted by God’s sovereign initiative doubtless helped to bolster self-confidence in the community’s mode of life. The use of Isaiah facilitated the construction or expression not only of sectarian corporate self-understanding, but at least in one special case, also of individual self-understanding. Instances of this personal application of Isaiah are most readily observed in some of the first-person Hodayot, especially the so-called Teachers’ hymns. For example, the persona of some of these hymns identifies himself as the servant of Second Isaiah’s Servant Songs.76 The language of a despised and rejected servant in Isa 53:3 (…wh`UnVbAvSj añølw h™RzVbˆn) is applied to the speaker of 1QHa XII, 8, 22–23 (ynwbCjy al, yzwb).77 The teaching role of the servant in Isa 50:4 is assumed by the author of 1QHa XV, 10. At Qumran, these words were apparently still treasured and read. Whether they continued to help shape the individual self-understanding of the leader or the ordinary member of the community is difficult to ascertain. Nevertheless, the potential was there for such self-understanding to be re-appropriated by the Qumranites,78 motivating them to endure their experience of marginalization and to pursue their divine mission. One of the most well known examples of using Isaiah to present sectarian self-understanding is the use of Isa 40:3 in 1QS VIII, 13–15.79 This passage of the Rule is from a redactional layer – a Manifesto – that probably predates the formation of the community and hence its settlement at Qumran.80 However, the fragmentary parallel of 4QSd suggests that an earlier form of the Manifesto contained no such scriptural citation.81 Whether this citation with its reference to “going to the wilderness” is pre-Qumran or not, it is noteworthy that the vocation of studying the Law (hrwth Crdm) was the more important aspect of the sectarian self-understanding. Contrary to the common focus on how this text reflects how the Qumranites understood their geographical lo75

For the use of this phrase to designate the Teacher’s community, see Otto Betz, “The Servant Tradition of Isaiah in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” JSem 7 (1995): 45–46. 76 Betz, “Servant Tradition,” 40–56. 77 Brooke, “Isaiah in the Pesharim,” 615–16. 78 Carol A. Newsom, The Self as Symbolic Space: Constructing Identity and Community at Qumran (STDJ 52; Leiden: Brill, 2004), 197–98. 79 George J. Brooke, “Isaiah 40:3 and the Wilderness Community,” in Brooke and García Martínez, New Qumran Texts, 117–32. Cf. 1QS IX, 19–20. 80 Knibb, Qumran Community, 127. 81 Brooke, “Isaiah 40:3,” 127–28.

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cation scripturally, the contextual emphasis on the Law shows that the wilderness motif was relatively incidental. Thus, the Qumran community used Isaiah to portray itself as a Torah-interpreting and Torah-keeping community.

E. The Use of Prophetic Texts in the Sectarian Scrolls: Psalms Among the Scrolls, the book of Psalms (“the Psalms” for short) is not as frequently cited in non-biblical texts as Deuteronomy nor as completely preserved as Isaiah, but it has the largest number of extant manuscripts.82 This evidently popular collection(s) of songs and prayers was influential at Qumran in at least two ways. Among sectarian poetic texts, such as the probably pre-Qumranic Hodayot, the Psalms functioned, among other things, as a literary model with respect to both forms and language. Additionally, the Psalms were considered by the sectarians to be prophetic literature, as indicated by their view of David as a prophet,83 and were therefore used as prophetic base texts in some of the pesharim, most of which are Qumranic. In both poetical and exegetical texts, the Psalms were used in at least three interrelated ways that matter for ethics. I. The Use of Psalms to Distinguish Insiders from Outsiders As one aspect of sectarian identity formation, the Psalms were used to help draw a clear boundary between insiders and outsiders, thus producing a highly communitarian and particularist ethics. This is observable both in poetic texts such as 1QHa and Barkhi Nafshi (4Q434–438), and pesharim such as 4QpPsa, though there are subtle differences. One example from 1QHa is X, 20–30, a hymn modelled after the Psalms and composed as a “mosaic of [biblical] quotations.”84 The speaker, and implicitly each sectarian reader who identified with him, is described as the righteous man who despite his weakness and vulnerability faithfully clings to God’s covenant and is consequently invincible. Conversely, his enemies are portrayed as wicked, violent, and hostile towards God, but doomed as a result. The hymn concludes by citing Ps 26:12, with a potentially significant variation from the MT. If “[far] from their congregation” (Mlhqm) is a deliberate change from “in the congregations” 82

Peter W. Flint, “Psalms, Book of,” EDSS 2:702–10. “The (book of) Psalms” can be a misleading label, as there are multiple editions of the Psalter at Qumran. In terms of the number of quotations or allusions, the Psalms still command a respectable fourth place after Leviticus. See note 36 above. 83 11Q5 XXVII, 11 credits David for composing the psalms through prophecy (hawbnk). Flint, “Psalms,” 706. 84 Svend Holm-Nielsen, Hodayot: Psalms from Qumran (ATDan 2; Aarhus: Universitetsforlaget, 1960), 45–46.

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(My#IlEhVqAmV;b)Œ , this hymn alters scripture to promote a radical dissociation with the godless and wicked outsiders, who are seen as a unity.85 Such a starkly defined sense of solidarity and difference, as the next chapter will show, is partly what makes identity ethically significant. Another example is from Barkhi Nafshi, a collection of hymns similar to the Hodayot in language and imagery, but lacking sufficient distinctively sectarian characteristics to be classified unequivocally as sectarian.86 Nevertheless, this collection is consistent with other sectarian literature in content and was probably accepted and used by the Qumran community for its own purpose(s), even if it had originated earlier in non-sectarian circles. Its editor describes its poetry as “crafted from biblical language by verbatim citations . . . by paraphrase, and by allusion to biblical metaphors and imagery,” mostly from the Psalms, Isaiah, and Jeremiah.87 One of its hymns, 4Q437 2 I, 1–16, likewise contrasts the righteous persona with his enemies, citing Ps 37:15 to emphasize their violent hostility along with their eventual downfall. The context of Ps 37:15 also elicits the sectarian corporate self-understanding as the “poor and needy, the upright of way.”88 In the most completely preserved pesher on the Psalms, 4Q171 I, 17–IV, 21 also uses Ps 37 to contrast the sectarians with those outside, but in a sustained and much more elaborate way.89 Moreover, the use of the Psalms in this late pesher goes beyond a literary borrowing of biblical phraseology found in the hymnic compositions and explicitly treats the scriptural texts as prophetic predictions about the sectarians’ situation and recent history. Thus, every reference to the wicked in Ps 37 is made to refer to specific individuals or groups hostile to the sectarian group, just as every reference to the righteous points to the community and its leader(s). This correlation between scripture and the specific communal experience of history functioned, among other things, to reinforce self-identity by sharply opposing the Qumranites and those outside the sect. 85

Cf. the similar reading in Newsom, Self, 239, contra Holm-Nelson, Hodayot, 44. However, the author might have a text different from the MT. 86 George J. Brooke, “Body Parts in Barkhi Nafshi and the Qualifications for Membership of the Worshipping Community,” in Sapiential, Liturgical and Poetical Texts from Qumran: Proceedings of the Third Meeting of the International Organization for Qumran Studies, Oslo, 1998: Published in Memory of Maurice Baillet (ed. Daniel K. Falk, Florentino García Martínez, and Eileen M. Schuller; STDJ 34; Leiden: Brill, 2000), 79. For the more certain assessment of its sectarian origin by its editor, see David R. Seely, “Implanting Pious Qualities as a Theme in the Barki Nafshi Hymns,” in Schiffman, Tov, and VanderKam Dead Sea Scrolls Fifty Years, 323. 87 David R. Seely, “Barkhi Nafshi,” EDSS 1:77. 88 For the motif of the righteous poor in the related manuscript 4Q434 I, 1–3, and its use as a self-designation in sectarian literature, see Seely, “Implanting Pious Qualities,” 323. 89 For a more detailed analysis of a portion of this passage and how it expresses ethics, see Chapter Nine, Section D.

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II. The Use of Psalms to Present Sectarian Virtues Another facet of using the Psalms to construct sectarian self-identity is the presentation of character traits and dispositions valued by the sectarians. The sectarians did not only consider these virtues as desirable and required by God, but often they also saw them as their exclusive possessions and distinctive traits. In 1QHa VI, 1–3, for instance, a cluster of virtue terms is legible in the fragmentary ending of a “psalm of the Maskil.”90 Despite the broken context, these terms are doubtless describing the sect as the people of God (Kmo). They include truth (tma yCna), insight/understanding (hnyb yCqbmw lkC [ ]), compassion (Mymjr yb[hwa]), and humility (jwr ywno). While all of these virtues or their synonyms have biblical roots and are also important in other sectarian texts, they appear very frequently in 1QHa. Humility, for example, in the form of the adjective wno, is probably influenced by the popularity of this word in the Psalms (13 out of 25 times in the MT, though the phrase jwr ywno is unattested in the MT). Elsewhere in the sectarian texts, especially 1QS, the abstract noun hwno is preferred, also describing the sectarians. C. Newsom helpfully explains this particularly sectarian appropriation of the biblical virtue of humility by observing that the Hodayot’s emphasis on humility is consistent with the sectarian construction of the self, where the absolute sovereignty of God intersects with the absolute nothingness of humanity.91 With this perspective, the Hodayot depart from the biblical assumption of moral agency and portray humans as morally disabled – moral behaviour is only possible by divine grace.92 This utter dependency on God for virtues and a well lived life is also evident in Barkhi Nafshi. In a short passage preserved in 4Q436 1 I, 10–II, 4, reconstructed with parallel material from 4Q435 2 I, 1–5, a list of contrasting virtues and vices is presented in what amounts to the hymnist’s account of his spiritual conversion. God is credited for replacing damning vices with saving virtues. According to the hymnist, God has given him a pure heart (rwhf bl) instead of what he had,93 replaced his evil inclination (or rxy) with a spirit of holiness (Cdwq jwr),94 his stiff neck (hCq Prwo) with humility (hwno), and his anger (Pa Poz) with patience (Mypa Kwra jwr). God has also removed his adulterous eyes (Mynyo twnz), pride (Mynyo Mwrw bl hbwg), and lying spirit (rqC jwr). 90 1QHa V, 1–VI, 7, as reconstructed in Émile Puech, “Un hymne essénien en partie retrouvé et les Béatitudes,” RevQ 13 (1988): 69. 91 Newsom, Self, 262–69. 92 Nevertheless, moral perfection is sustained in practice through communally enforced insight and discipline. Newsom, Self, 268. Moreover, the apparent denial of moral agency in the Hodayot may be exaggerated by their genre. 93 Seely, “Implanting Pious Qualities,” 328 supplies “heart of stone,” whereas WAC has “impure thoughts.” 94 Cdwq jwr is supplied based on Ps 51:13. Seely, “Implanting Pious Qualities,” 329.

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Seely notes briefly the scriptural bases of many of these terms and intimates their importance for self-definition in the major sectarian texts.95 Furthermore, some of the Psalms are clearly influential here, though not exclusively so.96 This use of the Psalms and other scriptures, with its sectarian accentuation, did not merely promote worship, which was likely one of the hymn’s communal functions, but also delineated approved and disapproved personal qualities within the sect. III. The Use of Psalms to Encourage Continuance in Sectarian Life Finally, another use of the Psalms is its appropriation to encourage, motivate, or reassure the sectarians so they would remain firm in the community. This function is already implicit in the various uses of the Psalms to help define self-understanding, since knowing who one is and one’s assured destiny as a member of God’s chosen ought to have such fortifying effects. In other instances, however, the connection to self-identity is at least not as direct. For example, C. Newsom charts well the rhetorical functions of 1QHa XIII, 20– XV, 5 to mitigate disaffection within the community, which possibly arose from resentment towards its strict discipline.97 She points out that the author of this hymn drew on “traditional imagery from the psalms of complaint,”98 presenting the speaking self as one deserted by former intimates and yet delivered and vindicated by God. As in the Psalms, the vivid accounts of the antagonism of former associates and its devastating impacts serve to show the speaker to be a righteous sufferer and his opponents to be unjust. However, the hymnist’s use of the language and rhetorical strategy of the Psalms did something more. By applying such discourse in the context of disaffection in the community, he indirectly appealed to the remaining members to align themselves with him and the community, and to distance themselves from the defectors. A very different strategy for encouraging allegiance is found in the midfirst-century-B.C.E. thematic pesharim Florilegium (4Q174) and Catenaa (4Q177). Whether or not they are two copies of one composition,99 they do 95

Seely, “Implanting Pious Qualities,” 328–29. Aside from the general stylistic dependency on the first person singular psalms, note also the possible echoes of Ps 51:12 in rwhf bl, Ps 131:1 and 101:5 in Mynyo Mwrw bl hbwg, and the frequent use of ytwylk for the heart in the Psalms (also in Jeremiah). 97 Newsom, Self, 325–28, 331–46. 98 Newsom, Self, 342. See her examples of complaint psalms that present a deserted and beleaguered self. 99 So argues Annette Steudel, Der Midrasch zur Eschatologie aus der Qumrangemeinde (4QMidrEschata,b): Materielle Rekonstruktion, Textbestand, Gattung und traditionsgeschichtliche Einordnung des durch 4Q174 (“Florilegium”) und 4Q177 (“Catena A”) repräsentierten Werkes aus den Qumranfunden (STDJ 13; Leiden: Brill, 1994). 96

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reflect the same concern to find in various scriptures a better understanding of eschatology to cope with eschatological disappointments.100 In both documents, parts of the Psalms are cited mostly in the later canonical order,101 and interpreted with the support of citations from the Prophets.102 The technique used is catchword association, where two otherwise unrelated scriptural texts are brought together for mutual illumination by a linking word.103 Both 4Q174 and 4Q177 appear to be unified in their purpose of providing hope and assurance to the members of the Yahad in the midst of difficult times. Disillusionment caused by hostile compatriots and the delay of their eschatological expectations are allayed by reading some psalms prophetically to reassure their members of the rightness of their cause, the wickedness of their enemies, and the certain recompense for each. Similarly, 4Q171 I, 17–II, 20 also uses the Psalms to deal with disaffection from the community, but disaffection caused not by resentment from within the community or eschatological disappointment, but the discouraging success of outsiders.104 It cites Ps 37 to assert that a just reversal is imminent, in which the wicked opponents of the sect will be judged and punished, and the persecuted and suffering members of the sect will be victorious and rewarded. Although this pesher handles the Psalms very differently from the poetic texts and the thematic pesharim, it too employs the Psalms to encourage and motivate adherence to the communal way of life.

F. Conclusion This chapter has presented a sampling of the variety of ways in which the Qumranites appropriated their sacred texts for specific purposes relevant for the formation of ethics. One such ways is the rewriting (or acceptance of a traditional rewriting) of narrative and legal materials from the Pentateuch. Narrative traditions from Genesis and legal traditions from Deuteronomy were reworked into compositions collected by the Qumranites. While not strictly sectarian, these texts are clearly consistent with the sectarian perspective and occasionally their use could affect aspects of Qumran ethics, such as aspects of their moral cosmology and their halakhic position or stringency. 100

Steudel, “4QMidrEschat,” 541. See Steudel, “4QMidrEschat,” 533 for these citations. 102 Mainly from Isaiah, the Twelve, and Ezekiel. Steudel, “4QMidrEschat,” 534. 103 As mentioned, this technique is similar to rabbinic gezera shawa. For a fuller explanation and other examples of Qumran exegetical techniques analogous to later rabbinic middot, see Brooke, Exegesis at Qumran, esp. 166–167. For a caution against “imposing rabbinic modes of exegeis on Qumran halakhic corpus,” see Paul Heger, “Qumranic Marriage Prohibitions and Rabbinic Equivalents.” RevQ 95 (2010): 441–51. 104 Again, for a detailed treatment of this passage, see Chapter Nine, Section D. 101

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Another way is the explicit and continuous citation of prophetic material in sectarian pesharim, where biblical prophecies become the basis of understanding the community’s historical experiences and eschatological expectations, sometimes with motivating intent. In addition, implicit scriptural allusions were used, where the language and motifs of the biblical text controlled to some degree the form and content of a sectarian composition, occasionally serving to define or reinforce sectarian identity. Finally, another way was catchword association, through which a number of scriptural passages were linked together to yield an interpretation, often extending the specificity of the cited texts. This exegetical technique is one aspect of the broader phenomenon of intertextuality. For example, Genesis was read through the filter of Deuteronomy and the Prophets, and some of the messianic psalms were juxtaposed with 2 Sam 7. These examples demonstrate the complexity of how scriptural traditions were handled by the sectarians and their near contemporaries. The diverse scriptures were perceived to be part of an interconnected web of significance and mutually illuminating. Overall, the Qumranites were not passive recipients of scriptural traditions, but creative users of sacred texts. Moreover, their use of scriptural traditions varied through their history. More stable textual traditions, such as those on Genesis, had been received by the Qumran community, often through the filter of Jubilees, and informed their ethics in ways that were often neither original nor unique to them. Occasionally, different aspects of the traditions were emphasized at different times, evidently according to the community’s historical circumstances. Conversely, textual traditions of greater fluidity and openness were used to support perspectives that were more distinctively sectarian, such as the use of the Psalms to reinforce sectarian identity or to express eschatology. Furthermore, later compositions more frequently correlated texts taken to be prophetic with specific contemporary fulfilments. Finally, the exploration on the sectarian use of scriptural tradition(s) in this chapter has highlighted its interrelationship with the other major factors in the construction of sectarian ethics. The pervasiveness of eschatological ideas derived from the biblical prophets indicates the significance of eschatology for the Qumranic worldview. The frequent references to opponents through biblical texts such as Isaiah and the Psalms show the key role the sociopolitical context played in the formation of sectarian viewpoints, of which ethics was a noteworthy part. The numerous ways that the sectarians used scriptural traditions to help define their self-understanding spotlight the place of identity formation in the construction of ethics at Qumran, which is the topic of the next chapter.

Chapter 6

Self-Identity As the previous chapter has shown, various scriptural traditions were used creatively to help form self-identity at Qumran. This chapter will explore further the various ways that self-identity was formed in the Qumran community and how the various aspects of self-identity were yet another key component in the construction of ethics at Qumran. To that end, the first section of this chapter will define “identity” using some social-scientific theories,1 and outline why it matters for ethics. The following three sections will then examine some of the more notable and varied ways identity was formed in the sectarian movement, especially at Qumran, through the sectarian construction of the past, present, and future, and will adumbrate where possible the implications of identity formation for Qumran ethics.

A. The Ethical Significance of Identity First, this section will define “identity” and introduce some ways that it is significant for the construction of ethics. I. Defining Identity For reasons that will become evident, this chapter focuses on the subjective dimensions of identity and their relevance for ethics. Defined as a reflexive

1 Although “identity” can be understood in the objective or subjective sense, in this book it means “self-identity” (subjective) unless otherwise clarified or demanded by context. See below for further distinction between individual (self-)identity and corporate (self-)identity. For a recent and sustained application of social-scientific methods to Qumran studies, particularly to the examination of the construction and maintenance of sectarian identity at Qumran, see Jokiranta, “Identity on a Continuum,” esp. 21–62, where she offers extensive bibliographical references for some of the major players in the recent trend to apply the socialscientific approach to Qumran studies and biblical studies. See also the germane collection in Florentino García Martínez and Mladen Popovi, eds., Defining Identities: We, You, and the Other in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Proceedings of the Fifth Meeting of the IOQS in Groningen (STDJ 70; Leiden: Brill, 2008).

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and subjective self-perception, identity appears to be purely individualistic.2 Nevertheless, it is socially constructed – formed and appropriated through interactions with one’s social context, and informed by the self-perceptions of a group (or groups) of related people to which an individual belongs.3 As P. Berger and T. Luckmann helpfully explained in the 1960s, identity as a key element of subjective reality “is formed by social processes. Once crystallized, it is maintained, modified, or even reshaped by social relations.”4 More recently, Lieu observes that in the last few decades, identity as socially constructed “has passed into the category of the obvious.”5 Since identity is socially constructed, the insights of social scientists are illuminating for this investigation, as suggested by the many fruitful applications of social-scientific approaches to recent studies of early Jewish or Christian identities.6 Such studies and their theoretical sources have helped to clarify at least two key matters regarding identity. First, even on the subjective plane, identity can refer to both self-perception as an individual and collective self-perception as a group. The intersection between these two spheres of meanings is an especially interesting meaning of identity – how one perceives oneself as a member of a group. This is what social psychologists call “social identity.” The distinction between this social identity and purely personal identity is explained by the pioneer social psychologist J. Turner as “different levels (of inclusiveness) of selfcategorization.”7 Turner, following his teacher H. Tajfel, defines social iden2 The anachronism of the term “identity” and its root in modern individualism is well noted in Judith M. Lieu, Christian Identity in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 11–12. Nevertheless, she defends its careful use in studying ancient communities, as is done here. 3 Newsom, Self, 93, “[The] discourses that shape self and world are not developed in isolation but are fundamentally social practices” (emphasis added). For social constructionism in general, see the seminal works of pioneer sociologists of knowledge, e.g., Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in Sociology of Knowledge (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1967). Jokiranta, “Identity on a Continuum,” 16, also acknowledges the social aspect of identity formation by referring to identity as a “social psychological concept.” 4 Berger and Luckmann, Social Construction of Reality, 159. 5 Lieu, Christian Identity, 13–14. This perspective has largely displaced the essentialism of earlier philosophers, who viewed identity as something that is objectively pre-determined by one’s essence and therefore rigid. Essentialism has roots in the philosophy of Aristotle, and was critiqued as early as Locke. It has recently been revived by Kripke and Putnam. 6 E.g., the works of Newsom, Jokiranta, and Lieu cited above, and Philip F. Esler, Conflict and Identity in Romans: The Social Setting of Paul’s Letter (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003). 7 John C. Turner, “Some Current Issues in Research on Social Identity and Self-Categorization Theories,” in Social Identity: Context, Commitment, Content (ed. Naomi Ellemers, Russell Spears, and Bertjan Doosje; Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), 11. For more on Turner’s selfcategorization theory, see John C. Turner et al., Rediscovering the Social Group: A Self-Categorization Theory (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987).

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tity as self-definitions based on “social category memberships,” and personal identity as self-definitions based on “personal or idiosyncratic attributes.”8 In Tajfel’s own words, social identity is “that part of an individual’s self-concept which derives from his knowledge of his membership of a social group (or groups) together with the value and emotional significance attached to that membership.”9 So defined, social identity always includes both the individual and the group dimensions. In Qumran studies, it is easier to uncover how the sect defined its collective identity rather than how each sectarian defined his (or her?) personal identity. But in between these two, the social identity of each Qumranite is discernible implicitly by noting how the group’s collective identity was formed. Second, identity is dynamic. Lieu echoes well the implications of Berger and Luckmann’s statement cited above when she notes, [While] a core component in the sense . . . of identity . . . is stability, in practice identities are dynamic and subject to change. Thus, to recognize that identity is constructed is not to talk only about origins, but also about the mechanisms for managing change and claiming continuity.10

Since identity is dynamic, any account of it should recognize change and development and pay attention to how it is managed and maintained.11 In sum, identity in this chapter refers to the socially-constructed and dynamic selfunderstanding of someone as a member of the Qumran community. It is necessary now to consider why self-identity is relevant for ethics. II. Identity as a Basis of Solidarity and Difference As defined above, identity is one’s self-perception as a member of one’s group(s) often in contradistinction from non-members.12 As such, identity can serve as a basis of the solidarity between members of the group and accentuate the difference between insiders and outsiders. Both of these interrelated aspects have noteworthy ethical implications for attitudes and behaviours toward others. As a possible basis of solidarity, identity inclines one to have more association with fellow members, to care more for them, to accept more obligations towards them, and to regard them more highly than otherwise.13 8

Turner, “Some Current Issues,” 8, 10, 12. Henri Tajfel, “Social Categorization, Social Identity and Social Comparison,” in Differentiation between Social Groups: Studies in the Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations (ed. Henri Tajfel; EMSP 14; London: Academic Press, 1978), 63. 10 Lieu, Christian Identity, 14. 11 Recall the discussion in Chapter Four, Section C. 12 Jokiranta, “Identity on a Continuum,” 17. Lieu, Christian Identity, 15. Esler, Conflict and Identity, 19, refers to the idea that “difference is constituting identity.” 13 Cf. Kwame Anthony Appiah, The Ethics of Identity (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2005), 24, “[Identities create] forms of solidarity: if I think of myself as an X, then, 9

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On the other hand, identity as a basis of difference sometimes causes one to distance or segregate oneself from those without that identity, or even to be hostile towards outsiders, especially towards members of a perceived rival group.14 Furthermore, as P. Esler indicates in his social-scientific study of Romans, emphasizing solidarity and difference based on a common group identity has the function of reducing intra-group conflicts and tensions arising from different subgroup identities.15 This perspective is applicable to the Qumran community, since it may represent the merger of several subgroups – each with its own traditions and interests. How did the (former) members of these diverse movements receive a “recategorization,” to use Gaertner’s term, to obtain a new ingroup identity at Qumran? What specific commonalities became salient? What made them distinct from outsiders? And what are the ethical implications of all such matters? These will be addressed in the middle sections of this chapter. III. Identity as Value-laden Another way identity is relevant for ethics is that it implies a set of values (i.e. opinions about what is good or bad to do, to be, or to have).16 These values, whether positive or negative, moral or amoral, in turn set the norms for how one ought to live as someone with that identity. For example, the priestly selfidentity of the Qumran community brought with it, inter alia, the emic positive value of heightened cultic purity,17 and conversely the negative value of ritual defilement, leading to the possible behavioural norm of sexual abstinence while living at Qumran.18 sometimes, the mere fact that somebody else is an X, too, may incline me to do something with or for them.” 14 Studies by social psychologists such as Tajfel have long shown that social categorization alone, no matter how trivial or artificial, can and often does lead to discrimination between groups. See Tajfel, Differentiation between Social Groups, esp. 10–13, and Turner’s article on 101–40. 15 Esler, Conflict and Identity, 30–33. His main theoretical source is Samuel L. Gaertner’s works published in 1993 and 2000. 16 Esler, Conflict and Identity, 20, affirms that social identity theory links identity with “group norms,” which he equates too directly to “values that define acceptable and unacceptable attitudes and behavior by members of the group.” In fact, values help define norms rather than are equivalent to them. 17 Some of the texts from the Qumran caves that place a high value on cultic purity include 11QT, CD, 4QMMT, 1QS, and 4QTohorot. See Hannah K. Harrington, The Purity Texts (CQS 5; London: T&T Clark, 2004). 18 Harrington, Purity Texts, 17. This stance was probably based on a broadened application of texts such as 11Q19 XLV, 11–12, and CD XII, 1–2, which forbade sexual intercourse in Jerusalem as the Holy City or the city of the Temple. This norm was apparently derived from the requirements of cultic purity or an extension thereof.

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Whether cultic/ritual purity was a moral or amoral value at Qumran is debated.19 Even if it was an amoral value in a Kantian sense, it was still ethically relevant, because all values, according to many ethicists from the time of ancient Greece onwards, help determine what is the “good life,” which is as valid an ethical concern as moral obligations.20 IV. Identity as a Motivation for Morally Relevant Behaviours Besides influencing normative values, identity also provides the motivation to act upon them. Recent studies in social psychology have focused on the question of moral motivation.21 The study by S. Hardy and G. Carlo notes some recent psychological models of morality that move beyond the decades-old focus on moral reasoning and moral feelings to add moral identity as a source of moral motivation.22 Hardy and Carlo begin by acknowledging the early contributions of the influential cognitive-developmental theory of morality of Lawrence Kohlberg in the late 1950s, which assumes that “moral principles, when understood, would inherently motivate moral action.”23 Then, they introduce the contrasting moral theory of Martin Hoffman, which presents moral emotion as the primary source of moral motivation. Recognizing the inadequacy of both theories, even when integrated to form a complementary perspective, Hardy and Carlo follow the lead of Augusto Blasi to examine the idea of moral identity as another motivating factor in the complex relationship among knowing, feeling, and doing.24 While this approach has helpfully pinpointed the importance of identity for moral motivation, by restricting moral identity to a sense of the self as a moral person operating purely on an individual level, its account of moral identity is too narrow. As D. Hart correctly points out, moral identity is less about embracing abstract moral judgments than about specific context-dependent social roles and is therefore socially constructed.25 Furthermore, from an etic perspective, identity not only motivates moral behaviours, but sometimes also

19

For the equation of ritual and moral purity at Qumran, see Jonathan Klawans, Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). For a moderated view, see Harrington, Purity Texts, 27–31. 20 Even the representative of modern duty ethicists introduced in Chapter Three, Frankena, Ethics, 79–94, acknowledges the relevance of amoral values (what he calls nonmoral values) for ethics. 21 See, e.g., the review of research in Sam A. Hardy and Gustavo Carlo, “Identity as a Source of Moral Motivation,” HD 48 (2005): 232–56. 22 Hardy and Carlo, “Identity as a Source of Moral Motivation,” 232. 23 Hardy and Carlo, “Identity as a Source of Moral Motivation,” 233. 24 Hardy and Carlo, “Identity as a Source of Moral Motivation,” 235. 25 Daniel Hart, “Adding Identity to the Moral Domain,” HD 48 (2005): 257–61.

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moral collapse – as in the case of ethnic cleansing.26 Thus, not all ethically relevant actions motivated by identity (or the avoidance of these actions) are “morally good.” Applying these insights, the following sections will consider how the Qumranites’ socially-constructed identities motivated them to act or to refrain from acting in ethically relevant ways. As this section has suggested, the process of identity formation at Qumran was complex and multifaceted.27 A large number of factors contributed to the construction of identity at Qumran, some of which will be explored below and will have their ethical implications teased out. These factors can be presented and organized using the idea of “social time.” According to Esler, “social time” – a group’s collective view of events significant for the group, from the past to the future, is an important key to the group’s identity.28 Using this idea of “social time” as a framework, the next three sections will examine how identity was formed in the Qumran community through its construction of the past, present, and future, and what impacts that had on ethics.

B. Forming Identity through (Re)constructing the Past As this section will show, the narrations of history at Qumran were creative and selective syntheses of traditional textual materials shared in common with other Jewish groups, other less widely accepted materials in circulation at that time, and materials particular to the Qumranites or their antecedent group(s). In the words of A. Baumgarten, The past is malleable and constantly being revised to suit the needs of the present; pasts which no longer fit new circumstances are regularly discarded, while new pasts are habitually invented to serve changing times . . . . A movement’s view of the past, whether its own past or that of some larger group, is part of its general ideological construction, and . . . must be useful.29

Other scholars concur that historical accounts were not only creative, but also tendentious.30 One of the tendentious purposes of narrating history was to 26

Hart, “Adding Identity to the Moral Domain,” 259. Cf. Lieu, Christian Identity. 28 Esler, Conflict and Identity, 22–24. 29 Albert I. Baumgarten, “The Perception of the Past in the Damascus Document,” in Baumgarten, Chazon, and Pinnick, Damascus Document, 2–3, sequence modified. 30 E.g., Esler, Conflict and Identity, 23, citing Breakwell, avers, “Of fundamental importance is that what happens to be held significant as an event in social time ‘will depend upon the interests and purposes of those groups or social categories which have enough power to impose their interpretation of current and past events upon others.’” See also Doron Mendels, “‘Creative History’ in the Hellenistic Near East in the Third and Second Centuries BCE: The Jewish Case,” JSP 2 (1988): 13–20; Doron Mendels, Memory in Jewish, Pagan and Christian 27

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help define the sect’s identity,31 which in turn shaped ethics as suggested above. Since some of the most important historical narrations can be grouped around some key events and characters from Creation to the recent past of the Qumran community, they can serve as an outline for examining how (re)constructing the past related to the formation of the sectarian identity. I. Genesis-Dependent/Related Narratives Prominent among the Scrolls’ narrations of the distant past are the Enochic traditions, as represented by compositions like parts of 1 Enoch, the Book of Giants, and Jubilees.32 These apparently pre-sectarian works present supplementary alternatives to the accounts in Genesis that generally agree with the sectarian worldview. While sharing the same interest in matters of origins as the early chapters of Genesis, these pseudepigraphic accounts found at Qumran display greater interest in angelic and demonic beings, such as the Watchers. The ethical relevance of this for moral cosmology has been noted in Chapter Five. Additionally, Enochic narratives contributed to identity formation by representing Enoch and Noah as models of righteousness for a community that expected imminent judgment against a corrupt world,33 and by highlighting certain boundary markers that helped define the group as scrupulous keepers of God’s laws.34 The 364-day solar calendar was one such marker that the Enochic traditions promoted and was apparently accepted in some way by the Qumranites. The adoption of this calendar would effectively distinguish and socially separate its practitioners from other Jews. By linking the calendar to the created order (e.g., Jubilees 4:17), moreover, these Enochic narratives exhibit a form of naturalism that justifies behavioural norms by appealing to nature. Societies of the Graeco-Roman World (LSTS 45; London: T & T Clark International, 2004); Sara Raup Johnson, Historical Fictions and Hellenistic Jewish Identity: Third Maccabees in Its Cultural Context (HCS 43; Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004). 31 For the reciprocal relationship between history and identity, see Lieu, Christian Identity, 62, “The relationship between who we are and the past we tell is a reciprocal one and is rarely static.” 32 For the Enochic traditions as evidence for a hypothetical “Enochic Judaism,” see Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis, 11–17. On the connection between Jubilees and 1 Enoch, see George W. E. Nickelsburg, “The Bible Rewritten and Expanded,” in Stone, Jewish Writings, 103. 33 George W. E. Nickelsburg, “The Nature and Function of Revelation in 1 Enoch, Jubilees, and Some Qumranic Documents,” in Pseudepigraphic Perspectives: The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Proceedings of the International Symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, 12– 14 January, 1997 (ed. Esther G. Chazon and Michael E. Stone; STDJ 31; Leiden: Brill, 1999), 100–101. 34 See section C, subsection V below for more on boundary markers.

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II. Mosaic-Dependent/Related Narratives Aside from the accounts in some probably pre-Qumranic documents such as Reworked Pentateuch, compositions that are more closely associated with the Qumran community contain relatively few explicit mentions of the Exodus.35 Instead, documents such as S and D appeal to Moses, not as the great miracleworking deliverer of the Exodus or an ancient national hero rivalling any in the Hellenistic world,36 but predominantly as the agent through whom God gave the Torah to Israel.37 This remembrance of Moses as the mediator of the Torah shaped sectarian identity in at least two particular ways. First, Moses was viewed as a prophet,38 accurately predicting the persistent unfaithfulness of Israel to the last days. This advanced the sectarians’ self-understanding as the faithful remnant coexisting with an apostate nation and motivated them to faithful living despite their experience of disenfranchisement. Second, the belief that the Torah of Moses contained both the “revealed laws” and the “hidden laws,” the latter of which could only be understood by inspired exegesis and were the basis of sectarian halakhot.39 Thus, the sectarian remembrance of Moses as the great lawgiver highlighted the importance of correct sectarian interpretation of Torah for defining who they were and reinforced their identity as the only “keepers/doers of the Torah,”40 consequently promoting the value of the correct understanding and observance of God’s laws. III. Exilic Narratives Qumran literature contains some very distinctive accounts of the exile. For example, contrary to some biblical texts that present the Babylonian exile of the Kingdom of Judah as having lasted seventy years,41 the Damascus Docu35

E.g., in CD III, 5–9, the entire journey from Egypt to the wilderness wandering is highly compressed, and the Exodus is completely glossed over. 36 On the general trend in Second Temple Jewish literature, both Palestinian and Hellenistic, to glorify Moses, contra some examples from Qumran, see Daniel K. Falk, “Moses,” EDSS 1:576–77. 37 This is indicated by the frequent references similar to “God’s commandments through Moses” (hCm dyb la twxm), e.g., CD V, 21 (||6Q15 3 3–4), cf. 1QS I, 3; “the Law of Moses” (hCm trwt), e.g., CD XVI, 2 (||4Q271 4 II, 4), 1QS V, 8; and where “Moses said” is equivalent to “Torah said,” e.g., CD V, 8. 38 E.g., the citations from Deuteronomy in 4Q175 I, 1–8. 39 Falk, “Moses,” 577. 40 See, e.g., the phrase hrwth yCwo in 1QpHab VII, 10–12; VIII, 1–3; XII, 4–5; 1Q14 8–10 8; 4Q171 1–2 II, 14, 22; cf. 4Q174 1–3 II, 2. For the suggestion that this phrase was the selfdesignation of the Qumranites and the Hebrew basis the Greek word “Essenoi,” see VanderKam, “Identity and History,” 496–99. 41 E.g., 1 Chr 36:21–23, Ezra 1:1–4, Dan 9:2, Zech 1:12, some of which cite or allude to Jer 25:11–12; 29:10.

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ment recounts a much longer exile of 390 years (CD I, 3–6).42 From the perspective of the probably pre-Qumranic sectarian author(s) of CD I, Israel remained in a state of exile long after the return in the sixth century and the subsequent rebuilding of the Temple.43 Hence, the great turning point was not the initial return and reconstruction,44 but the divinely appointed rise of the sectarian movement and its predecessors.45 Judging by the preservation of this passage in 4Q266/268, this understanding of the lengthened exile was probably still influential at Qumran and shaped their self-understanding as the righteous remnant – the real answer to the problem of Israel’s prolonged unfaithfulness and apostasy. Such a selfidentity entailed the values of repentance and obedience to God’s covenantal demands (mostly with respect to halakhic matters). Moreover, it would motivate correct behaviours by giving momentous significance to lifestyle (since misbehaviours caused the exile and obedience was the key to salvation). Finally, it would incline them to separate from or even oppose other Jews as apostates. Other sectarian texts appear to add to the idea of an extended exile by using the exile itself as a self-descriptor. For instance, 1QM I, 2–3 identifies the holy combatants in the eschatological battle as “the exiled ones of the wilderness” (rbdmh tlwg) and “the exiles of the Sons of Light [who] return from the Wilderness of the Peoples to encamp in the Wilderness of Jerusalem” (MylCwry rbdmb twnjl Mymoh rbdmm rwa ynb tlwg bwCb). To which redactional layer of 1QM this passage belongs is debated and difficult to ascertain.46 Nevertheless, the Qumranites could have easily appropriated such descriptors for themselves, indicating their identity as the Sons of Light and labelling themselves as the exiles of the wilderness. Indeed, some Qumranic texts, such as 4QCatenaa (4Q177 5–6 8–9), seem to explain the marginal and disenfranchised condition of their community by describing it as in a state of exile.47 This self-understanding as being “between and betwixt” is conducive 42

The l in the infinitive phrase wtytl on line 6 is difficult, resulting in different translations. This number was probably understood symbolically, though it corresponded roughly with history. For the debate over the chronological meaning of this passage, see Hempel, Damascus Texts, 60–61. 43 Michael A. Knibb, “Exile,” EDSS 1:276. 44 Contrast this with the perspective of the probably pre-sectarian 4QapocrJer Ce (4Q390 1 5), which evaluates the first returnees from the exile positively. 45 Michael A. Knibb, “Exile in the Damascus Document,” JSOT 25 (1983): 113; Lieu, Christian Identity, 71. 46 Duhaime, War Texts, 98. 47 See also perhaps 4QpPsa (4Q171 1+3–4 III, 1; 3–10 IV, 23–24). For the idea of an individual sectarian (leader) in exile, see 1QpHab XI, 4–6, and 1QHa XII, 8–9. For a prayer asking God to rescue his people Israel from the exile, see the probably pre-Qumran liturgical text 4QDibHama (4Q504 1–2 recto VI, 13–15).

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to the experience of liminality, as described in the ritual theory of anthropologist V. Turner.48 Lieu cites Turner’s concept of liminality, which challenges former identities and distinctions, and notes its possible effects on forming an egalitarian community and a new identity.49 Viewing itself as in exile might have such effects for the Qumran community, at least at some point in its history, which resulted in a communitarian approach to ethics that was egalitarian. IV. Origins of the Community or Wider Movement As explained above, the sectarian accounts of the exile, especially in D, are not only about the history of Israel in general, but also relate to the origins of the movement of which the Qumran community was a part.50 The relevant texts from D are assumed here to have been influential historiography on sectarian origins, not only for the community that first produced the composition in its earliest form(s), but also for the Qumranites who preserved it. Four passages from the Admonition in D possibly allude to these origins.51 The first passage refers to the forerunners of the Qumran community – the remnant of Israel that God has caused to grow from Israel and Aaron to possess the land 390 years after the Babylonian exile of Judah, and which was eventually instructed by a Teacher of Righteousness of God’s requirements. The second passage describes God’s election of his people through the teaching of his inspired teachers. The third passage goes on to mention “priests, Levites, and the sons of Zadok” as people associated with the movement who were distinguished from the rest of apostate Israel by their knowledge and adherence to the “hidden things” of God’s Law. Finally, the fourth passage makes references to insightful and wise men from Aaron and Israel who “dug” the lifegiving “well” of the Torah with the help of the “Interpreter of the Law.” Here, the adherents of the movement are called “those who have entered the new covenant in the land of Damascus” (qCmd Xrab hCdjh tyrbh yab). 48

Victor W. Turner, The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Rituals (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967), 91–111. 49 Lieu, Christian Identity, 236–37. For the connections between prophecy, moral perfection, and liminality in the Scrolls, see George J. Brooke, “The Place of Prophecy in Coming out of Exile: The Case of the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Scripture in Transition: Essays on Septuagint, Hebrew Bible, and Dead Sea Scrolls in Honour of Raija Sollamo (ed. Anssi Voitila and Jutta Jokiranta; JSJSup 126; Leiden: Brill, 2008), 535–50. 50 Indeed, D presents the history of its movement as in continuity with, and the culmination of, the history of biblical Israel. Hempel, Damascus Texts, 61. 51 For the full citations in CD and their parallels in the Qumran manuscripts, see Hempel, Damascus Texts, 27–31. For the complex relationship between the constructions of history and group identity in the Damascus Document, see Maxine L. Grossman, Reading for History in the Damascus Document: A Methodological Study (STDJ 45; Leiden: Brill, 2002), 162– 209.

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With these received accounts of their formative history, the Qumranites likely identified themselves with this community of the new covenant.52 The memory of how the movement began underscored for the Qumranites, first of all, issues that marked them as different from other Jews – how to keep the Torah precisely, matters of Sabbath and festivals, purity, etc.53 This historically informed identity not only disposed them to distinguish themselves from outsiders and to relate to them as such, but also promoted certain sectarian values, such as correct and inspired knowledge about God’s covenantal demands. Finally, this identity motivated them to observe the sectarian way of life. One possible way that this was achieved was the inculcation of selfesteem through group identity. At least twice in the historical accounts cited above, members of the movement are described in honorific terms.54 This sectarian attribution of prestige and honour to people whom they identified as their predecessors likely contributed to their own sense of self-worth.55 If so, this illustrates how identifying with a particular “community of memory” can yield a sense of prestige, which in turn can motivate behaviours that contribute to that prestige.56 V. Subsequent History References to the subsequent history of the group that eventually settled at Qumran are even more fragmentary than those about its origins.57 Instead of history about the group itself, what is conspicuous in the preserved Qumranic documents are fragmentary memories of its opponents, including defectors. Scholars have long recognized possible allusions to internal conflicts and factions within the group.58 It seems that regarding their more recent past, the 52 For the Qumranic use of the term hCdjh tyrbh to distinguish between ingroup and outgroup, see 1QpHab II, 3. 53 See below for a fuller discussion on these and other boundary markers. 54 E.g., Mda dwbk in CD III, 19–20, and Mtrap in CD VI, 4b–7a || 4QDa (4Q266) 3 II, 13 and 4QDb (4Q267) 2 13. 55 For the connection between self-esteem and group identity, see John C. Turner, “Social Identification and Psychological Group Formation,” in The Social Dimension: European Developments in Social Psychology (ed. Henri Tajfel, Colin Fraser, and Joseph M. F. Jaspars; vol. 2; ESSP; Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 528–29. 56 For the early idea of “community of memory,” see Josiah Royce, The Problem of Christianity (2 vols.; New York: Macmillan, 1914), 2:50–51. 57 As plausibly suggested in Mendels, Memory, 1, fragmentary historical narratives are not necessarily accidental, but often the results of both mechanical and ideological factors. 58 E.g., through the use of sobriquets such as “House of Absalom” and “the traitors” in 1QpHab, which probably refer to defectors from the Teacher’s group. See Håkan Bengtsson, “What’s in a Name: A Study of Sobriquets in the Pesharim” (PhD diss., Uppsala University, 2000), 293–94. Other texts such as CD and 4QMMT also hint of internal factions, though they are probably pre-Qumran.

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Qumranites derived their identity from reactionary contrasts with these historical enemies – with whom they had not been. Moreover, this lack of recent historiography in Qumranic texts can possibly be explained as a result of internal crises, perhaps including the death of the Teacher (along with the eventual disillusionment of eschatological expectations associated with the Teacher’s death) and the internal split(s) that the group experienced.59 If the truncation of recent history at Qumran was due to the community struggling to cope with and make sense of its internal crises, it possibly indicates a degree of “identity crisis.”60 In any case, communal memories of betrayal and trauma could only prompt the Qumranites to be even more inward looking and more vigilant of group boundaries.

