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

94 THE LAW AND SPIRIT OF PURITY AT QUMRAN
significant corpus of sectarian religious law was that embedded in the
Damascus Document and there are still scholars with lingering doubts as to
whether it is original. Hopefully the recently published Cave 4 manuscripts
will dispel these doubts and also put an end to the strange phenomenon
of truncated editions of this foundational communal text from
which the central core of laws is missing.
Even those scholars who were aware of the extent and centrality of
Qumran legal writings appear to have had difficulty with understanding
how this fact could be reconciled with the spiritualistic fervor and eschatological
tension characteristic of the community. The suggestion was made
that the nomistic concerns with family life, the Sabbath, and purity may be
attributed to the influx of newcomers with Pharisaic tendencies during the
sect’s exile in Damascus. This reflects the rather dubious notion that the
Essenes were not themselves concerned with the rigors of the Law.
Another approach commences from the premise that intense eschatological
expectation must inevitably lead toward the relaxation of law.
This, it is claimed, is phenomenologically illustrated not only by the
teachings of Paul but by certain dicta concerning halakic innovations in
the “future to come” found in late rabbinic sources. W. D. Davies in his
Torah in the Messianic Age has drawn attention to these dicta and Gershom
Scholem has explored their possible influence on radical Sabbatian messianism
in the seventeenth century. Aside from the huge chronological
gap which separates these dicta from the Second Temple period, their
problematic and speculative nature may be illustrated by one found in
Midrash Tehillim on Ps 146:7:
The Lord loosens the bonds Myrws) rytm. What does the verse mean by
the words loosen the bonds? Some say that every animal whose flesh it is
forbidden to eat in this world, the Holy One, blessed be he, will declare in
the time-to-come that the eating of its flesh is permitted.…Others say
though nothing is more strongly forbidden than intercourse with a menstruant…in
the time-to-come, God will permit such intercourse…Still others
say that in the time-to-come sexual intercourse will be entirely
forbidden. You can see for yourself why it will be. On the day that the Holy
One, blessed be he, revealed Himself on Mount Sinai to give the Torah to
the children of Israel, He forbade intercourse for three days…Now since
God, when He revealed Himself for only one day, forbade intercourse for
three days, in the time-to-come, when the presence of God dwells continuously
in Israel’s midst, will not intercourse be entirely forbidden?
Whether or not one finds this syllogism persuasive, the midrash clearly
demonstrates that speculation about the eschaton does not lead unequivocally
toward the abrogation of the law. For some it may evoke the opposite,