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

CHAPTER FIVE
A STUDY IN SHARED SYMBOLISM AND LANGUAGE:
THE QUMRAN COMMUNITY AND THE JOHANNINE
COMMUNITY
James H. Charlesworth
The Dead Sea Scrolls comprise a Jewish library from the land and time of
Jesus. 1 The library was found in eleven caves on the northwestern shores of
the Dead Sea, one of the lowest places on the earth. Some of the caves form
a semicircle to the south and west of an ancient ruin that was destroyed
by Roman soldiers in 68 C.E. The ruin is known as “Khirbet Qumran.”
The library contains about eight hundred scrolls. Among them are copies
of virtually all the books in the Hebrew Scriptures (or Old Testament),
copies of some of the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, and much more.
Most important, for the first time we learn about and can possess
copies of formerly unknown works, like the collection of rules and lore
in the Qumran Community (in the Rule of the Community), the hymnbook
of the community (the Thanksgiving Hymns), and the lost portions of the
Damascus Document. There is much more in this Jewish library. In it are
compositions that reflect the ideas and hopes of non-Essenes and Jews
not living at Qumran—some may have been Pharisees or the forerunners
of this group in Second Temple Judaism. Clearly, scribes in Jerusalem
placed the ink on many of the leather scrolls—especially those in Aramaic.
Although most scholars rightly label the Qumran Community an
Essene group (or sect), the library should not be labeled “an Essene
library.” As in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. or in the
British Library in London, so also in this library are compositions from
many different authors. Some documents represent the thoughts of the
Essenes, and other works the thoughts of other Jews, some of whom held
quite different ideas from the Essenes. 2 Thus, the library represents the
1. This chapter was completed in 2001 (but a publication of 2002 was added at
proof stage).
2. The Prayer of Jonathan, for example, found in the Qumran caves, honors a person
who was hated by the Qumranites. See James H. Charlesworth, The Pesharim and
Qumran History: Chaos or Consensus? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001).
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