C. Forming Identity through Constructing the Present From a social-scientific perspective, identity formation is also facilitated by social construction of the present. This section will explore some elements of the sectarian construction of the present: the special knowledge that the sectarians claimed to possess, the understandings of their temporal and spatial location in their figured worlds,61 their perceptions of and responses to their cultural and political contexts, their identification of rival or antagonistic groups, the creation and maintenance of social boundaries, and their organization models. I. The Claim of Special Knowledge One way the Qumran community and its wider movement distinguished themselves from their contemporaries was their claim to possess special knowledge. For example, 1QS V, 10b–12a suggests that the sectarians claimed special knowledge about the Torah – the hidden laws of God (twrtsnh) – that was not accessible to the rest of Israel.62 The Qumranites saw this special knowledge about the true demands of Torah as not only the result of inspired exegesis, but also related to and contingent upon many other pieces of sectarian knowledge. As Newsom explains in her examination of the complexity of knowledge in 1QS, “knowledge of

59 60

Cf. Brooke, “Place of Prophecy,” 538–39. Regarding identity construction by deliberate forgetting, see Lieu, Christian Identity,

64. 61

See Newsom, Self, 93–94, for her appropriation of the term “figured worlds.” According to 4QMMT, two of the most prominent emphases in this esoteric knowledge of God’s hidden requirements seem to be cultic calendar and purity rules. 62

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Torah requires knowing [many] other things.”63 In her account of the symbolic and socially-constructed “webs of significance” at Qumran, these things include the temporal dimension of the application of Torah,64 special revelation through the holy spirit, a restrictive understanding of the covenant, community discipline, human nature, and the nature of history.65 Possession of special knowledge had an identity forming function at Qumran as a boundary marker.66 The way that the community “used” its knowledge – or the “transactions of knowledge,” to use Newsom’s term – was both distinctive and significant for the definition and maintenance of the community. Not only did the possession of sectarian knowledge mark one as an insider, what one did with that knowledge was also strictly divided along ingroup/out-group distinctions. For example, while sectarians were expected to jealously guard their knowledge from outsiders, they were enjoined to share it with fellow members.67 Mishandling of ingroup knowledge was possibly a cause for expulsion.68 The particular ways that special knowledge helped form social identity at Qumran have certain ethical implications. Since possession of sectarian knowledge was understood in deterministic terms, such knowledge was to be kept from outsiders.69 Consequently, Qumranic texts display not only little

63 Newsom, Self, 68, esp. 80 for her use of the Weberian phrase “webs of significance” in the context of an analysis of the Two Spirit Treatise (1QS III, 15–IV, 26), “one cannot really know one thing without knowing many other things and their relationships. Things are joined together in webs of significance.” 64 Viz. the sectarians understood the proper applications of God’s laws as varying from time to time, and were revealed as such through history. Newsom, Self, 70, cites 1QS I, 8–9 to illustrate this view, “to walk before him perfectly [according to] all that has been revealed at the times appointed for their revelation.” For her reading of the phrase “the rule of the time” (toh qwj) in 1QS IX, 14 as referring to the conviction that knowledge valid for one time may not be so for another, see Newsom, Self, 177. 65 Newsom, Self, 70–72, esp. 72, remarks concerning the sectarians interest in the mysteries of history, “The understanding of torah as possessing a historical dimension similarly requires the cultivation of knowledge concerning the nature of history, its epochs, and the mysteries of the plan of God that are embedded in its structure and events.” 66 As Newsom, Self, 74, asserts, “Knowledge played a central role for the community as an instrument of social definition. Relationship to knowledge is what forms the boundary between the sect and the outside world. Wherever the language of community formation is used, there one finds the language of knowledge.” 67 Newsom, Self, 74, helpfully adds, “To exchange knowledge is to practice trust and to build up community.” 68 Perhaps 1QS VII, 16–17. 69 At least that is how it is conceptualized in the texts. This is in tension with the varying level of openness to converts in the movement’s history. Cf. note 107 below. For the proviso that determinism did not necessarily affect practice among ancient Jews, see E. P. Sanders, “The Dead Sea Sect and Other Jews: Commonalities, Overlaps and Differences,” in The

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missionary impulse,70 but also little concern for outsiders. Additionally, since the Qumranites believed that they possessed their knowledge because of God’s sovereign choice and grace, this fostered in them an attitude of humility, which is elsewhere lauded as an important sectarian virtue or even distinctive trait.71 II. Temporal and Spatial Locations Another aspect of the construction of the present at Qumran was their view of their temporal and spatial location. As Newsom points out, citing Bakhtin’s concept of the “chronotope”,72 the representation of the relationship of time and space is “a fundamental criterion for understanding the sense of reality of various cultures and literature.”73 Regardless of how the Qumranites conceived of the relationship between time and space, the ways they located themselves in time as well as space shaped their identity. Based on her study of the so-called “instructions to the Maskil” in 1QS IX, Newsom concludes that it has a more “historicized” and even “eschatologized” view of time than, say, the wisdom literature,74 meaning it presents time as a successive series of divinely determined periods, leading to a final climactic period. According to this historicized and eschatologized view of time, or “epochal time”, the Qumran community placed itself in the penultimate age of preparation for the end.75 It portrayed itself as being in an age of great evil and apostasy, in which its members’ faithful adherence to God’s righteous demands would preserve them through this difficult time and result in their vindication in the final age.76 The ethical implications of this include, as menDead Sea Scrolls in Their Historical Context (ed. Timothy H. Lim; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000), 29–30. 70 Newsom, Self, 75. Contrast this with the suggestion about an earlier view reflected in CD II, 14–VI, 1 in Murphy-O’Connor, “Essene Missionary Document?” 201–29. 71 See Chapter Five, Section E, Subsection II above. 72 For Bakhtin’s own definition of “chronotope” as “the intrinsic connectedness of temporal and spatial relationships that are artistically expressed in literature,” see Mikhail M. Bakhtin and J. Michael Holquist, The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays (ed. J. Michael Holquist; trans. Caryl Emerson and J. Michael Holquist; UTPSS 1; Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981), 84. 73 Newsom, Self, 175. Newsom’s examination of the concept of time in 1QS is wide ranging. Here, my focus is restricted to temporal location. For how other facets of time contributed to the sectarians’ identity, behaviours, and ethos, see Newsom, Self, 174–86. 74 Newsom, Self, 177. 75 Newsom, Self, 177–78, draws out the implication of the Qumran description of the present as “the time for preparing the way to the wilderness” by noting that it refers to “the time of the elite sect’s separation – symbolic and literal – from the larger Jewish community.” 76 This view of the present is of course inseparable form their view of the past and their future expectations. See section D below and Chapter Eight for the impacts of eschatology on identity formation and ethics respectively.

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tioned above, particular proper behaviours applicable for the time. This temporally derived identity probably also promoted the value of obedience to God, especially in light of the imminent eschatological reversals which doubtless motivated the pursuit of that value. The physical location of the Qumran community in the Judean desert might also have conveyed powerful symbolic meanings.77 The reference to the wilderness in 1QS VIII, 13–14, though possibly metaphorical at first, eventually helped the Qumranites to identify themselves, through a more literal reading of Isa 40:3, as those going out to the wilderness to prepare the way for God by expounding the Torah. However, they also recognized their location in the land. This already-mentioned self-perception of having returned to the land and yet still in exile can again be described as “liminality,” which gave them a special sense of identity that at least in a certain phase of the movement could incline them towards egalitarian structure and behaviours, as evidenced by their community of goods and possible democratic structure.78 III. Cultural/Political Contexts Beside temporal and spatial locations, how the Qumranites construed their cultural and political locations or contexts also affected their identity formation. Since the next chapter will explore more broadly how sectarian responses to these contexts contributed to their ethics, this subsection will simply illustrate how the Qumranites might have defined their identity through their responses to these contexts and how aspects of such identity influenced ethics. Despite the complexity of the cultural context of the Qumran community, this context can generally be described as Hellenistic.79 The view that the Qumran movement broke away from the religious institution in Jerusalem because of its rejection of the Hasmoneans’ Hellenism has been shown in recent years to be incorrect, or at least overly simplistic.80 Moreover, careful studies of the Scrolls have revealed discernible Hellenistic influences beneath the surface of an apparently xenophobic ethos.81 Nevertheless, the sectarians 77

For the powerfully metaphorical role space and geography have in the articulation of identity, see Tim Whitmarsh, “‘Greece is the World’: Exile and Identity in the Second Sophistic,” in Being Greek under Rome: Cultural Identity, the Second Sophistic, and the Development of Empire (ed. Simon Goldhill; Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 279. 78 E.g., 1QS I, 11–13; VI, 1–21. However, column six also emphasizes hierarchy and rank. 79 Gruen, Heritage and Hellenism, esp. xv; and Martin Hengel, Judentum und Hellenismus: Studien zu ihrer Begegnung unter besonderer Berücksichtigung Palästinas bis zur Mitte des 2. Jh. v. Chr. (WUNT 10; Tübingen: Mohr (Siebeck), 1969), 193. 80 Martin Hengel, “Qumran and Hellenism,” in Collins and Kugler, Religion, 46–56. 81 See the next chapter and the contributions of Pieter van der Horst, James C. VanderKam and Shaye J. D. Cohen in John J. Collins and Gregory E. Sterling, eds., Hellenism in

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expressed a self-conscious rejection of foreign cultures.82 One possible way the Qumranites distinguished themselves from their Hellenistic cultural environment was by using a peculiar form of Hebrew that exhibits minimal uses of Aramaic, vernacular Hebrew, and loan words from other languages.83 Such an insistence on a “pure” language represented an ethnocentric cultural stance vis-à-vis Hellenism and fostered once again their identity as biblical Israel. This was conducive to the value of upholding biblical traditions, often the ostensible basis of sectarian ethics, as the last chapter has shown. The Qumranites had various responses to the local political powers of their time – the Hasmoneans, the Herodians, and the Romans. It is often acknowledged that they apparently rejected the Hasmoneans’ claim to both kingship and priesthood. Against what they viewed as an illegitimate claim, they identified themselves as the legitimate priesthood and those that expected two distinct messiahs – one royal and one priestly.84 While that antagonistic stance was likely representative of the beginning of the Qumran settlement, it had a different target by the first century C.E. Judging by the portrayal of the Kittim in the War Scroll, commonly accepted as referring to the Romans, the attitude of the Qumran community towards them is noticeably hostile, even though at an earlier stage the sectarians had seen the Romans as God’s instrument of vengeance. This escalating hostility towards the Romans, as they became increasingly belligerent to Jewish nationalists, probably led the Qumranites to identify themselves with the mighty host of the “Sons of Light,”85 and motivated them towards militancy against the Romans as the “Sons of Darkness.”86 IV. Conflicts As the above sketch suggests, the Qumranites’ responses to their cultural and political contexts exhibited conflicts with various groups. Social psychology the Land of Israel (CJA 13; Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2001), 154– 74, 175–81 and 216–43. 82 Collins and Sterling, Hellenism, 3. 83 William M. Schniedewind, “Qumran Hebrew as an Antilanguage,” JBL 118 (1999): 235–52. 84 E.g., see the analysis of 1QSa in Lawrence H. Schiffman, The Eschatological Community of the Dead Sea Scrolls: A Study of the Rule of the Congregation (SBLMS 38; Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1989). 85 While “Sons of Light” was likely a second-century self-designation for the predecessors of the Qumranites, it was evidently re-appropriated and still popular at Qumran, as 1QS and 4Q177 indicate. 86 See Philip S. Alexander, “The Evil Empire: The Qumran Eschatological War Cycle and the Origins of Jewish Opposition to Rome,” in Paul et al., Emanuel, 17–31, for the suggestive argument that the Qumranites envisioned an actual and imminent eschatological war with the nations, and that the war rules in 1QM and other similar texts were actual tactical manuals.

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has shown that conflict between groups can sharpen self-identities.87 How then did the Qumran community articulate their issues of conflict with other groups? How did these conflicts help define its identity and code of behaviour? Recent studies based on the sociology of sectarianism have introduced some useful categories and models to help answer such questions.88 Jokiranta, for example, has analyzed the major sectarian texts, particularly the serakhim and the pesharim, to explore how sectarian social identity was constructed within the Qumran movement.89 She notes, with the aid of socialscientific models, that sects are groups in tension with their social-cultural environments, and that tension is a variable on a “dimensional continuum.”90 Though not synonymous, conflicts are expressions of high levels of tension. Therefore, Jokiranta’s depiction of the Qumran movement as groups with usually high, but occasionally moderated, levels of tension with those outside is illuminating for our consideration of conflicts here.91 Employing the model of sociologists R. Stark and W. Bainbridge, she describes tension as a function of three interrelated and mutually reinforcing variables or elements: difference (deviant norms in beliefs and practices), antagonism (usually expressed by claims to exclusive legitimacy), and separation (restriction of social relations).92 In light of this model, the conflicts that the Qumran community had with others are explicable in these terms. Furthermore, the sectarian scrolls register particularly strong tension with other Jews.93 The main foci of intraethnic/religious struggles included, with varying emphasis through time, the interpretation of Torah with its corresponding implications for how to live, the control over or the validity of the Jerusalem Temple, and the identity of

87

For the relationship between conflict and identity formation, see the classic sociological study by Muzafer Sherif et al., Intergroup Conflict and Cooperation: The Robbers Cave Experiment (Norman: University of Oklahoma, 1961). 88 E.g., Kåre S. Fuglseth, Johannine Sectarianism in Perspective: A Sociological, Historical, and Comparative Analysis of Temple and Social Relationships in the Gospel of John, Philo, and Qumran (NovTSup; Leiden: Brill, 2005). 89 Jokiranta, “Identity on a Continuum,” a part of which she co-wrote with Cecilia Wassen. 90 Jokiranta, “Identity on a Continuum,” 36–38. 91 For the observation that the Qumran movement did not always have an extremely high level of tension with those outside, see Jokiranta, “Identity on a Continuum,” 52–54. For a similar assessment in terms of tension with foreigners, see Fuglseth, Johannine Sectarianism, 341–50. In a private correspondence, Jokiranta questioned the link between “conflict” and “tension”. 92 Jokiranta, “Identity on a Continuum,” 38–52; see also 249 for her succinct explanation on how the three elements interrelate. 93 Jokiranta, “Identity on a Continuum,” 249–52.

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Israel.94 Indeed, the question of identity was likely the overarching issue of conflict for the Qumran movement. Consequently, this model’s utility for explaining how the three elements of tension (or the resulting conflict) could work together to strengthen selfidentity and particularist behaviours at Qumran is especially valuable. The high level of self-conscious deviance (the element of difference) from the beliefs and practices of others in Israel, correlated with their particular biblical interpretation, marked the community as distinct.95 Similarly, the high level of expressed hostility towards outsiders (the element of antagonism), to the point of promoting hatred against all of them as “Sons of Darkness,”96 most probably increased the salience of the group’s identity as uniquely legitimate visà-vis those it opposed. Finally, the increasingly severe restrictions on interactions with outsiders (the element of separation) most likely contributed to the cutting off of alternative identities from the members of the community, such as being Pharisees or Sadducees. Seen through this tripartite lens of tension, conflicts have weighty implications for both identity and ethics, including the identity-defining differences in beliefs and practices, the identity-reinforcing antagonism towards others, and the identity-preserving restrictions on interpersonal relationships, all of which required some mechanism of demarcation and enforcement. V. The Establishment and Maintenance of Boundaries The above points to yet another important aspect in the construction of the present by the Qumranites: the boundaries they drew and maintained to help define who they were. As Lieu rightly observes, social boundaries, at least in the cases of early Jewish communities that she examined, were permeable, shifting and contested.97 As such, boundaries were functions of time and part 94 Cf. Goranson, “Others and Intra-Jewish Polemic,” for similar conclusions, except the point about the Temple. 95 For an application of modern conversion theories to explore the way scripture was used at Qumran to construct a self-identity that was socially deviant, see George J. Brooke, “Justifying Deviance: The Place of Scripture in Converting to Qumran Self-Understanding,” in Reading the Present in the Qumran Library: The Perception of the Contemporary by Means of Scriptural Interpretations (ed. Kristin De Troyer and Armin Lange; SBLSymS 30; Atlanta, Ga.: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005), 73–87. 96 1QS I, 9b–11a. 97 Lieu, Christian Identity, 98, speaks of both the importance of boundaries for identity and their counter-intuitive fluidity, “boundedness is integral to the idea of identity, for it is boundaries that both enclose those who share what is common and exclude those who belong outside, that both ensure continuity and coherence, and safeguard against contamination or invasion – or so it seems. It is part of the seduction of identity that the encircling boundary appears both given and immutable, when it is neither.” Later, on page 100, she avers that boundaries “are permeable and may also be contested.”

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of the construction of the present, something that the Qumran movement had to redefine from time to time.98 What then were the boundary markers with which the Qumran community distinguished themselves from outsiders?99 And what identity did they intend to define with these markers? To take up the second question first, Qumran scholarship has long noted that the self-definition the sectarians wanted to achieve with their boundaries was not merely to be one alternative form of Judaism (or less anachronistically, of being Israel, the covenant people of God) among other more or less legitimate forms. At stake for them was nothing less than the claim to be the only legitimate Israel in the Latter Days.100 Accordingly, it is unsurprising that the Qumranites and their predecessors went beyond the traditional distinction between Jews and Gentiles in defining “Israel,” and set up their boundary markers to exclude other Jews too.101 The markers of idolatry and circumcision, for example, though not frequently highlighted in the Scrolls, were apparently reinterpreted and reapplied by the sectarians to distinguish themselves from other Jews.102 Much more frequent in the Scrolls, however, were the uses of purity as a marker of distinction from other Jews, a marker that previously had been used to exclude Gentiles.103 As H. Harrington documents ably,104 the idea of the ritual impurity of Gentiles is absent from the Hebrew Bible, where Gentiles are only faulted for their moral impurity. Rather, it was developed in Second Temple Judaism in such texts as Jubilees and appropriated by the Qumran community and their predecessors.105 Thus, the Qumran community saw Gen98 E.g., judging by the difference between S and D, physical and geographic separation from other Jews seems to have become more of a boundary marker at some point. See the comparison in Jokiranta, “Identity on a Continuum,” 248. 99 For some possible answers, see Baumgarten, “Perception of the Past,” 5–6, “All cultures employ boundary practices to distinguish insiders from outsiders, however these may be defined in each case. These may include practices concerning food, dress, marriage, commerce, and worship, to name some of the most common examples.” 100 Jokiranta, “Identity on a Continuum,” 238–39. For the consistent preference for selfidentification as “Israel” (whole) rather than “Judah” (part) in the sectarian texts, see John S. Bergsma, “Qumran Self-Identity: ‘Israel’ or ‘Judah’?” DSD 15 (2008): 172–89. 101 Baumgarten, “Perception of the Past,” 6. Cf. the lack of appeal to Abrahamic kinship in the sectarian scrolls noted in Lieu, Christian Identity, 114. 102 Lieu, Christian Identity, 114, citing examples such as 1QS II, 11; IV, 2–7; V, 5. 103 Lieu, Christian Identity, 115. 104 Harrington, Purity Texts, 112–28, esp. her summarizing introduction, “The distinction between insider and outsider to the group at Qumran was expressed in terms of purity. Labelling outsiders ritually as well as morally impure helped to preserved the group’s identity as a community set apart to maintain holiness in Israel. The idea that outsiders were morally impure, while members of the sect were holy, was reinforced physically by the label of ritual impurity.” 105 Harrington, Purity Texts, 112–14. On the ascription of impurity to foreigners in the Hellenistic-Roman era as a Jewish response to the intrusive presence of foreigners in the land,

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tiles as well as Jewish outsiders not only as morally defiling, but also ritually defiling, which prompted severe restrictions on contacts with all outsiders.106 The wide-ranging applications of purity as a boundary marker in the Qumran scrolls covered food, atonement, membership, marriage, and all manner of contact with outsiders, including social, physical, and commercial. In sum, social boundary markers at Qumran, such as purity rules, sharply separated the sectarians from those outside their group and reinforced their present identity as true Israel: the holy and faithful people of God in their times. This identity, thus constructed and perceived, affected in a generally negative and hostile way the sectarians’ attitude and treatment towards outsiders, both Jews and Gentiles.107 These boundary markers, other than having identity-forming effects and ethical implications, were also rigorously maintained through various mechanisms, including mutual reproofs, penal codes, annual covenant renewal ceremonies, and individual examinations.108 VI. Community Organization Models The connection between boundary maintenance and community organization introduces the final topic in this section – how the organization of the community reinforced its social identity and shaped its ethics. The sectarian scrolls reflect several ways that the sectarians organized themselves. G. Brooke identifies four such models as cultic, cosmological, military, and tribal, and rightly suggests that such selfdescriptors necessarily influence behaviour and practice and have an ethical dimension.109 see Francis Schmidt, How the Temple Thinks: Identity and Social Cohesion in Ancient Judaism (trans. J. Edward Crowley; BSem 78; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 239– 44. 106 Harrington, Purity Texts, 116; see also 120 for the lack of distinction in the sectarian scrolls between the impurity of Jewish and gentile outsiders, as all humans were seen as inherently impure. However, in other respects Jewish and Gentile outsiders were distinguished, such as for entering the sect. 107 This understanding of their apparent exclusivism must be balanced by the recognition that texts such as 1QS reflect openness to converts, and that the sectarians possibly recruited new members and had some interaction with their social milieu. See, e.g., Fuglseth, Johannine Sectarianism, 341. Indeed, different sectarian texts express different levels of exclusivism and possibly reflect variation in attitude through the history of the movement. See Gudrun Holtz, “Inclusivism at Qumran.” DSD 16 (2009): 22–54, and Fuglseth, Johannine Sectarianism, 344–49, and esp. 350 for the contrasts among 1QS, CD, 4QMMT, 1QM, 11QTa, and 4QFlor. 108 For a discussion of some of these mechanisms in light of Foucault’s account of disciplinary institutions, see Newsom, Self, 95–101. 109 George J. Brooke, “The Dead Sea Scrolls and New Testament Ecclesiology,” in Holiness and Ecclesiology in the New Testament (ed. Kent E. Brower and Andy Johnson; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2007), 13–16.

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If identity as Israel was the Qumran community’s central concern, as suggested above, it was natural that it organized itself, at least at some point in its history, using the model of the twelve tribes.110 When the community patterned itself nostalgically after a biblical pattern, it was in effect declaring itself to be restored Israel in the Last Days. Such an identity had political and interpersonal implications, as outgroups were seen as the hostile nations and ingroup members were seen as kinsman, family, and brothers,111 calling for different sets of attitudes and behaviours accordingly. Similarly, the sectarians, in various stages of their history, either imagined themselves or actually organized themselves in a military pattern, modelled after the camp of Israel’s army in Exodus and Numbers.112 This probably helped the sectarians to identify themselves with the people-army of Yahweh, moving on a holy mission between Sinai and the Promised Land through the wilderness. This military identification also promoted a sense of exigency with extra-stringent purity requirements and helps explain why the Qumranites were probably exclusively male, sexually abstinent, forbidden to relieve themselves inside the settlement, and otherwise under strict discipline.113 In Exodus and Numbers, Israel’s military organization had at its centre the sanctuary and its priestly personnel. Indeed, cultic elements were integral to the military organization of Israel on the march.114 This cultic model of organization naturally reinforced the already cited priestly orientation of the sectarians and was entirely consistent with the almost obsessive concerns with ritual purity, feast days, and calendar found in their texts.115 Furthermore, this 110

Brooke cites 1QM II, 1–4; III, 14; V, 1–2, where allusions to the tribal model were probably imaginary, and 1QS VIII, 1, where the tribal model was reflected in the actual community organization. 111 For the “social creativity” with which 1QpHab portrays Jewish opponents as Gentile enemies, see Jutta Jokiranta, “Pesharim: A Mirror of Self-Understanding,” in De Troyer and Lange, Reading the Present, 31–33. With the exception of D, terminologies of fictive kinship are relatively rare in the sectarian scrolls, compared with the NT. See Jutta Jokiranta and Cecilia Wassen, “A Brotherhood at Qumran? Metaphorical Familial Language in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Northern Lights on the Dead Sea Scrolls: Proceedings of the Nordic Qumran Network 2003–2006 (ed. Anders K. Petersen, et al.; Leiden: Brill, 2009), 173–204. 112 Brooke cites 11QTa LVII, 4–5, 1QM IV, 1–5, 1QSa I, 29–II, 1, and CD XII, 23–XIII, 2 as examples. For a fuller argument for how the Qumran community organized itself after the pattern of the military camp of Israel in the wilderness, see also Schmidt, How the Temple Thinks, 146–50. 113 See again Newsom, Self, 95–101, for her application of Foucault’s account of disciplinary institutions to Qumran. 114 1QSa I, 29–II, 1 is a good example of how the cultic model organization is mixed with the military model at Qumran. 115 For a summary of the partial empirical confirmations of Freud’s theories about the connections between religiosity and obsessionality, see Christopher A. Lewis, “‘Cleanliness is Next to Godliness’: A Further Look,” JBV 24 (2003): 239–44.

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model likely supported the community’s self-identity as a community of priests and fostered an understanding that the community was in some sense the only legitimate Temple in the present.116 Priestly hierarchy and temple-like sanctity went beyond the earthly at Qumran and reflected a cosmological self-understanding. The use of liturgical texts such as 4Q400–407 likely evoked a super-human self-image as a part of the heavenly temple or angelic congregation, prompting perhaps super-human expectations for purity. These self-understandings – the cosmological, cultic, and military, all worked together to reinforce each other and, above all, the (tribal) self-understanding of being Israel, an Israel that needed to know certain things in the penultimate age of wickedness, to act in certain ways where they were, to distinguish themselves from all outsiders, and to be a certain way, with boundaries that kept out the many and let in a few.

D. Forming Identity through Constructing the Future According to some social psychologists, a group’s view of the future also has an identity-forming effect.117 While details about how eschatology shaped Qumran ethics will be presented in Chapter Eight, here the focus is on how constructions of the future helped shape sectarian identity and what futureoriented identity implies for sectarian ethics. Texts such as 1QSa I, 2–3 express the belief that all people would one day follow sectarian halakhot.118 This doubtless reinforced the sectarians’ selfunderstanding as people who were right about God’s demands. However, they were also painfully aware that few outside their group accepted their cherished views in the present. Consequently, the promotion of this future expectation might have been a means, even if an unconscious one, to maintain and improve a positive social identity in the face of rejection by others. Similarly, the War Scroll anticipates the ultimate triumph of the ingroup members as the Sons of Light, and the corresponding defeat of outgroups lumped together as 116 On the concentric organizational structure of the Qumran community as modelled after the camp of the wilderness, see Schmidt, How the Temple Thinks, 150–67, esp. fig. 6. 117 E.g., Marco Cinnirella, “Exploring Temporal Aspects of Social Identity: The Concept of Possible Social Identities,” EJSP 28, no. 2 (March 1998): 227–48, where he builds on the concept of cognitive alternatives arising from the social identity theory and self classification theory of Tajfel and Turner cited earlier, and the theory of possible selves advanced by cultural psychologists Markus and Nurius, to explore how “social identity maintenance is influenced by cognitions about, and social representations of, a group’s past and possible future.” 118 John J. Collins, “Forms of Community in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Paul et al., Emanuel, 110, 111.

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the Sons of Darkness. This expectation of ultimate victory likewise enhanced their positive identity. These examples show that some ideas about the future served to maintain a positive group identity and to provide motivation for disenchanted group members to stay in the group. Ethically, such a reinforced identity was likely to harden negative attitudes towards outsiders and severely limit social relationships with them. However, such an approach had its limit, as an extended delay and frustrations of eschatological expectations could cause a breakdown of identity and disaffection with the group.119

E. Conclusion This chapter has demonstrated how complex and multifaceted the construction of identity was in the Qumran movement. This construction was an ongoing process that took into account, and responded to, many factors internal and external to the community, including the various aspects of how it constructed its understanding of the past, present, and future. As suggested in the beginning of this chapter, social identity has ethical relevance in a number of ways. Some examples have already been given of how different facets of the sectarians’ identity served as a basis for solidarity with members of the ingroup and difference from members of outgroups, were laden with values, and provided moral motivation. Some of them can be summarized here under the rubrics of moral obligations and moral virtues.120 The promotion of social solidarity and difference that came from the sectarians’ collective identity implied certain moral obligations. Based on who they thought they were, the Qumranites took on some obligations towards each other, for instance, to have positive regards for one another, to reprove each other in “truth, humility, and covenantal love,” and to avoid antagonism.121 On the other hand, they were obligated to minimize social contact with outsiders or even to show antipathy towards them. The communally-formed identity at Qumran also provided both the values that helped determine the norms of the community and the motivation to carry out those norms as obligations for personal conduct. Chief among the sectarians’ list of moral obligations is the duty to perform the requirements of God’s Torah according to their special understanding. Even in cases of ritual halak119 However, for the remarkable ability of religious groups to cope with “failed prophecies,” see the social-scientific studies in Jon R. Stone, ed., Expecting Armageddon: Essential Readings in Failed Prophecy (New York: Routledge, 2000). 120 This is of course an etic categorization based on the discussion on modern ethics in Chapter Three. 121 1QS V, 24b–26a.

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hot, the sectarians viewed non-conformance as wickedness requiring atonement and forgiveness, thus demonstrating the moral overtones of these obligations. While the social distinctions, values, and motivations that identity prompted sometimes led to moral obligations, their implications can also be expressed in terms of moral virtues.122 In the sectarian perspective, as seen earlier, their identity as God’s elect gave them a sense of humility, which is listed as the first among the catalogue of virtues in 1QS IV, 3b–6a.123 The possession of these virtues was attributed to the presence of the Spirit of Truth and their identity as the Sons of Light. Furthermore, the sectarians identified themselves as the remnant of Israel who had returned to faithful obedience of God’s Torah, which certainly encouraged contrition and repentance, which are much-extolled moral virtues in sectarian literature. Qumran ethics, whether in terms of moral obligations or virtues, was not constructed solely with reference to the internal factors such as tradition and self-identity. As suggested above, external factors sometimes came into play, as the next chapter will show.

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For an analysis of Romans 12–15 using both social identity theory and the theory of virtue ethics, see Philip F. Esler, “Social Identity, the Virtues and the Good Life: A New Approach to Romans 12:1–15:13,” BTB 33 (2003): 51–64. 123 “This spirit engenders humility, patience, abundant compassion, perpetual goodness, insight, understanding, and powerful wisdom resonating to each of God’s deeds, sustained by His constant faithfulness. It engenders a spirit knowledgeable in every plan of action, zealous for the laws of righteousness, holy in its thoughts and steadfast in purpose. This spirit encourages plenteous compassion upon all who hold fast to truth, and glorious purity combined with visceral hatred of impurity in its every guise. It results in humble deportment allied with a general discernment, concealing the truth, that is, the mysteries of knowledge.” (WAC).

Chapter 7

Cultural and Political Contexts As the previous chapter suggests, the cultural and political contexts of the Qumran community were relevant to its ethics because they contributed in various ways to the social formation of identity, which in turn influenced the construction of ethics.1 This chapter will expand this insight by delineating other ways that culture and political contexts were relevant to Qumran ethics. Whereas the previous chapter mainly attended to the generally internal factors of identity formation, this chapter will focus on the external factors that prompted certain reactions in the Qumran community.2 The responses of a community towards the symbolic and socially-constructed world around it have all kinds of implications for its ideology and behavioural norms that are ethically significant.3 Since culture and politics are both important elements in any socially-constructed world, an account of Qumran ethics must consider its cultural and political contexts.4 This consideration of the cultural and political contexts of the Qumran community covers the time from the rise of the Hasmoneans to the first Jewish War with Rome, a period that was bracketed by revolts and a turbulent time full of cultural, political, and religious conflicts and unrest.5 The terminus a quo of this period is set earlier than the settlement of the community at Qumran, because those critical early decades set the conditions in which the Qumran movement originated. During this period, Palestinian Jews were under several cultural influences, including Hellenistic, Persian, Egyptian, and Nabatean, some of which were mediated through Diaspora Jewish communities. Meanwhile, a number of 1

See especially Chapter Six, Section C, Subsection III. This does not assume that the construction of ethics at Qumran was always or chiefly reactive, but only that external factors can have impacts on ethics. 3 For the importance of the socially-constructed world for ethics, particularly for early Christians, see Meeks, Moral World, 13–15. 4 For the anthropological insight that culture plays a key role in ethics, see Geertz, Interpretation of Cultures, 87–125, esp. 89 for his definition of “culture.” For access to political power as a key determinant of ethics, see Hillel Newman, Proximity to Power and Jewish Sectarian Groups of the Ancient Period: A Review of Lifestyle, Values, and Halakhah in the Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and Qumran (ed. Ruth Ludlam; BRLJ 25; Leiden: Brill, 2006). 5 This schematization of the period is largely dependent on Josephus. 2

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groups became politically significant for Palestinian Jews. According to Josephus, it was during this time that the Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and eventually the Zealots and Sicarii emerged. Internationally, it was a time when the Romans became increasingly dominant in the region and asserted escalating control over Jewish life and politics. However, Rome’s relationship with the Jewish state was only a part of a complex network of relationships with other geopolitical entities in the region, including Egypt, Parthia, and Nabatea, all of which contributed to the political backdrop of this investigation. With this general background in view, the next three sections will examine several possible cultural influences, first among Palestinian Jews in general, then specifically at Qumran. Following that, two sections will investigate the varied responses of the Qumran movement towards its changing political circumstances.

A. Hellenistic Cultural Influences While Palestinian Jews had contacts with Greek culture even before the time of Alexander the Great,6 the effects of these contacts were especially noticeable in the Hasmonean-Roman period.7 The interactions between Palestinian Jews of this period and Hellenistic culture can be characterized generally as overt rejection combined with tacit adoption, both in varying levels.8 For example, although the Maccabees reportedly began their revolt against the Seleucids as a reaction against the latter’s program of coercive Hellenization, 6 See, e.g., Martin Hengel, “Judaism and Hellenism Revisited,” in Collins and Sterling, Hellenism, 10–12, where he offers the evidence of coins and other artefacts, among other things, to show the early ingression of Hellenism into Palestine, and cites approvingly the judgement of Elias Bickerman that “Palestine belonged to the belt of an eclectic GrecoEgyptian-Asiatic culture” as early as the fifth and fourth century B.C.E. 7 See Hengel, “Judaism and Hellenism Revisited,” 7, where he confidently reiterates his earlier thesis in his magnum opus of 1969, already cited in the previous chapter, that “[n]ot only the Jews of the Greek-speaking Diaspora but also Judaism in the Palestinian motherland since the Ptolemaic rule in the third century B.C.E. may be called ‘Hellenistic Judaism.’” He goes on to state that “this is even more true for the Roman era since Herod.” 8 The five classic models of Christian responses to culture in H. Richard Niebuhr, Christ and Culture (New York: Harper, 1951), though more nuanced than a simplistic dichotomy between rejection and accommodation (they further include the median models of synthesis, dualism, and conversion), cannot fully account for the Jewish responses described here. John M. G. Barclay, Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora: From Alexander to Trajan (323 BCE– 117 CE) (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996), helpfully introduces three related though distinct scales – assimilation, acculturation, and accommodation – as heuristic tools for analyzing various Jewish responses to cultural contexts. This allows for the possibility that some Jews can have both high acculturation and an oppositional stance against Hellenism. My argument here adds the distinction between an overt stance and what was actually happening.

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their aspiration and behaviour already exhibited elements of Hellenism. Later Hasmonean kings displayed Hellenism only more overtly.9 One indication of general Hellenistic influences is the apparently widespread use the Greek language, as shown by the epigraphic and documentary evidence.10 This demonstrates that, at least for certain segments of Jewish society, Greek was commonly used, even possibly by some at Qumran. Another area is the political and civic institutions. As hinted above, some Hasmonean kings styled themselves as Greek rulers and organized their courts accordingly.11 Later, local Sanhedrins established under Roman rule also had some similarities with Hellenistic civic councils.12 Furthermore, traces of Greek philosophy, including its dualistic anthropology, are present in Jewish literature of this period. While most instances of this are from the Diaspora,13 Ben Sira and Josephus’ writings confirm that Palestinian Jews also drew from Hellenistic philosophy, and that Jewish ethical discourses comparable with Greek ethics began to surface also in Palestine during this period.14 Despite all these indications of Hellenism in Palestine, this Hellenism can only be described as qualified and limited compared with that found in the Diaspora.15 This general situation of overt rejection with tacit adoption is also reflected in the evidence from Qumran. Recent scholarship has commonly noted the presence of Hellenistic influences at Qumran, albeit even more cir-

9

They found it necessary to adopt Hellenistic ways in, e.g., economics, politics, and national defence. Hengel, “Judaism and Hellenism Revisited,” 22. 10 For a presentation of the epigraphic evidence, albeit provisional before the completion of the full database of inscriptions, see Pieter W. van der Horst, “Greek in Jewish Palestine in Light of Jewish Epigraphy,” in Collins and Sterling, Hellenism, 154–74. Van de Horst also cites documentary evidence such as a letter from the Bar Kochba archive, the Murabba’at papyri, and the documents from the Babatha archive to reinforce his argument that Greek was the common language for many Palestinian Jews in late antiquity. For the abundance of Greek inscriptions from Jerusalem, especially on ossuaries, marking it as having its own Jewish-Hellenistic culture, see Hengel, “Judaism and Hellenism Revisited,” 26–27. 11 Lee I. Levine, “Hasmonean Jerusalem: A Jewish City in a Hellenistic Orbit,” Judaism 46 (1997): 140–46. 12 Joshua Efron, Studies on the Hasmonean Period (SJLA 39; Leiden: Brill, 1987), 309– 10. 13 Gregory E. Sterling, “‘The Jewish Philosophy’: The Presence of Hellenistic Philosophy in Jewish Exegesis in the Second Temple Period,” in Ancient Judaism in Its Hellenistic Context (ed. Carol Bakhos; JSJSup 95; Leiden: Brill, 2005), 131–53. 14 Sterling, “Jewish Philosophy,” 149–53, argues that Diaspora texts expressed a shared interest in ethics. See also Chapter Three, Section B above. For the use of both Hellenistic and Egyptian wisdom traditions in a Palestinian ethical treatise, see Jack T. Sanders, Ben Sira and Demotic Wisdom (SBLMS 28; Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1983). 15 Contra Hengel and others in Collins and Sterling, Hellenism, see the somewhat reactionary dissenting critiques of Louis H. Feldman, “How Much Hellenism in the Land of Israel?” JSJ 33 (2002): 290–313.

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cumscribed.16 Here too, notwithstanding the milieu of Hellenistic Judaism, the Qumran community tended to express an overt anti-Hellenism in its literature. As will be shown below, this combination of acceptance and rejection of Greek cultural influences, in ways that went beyond the models of Niebuhr and Barclay, had ethical consequences. I. Greek Language While most of the texts from Qumran were written in Hebrew,17 a few extant Greek texts are in the collection, which clearly indicate Greek literacy at Qumran, at least for some.18 These limited Greek texts, numbering between 24 and 27, all came from Caves 4 and 7.19 Whereas the Cave 4 Greek texts are mainly translations of Torah texts, the Cave 7 manuscripts are generally very fragmentary and hard to identify. Furthermore, the entire lot of evidence from Cave 7 – all Greek manuscripts – is peculiar and demands explanation. Although the evidence available cannot answer definitely if Cave 7 was a special depository for Greek texts brought to the community by new converts or visitors and relegated to disuse, it seems quite plausible that, given the mere twenty-odd surviving Greek manuscripts, and most of them from a cave that contained nothing but Greek fragments, the Qumran community deliberately limited the production and use of Greek religious documents, perhaps leaving them to be handled by the elite members only.20

16 Hengel, “Qumran and Hellenism,” explores Hellenistic influences in technology, community organization, and religious-theological ideas. Space limits the discussion below to only the last two areas under “Greek ideas,” not implying that the adoption of Greek technology, whether in agriculture, architecture, medicine, or military science, lacked ethical implications. 17 Indeed, the use of an archaistic Hebrew is a hallmark of Qumran sectarian scrolls. Hengel, “Qumran and Hellenism,” 46–47 sees this as a sign of anti-Hellenism. 18 Timothy H. Lim, “The Qumran Scrolls, Multilingualism, and Biblical Interpretation,” in Collins and Kugler, Religion, 67–72; James C. VanderKam, “Greek at Qumran,” in Collins and Sterling, Hellenism, 175–81. 19 Six to nine manuscripts are from Cave 4, and 16 to 19 from Cave 7. See the slightly different counts in VanderKam, “Greek at Qumran,” 177–78 and Lim, “Multilingualism,” 69. Lim does not include 4Q350 and 4Q361. VanderKam notes the recent identification of 7Q4, 7Q8, 7Q12, and 7Q13 as fragments from the same manuscript of the Epistle of Enoch. (He omits 7Q11 and 7Q14 as also possibly belonging to this group.) This explains the variation in the count. However, 4Q350 and 4Q361 have highly dubious or probably incidental connections with the Qumran community. 20 Cf. CD XIV, 8b–10a, cited in Hengel, “Qumran and Hellenism,” 50, as evidence that Overseers in a CD camp had to know Greek among other foreign languages. However, see the translation in WAC for a very different reading of the fragmentary phrase |[ ]mr NwCl lklw hyrp as “every deceptive utterance,” instead of “in every language according to their families.”

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In light of the mounting evidence for the pervasive Hellenism even in Palestine, the apparent limitation of the Greek language at Qumran,21 in a way much stronger than for Aramaic, was more likely a self-conscious choice rather than due to ignorance or isolation. This choice reflects a hostile or guarded attitude towards the culture and people that the Greek language represented, and their perceived insidious influence. Moreover, this particular expression of anti-Hellenism may indicate a perceived superiority of the Hebrew culture and a corresponding disparagement of foreign cultures. Some examples that express such ethnocentrism include the anti-idol polemic 1QpHab XII, 10–XIII, 4 and the anti-Gentile pesher in 4Q174 1–2 I, 18–19. II. Greek Ideas More problematic and contested is the presence and significance of Greek ideas at Qumran. As noted above, M. Hengel persuasively argues for the presence of Hellenistic ideas at Qumran in a number of ways. First, he avers that the nature of the Qumran community is modelled after a Hellenistic voluntary association or a philosophical school.22 Specific points of parallel between Hellenistic association and 1QS, for instance, include the ideal of community of goods (I, 11b–14a), honours (II, 1b–23), rules for gatherings (VI, 8b–13a), fixed entrance and exclusion regulations (VI, 13b–23; VIII, 16b–IX, 2), and penal provisions (VI, 24–VII, 25).23 If these ideas about communal organization arose at least partly under Hellenistic influences, then

21

For the clear avoidance of Greek loanwords and Graecism in the Hebrew and Aramaic texts from Qumran, in stark contrast with other, albeit later, documents recovered elsewhere in the Judean desert, see Hannah M. Cotton, “Greek,” EDSS 1:324–26. 22 Hengel, “Qumran and Hellenism,” 48–51, esp. 50, “The form of a strictly organized, hierarchically established free community, where entrance was an individual decision and a sign of personal conversion, is without analogy in ancient Israel. The conversion of a single person to the truth of the Torah and to the yahad has its closest parallel in the Greek conversion to a philosophical school and to this community of that school stamped by the teaching and authority of its leading or founding philosopher.” 23 Such parallels have been noted by Moshe Weinfeld, The Organizational Pattern and the Penal Code of the Qumran Sect: A Comparison with Guilds and Religious Associations of the Hellenistic-Roman Period (NTOA 2; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1986), and later by Matthias Klinghardt, “The Manual of Discipline in the Light of Statutes of Hellenistic Association,” in Methods of Investigation of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Khirbet Qumran Site: Present Realities and Future Prospects (ed. Michael O. Wise, et al.; ANYAS 722; New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 1994), 251–70, where Klinghardt goes further by claiming that the community behind 1QS was a Hellenistic association in much the same sense early Christian communities and Jewish synagogues were Hellenistic associations. For a recent survey of these studies and a moderating conclusion, that while the communities reflected in the Scrolls share many features of Hellenistic voluntary associations, they are still distinguishable in a number of important ways, see Collins, “Forms of Community,” 97–111.

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the explicitly stated norms for members in terms of ethical behaviours and character traits can also be regarded as partly the result of Greek culture.24 Beyond ideas about communal organization, Hengel observes that Hellenistic influence is also indicated at Qumran by the “intellectualization of piety,”25 which refers to the process where the constellation of concepts such as knowledge, understanding, revelation, and mystery became central in Second Temple Jewish thought. This process is detectable at Qumran through the “universal and systematic construction of a theocentric worldview with a strong rational element,” a dual focus on creation and history, and the increasing use of abstraction.26 Textual evidence for this includes the preamble in the Two Spirits Treatise (1QS III, 13–16), which illustrates well that one result of this process was the appearance of a strict determinism in the Scrolls, including ethical determinism, which is comparable with that of Stoicism.27 Other theological ideas that might have been influenced by foreign cultures, particularly Hellenistic culture, include angelology, astrology, dualistic anthropology, and eschatology.28 Some of these ideas probably have other cultural sources as well, as the next section on Persian influences will show. However, since these ideas had gained a measure of currency in the Hellenistic East, their appearances in the sectarian Scrolls can justly be explained by the pervasiveness of the Hellenistic milieu – the general cultural-religious context of the Qumran community. As will be shown, these “Hellenistic” ideas have important implications for how the Qumranites constructed their ethics. They represent an acceptance of foreign “symbols” in the Qumranites’ “ethos” and “world view,” to use Geertz’s terms. III. Anti-Hellenism As the above suggests, the influence of Greek culture at Qumran is undeniable, whether as exhibited in their knowledge and restricted use of the Greek language, or in the subtle and yet detectable traces of Hellenistic ideas regarding community organization, theology, philosophy, etc.29 However, the Qumran Scrolls also display evidence of anti-Hellenism.

24

Examples of such ethical norms (e.g., to abstain from evil and to cling to good deeds) can be found in 1QS I, 1–11a; V, 1–7a; VI, 24–VII, 25. 25 Hengel, “Qumran and Hellenism,” 52, and earlier, Hengel, Judentum und Hellenismus, 416, where he uses the phrase “Intellektualisierung der Frömmigkeit.” 26 Hengel, “Qumran and Hellenism,” 52–53. 27 See Alexander, “Predestination,” cited in Chapter Three, notes 12 and 13. 28 Hengel, “Qumran and Hellenism,” 52–55. For more details, see Hengel, Judentum und Hellenismus, 422–38. 29 For a skeptical reading of such evidence, see Gideon Bohak, “Hellenism,” EDSS 1:350– 52.

