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

116 FORMATION AND RE-FORMATION OF DANIEL
4QPseudo-Daniel c (4Q245)
Milik initially treated 4Q245 together with 4Q243–244, and was followed
in this by García Martínez, Puech, and Beyer. 40 In favor of identifying
4Q245 with the other manuscripts might be the following details:
(a) “Daniel” appears (frag. 1 1.3). (b) It contains a list of priestly names
given in chronological order (frag. 1 1.5–10). (c) It refers to the priest
named “Qahat” (cf. 4Q245 frag. 1 1.5; 4Q243 frag. 28 line 1—q[h[t?). And
(d) there is a similar emphasis on the wicked, who “have gone astray”
(frag. 2 line 3). Features (a) and (c) are not decisive. Moreover, (b), the list
of names for priests (from the very beginning of the priesthood—
“Qahat”—until at least the time of “Simon” in the second century B.C.E.),
apparently followed by a chronological list of kings (lines 11–12, including
“David” and “Solomon”)—all these are difficult to fit as such into the
scheme of biblical history found in 4Q243–244. 41
In addition to the reference to “Daniel,” an allusion in 4Q245 to the motif
of resurrection in Dan 12:2 has been suggested on the basis of the expression
“they shall arise” (yqwmwn, frag. 2 line 4). 42 In Daniel the term used is
“they will awake” (yqysw), and it refers to the lot to be experienced, respectively,
by the righteous (eternal life) and the wicked (eternal contempt).
The identity of the subject behind the verb “arise” in 4Q245 is not as
clear as in Daniel. While Flint stresses that, unlike in Daniel, in 4Q245 it
is the righteous who “arise” (line 4) and “will return” (line 5) as opposed
to those who are “in blindness and have gone astray” (line 3), 43 the precise
context will have to remain unclear. In any case, the mention of a subsequent
return in line 5 suggests that it is problematic to infer that here we
have to do with a technical expression referring to some form of resuscitation
after death, as in Dan 12:1–3. 44 There is, then, no positive evidence
suggesting that 4Q245 was in any way derived from Daniel. On the other
40. García Martínez, “4QPseudo Daniel,” 137–40; Puech, La croyance, 568; and
Beyer, ATTM Ergänzungsband, 139–42. See also Robert H. Eisenman and Michael O.
Wise, The Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered (Shaftesbury: Element, 1992), 64–68; and Alfred
Mertens, Das Buch Daniel im Lichte der Texte vom Toten Meer (SBM 12; Stuttgart: Echter
KBW, 1971), 43–46, who, though regarding 4Q245 as a different work (43) or
another recension (46n79), nevertheless arranges them together.
41. So correctly observed by Collins and Flint, “4QPseudo-Daniel,” 155.
42. This is argued by García Martínez, “4QPseudo Daniel,” 146; and Puech, La
croyance, 569n12.
43. Flint, “Pseudo-Daniel Revisited,” 148.
44. A reading in light of Isa 26:14, 19 is therefore misleading. In addition, Flint
rightly avers that the wicked as described in line 3 (“in blindness and have gone
astray”) can hardly be thought to represent “a post-resurrection condition” (“Pseudo-
Daniel Revisited,” 148).