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THE WAR SCROIL Humaniry and the Angels in Battle Together

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THE WAR SCROIL Humaniry and the Angels in Battle Together CHAPTER TWELVE THE WAR SCROIL Another text which provides us with some important evidence in our search for the community's theological anthropology is the War Scroll. 1 It has generally been thought that the War Scroll is strongly dualistic in its angelology; distinguishing clearly both between good angels and the demonic Belial, and between the suprahuman angels and the human combatants in the eschatological war.2 There are, certainly, portions of the text which speak of a distinction between the human and the angelic. But there are other aspects which, as we shall see, point to the synchronisation of heavenly and earthly worlds in such a way that the righteous are both the effective agents of God's action and his presence, thereby becoming theomorphic or angelic. Humaniry and the Angels in Battle Together The normal scholarly view is that the distinctive theological contri­ bution of the War Scroll to Israel's Holy War tradition is the way in which the human fighters are accompanied by angels who fight beside them or on their behalf. There are several passages which demon­ strate that the Qumran community's general experience of a shared life with the angels had a reflex in its vision for the eschatological battle between the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness. In the first column we are told that ... on this (day) they shall clash in a great carnage; the congregation of divine beings (Q''?~) and the assembly of men, the Sons of Light I Though it is possible that the scroll, or parts thereof, had a pre-Qumranite and extra-Essene history, there is no doubt that in its present form it represents the ideology of the movement centred at Qumran. For a summary of the overlap with other Qumran texts in distinctive language and theology see Wacholder 1983, 78-83. 2 For the War Scroll the "apogee" of apocalyptic spatial dualism see Gammie 1974, 371-cf. Duhaime 1987, 34. See Collins 1997a, 99-106 who looks to Persian ideas for an explanation of the scroll's dualism. 396 CHAPTER TWELVE and the lot of darkness, shall fight each other for (the disclosure of) the might of God, with the uproar of a large multitude and the war cry of divine beings (Cl''?~) and men, on the day of calamity .... (1:10-11). In 12:9 the host of God's spirits (,'m, tI;:l~) is with Israel's foot sol­ diers (cf. 19: 1-2). In 7:3-7 a principal criterion for membership of the camp arranged for battle is a purity compatible with the pres­ ence of "holy angels" in the people's midst. The presence of specifically named angels amongst Israel's ranks is proclaimed through inscrip­ tions on shields of the towers used in combat. According to 9: 15 "On all the shields of the towers they shall write: on the first 'Mich[ae]l,' [... on the third] 'Sariel', on the fourth 'Raphael'."3 And in 10: 10-11 Israel are specifically described as those who can see the angels: they are "seers of angels". In 13: 10 we read of the "prince of light ("tI;O 'iD)" whom long ago God entrusted to Israel's help and under whose dominion are all the spirits of truth. The identity of this character is never defined precisely. He appears elsewhere in QL as the "prince of lights ('iD I:l",tI;)" (lQS 3:20-25). Since Yadin's commentary he has tradition­ ally been identified with Michae1.4 There are both internal and exter­ nal arguments adduced in favour of this identification. In a later passage in the War Scroll (17:6-8) an angel who is sent to Israel's help and who is, it is claimed, identified with Michael, is described in terms similar to those of the "prince of light" in 13:10. Outside of the War Scroll Michael is identified as the prince of Israel (Daniel 10:21; 12:1; 1 Enoch 20:5; b. Yoma 77a etc ...) and he is given high ranking authority over the cosmos and humanity (e.g. 1 Enoch 20:5; b. Hag. 12b). The theme of angelic assistance in the War Scroll is not entirely unique. It has its historical background in the biblical (and ancient Near Eastern) tradition of the divine warrior accompanied by his heavenly hosts. 5 As for the specific role of angels on the battlefield this too is already present in the OT (see Exod 23:20; 33:2; 2 Kgs 19:35; 2 Chr 32:21 cf. 1 Kgs 22:19; 2 Kgs 6:17; Ps 31:6). The theme is well attested in Hasmonean propaganda literature (1 Macc 7: 14; 3 From the broken text which follows (9:16) it seems the second name was Gabriel. This team of four is, of course, traditional (cf. e.g. 1 Enoch 9: 1; 10: 1-11 etc ...). 4 See Yadin 1962, 235-36, cf., e.g., Davidson 1992, 225-227. 5 See the discussion of Miller 1973, 143-4 in the context of pp. 8-144 generally. .
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