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

JAMES H. CHARLESWORTH 27
one who was not a Son of Light (1QS 5.16). Hence, upon expulsion—or
voluntary departure—he must make his own clothes. Also, we learn why
he did not wear the clothes that Jews living in Galilee, Jerusalem, Jericho,
and elsewhere would have willingly offered him. He could not accept anything
from others. He thus wore only the skins of animals: “Now John
was clothed with camel’s hair, and had a leather girdle around his waist.”
(Mark 1:6; Matt 3:4). The isolation of one who had almost become a fully
initiated Qumranite is emphasized in the liturgical hymn that now completes
the Rule of the Community: “I will not have compassion for all those
who deviate from the Way” (1QS 10.20–21). He was thus isolated in the
interstices between two segments of pre-70 Jewish society.
In the late 1950s, J. A. T. Robinson suggested that the Baptizer and his
group may well have thought of themselves as making atonement for
Israel’s sins. 82 He also indicated that they obtained this idea from
Qumran. He contended that this atonement movement helps explain
why Jesus of Nazareth would be attracted to John. 83 The hypothesis is
attractive, and the Qumranites did claim to be atoning for the Land (1QS
5.6; 8.6, 10; 9.4), but the historical records do not suggest that the
Baptizer led a movement that was atoning for Israel’s sins. Rather, the
Baptizer was most likely an eschatological prophet who claimed that one
needed to repent and be baptized because of the coming day of judgment,
as Josephus (Ant. 18.117–18) and Luke reported (Luke 3:10–14).
Another probable Qumran influence on the Baptizer seems to have
been missed by scholars. It is clear to me that the Righteous Teacher, or
another genius at the beginning of the Qumran Community, developed
the concept of the Holy Spirit. They developed, or created, the concept
of a hypostatic being, separate from God, called “the Holy Spirit”; this
concept is not found in rabbinic writings, the Hebrew Bible (the Old
Testament), or the Old Testament Apocrypha. It is found in the Old
Testament Pseudepigrapha only in passages that seem to indicate Essene
influence. 84 When the Righteous Teacher and his little group left
82. John A. T. Robinson, “The Baptism of John and the Qumran Community,”
HTR 50 (1957): 175–91.
83. See now Robert L. Webb, “John the Baptist and His Relationship to Jesus,” in
Studying the Historical Jesus (ed. B. D. Chilton and C. A. Evans; Leiden: Brill, 1994),
179–229; W. Barnes Tatum, John the Baptist and Jesus: A Report of the Jesus Seminar
(Sonoma, CA: Polebridge, 1994). According to the Jesus Seminar, John the Baptizer
was not a member, or former member, of the Qumran community. Tatum, John the
Baptist and Jesus, 12.
84. See James H. Charlesworth, “The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Historical Jesus,”
in Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. J. H. Charlesworth; ABRL; New York: Doubleday,
1995), 1–74, esp. 20–22, 58–60.