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The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible

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The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible James C. VanderKam WILLIAM B. EERDMANS PUBLISHING COMPANY GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN / CAMBRIDGE, U.K. © 2oi2 James C. VanderKam AU rights reserved Published 2012 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 2140 Oak Industrial Drive N.E., Grand Rapids, Michigan 49505 / P.O. Box 163, Cambridge CB3 9PU U.K. Printed in the United States of America 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 7654321 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data VanderKam, James C. The Dead Sea scrolls and the Bible / James C. VanderKam. p. cm. "Six of the seven chapters in The Dead Sea scrolls and the Bible began as the Speaker's Lectures at Oxford University, delivered during the first two weeks of May 2009" — Introd. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-8028-6679-0 (pbk.: alk. paper) L. Dead Sea scrolls. 2. Dead Sea scrolls — Relation to the Old Testament. 3. Dead Sea scrolls — Relation to the New Testament. 4. Judaism — History — Post-exilic period, 586 B.c-210 A.D. I. Title. BM487.V255 2012 22i.4'4 — dc23 2011029919 www.eerdmans.com Contents INTRODUCTION IX ABBREVIATIONS XÜ ι. The "Biblical" Scrolls and Their Implications ι Number of Copies from the Qumran Caves 2 Other Copies 4 Texts from Other Judean Desert Sites 5 Nature of the Texts 7 General Comments 7 The Textual Picture 9 An End to Fluidity 15 Conclusions from the Evidence 15 New Evidence and the Text-Critical Quest 17 2. Commentary on Older Scripture in the Scrolls 25 Older Examples of Interpretation 28 In the Hebrew Bible 28 Older Literature Outside the Hebrew Bible 30 Scriptural Interpretation in the Scrolls 35 ν Continuous Pesharim 36 Other Forms of Interpretation 38 Conclusion 47 3. Authoritative Literature According to the Scrolls 49 The Importance of Scripture 52 Was There a Collection of Authoritative Scrolls in the Second Temple Period? 55 Scriptural Practice 60 Statements about Groups of Authoritative Works 61 Statements That Specific Works Were from God and Thus Authoritative 67 Quotations from a Book Introduced with Citation Formulas 69 A Commentary 70 4. New Copies of Old Texts 72 The Texts 73 Jubilees 73 Aramaic Levi 77 The Book of Giants 81 The Wisdom of Ben Sira (Sirach) 85 Tobit 89 Enoch 91 Epistle of Jeremiah 93 Psalms 151,154, 155 93 5. Groups and Group Controversies in the Scrolls 96 The Three Groups 98 Essenes 99 Sadducees 104 Pharisees 107 Contents 6. The Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament Gospels 118 Messiahs 120 The Works of the Messiah 127 Scriptural Interpretation 130 Legal Matters 133 Rebuking 137 7. The Dead Sea Scrolls, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Letters of Paul 142 The Scrolls and Acts 1-4 142 Community of Goods 143 Acts 2, Pentecost, and Sinai 147 Conclusions 155 Paul 156 Scriptural Interpretation 156 2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1 159 Works of the Law 163 BIBLIOGRAPHY 167 INDEX 183 Introduction ix of the seven chapters in The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible began as Sthe Speaker's Lectures at Oxford University, delivered during the first two weeks of May 2009. For the published form of the lectures, I have changed the first person address of the speeches to the third person, en­ tered many minor alterations into the texts, and supported the statements in the texts with footnotes. I am grateful to John Barton of Oriel College for the invitation to be the Speaker's Lecturer. In the invitation he suggested that the lectures be de­ voted to topics in the Dead Sea Scrolls. I took that suggestion in a broad sense — surveying some of the many ways in which the scrolls enlighten one's reading of the Bible, also understood in a broad sense as including the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and the New Testament. In fact, the New Tes­ tament is an important resource for several of the chapters. This is a posi­ tion it naturally occupies as a near-contemporary, largely Jewish witness to practices, procedures, beliefs, and debates in the late Second Temple period. The purpose of the lectures themselves and also of their published form is to provide up-to-date, accessible overviews of major subjects in the area of the scrolls and the Bible, especially ones that have interested me over the last several decades. Each of them covers central topics in scrolls research and inquires about the significance of the data for material in the Bible. In particular, I have attempted to think through the implications of the scrolls for their time and in their contexts by asking questions such as: What is the information available, what are the problems connected with