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

306 BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION AT QUMRAN
to form the audience for such homiletic pieces. I can again cite two examples
to provide something of the flavor of this category of biblical interpretation.
In the Damascus Document are several sermonic sections, notably at the
opening of the so-called Admonition (CD 1–8, 19–20). One of these sections
begins as follows:
And now, O sons, hearken to me and I will uncover your eyes so you may
see and understand the works of God and choose that which he wants and
despise that which he hates: to walk perfectly in all his ways and not to
stray in the thoughts of a guilty inclination and licentious eyes. For many
have failed due to them; mighty warriors have stumbled due to them, from
the earliest times and until today. (Thus, for example,) walking after the
wantonness of their heart(s), the Watchers of heaven fell. They were held
by it (the wantonness of heart), for they did not keep God’s ordinances;
and so too their sons, who were as high as the lofty cedars and whose
corpses were as mountains. For all flesh which was on dry land fell, for
they died and were as if they had not been, for they had done their (own)
will and had not kept the ordinances of their Maker, until his wrath was
kindled against them. Through it strayed the sons of Noah and their families;
through it they are cut off. Abraham did not walk in it and he was
acce[pted as a lo]ver, for he kept God’s ordinances and did not choose (that
which) his (own) spirit desired. (CD 2.14–3.3) 59
In this elaborate passage, part of a section that continues in the same
vein, the audience is clearly encouraged to take note of both negative and
positive examples from the past in order to warn them of the life-threatening
dangers that come upon those who stray, and the benefits that
belong to those who follow the model of Noah or Abraham. The historical
recollection is not presented in explicit and extensive quotations but
in a summary paraphrase, the basis of which the audience would be able
to recognize. It is likely that here, as elsewhere, allusion is also being
made to nonscriptural passages that may have been understood as
authoritative within the Qumran community and its wider movement. In
this instance, perhaps, there is an allusion to the whole cycle of stories in
the Enoch corpus involving the Watchers; the Watchers themselves do
not feature directly in the narrative of Genesis as it stands, which the
author of CD is clearly summarizing at this point. Daniel 4:13, 17, 23
uses the term for some heavenly beings and the Enoch corpus uses it
more particularly of those who rebelled and were expelled from heaven
(cf. Gen 6:1–8). The paraphrase reproduces the order of the narrative in
Genesis, even if it derives some referents from other significant sources.
59. Trans. Baumgarten and Schwartz, “Damascus Document (CD),” 15–17. Parts of
this section of CD are also found in 4Q266 frag. 2 2.13–22; and in 4Q270 frag. 1 1.1–3.