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

102 THE LAW AND SPIRIT OF PURITY AT QUMRAN
Flusser 12 has suggested that the original intent of John’s prophecy did not
pertain to any baptism forthcoming after him, but to the eschatological
outpouring of the spirit, but this does not seem to be the way it was interpreted
in the Gospels and Acts.
The close affinity between the baptism of John and that practiced at
Qumran has been widely recognized. Especially noteworthy is Josephus’
emphatic description of John’s baptism “as a consecration of the body
implying that the soul was already thoroughly cleansed by right behavior”
(Ant. 18.117). This is precisely the point of Rule of the Community 3.8–9:
“It is by submitting his soul to all God’s statutes, that his flesh can be
cleansed, by sprinkling with waters of purification, and by sanctifying
himself with waters of purity.” This statement forms the conclusion of the
emphatic repudiation of all forms of ablution not preceded by repentance.
It is further noteworthy that Josephus depicts John’s exhortation as a
call “to join in baptism” (baptismw= ~sunie/nai). This may well be an allusion
to a ritual immersion which involved not just individuals but groups
of penitents. Feldman justly avoids the translation “to be united by
baptism,” but his stated reason that “there is no indication that John
championed group baptism” requires evaluation. 13 The authors of the
Gospels certainly wished to depict the response to his preaching as a
group phenomenon, “And there went out to him all the country of Judea,
and all the people of Jerusalem; and they were baptized by him in the
river Jordan, confessing their sins” (Mark 1:5).
The daily ablutions of the Essenes were likewise performed as a group
“when they again assemble in one place and after girding their loins with
linen cloths, bathe their bodies in cold water” (J.W. 2.129).
Some scholars take pains to differentiate between the repeated baths
of the Essenes and the purportedly one-time penitential purification performed
by John. This distinction can with more validity be made
between the immersions of the Essenes and Christian baptism. 14 The
Epistle to the Hebrews, as well as Tertullian, polemically proclaimed the
impossibility of repeating Christian baptism. However, the claim that
John’s immersion for repentance was likewise a once in a lifetime ceremony
remains unsubstantiated. In his recent study, “John the Purifier,”
Bruce D. Chilton observes:
12. David Flusser, “The Baptism of John and the Judean Desert Sect,” in The Sect of
the Judaean Desert and Its Views (Jerusalem: n.p., 1960, 73) (Hebrew).
13. Josephus, Ant. 18.118, note a (Feldman, LCL).
14. Semel ergo lavacrum inimus, semel delicta abluuntur quia ea iterari non oportet, “Once
only we enter the baptismal bath and once only are our sins washed away, for it
behooves us not to repeat them,” Tertullian, Bapt. 15.2.