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

432 THE BIBLE, THE PSALMS OF SOLOMON, AND QUMRAN
4. a flight into the wilderness like a bird from a nest:
16Those who loved the assemblies of the devout fled from them
as sparrows fled from their nest.
17 (They became) refugees in the wilderness
to save their lives from evil.
The life of even one who was saved from them
was precious in the eyes of the exiles.
18They were scattered over the whole earth by (these) lawless ones. (Pss. Sol.
17:16–18)
And when these exist as a community in Israel in compliance with these
arrangements they are to be segregated from within the dwelling of
the men of sin to walk in the desert in order to open there His path.
As it is written: “In the desert, prepare the way of ****, straighten in
the steppe a roadway for our God.” (1QS 8.12–14)
For they evict me from my land
like a bird from the nest (1QH 12 [= 4].8–9)
5. “trees of life” (Pss. Sol. 14:3; 1QH 16 [= 8].5–6);
6. “fruit of the lips” (Pss. Sol. 15:3; 1QH 9 [= 1].28);
7. wild beasts/lions that “break the bones” (Pss. Sol. 13:3; 1QH 13 [= 5].7);
8. the righteous as a “planting” (Pss. Sol. 14:4; 1QS 8.5).
Although scholars have argued occasionally that the Pss. Sol. were composed
in fact by the Qumran Essenes, 16 most have not gone that far. The complete
absence of any trace of the Pss. Sol. among the Dead Sea Scrolls speaks
strongly against such a hypothesis. It has not been uncommon, however, for
scholars to propose that parallels between the Pss. Sol. and the Scrolls indicate
that the Pss. Sol. originated in a group of Essenes outside of Qumran. 17
In his major 1995 study of the Pss. Sol. and the Apostle Paul, M.
Winninge has given close attention to the question of the religious provenance
of the Pss. Sol. He acknowledges that, in the light of the Dead Sea
Scrolls, some of Ryle and James’ classic arguments for Pharisaic authorship
no longer hold. Yet he argues that there remain eight arguments in
favor of Pharisaic authorship of the Pss. Sol.: 18
16. So, e.g., André Dupont-Sommer, The Essene Writings from Qumran, (trans. G.
Vermes; 2d ed.; Cleveland: World Publishing, 1962), 296.
17. So, e.g, Wright, OTP 2:642; and Robert R. Hann, “The Community of the
Pious: The Social Setting of the Psalms of Solomon,” SR 17 (1988): 169–89.
18. Winninge, Sinners and the Righteous, 171–78. Others who have continued to hold
to the Pharisaic origins of the Pss. Sol. include, e.g., Joachim Schüpphaus, Die Psalmen
Solomos: Ein Zeugnis Jerusalemer Theologie und Frömmigkeit in der Mitte des vorchristlichen
Jahrhunderts (ALGHZ 7; Leiden: Brill, 1977); and William L. Lane, “Paul’s Legacy
from Pharisaism: Light from the Psalms of Solomon,” Concordia Journal 8 (1982): 130–38.