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The Dead Sea Sect in Relation to Ancient Judaism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Extract

I think I should begin with an apology for my temerity in accepting your invitation to discuss the Dead Sea material as a whole. Such a discussion is certainly premature while the greater part of the material is still unpublished, and while certain basic studies of the documents have yet to be made, or, at least, made public. The question of the palaeographic dating of the manuscripts, for instance, which could have great consequences for the reconstruction of the history of the sect, must remain sub judice until we have the material fully before us.

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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1961

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References

page 347 note 1 See the restatement of the argument by de Vaux, R., Les MSS de Qumrán et l'archéologie, R.B. LXVI (1959), 87ff., esp. 92 ff.Google Scholar

page 347 note 2 Josephus, , Vita, 1012. I doubt that Bannous was connected with the Qumran community. But other young men may have gone to it as Josephus went to him.Google Scholar

page 347 note 3 Luke, viii. 3, cf. the graves ofwomen at Qumran.Google Scholar

page 347 note 4 From the title of the book by Cross, F. (New York, 1958), my italics.Google Scholar

page 348 note 1 Milik, J., Dix Ans de Découvertes (Paris, 1957), pp. 76 and 79.Google Scholar

page 348 note 2 That I QS and C.D. were intended for the training of novices is suggested by the marked homiletic elements they Contain, the edifying sum maries of sectarian history (esp. in C.D.), the comparatively elementary content of the legal material, suggesting catechesis rather than advanced study, the forms of address in C.D., the absence of information which goes beyond what novices might be expected to learn or could hardly be prevented from learning, etc.

page 348 note 3 Not only the Genesis Apocryphon; on the romantic elements in Test. XII Pat. see Braun, M., History and Romance (Oxford, 1938).Google Scholar

page 348 note 4 Christianity: II John 12.; III John 13; Papias in Eusebius, H.E. III, 39. 4; Clemens Alex., Stromateis I. Rabbinic Judaism, J. Peah i. 6 (17a); J. Meg. iv. I (74d); Gittin 60b, Temurah 14b, Tanhuma Wayera' 5, Ki tissa' 34.

page 349 note 1 Examples will be furnished readily by the bibliographies of Qumran by Burchard, (Berlin, 1957),Google Scholar and La, Sor (Pasadena, 1958).Google Scholar

page 350 note 1 E.g., B.J. II, 118f., 162 etc.Google Scholar

page 350 note 2 Ezek. viii.; Jer., ii. 8, 11 ff., 20, 27; vii. 9, 17 f., 31 f.; viii. 2; ix. 13 xi. 12f., 17; xii. 16; xvi. 11 f.; xvii. 2; xix. 4 f., 13; xxxii. 34 f.; xliv (Shamash is shemesh, the sun).Google Scholar

page 351 note 1 Amos vii. 10ff. Terminologically, Amos was not the preacher of righteousness; ẓedagah with that sense does appear in v. 7 and 24, but both of these may be glosses and, in any event, do not suffice to make the term a major theme of his preserved utterances. But by content Amos was pre-eminently the preacher of what Isaiah and the Psalms were to call ẓedeq, ‘righteousness’.

page 351 note 2 C.D. vi. 15; iv. 17, and Rabin's note, ad loc.; Luke, xvi. 9.Google Scholar

page 351 note 3 Jer., xxxiv. 12ff.Google Scholar

page 351 note 4 Neh. v.

page 351 note 5 Pesahim, 57 a; Josephus, Ant. xx. 181, 206f.,Google Scholar probably reflects Pharisaic propaganda, cf., M. Smith, Palestinian Judaism, in Israel, ed. Davis, M. (New York, n.d.), pp. 74 ff.;Google ScholarMark, xii. 3840,Google Scholar for the position of the scribes cf. xi. 27; Matt, . xxiii. 23;Google Scholar IQp Hab, xii. 10; C.D. iv. 17, etc.Google Scholar

page 351 note 6 Deut, . vi. 6f.Google Scholar

page 351 note 7 Neh. viii. The blessing in v. 6 is presumably prayer. Cf. ‘the eighteen-blessings’.

