The Historic Significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls 1. They supply firsthand knowledge about the forms of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek that Jews spoke and wrote in the first century. 2. They testify to the shape of the text of the Old Testament that the Je

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INSTITUTE OF CATHOLIC CULTURE
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Broad Sense Scrolls and fragmentary documents
found at a number of different locations in the
general region of the Dead Sea, including Masada,
as well the earlier archaeological finds of the
19th century in Egypt, especially those of the
Cairo Genizah. Narrow Sense Scrolls and
fragmentary documents found in 11 caves on the
northwest shore of the Dead Sea near the Wadi
Qumran.
Different Senses of the title Dead Sea Scrolls
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• As you may be wondering what is Qumran and
  what relation do the DSS have to it?

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• Aqueduct
• Building with many rooms
• Cemetery
• Farming plots in the vicinity

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The Historic Significance of the Dead Sea
Scrolls1. They supply firsthand knowledge about
the forms of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek that Jews
spoke and wrote in the first century AD.2. They
testify to the shape of the text of the Old
Testament that the Jews were reading in Palestine
in the period.3. They shed new light on the
diverse forms of Judaism in Palestine in the
period.4. And as a result, the discovery has
provided much information about the religious and
political matrix of first century Palestine, the
time and place in which Jesus was born.
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• What is the significance of the DSS
• for NT Studies?

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• Before the discovery of the DSS
• There were sparse inscriptions in Aramaic, Greek,
  and Hebrew.
• The writings of the Jewish historian Flavius
  Josephus (c. AD 37-100).
• 3. The writings of Philo of Alexandria (30 BCAD
  45)

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• Three Categories among the DSS
• Biblical Texts
• 2. Sectarian Texts
• 3. Intertestamental Literature.

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• Which category do you think is the most
  important?

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• Two texts from cave 4 of Qumran now give evidence
  that there were Hebrew texts in existence from
  the time of the composition of the LXX that had a
  count of seventy-five persons (4QGen-Exoda
  17-182 4QExodb 15).

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• What are some examples of the Significance of the
  other
• two categories of texts?

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• Is there any relationship between John the
  Baptist and the DSS?

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• Josephus described John likewise
•      Now some of the Jews thought that the
  destruction of Herod's army came from God, and
  was a very just punishment for what he did
  against John called the baptist. For Herod had
  him killed, although he was a good man and had
  urged the Jews to exert themselves to virtue,
  both as to justice toward one another and
  reverence towards God, and having done so join
  together in washing.
• For immersion in water, it was clear to him,
  could not be used for the forgiveness of sins,
  but as a sanctification of the body, and only if
  the soul was already thoroughly purified by right
  actions. And when others massed about him, for
  they were very greatly moved by his words, Herod,
  who feared that such strong influence over the
  people might carry to a revolt -- for they seemed
  ready to do any thing he should advise --
  believed it much better to move now than later
  have it raise a rebellion and engage him in
  actions he would regret.     And so John, out
  of Herod's suspiciousness, was sent in chains to
  Machaerus, the fort previously mentioned, and
  there put to death but it was the opinion of the
  Jews that out of retribution for John God willed
  the destruction of the army so as to afflict
  Herod (Antiquities 18.5.2 116-119).

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• According to Josephus, Essenes were known to take
  other mens children, while yet pliable and
  docile and mold them according to their own
  ways (J.W. 2.8.2 120).
• And Josephus even tells about how he himself had
  spent time as a youth among the Essenes (Life 2
  10-11).

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• In all four Gospels
• The voice of one crying out in the wilderness
  (Isa 403).

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• to go into the desert to prepare there His way,
  as it is written, Make ready in the desert the
  way of YHWH make straight in the wilderness
  a path for our God
• (1QS 812-16).

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• According to the NT, John the Baptist not only
  baptized, but preached the need for repentance as
  well (Matt 34-10 Luke 37-9).
• Josephus described John similarly
• He was a good man and had urged the Jews to exert
  themselves to virtue, both as to justice toward
  one another and reverence towards God, and having
  done so join together in washing. For immersion
  in water, it was clear to him, could not be used
  for the forgiveness of sins, but as a
  sanctification of the body, and only if the soul
  was already thoroughly purified by right actions.
• The NT also describes John as foretelling the
  coming of one after him who would baptize with
  the Holy Spirit and fire (Luke 316).

