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

272 RESURRECTION: THE BIBLE AND QUMRAN
The Thanksgiving Hymns (1QH)
An identical conception underlies the eschatology of the Thanksgiving
Hymns (1QH), the theological and didactic finality of which does not
escape notice. Be they attributed to the Teacher or his peers or disciples,
the Thanksgiving Hymns also date from the second half of the second century
B.C. and reflect the thought of the first generations of the
Qumranites.
Certain scholars want to reduce the eschatology of the Thanksgiving
Hymns to a purely individual eschatology, indeed, even a realized
eschatology. 32 This is difficult to accept since the salvation of the just is
promised in the future at the time of judgment, just as the destruction of
the impious at the time of the eschatological war is a notion clearly presented
in the Thanksgiving Hymns. At the present the community lives
within a time of exile, of trials and persecutions following the Teacher,
even if the faithful know that this is only for a time and that the promised
eternal rewards will be restored to them through sheer divine grace.
This will be an eternal life with God in glory in the company of the
angels, a life already experienced in embryonic form in the present
through entrance into the community. But it is necessary and indispensable
to persevere in order to receive the promised inheritance, for the
faithful remain vulnerable and sinful, “a fountain of impurity, wallowing
in sin,” who can do nothing without the aid of the holy spirit of God. He
knows that upon death the body returns to dust (1QH 20.27–34[=
12.24–31], 18.5–7 [= 10.3–5]). 33
However, this presentation is not irreconcilable with the often
repeated mention of the day of judgment at the eschaton, which must
involve the “Height,” the spirits, the earth, and Sheol (1QH 25.3–16), to
the point of requiring the holding of a new conception not attested anywhere
else in this literature: the belief in the immortality of the soul.
Although poorly preserved, this passage clearly knows of the notion of
an intermediate state fully described in 1 Enoch 22, which dates to a
period before the foundation of the Qumran community and which is
attested among the manuscripts discovered. Now, the “Book of the
Watchers” presents a belief in the resurrection of the just. How is the
32. Just as, for example Heinz-Wolfgang Kuhn, Enderwartung und gegenwärtiges Heil:
Untersuchungen zu den Gemeindeliedern von Qumran mit einem Anhang über Eschatologie und
Gegenwart in der Verkündigung Jesu, (SUNT 4; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck-Ruprecht, 1966).
33. We cite the text according to our new numbering of the Hymns following the
restoration of the scroll 1QH with, when possible, the equivalent numbering of the
editor. See Puech, La croyance des Esséniens, 335–419.