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

PAUL GARNET 361
any of the three distinctive DSS usages (though it is closest to the second).
In the OT it comes closest to Gen 32:20, as Carol Newsom has
pointed out. 10 Formerly much scholarship was inclined to deny a religious
propitiatory sense for kipper, but this relatively new text is a clear
instance of the idea.
The Search for Equivalent Terms in the NT
It might seem desirable to look in the LXX for the link between the root
kpr and actual NT atonement vocabulary. Now the favorite LXX verb
for kipper is e0cila&skesqai (exilaskesthai), but this word never occurs in the
NT! Why not? Here are some possibilities:
• rejection of the temple system of atonement
• NT atonement ideas originating before Greek was the dominant language
of Christianity
Instead of exilaskesthai we find i9la&skesqai (hilaskesthai), but not frequently.
In Luke 18:13 in the parable of the publican and the Pharisee in
the temple, it means “be merciful” and God is the subject of the verb:
“God, be merciful to me the sinner.” This is probably not a representation
of the Hebrew kipper, however, since the closest we find to this usage
as a translation of kipper in the Greek OT is in the Psalms, where sins are
the object of the verb and God the subject (Ps 65:3 [4 MT]; 78:38), and
where the verb clearly means “forgive sins” not “be merciful to sinners.”
We find a closer fit in a passage where hilaskesthai translates the verb xls
(salah[, forgive) followed by an indirect object “to,” as in 2 Kgs 5:18 (the
Lord be merciful to thy servant [Naaman]). Since hilaskesthai renders salah[
more often than it does kipper, the balance of probability is that kipper
does not lie behind the wording in this passage of Luke. Now salah[ basically
means to forgive, but sometimes the constructions used compel us
to render it “be merciful to.” Attempts to insert the atonement idea here
by noting the similarity between hilaskesthai and i9lasth&rion (hilaste¯rion,
the mercy seat) are too forced. The problem of Luke’s lack of references
to the atoning value of the death of Christ cannot be so easily solved.
The other instance of hilaskesthai in the NT is in Heb 2:17: “that he
might be a merciful and faithful high priest to make propitiation for the
sins of the people,” but here “sins” is the direct object of the verb, so
10. Carol. A. Newsom, Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice: A Critical Edition (HSS 27;
Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985), 104–5.