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

MAGEN BROSHI 241
is shown by their early date (as suggested both by paleographic and
radiocarbon considerations, by content (lacking certain basic Qumranic
elements), and by the use of Aramaic (the Essene literature uses Hebrew
exclusively). 24 These books share with the Essene literature the belief in
evil demons and angels, the idea that history is composed of cycles of
periods, and fervent eschatological expectations. Of great significance is
also the use of the solar calendar of 364 days.
Apocalypticism is predestinarian by definition: if the secrets of the
future can be revealed it means that the course of events is not openended,
it is predestined.
The existence of a predestinarian school can be adduced also from
Sirach’s (Ecclesiasticus) two anti-Essene pronouncements. 25 Apparently
Qumran’s Censorship Board has not detected those miniscule polemical
passages and the book was granted a nihil obstat and thus we have at least
one copy of the book (2Q18). The few verses included in 11QPs
51:13–17, were not, most probably, authored by Sirach. A polemical passage
(43:6–7) arguing against the solar calendar and extolling the role of
the moon, and hence the lunar calendar, should not occupy us here but
another, predestinarian, one is quite significant:
Say not: “It was because of the Lord that I fell away”
for He will not do things that He hates.
Say not: “It was He that led me astray”
For He has no need for a sinner. (11QPs 15:11–12)
As Sirach was composed most probably no later than the eighties of the
second century B.C.E. and the formation of the Essene sect must have
taken place, according to mainstream scholars, in the aftermath of the
Maccabean revolt, closer to the middle of the century, 26 it seems that
Sirach is about one generation older.
In short, the Essene theology was founded at the confluence of two
currents—the Apocalyptic and Sapiential.
24. For Enoch see A. J. Timothy Jull et al., “Radiocarbon Dating of Scrolls and Linen
Fragments from the Judean Desert,” Atiqot 28 (1996): 1–7; on the use of Aramaic see
I. Stanislav Segert, “Die Sprachen-Fragen in der Qumrangemeindschaft,” in Qumran-
Probleme: Vorträge des leipziger Symposions über Qumran-Probleme (ed. H. Bardke; Deutsche
Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, Schriften der Sektion für Altertumswissehschaft
42; Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1963), 315–19.
25. Alexander Rofé , “The Onset of Sects in Judaism: Neglected Evidence from the
Septuagint, Trito—Isaiah, Ben Sira and Malachi,” in The Social World of Formative
Christianity and Judaism: Essays in Tribute to Howard Clark Kee (ed. Jacob Neusner et al.;
Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), 39–49.
26. For example, Geza Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls: Qumran in Perspective, 151.