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

JOSEPH M. BAUMGARTEN 95
a conscientious search for greater rigor in complying fully with the standards
of purity thought to be implicit in the Law.
Which direction was the one that predominated at Qumran? Rather
than offering our own a priori theories we would be well advised to see
what the Qumran texts themselves have to say about the eschatological
status of the laws.
4QpIsa b (= 4Q162) col. 2, Isaiah Pesher 2 about the end of days tyrx)
Mymyh applies the prophet’s castigation of those who “rejected the law of
the Lord” (5:24) to the congregation of “scoffers” of Jerusalem. Another
pesher (4QpIsa c [= 4Q163] 23 2), Isaiah Pesher 3, also pertaining to the
end of days, identifies this congregation as that of the Seekers After
Smooth Things, the well-known sobriquet for the Pharisees. Their
lenient interpretation of the Torah was ostensibly viewed as corrupt even
in the end of days, or more precisely, especially in the end of days.
The latter emerges emphatically from the conclusion of the halakic letter
known as MMT (aka Some Works of the Torah, 4QMMT a–f [= 4Q394–399]).
The anonymous writer believed his generation to be that of the end of
days Mymyh tyrx), the Mosaic warnings about which had already been
fulfilled. “And this is the end of days when they will repent in Israel
fore[ever].” He therefore appealed to his correspondent not to delay his
acceptance of the true interpretation of the priestly laws of the Torah:
Ktw#(b hqdcl Kl hb#xnw bw+hw r#yh “and it shall be reckoned
for you as righteousness when you do that which is upright and good.”
The editors of MMT did not deal with the theological dimensions of the
text, but they were certainly aware of the fact that the phraseology of this
passage derives from Gen 15:6, “And [Abraham] believed in God and it
was reckoned to him as righteousness” hqdc wl hb#xyw. Interestingly,
this locus classicus of later Pauline exegesis is here applied to the proper performance
of deeds of the Law in the time of the eschaton.
This, of course, does not mean that the laws were thought of as totally
unaffected by the progress of time. It was recognized early on that Qumran
teaching involved a concept of progressive revelation as the source for the
unfolding knowledge of the Torah. As the Rule of the Community puts it, “It
(the clearing of the highway in Isaiah 40:3) is the searching of the Torah
hrwth #rdm which He commanded through Moses to do according to
everything which is revealed from time to time t(b t( and as the
prophets have revealed by his holy spirit” (1QS 8.15–16). The searching
hrwth #rdm was continuing in the life of the community, resulting in rules
classified as Mynwrx)w Mynw#)r My+p#m, the “earlier” and the “later” laws.
This developmental concept has led some scholars to speak of the “relativization”
of the Law in which Moses is only the first of an ongoing