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

CHAPTER NINE
THE DREAM OF A NEW JERUSALEM AT QUMRAN
Adela Yarbro Collins
This essay is based on the conclusion of many scholars that there was a
Jewish sectarian community, whose members were probably Essenes,
that emerged in the mid-second century B.C.E. and established communal
buildings at the site known today as Khirbet Qumran. Not all the
documents found in caves near the site were composed by members of
this community. The sectarian documents date from various periods and
may reflect different points of view held at different times. Nevertheless,
this essay attempts to synthesize ideas about Jerusalem expressed in the
nonbiblical manuscripts and consider to what extent these various ideas
are compatible with one another. But first I sketch a brief history of the
main religious ideas relating to Jerusalem.
JERUSALEM IN THE HEBREW BIBLE AND IN HISTORY
According to Genesis 14, Abraham, after defeating four foreign kings,
was honored by local rulers, including Melchizedek, the king of Salem.
The city of Salem is identified with Jerusalem in Ps 76:3 MT (76:2 ET).
A historical reading of the source incorporated into Genesis 14 leads to
the conclusion that Melchizedek was a priest of the Canaanite deity El-
Elyōn. Later religious Hebrew literature identified El-Elyōn with the God
of Israel. 1 In the description of the territory assigned to the tribe of Judah
in Joshua 15, the writer takes extreme care to show that the stronghold
of Jebus (Jerusalem) lies outside Judah’s border. 2 When David became
king of Israel, he ruled at first for seven and a half years in Hebron
before conquering Jerusalem, the city of the Jebusites, and making it his
capital (2 Sam 5:1–10). After uniting Israel and Judah under his rule,
David eliminated the old Jebusite enclave from the midst of his newly
1. Ephraim A. Speiser, Genesis (AB 1; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1964), 105–9.
2. Joshua 15:8–9, 63; for discussion, see Robert G. Boling, Joshua (AB 6: Garden
City, NY: Doubleday, 1982), 370, 392–93.
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