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

JAMES D. G. DUNN AND JAMES H. CHARLESWORTH 193
Works of the Law
The third point of comparison is, of course, the phrase on which most
attention has so far been rightly focused: hrwth y#&(m. 30 The closeness
of the parallel with Paul’s phrase—“the works of the Law” e1rgwn [or
e1rga] no/mou 31 —has unfortunately been obscured by the translations initially
adopted: “the precepts of the Torah” (Qimron, C27; García
Martínez, 113), “observances of the Law” (Vermes). 32
However, “deed” or “act” is the most natural meaning for h#&(m. 33 Its
appropriateness in MMT is borne out by the various parallels with which
we were already familiar in the Dead Sea Scrolls. In particular, note these
examples of how this noun, in the construct plural (y#&(m), has been
translated:
• 1QH 1.26: “righteous deeds” (Vermes); “works of justice” (García
Martínez)
• 1QH 4.31: “righteous deeds” (Vermes); “acts of justice” (García Martínez)
• 4Q174 (= 4QFlor) 1.7: “works of the Law” (Vermes); “the works of the
law” (García Martínez, 1994) (cf. 1QS 5.21, 23; 6.18; 1QH 6.9).
Indeed, it is noticeable that Qimron and García Martínez both translate
the same term four lines earlier in MMT (hmhy#(mb) as by “their
deeds.” At the SBL meeting in Chicago in November 1994, García
Martínez acknowledged that the printed translation of (his) line 113 was
less satisfactory, and that y#&(m should after all be rendered “works of”
here too, as elsewhere in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Accordingly, García
Martínez’s revised translation of 1996 reads, “some of the works of the
Torah.” 34 It is now beyond reasonable doubt, therefore, that MMT provides
30. Hebrew inserted by Charlesworth.
31. English translation and Greek inserted by Charlesworth.
32. However, Eisenman and Wise, Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered, render the phrase as
“works of the law,” as has Abegg, “Paul.”
33. The ambiguity arises because y#(m can signify “deed” as prescribed deed
(hence “precept”) as well as a deed carried out. Qimron and Strugnell, in Miqsat
Ma(ase ha-Torah (DJD 10), 139n41, note that the LXX translates h#&(m in Exod 18:20
as ta_ e1rga. Also, note that they translate rwdw rwd [y#(mb in the Composite Text,
line 11, as [“events of] ages past” (JHC).
34. In 1997 García Martínez preferred “the works of thanksgiving”; note that the
rendering “works of” is not in question. Michael Bachmann, “4QMMT und
Galaterbrief, hrwt y#&(m und ERGA NOMOU,” ZNW 89 (1998): 91–113, has followed
up his earlier “Rechtfertigung und Gesetzeswerke bei Paulus,” TZ 49 (1993):
1–33—both reprinted in his Antijudaismus im Galaterbrief? Exegetische Studien zu einem
polemischen Schreiben und zur Theologie des Apostels (NTOA 40; Freiburg:
Universitätsverlag, 1999)—and argues that the phrase refers only to the law’s precepts