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

46 QUMRAN AND THE ENOCH GROUPS
The acceptance of the Mosaic Torah must not obfuscate the real intentions
of the author. While acknowledging the connection between the
Mosaic revelation and the heavenly tablets, Jubilees also denies the centrality
and uniqueness of the Zadokite Torah. It is only one of several,
and an incomplete version of the heavenly tablets, a version to be completed
and corrected in its true meaning by comparison with what was
written by other revealers who had a better glimpse at the heavenly
tablets. The heavenly tablets are the only and all-inclusive repository of
God’s revelation.
The second important element that distinguishes Jubilees from the previous
Enochic tradition is a special doctrine of election, based on God’s
predeterminism, which resulted in an identification of evil with impurity
and in a strict and almost dualistic theology of separation. Commentators
agree that such a sophisticated doctrine of election is the closest link to
the sectarian texts of Qumran. 23
Jubilees expresses dissatisfaction with the earlier Enochic concept that
all human beings, including the Jews, were affected by evil. Harmonizing
the Enochic doctrine of evil and the idea of the election of the Jewish people
was by no means an easy task. In this case also, Jubilees was able to
find a coherent innovative solution that corrects, yet does not challenge,
and ultimately even strengthens, the principles of Enochic Judaism. The
answer was a much stronger emphasis on God’s predeterminism and
God’s control over the universe. Despite the angelic sin, history unfolds
stage by stage, according to the times, the jubilees, that God has dictated
from the beginning. The election of the Jewish people also belongs to the
predestined order, which no disorder can change. Since creation, God has
selected the Jews as a special people above all nations, and separated them
from the other nations as a holy people (2:21). Those marked by circumcision
(15:11) are called to participate with the angels in the worship of God.
Those who do not belong to the children of Israel belong to the children of
destruction (15:26).
The identification of evil with impurity makes separation the new password
for salvation, in a way that was previously unknown in Judaism,
both in the Enochic and in the Zadokite tradition. Purity is no longer an
autonomous rule of the universe to which the chosen people also have to
adjust, but instead is the prerequisite of their salvation. Since being elected
means being separated from the impure world, the boundary between
purity and impurity becomes the boundary between good and evil. Any
violation of God’s order that produces impurity is a mortal danger for the
23. Michel Testuz, Les idées religieuses du livre des Jubilés (Geneva: Druz, 1960).