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

68 THE FUTURE OF A RELIGIOUS PAST
bread (manna). What can you do? Jesus offers an interpretation of the
passage: “It is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven”
(NRSV). The tense is present, not past. The subject is God, not Moses.
And the “bread” refers to Jesus, not manna. 7 The crowds understand the
words, but they cannot grasp what they mean without help. “And they
shall all be taught by God” (Isa 54:13, quoted in John 6:45 NRSV) is one
way of expressing this inspiration. Another is in 16:12–15, where Jesus
promises that the Spirit (the Advocate) will come to lead his followers
“into all the truth.”
The same sentiment is expressed in Habakkuk Pesher:
[…Look, O traitors, and] s[ee;] [and wonder (and) be amazed, for I am
doing a deed in your days that you would not believe if] it were told.
(vacat). [Its interpretation concerns] the traitors together with the Man of
the Lie, for (they did) not [believe in the words of] the Righteous Teacher
(that are) from the mouth of God. And it concerns the trait[ors to] the new
[covenant,] f[o]r they did not believe in the covenant of God [and they profaned]
his holy name. And thus (vacat) the interpretation of the passage
[concerns the trai]tors towards the latter days. They are the ruthless [ones
of the cove]nant who will not believe when they hear all that is going to
co[me up]on the last generation (as it is explained) from the mouth of the
Priest, to whom God has been giving in [his heart discernme]nt to interpret
all the words of his servants the prophets [whom] by their hand God enumerated
all that is going to come upon his people and up[on his congregation].
(1QpHab 1.16–2.10) 8
The Fourth Gospel includes bitter words of Jesus to “the Jews,” which
offer an explanation for their obduracy and lack of understanding, later
systematized into a whole ontology by those we know as “gnostics”:
Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot accept
my word. You are from your father the devil, and you choose to do your
father’s desires.…Whoever is from God hears the words of God. The reason
you do not hear them is that you are not from God. (John 8:43–47)
7. Jesus’ response works best as a comment on a Hebrew passage in which the
consonantal text does not necessarily disclose the tense of the verb “to give.” It may
be read as a present (“He gives”) or as a past (“He gave”), depending on the vowels
supplied. The present text of the Fourth Gospel is, of course, Greek. This raises
interesting questions about the earlier history of the Fourth Gospel and its traditions.
The current text makes sense, but the Greek cannot convey the ambiguity of the
Hebrew verb on which the story plays. See Peder Borgen, Bread from Heaven (Leiden:
Brill, 1965).
8. Charlesworth’s restoration and translation; see Horgan, in “Habakkuk Pesher”
(PTSDSSP 6B), 160–63.