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

JAMES H. CHARLESWORTH 11
laws were interpreted strictly and administered severely. Even within the
community there were barriers, and each person was isolated from others
in terms of his “lot” in a rigid hierarchy; each year one was retained,
advanced, or demoted publicly. Even after a possibly full night of meditation
or reading Torah or one of Qumran’s compositions, a member was
punished if he fell asleep in the assembly (1QS 7.10). Rules, restrictions,
and severe barriers separated one Qumranite from another and—most
importantly—this group of Jews from all other Jews.
The Rule of the Community presents a system for understanding the cosmos
and the human. The cosmos is electrically alive with a war between
the Angel of Light and the Angel of Darkness. On the earth the struggle
continues through the bifurcation of humanity into Sons of Light and
Sons of Darkness. Not only are these two sides of humanity separated,
but also within the community the Sons of Light seem to be separated
from the Sons of the Dawn, perhaps the initiates. And all members of the
Yah[ad (dxyh) are apparently afraid of pollution from other members who
are not of the same advanced “lot.” Josephus even reports the fear of the
advanced members being touched by other Qumranites, or Essenes:
“And so far are the junior members inferior [e0lattou=ntai w3 st’] to the
seniors, that a senior if but touched by a junior, must take a bath, as after
contact with an alien.” 29
The sociological insights of Mary Douglas surely assist reflections on
the sociological and anthropological meaning of the community.
Extremely important is her insight that “the only way in which pollution
ideas make sense is in reference to a total structure of thought whose keystone,
boundaries, margins and internal lines are held in relation by
rituals of separation.” 30 Qumran clearly had developed “a total structure
of thought,” which defined pollution and purity; moreover, each year the
Qumranites reenacted a liturgy that separated the pure from the impure.
As J. Milgrom has shown, for the Qumranites “impurity is dangerously
‘alive and well,’ obsessively dreaded as the autonomous power of
demonic Belial (1QS 1.23–24; CD 4.12–19), intent on wiping out the
entire community.” 31
29. Josephus, J.W. 2.150.
30. Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger (New York: Routledge, 1966; repr. 2002), 41.
31. Jacob Milgrom, “First Day Ablutions in Qumran,” in The Madrid Qumran
Congress: Proceedings of the International Congress on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Madrid, 18-21
March 1991 (ed. J.C. Trebolle Barrera and L. Vegas Montaner; 2 vols.; STDJ 11;
Madrid: Editorial Complutense; Leiden: Brill, 1992), 2:570.