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

JAMES H. CHARLESWORTH 29
and regulations of “Rules for Life in the Community” (1QS 5.1–6.23).
Thus, it appears the Baptizer was caught in a liminal stage; he was no
longer outside the Qumran Community, but he could never be inside it.
As Victor Turner points out, an initiate into a sacred community
undergoes a change in the quality of time and enters “a cultural realm
which is defined as ‘out of time,’ i.e., beyond or outside the time which
measures secular processes and routines.” 86 Hence, sociologists who have
focused on what occurs when people live in societies, as in the Qumran
Community, help us reconstruct a probable scenario between the
Baptizer and the Qumranites. They also provide insights that help us
comprehend why the Baptizer’s message was primarily centered upon
sacred time. His teaching was almost exclusively the proclamation that
the end of time was now (Luke 3:7–9, 15–18; Matt 3:7–12; Mark 1:7–8;
John 1:26–27).
This insight regarding the importance of time for the Baptizer is
enriched by the observation that on entering a temple a devotee crosses
over into sacred space and time. The Qumranites thought of their
“House of Holiness” as an antechamber of heaven, in which angels dwell
during ritual, and as a replacement of the Temple; thus, the Baptizer had
learned and experienced a concept of time that would be with him forever.
He was focused on the pregnant moment of present time: the present
was the dawning of the future eschatological day. There is every
reason to conclude that the Baptizer inherited some of his eschatology
from Qumran theology.
We should strive to perceive, as M. Shanks and C. Tilley show in Social
Theory and Archaeology, that individuals like the Baptizer obtain self-understanding,
or consciousness, because they are “situated in a social and
symbolic field.” That is, the Baptizer obtained meaning that he was able
to articulate to the many who flocked to him, because his society that
provided him with symbols, signs, and concepts. These symbols provided
meaning for his activity and preaching.” 87 As Peter Berger and Thomas
Luckmann stress, “Man is biologically predestined to construct and to
inhabit a world with others. This world becomes for him the dominant and
85. Arnold van Gennep, The Rites of Passage (trans. M. B. Vizedom and G. L. Caffe;
London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1960).
86. Victor Turner, Process, Performance, and Pilgrimage: A Study in Comparative Symbology
(New Delhi: Concept, 1979), 16.
87. Michael Shanks and Christopher Tilley, Social Theory and Archaeology
(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1987), 71.