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

346 SOCIOLOGICAL AND LITURGICAL DIMENSIONS
“Many” (Mybrh) 82 and Ya4h[ad on one side and the life of the individual
member on the other. Despite the fact that all members of the Ya4h[ad had
been predestined to be Sons of Light, a fact proved by the Urim and
Thummim (which revealed the judgment of the Holy Spirit), they nevertheless
continued to exist as individuals with distinct characteristics. Each
Qumranite most likely had at least five portions of light and perhaps as
many as four portions of darkness (cf. Horoscopes 4Q186). The most elevated
Qumranites were like the angels in their midst; they may have had
eight portions of light and only one portion of darkness. Each had a
“rank” in the strict hierarchy of the community, with different approximations
to being an Elim. 83 But to what extent were the Qumranites disturbed
by the tension between the Many and the One, the community
and the individual Qumranite? Some of the rules in the Rules of the
Community are evidence of the tension between individuality and collectivity.
This tension would have surfaced intermittently, especially when it
was time for one “to cross over into the Covenant” and become a member
of the community. It most likely also surfaced liturgically, as a
Qumranite pondered his relation to the community and his place within
Second Temple Judaism. Thus, the tension would have been not only
across the barriers, between those within and those without; it was also
within the barriers, as the Qumranite looked out from Qumran-Judaism
to other forms of Early Judaism and also looked around within the community
at the diversity revealed by the hierarchy (and esp. the revelatory
skills displayed by the Maskil).
Sociologists help us become sensitive to other dimensions of our texts.
A theological reading of the Qumran Scrolls gives the impression that the
lines are lucidly clear between “light” and “darkness.” Yet, as Robertson
Smith and Emile Durkheim have attempted to show, sacredness and
purity are fundamentally ambiguous. Thus, the Qumranites and other
early Jews sought rules and constructed ways to define purity (and impurity)
that would protect the pure from the constant danger of impurity (a
thought that brings to mind Mary Douglas’s concept of purity and danger).
84 As Durkheim suggested, “the pure and impure are not two separate
classes, but two varieties of the same class, which includes all sacred
things.” He continued to suggest that there is “no break of continuity
82. See esp. 1QS 6.1, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20 [three times], 21, 25.
83. See esp. James H. Charlesworth, “The Portrayal of the Righteous as an Angel,”
in Ideal Figures in Ancient Judaism: Profiles and Paradigms (ed. J. J. Collins and G. W. E.
Nickelsburg; SBLSCS 12; Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1980), 135–51.
84. See esp. Mary C. Douglas, Purity and Danger (New York: Routledge, 1966; repr.
2002).