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• Baptism among the DSS
• He who does not repent will not become clean by
  the acts of atonement, nor shall he be purified
  by the cleansing water, nor shall he be made holy
  by the seas or rivers, nor shall he be purified
  by all the water of ablutions. Defiled, defiled
  shall he be all the days he spurns the decrees of
  God, without allowing himself to be taught by the
  community of his counsel. For, by the spirit of
  true counsel concerning the paths of man all his
  sins are atoned so that he can look at the light
  of life. And by the spirit of holiness which
  links him with his truth he is cleansed of all
  his sins. And by the spirit of uprightness and
  of humility his sin is atoned. And by the
  compliance of his soul with all the laws of God
  his flesh is cleansed by being sprinkled with
  cleansing waters and being made holy with the
  waters of repentance (1QS 34-9).
• God will purge by His truth all the deeds of
  human beings, refining i.e., by fire for
  Himself some of mankind to remove every spirit
  from their flesh, to cleanse them with a holy
  Spirit, and sprinkle them with a Spirit of truth
  life purifying water (1QS 420-21).
• One shall not enter the water to partake of the
  pure meal of holy men, for they shall not be
  cleansed unless they repent of their wickedness
  for unclean are all who transgress His word (1QS
  513-14).

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• Is there any relationship of the DSS to the life
  or words of Jesus?

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• to love all sons of light . . . and hate all the
  sons of darkness (1QS 19-10).

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• Are there any parallels between the DSS and the
  rest of the NT?

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• The Righteousness of God
• (1QM 46 and 1QS 1025)

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• Works of the Law
• (4Q1741-2 i 7 4QMMT C 27)

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• Christological Titles
• Lord?
• Son of God?
• Are they Hellenistic?

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• Do the DSS attest to messianic hopes in first
  century Judaism?
• He shall be great upon the earth.  All peoples
  shall make peace with him they shall all serve
  him.  For he shall be called the holy one of the
  Great God, and by His name shall he be named.  He
  shall be hailed son of God, and they shall call
  him son of the Most High. . . . one people shall
  trample upon another, and one province on
  another, until there arises the people of God,
  and everyone rests from the sword (4Q246
  1824).
• The heavens and the earth will listen to His
  Messiah, and all that is in them will not swerve
  from the commandments of holy ones.  Be
  strengthened in His service, all you who seek the
  Lord!  Shall you not find the Lord in this, all
  you who hope in your hearts?  For the Lord will
  visit pious ones, and righteous ones He will
  renew with His power.  He will honor the pious
  ones on a throne of eternal kingship, freeing
  prisoners, giving sight to the blind,
  straightening up those bent over.  Forever shall
  I cling to those who hope, and in His steadfast
  love He will recompense and the fruit of a good
  deed will be delayed for no one.  Wondrous
  things, such as have never been before, the Lord
  will do, as He said.  For He will heal the
  wounded, revive the dead, and proclaim good news
  to the afflicted the poor He will satisfy, the
  uprooted He will guide, and on the hungry He will
  bestow riches(4Q521).

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• The monastery of Qumran . . . is, perhaps, more
  than Bethlehem or Nazareth, the cradle of
  Christianity. . . .
• These new documents have thus loomed as a menace
  to a variety of rooted assumptions, from matters
  of tradition and dogma to hypotheses that are
  exploits of scholarship. . . .It would seem an
  immense advantage for cultural and social
  intercoursethat is, for civilizationthat the
  rise of Christianity should, at last, be
  generally understood as simply an episode of
  human history rather than propagated as dogma and
  divine revelation.
• The study of the Dead Sea scrollswith the
  direction it is now takingcannot fail, one would
  think, to conduce to this (Edmund Wilson,The
  Scrolls from the Dead Sea New York Oxford
  University Press, 1955 97-98, 100, 108).

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• The Christian message itself . . . has found no
  parallel in those Scrolls. There is nothing
  about Jesus of Nazareth or his story or the
  interpretation of him, nothing about he Christian
  church, nothing about the vicarious and salvific
  character of what Jesus accomplished for humanity
  in his passion, death, and resurrection. I am
  not saying this in a defensive or apologetic way
  it is simply a statement of fact. For all the
  light that the Scrolls have shed on the
  Palestinian Jewish matrix of Christianity and on
  ways that early Christians borrowed ideas and
  phrases in order to formulate their kerygmatic
  proclamation of the Christian message, there is
  nothing in the Scrolls that undermines or is
  detrimental to that message. Despite allegations
  made at times, nothing in the Scrolls militates
  against the uniqueness of Jesus (DSS and
  Christian Origins, 39-40).

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• Resources for further Study

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• J. A. Fitzmyer,
• Responses to 101 Questions on the Dead Sea
  Scrolls (New York Paulist, 1992).

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• J. A. Fitzmyer,
• The Dead Sea Scrolls and Christian Origins
  (Grand Rapids Eerdmans, 2000).

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• F. G. Martinez,
• The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated (Leiden Brill,
  1996).