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

PAUL GARNET 371
WHERE WE HAVE REACHED AND THE WAY AHEAD
Does it follow, then, that the DSS are of only limited usefulness for an
understanding of NT atonement doctrine? We have seen nothing in the
scrolls that resembles the sacrificial death of Christ in the NT either in
the content or the extent and importance of the idea. This should not
make us lose sight of what we have seen, or stop us from exploring the
potential usefulness of these lines of thought as general soteriological
background to the NT doctrine of salvation and atonement.
The Significance of Mark 10:45
We have seen that Mark 10:45 is the main “port of entry” to NT thinking,
indicating that the doctrine had its origin in the teaching of Jesus
himself. This verse speaks of atonement for “many”—probably a faithful
remnant of Israel being gathered by Jesus and his disciples, although the
allusion to Isaiah 53 points also to the simple thought of the “many” as
in contrast to the “one”: the Son of Man himself. 18 There are, indeed,
other possible sources for the ideas in Mark 10:45 besides those we have
noted. His question, “What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world
and lose his own soul, for what would a man give in exchange for his
soul?” (Mark 8:36–37) surely points forward to an answer such as we
find in Mark 10:45. Psalm 49 (48 LXX) forms a credible background for
this teaching as well as for many other elements in Jesus’ teaching: Son
of Man (o9 ui9o_j tou= a)nqrw/pou, the singular of oi9 ui9oi __
tw~n a)nqrw/pwn,
“sons of men,” as in Ps 48:3 LXX), teaching in parables (cf. 48:5 LXX
[49:4 ET]), the question of the ransom (root lutr-) and of giving an
atonement (e0ci/lasma) to God for an individual (48:8–9 LXX [49:7–8
ET]). There follows a meditation on the uselessness of riches for one who
is dying and the folly of those who trust in riches (48:14, 18 [49:13, 17
ET]; cf. Luke 12:20).
Mark 10:45 can be seen as an important source of so much in NT
atonement teaching: Christ’s service in his death, Jesus giving himself in
death (frequent, leading to the thought of God giving the Son, naturally
following from the Gethsemane narrative: it was the Father’s will); the
18. Isaiah 53 ends with the clauses “and he himself bore the sin of many and made
intercession for the transgressors.” Caiaphas’s counsel in John 11:47–53 is evidence
that the thought of one person dying for the people was by no means strange in contemporary
Judaism.