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

HEINZ-WOLFGANG KUHN 165
Qumran ideas than 1 Thess 5:4–9, in Paul’s earliest known letter. There
is a tension between Paul’s intention to speak in 1 Thess 5:4–8 of “day”
and “night” (referring to “the day of the Lord” in v. 2), and the dualistic
opposition between “light” and “darkness” in vv. 4–5. This tension
points to the use of tradition. Discovering this tradition aids a better
understanding of the Pauline text, whose argumentation is on the literary
level not fully coherent.
3. A New Covenant
Paul
Second Corinthians 3:6: “us [the apostles] as ministers of a new
covenant”; “new covenant” is found also in the tradition of the Lord’s
Supper in 1 Cor 11:25 (see B 4, below). In 2 Cor 3:14 regarding the
Torah (Pentateuch), Paul speaks of the end of the “old covenant.”
Compare also Gal 4:24–25, contrasting “two covenants,” and one of
them “comes from Mount Sinai.”
Qumran
CD 6.19 (partly 4QD d [4Q269] frag. 4 2.1): “those who entered the new
covenant (h#dxh tyrbh y)b) in the land of Damascus.” See also CD
8.21; the parallel 19.33–34 (with wording like 6.19); 20.12 (all CD-passages
are found in the so-called “Admonition” [CD 1–8; 19–20 + 4QD
MSS]); see also 1QpHab 2.3: “the trai[tors of] the new [covenant]”
(h#dxh[ tyrbb Myd]gwbh). There are no more occurrences of the
term “new covenant” in the Qumran texts. Compare further in Prayers for
Festivals (1QPr Fetes = 1Q34 + 1Q34 bis ), 38 a text whose Qumranian origin
(1971 and 1979; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 205–17 (part 1), 292–93 (part 2);
Joachim Gnilka, “2 Cor 6:14–7:1 in the Light of the Qumran Texts and the Testaments
of the Twelve Patriarchs,” (first in 1968, later) in Paul and the Dead Sea Scrolls
(ed. J. Murphy-O’Connor and J. H. Charlesworth; New York: Crossroad, 1990),
48–68. Differently, Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, “Philo and 2 Cor 6:14–7:1,” RB 95
(1988): 55–69. Margaret E. Thrall in “The Problem of II Cor. VI. 14–VII. 1 in Some
Recent Discussion,” NTS 24 (1978): 132–48, argues, in spite of “so many points of
comparison with Qumran” (138), for a Pauline authorship.
38. 1Q34 and 1Q34 bis are only one manuscript (thus not 1QPrFetes a+b ); see John
C. Trever, “Completion of the Publication of Some Fragments from Qumran Cave I,”
RevQ 5, no. 19 (1965): 323–44 (see pl. IV).