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

404 THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS AND THE MEAL FORMULA
among the multiform communities and texts of early Judaism are inevitable
and often illuminating but do not necessarily indicate a direct relationship.
28 What appears similar in form or language is not always similar in
essence and function; differences, as well as similarities, must be given
due weight.
The meal formula in Joseph and Aseneth is both the most commonly
cited point of contact with the Essenes and a classic example of the premature
upgrading of similarities to direct connections. That the eating of
blessed bread and drinking of a blessed cup constitute a definitive feature
of Jewish identity in both in Joseph and Aseneth and the Qumran scrolls is
clear. At Qumran the very stages of initiation are described in terms of
the candidate’s eligibility to come into contact with the sect’s pure food
(1QS 6.13–23). Offenders expelled from the community were thereby
excluded from a ritual meal that was expressive of the central eschatological
and messianic aspirations of the sect and that prepared one for the
imminent end of days (1QS 7.18–21; 8.16–19; 1Q28a [= 1QSa]
2.11–22). 29 Josephus also recognized the solemnity and importance of the
Essene meals (J.W. 2.8.5–8).
Joseph and Aseneth’s meal formula likewise epitomizes Jewish identity.
The participant enjoys life and immortality, whereas the diet of idolaters
is defiling and damning (7:1; 8:5–7). To eat “blessed bread of life,” drink
a “blessed cup of immortality,” and be anointed with “blessed ointment
of incorruption” is to eat the same immortal food as that eaten by the
angels of God in paradise (16:14–16). This exalted status approximates
angelic existence 30 and therefore bears some similarity to the angelic sort
of existence enjoyed by God’s elect according to the Qumran scrolls. 31
28. Samuel Sandmel, “Parallelomania,” JBL 81 (1962): 3, astutely notes: “it is the
distinctive which is significant for identifying the particular, and not the broad areas
in common with other Judaisms.”
29. This is not to equate the great messianic banquet of the days to come (1Q28a
[= 1QSa] 2.11–22) with the communal meals described in 1QS 6.2–23. Nevertheless,
the two have so much in common that the communal meals must be seen as integrally
related to the eschatological expectations and the deep-seated messianic consciousness
of the sect. See Geza Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls: Qumran in Perspective
(Cleveland: Collins World, 1978), 182; and the more detailed discussions in
Lawrence H. Schiffman, “Communal Meals at Qumran,” RevQ 10 (1979): 45–56;
idem, Sectarian Law in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Courts, Testimony and the Penal Code (BJS 33;
Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1983), 191–210; and idem, The Eschatological Community of
the Dead Sea Scrolls: A Study of the Rule of the Congregation (SBLMS 38; Atlanta: Scholars
Press, 1989), 53–67.
30. On angelic existence as a soteriological conception in Joseph and Aseneth, see
Chesnutt, From Death to Life, 143–45.
31. See 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.