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

HENRY W. MORISADA RIETZ 233
And one is not exalted besides me, and one does not come to me, for I have
sat on […]h in the heavens (Mym#b h[***]b ytb#y yn) )yk; 4Q491
[4QM1] frag. 11, col. 1.13);
I am reckoned with the divine beings, and my place (is) in the holy congregation
(#dwq td(b ynwkmw b#xt) Myl) M( yn); 4Q491 [4QM1]
frag. 11, col. 1.14);
[…f]or I am reckon[ed] with the divine beings [and] my glory (is) with the
sons of the king (Klmh ynb M( ydwbk[w b]#x) Myl) M( )yn) )y[k;
4Q491 [4QM1] frag. 11, col. 1.18).
Although the text is fragmentary, the speaker is probably human, a
member of the community. 143 Thus, the War Scrolls asserts angelic and
divine presence in the camps of the community during the War, and even
the apparent exaltation of at least one member to the heavens.
CONCLUSION
The term “time” has allowed us to discuss several interrelated aspects of
the Qumran community’s thought: the calendar and halakot, the predetermination
of history, and the cosmic dimensions of the calendar. The
Qumran community followed a 364-day solar calendar structured
around the Sabbaths. This calendar differed from the 354-day lunar calendar
followed by the ruling priests in the Jerusalem Temple. Since the
times of worship had been commanded by God, failure to worship at the
correct time violates God’s Torah. The Qumran community also
believed that the terrestrial worship of the Jerusalem Temple was to be
synchronized with the celestial worship in the heavens. From the point of
view of the community, the Jerusalem establishment, by following the
wrong calendar, severed the cosmic synchronicity, and thus the continuum,
between the heavens and the earth. This led the community to
believe that they were living in the “latter days” of an evil generation
predetermined by God, and to await the appointed time when God will
143. So Morton Smith, “Ascent to the Heavens and Deification in 4QM a ,” in Archaeology
and the History of the Dead Sea Scrollss: The New York University Conference in Memory of
Yigael Yadin (ed. L. Schiffman; JSPSS 8; JSOT/ASOR Monographs 2; Sheffield:
Sheffield Academic Press, 1990), 181–88; contra Baillet who identified the speaker as
Michael (“La Règle de la Guerre (i) (Pl. V–VI),” in Qumrân Grotte 4.III (4Q482–4Q520)
(DJD 7; Oxford: Clarendon, 1982), 26–29). See the similar passages in the Thanksgiving
Hymns cited by Smith and also the study by Heinz-Wolfgang Kuhn, Enderwartung
und gegenwärtiges Heil (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1966).