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

ÉMILE PUECH 265
for the day of judgment. Along the same line, the image of the tree which
bows down and raises up again responds to the “when” of the first question
in situating its realization at the end of days.
Sapiential Work A a–e (4Q415–418)
The recent publication of a wisdom composition—here referred to as
Sapiential Work A a–e , but called The Instructions (Musar le Mevin)—found
particularly amongst the numerous fragments of Cave 4 23 —has given
especially strong evidence concerning the importance of eschatology in
wisdom literature. This composition, which dates from the second century
B.C. 24 emphasizes the predetermined roles celestial beings play in
the life of the world and man, in punishment for those following the inclinations
of the flesh (r#b xwr) and the reward of the righteous on
judgment day. The responsibility of the sage is to explain to mere creatures
of the flesh the difference between good and evil and the importance
of perseverance in good behavior so as to avert the destruction that
awaits the sinner on judgment day.
This is the topic found in the middle of the first column of the manuscript,
which serves as an introduction (4Q416 1 par.; 4Q418 229+1-
2c+212). 25 It depicts the judgment of sin/unrighteousness which will
come to an end at its appointed time. Human beings shall be judged and
their eternal fate determined as a result of their behavior, either following
the impulses of a fleshly existence (r#b xwr), or their adherence to a
spiritual community of people (xwr M() molded by the example of the
23. John Strugnell, Daniel J. Harrington, and Torleif Elgvin, eds., Qumran Cave
4.XXIV: Sapiential Texts, Part 2; 4QInstruction (Musar le Mevin): 4Q415ff, with a Re-edition
of 1Q26 and an Edition of 4Q423 (ed. J. Strugnell et al.; DJD 34; Oxford: Clarendon,
1999). For treatment of 1Q26 see Jozef T. Milik, “Un apocryphe,” in Qumran Cave I
(ed. D. Barthélemy and J. T. Milik; DJD 1; Clarendon Press; Oxford, 1955), 101–2.
24. Contrary to the editors, who place the composition between Proverbs and Ben
Sira, I would date this Sapiential Work (= 4QInstruction) at the earliest to about the
end of the first half of the second century B.C., because similarities with the Qumran-
Essene compositions are striking. The author of the Thanksgiving Hymns appears to
quote it: cf. for example, 1QH a 5.26–27 (= 13.9–10) and 4Q417 1, col. 1, lines 7–8,
1QH a 9.28–29 (= 2.26–27) and 4Q417 1, col. 1, line 8, 1QH a 18.29–30 (= 10.27–28)
and 4Q418 55.10. The same is true of the author of the so-called “Treatise on the
Two Spirits,” see 1QS 3.13– 4, cf. 4Q416 1, etc. For other affinities, see Émile Puech,
“Les fragments eschatologiques de 4QInstruction (4Q416 1 and 4Q418 69 ii, 81–81a,
127)”, RevQ 85 (2005) 89–119.
25. For the reassociation of the fragments and restoration of the column, cf. Puech,
ibid.