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

ENNO E. POPKES 305
already mentioned in the Sayings Source (Matt 5:39–48 par. Luke
6:27–36), the Lukan rephrasing of the commandment to love (Luke
10:25–37), or Pauline statements about refraining from retribution or
about the love for one’s enemies (Rom 12:9–21; 1 Cor 4:12–13; 1 Thess
5:15)—the question of the extent of the commandment to love is no
immediate problem of the author of the First Epistle of John. Instead, he
wants to remind his addressees of their mutual responsibility in the face
of the Johannine schism. He does not address the alternative between
brotherly love and the love for one’s neighbor but the fundamental contrast
between the love and the hatred for one’s brother (cf. e.g., 1 John
2:9–11; 3:14–15). However, it is neither explicitly nor implicitly forbidden
to practice the commandment to love also beyond the community’s
borders. 52
This fact categorically distinguishes the commandment to love in the
Johannine writings from the self-view of the Qumran writings, which
demands both love for the members of the group as well as hatred for
outsiders. Thus, the Rule of the Community requires its audience to love “all
the sons of light” (1QS 1.9b) and to hate “all the sons of darkness” (1QS
1.10b). 53
51. Appropriately, Siegfried Schulz, Neutestamentliche Ethik (ZGB; Zurich:
Theologischer Verlag, 1987), 527; similarly, Rudolf K. Bultmann, Die drei
Johannesbriefe (7th ed.; KEK 14; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1967), 35;
Georg Strecker, Die Johannesbriefe (KEK 14; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht,
1989), 263. By contrast, Fernando F. Segovia, Love Relationships in the Johannine
Tradition: Agape¯/Agapan in I John and the Fourth Gospel (SBLDS 58; Chico, CA: Scholars
Press, 1982), 76, regards the Johannine commandment to love as limited to the group.
Similarly James L. Houlden, Ethics and the New Testament (Harmondsworth: Penguin,
1973), 36; Wolfgang Schrage, Ethik des Neuen Testaments (4th ed.; GNT 4; Göttingen:
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1982), 317–18, esp. 322; idem (5th ed.; 1989), 322; Jack
T. Sanders, Ethics in the New Testament: Change and Development (Philadelphia: Fortress,
1975), 100; Ernst Käsemann, Jesu letzter Wille nach Johannes 17 (4th ed., repr.;
Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1980), 136; Michael Lattke, Einheit im Wort (SANT 41;
Munich: Kösel Verlag, 1975), 24–26; etc. More reconciliatorily, Wayne A. Meeks,
“The Man from Heaven in Johannine Sectarianism,” JBL 91 (1972): 44–72, 71,
speaks merely of a “sectarian consciousness” of the Johannine community.
52. More extensively on this, see Enno E. Popkes, Die Theologie der Liebe Gottes in den
johanneischen Schriften: Studien zur Semantik der Liebe und zum Motivkreis des Dualismus
(WUNT 2/197; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005).
53. This request is furthermore included in the opening of a text that can be understood
as a constitution of the Qumran community and repeats this several times. Cf.
1QS 1.3–4; 5.23–6.3; 9.15–16, 21–22; and VanderKam, Dead Sea Scrolls Today, 57–58,
76–77. Similarly James H. Charlesworth, “Qumran, John and the Odes of Solomon,”
in John and the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. J. H. Charlesworth et al.; Crossroad Christian
Origins Library; New York: Crossroad, 1991), 107–36, 114, emphasizes that one of