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

GEORGE J. BROOKE 307
We can see a second example of the exhortatory use of Scripture in
the closing section of 4QMMT (cf. composite text, lines 100–12):
13 And it 14 [shall come to pas]s when all these {things} (4Q397 lines 14–21)
[be]fall you in the en[d] of days, the blessing 15 and the curse, [then you will
call them to mind] and retu[rn to Him with all your heart 16 and all your
soul (Deut 30:1–2) at the end of days. 17 [And it is written in the Book] of
Moses and in the Boo[ks of the prophet]s that there shall come … 18 [and
the blessings came] in the days of Solomon the son of David. And the
curses 19 came from in the days of Jeroboam the son of Nebat 20 until
Jerusalem and Zedekiah king of Judah were exiled that he will br[in]g them
to … And we recognize that some of the blessings and curses which are
21 written in the B[ook of Mo]ses have come. And this is at the end of days
when they will come back to Israel 22 for [ever] … and shall not turn backwar[ds].
And the wicked shall act 23 wickedly and … Remember the kings
of Israel and understand their works that each of them who 24 feared [the
To]rah was saved from troubles, and to those who were seekers of the Law,
25 their iniquities were [par]doned. Remember David, that he was a man of
piety, and that 26 he was also saved from many troubles and pardoned. 60
It is not entirely clear whom the exhortation is addressing, but for the
purposes of this analysis, we only need to note that the writer bases the
homily in the explicit citation of Deut 30:1–2, and then adds allusions to
Israelite kings. The message is clear: those who feared and sought the
Law were saved and pardoned. All the others fell under the curses.
David, in particular, is held up as an example to be followed: he was a
man of piety who was saved from many troubles. The text exhorts its
hearers that to be saved from troubles and the devastation of the divine
curses, they must follow a way of piety and obedience, which will keep
them within the realm of blessing. Naturally, in the context of a sectarian
document, blessing involves following not just the Law but a particular
interpretation of it. As with the previous example from the Damascus
Document, the exhortatory section of 4QMMT provides an appeal to
Scripture that is primarily a matter of historical recollection.
3. Narrative Interpretation
In the scrolls from the Qumran caves, we know narrative interpretation
best from the Genesis Apocryphon (1QapGen). That composition provides a
rewritten form of several of the stories of Genesis, including extra haggadic
60. Trans. Vermes, Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, 227–28; Vermes offers
translations of the separate groups of fragments, with 4Q398 frags. 14–17 1.11–13;
and frags. 14–17 col. 2; conflated with 4Q399.