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Beside the linguistic indications of anti-Hellenism already mentioned, another sign is the increasing antagonism towards the Romans. As the previous chapter hinted, attitudes towards the Romans changed from seeing them as God’s instrument of judgment against a corrupt Jerusalem priesthood,30 to the eschatological archenemy of God’s people.31 Of course, this increasing hostility is not necessarily a reaction against Hellenistic culture per se, but against the increasingly oppressive political power that the Romans brought to Palestine.32 A related instance of anti-Hellenism is found in 4Q252 II, 5–8, where the sectarian author/editor of this commentary reinterpreted Gen. 9:27 to exclude Japheth from Shem’s dwelling and suggested instead that God would dwell there – a land he had given exclusively to Abraham.33 As Brooke suggests, this passage likely expresses the desire to exclude foreigners, particularly Greeks and Romans, from eretz-Israel. Thus, it illustrates how scripture was applied to justify the goal of “ethnic cleansing,” which was a part of the response to external pressures that arose from a particular self-identity, and expressed eschatologically in texts such as 1QM I, 5–7 and XVIII, 2–3. These indicators of overt or implied anti-Hellenism at Qumran, despite the equally detectable traces of Hellenism, demonstrate that the Qumran response(s) to Hellenism fits the general pattern of Palestinian Jews in general, albeit in a more extreme way. It was a blend of overt rejection in the midst of tacit adoption, rather than simply somewhere on a continuum “between acceptance and repudiation,” to use Hengel’s phrase.34

B. Persian Cultural Influences It is clear from the foregoing that, during the Hasmonean-Roman period, Hellenism was certainly the dominant cultural force in Palestine, including even Qumran. However, Palestine was a place of confluence of several influential cultures. L. Grabbe, for example, in his detailed study of Jewish history 30

See 1QpHab IX, 6–7. For the conclusion that 1QpHab reflects the early Qumran expectation for God to use the Romans to punish the Hasmonean priesthood, see Bengtsson, “What’s in a Name,” 269–70. Note that while the Romans had an instrumental role in God’s plan in 1QpHab, the general descriptions of them under the sobriquet “Kittim” are far from flattering. See 1QpHab II, 10b–IV, 14; VI, 1–12. 31 See 1QM I; XI, 11; XV, 2; XVI, 3–9; XII, 11–15; XVIII, 1–5; XIX, 9–13. 32 Thus, this subject will be taken up in more details in a later section on political contexts. 33 Brooke, “Genesis, Commentary On.” 34 Hengel, Judentum und Hellenismus, 453, “zwischen Rezeption und Abwehr des Hellenismus.” If anti-Hellenism can be seen as an anti-cultural response, then the ethics of shared wealth (apparently practiced in some way at Qumran) can be cited as an example of anticultural ethics. See Murphy, Wealth, 103–62.

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in the Persian period, provides a brief but well-referenced and up-to-date survey of the scholarship on possible examples of Persian influence on Jewish religion and thought.35 While Grabbe is justly cautious about claims of Persian influence among Jews because, among other things, such claims are difficult to prove or disprove with the current state of knowledge,36 it seems perfectly reasonable and probable that Palestinian Jews had assimilated some facets of Persian culture or thought, since the land itself had been under Persian rule for some time, not to speak of the groups of Jews who had returned to Palestine after living for generations in Persia and Babylonia. Furthermore, novel elements in Judaism that began to appear in the Second Temple period demand an explanation.37 Given these historical realities, the question is not whether or not there were Persian influences, but in what ways and how much.38 Scholarship has long noted a number of possible Persian influences on Judaism, including dualism, angelology, predestination, periodization of history, eschatology, and resurrection.39 These influences in Palestine, in and immediately before this period, are seen in the Jewish apocryphal and especially pseudepigraphic literature.40 Examples include the angelology or de35 Lester L. Grabbe, A History of the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period, Volume 1: Yehud: A History of the Persian Province of Judah (LSTS 47; London: T & T Clark International, 2004), 361–64. 36 Grabbe, History of the Jews and Judaism, 362–63. Beside the difficulty in proving or disproving influence, Grabbe outlines very briefly four other serious methodological problems that prevent certaint: the uncertainty of when and to what degree Zoroaster and Zoroastrianism were influential in Persia; the difficulty in determining precisely what early Zoroastrians believed; the challenge of dating with confidence Persian literature and the theological development it reflects; the uncertainty about the channel of Persian influence on Jews, whether it was direct or mediated through the Greeks. 37 See one judicious, albeit hard-to-prove, explanation in Shaul Shaked, “Iranian influence on Judaism: First Century B.C.E. to Second Century C.E.,” in CHJ, 309, “[The] new developments, probably stimulated by internal factors and prepared for by a set of indigenous ideas, no less than by the effect of pressure from without, took the direction and character which they did, not by mere accident, but as a result of the fact that the Iranian pattern was at hand and quite well known.” 38 Grabbe, History of the Jews and Judaism, 364. 39 See Florentino García Martínez, “Iranian Influences in Qumran?” in Apocalyptic and Eschatological Heritage: The Middle East and Celtic Realms (ed. Martin McNamara; Dublin: Four Courts, 2003), 37–49; James Barr, “The Question of Religious Influence: The Case of Zoroastrianism, Judaism, and Christianity,” JAAR 53 (1985): 201; Shaked, “Iranian influence on Judaism,” 314–24; David Winston, “The Iranian Component in the Bible, Apocrypha, and Qumran: A Review of the Evidence,” HR 5 (1966): 183–216. 40 For Persian influence in the Hebrew Bible, see Shaked, “Iranian influence on Judaism,” 313–14. While Persian loanwords and other aspects of Persian culture can be found in the later biblical books, the presence of religious influence, specifically by Zoroastrianism, is strongly debated. For a recent survey of the issue and a denial of Zoroastrian influence on the

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monology of Tobit and Jubilees, the historical periodization of 2 Baruch and 4 Ezra, the dualism of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, and the eschatology of 1 Enoch.41 While facets of Jewish theology that closely parallel Zoroastrian thought are noticeable in some of the apocryphal and pseudepigraphic literature that were circulating in Palestine and elsewhere, it is their possible presence and prominence at Qumran that are particularly relevant for Qumran ethics. I. Dualism One of the most often cited examples of Persian influence at Qumran, as illustrated by 1QS III–IV, is dualism.42 While most scholars acknowledge that the kinds of dualism expressed by the Scrolls are not absolute, they still see there various forms of attenuated dualism.43 Moreover, despite the debate about the precise sources of these forms of dualism and their correspondence with Zoroastrianism, most scholars grant at least the probability of some kinds of Persian influence at Qumran in this regard.44 J. Duhaime, for example, sees dualism as a key theological feature of the Qumran community.45 He perHebrew Bible, see, Charles D. Isbell, “Zoroastrianism and Biblical Religion,” JBQ 34 (2006): 143–54. For the ambiguity of loanwords as evidence for specifically religious influence, see Barr, “Question of Religious Influence,” 211–14. 41 Shaked, “Iranian influence on Judaism,” 314–24. Although 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch are dated about a generation after the demise of the Qumran community, they are still close enough to our period to reflect Jewish thought in Palestine. For the problematic provenance of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, see George W. E. Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature between the Bible and the Mishnah: A Historical and Literary Introduction (2d ed.; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005), 301, 314–15. 42 The striking dualistic language of 1QS has drawn scholarly attention since its publication. A full-length monograph on the dualism of Qumran appeared as early as Hans W. Huppenbauer, Der Mensch zwischen zwei Welten: Der Dualismus der Texte von Qumran (Höhle I) und der Damaskusfragmente. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Evangeliums (ATANT 34; Zürich: Zwingli Verlag, 1959). 43 Duhaime, “Dualism,” 215–16. For the distinctions among several kinds of dualism, especially spatial and ethical dualism, and an argument that the latter are not only prominent in Jewish apocalyptic literature, including those found at Qumran, but also in the earlier wisdom literature, see John G. Gammie, “Spatial and Ethical Dualism in Jewish Wisdom and Apocalyptic Literature,” JBL 93, (1974): 356–85. Shaked, “Iranian influence on Judaism,” 315–16, argues that Iranian dualism is also not absolute. 44 E.g., Richard N. Frye, “Qumran and Iran: The State of Studies,” in Christianity, Judaism and Other Greco-Roman Cults: Studies for Morton Smith at Sixty (ed. Jacob Neusner; vol. 3; SJLA 12; Leiden: Brill, 1975), 167–73; Marc Philonenko, “La doctrine qoumrânienne des deux Esprits: Ses origines iraniennes et ses prolongements dans le judaïsme essénien et le christianisme antique,” in Apocalyptique iranienne et dualisme qoumrânien (ed. Geo Widengren, Anders Hultgård, and Marc Philonenko; RI 2; Paris: Adrien Maisonneuve, 1995), 23– 62. 45 Duhaime, “Dualism,” 219–20.

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ceives that the indigenous developments of traditional Jewish ideas, stimulated by the external influence of dualistic ideas from Persia, formed perspectives at Qumran that legitimized sectarian self-identity, interpretation of Torah, and ethical norms, and provided ethical motivation through an eschatological orientation. Furthermore, as P. Kobelski observes, “The dualism exhibited by Zoroastrian writings and by the [Scrolls] is essentially ethical. Good and evil, light and darkness are consistently applied to the moral situation of human thought and conduct.”46 Therefore, the probable Persian influence of dualistic thinking was an important part of Qumran ethics, promoting a tendency towards stringency and a sharp contrast between the righteous and the wicked. II. Astrology Related to dualism at Qumran is the horoscope text 4Q186 and physiognomic texts such as 4Q534 and 4Q561. Most scholars link 4Q186 with the Two Spirits Treatise in 1QS, seeing in them a dualistic anthropology of composite spirits.47 However, the presence of astrology at Qumran is very problematic. It is unclear if astrology was embraced or practiced by the Qumranites.48 It is also unclear if it came from Hellenistic or Oriental sources.49 What is apparent is that it was developed under some kind of foreign influence, possibly Greek astrology, or Babylonian astrology passed through the Persians to the international milieu of the time.50 If the Qumranites in fact embraced astrology, it reflects an understanding of creation that links the created natural order to the ethical character of individuals and expresses a kind of ethical determinism compatible with the Two Spirits Treatise. III. Determinism Determinism is not only reflected in the possible use of astrology at Qumran, but is also prominent in other sectarian writings such as 1QpHab VII, 5–14, 46 Paul J. Kobelski, Melchizedek and Melchirea{ (CBQMS 10; Washington, D.C.: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1981), 96. 47 Matthias Albani, “Horoscopes in the Qumran Scrolls,” in Flint and VanderKam, Dead Sea Scrolls after Fifty Years, 2:279–330. 48 Cf. Philip S. Alexander, “Physiognomy, Initiation, and Rank in the Qumran Community,” in Geschichte – Tradition – Reflexion: Festschrift für Martin Hengel zum 70. Geburtstag: Band I: Judentum (ed. Hubert Cancik, Hermann Lichtenberger, and Peter Schäfer; vol. 1; Tübingen: Mohr (Siebeck), 1996), 385–94, with Albani, “Horoscopes in the Qumran Scrolls,” esp. 292, who represent the positive and negative view respectively. 49 For the prevalence of astrology in the Hellenistic world, see Hengel, Hellenism and Judaism, 1:236–37. 50 Popovi, Reading the Human, 112–18, 123, 170, argues for affinity with Greek astrology, rather than Babylonian, at least for 4Q186.

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with its assertion of God’s determination of history.51 Qumran determinism, both personal and cosmic, may also represent Persian influence from Zoroastrianism.52 What is significant about determinism at Qumran is that notwithstanding the rigid ethical determinism – that God has predetermined the moral character of individuals – it does not negate personal ethical responsibility and choice, as is true also in Zoroastrianism.53 IV. Angels and Demons Another aspect of dualism that suggests Persian influence at Qumran is the development of elaborate teachings about angels and demons.54 Scholars have long noted the connections between Qumran texts such as the Two Spirits Treatise and Iranian texts such as the Yasna,55 and these connections serve to illustrate the possible influence of Persian angelology and demonology on Judaism in general.56 What Qumran angelology and demonology contribute to ethics, among other things, is the inclusion of a cosmic dualism and transpersonal aspects in the discussion of the ethical struggle within the person. In other words, the ethical nature of a person, including his or her character, thoughts, and actions, are explained in terms of the actions of spiritual beings. Nevertheless, personal responsibility is once again not annulled despite this apparently deterministic viewpoint.57

51 For a concise survey of the relevant deterministic texts from Qumran, sectarian or otherwise, see Jean Duhaime, “Determinism,” EDSS 1:194–98. 52 Shaked, “Iranian influence on Judaism,” 318–21. But for possible Stoic influence, see Hengel, Hellenism and Judaism, 1:230–31. 53 For this “compatibilist” reading of Qumran determinism, see Duhaime, “Determinism,” 196. For a qualified understanding of freewill in Zoroastrianism that makes it compatible with Qumran determinism, see Shaked, “Iranian influence on Judaism,” 318–19. 54 For the conception of angels and demons as a feature of the dualism in Iran as well as in Jewish literature, see Shaked, “Qumran and Iran,” 433–46; For other texts from Qumran referring to angels and demons, see Michael Mach, “Angels,” EDSS 1:24–27; Michael Mach, “Demons,” EDSS 1:189–92. 55 Examples of these connections include the cosmic oppositions of good and evil spirits under the leadership of two chief spirits, the common divine source of these spirits, the division of humanity into these two camps, the association of these camps with light and darkness respectively, etc. See Kobelski, Melchizedek and Melchirea{, 84–98, for a survey of the scholarship and an exploration of the connections between the two literatures. 56 See the observation in Shaked, “Iranian Influence on Judaism,” 318, that the tendency to list good and evil spirits was found in both Zoroastrian and Jewish writings, but has no close parallels elsewhere the Ancient Near East. 57 Mach, “Demons,” 191.

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V. Eschatology While a fuller treatment of eschatology at Qumran and its relevance for ethics will await the next chapter, here it suffices to note the strong similarity in eschatological themes, such as a final cosmic and personal judgment, between Zoroastrianism and Second Temple Judaism.58 At Qumran, eschatological beliefs such as imminent divine judgment against the wicked and vindication for the members of the community served at least partly as motivation for ethical living.59

C. Other Cultural Influences: Egyptian, Parthian, and Nabatean Although Egypt, Parthia, and Nabatea each occasionally played a significant political role in Palestine, the current state of scholarship and the scarcity of evidence preclude any clarity on the nature, extent, channels, or even the direction of their cultural influences. Nevertheless, attending to this question accentuates the complexity of the cultural context of Palestine and Qumran. In Palestine, Egyptian influence partly came through the movement of Jews between the two lands, and the accompanying exchanges of ideas left their marks in both groups.60 The Parthians adopted the Zoroastrianism of the region they ruled and could be a conduit of Persian ideas to Palestinian Jews.61 Nabateans and Palestinian Jews lived in proximity and shared Aramaic as a common language, through which Nabatean cultural influences may have entered the Jewish world.62 These channels of influences were probably also operative at Qumran. I. Egypt The lack of solid evidence for any knowledge or even interest in indigenous Egyptian ideas and religion in the Scrolls seriously challenges claims of parallels in religious ideas between Egypt and Qumran,63 such as the prominence of a priestly caste, the emphasis on ritual purity, and the use of a solar calendar, as evidence for some kind of influence.64 Hence, as Hengel avers, 58

Shaked, “Iranian Influence on Judaism,” 321–24. See the next chapter for some textual examples. 60 Cf. again the claim of Egyptian influence in Ben Sira in Sanders, Ben Sira. 61 Klaus Koch, “Parthian Empire,” EDSS 2:636. 62 Baruch A. Levine, “The Various Workings of the Aramaic Legal Tradition: Jews and Nabateans in the Nahal H¸ever Archive,” in Schiffman, Tov, and VanderKam, Dead Sea Scrolls Fifty Years After, 836–51. 63 Gideon Bohak, “Egypt,” EDSS 1:233–34. 64 Furthermore, these parallels are not unique to Qumran. Gideon Bohak, “Egyptian Religion,” EDSS 1:234–35. 59

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although foreign influences at Qumran, including Egyptian, cannot be denied, direct dependence is improbable.65 Egyptian Jews, educated in Greek, were the likely conduit. Their more Hellenistic writings certainly made their way back to Palestine and even Qumran, together with the traces of Greco-Egyptian culture they contained. As noted earlier, Greek biblical manuscripts similar to the LXX were found at Qumran, indicating at least some Qumranites were familiar with the GrecoEgyptian version of scripture. This suggests that at least some forms of Hellenism at Qumran were mediated and filtered through Egyptian Judaism.66 This transfer of non-Jewish cultural elements from diaspora Jews illustrates how even an ostensibly xenophobic group like the Qumran community could still express its ethics in ways comparable with those from other cultures. An instance of this is the comparable ethical admonitions in Instruction and Greek and Egyptian wisdom literature, as noted in Chapter Two. II. Parthia Notwithstanding the Parthian invasion of Palestine in 40 B.C.E., which some scholars believe caused the destruction and temporary abandonment of Qumran at the end of Period I, the Qumranites’ attitude about the Parthians, at least before the invasion, was probably ambivalent.67 While the Parthians were still foreigners, they were also the geo-political opponents of the Romans after 65 B.C.E., making them acceptable in some way to the Qumranites. This qualified acceptance of the Parthians as a political power could facilitate the ingress of Parthian culture as well, which left its mark in the Scrolls first in the form of Persian loanwords.68 Furthermore, since the Parthians followed Zoroastrianism, they were possibly one of the channels through which elements of Persian religion and other influences reached the Qumran movement.69

65

Hengel, Judentum und Hellenismus, 449–50. In context, Hengel is referring to the unlikelihood of the Essenes directly borrowing from the Pythagoreans. 66 Religious influence might have worked in the other direction too. The similarities between Philo’s Therapeutae and the Essenes as described by Philo and Josephus have led some to identify them, who mostly lived in Egypt, as an order of Essenes, a largely Palestinian movement. E.g., Geza Vermes, “Essenes and Therapeutai,” RevQ 3 (1962): 495–504. Although it is possible that the Therapeutae developed independently, it is also possible that ideas that gave rise to the Qumran movement made their way to Egypt and influenced some pious Jews there. 67 Koch, “Parthian Empire,” 636. 68 E.g., ryCjn (carnage) in 1QM I, 9, as noted in Jacques de Menasce, “Iranien NAXR,” VT 6 (1956): 213–14; loanwords in 11QTa; Krs, as noted in Blane W. Conklin, “Alleged Derivations of the Dead Sea Scroll Term Serek,” JSS 52 (2007): 45–57. 69 Koch, “Parthian Empire,” 636.

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III. Nabatea Contacts between Nabateans and Jews around Qumran are evident from the legal documents found at Nahal H¸ever.70 Although several decades later, the chronological and geographical proximity of these documents to the Qumran community suggests probable contacts between the sectarian Jews and the Nabateans, which is further strengthened by the presence of 4Q235 and 4Q343, two very fragmentary manuscripts in Nabatean scripts. However, the current state of scholarship precludes any specific or certain conclusions about Nabatean cultural influence at Qumran.71 The general, though tentative, picture that emerges from this section is that the cultural context of the Qumran community was very complex. Even relatively minor foreign cultures interacted with each other and possibly transmitted aspects of their own or more dominant cultures to the Qumranites, sometimes through other Jews. Such cultural transmissions sometimes had ethical impacts, often by shaping as theorized by Geertz.

D. The Hasmonean Period (c. 140–63 B.C.E.) Having surveyed the various cultural influences on the Qumranites and their ethics, this chapter turns now to explore how different political contexts might have affected Qumran ethics. In a recent monograph cited above, H. Newman argues that a group’s lifestyle, halakhah, and values are functions of its proximity to the central political power. He does so on the basis of social theorists such as N. J. Smelser, who distinguishes between norm-oriented groups and value-oriented groups.72 Using such sociological theories, Newman classifies Jewish groups in the Hasmonean period as either norm-oriented/regimepowered groups that are close to the power centre in Jerusalem and its Temple (Pharisees and Sadducees), or value-oriented/independent-powered groups that are far from that centre (Essenes and Qumran). While Newman’s application of sociological theories to this field is commendable, and his analysis often insightful and elucidatory, there are deep methodological problems with his thesis, not all of which need mention here.73 One problem is that, contrary to what the word “proximity” suggests, Newman’s group typology is binary 70

See Levine, “Various Workings,” 836–51. Current knowledge of Nabatean culture and religion is still sketchy. For an imaginative and tentative reconstruction of the Nabatean religion, see John F. Healey, The Religion of the Nabataeans: A Conspectus (RGRW 136; Boston, Mass.: Brill, 2001). 72 Newman, Proximity, 6–7. 73 E.g., his treatment of the Essenes and the Qumranites as two distinct and contemporaneous groups, though reflecting a correct separation of the sources, is an over-simplistic solution to the debate on the relationship between the two groups. 71

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instead of scalar. Consequently, once the Qumran group is characterized as far-from-centre, which is probably correct, Newman’s approach leaves little room to account for the diachronic variations in the relationship between the Qumran group and the ruling regime. Moreover, Newman’s restriction to the Hasmonean period, though defensible as a means of control, perhaps too conveniently excludes data from the Roman period that complicate the picture and raise doubts about his thesis. This and the next section aim in part to overcome these deficits in Newman’s otherwise-compelling case for the impacts of political realities on ethics and other matters. I. Political Policies Contrary to impressions of isolationism,74 the Scrolls show that the Qumranites or their predecessors were politically involved and cognizant during the Hasmonean period, and generally critical towards Hasmonean policies. One exception to this attitude is reflected in 1QpHab VIII, 8–13,75 which refers to an early Hasmonean ruler, possibly Jonathan or Simon, as the “Wicked Priest who was called by the name of truth in the beginning of his rising.”76 This retrospective assessment suggests that the Qumranites could endorse the early Hasmoneans in some sense. A possible reason for their qualified approval, hinted by 1 Macc 1:41–2:70, is the Hasmoneans’ early opposition to Seleucid religious interference. This early goal of fighting for the integrity of the Jewish religion and identity probably attracted the support of the Qumranites’ forerunners, and later registered in 1QpHab. However, the Hasmoneans quickly began to acquire power and control over major Jewish institutions such as the army, priesthood, and Temple, and even to reintroduce kingship.77 It is against such political developments that some texts from Qumran seem to speak. For instance, the treatise on kingship (11QTa LVI, 12–LIX) appears to be a critique about several Hasmonean policies during Jannaeus’ reign around 103–88 B.C.E., especially his assumption of kingship.78 When read as such, it seems to imply a tacit toleration of his

74

As presented in Newman, Proximity, 99–120. Another possible exception is 4Q448, to be discussed in subsection III below. 76 Isaiah M. Gafni, “Hasmoneans,” EDSS 1:29–33, esp. 331. See also Joseph Sievers, The Hasmoneans and Their Supporters: From Mattathias to the Death of John Hyrcanus I (SFSHJ 6; Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1990), 88, for the conclusion that the sectarian author of 1QpHab VIII considered the “Wicked Priest” at least acceptable at first. 77 Gafni, “Hasmoneans,” 330. For a critical examination of the true motivations of the Maccabees, that they always had design on political advancement, control of Jerusalem and the Temple, and the high priesthood, see Brent Nongbri, “The Motivations of the Maccabees and Judean Rhetoric of Ancestral Traditions,” in Bakhos, Ancient Judaism, 102–5. 78 Hengel, Charlesworth, and Mendels, “Polemical Character,” 28–38, esp. 31–34, argue that 11QTa took issues with Jannaeus’ priesthood (the king should have been dependent on 75

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claim to kingship. What it insists on, however, is his subjection to the priests (LVI, 20–LVII, 1) and severe limitations on his kingly prerogatives (e.g., LVII, 11–15; LVIII, 18–21). 11QTa may also contain a veiled critique of the Hasmoneans’ expansionist foreign policy. This aggressive policy, particularly under Jannaeus, ironically exposed Judea to foreign attacks (Ant. 13.324–92). It was possibly against this background that 11QTa LVIII, 3–11 prescribed a military policy that limited the conditional commitment of troops to a minor fraction of the total force, placing a priority on the defence of the towns.79 Unlike many other rulings in this passage, this military policy lacks scriptural support,80 and may have been prompted by the negative results of Jannaeus’ military campaigns and a practical concern for the security of the Judean population centres. These perspectives, stated in the form of rewritten Torah, express a certain willingness to negotiate differences and optimism for change. They seem to grant the acceptability of some aspects of the status quo, while pushing for greater conformance to “God’s will.” Notwithstanding the uncertain provenance of 11QTa, the apparent correspondences between the polemical thrusts of this passage and the political realities of Jannaeus’ reign according to Josephus give credence that such views were not pre-Qumranic, but possibly authored or at least accepted by the Qumranites. These sectarian or quasisectarian responses to Hasmonean policies, whether the qualified retrospective endorsement in 1QpHab or the subdued critiques in 11QTa, aptly illustrate an early phase of the Qumran community or shortly before, when the community felt rapprochement with the political centre was still possible.81 Furthermore, these responses show that some of the ethical principles used by the group included the priority of preserving national religious identity and security, proper governance according to purported scriptural patterns, and the supremacy of priests as the proper interpreters of God’s laws in all spheres. II. Priesthood The foregoing has touched on the sectarian objections to the Hasmonean grip on both high priesthood and kingship from the early stage of their occupation at Qumran. Indeed, as mentioned elsewhere, conflicts with the high priest and his Jerusalem associates are prominent among the fragmentary and cryptic the priests, not acting as one), his role as judge (the king should not have been the only judge), his polygamy, and his use of foreign mercenary, among other things. 79 Hengel, Charlesworth, and Mendels, “Polemical Character,” 34–36. 80 For scriptural bases elsewhere in this passage, see Hengel, Charlesworth, and Mendels, “Polemical Character,” 30–36. 81 The conciliatory tone of 4QMMT may be another example of this condition, which does not fit comfortably in Newman’s dichotomy of groups, since willingness to compromise is supposed to be absent from the Qumran group as a seceding group.

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records of sectarian struggles,82 and could have been part of the cause, in Newman’s term, for the movement’s separation from the political “center.”83 According to both the pro-Hasmonean 1 Maccabees and Josephus’ accounts, part of which may have been coloured by the Herodians’ anti-Hasmonean historiography, there could have been a number of issues that the sectarians found unacceptable. For example, Jonathan relied on a foreign ruler – Alexander Balas (a pretender to the throne, no less!) – to obtain the high priesthood (1 Macc 10:18-21). Related to that, the Hasmoneans (re-)politicized the office of the high priesthood by accepting such foreign appointment, contrary to their initial platform of religious orthopraxy as portrayed in 1 Maccabees.84 Furthermore, they disregarded the proper qualifications for the high priesthood, such as Zadokite ancestry. The Scrolls, however, show little clear evidence for the sectarians’ protests against these issues, other than the already-mentioned opposition to combining kingship with priesthood found in 11QTa. While the statements in 11QTa imply an acceptance of Hasmonean kingship and not priestly functions,85 they provide no explanation. Later Qumran texts are clearer about this, showing that the sect’s objections to Hasmonean high priesthood, at least retrospectively, were not about Zadokite lineage,86 but religious-ethical conduct. Texts such as 1QpHab VIII, 3–13; IX, 3–5; XII, 7–10 charge the Hasmonean priests with ethical faults, including pride, abandoning God and his statutes, greed, violence, robbery, and defiling acts.87 The Qumranites focused their criticism on the Hasmoneans’ abuse of power for personal gain, presented as a transgression against God. Furthermore, 4Q171 3–10 IV, 7–9; 1QpHab I, 2–8; XII, 2–6 demonstrate that the sectarians directed their fiercest condemnations at how the Wicked Priest and his associates violently persecuted them and their predecessors. Of course, the lack of textual evidence does not prove that the Qumranites endorsed other aspects of Hasmonean priesthood. Nevertheless, the textual 82

E.g., 1QpHab VIII–XII, 4Q169 I, 11, 4Q171 IV, 7–10. There may still be some truth to the dated view that the Essenes withdrew as a result of a struggle for the priesthood. See Chapter Four, Section A, Subsection II 4. 84 Sievers, Hasmoneans and Their Supporters, 86. However, see the observation that “relationships of power, prestige, and politics are the very substance of religion in antiquity,” in Nongbri, “Motivations of the Maccabees,” 111. 85 See Hengel et al., “Polemical Character,” 37, who note that this separation of kingship and priestly function goes beyond the biblical concept of kingship. 86 This is one good point in the poorly received work of Robert H. Eisenman, Maccabees, Zadokites, Christians and Qumran: A New Hypothesis of Qumran Origins (StPB 34; Leiden: Brill, 1983), esp. 4–5. 87 See the earlier accusations against the Hasmonean rulers in CD VIII, 2b–12a; XIX, 15– 24a, which are also primarily moral. For CD’s protest against economic exploitation, see Murphy, Wealth, 36–40. 83

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evidence available displays the sectarians’ emphasis on unacceptable conduct rather than qualifications. These retrospective accusations of wrongdoings probably had specific historical referents, although they were possibly conflated or confused. The accusation of stealing the wealth of those who rebelled against God in 1QpHab VIII, 11–12, for example, may refer to the Hasmoneans’ treatment of the Hellenizers (1 Macc 6:24; 9:73).88 Since the Qumranites had no reason to sympathize with the “unfaithful Hellenizers,” the focus of this accusation is the Hasmoneans’ predatory behaviour, which more pertinently had also harmed the sectarians, as 1QpHab XII, 10 suggests.89 The pesher recalled the economic exploitation that the community had suffered at the hands of the Hasmoneans and their bloody persecution (1QpHab XII, 1–6). This illustrates that the Qumranites’ ethical critiques of the Hasmoneans were based not so much on abstract principles, but on an actual vendetta. Specific experiences of victimization evidently brought particular ethical issues to the foreground and further distanced the sect from the regime. III. Party Politics Another facet of the Hasmonean political context is the shifting party politics during the successive Hasmonean reigns. Although the sources are unclear or silent on the relationships between the early Hasmoneans and the three “parties” (aiJre/seiß) of Ant. 13.171–73, Josephus reports that Hyrcanus once favoured and followed the Pharisees, then switched his patronage to the Sadducees (Ant. 13.288–98).90 Reading Ant. 13.372–97 in light of some Qumran texts, such as 4QpNah I, yields the picture that the clash with the Pharisees worsened under Jannaeus and was only reversed by his deathbed instruction to his queen to secure her reign with the help of the Pharisees (Ant. 13.398–409). These changes are the probable political backgrounds of some texts from Qumran, which in turn illustrate how changing political situations might affect Qumran ethics. The fragmentary 4Q448 Apocryphal Psalm and Prayer, for example, seems to contain a prayer on behalf of “King Jonathan,” interpreted by most as Jannaeus.91 Although E. Main cites several reasons for reading this text as anti-Jannaeus, the strongest of which is the biblical usages of the key phrase

88

Knibb, Qumran Community, 239. As mentioned, “the poor” is one of the sectarians’ favourite self-designation. Cf. Murphy, Wealth, 235–38. 90 But see also (bar. Qidd. 66a), which place this episode in or Jannaeus’ time. Gunter Stemberger, “The Sadducees: Their History and Doctrines,” in CHJ, 428–43. 91 Emanuelle Main, “For King Jonathan or Against? The Use of the Bible in 4Q448,” in Stone and Chazon, Biblical Perspectives, 113–35. 89

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lo rwo,92 the conflicting evidence cited by various scholars remains ambiguous.93 If this is indeed a prayer for Jannaeus by the Qumranites, who were elsewhere typically anti-Hasmonean as mentioned, this surprisingly supportive text is possibly best explained in light of Jannaeus’ struggle against the popular unrest led by the Pharisees.94 From this perspective, and contrary to Newman’s characterization of a seceding group, the Qumranites might have been encouraged by the Hasmoneans’ anti-Pharisaic policy, at least briefly, and accepted or even supported their power with qualifications (cf. 11QTa above). If so, the Qumranites’ later criticisms of the Hasmoneans were not as grounded in ethical issues, such as greed and violence, as they appear to be, but were at least partly influenced by party politics. This is further supported by Qumran texts that refer or allude to the reign of Jannaeus’ widow successor Alexandria and her pro-Pharisaic policy (Ant. 13.405–10). Alexandria (Shelamzion in Hebrew, NwyxmlC) is explicitly named in only two fragmentary texts from Qumran.95 Now labelled 4Q331 and 4Q332, they apparently document recent political developments significant to the Qumranites.96 Taking these clear references to Shelamzion as clues, T. Ilan demonstrates persuasively that a few Qumran pesharim strongly denounce her reign. He argues that by using consecutive interpretations of prophetic scriptures to comment on sequential events, and gendered terms from the base texts, such as “harlot,” the pesherists helped their original readers understand their veiled condemnation of Shelamzion, particularly for putting the Pharisees in power, resulting in violence and deception (e.g., 4Q169 3–4 II, 1–10). Therefore, when the regime opposed the Qumranites’ enemies, they had mixed praises for it, especially in their earlier texts. But when the regime was allied with their enemies, their evaluation became unreservedly negative.

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Main, “For King Jonathan,” 121–22. For a pro-Jannaeus reading of this text, see Hanan Eshel, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Hasmonean State (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 101–15. However, Eshel argues for a non-sectarian origin of this text. 94 For an indication that Pharisees were among the rebels, see Ant. 13.410–14. 95 Tal Ilan, “Shelamzion in Qumran: New Insights,” in Historical Perspectives: From the Hasmoneans to Bar Kokhba in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. David M. Goodblatt, Avital Pinnick, and Daniel R. Schwartz; STDJ 37; Leiden: Brill, 2001), 57–68, who uses the notations 4Q322 and 4Q324b (4QCalendrical Document Ca, e) = 4Q332 and 4Q331 (4Qpap Historical Text D and C) respectively. For details and literature on these and related texts, see Kenneth R. Atkinson, “Representations of History in 4Q331 (4QpapHistorical Text C), 4Q332 (4QHistorical Text D), 4Q333 (4QHistorical Text E), and 4Q468e (4QHstorical Text F): An Annalistic Calendar Documenting Portentous Events?” DSD 14 (2007): 125–51. 96 Atkinson, “Representations of History,” 132–38. 93

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E. The Roman Period (63 B.C.E.–70 C.E.) Qumran texts that date to the Roman period also show certain responses to contemporary political realities, particularly the presence of Romans in Palestine. Although explicit references to Herod and his dynasty are hard to identify in the Scrolls, a number of texts and other evidence will be cited below as examples of how the Qumranites responded differently to the changing political situations during the Roman period, divisible into three parts by the turbulent years of the Herodian dynasty. Even more clearly than the Qumranites’ appraisals of the Hasmoneans, their reactions to the Roman context show how they evaluated various ethical issues, not all of which can be explored here. As an illustration, the following will concentrate mainly on their evaluation of the use of violence. I. Pre-Herodian Period (63–37 B.C.E.) The many references to the Kittim in 1QpHab (II, 12, 14; III, 4, 9; IV, 5, 10; VI, 1, 10; IX, 7) are commonly understood to refer to the republican Romans, whose rule over Jerusalem began with Pompey’s intervention in the civil war between Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II. One reason for this identification is that the Kittim are described as having MylCwm (rulers, IV, 5, 10) instead of a Klm (king, cf. 1QM XV, 2).97 Moreover, the palaeographic dating of 1QpHab to the second half of the first century B.C.E. and its historical allusions all seem to fit this view.98 As 1QpHab shows, the Qumranites’ major critique of the Romans in this period is focused mainly on their violent and warlike ways, describing them as “swift and mighty in battle to destroy many” (II, 12–13), “striking and plundering the cities of the land” (III, 1), dreaded by all (III, 4–5), and killing indiscriminately (VI, 10–11).99 This disapproval of Roman violence is perhaps also reflected in 4Qpap Historical Text E (4Q333 1 4, 8), which mentions swylma twice with grh, possibly referring to a massacre by Pompey’s deputy Aemilius Scaurus.100 97 Already in Geza Vermes and Pamela Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls: Qumran in Perspective (London: Collins, 1977), 145–49. 98 Moshe J. Bernstein, “Pesher Habakkuk,” EDSS 2:647–50. The allusion in 4Q169 3–4 I, 2–3 further clarifies the Qumranic usage of “Kittim.” 99 Other related charges include arrogance (III, 9–14) and economic exploitation (VI, 5– 8). 100 For the possible historical allusion in this very fragmentary text, see Wise, “Dating the Teacher,” 77–78. For the former designation of this text as 4Q324a Calendrical Document Cd and a fuller discussion on this text, see Michael O. Wise, ed., Thunder in Gemini: And Other Essays on the History, Language and Literature of Second Temple Palestine (JSPSup 15; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994), 186–221.

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These and other objections to Roman violence in the early phase of their domination need to be contextualized in at least three ways. First, the Romans in 1QpHab, while vilified, are still portrayed as God’s agents of punishment against the Hasmoneans (IX, 4–7), the primary objects of the pesher’s polemics.101 As shown below, this qualified “appreciation” of the Romans is completely absent after the turn of the era, as reflected in the final redactions of the War Scroll and related texts. Second, both the Romans and the Hasmoneans whom they assaulted were accused of violence.102 Furthermore, other opponents of the sect were similarly condemned (e.g., 1QpHab X, 9–10; 4Q171 II, 12–19; IV, 13–14). It appears that the Qumranites perceived themselves to be repeated victims or witnesses of the violence that characterized outsiders. Some sectarian texts (e.g., 1QS X, 17–21; 1QHa XIV, 20–21) exhibit a conscious renunciation of violence as unbecoming of sect members, at least until the Day of Judgment. Hence, criticisms of others’ violence helped define sectarian identity and placed them on the moral high ground. Third, the sectarian denunciations of violence were partially dependent on its objects, as hinted earlier. Understandably, the Qumranites strongest censures were directed to the violence they or their predecessors had received, while violence directed at their enemies were deemed justified. This suggests that violence was a relative evil in Qumran ethics. It depended on what the sectarians viewed as justice, and the proper eschatological context for its use. Therefore, the Qumranites were evidently not the radically non-violent pacifists that the classical sources describe the Essenes as.103 Examining the later periods will confirm this point. II. Herodian Period (37 B.C.E.–6 C.E.) Although little unambiguous evidence of the Qumranites’ response to Herod’s reign exists, scholars have proposed at least two contrasting accounts. One perspective presents a peaceful relationship of mutual favour, or at least mutual tolerance, between Herod and the Qumranites.104 Evidence cited for this view includes Josephus’ report that Herod honoured all the Essenes on account of the prophecy of Menahem the Essene (Ant. 15.373–78), the lack of

101

Vermes and Vermes, Dead Sea Scrolls, 145. See the accusation of Hasmonean violence cited above. 103 For an argument that the classic sources have it wrong, see Christophe Batsch, “Le «pacifisme des esséniens,» un mythe historiographique,” RevQ 21 (2004): 457–86. However, there is no indication of violent practices among the Qumranites, but only the avoidance of violence. See Chapter Nine, Section A. 104 E.g., Uriel Rappaport, “Herodian Rulers,” EDSS 1:353–55. 102

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explicit criticism in the Scrolls directed at Herod,105 and the occupational vacancy of Qumran during part of Herod’s reign.106 However, these pieces of evidence are ambiguous and are read differently by others. The abandonment of Qumran could have been a “strategic withdrawal” prompted by the threat of Herod’s proximity at Jericho rather than his patronage.107 Josephus’ report of Herod’s unqualified honour of all Essenes, tendentiousness aside, says nothing about the reciprocal attitude about Herod from the Essenes in general, not to speak of the Qumran Essenes. Most importantly, certain texts from Qumran indeed reflect a hostile or critical attitude towards Herod’s reign. Two examples of definitely Qumranic texts from the Herodian period, cited by K. Atkinson, are 4QpIsaa (4Q161 8–10 17–24) and 4QMidrash Eschatologya (4Q174 1–2 I, 10–14), both of which describe an eschatological “Branch of David” as Israel’s warrior-king.108 Besides these two, he also compares the use of Scripture in three other texts from Qumran, viz., 4QCommentary on Genesis A (4Q252), 4QSefer ha-Milhamah (4Q285), and 4QapocrDan ar (4Q246), with that in the contemporary Psalms of Solomon 17, and notes that in all of them a militant Davidic Messiah is “consistently fashioned after a select corpus of biblical texts, particularly Isaiah 11.” Furthermore, he proposes suggestively that militant Davidic Messianism at Qumran was developed in reaction to the Herodian dynasty.109 To conclude, it is probable that while Herod might have at least tolerated the Essenes who had disengaged from Judean politics, and hence were harm105 The lack of direct criticism or even references to this period in the Scrolls needs to be placed in the context where allegedly no major sectarian composition can be dated with certainty to this period. For some, this lack of original literary productivity reflects a time of tranquillity or a lack of hostility. E.g., Rappaport, “Herodian Rulers,” 354–55. If the sectarians in fact stopped producing original literary works after the early Roman period, but kept themselves to copying older works, as Rappaport asserts, it may suggest that the community had reached a stage of stagnancy, which could be the result of any number of crisis. See Brooke, “Crisis.” However, texts cited below are counter-examples of literary activities during the Herodian period. 106 According to some who see harmony between Herod and the Qumran community, the abandonment of Qumran is interpreted as the result of their reintegration into Judean society and the lack of a need to withdraw. See Constantin Daniel, “Nouveaux arguments en faveur de l’identification des Hérodiens et des Esséniens,” RevQ 7 (1970): 397–402. 107 Brooke, “Crisis.” The duration of this abandonment is now determined to be much shorter than de Vaux’s three decades. Magness, Archaeology of Qumran, 66–68. 108 Kenneth R. Atkinson, “On the Use of Scripture in the Development of Militant Davidic Messianism at Qumran: New Light from Psalm of Solomon 17,” in The Interpretation of Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity: Studies in Language and Tradition (ed. Craig A. Evans; JSPSup 33; SSEJC 7; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), 106–23. 109 Atkinson, “On the Use of Scripture,” 121. See also Kenneth R. Atkinson, “On the Herodian Origin of Militant Davidic Messianism: New Light from Psalm of Solomon 17,” JBL 118 (1999): 435–60.

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less to him, and that while the Qumranites might have appreciated his suppression of their enemies – Hasmoneans, Sadducees, and Pharisees alike, they most probably were dissatisfied with their continual lack of political power and the ungodly rule of Herod and the Romans behind him. Realizing that they were powerless to oppose Herod directly, they harboured ideas about a Davidic and militant messiah and an eschatological confrontation with the evil Gentile overlords, ideas that were by no means unique to the Qumran community.110 The ethical significance of this possible response from the sectarians is that while circumstances and conscious choices might have placed them outside of direct conflict with Herodian rule, their acceptance of the militant Messianism that was circulating – as a response to the political situation – nevertheless had the potential to predispose them to the use of force to fulfil their religious ideals and expectations. As will be shown next, this potential seems to have been realized in the final decades of the sect. III. Post-Herodian Period (6–70 C.E.) Since relatively few compositions from Qumran definitely originated from the first century C.E., explicit references to the political situation after Herod are rare at best. Therefore, the Qumranites’ responses to direct Roman rule can only be inferred more indirectly from other sources. The archaeological evidence suggests that Qumran was attacked and occupied by the Romans c. 68 111 C.E., never to be occupied by the sect again. As force was apparently required and exerted to take Qumran, its sectarian occupants apparently put up at least some resistance or engaged in combat.112 Josephus’ comments about Essenes being tortured by Romans (J.W. 2.152–53) and an Essene general (J.W. 2.567) during the Great Revolt corroborate this view. Furthermore, the discovery of texts related to Qumran at Masada – the final holdout of the Sicarii after the fall of Jerusalem – suggests that perhaps some Qumranites joined the militants at some point.113 These possible indications of the Qumranites’ military involvement against Rome is consistent with the militarism and hostility towards the Kittim they 110

Atkinson, “On the Use of Scripture,” 121–23; Brooke, “Crisis.” Magness, Archaeology of Qumran, 61–62, largely confirming de Vaux’s early conclusions about period II. 112 While it is difficult to prove that the occupants of Qumran during the Roman attack were the sectarians of the Scrolls, there is no indication that they had vacated the site. 113 For these and other indicators of increasing militarism among the Qumranites or Essenes in the first century C.E., see Gordon M. Zerbe, Non-Retaliation in Early Jewish and New Testament Texts: Ethical Themes in Social Contexts (JSPSup 13; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993), 129–34, who regards them as plausible but inconclusive. For the historical implication of the presence of the Songs of Sabbath Sacrifice at Masada, see Carol A. Newsom and Yigael Yadin, “The Masada Fragment of the Qumran Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice,” IEJ 34 (1984): 77. 111

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had expressed in their literature, most notably the war texts.114 For example, Sefer ha-Milhamah (4Q285 7 || 11Q14 1 I) envisions the final triumph in the eschatological war and the execution of the king of the Kittim by the “Branch of David.”115 However, the evidence from the war texts probably originated before the first century C.E.116 P. Alexander persuasively traces the origin of these texts and their anti-Roman perspective to the early Roman period.117 Why then is there no hint of the Qumranites acting out their militancy until the Great Revolt, when they seemingly had been fascinated by the idea of an eschatological holy war for more than a century? What made them take something literally which might once have been read metaphorically, liturgically, or eschatologically? While a definitive answer is illusive, it is plausible that it has to do with political context again. If Roman rule prompted militant Messianism in ideology, escalating Roman aggression after Herod might have sparked the activation of that ideology, not only among the Zealots and Sicarii, but also among the Qumranites and other Essenes. If so, changing times have transformed the Qumranites’ use of violence as a means to promote their cause.

