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

162 IMPACT OF QUMRAN TEXTS ON PAULINE THEOLOGY
Qumran
1QS 8.5–6 (partly 4QSe [4Q259] 2.13–14; also in 4Q Miscellaneous Rules
[4Q265] frag. 7 line 8): “…then the society of the Community shall be
established in truth to be an everlasting plantation (4QSe : […according
to] eternal [ju]stice), a house of holiness for Israel and a foundation (or:
an assembly) of a holy (6) of holies for Aaron (tyb Mlw( t(+ml …
Nwrh)l My#dwq / #dwq dwsw l)r#yl #dwq)”; 4QSe reads the first
word in 2.14 as +XpX X#X[ml…]; 4Q265 has a gap here. See also 1QS 8.8–9;
the combination of temple and plantation in 1QS 11.8; and further, for
example, CD 3.18–4.10 and especially 3.19, “a safe house in Israel”;
according to the context, this is the community as temple.
Explanations
Outside Qumran and the Christian literature in the Hellenistic-Roman
period or earlier, there seems to be no parallel to an understanding of a
group as temple. Paul speaks of the community as a temple of God in 1
Cor 3:16–17, 29 the Qumran texts in 1QS 8.5–6, 8–9, and other texts.
Both Paul and Qumran texts combine with this the understanding of the
community as “field” (gew/ rgion, 1 Cor 16:9) 30 or “plantation” (t(+m,
1QS 8.5, which is misread as +p#m in 4QS e 2.14; t(+m also appears in
1QS 11.8); Paul does this in the context (see 3:5–9), Qumran directly in
1QS 8.5–6 and in 11.8.
In 1 Cor 3:10–12 Paul uses the term “foundation (qeme&lion)” three
times 31 which is found also in 1QS 8.8 (perhaps, too, in lines 5–6). 32 In
8.8 the text says that the foundations (whytwdwsy) of the community
shall “not tremble nor sway in their place.”
There is a certain tension in Paul between “God’s field” and “God’s
building” (v. 9), planted and built by Paul and others, and the idea of the
community as a temple, where nothing is said of human activity. In this
context, the latter idea gives the impression of a tradition that has been
taken over. In using the combination “temple,” “plantation,” and “foundation,”
does Paul draw on Qumran tradition? 33
29. In 1 Cor 6:19 Paul speaks of the individual believer whose “body is a temple
of the Holy Spirit.”
30. In 1 Cor 3:9 the apostle and his fellow workers are juxtaposed to the group of
believers.
31. The only other place where Paul uses the word qeme&lion is in Rom 15:20.
32. See the translation given above.
33. For further discussion see especially Georg Klinzing, Die Umdeutung des Kultus in
der Qumrangemeinde und im Neuen Testament (SUNT 7; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &