The Notion of the Spirit in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in Texts of the Early Jesus Movement

Jörg Frey

1 Introduction1

“Spirit” is an umbrella term. This is true not only for most modern languages, as well as in Greek (for ,(רוח but also in the biblical languages—in Hebrew (for πνεῦμα). If we browse through standard dictionaries for the range of meanings covered by this term, there is a remarkably wide span. In the Septuagint and the New Testament,2 πνεῦμα can denote air in motion, i.e., a wind or a human breathing; an animating principle or influence; a state of mind or

1 The research for the present contribution is rooted in an interdisciplinary project on “The Historical Origins of the Holy Spirit,” launched by myself together with John R. Levison (Seattle Pacific University), and funded jointly by the German Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the American International Catacomb Society. The project brought together a team of specialists in different fields to explore the historical origins of the early Christian notion of the Spirit by evaluating different textual corpora, early Jewish and Greco–Roman: The Dead Sea Scrolls, Jewish mystical traditions, Hellenistic Judaism, Greco–Roman divina- tion, Greco–Roman philosophy, and ancient medical texts. The results, presented at a confer- ence held in Leiden, September 1–3, 2011, were published as The Holy Spirit, Inspiration, and the Cultures of Antiquity: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, ed. J. Frey and J. R. Levison, in collabo- ration with A. Bowden, Ekstasis 5 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2014). The interdisciplinary discussion showed that only a broad inquiry of this sort can bring together all the elements needed for an appropriate historical understanding of the early Christian notion of the Spirit. The scrolls are merely one facet of that multidimensional web, albeit an important one. Their influence should not be the only one studied, but neither may they be ignored. I am highly indebted to my dear colleague Eibert Tigchelaar whose work has furthered my own research. See his collection of texts and commentary included in the abovementioned volume: E. J. C. Tigchelaar, “Historical Origins of the Early Christian Concept of the Holy Spirit: Perspectives from the Dead Sea Scrolls,” ibid., 167–240. Cf. also my previous publications related to this topic: “How did the Spirit become a Person?” ibid., 343–71; and more extensively, idem, “Vom Windbrausen zum Geist Christi und zur trinitarischen Person: Stationen einer Geschichte des Heiligen Geistes im Neuen Testament,” in Der Heilige Geist, ed. J. Frey and D. Sattler, Jahrbuch für Biblische Theologie 24 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2011), 121–54; and, with focus on Paul, idem, “Paul’s View of the Spirit in the Light of Qumran,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls and Pauline Literature, ed. J.-S. Rey, STDJ 102 (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 237–60. Some parts of the latter publication are adapted and further elaborated in the present article. 2 Cf. T. Muraoka, A Greek–English Lexicon of the Septuagint (Louvain: Peeters, 2009), 567; F. W. Danker, ed., A Greek–English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 832–36.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/9789004384231_006 84 Frey disposition; the inner or nonmaterial part of the human person; similarly, a rational or intelligent being with no material existence, a spirit-being; and— finally, of course—a or the divine spirit or the Holy Spirit. In the Hebrew Bible,3 the range of meanings is similar: the physical dimension of air in motion; the anthropological dimension of the human disposition or—in a holistic understanding—spirit, as the place where not only human feelings and emo- tions, but also insight and spiritual disposition are located; and finally, the notion of a divine spirit or the spirit of God, the Holy Spirit. However, only one is used refer to such a divine spirit, from the רוח third of the instances in which spirit of the creator in Genesis 1 to the spirit that empowers the judges or falls upon prophets. Notably, the term “holy spirit” appears only twice in Hebrew, in Isa 63:10–11 and Ps 51:13, two relatively late texts; it also appears in Aramaic, in two passages in Daniel (Dan 5:12; 6:4).4 It increasingly happens, however, that God’s spirit is connected with God’s own “holiness,”5 and can thus be called not only “God’s spirit” but also “holy spirit.”6 This term is much more frequent in postbiblical literature from the land of Israel, including that of Qumran,7

3 Cf. HAL 4:1117–21; W. Gesenius, R. Meyer, and H. Donner, Hebräisches und Aramäisches Handwörterbuch über das Alte Testament, 18th ed. (Heidelberg: Springer 2009), 5:1225–27; D. J. A. Clines, ed., DCH 7:427–40 (with a very helpful list of definitions); R. Albertz and in TDOT 13:365–402. Apart from the ”,רוח“ ,in THAT 2:726–53; H.-J. Fabry ”,רוח“ ,C. Westermann dictionary articles, see M. Dreytza, Der theologische Gebrauch von Ruaḥ im Alten Testament: Eine wort- und satzsemantische Studie (Giessen: Brunnen, 1990); R. Koch, Der Geist Gottes im Alten Testament (Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang, 1991); A. H. J. Gunneweg, “Aspekte des alttes- tamentlichen Geistverständnisses,” in Sola scriptura: Beiträge zu Exegese und Hermeneutik des Alten Testaments, ed. P. Höffken (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1975), 96–106; J. Schreiner, “Wirken des Geistes Gottes in alttestamentlicher Sicht,” in idem, Der eine Gott Israels: Gesammelte Schriften zur Theologie des Alten Testaments, Vol. 3, ed. E. Zenger (Würzburg: Echter, 1997), 83–136; and K.-D. Schunck, “Wesen und Wirksamkeit des Geistes nach der Überlieferung des Alten Testaments,” in idem, Altes Testament und Heiliges Land: Gesammelte Studien zum Alten Testament und zur biblischen Landeskunde, 2 vols. (Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang, 1989), 1:137–51. 4 Schunck, “Wesen und Wirksamkeit,” 137. 5 On the development of a “spirit monotheism” according to which the spirit is increasingly linked with God’s creating activity, see the article by A. W. Pitts and S. Pollinger, “The Spirit in Second Temple Jewish Monotheism and the Origins of Early Christology,” in Christian Origins and Hellenistic Judaism: Social and Literary Contexts for the New Testament, ed. S. E. Porter and A. W. Pitts, TENTS 10 (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 135–76. 6 For this development in postbiblical times, see A. Klein, “From the ‘Right Spirit’ to the ‘Spirit of Truth’: Observations on Psalm 51 and 1QS,” in The Dynamics of Language and Exegesis at Qumran, ed. D. Dimant and R. G. Kratz, FAT 35 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 171–91. 7 Note, e.g., the Daniel tradition in the LXX: Dan 5:12; 6:3 LXX (and more instances in the Theodotion version); cf. also Sus 34 (θ’); on these passages see J. R. Levison, Filled with the Spirit (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 127–30. Furthermore, note Wis 1:5; 7:22; 9:17; Pss. Sol. 17:37; Jub. 1:21–23; L.A.B. 18:11; 28:6; 32:14; 60:1; 62:2; T. Levi 3:6 (see, The Aramaic Levi Document: Edition, Translation, Commentary, ed. J. C. Greenfield, M. E. Stone, and E. Eshel,