the-bible-and-the-dead-sea-scrolls

GERBERN S. OEGEMA 395
2c. Adventus Christi L.A.E. 51:9 (in appendix)
3. a!nqrwpoj di/kaioj te/leioj Gen 6:9 (Noah)
kai\ a#gioj Sir 44:17 (Noah)
Mark 6:20 (John)
The parallels mentioned here clearly indicate that there was a well
attested expectation of the “coming of (the Messiah as) the Righteous
One” in the decades before and after Luke wrote his Acts of the Apostles.
The expression appears in the earlier and contemporaneous Jewish writings,
and also in the contemporaneous and later Christian writings,
although the examples mentioned here also display a certain variety in
the use of expressions associated to “Righteous One,” such as “Beloved
One” and “Anointed One.”
3.2. Date and Provenance of the “Coming of the Righteous One”
in Stephen’s Speech
Our findings, therefore, open the way for the option to consider the originally
clearly nonchristological use of the expression of the “Coming of
the Righteous One” tradition-historically seen as closest to the theological
reflections on the meaning of Jesus for his earliest followers as found
in Q. Thus, this figure is the last one of a series of prophets who had been
murdered, as I have argued elsewhere. 53
This would make it necessary to argue for an early date of the tradition
referred to by Stephen and reported by Luke in Acts 7:52, somewhere
between the thirties and the sixties of the first century C.E. There
is nothing that speaks against such an early date, although we have little
proof for it. The frequent use of the expression h9 e0leu/sij tou/ dikai/ou in
the Jewish Pseudepigrapha preserved in Greek and in Acts 7:52, however,
is a strong argument for such an early date.
Furthermore, the lack of a clear christological interpretation of the
“Coming of the Righteous One,” other than that of the last of the persecuted
prophets, argues for an early date in the history of the development
of early-Christian Christology. Also, since the whole of Stephen’s speech
in Acts may have a pre-Lukan origin, there is more that speaks in favor
of an early rather than a late date for Acts 7:52. However, this theory
requires some further investigation.
53. Gerbern S. Oegema, Das Heil ist aus den Juden: Studien zum historischen Jesus und
seiner Rezeption im Urchristentum (Theos 50; Hamburg: Kovač, 2001), 25–38.