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

96 THE LAW AND SPIRIT OF PURITY AT QUMRAN
series of inspired lawgivers. W. D. Davies observed some years ago that,
“there are passages which imply that the Law under which the sect is living
is not completely adequate” in contrast with “the prevailing view in
Judaism…that the Law given on Sinai was perfect and eternal.” He took
this as a sign of a “Judaism at the boiling point” and “straining at the
leash of the Law.” 1
The projection of such antinomian misgivings upon the Qumran
community lacks support from their writings. It is true that they believed
in ongoing illumination of the true meaning of the law, culminating with
the coming of the messiah of Aaron and Israel, when their previous misapprehensions
of its hidden aspects would be forgiven (CD 12.22–13:1;
14, 18–19). This, however, hardly means that they looked forward to the
ultimate abrogation of the legal force of the Torah. To the contrary, they
expected their hypernomistic interpretation of the law of Moses to be ultimately
recognized as truth.
Some scholars have claimed to find symptoms of theological conflict
in the lack of references to religious laws in the lyrical hymns and moralistic
Qumran works. Actually there is an appreciable number of references
to the Law, but the scarcity of legal details in the Thanksgiving Hymns
and prophetic commentaries reflects their genres, not any tension
between legal tradition and perfectionist piety. What is noteworthy about
the Qumran literature is the coexistence of these ostensibly contrasting
genres as the creations of the same religious community. This would
appear to call for a reconsideration of the conventional view, which
assumes legal and pneumatic concerns to be irreconcilable.
I should now like to illustrate how these considerations may apply to
purity, a phase of religious law, which emerged with unprecedented
prominence in the Second Temple period. While the biblical rules of
purity were primarily centered around the sacred sphere of the Temple,
there was in Second Temple times a pious trend to extend their applicability
beyond the priesthood and into the daily life of the home. This
trend is likewise reflected in Tannaitic sources, which is indispensable for
the understanding of the supererogatory standards espoused by the
legists of the Qumran community. We have been engaged in editing the
Qumran Cave 4 fragments concerning purity and attempting to define
their departures from Pharisaic halakah. 2 Much of this work involves
technical aspects of purity and the effort to formulate the exegetical
1. William D. Davies, “Paul and the Dead Sea Scrolls: Flesh and Spirit,” in The
Scrolls and the New Testament (ed. K. Stendahl; New York: Harper, 1957), 281n86.
2. Joseph Baumgarten et al., eds., Qumran Cave 4.XXV: Halakhic Texts (DJD 35;
Oxford: Clarendon, 1999), 35.