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

HENRY W. MORISADA RIETZ 215
rest of society. These disputes involved a wide range of halakot, involving
both calendrical and noncalendrical issues. The community considered
other Jews, and especially the establishment in the Jerusalem
Temple, to be breaking the halakot of the Torah. This led the members
of the community to believe that they were living in “the last days”
(Mymyh tyrx)) of a wicked age before the dawn of a golden, messianic
age. 43 While scholars often discuss this belief as the community’s
“eschatology,” it is better to avoid the term “eschatology” (“study of the
last things”) because it often is read as implying “the end of history” or
“the end of the world.” Both of these connotations are anachronistic
impositions, with the former denying the temporal continuity envisioned
between the two ages, and the latter denying the earthy nature of the
anticipated age. 44
The Qumran community believed that history is divided into periods
and that God has predetermined the character of each period. The
Qumran community inherited these ideas from its traditions, including
the book of Daniel, First Enoch and others. An example of the periodization
and determinism of history in the Qumran sectarian documents is
provided by the Wicked and Holy, 45 witnessed by at least one manuscript
(4Q180), and possibly a second (4Q181). 46 Both manuscripts reflect the
43. See Shemaryahu Talmon, “Waiting for the Messiah: The Spiritual Universe of
the Qumran Covenanters,” in Judaisms and their Messiahs at the Turn of the Christian Era
(ed. J. Neusner, W. S. Green, and E. S. Frerichs; Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1987), 111–37, rev. ed. reprinted as “Waiting for the Messiah–The Conceptual
Universe of the the Qumran Covenanters,” in The World of Qumran from Within: Collected
Studies (Jerusalem: Magnes and Leiden: Brill, 1989), 273–300; Annette Steudel,
“Mymyh tyrx) in the Texts from Qumran,” RevQ 16 (1993): 225–46.
44. See the comments of Talmon: “I shall avoid as much as possible the employment
of the term ‘eschatology,’ which bears the stamp of metahistory or is understood
to designate ‘the end of historical time’” (in “Waiting for the Messiah,” 115; cf.
126). See also Jean Carmignac, Le Mirage de l’Eschatologie: Royauté, Règne et Royaume de
Dieu…sans Eschatologie (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1979), 200.
45. Perhaps the original title is indicated by the beginning of the document:
Mycqh l( r#p (4Q180 frag. 1, line 1). Line numbers follow the transcription of
Roberts, “Wicked and Holy,” in in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek
Texts with English Translations, Vol. 2, Damascus Document, War Scroll, and Related Documents
(ed. J. H. Charlesworth et al.; PTSDSSP 2; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck; Louisville:
Westminster John Knox, 1995), 204–13. This document is also known as The Ages
of Creation.
46. It is difficult to determine from the fragmentary manuscripts whether 4Q180 frag.
1, lines 9–10, and 4Q181 frag. 2, lines 4ff.[, preserve very divergent texts or different portions
of the same text (see also Jozef T. Milik’s notes to 4Q180, line 9, in The Books of Enoch:
Aramaic Fragments of Qumrân Cave 4 [Oxford: Clarendon, 1976], 250). Milik identified
4Q180 and 4Q181 as copies of the same document (JJS 23 [1972]: 110; cf. Books of Enoch,
251). Allegro, who first published the manuscripts, did not relate the manuscripts (“Some