it, and what possibilities are raised by it? In approaching the areas covered in the lectures and now in the chapters of this book, I have drawn upon my previous work, revised, updated, and added to it, while also drawing upon the many studies written by colleagues and friends in the busy field of scrolls research. Given the nature of the book, it is not my purpose to pro­ vide full bibliographical coverage but rather to make a selection from the nearly innumerable publications in order to furnish the reader with docu­ mentation and indications where further information may be found. The first chapter, "The 'Biblical' Scrolls and Their Implications," be­ gins with a survey of the manuscript copies of books that eventually be­ came part of the Hebrew Bible, citations of those books, and other evi­ dence for their texts in the Judean Desert finds; but it is more concerned with providing specific examples from the manuscripts and with explor­ ing where the newer data lead. Chapter 2, "Commentary on Older Scrip­ ture in the Scrolls," focuses on a major preoccupation of the authors — ex­ plaining the meaning of older, authoritative works for their time. Included are studies of the sources of interpretation — whether in the Hebrew Bible or other, older works — on which the writers could draw and the ways in which they went about handling these more ancient texts. The third chap­ ter, "Authoritative Literature According to the Scrolls," deals with the as­ sumptions that drove the scrolls writers and the ways in which they indi­ cate which ancient texts functioned authoritatively at a time when there was not, as nearly as one can tell, a canon of scripture in the strict sense of the term. In Chapter 3 New Testament information is adduced as helpful comparative evidence from roughly the same historical period. The fourth chapter contains an essay that was not delivered as one of the Speaker's Lectures. "New Copies of Old Texts" is a study of various Jewish compositions that were known before the scrolls discoveries (made between 1947 and 1956) but of which fragmentary copies from the original language texts have turned up in the caves at Qumran. The works covered are Jubilees, Aramaic Levi, the Book of the Giants, the Wisdom of Ben Sira, Tobit, Enoch (especially the Greek fragments from cave 7 that may contain bits of the Epistle of Enoch), the Epistle of Jeremiah, and Psalms 151,154, and 155. All of these works, apart from Aramaic Levi, have found a place in the Bibles of various groups — even the Book of the Giants among the Manichees — and for that reason can be said to fall under the overall ru­ bric of The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible. In Chapter 5, "Groups and Group Controversies in the Scrolls," I turn to the question of whether the scrolls deal with the three "sects" that Josephus mentioned — Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes — and what they say about them, if they do mention them. The texts plainly, in my opinion, speak of the first and last of these groups, using specific names for both, while the evi­ dence is weaker for the presence of Sadducees, though there is evidence for a "Sadducean" approach to law in the scrolls. Once again New Testament pas­ sages are summoned as comparative material. The final two chapters are directed principally at places in the Gospels, Acts, and letters of Paul where the scrolls provide illumination that en­ riches the reading of those texts. The sixth chapter, "The Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament Gospels," examines several pericopes and topics (e.g., messianism, legal matters) that benefit the student of the New Testa­ ment in understanding phenomena in the texts. The last chapter, "The Dead Sea Scrolls, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Letters of Paul," offers analyses of the first chapters of Acts that exhibit profound parallels with the scrolls, along with some differences, and a number of issues in Pauline studies (scriptural interpretation, 2 Cor. 6:14-7:1, works of the law) in con­ nection with material in the scrolls. I wish to thank all in Oxford who made my visit and my wife Mary's stay for the second week such a memorable and enjoyable one: John Barton, as noted, who issued the invitation but was prevented by family matters from being present as he intended; Paul Joyce of St. Peter's College, who ably stepped in and also hosted us at his college; the Rev. Peter Southwell of Queen's College, Markus Bockmuehl of Keble College and his wife Celia, Christopher Rowland of Queen's College, and John Day of Lady Margaret Hall, all of whom served as hosts for meals; Alison Salvesen, Martin Good­ man, and Fergus Millar, who welcomed me to the Oriental Institute; and Geza Vermes, a longtime fellow devotee of the scrolls. I am also grateful to Mrs.
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