F. Conclusion The preceding examination of the cultural and political contexts of the Qumran community has shown that sectarian responses to these contexts affected Qumran ethics in various ways, confirming Geertz’s thesis about the connection between culture and ethics. The first part of this chapter demonstrated that both Palestine in general and Qumran in particular were subject to various foreign cultural influences that were then prevalent, and these cultural influences affected how they thought and wrote about ethically relevant matters at Qumran. For example, foreign cultural influences probably played a role in how the Qumranites expressed their membership requirements in terms of ethical behaviour or character traits, their ethical determinism, and their ethical dualism. On the other hand, negative reactions to foreign cultures likely helped provoke and intensify hostility towards foreigners. 114 For the commonly acknowledged use of the biblically derived codename “Kittim” to refer, in many instances, to the Romans in the Scrolls, see Timothy H. Lim, “Kittim,” EDSS 1:469–71; Bengtsson, “What’s in a Name,” 235–70. While the uses of Kittim in 1QM lack the clear historical allusions of 1QpHab that helped clinched the Roman identification, most scholars still see the term as referring to the Romans in 1QM. 115 The singular king of the Kittim here is understood to be the Roman emperor. Lim, “Kittim,” 470. 116 See the dates in Duhaime, War Texts, 40–41. 117 Alexander, “Evil Empire.”

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The second part of this chapter surveyed some possible evidence of the Qumranites’ responses to their political contexts through the Hasmonean and Roman periods. It suggested that the Qumranites made evolving ethical judgments in response to the changing political context, such as their attitude towards kingship and high priesthood, the Hasmoneans, and the Romans. In one particular case, it notes a pronounced shift from the early view of leaving judgment against evil people in God’s hands, to the development of a militant Messianism during the Roman period, in which they envisioned themselves as a part of God’s eschatological army, to apparently participating in armed revolt against the Romans in the few years leading up to the capture of Qumran. Although this chapter has presented the cultural and political contexts separately, they must not be treated as independent and unrelated. Cultural matters affected the development of politics, and political movements likewise had impacts on the shaping of cultures. For instance, the political turmoil of the Roman period had a decisive effect on the emergence of militant nationalism and apocalyptic eschatology among different Jewish groups, particularly the Qumran community. However, the political situation was possibly merely catalytic for the latent eschatological orientation that the sectarians had through the cultural influences dealt with above. Thus, in this case, culture and politics both had a role in how the Qumran community developed their eschatological outlook, a subject for the next chapter.

Chapter 8

Eschatology The previous chapters have already shown briefly that eschatology at Qumran was interrelated with the community’s cultural and political contexts (Chapter Seven), had identity-forming effects on the sect (Chapter Six), and influenced its exegesis (Chapter Five), all of which had ethical ramifications. This chapter will show further that Qumran eschatology included both future and present aspects, and that while both aspects could function as ethical motivation, they sometimes also introduced or supported new ethical demands. Therefore, the main discussion of textual examples will examine the ethical implications of Qumran eschatology as future oriented first, and then as present oriented. In each case, the analysis will distinguish between early and late texts in order to discern some of the changes and developments in Qumran eschatology and their effects on ethics. Before proceeding, a few words are needed to highlight that this chapter focuses on eschatology as a facet of theology. The abstract term “eschatology”, like the equally abstract term “ethics”, is of course unattested in the Scrolls or the Hebrew Bible.1 In both Jewish and Christian theology, however, eschatology refers to the complexes of beliefs about the End (eschaton), or about the Last Things (eschata) – beliefs that can be traced back to biblical and post-biblical Jewish literature.2 Although the eschatological ideas found in the Scrolls defy systematization into a well-structured theology,3 setting the 1

Not only was no sectarian scroll written in Greek, from which we get the word “eschatology”, but one would seek in vain among the scrolls for an equivalent Hebrew or Aramaic term that functions in the same abstract sense. However, see below for the phrase Mymyh tyrja in the Scrolls. For the appropriateness of speaking about the eschatology of the Hebrew Bible, see Henning Graf Reventlow, “The Eschatologization of the Prophetic Books: A Comparative Study,” in Eschatology in the Bible and in the Jewish and Christian Tradition (ed. Henning Graf Reventlow; JSOTSup 243; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), 169–88. 2 Cf. George W. E. Nickelsburg, “Eschatology (Early Jewish),” ABD 2:579–94, esp. 580, where he states, “Although the term eschatology does not occur in the ancient sources, its widespread use in modern criticism reflects the correct notion that [they] frequently assert that God will act decisively in the future and that a different state of affairs will [ensue.]” 3 As Nickelsburg, “Eschatology,” 580, correctly cautions, “The term and its traditional use have been misleading, however, because they have often been governed by theological agendas that have attempted to extrapolate from the texts a unified and systematic doctrine about the ‘end of the world’ or one’s state and fate at the end of one’s life. Also problematic is the

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topic of eschatology in the context of theology broadens the potential application of this present study. In a sense, this chapter is a case study on the ethical implications of only one aspect of a community’s theology. Eschatology happens to be a salient feature of “Qumran theology,” and accordingly is the focus of this investigation. While other theological beliefs at Qumran also had ethical implications,4 they are outside the scope of this book.

A. Ethical Significance of Eschatology I. Eschatology at Qumran To avoid imposing foreign categories on the Scrolls, this section begins with considering one of the most notable eschatological terms at Qumran – the “End of Days” Mymyh tyrja.5 Earlier studies on this phrase have shown that this is a distinctive sectarian term, even a technical term, expressing various aspects of sectarian eschatology.6 Moreover, it occurs in both early and late texts, and usually in exegetical contexts,7 showing that while the sectarians, as will be seen, evidently had diverse and changing views about the End of Days, they continuously used this concept as a lens to interpret scripture and their experience. More important for this investigation, the term “End of Days” shows that eschatology at Qumran was not only future oriented, but also had a present aspect. How both aspects are relevant for ethics will be explored below. 1. Eschatology as Expectations of the Future As in the Hebrew Bible, some texts from Qumran use the term “End of Days” to refer to an unspecified time in the future. It is in this sense that some Qumran texts, such as 1QSa II, 11–22; 4Q161 (4QpIsaa) 8–10 17–24; and 4Q174 (Florilegium) 1–2 I, 10–13, express the expectation of the coming of a (Davidic) Messiah in the End of Days.8 More germane for ethics than the implication that all the texts designated as ‘eschatological’ envision a decisive end to the present order and the beginning of a totally new order.” 4 As Deasley, Shape of Qumran Theology, begins to show. These theological beliefs include the covenant, the nature and condition of humanity, and the means to perfection. 5 For the importance of this phrase as the “fundamental building-block of Qumran eschatology,” see Deasley, Shape of Qumran Theology, 257. 6 E.g., Annette Steudel, “Mymyh tyrja in the Texts from Qumran,” RevQ 16 (1993): 225– 46. This study was largely accepted, with some points of disagreement, in John J. Collins, “Eschatology,” EDSS 1:256–61. 7 Steudel, “Mymyh tyrja,” 227. 8 Note that these examples can be dated to early, mid, and late first century B.C.E. respectively, demonstrating the longevity of this usage. Cf. the citations in Steudel, “Mymyh tyrja,” 230.

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expectation of the Messiah(s), the sectarians also looked forward to the punishment and destruction of the wicked through divine judgment. The preQumran or early Qumranic CD XIX, 10–11, and the later Qumranic 11Q13 (Melchizedek) II, 13 are examples of how this view is expressed variously in the Scrolls. While some Qumran texts are vague about when the End of Days would come, others link it to events in the imminent future. More precisely, the sectarians at one time anticipated the conclusion of the End of Days to be within one generation.9 The pre-Qumran CD XX, 13–20, for example, conveys the expectation of the final day of judgment about 40 years after the death of the Teacher of Righteousness – a time when the wicked would perish,10 and the faithful be saved.11 When this date, however it was calculated,12 passed for some time without the expectations being fulfilled, the Qumranites felt the need to adjust their eschatology through exegesis to explain the delay of the End.13 The expectations of future judgment, whether imminent or in some unspecified time in the future, provided certain motivations for ethical living, which will be examined below. However, eschatology at Qumran was not only future oriented. 2. Eschatology as Present Reality Eschatology at Qumran also has a present aspect. As H.-W. Kuhn argued more than four decades ago on the basis of the “community psalms” of 1QHa,14 the Qumranites believed they were already participating in the life of the expected world-to-come.15 In this sense Qumran eschatology can be de-

9

Cf. Collins, “Eschatology,” 258–59; Schiffman, Eschatological Community, 7. Cf. 4Q171 (4QpPsa) 1–2 II, 7. 11 John J. Collins, “The Expectation of the End in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Eschatology, Messianism, and the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. Craig A. Evans and Peter W. Flint; SDSSRL; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1997), 84, puts that expected end to be about 60 B.C.E., with a “generous margin of error” allowed. 12 See Steudel, “Mymyh tyrja,” 233–40 for a number of ways that the Qumranites might have calculated the date of the End. 13 See Collins, “Expectation of the End,” 82–83 for his discussion of how 1QpHab VII, 1– 14 uses Hab 2:3 to explain the delay of an imminent end around the middle of the first century B.C.E. 14 Heinz-Wolfgang Kuhn, Enderwartung und gegenwärtiges Heil: Untersuchungen zu den Gemeindeliedern von Qumran mit einem Anhang über Eschatologie und Gegenwart in der Verkündigung Jesu (SUNT 4; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1966). 15 These psalms from 1QHa, though possibly pre-Qumran, were evidently still influential among the Qumranites. 10

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scribed as “realized” or “realizing.”16 As will be seen, this perspective sometimes presented special ethical demands. Furthermore, the expression “End of Days” was sometimes used to refer to the present, including the recent past, from the sectarian’s perspective. Examples of such usages include the probably pre-Qumran 4Q398 11–13 4–5 (4QMMT C 21–22) and the Qumranic 4Q169 (4QpNah) 3–4 II, 2 (and possibly 1QpHab IX, 6). As present reality, the End of Days was understood as a time of testing and a time of decision, a time when moral choices are of paramount importance. The late-first-century-B.C.E. Qumranic text, 4Q174 1–2 I, 19–1–3 II, 1 (4QMidrEschat IV, 1), explicitly equates the End of Days with the time of testing or refining. The Qumranites’ understanding of their location in the End of Days as a time in the crucible probably helped them to understand the apparent domination of evil and the perceived hardship they had experienced at the hands of their opponents. More importantly, it gave meaning to their difficulties and added hope and incentive to endure this trial and remain committed to their code of conduct, because they believed that this refining by God would end, and its survivors would be vindicated. Since eschatology at Qumran has these two aspects, the main analysis below will first examine the ethical implications of eschatology as future expectations, and then eschatology as “realized” or “realizing.” Before doing that, an elaboration on the two ways that eschatology can affect ethics is apropos. II. How Is Eschatology Relevant for Ethics? Scholars from various related fields have been pointing out for some time now the diverse connections between eschatology and ethics.17 Among these connections, many fall into one of the two categories below. 16

The term “realized eschatology” is borrowed from New Testament studies and Christian theology, which have long observed that Christian eschatology has generally included the tension between the “already” and the “not-yet”. As a borrowed term, it must be used with appropriate caution here. For the use of this term with respect to Qumran, see, e.g., John J. Collins, “Apocalypticism and Literary Genre in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Flint and VanderKam, Dead Sea Scrolls after Fifty Years, 2:426–27. 17 E.g., see Walter J. Harrelson, “Eschatology and Ethics in the Hebrew Bible,” USQR 42 (1988): 43–48; Michael Parsons, “Time and Location: Aspects of Eschatological Motivation in Paul,” RTR 60 (2001): 109–22; P. Travis Kroeker, “Eschatology and Ethics: Luther and the Radical Reformers,” Cons 27, no. 1 (2001): 9–25; David M. Cloutier, “Composing Love Songs for the Kingdom of God? Creation and Eschatology in Catholic Sexual Ethics,” JSCE 24, no. 2 (fall/winter 2004): 71–88; Bradford E. Hinze, “Eschatology and Ethics,” in The Praxis of the Reign of God: An Introduction to the Theology of Edward Schillebeeckx (ed. Mary Catherine Hilkert and Robert J. Schreiter; 2d ed.; New York: Fordham University Press, 2002), 167–83; Ted Peters, “Pannenberg’s Eschatological Ethics,” in The Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg: Twelve American Critiques, with an Autobiographical Essay and Response (ed. Carl E. Braaten and Philip Clayton; Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1988), 239–65;

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1. Eschatological Ethical Motivation The first general way that eschatology affects ethics is by functioning as a motivator. Expectations of rewards or punishments in the ultimate future for conduct in this present life have been used in various religions from antiquity until now to promote certain ethical norms.18 Although many modern ethicists, especially secular ones, have generally rejected eschatological rewards or punishments as valid ethical motivators,19 in the ancient world to which the Qumran variety of Judaism belonged, eschatological judgment, as will be seen, was definitely a powerful ethical motivator.20 However, the motivating power of eschatology does not reside in its future aspect alone. From the perspective of a “realized” or “realizing eschatology,” the belief that one lives in radically different conditions can motivate one’s ethical conduct or attitude. 2. Eschatological Ethical Demands A more subtle relevance of eschatology for ethics is that eschatological beliefs can provide ethical norms for the present. In this form of teleological ethics, the eschatological goal, or telos, of human life determines how life ought to be lived now. For example, if members of a group believe that God

Douglas J. Schuurman, Creation, Eschaton, and Ethics: The Ethical Significance of the Creation-Eschaton Relation in the Thought of Emil Brunner and Jürgen Moltmann (New York: Peter Lang, 1991); Christofer Frey, “Eschatology and Ethics: Their Relation in Recent Continental Protestantism,” in Reventlow, Eschatology, 62–74; Joe L. Coker, “Peace and the Apocalypse: Stanley Hauerwas and Miroslav Volf on the Eschatological Basis for Christian Nonviolence,” EvQ 71 (1999): 261–68; Samuel Wells, “Stanley Hauerwas’ Theological Ethics in Eschatological Perspective,” SJT 53 (2000): 431–48. The discussion here does not imply that only eschatology affects ethics and not vice versa. 18 E.g., though the various schools of Buddhism and Hinduism do not strictly-speaking have an eschatology, they generally affirm the eventual consequences of one’s moral conduct beyond this life. See Damien Keown, “Origins of Buddhist Ethics,” in Schweiker, Blackwell Companion to Religious Ethics, 288–89. Rewards and punishments, however, are not the only ways eschatology can motivate ethics. As pointed out in Christopher J. H. Wright, Walking in the Ways of the Lord: The Ethical Authority of the Old Testament (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1995), 127–28, eschatology can provide hope, which makes ethical efforts in this uncertain world worthwhile, and thus motivates believers to persist in their ethical stance. 19 E.g., Thiroux, Ethics, 20–21. 20 E.g., CD VIII, 1–19; 1QS IV, 11–14. See also the comments in John J. Collins, “From Prophecy to Apocalypticism: The Expectation of the End,” in The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism: Volume I: The Origins of Apocalypticism in Judaism and Christianity (ed. John J. Collins; New York: Continuum, 1998), 147, 157, that the expectation of post-mortem judgment in early Jewish apocalyptic literature was a novel development in the Hellenistic period that brought with it a “profound change of values,” and had “far-reaching implications for ethical values and attitudes in this life.”

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intends them to be morally perfect in the eschaton, they are likely to pursue moral perfection now.21 Some contemporary theologians see the derivation of ethical norms from eschatology as a form of ethical naturalism or natural law ethics, where instead of equating “what ought to be” with “what is”, they link “what ought to be” with “what will be” – viz., God’s determined future, which is considered to be “more certain and more real” than this transient world.22 This is in contrast with an ethical naturalism that derives norms from a theological reflection on the existing created order.23 For a group with a “realized” or “realizing eschatology,” the gap between “what is” and “what will be” is of course small by definition. In this case, eschatological ethical naturalism is even more “natural,” as eschatological realities are in fact present or emerging. Since the eschatology of the Qumranites and their predecessors included elements of a “realizing eschatology,” these elements probably translated into ethical demands or motivation in some way. Before verifying that, we turn first to the ethical motivation of future judgment.

B. Future Rewards and Punishments as Ethical Motivation I. Earlier Occurrences 1. 4QInstruction One of the best examples of eschatological judgment used as ethical motivation is 4QInstruction.24 Notwithstanding its fragmentary state and obscure content, it probably served in the Qumran community from its beginning as a text for ethical instruction. Although few scholars regard it as an original pro21 E.g., Steven S. Schwarzschild, “On Jewish Eschatology,” in The Human Condition in the Jewish and Christian Traditions (ed. Frederick E. Greenspahn; Hoboken, NJ: Ktav, 1986), 171–211; Karl Barth, Ethics (ed. Dietrich Braun; trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley; New York: Seabury, 1981), 461–75ff; Reinhold Niebuhr, An Interpretation of Christian Ethics (2d ed.; New York: Harper, 1935), 117–21; and Trutz Rendtorff, Ethics: Volume. 1: Basic Elements and Methodology in an Ethical Theology (trans. Keith Crim; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), 80–81, where he uses Wolfhart Pannenberg’s phrase “ontological precedence of the [future] good.” 22 See Grenz, Moral Quest, 223–25, who calls this a “deontology of the future.” 23 E.g., the norm of monogamy from reading the Genesis account of God’s creation of one man and one woman. The contrast between eschatology-determined norms and creationdetermined norms is not meant to be antithetical. The two can be complementary. 24 This composition was formerly designated Sapiential Work A or 4QMusar Lemevin. Edward Cook, in his introduction to 4QInstruction, notes that it “seeks to motivate by appeal to the judgment to come and the eternal damnation of the wicked,” and that its genre is “ethical instruction under the threat of impending judgment.” WAC, 379.

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duct of the Qumranites,25 many recognize that it was clearly a valued and influential document at Qumran.26 4QInstruction is therefore a good example of an early text embraced by the Qumran community from its inception. Moreover, not only do isolated texts from 4QInstruction aim to motivate ethics by appealing to eschatological judgment, the entire work can be described as serving that purpose.27 Notwithstanding that unified purpose in the final composition, 4Qinstruction is a hybrid of at least two genres – a catalogue of wisdom teachings broadly concerned with ethics, and apocalyptic discourses on eschatology and God’s revealed mysteries.28 Nevertheless, the eschatological or apocalyptic dimensions seem to be merely buttressing the collection of traditional wisdom instructions, without changing their ethical contents,29 providing the sanction for sectarian ethics but not its specific norms. The blend of the sapiential and apocalyptic traditions in 4QInstruction links creation with ethics and eschatological judgment.30 4Q416 1 is an example that seems to frame the document’s ethical instructions in a cosmic and eschatological context. It refers to God’s orderly creation, his final judgment, and his special revelation to the righteous. As Goff aptly sums up, the orderliness of creation underscores the inevitability of judgment, and the certainty of judgment validates the knowledge of good and evil.31 This emphasis on God’s sovereign dominion over creation in 4QInstruction suggests a version of ethi-

25

Even T. Elgvin has modified his view since his 1997 dissertation and considers the work pre-sectarian or early Essene. Torleif Elgvin, “Early Essene Eschatology: Judgment and Salvation according to Sapiential Work A,” in Current Research and Technological Developments on the Dead Sea Scrolls: Conference on the Texts from the Judean Desert, Jerusalem, 30 April, 1995 (ed. Donald W. Parry and Stephen D. Ricks; STDJ 20; Leiden: Brill, 1996), 133–34. 26 Daryl F. Jefferies, Wisdom at Qumran: A Form-Critical Analysis of the Admonitions in 4QInstruction (GDNES 3; Piscataway, N.J.: Gorgias, 2004), 86; Torleif Elgvin, “Wisdom at Qumran,” in Judaism in Late Antiquity: Part 5: The Judaism of Qumran: A Systemic Reading of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Volume 2: World View, Comparing Judaism (ed. Alan J. AveryPeck, Jacob Neusner, and Bruce Chilton; HO 1:57; Leiden: Brill, 2001), 147–69. 27 Goff, Worldly and Heavenly Wisdom, 27–28; Jefferies, “Wisdom at Qumran,” 331. 28 Torleif Elgvin, “Wisdom and Apocalypticism in the Early Second Century BCE: The Evidence of 4QInstruction,” in Schiffman, Tov, and VanderKam, Dead Sea Scrolls Fifty Years After, 226–47. 29 Goff, Worldly and Heavenly Wisdom, 79. 30 Cf. the view of Grant Macaskill, “Creation, Eschatology and Ethics in 4QInstruction,” in García Martínez and Popovi, Defining Identities, 217–45. 31 Goff, Worldly and Heavenly Wisdom, 172, and 206 where he avers, “Conduct is to be shaped by the realization that the righteous will be spared and the wicked punished because that is how God made the world.”

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cal naturalism, defining ethics as living in conformity with God’s created order.32 God is not only seen as the sovereign creator, but also as the one who judges sinners while having predetermined their fates. This is implied by 4Q417 1 I, 22–24. Line 22b–23a, though fragmentary, appears to enjoin some kind of righteous action(s), “And in all [ ] a[ct] with strength continually.”33 Then it continues with a warning of implied judgment on line 23b–24, “Do not be contaminated by evildoing [ for everyone who is contaminated] with it shall not be treated as guiltless. According to his inheritance in it he shall be tr[eated as wicked.” According to this, despite fixed destinies, people are still urged to make moral choices, held accountable for moral faults, and liable to judgment. 4QInstruction, though probably non-sectarian in origin, suggests that from the beginning the Qumranites affirmed both moral choice and determinism and did not see them as incompatible.34 2. Damascus Document If 4QInstruction illustrates how a non-sectarian text motivated ethical behaviour at Qumran through eschatological judgment, then CD does something similar for a largely pre-Qumran sectarian text. The theme of eschatological judgment is particularly strong in the Admonition. After a section that lays out a summary of the sectarian code of behaviour (CD VI, 11b–VII, 9a; XIX, 1–5a), the Admonition concludes with an extended passage of eschatological warnings (and promises) (CD VII, 9b–VIII, 21; XIX, 5b–XX, 34) to reinforce the importance of adhering to the sectarian code. Within this conclusion, CD VII, 9b–VIII, 2a illustrates well the sectarian use of a judgment motif to exhort members and maybe potential converts to be faithful to the sectarian way. Although there are significant discrepancies between the A and B manuscripts here,35 possibly indicating various diachronic adjustments by the Qumranites or their predecessors, both versions display certain common characteristics. Both begin with the threat of recompense at God’s visitation against those who reject the terms of the sectarian

32

E.g., Torleif Elgvin, “Admonition Texts from Qumran Cave 4,” in Wise, et al., Methods of Investigation, 186–89. 33 DSSR 4:105, this and the next citation. 34 Cf. Philip R. Davies, “Death, Resurrection, and Life after Death in the Qumran Scrolls,” in Judaism in Late Antiquity: Part 4: Death, Life-after-Death, Resurrection, and the Worldto-Come in the Judaisms of Antiquity (ed. Alan J. Avery-Peck and Jacob Neusner; HO 1:49; Leiden: Brill, 2000), 197, where he points out that in 4QInstruction, “[both] virtue and [its] reward are tied to the inexorable predetermination of God.” 35 For a recent evaluation of the differences and citations of earlier studies by MurphyO’Connor, Brooke, Davies, et al., see Hultgren, From the Damascus Covenant, 29–39.

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covenant just stated.36 And both conclude with a summary statement about the covenant violators being punished by the agency of Belial. In the centre of both versions are appeals to scriptural/prophetic texts, albeit different ones and for slightly different effects, as the basis of the warning and assurance. Much can be said about the creative use of scripture here,37 but especially pertinent is how the passage transforms the this-worldly recompenses in scripture to their eschatological counterparts. This “eschatologization” of the Deuteronomistic idea of blessings/curses for covenant faithfulness/unfaithfulness had precedence in other Second Temple Jewish literature,38 and are perhaps ultimately traceable to the Persian cultural influences cited in the last chapter. 3. Rule of the Community Judgment as ethical motivation is also found in early Qumranic texts, as illustrated by two passages from 1QS. The covenant ritual described in 1QS I, 16–II, 18, following the model of Deut 27, requires all the initiates (and other members who participate in the ritual annually) to affirm the blessings and curses pronounced by the liturgists. The blessings are directed at the “men of God’s lot,” defined as those who “walk perfectly in all his ways,” while the curses are directed at the “men of Belial’s lot.” Despite the implicit dualism and determinism in this dichotomy of humanity into two opposing lots, the rhetorical function of this liturgy, particularly the blessings and curses, is clearly to impress on the initiates and members the desirability of belonging to the community and living according to its norms, and the corresponding horror of living otherwise.39 At least some of the motivations and deterrents for these choices are explicitly eschatological – eternal peace for the members, and eternal fire for the outsiders. 1QS IV, 2–14 is even clearer in the presentation of two ways of life and their corresponding eschatological rewards or punishments. Again, while the passage is expressed in deterministic terms, i.e., the two ways are determined by divinely allotted spirits, the presentation of the two ways is clearly in-

36

Manuscript B (XIX, 5–6) is more specific here with Myqjbw twxmb Mysamh. While it is possible that this was directed at the outsiders who were presented with the choice of joining the sect (so Knibb, Qumran Community, 57), the warning is more probably directed at members who were tempted to defect, given the persistent references to apostates, historical or future, in the rest of the passage (VII, 13; VIII, 1–2; XIX, 13–14). See also the arguments for a consistent concern about apostasy in Hultgren, From the Damascus Covenant, 5–41. 37 See, e.g., Campbell, Use of Scripture. 38 E.g., though the Testament of Moses obtained its final form in the first decades of the Common Era, its eschatological re-working of Deuteronomy is older than D. Cf. Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature, 74–77. 39 For the rhetorical function of this passage to define community self-understanding and requisite character traits, see Newsom, Self, 117–22.

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tended to encourage the choosing of one and the rejection of the other.40 The spirit of truth is characterized by a list of virtues, and those who walk in it are promised various eschatological blessings. The spirit of falsehood (hlwo), however, is characterized by a list of vices, and those who walk in it are threatened with diverse eschatological woes. From this passage it is clear that eschatological rewards and punishments are key motivators for the pursuit and maintenance of sectarian virtues and the avoidance of vices unbecoming of sectarians. This symmetric use of eschatological judgment seems to be modified in later texts, as will be seen shortly. II. Later Occurrences 1. 11QMelchizedek The theme of eschatological judgment as ethical motivation is also found in later, more clearly Qumranic texts, such as the pesharim. It is widely noted that most of the pesharim have an eschatological orientation,41 including 11QMelch. Though its palaeographical date is disputed, Kobelski’s view of c. 50–25 B.C.E. seems reasonable.42 However, it is possible that 11QMelch was written early in the sectarian occupation of Qumran.43 If so, it is one of the earliest examples of a particular nuance in the use of eschatology that is distinctive of later Qumranic texts, as will be argued below. In 11QMelch, Melchizedek is described as the agent of the final judgment. Specifically, he will bring forgiveness and atonement for those who belong to his lot and exact vengeance on Belial and his. The dualistic and deterministic overtones are similar to the 1QS citations above. However, the symmetry between the recompenses for the righteous and the wicked is altered somewhat. Although the in-group is described as those who “uphold the covenant and turn from walking [in the way] of the people” (11Q13 II, 24 WAC), that is not the basis of their eschatological salvation. Rather, they are portrayed as sinners under Belial’s captivity, in need of Melchizedek’s release and restoration on the basis of their apparently predetermined identity. On the other hand, while the wicked are denounced for turning from God’s statutes (II, 12), their description as “Belial and the spirits of his lot” seems to demonize them, making them not so much human counter-examples unworthy of emulation, but a demonic force opposed to Melchizedek’s lot. While conformity and 40

For the use of such parenetical rhetoric in the Didache in the context of Jewish texts from Qumran and elsewhere, including its scriptural roots in Deut 30:19 and Jer 21:8, see Meeks, Moral World, 148–49. 41 This is not only true of the continuous pesharim in general (except 4QpZeph), and especially the next example, 1QpHab (see Lim, Pesharim, 37, 40), but also the thematic pesharim. Campbell, Exegetical Texts, 106–7. 42 Kobelski, Melchizedek, 3; Campbell, Exegetical Texts, 58. 43 Steudel, “Mymyh tyrja,” 236–37. Cf. the critique in Campbell, Exegetical Texts, 64–65.

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violation of sectarian norms are explicit issues in this text, and eschatological judgment its central focus, this text does not seem to emphasize rewards as incentives and punishment as deterrents. Instead, both aspects of the judgment give hope to a community that is not only conscious of the wickedness of its opponent, but also its own iniquities, both of which will be resolved by divine intervention. 2. Pesher Habakkuk The eschatological orientation of 1QpHab in evident throughout the composition, from its fragmentary opening reference to [Nwrja] rwd (the [latter/last] generation) to its concluding mention of fpCmh mwy (the day of judgment) in XIII, 2–3 (sic).44 Thus, eschatological motifs frame this important Qumranic composition that plausibly dates around the mid-first century B.C.E.45 Within this eschatological framework, 1QpHab speaks of the faithful and their reward in terms of their final deliverance from judgment in VIII, 1–3, “all the doers of Torah (hrwth yCwo) in the house of Judah (hdwhy tyb) whom God will deliver from the house of judgment (fpCmh tyb) because of their suffering and their faithfulness to the Teacher of Righteousness.”46 That this judgment was understood as eschatological and not this-worldly is clear from the reappearance of fpCmh tyb in X, 3–5, “the house of judgment – when God will give his judgment/sentence in the midst of many people, and from there he will bring him up for judgment/sentencing. In the midst of them he will condemn him and judge/punish him with fire and brimstone.”47 The description of judgment in V, 3–6 further illustrates the asymmetry in how eschatological judgment might have motivated ethics at Qumran. As in other Qumran texts that refer to future reward,48 the rhetorical purpose of this passage includes the encouragement of some kinds of normative behaviour or attitude, or the persistent adherence thereto. (Here, those who have kept God’s commandments in their distress are his chosen ones who will be spared in the eschaton and actually be the agents of judgment against Gentiles and unfaithful Jews.) When it mentions future punishment, however, its primary intended effect does not appear to be deterrence. While it cannot be denied that punishment against the wicked also served as warning against apostasy,49 the 44

Cf. Timothy H. Lim, “Eschatological Orientation and the Alteration of Scripture in the Habakkuk Pesher,” JNES 49 (1990): 185, 193–94. 45 For this date see Collins, Eschatology, 285. 46 Translation mine. 47 Translation mine. Cf. Horgan, Pesharim, 40, where she remarks that “the house of judgment” in VIII, 1 probably refers to “the judgment that God will execute in the eschaton.” 48 E.g., CD III, 19–20; 1QS IV, 6b–8. For the observation that the idea of reward for the righteous is less fully developed than that of punishment for the wicked in the Scrolls, see Martin G. Abegg, Jr., “Retribution,” EDSS 2:767. 49 Cf. CD VII–VIII and XIX–XX cited above.

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grouping of wicked Jews and Gentiles together for sentencing here makes it unlikely that they were held up as negative examples for emulation. Given the deterministic worldview of the sect – that God has chosen the sectarians for eternal salvation and predestined the wicked for punishment50 – the mention of the fate of the wicked here and elsewhere probably had another function. Since the sectarian texts most frequently refer to retribution against the wicked as the enemies or opponents of the sect, whether historical or contemporary, Gentile or Jewish,51 they do this not so much to deter the readers from being like the wicked, but to assure them that their stance, including their ethical positions, was justified and will be vindicated. Thus, while the threat of punishment remained implicit, the use of eschatological punishment was not primarily ethical motivation by fear, but by reassurance, hopeful expectation, and even joy. 3. War Scroll The evidence for eschatological punishment being used not principally to deter by fear, but to encourage by reassurance, is found in yet another later Qumranic text – the War Scroll (1QM). Though certainly containing much older layers, in this redaction dated to the late first century B.C.E.,52 the final defeat of the Sons of Darkness and the ultimate triumph of the Sons of the Light in an eschatological war is the dominant theme.53 1QM I, 1–2 identifies the Sons of Darkness, for the most part, as the hostile nations, especially the Kittim,54 but also as the apostate Jews – the “violators of the covenant.” Repeatedly their defeat and judgment are assured.55 For example, in a battle scene where the high priest encourages the troops after a temporary setback (1QM XVII, 1–3), the Sons of Light are told that God will give them victory, and that they are to remember the judgment of Nadab and Abihu. The 50

Cf. 11QMelch cited above. E.g., 1QpHab I, 10–II, 11; XIII; 1QM XV, 1–3. 52 For this dating and the redactional history of 1QM, see Esther Eshel and Hanan Eshel, “Recensions of the War Scroll,” in Schiffman, Tov, and VanderKam, Dead Sea Scrolls Fifty Years After, 351–63. For dating the “eschatological war cycle texts,” including 1QM and 4Q285, and the anti-Roman attitude they contain, to the early Herodian period, see Alexander, “Evil Empire.” Cf. also Philip R. Davies, “War of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness,” EDSS 2:965–68, esp. 967, where he puts the terminus ad quem as late as the early first century C.E. 53 Or, as stated in Sharon Lea Mattila, “Two Contrasting Eschatologies at Qumran (4Q246 vs 1QM),” Bib 75 (1994): 535, “The primary focus of 1QM is on eschatological judgment, retribution, and the annihilation of the wicked.” 54 While the Kittim could very well have referred to the Seleucids in the earlier recensions of the War Scroll, most scholars identify them with the Romans in the final Qumranic form. See Davies, “War of the Sons of Light,” 967. Beside the foreign powers, the Sons of Darkness also include apostate Jews – the “violators of the covenant.” 55 See also 1QM I, 5–6, 10, 16; XI, 8–9; XIII, 14–16; XV, 1–2, 12–15. 51

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Sons of Light, and by extension the sectarian readers, are reminded of the inevitable fate of the Sons of Darkness. They are reminded of the paradigm that in the past God has executed his judgment against the wicked (Nadab and Abihu) and preserved the righteous (Eleazar and Ithamar). Pace Abegg,56 the allusion to God’s historical judgment here does not serve mainly as a warning to the sectarians, but as an encouragement on the basis of the assured downfall of their foes, as the very next line shows, “But, as for you, take courage and do not fear them [ . . . for] their end is emptiness and their desire is for the void” (XVII, 4a WAC). Similarly, the assured judgment of the wicked in 1QM was intended to motivate the sectarian readers to persevere, as its dualistic outlook hardly expected any member of the Sons of Light sharing in the fate of the Sons of Darkness.57 III. Summary In the survey above, it is evident that the idea of eschatological judgment was used as ethical motivation in both early and late texts from Qumran. However, the ways it was used appear to be different among the texts examined. In earlier texts used by the Qumranites, such as 4QInstruction, CD, and 1QS, eschatological rewards and punishments function more symmetrically as incentives and deterrents, respectively, to motivate conformance to normative sectarian behaviours and attitudes. In contrast, later texts such as 11QMelch, 1QpHab, and 1QM present eschatological judgment of the wicked not so much as a threat for the sectarians, but more as reassurance and cause for joy, which could be just as motivating as the negative motivation of fear. This difference may be due to the development of dualistic thought in the Qumran community during the Roman period, a development that emphasized determinism and the hardened distinction between the sect and those outside to a greater extent.

56

Abegg, “Retribution,” 768. This perspective is in contrast with that expressed in CD VII, 9b–VIII, 21; XIX, 5b– XX, 34, cited earlier, in which future judgment against law-breakers in the community in terms of death, destruction, or exclusion from the community is clearly used as a threat and a deterrence against deviation from the sectarian way. 57

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C. “Realizing Eschatology” and Its Ethical Significance I. Earlier Occurrences 1. Jubilees The pre-Qumranic quasi-apocalyptic work Jubilees was apparently influential and even authoritative in the Qumran community. This book presents history from Creation to the Exodus in a periodized scheme of jubilees.58 Although most of the book focuses on history, its eschatological outlook is still discernible.59 In a rare eschatological moment in the book, Jubilees 23:26 speaks of a latter-day revival in Israel – probably a reference to the author’s movement or community.60 In this account, the degeneration of Israel and the accompanying suffering will be reversed at the end of history when Israelites return to study and obey God’s eternal and immutable Torah. What is pertinent for our purpose is the apparent perspective of the author that the attitude of repentance and stringent concern for the Torah that characterized his movement or community signalled the beginning of the age of salvation.61 This implied perspective of seeing the final age of salvation having begun and yet not fully consummated is a form of “realizing eschatology”. The ethical significance of this trace of “realizing eschatology” in Jubilees 23 is that for those who accepted its message, their eschatological selfunderstanding increased the possibility of obedience and amplified its consequence. From their perspective, while Israel had been disobedient in the past, now was the time of salvation when they could and ought to live differently, according to a more stringent halakhah necessitated by Israel’s former failure. Furthermore, a return to the Torah would be accompanied by a return to Adamic longevity, peace, joy, and ultimately eternal bliss (apparently in a disembodied state).62

58 For the influence of such periodization of history in terms of jubilees of years, cf. the Qumranic exegetical work 11QMelch cited above, whose eschatological orientation is even clearer. 59 See, e.g., Gene L. Davenport, The Eschatology of the Book of Jubilees (StPB 20; Leiden: Brill, 1971). For a recent survey of the scholarship on Jubilees, including its eschatology, see James C. VanderKam, “Recent Scholarship on the Book of Jubilees,” CurBR 6 (2008): 405–31. 60 For the author’s perspective on his historical context, see Jonathan A. Goldstein, “The Date of the Book of Jubilees,” PAAJR 50 (1983): 72, n. 38. 61 For the possibility of a specific reference to a reformist group, however loosely defined, see Nickelsburg, “Nature and Function,” 104–5. 62 Cf. James Kugel, “The Jubilees Apocalypse,” DSD 1 (1994): 335, commenting on Jubilees 23:31.

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2. 4QInstruction As mentioned above, future divine judgment as ethical motivation is prominent in the non-sectarian 4QInstruction. Nevertheless, its concept of hyhn zr as eschatological revealed knowledge to the elect also indicates a “realizing eschatology,”63 at least in the sense that members of this elect group already had access to this special knowledge.64 For those who read this text at Qumran, the belief that they had been given this special knowledge also came with the corresponding recognition that they had to live according to it in their daily lives. As Goff fittingly concludes, “Knowing this larger truth demands conduct that befits this knowledge. It calls for a way of life that is characterized by humility and reverence. In this sense the mystery that is to be fosters ‘worldly’ wisdom – knowledge that is eudemonistic and practical.”65 3. Hodayot The Hodayot, as an early sectarian composition redacted over a period of time, displays elements of “realising eschatology” even more clearly than the early non-sectarian texts cited above do.66 Kuhn has long observed that parts of the Hodayot speak of the presence of the spirit of God and the bestowal of knowledge as eschatological experiences of the sectarian community.67 A

63

hyhn zr is eschatological knowledge in two senses. First it contains knowledge about the eschaton. (See Daniel J. Harrington, “Sapiential Works,” EDSS 2:825; however, Goff, Worldly and Heavenly Wisdom, 31–32, correctly grounds this aspect in the larger framework of God’s mastery over the created order.) Second, it is knowledge revealed to God’s elect towards the end of time. See Torleif Elgvin, “The Mystery to Come: Early Essene Theology of Revelation,” in Cryer and Thompson, Qumran, 135–37. 64 Cf. Elgvin, “Mystery to Come,” 149, where he concludes that 4QInstruction “displays a realized eschatology: the hope for the eschaton is combined with the knowledge that salvation is a present reality, as is fellowship with God and participation in his mysteries. The elect has access to the hidden mysteries of God: when he meditates on the deeds of God and their consequences, when he understands the times, he will have knowledge of eternal glory and God’s wondrous mysteries. Salvation is present; already the elect have knowledge of eternal glory.” 65 Goff, Worldly and Heavenly Wisdom, 27. See also Elgvin, “Mystery to Come,” 134, where he compares ethical implications of realized or realizing eschatology in 4QInstruction with those in the New Testament. 66 See the argument that part of the Hodayot uses and transforms the earlier eschatological tradition in 1 Enoch in George W. E. Nickelsburg, “The Qumranic Transformation of a Cosmological and Eschatological Tradition (1QH 4:29–40),” in Trebolle Barrera and Vegas Montaner, Madrid Qumran Congress, 2:649–59. 67 Kuhn, Enderwartung und gegenwärtiges Heil, 117–75. For a similar view and an approving evaluation of Kuhn’s analysis, see George W. E. Nickelsburg, Resurrection, Immortality, and Eternal Life in Intertestamental Judaism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972), 152–56.

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third element can be added to this list – communion with the angels, which the community regarded as their present reality.68 As Kuhn shows, certain Palestinian Jewish writings from antiquity expected the eschatological restoration of God’s holy spirit, absent since the destruction of the first Temple.69 In this context, the frequent expressions of the presence of the divine spirit in the Hodayot (e.g., 1QHa IV, 26; XV, 6–7) indicate a perspective that the eschaton has arrived.70 The ethical significance of the eschatological bestowal of God’s spirit is the corresponding belief in a special ability for righteous living that arises from an inner transformation. Alongside the presence of the spirit of God, and sometimes clearly because of it, the author of the Hodayot also claims to have received a special gift of revelatory knowledge, a gift which members of his community share. In 1QHa XVIII, 27–30, for instance, the “sons of [God’s] truth” are said to have received his knowledge, which transforms them spiritually and enables them to renounce the greedy ways of their opponents and perhaps pursue an alternative economy.71 Therefore, the Hodayot implies that the members of its community not only know how to live, but also have the power to live according to their divinely given knowledge. Finally, the Hodayot speak of a present communion with the angels. In 1QHa XIV, 12–13, for example, the writer’s community (hktxo yCna lwk) is said to be in the lot together with the angels of presence. Since the honour of being in the midst of angels was understood as one of the eschatological blessings,72 the belief expressed in the Hodayot about living in the present with the angels is a kind of “realizing eschatology,”73 one that probably raised the required level of sanctity in one’s daily life.74

68 Kuhn, Enderwartung und gegenwärtiges Heil, 66–72. See Collins, “From Prophecy to Apocalypticism,” 148, for how the Qumranites adapted the earlier apocalyptic tradition to express its realized eschatology, “It would seem that the sectarians claimed to enjoy in the present the exalted life that was promised to the faithful after death in Daniel and Enoch.” 69 Kuhn, Enderwartung und gegenwärtiges Heil, 117–20, esp. 118, where he sums up the expectation as “Aber auch die Frommen werden in der Heilszeit den Geist Gottes erhalten.” 70 For some arguments for seeing the present works of the spirit as an eschatological event, see Kuhn, Enderwartung und gegenwärtiges Heil, 136–39. 71 Cf. the comments on this passage in Murphy, Wealth, 243–44. 72 E.g., 1 Enoch 104:2–6. Cf. 1QSb IV, 25–26. 73 Collins and Kugler, Religion, 24. 74 Pace E. P. Sanders, Judaism: Practice and Belief, 63 BCE–66 CE (London: SCM Press, 1992), 372, where he asserts that this belief “had no legal implications in the life of the community.” (Italic his) Other early texts from Qumran that speak of communion with angels include 4Q400–407 (not explicitly sectarian) and 1QS XI, 8. See below for where this occurs in 1QM VII, 6.

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II. Later Occurrences 1. War Scroll The presence of angels among the sectarians is even more prominent in 1QM.75 Since the redactional layers that contain the angelic references in 1QM may not be later than those in 1QHa, it is hazardous to compare them chronologically. In any case, the timeframe and nature of this angelic presence are quite different from those expressed in the Hodayot. The Qumranites probably understood the final form of 1QM as referring to the future presence of angels as fellow combatants in the eschatological war, whether that war was understood literally or figuratively.76 Furthermore, the heightened need for sanctity because of the presence of angels is more explicit in 1QM. The exclusion from the fighting men of anyone “not ritually clean in regard to his genitals” (1QM VII, 6 WAC),77 is justified on the basis of the presence of the holy angels.78 While angelic presence is specifically cited here as the reason for the increased demand of a certain kind of ritual purity, it is likely also the rationale for the other heightened requirements for sanctity in the surrounding passage from VII, 1–7.79 One particularly interesting expression that gives the overarching requirement for the combatants is the phrase “unblemished in spirit and flesh” (ymymt rCbw jwr) in line five. This requirement is probably at least made more urgent, if not justified, by the angelic presence. However, the exact meaning of this phrase is obscure. While “unblemished in flesh” is elaborated in lines four and six,80 no elucidation for “unblemished in spirit” is given.81 Furthermore, jwr ymymt is otherwise unattested in both the MT and the Scrolls. Nevertheless, it is plausible that it refers to something other than “fleshly” or the phys-

75

See, e.g., 1QM X, 10–11; XII, 7–9. See the texts cited above. 77 See Schiffman, Eschatological Community, 50, for the meaning of this phrase. 78 Concerns for ritual purity for combatants or the camp are already variously reflected in the Hebrew Bible (e.g., Num 5:1–4; Deut 23:10–15; 1 Sam 21:6; cf. possibly 2 Sam 11:6– 13), but the presence of angels is not cited there as the basis. However, the idea of angelic presence with God’s army is already found in Exod 23:20–23. 79 Cf. Schiffman, Eschatological Community, 49–51 for his reading of this passage and comparison with a similar passage in 1QSa II, 3–9. 80 Viz., “No one crippled, blind or lame, nor a man who has a permanent blemish on his skin, or a man affected with ritual uncleanness of his flesh,” “Any man who is not ritually clean in respect to his genitals” (WAC). 81 It is possible that the phrase was not meant to refer to two aspects, but simply a hendiadys referring to the given examples of physically-defined defects. In that case, it is hard to explain why the word jwr is added. 76

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ical condition of the body, viz., one’s conformance to divine laws, ethical conduct and attitudes, or even moral character.82 Although 1QM does not explicitly reflect the belief that the sectarians already enjoyed communion with the angels in the present, it does not contradict the earlier understanding attested in the Hodayot either. Moreover, the perspective of this text that angelic presence heightens the requirement for sanctity, with the corresponding implications for conduct, attitude, and character, was likely applied by the sectarians at Qumran to their own community,83 given their view about communion with the angels and the military model of their self-understanding.84 2. Pesher Nahum As noted above, 4QpNah 3–4 II, 2 refers to its own time as the “End of Days.” This indication of the Qumranites’ belief that they lived at the dawn of the eschatological age is supported by the whole phenomenon of the pesharim itself, which operated on the premise that scriptural prophecies about the eschatological age were being fulfilled in the contemporary experience of the sectarians.85 As one of the earliest continuous pesharim, 4QpNah cites the words of Nahum to refer to the sect’s contemporary enemies, especially the Pharisees under the codename of “the Seekers after Smooth Things,” and predicts their

82 Given the remarkable prominence of the word Mymt and its cognates in 1QS, an examination of how this word is used in this central sectarian text may shed some light on what jwr ymymt may mean. The word Mymt or Mt is used at least sixteen times in 1QS in conjunction with the verb “walk” Klh or the noun “way” Krd or both (I, 8; II, 2; III, 9; IV, 22; V, 24; VIII, 10, 18, 21; IX, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 19; XI, 2, 11). These usages generally refer to the mode of living expected in the Qumran community, based on their understanding of God’s demands. (E.g. III, 5–6 describes the non-penitent as not “faultless” because he rejects God’s laws and refuses the discipline of the Yahad.) Although no sharp distinction between ritual and moral was made (but see III, 4–6), in many of these passages “walking in perfection” is associated with ethical conduct, attitude, and character. (E.g., loving members of the community and hating those outside (I, 8–9), gazing on the ways of light rather than darkness (III, 3), reproving one’s fellow in truth, humility and lovingkindness, not speaking to him in anger, with grumbling, or too harshly, etc. (V, 24–VI, 1), working truth, righteousness, justice, lovingkindness and humility (VIII, 2), works cleansed from all evil being a pre-condition (VIII, 18), associated with the virtue of one’s heart (bbl rwCy, XI, 2).) Nevertheless, it is also possible that jwr ymymt includes mental health and intellectual capacity, analogous to how the second component includes physical health. 83 Cf. the view about eschatological regulations being in force in the present age at Qumran in Schiffman, Eschatological Community, 69–70. The way Schiffman formulates his conclusion, however, seems to ignore that the Qumran community already saw itself as living in the eschaton to some extent, as argued above. 84 See Chapter Six, Section C, Subsection VI. 85 See, e.g., Horgan, Pesharim, 248–49.

