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

438 DEAD SEA SCROLLS AND THE NEW TESTAMENT
yet be solved with certainty. The aporias call for an approach based not
on vague speculations but on the texts themselves. The similarities and
differences between the documents from the Qumran library and New
Testament texts must be analyzed with all sophistication. But the situation
is much more complicated than in the early periods of research, if
the recent developments in Qumranology are taken into consideration.
c. Diversity Within the Qumran Library
One of the most important results of Qumran research that has been
widely accepted since the late 1980s 115 is the distinction between “sectarian”
and “nonsectarian” (or Essene and non-Essene 116 ) documents.
During the first decades of Qumran research, scholars viewed the
nonbiblical scrolls mostly as documents originating in the Qumran community.
Actually, among the scrolls from Cave 1 that were published
first, there were some of the most characteristic community texts: the
Rule of the Community (1QS), the Thanksgiving Hymns (1QH a ), the Habakkuk
Pesher (1QpHab), and the War Scroll (1QM). 117 Of course, there are
remarkable differences even between these documents. For example, not
all the rule texts presuppose unmarried members, and some of them also
115. The first assumptions in that direction were uttered already in 1957 by the
German member of the editorial team Claus-Hunno Hunzinger, in a small study on
the fragments of the War Scroll; cf. Claus-Hunno Hunzinger, “Fragmente einer älteren
Fassung des Buches Milh9ama aus Höhle 4 von Qumran,” ZAW 69 (1957): 131–51,
esp. 149–50; cf. also Hermann Lichtenberger, Studien zum Menschenbild in Texten der
Qumrangemeinde (SUNT 15; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1980), 13–20.
116. In the English language, the terms “sectarian” or “sect” do not have the
strongly negative implications of the German terms “Sekte” and “sektiererisch,”
which denote a religious splinter group and its behavior in contrast to a normative or
mainstream religion. Therefore, in German scholarship the terms “essenisch” and
“nicht-essenisch” are much more useful even if they do not take into account the
problem identifying the Qumran Yah9ad with the Essenes. On these problems, see
Charlotte Hempel, “Kriterien zur Bestimmung ‘essenischer Verfasserschaft’ von
Qumrantexten,” in Qumran kontrovers: Beiträge zu den Textfunden vom Toten Meer (ed. J.
Frey and H. Stegemann; Einblicke 6; Paderborn: Bonifatius, 2003), 71–85, esp.
71–75.
117. However, we must assume that the War Scroll is a previously non-Essene text
reworked within the community. Cf. Armin Lange and Hermann Lichtenberger,
“Qumran,” in TRE 28:45–78, esp. 60–62l; and Frey, “Different Patterns of Dualistic
Thought,” 275–335, esp. 308–10.