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

ÉMILE PUECH 277
resurrection for eternal life in a celestial exaltation in the company of the
angels in sight of the divine liturgy: 39 …[…the impious will be for eternal
condemnation and for the annihilation in Abaddon and the just] for life
eternal” (lines 5–6).
According to the Micah Pesher 1 (1Q14 10.3–9) 40 all those who follow
the teaching of the Teacher and join the council of the community will be
saved upon the day of judgment at the end of days. This amounts to following
the path of conversion as the Rule of the Community prescribes (1QS
8) and consequently to being inscribed in the heavenly books in order to
participate in the resurrection.
Many passages of the Psalm Pesher 1 (4Q171 1–10, cols. 2–4) 41 insist
upon the final dispersion of the impious, while the just “live a thousand
generations in salvation and all the inheritance of Adam will belong to
them forever” (col. 2, lines 1–2). These images portray the eternal
salvation of the just contemplating the judgment of the impious of the last
generation and getting the inheritance of truth as a return to the well
being of the “original” paradise from which death and sin were absent.
The Florilegium or Eschatological Midrash (4Q174+177), which explicitly
cites Dan 11:35 and 12:10, must have accepted the collective and individual
eschatology of Daniel; the contrary would otherwise have been
surprising. 42
The Graves of the Essenes
As evidence from within Qumran, it remains to compare the results of
this inquiry into the texts with the practice of the inhabitants of the site
as much as the archaeological remains permit. It is at least logical to ask
whether the authors, scribes and readers who studied or handed on these
manuscripts, translated their conception of life after death into their
burial practices. Of the nearly 1,200 tombs of the cemeteries by surface
survey, the 53 tombs excavated in different parts of the cemeteries (central,
peripheral, north and south) give an idea of the identity of the inhabitants
of the place as well as of their burial practices. 43 The south-north
39. See ibid., 526–31.
40. See ibid., 599–600.
41. See ibid., 600–603.
42. See ibid., 572–91.
43. For a presentation of the whole, see ibid., 693–702, and for a more developed
treatment, see Émile Puech, “The Necropolises of Khirbet Qumrân and of ‘Ain el-
Guweir, and the Essene Belief in Afterlife,” BASOR 312 (1998): 21–36.