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

PAUL GARNET 359
3. Examine the occurrences of the Greek equivalents of these terms in the
NT with a view to finding a link with the OT-DSS. This would give us a
port of entry or lead-in from the atonement terminology and thinking of
the Jewish background to the NT idea of atonement with its strong
emphasis on the death of Christ.
4. After outlining the general character of atonement thinking at Qumran,
examine some suggestions as to ways in which NT atonement thinking
might have developed from ideas in Judaism as exemplified at Qumran:
the community’s sufferings as atoning, DSS messianic figures as atoning.
THE QUESTIONOFTHEMEANING OF NT ATONEMENT TERMS
Usage of Atonement Terms in the OT
In 1974 the present writer examined every instance of kipper and kôpher in
the OT and the DSS then accessible and concluded that the situation was
more complex than either Morris or Lyonnet had proposed. 5 I found
that, though the denotation of kipper was sometimes propitiation and
sometimes expiation, the connotation was almost always the same: the
putting away of wrath. I counted thirteen distinct usages in the OT, but
there are four major groupings:
1. Social, where the offended entity is human. In Gen 32:20 (32:21 MT)
Jacob plans to propitiate 6 the “face” of his offended brother by a gift.
Elsewhere the cognate kôpher is used for such a gift, as in Prov 6:35.
2. Socioreligious, where the offended entity is human, but God is openly
involved in some way (e.g., 2 Sam 21:1–14; see v. 3, “with what shall I
make atonement?”).
3. Levitical, where the prescribed atoning procedure is the means of acceptance
by God: the priest makes atonement for the sin of the worshipper,
who is bringing an offering. Various Hebrew prepositions might be represented
by “for” here, but neither the person atoned for, nor his sin ever
appears as the direct object of the verb. God never appears as the direct
object of the verb either, whether in the priestly literature or anywhere
else in the OT, the whole action being conceived as taking place “before
the Lord.” I argue that this rather spiritual language retains overtones of
5. Paul Garnet, “Atonement Constructions in the Old Testament and the Qumran
Scrolls,” EvQ 46 (1974): 131–63, esp. 133–59 for a discussion of individual passages
(except the more recently published 4Q400).
6. In the summaries and renderings of Hebrew texts, which follow, the English
word in italics represents the verb kipper, while the Hebrew word kôpher will be left
untranslated.