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

GEORGE J. BROOKE 299
views on purity are also reflected in some matters of ethics, such as the
attitude to riches and twnz (ze 6nût). 36 Nevertheless, study of the full range
of compositions that can be associated directly with the Qumran community
and the wider movement of which it was a part has shown that
even if not everything in the Qumran world view was derived from
Scripture, scriptural texts often provided the parameters for nonscriptural
discourse. Often appeal was made to them for secondary support for conclusions
reached on other grounds. In fact, it was such supportive use of
Scripture that attracted scholarly attention from the outset. The classic
study by Joseph A. Fitzmyer remains of use. 37 With regard to the Qumran
texts alone, in some ways Fitzmyer’s observations have been refined by
Geza Vermes. 38
Undoubtedly, in their concern with explicit scriptural interpretation in
the scrolls, scholars have especially focused on the biblical commentaries,
the pesharim, so that they sometimes see Qumran biblical interpretation
and the pesharim as synonymous. Even with the pesharim controlling
the discussion, we may deem several features to have emerged in the
research on biblical interpretation in the Qumran Scrolls over the last half
century: (1) With regard to the better understanding of Qumran biblical
interpretation, most scholars have tended to trace things forward from
biblical models, notably for the pesharim from the handling of prophetic
dream materials in Daniel, rather than to trace things backward from
later Jewish texts. Thus, with regard to the exegesis apparent in the
scrolls, the term “midrash,” has largely fallen out of use, especially as a
reference to a particular genre of interpretation; in its strict sense the term
is both inappropriate and anachronistic. 39 (2) The focus on exegetical
techniques has been similarly debated: some see a natural progression
from the scribal traditions of the early Second Temple period, which
sought to improve the presentation of authoritative texts; others stress
that in the Qumran compositions we can see early forms of exegetical
rules later defined explicitly in traditions associated with various rabbinic
36. The term ze 6nût is almost impossible to translate; sometimes it is rendered with
the blanket term “fornication,” but that modern term seems not to catch the breadth
of the word, which covers all kinds of inappropriate sexual behavior.
37. Joseph A. Fitzmyer, “The Use of Explicit Old Testament Quotations in Qumran
Literature and in the New Testament,” NTS 7 (1960–61): 297–333; repr. in idem,
Essays on the Semitic Background of the New Testament (London: Chapman, 1971), 3–58;
and in later editions of the same.
38. Vermes, “Biblical Proof-Texts,” JSS 34 (1989): 493–508.
39. As argued especially by Timothy H. Lim, “Midrash Pesher in the Pauline Letters,”
in The Scrolls and the Scriptures: Qumran Fifty Years After (ed. S. E. Porter and C. A. Evans;
JSPSup 26; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), 280–92.