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

208 THE SCROLLS’ IMPACT ON SCHOLARSHIP ON HEBREWS
a traditional form and perhaps even a specific collection of proof texts. Yet
Hebrews has developed any inherited materials in its own way. The
citations, for example, of Deut 32:43 LXX in 1:6 and Ps 103:4 LXX
(104:4 ET) in verse 7 seem specifically related to the comparison of Christ
and the angels and thus are part of the argument that Hebrews is making.
The significance of the comparison has long intrigued commentators.
Attempts to construe Hebrews as a polemic against a Christology or
piety that reverences angels founder on the lack of explicit polemic with
these issues. 26 Such construals fail to recognize the text’s rhetorical strategy.
Christ is not compared to something denigrated but to entities valued
and revered, whose high status redounds to his glory. 27 That Christ’s
exaltation made him superior to all heavenly powers was, moreover, a
common early Christian affirmation. 28
While polemic is unlikely, the argument of the first chapter suggests
that author and addressees shared a piety where angels played a role.
The significance of such piety, amply attested in the scrolls, has become
increasingly apparent. According to 1QSa 2.3–10, the community was to
maintain purity, while admission to the assembly was denied to those
“defiled in his flesh, paralyzed in his feet or in his hands, lame, blind,
deaf, dumb or defiled in his flesh with a blemish.” The reason for the prohibition
is the presence of angels in the assembly: “He unites their assembly
to the sons of the heavens in order (to form) the council of the
Community and a foundation of the building of holiness to be an everlasting
plantation” (1QS 11.8). 29 The community’s sense that it was
26. For example, Thomas W. Manson, “The Problem of the Epistle to the
Hebrews,” BJRL 32 (1949): 109–34; and Robert Jewett, Letter to Pilgrims: A Commentary
on the Epistle to the Hebrews (New York: Pilgrim, 1981), 5–13; both of these works posit
a situation similar to what confronted Paul or Pseudo-Paul at Colossae. For discussion
of earlier theories, see Hurst, Epistle to the Hebrews, 45–46, who notes some of the
pronounced differences between Hebrews and the angelology of the scrolls. The designation
of angels as “sons of heaven” in 1QS 4.22; 11.8; and 1QH 3.22 (Dupont-
Sommer/Sukenik = 11.22 in García Martínez), and as “gods” in 4QDeut (=
4Q37–38) 32:43 and 11QMelch (= 11Q13) 10, citing Ps 82:1, bespeaks a higher
regard for angels than that appears in Hebrews.
27. For treatment of the rhetoric of status in Hebrews, see DeSilva, Perseverance in
Gratitude.
28. Cf. Phil 2:10; 1 Pet 3:22.
29. Cf. also 1QSa 2.8–9: “For angels of holiness are among their congregation.”
Angels are not only peaceful creatures; according to 1QM 7.6: “The holy angels are
together with their armies.” On purity notions in the Second Temple period, see now
Jonathan Klawans, Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2000); and, particularly important for the social dimensions of purity concerns,
see Christine Hayes, Gentile Impurities and Jewish Identities: Intermarriage and Conversion
from the Bible to the Talmud (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).