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

JAMES H. CHARLESWORTH 23
CONCLUSION
Over fifty years ago the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. As I have
tried to summarize succinctly, these ancient Jewish documents reveal to us
a world that was previously unknown. Without defining space, time, and
the rules, there is meaninglessness. Contemporary society witnesses to the
breaking of spaces, times, and especially rules. Hence, too many have
given up on a future utopia. However, when each of these is clarified,
meaning springs forth like Athena from the head of Zeus. There is enthusiasm.
And for the Qumranites and the members of the Jesus sect, that
much-maligned word “enthusiasm” meant devoting all so that God would
be present and the human would be one in God. Feeling the leather of a
Dead Sea Scroll stimulates me to reflect on two different worlds; yet each
is full of meaning. I think about a cosmos in which humans unite in time
and place with the promises of meaning and rewards. And so let me end
by reading from the hymn that concludes the Rule of the Community:
[(With) the offering of ] the lip[s] I will praise him
according to a statue [en]graved forever:
at the heads of years and at the turning[-point of the seasons,
by the compl]etion of the statue of their norm
—(each) day (having) its precept—
one after another,
(from) the sea[son for harvest until summer;
(from) the season of s]owing until the season of grass;
(from) the seasons for yea[r]s until [their] seven-year periods;
[at the beginning of] their [se]ven-year period until the Jubilee.
(4QS MS D frag. 4 lines 3–6)
The Jubilee Celebration of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scroll has
passed. Over fifty years ago a Bedouin accidentally discovered a cave on
the northwestern shores of the Dead Sea. In this cave, and others found
nearby, Jews had hidden their most valuable possessions when the
Roman armies conquered Jericho and its environs on the way to destroying
Jerusalem near the end of the First Jewish Revolt (70 C.E.). In the preceding
pages, we have caught a glimpse of how research focused on these
and other early Jewish compositions is revolutionizing scholars’ recreation
of Second Temple Judaism and the understanding of our biblical
texts. The following chapters and volumes provide the data and research
that reveal how and in what ways the Dead Sea Scrolls are changing our
understanding of the Bible and its world.