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

192 THE TWO SPIRITS IN QUMRAN THEOLOGY
of 1QM an interpretation of an entirely different sort, the creation tradition,
with a certain deterministic stamp, which it obtained in the Qumran
community.” 55 This emphasis upon creation is due to the influence of the
Qumran Hymns; Osten-Sacken, like H.-W. Kuhn, observed, for example,
the similarity between 1QH 15.21–22—”You have fashioned the spirit
and have organized its task”—and 1QS 3.16—”when they come into existence
in their fixed times they carry through their task according to his
glorious design.” 56 In addition to the assimilation of an emphasis upon
creation, the editor has also added a predestinarian thread in 1QS
3.17–19, probably, according to Osten-Sacken, due to Iranian
(Zoroastrian) influence in a period subsequent to the writing of the War
Scroll. Therefore, the original eschatological dualism of the War Scroll
which provides the ground structure of 1QS 3.13–4.14 diminished and
was supplemented by a new emphasis upon creation, the ethical contrast
of good and evil in the present, and predestination.
If 1QS 3.13–4.14 represents an intermediate stage in the development
of Qumran dualism, then 1QS 4.15–26 comprises a still later phase. In
this section the anthropological struggle comes to the fore. The battle
lines had shifted from the opposition between Israel and the nations
(1QM) to the contrast between the sons of light and the sons of darkness,
including Jews (1QS 3.13–4.14), to the individual’s struggle between
righteousness and evil (1QS 4.15–26).
According to Osten-Sacken, then, there are no less than three stages of
Qumran thought reflected in 1QS 3.13–4.26. 1QS 3.20–25 reflects most
clearly the dualistic origins of Qumran thought akin to the War Scroll.
1QS 3.13–4.14 adjusts that dualism for present experience by associating
it with creation and predestination. The anthropological emphasis of 1QS
4.15–26 represents a further and subsequent ethicizing of this dualism.
Synthesis
The fissure created by Betz’s study was developed in the studies of H.-W.
Kuhn and Osten-Sacken into an irreparable fracture. All subsequent studies
have been compelled to acknowledge that in the Qumran writings as
a whole (Betz), the Qumran Hymns (Kuhn), and 1QS 3–4 (Osten-
Sacken) multiple conceptions of God’s spirit(s) were permitted to coexist.
55. von der Osten-Sacken, Gott und Belial, 130.
56. Ibid., 129.