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

204 THE QUMRAN CONCEPT OF TIME
Community, the Rule of the Congregation, the War Scroll, the Thanksgiving Hymns,
Some Works of the Torah, the Damascus Document, the Pesharim, Wicked and Holy
(4Q180 and 4Q181), and the Angelic Liturgy. 5
In addition to the sectarian documents, there is another category
of documents which can be identified as the “traditions” used by the community.
An initial indication of the documents that functioned as the community’s
traditions is found in the number of copies of manuscripts that
were found. 6 In addition to the existence of multiple copies, the traditional
function of a document may be indicated by the provenience of the manuscript
copies, i.e., whether a manuscript was copied by a member of the
community. 7 By indicating which manuscripts were copied at Qumran,
this criterion provides more evidence for determining which documents,
though composed elsewhere, were valued by the community and thus
served as traditions for the community. There are other more explicit
clues that a document functioned as an authoritative source of traditions
for the community. These involve positive references, allusions, and quotations
in the sectarian documents. In addition to the biblical traditions,
the most important traditions inherited by the Qumran community for
this discussion include First Enoch 8 and Jubilees. 9
a useful attempt using this criterion to distinguish the Qumran Community’s documents
from the rest of the Dead Sea Scrolls. For a fuller discussion of the criterion of
technical terminology, see my essay, “Identifying Compositions and Traditions of the
Qumran Community: Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, a Case Study,” in Qumran Studies (ed.
M. T. Davis and B. A. Strawn; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, forthcoming).
5. Carol A. Newsom in her editio princeps (Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice: A Critical Edition
[HSS 27; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985]). Newsom, however, has argued for a pre-
Qumran provenience in her later publications (“‘Sectually Explicit’ Literature from
Qumran,” in The Hebrew Bible and Its Interpreters [ed. W. H. Propp, B. Halpern, and D. N.
Freedman; BJSUCSD 1; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990], 167–87, esp. 179–85;
“Angelic Liturgy: Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice (4Q400–4Q407, 11Q17, Mas1k),” in
The Dead Sea Scrolls: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek Texts with English Translations. Vol. 4B, Angelic
Liturgy: Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice (ed. J. H. Charlesworth and C. A. Newsom; PTS-
DSSP 4B; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1999), 4–5). I
argue, however, that the Angelic Liturgy (also called Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice or Sabbath
Songs) is probably a sectarian document (“Identifying Compositions and Traditions of the
Qumran Community”).
6. See also Carol Newsom, who counts the nonbiblical manuscripts, which occur
in multiple copies, and concludes, “What appears from this simple count is that most
of the nonbiblical texts that exist in two or more copies and the great majority of
those found in more than one of the caves are either products of the Qumran community
or are closely related to central aspects of its theology and praxis” (idem,
“‘Sectually Explicit’ Literature from Qumran,” esp. 169–171; quotation from 171).
7. See discussion in “Identifying Compositions and Traditions of the Qumran
Community.”
8. The traditional character of the Enoch material is indicated by a variety of evidence,
including the number of manuscripts found at Qumran (4Q201–202, 4Q204–212).