page 352 note 1 The economical and simple character of Jewish worship is given as one of the main reasons for its success by Strabo, , Geog. xvi. 2. 36Google Scholar (Reinach, T., Textes d'auteurs grecs, etc. Paris, 1895, p. 100).Google Scholar

page 352 note 2 Style, , e.g. i. 5ff.Google Scholar In legislation, he revised the Deuteronomic tithing laws in the interest of the Levites, but his concern for the Levites is itself Deuteronomic, as is that for the poor generally and in particular his prohibition of interest (cf., Deut. xxiii. 20ff.), and also the prohibition of intermarriage.Google Scholar

page 352 note 3 Neh, . ii. 1216.Google Scholar

page 352 note 4 Neh, . v. 7ff.Google Scholar

page 352 note 5 Neh. xiii.

page 353 note 1 C.D., iv. 1718.Google Scholar

page 353 note 2 E.g. Haggai, ii. 11ff.Google ScholarEzra, ii. 63 was not an adequate precedent for Nehemiah's action, since there the civil authority evidently had to intervene to settle a conflict between various claimants to priesthood.Google Scholar

page 353 note 3 Mark, xi. 15ff.Google Scholar and parallels; John, ii. 14ff.Google Scholar

page 353 note 4 Yoma 23a; Parah, iii. 7ff.;Google ScholarParah, T. iii. 8; etc. On the statements of Josephus, cf. Smith, Patestinian Judaism, loc. cit.Google Scholar

page 353 note 5 Neh, . xiii. 10ff.Google Scholar

page 353 note 6 Neh, . xiii. 22.Google Scholar

page 353 note 7 See especially tractates Demai and T. Demai, passim. For the associations and their rules, T. Demai 2, with Lieberman's commentary and the recent study by Neusner, J., ‘The Fellowship in the second Jewish Commonwealth’, H. T.R. LIII (1960), 125 ff.Google Scholar

page 353 note 8 The passage which makes most of it is Heb. vii, and that is not much.

page 353 note 9 Neh, . xiii. 1522.Google Scholar

page 354 note 1 E.g. Mark, ii. 23ff.; iii. 2ff.Google Scholar and parallels; John, v. 16; ix. 16, etc.Google Scholar

page 354 note 2 C.D., vi. 18; x. 14ff.Google Scholar

page 354 note 3 Tractate Shabbat, passim.

page 354 note 4 Neh, . xiii. 2330.Google Scholar

page 354 note 5 C.D., iv. 17, third in the order in which they have been discussed in this article, though first to be mentioned in the text. The particular point of marriage law at issue in C.D. is, admittedly, quite different from that in Neh. xiii.Google Scholar

page 354 note 6 That he thought her unfit to marry a Jew, let alone a priest, is shown by the preceding verses.

page 354 note 7 Ezra, iv. 2, welo is certainly to be read for welo'.Google Scholar

page 354 note 8 Neh, . vi. 18.Google Scholar

page 354 note 9 Cowley, A., Aramait Papyri (Oxford, 1923), no. 30, line 29 (with slightly different vocalization).Google Scholar

page 354 note 10 Neh, . xiii. 28.Google Scholar

page 355 note 1 Isa, . lvii. 5, idols under every green tree, human sacrifices in ravines, (6) cults of streams (?), (7) fertility cults on high places, etc.Google Scholar

page 355 note 2 Cowley, loc. cit.

page 355 note 3 Neherniah does contrast what ‘we’ have done to repurchase and free enslaved Israelites, with the practice of the Jerusalem aristocracy of selling debtors into slavery, v. 8. But ‘we’ here could be Nehemiah with his relatives and dependants (so Bertholet, ad. loc., appealing to v. 10) or the Jews of Mesopotamia (so Rudolph ad loc.). Therefore it cannot be used as proof of an organized Deuteronomic sect, and the absence from Nehemiah's account of any other trace of the activity of such a sect amounts to proof that none existed in Jerusalem.

page 355 note 4 Ant. XI, 297ff.Google Scholar

page 355 note 5 Ibid.

