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

290 BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION AT QUMRAN
text before them. 7 However, F. F. Bruce’s Biblical Exegesis in the Qumran
Texts 8 set out more broadly what were to become the parameters of the
topic. Notably characteristic of Bruce’s book and of other discussions of
biblical interpretation in the Qumran Scrolls is the way it begins. For
Bruce it was the pesharim that most obviously characterized Qumran
exegesis. 9 They provided the underlying principles of Qumran biblical
interpretation: that the prophets could only be properly understood as
they were given meaning by the Righteous Teacher, that whether or not
they knew it, the prophets all spoke of the end, and that for the Qumran
exegete the end was at hand. In realizing these principles, the Qumran
commentators atomized the text, fitting it into the new historical context
of their own experiences, regardless of its contextual meaning; they selected
variant readings to suit their own purposes, occasionally allegorized
the text, and read everything eschatologically, often with the imminent
7. The most detailed follow-up to Brownlee’s article, including an extensive critique
of it, was the monograph by Karl Elliger, Studien zum Habakkuk-Kommentar vom Totem
Meer (BHT 15; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1953), esp. 118–64.
8. Frederick F. Bruce, Biblical Exegesis in the Qumran Texts (Exegetica 3.1; Den Haag:
van Keulen, 1959). Bruce’s approach developed little over the years; one can still read
most of Biblical Exegesis in the Qumran Texts as outlined in his study “Biblical Exposition
at Qumran,” in Studies in Midrash and Historiography (ed. R. T. France and D. Wenham;
Gospel Perspectives 3; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1983), 77–98.
9. This perspective has remained a persistent and limiting element in the presentation
of Qumran biblical interpretation. For example, see Hervé Gabrion, “L’interprétation
de l’Écriture dans la littérature de Qumrân,” ANRW 19.1 (1979): 779–848, esp. 783:
“Les pes ]arim offrent certainement le type d’exégèse le plus original et le plus caractéristique
pratiqué par la communauté de Qumrân.” In one 1986 volume, various sections
refer to some few Qumran scrolls, but because of the way editors made
assignments, the only explicit presentation of Qumran interpretation is limited to
Maurya P. Horgan’s contribution on the pesharim: “The Bible Explained
(Prophecies),” Early Judaism and Its Modern Interpreters (ed. R. A. Kraft and G. W. E.
Nickelsburg; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986), 247–53. Likewise, there is no place for the
breadth of Qumran biblical interpretation in the ABD; instead, in the article on
“Interpretation, History of,” there is simply a cross-reference to Devorah Dimant’s
excellent and detailed study on the pesharim (“Pesharim, Qumran,” ABD 5:244–51),
as if that were sufficient for coverage of the topic. Again, note the remarkable statement
that the pesharim “contain the bulk of Qumran exegesis,” by David I. Brewer,
Techniques and Assumptions in Jewish Exegesis before 70 CE (TSAJ 30; Tübingen: Mohr
Siebeck, 1992), 187. Also, Philip S. Alexander mentions 1QapGen and the Temple Scroll
as rewritten Bible texts, but singles out the pesharim alone in relation to Qumran interpretation:
“Jewish Interpretation,” The Oxford Companion to the Bible (ed. B. M. Metzger
and M. D. Coogan; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 305. The concern to
give high priority to the pesharim in discussions of biblical interpretation at Qumran
is also evident in James H. Charlesworth, The Pesharim and Qumran History: Chaos or
Consensus? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002); and in the series Companions to the
Qumran Scrolls allocating a separate volume to them: Timothy H. Lim, Pesharim
(Companion to the Qumran Scrolls 3; London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002).