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

CHARLESWORTH AND MCSPADDEN 347
between these two opposed forms.” And indeed, that the “pure is made
out of the impure, and reciprocally. It is in the possibility of these transmutations
that the ambiguity of the sacred consists.” 85 The presupposition
that the Wicked Priest and “the Priest” who is the Righteous Teacher
are absolute opposites is false, even though one might have obtained that
thought by contemplating that the Wicked Priest apparently attempted to
“murder” the Righteous Teacher (frags. 1–10, 4.8). Both “the Man of the
Lie” (frags. 1–10, 1.26) and “the Interpreter of Knowledge” (1.27) are
priests. The discontinuity is within the continuity of the high priesthood.
Psalm Pesher 1 represents one of the pesharim. As a group these
pesharim placard the earliest clear evidence of Jewish exegesis. 86 Scholars
have been preoccupied with the characteristics of the pesharim and their
witness to Qumran hermeneutical authority and methodology. We have
pointed to another dimension of the pesharim as represented by Psalm
Pesher 1. It is not only a religious document. It seems to be a living testimony
to the function of liturgy within Qumran, whether among a few in
the scriptorium (locus 30) or among many (the Many) in the large hall
set aside for eating and worship (locus 77). 87
The authority of Scripture at Qumran is refracted through the powerful
and authoritative ones in the community, the Mebakker (Examiner),
the Maskil (Master), and the Paqid (Overseer). They collectively control
all possessions, all admittance and dismissal, advancement, and the daily
distribution of sustenance. 88 Yet, all in the community feel daily the
power of the Righteous Teacher, as the abiding presence that doles out
wisdom, as the sole authority who knows God’s secrets (all of them;
85. Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (trans. J. W. Swain; New
York: Free Press; London: Collier Macmillan, 1915), 458.
86. Also see Donald W. Parry and Emanuel Tov, eds., Exegetical Texts (part 2 of The
Dead Sea Scrolls Reader; 6 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 2004); see esp. the introduction on
xxi–xxii.
87. For a chart of these loci, see Roland de Vaux, Archeology and the Dead Sea Scrolls
(London: The British Academy, 1973), pl. 39. In the foreword, the great archaeologist
Kathleen M. Kenyon heralded de Vaux’s book as “a completely authoritative
statement of the archaeological evidence [of Qumran], and this to an archaeologist
seems conclusive for the dating of the Scrolls” (vi). Charlesworth does indeed find de
Vaux’s research definitive and authoritative; but—as he has pointed out since the
1960s—there are some places where he would want to correct de Vaux. Both de Vaux
and Kenyon would have encouraged debates, even spirited ones. Despite recent
objections by some archaeologists, Charlesworth remains convinced that locus 30 is
where scrolls were copied and locus 77 is where the Qumranites met collectively.
88. See the insightful suggestions by Moshe Weinfeld in The Organizational Pattern and
the Penal Code of the Qumran Sect: A Comparison with Guilds and Religious Associations of the
Hellenistic-Roman Period (NTOA 2, Edtiones Universitai res Friburg Suisse; Gottingen:
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1986).