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

458 DEAD SEA SCROLLS AND THE NEW TESTAMENT
them; moreover, they cited passages in their own texts, as in the
Thanksgiving Hymns, 199 and took up phrases from them, such as the term
“the mystery to become” (hyhn zr), which is also used in 1QS 11.3, and
the phrase “spirit of flesh” (r#&b xwr), used in the Thanksgiving Hymns. 200
From the “new” pre-Essene sapiential documents from the Qumran
library, we can see that the notion of “flesh” as a sphere that is sinful and
hostile against God is a sapiential tradition developed in Palestine, in the
postbiblical period of sapiential discussion. So, when Paul in later times
uses the term “flesh” (sa/rc) with the notion of sin and in a clear dualistic
opposition against God’s “Spirit,” his usage shows striking similarities
with Essene and with non-Essene texts. As we can see now, the Pauline
usage does not necessarily call for the assumption of an immediate
Essene influence. It is rather to be explained by the fact that he shares traditions
of Palestinian Jewish wisdom that might have been discussed in
the circles of the sages in Palestine but have been preserved only within
the library of Qumran.
The religio-historical explanation is also important for theological
interpretation. When Paul uses the term “flesh,” this should not be
understood from Hellenistic thought, with its dualism of body and soul
and derogatory view of the bodily existence, but rather from the biblical
and postbiblical sapiential tradition, in which the strife of human beings
was seen as inclined toward evil and hostile to God’s will. This could be
demonstrated only on the background of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The
recently published wisdom texts show, however, that Paul is not immediately
dependent on Qumran sectarian thought, but uses terms that
were common to a larger tradition of sapiential discussion.
5. CONCLUSIONS AND PERSPECTIVES FOR FURTHER RESEARCH
Within the present context, I could discuss only two test cases. 201
More precise studies of verbal and phraseological parallels, similarities in
199. 1QH a 18.29–30 (= 10.27f. Sukenik) cites 4Q418 55 10, and 1QH a 9.28–29 (=
1.26–27 Sukenik) alludes to 4Q417 2 i 8; cf. A. Lange, Weisheit und Prädestination, 46.
200. Cf. 1QH a 5.30 (= 13.13 Sukenik); cf. also 4Q301 53.
201. An additional test case could be the relation between the Johannine literature
and the library of Qumran. On this, cf. the extensive discussion in J. Frey, “Licht aus
den Höhlen?” 117–203; cf. also the shorter English version: idem, “John and the
Dead Sea Scrolls. Recent Perspectives on Johannine Dualism and Its Background,” in
Text, Thought, and Practice in Qumran and Early Christianity (ed. E. G. Chazon, R. A.
Clements, and D. R. Schwartz; STDJ; Leiden: Brill, 2005, in press).