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imminent fall and judgment.86 Both the rise and fall of these enemies, whose conduct the pesher criticizes,87 are presented as eschatological events foretold in Nahum.88 In this sense 4QpNah expresses a “realizing eschatology.” Although 4QpNah is inexplicit about how its “realizing eschatology” influenced sectarian ethics, this is discernible through the implied purpose of the pesher. Since 4QpNah explains the opposition from the sect’s enemies as fulfilment of prophecy, this message encourages the sectarians and helps them to make sense of their experience. Furthermore, the prediction of the imminent fall of their enemies also encourages them to be patient in the face of opposition and motivates them to persevere in their way of life despite hardship, for the end is already beginning. 3. Pesher Habakkuk The same effect of “realizing eschatology” is seen in 1QpHab, which displays a more explicit appeal for patience. It opens with the prophet’s impatient cry, “How long?” and equates it with the sectarians’ latter-day cry concerning the violence that they have either experienced or witnessed (I, 4–5), violence perpetrated by those who have rejected God’s Torah (I, 11). Later in the pesher, Hab 2:3 is interpreted to mean that the Last Days will be prolonged to a previously unexpected degree (VII, 7). The appeal for patience and perseverance cannot be clearer in the following lines, “If it tarries, be patient, it will surely come true and not be delayed” (Habakkuk 2:3b). This refers to those loyal ones, obedient to the Law, whose hands will not cease from loyal service even when the Last Days seems long to them, for all the times fixed by God will come about in due course as He ordained that they should by his inscrutable insight (VII, 9–14 WAC).

Thus, 1QpHab also uses “realizing eschatology” to motivate patient and persistent conformity to the sectarian norms, much of which can be considered ethical. III. Summary The discussion above reveals that different manifestations of “realizing eschatology” are found in both early and later texts that were probably important for the Qumran community, if not composed by it. These expressions, found in varying degrees of explicitness, include beliefs that the final age has already dawned, that the community has received the gift of special divine

86

Shani L. Berrin, “Pesher Nahum,” EDSS 2:653–55. These criticisms include deceit and falsehood (2–3 II, 2), guilty counsel (2–3 II, 6), false teaching, lying tongues, deceitful lips (2–3 II, 8), impurity, abominations (3–4 III, 1), wicked deeds, sin, guilty insolence, and leading others astray (3–4 III, 3–5). 88 Cf. Shani L. Berrin, “Pesharim,” EDSS 2:644–47, esp. 645. 87

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knowledge, that God’s holy spirit has been poured out on the members of the sect, and that the sectarians enjoy fellowship with the angels. It was observed that at least some of these elements were already present in non-sectarian texts still popular at Qumran, such as Jubilees and 4QInstruction. Based on the evidence of the clearly sectarian Hodayot, it appears that such earlier strands of “realizing eschatology” were either more fully developed and put together for the first time in this composition, or they had been developed elsewhere and appropriated in the Hodayot. Either way, it is clear that the Qumranites already had a relatively developed “realizing eschatology” early in their history, compared with the earlier non-sectarian literature examined above. The elements of this “realizing eschatology” have various implications for ethics, as suggested earlier. In general, an aspect of “realizing eschatology” can either motivate one to follow certain ethical norms otherwise derived, or generate the demands of the norms themselves. These effects are not mutually exclusive, and sometimes the line between them is indistinct. For example, in the passage from Jubilees 23 cited in the beginning of this section, the idea that the sympathetic recipients of this book were the repentant devotees to the Torah that signalled the dawn of the age of salvation heightens both the demand (more stringent obedience) and the motivation (greater hope of obedience and imminent rewards). In the other examples shown, however, the implications of “realizing eschatology” often fit into one of these two categories. Recall that the gift of eschatological revealed knowledge, in both 4QInstruction and the Hodayot, can be the basis of ethical demands. But in some parts of 4QInstruction, eschatological knowledge does not necessarily add new and greater ethical demands. Rather, more or less traditional ethical admonitions are justified by the special knowledge. In contrast, parts of the Hodayot, such as VIII, 27–30, imply that special revealed knowledge actually gives ethical requirements, as in an alternative economic system. As for the belief of being in the midst of angels, it probably heightens the demand for sanctity within the community, implicitly so in the Hodayot, and explicitly, albeit proleptically, in the War Scroll. Finally, the presence and gift of God’s holy spirit in the Hodayot implies a heightened ethical motivation, inasmuch as the holy spirit is the means of inner transformation enabling conformity to God’s demands that were heretofore impossible because of human weakness. The clearly Qumranic texts discussed in this section (4QpNah and 1QpHab) do not explicitly display many of these expressions of “realizing eschatology” found in the earlier texts. However, they still articulate the belief that the End of Days has already come, and that this aspect of “realizing eschatology” functions as ethical motivation. Although certainty will likely remain elusive, even with a more thorough examination, it is plausible that as

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the Qumran community developed into its later phase, its increasing sense of being beleaguered by outside forces caused it to concentrate more on future judgment than on present blessings, as the very late pesher 4QpPsa indicates.89

D. Conclusion This chapter has indicated that Qumran ethics was partially shaped by Qumran eschatology. As acknowledged early in this chapter, eschatology is one of the most salient features of the variegated theology at Qumran, but not the only one. While further investigation will likely expose how other aspects of Qumran theology, such as anthropology, shaped Qumran ethics, this chapter has focused on illustrating how certain forms of ethics could arise from, or at least be supported by, certain forms of eschatology at Qumran. Throughout this chapter, strands from both future-oriented and “realizing” eschatologies have been found in both early and late compositions authored or embraced by the Qumran community. Though both strands were expressed variously, certain general features remained relatively stable. Beliefs in a future and decisive judgment for all were consistently affirmed, which included punishment of the wicked and reward of the righteous. Nevertheless, their symmetric use as deterrent and incentive for conduct cannot be readily found in later texts from Qumran. In the later texts examined, the focus apparently shifted to the coming and certain punishment of the wicked as ethical encouragement for their readers. Thus, the same eschatological expectation was put to slightly different uses in different periods of the history of the Qumran community, maybe in response to the specific context. Similarly, “realizing eschatology” is attested in both early and late texts. In the earlier materials, elements of “realizing eschatology” functioned to increase ethical demand or motivation, or both. In the later Qumranic works, such as the pesharim reviewed above, once again the focus shifted to punishment against the wicked – the sect’s enemies. This shift of focus likewise served to increase the readers’ motivation to be patient and to persevere in upholding the sectarian norms in the face of opposition, and to be motivated by the assurance of imminent justification and vindication. Once again, this change of how eschatological beliefs were applied in ethics reflects a response to the historical situation. This discussion reveals that although eschatology was definitely relevant for ethics at Qumran, it did not seem to play a major role in determining the exact contents of ethics. Instead, it motivated conformance to, or heightened the demand of, ethical norms that were often largely derived from other bases. 89

See the next chapter.

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This non-determinative role of eschatology for ethics is confirmed by comparing the contents of Qumran ethics with those of early Christian ethics.90 Notwithstanding the similarities in their eschatological beliefs, the precise contents of their ethics were very different, from their ideas about the application of divine laws to their view of what sanctity means for God’s end-time elect. This shows that similar eschatologies were used to support very different ethical perspectives, and that these eschatologies embraced by both communities were flexible enough to accomplish that result. Furthermore, other important factors were evidently at play at the same time in the construction of ethics. Indeed, as the previous chapters have outlined, other factors contributed to the construction of ethics at Qumran, namely, their use of scriptural traditions, their formulation of identity, and their response to their political and cultural contexts. The interconnections among these factors are once again seen here. Already hinted above is that the increasing focus on the eschatological condemnation of the wicked in later sectarian texts may have been caused by the increasing tension between the sectarians and the ruling Herodians and Romans, as documented in the previous chapter. The observations of this chapter align with those of the previous one and point to the probability that decades after the expected end, with the sectarian movement still lacking significant influence in Jewish society, and sensing an increasing pressure from foreign rule, the Qumranites turned to their eschatology to support their stance. Moreover, as mentioned in the previous chapter, influences from foreign cultures might have contributed to the development of the kind of apocalyptic eschatology that the sectarians have inherited from earlier Jewish traditions, as exemplified by some Enochic texts from Qumran. The Enochic tradition was not alone in influencing Qumran ethics through texts authoritative at Qumran. The above has shown that 4QInstruction combined the sapiential and apocalyptic traditions in its presentation of ethical instructions within an eschatological framework. Also, the increased demand for sanctity based on the eschatological presence of angels hinged on the interpretation of a priestly tradition from Deuteronomy and Exodus.91 The exegetical interpretations of the Twelve Prophets, in addition, were the backbones of the pesharim cited above. The sectarian pesherists appropriated the prophetic tradition(s) to explain their present, to forecast their imminent fu90

For how eschatology affected early Christian ethics, see, e.g., Ben Wiebe, Messianic Ethics: Jesus’ Proclamation of the Kingdom of God and the Church in Response (Waterloo, Ont.: Herald, 1992), which explores the strong connections between Jesus’ eschatological teaching about the kingdom of God and the corresponding ethical response demanded of his followers; Wolfgang Schrage, The Ethics of the New Testament, trans. David E. Green (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), esp. 121, where he avers that “eschatological expectation remained a mainstay of earely Christian ethics.” 91 See note 78 above.

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ture, and to buttress their ethical stance, all as God’s eschatological elect community. This sectarian perspective about being God’s eschatological elect community reveals finally that eschatologically-reinforced ethics at Qumran was also related to their construction of identity, as discussed in Chapter Six. Besides seeing themselves as God’s eschatological elect community (the faithful remnant of Israel), the sectarians also identified themselves as priests, as the army of God, and as his heavenly temple. As explained earlier, these mutually reinforcing models of identity raised the demand for sanctity or halakhic stringency. Moreover, they were also understood to be the loci of God’s eschatological gifts of the holy spirit, esoteric knowledge, and fellowship with angels,92 all of which have ethical implications as shown.

92

E.g., the presence of angels in 1QM VII, 6 is located among the priestly army of eschatological Israel. Both the holy spirit and divine knowledge may be associated with the constitution of the community as true Israel and a spiritual sanctuary in 1QS IX, 3–8, depending on how Cdwq jwr dwsyl is interpreted. Holy spirits, temple sacrifice, and knowledge are also linked in 4Q403 1 I, 43–46.

Part IV

Synthesis and Conclusion

Chapter 9

Principles behind Practices The last four chapters have shown separately how each of the four “tributaries” of Qumran ethics was at work and suggested briefly how they interacted with each other in various examples. This chapter now turns to more sustained examinations of certain sectarian texts – those with prominent ethical themes – to illustrate further how, and to what extent, these four sets of factors were variously at work in each text. For methodological control, this chapter limits its scope to texts with most probably Qumranic origins, dating to the first century B.C.E. or later. This gives a measure of assurance that we are in fact examining ethics at Qumran. Consequently, other sectarian and non-sectarian texts, even those that probably had an enduring influence at Qumran, are only used for comparative purposes. Furthermore, this chapter presents Qumranic texts from several different genres and dates, thereby mitigating the danger of having our investigation biased by the particularity of a single genre, such as the rule texts, or of a particular period. Finally, each section begins with an exegesis of the selected text on its own terms before making connections with what the earlier chapters have shown about the construction of ethics at Qumran and before characterizing that ethics. With these methodological precautions in place, this chapter inquires if any underlying principles, from an etic perspective, lie behind the various ethical positions in the texts considered, and whether such principles are consistent across the different genres and dates.

A. Ethics in a Qumran Rule Text: 1QS VI, 24–VII, 25 Among the rule texts from the Qumran caves, the final form of 1QS has the pride of place as the definitive Qumranic document that describes their halakhic positions, both because of its date (100–75 B.C.E.) that locates it in the early stage of the sectarian occupation of Qumran,1 and its relatively extensive and well-preserved content that exhibits distinctively Qumranic

1

See Chapter Three, note 5.

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ideas.2 Within the eleven columns of this text is found the most complete example of a sectarian penal code in the entire Qumran corpus: VI, 24–VII, 25,3 which probably belongs to an early Qumranic redactional layer as opposed to the earlier and possibly pre-Qumranic penal codes in 1QS VIII–IX or CD/4QD.4 The following exegesis of this discrete unit of text, both in terms of the offences listed and the penalties prescribed, will expose some aspects of both what the sectarians thought mattered ethically and why they thought so. I. Exegesis Contextually, this passage fits into the latter part of a halakhic section (V, 1– VII, 25), which includes general precepts on the hierarchy and norms of the community and regulations on membership initiation and maintenance. This halakhic section is preceded by the Two Spirits Treatise (III, 13–IV, 26), which functions as the doctrinal foundation of the document, and is followed by two sections that seem like appendices to the document – an apparently older version of the community constitution and rules (VIII, 1–IX, 26a), and a liturgical/hymnic section (IX, 26b–XI, 22).5 From this overview, it is plausible that our passage is the key text that functioned to regulate communal life according to the teachings, organizational values, and ethical norms set out earlier in the document. The code itself is casuistic in form, comparable with the case law in Exod 21:1–22:16, maybe reflecting a similar need for a potentially enforceable code to regulate daily life in the covenant community and to deal with offenders according to their offences and mitigating circumstances. These concerns are detectable in this code by analysing the structure of the cases.6 By such an analysis, thirty cases and sub-cases of offences and penalties can be grouped together in eighteen case units.7 The typical case is introduced by the phrase 2

Although the preservation and the early date of its discovery are both largely accidental, this does not significantly discount the importance of 1QS as the prime example of a Qumranic rule text. 3 Other examples are found in 1QS VIII, 4QS, CD, and 4QD, all less extensive or well preserved. 4 See Murphy-O’Connor, “La genèse littéraire,” 529–32; For the conclusion that the penal code in 4QD reflects that of the parent movement of the Qumran community, see Charlotte Hempel, “The Penal Code Reconsidered,” in Bernstein, García Martínez, and Kampen, Legal Texts, 348. 5 For a review of scholarship on the analysis and redactional history of these sections, see Metso, Textual Development, 107–10. 6 See Appendix A for the details of my analysis on this passage, and my enumeration of its cases of offences and penalties. 7 Pace Knibb, Qumran Community, 124–25, where he describes the offences as “listed in a somewhat haphazard order,” and “miscellaneous in character.” Even when he goes on to

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rCa Cya (Case 1), or rCa Cyahw (Cases 5, 16a, 17a, 18a), or rCaw (Cases 2, 3a, 4, 6a, 7a, 8, 10a, 11, 12, 13, 14), or simply w (Cases 9, 15).8 Each case introduced by one of these phrases seems to be independent, though not necessarily unrelated to the one preceding it.9 Such an independent case is sometimes followed by one or more dependent case introduced by the phrase Maw (Cases 3b, 3c, 6b, 6c, 6d, 10c, 17b), or Nkw (Cases 7b, 10b), the former being conditional cases and the latter being analogous cases. Thus, simply by its syntactical structure, this code reveals what cases the Qumranites considered to be similar, aggravating, or extenuating, the ethical significance of which will be shown in the next subsection. The code’s dependency on scripture is seen not only in its formal similarity with Exod 21:1–22:16, but also its linguistic and topical links with the socalled Holiness Code in Lev 19:11–18.10 As shown in Appendix A, a number of cases in this code seem to be based on Lev 19, not only in their topics, but also roughly in their sequence.11 acknowledge that “they all reflect the circumstances and tension of life within the community,” he fails to make any connection among the cases in this code. For independent listings of these cases grouped differently, see Murphy, Wealth, 519–22; Aharon Shemesh, “The Scriptural Background of the Penal Code in the Rule of the Community and Damascus Document,” DSD 15 (2008): 191–224. 8 It is tempting to consider these two cases introduced simply with w to be closely connected with Cases 8 and 14 respectively, if not dependent on them. Indeed, both Cases 8 and 9 are about speech. Nevertheless, the connection between Cases 14 and 15 are not obvious, at least not without a fuller understanding of the significance of these offences in the world of the Qumran community. In the absence of more indicators of relationship between these two pairs of cases, it is better to treat all of them as independent. 9 Case 16b, introduced by the very similar phrase Cyaw, seems anomalous. Despite the similarity with rCa Cyahw, it clearly introduces a case that is dependent on Case 16a, as is evident from the strong chiastic parallelism between these two cases and the similar dependency of Case 17b on 17a. It is possible that Cyaw was once Maw, as in Case 17b. 10 Murphy, Wealth, 144–45, also illustrates this clearly. She convincingly suggests that this correspondence with the Levitical Holiness Code extended the purity requirements of the priests and Levites to all the members of the community, identifying the latter with the former. For a more detailed and expanded argument, see Shemesh, “Scriptural Background,” 191–224. 11 E.g., the early placement of the injunction against lying in general in Lev 19:11–18 helps explain the priority of Case 1 in the penal code. It is noteworthy that section 2 (Cases 8–15) alone shows no dependency on the Levitical Holiness Code. Indeed, scriptural bases for these offences are difficult to find, except for perhaps Case 8. Partly on the basis of comparisons with rabbinic midrashim, Shemesh, “Scriptural Background,” 208–12, argues for the dependency of theses cases (except Case 8) on Lev 19 (Case 9–10c) and Deut 23 (Cases 11– 15). Even if Shemesh is correct that three pentateuchal passages about holiness (Lev 19, Deut 23, and Num 16–17) were the bases of how the sectarian author(s) organized this code, he fails to explain the sources of these specific offences. It is probable that just as the organizational pattern of the Qumran community was a Greco-Roman phenomenon, the specific rules

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Dependency on scripture in general, and on Lev 19:11–18 in particular, helps explain the inclusion, and sometimes the sequence, of some of the offences in the penal code, but not all. What then is the logic of the inclusion of the other offences? Furthermore, why are yet other offences not included? Wherever else the answers might be found, some of them are certainly related to the nature of the community to which this code applied,12 and the function of this code within that community.13 As a voluntary community dedicated to faithfulness to God’s covenant, a faithfulness expressed supremely in terms of perfection in holiness and purity,14 the Qumran community apparently formulated its penal code to safeguard and preserve its integrity by militating against behaviours that might damage the very basis of the community, especially its hierarchy or authority structure, its inter-member relationships, and its communal order. Indeed, all the cases in the penal code can be understood as protecting one or more of these areas.15 The internal logic of the code is not only to be found in the offences, but also in the penalties assigned for them. The prescription of penalties is one of the things that distinguish this penal code from the code in Leviticus, which lacks penalties. In Case 1, the penalty for lying about wealth is exclusion from the pure meal of the community for one year and one-quarter reduction of rations for an unspecified period of time, most probably also to be understood as one year.16 Thus the code introduces two of the most frequent forms of

pertaining to the internal order of a group so organized also had roots in the community’s cultural milieu. 12 E.g., Hempel, “Penal Code Reconsidered,” 343–48, convincingly argues that, at least for some offences found exclusively in 4QDb,e, they were excluded from 1QS because they were no longer appropriate for a community that was probably exclusively male. 13 E.g., Schiffman, Sectarian Law, 155–59, offers a cogent case that the purpose of the penal code was to serve “as an abridgment which presented a reasonable sample of the sectarian regulations” in the initiation ceremony of the community. 14 For the view that the three main categories of social identity in 1QS are covenant, holiness, and perfection, see Louise J. Lawrence, “‘Men of Perfect Holiness’ (1QS 7.20): Social-Scientific Thoughts on Group Identity, Asceticism and Ethical Development in the Rule of the Community,” in Campbell, Lyons, and Pietersen, New Directions in Qumran Studies, 83–100. (Note that the reference in the title should be 1QS 8.20.) To this list one must add purity as one of the chief concerns and identity markers of the Qumran community. See Schiffman, Sectarian Law, 2, 4. 15 See Appendix A. 16 This seems to be the most natural way of understanding the penalty, with the duration elided when already stated in its context. For the tendency to abbreviate the penalties progressively in this code, see Schiffman, Sectarian Law, 161. For the conflicting interpretations of the penalties in this penal code, see esp. Göran Forkman, The Limits of the Religious Community: Expulsion from the Religious Community within the Qumran Sect, within Rabbinic Judaism, and within Primitive Christianity (trans. Pearl Sjölander; ConBNT 5; Lund, Sweden: Gleerup, 1972), 57–59; Schiffman, Sectarian Law, 159–65; Weinfeld, Organiza-

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penalty, with permanent expulsion being the third and most severe form.17 As plausibly suggested by Forkman, the various forms of penalties found in this code are all forms of separation from the community.18 Even reduction of rations can be viewed as separation from the property or resources of the community.19 Moreover, these various degrees of separation demanded by the code signify the sectarians’ understanding of the varying degrees of impurity that the offenders take on, requiring separation to preserve the perfect state of purity of the rest of the community.20 As the above discussion on this penal code demonstrates, both its list of offences and its assignment of punishments show some internal logic, the ethical significance of which will be explored below. II. Analysis of Ethics in the Text The gradation of offences, as indicated by their varying severity of punishment, seems to reflect some of the ethical priorities of the Qumran community. Uppermost on their ranking of transgressions in this code are those that violate the sanctity of God and the authoritative hierarchy of the community that is understood to be derived from him, and turning away from the community or associating with those who do. Perpetrators of such infractions are cut off totally from the community. Next come actions that damage the relationship between or among members. Only against violators of some of these cases or those more serious is exclusion from the pure meal prescribed. Lowest in ranking are those misdeeds that simply contravene the disciplinary order of communal life, especially the general assembly. Most of

tional Pattern, 41–43; Joseph M. Baumgarten, “The Cave 4 Versions of the Qumran Penal Code,” JJS 43 (1992): 268–76; and the major translations. 17 If the restoration ldbwmw in VI, 27 is correct (pace Schiffman, Sectarian Law, 160, this is no emendation), all instances of exclusion from the pure meal are accompanied by a reduction of rations of the same duration, always one year (Case 1, 2, 3b, 5, 16), except in the special case of 18a, where it is two years, with additional stipulations found only in this case. Thus, the specifications of double punishments in 1QS are much more consistent than those in 4QDa,e and 4Q265. (See Baumgarten, “Cave 4 Versions of the Qumran Penal Code,” 275– 76, for a tabulation of these punishments.) None of these cases are in the section pertaining to communal order. Outside of these cases, all reductions of rations stand alone and last from ten days to six months (except the anomalous correction of Case 7a/b to one year), and are the only forms of punishment found in the section on communal order, whereas permanent expulsion is only found in the introductory and concluding sections (Case 3a, 16b, 17a, 18b, 18c, and presumably 18a if there is no repentance). 18 Forkman, Limits of the Religious Community, 57–59. 19 See Murphy, Wealth, 92, 260, 449 for her view that food is the primary form of wealth in the Qumran community, a tool in its boundary maintenance and a tangible symbol of its unity. 20 Cf., e.g., Schiffman, Sectarian Law, 216.

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these misdemeanours attract reductions in rations lasting up to thirty days.21 This shows that in the sectarian worldview, while they value communal order and discipline, they value the individuals and their relationship to each other even more. Greater still is their regard for the welfare and authoritative hierarchy of the community as a whole, a value that is surpassed only by their reverence for God. The priority of the community over the individual members is evident in some of the provisions of mitigating and aggravating situations. Case 6c dictates restitution for loss caused to communal property, where it is not required in Case 6a regarding fraud against a fellow member.22 Similarly, Cases 16b and 17a draw a categorically different penalty (expulsion) for offences against the community compared with the exact offences against a fellow member in Cases 16a and 17b. This reflects a priority of their social identity over their individual personal identity, thus validating the focus on the former in Chapter Six. Following biblical precedence (Num 15:30), this code clearly distinguishes between intentional and unintentional sins.23 Beside the frequent appearance of the qualifying word “knowingly” in the penal code,24 at least one case explicitly reduces the penalty when an offence is committed unintentionally.25 This shows that Qumran ethics is not purely based on external behaviour, but takes intentionality into account. This penal code is noteworthy for its lack of violent punishments, especially so in the cultural and political context of late Second Temple Palestine, where both Jewish and foreign rulers readily use cruelty and violence to control and regulate their subjects. While drawing upon scripture for many of its rules, this Qumranic code seems to have abandoned the biblical death penalty.26 With this in view, the Qumran avoidance of such forms of social con21

However, because these penalties are relatively mild, the cases in this category relatively numerous, and the conviction of these cases easy, these were probably the most frequently used penalties in the Qumran community. 22 The restitution, or the penalty of a sixty-day reduction of rations for inability to pay it, is most probably in addition to the basic penalty of six-month reduction of rations for fraud, or three months for unintentional fraud. Cf. Lev 6:1–7 for the biblical precedence of restitution on top of penalty in case of fraud. 23 See Gary A. Anderson, “Intentional and Unintentional Sin in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Pomegranates and Golden Bells: Studies in Biblical, Jewish, and Near Eastern Ritual, Law, and Literature in Honor of Jacob Milgrom (ed. David P. Wright, David Noel Freedman, and Avi Hurvitz; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1995), 49–64. 24 Cases 1, 4, 5, and 6a. Such qualifications indicate that intentionality is one of the necessary conditions for these offences in the first place. 25 Case 3c and probably 6b. For the former, the penalty is not only reduced in duration, but is of a less severe type. 26 Cf. Joseph M. Baumgarten, “The Avoidance of the Death Penalty in Qumran Law,” in Reworking the Bible: Apocryphal and Related Texts at Qumran: Proceedings of a Joint Sym-

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trol was possibly a form of political/cultural protest, a critique of current practices by boycotting them.27 The clear influence of the Levitical Holiness Code on the formulation of this penal code illustrates how Qumran ethics has a consciously scriptural basis and how a priestly self-identity translates into a penal code that reflects a priestly ethics.28 The community that saw itself as priestly governed itself using a code appropriate for priests. Furthermore, the priestly values of purity and hierarchy are thoroughly embedded in the system of penalty, in which graduated separation from the purity of the community is the means to deal with violation of purity through improper acts. Finally, the seriousness of the penalty of expulsion must be seen in the context of Qumran eschatology, which equates exclusion from the community with being in Belial’s lot destined for destruction under God’s final judgment. This further explains the apparent substitution of expulsion for capital punishment as the highest form of punishment in the Qumran community. III. Conclusions The above analysis has suggested how all four factors discussed in the previous chapters contributed variously to the construction of Qumran ethics as expressed in this penal code. Scriptural traditions, most prominently from Leviticus, were reworked selectively to provide a framework for the most serious sections of the code. This use of scripture was probably driven by the community’s priestly identity, and the code thus formulated promoted, protected, and enforced the priestly values of purity and hierarchy. The inclusion of some offences, particularly those relating to communal order, and the choice of non-violent penalties, possibly reflects at least in part their response to their cultural and political contexts. Finally, the role of eschatology, though indistinct in the code, is implicit in its system of penalties, providing a powerful sanction behind the penalty of expulsion and exclusion from the communal meal, which anticipated the messianic banquet.

posium by the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature and the Hebrew University Institute for Advanced Studies Research Group on Qumran, 15– 17 January, 2002 (ed. Esther G. Chazon, Devorah Dimant, and Ruth A. Clements; STDJ 58; Leiden: Brill, 2005), 31–38, who argues that legal texts from Qumran merely affirm the principle of the death penalty, but in practice substitute it with expulsion. 27 See, e.g., the frequent critiques against the violence of their Jewish opponents and the Romans in texts such as 1QpHab III, 9–13; IX, 8–12; 4QpPsa II, 13–18. 28 Though the Holiness Code blurs the line between priests and laity, or fosters a view of the laity as priests, its orientation is still in some sense priestly.

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B. Ethics in a Qumran Wisdom Text: 4QCrA Words of the Sage to the Sons of Dawn (4Q298) While the provenance of the non-biblical wisdom texts in general continues to elude certainty,29 4Q298 can be described as a product of the Qumran community from the middle period of its occupation at Qumran.30 The evidence includes a reference to the Maskil in an instructional role, akin to that found in 1QS and other sectarian texts,31 the use of sectarian terminology,32 and the use of the so-called Cryptic A script.33 Although very fragmentary with only a limited amount of preserved text, the extant portions of this wisdom instruction text, dated to 50–1 B.C.E.,34 clearly contain series of vocatives addressing its recipients and imperative verbs exhorting them to certain ideals. Both series amount to virtue lists comparable with those from Hellenistic moral philosophers and the New Testament.35 The following exegesis of the most well preserved parts of 4Q298 will attempt to unpack this text so that the way it formulates its ethics can be exposed.

29 See Charlotte Hempel, “The Qumran Sapiential Texts and the Rule Books,” in The Wisdom Texts from Qumran and the Development of Sapiential Thought (ed. Charlotte Hempel, Armin Lange, and Hermann Lichtenberger; BETL 159; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2002), 277–95, esp. 278 for her citation of this persistent problem and the scholars who have dealt with whether any of the wisdom texts from Qumran are sectarian in origin. 30 Stephan J. Pfann and Menahem Kister, “4QcryptA Words of the Maskil to All the Sons of Dawn,” in DJD XX, 1–30. 31 For the role of the Maskil as a community leader in different contexts in the wider sectarian movement, and a citation of some of the relevant texts, see Pfann and Kister, “4QcryptA,” 21. Note especially Kister’s comparison between the job description of the Maskil in CD XIII, 7–8 and the content of 4Q298. Cf. also the occurrence in 1QHa XX, 11, 4Q421 (4QWays of Righteousnessb) 1a–b II, 12, and 4Q510 (4QSongs of the Sagea) 1 4, where the word lykCm is also without the definite article. Elsewhere, lykCm as a leadership term is always preceded by l and appears in manuscript titles or sectional headings. 32 See Dwight D. Swanson, “4QcrypA Words of the Maskil to All Sons of the Dawn: The Path of the Virtuous Life,” in Falk, García Martínez, and Schuller, Sapiential, Liturgical and Poetical Texts, 49–51, for his examples of sectarian terminology, including Myody (knowers) and hnyb (understanding). 33 Pfann and Kister, “4QcryptA,” 9–13; John Strugnell, “The Smaller Hebrew Wisdom Texts Found at Qumran: Variations, Resemblances and Lines of Development,” in Hempel, Lange, and Lichtenberger, Wisdom, 43–44. 34 Pfann and Kister, “4QcryptA,” 9. 35 For an excellent comparison, see Swanson, “4QcrypA.” While the availability of such comparable material offers additional opportunities for understanding this text, it also introduces the risk of distortion.

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I. Exegesis What remains of this often-fragmentary text reveals that it belongs to the genre of wisdom instruction and is directed to members of the community under the obscure label – “all the sons of dawn.”36 The instruction begins in a typical way with a call to listen to the wise instructor.37 The addressees are 36

Pace the editors of 4Q298, Pfann and Kister, “4QcryptA,” 17, 21, there is no compelling reason to identify the rare label rjC ynb (sons of dawn) as novices. Indeed, if the reading of CD XIII, 14 is correct in Joseph M. Baumgarten, “The ‘Sons of Dawn’ in CDC 13:14-15 and the Ban on Commerce among the Essenes,” IEJ 33, no. 1-2 (1983): 81-85, then Baumgarten’s argument in the context of CD XIII that the label “sons of dawn” is synonymous with the more common “sons of light,” at least in CD, is persuasive. The proposal that the “sons of dawn” are novices, which even Kister admits is tentative at least once in his commentary, is widely accepted by others, including, Armin Lange, “Die Weisheitstexte aus Qumran: Eine Einleitung,” in Hempel, Lange, and Lichtenberger, Wisdom, 3–30, esp. 12. For a cogent critique of this view and the citation of Collins, Kampen, and Harrington as other supporters of this view, see Hempel, “Qumran Sapiential Texts,” 293. However, Kister himself shows some reservation about the meaning of the term “sons of dawn,” and fairly presents both options as possible in Menahem Kister, “Words of the Sage to the Sons of Dawn,” EDSS 2:990–91, esp. 991. Swanson, “4QcrypA,” 49, though granting that he essentially accepts Pfann and Kister’s “reasonable” proposal, signals doubts by stating that his conclusions do not depend on it. He in fact undermines Pfann and Kister’s original proposal in the very next paragraph by correctly pointing out that the recipients of the text are “the wise and reputable [or knowledgeable] men of the community,” described using a “list of positive values.” Such descriptions of the recipients hardly seem to fit novices better than they fit full members. Further, Hempel rightly notes that Pfann’s assertion that the content of the text is introductory is without clear support. See Hempel, “Qumran Sapiential Texts,” 293. For a recent endorsement of Hempel and the view that the “sons of dawn” are full members of the sect, see Matthew J. Goff, Discerning Wisdom: The Sapiential Literature of the Dead Sea Scrolls (VTSup 116; Leiden: Brill, 2007), 146–59. Moreover, Kister’s puzzlement over the use of “sons of dawn” in the title of 4Q298, if it were addressed to regular members, can be resolved alternatively. Since the rest of the text seems to be encrypted, the same motivation for encryption, which, as the editors suggest, was probably to prevent outsiders from reading its content, could prompt a deliberate obscurity even in the title, causing the typically sectarian self-designation “sons of light” to be substituted by a much more obscure “sons of dawn.” While the editors’ view about the recipients lacks substantiation, their suggestion about the document being a travelling document based on its small size and encryption is most probably correct. In that case, the need for the Maskil to travel with this sectarian text to instruct full members outside of Qumran calls for a very different picture about the purpose of this text and the nature of the Qumran community. It gives weight to the view championed by Stegemann and others that Qumran was the centre of affiliated communities and not an isolated offshoot of a parent movement. It suggests that leaders from Qumran travelled to teach members of the movement who lived elsewhere, perhaps in the “camps” mentioned in CD or the “dwellings” in 1QS. 37 For this formal aspect of wisdom instruction, cf. parts of Pss 34; 49; and Prov 1–8. As for the texts from Qumran, see Daniel J. Harrington, “Wisdom Texts,” EDSS 2:976–80, esp. 976–77, where he states, “The most prominent literary form among the sapiential texts from Qumran is the wisdom instruction. In it a sage instructs an individual … or a group … using

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called bbl yCna (men of heart = sensible men),38 qdx y«p[dwr] (pursuers of righteousness),39 and hnwma yC|q|bm (seekers of faithfulness)40 in 4Q298 1–2 I, 1–2.41 Towards the end of the preserved text, in 4Q298 3–4 II, 4–7,42 the addressees are further invoked as [Mymkj] (wise ones),43 Myody (those who know),44 hnyb yCna (men of understanding),45 fpCm [y]Crwd (seekers of

the customary devices of calls to pay attention, imperatives and negative prohibitions …, and reasons.” He identifies other wisdom instruction texts from Qumran as 1Q26, 4Q415–418, 423; 4Q185, 424; 4Q420–421; 4Q525; 1Q27; and 4Q299–301. 38 Contra the editors, this phrase occurs only here among the “sectarian scrolls” as defined by Abegg’s digital text (QSM hereafter). The reading in 4Q525 24 II, 1–2, incorrectly cited by Kister, is far from certain. In the MT it is found in Job 34:10, 34, in a similar rhetorical context. 39 This phrase occurs only here according to QSM, and in the MT is only found in Isa 51:1. But cf. tod ypdwr in 4Q299 8 7 and 4Q424 3 2, [ -- ]ypdwr in 4Q418 69 II, 10, and yodwy qdx in CD I, 1 || 4Q268 1 9; and 4Q270 2 II, 19, which reflects Isa 51:7. 40 This phrase occurs only here according to QSM, and in the MT is attested only in the form of h¡Dn…wmTa vâé;qAbVm in Jer 5:1. Cf. Isa 51:1 h¡Dwhy yEvVqAbVm q®d™Rx yEpdõOr y¢AlEa …wñoVmIv for the similar language. 41 The more fragmentary lines 3–4 can be read as follows: “And you who know, examine these things (my words?). And (re)turn [to] (or take hold of) [the way of] life, O men of his will, and (to) the eternal [light] inscrutable.” Cf. WAC’s translation for reading the two verbs here as imperatives instead of perfect (contra the editors). If this reading is correct, the addressees are furthered labelled as Myo|d[y] “those who know” (see note below on this as a vocative) and wØn[wxr yCn]«a “men of his will” (cf. 1QS V, 9, 10; VIII, 6). And they are urged to examine the instructor’s teaching and to turn back to (or to take hold of) the way of life and light. However, these lines are too fragmentary for any reading to be certain. 42 According to the Pfann’s careful and convincing reconstruction (Pfann and Kister, “4QcryptA,” 2–5, Plate I), the text has one final and largely unpreserved column after column two, the content of which likely contains “interpretation of the appointed times” that the Maskil promises to recount in line II, 8–9. 43 This vocative is completely restored by Pfann on the basis of 1QHa IX, 34–35. But this is dubious and remains very tentative. 44 This vocative is found in Job 34:2 and probably otherwise unattested in the Scrolls. It is doubtful the repeated participle Myody in 4QMMT is a vocative. However, Myody is used substantivally in 1QSa I, 28, and 1QHa XIX, 14, most probably to refer to the members of the community. It is possible that this participle was vocalized as the passive participle by the sectarians, as in Deut 1:13–15, which explains Swanson’s rendering, “wise and reputable ones.” But Swanson is probably wrong to imply that it was deliberately ambiguous in the Qumran texts. Instead, it most likely was read either as an active or as a passive participle, not both. In contexts where knowledge is prominent, the active is more likely. Cf. the qualified phrase q®d$Rx yEodâOy in Isa 51:7, and in CD I, 1 || 4Q268 1 9; and 4Q270 2 II, 19. 45 The phrase occurs only here according to QSM, but cf. the singular form in 4Q382 49 5; 4Q426 10 2; [h]»nyb ylykCm in 1QM X, 10; hnyb yCqbm in 1QHa VI, 3; 4Q412 1 6?; yr]|jC«m [hnyb in 4Q418 69 II, 10; and twnyb mo in 4Q400 1 I, 6. The phrase is unattested in the MT, but cf. ‹twønyI;b_MAo in Isa 27:11, which is cited in CD V, 16 with reference to the opponents of the sect. Cf. also ‹hÎnyIb y§Eodwøy in 1 Chr 12:33, which also appears in 4Q381 31 6.

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justice),46 [Krdh yod]»wy (those who know the way),47 and tma yCna (men of truth).48 Here they are enjoined to add virtues to their virtues, including «j[ql] (learning),49 tkl oynxh (modesty/walking humbly?),50 Xmwa (strength).51 Further, they are to pursue righteousness, love kindness, and increase humility (hwno wpyswh dsj wbha»w[ qdx w]|p«dr),52 and to add knowledge of the appointed days (hdwot y|m[y ]|t«o[d wpys]»w«h).53 The purpose of this series of exhortations is so that the addressees may “give heed to the end of the ages and that [they] may look upon former things in order to know.”54

46

The phrase occurs only here according to QSM, and is unattested in the MT, but cf.

fpCm Cwrdl as one of the sectarian activities in 1QS VI, 7, see also 1QS VIII, 24; 4Q418 81+81a 7; 4Q420 1a–b II, 3; 4Q424 3 4; and 4Q522 9 II, 10 for similar language in other contexts. In the MT, cf. the singular form in Isa 16:5, and the imperative f™DÚpVvIm …wñvrî;d in Isa 1:17. 47 The phrase occurs only here according to QSM, and is unattested in the MT, but cf. Isa 42:16; Jer. 5:4–5; Ps 95:10; 103:7; 143:8; and Job 21:14 for combinations of “know” and “way”, where “way” is often qualified as God’s way (commands). 48 The phrase also appears in 1QHa VI, 2; X, 14; 4Q275 2 3; 4Q424 3 8; and 11QT LVII, 8, albeit sometimes partially restored. A similar phrase is found in 1QpHab VII, 10 referring to the sectarians. The editors’ translation of a later phrase reflects the emendation of wbha dsj to dsj ybha (lovers of kindness), which they use as one of the two indicators that the Vorlage of this manuscript could be written in square Hebrew script. If correct, then there is one more vocative. However, this emendation is not necessary, as Pfann himself indicates in his alternate reading, Pfann and Kister, “4QcryptA,” 26. In fact, the correspondence between the triple imperatives hwno wpyswh dsj wbha»w[ qdx w]|p«dr with Mic 6:8 (tAbShAaw ‹fDÚpVvIm twôøcSo ÔKy`RhølTa_MIo tRk™Rl Ao¶EnVxAhw dRs$Rj ) strongly suggests that the text should be read as it stands. 49 Both the imperative and this object are almost completely restored on the basis of the attestation of the phrase jql wpyswy in other Qumran texts (some incorrectly cited by the editors), viz. 4Q418 81+81a 17; 4Q418 221 3; 4Q436 1a+b I, 2; and possibly 4Q299 6 II, 18. The phrase is also common in Proverbs (1:5; 9:9; 16:21, 23). 50 This phrase is attested a few times in the Rule of the Community: 1QS IV, 5; V, 4 (|| 4Q256 IX, 4; 4Q258 I, 3); VIII, 2. See also possibly 4Q408 15 1; 4Q502 16 3. Often its dependency on Mic 6:8 is obvious. For the uncertain meaning of this phrase, see Pfann and Kister, “4QcryptA,” 27–28. 51 Though the noun is rare, the phrase “increase strength” is found both in the Scrolls (11Q5 XXIV, 15) and the HB (Job 17:9). 52 See Pfann and Kister, “4QcryptA,” 26, for virtues that go with Pdr in the Scrolls and the MT. 53 The highly restored phrase tod wpyswh is otherwise unattested according to QSM. In the MT, it appears once in Qoh 1:18, but in a negative context. The word hdwot is rare in the MT (three times) but quite frequent in the Scrolls (c. 50 times), where its meaning seems to be quite different from its biblical usage (“testimony” or “custom”). In the Scrolls the word appears in a number of contexts and usually means something determined. Often it communicates or is in agreement with a predestinarian perspective. For the meaning of hdwot as “that which has been determined,” see Pfann and Kister, “4QcryptA,” 28. 54 Pfann’s translation. Cf. Isa 43:18; CD I, 1ff; II, 14ff, which mention the historical and the eschatological together.

