Qumran Methods of Receiving Revelation for Pesher Interpretation

Exegete as Prophet? Qumran Methods of Receiving Revelation for Pesher Interpretation

David Joseph Larsen

The pesher-type interpretation in the Dead Sea Scrolls, in which a scriptural passage is followed by an interpretation that can generally be classified as “actualizing” or eschatological in nature, has increasingly been recognized as having been considered to be divinely revealed in some manner.1 It appears, from tex- tual indications in the various pesharim, that the interpreter saw himself as, essentially, employing the gift of prophecy. He did so in imitation of the biblical oracles, in order to provide the proper understanding of the biblical text. The process or mechanism for receiving the interpretations through revelation, however, is obscure in the pesharim texts. Edward M. Cook expressed this dilemma with the following questions:

What exactly were they doing when they received revelation? Did they hear an audible voice, or did they see or hear figures in a vision, or in a dream? did they experience trances, or see miracles, or what? The question is important, because they claimed to have a revelation that the rest of Israel did not have, and we must try to understand what made them think it was a revelation and why only they had it.2

1 Mauriya P. Horgan, Pesharim: Qumran Interpretation of Biblical Books (Washington: The Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1979), 3; Alex P.Jassen, Mediating the Divine (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 361–362; idem, “The Pesharim and the Rise of Commentary in Early Jewish Scrip- tural Interpretation,”Dead Sea Discoveries 19 (2012): 363–398; George J. Brooke, “Prophecy and Prophets in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Looking Backwards and Forwards,” in Prophets, Prophecy, and Prophetic Texts in Second Temple Judaism, ed. M.H. Floyd and R.D. Haak (lhbots 427; London: t&t Clark International, 2006), 151–165; idem, “Prophetic Interpretation in the Pesharim,” in A Companion to Biblical Interpretation in Early Judaism, ed. Matthias Henze (Grand Rapids, mi: Eerdmans, 2012); Martti Nissinen, “Pesharim as Divination: Qumran Exe- gesis, Omen Interpretation and Literary Prophecy,” in Prophecy after the Prophets? The Con- tribution of the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Understanding of Biblical and Extra-Biblical Prophecy, ed. Kristin de Troyer and Armin Lange (Leuven: Peeters, 2009), 42–60; idem, “Transmitting Divine Mysteries: The Prophetic Role of Wisdom Teachers in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Scrip- ture in Transition: Essay on Septuagint, Hebrew Bible, and Dead Sea Scrolls in Honour of Raija Sollamo, ed. Anssi Voitila and Jutta Jokiranta (JSJSup 126; Leiden: Brill, 2008), 513–533. 2 Edward M. Cook, “What Did the Jews of Qumran Know about God and How Did They Know

The current study will evaluate the possible methods used by the authors of the pesharim for obtaining the revelations that provided the interpretations contained in these texts. To arrive at the answer to questions like Cook’s, I will explore likely precedents and traditions that may have influenced the Qum- ran exegetes’ notions regarding prophecy, including the shift from “biblical” prophecy to the priestly-scribal prophecy that is observable in the Qumran and other Second Temple literature. Texts in the Qumran library that share simi- lar concepts of divine revelation will be analyzed and brought to bear on our understanding of how revelation may have been understood for the authors of the pesharim.

1 Pesher Interpretation as Prophecy

A pesher consisted of a continuous commentary on or interpretation of an authoritative text, which was often (but not always) introduced by a varia- tion on the word pēšer, which is generally taken to mean “interpretation.”3 Most of the pesharim that we see among the Dead Sea Scrolls are on the prophetic books of the Bible and the Psalms, which were likely understood to be prophetic as well. We should understand that the pesher interpretation was a type of “actualizing” exegesis in which the interpreter of the text saw what he was reading as “immediately relevant” to his own situation.4 George Brooke notes that the interpretive material is not presented as “secondary or deriva- tive but as coherent with the divine communication received by the prophet.”5 In other words, the interpretations of scriptural prophecy contained in the pesharim were considered to be authoritative and to be prophecy on the level of the words of the original prophet. The authors of the pesharim apparently believed that the fulfillment of the “mysteries” contained in the writings of the prophets of old had been revealed by God to them, and that, generally speak- ing, the events that the prophets foretold had been, or would be, realized in the authors’ own time.

It? Revelation and God in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Judaism in Late Antiquity, Pt. 5:The Judaism of Qumran: A Systemic Reading of the Dead Sea Scrolls,Vol. 2: WorldView, Comparing Judaisms, ed. Alan J. Avery-Peck, Jacob Neusner, and Bruce D. Chilton (ho 17; Leiden: Brill, 2001), 7. 3 See Horgan, Pesharim, 1. 4 See George J. Brooke, Exegesis at Qumran: 4QFlorilegium in Its Jewish Context (jsot ss 29; Sheffield: Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, 1985), 3. 5 Brooke, “Prophetic Interpretation,” 244.