The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls: The ... - josephprestonkirk

140 A STUDY IN SHARED SYMBOLISM AND LANGUAGE
they may be one (hen) even as we are one (hen), I in them and you in me,
that they may become perfectly one (hen). [ John 17:20–23]
The reference in John 17 to the “glory that you gave me” has a
Qumran ring to it. The understanding and use of “glory” in the Dead Sea
Scrolls and the Fourth Gospel are significantly similar and distinct from
the concept of glory in the Old Testament. At Qumran “glory” denotes
God’s glorious design and wisdom (1QS 3.16; 4.18) or the dwelling place
of God (1QH 12.30). The Qumran linkage between God’s glory and
salvation (1QH 6.12, 14; 12.15, 22; 16.9) is a significant development
beyond the Old Testament concept of “glory” and may lie behind the
Johannine claim that “we have beheld his glory” (1:14). 138 Ferreira concludes
his comparison of “glory” at Qumran and in the Fourth Gospel
with these words: “John inherited his concept of do&ca from the Dead Sea
Scrolls, and modified it to emphasize salvation corresponding to his
Christology, which emphasizes the descent of the heavenly Revealer.” 139
Is it also conceivable that converted Essenes living within the
Johannine community, and perhaps some converted Essenes working in
the Johannine School, helped other Johannine Jews (and Greeks) work
through the tragic traumas of their schism in light of a theology of “being
one.” Ferreira judges, and I think rightly, that the Qumran use of terms
for one and oneness (Yah[ad [dxy]) “may help to clarify the Johannine
motif of unity,” and that these do help us comprehend “some of the traditions
that flow into the Johannine theological prism.” He also wisely
stresses that the “Johannine oneness motif is not to be found in any”
prior Jewish tradition, and that the creative theology of this Gospel is
seen in presenting the Father and Son as one, and united, “in action and
function.” 140
The full extent of Essene influence at the level of the Gospel’s redaction,
perhaps as a means of rethinking some aspects of the schism with
the synagogue and then within the community, needs to be explored and
carefully researched. Guiding such further research should be the experience
of alienation and rejection experienced by Essenes for centuries
and the fact that both the Qumran Community and the Johannine community
may be designated “sects,” since both were isolated from “mainstream”
Judaism and persecuted by some of its leaders.
9. Purity. The Qumranites accentuated the necessity of ritualistic
purity in an extreme way within Second Temple Judaism. As Hannah K.
138. See ibid., 145–65.
139. Ibid., 162.
140. Ibid., 133–34.