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The scriptural bases of some of the language of these passages have been clearly exposed by the editors and Swanson. Ethical terminology from biblical prophetic texts,55 such as qdx and fpCm, finds echoes in this text. Likewise, biblical wisdom texts, such as Proverbs 1, provide some of its ethical and sapiential terms, such as hnyb, and indeed may be the basis of its call to virtues.56 Especially noteworthy is the remarkable correspondence between the key words of this text and Elihu’s speech in Job 32–37.57 Swanson’s conclusion that 4Q298 reflects the same wisdom tradition as that in the Elihu speech is certainly convincing. Not only does 4Q298 show dependence on the terminology of the Elihu speech, the Elihu speech contains perspectives that show affinities to ideas expressed in the sectarian texts. Aside from the above noted terminological dependency on scripture, 4Q298 also manifests a similarity of language and salient sectarian concerns with texts such as CD I, 1; II, 2, 14; 1QS II, 24; IV, 2–6; V, 3–6, 7; VIII, 2–7; and 1QHa IX, 34–36.58 Like these so-called core sectarian documents, 4Q298 seems to be concerned with instructing members on their self-understanding and the corresponding ethical requirements. However, in light of the lack of precise correspondence between the phraseology of 4Q289 and other Qumran scrolls, noted above, the author of this text demonstrates freedom and creativity in the novel combinations and arrangements of key biblical and sectarian catchwords. In between these better-preserved portions introduced above, 4Q298 3–4 I contains the left edge of a column of text. The ten extant lines of this column contain enough words to give the impression that it is about divinely appointed cosmic order.59 Kister’s analysis of this very fragmentary column and comparison with other sectarian texts, especially 1QS, suggests that naturalism is a part of Qumran ethical thought.60 If he is correct, then 4Q298 is 55

E.g., Isa 51, Jer 5, and especially Mic 6 and Zeph 2. So Swanson, “4QcrypA,” 53. 57 Swanson, “4QcrypA,” 53–56. 58 See Kister, “Words of the Sage,” 990–91, for other Qumran texts that share stylistic parallels with 4Q298. 59 Pfann and Kister, “4QcryptA,” 18, 24–25. 60 Speaking on the use of the word Nwkt in this and other sectarian texts, Kister insightfully observes, “The word Nwkt is used to refer to a defined measure of time in nature (1QS X, 6– 7), to a defined measure of eschatological time (1QpHab VII, 12–14), and to the proper, legal measure of what should be done (1QS V, 7). In all its meanings, Nwkt is related to law, whether the law of nature, the law of history, or halakhah—all of which are equally the law of God… [T]his concept—divinely ordained measure—is a basic concept in the sect’s thought, and its uses indicating that the sect perceived no distinction between law ordained by God for humanity in the Torah and His law or commands in nature and in history. In fact, they perceived a congruity between God’s laws in nature and history and in the products of human activity … This is one of the cornerstones of the sect’s ideology of predestination and of the hierarchy of its members.” Pfann and Kister, “4QcryptA,” 24. 56

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is another expression of the Qumranites’ worldview that God’s demands are sometime embedded or reflected in his created order in the cosmos.61 To summarize, the purpose or function of this probably Qumranic wisdom text was to affirm the members’ identity, to instruct them to observe natural law, to urge them to grow and pursue sectarian ideals in behaviour, character development, and proper thoughts, especially knowledge of the appointed days (God’s preordained times), so they could understand the future along with the past. Such understanding presumably affected how they lived, though the fragmentary text does not reveal how exactly so. II. Analysis of Ethics in the Text As the above exegesis has shown, 4Q298 freely and creatively appropriates ethical virtues from biblical prophetic and wisdom texts in its listing of virtues. These virtues are pervasive in other sectarian texts and were probably understood in particularly sectarian ways.62 Furthermore, the conspicuous correspondence with the Elihu speech suggests that the use of scripture here is mediated through a particular wisdom school. This listing of virtues, in the context of an esoteric text for instructing sectarian members, probably functioned as a list of identity markers and an identity-formation tool.63 In the sectarian worldview, the possession of these virtues was the corollary of being in the community. Outsiders were considered devoid of such ethical qualities. A probable instance of where self-identity, defined in ethical terms, determined ethical requirements is seen by comparing the identity label “pursuers of righteousness” with the later ethical exhortation to “pursue righteousness.” The recipients were not told to become pursuers of righteousness by pursuing righteousness. Rather, their identity as such was granted first on the basis of their voluntary membership in the community, understood theologically as the result of predestination, and the exhortation to live up to that identity followed. 61

Cf. Elgvin, “Admonition Texts,” 186–89, cited in the previous chapter, for his discussion on “ethics based on the order of creation.” 62 E.g., virtues related to knowing likely refer to esoteric interpretations of the Torah and laws implicit in nature, among other things. Similarly, virtues such as qdx (righteousness), fpCm (justice), and Krd (way) probably refer to behaviour in accordance with those interpretations. For the extension of tkl oynxh (humble walk) from its biblical meaning of wisdom and proper religious behaviour to proper interpersonal relations in some of the sectarian texts, see Pfann and Kister, “4QcryptA,” 27–28. For the possibility that Xmwa (strength) means endurance in persecution in this text, see Pfann and Kister, “4QcryptA,” 27, n. 58. Finally, dsj (loving kindness) seems to be applied exclusively to members of the sect in texts such as 1QS II, 24; IV, 5; V, 4, 25; VIII, 2; cf. 1QS I, 10. 63 E.g., see the observation that the use of Mic 6:8 in this text as a poetic rendering of a common formula for sectarian self description in such texts as 1QS V, 4–5, in Pfann and Kister, “4QcryptA,” 27.

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The use of virtue lists in 4Q298 does not only reflect a sectarian appropriation of scripture and identity formation, but also exhibits at least the awareness, if not the use, of some aspects of Hellenistic philosophy. Swanson has ably shown, by his comparison of 4Q298 and 2 Peter 1 with texts from the Second Temple Hellenistic milieu, that even at Qumran some Hellenistic, particularly Stoic, influence is detectable.64 This is evident through the use of the rhetorical device of sorites – the listing of virtues in an ascending chain towards a climax. Although 4Q298 stays closer to the wisdom tradition of scripture than 2 Peter does in terms of the specific virtues it lists, it exhibits possible Stoic influence in a way that is not obvious in 2 Peter. As already cited in the exegesis section, the fragmentary discourse apparently on the order of creation exhibits an ethical naturalism that is comparable with that in Stoicism, though expressed in its own distinct terms.65 Although direct and conscious borrowing is unlikely given the sect’s generally xenophobic ideology, unconscious assimilation of a widespread form of Stoic naturalism is probably the best explanation, since ethical naturalism at Qumran is otherwise difficult to explain purely in terms of internal development from scriptural ideas. Finally, the importance of eschatology for ethics is also perceptible in our text. The series of exhortations to increase in virtues culminates in the call to add knowledge of the appointed times, specifically for the purpose of appreciating the significance of the end of the ages as well as history. As Swanson points out, in both 2 Peter and 4Q298, “virtuous life will assure the necessary knowledge needed for the last days.”66 In another words, the eschaton is one of the ultimate motivations or justifications for the ethical life in our text. III. Conclusions Once again, examination of this particular wisdom text from Qumran has confirmed the importance of the four contributing factors of Qumran ethics that have been traced throughout this book. First, scriptural traditions, particularly prophetic and sapiential ones, provide this text with part of its ethical vocabulary and conceptual frameworks, which are developed and transformed along sectarian lines. Second, the use of ethical descriptors to build self64

Swanson, “4QcrypA,” 57–61. For the naturalism found in 4Q298, see Kister’s comment in Pfann and Kister, “4QcryptA,” 18, “Creation’s design … is a key to understanding. It is ‘a treasure trove of insights’ from which the Maskil draws his wisdom and teaching. It is within this naturalistic view that the position and rules governing each member are defined and justified… The use of [terms referring to movement within certain limits] seems to imply that, just as the Divine has imposed certain measures and limits on each entity within His creation, He has also assigned varying statues and rules among men and they must walk and live accordingly.” 66 Swanson, “4QcrypA,” 60. 65

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identity directly leads to the exhortation to live up to those descriptors, expressed in terms of the pursuit of virtues. Third, the rhetorical form and naturalism of Stoic ethical discourse are exhibited in this text in the way it lists virtues and in its fragmentary appeals to the created order as a basis for ethics, thus indicating at least indirect Hellenistic cultural influences. Finally, concerns for eschatology, typical in the sapiential literature from Qumran as noted in the previous chapter, are seen in this text to be some of the most important justifications for how the Qumranites were to live in their present. Besides confirming the contributions of these four factors in 4Q298, this section has also exposed some of its overarching ethical principles, each of which variously depends upon a combination of these factors. Naturalism is one of these principles. The fragmentary appearance of words referring to the divinely-established order in the cosmos is consistent with the kind of naturalism more explicitly attested in other writings from the Qumran collection, such as 1/4QInstruction, 1/4QMysteries, and 4QWords of the Luminaries.67 This principle of ethical naturalism was operative at Qumran whenever God’s creation was appealed to as a basis of sectarian norms, from calendrical issues to marriage law. However, natural law at Qumran depended on divine revelation for proper interpretation as much as scriptural law did – it was veiled in mystery. Another ethical principle, somewhat related to naturalism, is determinism. This text is consistent with the idea, attested elsewhere in sectarian literature, that just as God has determined the order of creation, he has also predetermined the ethical paths of all people. Thus, good people will do good and evil people will do evil (cf. 1QS III–IV). The calling of virtuous people to increase in virtue is certainly compatible with this principle. Despite this determinism, our text clearly expresses that effort, striving, and growth are not only necessary, but are expected, demanded, and possible for the Qumranites. This implied rejection of moral complacency points to another ethical principle in our text, one that is more obvious in the legal texts – rigorism. The goal of increasing virtues indicates perfection as the ultimate objective in life. The one principle that links all three together is theonomy. The absolute rule of God as creator and lawgiver is the basis of naturalism, determinism, and rigorism at Qumran. Therefore, even though a number of ethical principles may be at work behind any given ethical norm, the idea that it somehow is a divinely given norm was always present in Qumran thought.

67

Cf. Torleif Elgvin, “Wisdom, Revelation, and Eschatology in an Early Essene Writing,” in Society of Biblical Literature 1995 Seminar Papers (ed. Eugene H. Lovering, Jr.; SBLSP 34; Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1995), 441, n. 6.

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C. Ethics in a Qumran Liturgical Text: 4QBerakhota–e (4Q286–290) Among the many liturgical texts in the Qumran collection, 4QBerakhot68 is one example that most probably represents a Qumranic composition, as indicated by the mostly late Herodian palaeography of its manuscripts,69 its use of distinctive Qumranic terminology,70 and its probable function in the annual covenant renewal ceremony of the community.71 The preserved portions of this document contain liturgical blessings directed towards God and curses against Belial and his followers, which reflect a kind of dualistic worldview positing influence of the spirit world in the ethical life of humans, and a section of laws about communal discipline. Its allusions to angelic praise are akin to the idea of worshipping among the angels in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice. An exegesis of a few portions of this composition will again show how some of the factors that influence the construction of ethics are at work here. I. Exegesis The function of 4QBer as a liturgical text for an annual covenantal ceremony at Qumran is persuasively argued by Nitzan.72 She identifies three components of this liturgy as a series of blessings addressed to God, of curses directed to “Belial and all his guilty lot,” and of laws governing reproof of errant members.73 Furthermore, she tentatively reconstructs the structure of the entire work on the basis of comparison with 1QS and 4QD: one that begins with a communal confession before the main extant portions and ends with an expulsion liturgy and a conclusion of the ceremony.74 Within this overall structure, the three constituent parts of blessings, curses, and laws all work together towards fulfilling the function of the covenant renewal ceremony.

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For the editio princeps and still one of the most comprehensive bibliographies on this composition to date, see Bilhah Nitzan, “Berakhot,” in DJD XI, 1–74, Pl. I–VII (hereafter, Nitzan, “Berakhot,” [1998]). 69 Bilha Nitzan, “Berakhot,” EDSS 1:93–94 (hereafter, Nitzan, “Berakhot,” [2000]). 70 E.g., dws, tod, ydowm, loylb, wlrg yjwr, and djyh txo. 71 For a persuasive case for this function, in spite of the notable differences between 4QBer and passages in D and S that pertain to a covenant renewal ceremony, see Bilhah Nitzan, “4QBerakhota–e (4Q286–290): A Covenantal Ceremony in the Light of Related Texts,” RevQ 16 (1994): 487–506. While none of the points cited here as evidence for Qumranic provenance is decisive by itself, together they do suggest a measure of probability. 72 Nitzan, “Berakhot,” (1998), 1, largely following the original editor, Józef T. Milik, “Milkî-sedeq et Milkî-rea{ dans les anciens écrits juifs et chrétiens,” JJS 23 (1972): 95–144, esp. 136. 73 For the precise references of each portion, see Nitzan, “Berakhot,” (1998), 2. 74 Nitzan, “Berakhot,” (1998), 2–3.

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Examining each of these parts will clarify their sources and how they contribute to the function of the composition. The blessings in 4Q286 1a–b II is distinct from 1QS II, 2–4 in that it blesses God rather than his people. As Nitzan shows, although the two passages have very different objects for their blessings, they are both heavily dependent on scriptural traditions, especially those related to Sinai found in Exodus and Deuteronomy, including the renewal of the Sinai covenant.75 However, in 4QBer the Sinai tradition is sometimes mediated through and freely adapted from other scriptures, such as the Psalms, Daniel, and Ezekiel.76 Furthermore, 4QBer uses that tradition very differently than 1QS does, focusing on blessing God as both the creator and the covenant-maker.77 This combined focus possibly highlights the importance of the sectarian calendar and festival dates, which were understood to be in accordance with God’s created order and part of God’s covenant stipulations.78 Moreover, the blessings addressed to God in 4QBer not only highlight God’s covenant demands, such as calendrical matters, but also implicitly present God as the model of virtues. In the listing of divine attributes in 4Q286 1a–b II, 6–8 is a cluster of terms that are strikingly similar to the sectarian catalogue of virtues in 1QS IV, 2–6a.79 If the Two-Spirits treatise is older than the blessings in 4QBer, as suggested by their palaeographic dates, this remarkable correspondence of terminology likely indicates the latter’s adaptation of the former in its version of the covenant renewal ceremony.80 In 75 Bilhah Nitzan, “4QBerakhot (4Q286–290): A Preliminary Report,” in Brooke and García Martínez, New Qumran Texts, 53–71, esp. 65–71 for her analysis of how 4QBer appropriates various aspects of the Sinai tradition from Exodus and Deuteronomy in its extolling of divine attributes. See there also for her remarks on the dependency of the glorious visions of God and his throne or abode on the merkabah tradition from Daniel, 1 Enoch, and Ezekiel. 76 Nitzan, “4QBerakhot,” 65–69, 71. 77 However, both texts combine priestly and Deuteronomic strands of the Sinai traditions. 78 Bilhah Nitzan, “Harmonic and Mystical Characteristics in Poetic and Liturgical Writings from Qumran,” JQR 85 (1994): 163–83. 79 In a series of thirteen construct phrases that describe divine attributes in 4Q286 1a–b II, 6–8, all of them find correspondence in 1QS IV, 2–6a: amkwj dws (wisdom, 1QS IV, 3), hod tynbtw (knowledge, 4, 6), hnyb{{m}} rwqmw (understanding/insight, 3), h|m|r«o |r»w|q«m (prudence/discernment, 6), Cdwq txow (holiness, 5), tma dwsw (truth, 2), «l|kC r|xwa (understanding/insight, 3), qdx ynb«m (righteousness, 2, 4), [r]«Cwy ynwkmw (uprightness, 2 [verb]), |M»y«dsj [br] (loving kindness, 4, 5), bwf tØwnow (humility, goodness, 3), tma ydsjw (truth, 2, 5, 6), ymjrw Mymlwo (mercies, 3). 80 It is difficult to determine, in the case of the Qumran community, whether reflection on what constituted the virtues helped shape their understanding of God, or the other way around. In the comparison between 4QBer and 1QS, however, the former seems to be true, not only on the basis of the probable chronological priority of the Two-Spirits treatise in 1QS, but also because one of the virtues/attributes, hwno (humility), is hardly a typical attribute for God in the MT, or elsewhere in the sectarian literature, but is frequently mentioned in 1QS as one of the defining virtues for the sectarians (see 1QS II, 24, where the exact phrase bwf twno

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other words, while an earlier virtue list probably guided the author/composer of 4QBer in his description of God in terms of those virtues, 4QBer in turn sets God up as the ultimate representation and source of those virtues, eliciting the Qumranites’ imitation.81 The curses against Belial and his lot, as represented by 4Q286 7 II [= 4Q287 6], are better preserved in many ways than the blessings. As in the blessings, the place of the curses in the sectarian covenant renewal ceremony is derived from models in such scriptural texts as Deut 11 and 27–29.82 However, the singling out of Belial for cursing as a counterpart to the blessing of God deviates markedly from the Sinai tradition and highlights the dualistic outlook of this composition – a qualified dualism that is more in line with some other pre-sectarian and non-sectarian works within the Qumran collection. While this dualistic emphasis possibly found its way into Qumran through other Jewish writings from the late Second Temple period, ultimately it most likely reflects some kind of Iranian influence from Zoroastrianism.83 The section on the laws of reproof, though tentatively reconstructed, is quite clearly concerned with communal discipline.84 Accordingly, it shares with similar texts in CD and 1QS the same intent of applying Lev 19:17–18 to occurs, and 1QS III, 8; IV, 3; V, 3, 25; IX, 22; XI, 1; cf. CD XIII, 18; 1QHa X, 22). Indeed, apart from a handful of occurrences in the MT, mostly in Proverbs, hwno seems to be a distinctly sectarian word. Its citation as one of the divine attributes is best explained by the influence of a virtue list such as the one in 1QS IV. Whatever the case, what is more important for the sectarians here is the strong link between the ethical character traits normative for the sectarians and their understanding of the character of God. 81 Cf. Kimbrough, “Ethic,” 497, cited in Chapter Two. See also the concept of the “imitation of God” in modern Jewish ethics in Chapter Three. 82 Nevertheless, such scriptural sources are reworked and transformed in the sectarian context. In 1QS II, 2–10, for example, the blessings as well as curses are further modelled after the priestly blessing of Num 6:24–26. Such dependency on the so-called Aaronic benediction is no longer obvious in 4QBer, especially because of the pronounced shift in the objects of the blessings and curses, from people who are faithful to the covenant or not, to God or Belial and his lot. However, an examination of the curses in 4Q280, a text closely related to 4QBer in form and content, reveals that it is dependent on 1QS and its use of Num 6:24–26. It is clear that 4Q280 or its source has taken the curses that are directed at people in 1QS and applied them to Belial, with some odd results. See Kobelski, Melchizedek and Melchirea{, 37–42. 4QBer, though still reflecting dependency on 1QS, does not contain the odd portrayals of Belial in 4Q280 that resulted from a rather wooden way of drawing from 1QS. Thus, 4QBer is probably a later and more thoughtful adaptation of 1QS that moves further on the same trajectory as 4Q280. 83 Kobelski, Melchizedek and Melchirea{, 84–98, overstates by arguing for direct borrowing of Zoroastrian ideas. See Chapter Seven, Section B, Subsection I above on Persian influence at Qumran. 84 Bilhah Nitzan, “The Laws of Reproof in 4QBerakhot (4Q286–290) in Light of their Parallels in the Damascus Covenant and Other Texts from Qumran,” in Bernstein, García Martínez, and Kampen, Legal Texts and Legal Issues, 149–65.

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communal practices. This scriptural basis in the Levitical Holiness Code, just as in the penal code discussed in the first part of this chapter, likely reflects a priestly orientation. Furthermore, Nitzan is probably right in suggesting that the application of Lev 19:17–18 in the community functions to safeguard corporate purity (in addition to preserving the individual covenant faithfulness of each member), maybe with the eschatological motivations and demands mentioned in the last chapter in mind.85 II. Analysis of Ethics in the Text From the above examination of the three main sections of 4QBer, a number of observations can be made about how the Qumranites constructed their ethics. First, 4QBer, as a liturgy for the annual covenant renewal ceremony of the Yahad, functioned as an identity-forming document.86 Through reciting this liturgy and participating in the covenant renewal, the Qumranites were reminded of who they were, and consequently how they should behave, and what attitudes and character traits they should adopt.87 Therefore, identity formation was a part of ethical formation at Qumran. In addition, each main part of the liturgy had an identity-forming function that helped shape ethics. For example, the blessing of God and cursing of Belial reminded the Qumranites whose they were and whose they were not, and accordingly whose example they should follow. The laws of reproof, though couched in largely individualistic terms, were also premised on a well-defined group identity. It was the solidarity of the community in purity and perfection that necessitated the procedures to correct or expel errant members. Second, not only did each major part of this liturgy have some identityforming function, each also contributed something different to the ethics of the group. The portrayal of God as the creator and covenant-maker in the blessings, for example, pointed the sectarians to him as the one who had definitively determined and modelled ethics for them (cf. the idea of imitatio Dei found also in the NT and rabbinic literature). The portrayal of Belial as the epitome of evil and the one who had ethical dominion over the wicked, on 85

Nitzan, “Laws of Reproof,” 162–65. The references to eschatology are implicit in the curses, but hardly noticeable in the laws. Incidentally, based on this comparative study on the various other texts on the laws of reproof, esp. from CD and 1QS, Nitzan concludes that “according to the sectarian philosophy and procedure of dealing with sinners, there is no distinction between ethical and criminal transgressions.” Although Nitzan’s tendency to lump documents of different dates together as products of the Qumran community requires some nuance, she has nevertheless spotted a distinctive ethical position that appears to be quite persistent in the wider Essene movement in which the Qumran community was a part. 86 Cf. the identity-forming function of the covenant ritual in 1QS I, 16–III, 12, discussed in Newsom, Self, 117–27. 87 The ceremony and its various liturgical forms had symbolic power to remind its participants of all that the covenant stood for without stipulating all the specific details.

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the other hand, served as a counter-example and helped the group understand why most rejected the sect’s beliefs and way of life. Furthermore, the laws of reproof, with its emphasis on rooting out evil, helped specify purity and perfection as the general ethical goal of the community. Finally, eschatology also played a role in the construction of ethics in this text. The belief in the presence of angels in the midst of human worshippers, already cited in Chapter Eight as an example of “realizing eschatology” at Qumran, is reflected in the angelic blessings fragmentarily preserved in this composition. This further illustrates how an eschatological belief about the presence of angels heightened the demand for purity and perfection, here more clearly ethical rather than physical or ritual from an etic perspective.88 Also, belief about eschatological judgement for the wicked and their spiritual master is implicit in the curses in this liturgy. As argued in the previous chapter, this reinforced the Qumranites’ ethics by serving as both deterrence and encouragement. III. Conclusions From the foregoing we can characterize Qumran ethics as theonomous, communal, dualistic, and eschatological. First, Qumran ethics sees God – the creator and covenant-maker – as the supreme source of all ethical norms, placing before the sectarians his demands through scripture and other revelation. Second, the importance of communal identity formation in this text testifies to the importance of the community in its construction of ethics, which is communal both because it prioritizes the interests of the community and because it is enforced communally. Third, Qumran ethics is dualistic, albeit qualified by divine supremacy. The dualistic distinction between the lots of God and Belial is both extreme and permanent. There is no middle ground, no shade of grey. Finally, Qumran ethics is eschatological, one that is oriented to what the future will bring to the wicked (implicit in the curses) and what the righteous are already experiencing proleptically through angelic liturgy.

88

Once again, the sectarians may not have distinguished between ethical and ritual purity. For the connection between the eschatological belief about angels and the laws of reproof, see Nitzan, “Laws of Reproof,” 164–5.

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D. Ethics in a Qumran Exegetical Text: 4QpPsa (4Q171) I, 17–II, 20 The pesharim have long been recognized as distinctively sectarian on the basis of their contents.89 The most completely preserved pesher on the Psalms, 4Q171, is one such composition that presents many important aspects of the sectarian perspective.90 Its palaeographic date of 20–70 C.E., late in the existence of the community at Qumran, is confirmed by AMS tests.91 Therefore, 4Q171 likely attests not only to a Qumranic composition, but also one that originated from the decades around the turn of the era.92 Accordingly, it reflects later sectarian views, maybe the latest among the texts examined in this chapter. The most well preserved portion of 4Q171 contains part of a continuous commentary on Ps 37, and among the four columns of this commentary, I, 17–II, 20 is in the best condition,93 and happens to contain seven 89 E.g., Shani L. Berrin, “Qumran Pesharim,” in Henze, Biblical Interpretation, 110–33, defines a pesher as “a form of biblical interpretation peculiar to Qumran, in which biblical poetic/prophetic texts are applied to postbiblical historical/eschatological settings through various literary techniques in order to substantiate a theological conviction pertaining to divine reward and punishment” (emphasis added). 90 Indeed, 4Q171 meets every element of Berrin’s definition cited above. 91 Timothy H. Lim, Pesharim (CQS 3; London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), 20–22. 92 For an early argument that 4Q171 was composed as late as or close to the early Tannaitic period, see Sidney B. Hoenig, “Qumran Pesher on ‘Taanit’,” JQR 57 (1966): 71–73. However, his argument is fatally flawed by a dubious reading of the key word tynoth, based on John M. Allegro, “A Newly-Discovered Fragment of a Commentary on Psalm XXXVII from Qumrân,” PEQ 86 (May–October 1954): 69–75, which is no longer supported in the later John M. Allegro, ed., Qumrân Cave 4.I (4Q158–4Q186) (DJDJ V; Oxford: Clarendon, 1968). More plausible is the argument of F. M. Cross rehearsed in James H. Charlesworth, The Pesharim and Qumran History: Chaos or Consensus? (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2002), 77–80, that all or at least most of the pesharim are autographs, based on the evidence of only single copy for each pesharim found. Charlesworth justly qualifies Cross’ conclusion and points to the likelihood that at least some of the pesharim are copies. While arguments for the autographic status of 4Q171 are inconclusive, the absence of other copies and the relative lack of scribal errors and corrections (there is a superlinear insertion in III, 5a) does give credence to the view that 4Q171 was at least a copy of a recent composition, if not the original autograph. 93 Column I is largely not preserved above line 17 (the beginning of a citation of Ps 37:7) except for the end of a few lines. Judging by the height of column II, whose top margin is preserved, there are enough space for 24 lines above line 17, amply able to accommodate the beginning of the pesher on Ps 37. This suggests that the pesher on Ps 37:1–6 begins midcolumn, and that a pesher on another psalm precedes this material. Cf. Horgan, Pesharim, 200–201. Line 16 ends mid-line, followed by blank space, with a new pesher unit beginning on line 17. However, the use of blank lines and space does not always mark a new pesher unit (e.g. the blank line above II, 6a seems to interrupts the lemma from Ps 36:10 rather than to separate two pesher units). Further, many pesher units are not separated by any space or line. Nevertheless, it does seem to mark a new pesher unit at least seven times, in I, 16/17; II,

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complete pesher units.94 An exegesis focusing on this section in the context of the whole composition will show that all four of the contributing factors were once again at play in the formation of ethics at the later stage of Qumran history as well. I. Exegesis As in the other continuous pesharim, our pesher is also governed to some extent by the biblical base text,95 both by its message and poetic structure.96 Structurally, Ps 37 consists of a series of slightly irregular acrostic quatrains, which can be grouped into blocks of up to three quatrains each.97 At least four

11/12; II, 20/21; III, 6/7; III, 13/14; IV, 6/7; IV, 12/13. The condition of the manuscript deteriorates sharply after II, 20, with the number of lacuna increasing from column III to IV. Column IV, despite its very fragmentary condition, reveals that the pesher on Ps 37 continues through to the end of the psalm (37:39–40), and the manuscript goes on to a pesher on Ps 45. Fragment 13 contains a citation of Ps 60:8–9, but it is uncertain if it in fact belongs to 4Q171. See Horgan, Pesharim, 225–26. Since the composition moves from a series of continuous pesharim on Ps 37 to another one on Ps 45, some other selection criteria are evidently at work beside scripture itself. See George J. Brooke, “Thematic Commentaries on Prophetic Scriptures,” in Henze, Biblical Interpretation, 134–57, esp. 140–42, for his observation that 4Q171 is something between a continuous pesher and a thematic pesher. See Appendix B for a tabular presentation of the relationship between the base text and the pesher. 94 A “pesher unit” here means a passage that contains the basic elements of the pesher form: scriptural citation (lemma) + introductory pesher formula + interpretation. Cf. Berrin, “Qumran Pesharim,” 112, where she describes the continuous pesharim as consisting of series of similarly defined units. The seven pesher units mentioned here are based on the lemma of Ps 37:7, 8–9a, 9b, 10, 11, 12-13, and 14–15. 95 For the germane observation that all the biblical base texts of the pesharim are “amendable to dualistic and eschatological readings, … are concerned with the fate of the wicked,” and understood as prophetic, and that “the use of an eschatologically significant prophetic/poetic base text must be viewed as typical, and perhaps even an essential, feature of pesharim,” see Berrin, “Qumran Pesharim,” 120–22. For the use of the Psalms as a prophetic base text for a pesher, see the comments in Peter W. Flint, “The Prophet David at Qumran,” in Henze, Biblical Interpretation, 158–67, esp. 167, that though David is not directly called a prophet in the sectarian literature, he was viewed as a prophet by the Qumran community. 96 On the structure and content of Ps 37 as background for reading this pesher, see Claude Coulot, “Un jeu de persuasion sectaire: Le commentaire du Psaume 37 découvert à Qumran,” RevScRel 77, (2003): 544–51esp. 545–47. For a list of the variants between the lammata in 4Q171 and the MT, see the notes in Allegro, Qumrân Cave 4.I, 47–49. For an analysis of these variants, see Dennis G. Pardee, “A Restudy of the Commentary on Psalm 37 from Qumran Cave 4,” RevQ 8 (1973): 163–94, esp. 189–94. 97 See Coulot, “Un jeu de persuasion sectaire,” 545–46, for a description of these acrostic quatrains. Each quatrain usually consists of two verses, but sometimes one (viz. the d quatrain in v. 7, the k quatrain in v. 20, and the q quatrain in v. 34). Other irregularities are the s and o quatrains in vv. 27-29, where the latter begins in v. 28b and the o is preceded by a l; and the t quatrain in vv. 39-40, where the t is preceded by a w. As Coulot shows, the 22 quatrains can

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times the blank spaces or lines of 4Q171 correspond with the seams between these blocks, but not always.98 Moreover, the pesher units do not always correspond to the quatrains.99 Sometimes the structure of the pesher deviates strikingly from the poetic form of the base text.100 Evidently, the pesherist be grouped together into ten blocks of up to three quatrains each. While his grouping is not the only possible one, it is adopted here for illustration. 98 Blocks of pesher units are occasionally marked by blank lines or spaces. E.g., the blank space at the end of I, 16 probably marks off the end of the first block of pesher units on the first block of three quatrains from vv. 1–6. The blank space at the end of II, 11 clearly marks off the end of the second block of pesher units on the second block of three quatrains from vv. 7–11. The blank line on II, 20 also clearly marks off the end of the third block of pesher units on the next block of two quatrains from vv. 12–15. Finally, the blank space at the end of III, 13 seems to mark the seams between two blocks of pesher units. For the use of blank lines to mark out perceived sense units as characteristic of this pesher, see Lim, Pesharim, 38. The use of blank spaces should be considered similarly. However, at least four other attestations of blank spaces or lines do not correspond with these seams. These blank spaces or lines are found on II, 6; III, 6; IV, 6; and IV, 12. The first case splits the citation of v. 10 and is difficult to explain. The second case comes between two pesher units on two parts of the k quatrain from v. 20. The last two cases separate pesher units on different quatrains or blocks of quatrains and may simply reflect a different grouping of the quatrains by the sectarian author. 99 Nevertheless, there are significantly many instances of correspondence. Beginning with I, 17 of Allegro’s reconstructed text, there are at least 11 pesher units that correspond exactly to the acrostic quatrains: those that comment on the d quatrain in v. 7 (I, 17–II, 1a), the z quatrain in vv. 12–13 (II, 12–15a), the j quatrain in vv. 14–15 (II, 15b–19), the l quatrain in vv. 21–22 (III, 8b–13), the m quatrain in vv. 23–24 (III, 14–17a), the n quatrain in vv. 25–26 (III, 17b–20), the p quatrain in vv. 30–31 (IV, 3b–5), the x quatrain in vv. 32–33 (IV, 7–10a), the q quatrain in v. 34 (IV, 10b–12), the r quatrain in vv. 35–36 (IV, 13–6a), and the t quatrain in vv. 39–40 (IV, 19b–21). The citation of the s quatrain in vv. 27–28a is poorly preserved. Given the ample space left on the bottom of column III, v. 27 probably is cited and gets its own pesher unit there. (So Horgan, Pesharim, 220.) With 11 out of about 19 attested quatrains being matched with single pesher units, it appears that the pesherist was at least occasionally guided by such formal features of Ps 37. The evidence is even stronger if we grant that more correspondence could be found in the lost portion, and that multiple pesher units per quatrain do not disprove the pesherist’s recognition of the quatrains’ integrity. 100 The strongest evidence of the pesher’s deviation from the poetic structure of the base text is the pesher unit in III, 2b–4, where the scriptural citation is the end of the y quatrain (v. 19b) and the beginning of the k quatrain (v. 20a). For another possible deviation, see the pesher unit (IV, 1–2a) on the first part of the o quatrain in v. 28b, where it seems to include text from the previous s quatrain in v. 28a. However, the fragmentary condition of these lines and their contexts makes it difficult to discern clearly what is taking place here. See the significant differences in reading between Strugnell and Allegro, as related in Horgan, Pesharim, 220. Furthermore, the probable deviation from the acrostic structure may be caused by the problem in the base text itself. Quatrains that receive more than one pesher units include: the h quatrain in vv. 8–9 (2 pesher units), the w quatrain in vv. 10–11 (2 pesher units), the f quatrain in vv. 16–17 (2 pesher units, pesher of v. 17 not preserved), the y quatrain in vv. 18– 19 (2.5 pesher units, see comments above), the k quatrain in vv. 20 (2.5 pesher units), the C quatrain in vv. 37–38 (2 pesher units), and as suggested above, probably the s quatrain in vv. 27–28a (1.5 or 2 pesher units).

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generally arranges his pesher units according to the poetic structure of the base text, but feels free to add pesher units to unpack key words or concepts he reads in the text. Occasionally he even ignores the poetic structure and prioritizes the meaning of his reading over its poetic form.101 In short, while the structure of this pesher is apparently shaped in part by the formal structure of its base text, it is more clearly shaped by the meaning that the pesherist finds in the text. Thus, the idea of “atomization” proposed by Karl Elliger et al., that the lemma has no “significance beyond its individual elements,” is correctly challenged by Nitzan, who demonstrates using 1QpHab that the pesher shows sensitivity to the literary structure of the lemma and is a new organic structure “derived from the structure of its base text.”102 Indeed, as will be shown below, in the new organic entity that is 4Q171 I–IV, 21, the base text has a crucial function in its new context and is not merely a source of “pretext.” Ps 37 is a wisdom psalm that contrasts the wicked and righteous in view of the sovereign intervention of God on the latter’s behalf in order to address the problem of theodicy – the success of the wicked and the suffering of the righteous – and counsels patience, trust in God, and hope for the future. Its purpose is to motivate the hearers to remain faithful in the face of injustice and adversity. The pesher takes up all these motifs and applies them to the contemporary experiences of the community, specifically the contrasts between the wicked and the righteous with respect to their labels, their acts and descriptions, and their fates. First, the relatively generic labels for the righteous and the wicked in the lemmata are “decoded” with great specificity to refer to sectarians and nonsectarians, especially their opponents. Thus, the wkrd jylxm (the one who prospers in his way), twmzm «h[Cwo] Cya (the man who does wicked deeds), in v. 7 is equated with bzkh Cya (the Man of Lie) in I, 17–II, 1a,103 apparently a leading figure of a hostile group. Similarly, Nwybaw yno (the poor and needy) and Krd yrCy (the upright of way) – the hapless victims of the wicked in v. 14 – trigger a pesher about Nhwk(h) (the priest) and wtxo yCna (the men of his 101

E.g., in the example cited in the previous note, the pesherist apparently read the ayk in v. 20a (MT: yk) as an adversative conjunction (“but”), contrasting the fate of the wicked with that of the righteous, rather than as an emphatic adverb (“surely”), introducing the ultimate fate of the wicked despite their temporary success. Note the significant difference between the lemma cited in III, 2b–7a and v. 20 in MT. This is unlikely to be a sectarian alteration of the biblical text in order to produce a certain pesher, since the pesherist was perfectly able to render a suitable pesher based on a reading similar to the MT. Therefore, the pesherist probably had a text that differed at this point from the MT. 102 Berrin, “Qumran Pesharim,” 128–30. 103 For the appearance of this sobriquet here, in IV, 14, and in 1QpHab I, 1b–2a, see Knibb, Qumran Community, 23, 223. For a fuller discussion of this sobriquet in the Scrolls, see Bengtsson, “What’s in a Name,” 88–109.

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council) in II, 15b–19, most likely a reference to a sectarian leader and his followers.104 Many of the “decoded” labels for the in-group are distinctive identity labels for the Qumran movement known elsewhere from the Scrolls.105 Terms used to label out-group(s), though often less distinctive, serve to distinguish sharply between the community and those outside.106 104 For the view that this is not the Teacher of Righteousness, but a leader of the community at any time, see Knibb, Qumran Community, 251, citing CD XIV, 6b–7a for comparison. Other labels of the two polarized camps in our section include: tod Xylm (the interpreter of knowledge) in I, 17–II, 1a (not triggered by the lemma); wnamy awl rCa hrwtl MybCh lwk Mtorm bwCl (all those who return to the Torah, who do not refuse to turn from their evil) in II, 1b–4a, from the implied addressees of the imperatives in v. 8; and conversely in the same pesher unit, Mnwom bwCl Myrmmh lwk (all who rebel against turning from their iniquity) from Myorm (evildoers) in v. 9a; wnwxr yCwo wryjb tdo (his congregation of his chosen ones, those who do his will) in II, 4b–5a, from hwhy yawq (those who wait for the LORD) in v. 9b; Mynwybah tdo (the congregation of the poor) in II, 8b–11, from Mywno (the poor) in v. 11; yxyro hdw«h»y tybb r«C«a tyrbh (those in the house of Judah who act ruthlessly against the covenant) in II, 12–15a, from oCr (the wicked) in v. 12; and conversely in the same pesher unit, yCwo djyh txob rCa hrwth (the doers of Torah in the council of the Yahad), from qydx (the righteous) in the lemma; and hCnmw Myrpa yoCr (the wicked of Ephraim and Manasseh) in II, 15b– 20, from MyoCr (the wicked) in v. 14. 105 Note the use of identifiable group terminology such as hdo and djyh txo in the pesher, in contrast to the absence of references to organized social groups in the base text. For MybCh hrwtl in II, 2b–3a, cf. the similar expressions in CD XV, 9, 12; XVI, 1–2, 4–5; 4Q266 (4QDa) 8 I, 3; 4Q270 (4QDe) 6 II, 5, 18; 4Q271 (4QDf) 4 I, 12; II, 4, 6; 1QS V, 8; 4Q256 (4QSb) IX, 7; 4Q258 (4QSd) I, 6. For wryjb tdo in II, 5 and III, 5, see 4Q164 (4QpIsad) 1 3a, cf. CD IV, 3b–4a; 1QHa X, 13b–14a; 1QS VIII, 6; IX, 14; 1QpHab V, 4; IX, 12; X, 13; 1Q14 (1QpMic) 8–10 7–8. For Mynwybah tdo in II, 9, cf. 4Q491 (4QMa) 11 I, 11; 1QHa X, 32; 1QpHab XII, 3, 6, 10. For hrwth yCwo in II, 14, see 1QpHab VII, 11 and VIII, 1; see also the reconstructed text of 1Q14 (1QpMic) 8–10 8; cf. the singular form in 4Q171 II, 22 and 1QpHab XII, 4b–5a. For djyh txo in II, 14, see 1QSa I, 26, 27; II, 2, 11; 1QSb IV, 26; 1QpHab XII, 4; 1Q14 (1QpMic) 8–10 8; 4Q164 (4QpIsad) 1 2; 4Q174 (4QFlor) 1–2 17; 4Q177 (4QCatenaa) 14 5; 4Q265 (4QMiscellaneous Rules) 4 II, 3; 7 7–8; 4Q286 (4QBera) 7 II, 1; along with at least 14 occurrences in 1QS/4QS. For wtxo yCna in II, 18, the meaning of which depends on the referent of the pronominal suffix, see 1QSa I, 13; 1QpHab IX, 10; 4Q177 (4QCatenaa) 1–4 16; cf. also 1QSb IV, 24; 1QpHab V, 10; 1QHa XIII, 24; XIV, 11, 13; 4Q174 (4QFlor) 1–2 I, 17; and 4Q169 (4QpNah) 3–4 I, 5 where the term clearly refers to an enemy group. For the use of such labels in 4Q171 to promote a positive group identity, see Jutta Jokiranta, “Social Identity Approach: Identity-Constructing Elements in the Psalms Pesher,” in García Martínez and Popovi, Defining Identities, 85–109. For the relationship between identity formation and ethics, see Chapter Six. 106 For tyrbh yxyro in II, 13b; III, 12; and IV, 1b–2a?, see 1QpHab II, 6. For the modifying phrase hdw«h»y tybb as a possible identity label for the Qumran community and its wider movement, see CD IV, 11; 1QpHab VIII, 1; 4Q174 (4QFlor) 4 4; cf. 4Q169 (4QpNah) 3–4 III, 4–5. This suggests that the out-group referred to here consists of apostates from the sectarian community. (So Knibb, Qumran Community, 250; and Horgan, Pesharim, 210.) For hCnmw Myrpa yoCr in II, 17, see 4Q169 (4QpNah) IV, 4–6 and earlier, and the comprehensive discussion on Ephraim and Manasseh in the pesharim in Bengtsson, “What’s in a Name,” 136–64.

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Leaders of both camps are sometimes mentioned in contexts that reveal not only the conflict between them, but also some of the issues of the conflict.107 Second, the pesher takes up the acts and descriptions of the righteous and wicked in Ps 37 and correlates them with those of the sectarian movement and its opponents.108 The pesher thus expresses particularly sectarian perspectives on ethics in terms of deeds, attitudes, and character traits. For example, the pesher unit I, 17–II, 1a reviles the “Man of Lie” for his deceiving speech that misled many. Moreover, it condemns his followers for rejecting the correct teaching of the sectarian founder in favour of the false teaching, thereby choosing “things that are light” – probably halakhic interpretations that are not as stringent as those of the sect. Similarly, the pesher unit II, 1b–4a equates the biblical “evil doers” with “all those who rebel against turning from their iniquity.” Judging by the importance of the motif of “turning” in the sectarian self-definition, both in CD and other documents closely related to the Qumran community,109 and in this immediate context where the ingroup is referred to as “all those who turn back to the Torah, who do not refuse to turn from their evil,” this indictment of the wicked amounts to saying that all who are outside of the sect are wicked and doomed.110 Nevertheless, such critiques are probably directed at particular contemporary political leaders sometimes, as in III, 7–8a.111 As for the righteous, the pesher links them to those who return to the Torah to do what it says. This commitment to live out the sectarian understanding of divine commands is likely what is meant by “doing God’s will” in II, 5 and perhaps II, 24b–25a. In contrast with the wicked who follow the falsehood of the “Man of Lie,” the sectarians are equated to the biblical “meek” and the “poor and needy” whose way is upright. As such their community is the “congregation of the poor” who “accept the appointed time of affliction.”112 What that involves is probably explained by the parallel clause “delivered from the traps of Belial.” By analogy with CD IV, 12b–19a,113 these phrases likely mean persevering and being kept safe from what the sectarians see as the prevalent temptations with respect to sexuality, wealth, and worship. While the pesher frequently describes the sectarians as righteous by citing their choice to obey God, it also recognizes that they are righteous by God’s 107

E.g., I, 17–II, 1a hints that correct teaching was one disputed issue. See below. It also suggests that the “Interpreter of Knowledge” did not win popular support, as the “Man of Lie” did, hence the latter’s link with the “successful man.” 108 Cf. Coulot, “Un jeu de persuasion sectaire,” 549. 109 E.g., CD XV, 9, 12; XVI, 1b–2a, 4; 1QS V, 8. 110 Cf. Coulot, “Un jeu de persuasion sectaire,” 549–51. 111 For the phrase hoCrh yrC as a codename for Israel’s political leader, see Knibb, Qumran Community, 254. 112 For this difficult phrase, see Horgan, Pesharim, 206–8. 113 Murphy, Wealth, 240.

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sovereign choice.114 This shows that the sectarians defined righteousness in terms of both human and divine choices, and that they were not the radical determinists that Josephus seems to suggest in Ant. 13.5, 9. Furthermore, the contrast between the rich, stereotypically presented as arrogant in both the Bible and the Scrolls,115 and the humble poor illustrates that character traits or attitudes such as pride and humility are part of the sectarian ethical terminology. Third, the pesher projects the contrasting fates of the righteous and the wicked from Ps 37 onto its own community and those outside, supplying more details from the eschatological expectations of the sect. In II, 1, for example, the followers of the Man of Lie will perish by “sword, famine, and pestilence,” typical judgment language frequently found in scripture (e.g., Jer 14:12; Ezek 6:11). This mention of judgment against their opponents, which is probably meant to be eschatological, provides a powerful rationale for heeding the exhortation to wait patiently before God in the base text.116 The next pesher unit in II, 1b–4a not only completes the idea that the beleaguered members of the community should leave judgment to God,117 it also subtly warns them from even contemplating being like their foes, for they are doomed to destruction. In this sectarian eschatology, the annihilation of the wicked is both imminent (“at the end of the forty year”)118 and complete (II, 6–7a). While the pesher clearly expects God to be the one who judges the wicked, it also envisions him using the Gentiles (Myawg yxyro) as his agents (II, 18b–19). Like the biblical base text, our pesher envisages a future for the suffering righteous that is the polar opposite of that of the wicked. More immediately, the sectarians will be delivered from the harm that their enemies have intended for them (II, 14b–15a, 18b–19a). Eventually, the sectarians will inherit or possess the earth (elliptically in II, 4b–5a) and enjoy the greatest bliss that the earth has to offer (II, 10b–11, see also III, 1–2a). This dual expectation of relief and reward is certainly an important motivating force behind the maintenance of the sectarian identity and way of life.

