RelSt 225 DSS Class Minutes #19 (12 November 1996)
By Jessica H. Wiener


A promising looking new textbook has come out on the origins of 
Christianity -- <t>The New Testament: A Historical Introduction 
to the Early Christian Writings</> by Bart Ehrman (Oxford 1997). 

There are two article on Qumran in the recent BAR. One, by Jodi 
Magness, discusses the fact that Qumran does not fit any such 
patterns and therefore, is not a resort like Masada. In the 
other, Edward Cook argues that Qumran was a ritual purification 
center. 

We don't know how the Hymns of the DSS were used. The Hodayot 
don't sound liturgical in general. We don't know if they were 
used in public readings the same way as the Hebrew Bible came to 
be used, as in an annual or a triennial cycle with passages 
selected each week from the three subcategories of Torah, 
Haftorah and Psalms. There are fragments of several copies of the 
hymns, showing that they were "popular" in some sense, but how? 

VanderKam discusses the presence of Tefillin and Mezuzot. None 
of these were found in the ruins of Qumran, so they do not 
provide a connection between the ruins and the caves. Pottery 
fragments are the only current connection. Additional evidence 
may someday be found in the graves, but that information probably 
will not become available any time soon because of contemporary 
strictures on excavating graves. 

We read through various hymnic compositions and discussed a 
number of ideas found in them: 

In 1QH, sea imagery is frequent (e.g. cols. 10-11 = GM 328-333). 
It has been suggested that the author, and/or the intended 
audience (at Qumran?), may have been sea traders on the Dead Sea. 

Eschatology is also represented in 1QH col. 11 (GM 331-333), with 
references to Belial (e.g. 28-32) and angelic beings (e.g. 22), 
and elements of personal (fate of the individual), as well as 
cosmic eschatology. Especially interesting is the "crucible" 
section (8-12) with the imagery of birth pangs, which elsewhere 
in early Jewish literature is sometimes used for the transition 
to the eschatological new world. If the two different births 
represented are interpreted in that context, one might think of 
the messiah and antimessiah -- the heroic man (9-10) and the 
serpent dominated one (12, 18). But that is not the most obvious 
reading of this material.

In 1QH col. 12 (GM 334-336), the idea of judgement on those who 
deviate from the covenant is presented as the triumph of God's 
truth over deception -- including the imagery of a net spread, 
catching even those who were once connected with the covenant 
(e.g. 19).
 
The "Songs of the Sage" (GM 371-6) include a listing of beings 
from which/whom God can rescue a person -- the ravaging angels, 
the bastard spirits, demons, Liliths, owls and jackals. It is a 
personal psalm reflecting a dualistic outlook -- the struggle 
between good and evil. On GM 376 are "Psalms of Exorcism" 
providing magical formulae to protect from the influences of the 
demonic world. 

4QWiles of the Wicked Woman (GM 379) deals with the theme 
of foolishness (anti-wisdom!) in the imagery of a seductive woman 
(compare Proverbs 8-9 on wisdom as a woman). The counterimage of 
Sarah in the Genesis Apocryphon is noteworthy with regard to some 
of the descriptive details.
 
/end/