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

JAMES H. CHARLESWORTH 135
his creatures and to scatter clues throughout his creation to the structure
of the cosmos and the unfolding pattern of history.” 118
One way for Qumranites to explain why well-educated and cultured
people, like the reigning high priest, were so impervious to the truth was
to say that they were not created as “Sons of Light.” They are not among
those who have revealed to them special knowledge (cf. 1QpHab 7).
Predestination is implied in the Rule and apparent in the Horoscopes. In the
Fourth Gospel there is no thoroughgoing predestination, because of its
missiology (see, e.g., 3:16–21). 119 There are, however, definite echoes of
predestination in the Fourth Gospel. Note the following passages: no one
can come to Jesus “unless the Father” who sent him “draws” that person
(6:44); those who do not believe in Jesus have the devil as their father
(8:44); and the Lord has blinded the eyes of those who do not see (that
is, believe) that Jesus is the Christ (12:40; see also 1:12–13; 3:31;
9:39–41; 6:45). Predestination may also be implied in the contrast
between those “of God” (8:47) and “of the truth” (18:37), on one side;
and those “of this world” (8:23), “of the earth” (i.e., “from below,” 3:31),
and “of the devil” (8:44), on the other. Flusser rightly stressed that some
“connection or affinity” between the Qumran Scrolls and the Fourth
Gospel is “indicated” by the fact that the dualism shapes the expression
of predestination. As Flusser stated, “The predestinational ideas are
linked with dualistic motifs: ‘He that is from God heareth God’s words;
ye therefore hear them not; because ye are not from God’ [John 8:47].” 120
Another passage that may reflect some predestinarian strain is the claim
that the “children of God” are those “who were born, not from blood nor
from the will of the flesh nor from the will of man, but from God”
(1:12–13). Are these not echoes of the idea that was created at Qumran:
predestination?
Genesis and creation theology and traditions shaped the Qumran documents
and the Fourth Gospel. Bauckham correctly points to the importance
of Genesis in understanding the development of the light-darkness
motif in the Fourth Gospel, 121 but he fails to see that this connection does
not undermine Qumran influence on the Fourth Gospel; in fact, perhaps
it enhances the possible source of such influence. To ascertain the extent
of possible influence on the Fourth Gospel, we might mine the Qumran
commentaries on Genesis or pesharim on Genesis and the abundance of
118. James C. VanderKam, The Dead Sea Scrolls Today (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1994), 109.
119. See Schnackenburg, The Gospel according to St John, 1:132–33.
120. Flusser, Judaism and the Origins of Christianity, 28–29.
121. Bauckham, in Porter and Evans, The Scrolls and the Scriptures, 278.