114

II, 5; III, 5; IV, 11b–12a, 14b. E.g., Ps 49:6; Jer 9:23; Hab 2:5–6 (and its pesher in 1QpHab VIII, 3b–13a). For the link between arrogance and wealth, see Murphy, Wealth, 38–40. 116 Ps 37 has its own rationale in v. 9a, which, although not yet cited in the lemma, is clearly anticipated in the pesher. 117 The temptation to retaliate can best be appreciated in light of the repeated assertion that their enemies persistently sought their harm and destruction (e.g., II, 13b–14a, 17–18a). 118 Whether this relates to the death of the Teacher of Righteousness as in CD XX, 13b– 15a (see Pardee, “Restudy,” 174–75, for some of the participants of this debate), or the 40 years of the eschatological war in 1QM II, 6–14 (so Pardee, “Restudy,” 175; followed by Horgan, Pesharim, 206), the judgment is undoubtedly expected to be imminent. 115

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Having seen three ways our pesher applies the message of the base text to the more or less contemporary experiences and expectations of the Qumran community, we can now affirm that the message of the pesher is the message of the base text applied to the contemporary situation. The pesher makes the correspondence, but that is not where the intention for writing the pesher ends. The instructional and hortatory purpose of the base text is maintained and applied to the new situation. By applying the psalm to the situation of the community, however, the pesher is doing more than finding contemporary applications for a biblical text, but is presenting a worldview through which the readers can make sense of their difficult experience, maintain their sectarian identity, and be motivated to continue in the sectarian way of life by the hope of divine justice in the imminent future.119 II. Analysis of Ethics in the Text The above exegesis of our passage has already exposed a number of ways it deals with ethics. This subsection considers more specifically how ethics is expressed. A basic sectarian position evident from this pesher is that ethics is defined by the sectarian interpretation of the Torah, as taught by their esteemed Teacher. Torah thus interpreted is given pre-eminence as a standard of ethics because it expresses the will of God. Non-acceptance of the sectarian halakhah is tantamount to a rejection of God’s will and indicates one’s reprobate status, while voluntary conformance to the sectarian way is proof of one’s elect standing. Although this perspective is communicated using scripture as a springboard, it clearly goes beyond it. The division of humanity into two opposing ethical camps faces the challenge of theodicy from the sectarians’ experience, namely, the apparent success of their opponents in contrast with their own plight. The pesher’s solution is to follow and go beyond the trajectory of Ps 37, and to invoke eschatological relief, reward, and retribution as sanctions for its ethical stance. In so doing, the Qumran community justifies its ethics in a way different from both the Deuteronomistic ethics of some biblical texts and the Hellenistic idea of virtue being its own reward. Riding on the authority of the biblical text, the pesher repeatedly asserts that both the success of the wicked outsiders and the affliction of the righteous sectarians are temporary and will be reversed. This serves as the theological basis for the hortatory thrust of the pesher, which it also appropriates from the base text. In light of this reversal, interpreted eschatologically, the 119

Coulot, “Un jeu de persuasion sectaire,” 548, while presenting this worldview more or less correctly as essentially dualistic, overstates the degree of this dualism by putting God as the opposite of Belial in the sectarian schema. However, dualism at Qumran never went as far as conceiving God and Belial as polar opposites. Rather, God’s supremacy was always affirmed or assumed.

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sectarians are to be patient and wait for God’s coming intervention. Meanwhile, they are to hold fast to their commitment to the sectarian way, not giving up on their distinctive practices or to give in to corrupting influences. The ethics of this pesher has been shown to be set within the framework of a dualistic worldview. To the extent that this is true, its ethics can be described as dualistic. However, its dualism is once again qualified. While the sectarian community, its leader(s), its conduct, and its destiny are portrayed as the polar opposites of those of the outsiders, God is not conceived as the dualistic counterpart to Belial, the spiritual influence of the wicked. References to Belial are incidental to the message of the pesher. Finally, the deterministic overtones of the pesher cited above seem to support the characterization of Qumran ethics as a deterministic ethics that emphasizes divine control instead of human responsibility. Nevertheless, our pesher never minimizes the importance of human responsibility and choice, but affirms them instead. Both divine determination and human responsibility are held in tension, without much overt attempt to resolve it. Thus, in the context of Qumranic ethical statements, both dualism and determinism are qualified. III. Conclusions This section has shown how the four contributing factors of Qumran ethics work together in this pesher. First, this pesher’s ethics depends extensively on scripture, though also going beyond it. This dependency is seen in its use of a scriptural model to contrast the righteous with the wicked, in its appeal to divine justice to safeguard ethics, and in its exhortation to shun unethical responses to the wicked, and to trust in God’s future intervention. Second, by applying the pesher treatment to the labels for the wicked and righteous in Ps 37, the pesher introduces sectarian identity labels for the people related to the community and those who are their opponents. Thus, the sectarian identity formed elsewhere becomes in this pesher a way of distinguishing those who are ethical (the in-group) from those who are unethical (the out-group[s]). Third, the actions and descriptions ascribed to each group reveal the community’s political response,120 and how it defines the particulars of ethics, such as examples of virtues and vices, or good and evil deeds. Finally, by describing the opposite fates of the righteous vis-à-vis the wicked, the pesher communicates its eschatological expectations and presents motivation for persistent ethical behaviour.

120

See note 111 and context above.

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E. Conclusion The examination of four most probably Qumranic texts has validated the significance of all four major contributing factors of Qumran ethics that earlier chapters have elucidated. However, the relative prominence or dominance of each of these factors and the precise way it shaped ethics varied from text to text, partly because of the differences in genre or date. The most consistently present factor is scripture, but even it is appropriated differently in the sample texts, with diverse strands of biblical traditions being highlighted and variously transformed. The place of self-identity is almost as noticeable in the sample texts as scripture. In each case, the identity assigned to the Qumranites, whether implicitly or explicitly, has implications for their ethics, whether in conduct or disposition. But here too there is diversity in the exact nature of that identity and its implications. As for eschatology, it is also detected in all four texts as providing additional motivation for ethics, especially in the form of the final judgment. However, sometimes this aspect is barely discernible, as in the penal code from 1QS and the liturgy of 4QBer. Finally, responses to the political context or influences from foreign cultures are also perceptible in the four texts in this chapter, despite their relative lack of prominence in some cases. Sometimes a particular stance on ethics reflects a reaction against the political powers. In other instances, Hellenistic influence in terms of cultural and organizational norms, attenuated forms of dualism, naturalism, and determinism, and rhetorical device play a role in the formulation of ethics in some of these texts. Nevertheless, this factor is generally the least conspicuous among the four. This chapter has highlighted the complexity and diversity of Qumran ethics by validating the variegated significance of all four factors of Qumran ethics and underscoring a number of overarching ethical principles. Some of these principles are seen only in a particular text, while others are more commonly expressed in several texts. From an etic perspective, Qumran ethics can be characterized as a communal ethics that values the group more than the individual members, an eschatological ethics that calls for living in anticipation of the eschaton and the accompanying final rectification of injustice, a naturalistic ethics that justifies ethical norms by appealing to creation, a dualistic and deterministic ethics that envisions a fixed division between the good and the wicked while not rejecting moral choice and effort, a rigorist ethics that aims for nothing short of perfection in holiness and purity, and above all, a theonomous ethics that ultimately justifies the whole of ethics on the basis of God’s eternal will and his absolute sovereignty, making little or no distinction among his natural, cultic, civic, and moral laws.

Chapter 10

Conclusion This book has attempted to reintroduce the subject of ethics to Qumran studies. As Chapter Two has shown, ethics in the Qumran movement has only received sporadic attention. Moreover, most Qumran scholars have recently stopped talking about ethics at Qumran. This book has dealt with some of the objections against using ethics as an appropriate category for studying the Scrolls and the communities behind them, and has charted out a nuanced way to speak about Qumran ethics while minimizing anachronism. In Chapter Three, I have put forward a foundational part of this discussion by considering what constituted ethical discourse in the sectarian literature next to a diachronic survey of ethical discourses in other literatures. That has helped clarify what exactly are within the scope of ethics when one examines the writings of a Second Temple Jewish sect: normative guides for living – including norms about conduct and way of life that define a sectarian’s responsibilities towards God and others, and norms about character traits that a sectarian should pursue as a goal in life. On the historical framework presented in Chapter Four, Chapters Five through Eight have explored in turn four different key contributing factors of Qumran ethics. They have elucidated some of the bases of Qumran ethics – how the Qumranites drew from their worldviews to formulate specific ethical perspectives – and have shown that there were some variations in the sect’s ethics through its history. In Chapter Nine, I have shown that the four contributing factors were all present to different extents in four Qumranic texts from different genres and periods, that they were interrelated, and that they were used to support different ethical principles.

A. Review of Methodology The interdisciplinary and eclectic methodology employed in this book has demonstrated its fruitfulness by providing a fresh way to read the texts from Qumran. My methodology has employed where appropriate the standard approaches of biblical criticism, such as textual, literary, historical, and redaction criticism. In addition, it has brought recent findings of archaeology to

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bear on the reconstruction of the history of the Qumran community vis-à-vis the sites at and around Qumran. Further, it has carefully integrated concepts and categories in the philosophical study of ethics, especially in Jewish contexts. Finally, it has incorporated some of the tools of social-scientific criticism, which have been finding their way into Qumran research only recently. Besides appropriating methodological tools from various disciplines, the methodology of this book has also implemented several controls. First, this study began with the textual evidence as far as possible in order to minimize the imposition of foreign categories. Second, the examination of the construction of ethics from four contrasting perspectives diminished the chance of a grossly truncated account of the sources of ethics at Qumran. Third, the choice of centring, though not restricting, our focus on the sectarian texts more assuredly associated with the community that occupied Qumran reduced the danger of conflating and confusing the views and practices of related but distinct communities. Nevertheless, pre-sectarian and non-sectarian texts among the Scrolls that were clearly influential at Qumran were not categorically ignored. Accordingly, each examination of a text included an evaluation of how it was related to the Qumran community. This nuanced methodology has made possible a number of observations throughout Chapters Five to Nine about how four particular contributing factors influenced the formation of ethics at Qumran and how they affected each other.

B. Review of Findings As shown in Chapter Five and elsewhere, it is clear that scriptural tradition had a large role in shaping Qumran ethics. However, the scriptures were not treated as a simple given. They were selected, adapted, and altered in various ways by the Qumranites and their predecessors. Certain scriptural texts, such as portions of Deuteronomy, were more authoritative at Qumran than others. Indeed, some would-be non-canonical texts, such as Jubilees, appeared to have more authority in determining ethical norms than some “biblical” texts. Furthermore, laws and rules, such as the law against remarriage, often were not simply taken from scripture, but were the result of developing sectarian interpretation. The examination of identity formation at Qumran in this book, especially in Chapter Six, has confirmed the observations of earlier studies that the Qumranites had a priestly self-identity, and that this self-identity was moreover exclusivist and dualistic. The priestly self-understanding at Qumran partly led to the extra-stringent tendencies within the sectarian literature with respect to purity requirements. The group’s deterministic and dualistic teach-

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ing also reinforced their self-understanding as God’s only elect, which promoted hostility towards outsiders and a heightened sense of solidarity and responsibility towards fellow members. While none of these conclusions is completely novel, this book has helped clarify more explicitly the relationships between the identity formation of the Qumran sectarians and their ethics. Some of the impacts of the political and cultural contexts on the formulation and expression of ethics at Qumran have been noted, particularly in Chapter Seven. These impacts were often related to the various forms of critical responses by the Qumranites to the political status quo. They also came about through a probably unconscious assimilation of ideas and norms from the generally Greco-Roman cultural milieu. While it is evident that cultural and political contexts both affected ethics at Qumran, they were often the weakest or the least perceptible among the four factors considered in this book. This may have been the result of the community’s relative political passivity or their more consciously expressed xenophobia. Some of the contributions of eschatology to Qumran ethics have been identified, chiefly in Chapter Eight. There I have observed that two particular features of Qumran eschatology – a futurist and yet imminent eschatology that focused on future divine judgment and reward, and a “realizing” eschatology that emphasized the present experience of some of the eschatological blessings – were detectable in various sectarian texts from different genres and periods. More importantly, the textual evidence indicated that while the sectarian literature sometimes appealed to particular eschatologies to support its ethical stance, Qumran ethics was often derived through other means. In other words, Qumran eschatology was frequently exploited in the Scrolls to motivate ethical behaviour and justify ethical norms, but the contents of the ethics themselves generally came from a complex interaction among all four contributing factors to Qumran ethics.

C. Synthesis The objective of this book was to account for the complex and multifaceted way ethics was constructed at Qumran and to uncover some of its underlying bases. The goal was not to provide a comprehensive catalogue of the Qumranites’ ethical teachings or to focus predominantly on the description of Qumran ethics. Nevertheless, it has attempted to delineate some of its dominant principles and to present them from an etic perspective using language from contemporary ethical discourses. These ethical principles, such as theonomy, naturalism, dualism, determinism, rigorism, perfectionism, communitarianism, and futurism, outlined the particular shape of Qumran ethics vis-à-vis

206

Chapter 10: Conclusion

other religious groups contemporaneous with the Qumran community or from other periods. Such a description of Qumran ethics in this book confirmed in general earlier findings, but often with greater clarity and nuance. For example, Qumran ethics was confirmed to be theonomous rather than autonomous. However, this sectarian understanding of theonomy was largely established by a particular sectarian handling of scriptural traditions. The Qumranites regarded their movement as the sole possessors of God’s will in their times, guided by inspired exegesis and ongoing divine revelation. Thus, even the understanding of the sect’s theonomous ethics was linked closely to their self-identity. Such a theonomous view of their ethics contributed to their absolutist attitude and vehement opposition to outsiders who rejected their views. Similarly, Qumran ethics was confirmed to be in some sense naturalistic instead of wholly nominalistic, but this naturalism had a strong basis in theonomy and was likewise informed by the received scriptural traditions in the sectarian movement. Another form of naturalism or natural law ethics illuminated by this book was connected to Qumran eschatology, especially the “realizing” aspect that lifted up eschatological ideals as norms for the present. This eschatological ethical naturalism seemed to be a later development compared with the cosmological ethical naturalism that saw God’s moral laws as related to his creation of the natural world. Qumran ethics was also verified to be dualistic and deterministic, though greatly qualified. Both of these characteristics were subordinated under the sect’s belief in God’s absolute sovereignty, which was also the basis of the sect’s theonomous ethics. Furthermore, they were sometimes expressed in biblical terms or otherwise adapted in ways that fit within the biblical monotheistic religion of which the sectarians were a part. Nevertheless, both dualism and determinism had some probable roots in Iranian religious thought, though possibly mediated through the general Greco-Roman cultural milieu and even Hellenized Judaism. Ironically, such possible foreign influences played an important role in the identity formation of a xenophobic group at Qumran. This book likewise corroborated the view that the Qumran community had a rigorist or perfectionist ethics, with its tendency towards greater stringency and insistence on both the demand and the possibility of perfect conformity to sectarian ethical standards. This rigorism is of course consistent with the sect’s theonomous convictions. Moreover, this book linked the rigorist characteristic of Qumran ethics principally to the sectarians’ priestly self-identity and their dualistic self-understanding in contrast with others. Moreover, this book also supported seeing Qumran ethics as communitarian, not individualistic or universalistic. First, the community had a large role in the development, instruction, and enforcement of its ethics. Second,

D. Future Directions

207

the community viewed its ethics as its exclusive possession, and hence a particularistic ethics. Lastly, this ethics prioritized the value of the community over that of the individual members. This feature too was rooted in the Qumranites’ self-identity, dualism, and determinism. Finally, this study verified, in different ways, the assertion that Qumran ethics is eschatological and not merely this worldly. The futurist element of Qumran eschatology was mainly seen to heighten motivation for ethical living, while “realizing” eschatology more frequently was used to buttress ethical demands. Both aspects of Qumran eschatology had some basis in inherited scriptural traditions selectively appropriated. Qumran eschatology also contributed to the formation of sectarian self-identity, as the Qumranites located themselves in the penultimate temporal location in their view of God’s predetermined plan for the history of humanity and all creation.

D. Future Directions This book has presented a new way to investigate and speak about ethics in the Qumran community. However, its methodology and results have merely opened the door to this area of research. Much more can be done following this book’ trajectory. One possible extension to this research is to shift the focus from the community at Qumran (c. 100 B.C.E.–68 C.E.) to other related communities, such as the probably pre-Qumran communities behind parts of the Damascus Document, or the associated communities contemporary with Qumran but located elsewhere in Palestine. The challenge of this inquiry is the greater difficulty of isolating the sources specific to these non-Qumranic communities. The coincidence of textual and archaeological data at Qumran is clearly more conducive for studying the Qumran community. Furthermore, a more comprehensive examination of the sectarian corpus, along the lines of Chapter Nine, will enhance our understanding of Qumran ethics. In Chapter Nine, only four relatively short texts from four different genres were selected to illustrate the methodology of this book. While this may be adequate for this project, inclusion of more genres and more examples from each genre will doubtless yield greater clarity on this subject. Finally, comparisons with the development of Christian ethics, based on early Christian texts, especially the New Testament, and ancient Jewish ethics, based on early rabbinic literature, using the methodology of this book will shed more light on ethical formulation in each of these related religious communities in particular, and in ancient Palestinian religious groups in general.

Appendices

Appendix A

The Penal Code In 1QS VI, 24–VII, 25 The cases/sub-cases of this penal code are presented below in four sections, which may alternatively be categorized into four general concerns – the protection of: 1. The general welfare of the community – Cases 1, 6c/d, 16b, and 17a. 2. Community hierarchy or authority – Cases 2, 3b/c (and by association Case 3a, which implicitly links communal authority hierarchically to God), Cases 16b, 17a, and possibly Case 1 (this offence was possibly understood to reflect incomplete submission to the authority of the community). 3. Interpersonal relationships within the community – Cases 4, 5, 6a/b, 7a/b, 16a, 17b. 4. The protection of community order, particularly within the formal assemblies – Cases 8–15. The final three sub-cases, 18a/b/c, deal with the ultimate offence against the community – apostasy. There are three general types of penalties in this penal code, abbreviated as follows: EPM = exclusion from pure meal

Mybr trhf Kwtm whlydbh = Mybr trhfb ogy awl ? RR = reduced rations (wmjl tyoybr ta) wCnon PE = permanent expulsion

dwo bwCy awlw whlydbh = bwCy awlw whjlCy = dwo djyh txo la bwCy awl Introductory Section: Cases 1–3 generally dealing with the preservation of community hierarchy and authority Case

Reference in 1QS

1

VI, 24b–25a

Offence

Penalty

odwy hawhw Nwhb rqCy EPM: 1 y Deliberate lying about wealth

RR: - 

Notes Length of RR not stated, assume 1 yr? Cf. Lev 19:11

211

Appendix A: The Penal Code In 1QS VI, 24–VII, 25 Case

Reference in 1QS

2

VI, 25b–27a

Offence

Penalty

Prwo yCqb whor ta byCy RR: 1 y dwsy ta ow«r«pl Mypa rxwqb rbdy [EPM?: 1 y] bwtkh whor yp ta twrmab wtymo awl wdy hoyC»w[h] whynpl Rebellious and angry retort against the discipline of a more senior member

3a

VI, 27b– VII, 2a

3b

VII, 2b–3a

lwk lo dbknh MCb rbd rykzy PE hrxm tobhl wa llq Maw [ -- ]\h {{\\\\\\}}wl rCa rbd lwkl wa Krbm wa rpsb hrwq hawh

Notes Amount of RR not preserved or stated, assume  for all cases? Cf. Lev 19:12

Cursing or misusing God’s name

Mybwtkh Mynhwkh Nm djab Maw RR: 1 yr hmjb rbd rpsb EPM Speaking against a priest

3c

VII, 3b

Length of EPM not stated, assume 1 yr?

rbd hggCb Maw RR: 6 m Unintentional words forbidden above

Body Section 1: Cases 4–7 mainly concerned about interpersonal relationship within the community Case

Reference in 1QS

4

VII, 3c–4a

Offence

Penalty

Notes

wodmb sjky RR: 6 m

Cf. Lev 19:11

ahodb whor ta fpCm ylb hjxy RR: 1 yr

Length of EPM not stated, assume 1 yr?

Deliberate lying 5

VII, 4b–5a

Reviling a fellow member

6a

VII, 5b

EPM

Myrmb whor ta rbdy RR: 6 m wodmb hymr hCoy wa Deception or fraud against fellow member

6b

VII, 5c–6a

^hmrty^ whorb Maw RR: 3 m Misled into practicing fraud by another member

6c

VII, 6b–7

wdbal hmrty djyh Nwhb Maw Repayment Causing loss to communal property by fraud

6d

VII, 8a

wmlCl wdy gyCt awl Maw RR: 60 d Unable to repay lost communal property

Not really a sub-case in terms of the offence

212

Appendix A: The Penal Code In 1QS VI, 24–VII, 25

Case

Reference in 1QS

7a

VII, 8b

Offence

Penalty

awl rCa whorl ^r^{{\}}wfy RR: {6 m} Bearing a grudge

7b

VII, 9a

rbd lwk wCpnl Mqwnl Nkw Same as above

Notes Corrected from 6 m to 1 yr Cf. Lev 19:18 Cf. Lev 19:18

Taking revenge Body Section 2: Cases 8–15 generally directed to proper order in communal gatherings Case

Reference in 1QS

8

VII, 9b

Offence

Penalty

lbn rbd whypb rbdy RR: 3 m Speaking a foolish word

9

VII, 9c–10a

whor yrbd Kwtb rbdMlw RR: 10 d Interrupting a fellow member in speech

10a

VII, 10b

Mybrh bCwmb NCyw bwkCy RR: 30 d Lying down to sleep during a meeting

10b

VII, 10c–11a

bCwmb r^f^{{\}}pnh Cyal Nkw RR: 10 d rCa Mybrh Mymop CwlC do Mnjw hxob awl dja bCwm lo Leaving a meeting up to three times without reason

10c

VII, 11b–12a

rfpnw wp^q^{{\}}zy Maw RR: 30 d Leaving a meeting when others are standing

11

VII, 12b

12

VII, 13a

hyh awlw Mwro whor ynpl Klhy RR: 6 m Cwna Walking around naked

Mybrh bCwm Kwt la qwry RR: 30 d Spitting in a meeting

13

VII, 13b–14a

14

VII, 14b–15a

wdgb tjwtNm wdy ayxwy RR: 30 d wtwro htarnw jwp hawhw Indecent exposure

wlwq oymChl twlksb qjCy RR: 30 d Audible foolish laugh

15

VII, 15b

hb jwCl wlwamC dy ta ayxwmhw RR: 10 d Gesturing with the left hand

Notes

213

Appendix A: The Penal Code In 1QS VI, 24–VII, 25

Concluding Section: Cases 16–18 broadly about the most serious offences against the community that brought about expulsion Case

Reference in 1QS

16a

VII, 15c–16a

Offence

Penalty

whorb lykr Kly EPM: 1 y Slandering a fellow member

16b

VII, 16b–17a

RR

lykr Kly Mybrb PE

Notes Length of RR not stated, assume 1 yr? Cf. Lev 19:16 Cf. Lev 19:16

Slandering the community 17a

VII, 17b

djyh dwsy lo Nwly PE Murmuring against the community

17b

VII, 17c–18a

awl rCa Nwly whor lo maw RR: 6 m fpCmb Murmuring against a fellow member

18a

VII, 18b–21

dwgbl djyh dwsym wjwr owzt RR: 2 y tmab + EPM: 1st y bwCy ma wbl twryrCb tkllw + exclusion Repentant apostate

18b

VII, 22–24a

18c

VII, 24b–25

from pure drink: 2nd y + demotion + “re-entry exam”

{{\\\\\\}} djyh txob hyhy PE {{\\\\\\\\}}  MynC rCo tawlm lo djyb dwgbl wjwr hbCw   twryrCb tkll Mybrh ynpl«m axyw wbl

Assumes PE if no repentance? PE is generally irrevocable. This is an exceptional case that softens a more stringent penalty An exception to the exception above

Apostasy after 10 years

wtrhfb wmo bro«tØy PE Mybrh[ Nwh Mo bro r]Ca wnwhb wa Associating with an apostate

Emphasis on the same punishment as the apostate long-time member

Appendix B

The Relationship between Psalm 37 and 4Q171 Quatrain and verses

Psalm 37 (MT) presented as quatrains and blocks of quatrains

a 1–2

4Q171 presented as pesher units and blocks of pesher units

:h`DlwAo y¶EcOoV;b aG´…nåqV;tŒ_lAa 1b …wl¡D;mˆy hârEhVm ryIxDjRkœ yI;k 2 :N…wálwø;bˆy aRv#®;dŒ q®r¶RyVk…w bwóøf_hEcSoÅw hÎwhy`A;bœ jAfV;b 3 :h`Dn…wmTa h¶Eor…w X®r#RaŒ_NDkVv h¡Dwhy_lAo g¶A…nAoVtIhw 4 :ÔK`R;bIl tñølSaVvIm #ÔKVlŒ_NR;t`Iyw ÔK¡R;krå;d hDwhy_lAo lwâø…g 5 :h`RcSoÅy a…wâhw wy#DlDoŒ j¶AfVb…w

b 3–4

g 5–6

Not preserved

Lemma:

.Myr|h|x[ -- ] I, 12

:MˆyárFhD…x`A;k ÔK#RfDÚpVvIm…wŒ ÔKó®qdIx rwâøaDk ayIxwøhw 6 Pesher:

Nwxr t\[ -- ] I, 13 yrjb Myllwh t[ -- ] I, 14 Myotmw orp ybhw|a[ -- ] I, 15   .|M[yhw]|la dyb hoC|r[ -- ] I, 16 Lemma:

d7 wñøl lQElw©øjVtIhw „ hÎwhyAl —Mwûø;d 7 vy#IaV;bŒ wóø;krå;d AjyIlVxAmV;b rAjVtI;tœ_lAa :twáø;mˆzVm h¶RcOo

wl llwjt|h[w hwhy]l |M[wd] I, 17 Cyab wkrd jylxmb «rjt law .twmzm «h[Cwo] I, 18 Pesher:

bzkh Cya lo w[rCp] yrmab Mybr hoth rCa twlqb wrjb ayk rqC I, 19 Noml tod Xylml [wo]«mC awlw .rbdbw borbw brjb wdbwy II, 1 h 8–9

Lemma:

h¡DmEj bâOzSoÅw PAaEmœ P®rRh 8 :AoáérDhVl_JKAa r#AjVtI;tŒ_lAa N…wótérD;kˆy MyIoérVmœ_y`I;k 9

law h«m«j bwzow Pam Prh orhl Ka rjt II, 2 .wtrky Myorm ayk Pesher:

MybCh lwk lo wrCp bwCl wnamy awl rCa hrwtl II, 3 Myrmmh lwk ayk Mtorm .wtrky Mnwom bwCl II, 4 Continued …

Continued …

Appendix B: The Relationship between Psalm 37 and 4Q171 Quatrain and verses

Psalm 37 (MT) presented as quatrains and blocks of quatrains

215

4Q171 presented as pesher units and blocks of pesher units Lemma:

.Xra wCry hmh hwhy yawqw

:X®r`Da_…wvry`Iy hD;mEh hGÎwhyŒ y¶Ewøqw Pesher:

wrCp .wnwxr yCwo wryjb tdo hmh II, 5 w 10–11

Lemma:

o¡Dvr NyEaw fAoVmœ dwâøow 10

oCr Nyaw fom dwow

:…w…n`RnyEaw wâømwøqVm_lAo D;tn™Anwø;bVtIhw

.wnnyaw wmwqm lo hnnwbtaw II, 6

vacat Pesher:

Pwsl hoCrh lwk lo wrCp wmty rCa hnCh Myobra II, 7 Cya lwk Xrab axmy awlw .oC[r] II, 8 X®r¡Da_…wvry`Iy My¶IwÎnSoÅw 11 :MwáølDv bõOr_lAo …wGg…nAoVtIhwŒ

Lemma:

Xra wCry Mywnow .MwlC bwr lo wgnothw Pesher:

lo wrCp wlbqy rCa Mynwybah tdo II, 9 yjp lwkm wlxnw twoth dowm ta lwk wgnoty rjaw .loylb II, 10 »gwØnot lwkb wnCdthw Xrah y[ ]|b   .rCb II, 11 z 12–13

Lemma:

qyóî;dA…xAl oDvr MEmOz 12 :wy`D…nIv wyDlDo qäérOjw h#DarŒ_y`I;k wóøl_qAjVcˆy y¶DnOdSa 13 :wáømwøy añøbÎy_y`I;k

qydxl oCr Mmwz II, 12 .wynC wyl]|o qrwjw har ayk wl qjCy |h»w[hy .wmwy ab ayk II, 13 Pesher:

tyrbh yxyro lo wrCp rCa hdw«h»y tybb r«C«a hrwth yCwo ta twlkl wmwzy II, 14 Mbzoy awl law djyh txob rCa .Mdyb II, 15 j 14–15

Lemma:

M¶D;tVvQåq …w©krdw „ MyIoDvr …wâjVt`DÚp —b®r§Rj 14 NwóøyVbRaw yInDo lyIÚpAhVlœ :JK®rád_yérVvˆy Ajw#øbVfIlŒ M¡D;bIlVb awâøbD;t MD;brAjœ 15 :hÎnr`AbDÚvI;t M#DtwøtVÚvåqwŒ

MtCq wkwrdyw MyoCr wjtp brj Nwybaw yno lypl .Krd yrCy jwbflw II, 16 Mblb awbt Mbrj .hnrbCt MhytwtCqw

Continued …

216

Appendix B: The Relationship between Psalm 37 and 4Q171

Quatrain and verses

Psalm 37 (MT) presented as quatrains and blocks of quatrains

4Q171 presented as pesher units and blocks of pesher units Pesher:

hCnmw Myrpa yoCr lo wrCp II, 17 dy jwlCl wCqby rCa wtxo yCnabw Nhwkb II, 18 .Mhylo habh Prxmh tob M|dpy law [y]rjaw Mdym II, 19 .fpCml Myawg yxyro dyb wntny Nk   II, 20 f 16–17

Lemma:

qyóî;dA…xAl fAoVmœ_bwøf 16 :My`I;bår My¶IoDvr Nw#ømShEmŒ

qydxl fom bwf II, 21 -- M]Øybr MyoCr Nwmhm Pesher:

[lo wrCp. |hrwth hCØwo II, 22 h\[ -- ]Øy awl rCa .tworl II, 23 hÎnr¡AbDÚvI;t MyIoDvr twâøowørz y§I;k 17 Myâîqyî;dAx JK™Emwøsw :h`Dwhy

Lemma:

hnrbCt MyoCr tw]owrza ayk [Myqydx Kmwsw hw]hy II, 24 Pesher: Not preserved

y 18–19

Lemma:

M¡ImyImVt yEmy hÎwhy Aoâédwøy 18 :h`RyVhI;t M¶DlwøoVl M#DtDlSjÅnwŒ

Mymymt ymy hwhy odwy .hyht Mlwol Mtljnw Pesher:

[yCna lo wrCp .[ -- ]\[ w]nwxr II, 25 Lemma:

h¡Dor tEoV;b …wvOb´y_aáøl 19

. -- hor to]b wCw«b[y aw]l II, 26 Pesher:

[lo wrCp rbdmh ybC III, 1 .h|rCyb rwd Pla wyjy rCa tljn lwk Mhlw .Mlwo do Morzlw Mda III, 2 Lemma:

:…wo`D;bVcˆy NwâøbDor y™EmyIb…w k 20

»w[ob]|Cy bor ymybw MyoCr ayk .wdbwy III, 3

—My°IoDvr y§I;k 20 …wd#Ebaøy

Continued …

Continued …

Appendix B: The Relationship between Psalm 37 and 4Q171 Quatrain and verses

Psalm 37 (MT) presented as quatrains and blocks of quatrains

217

4Q171 presented as pesher units and blocks of pesher units Pesher:

[rC]|a wrCp Mybrw tØw[ot]|h dowmb borb Myjy rbdbw borb wdbwy III, 4 [M]|o |twyhl[ --w]axy awl rCa lwk Lemma:

MyóîrD;k râåqyI;k hÎwhy yEbyOaw

.Myrwk rqyk hwhy ybhwaw III, 5a Pesher:

[ --w]rCp wryjb tdo III, 5 [-- ]\ MyrCw MyCr wyhy rCa   .Mhyrdo Kwtb Nwx III, 6 Lemma:

.wlwk NCok wlk III, 7

:…wl`D;k NDvDoRb …wälD;k Pesher:

h|o[Cr]h yrC lo [w]rCp Mo ta wnwh rCa wdbwy rCa wCdwq III, 8 .j»w[rb] |dwah Ncok l 21–22

Lemma:

M¡E;lAvy aâølw oDvr hRwøl 21 :N`Etwønw N¶Enwøj qy#î;dAxwŒ X®r¡Da …wvryIy wyDkrObVmœ yI;k 22 :…wtáérD;kˆy wy#DlD;lüqVm…wŒ

MlCy awlw oCr hwl .Ntwnw Nnwj qydxw III, 9 Xra wC[ry w]krwbm ayk .wt[rky w]ll^w^«q«mw Pesher:

Mynwybah tdo lo wrCp III, 10 [ -- ]l\[ ]|h lwk tljn M[ ]|h » la]rCy Mwrm rh ta wCry III, 11 w|l[lwqm]»w wgnoty wCdwq[bw .wtrky III, 12 larCy yoC[r tyr]|bh yxyro hmh [w]|d|mCnw wtrky rCa   .Mlwol III, 13 m 23–24

Lemma:

wnGÎnwø;k rRb¶Rg_yédSoVx`Im hÎwhyEmœ 23 :X`DÚpVj‰y wñø;krådw _aáøl lñOÚpˆy_y`I;k 24 :wíødÎy JK¶Emwøs hGÎwhyŒ_y`I;k l¡Df…wy

w»n[nwk rbg ydoxm h]Øwhym ayk III, 14 .Xp«jØy wkr|d l»w|k|b |[aw]l [lw]|py ay«k .[wdy Kmws hwh]y ayk lfwy III, 15 Pesher:

[rCa qdx]h hrØw«m Nhwkh lo wrC|p dwmol la wb r|b[d] III, 16 [ -- ]tdo wl twnbl wnykh [rCa]»w .]»wtmal rCy w«k[rdw] III, 17

218

Appendix B: The Relationship between Psalm 37 and 4Q171

Quatrain and verses

Psalm 37 (MT) presented as quatrains and blocks of quatrains

n 25–26

4Q171 presented as pesher units and blocks of pesher units Lemma:

yI;tnñåqZÎz_MÅ…g yItyGˆyDh —rAo§An 25 qyâî;dAx yItyIar_aøl`Vw :MRj`Dl_v®;qAbVm w#øorÅzwŒ b¡DzTo‰n :h`DkrVbIl w#øorÅzwŒ h¡RwVlAm…w NEnwøj Mwø¥yAhœ_lD;k 26

ytnqz Mgw yt[yyh ron [qydx ytyar ]awlw . ]|M|jl Cqbm worzw bzon III, 18 .hkrbl wo]rzw hwlmw Nnwj [Mwyh lwk Pesher:

[rCp lo rbdh III, 19 .[-- ]«m l|a[ -- qdxh h]|rw«m [ -- ]taw III, 20 s 27–28a

:M`DlwøoVl NñOkVv…w bw#øf_hEcSoÅw orEmœ r…wâs 27 Lemma: not preserved Pesher: not preserved

f#DÚpVvIm b§Eh„Oa –h Îwhy y§I;k 28a wydyIsSj_tRa bâOzSoÅy_aølw o 28b–29

:tárVkˆn MyIoDvr oår™Rzw …wr¡DmVvˆn MDlwøoVl 28b

Lemma:

Mylwo fp]|Cm IV, 1 .[trkn MyoC]|r orzw wdmCn «Ml[wol Pesher:

yx»yro hm|h .hrwth[ -- ] IV, 2 X®r¡Da_…wvry`Iy Myñîqyî;dAx 29 :Dhy`RlDo dAoDl …wänV;kVvˆyw

Lemma:

Xra wCry M]»yqy|dx .hylo do[l wnkCyw Pesher:

.rwd ]Plab[ -- wrCp] IV, 3 Lemma:

p 30–31 r¶E;bådV;t wGønwøvVl…wŒ h¡DmVkDj hR…gVh‰y qyî;dAxœ_y`IÚp 30 :f`DÚpVvIm :wyárUvSa dAoVmIt aäøl wóø;bIlV;b wyDhølTa tâårwø;t 31

rbdt wnwClw hmk|j [hghy qydx yp fpCm] IV, 4 .wyrCa domt awl wblb wyhla trwt Pesher:

rbd |r|Ca tmah [lo wrCp .dygh Mhy|l|a \\[ -- ] IV, 5  [ -- ] IV, 6 x 32–33

Lemma:

qyóî;dA…xAl oDvr hRpwøx 32 :wøtyImShAl v#é;qAbVm…wŒ wúødÎyVb …w…nRbzAoÅy_aøl hÎwhy 33 :wáøfVpDÚvIhV;b …w…n#RoyIvrÅyŒ añølw

qydx«l oCr hpwx IV, 7 wtymhl] Cqbmw wdyb wnbzoy awl] hw[hy .wfpChb wnoyCr[y awlw

Continued …

Appendix B: The Relationship between Psalm 37 and 4Q171 Quatrain and verses

Psalm 37 (MT) presented as quatrains and blocks of quatrains

219

4Q171 presented as pesher units and blocks of pesher units Pesher:

lo wrCp IV, 8 qy]dxh h[pw]|x rCa oCrh N|h[wkh] hrwthw |t[ -- ]wty«m«h«l [Cqbmw wyla jlC rCa IV, 9 [wnbz]|oy awl law wfpC|h[b wnoyCry]awl»w wttl wlwm[g la ]MlC[y w]lw |M»y«awg [y]xyro dyb IV, 10 .fpCm ]wb twCol Lemma:

q 34 w#ø;krå;d rWOmVv…w —h Îwhy_lRa h§E…wåq 34 tRvâ®rDl ÔKVmImwøry`Iw :h`RarI;t MyIoDvr täérD;kIhV;b X®r¡Da

w|k«rd rwmCw hwh[y la hwq tCrl hkmmwr[y]w .ha]|rt MyoCr tr«kh«b Xra IV, 11 Pesher:

fpCmb wary rCa [ --lo wrCp Mow hoCr  .«t|ma tl«jØn|b wjmCØy wryjb IV, 12 r 35–36

Lemma:

XyóîrDo oDvr yItyIar 35 :N`DnSoår jñrzRaV;k h#®rDoVtIm…wŒ …w…n¡RnyEa hE…nIhw rObSoìÅ¥yÅw 36 aâølw …wh#EvVqAbSa`DwŒ :a`DxVmˆn

Xyr«o o|C|r »y|t[yar] IV, 13 [Nnor jrzak hr]|o«t«m .wn[nya hnhw wyn]p lo rwboa awl»w [whCqb]|aw .axmn] IV, 14 Pesher:

\[ --rCa ]|b»z|kh C[y]|a l|o [wrCp Cq[byw ] la y[ry]|jb lo[ ]\l ta tybCl [ -- ]\|m\[ -- ] IV, 15 |dyz|h[-- ]fpCm »y|o\[ ]|twCol h|mr dyb C 37–38

Lemma:

MD;tœ_rDmVv 37 :MwáølDv vyIaVl tyäîrSjAa_y`I;k r¡DvÎy hEar…w

Mt rwmC -- . ]\|l\l\[ -- ] IV, 16 .Mw«l«C |C[yal ty]«r[ja ayk]rCy [harw Pesher:

[l]o wrCp |t[ -- ]\[ -- ]|ah |M|d\\[ ]\[ -- ] IV, 17 .[M]»wlC MyIoVvOpá…wœ 38 wó;dVjÅy …wêdVmVvˆn :hDtárVkˆn MyIoDvr tyäîrSjAa

Lemma:

MyoCwpw djy wdmCn IV, 18 .htrkn MyoCr ty]|r«jaw Continued …

220

Appendix B: The Relationship between Psalm 37 and 4Q171

Quatrain and verses

Psalm 37 (MT) presented as quatrains and blocks of quatrains

4Q171 presented as pesher units and blocks of pesher units Pesher:

wtrknw wdbØw»y[ -- wrCp .djyh tdo Kw|t|m IV, 19 Lemma:

t 39–40 h¡DwhyEm MyIqyî;dAxœ tAo…wvVt…w 39 :hárDx tEoV;b MGÎ z…wo`DmŒ hGÎwhy MñérzVoÅ¥y`Aw 40 MyIoDvrEmœ MEfV;lApy M¶EfV;lQApy`Aw M¡EoyIvwøyw :wáøb …ws¶Dj_yI;k

hwhym Myqydx ]|t[owC]|tw hrx tob Mzwom [hwhy Mrzoyw M| yoC|rm |Mflpyw Mflmyw IV, 20 MoyCwyw ] .wb wsj ayk Pesher:

[ -- wrCp Mlyx[y]w la MoyCwy IV, 21 .[ -- yoC]r dym

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Index of Ancient Sources A. Hebrew Bible Genesis

1:27 3 6 6:1–4 7:9 9:27 12:10–20 15:6

17, 78–83, 96, 97, 104, 152 82 79 79 79 82 128 80 81

Exodus 20:21 (Sam) 21:1–22:16 23:7 23:20–23 32ff

77, 118, 168, 189 86 174, 175 88 163 85

Leviticus 6:1–7 12:1–5 19 19:11–18 19:17–18 22:16 26

77, 85, 92, 176, 179 178 82 175 175, 176, 210–13 190, 191 88 85

24:15–17 25:7–13

86 81

Deuteronomy

1:13–15 4:25–28 11 12–26 15:2 17:14–20 18:8 23 23:10–15 27 27–29 27–33 29–30 29:18 29:18–20 30:19 31:7 32:47 33 33:8–11

77, 79, 82, 83–87, 89, 90, 92, 96, 97, 105, 155, 168, 189, 204 182 84 190 84 88 84 88 175 163 155 86, 190 85 85 79, 86 86 156 84 88 87 86, 87

1 Samuel 21:6

163

2 Samuel 7 11:6–13

97 163

Numbers 5:1–4 6:24–26 14ff 15:30 16–17

77, 118 163 190 85 178 175

Isaiah 77, 87–92, 93, 96, 97

252 1:17 2:22 8:11 11 11:1 11:3 16:5 27:11 30:26 40:3 41:17–20 42:16 43:18 44:1–5 50:4 51 51:1 51:7 53:3 58:13 58:13–14 60:1–2 61:3 60:13 60:21

Index of Ancient Sources 183 88 90 143 89 89 183 182 89 91, 112 89 183 183 89 91 184 182 182 91 88 88 89 90 89 90

Jeremiah 5 5:1 5:4–5 9:23 14:12 21:8 25:11–12 29:10

77, 79, 87, 93, 95 184 182 183 199 199 156 106 106

Ezekiel 6:11 37:23

77, 96, 189 99 90

Hosea 6:7

79

Micah 6 6:8

184 183, 185

Nahum 164, 165 Habakkuk 2:3 2:5–6

149, 165 99

Zephaniah 2

184

Zechariah 1:12

106

Psalms

1, 2, 5 1:1 26:12 34 36:10 37 37:1–6 37:7 37:8 37:8–9a 37:9a 37:9b 37:10 37:11 37:12 37:12-13 37:14 37:14–15 37:15 37:39–40 45 49 49:6 51:12 51:13 60:8–9 95:10 101:5 103:7 106:30–31 131:1 143:8

77, 92–96, 97, 189, 193, 194 87 90 92 181 193 93, 96, 193–201, 214– 20 193 193, 194 197 194 197 194, 197 194 194, 197 197 194 197 194 93 194 194 181 199 95 94 194 183 95 183 81 95 183

253

Index of Ancient Sources Proverbs 1 1–8 1:5; 9:9; 16:21, 23 Job 17:9 21:14 32–37 34:2 34:10, 34

Esther

190 184 181 183

77 Daniel

183 183 184 182 182

Ecclesiastes (Qoheleth) 1:18 183

9:2

162, 189 106

Ezra 1:14

106

1 Chronicles 12:33 36:12–23

182 106

B. New Testament Romans 12–15

2 Peter 101 121

1

186 186

C. Apocrypha 1 Maccabees
1:41–2:70 6:24; 9:73 10:18-21

138 136 139 138

Ben Sira or Sirach or Ecclesiasticus

27, 124, 133

Tobit

130

D. Pseudepigrapha 2 Baruch

130

1 Enoch

6–16, 89–90 104:2–6

13, 47, 63, 78, 79, 89, 104, 139, 161, 189 79 162

4, 5, 7, 10 4:17 7:39 16:26 21:10 23 23:26 23:31

80 105 40 91 40 160, 166 160 160

Jubilees

3

13, 63, 77–83, 97, 104, 116, 130, 160, 166, 204 82

Psalms of Solomon 17 143

254

Index of Ancient Sources

Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs 130

Testament of Levi

78

Testament of Moses
155

E. Dead Sea Scrolls Damascus Document (See also CD, 4QD = 4Q266–272, 6QD = 6Q15 below) 11, 14, 15, 31, 35, 60, 61, 64–66, 68, 79, 81, 82, 83, 85, 86, 88, 105, 106, 107, 116, 118, 154, 155, 188, 207 Enoch Giants (1Q23–24, 2Q26, 4Q203, 4Q530–533, 6Q8) 79, 104 Temple Scroll (See 11Q19 below) CD

I–VIII I I, 1 I, 1ff I, 3–6 I, 7 I, 8–11 II, 2, 14 II, 14ff II, 14–21 II, 14–III, 18 II, 14–VI, 1 III, 5–9 III, 19–20 IV, 3b–4a IV, 11 IV, 12–V, 1 IV, 12b–19a IV, 21 V, 8 V, 16 V, 21

14, 15, 18, 58, 61, 62, 63, 65, 66, 64, 83, 85, 101, 107, 109, 117, 125, 138, 159, 174, 181, 190, 191, 198 85 106 182, 184 183 106 91 63 184 183 79 85 111 105 108, 157 197 197 81 198 82 105 182 105

VI, 4b–7a VI, 11b–VII, 9a VII–VIII VII, 9b–VIII, 21 VII, 13 VIII, 1–2 VIII, 1–19 VIII, 2b–12a IX IX–XII, 20 IX–XVI X, 8–9 X, 14–XI, 18 X, 17–20 XII, 1–2 XII, 23–XIII, 2 XIII XIII, 7–8 XIII, 14 XIII, 18 XIV, 6b–7a XIV, 8b–10a XV–XVI XV, 9, 12 XVI, 1–2, 4–5 XVI, 1b–2a, 4 XVI, 2 XVI, 4–6 XIX–XX XIX, 1–5a XIX, 5–6 XIX, 5b–XX, 34 XIX, 10–11 XIX, 13–14 XIX, 15–24a XX, 13–20 XX, 13b–15a

