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

JAMES H. CHARLESWORTH 13
crowds asked him, “What then should we do?” In reply he said to them,
“Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever
has food must do likewise.” (3:9–11 NRSV)
What was Luke attributing to the Baptizer? Was it not radical? Was Luke
not clearly reporting that, for the Baptizer, one must give all to others and
be content with only one “coat?” If so, the Baptizer, like the Essenes, radicalized
the moral code; hence, it would follow that some connection with
Qumran might be, and probably is, likely.
Despite Taylor’s claim, scholars have not assumed that the Baptizer
“advised people to live communally with entirely shared resources, as we
find in the Rule of the Community 1QS 6.19–23.” 36 The Baptizer cannot be
simply seen as one who lived within the Yah[ad. Hence, Taylor’s claim that
the Baptizer wore sackcloth and was not dressed in white like the
Essenes, according to Josephus (J.W. 2.123; 2.137) misses the point, or is
beside the point. 37
In comparing groups, similarities that reveal relationships do not need
to be identical. If the Baptizer had any connection in the past with the
Qumranites, he also developed some unique features, thoughts, and
habits. As historians we should not miss the uniqueness of the Baptizer.
I would tend to agree with Taylor that a relationship between the
Baptizer and the Qumranites should not be based on a shared condemnation
of incest and, explicitly, the marrying of nieces. Thus, the
Baptizer’s teaching, according to Mark 6:17–18, is not based solely on
the Damascus Document 4.17–18. When the Baptizer condemned Antipas
for marrying his niece (his brother’s wife), he could be assuming the
well-known law in the Torah that condemns marrying the wife of your
brother (Lev 20:21; cf. 18:16).
Without exegesis and explanation, Taylor asserts that the Baptizer,
unlike the communal Qumranites and Essenes, was “a loner,” and this
“key characteristic of John” would “be completely out of place if he were
(or had been at one time) part of the Essene movement” or “community.”
38 Taylor needs to explain why no one can become a “loner” once
he leaves some form of “communal living.” Did not the Egyptian
anchorites, only a century or so after the burning of the Qumran
Community, leave a religious community and live as hermits? Is that not
clear in the life of St. Antony when around 310 C.E. he left a religious
community he had organized and retired to solitude in the desert? Was
such a move impossible for John, the son of Zechariah?
36. Ibid., 24.
37. Ibid., 38.
38. Ibid., 20.