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

JAMES H. CHARLESWORTH 99
significantly improved the interpretations of Paul’s letters, Hebrews,
Revelation, Matthew, and Acts. 6 The exegesis of no document in the New
Testament, however, has been so fundamentally improved or altered by
the recovery of the Qumran Scrolls as has the Fourth Gospel. That
judgment seems sound, regardless of the means by which we assess the
influence from Qumran on the Fourth Evangelist. Some nineteenth-century
scholars identified this Gospel as a second-century Greek composition;
however, it is now clear that it is a first-century Jewish writing. That
is a shift in paradigms; the new perspective is significantly due to the
assessment of archaeological discoveries, especially the Dead Sea Scrolls.
AN EARLIER CONSENSUS IN HISTORICAL CRITICISM
For the last two centuries the acids of biblical criticism have burned away
many cherished perceptions regarding the Fourth Gospel. It was slowly
but widely accepted that John was the latest of the Gospels and historically
unreliable, since it was the product of a second-century Christian.
The founder of the Tübingen School, Ferdinand C. Baur, claimed that
the Fourth Gospel could not be apostolic because it was written around
170 C.E. 7 For Alfred Loisy, the Fourth Evangelist was a theologian unacquainted
with any historical preoccupation; he could not have been an
eyewitness to Jesus’ life and teachings, let alone an apostle. Loisy contended,
moreover, that a convert from Diaspora Judaism composed the
Fourth Gospel. That is, the Fourth Evangelist was influenced by Philo
The Dead Sea Scrolls Today (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994); Florentino García
Martínez and Julio C. Trebolle Barrera, The People of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their Writings,
Beliefs and Practices (trans. W. G. E. Watson; Leiden: Brill, 1995); André Paul, Les manuscrits
de la Mer Morte: La voix des esséniens retrouvés (Paris: Bayard, 1997); Carsten P. Thiede, The
Dead Sea Scrolls and the Jewish Origins of Christianity (Oxford: Lion, 2000); Ernest-Marie
Laperrousaz, ed., Qoumrân et les manuscrits de la Mer Morte (Paris: Cerf, 2000).
6. See, for example, Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, “Qumran and the New
Testament,” in The New Testament and Its Modern Interpreters (ed. E. J. Epp and G. W.
MacRae; The Bible and Its Modern Interpreters 3; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989),
55–71; Jerome Murphy-O’Connor and James H. Charlesworth, eds., Paul and the
Dead Sea Scrolls (New York: Crossroad, 1990); Krister Stendahl and James H.
Charlesworth, eds., The Scrolls and the New Testament (New York: Crossroad, 1992).
7. Ferdinand C. Baur pointed to an Entwicklungsprozess (developmental process),
which proved that the Fourth Gospel could not belong to the apostolic period; see his
Kritische Untersuchungen über die kanonischen Evangelien (Tübingen: Fues, 1847), esp. 328,
365, 378, 383. Also see the insightful discussion by Martin Hengel, “Bishop Lightfoot
and the Tübingen School on the Gospel of John and the Second Century,” Durham
University Journal 84 (January 1992): 23–51; the quotation appears on 24.