108 154 157 154, 179 155 155 151 138 66 69 85 79 88 88 101 118 181 180 181 190 197 125 66 197, 198 197 198 105 81 85, 157 154 155 154, 159 149 155 138 149 199

1QpHab (Pesher Habakkuk) 109, 118, 128, 136, 137, 141, 142, 145,

255

Index of Ancient Sources

I, 1b–2a I, 2–8 I, 3 I, 4–5 I, 10–II, 11 I, 11 II, 2 II, 3 II, 6 II, 10b–IV, 14 II, 12–13 II, 12, 14 III, 1 III, 4, 9 III, 4–5 III, 9–13 IV, 5, 10 V, 3–6 V, 4 V, 10 VI, 1, 10 VI, 1–12 VI, 10–11 VII, 1–14 VII, 4 VII, 5–14 VII, 7 VII, 9–14 VII, 10 VII, 10–12 VII, 11 VII, 12–14 VIII VIII–XII VIII, 1 VIII, 1–3 VIII, 3 VIII, 3–13 VIII, 3b–13a VIII, 8–13 VIII, 11–12 IX, 3–5 IX, 4–7 IX, 6 IX, 6–7 IX, 7 IX, 8–12 IX, 9–10

155, 157, 158, 159, 1 65, 166, 196 196 138 61 165 158 165 61 108 197 128 141 141 141 141 141 179 141 157 197 61, 197 141 128 141 149 61, 62 131 165 165 183 105 197 184 136 138 157, 197 105, 157 61 138 199 136 139 138 142 150 128 141 179 61

IX, 10 IX, 12 X, 3–5 X, 9–10 X, 13 XI, 4–6 XI, 5 XII, 1–6 XII, 2–6 XII, 3, 6, 10 XII, 4 XII, 4–5 XII, 4b–5a XII, 7–10 XII, 10 XII, 10–XIII, 4 XIII XIII, 2–3

197 197 157 142 197 107 61 139 138 197 197 105 197 138 139 126 158 157

1QapGen (Genesis Apocryphon = 1Q20) 78 XIX, 14–XX, 10 80 1QS (Rule of the Community) 16, 18, 20, 27, 32, 33, 34–37, 47, 58, 62, 64, 66–72, 86, 94, 101, 110, 111, 113, 117, 130, 131, 155, 156, 159, 164, 173, 174, 176, 180, 181, 188, 189, 190, 191, 197, 202 I 34–37 I, 1 34 I, 1–11a 127 I, 1–15 34 I, 3 76, 105 I, 8 35, 164 I, 8–9 110, 164 I, 9b–11a 115 I, 10 185 I, 11–13 112 I, 11b–14a 126 I, 16–II, 18 85, 155 I, 16–III, 12 191 II, 1b–18 86 II, 1b–23 126 II, 2 164 II, 2–4 189 II, 2–10 190

256 II, 11 II, 12b–14a II, 12b–18 II, 24 III–IV III, 3 III, 4–6 III, 5–6 III, 8 III, 9 III, 13–16 III, 13–IV, 26 III, 15–IV, 26 IV IV, 2–6 IV, 2–6a IV, 2–7 IV, 2–8 IV, 2–14 IV, 3 IV, 3b–6a IV, 5 IV, 6b–8 IV, 9–14 IV, 11–14 IV, 22 V, 1–7a V, 1–VII, 25 V, 3, 25 V, 3–6, 7 V, 4 V, 4, 25 V, 4–5 V, 5 V, 7 V, 8 V, 9, 10 V, 10 V, 10b–12a V, 11 V, 17 V, 18 V, 24 V, 24–VI, 1 V, 24b–26a VI, 1–21 VI, 7 VI, 8b–13a VI, 13b–23

Index of Ancient Sources 116 86 86 184, 185, 189 130, 187 164 164 164 190 164 127 36, 70, 71, 80, 174 110 190 184 189 116 36 155 37, 189, 190 121 183, 185 157 37 151 164 127 174 190 184 183, 185 185 185 116 184 105, 197, 198 182 88 109 88 88 88 164 164 120 112 183 126 126

VI, 24–VII, 25

89, 126, 127, 173–79, 210–13 VI, 27 177 VII, 16–17 110 VIII 174 VIII–IX 174 VIII, 1 118 VIII, 1–IX, 26a 174 VIII, 2 164, 183, 185 VIII, 2–7 184 VIII, 5 91 VIII, 6 182, 197 VIII, 10, 18, 21 164 VIII, 13–14 112 VIII, 13–15 91 VIII, 15–16 76 VIII, 16b–IX, 2 126 VIII, 18 164 VIII, 24 183 IX 111 IX, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 19 164 IX, 3–8 169 IX, 11 86 IX, 14 110, 197 IX, 19–20 91 IX, 22 190 IX, 26b–XI, 22 174 X, 6–7 184 X, 17–21 142 XI, 1 190 XI, 2 164 XI, 2, 11 164 XI, 8 91, 162 1QSa (1Q28a Rule of the Congregation) 113 I, 2–3 119 I, 13 197 I, 26, 27 197 I, 28 182 I, 29–II, 1 118 II, 2, 11 197 II, 3–9 163 II, 11–22 148 1QSb (1Q28b Rule of the Blessings) IV, 24 197 IV, 25–26 162 IV, 26 197

257

Index of Ancient Sources 1QM (War Scroll)

I I, 1–2 I, 2–3 I, 5–6, 10, 16 I, 5–7 I, 9 II, 1–4 II, 6–14 III, 14 IV, 1–5 V, 1–2 VII, 1–7 VII, 6 X, 10 X, 10–11 XI, 8–9 XI, 11 XII, 7–9 XII, 11–15 XIII, 14–16 XV, 1–3 XV, 1–2, 12–15 XV, 2 XVI, 3–9 XVII, 1–3 XVII, 4a XVIII, 1–5 XVIII, 2–3 XIX, 9–13

70, 71, 90, 106, 113, 114, 117, 120, 142, 145, 158, 159, 163, 164, 166 128 158 106 158 128 134 118 199 118 118 118 163 162, 163, 169 182 163 158 128 163 128 158 158 158 128, 141 128 158 159 128 128 128

1QHa (Hodayota) (Puech/Stegemann column numbers) 20, 89, 91, 92, 93, 94, 149, 161, 162, 163, 164, 166 IV, 26 162 V, 1–VI, 7 94 VI, 1–3 94 VI, 2 183 VI, 3 182 VIII, 27–30 166 IX, 34–35 182 IX, 34–36 184 X, 13b–14a 197 X, 14 183

X, 20–30 X, 22 X, 32 XII, 8–9 XII, 8, 22–23 XII, 12b–22a XIII, 20–XV, 5 XIII, 24 XIV, 11, 13 XIV, 12–13 XIV, 15 XIV, 20–21 XV, 6–7 XV, 10 XVI, 4 XVI, 6 XVII, 26–27 XVIII, 27–30 XIX, 14 XX, 11

92 190 197 107 91 71 95 197 197 162 90 142 162 91 89 90 89 162 182 180

1Q1 (Genesis)

79

1Q14 (Pesher Micah) 8–10 7–8 105, 197 1Q17–18 (See Jubilees, under Pseudepigrapha above) 1Q20 (See 1QapGen Genesis Apocryphon above) 1Q21 (Testament of Levi) 78 1Q22 (DM Words of Moses) 83, 84 1 I, 5–9 84 1 I, 11b–12 84 1Q23–24 (See Enoch Giants above) 1Q26 (Instruction) 30, 182 1Q27 (Mysteries)

182

2Q19–20 (See Jubilees, under Pseudepigrapha above) 2Q26 (See Enoch Giants above)

258

Index of Ancient Sources

3Q5 (See Jubilees, under Pseudepigrapha above)

4Q164 (Pesher Isaiahd) 1 2; 1 3a 197

4QApocryphon of Levi (4Q540–541) 78

4Q167 (Pesher Hoseab) 71 79

4QAramaic Levi (4Q213–214b) 78, 80

4Q169 (Pesher Nahum) 164, 165, 166 I 139 I, 2–3 141 I, 5 194 I, 11 138 II, 1–10 140 II, 2 150, 164, 165 II, 6 165 II, 8 165 III, 1 165 III, 3–5 165 III, 4–5 197 IV, 4–6 197

4QBarkhi Nafshi (See 4Q434–438 below) 4QBerakhot (See 4Q286–290 below) 4QD (See 4Q266–272 below) 4QInstruction (See 4Q415–418, 418a, 418c, 423 below) = Sapiential Work A or Musar Lemevin 4QMidrash Eschatologya–b (4Q174 + 177) IV, 1 150 4QMMT (See 4Q394–399 below) 4QMysteries (See 4Q299–301 below) 4QS (See 4Q255–264 below) 4QSongs of the Sabbath Sacrifice (See 4Q400–407 below) 4QTohorot (4Q274, 276, 277, 278) 101 4QWays of Righteousness (See 4Q420–421 below) 4QWords of the Luminaries (See 4Q504– 506 below) 4QVision of Amram (4Q543–548) 78 4Q10 (Genesisk)

79

4Q161 (Pesher Isaiaha) 89, 90 8–10 17–24 143, 148 8–10 21–24 89

4Q170 (Pesher Zephaniah) 156 4Q171 (Pesher Psalmsa) 62, 92, 107, 167, 193– 201, 214–20 I–IV, 21 196 I, 17–II, 1a 197, 198 I, 17–II, 20 96 I, 17–IV, 21 93 II, 1 199 II, 1b–4a 197, 198, 199 II, 4b–5a 197, 199 II, 5 197, 198, 199 II, 6–7a 199 II, 7 149 II, 8b–11 197 II, 9 197 II, 10b–11 199 II, 12–15a 197 II, 12–19 142 II, 13–18 179 II, 13b 197 II, 14 197 II, 14, 22 105 II, 14b–15a 199 II, 15b–20 197 II, 17 197 II, 18 197

259

Index of Ancient Sources II, 18b–19 II, 22 II, 24b–25a III, 1 III, 1–2a III, 5a III, 5 III, 7–8a III, 12 IV, 7–9 IV, 7–10 IV, 11b–12a, 14b IV, 13–14 IV, 23–24

199 197 198 107 199 193 197, 199 198 197 138 138 199 142 107

4Q174 (Florilegium/Midrash Eschatologya) 87, 95, 96, 117, 143 1–2 I, 10–13 148 1–2 I, 10–14 143 1–2 I, 17 197 1–2 I, 18–19 126 1–2 I, 19–1–3 II, 1 150 1–3 II, 2 105 1, 21, 2 III, 14–17 90 44 197 6–7 3–6 87 4Q175 (Testimonia) I, 1–8

86, 87 108

4Q176a–b (See Jubilees, under Pseudepigrapha above) 4Q177 (Catenaa/Midrash Eschatologyb) 95, 96, 113 1–4 16 197 5–6 8–9 106 14 5 197 4Q180 (Ages of Creation) 1 7–10 79 4Q185 (Sapiential Work) 182 4Q186 (Horoscope) 47, 131

4Q201–202, 204–12 (See 1 Enoch, under Pseudepigrapha above) 4Q203 (See Enoch Giants above) 4Q216, 4Q217, 4Q218–224 (See Jubilees, under Pseudepigrapha above) 4Q225 (Pseudo-Jubileesa) 78 2 I, 7 81 4Q235 (Fragments of Book of Kings Nabatean?) 135 4Q246 (apocrDan ar) 143 4Q252 (Commentary on Genesis A) 78, 143 I, 1–II, 5a 82 II, 5–8 128 4Q255–264 (4QS) 4Q256 IX, 4 4Q256 IX, 7 4Q258 I, 3 4Q258 I, 6

66, 67, 91, 174, 197 183 197 183 197

4Q265 (Serekh Damascus or Miscellaneous Rules) 177 4 II, 3 197 7 7–8 197 7 11–17 82 4Q266–272 (4QD)

4Q266/268 4Q266 2 I, 14 4Q266 2 II, 13–21 4Q266 3 II, 13 4Q266 8 I, 3 4Q266 8 III, 7 4Q267 2 13 4Q268 1 9 4Q270 2 II, 19

66, 83, 85, 108, 174, 176, 177, 188 106 61 79 108 197 79 108 182 182

260 4Q270 6 II, 5, 18 4Q270 6 II, 17–18 4Q270 6 IV, 18 4Q271 4 I, 12 4Q271 4 II, 4 4Q271 4 II, 4, 6

Index of Ancient Sources 197 81 79 197 105 197

4Q275 (Communal Ceremony) 23 183 4Q280 (Curses)

190

4Q285 (Sefer ha-Milhamah): 89, 90, 143, 158 7 145 4Q286–290 (4QBerakhot) 188–92 4Q286 1a–b II 189 4Q286 7 II 190 4Q286 7 II, 1 197 4Q287 6 190 4Q298 (CrA Words of the Sage to the Sons of Dawn) 180–87 1–2 I, 1–2 182 3–4 I 184 3–4 II, 4–7 182 4Q299–301 (4QMysteries) 182, 187 4Q299 6 II, 18 183 4Q299 8 7 182 4Q331 (pap Historical Text C) = 4Q324b (Calendrical Document Ce) 140 4Q332 (pap Historical Text D = Calendrical Document Ca) 140 4Q333 (pap Historical Text E) = 4Q324a (Calendrical Document Cd) 1 4, 8 141 4Q343 (Letter) 135

4Q350 (Account of Cereal) 125 4Q361 (pap Unidentified Fragment) 125 4Q364 (Reworked Pentateuchb) 78 4Q381 (Non-Canonical Psalms B) 31 6 182 4Q382 (Paraphrase of Kings) 49 5 182 4Q390 (apocrJer Ce) 15 106 4Q394–399 (4QMMT) 15, 69, 81, 101, 109, 117, 137, 150, 182 4Q398 11–13 4–5 150 4Q400–407 (4QSongs of the Sabbath Sacrifice) 119, 144, 162, 188 4Q400 1 I, 6 182 4Q403 1 I, 43–46 169 4Q408 (Apocryphon of Mosesc) 15 1 183 4Q412 (Sapiential-Didactic Work A) 16 182 4Q415–418, 418a, 418c, 423 (4QInstruction) 28, 30, 31, 71, 134, 152–54, 159, 161, 166, 168, 182, 187 4Q416 1 153 4Q417 1 I, 22–24 154 4Q418 69 II, 10 182 4Q418 81+81a 7 183 4Q418 81+81a 17 183 4Q418 221 3 183 4Q420–421 (4QWays of Righteousness) 182 4Q420 1a–b II, 3 183 4Q421 1a–b II, 12 180

261

Index of Ancient Sources 4Q424 (Instruction-like Composition B) 182 32 182 34 183 38 183 4Q426 (Sapiential-Hymnic Work A) 10 2 182 4Q434–438 (4QBarkhi Nafshi) 92, 93, 94 4Q434 I, 1–3 93 4Q435 2 I, 1–5 94 4Q436 1a+b I, 2 183 4Q436 1 I, 10–II, 4 94 4Q437 2 I, 1–16 93

4Q530–533 (See Enoch Giants above) 4Q534 (Noah) 131 4Q542 (Testament of Qahat) 78, 80 4Q561 (Physiognomy/Horoscope) 47, 131 6Q8 (See Enoch Giants above) 6Q15 (6QD) 1 1–3 3 3–4

81 105

4Q448 (Apocryphal Psalm and Prayer) 139

7Q4, 8, 11–14 (See 1 Enoch, under Pseudepigrapha above)

4Q491 (War Scrolla) 11 I, 11 197

11Q5 (Psalmsa) XXIV, 15 XXVII, 11

4Q502 (Ritual of Marriage) 16 3 183 4Q504–506 (4QWords of the Luminaries) 187 4Q504 VI, 13–15 107 4Q543–548 (See 4QVision of Amram above) 4Q510 (Songs of the Sagea) 47 14 180 b

4Q511 (Songs of the Sage ) 47 4Q522 (Prophecy of Joshua) 9 II, 10 183 4Q525 (Beatitudes) 24 II, 1–2 182

183 92

11Q12 (See Jubilees, under Pseudepigrapha above) 11Q13 (Melchizedek) 156, 157, 158, 159, 160 II, 12 156 II, 13 149 II, 24 156 11Q14 (Sefer ha-Milhamah) 1I 145 11Q19 (Temple Scrolla) 15, 29, 30, 69, 83, 84, 89, 101, 117, 134, 136, 138, 140 XLV, 11–12 101 LVI, 12–LIX 136 LVII, 4–5 118 LVII, 8 183 LVIII, 3–11 137 LVIII, 15–21 89

262

Index of Ancient Sources

F. Philo Abr. 5–6 39 Abr. 5–7 40 Abr. 52 41 Abr. 270 41 Cher. 4–8 41 Hypoth. 11.2 38 Leg. 1 56–56, 63–64 41 Mos. 2 12–14 39

Mut. 225 Opif. 3 Praem. 119 Prob. 80, 84 QG 3 11 Somn. 2 277 Spec. 2 259 Spec. 4 134, 179

41 39 41 38 41 40 42


G. Josephus Ant. 13.5, 9 13.171–73 13.288–98 13.324–92 13.372–97 13.398–409

199 139 139 137 139 139

13.405–10 13.410–14 15.373–78

140 140 142

J.W. 2.152–53 2.567


144 

H. Rabbinic Literature }Abot }Abot R. Nat. Mishnah Mo’ed Nashim

44 44 42–47 46 46

Neziqin Numbers Rabbah Qodoshim Tohorot Zera’im

46 40 46 46 46


I. Other Ancient Texts Eth. nic. I, 4, 1095a, 1–2

Didache 39

156

Index of Names Abegg, Martin G., Jr. 19, 157, 159, 182 Albani, Matthias 131 Alexander, Philip S. 34, 36, 47, 67, 113, 127, 131, 145, 158 Allegro, John M. 89, 193, 194, 195 Anderson, Gary A. 178 Appiah, Kwame Anthony 100 Atkinson, Kenneth R. 140, 143, 144 Avigad, Nahman 34 Bain-Selbo, Eric Walter 35, 36 Bakhtin, Mikhail M. 111 Barclay, John M. G. 13, 123, 125 Bar-Ilan, Meir 63 Barr, James 129, 130 Barth, Karl 152 Barton, John 76 Batsch, Christophe 142 Baumgarten, Albert I. 103, 116 Baumgarten, Joseph M. 21, 43, 83, 177, 178, 181 Bengtsson, Håkan 108, 128, 145, 196, 197 Berger, Peter L. 99, 100 Bergo, Bettina 55 Bergsma, John S. 116 Bernstein, Moshe J. 78, 141 Berrin, Shani L. 165, 193, 194, 196 Betz, Otto 23, 91 Billings, Thomas H. 39 Blenkinsopp, Joseph 61 Boccaccini, Gabriele 61, 104 Bockmuehl, Markus N. A. 47, 67 Bohak, Gideon 127, 133 Boyce, Mark J. 65 Breslauer, S. Daniel 53, 54 Brin, Gershon 84 Brooke, George J. 11, 24, 25, 63, 77, 78, 79, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90,

91, 93, 96, 107, 109, 115, 117, 118, 128, 143, 144, 154, 194 Brooks, Roger 46 Callaway, Phillip R. 84 Campbell, Jonathan G. 85, 86, 155, 156 Carlo, Gustavo 102 Charlesworth, James H. 17, 18, 59, 84, 136, 137, 193 Cinnirella, Marco 119 Cloutier, David M. 150 Cohen, Hermann 54 Cohen, Richard A. 55, 56 Coker, Joe L. 151 Collins, John J. 5, 17, 18, 112, 113, 119, 126, 148, 149, 150, 151, 157, 162, 181 Conklin, Blane W. 134 Cook, Edward M. 19, 80, 82, 152 Cotton, Hannah M. 126 Coulot, Claude 194, 198, 200 Crenshaw, James L. 31 Cross, Frank Moore 34, 59, 60, 62, 67, 193 Daniel, Constantin 143 Darwall, Stephen 48 Davenport, Gene L. 160 Davies, Philip R. 14, 60, 61, 65, 85, 154, 158 Davis, Colin 55 Davis, Robert W., Jr. 66 Deasley, Alex R. G. 35, 148 Denis, Albert-Marie 65 Dimant, Devorah 17, 80 Dorff, Elliot N. 53, 54 Duhaime, Jean 70, 71, 90, 106, 130, 132, 145 Duncan, Julie A. 83 Dupont-Sommer, André 11, 18, 23

264

Index of Names

Efron, Joshua 124 Eisenman, Robert H. 138 Elgvin, Torleif 153, 154, 161, 185, 187 Elliott, John H. 4, 29, 30 Eshel, Esther 82, 83, 158 Eshel, Hanan 140, 158 Esler, Philip F. 99, 100, 101, 103, 121 Evans, Craig A. 80, 81 Falk, Daniel K. 84, 85, 105 Falk, Ze’ev W. 45, 46 Feldman, Louis H. 124 Fishbane, Michael A. 76, 77, 78, 88 Fitzmyer, Joseph A. 14, 23, 80, 81 Flint, Peter W. 24, 25, 83, 92, 194 Forkman, Göran 176, 177 Fowl, Stephen E. 51 Fraade, Steven D. 43, 84 Frankena, William K. 34, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 102 Frey, Christofer 151 Frey, Jörg 70, 71 Frye, Richard N. 130 Fuglseth, Kåre S 114, 117 Gafni, Isaiah M. 136 Gammie, John G. 130 García Martínez, Florentino 62, 69, 129 Geertz, Clifford 29, 30, 122, 127, 135, 145 Gibbs, Robert 55 Ginsburg, Christian David 12 Ginzberg, Louis 15, 21, 23 Glickman, Jack 3 Goff, Matthew J. 28, 30, 31, 153, 161, 181 Golb, Norman 59 Goldberg, Abraham 44 Goldstein, Jonathan A. 160 Goranson, Stephen 62, 115 Grabbe, Lester L. 63, 128, 129 Green, Ronald M. 35 Grenz, Stanley J. 3, 6, 152 Grossman, Maxine L. 107 Gruen, Erich S. 38, 112 Hardy, Sam A. 102 Harrelson, Walter J. 150 Harrington, Daniel J. 161, 181

Harrington, Hannah K. 63, 69, 101, 102, 116, 117 Harris, John G. 14, 18 Hart, Daniel 102, 103 Hauerwas, Stanley 3, 50, 51 Healey, John F. 135 Heger, Paul 96 Hempel, Charlotte 62, 65, 66, 68, 79, 81, 82, 85, 88, 106, 107, 174, 176, 180, 181 Hengel, Martin 84, 112, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 131, 132, 133, 134, 136, 137, 138 Herford, R. Travers 45, 46 Herring, Basil 22 Hinze, Bradford E. 150 Holm-Nielsen, Svend 92 Holtz, Gudrun 117 Horgan, Maurya P. 89, 157, 164, 193, 194, 195, 197, 198, 199 Horst, Pieter W. van der 112, 124 Hughes, Henry Maldwyn 13, 14 Hultgren, Stephen 71, 154, 155 Huppenbauer, Hans W. 130 Ilan, Tal 140 Isbell, Charles D. 130 Iwry, Samuel 61 Jassen, Alex P. 77 Jefferies, Daryl F. 153 Johnson, Sara Raup 104 Jokiranta, Jutta 29, 98, 99, 100, 114, 116, 118, 197 Kadushin, Max 45, 46 Kampen, John I. 17, 25, 26, 27, 32, 181 Kant, Immanuel 34 Keiser, Thomas A. 88 Kellner, Menachem 53, 54 Keown, Damien 151 Kim, Angela Y. 89 Kimbrough, S. T., Jr. 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 25, 190 Kister, Menahem 78, 81, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186 Klawans, Jonathan 37, 102 Klinghardt, Matthias 126 Knibb, Michael A. 36, 67, 89, 91, 106, 139, 155, 174, 196, 197, 198

Index of Names Kobelski, Paul J. 131, 132, 156, 190 Koch, Klaus 133, 134 Koyfman, Shlomo A. 78 Kroeker, P. Travis 150 Kugel, James 160 Kugler, Robert A. 17, 18, 162 Kuhn, Heinz-Wolfgang 149, 161, 162 Lange, Armin 181 Lawrence, Louise J. 176 Leaney, A. R. C. 36, 88 Lee, Jung Hyup 34 Leonhardt-Balzer, Jutta 70 Levinas, Emmanuel 55 Levine, Baruch A. 22, 133, 135 Levine, Lee I. 124 Lewis, Christopher A. 118 Lichtenstein, Aharon 53 Lieu, Judith M. 99, 100, 103, 104, 106, 107, 109, 115, 116 Lightstone, Jack N. 44, 45 Lim, Timothy H. 125, 145, 156, 157, 193, 195 Little, David 35, 36, 49, 51 Lovin, Robin W. 35, 36, 37, 51 Luckmann, Thomas 99, 100 Lyotard, Jean François 54 Macaskill, Grant 153 Mach, Michael 132 MacIntyre, Alasdair C. 50, 51, 52, 56, 75 Magid, Shaul 53 Magness, Jodi 19, 26, 59, 60, 63, 143, 144 Maier, Johann 76, 83, 87 Main, Emanuelle 139, 140 Mamfredis, Maria 29 Mandel, Paul 43 Martens, Paul 50 Mattila, Sharon Lea 158 Meeks, Wayne A. 38, 41, 122, 156 Menasce, Jacques de 134 Mendels, Doron 84, 103, 108, 136, 137 Metso, Sarianna 34, 64, 66, 67, 68, 86, 174 Milik, Józef T. 11, 60, 63, 64, 66, 188 Murphy, Catherine M. 11, 27, 28, 29, 30, 128, 138, 139, 162, 175, 177, 198, 199 Murphy, Roland E. 31

265

Murphy-O’Connor, Jerome 23, 60, 61, 65, 66, 111, 154, 174 Natoli, Joseph P. 54 Neusner, Jacob 21, 22, 42, 43, 44, 46, 47 Newman, Hillel 122, 135, 136, 137, 138, 140 Newman, Louis E. 22, 53, 54 Newsom, Carol A. 17, 91, 93, 94, 95, 99, 109, 110, 111, 117, 118, 144, 155, 191 Nickelsburg, George W. E. 104, 130, 147, 155, 160, 161 Niebuhr, H. Richard 123, 125 Niebuhr, Reinhold 152 Nitzan, Bilha(h) 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 196 Noam, Vered 33 Nongbri, Brent 136, 138 Osten-Sacken, Peter von der 70, 71 Pardee, Dennis G. 194, 199 Parsons, Michael 150 Peters, Ted 150 Pfann, Stephan J. 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186 Philonenko, Marc 130 Popovi, Mladen 47, 131 Porter, Jean 50 Puech, Émile 89, 94 Qimron, Elisha 69 Rabinowitz, Isaac 65 Rappaport, Uriel 142, 143 Regev, Eyal 70 Reif, Stefan C. 14 Rendtorff, Trutz 152 Reventlow, Henning Graf 147 Reynolds, Frank E. 35, 36 Ringgren, Helmer 16, 17, 18 Royce, Josiah 108 Rubinstein, Arie 66 Sacchi, Paolo 61 Sanders, E. P. 110, 162 Sanders, Jack T. 124, 133 Sandmel, Samuel 38, 39, 41 Schechter, Solomon 14, 15, 21, 65 Schenck, David, Jr. 49

266

Index of Names

Schiffman, Lawrence H. 14, 15, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 43, 63, 82, 84, 88, 113, 149, 163, 164, 176, 177 Schmidt, Francis 117, 118, 119 Schniedewind, William M. 113 Schrage, Wolfgang 168 Schubert, Kurt 61 Schuurman, Douglas J. 151 Schwartz, Daniel R. 82 Schwarzschild, Steven S. 152 Schweiker, William 79 Seely, David R. 93, 94, 95 Shaked, Shaul 129, 130, 132, 133 Shemesh, Aharon 43, 175 Sherif, Muzafer 114 Sherwin, Byron L. 28 Sievers, Joseph 136, 138 Slomovic, Elieser 88 Soloff, Rav A. 65 Spero, Shubert 53 Stegemann, Hartmut 59, 60, 61, 62, 89, 181 Stemberger, Gunter 44, 139 Sterling, Gregory E. 39, 40, 112, 113, 124 Steudel, Annette 87, 95, 96, 148, 149, 156 Stone, Michael E. 76, 78 Stout, Jeffrey 35, 51 Strack, Hermann L. 44 Strugnell, John 180, 195 Sukenik, Eleazar L. 11, 89 Swanson, Dwight D. 180, 181, 182, 184, 186 Swartz, Michael D. 43

Thiroux, Jacques P. 28, 49, 151 Trebolle Barrera, Julio C. 76, 78 Turner, John C. 99, 100, 101, 108, 119 Turner, Victor W. 107 Twiss, Sumner B. 35, 36, 49, 51

Tajfel, Henri 99, 100, 101, 119 Talmon, Shemaryahu 22, 60, 77

Zerbe, Gordon M. 144

Ulrich, Eugene C. 76, 87 VanderKam, James C. 25, 60, 61, 62, 83, 105, 112, 125, 160 Vaux, Roland de 59, 60, 63, 66, 143, 144 Vermes, Geza 58, 76, 134, 141, 142 Vermes, Pamela 141, 142 Wassen, Cecilia 114, 118 Watson, Stephen H. 75 Weinfeld, Moshe 126, 176 Weiss, Raymond L. 53 Wells, Samuel 151 Wernberg-Møller, Preben 23 Whitmarsh, Tim 112 Wiebe, Ben 168 Williamson, Ronald 40, 41 Wills, Lawrence M. 84 Wilson, Andrew M. 84 Winston, David 38, 129 Wise, Michael O. 19, 64, 141 Wolfson, Harry Austryn 38, 39, 40, 41, 42 Woude, Adam S. van der 23, 24, 60 Wright, Christopher J. H. 151 Wyschogrod, Edith 55 Wyschogrod, Michael 56 Yadin, Yigael 84, 144

Index of Subjects Abraham 40, 80, 81, 128 Adam 40, 79, 82, 160 Alexandria 13, 140 Anachronism 16, 22, 26, 30, 65, 76, 99, 203 Angels 79, 104, 119, 127, 129, 132, 162, 166, 169, 188, 192 Anti-Hellenism 26, 125, 126, 127, 128 Apocalypticism 31, 62, 63, 130, 146, 151, 153, 160, 162, 168 Apocrypha 11, 13, 129, 130 Aramaic language 71, 78, 113, 126, 133, 147 Archaeology 7, 26, 29, 30, 58, 59, 60, 61, 66, 144, 203, 207 Aristotle 40, 41, 50, 51, 99 Astrology or horoscope 47, 127, 131 Attitude 28, 29, 43, 100, 101, 111, 118, 120, 126, 151, 157, 159, 160, 164, 191, 198, 199 Authority 6, 7, 20, 35, 36, 44, 50, 52, 53, 61, 64, 67, 75, 76, 83, 84, 86, 126, 160, 168, 176, 177, 200, 204, 210 Autonomy 45, 49, 50, 51, 55, 206 Behaviour 3, 19, 20, 21, 29, 34, 36, 43, 44, 46, 52, 88, 94, 100, 101, 102, 104, 106, 108, 111, 112, 114, 115, 117, 120, 122, 123, 127, 131, 138, 139, 145, 150, 151, 154, 157, 159, 161, 164, 167, 176, 178, 185, 191, 201, 202, 203, 205 Belial 155, 156, 179, 188, 190, 191, 192, 198, 200, 201 Blessings and curses 86, 87, 155, 188, 190, 191, 211 Boundary, social 27, 80, 92, 104, 108, 109, 110, 115, 116, 119, 177 Calendar 26, 27, 46, 63, 82, 84, 85, 104, 109, 118, 133, 187, 189

Canon 76, 77 Character traits 3, 21, 31, 35, 43, 49, 94, 127, 131, 132, 145, 155, 164, 185, 190, 191, 198, 203 Choice (see also freewill) 14, 37, 80, 132, 154, 198, 201, 202 Christianity 3, 4, 6, 12, 13, 14, 16, 18, 22, 30, 32, 33, 38, 99, 122, 123, 126, 147, 150, 168, 207 Chronotope 111 Command, divine 19, 34, 36, 43, 46, 52, 184, 198 Communitarianism 3, 19, 26, 92, 107, 120, 192, 202, 205, 206 Community Organization 34, 85, 109, 117, 118, 125, 126, 174, 175, 176, 202 Conflict 37, 62, 64, 101, 108, 113, 114, 137, 144, 198 Covenant 57, 65, 85, 86, 92, 106, 107, 110, 116, 117, 120, 148, 155, 156, 158, 174, 176, 188, 190, 191 Culture 3, 6, 7, 13, 25, 29, 33, 34, 37, 38, 43, 52, 54, 57, 109, 111, 112, 114, 119, 122, 123, 146, 155, 168, 176, 178, 179, 187, 202, 205 David 89, 90, 92, 143, 145, 148, 194 Definism 49, 52 Demons 79, 104, 130, 132, 156 Determinism (see also predestination) 5, 20, 26, 27, 36, 110, 127, 131, 132, 145, 154, 155, 158, 187, 199, 201, 202, 204, 205, 206 Discipline 19, 94, 95, 110, 117, 118, 164, 177, 179, 188, 190, 211 Dualism 17, 19, 26, 27, 36, 37, 58, 70, 71, 80, 123, 124, 127, 129, 130, 131, 132, 145, 155, 159, 188, 190, 192, 194, 200, 201, 204, 205

268

Index of Subjects

Duty or obligation 34, 48, 50, 52, 56, 89, 100, 102, 120

Greek language 105, 124, 125, 126, 127, 134, 147

Egypt 31, 122, 123, 124, 133, 134 Emic (see also etic) 4, 30, 101 End of Days 87, 89, 90, 148, 150, 164, 166 Enlightenment 12, 45, 50, 52, 75 Enochic Judaism and literature 13, 61, 63, 78, 79, 80, 104, 130, 161, 168 Eschatology 6, 7, 19, 20, 27, 31, 37, 64, 70, 71, 85, 86, 89, 90, 96, 106, 109, 111, 113, 119, 127, 131, 133, 142, 146, 147, 160, 169, 179, 184, 186, 191, 192, 193, 194, 199, 205, 207 Essenes 11, 12, 18, 19, 23, 27, 31, 38, 58, 60, 62, 63, 64, 67, 68, 123, 134, 135, 138, 142, 144, 153, 191 Essentialism 99 Ethics, comparative religious 33, 35, 36, 42, 44, 48, 51, 52, 57 Ethics, definition 3, 34, 44, 47, 48, 49, 56, 57 Ethics, Greek 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 56, 124, 180 Ethics, Jewish 3, 6, 13, 18, 22, 33, 38, 40, 45, 52, 53, 56, 75, 124, 190, 207 Ethics, Kantian 34, 35, 49, 50, 54, 75, 102 Ethics, modern 6, 33, 37, 47, 48, 50, 52, 75, 120, 151 Ethics, normative 3, 35, 37, 43, 48, 49, 51, 52, 203 Ethics, postmodern 33, 52, 54, 55 Ethics, rabbinic 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47 Etic (see also emic) 4, 30, 102, 120, 173, 192, 202, 205 Exegesis 23, 43, 75, 78, 92, 96, 97, 105, 109, 147, 148, 149, 168, 173, 174, 180, 181, 188, 194, 206 Exile 61, 85, 105, 106, 112

Halakhah 4, 15, 20, 21, 22, 31, 42, 44, 47, 53, 56, 69, 81, 82, 83, 85, 88, 90, 96, 105, 119, 135, 160, 169, 173, 174, 184, 198, 200 Haskalah 12, 53 Hasmoneans 61, 62, 64, 68, 84, 112, 113, 122, 123, 124, 128, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 141, 142, 144, 146 Hebrew language 105, 113, 125, 126, 147, 183 Hellenism 6, 13, 31, 38, 39, 112, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 131, 134, 187, 202 Herod 68, 113, 138, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 158, 168 Historiography 59, 107, 109, 138 Holiness 27, 37, 41, 43, 46, 47, 57, 64, 69, 70, 94, 116, 175, 176, 189, 202 Holiness Code 175, 179, 191

Freewill (see also choice) 5, 132 Good and evil 3, 13, 14, 34, 46, 48, 55, 79, 101, 103, 127, 131, 132, 142, 150, 153, 187, 191, 201, 202 Greek ideas 40, 123, 125, 126, 127, 131, 186, 200

Identity 6, 23, 37, 46, 53, 56, 60, 61, 64, 69, 71, 85, 86, 90, 92, 93, 94, 95, 97, 98, 121, 122, 131, 136, 142, 147, 156, 168, 176, 178, 185, 191, 197, 199, 201, 204, 207 Intertextuality 79, 81, 88, 97 Intuitionism 49, 50 Jannaeus 84, 136, 137, 139 Jerusalem 13, 43, 59, 60, 61, 62, 71, 101, 106, 112, 114, 124, 128, 135, 136, 137, 141, 144 Josephus 12, 27, 58, 59, 122, 123, 124, 134, 137, 138, 139, 142, 143, 144, 199 Judaism 4, 15, 22, 25, 33, 38, 41, 44, 47, 53, 55, 56, 76, 116, 123, 125, 129, 132, 134, 151, 206 Judgment, divine 31, 68, 96, 104, 128, 133, 142, 146, 149, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 161, 165, 167, 179, 192, 199, 202, 205 Justice 35, 41, 45, 48, 142, 164, 183, 185, 196, 200, 201, 202 Kings and kingship 84, 89, 113, 124, 136, 137, 138, 141, 143, 145, 146 Kittim 89, 113, 128, 141, 144, 145, 158

Index of Subjects Knowledge 100, 107, 108, 109, 110, 127, 153, 161, 166, 169, 182, 183, 185, 189, 197, 198 Law 4, 13, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 26, 35, 38, 39, 40, 42, 44, 47, 49, 50, 53, 62, 67, 81, 82, 87, 88, 91, 92, 107, 159, 174, 184, 187, 204 Liturgy 28, 119, 145, 155, 174, 188, 191, 202 Magic 43, 47 Marriage and sexuality 27, 69, 82, 101, 116, 117, 118, 152, 187, 198 Members 34, 52, 53, 67, 80, 88, 91, 95, 96, 99, 100, 108, 110, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 125, 133, 142, 145, 151, 154, 155, 159, 161, 164, 166, 174, 175, 177, 181, 184, 188, 191, 199, 202, 205, 207, 211 Mendelssohn, Moses 52 Messianism 13, 62, 86, 90, 97, 113, 143, 148, 179 Meta-ethics 49, 50, 52, 53 Militarism 90, 113, 143, 144 Mishnah 42, 43, 44, 47 Morality 3, 22, 26, 35, 45, 47, 48, 53, 56, 102 Moses 20, 39, 40, 77, 81, 83, 85, 87, 105 Motivation 3, 21, 42, 49, 53, 60, 68, 87, 91, 95, 96, 102, 105, 108, 112, 113, 120, 131, 133, 147, 149, 151, 152, 159, 161, 165, 186, 191, 196, 199, 201, 205, 207 Nabatea 122, 133, 135 Naturalism or natural law 5, 20, 30, 36, 39, 40, 42, 46, 47, 49, 50, 70, 82, 104, 152, 184, 186, 187, 202, 205 Noncognitivism 49 Norm 4, 5, 19, 21, 27, 29, 30, 35, 36, 44, 49, 50, 52, 57, 67, 101, 104, 114, 120, 122, 127, 131, 135, 151, 152, 155, 157, 165, 174, 187, 192, 202, 204 Outsiders 26, 80, 88, 92, 96, 100, 101, 108, 110, 115, 116, 117, 119, 142, 155, 181, 185, 197, 200, 201, 205, 206

269

Palaeography 34, 58, 59, 67, 80, 82, 86, 141, 156, 188, 189, 193 Palestine 3, 13, 33, 38, 63, 69, 105, 122, 123, 124, 128, 130, 133, 134, 141, 145, 162, 178, 207 Parthia 123, 133, 134 Penal code 117, 174, 179, 191, 202, 210 Perfectionism 35, 94, 107, 148, 152, 164, 176, 187, 191, 202, 205, 206 Persian influence 122, 127, 128, 133, 134, 155, 190, 206 Pesharim 32, 58, 61, 80, 87, 89, 90, 92, 95, 114, 126, 139, 140, 156, 157, 164, 165, 167, 193, 201, 214 Pharisees 15, 33, 44, 82, 115, 123, 135, 139, 140, 144, 164 Philo 5, 6, 33, 38, 42, 53, 58, 134 Philosophy 3, 7, 14, 16, 33, 38, 39, 48, 53, 54, 55, 56, 75, 99, 124, 126, 127, 180, 186, 204 Physiognomy 47, 131 Plato 34, 38, 39, 40 Politics 6, 7, 13, 25, 37, 52, 54, 57, 64, 68, 71, 84, 97, 109, 112, 114, 118, 122, 124, 128, 133, 134, 135, 136, 139, 145, 146, 147, 168, 178, 179, 198, 201, 202, 205 Practice 4, 12, 16, 18, 24, 26, 28, 29, 34, 41, 51, 75, 87, 94, 110, 114, 115, 116, 117, 142, 173, 179, 191, 201, 204 Predestination (see also determinism) 17, 129, 158, 183, 184, 185 Priesthood 43, 46, 61, 62, 63, 69, 70, 82, 85, 86, 89, 101, 107, 113, 118, 128, 133, 136, 137, 138, 146, 158, 168, 169, 175, 179, 189, 190, 191, 196, 204, 206, 211 Principle 4, 7, 36, 45, 47, 48, 52, 57, 82, 102, 137, 139, 173, 179, 187, 202, 205 Prophets and prophecy 76, 77, 82, 83, 86, 87, 89, 92, 96, 97, 105, 107, 120, 140, 142, 155, 164, 168, 184, 185, 186, 193, 194 Pseudepigrapha 11, 13, 31, 78, 104, 129 Purity 5, 26, 37, 43, 46, 47, 58, 62, 63, 64, 68, 71, 84, 87, 90, 101, 108, 109, 116, 117, 133, 163, 165, 175, 176, 177, 179, 191, 192, 202, 204

270

Index of Subjects

Qumran community, history 7, 19, 24, 58, 64, 75, 80, 90, 97 Qumran movement 28, 58, 63, 64, 71, 76, 80, 83, 98, 106, 107, 108, 109, 112, 114, 116, 120, 122, 134, 168, 197, 203, 206 Qumran, Khirbet 5, 58, 59, 60 Qumranites 4, 5, 13, 20, 22, 23, 33, 42, 52, 56, 61, 63, 70, 75, 84, 90, 96, 103, 127, 131, 134, 159, 168, 175, 185, 190, 202 Rabbinic literature 6, 12, 15, 18, 21, 31, 33, 40, 42, 47, 53, 56, 191, 207 Religion 3, 17, 18, 19, 22, 26, 29, 35, 38, 47, 54, 129, 133, 134, 135, 136, 138, 151, 206 Responsibility 20, 55, 79, 132, 201, 203, 205 Rewards and punishment 40, 85, 96, 142, 149, 151, 152, 155, 158, 159, 166, 167, 177, 178, 199, 205, 213 Righteousness 19, 27, 35, 37, 81, 90, 92, 95, 104, 106, 111, 131, 153, 156, 159, 162, 167, 182, 185, 192, 196 Rigorism 187, 202, 205 Ritual 5, 19, 27, 47, 70, 101, 102, 107, 116, 118, 133, 155, 163, 191, 192 Romans 46, 59, 64, 71, 89, 113, 123, 128, 134, 141, 144, 145, 158, 159, 168, 179 Sabbath 27, 82, 84, 88, 108 Sadducees 13, 15, 23, 82, 115, 123, 135, 139, 144 Schism or split 62, 109 Scriptures 13, 76, 77, 86, 89, 95, 97, 140, 189, 204 Second Temple period 3, 13, 18, 25, 33, 38, 44, 76, 79, 116, 127, 129, 133, 155, 178, 186, 190, 203 Self-understanding 71, 85, 88, 90, 95, 97, 100, 105, 119, 155, 160, 164, 184, 204, 206 Septuagint or LXX 41, 134 Social psychology 99, 101, 102, 114, 119 Social sciences 7, 25, 29, 98, 99, 101, 109, 114, 120, 204

Social time 103 Social-constructionism 6, 7, 30, 54, 99, 102, 109, 110, 122 Socrates 34 Stoics 5, 27, 39, 50, 127, 132, 186, 187 Teacher of Righteousness 20, 61, 65, 89, 91, 107, 108, 109, 149, 157, 197, 199, 200 Teleology 45, 50, 52, 151 Temple 13, 19, 27, 43, 46, 69, 84, 87, 106, 114, 119, 135, 162, 169 Tension, social 37, 101, 114, 168 Theology 7, 15, 16, 18, 22, 57, 67, 127, 130, 147, 150, 167 Theonomy 19, 45, 187, 192, 202, 205 Torah 20, 27, 43, 63, 76, 78, 83, 86, 88, 92, 105, 109, 112, 114, 120, 125, 131, 137, 157, 160, 165, 198, 200 Tradition 3, 6, 52, 53, 75, 97, 168, 179, 184, 189, 202, 204, 207 Two Spirits Treatise 36, 71, 80, 127, 131, 174 Universalism 35, 39, 49, 50, 52, 55, 206 Value 4, 12, 49, 101, 105, 106, 108, 112, 113, 120, 135, 174, 178, 179, 202, 207 Violence 19, 55, 59, 92, 93, 138, 140, 141, 142, 145, 165, 178, 179 Wicked Priest 136, 138 Wisdom literature 25, 27, 28, 30, 111, 130, 134, 180, 184 Worldview 3, 26, 29, 31, 36, 46, 57, 59, 62, 67, 68, 80, 97, 104, 127, 135, 158, 178, 185, 188, 200, 203 Worship 27, 46, 95, 116, 188, 192, 198 Xenophobia 112, 134, 186, 205, 206 Yahad 34, 86, 96, 164, 191, 197 Zadok 20, 62, 107, 138 Zoroastrianism 129, 130, 132, 133, 134, 190