page 355 note 6 Ant. xii, 160, 237ff.Google Scholar

page 355 note 7 Moore, G., Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era (Cambridge, Mass., 19271930) 3 vols.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 356 note 1 Smith, , Palestinian Judaism, pp. 73ff.Google Scholar

page 356 note 2 Abhoth, i. 2.Google Scholar I am not persuaded by the ingenious re-interpretation of gemiluth Ḥasidhim in Goldin's, J.The Three Pillars of Simeon the Righteous’, Proc. Amer. Acad. Jewish Res. XXVII (1958), 43ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 356 note 3 Rudolph, W., Esra u. Nehemia (Tūbingen, 1949),Google Scholarad loc. has shown that this cannot have come from Ezra's reforms. The arguments to the contrary by Jepsen, A., ‘Nehemia 10’, Z.A.W. N.F. xxv (1954), 87ff., are unconvincing. Against Rudolph's supposition, that this is a documentary record of Nehemiah's reform, must be objected, beside the fundamental consideration mentioned in the text, the facts that the covenant shows the Sabbath markets, which Nehemiah had closed, were again open, and that it provides that the Levites shall collect the tithes due them in all the towns of the land, whereas one of Nehemiah's main concerns had been to require the delivery by the laity of the Levitical tithes to Jerusalem, so as to hold the Levites as a concentrated force in the city.Google Scholar

page 356 note 4 Verse 29a, certainly in large part, and perhaps entirely, is redactional, see Rudolph, ad loc.

page 356 note 5 Neh, . x. 30;Google Scholar an oath is evidently presupposed by IQS i. 1–20; the remains of an oath formula (‘im lo’) appear in C.D., vi. 14,Google Scholar and the rest of the passage is explicable only if the oath is understood. Josephus, , B.J. II, 139;Google ScholarHippolytus, , Phibos. IX, 23.Google Scholar For the ḥaburah, Lieberman, S., ‘The Discipline in the So-Called Dead Sea Manual of Discipline’, J.B.L. LXXI (1952), 199ff. It should be noticed that the essential act of Christian baptism may also have been a solemn assertion. This would explain why water and formulae could be dispensed with in certain circumstances, such as martyrdom, when the assertion was demonstrated.Google Scholar

page 357 note 1 See above, n. 3, p. 356.

page 357 note 2 Distinct from the Israelites in exile, who are simply haggolah. Ezra, iv. 1; vi. 19f. etc.,Google Scholarcf., ii. 1,Google Scholar and so generally. The Chronicler sometimes uses haggolah for short to refer to his Palestinian organization, Ezra, ix. 4; x. 6 and 8, but the special reference is clear from the context in all these passages.Google Scholar

page 357 note 3 Ezra, iv. 1.Google Scholar

page 357 note 4 Haggai, i. 12; ii. 4.Google Scholar

page 357 note 5 Ezra, vi. 16, 19f.; viii. 35, reading ubhene (haplography after the preceding yodh. This emendation is not necessary to the theory; one could keep the present text and suppose that the new arrivals and the previous ones were alike included in habba'im mehashshebhi).Google Scholar

page 357 note 6 Zech, . vi. 10 is hardly evidence to the contrary. It implies that the returned exiles were known as such in Jerusalem, perhaps that they formed a group there, but no more.Google Scholar

page 357 note 7 Ezra, ix. 3; X. 26.Google Scholar

page 358 note 1 Ezra, x. 78.Google Scholar

page 358 note 2 IQS, vi. 25; vii. 1f.; etc.Google Scholar

page 358 note 3 Ezra, x. 916.Google Scholar

page 358 note 4 Ezra, ix. 1.Google Scholar

page 358 note 5 Ezra, iv. 2, 9, etc.Google Scholar

page 358 note 6 Ezra, vi. 16.Google Scholar

page 358 note 7 Ezra, vi. 21.Google Scholar

page 358 note 8 IQS, v. 1, 10.Google Scholar

page 358 note 9 C.D., vii. 3, that this is an oath was shown above, n. 5, p. 356.Google Scholar

page 359 note 1 Enoch, lxxxix. 73f.Google Scholar

page 359 note 2 Enoch, xc. 13, the horn s not broken.Google Scholar

page 359 note 3 C.D. ii. 16-iii. 14. The pronouns throughout the passage are to be emended accordingly.

page 359 note 4 Accepting Schechter's emendation of iii. 10. On metrical grounds, ‘first’ may be an explanatory addition, but if so the explanation is probably correct.

page 360 note 1 To this it will certainly he objected that the primary thing in Christianity was Jesus' belief that he was the Messiah, so that his followers from the very first joined a sect differentiated primarily by messianic, not legal, peculiarities. Given the state of our knowledge, this objection can neither be maintained nor rebutted with complete confidence. But even if one were to grant that in Christianity, by exception, a messianic belief was primary, one could still maintain that it was legal dispute which precipitated the isolation of Christianity as a distinct sect.